Spiritual Successor

[tom.morrow 89]

.

My condolences about your grandfather.

About the demo you could contact gogo about uploading it here

in a new category in the downloads maybe?

best regards

Press any key... No! Not that one!

[Ysne58 236]

I am so sorry for your loss.

Congratulations on the wedding.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Ysne58

[Sarcolemming 8]

 

.

My condolences about your grandfather.

About the demo you could contact gogo about uploading it here

in a new category in the downloads maybe?

best regards

Press any key... No! Not that one!

 

 

I am so sorry for your loss.

Congratulations on the wedding.

 

Thank you both for the Condolences and congrats.

 

In regards to the posting here, I'd rather not. Not that I wouldn't be grateful it's just more I don't want to be posting a huge number of versions here and somehow end up flooding the server. That would probably be bad for the bandwidth and more than likely cause a few issues.

 

I have actually started working on hosting the first files up on dropbox.com. It's a simple site where you can upload/download files for free, 10GB daily limit so I don't think I'd have too much of an issue with it. I'll be testing that later on this weekend more then likely.

 

As for "demo" well it's more of a space invaders clone with some extra mechanics attached. It was vastly easier to create an enemy moving in one direction first, making hitting them easier to test. Otherwise though much of the basic to-hit mechanics are in place. Evasion, attack, defense, reflect(WIP), and block as well. Oh and the sprites are T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. I really couldn't draw computer graphics to save my life. lol.

 

 

[Dragon Brother 619]

First time I read this...interesting read! Good luck, I don't imagine it's going to be easy, not at all!

[tom.morrow 89]

.

 

That sounds great Andrew

 

Once you got it setup to your liking post us a link here

I'm very interested to see how your work progresses.

 

regards

 

 

Looting your fridge...

[SX255 630]

Oh and the sprites are T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. I really couldn't draw computer graphics to save my life. lol.

 

People study computer graphics and art skills in colleges and institutes for years. Also, this generation has wicked computer artist who are still school. And you are not competing against superbudget gamming companies that were on the market for decades. So stop worrying about the graphics part – if you can’t do sprites, we’ll do it for free.

[Ysne58 236]

Dark Creations, where I am a moderator, does provide some hosting for mods if you are looking for options. The hosting is not limited to mods for TES games, although that is the majority.

 

http://www.darkcreations.org/get-hosted

[Sarcolemming 8]

Update:

 

So after beating my head against the wall all weekend I finally managed to separate one incredibly complicated and overly massive doing_everything_at_once thread into two separate threads. Hopefully if I can integrate everything else correctly it will run more smoothly and be a little easier to work with in the future.

 

Also of note I am working on uploading the original version, thinking of calling it version 0-01. Nothing really better I can think up at the moment, especially considering this would be the "alpha phase" if ever there was one. Hopefully I will crush some homework for college(Php ugh.. ) and be able to hook up my laptop to the internet to upload it later today!

 

Side note : my wireless sucks, and it is what I'm using on my main PC to type this with. I'd use it but it tends to be rather... volatile.

 

Edit: Might Take a while before I can upload, dog decided it was a dumb great idea to munch on some weeds and well... yeah that didn't agree with his little tummy very well. Good news though, the file is ready to be uploaded, that is, all packaged up and executable as is.

More details to come later after much cleaning, plus some more fun with my brains and the wall.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Sarcolemming

[Sarcolemming 8]

Edit:edit: My pc has Java issues, but the file does work on a fresh install of Java 7. So make sure you have Java 7 runtime!

 

I think this deserves a full new post because,

 

the file is uploaded!

 

That's right, version 0-01 is now available to muck about with! Go ahead and copy the link in your address bar and download it today!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/02o0r0ib2pggsfb/Demo_VersionST_0_01.jar

Side note: It's a very tiny file, only about 34KB or so. Also only a tiny sliver of feature is included in this alpha launch, naturally.

 

Features currently usable(some are there but not implemented fully);

• Movement using WASD (controls are on main screen for reference, eventually will be moved)
• Shooting using the Spacebar (mouse clicks are there, but disabled, I can turn on click-to-shoot if you all would like it.)
• Enemies will die when hit(automatic, see health note below)
• Health bar(enemy HP is W.I.P. also enemy damage is fixed, that will change hopefully soon.)

Edited November 27, 2013 by Sarcolemming

[SX255 630]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/02o0r0ib2pggsfb/Demo_VersionST_0_01.jar

So you made a Galaga clone. Not bad. Has no high score, the help button doesn't work, the graphics are hard on the eyes, but it runs.

