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Work in Progress / Cyber Wars: Last Stand

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Plystire
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Posted: 11th Dec 2008 11:36 Edited at: 31st Dec 2008 07:08
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Name: Cyber Wars: Last Stand

Some History:

"Last Stand" is a sub-story to "Cyber Wars: Infestation". While "Infestation" is taking place in a virtual world inside of a computer, "Last Stand" goes a bit deeper. This game takes place in a virtual world inside the virtual world of "Infestation".


Story:

Corrupting a CPU is no easy task, everyone knows that. But why does it take so much effort to bring it down?
Even defenseless, the corruption of a CPU could take hours or even days! No one knew why...

until now.

Deep in the recesses of the CPU's internal memory lies a lone byte. This little fellow is the reason behind
every CPU's tenacity to resist foreign influences. While the enemy corruption data streams enter the memory
of the main CPU, standard defenses are employed to hold off the threat. Many times, if left defenseless, this
will fail. When faced with certain corruption, the CPU's last stand takes the helm and begins to fight...
to save it's home.

The thing about bytes is... comprised of so little memory, they have a certain stubborness and never
give in. They fight till their last waking pulse of energy is all but gone. But this byte is no ordinary 8-bit
piece of standard memory. It alone holds the very digital life-force of the CPU itself. So long as the lone
soldier remains, the CPU has a chance to recover!

Equipped with the ability to recover corrupted memory and safely store it within it's personal quarantined
section of space, the CPU's last hope of survival cannot fail.


You... are that hope, and you have been activated to prevent the corruption of your home!!!

Recover the stolen memory before it's too late. Use the memory you save as a source of strength to expand
your arsenal and wreak havoc amongst the invading virus threat!

------------------------------------------------------


Gameplay:

The gameplay of Last Stand is that of a top-down flight 'n' fight genre. You take the role of the CPU's last line of defense, the 'Soul Byte'.

The controls are simple, use your mouse to aim where you want to go. The further from the center of the screen you are aiming the faster you'll accelerate in that direction. To shoot, you simply left click.

The object of the game is to fend off all corrupted data within the CPU until external sources (Think "Cyber Wars: Infestation") are able to eliminate the source of the infection. Of course, this is only possible if you are playing in a NON-defenseless CPU. If your CPU is defenseless, then the game will not end and the virus hordes will continue to come until you are fully corrupted. (How well protected your CPU is will be an option, ranging from "Well Protected" all the way down to "Defenseless")

Your health is not displayed on screen, instead your ship will slowly turn from Blue to Red as you take damage. When your ship becomes fully Red, then you have become corrupted and revert back into Byte form, ending the game.



Planned =
Working On =
Implemented =
Bug Labeled as Feature =

Game Mechanics:

- Enemies that spawn in groups -
- "Bit" characters -
- "Byte" characters -
- Ally System -
- Ships will rendezvous with target or take evasive maneuvers -
- Increasingly difficult waves of enemies -
- Weapons:
- - AI "Orb" -
- - Bullets -
- - Laser -
- - Virus Seeking Missiles -
- Memory pickups dropped from enemies -
- Weapon Attachment System -
- Usage of Memory between waves for weapons/upgrades/allies -


Layout:

- Title Screen -
- Options Screen - ??? (Not sure if anything else will be added)
- Compiler Screen -
- Pause Screen -
- Game Over Screen -
- Victory Screen -


Compiler Screen Features:

- Weapon Attachment array -
- Ship Editor GUI -
- Upgrade Weapon Power and Rate of Fire -
- Compile Allies for next Wave -
- Options for adjusting Ally Behavior -


-------------------------------------------------

Current News:

NEW DEMO -
I just uploaded a new Demo for everyone to play with. There are some concepts I've been toying around with in this Demo. Some of them mentioned by users here.

New Controls for this Demo:
Okay, not really new "controls" for the game itself, lol, but I've added some more "ease of use" for the "Ship Editor GUI" window.

