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This is MetalMorphosis, my entry for the 2010 Indie Game Challenge...

The grand prize is $100,000 (2 top prizes, one for pro and non-pro). There are lots of other prizes, ranging from technical awards to degrees.




Extract it to the place where 'metalmorphosis.exe' is and overwrite everything. It includes new controls (WASD movement, 2nd mouse button grenades, space to switch characters)

It's 272 mb. I know it's a zip file but the installer is already compressed at max so a RAR and Zip are both the same size, despite compression ratio.

It's a 3rd person shooter and was made with DBP. Take a look...





It's got shadows, PhysX physics, and deformable walls, to name a few things. Seriously, if you shoot the walls you punch them in and make holes. That took me a week to get right. Also, you can't really 'die' and you can control any friendly teammate.

Let me know what you think, what I could change and fix. Hope you like it!

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downloading now and will give this a run-through when i get time, cash; i'm looking forward to trying this out.

looks like judging won't be held until jan 15th so we'll be rootin' for you until then

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OK I've been playing this for a few mins now and have spotted a few strange things:

Rig: Vista 32bit SP1, Intel Q6600, Nvidia 8800GTS

1 - The game window isn't fullscreen windowed or fullscreen exclusive, it's the size of my screen but I can still see the systray and the title bar. Also, the window isn't the correct size to preserve perfect pixel clarity so the text and such is a bit hard to read due to the sampling(this sampling also lowers FPS and make it look worse).

2 - The controls screen should only be passed once the user presses some key after it's loaded, the first time I played I didn't instantly notice the controls so I missed most of it. Though I now see that pausing it shows them again, but knowing how to pause requires reading it .

3 - Why is right click move? This is rather random and deserves its own point, the movement should be WASD, grenade could be right click instead or at least allow the user to change it.

4 - Either these boss type enemies have amazing amounts of health or my gun is next to useless, it takes way too many shots to take down the spiders and the mech thing. Grenades work well at killing them, but I have to get rather close to use them as my marine's armour is clearly far too heavy to allow him to throw any decent distance, and getting close means I continually die until I can throw a few nades.

5 - The AI is rather bad, I can just stand still most of the time and they will get stuck against walls or doorways thus allowing me to kill them quite easily(though it still takes ages). The same goes for your allies, they have no clue what they're doing most of the time, at one point I was in the main boss area with my 2 dudes and whenever I looked away from the enemy the other marine looked at the mech and did nothing, when I looked at the mech he turned away and continues to do nothing, even as I shot it.

6 - The animations sometimes transition but other times it quickly snaps to a different one which isn't very aesthetically pleasing, such as when you look away from an enemy thus lowering the gun then quickly face an enemy, the player will instantly snap into an aiming pose, or when you're shooting and you strafe.

7 - The movement is a bit dodgy, especially strafing left, sometimes when I strafe left I end up strafing to the right at extreme speeds, it even allows me to pass through walls and other objects.


The graphics were pretty cool though, it was just a tad annoying to play.

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Thanks DC for the feedback. I'll go through and address these issues.

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I found the aiming a bit weird- couldn't really see where I was aiming vertically - but that might just be that I don't really play games so I'm just not as quick at picking up controls. Nevertheless I didn't really have time to get accustomed to it as the w&s keys stopped working quite quickly. I could only strafe right to left using a and d (which was weird - I thought they were turn at first) but sometimes it seemed to glitch a little and send me backwards and right instead of left. I ended up trapped in the back right hand corner pretty much doing nothing.

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can't get used to those controls, cash. will try again once you change/allow us to configure them.

suggestions/remarks:

1) use unique tracer colors to help with somewhat-confusing combat.

2) please re-pack without dx9.0 as we test your various versions; we've all got it here.

3) mouse pointer present in top-left of cutscene. beside that, and the poor text readability, the cutscene is very cool

4) cog/gear images don't rotate on center.

5) good stuff!

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Okay, I'll fix the controls right now. I just got back from trick or treating with the kids. It's a throwback to the Geisha House controls, which is a throwback to the old Ultima games. WASD just doesn't work in an overhead view and I failed to change them when I switched views (halfway through development)

When I repost I'll pack it up regular DBP game style, no installer or drivers. I'll do that separately.

I sure wish I'd had time to have you all test it before I sent it off, I was just working on it until the last possible minute.

@demons breath -
There is no vertical aiming, a flaw that is my fault for using the crappy GH overhead view at first and putting a band aid over it. I'm going to fix it.

@Virtual Nomad -
Changing the controls right now.

1) Tracers, okay.

2) No more drivers, I'll package them separately.