Now, I don’t want to sound rude (it’s a nice game and all), but I think everyone who got your game running now wants to ask... Is this your latest result in programming training? Because so far this game is les of a spiritual successor to the first two games than Sacred 3 and Sacred Citadel.

 

Maybe you want to try recreating 2 player chess without AI – the board can be updated to an RPG easier. Or try Asteroids if you want an RPG shooting system.

[Ysne58 236]

I probably won't have time to give this a try until next week. I'm glad you are making progress.

[Sarcolemming 8]

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/02o0r0ib2pggsfb/Demo_VersionST_0_01.jar

So you made a Galaga clone. Not bad. Has no high score, the help button doesn't work, the graphics are hard on the eyes, but it runs.

Now, I don’t want to sound rude (it’s a nice game and all), but I think everyone who got your game running now wants to ask... Is this your latest result in programming training? Because so far this game is les of a spiritual successor to the first two games than Sacred 3 and Sacred Citadel.

 

Maybe you want to try recreating 2 player chess without AI – the board can be updated to an RPG easier. Or try Asteroids if you want an RPG shooting system.

 

Yes I know, it's pretty much galaga, but everyone has to start somewhere, and this is I suppose, pre-pre-actual alpha. But it's working and it's a first step.

I actually started developing text-based games a while back, and so I am more familiar with the basic mechanical aspects of games than the graphical ones. It's difficult to jump from my comfort zone of mechanical processing into abstract graphical representation of things. It was a bit of a culture shock honestly, and I am embarrassed to say it shows.

This is actually why I avoided chess, I feel it would have locked me into a turn-based RPG style. Not that I mind turn-based RPGs, I just would begin to compare myself mentally with disgaea, something I think would detract from where I'm attempting to go with this.

 

This is my first attempt at (non-text based)game developing in general. Yes the help button does nothing, I was following some tutorials and I went a little nuts with extra buttons. OMG mode is also disabled it's just horde mode, I can turn it on if you wanna lag your computer in about 10-15 kills though. It creates something along the lines of about 800+ entities in only a few seconds.

 

As I said before it was easier to get things spawning on one screen side instead of randomly across the screen(galaga style). Many things will change and among those are including the stats system, skill system, spawn system, and of course actual graphics representative of the time period. For now it's a first venture into a new world I am totally unfamiliar with. AI is non-existent at this point and I would rather keep it that way until it becomes a necessity. I could spend years programming a good solid AI that would kick your butt every time you tried to face it(but where's the fun in that?).

On the graphics note I would like to make it easier on you guys to see, so any suggestions I can implement to that effect, will be immediately taken into consideration.

 

To anyone not familiar with the scope of what programming entails, here's a short to do list.

• better(more accurate) hitboxes
• generic skills(with a clickable skill bar)
• menus(basic ones in game, have to equip stuff somehow!)
• equipment drops(almost there, still deciding on the (quality-of-loot mechanic and how that will be affected by enemy type)
• more varied enemy types
• enemy spawn needs to be more randomized across all borders of the screen(but only when the player is able to turn)
• more control of enemy spawns(less of that mucking about in the same spot while moving crap)
• turning of the player to face a specific direction
• attacking in specific directions
• swords and other melee hitbox weapons
• a skills database(shouldn't be too hard to cook one up in an hour or two to get things rolling)
• eventually convert graphics to fantasy/tech-fantasy (pretty low on the list as it's an easy to change, I may try to make things a bit easier to see though)
• Boss mechanics(how they spawn, where they spawn)
• Cameras!
• a fixed world or randomly spawned world, you guys can decide which you'd prefer here.
• Story(terribly low on the list, ashamed to say that as writing has been a passion of mine for many years.)
• Different characters
• I've been contemplating changing characters to simple polygons and I'm gonna see how that works out.
• A whole mess load more things that need to be done but I can't seem to really get the time to do atm.

 

In any event, progress is being made, today I've gone through a whole bunch of homework that's coming due shortly. The end of the semester is a "crunch time" where plenty of things need to be done and in short order. I'll try to get an updated version up with less galaga and more RPG elements. But no promises can be made, unfortunately.

[SX255 630]

Keep trying/experimenting. You’ll eventually figure out something.

 

About color, it’s more of having a “taste” or “eye” for it. Start by looking up “clashing colors”.

You used bright green-orange sprites on a black background, which is like having a signal flare shoved in your eye. Just change the sprites brightness by manipulating the luminescence or saturation of the color. If you don’t know what those are, open Microsoft Paint, open Color – Edit color… - Define Custom Colors and play around with the black crosshair and arrow.

