So a lot has happened in the last couple weeks. I've graduated from college (I just have to take 2 summer Spanish classes). I have a lot more free time now and I started out using that free time just playing games. I hadn't really played without feeling guilty about school or anything. After playing though I would always feel like I wasn't really having any fun. I was just doing something to pass the time until work or until I would go over to Michele's or vice versa.
Today however, I did some work and man do I like it. I revamped War+ so that it is currently a lot more like a tutorial. I think I have everything that needs to be known about the game set up, with that being said I really want to hit playtesting hard now. I'll be posting the tutorial level and not giving any kind of directions on how to play.
Not much has changed as far as the mechanics of the game goes. Minor changes in the rules of the game have changed, you now do not have any limit on how many lethal kills you can use. I still need to continue to work on the AI. I thought I was happy with how it works, but I still feel like it is too mechanical. This is probably due to my expanding yet still limited knowledge of GML.
I'm going to hit the programming hard over the next few weeks to get this AI working the way I want it to. The only thing that will probably hold me up is work. I have odd hours and they're never the same.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/swt6dh2uv6fcy99/War%2B6.exe
Friday, May 24, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Show last Friday
This past Friday was the show where I got valuable feedback from all the user testing. I had to present my project and all that fun stuff which was cool, except I don't really like public presentations. The night was a lot of fun!
I felt that I should have had prepared some sort of tutorial for the testers to use so they could get more from the experience, but you live and you learn right? Another problem I saw was that the game was unnecessarily hard to beat (I even had trouble with it). That being said I am taking War+ in a completely different direction. I took out the limits to the lethal attacks the player had, but I kept the negative effects it had with it. When I tested this myself I got dangerously close to losing without realizing it. This will still encourage the player to use the environment and avoid lethal combat. I want the player to be able to explore and find interesting things throughout each level. That being said I still need to figure out how to change room sizes in Game Maker. I'm going to be doing research on how to set up levels in Game Maker and studying level design and narrative for video games over the summer. As I go along I will be creating the assets for a level and slowly but surely having a much more polished looking demo. I think I'm more excited about breaking free of my senior thesis constraints so it is giving me a new vigor for this game. I was honestly a little reluctant to continue working on this after this semester.
I felt that I should have had prepared some sort of tutorial for the testers to use so they could get more from the experience, but you live and you learn right? Another problem I saw was that the game was unnecessarily hard to beat (I even had trouble with it). That being said I am taking War+ in a completely different direction. I took out the limits to the lethal attacks the player had, but I kept the negative effects it had with it. When I tested this myself I got dangerously close to losing without realizing it. This will still encourage the player to use the environment and avoid lethal combat. I want the player to be able to explore and find interesting things throughout each level. That being said I still need to figure out how to change room sizes in Game Maker. I'm going to be doing research on how to set up levels in Game Maker and studying level design and narrative for video games over the summer. As I go along I will be creating the assets for a level and slowly but surely having a much more polished looking demo. I think I'm more excited about breaking free of my senior thesis constraints so it is giving me a new vigor for this game. I was honestly a little reluctant to continue working on this after this semester.
Monday, April 22, 2013
End of the semester!
I have definitely been lacking the wherewithall to keep on trucking through this project and work as hard as I possibly could on it. That's not to say I'm not proud of what I've accomplished. I went from knowing absolutely no type of code of GML to having a mastery somewhere between beginner and intermediate. Granted the language is really simple, but nonetheless I am happy with what I've learned.
This week I finally got my enemies to stop moving once they were frozen. I've been trying to mess around with this for about two weeks now and I was never able to figure it out. The last thing I need to get done before the semester is over is having the camera follow the player so he has access to a larger area and can chase enemies.
Once this semester is over I am still going to continue work on War+, and I will continue to post theses blogs. I am just happy that I will be doing it on my own volition and not for a grade.
This week I finally got my enemies to stop moving once they were frozen. I've been trying to mess around with this for about two weeks now and I was never able to figure it out. The last thing I need to get done before the semester is over is having the camera follow the player so he has access to a larger area and can chase enemies.
Once this semester is over I am still going to continue work on War+, and I will continue to post theses blogs. I am just happy that I will be doing it on my own volition and not for a grade.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Couple steps backwards
It's been a rough few weeks for me as Michele's family suffered the loss of our uncle, Billy. He was a great guy always quick with a joke, but always in good fun. We loved him and he will always be missed.
I've been struggling to get the ranged enemies (the blue guys in the last demo) to take melee damage. In video games melee is simply a direct hit/punch/kick/grapple. I decided that it would be a lot easier to have one type of enemy with random health and range so I got rid of range and tank enemies and just had one type of enemy object. Now making area of effects should be a lot easier to do. That being said I still need to create the area of effect objects. Before I had a problem where the collision between the player's bullet and the area of effect object would cause the game to crash. I need to look up a solution for that problem before I can create other kinds of environmental effects.
On a positive side I added in tips when the player loses to help them do better. I also changed melee from the v key to right click and lastly I added a cool down time to Shel's ability to heal you.
As promised several weeks ago here's a look at the progress I made. https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3nbqdl90ejytew/War%2B3.5.exe
W moves up
A moves left
S moves down
D moves right
Spacebar moves the green dot
Left Click shoot
Right Click melee
R reload
C cure some damage- starts the cooldown
When you lose there will be tips to help you do better next time.
I've been struggling to get the ranged enemies (the blue guys in the last demo) to take melee damage. In video games melee is simply a direct hit/punch/kick/grapple. I decided that it would be a lot easier to have one type of enemy with random health and range so I got rid of range and tank enemies and just had one type of enemy object. Now making area of effects should be a lot easier to do. That being said I still need to create the area of effect objects. Before I had a problem where the collision between the player's bullet and the area of effect object would cause the game to crash. I need to look up a solution for that problem before I can create other kinds of environmental effects.
