Progression…is slow

Another screenshot of what’s going on, looks quite similar to before but I’ve done a fair bit of work that I’m happy with

And now it’s pizza time

Ham, bacon, tuna and lots of cheese. Yum.

Damn. Why do I always do this? I’ve got bogged down in trying to get some procedural generation working and after a good 8 hours I have nothing to show for it

Well, here’s some debug text from my console at the moment:


1 1 10
3 2 10
5 3 10
layer 0
1 1 10
3 2 10
5 3 10
layer 0
# # # # #
# # # # #
# # # # #
# # # # #
# # # # #


It sounds a lot fancier than it really is

Spend the better part of 6 hours trying to find a bug in my mapping procedure… only to discover that there wasn’t one! I had set the bounds too high, and it would have worked, had I given it enough time on any of my many tests. Oh dear!

Made up for the frustration by having an awesome breakfast courtesy of my roomie, Sarah.

…ok, maybe I am.

I only just got a level drawn and (badly) randomly generated.  And I still don’t really know what this game will be… Oh well! I’ll keep on going.

http://www.box.net/shared/bouovfon1t

So there, basic jumping with the arrow keys, map loading, random crappy light effects.

Most of the remaining work will be done tomorrow. I must also think of a name and decide to either add some real gameplay or keep it simple.

Exploration as a theme left me wanting to procedurally generate a universe that I could fly about in.

I eventually realised that this way led failure, so I locallised my idea a bit more.

The idea is that you’re a member of a scavenger group and you stumble across a massive debris field. You’re told about valuable items that you need to find in the debris field so you go in there, exploring the place and trying to find them before someone else does.

I’ve managed to get the controls down, done an awesome parralax star field, done the worthless debris, done physics and collisions, done particles and done a little targeter so you know what things are before you pick them up.

Also some terrible programmer graphics. Next up is the tractor beam so you can pick up useful items.

So, I spent the whole day on graphics. Not much time left to work on an engine now. I was thinking of doing something like Hydlide where you simply bump into enemies (grid based movement). Your character and some enemies can also be in offensive or defensive mode. Drawing the characters consistently in all angles and stances is a pain.

So what about exploration? I’m a fan of Zelda 1 where you could basically go pretty much anywhere on the overworld map right from the start. Here I’d like to do something similar to Dragon Quest 1 where the enemy difficulty partly limits your progression.

I might get the map drawing and scrolling done tomorrow. Perhaps player movement (and buckets). Probably not enemy instances or items.

Mr Magical wand will have to do the transparency mask for me. I haven’t really ordered the graphics in a sensible order. I don’t know if the stuff tiles well either.

Now I’m mighty tired. My slow start aside, I’ve been drawing all day and got a decent amount of graphics done.

healthy pumpkin soup for lunch…

… and not so healthy junk food – corn chips and salsa.

I went to the supermarket to buy some food and now I have a pizza in the oven. Here’s image of it before it got in there:

Progress with my entry has been a bit slow – still in rough concept thinking / design phase without any actual code yet. Progress so far can almost be summed in these little editing helper tiles which aren’t even supposed to be any final gfx:

“lol”.

I’m a bit behind my schedule, this post is gonna be short, so that I can get back to coding.

A few things about the game I’m trying to make:
Name: Colonial Age (working title)
Short description: As you may probably guessed from the title the game is set during the colonial age. The player controls a ship and needs explore the whole map and colonize as many islands as possible.

Gameplay elements:
- Position of islands will be random
- Powerups (like superspeed, etc.)
- Rudimentary AI (there will be an enemy)
- Simple sea fights

Now this is some actual progress. The images are randomly generated and currently I also included boost (random and shared ptr) to my pack of libraries. Enjoy the programmer art in it’s true form. Here is grass that you can go on and water you can swim in.

Now, I’m going to make me some pie!

I have my first demo ready! It’s not much, but it’s something!

Pick up a copy here, if you like!

The error I was having earlier seemed to be with the mixer. Apparently, I was giving the mixer too small of a buffer. Mrf.

—Mr.Dude

All the time up until now I had no Idea what to do, the theme was nothing I’ve tackled before, I even was gonna call it quits since nothing came to my mind, but people on IRC were supportive enough to convince me not to.
Still, 6 hours of work did nothing to me, only as I sad back and made a quick back for my game an Idea sparked.

I’m gonna make a game about just getting out there and having fun, enjoying the marvel of nature, and discovering far more than you’d want to.
An exploration side view platformer.

~Spliter

Yes, the most incredible graphics you will ever lay eyes on are right here.

Deep Field

Ok, so lets go with something a bit more complex than I was thinking last night. Because I had a brainwave. Oasis + Weird Worlds! Colonize your star cluster while exploring. Build a civilization in 15 minutes.

Major actions: Colonize solar systems, explore and collect artifacts or scientific knowledge. Almost every action gives points and also improves your abilities. You have a limited amount of time. Might make so that there are different size clusters, but probably it’ll just be set at a number of turns that will make the game last ~ 15 minutes. The game makes you more powerful on an exponential curve. Definitely a lot of luck involved. Wonder if I should add leaderboards…

Major components:

Exploration screen – On this screen the player uses the mouse to designate new star systems for his ship to travel to. This is also the screen where he decides to activate actions like colonizing a star system, exploring, or harvesting resources.

Exploring: Will allow you to collect alien artifacts, catalogue scientific advances, etc. These will all give points, and some may also improve your ships’ capabilities.

Harvesting Resources: Play a minigame where you fly your ship into a dangerous situation. Resources are used to colonize systems.

Colonizing: Colonize a solar system. It will grow over time, trade with neighbors, and research. Trade/Growth give points, research improves your ship’s abilities.

Minigames: (Minigames will be VERY fast. Like Wario Ware fast. 20 seconds as an absolute maximum.)

Sun Diver – In the sun diver minigame, the player uses the mouse to control his ship as it collects plasma from the sun. This minigame will give you energy.

Mining Asteroids – In this minigame, the player uses the mouse to control his ship to move to specific asteroids in an asteroid field and harvest them. Gives minerals.

Mining Gas Giants – In this minigame, the player controls his ship as it drops down to a gas giant and shoots a pipe into it to suck up gasses. Gives gas.

Colonize – In this minigame, the player controls his ship as it lands on the planet and drops off the colonization materials.

Losing minigames will waste time and resources, but will never kill you or anything.

Building your civilization.

Star systems are colonized by spending a certain amount of resources, depending on what type of system it is. Each will require energy, gas, and minerals, but different ones will require different amounts.

Once a system is colonized, it starts generating points. If systems are close enough together, they’ll connect with trade routes. Trade routes increase point generation. Systems will also research, which will increase your ships’ abilities.

Stuff to do:

- Get new version of flixel running (maybe it was a bad idea to go with a new version…)

- Make exploration screen. Make ship that can be moved around by clicking on stuff with mouse. Build basic events that it can run when you reach places.

- Build progression for civilization a la star systems that grow and trade.

- Build sun diver minigame.

- Build asteroid harvester minigame.

- Build gas giant harvester minigame.

- Hook in upgradeable stuff – speed, strength, etc.

- Come up with research and artifacts that improve your ships’ abilities.

- Graphics whenever you need them, unless you use square placeholders. NEVER actually draw something with the purpose of being placeholder. It’ll stay.

- Sound

- Music if you have time. Prolly not though.

Cavern artwork prototype… (part two, this time with ropes)

Tired. Sleep deprived because I had to get up early in the morning (was other stuff). Hands. shaking. Fooooooood. Spent too much time for the shitty background. Meh

Food: rice + beef. Keeps stomach full