Multiplexity: Crashblock

[jasonf]

Here's the latest playable release. It's in windowed mode at the moment (sorry) I'll put in an option to use full screen or windowed soon

http://www.cerebral-bicycle.co.uk/cr...essrelease.zip

This version releases bonus items from each block. Collecting a bonus item will be the only way to get score in the game, also as an incentive to make the player run from place to place to collect stuff.

This shot shows the new different coloured blocks. I've used different types of wood. I originally tried to just re-colour the blocks, but they looked rubbish.


Here you can see some other bonuses, the hourglass will stop time for a short while so you can perform some miracle escape or collect things before they dissappear


More bonuses.. including a cherry (more games need cherries if you ask me)


When bombs go off, they make the screen shake and the blocks around them dissappear. Any blocks containing bombs will be forced to release their bombs which in time, explode.


You might notice that the music has changed. This new music comes with the kind permission of William Christiansen of Symphonic Chronicles http://www.symphonicchronicles.com/

[technomage]

Looking good J

[savage]

Looking very polished indeed Jason.

[Traveler]

Very nice indeed.
You seem to have things going very well there.

I noticed a few odd things, like for example when the blocks are stacked too high, new blocks move through them or sometimes blocks move partly through the wall, but for the most part it looks very well made, already. :thumbup:

[jasonf]

Thanks Guys, I've been pleased with how things have been progressing. in spite of my very restricted time scales and the demands of marrage

The next thing for me will be getting some test sprites in place for the State animation system. This will require quite a bit of coding I think, I've got to think of the best way to manage the animations based on the conditions around the player and the player's desired action. I made an attempt at this a few years ago for another game I was attempting, one which sadly died (over ambition+lack of time) Still, I think I know where I went wrong with it that time.

I can almost imagine the player character running around trying to collect the bonus items. The amount of time the items remain will be dependant on the level. The higher the level, the less time the player has to collect things, also the less time they have to work with the next block before the chain snaps. So, to start with, the game will be easy but as the player progresses, it will get much harder.

[jasonf]

OK, it's panic time... 3 days to go for the Stage3 deadline and I've still not got my platform game part implemented... At all!

Last night I worked on the game for the first time in a few days, moving house is a real pain.. and it's taken my time away.

I've not had time to get my real video footage taken, so it's compromise time.. Instead, I invested a couple of hours with Daz Studio last night and made a bunch of sprites for my animations. They're crude, they're untested, but they're placeholder art.. although Victoria does look quite cute in her little fairy outfit :lol: and she seems to fit the wooden theme I've got going on.. I'll see if I can persuade my Wife to wear a similar outfit for the real footage.. (just for the game, honest )

I put a few classes together to build the state based animation system, My CBCFoundation classes have already got an animation system plugged in, all I have to do is define the animation and then call it from the sprite with the LoadAnimation( "Walk" ); command.. etc.. so that part (I hope) should be fairly easy to implement.. but even given the limited number of controls, Left, Right, Up, Down, Jump, Call, the number of possible animations is staggaring and quite scary... they are just the inputs.. the results of these inputs taking into account the previous animation and the current environment can create a massive range of possible animations.

Luckily, the system appears like it will work, I should even be able to have transition animations (not for stage3) so I'll have an animation called JogRightToLeapRight and the sprite will smoothly perform the leap animation after the transition animation has played. Also, for example, the transition between Fall and Stand would be the getting up off the floor animation. But as you can see, that generates a lot of possible animations.

So tonight, I'm going to be building my animations and hopefully, I'll be at a stage where I can plumb in the player Avatar. Everything else should fall into place quite easily.

I've decided not to include a Death animation, a splatter, crushing or anything.. Instead, the avatar will be knocked off the blocks She's standing on, tumbling down out of sight.. (kindof like Sonic the Hedgehog) This should make it more Kid-Friendly.. Also, I was a little concerned about making the death part too realistic.. So tumbling off screen is the way it's going to go, so the player doesn't actually die, they just fall off, and their final fate is left to the imagination as opposed to being shown to be turned into jam by a falling block in gory detail.

[jasonf]

Finally, I'm managed to get my Stage3 entry uploaded... at 23:41:22 .. talk about cutting it close..

So what have I got new in there?

Pain, lots of pain... Pain and tiredness... and stress.. and a headache.

A note to anyone thinking of writing an environment influenced state based animation system...