Pan: Hold Right-Click and drag inside of window
Zoom: Mouse Wheel

You can find it here:
https://forumfiles.thegamecreators.com/download/1659605

****************
ANY MEDIA INCLUDED WITH THIS PACKAGE MAY NOT BE REDISTRIBUTED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM WITHOUT PERSONAL CONSENT BY IT'S AUTHOR (Me)
****************


This demo should work with most any resolution. The only time a resolution will have problems is if it's too small. Everything should still be functional, but Text Size is adjusted for the current resolution, so if you try to use a resolution that's relatively low, the text may just appear as some pixels mushed together.



In Line for development: (Before next Demo)
- New Enemies
- Different AI for different enemies
- Ability to "Win"

In Line for development: (Hopefully before next Demo)
- Shields (Upgrade-able / Purchase-able)
- Speed Booster (Upgrade-able / Purchase-able)
- KiloByte Enemies (MiniBoss) (Possibly randomly generated)
- MegaByte Enemies (Boss) (Randomly generated)
- Virus SoulByte (Nuisance)




Screenshot:

This screenshot is showing off the AI chasing after me as well as the particle system I have in place (the little cloud of blue lines). In this game the enemies explode into blue lines since you successfully recovered their data and it's now under your influence, and allies/you explode into red lines since they/you were corrupted and are under enemy influence.




C&C greatly appreciated.


The one and only,


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Plystire
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 03:42 Edited at: 12th Dec 2008 03:44
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First Video of gameplay:

Attached is a higher quality video.

Here is the YouTube quality video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR5lhUDqLDg


I prefer the higher quality because you can barely see the parallax backdrop on the YouTube version.


Please enjoy and leave feedback!


[EDIT]

Upload of video failed, so I removed it and replaced it with a screenshot of me getting massivly overwhelmed by viruses. Man, I gotta implement that laser to handle them all.



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zenassem
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 03:59
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Looks promising. Kind of hard to tell from the video, but you made it look like the aiming isn't as difficult as the recticle makes it look. Do you have a certain radius of accuracy?

Keep doin what you are doing.

~Zenassem
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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 05:07
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Looks intense, will be interesting to see pan out. Do you have any plans for environments, such as thing you could hit? I'm not sure the game would need it, but it would certainly help give variety.

Actually reminds me a bit of Homeworld fights with the trails and all, very cool.

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Plystire
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 06:09
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Thanks, guys! I wasn't sure anybody saw this, to be honest.


@zenassem:

Your bullets are as accurate as your cursor. But, you're right, I hit a lot of them very quickly but I attribute that mostly to the fact that there were so many guys in the direction I was aiming, lol.

I'm not sure what you mean by "radius of accuracy", but your bullets do disappear shortly after going off screen. I have been lucky enough to actually kill a few guys off screen, though.


@Bizar Guy:

Glad you like it. I know the area isn't very interesting other than the enemies that keep you company most of the time, but I do have a parallax field in the background consisting of circuit segments. I really would like to stay away from putting in things that the player could potentially run into because you're moving so fast and wildly that it would be very hard to avoid hitting such obstacles.

Though, I did have a thought for bosses. That is, after a certain amount of battles, the player will encounter a "KiloByte" enemy. The enemy would be much larger than the screen. (Think 8192 of those little guys running around, lol) During this, I would keep the player on a sort of "track" while engaging the enemy. At that time it would become a type of scroller shooter. You can use your imagination for now on that topic since I haven't fully panned out the details.


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Plystire
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 09:17
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New Screenshot!


This one is showing roughly how "far" I made it with the addition of the Laser weapon!!!

I've also added in Memory drops from enemies, which will later be used to compile better parts for your ship or compile allies to assist in the fight for survival!


The blue circular particles in the pic are from me recovering corrupted data (AKA, I picked up Memory from destroyed enemies )



Feedback PLEASE!!!



The one and only,


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Grandma
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 10:06
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Looking good, plystire.

Try not to make the background attract too much attention though. Have it simple. I've played some similar games and you can't believe the headache you get from differencing the game objects from the background in some games. That's what happens when the designers go overboard with the pretty-ness.