3) I sure didn't notice the mouse, I'll increase the text size, fix the mouse, and re-record. I'm going to put this fix at the bottom of my issues list, htough.

4) cogs - they're rusty?

5) good stuff! - thanks for playing!

@DC -
1. resolution - I'm going to make it windowed fullscreen and match the desktop resolution. Ultimately I'm going to include a loader that lets you choose, I just didn't have the time.

2. controls screen - Got it. I'll make the game pause once automatically once it starts.

3. controls - Changed it. My strafing is still weird, I'll get to the bottom of it. I've never been a strafer for some reason. Like I said above, it's a throwback to GH which is based on Ultima. This had the GH view at first but I changed it without changing the controls. That's also why I didn't include vertical aiming, unfortunately.

4. bosses - The boss enemies have lots of health (they have thicker health bars). On boss #2 the guns are effective if all three players are shooting at once. Boss 3 would be, except it's aiming makes that difficult. I did limit the throwing distance on purpose, they're powerful but not as easy to use. I'm not entirely satisfied with them, but they're alright.

5. ai - I'm leaning too heavily on Dark AI for the players. They do act stupid sometimes. I'll be fighting for my life and they're strafing around in circles next to me. Switching between them and focusing fire tends to help, but players shouldn't have to do that.

As for the enemies getting stuck, that's Dark AI as well. I actually don't apply any level collision at all to friendly units or enmies, which is why they can climb on top of things, I don't want them to get stuck. When they collide with something I tell the AI system and they're supposed to work their way around it. The friendly units seem pretty good at it. I'm not sure what to do about this but I'll definitely address it.

6. animations - I'll look into it, I know what you're talking about. I ignored it for the sake of time.

7. movement - Working on it right now.

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Cash,

I've been working with DarkAI for a little while Cash, and I haven't really experienced the problems present here, if I can help in any way, let me know!

Good luck with the competition though, isn't the deadline for the entries today, so.... isn't it too late to make any changes?!

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???

forever loading...

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@BF -
Thanks, I appreciate it. Do you have any projects that use Dark AI effectively in them?

I know, they have the stupid interface version. I just want the game to be as good as it can be. I'm not done with this by a long shot.

@thenerd -
That error doesn't make any sense. Here is the offending code...
+ Code Snippet

if file exist("assets/cutscene.wmv")
	stopAllMusic()
	load animation "assets/cutscene.wmv",1
	PLACE ANIMATION 1,0,0,screen width()-1,screen height()-1
	play animation 1
	while endkeys=0
		if spacekey() or returnkey() or escapekey() then endkeys=1
		if animation playing(1)=0 then endkeys=1
		sync
	endwhile
	stop animation 1
	delete animation 1
	playMusic(loadingMusicName$,0,0)
endif

It will only load the cutscene if it exists. It must be corrupt. If you reinstall it should fix it.

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Just wondering, but your Location says your from Germany, in the rules of the Game Challenge it states you must be a resident of the US. Resident being currently living there.

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Incorrect. Being in the military does not disqualify you. A US military base is the United States. By your logic someone in Hawaii couldn't enter either.

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I didn't say that. I didn't even know you were living on a base. I'm not made of magical location knowledge(although I'd like to be). I was just making sure you weren't wasting your effort. I am not trying to prove you wrong or something. So don't take offence. However I was just curious since the rules state you have to be a resident of a US state. It might be worth checking into and emailing them to make sure your still eligible since to me it looks like a grey area, ALTHOUGH I could be wrong.

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@BJ-
No problem, thanks. I already emailed them and they've long since replied.

I just posted a patch for version 1.2, it's 4 mb.


Extract it to the place where 'metalmorphosis.exe' is and overwrite everything. It includes -

New controls - WASD, Space to switch characters, 2nd mouse button for grenades
Added a pause when the game starts, forcing you to look at the controls
Changed the resolution. Now it defaults to your desktop resolution if it's set to 0 in the config file. If you want to change it go into 'assets/config.ini' and change the resolution. It's also fullscreen, but not exclusive, so it won't crash if you switch apps or minimize it. It is faster, thanks DC.

It isn't perfect, there is no walking backwards animation yet, for instance. I'm working on that.

I'm about to post a full version without drivers, and then a final one with them.

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@Cash
thenerd's error means that he doesn't have the required DirectShow filters to load the animation. DBPro uses DirectShow internally, so it can only load and play animations for which the user has filters. You should be able to find a filter for the encoding type you are using for the video, and include it in the installer. That is the only way you can be sure that the animation will load correctly.

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That's a bummer. Thanks. You'd think it would be included in DirectX. Can you direct me to a good download page? My searches aren't giving me much useful information.

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Well, I'd need to know what encoding you used to create the animations.

