Tue, Apr 27th 2010, 17:38
Fighting Myself
I tended to the outstanding issues with the different ship types,
getting it all squared away in short order. Feeling proud and
productive, it was time to figure out what came next.
Tue, Apr 27th 2010, 17:38
Upon considering what would happen if a ship was put into battle against itself, I found that two of them yielded unwinnable encounters. Well, unless you consider "staying alive until the other guy accidentally suicides on the terrain" a form of winning (and not all terrain types have lethal collisions, so that's not always an option anyway).
This left me with the decision between pressing forward as is, or chopping things up a bit to make things fit together better. The obvious option was to just omit battles against ships of the same type and be done with it. While that does prevent the stalemate scenario, it feels more like avoiding the problem than solving it.
In a competitive multiplayer game, a bout between two similarly matched characters (e.g. two Warriors with approximately the same stats / build / what-have-you) is often more interesting and exposes the players' skill through success or failure. I mean, we all know rock beats scissors, but rock vs. rock becomes about who has the bigger rock. No, it is not a tie!
So, I set about fiddling with the ship concepts so that they'd be able to competently fight their twins. In doing so, I also discovered a few glaring oversights in some of the heterogeneous match-ups. After getting all of this patched up, the design feels significantly tighter, even on paper. The downside is that the ship diversity has suffered. The original concepts were just too different; if each had its own game tailored to it, it would be fine, but as they all have to play well with each other and adhere to a core rule set, a compromise was made.
As grouchy as I sound about all of this, I'm quite happy with how it's shaping up. This coming week should see some quick an dirty prototyping. VERGE's gimped input capabilities aren't quite up to snuff, but I'll probably use it anyway out of familiarity with both it and Lua. It won't be ideal, but it should be enough to let me know if I'm on the right track without burning up a lot of time.
Tue, Apr 20th 2010, 10:16
Vague Details
It's starting to feel more like a game (both in my head and design doc). A rant-like overview:
Tue, Apr 20th 2010, 10:16
There are currently 4 different terrain types. I've been fighting to come up with a few more, but doing so and keeping them mechanically unique has been difficult. The "Metropolis" terrain from the original is being retained, but adding something like "Forest" would be essentially the same thing but with different shapes. Maybe I'm underestimating the value of visual variety, but for now it's just easier to think in mechanical terms.
After much fiddling, I've gotten six competent ship designs that all offer a different playstyle without breaking the others' (in theory). There are some dramatic disadvantages to trying to get six different things to play nice together instead of just two. With the original Vector Knights, one side took damage, dealt "hits", and regenerated health; the other side took damage as "hits", dealt points of damage, and could not regenerate. With a two-sided system, the player doesn't question this; because the match-up is always the same it behaves consistently in every situation.
By adding more things to the mix, with different health "types", each ship would need to output multiple damage "types" to match and the player is left getting inconsistent feedback about the effectiveness of his character. This is fine in many game times, but in a simple (hopefully even elegant) action game, this convoluted scheme makes the rules feel arbitrary or subject to change at any time. So, health and damage have been made universally "hit-based" to keep things as simple as possible (no more fractional damage). Also gone is regeneration, which should help to curb the unkillable enemy effect. There are two ships that could be accused of exhibiting regeneration-like behavior, but I think they stand as integral mechanics unique to the ships' design, so it's not quite the same as hidden number voodoo.
Something else worth noting is that four of the six ships actually do "shoot bullets" by default. This is a very hard thing to avoid in a shmup. Although the actual way in which they do it and the effects they have are pretty non-standard, to help keep things interesting, three of these get an upgrade that modify their behavior in a substantial way (the other one gets to remain as a classic shmup ship). Hopefully, by retaining the some of the more familiar concepts early on, the player will learn the quirky mechanics in a more comfortable environment before getting to the more outlandish stuff.
Coming up next: it's time to clean up some odd bits in the design (mostly in the ship upgrades) to get everything feeling right. Then, time permitting, it'll be time to get a crude prototype together and see if this "different but complementary playstyles" thing is working as well as I think it is (hint: it won't).
Tue, Apr 13th 2010, 13:22
Project Surfing
I've been jumping between several projects (many of them new) recently. Although technically
qualifying for Gruedorf, I don't feel right posting about flavor of the week progress, but I am posting now because..
Tue, Apr 13th 2010, 13:22
Eldritch has dethroned me!
..and also because I am currently working on the design for a new shmup-ish game that may or may not be Vector Knights 2. It's being built as a sequel now, but if you consider that the original VK was started as Block Dodger 3, you can see why I'm not committed to the branding.
This announcement is admittedly more for me than anyone else as it'll (theoretically) force me to be accountable and stick to a single game. Right now it's shaping up to be a nice mixture of manageable and ambitious, and plays nicely into my not-so-secret vector fetish, so I'm hopeful. More details to come as the preliminary design comes together.
Thu, Feb 11th 2010, 11:12
Tinkerlist
I was annoyed to discover that VERGE wouldn't support a twin stick setup (more on why that's important later), so I played with a variety of different engines to see what could do what I wanted. I still haven't settled on one (even for prototyping!), but at least I've got a sense of my options.
Thu, Feb 11th 2010, 11:12
Now, on to the actual combat concepts. There are a few different approaches I'm considering, all of them pretty rough, but they are:
Twin Stick
Player moves and fires in realtime.
* Very action-oriented; the default winner for "most engaging".
Lock On
Player's burden is to pick targets and maneuver (realtime); AI does the shooting.
* Would accommodate 3D movement pretty well
* Makes gunnery crew a more interesting element
Turn Based
Closer to traditional RPG combat, Skies of Arcadia being an obvious influence.
* Simplest form of play; the player makes executive decisions is never rushed.
* Would facilitate dramatic animations that I will never have time to create.
Fleet
Turnless, "analog" SRPG combat (similar to Growlanser).
* This seems unfun with a single ship, so there would probably have a small fleet to control
More to come next week as I move into some actual prototyping.
Thu, Feb 4th 2010, 00:23
Argh, Me Hearty Is Broken
Oxidus fills an interesting niche. It allowed me to create a concept that I wanted to
see in motion and watch it fail to attract enough attention to justify its creation.
I think a generous helping of design-fussing would make a decent product out of it.
A rough course has been charted for doing this, but the amount of time already invested
in it makes putting more effort into it very unappealing, despite my reservations about
abandoning so much work.
Thu, Feb 4th 2010, 00:23
So, it is with mixed emotions (but renewed energy) that I announce my intent to finish Ye Olde Pirate Game. "Finish" is a loose term as it arguably has yet to be started. In an effort to avoid some of the blunders of Oxidus, I'm going to try building this from the inside out instead of outside in. Over the next few weeks (and the past few days as well) I'll be tinkering with different approaches to combat, slapping together a some crude prototypes. Once I've got something with a solid hook.. well, let's talk about that when we get there.
Thu, Nov 19th 2009, 20:16
Old is the New New
A brand new build has been released. In it you get:
Thu, Nov 19th 2009, 20:16
* Old, outdated engine version. (Wait, is that good?)
* Approximately +30% performance gain. (Yes, it is.)
* Intermittent crashes resolved. (Quite good, in fact.)
So, it's the exact same, but better. The only thing that isn't 100% internal (read: you could notice, but won't so I'm drawing attention to it here) is that the random emblem generation is a fair bit better about picking colors. Retroactively adding new improvements to an old engine proved to be pretty mind-numbing, so I wanted something trivial and visual to offset the pain.
Head on over to the Oxidus website to upgrade if you haven't already.
Tue, Nov 10th 2009, 20:33
Oxidus Open Beta
Oxidus has arrived. Head on over to the
Oxidus website to download the client
and sign up for an account. It is believed to be stable, but please notify me
of any problems you're having. Any and all feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
Tue, Nov 10th 2009, 20:33
Existing beta accounts have not been purged. So, if you've already been playing, you won't need to sign up again; just grab the latest version of the client and you'll be on your way.
Good luck and have fun. I'll see you on the battlefield.
Wed, Oct 28th 2009, 18:38
Dorfenstein
Although I poked a few things with Oxidus this week, most of my effort
was put into the Gruedorf
page. Those of you who visited late last week will notice that it has changed
yet again. It's mostly superficial changes; I like nothing more than
tirelessly adjusting layouts and tweaking colors. Honest. The end result is a
much more elegant thing, which is what I wanted all along.
Wed, Oct 28th 2009, 18:38
It's not all just fluff, though. Each user profile now has a handy timeline too! Using bright, cheerful colors, it illustrates just how well a participant has (not) performed over the course of Gruedorf. There are some more features I'd like add, but for the immediate future I'd like to get back to Oxidus. Happy 'dorfing to you all!
Wed, Oct 21st 2009, 13:45
I Don't Give A Dorf
I don't know why I waited until mid-week to push this out, but
here's the fruit of my weekend:
Wed, Oct 21st 2009, 13:45
Gruedorf 2.0
While it looks somewhat different, functionally it's very close to how was before. The bulk of actual improvement was done on the backend, so future improvements and features should be significantly easier to implement. I can't express how bad it used to be; there just are no words.
Feedback is, of course, welcomed and encouraged.
Wed, Oct 7th 2009, 22:18
Failure Abounds
The cause of the combat anomalies continues to elude me. I am fast
approaching the point where I just rewrite huge blocks of the combat
engine until it goes away. This makes me die a little inside.