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Plystire
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 10:37 Edited at: 12th Dec 2008 10:43
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Haha, no worries there. I have a knack for keeping things not-so-pretty.
(Though, I could be evil and make the parallax background objects look like enemy bullets. )


Currently deriving a base for menus to run off of. After that has been completed, expect the Demo shortly after.


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Plystire
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 13:01
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Hmmmm, that didn't take as long as I thought it would.


DEMO!!!

It's attached.


C&C, Feedback, etc. etc.
are wanted!!!


The one and only,


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White Fang 12
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 13:28
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Great game, the controls were hard to get used to but when i did they were great. One trick if you don't know is


I'm a noob help will be accepted
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Jimpo
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 19:56
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I wanted to try this out, but I got the "Display not supported" error when trying to run the program. A lot of 3-4 year old computers can only support up to 1024 by 768. Maybe put in an options screen?

SFO
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C0wbox
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Posted: 12th Dec 2008 20:09
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Quote: "Maybe put in an options screen?"

Or have this at the startup of any application:


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Plystire
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Posted: 13th Dec 2008 07:11
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@White Fang:

I'm glad you enjoyed it!!!

Another trick that I forgot to mention is... hold SPACEBAR and it will keep your ship from accelerating, letting you aim and shoot while drifting.

I did know about that trick and it does help sometimes when you want to be ready to jump out once the bullets start flying.


@Jimpo:

Yes, I have an options screen planned (There was an options button but it wasn't functional so I made it red), it will default to your current screen resolution but you'll be able to change it in the options menu.

I want to keep the scale of the game the same, so I'm going to have to keep the images scaled to what they will look like at 1280x1024 (The resolution the game is playing at right now)

Hopefully you'll be able to play the next Demo that I release. I promise it'll be more exciting to play than this one.


@C0wbox:

Thanks!!! I was wondering how to get it to default to that, I will definitally put that in!!


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Morcilla
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Posted: 13th Dec 2008 10:33
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Looking neat so far
Perhaps you could include a radar, that would allow to know where those bad bytes are
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Plystire
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Posted: 13th Dec 2008 11:24
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Thanks, Morcilla!

You don't need to worry too much about where they are. Trust me, they'll find you.



Options screen is set up for the most part. It lets you change resolutions as well as set your desired difficulty. The difficulty meter is VERY sensitive... putting it at the top is just ASKING to be whiped out in a matter of seconds. (Unless you're quick on your feet and high tail it out of there the moment the game starts, lol)

To give you an idea of how hard setting the bar to full RED will be... remember that each group of enemies is larger and nastier than the last...... and the very first group consisted of roughly 120 enemies. Oh and did I mention that the higher the difficulty you set it on, the less damage YOU do, the more health THEY have, and the more damage they do to you?


The Demo will be updated when I get a basic Compiler Screen done. (That's where you get to compile weapons and allies )



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Inspire
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Posted: 13th Dec 2008 19:26
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Looks very nice, but I think if those are gonna be the main enemies, it won't be very satisfying. Just running away, spinning, running, spinning. I guess I prefer straight up shooting. haha
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Plystire
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Posted: 13th Dec 2008 22:58
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Did you play the demo, Inspire?

Who knows, you may change your mind when the weapons get a bit more dynamic and under your control.

Besides, it sounds like you would enjoy the boss fights a bit more since they'll be more engaging than random groups of enemies.


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jasonhtml
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Posted: 14th Dec 2008 03:41
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nice! i have to say, this is the first story that ever got me to keep reading. it was pretty well written. good job!

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Plystire
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Posted: 14th Dec 2008 05:39
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Thanks, jason! Did you enjoy the game, too?


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Plystire
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Posted: 15th Dec 2008 12:56
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Well, it's been a little bit since I gave some updates.


Here's a new screenshot showing the weapon attachment system working.

I started off using bullets and have since attached 4 lasers and 2 more guns.


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Plystire
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Posted: 15th Dec 2008 12:57
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And after fully upgrading EACH of my weapons... this was the wave that finally brought my reign of destruction to an end.