If you search for '<encoding name> directshow filter download' it should give some good results.

The filters can't really be included with directx because most of the encodings are made by third parties. (Such as DivX) There would be too many to try to give everyone every possible filter with directx. Also, DirectShow was removed from directx in 2004.

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This is garbage. Everthing has to be so difficult. You'd think that everyone would have WMV drivers installed considering it's Microsoft's idiot format, which is why I used it in the first place. I used Windows Movie Maker to made a 3 mbps video, it doesn't tell me anything else. Is there a plugin that can do it without external dependencies?

DBP just shouldn't use the video if it's unsupported. It's so weak when something so trivial just causes the game to crash with an unhelpful error message. I guess we're lucky there was an error message at all. There is one introduction video and it isn't even critical that it plays.

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re: the vid, looks like WMV3/9, circa 2003 technology, so...

@thenerd, what version of media player do you have installed?

here's the link to Windows Media Player downloads incase you need it. (screenshot of the error looks XP so u may be running v8 still).

@cash,

some people suggest distributing WMV2/8 movies still, to ensure compatability, so you may want to look at downloading one of the many free video converters out there. at the same time, it might be worth investing in Dark Video as the built-in video play here is obviously imperfect. either way, i wouldn't get worked up if some users can't see the video since we already know the built-in animation commands are scant (ie, would be nice to have some built-in checks for codecs installed/whether the user's system can play the video before we tell it to). anyway, convert to WMV2/8 if you're concerned, or simply add "Windows Media Player 9.0+ Required". ... and, i'll add a disclaimer here that i don't know it all when it comes to this stuff so if someone has something to add, please do (diggsey, *nudge nudge*)

meanwhile...

controls are now much easier. thanks for that!

the issue for me now is the FPS; i'm getting hammered. after playing a while, i find the physics objects (cans, boxes, etc) in a constant state of movement (all of them), dragging me down to ~2-5 FPS, for the most part. i'm pretty sure this starts once i get to/activate the spiders; it goes nuts there. before this, it's very playable tho still sub-30 FPS IIRC.

system specs:
AMD Phenom™ X4 9750 Quad-Core @ 2.4 GHz . 8 GB PC2-6400 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3650 @ 512 MB . Vista Home Premium 64 Bit

the AI seems a little better this time around. did you tweak something there? maybe it was just my ability to move around a lot better this time,

>deleted comments on grenades as it's already been mentioned. oops!

by the way, i looked at the cog images and yah, they're worn and warped. i tried to do some quick work on them but couldn't produce the centered rotation i was looking for so, since i might be the only one it bugs, i'm considering working some up from scratch

edit: i had to take out some of the smileys as it was just annoying for me to see. i guess i'm just in a good mood, but they had to go!

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@VN -
Thanks for the feedback. I'm really surprised that it's dragging for you, your system sounds fast. Also, the physics bodies are only supposed to exist for 10 seconds before they become static again (until they get distrubed). What's your desktop resolution? Could it be super high?

I'll definitely convert the video to an earlier format, and eventually get DarkVideo as well. Thanks for clearing that up.

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i just deleted the cutscene, everything worked fine then.
nice game!

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Yo, yes I do, infact strangely enough I have a project very similar to this one! I'm staying at my parents at the moment, as I haven't seen them in a long while, but I'll be returning home of Monday, so I'll get in touch with you then.

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ok, this time around i went through more methodically, trying to see what's causing the FPS hit and it's definitely a matter of the boxes and cans shown in this SS below not settling for quite some time. if i blow em up/shoot them, they "reset" and do settle for awhile until i move on and blow other stuff up. then, FPS starts dropping and i work my way back to this room to find them jittering again. the first time i returned to find them jittering, a medium spider was present. is this by design? clearing the room and having it spawn later to ambush if we retreat there? if so, i think that spider is causing the jitters since, when i kill it, affecting the boxes, etc, around it as i do so, the objects, again, settle down and my FPS climbs. also, no matter what, when the 2 large spiders spawn, it's mayhem/massive slow-down as they deal serious damage to everything around them.



also worth mentioning, i was able to hold ~25-35 FPS up until i freed the lieutenant (female) and began fighting the boss at the doorway; it then dropped to ~12-15 FPS until i killed him.

and, question: is the grenade movement/distance timer-based? i ask because it appears when my FPS drops, the grenades pretty much land right in front of me. otherwise, they go a decent distance away. i tried to prove this one way or another but dealing with everything else at the same time, i couldn't test the theory as well as i should have.

i'll be gone for a couple days so can't test again until then.

btw, how much further do you intend to develop this? is it a matter of getting everything "right" so far, as a test project, or are you going to flesh this out completely? it has serious potential and i'd love to see the latter!

oh, and to answer your question, i run at 1680x1050.

