Multiplexity: Crashblock

[jasonf]

Well, I did a little work last night and I've got a ghosted view partly working.

The ghosted view is a reprisentation of the current shape at the top of the screen which appears when you can't see the blocks normally.

I've decided to add an additional indication to this view to describe the state of the chain

In the game, the chain on the crane gets weaker over time and will drop the blocks when it's too weak. This is reprisented on the chain by a different graphic showing the decrepidation of the chain as time goes on.
The ghosted preview also shows damage on the blocks to reprisent the state of the chain. So at any time, you can see where the blocks are and how much time you have left before they fall. The more damage the chain takes, the more cracks appear in the blocks, they also change colour to reflect this... but as not everyone can see colour, I added the visual damage too.

It's currently not working properly so no screenies, hopefully, I'll get more time tonight so I'll get it working and show you.

[Clootie]

Cracks on blocks? I can't see this as a good idea - so first your blocks will be covered by cracks. And later (when they'll fall down) - cracks will disappear?

Better force your ghost blocks to "vibrate" for one or two seconds before crane chain is going to break.

[jasonf]

Finally, this morning (before I went to work) I resolved my jerky animation problem...

You see, I have a virtual method on my Sprite base class called GameTick, this method is overridden in the derived classes to perform actions the sprite must do each tick (similar to the DoMove in DelphiX)
The trouble was, I use this virtual method in the base class to do some positioning on screen based on the current camera and detect if the item should be put onto the render list. This sets the renderX and renderY locations based on the sprite's current arena location.. this all happens before the derived sprite has had a chance to modify their own Arena locations, so therefore, positional changes are always 1 tick out and therefore, I get steppy animation.

The good new is that I've fixed the problem by moving the code to a new method which is called after the gametick by the sprite engine, this solved the jerky animation problem perfectly. This fix is part of my core code so it will affect Guns Reloaded too, which is a good thing.. there are a few areas where things flicker from old positions to their new position and I never understood why (sometimes I'm a bit thick :lol

So now I've just got to fix a small problem I've introduced into my animation system (trivial) and I'll be able to give a demo.


On top of this, I've had another idea which, if I get time, I'll implement.
Creatures... nasties.

Sometimes, a block will not be a bonus block, it'll be a cage containing a little nasty. The creature is released when the line containing the creature's cage is cleared.

Once released, the creature will move from left to right until it hits a block, then it will turn around. If the creature sees the player on the same line when it is facing the player, it will run to try to get the player, the creature can be jumped over, but basically, the only way to kill it is with a bomb or by getting blocks to land on it.

I'm thinking that creatures would only be included after a specific level to allow the player to get used to bounding around the level.

[jasonf]

On Saturday, much to the amusement of passing skater boyz, I managed to get some video footage recorded for CrashBlock, and it was quite successful I think.

Basically, my Wife, running around, climbing on things, jumping off, waving to a pretend crane. She did a great job and got bruised knees in the process (Sorry Honey)

Also, Last night I found a cool shareware utility which takes an AVI file and converts it to bitmaps, written in Delphi too.

Then it was a matter of taking the stills and putting them into XaraX for piecing together and removing background scenery (A Job XaraX has performed admairably) Then Exported to a single image ready for converting for my game engine.

I've plugged some of the animations into the game and they're a lot better than the Fairy animations I made using Daz Studio. Live action is always better than and drawn or hand positioned (In my experience with my limited skill)

Hopefully, I'll have some screenies tonight.


While we were recording the videos on a beautiful sunny spring day in Cambridgeshire, we attracted a crowd of teenagers. They were curious and asked what we were doing.. So I told them,
"Shooting some video for a game" and instead of the "Ooh, Cool!" that I was expecting... they said quite directly,

"Is it an XBox game?"... to which I said erm.. No.. It's a PC game.
"Will it be in the shops?" they asked.. erm... No, it'll be for download..
"Will it make any money?" erm... probably not.. At that point, they went away suitably satisfied that our efforts were useless.