Wed, Oct 7th 2009, 22:18
In other news: as I'm writing this, every participant in Gruedorf is failing.
Every. Single. One.
Simultaneously.
This makes me die a little more inside.
Mon, Sep 28th 2009, 13:11
Lateral Bombs
Well, I've been working towards getting Oxidus to play nice with Verge 3.2. After a fixing a
handful of problems caused by my slapdash OO practices the game was up and running (albeit
with a slightly diminished framerate, which I suspect is related to classes being defined in
lua instead of C now). So I did a couple test battles and everything was looking good: enemies
were popping in and out of existance, bombs were dropping sideways, entities were moving at
irregular speeds, wait.. that's not good.
Mon, Sep 28th 2009, 13:11
So yeah, everything works except combat. I still can't figure it out. For some reason it is just horribly, terribly broken, except that it still "works". But it's as if the numbers suddenly decided it would be fun to randomly go to the wrong place. I can find no sane explanation. So, in short, everything went better than expected until it went worse than expected.
That's all I've got this week.
Fri, Sep 18th 2009, 09:23
Vista Ho!
Changes, in (approximate) order of importance:
Fri, Sep 18th 2009, 09:23
* Vista support! This was, in reality, my fault all along; Vista's stricter socket rules exposed the error of my ways.
* Sludge accumulated on the player ship now deteriorates over time. The rate of deterioration is inversely related to the ship's hull volume.
* Assault durations are significantly shorter and more uniform (~50-90 seconds).
* You can now pan the sector map camera by holding right click and "pushing" in a direction.
* Panels highlighted for a tutorial panels now blink briefly to make them more apparent.
* Fixed a bug that allowed notched sliders to be set to intermediary values.
Remaining:
* Light audio clean-up work
* A few bits of additional combat art
* Much dreaded porting to Verge 3.2
Really everything is going swimmingly. Beta player feedback is increasingly positive and I'm steadily progressing toward the finish line.
Fri, Sep 11th 2009, 16:10
Waffen
The weapon system improvements took a bit more work than originally expected,
but are now in place and will only need minor number tweaking. It's pretty
lightweight, but definitely makes things more interesting.
Fri, Sep 11th 2009, 16:10
The strobe is now a significantly tougher customer. When it flashes, the player's directional controls are temporarily scrambled, making even basic evasion difficult.
And a couple ugly (but simple) bugfixes:
* Fixed a bug that allowed players to attack multiple planets simultaneously.
* Fixed a bug that could cause parts of the player hull to be drawn over the near-death flash.
I know I said I'd give some chatter about these changes, but I want to wait until I've actually pushed the next release out. I've still got a few more bits to tackle this week and then we'll be there. Stay tuned!
Fri, Sep 4th 2009, 17:02
Lots of Changes
Quick and dirty patch notes style!
Fri, Sep 4th 2009, 17:02
Shield / Damage Revision:
* All collisions lower the shield's level by (at least, see below) 1.
* Damage from a single source exceeding the shield's Threshold causes shields to fail immediately.
* After total failure, shields are restored after twice the normal restoration time.
* Value ranges for shields have been rebalanced with the new damage system in mind.
* Enemy damage outputs have been adjusted to better fit the new damage scale.
Miscellaneous Changes:
* Client can now remember password between sessions.
* Ship's now fire over their slime layer where appropriate.
* The mass penalty for raising hull capacity now scales with the hull's mass.
* Hull volume and mass values have been adjusted significantly.
Slated for next week:
* Soup up the weapon system. How? I'll never tell!
* Shorten the amount of time that a battle can take.
* Give the Strobes a much needed shot in the arm.
I'll likely take some time to actually discuss all of these changes in next week's post. After that it will be time to move to a Vista-friendly engine release. I'm not looking forward to it, but it needs doing.
Wed, Aug 26th 2009, 17:21
Fixing a Hole
As the beta feedback has been coming in, I've been aggressively
tweaking Oxidus to get it to worthy-of-public-beta status. I
can't really say with any certainty as there are still some
hard issues that need tending to, but open beta in two weeks
(currently) seems feasible.
Wed, Aug 26th 2009, 17:21
Normally I review my SVN logs and turn that into a paragraph or two to give a more specific recounting of the week's work. This week's circumstances to not afford me this luxury. So, you get what I remember instead.
The sliders now have an arbitrary granulation, which allows their value range to be broken into sane increments. Honestly, you will never know the difference between 67 and 68 damage in any meaningful way. This results in a smoother, simpler player experience that still affords the same overall variety.
Previously, all of the administration behavior was through a debug build of the client. It has been reconfigured such that administration is now linked to individual individual user accounts and not the particular build. This allows me (or theoretical other admin) anywhere, provided I have an internet connection. Nifty!
Though you might not expect it, the single most time consuming task this week was making the blueprints save / load buttons highlight when moused over. I had a really hard time coming up with logic for this within the UI system that wasn't horribly ugly, but hashed it out eventually. After that it was a matter of getting the actual "glow" to look compelling, but generic enough that it could be used with other images (as it was implemented as a state of a UI image). AdditiveBlit saved the day; the actual effect is two AdditiveBlits at 50% lucent on top of the normal blit sprite. Now you know my trade secrets!
That should be enough rambling for now. Tune in next week for Wild and Crazy Damage Redesign.
Tue, Aug 18th 2009, 20:54
Alpha Beta
Work this week was mostly small adjustments here and there as I combed the game for bugs and other irregularities. Some of the more noticeable changes:
Tue, Aug 18th 2009, 20:54
* Fixed a number of small, weird, inter-related bugs affecting the sliders.
* Updated the credits to be more complete and better organized.
* Added a slight color pulse to the Streamer's pre-blast trail.
I also decided on a proper name, which took several days of passive thought to get something that worked for me. Thus, "Oxidus" was born. Then it was time to replace the old placeholder logo. It's funny how, awful as it was, anything else just looked wrong in its place after all this time. Kael once pointed out to me that my Cuddles logo looks like script-fu (it's not); I have since vowed to never let this happen again. Never again! So I poured a shamefully huge amount of time into working and reworking the logo to create something interesting. It's fairly obtuse despite the angles; have a gander at the result:
This is probably the single most "artistic" facet of the game now. It's the first real visual feedback in the game, so every player that runs the game will see it; what great exposure! I really enjoyed attacking something in such a freeform manner and the resulting cryptic future-speak fills me with an unusual sense of pride.
I've started rounding up the usual suspects for some hot, closed-beta action. There are still some unfinished bits in the game and undoubtedly more will surface as people dig in. An open-beta period will follow in a few weeks, depending on how things go with this round. It's been a long road, but the end is finally in sight and I couldn't be more excited.
Tue, Aug 11th 2009, 17:39
Still Stuck
I am still camping out at my parents' house, which lighting struck earlier this week. Electric / telecom were moderately damaged, but have been adequately restored just in time for a post!
Tue, Aug 11th 2009, 17:39
This week's work is a bunch of miscellany, including charting out a second galaxy sector to add to spacegame. I've also done some preliminary redesign work for the Gruedorf page. It was really only meant as a temporary solution. The idea was that if Gruedorf actually caught enough steam it would be made proper then. In spite of that fact that the majority of the participants are failing miserably (SHAME ON YOU!) I think it's time that it gets a much needed repair job. This will be my first priority after getting the spacegame beta running.
Next Monday closed beta will commence, with an open beta shortly after. All non-Vista Windows users are encouraged to participate. (Vista users will have to wait until I've had a chance to port to a more stable build of VERGE.)
Tue, Aug 4th 2009, 11:43
True Agony
Things are quite ready to go. I went ahead and made the first real galaxy sector, which lead me to create a graphical editor for the planets. Now I can retain my sanity while making content. A few previously overlooked bits got some polish along the way.
Tue, Aug 4th 2009, 11:43
The new galaxy is about what I want it to be, but all of the numbers are still very rough. At this point, there really isn't much for me to do without some player feedback. We're still waiting on a couple small pieces of art, but I was figuring on a release this week anyhow. Unfortunately I've since become indisposed and stuck out of town, so I don't really have the capability to do so. Believe me when I say that I am at least as disappointed as you.
Mon, Jul 27th 2009, 23:24
Degrees of Doneness
Everything I hoped to complete is out of the way. I went ahead and made a lot of
other small improvements along the way too. At long last spacegame is, in a sense,
complete! Before we get too excited though, there are a couple of things that
still need to happen:
Mon, Jul 27th 2009, 23:24
* A handful of sprites need to be made. This is all Hyptosis' burden; I blame him entirely for not being able to release this week! Except that..
* I really need to take the time to sit down and plot out a better galaxy. The current one is just our own solar system with a couple extra planets hacked on and was really only meant as a placeholder.
So I guess it's still on me after all. This week I'll be designing a new and improved galaxy from the ground up. It should be ready to go by next week's update and because it'll be easy to adjust even after it's live, I really have no excuse for not opening testing by then.
Mon, Jul 20th 2009, 21:59
Aural Trenches
Quick breakdown similar to last week:
Mon, Jul 20th 2009, 21:59
* 100% Gossamer -- All done!
* 000% Bullet Art -- Still waiting; this is pretty low priority.
* 100% SFX Scripting -- All the behavior is in and working. Hooray!