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Plystire
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Posted: 15th Dec 2008 13:01 Edited at: 15th Dec 2008 13:02
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I guess in order to deal with all of these guys, I'll have to implement some allies to help take the brunt of the force off my back.


But before that, I'm still trying to make sure that everything is set up correctly for supporting most any resolution. (I had a friend test this on widescreen and he said it ran pretty well ) Once that's sorted out, I'll upload another demo so people can play with all the nice new features I've added!!!


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Plystire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 00:08
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Updated Features, News, and In-Line Development in the first post.


Stay tuned for the upcoming demo, and don't hold back any comments/crits/feedback you may have.


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sindore
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 00:46
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@ Plystire

how did you make the tails of the ships?

soul sucking devils, twisted body of the damed, slivering slim drips from every poor, sin licking at your ears, and the smell stinging your eyes, and if you don't like it, get out of my kitchen!
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Plystire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 04:20
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Well, I made an array that held "trail" data... such as where it is in relation to the ship it belongs to, how far from the next trail in line it is, and what color it should be...

After that, it's all just calculating how long to stretch the particle and where to angle it to get the desired effect. I also had the particles overlap a little bit to give it a brighter glow shortly after leaving the "engine".


I see a lot of views... but only two people have really commented on the actual game. Is the resolution that much of a problem?
I guess I'll find out once the next demo comes out and fixes that.


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Plystire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 10:22 Edited at: 16th Dec 2008 10:28
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!!! DEMO !!!

Attached is the latest demo.

ATM, there are no restrictions to it's functionality as is with most demos... you just need to collect enough memory to build your ship.


I'm not sure how confusing the attachment system will be for everyone, but I think it's rather straight forward.

You pick an attachment in the Compile screen, it tells you how much memory it will cost and asks you if that's ok. You click "YES" and then the "Mount" points on your ship (or other attachments) will light up, letting you know which ones are available (Though it should be pretty obvious which ones are and which ones aren't )

Pick a spot to put your new attachment and you then get to angle it. I put a small restriction on how far you can angle the attachment, so if anyone thinks I should alter that restriction a little, lemme know (I won't remove it, though ). When you're satisfied with your angle, left click to confirm it and the attachment is now permanent.

If at any point you feel you didn't REALLY want that attachment, click outside of the ship window to cancel it.


To upgrade your attachment, click on it so that the yellow circle is around it (The yellow circle is to let you know which weapon is currently being upgraded). Then the meters under the ship will change to that weapon's specs and the upgrade buttons will upgrade that weapon.

Remember that each weapon has it's own Power and Rate of Fire, so you'll need to upgrade them all individually.


Post a screenshot here of a ship that you made and let me know how your experience was.

...

Let me say that again in case no one heard me...

Let me know how your experience was!





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Grandma
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 13:06
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That was pretty cool.

The enemy grew to a ridiculous amount towards the end. Why not exchange the smaller ones as you add more and more of the difficult kind, and then when there are almost all changed, you proceed to introduce bad-guy mark 3, repeat. Every fouth wave or something, you can add +2 enemies. Just a suggestion. Or something in between of the current system and this.

Quote: "Post a screenshot here of a ship that you made and let me know how your experience was."

Awww, I just read "DEMO" at the top and proceeded to play without further instructions. I did make an awesome ship though. 6 extension weapons, and the main weapon upgraded to pretty much full.

Now make a highscore table and do some clever math to adjust score for difficulty so it balances out. Perhaps make an engine attachment that fires a little boost when you right-click, to help avoid stuff. Maybe make the yellow circle that shows what weapon you have selected, animated in some way. So it becomes more intuitive to click around there. I realized you had to upgrade each individually, but that was on my third upgrade.

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Plystire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 13:32
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Yay!!! Someone liked it!

Pity I didn't get to see your ship... honestly the most attachments I get by testing is about 3 or 4, so you did really good.

I like the idea of having a booster! I'll put that on the idea list! Lord knows how many times that would have come in handy.

I'll try having the yellow circle spin... as I'm not much of an animator, lol. I do see what you mean. It doesn't seem entirely obvious what it's for does it?