On a positive side I added in tips when the player loses to help them do better. I also changed melee from the v key to right click and lastly I added a cool down time to Shel's ability to heal you.
As promised several weeks ago here's a look at the progress I made. https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3nbqdl90ejytew/War%2B3.5.exe
W moves up
A moves left
S moves down
D moves right
Spacebar moves the green dot
Left Click shoot
Right Click melee
R reload
C cure some damage- starts the cooldown
When you lose there will be tips to help you do better next time.
Monday, March 25, 2013
things look promising...
So I know I said there would be a new demo today, but I'm a little behind. There's some kinks I need to work out of the existing AI, I need to be able to do area of effect damage, and I have to add the medic enemy. Once they are all added I will have an impromptu update with a new demo for everyone. After that I am going to work on an enemy timeline that will create more enemies as the game progresses. Finally I will work on fixing the screen size in order to fit more on the screen.
This week I began editing the enemy AI. They wander out of play a lot which is annoying.
As I've said this week I have a lot to do. Most challenging is probably going to be the AI for the enemy medic. The medic will move fast and avoid the player just as the ranged enemies do, but instead of firing at the player they heal wounded enemies or enemies immobilized by an environmental attack. Also I want to make destroying a medic directly an automatic level restart whereas the other two have a total number of direct assaults before the level will restart.
I feel like the environmental damages and effects will help breathe some life into the game and make it unique. Right now the environment doesn't work properly. I found a tutorial to help me fix that though, so by next week it should be okay.
This week I began editing the enemy AI. They wander out of play a lot which is annoying.
As I've said this week I have a lot to do. Most challenging is probably going to be the AI for the enemy medic. The medic will move fast and avoid the player just as the ranged enemies do, but instead of firing at the player they heal wounded enemies or enemies immobilized by an environmental attack. Also I want to make destroying a medic directly an automatic level restart whereas the other two have a total number of direct assaults before the level will restart.
I feel like the environmental damages and effects will help breathe some life into the game and make it unique. Right now the environment doesn't work properly. I found a tutorial to help me fix that though, so by next week it should be okay.
Monday, March 18, 2013
5 short weeks left!
I had spring break this week so naturally I worked night and day tirelessly on my game and all my other school work so I would be ahead of the ball by the time school started again..... except not. In retrospect I'm not behind terribly behind but I'm definitely not ahead of the game.
My project is due in just 5 weeks from now! That being said I have to kick it into high gear. No more wasting time doing distracting tasks. I need to have a schedule made up day to day so I can get everything done. As of right now I'm simply making edits to the game that I have so far. I need to go in and learn about time lines and making bigger environments in Game Maker. I am realizing that the AI I have right now is not quite right for my game. I need to fix this by looking at different AI setups for enemies. I am realizing that I need to improve upon my coding skills in Game Maker greatly (and other languages). This is probably going to take a couple years before I have true mastery over GML, but definitely worth the effort.
My project is due in just 5 weeks from now! That being said I have to kick it into high gear. No more wasting time doing distracting tasks. I need to have a schedule made up day to day so I can get everything done. As of right now I'm simply making edits to the game that I have so far. I need to go in and learn about time lines and making bigger environments in Game Maker. I am realizing that the AI I have right now is not quite right for my game. I need to fix this by looking at different AI setups for enemies. I am realizing that I need to improve upon my coding skills in Game Maker greatly (and other languages). This is probably going to take a couple years before I have true mastery over GML, but definitely worth the effort.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Update 3/5
Thank you everybody that downloaded the game and played my demo last week. I know I have not gotten to a lot of the core elements of the game yet, but I'm hoping that I will soon so I can get more feedback from everyone. Also once I do I can set up a time where I can actually watch testers play the game so I can see what they are doing versus what I expected them to do. Next week is SPRING BREAK! I'm pretty excited about that, hopefully I'll get lots of work done for all my projects
So this last week I did get a lot of work done on my game. I enabled melee combat by right clicking when you get close enough to the enemy. I limited the number of direct assaults per level to 4. Once that is reached the game will restart. Finally I began to work on the area of effect damage from environmental enemies.
This week I have to continue working on the environment objects so they can all work properly. I still need to figure out how to detect the enemies within range of area of effect and only apply the damage to instances of the enemies within that area. Once the environment is done I want to control the number of enemies with a timeline. I need to look into timelines and figure out how they work. Game Maker has a tutorial on timelines when they teach how to make the scrolling shooter 1942.
In addition to my figuring out the area of effect I also need to figure out arrays for my other game that I am working on for my internship. Also I still have not figured out how to change the screen size without affecting the mouse_x and mouse_y location on the board.
So this last week I did get a lot of work done on my game. I enabled melee combat by right clicking when you get close enough to the enemy. I limited the number of direct assaults per level to 4. Once that is reached the game will restart. Finally I began to work on the area of effect damage from environmental enemies.
This week I have to continue working on the environment objects so they can all work properly. I still need to figure out how to detect the enemies within range of area of effect and only apply the damage to instances of the enemies within that area. Once the environment is done I want to control the number of enemies with a timeline. I need to look into timelines and figure out how they work. Game Maker has a tutorial on timelines when they teach how to make the scrolling shooter 1942.
In addition to my figuring out the area of effect I also need to figure out arrays for my other game that I am working on for my internship. Also I still have not figured out how to change the screen size without affecting the mouse_x and mouse_y location on the board.
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