* 066% SFX Selection / Mixing -- Clocked a good 20 hours this week just fussing with different sounds. I'm always amazed how much work this takes for me to be happy with it.
A couple of other loose ends have cropped up (don't they always) since last post, but nothing major. Everything should be wrapped up and beta caliber by next week's post.
Mon, Jul 13th 2009, 16:58
Sounding Off
I have embarrassingly little to show for the amount of work I poured in this week.
Following up on last weeks task list:
Mon, Jul 13th 2009, 16:58
* [050%] Gossamer - Redesign done; currently using middle-ground placeholder art. Waiting on final art.
* [000%] Bullet Art - Not done; waiting on art.
* [050%] Sound Effects - About 2/3 of the scripting is done and roughly 1/3 have adequate sounds. The hard stuff is done, so the rest should fall into place quickly.
* [100%] Combat Completion - Not on the task list, but I went ahead and smoothed out the way this works. It was the really rough edge in an otherwise smooth user experience.
Expect testing soon; I will solicit players for it next week (or sooner, if you're the proactive type).
Mon, Jul 6th 2009, 14:29
State of the Game
All of the following must completed for the next "beta" release:
Mon, Jul 6th 2009, 14:29
Gossamer Redesign -- I personally really like this ship, but at the end of the day I have to accept that it's a concept, not a production model. Too many players are confused and frustrated by its lack of a weapon (and rightly so). A tentative solution is already in the pipeline (aka Hyptosis) for this. It will be replaced with a new design that maintains the spirit of the original, but includes lousy (but present) cannon on-board.
Bullet Art -- The bullet art for the turret and player need to be replaced with sprites that don't scream "placeholder". This is no big deal, but it needs to be done.
Sound Effects -- Up until now the entire game has been running silent. This is pretty standard for me; I know that audio feedback really cements an experience, but I like to have lots of visual indication too and find that having no sound helps me pinpoint things that need a flash or a flicker. Since this next beta round will be somewhat more public and the game is feeling fairly complete, I think it's time to get a sound-scape going. I will probably not be adding in music at this time, unless I stumble onto something that just clicks. If anyone is interested in making some fresh space-tunes for this project don't hesitate to contact me!
Once all of these are knocked out, I'll invite everyone to participate in the testing. I expect this to be in 1 to 2 weeks, mostly depending on Hyptosis' availability (no pressure!).
Mon, Jun 29th 2009, 12:24
Shore Leave
A bit more art is now in place and some general tinkering this week. I spent a good four hours
just tweaking the player's shield flicker. It relays the shields' state much more clearly now.
Having a HUD free combat experience has presented some interesting challenges; there are
still a few rough spots (most notably: shield regeneration), but the presentation is clean.
With so much stuff going on at once, having a bunch of meters and values cluttering up
the screen space would just make it that much harder to play.
Mon, Jun 29th 2009, 12:24
I'm figuring on the next wave of testing being two weeks from now. This should be confirmed next week provided nothing blows up in my face between now and then.
Sun, Jun 21st 2009, 10:55
Art Grind
As the final battle art is rolling it, I started putting in the time
to more carefully place the ship "muzzles" and came to an unfortunate
realization: the player can adjust his bullet size, but the size of
his ship's cannon is static.
Sun, Jun 21st 2009, 10:55
So I adopted an approach that moves the muzzle based on the the size of the bullet. This fixed the "giant bullet of doom overlapping the hull" problem, but, depending on the muzzle size, starts looking funny when the bullet gets too big or too small. So it got scrapped.
Instead, bullets now fire at a muzzle-appropriate size and then then quickly expand once they're in the playfield. This keeps the action looking smooth at the player's ship without compromising the variable size. In some cases, it can look a little unusual, but it's rare and a sane player would probably never build his ship that way. Short of making a whole bunch of different gun art (or software scaling it, which would be worse, really), I think this is as good as it can be with the way the game works.
Sun, Jun 14th 2009, 13:11
Vista's Siren Song
It's no secret that Spacegame does not get along with Windows Vista
right now. I have been told that the latest (repository) build of VERGE
will make this all go away, so I'll just drop in the new.. Oh wait!
It's not that simple.
Sun, Jun 14th 2009, 13:11
I wish it was. The reality is that I've been running on a semi-unofficial, long-deprecated engine build. So, since I've started, the lua binding has been changed a bit and, worse yet, the class system has been replaced with one that is not fully compatible with some of my slapdash code. This is all actually quite good for the engine. It is, however, bad for me. To get my game up to snuff would require a fair amount of clean-up and rewriting. This of course puts me at the awkward spot of choosing either no Vista support, or pouring even more time into this game.
I can't really afford to not upgrade the engine, so it's not much of a choice at all. After this is done I'll have Vista support, cleaner code, and support for new engine features as they come. I do slightly regret diving headfirst into the lua side before it was cemented, but ultimately it was fun and this is only a minor setback.
Sat, Jun 6th 2009, 19:56
Nomenclature Madness
Well, I finally sat down and worked through the only real
remaining hurdle: reworking the defensive attributes. Each "ship"
had three different adjustable attributes (the names of which
where never really finalized, but were: "offense", "defense",
"quantity").
Sat, Jun 6th 2009, 19:56
Each of these attributes then influenced one or more specific qualities of the unit, with many even overlapping to create "compound" properties.
e.g. The Streamer's movement rate was affected by both its Offense and Defense. By moving faster:
* It is harder for the player to spot it and get out of the way in time.(Offense)
* It is more likely to make it off the screen without being shot and destroyed, yielding a "successful" deployment. (Defense) It's worth mentioning, for those that haven't already played (and quite probably most that have), that this ship doesn't maximize its damage potential until after it exits the screen.
So, in order to max out its speed, you'd actually have to max out both its offense and defense attributes. I think this is a pretty neat way to handle things, and, in a perfect world, it would make a great game, but it.. doesn't.
The reality is that not only is this pretty complicated (especially for a game that's largely just pick up and play shooting), but it's all happening in the background under vague labels too! Best case: dedicated players reverse engineer the numbers and learn how to work the system, while casual players are uninformed and fail miserably. Worst (and most probable) case: players are quickly frustrated and annoyed, prompting them to give up on the game.
Obviously that's bad, so that plan has been scrapped. Or at least severely amended.
It's not exhaustive, but here are some quick bullets about the "new" system:
* Each unit type still has three attributes, but each set of three has been tailored to the specific unit type, instead of trying to shoehorn the unit types into a generic attribute set.
* Each attribute is linked to a single property. Gone are the days of complex, intertwining relationships.
* When setting up your defenses, the UI clearly displays what an attribute adjusts for that specific unit when mousing over its slider. The numbers are all still tucked away in the background, but at least the relationships are clear; semi-transparency should be sufficient.
As big as I'm making it sound, in implementation these are tiny adjustments, but I spent a lot of thinky-juice deciding that this is the best course to take. Now that this is done, I'm feeling good about the project again and really can't wait to wrap up the rest of the non-balancing work so I can get this out to everyone.
Fri, May 29th 2009, 00:01
We Get Signal
Moving is mostly completed and was thankfully uneventful. Everything
is, more or less, back to normal. Since I'm tired and in a hurry to
get myself out of the red on the Gruedorf Scoreboard,
this will be brief.
Fri, May 29th 2009, 00:01
I did a lot of little improvements to the text for various tooltips. Unique, per-unit-type tooltips were added to the defensive setup screen; each unit's purpose is significantly more obvious to players yet to become experienced veterans.
The gravity ship's mechanics have been reworked to be a little more "correct". Its power is still based upon the distance between it and the player, bu the distances is now between the closest edges, not the centerpoints. It definitely "feels" better now. Additionally, a number of visual tweaks (mostly experimental) have been thrown in to try and easily convey the gravity ship's behavior without being obnoxious; this has been surprisingly difficult.
Wed, May 20th 2009, 15:14
Preemptive Strike
I am in the process of moving and will be without internet for an
indefinite amount of time, so I'm posting early as I won't be able
to make my regularly scheduled slot.
Wed, May 20th 2009, 15:14
Progress has been light this week. I knocked out a couple kinks in the initial battle behavior, everything works as intended now.
Fri, May 15th 2009, 16:31
Relapse
I'm not going to lie. The reason I missed my post deadline
this week (and, indeed, why my posts have been so shallow for
a while now) is that I have been sucked in back into Guild Wars
in a bad, bad way.
Fri, May 15th 2009, 16:31
The good news is that today I buckled down and crashed through the biggest immediate hurdle: adding a "tutorial" battle. This was was kind of tricky because normally battles are spawned out of a whole bunch of user defined values, and here I needed a fixed setup, but it also needed to not break when I make some inevitable changes to the battle stuff further down the line.
I ended up making a compromise. It's definitely not 100% future-proof but it should be pretty simple to patch it up in the event that it does need it. Yep, that's my story.
There are a few more little things that need doing and then, depending on how the art situation is looking, we'll be ready to roll for phase II of testing. I'm starting to get excited again, which can only be a good thing.
Thu, May 7th 2009, 22:31
Explanation Optional
Pretty minor update again. The "tutorial" system has been
properly hooked up to the server and you may now choose
to opt out of it if you already know how everything works
(or of you're feeling reckless). One of these days I'll
get a good solid grind in and push out the next phase of
testing; it can't come soon enough.Thu, May 7th 2009, 22:31
Thu, Apr 30th 2009, 21:24
How to Play
Very light progress this week; the inline instructions are
mostly fleshed out. These should really help explain the
game, but it's pretty wordy. Ultimately I think it's better
than not understanding the game at all, though. So a bit
more work on that and then it's back to combat tweaking.