As for enemies, I was thinking of having enemies start to use weapons much like yours, with the lasers and the bullets. So after a little bit you'll start seeing the little bits using bullets or lasers that are fairly weak, but after a while the bigger guys will start using them too and theirs will be more on the stronger side.

I do need to cut back on the amount of lag caused by having so many guys, though. I know it isn't the visuals that's causing, too, because I get a lag spike when a majority of them are off-screen and I'm 100% certain the game doesn't bother trying to show guys that are off-screen.
I'll have to sit down some time and completely redo their AI in a more efficient manner. And perhaps then I'll be able to label it as an INTENDED feature! lol


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Butter fingers
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 17:50
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I really want to try this!
It looks a little similar to my WIP Etoile (which nobody has played),
anyway, can you make it so that it will run in the computer's screen mode, rather than a preset, as I'm on a widescreen and it wont run.
Peas
J

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Grandma
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 19:21 Edited at: 16th Dec 2008 19:21
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Quote: "anyway, can you make it so that it will run in the computer's screen mode, rather than a preset, as I'm on a widescreen and it wont run."

I'm on widescreen, it ran fine. Strange.

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Inspire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 22:18
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Quote: "Did you play the demo, Inspire?"


My bad, I wasn't aware that there was a demo. I'll play it next time on my PC.
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Plystire
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 00:01
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@Butter Fingers:

Did the new Demo mess up for you? That one isn't on a preset resolution.


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Butter fingers
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 20:43 Edited at: 17th Dec 2008 20:44
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this is what I get, plus the sys spec. Its got an Nvidia8400 GPU. I'm on a laptop, screen res 1440x900x32


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Plystire
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 22:41
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"Display using 32 bit is not supported by available hardware"

Are you sure your resolution can use 32-bit depth?


Anyway, not sure if I fixed it, can you please try this one and see if it helps?
(Attached)


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Butter fingers
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Posted: 18th Dec 2008 11:01
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Ya ha!
It works!

That was alot of fun. THe whole aspect of customising the ship was really cool. Also the particle system was tight, well made and looked very proffessional.

I liked it. I mean, I just wasted 30 minutes flying about shooting things without realising that much time had passed!

I've got some crit, don't think I'm being negative, I'm just trying to be more help than "That was great, can I be on your team".

The paralax background was cool, but I felt a little bland. It would be wicked if there were data streams (matrix esque) , nebuli made out of ascii characters, memory leaks (like a stretched area that things get sucked into?), I don't know. I just thought that since you were flying around the bizarre ether inside a Computer, it would be cool if there was more scenery, and if there were environmental hazards - a computer is a dangerous place for a byte!

Graphically it was a mixed bag, I loved the trails, they look simple, but were obviously harder to get looking right. And there's something about the simplicty of the ingame graphics that's really appealing. I think the menus and compile screen just need a little more styling. WHat about making it look like the BIOs screen on startup? Or actually styling it to look like a system screen.

I know you're probably leaving this until later, but obviously sounds are going to give this a whole new level of cool. I imagined a kind of distorted 56k modem noise that's volume is dependent on the distance between the player and the corrupted bytes, and how many of them there are.

Anyway, its coming along nicely, the actual control method, and shooting is nice - although maybe it would be nice if players could customise acceleration, speed , rotation and deceleration in the compile screen.
Look forward to the next demo.
Best
Butters

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Plystire
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Posted: 18th Dec 2008 11:36
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Great to hear it's working for you now!

I always enjoy your feedback, it's very in-depth and gives me something to munch on.

Quote: "Also the particle system was tight, well made and looked very proffessional"


I just wanted to say thanks for that. That means a lot to me since I spent a lot of time getting it working just right.

Quote: "The paralax background was cool, but I felt a little bland."


I know what you mean, and I've been wanting to spice it up a little, too. I didn't want to get too involved in the background just yet, though. I'll make a note of that, though, so I don't forget when the time comes.

Quote: "I think the menus and compile screen just need a little more styling."