 

Good luck.

[Sarcolemming 8]

Keep trying/experimenting. You’ll eventually figure out something.

 

About color, it’s more of having a “taste” or “eye” for it. Start by looking up “clashing colors”.

You used bright green-orange sprites on a black background, which is like having a signal flare shoved in your eye. Just change the sprites brightness by manipulating the luminescence or saturation of the color. If you don’t know what those are, open Microsoft Paint, open Color – Edit color… - Define Custom Colors and play around with the black crosshair and arrow.

 

Good luck.

Will do, I'll try to keep overly clashing tones to a minimum for future reference. As well as not allowing creative input from my wife and her 11 year old brother. They were my inspiration for that color palette.

 

As an aside, some more progress has been made, I'm currently implementing the abilities bar your character can play with. Once finished with this feature you should be able to select your abilities and pick which one you want in each of three slots(clicking to activate at first, and later also having the option of pressing a key of the player's choice). Note that adding additional slots shouldn't be a problem, three is just the number I picked out of a hat so to speak.

 

With this bar I will attempt to add in some default abilities as well, also the main character is now a dark purple square so it's less vibrant, and enemies are dark red circles. Simpler shapes by far, and hopefully less annoying as well.

 

In other news I am considering migrating this all over to Unity, whenever I feel the core mechanics are established that is. At that point a bigger level will be started with which the character should be able to freely roam about. However(!), before that I'd like your guys input on all the mechanical stuff, how skills feel and how well abilities work and what have you. I would also like the enemies to be less galaga and more asteroids coming from different directions. That way you have to turn and such to defeat them. Could probably work on that last part next after abilities are in.

 

All in all it'll be a long while, and taking the long road is more tedious but I feel will help my understanding of it and help it evolve into a better game. =)

[Sarcolemming 8]

End of the year Update:

 

So a lot has been going on and I've tried my absolute best to keep pushing forward with developing this game. That said I have some news for everyone, the following list is things I've either been working on, writing down notes on, or strictly theory crafting to try and work out. Sorted by section to make it a little bit easier to read.

Abilities

• Added a bar for abilities(done)
• Added a basic set of abilities with stats(done)
• need icons for abilities
• need sprites for abilities
• need to add on_click functions to abilities
• Eventually adding in class specific abilities once classes are in the game​

 

Because abilities needed the same effects as everything else, I added in a list of effects. These effects are essentially universal and while adding them I found it easy to make items with these effects as well. Hence we have...

 

Effects & Random Item Generation!

• Wisdom, Force, Agility, Constitution
• Defense, Attack
• Reflect_All, Reflect_Melee, Reflect_Spell, Reflect_Range
• Block, Chance_Evade, Damage_Reduction, Hp_Boost
• Chance_Hit, damage, Enemy_Hit_loss, Enemy_Dodge_loss, Enemy_Max_Hp_Down
• Burn//Damage per second, increased damage taken
  Freeze//Damage per second, slowed movement
  Shock//Damage per second, ticks are skipped
  Poison//Damage per second, healing = 0
  Bleed,ArterialBleed//Damage per second, flat or %
• To be added possibly are Traumas including; broken(function diminished), crushed(function lost no part loss), severed(function loss and part loss), sliced(no functional loss but large -hp/sec)

The idea with the last bit here is that attacks will not cause direct hp loss(you hit Orc and did 3 damage, his hp is now 7/10), but rather cause you to lose function/blood or both and eventually die from blood loss(you cut off that orcs arm! that'll leave a mark...). It is more of a dwarf fortress style of combat in which characters function after being hit, but getting hit enough will start to impair you, instead of death by a thousand paper cuts in which you whittle away at an enemies hp bar until it finally explodes from the toothpick of doom.

Items are generated by the following methods...

1. First we randomly select quality type from a short list; whites(junk), blues(magically delicious), greens(awesome with a hint of guacamole), or reds(let the blood flow...)
2. At the same time as quality selection the number of modifications is also chosen ranging from 0-5.
3. Modifications are then chosen at random from the effects list and given a weighted value. Things that are percents obviously get %s and so forth.
4. Before the modifications are placed on the item, they are limited by a hard cap. Later on they will be sorted based on the type of armor/weapon as well. So it will be impossible to find +arterial bleeding on a helmet. Unless of course you WANT a helmet that causes you to lose brain cells..

The hard cap is in place to prevent items with Chance to evade +90% from showing up, and that has happened more than once in my trials. Further more with all these effects in place I can begin working on attaching the abilities to the effects, and implementing all of this into actual combat. Finally we are starting to see some RPG elements come into play.