The goal is to have this ready enough for the next round
of testing by next weekend. Wish me luck!Thu, Apr 30th 2009, 21:24
Thu, Apr 23rd 2009, 10:19
Situation Normal
This week, my computer acquired a viral infection. Actually,
several. Simultaneously. And they were quite unpleasant.
So I spent virtually all of my time (including extensive
sleep loss) fighting to wrest control of my machine and
get everything back in working order.
Thu, Apr 23rd 2009, 10:19
I am happy to report that nothing really important was lost; it pays to have a contingency plan.
The bad news is that my net productivity on spacegame this week is about zero. It's going to be at least another week before the next round of testing can start.
Thu, Apr 16th 2009, 23:41
Pew Pew Pew
A little overdue and I'm short on time, so here's a condensed bullet list
culled from my SVN log:
Thu, Apr 16th 2009, 23:41
* Periodic progress "update displays" have been added to combat.
* Enemies now spawn in "waves" instead of a constant barrage of baddies.
* Combat duration is no longer explicitly controlled by the player.
* Further experimenting with the player ship presentation and visual feedback.
Next wave of testing could be as early as a week from now.
Wed, Apr 1st 2009, 14:35
Do Not Falter
The first round of testing has been a technical success. Everything
is working smoothly and as intended. I want to thank everyone who
participated. I got a lot of great feedback on how it felt to be a
player coming in from the outside. I would also like to extend a
special thanks to Kael for
taking the time to offer some fantastic design insight.
Wed, Apr 1st 2009, 14:35
All of this has shown me just how much more work there is to be done. It's a little discouraging to realize you're not as close as you thought, but it gives me the opportunity to create a better game. C'est la vie.
So, I've been diligently grinding away at the improvements and will continue to do so. A few weeks from now, I'd like to start a second, larger wave of playtesting and see where we stand. I won't be dismantling the live test server, so currently enrolled testers are welcome to continue playing in the interim.
A brief list of the biggest changes:
* Added an "Active Players" panel to the sector screen; this lists any other active player(s) and what they are currently doing.
* Added translucent overlays of the defensive ships to the planetary defense screen, making it more clear what each is / does.
* Added "blueprints" to the assault outfitting screen, allowing players to quickly save and load templates for their ship designs.
Wed, Mar 25th 2009, 11:50
A Few Good Men
We're officially there. Everything either works or has an acceptable
placeholder. I am now accepting "applications" for testing.
Wed, Mar 25th 2009, 11:50
If you are interested in playing a potentially buggy, horribly unbalanced game to help me work through the kinks, please contact me through the regular channels (e-mail, IM, IRC [lunarnet]) or by leaving comments here.
That is all.
Thu, Mar 19th 2009, 11:00
Ship Shape
Each week more boring than the last. This week I fought with the
details of redoing the player's hull system. The current approach
is pretty neat, but sadly will not take well to sprite art. I'm
pretty sure this is largely thanks to my love of vector games (and
my use of vector art instead of sprites as placeholders); so, I
frequently overplay my object-deformation hand.
Thu, Mar 19th 2009, 11:00
Now, to make this work I've distilled it down to a small palette of different designs, each offering a unique purpose / focus. This should actually make ship building simpler and more straightforward for the player, even if it does lose some of its previous "Hey, neat!" factor.
It's now just a matter of implementation. I'm also intending to do the unthinkable and drop in some placeholder art for these so we can get some people playing it sooner rather than later.
Wed, Mar 4th 2009, 12:32
Annus
Well, it's just a few days shy of a year since I switched gears
and started working on Spacegame. I can say it's come quite a
long way, even if it took longer to get here than I originally
wanted. I definitely could've been done by now had I not wasted
so much time fighting over what to do for the combat system or
chasing other endeavors. Interestingly, because of these detours
I was able to recruit the supremely talented
Hyptosis and am also
significantly more confident in the design, having had the
opportunity to explore some other paths.
Wed, Mar 4th 2009, 12:32
Recent progress mostly boils down to implementing the new art assets as I get them. Since there isn't much else to talk about, I'll celebrate this temporal milestone by offering the one thing I never do: screens. Full resolution ones at that (click to see full size). Yeah, who loves you?
Wed, Feb 25th 2009, 15:11
Great Gravy
Hyptosis cranked out a hefty chunk of art this week, so I spent
a fair amount of time getting that all in place and working
correctly. It's really starting to shape up now, but I'm going
to keep a cover on any new screens for at least another week.
In the non-art field, a number of minor bugs and quirks have
been ironed out. I also made some tweaks to the interface to
increase its friendliness.
Wed, Feb 25th 2009, 15:11
My todo list is pretty thoroughly whittled down, so a public release is on the near horizon. When it actually happens mostly hinges on how quickly Hyp can deliver the rest of the art (no pressure); I was originally expecting to be done before now, but I think the dramatic boost in the quality of the art is worth a little delay, don't you?
Wed, Feb 18th 2009, 21:50
Assorted Flavors
The design for All the Marbles is tightening up pretty well, so the next step will be to roll out an engine prototype. However, it sounds the art department for Spacegame is back on track, so this new game will probably be put on hold at least until that long promised spacegame open beta. Look forward to next week when things are back on track and in full swing again.Wed, Feb 18th 2009, 21:50
Wed, Feb 11th 2009, 14:46
Crowded Umbrella
Spacegame is suffering some slight delays due to a minor kink in
the art pipeline (read: Hyptosis is busy with more serious stuff).
Once this resolved, it shouldn't be too long before I can get
a proper release out.
Wed, Feb 11th 2009, 14:46
Because of this, I haven't done any work on it this week. There are a few rough bits I could stand to work on, but I instead opted to get a jumpstart on my next project. It's going to be largely built with the same technology as Spacegame and has significantly simpler mechanics, so this should have a pleasingly short development time.
I'm a little sad about it, but I think it'll actually be a better game too. I'm not really going to spill any details yet, because I'm a jerk. Know that I am hammering away at the design, trying to maximize its awesome factor though.
The project name is "All the Marbles". I'll let you sit on that for a while.
Wed, Feb 4th 2009, 18:16
Single Screen
This week's progress amounts to the slow but steady addition of
the combat art. Hyptosis
has been hard at work creating some amazing sprites. Check it
them out!
Wed, Feb 4th 2009, 18:16
Okay, so my shrunken screens don't really do them justice. Take it on faith for now that they look great; you'll get to see them in action soon enough.
Wed, Jan 28th 2009, 20:02
Whoa There
Somehow, I completely missed my gruedorf deadline. By nearly a week!
This is made worse by the fact that I've actually been hard at work on
my game; I just completely forgot to post.
Wed, Jan 28th 2009, 20:02
The biggest news, probably, is two-fold. First is that a handful of people have had a chance to play and everything went surprisingly well. Second, this means that very soon we'll be up to "open-beta" status and everyone will be welcome to take a crack at it.
Most of the wait between now and beta-time hinges on finally getting the art done and added to the game. Right now it's a bit boring and hard to track what's going on most of the time because it's just empty shapes.
I'm starting to get pretty excited as we ramp up for the final push. Look forward to tasty WIP screens of the new art stuff next week.
Thu, Jan 15th 2009, 08:38
Shoeshine
This week was mostly spent adding some polish the UI;
adding tooltips, adjusting element sizes / positions,
making sure everything flowed smoothly. The end result
is a more attractive and intuitive experiece, so this
is good.
Thu, Jan 15th 2009, 08:38
Look forward to next week's post, which should actually have some biggish news.
Thu, Jan 8th 2009, 00:30
To Market
Quite a bit done this week, so I've condensed 30 revisions
into a handful of bullets:
Thu, Jan 8th 2009, 00:30
* Various UI elements got some tweaks / enhancements.
* Implemented the assault deposit / insurance system.
* The ship builder is now connected to the assault system.
* Fixed a major bug with the collision system.
* A complete overhaul of the market and underlying systems.
It's been a while since I posted any screens and this post, while bristling with productivity, is not particularly interesting, so I give you:
The new market screen:
The old market screen:
The new market system is a bit more complicated, but not so much so as you might guess from the screens. The old system had a market "AI" that moderated the current values of the different mineral types based on player supply and demand. This system was okay, but it had an arbitrary feel to it and a player with very large mineral supply could very effectively manipulate the market with a few well placed transactions.
An "order" system has replaced the old model, where you put an amount of goods (or money) on the market with the hope that another player will agree to your terms and complete the transaction. The result is a more player-driven system that can't be effectively bullied by someone with deep pockets. The obvious downside is that it's a little less straightforward and the interface for it looks intimidating at first glance.
It took two grueling days of work to complete the market conversion, but it's done now and I'm happy with how it's turned out.
Wed, Dec 31st 2008, 18:45
Marble Massacre
I would like to draw your attention to the
games portion of wundermint. That is what we make
here, after all. A few days ago, a
shiny new game
was released here, before its official announcement
(though it was made pretty obvious in last week's
post). The entire internet did, in fact, have the
chance to play it days early.
Wed, Dec 31st 2008, 18:45
To the best of my knowledge, no one has.