Yes, they definitally do. The current buttons and windows are just DBP boxes layered onto each other to give a gradient edged effect. At some point I'll also need to make my own image font, which I think will make the entire thing more personalized. I don't want to make the menus look too low-grade (like a BIOS screen), since these are futuristic CPUs that are actually sentient AI. You being the "soul" of this CPU... I think the screens would be a bit higher grade than the 8-bit DOS/BIOS screen, you know?

Quote: "I know you're probably leaving this until later, but obviously sounds are going to give this a whole new level of cool."


Definitally. I've already implemented a bunch of sounds into the engine, too! It definitally gives a better feeling to the game as a whole. I mean, everything from weapon fire down to clicking on buttons and explosions, the audio portion of a game is very important and can really make or break a great idea. I'm no good with sounds, though, for a few of the sounds I just made noises with my mouth into the microphone and distorted them in Audacity. I think some of them came out "okay", but others I'm not too fond of.

Music is another thing, too. I had a track that I made a while back specifically for my "Cyber Wars" style games and it fits perfectly..... unfortunately it's saved as a ".mid" file that no program I can find is able to read!!! Strangely enough, though... my cellphone was able to use it as a ring tone successfully.

Quote: "maybe it would be nice if players could customise acceleration, speed , rotation and deceleration in the compile screen."


And it just so happens that I've been storing each of those characteristics into my "ships" array and using them appropriately.

So, should I decide to allow the player to upgrade these stats, it won't be hard to do at all.

You can expect to see much more aspects of the game to be upgradable... anywhere from how quickly you accelerate to features not yet in the engine.



Well, since I'm already posting, I might as well take this opportunity to mention a few ideas I've come up with (with the help of my friend and personal beta tester (who... actually spent over two hours on the phone with me playing this game trying to see who could collect the most bits on the hardest difficulty, lmao))

(NOTE: I am in no way insinuating that these will be implemented)

Idea #1:
Occassionally during play a large "WARNING" will flash across the screen stating, "Virus Soul has been Injected!"
This will cue in some serious battle music (if I had any )
Shortly after the Warning disappears, a glowing red bit will fly across the screen and spawn (much like you spawning at the beginning) a Virus Soul Byte. This Byte will not look like the other bytes (The deliberate simplistic line style), but closer to the way your ship looks. It will also have roughly the same amount of health that your ship has and it will utilize the same type of weapons as your ship.
While the Virus Soul is in your CPU, the CPU will corrupt much faster (that is, the longer you take to destroy it the larger and stronger the upcoming hordes of viruses will be)


Idea #2:
Unlockable Parts of the game.
Honestly, I don't feel quite right allowing the player to just up and start out with strong weapons like the laser or missiles. That's why I think they shouldn't be able to start with anything but Bullets until they "unlock" the others. Unlocking them will be simple enough: Have 4 Lasers attached to your ship at one time to unlock the "Laser" as a starting weapon... same goes for missiles or any other weapons I add.
Another unlockable I wanted to put in later (which also spawned the idea of unlockables) is the ability to play as a Virus and defend against Anti-Virus corruption.
You would unlock this by defeating a total of 10 Virus Soul Bytes (Won't have to be in a single play-through, though)
Being a virus won't necessarily give you anything special, but I know if I do put in the "Virus Soul Injection", a lot of people will want to play as them.



Okay, those were a couple of my latest ideas that I'm not sure about putting in. I'd like to hear from others about it first.


The one and only,


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Plystire
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Posted: 18th Dec 2008 14:12
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New Video!!!

After installing the new missile weapon and getting it working... I came to the realization that when fully upgraded these suckers were way too powerful. I had so much fun annihilating the hordes in mere seconds that I just had to make a video of it, lol.


Enjoy!!! (And leave me some comments, I really enjoy reading them! )

(And I apologize for the weird sound caused by the missiles shooting so fast, lmao)


(Higher Quality attached)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt39T4zDEKQ



The one and only,


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Jimpo
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Posted: 20th Dec 2008 19:27
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The latest demo worked without any resolution errors (with the fix you gave Butter fingers). The first thing that stands out, is that this game needs a background! I just saw a solid black screen with the player in the center. I couldn't tell if the player was moving or not. I even turned up my monitor's brightness to max to make sure there wasn't any sort of background effect I couldn't see.

