Development Diaries

SpindleyQ's picture

Bejowled Update

OH MY GOD
(hopefully not disgusting)

PenguinSeph's picture

Shoot The Core - Now with Game Maker 7 related rambling!

I think I've worked out why I've never really finished anything MMF wise. Lack of planning and I hate MMF. Didn't know that I hated it till I got Game Maker 7 Pro however. I like Game Maker 7 Pro. It's like programming for stupid people (in a way). It removes 70-90% of the hard stuff like drawing windows and graphics, and allows you to cut straight to making stuff while being powerful enough to make interesting stuff. It's removed most of the limits MMF imposed on me. I'll probably find some more later, but right now it's cool.

This is a quick and easy arcade top down shmup abstract thing based around time attacking a single boss. Right now it has no music. Was made in about a day. First Game Maker 7 Pro game.

You play a dot, and have to shoot the core. I want people to be able to play the game without much external instructions so I'll not post a wall of text.



I would like to know if anyone had any trouble understanding what was going on, if their are any bugs, if it runs well and if you think that it's too easy or hard. Or ugly. Also, scores would be nice. Be brutal. I'm not going to learn otherwise.

Link here

SpindleyQ's picture

Good News, Everyone!

Mike Tyson's Jungle Beat is more or less complete! I still have to poke at it a bit to make a version that's legal to download, but it TOTALLY WORKS.

I will offer a download link at the same time as its official unveiling via YouTube. Filming is currently in progress.

Here's a little something creepy and unrelated to tide you over until then.

SpindleyQ's picture

SECRET PROJECT UPDATE FINAL

Last night I decided that my SECRET PROJECT is being shelved indefinitely in favour of small, fun projects that don't resemble my job so much and can be finished in a reasonable amount of time without ruining my life.

To help with the crushing disappointment surely felt by all of you, I will announce the working codename of the (non-KotMK) project I am working on next:

MIKE TYSON'S JUNGLE BEAT

Oh, yes. I see the gears turning in your mind.

SpindleyQ's picture

SECRET PROJECT STATUS

  1. Hand-wrote a naive recursive descent expression parser on a houseboat without any internet access and then wondered why it was so buggy.
  2. Spent the next week tweaking it and getting increasingly frustrated.
  3. Not much else :(
SpindleyQ's picture

I was on vacation, but I'm mostly back now

So I just spent the last week on a houseboat on Shuswap Lake without internet! This is why I was gone.

To apologize for my absence, I give you the name of my next KotMK game:

BEJOWLED

zum's picture

batsbldr

batsbldr.PNG

The other night Lackey was showing me some of his game mockups, and I got the idea that it'd be neat to do a Crimsonland-alike (yes, there's surely a better term for those, but nothing springs to mind) with light base-building elements. And hey, it just so happens that Klik is pretty well-suited to that sort of thing! And with BATM@STER I already had a handy WASD-plus-mouse-aiming template to start from. So about four minutes of work yielded this:

It still needs time in the oven, of course: non-bat weapons and breakable barricades and enemy generation, first. Then finer stuff like distinct battlin' and buildin' phases, ammo and constuction limitations, and then maybe some actual balancing. But it's wonderful that Klik makes the distance between conceptualization and execution small enough that I can whip something like that up in a couple of minutes.

I think I'll actually follow through on this one, since I like the concept quite a bit.

Some of the other issues, as a reminder to myself:
-Blood needs to disappear over time. Since each droplet is an active object and there's an (admittedly fuzzy-seeming) ceiling on the number of those that can be present on-screen at any given time, it'll interfere with the base construction and enemy generation if it's not limited. So far that's been more of a pain than it should be due to the animation speed bug.
-Collision detection is ignored when backpedaling, which is weird because the player movement and facing is handled by custom events anyway. Should be fixable with some Active Object Overlapping events, anyway.
-Not trainwrecky enough. Needs more samples. Must find more samples. Also must peruse MIDI collection for appropriate tunes.