Don't do it! It's pain.. upon pain.. Trying to step through to find out why X animation isn't playing when you're against a wall is hard work. I spent so much time on this, I'm actually getting fed up with the game.

On top of the animations not working properly (there are still problems with it), I broke my tetris code. I thought it was simple and impossible to break, but I managed to completely knacker it up. I nearly couldn't submit it as an entry.. although I could really have done with an extra week..

I'm not very pleased with the work though, the sprite moves terribly, I seriously need to sit down and come up with some decent animations.
It's also very easy to get stuck. I need to work out where that happens and add additional states.

There are some really nasty graphical glitches when looping through animations.. but I just didn't have the time to sort them out.

There's still no way to win, although you can lose now, but not at the tetris game.. blocks will pile up forever (unless it crashes)

I don't know what I'd have done without Daz-Studio though, there's no way I could have hand drawn the animations in time... I just need to figure out how to make decent animations and save them for next time.

It ain't over yet...

It's 4:58am in the UK, I've been working on this all day and I'm now overtired.. I can't sleep.

[Traveler]

We seem to be in the same boot.

I skipped the animations as I knew they would pose problems. In fact, all I have is an image moving around. And when it gets shot 5 times, it will simply vanish. The jumping is there, though, as are the enemies doing there things. (Mainly patrolling the mine and shooting me when I show my face).
Not exactly great, but it does get the idea of a platformer across.

Your warning is noted, but still, I am going to give it a try. Five weeks should afterall be enough,... right?

[jasonf]

Well, the animation system thing is something that gets better the more you chip at it.. the difficult part is getting over the initial stumbling block where weird things are happening and you're not sure if it's because of a problem with your state code, your collision code or you state animation definitions.

...or some other unforseen issues, which I've had a few of if I were to be completely honest.

My animation system uses a first match system instead of a best fit system.. so I've got an animation, this animation is told that it can only play under certain circumstances, certain key flags set, sertain blocks solid, certain blocks clear.. then each animaiton has a series of child animations which may be played once the current animation has completed.. the system then chooses between the children.. The best fit system would be the best solution and I'll probably use it eventually, but at the moment I've gone for a first match system where the list of child animations is checked and if one matches the flags for the sprite, it is chosen.. even if the next animation would be more suitable. So this means that the order of the child animations is important.

As for making the animations themselves, I used Daz Studio and posed the model in various positions and rendered to a file. So I've got some very rough, although identifiable animations and the more I work on it, the better and more stable it is getting.. but debugging a system like this takes time and patience.. also, conditional breakpoints are essential.

Daz studio has some cool looking models, if you wanted, you could purchase their Michael model and an outfit or something then pose him and take photos in the same way as I did.. the basic Daz Studio software is completely free... they only charge for the models... which are of a very high quality to be fair.

I've not worked out a decent automated art pipeline yet though, there's still a rather large time overhead for me. I see an idea doe a tool forming in my head :-)

[jasonf]

Well, it's been over a week since I did any work on Crashblock, this is worrying me a lot... Real life issues have taken hold.. My Motorbike and Car have both decided to play up at the same time, so I've got to spend time diagnosing and fixing those problems. I also STILL need to record video and create sprites for the game as will as fix the NUMEROUS bugs with it.

The Judges noticed some bugs where the sprite dissappears.. It's not that the sprite dissappears, as such, se just legs it off stage at high speed.. there are some holes in my State Based animation system.

I've got basic scoring in place but there's no High score.

So my TODO lists is as follows..

• Record Decent video animation
  Convert video into images for use within the game
  generate transparent area for sprites
  Plug animations into game
  Fix environment-state animation system
  Fix Tetris Block bug where blocks hang in mid air sometimes
  Implement crane timer and visible damage
  Fix Camera control (I'm thinking of making the camera focus on either the sprite or the camera depending on a button press (i.e Hold to see Camera)
  Implement ghosted block view at top of screen for when next blocks are off screen.
  Fix Next Block preview
  Add Sound Effects
  Add Game Over message
  Implement Game over when Tetris blocks can no longer fit on screen
  Allow blocks at the side to be rotated, move crane if required to facilitate this.
  Prevent crane from Dropping when not at target location
  Implement Bomb kills player
  Implement Bomb Blast throws player
  Implement Level indicator
  Implement different arena types, Ice, Metal, Stone
  Implement Time Stop powerup
  Implement Player drop bomb action

Phew, that's a lot..

Any more anyone?