Well, you have no excuse now. Go forth and play!
Thu, Dec 25th 2008, 00:50
Machinations
My track record recently has been a might weak,
but I'm cooking something up for this
"How about M"
business. Two things, actually, provided
McGrue
doesn't throw me off his team for making a second
entry. Or for not really getting much done on his
game. Yet.
Thu, Dec 25th 2008, 00:50
So get ready for something new and quirky from the wundermint as we approach the new year!
Wed, Nov 26th 2008, 21:07
Humming Along
Tired and short on time, so this will be an decidedly
short post. A quick review of this week's
accomplishments:
Wed, Nov 26th 2008, 21:07
* Outfitting screen is complete; just needs proper linkage to the combat system and server.
* Reworked the defense setup screen to be more intuitive / informative.
That doesn't sound like much, but it was actually a pretty grueling week, particularly the outfitting screen. It was definitely more work than I had anticipated.
The pending holiday weekend will probably limit my productivity in the coming week, so don't expect too much (which is a rather grim statement, considering how light on content this post is).
Wed, Nov 19th 2008, 16:20
Shoes
Ever had a trusty pair of shoes that took you everywhere?
And then ended up by the wayside after a sexy new
pair comes along offering a renewed sense of freedom
as you dash about in them?
Wed, Nov 19th 2008, 16:20
When you finally switch back to the old pair, it's just not the same. Sure, it's familiar, but as you squeeze your foot back in, it pinches your toes, chafes your heel, and you could swear that a sharp, intangible little rock had taken up residence inside.
This has more or less been my experience with my current project. The seemingly endless period of prototyping, feeling out the combat system, has finally come full circle. Coming back to the core game, I find myself entrenched in an almost hostile environment, my jilted base game bitter, and slow to forgive.
But, in spite of how grim that sounds, hopes are high.
The attributes are implemented (even if the numbers do need extensive work) for all of the enemies that made the cut. The combat engine is in the main game and is properly linked to it.
Rejoice, for the entire skeleton of the game is in place! Ship building, art and number balancing are the only major hurdles remaining, all of which are being tended to.
After that, it's simply a matter of getting some early testing in before this reaches an "open beta" state. Everyone is invited and encouraged (in some cases, begged) to participate at that point. I expect to be there in 1-2 weeks.
If you would like to participate in the earliest phase of testing, leave a comment here or contact me directly and I'll get you onboard.
I'm also breaking my promise of screenshots. Again. The sad truth is that you'll probably be playing it before I bother to post another screen. We've reached the final push, so don't lose hope!
Wed, Nov 12th 2008, 21:10
Oh Great Woe
I'm short on time; I hope you like bulleted lists. Now, prepare
for a letdown. This week's update is pretty sad. Let's look at
what there isn't:Wed, Nov 12th 2008, 21:10
* There are no delicious screenshots to be had.
* The combat engine has not been added to the main project.
That said, I have a mixed bag of news.
* Bad: My Xbox 360 ate it hard (E74).
* Good: This means I'll have more free time for gamedev!
* Bad: It's out of warranty and I can't afford to fix it.
* Good: I'll have that extra free time for a while!
* Bad: My clever 360 dev plans have been quashed.
* Good: ..I can't really see how this is good. I am sad.
It's not all bad news, though. The enemy implementations are complete, as projected. And, part of the reason why the combat engine hasn't been fused with the core game is because I decided to add the adjustable attribute stuff to the engine *before* I move it instead of afterward. This makes initial testing significantly easier and will ultimately result in an earlier completion date.
Look forward to next week when I more-than-likely post overdue screenshots and the attribute system is fully integrated.
Wed, Nov 5th 2008, 15:01
Tiny Update
I spent the better part of a day adding the improved collision
system to the combat engine. It was quite boring, but the
transition was smooth (like butter), so I have no complaints.
Wed, Nov 5th 2008, 15:01
Next week's goals: finish the enemy implementations and add the combat engine to the project trunk. Also, I'd like to put up some screens to keep McGrue's jaw flapping in check.
Tue, Oct 28th 2008, 17:57
Minor Breakthrough
Okay, so it's a little behind schedule and quite short,
but here it is at last. Accomplishments since last time:
Tue, Oct 28th 2008, 17:57
* Added recaptcha to wundermint's comments out of dire necessity
* Purged the copious spam (and hopefully nothing else) plaguing my beloved website
* Decided what enemies to use after serendipitous inspiration from a photosensitive seizure warning
With all that out of the way, it's time to start linking all of this stuff together and refining it into a proper game. Expect gritty details next week.
Sun, Oct 19th 2008, 17:50
Brief Brief
This is a short, no-nonsense update. The collision system has been improved to fully
support heterogeneous collisions between points, circles, and polygons. Some early
optimizations have removed a couple bottlenecks and bumped performance by about 50%
in "worst case" scenarios. Four of six enemies are more or less complete. The other
two are still being debated. It's surprisingly hard to have six different simple
enemy types that each offer something unique to the experience. The goal for next
week? Have alll six types hammered down and start hooking this all together.Sun, Oct 19th 2008, 17:50
Sat, Oct 11th 2008, 16:27
Worthwhile Delays
Not one person bothered to render an opinion about last week's post.
I am truly saddened. No, seriously. Honest.
Sat, Oct 11th 2008, 16:27
True to my word, the core combat is done. Everything works. However, I've decided that the enemies are a little to plain and uninteresting, so I'm taking the next week to: a) swap in some slightly more creative baddies, b) optimize, optimize, optimize.
Here's a screen showcasing some of the newer enemies:
Sadly, when the screen gets very busy, the framerate drops to about 25-30 fps. VERGE really struggles with pushing all the pixels at 640x480, even if there isn't anything going on. So, if I can get it up to 30 fps at maximum busy-ness after the full art is dropped in (I'm just using primitive drawing at present), then I'll be happy enough.
That'll wrap up this week's (brief) coverage. By next week, the whole of combat should work and I'll proceed to link the battle up to the main game.
Sat, Oct 4th 2008, 10:31
Polling Place
Visually, there's virtually no difference, so no screens this week.
Most of the changes are on the AI behavior and improving the class
hierarchy.
Sat, Oct 4th 2008, 10:31
I'd like to request some community feedback. Assume a classic space shmup setup where the player is a lone ship avoiding / destroying hordes of incoming stuff. Now, to defend your planets from this cruel and merciless attacker, you can upgrade your defenses.
This is currently set up such that there are six different unit types, each with three adjustable "primary attributes". As a primary attribute is adjusted, it affects several derived "secondary attributes".
So, my questions to you, dear viewers are:
* Will six different enemy types provide enough variety?
* Do three different primary attributes offer enough flexibility?
* This makes for a total of 18 adjustments that must be made for each planet. Is this too many to comfortably manage?
My thoughts regarding variety and flexibility:
Consider each attribute as being a strictly on or off proposition. This means there would be seven different states for each enemy type, yielding 42 distinct enemy varieties. (Note: the attributes will not be a simple on/off; I'm just using this simplification to help frame it.)
My thoughts regarding the complexity issue:
I originally had each and every independent attribute adjustable. This offered a lot of opportunity for experimentation and creative combinations. That that meant setting several dozen independent attributes every time you won a 2-5 minute battle, or when wanted to tinker with your existing defenses. So it has since been distilled down to three. I've considered the consequences of taking it further. It would be hard to break it down into two logical attributes, so I think if it were to go any lower, it would have to be taken to a single attribute per enemy and just call it "level". This seems incredibly unexciting, though.
I think that's a fair summation of how things stand. Provided there are no last minute sweeping changes, the core combat should be done next week. Comments of any variety will be very much appreciated.
Fri, Sep 26th 2008, 16:00
A Liar is Me
I am now in the process of putting together the combat
engine. There have been a few interesting quirks, but
so far everything has been going pretty smoothly. I am
starting to feel just how much play balancing this is
going to need (a ton), so that's a little discouraging,
I guess.
Fri, Sep 26th 2008, 16:00
I know I promised details of how this all actually works, but I've decided to put that off until at least next week.
Here's a screen of the WIP combat as a consolation prize:
Fri, Sep 19th 2008, 13:01
Past and Present
I'd like to start by addressing a small addition right here at Wündermint.
Two new flavors (Berrymint and Chocomint) have been added for your pleasure.
Try them out and see which you like best!
Fri, Sep 19th 2008, 13:01
In other webdev news, the Gruedorf Aggregator has new and improved icons for dead feeds and lame updates. There's also a brand spanking new Stats page. Be sure to check it out and tell me what you think!
Now, to the good stuff. The defense design is finally ironed out. I really like the way it's ended up, even if it did take significantly longer than I originally wanted to get to this point. Next week will be all about moving forward with the implementation of the combat and related systems. Actually, that's pretty much what every week will be until release.
Last week I mentioned the ridiculous amount of time I spent messing with slider styles. Today, I present to you what I've settled on (with old style for comparison). I think it looks a lot better (for not being wildly different) and there is only a very slight performance hit. Well worth the trouble, in the end.
Old / New Slider:
That's a lot of information from quiet ol' me, but wait! There's more! I want to take some time to touch on the "original" design a bit, and maybe even get some feedback on it.
Disclaimer: This is an old design. The game will not work this way!