But it's given me an idea, I'll post on our town's local forum when it's finished and let them know it was filmed in their own park.. should drum up a little interest.

[Traveler]

Haha, a great story :lol:
I suppose you could have replied that you're also doing it to win a couple awesome prices!

I thought converting rendered frames was tricky, but live action video must be even worse.
I'm looking forward to the results!

[Huehnerschaender]

I wanna see it, too

Even if I am out of the compo, I will take a look here in the forums daily! So let me be part in "ghost view"!

[WILL]

'The Farmers' are just so cool!

Nice work Jason. Good thing that it was made in Pascal or the both of you might have had to run for it.

Such a thing would have made a great 'making of' video. It's stuff like that that I love seeing and would love to have placed somewhere to show others what kind of inspired and creative community we are.

Keep up the great work Jay! :thumbup:

[jasonf]

LOL,

Sorry no screenies today, but I did a load of work last night. Added some more of the video footage, it's hard work getting it from AVI to the format my game engine uses and I've still got some tidying up to do.

I fixed a couple of bugs too, unfortunately, I found some others LOL, the way of things.. pick up a rock to squish some bugs with only to find a load of bugs hidden under the rock.

I can really get a feel for how the game is going to play now.. it feels a lot different to Tetris, it's a completely different game, it's amazing how much a game's basic feel can change by adding a seemingly simple additional element.. excellent competition choice I think, really drums in the lesson about small changes affecting the gameplay. Was that deliberate or an accident?

It's alerted me to a couple of areas which need to function perfectly.
1, The Control system needs to be fluid otherwise people will get frustrated by the controls and not want to play.

2, The crane needs to be smart, calling a shape to the current location needs to be something which doesn't require too much thought, so I need to think of some intuitive rules to position a 4x4 block over a 1x2 sprite.

I think I've got a good idea about how the crane will work out the best place.

It will try to position itself in the centre of the sprite. But as the block is 4x4, this is difficult as the centre is inbetween the 2nd and 3rd blocks.. and the block needs to snap to a grid.

:idea: So for shapes with Odd numbered blocks, the crane will position the block directly over the sprite, centred on the central block for the shape.

:idea: For even numbered blocks, the crane will position itself to the left or to the right of the player depending on the direction the player is facing.

:?: I don't know what to do if the player is standing facing the screen, perhaps I could alternate in consecutive presses.

OOOO
OOXO
XXXO
OOXO

 X
 X

OOOO
OXXO
OXXO
OOOO

 >
 >

OOOO
OXXO
OXXO
OOOO

  <
  <

I've also got to make the crane move to fit rotated shapes inside the arena. In normal tetris, if you have a shape at the side of the screen and you try to rotate it, it'll move the shape to the left or to the right to make sure it fits on screen. I have to do that too. I just need a day to implement this stuff I think.

Screenies and Demo soon (tonight if I can get enough done)

[jasonf]

OK screenies,

Not too many extra features at the moment, putting those animations together has taken a while, each frame of animation has had to be masked in Xara so the background doesn't show through.. by hand.

As you can see, there's the ghost view at the top for the current shape.
It does make the current shape window kind-of superfluous.. so I'm going to ditch it, leaving just the next block window (and I'll make it work.. at the moment it doesn't)

There are still some annoying bugs, I've not fixed those yet and I've still got to plug in the jumping animation.. and the meanies.. although I might leave those for stage 5


Falling


Oh, this is gonna hurt


Where's the floor gone?


I want a cherry


Gonna get the goodies


quickly get the money


Going down


Scrambling about

[WILL]

Hey Jay. Lookin' good so far. :thumbup: Can the player still climb up walls?

One thing that still confuses me a tad is the Next Shape window... which window is the Next one? And which is the next next one? Maybe a small label called 'Next' would help?

Thats really the only thing that makes the interface feel out of place for me, they rest seems fine.