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Work in Progress / Scars -- 2D Shoot 'Em Up

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Izzy545
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 01:30 Edited at: 4th May 2009 07:14
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This a WIP thread for a 2D Shoot 'Em Up I'm working on, with the working title of Scars.


DOWNLOAD: https://forumfiles.thegamecreators.com/download/1746796


Updates and working log is on the next post down.

So far I've put about a week of work into this, and the code is a little over 700 lines, a good portion of that being the different enemy types and LOTS of GUI polishing stuff.

Currently, you're playing the survival mode where streams of ships in a random order come down and you have to survive as long as you can. Soon I'll begin work on the story mode with pre-planned enemy patterns and such, as soon as I've nailed down more enemy types and graphical elements.

Here's a screenshot so far:



And a new one with explosions:



Please let me know if there's any suggestions you have.

Note: The graphics (minus all the GUI graphics) are all from an old PC game I used to love, called Tyrian. The artist released the graphics to be used in games, and until I can make my own, I'll be using those.

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Izzy545
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 01:31 Edited at: 4th May 2009 07:14
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UPDATE: May 03, 2009


Added 3D explosions using a homemade particle system that throws up to 200 textured plains (total on the screen) in random directions when a ship blows up.

Added bullet-hit animations for when bullets hit enemies, and revised the cloud system to randomly rotate them to add some variety.

I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what kind of FPS you get with the explosions. Thanks!

Currently Adding:
Powerups to regain health, advance weapon (instead of the score based system I'm using now)
New weapon type.

Coming Soon:
Maps with terrain (i.e. not just water)
Secondary Guns
Multiple Weapon Types

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C0wbox
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 02:39
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!!!

I love the soft fuzzy-edged sprites, it's a great style and the gameplay reminds me of Demonstar ( Demonstar)

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Dr Tank
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 18:48
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Nice. Really needs more explosions.

I quite like your shield/health thing. Someone suggested i put a similar system in my game, and having seen a working version, i'm seriously considering doing it.

At first i felt it was too easy - you can pretty much just ignore the enemy shots. However, when your shield does get low, you have to start concentrating on avoiding the shots, which reduces your offensive ability. Alternativly, you can pay some amount of attention to the enemy shots and try to avoid the majority. Maybe you could do with making yours a little harder, but i guess difficulty levels and stuff gets tweaked later, and will change throughout the game anyway.

Having damaged verions of the big ships is an awesome "touch".

Game runs smoothly on my oldish computer. Loads quickly. I look forward to more.

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Jimpo
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 21:21
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Oh god, Tyrian! What an old, old game... I forgot all the hours I spent playing that!

I tried your demo, and it's a nice start. Two things I noticed, there are way too many ships on screen. It's hard too keep track of all the enemies. Maybe you would be better off with fewer enemies shooting more bullets? Second, it's way too easy! I rarely ever got hit. Or maybe I've just been playing too much Ikaruga...

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Izzy545
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Posted: 2nd May 2009 22:00
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Quote: "Nice. Really needs more explosions."

Thanks! I'm currently working on that and some other graphical effects. I've added in bullet hit explosions, but I still need to make the enemies and the player explode when dead.

Quote: "I tried your demo, and it's a nice start. Two things I noticed, there are way too many ships on screen. It's hard too keep track of all the enemies. Maybe you would be better off with fewer enemies shooting more bullets? Second, it's way too easy! I rarely ever got hit. Or maybe I've just been playing too much Ikaruga..."


Yea, I put a bunch of enemies in there just to test what kind of framerates I could get and with how many enemies. I'm currently working on a system that will match enemies with flight patterns and groups so it's not just a random slew of enemies, they'll seem a little more coordinated.

And I agree, it is ridiculously easy. Once the flight patterns are done I'm going to work on the bullet/enemy AI and ramp up the difficulty a bit.

Thanks, everyone!

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bobbel
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Posted: 3rd May 2009 15:32
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Its nice. but i think the enemy's are a bit too big, and i need more weapons! and power=ups!

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Crazy Ninja
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Posted: 4th May 2009 04:54
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Cool man! I'm actually starting to make a game like this but it won't be nearly as good considering it'll only be my second game. Mine's also going to be in 3d but I really love how your's looks right now, especially the info bars on the right. Don't have time to download the demo, but i'll cya if can give it a shot sometime.