The trails and enemy movement worked great together! And my favorite part was choosing where to place the upgrades and then being able to rotate them. There was one thing I didn't understand, can you see the player's remaining health anywhere?

The game was fun, even at this stage of development. I can't wait to play the improved finished version! Missiles look awesome btw

Dego
SFO
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Plystire
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Posted: 20th Dec 2008 23:30
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Oddly enough, Jimpo, there is a background! I suppose I should de-randomize it, though, and make it so at least some of it shows up. Thanks for letting me know.

You aren't allowed to see the player's health. You have to judge your remaining health based on your ship's current color.


The next demo will be available after Allies are implemented and the revamped AI is created.


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Plystire
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Posted: 21st Dec 2008 01:10 Edited at: 21st Dec 2008 01:12
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AI is currently being worked on.

Another update that has taken place is an easier attachment window. You will be able to zoom and pan around inside the attachment window on the compile screen to help you with attaching new weapons.

Here's a ship my friend made. I call it "The Peacock"
(He messed up on the right side, but oh well, lol)

[EDIT]
Another thing shown in the screenshot is the cleaner trails I've made. They're so pretty, I'm so proud of them.
[/ego]


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Plystire
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Posted: 27th Dec 2008 00:47
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Alright... it's time for an

!!! UPDATE !!!

The project hasn't died, just to let anyone watching know.


It came to my attention during development that the framerate suffered horribly when lots of enemies were on screen. This was mainly due to the fact that the AI consumed a lot of processing power when stacked up. In fact, when the amount of enemies was roughly around 150-200 or so, the framerate was just unbareably low.

So, that is why I decided to take the time to convert the entire thing over to C++ using DarkGDK. And let me tell you, that was not fun at all.
Since my C++ knowledge has degraded over the years, it took me a while to get it back up. Lots of bugs appeared simply because of C++'s different structure. Though, with a bit of help from the guys in the GDK board (and lots of Google ), I was able to get rid of most of them.

The game is now technically playable again, with the exception of a few more minor bugs. (One of which is the reason the trails aren't shown in the attached screenshot )

Ever since the jump over to C++, I am very happy to report a massive increase in speed!! The game can now handle so much more than what it could in DBP.


Well, don't take my word for it, just look at the screenshot I've attached!

The amount of enemies active and shooting at me are almost 1,000 and the framerate hasn't dropped at all!!!

This may be due to the new AI that was needed, which is still being worked on. Sadly, the AI that was previously being used wasn't working at all in C++, so it's in the process of being replaced (which I don't mind, since I was intending to replace it anyway )


Anywho, yes, the project isn't dead. Hopefully everything will be much smoother and enjoyable in the next Demo.


The one and only,


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Plystire
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Posted: 31st Dec 2008 06:51
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!!! NEW DEMO !!!

Attached is the Demo! I'll update the first post soon to provide a link to it there also.


What's happened:
- Completely converted to DarkGDK
- Added Missile Weapon and Attachment
- Added in Allies
- Completely redid the AI. I think it's much smoother and more accurate now. And I can also get rid of that Kiwi since the last AI was only good since a Bug in my code made it good.
- Added Sounds (Weapon Fire, Explosions, Menu Selections, etc)
- Added Music (Title Screen, Field, and Compile Screen)


****************
ANY MEDIA INCLUDED WITH THIS PACKAGE MAY NOT BE REDISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERSONAL CONSENT BY IT'S AUTHOR
****************



The one and only,


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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 31st Dec 2008 07:13 Edited at: 31st Dec 2008 18:29
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Looking pretty nice! I downloaded the game don't have time to play right now, but will as soon as I can.


Edit: hmm, demo gave me an error.


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Plystire
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 06:09
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Quote: "Edit: hmm, demo gave me an error."


Well... what error?