Each planet has an assigned technology. Controlling a planet allows you to utilize that technology. The technologies come in a variety of flavors (shields, weapons, etc). When preparing to attack, you pick the ones you want from those that are available to you and then engage in a space shmup sequence with an appropriately augmented ship.
The actual assault is divided into three phases: Hyperspace, Approach, and Dive.
During Hyperspace, you navigate an asteroid field without the use of your weapons. Afterward, your ship drops out of Hyperspace and the weapons systems are restored. You have reached the Approach. During the Approach, an assortment of drones and fighter ships will attempt to intercept you. Successfully destroy or avoid all of them and you will reach the planet's surface, at which point the Dive begins.
During the Dive, an opening in the planet's surface leads you down a long, roughly contoured tunnel, where you encounter mounted turrets and destructible barriers. Successfully navigate your way through the tunnel without being destroyed and you will reach the core. Destroy the core and you will assume control of the planet.
After a successful assault, you are then be able to configure the planet's autonomous defenses. Each planet has an allotted number of defense points that can be spent, with more effective defenses requiring more points. In effect, every planet has a different level of defensibility, but it is up to the player to you to find an optimal or unexpected combination of defenses. As you maintain control of a planet, it will generate wealth for you.
So, that's a rough summary of what it was. I do still like it, for the most part, but I think it it has too many complexities (despite its apparent simplicity) for the pick up and play feel I want to accomplish. Next week I'll take some time to discuss how the new model works, and maybe highlight some of the more significant differences.
Fri, Sep 12th 2008, 13:40
What's 24 Hours?
Well, I lapsed (by a day) again. This has me posting on Fridays, though, which
I think I actually prefer, so it's not a total loss.
Fri, Sep 12th 2008, 13:40
The defense design is finally getting to being done-ish. I need to re-distill the adjustable attributes. As it stands there's just too much to manage; it's like a wall of numbers. Some of us may like things like that, but I really want this to be fairly accessible.
Have a WIP mock-up of the defense setup / editor:
I also dipped my toe back into my main codebase for the first time in a while. It was mostly uneventful. I spent no less than six hours tinkering with my slider styles. No, it isn't super-important, but when making my mock-ups, I ended up with a slider design that I really liked, so I decided to change them. Sadly, It required special handling of the ends to make it look right in all cases and, regardless, there was no way to make it look right without a serious performance hit. This game is definitely going to have an abundance of sliders and eating up that much performance for a little visual couldn't be justified. So, I'll have to come up with something else!
Thu, Sep 4th 2008, 17:13
A Slip and a Drip
Somehow, I completely misplaced a day, so here's the latest news, a day late:
Thu, Sep 4th 2008, 17:13
Behold, the ship designer!
Well, a mock-up of it, anyway. You'll be able to tweak various properties to create a customized weapon of death, destruction, and domination. Fun stuff!
I'm in the process of ironing out just what to do with the defensive component of the combat. By next week's post I should have that taken care of and a relevant mock-up or two to show off. Then it's time to dive back into implementation and get this thing out the door already.
Wed, Aug 27th 2008, 14:49
Small Successes
The combat design is taking longer than expected. This is mostly because I'm trying
to graft on a bunch of features from a previous combat model and there are more
rough edges than I'd like to admit. It is, however, coming along and I really like
where it's going.
Wed, Aug 27th 2008, 14:49
Now, for more tangible results, let's look to the Gruedorf Aggregator. Notice anything different? Okay, I admit, it's pretty minor, but I did do some tweaking to it. First, it now defaults to the scoreboard view instead of the headlines. As near as I can tell, no one really uses the headline view anyway. Second, if you're anything like me and ever wanted a handy way to see just how badly you're doing, now you can! The scoreboard can be sorted by a number of different columns. No, it's nothing spectacular, but now you can easily see that you're in Xth place (4th at present, in my case).
Next week I hope to have the design ironed out enough to start providing details and maybe even a mock-up or two. Until then.
Wed, Aug 20th 2008, 12:12
Suddenly, Details
I am not dead. Moreover, neither is my game. As may or may not be clear
from previous posts, I have been chewing over just what to do with it.
This has been a wholly frustrating task as nothing ever seems to be
what I want it to, which brings me to today's announcement: I am going
back to the original (albeit slightly adjusted) combat model.
Wed, Aug 20th 2008, 12:12
The basic rundown is this: You are a corporation seeking your fortunes across the reaches of space. You have a hangar of custom built ships at your disposal. Using these ships (in shmup-type combat), you take over planets belonging to other corporations. After you've taken over a planet, you set up autonomous defenses to protect it from other invading corporations. Controlling a planet nets you wealth and enables you to make higher quality ships which you can then, naturally, use to take over more planets.
And now, the state of things:
* The server is done.
* The client's non-combat components are done.
* The combat design is about 80% complete.
* The combat implementation is non-existent.
In effect, everything is waiting on the implementation of the combat system. Once this is done, which should be sooner than later (I fully expect to be the first 'dorfer to finish a game; yeah, I said it), we can look forward to a glorious open beta. You're all invited!
Sun, Aug 3rd 2008, 16:23
Accidental Sabbatical
It's two weeks overdue, but here, at last, is an update.
I spent the first week (before I lapsed) working on
the new combat design. I hate to admit that the only
reason I didn't get an update up that Sunday was
because I kept (deliberately) putting off. This was
followed by a number of distractions, including going
out of town, getting caught up in a design for another
pet project, and my internet connection is breaking.
Again. It remains broken at present. I am sad.
Sun, Aug 3rd 2008, 16:23
Now, regarding the actual project. The new combat is neat, but it (like everything else, it seems) just doesn't feel right. So, I've been toying with a lot of different ideas, hoping to find something that really clicks.
A brief history of the combat system:
The original intent of this game was to have a light strategy game woven into some white-knuckle action sequences. While the original combat would have accomplished this, it was doomed to being either too hardcore to pick up, or too easy to have been worth including at all. Neither of these was acceptable and a middle-ground would've just made the whole experience feel watered-down.
A whole smorgasbord of new combat system plans followed, the more recent of which are the falling-blocks puzzle and the as-of-yet unmentioned large-scale tactical warfare. While each of these has their merits, they were all too complex, requiring a mountain of menus for the player to navigate just to get to the action.
So, I've stripped it down with simplicity and accessibility as my primary goals. As it stands right now, in combat you get one vessel. You use that vessel to destroy a single other enemy vessel. You'll have the ability to trick out your ship with a number of parts and gadgets to keep things interesting, but the essentials are all very simple and straightforward.
Provided I haven't changed my mind yet again, next week I will offer more details about the system and what progress has been made with it.
Sun, Jul 13th 2008, 13:25
Reneging
Well, there was a fair chance it would happen and, though it's later
than I would've preferred, it's better now than even further down the
line. In short: this puzzle-for-combat thing just doesn't feel right.
I am pulling a complete 180 and backing out of it.
Sun, Jul 13th 2008, 13:25
This means a number of things. The bad news is that it will be virtually impossible to make my originally intended deadline. The good news, though, is that it will be a better, more cohesive experience. I also now have a solid foundation for a nifty puzzle game further down the line. A bit of scary news: I'm not actually going back to my original combat system either. Instead I'm going to try my hand at a sort of action / RTS fusion thing.
Considering the time spent tinkering with the puzzle stuff and the scope of the new system, I estimate to be an entire month behind. We'll see how the next week or two goes, but the odds of making the August deadline are looking pretty bleak.
This post is screenshot free, given that the project is just now changing gears and I haven't had a chance to bang anything out yet. I'm excited about the new direction and am confident that after the dust settles, this will have all been for the best. I'm going to try to be a bit more open about development now that the end is in sight. Look forward to next week when I reveal how some of this new system works!
Sun, Jul 6th 2008, 17:14
Beyond Barhopping
This weeks festivities included:
Sun, Jul 6th 2008, 17:14
* An epic class refactor job.
* Repairing an infuriating bug in the chain system.
* Adding proper bars for the player.
* And more!
So, I actually got quite a bit done this week. It's just not the forward-momentum productivity stuff I was hoping for. Improvements are improvements, though, and it's looking more and more like a real game with each passing day.
Current state:
The only real visual difference is the presence of those colored bars. Exciting, I know. Looking at a calendar, it seems I have just under four weeks left. This is ample time to finish, provided I don't become too distracted.
Sun, Jun 29th 2008, 17:26
Creeping Deadline
Let's start with the longview;
This week flew by and my combat prototype is less developed than I had hoped it to be by now
(there will be no public release as of yet), but I'm going to go ahead and use it. This leaves
me with about a month to go before my original "open beta" deadline. I fully intend to keep
this timeframe, so the next two weeks will be spent getting the combat up to snuff. From there, it'll
be a grind until August to integrate it with the main game and get as much "in house" playtesting
done as I can. After that, it'll be a matter of evaluating player feedback and adjusting
accordingly. Assuming no catastrophic occurrences, this last phase should be smooth sailing.
Sun, Jun 29th 2008, 17:26
And now, since I'm such a swell guy, here's a screen of the (very) rough combat prototype:
I know what you're thinking. "Oh no! Blocks. On a grid. And you probably have to match them!" Well, you'd be right, but this has some quirks that can't be seen in the screenshot. It's not the pinnacle of originality, I'll admit, but accessibility counts for a lot here. In total, it should still feel like its own game, which is enough for me.