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feiting shadow
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Posted: 4th May 2009 05:13
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ok fine, I'll upgrade my engine to compete with yours...

oh and c0wbox, Demonstar too! In fact it's my inspiration for my version.

700 lines??? I have that too, but NOT with what you said... my god, we both have 2x more to go just to get the "other half" of what we both need.

Was about to ask how you did the explosions, but it sounds like they're ripped for now...

gah, the work needed to make a game go beyond playable to desired always amazes me. I wish you the best!

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Izzy545
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Posted: 4th May 2009 07:06 Edited at: 4th May 2009 07:06
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Quote: "Its nice. but i think the enemy's are a bit too big, and i need more weapons! and power=ups!"


I'm working on more weapons, and yea the enemies are big, and once more work has been made, expect less of them, but also expect some even bigger, harder enemies.

Quote: "Cool man! I'm actually starting to make a game like this but it won't be nearly as good considering it'll only be my second game. Mine's also going to be in 3d but I really love how your's looks right now, especially the info bars on the right. Don't have time to download the demo, but i'll cya if can give it a shot sometime."


Thanks! Yea, the GUI on the right has been the most work, it works pretty smoothly once you're in game too

Quote: "700 lines??? I have that too, but NOT with what you said... my god, we both have 2x more to go just to get the "other half" of what we both need.

Was about to ask how you did the explosions, but it sounds like they're ripped for now...

gah, the work needed to make a game go beyond playable to desired always amazes me. I wish you the best!"


Yea, I'm a little over 1200 lines now with the new particle explosions, better collisions, and bullet-hit explosions. It's crazy how much work it is! I spent the last 2 hours on the explosions and I'm STILL not happy with them, for just the one thing!

Explosions and bullet hits are my own graphics.

Anyways, new update with explosions and bullet hits, plus better collision and clouds looking better up there, along with a new screeny.

I'd love it if y'all could tell me what kind of framerates you get with the explosions, my computers been acting up, but it's been dropping to about 40 with lots of explosions going on, which seems odd for just another 200 textured plains that are only alive for a few seconds...

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Dr Tank
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Posted: 4th May 2009 16:48 Edited at: 4th May 2009 16:55
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Framerate seems steady to me. FRAPS tells me it starts off at about 60-65, but then later on drops when there's a lot happening to around 40. Framerate also drops when have a stream of bullets on the screen.

Game definitely looks better with explosions in. Anyway you forgot to have the enemies instead of just disappear when you crash into them.

What are you doing with the plain objects? Are you creating them and deleting them as the game runs, or hiding and unhiding? Are you retexturing? Are you using low object and image numbers? What resolution textures are you using for them? You might be able to get a lot more speed by changing some of these things.

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Izzy545
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Posted: 4th May 2009 19:39 Edited at: 4th May 2009 19:39
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Quote: "What are you doing with the plain objects? Are you creating them and deleting them as the game runs, or hiding and unhiding? Are you retexturing? Are you using low object and image numbers? What resolution textures are you using for them? You might be able to get a lot more speed by changing some of these things.
"


Actually I'm doing a lot of those things

I'm not creating and deleting as the game runs, they are all created on load, what I do is just positing them all way off screen and then call them into position when needed, then throw them off screen again when not needed anymore.

The bullet hits are getting retextured three times through the course of their animation, and the big ships get retextured once when they're hurt.

My image numbers are all low, but my object numbers run from:
1-288, 10000-10033, 14000-14400, and then 15006. I assume those high numbers will hurt framerate? I didn't know that so I segregated them into groups so if I wanted to add a bunch more objects they wouldn't run into eachother.

The only big texture resolution is the background water, which is 1024x1024. Everything else is pixel art, ranging from 8x8 to 124x96.

Thanks for the help!

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Dr Tank
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Posted: 4th May 2009 21:50
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First thing i recommend you try is lowering your object numbers. You can declare some constants at the start of your program, like

#constant enemy_object_startnum 1
#constant shot_object_startnum 200

or whatever. That way you can easily try reducing your object numbers. Using really high object numbers can actually cause quite a bit of slowdown. Not entirely sure why.

If that fails you can try using a smaller texture for your background object and scaling the texture so it is tiled, since i notice it's currently tiled anyway.

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