Has anyone else downloaded this and got the error? Has anyone tried it at all???


The one and only,


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Rampage
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 07:27
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I tried it, as you know .
Worked perfectly and flawlessly for me. And its like...awesome.
I play it like everyday now
Very addicting...


"Welcome to the forums, MasterXMP. Your game looks like garbage..." - Game Maker
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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 14:39
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Quote: "This application fail to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."


Only thing is, I've tried downloading the game multiple times, and I always get this error when I try to run it, regardless if I've extracted it to the computer or not.

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Plystire
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 20:02
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Thanks, Rampage.


@Bizar Guy:

What OS are you running? XP?

I made this on Vista and haven't tested it on XP.


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Butter fingers
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 21:49
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Yummy. It's not an XP issue, as I just ran it fine on my vista PC and Laptop at 1440x900x32

The graphical changes are nice, the bloom-style effect on the ship is good, it looks much crisper than the original, and I like the new colour scheme on the fade of the enemies, it's much more natural looking.

The menu is tighter, and more proffesional looking, although I would advise that if you have time you get it into illustrator or something and make it from vectors or something, because it will just look that much more uptodate.

I think the bullets need to have a higher rate of fire, because compared to missles and laser they aren't as much fun, and feel under powered.

Hurrah for enemies shooting back though! That's a nice addition, I think they need some tweaking, because as the player appears to move faster than them, they are quite easy to dodge, maybe as it progresses the shots need to go faster?

Awesome though. Very nice little mini game.

From a stylistic point of view, it would be cool if there was a visual reference on the screen for how many Bits of memory you have obtained... perhaps the player ships could begin as a wireframe and gradually morph into the solid version? Or the background could become gradually more complete as you defeat your foes? I found that I never really checked the hud for my memory, because I was too busy looking at the action, whereas if I got a hint of how well I was doing from my ship, or the environment it would make the memory retrieval a more integral part of the game.

All good though. Another great demo!

I want robotic legs.
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Plystire
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Posted: 6th Jan 2009 22:38
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Thanks for the comments, BF! Much appreciated!

Quote: "I think the bullets need to have a higher rate of fire, because compared to missles and laser they aren't as much fun, and feel under powered."


Hah, and here I was thinking that the missiles didn't fire fast enough and the bullets felt just about right.
Right now, each bullet does more damage than a single missile and they shoot much faster. The advantage of missiles is that they can cover your back and can home in on targets. Bullets do the most damage of all and can kill the fastest. Lasers are group killers since they can penetrate and damage multiple enemies at once.

Quote: "Hurrah for enemies shooting back though! That's a nice addition, I think they need some tweaking, because as the player appears to move faster than them, they are quite easy to dodge, maybe as it progresses the shots need to go faster?"


On the contrary, enemy bullets are always shot at a velocity that will hit the player should the player continue to stay at their current trajectory! Small enemy bullets are supposed to be easy to dodge. If they weren't, you'd be dead before the second wave and the game wouldn't be any fun!

I can easily change how quickly they reach the player, though, so tweaking will be easy. I'll take a look at it and see if moving them faster or slower helps.

Quote: "From a stylistic point of view, it would be cool if there was a visual reference on the screen for how many Bits of memory you have obtained... perhaps the player ships could begin as a wireframe and gradually morph into the solid version? Or the background could become gradually more complete as you defeat your foes? I found that I never really checked the hud for my memory, because I was too busy looking at the action, whereas if I got a hint of how well I was doing from my ship, or the environment it would make the memory retrieval a more integral part of the game."


Well, right now, the game doesn't end, but I'll be sure to let the player have some sort of sign that they're doing well when the game has an ending. I was thinking perhaps having tiny bits swirling around the player's ship to give them an idea of how much memory they have stored.


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Plystire
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Posted: 17th Jan 2009 02:00
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!!! NEW VIDEO !!!


Alright, here's a new video of the game. This time showing off pretty much everything the game has to offer.

This includes the new Shield system I've installed, as well as upgrading and allies.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RYv6v0uuDM

Enjoy!!!


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