Sun, Jun 22nd 2008, 18:19
A New Era
Here we sit at what can only be described as a milestone.
The server and client have full implementations of all the non-combat systems.
This is great news, of course, but brings with it an interesting dilemma.
Sun, Jun 22nd 2008, 18:19
You see, the as-of-yet undisclosed combat system is in a limbo of sorts. I have my original plan for it clearly mapped out, and am very fond of it. It should be a lot of fun to play and its integration with the rest of the game would be an interesting mix, but that's where its value ends.
So, I've decided to take a stab at creating an alternate combat system. I've got the design for it mostly hammered out already, and I intend to spend the next week putting together a prototype to evaluate it's fun-ness. If this ends in catastrophic failure (which is entirely possible as this is, get ready for it, a puzzle game) I'll probably just scrap it and go back to the old model (which is not a puzzle game). If it succeeds, however, I'll have something more approachable and with a great deal more longevity, which is more fitting with the large scale goals for this game anyway.
So stay tuned for news of the coming tinkerings. I may even publicly release the prototype for feedback. Also, there are no screens this week. Life is hard.
Sun, Jun 15th 2008, 14:18
Two For You
In a complete reversal of my normal posting habits, I give you:
minimal text and tasty new screens!
Sun, Jun 15th 2008, 14:18
New and Improved Sector:
Brand Spanking New Market:
I'm just going to leave it at that for this week. Next update, things will probably be back to their normal, long-winded, screenshotless state.
Sun, Jun 8th 2008, 09:45
Time Slip
Somehow, I completely lost two weeks of time. Also, it seems my updates have moved to
Sunday, putting me in the company of
McGrue,
Kildorf, and
SDHawk.
Sun, Jun 8th 2008, 09:45
A fair amount of work went into this week's update, though it really only comes down to two improvements. A large part is some handy changes to my object management / tracking stuff for debug purposes. Not particularly exciting, but helpful. The other portion is thanks to that swell guy Overkill, who went to the trouble of adding the keybuffer stuff to the lua binding, which instantly made the game feel more complete. Well, once I got past some weird kinks and quirks with both it and v3's printstring it did.
So this is pretty light and not especially exciting, but I am back on course. Look forward to a tasty update next week.
Fri, May 23rd 2008, 11:14
Revisionist Mystery
Let's get this out of the way: there are no screens this week.
Fri, May 23rd 2008, 11:14
The industry/technology system has been redesigned. Again. This time around I'm feeling that this is going to be the one that makes it to release. It's a nice balance of simplicity and sophistication. What's even better is that it's no longer directly tied to the "active" component of the game. This means I can breathe easily while tinkering with getting it just right instead of constantly making large/hacky changes to the tech system to keep everything in sync. Sadly, all of this is just in notebooks and text files right now, so I haven't got anything to show.
Wait. Did I just say "active" component? What could that possibly mean? Am I just making up this stuff up to make my game sound more awesome? Or is there something to it? Don't touch that dial!
Fri, May 16th 2008, 13:25
Half and Half
The way things went this week (and given the nature of the project), it
seems most fitting to break this week's update into two parts: client and
server. As this was an overly productive week, I'm only to present an
overview of the major changes.
Fri, May 16th 2008, 13:25
The Client:
I spent the first part of my week absolutely tearing up the client. I rewrote giant heaps of stuff for the purpose of saner organization. Of particular note (from the would-be players' perspective), the entire "galactic heirarchy" was rewritten. It's now more "realistic", which I originally had mixed feelings about, but now that it's in place, I'm actually quite satisfied with it.
So, some UI components have been shuffled around, and it's a lot more colorful now. There's still quite a distance to go, but it's starting to really take shape visually, which always feels rewarding.
The Server:
This was definitely the most frustrating task, in spite of it not being all that complicated or challenging. You see, I went to the trouble of writing out a very specific client design, so that I wasn't just fumbling around until I ended up at the finish line. I did the same with my network protocol. For some reason, though, I completely failed to think through the design for the server and, as a result, it was a treacherous, unwieldy force-to-be-reckoned-with. So, I went in and chopped it to pieces, saving a few useful fragments. Then I pieced it all back together (this time with a cohesive vision in mind). The result? It does exactly what it did before. The important difference is that it is significantly easier to maintain.
If this game were to become wildly popular, I'd probably have to rewrite the server for efficiency, but as it stands now, it's reasonably swift and super easy to manage.
Fri, May 9th 2008, 14:18
Mundane Success
I spent this past week getting the server framework in place and getting the client and server to have
meaningful interactions. I am happy to report that this all went quite smoothly and that things
are really starting to fall into place. Most of the foundational stuff is in and working without a
hitch, so now it's really just a matter of expanding it into an actual game. No small feat, sure, but
the "hard" part is out of the way now.
Fri, May 9th 2008, 14:18
So, while there isn't much of a game, and the action set is pretty limited, it's fair to say that things are going swimmingly! However, all is not sunshine and rainbows. There is a dark, sinister truth yet to be told. There are two gigantic, glaring, and completely-unforgivable flaws with VERGE that are crippling my development efforts. First is that that jerk Kildorf managed to break line drawing by causing it to disinclude an entire pixel occasionally. Second is that, somehow, the keybuffer stuff has yet to be properly bound to Lua, leaving all of my text inputting capabilities in the lurch. Okay, so these aren't really stopping me from getting anything done, but I will be very happy when they're remedied.
There are no screens this week on account of there's nothing new to show. Since all the changes are to the background behavior, nothing actually looks any different. I could just post an old screen and call it a new one if I really wanted; it'd be accurate, but silly. Over the coming week, I'll be putting in more mechanics, so there should actually be some screens next time.
Fri, May 2nd 2008, 10:32
Socket To Me
I admittedly didn't get as much done this week as I was expecting to.
I did, however, finally take the plunge and merge my networking stuff
in with the main game. This went surprisingly well, with only a few
unexpected quirks that were easy to fix. While it doesn't really
do anything useful just yet, it is in place, and the client
and server play nicely with each other, which is quite satisfying.
Fri, May 2nd 2008, 10:32
With that out of the way, I took to the burdensome task of writing out the network protocol specification. This is quite boring and requires lots of me sketching and scribbling on paper. I think it's safe to say that the core principles are quite solid. Documenting all the different exchanges is going to take a bit more work, but the end result will be a super-handy reference manual that will make the actual implementation significantly easier.
So, where are the pictures? Well, I wasn't originally planning on doing so much network (read: not screenshot worthy) stuff, so.. here:
Just so that there is something to look at. The important thing to notice is that clump of blue in the upper left corner. That's the network activity indicator. Its purpose is shrouded in mystery, or perhaps it just indicates network activity.
And that wraps up this week's report. Tune in next time for Adventures in Getting the Client and Server to Actually do What I Want.
Fri, Apr 25th 2008, 15:30
Deadlines
or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Free Time
Fri, Apr 25th 2008, 15:30
First, I'd like to state, out in the open, that I have now set a deadline for this project. I will have it to "open beta" status as of August 1, 2008. Can it be done? Absolutely. Can I do it? "Yes". Anyhow, this gives me a little over three months from today to get more or less everything done. After that point, the only changes should be small tweaks based on playtesting. With any luck, this aggressive timetable will get me moving and producing like never before.
Coming hot of the heels of that bold declaration, it's time to discuss this week's progress. There are no screenshots. Again. Get over it. However, after extensive tinkering, begging, pleading, and other unspeakable acts, I've gotten the socket functionality I want dropped into VERGE so that I can proceed with my diabolical plans. Yes, that's right; I said sockets. That means this does network stuff. Cool network stuff.
I promise tasty, visual-type updates next week, so stay tuned.
Fri, Apr 18th 2008, 15:28
More Design Revisions
Despite having fought tooth and nail to get somewhere with my
network code, I have basically nothing to show (or even report)
in that regard.
Fri, Apr 18th 2008, 15:28
This, however, does not mean I accomplished nothing. Even more (and more dramatic) design changes have been made. The economy system is starting to shape up and feel complete-ish. Now it's simply a matter of getting enough other things done that I can drop it in and do some field tests.
I've also decided to use a more literal representation for star systems, notably, that each actually has a star and orbital bodies now, instead of the old "representative" system. I still feel like it's a bit cluttered feeling, but it's also more intuitive to navigate, and gives me the opportunity to add more personality to each system.
The technology and defense systems have also been revised and are kind of fused together now. This is one is fairly satisfying, since it feels like a more balanced and complete set of mechanics.
All of the changes, while described vaguely here, are pretty significant in determining just what the end result will be. I'm pretty confident that these revisions are leading to a much better and more interesting game, and so I'm actually kind of glad that I put it off for as long as I have and am revisiting it now.
Fri, Apr 11th 2008, 15:13
Screens of Screens
Some stuff on display this week, but most of the real progress
is, naturally, in the background. I made some sweeping design
changes to the economic model. For the better, I think. Details?
You'll just have to wait.
Fri, Apr 11th 2008, 15:13
Apart from that, I "finished" a couple menu screens. Sadly, as awesome as I was convinced my UI system is, I've discovered that it still takes a while to put the elements together. However, it's lightning quick to make changes afterwards, so it's not a total loss. Also, the mini-map was an awful monster to wrangle with; I just want to throw that out there.