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@thenerd -
I'm glad to hear! I'll annotate the animation error and workaround until I regress the version. Thanks for following up on it.

@BF -
Looking forward to collaborating with you

@VN -
I bet the resolution is killing you. Version 1.2 matches your desktop resolution, and that's pretty high. You might change it to 800x600 and work your way up, maybe that will help.

I attached a new config.ini file to this post. You can drop it in your 'assets' folder and overwrite the old one. All I did was change the resolution to 800 by 600 by changing these lines...


If either one is set to '0' then it defaults to your desktop resolution.

The script file is pretty flexible, you won't mess anything up if the formatting isn't exactly right. ';' is a comment.

As for the grenade, it's timer based. It's very odd that it depends on the framerate, for me it works the same whether it's going 60 fps or 30. I need to check on that, I consider that a serious issue since the grenades are necessary to take out the bosses.

The spiders kind of 'eat' the boxes and debris, that's why they destroy them and start to grow. Everything disturbs everything, so I can imagine this being a problem when things start rattling around. I just hope it's your resolution, if not I'm going to have to do some more work on it.

I have big visions for this. I want this to be one aspect of my space based RTS. Basically there will be a variety of planets you can visit, a fleet of ships you can build, and various planet levels like this for you to deal with. I'm currently planning it all out. I can manage the game's resources well enough that I think I can make it all work together. The planet and stars in the cutscene are a preview of this.

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Just downloaded the "...Version 1.2, No Drivers, 130 mb" and get the following error:



Before I go to the trouble of downloading again (it took an hour ), is that supposed to be a complete download or do I have to download something else as well? WinRAR did extract an Assets folder (about 273 mb) but nothing else.

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I get the same... It stops the download early after about an hour of downloading... It got to about 10% and I was hoping to leave it going all day. (this was the 130MB). But the download stopped after 1 hour and gave me the message that GG reports. Very annoying...

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I'll look into it...

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I just tested the download, it works for me. I have a really fast connection, it probably helps. My server is pretty fast, it only took 7 minutes to download the no driver version to my computer. I hope it works for you guys.

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Try and make a download over 1 hour long. Your server might be limiting the time. My server did that, but it cut out after 2 minutes! So it was easier to spot.

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Good point. I'll check to see if that's going on.

Tonight I'll break up the download into pieces, and I'll try to resolve the timing out issue.

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Just tried downloading again on a better machine and I get exactly the same problem as before. Took about 40 minutes this time. The RAR file is there as before and the same files seem to be present.

Could it be a WinRAR version issue?

WinRAR says the unpacked size should be 287,409,544 bytes and the WinRAR file size on disk is 131,629,056 bytes. Is that correct? If so then it doesn't seem to be a download speed problem - the error messages do say a file seems to be corrupt.

Haave you tried unpacking the file as well as downloading it?

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I did, this morning. I was concerned that I uploaded a corrupted version but it worked for me. I used WinRAR to pack it. Maybe a version issue? I don't know what version I have at home, I downloaded it fairly recently though.

I'll put it into a zip file and upload it this evening, maybe that will help.

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OK thanks. I'll try that later if I'm still stuck.

In the meantime I'll see if I can find out what version(s) of the extractor I'm using and whether I can upgrade them. If it's purely a WinRAR upgrade issue then the downloads I already have may be OK.

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I've just tried upgrading WinRAR on my laptop and I seem to have the same problem.

You can easily check which RAR version you are using by checking Help About while WinRAR is open. Perhaps I failed to locate the right version? Here are my two versions which both fail:



"Code bloat" connoisseurs might like to note that this seems to be an example of "image bloat".

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Image Bloat

I'm not sure, I'm not at home. Right now the government is paying me to post messages. Fraud, waste, and abuse.

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Just tried using the 64 bit version of WinRAR to see if that helps. It didn't.

I'll try downloading your file one last time. Otherwise it's back to your zip file option ...

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I'm about to upload the zip files, I'm making sure they're going to work first.

I have WinRar 3.80. Weird.

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I'm uploading the two zip files now. It will be ready in around 30 minutes.

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The tension mounts.

I'm still waiting for my last download attempt to complete ...

Edit

Just finished downloading.

File seems to be identical to previous version so it doesn't seem like a broken download. Still get "unexpected end of archive" error with just the Assets folder and contents.

The tension is really mounting now ...

Edit2

Should add (just in case anyone is wondering) - I'm still talking about the RAR file. Waiting anxiously for the zip version ...

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CC2

Is the zip file for version 1.2 ready yet? I can't locate it if it is.