Okay. There's still time for some Doom before it's light out. Sometimes it is pretty okay being young and carefree!

kirkjerk's picture

thoughts on development

I'm thinking about what platform I want to code on.

I think Processing has been pretty good to me, and I might stick with it... it lets me use my Java mojo, I've figured out how to do sounds, it can embed in a webpage and make standalone downloads, it has some 3D primitive stuff going on, it's kind of artsy.

The downside is it has a big footprint, in terms of download size and processing power, and its 3D is pretty rudimentary, plus I have to code a lot myself, though I'm slowly making progress on some simple engines.

I prefer to be conservative in picking up toolkits (which is a bit of a handicap my professional life shares as well)

So, criteria would be:
* should be embeddable in a browser ... I think downloads are a big handicap for people tooling around with your game
* I'd like to find some kind of 2D and/or 3D physics engine

Any thoughts? I'm taking a 2 part Flash introduction class, just to try and get a feel if that's something I want to get into. I think of the games at http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/ -- but then again, that clearly has a TON of love in the A/V department that my games likely will lack

I was considering pygame, especially since professinally I think cementing my python skills would be a good thing, but I don't think that's embeddable.

---

In general I think I keep meaning to get more into the online indy game community, tigsource and all that stuff. And I have a hope with my new move reducing my commute to like 25 minutes, I might find it easier to find the time. But even then it's tough to for me to focus when I'm feeling angsty about my chances of making something cool. Also, it's so easy to get jealous when someone grabs an idea I've been thinking about, like heat seeking missles and sproingy rope physics.

PenguinSeph's picture

Rapid Prototyping - KlikShot v0.3

New version of KlikShot! YAY! As this is a rapid prototype, new versions should be very rapidly released.

With this game, you are the little white ship in the bottom of the screen. You have to assemble a war machine for the mighty empire, so that they don't kill your dog or something. But the empire never turns these things off, so as you create it, it's going to shoot at you. Get it? It will make sense when you start playing it, don't worry.

The main new thing is that when finished, the boss you made is evaluated. Each T Block is worth 10 points, and each stand alone turret is worth 20 points. If you have a lot of turrets groups right next to each other, you don't gain as many points from it. This should encourage players to try to build a framework out of T Blocks and then stick turrets onto it, rather than just shooting turrets at the starting core.

The name is a bad pun, as you shoot parts at the enemy that click together. Also, the product I am using is a Clickteam product, which are normally called "Klik" products.

Please be brutal in the comments. I'm not going to learn otherwise. Instructions are in-game. Keys used are arrow keys, Z and X (all cactus style, yeah!)

The .caa file is the source code, if you have MMF feel free to dick around with it.

Changes from last version are:
Better help at start of game.
Sound effects added.
When the game is finished, the thing you made is checked to give up bonus score. Each T piece is worth 10 points. Turrets are worth 20, unless they are close together in which case each turret after the first is worth 10 points.
Have added little rainbow score things that appear when you gain points. They are needed for anyone to make sense of the above.

Credits:
PenguinSeph - Game Design, Programming (I used MMF1, but it's still programming. In a way,), "Art"
DrPetter of http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp for making sfxr, which was used to create the sound effects.
Everyone who has commented so far!

PenguinSeph's picture

Rapid Prototyping - KlikShot

So, I post here again. Don't ask why, just accept it.

I made something. It's not quite done yet, no sound, shit gfx and one or two bugs I suspect, as well as little balance in the score system, but we have the core of something here.

With this game, you are the little white ship in the bottom of the screen. You have to assemble a war machine for the mighty empire, so that they don't kill your dog or something. But the empire never turns these things off, so as you create it, it's going to shoot at you. Get it? It will make sense when you start playing it, don't worry.

Please be brutal in the comments. I'm not going to learn otherwise. Instructions are in-game.

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