I encountered a bit of an issue with Lua when mixing "integer" and non-integer math. Fortunately, once the cause was discovered, it only took a few small fixes to get everything working again. Thanks go to Kildorf for helping me get to the root of it.
The done-for-now options screen:
The still-very-much-a-work-in-progress galaxy screen:
I'm quite satisfied with this week's work, even if I don't have a whole lot to show for it here. Here's hoping for another solid update next week!
Sat, Apr 5th 2008, 01:48
Mired in UI
Well, I ended up reworking more of the existing UI stuff.
I can't seem to leave well enough alone.
Sliders (pictured below) are also included now, which I somehow forgot about before.
I changed the way they look this time around;
they've got a "fatter" quality, but the end result is more colorful and easier to use,
so I'm satisfied.
Sat, Apr 5th 2008, 01:48
Not quite the progress I was hoping for, but progress none the less!
Fri, Mar 28th 2008, 11:38
UI Usefulness
I ended up rewriting a rather large chunk of the UI system, and the end result
is something much more flexible and faster to work with. This is good. What is
not so good is that, content-wise, the game is about where it was. That said,
I'm very happy with the changes, since they'll make my life significantly easier.
Fri, Mar 28th 2008, 11:38
Old:
Current:
Nothing spectacular at work there, but I thought I'd start throwing at least this together to show how it's coming along.
Fri, Mar 21st 2008, 12:16
Bits and Pieces
The UI functionality is more or less done; it's now just a matter of building
all of the menus, panels, and whatnots with it. Sadly this is rather
uninteresting, but I've provided a screen of some non-specific objects
just hanging out.
Fri, Mar 21st 2008, 12:16
So next week is inline to have some completed interfaces to show.
Fri, Mar 14th 2008, 12:08
Points of Light
I've started rewriting the original game in Lua; yes, it's worth the trouble.
So far, I've only got some basic UI ability and the starfield done.
Fri, Mar 14th 2008, 12:08
Provided for comparison:
Old:
New:
Based on some preliminary tinkering, it seems like I'm looking at a 40-50% performance boost with the changes I've made so far. Not half bad, eh?
Fri, Mar 7th 2008, 10:53
The Need for Feed
As I'm sure most, if not all of you are aware at this point,
I've cobbled together an
aggregator / scoreboard for Gruedorf.
Does this count as non-losing Gruedorf work?
Sadly, this decision rests in the hands of one man.
A man so terrible, he does bad things. Really bad
things. To other people. For fun.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, although I did put the
Gruedorf page together, our resident Fri, Mar 7th 2008, 10:53
You have been warned.
This is actually a double announcement, though. I've also decided to put my current game in cryostasis for a while and work on something else. The goal is to create something in a shorter amount of time and to be decidedly more open out the development. As far as what it actually is? Well, you'll just have to wait and see (I feel less secretive already!), but it has roots in several old, failed projects spanning the better part of a decade, so I'll be very glad to finally get this out the door. And for those of you concerned about the future of my old game, this is actually going to be used, in part, as a test for some concepts from it. Waste not, want not.
Wed, Feb 20th 2008, 13:29
Stop Touching Me
Progress this week isn't substantial, but it is significant.
Behold! Generic polygon collision capability.
Wed, Feb 20th 2008, 13:29
That's right, now triangles everywhere will be inappropriately touching innocent young trapezoids when no one is looking.
I'll be the first to admit that this is not especially pretty and it still needs to be dropped into the main engine, but it is ready to roll; time to move on to more interesting things, some of which, with any luck, can be sampled in the next update.
Tue, Feb 12th 2008, 18:22
Not Dead Yet
After an exceedingly long lapse in updates, I proudly present to you: nothing!
Well, sort of.
After some gentle poking and prodding by assorted individuals, it was discovered I am, in fact, still alive.
Moreover, I am back in the running for the Dorf of Grue.
I spent a good amount of time re-writing the existing engine more or less from scratch to be, well, better.
It's cleaner, faster, more efficient, more flexible -- just all around sexier.
So, from here on out you'll be treated to real, measurable progress. Honest.Tue, Feb 12th 2008, 18:22
Thu, Dec 27th 2007, 12:15
Could Be Worse
It's probably just coincidence, but it seems like ever since I joined Gruedorf, I actually get less done. This was another hectic week of minimal progress, some sketching and planning but nothing major. I am no longer going to try and predict when the next big update will occur; I'm tired of being wrong. Look forward to next week when maybe, just maybe, great things will happen.Thu, Dec 27th 2007, 12:15
Thu, Dec 13th 2007, 17:07
Quick and Dirty
First, the good news: I now have a working engine rough-cut in LuaVerge. Now, the bad: the next week looks to be rather hectic for me, so I can almost guarantee the next update will be lame. Finally, the worst: my internet connection is on the fritz (I'm making this post from a nearby internet cafe). So, this week's update, which should have been grand and sprinkled with delicious screenshots is, in fact, quite plain and disappointing.Thu, Dec 13th 2007, 17:07
Thu, Dec 6th 2007, 15:31
Ho-Hum Conundrum
I didn't really think I could top last week's update, but here we are and, sure enough, it's an even bigger disappointment.
Not so much because little is getting done -- quite the opposite!
It's all either very mundane stuff (becoming comfortable with Lua) or yet to be disclosed stuff (super-secret design).
But plenty is being done; in particular, I think the world design is really starting to come together.
I'm actually starting to get itchy fingers for releasing information, so it's only a (short) matter of time until I crack this thing wide open.Thu, Dec 6th 2007, 15:31
Thu, Nov 29th 2007, 16:09
Lua Luau
Nothing substantial to report this week;
I've been considering jumping aboard the
LuaVerge
bandwagon.
As such, I spent some of this week experimenting with Lua
to see if it's worth the extra trouble to learn,
but have yet to decide either way.
I also drew a few character portraits which,
until I get a scanner, are of little use.Thu, Nov 29th 2007, 16:09
Thu, Nov 22nd 2007, 22:11
Protoman Dash
I ended up making two (okay, three, but two of them were different incarnations of the same thing)
prototypes as a sort of feasibility assessment.
Provided below are sexy screens. No, really. Well, maybe it's just my vector fetish.
Either way, look on in amazement at my mindblowing circles and lines!
Thu, Nov 22nd 2007, 22:11
Camera Prototype
I'm not using any of the built-in rubbish, so I need to be sure that I have a workable map system that caters to my specific needs. "What needs are those?" you may ask. Wouldn't you like to know! Perhaps you can decypher something from the screen. Perhaps.
Combat Prototype
Behold, the mighty combat prototype. This is very quick and dirty and lacks basically every feature. It does, however, give me confidence that the player interaction is manageable and can, indeed, be made fun to play. This is good.
So what does it all mean? It means that the game is a go. And I'm having a bit of fun doing what I have so far, though I see some rough patches looming in the distance. Ah well, we'll get there soon enough.
Fri, Nov 16th 2007, 16:35
A Bold Move?
VERGE, I choose you!
Fri, Nov 16th 2007, 16:35
This may seem unsurprising, but there was, in fact, great deliberation about it. As much as I've come to love VERGE, it has some shortcomings that are getting harder to ignore as the things I want to take on become larger and more elaborate. In spite of this, VERGE has won me over yet again (this time). The reality is that, as a one-man operation, I just can't argue with the rapid development that it offers. If that means I have to work around a few kinks, so be it. It's worth it to me.
Now, about the game itself: This is something I've been half kicking around for a good year or two now. I'm electing to not describe it as anything more than "Tactical Action RPG" for now. That's probably somewhat inaccurate, but it does get your curiousity juices flowing, no?
It's had a few false starts before now, but I've finally managed to sit down and really hammer out the design. This is a boon not just to morale, but also to productivity, since I've gone to the trouble of working everything out in advance instead of, well, when I realize that something wasn't clearly thought through and needs much fixing. At least I think I've thought it all through..
Anyhow, I've actually gotten quite a bit done. Honest. But because it's all super-secret design stuff and I'm a jerk, you don't get any details. There is good news, though! Over the coming week I'll work up a prototype to make sure this will actually be fun to play. Screens will no doubt be in order.
Sat, Nov 10th 2007, 18:15
Minty Fresh Breath of Life
"It's alive"
Sat, Nov 10th 2007, 18:15
In response to the Gruedorf challenge (and considerable nagging by several parties), I've cobbled together this little corner of the web (with the help and "encouragement" of the fabulous Ben McGraw). Here I intend to demonstrate my indisputable awesomeness and just how hopeless the rest of the contenders (more like pretenders) are. Wielding my mighty Iron Fist of Productivity™, I will crush and humiliate all comers.
Chest thumping aside, I'm excited to be participating, even though I think my track record clearly shows that I'm plenty productive on my own, which brings up another point: the nature of this contest, being actively public, goes against my normal ritual for working on a project. I'd much prefer to lurk in the shadows, toiling away and then unload my awesome wares when least expected. In light of this, I'm expecting that my updates will be very teaser-like in nature until I see fit to start revealing the meaty parts -- you have been warned. So, for now, the details of my project are super-duper secret and the curious will just have to wait for the next update to get their first taste.
Unrelated to Gruedorf, you'll also notice that I've included a selection of my Games for you to play and enjoy if you haven't already (or would like to again); I'd also like to draw your attention to the fact that the wundermint comes in a variety of tasty flavors. Feel free to choose to chew the view for you.
