edg3's prototypes and stuff

edg3

The current attempts
I am making small games and trying to make them in a quick way again. For me to do this I have needed to change my gamedev. XNA keeps giving me issues (I can only use a project on my computer and not my phone, or the other way round). So I chose to make (and share making it) something that is new for me! If there are suggestions for changes that is also fine.

So - the thing I am sharing today: I have made a percentage of the engine I want to have and use. I have blogged about it if you want to know more here http://loveland.za.org/blog/3.html. There is an image of game 1 there for me - so I will be making games "quickly" with this again. Im just changing (and sharing the changes) to how I want to do this. The first game is a platformer where you collect things, jump around and have to stop enemies that kill you that you cant get past. Yes I have it available on Github for anyone that wants to use it.

For the start of this for you to read:

So, I had a strange time. With the programming I am relearning what I chose to do is focus on game development. Well... Yes... It has all completely changed since when I started this!
So for starting this off I want to share that I have taken the folding up XNA has done for building games. XNA is broken for me - I try to make a phone game and a copy on PC can't compile (and vice versa). What this made me want to do is change things up.

When I have finished the engine part I will make another post here explaining it and trying to get it working in each way it can. Sharing and testing is what I want to do with it!

The past
So, in an effort to force myself to finish something I am making a game in 7 days and as part of getting myself going I need to tell people Im doing it so you can badger me to work on it, and figure I should keep this "prototype" in a general thread for my further prototypes. I will make a game thread at a later stage for it if I need to.

False Eden
State: Pre-alpha
Info: So, instead of flooding myself with all the really cool things I want to implement for False Eden I decided the best plan of actions is the following:
- Remove everything to get a core idea
- Get the core idea working
- Slowly add things, make sure they work for what I wanted, if they don't cut them out and move on to the next thing to add
I basically rethought what I wanted to, what I would be able to do and how I wanted to do it. I still want large amounts of game play and replayability but I thought of a better way to theme it and stylise it (in terms of allowing me to finish it), I wont go into specifics (and there are some spoilers in F1 in game but that is alright) here as things are likely to change drastically. I've opted to cut out 9001% of the work I would need to do by making some rudimentary randomly generated levels, some basic AI for a single (there are 2 however) enemy, simple combat without that equipment and such added in and to use some free sprites. ( Sprites from: http://opengameart.org/content/roguelike-tiles-large-collection ).

What I need is some help to work out what is wrong with the code, I am getting crashes from the Game Maker: Studio runner that according to every reference I can find of the same crash says it happens when the runner is unable to properly tell you where in your code the problem occurs. In other words the best way to find this is probably to get other people to help out with finding it by letting them play! If you do happen to get a crash please get me that log if you can.

Download (~1.9mb, Windows): <removed download> - F1 for controls.

(Also, this is the "playable" I mentioned at last months meet, it was ready but I spent some time prettying it up and fixing bugs so I could post).

7 Day Roguelike: "Prototype2"
Without any extra fluff or explanation (which I will give more on later perhaps), here is what I have so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YotKCqcyyb8

I am using the Oryx sprite sets for now as they are just sexy, and its nice looking at a nice game already. The purpose is to make a roguelike in 7 days, and when I am done deciding what will and wont be in the game (I've been reading up on definitions and ideas for this for a while) I will be more specific about what I want to finish in these 7 days. Mostly because "Make Games" is all about making games!

(Also in future I will record the videos at 100% quality, not sure why I missed that today :( )
So, updates and stuff:
- 1. I have slacked, however I got back on track today, and made good progress this evening
- 2. Have a random walk level built with placement of boss areas and enemies (which are useless atm)
- 3. Next up is simple combat (3 enemy types, 1 boss type, fighting with bow/sword/magic)
Also:
Enemies EVERYWHERE!
http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/6b/bf095b59193a0ac5262a84292b865a.png

Ok, here is the more "complete" version: <removed this link>

Here is what I have so far:
- Player combat (no animation)
- Enemy combat (no animation)
- Enemy "AI" (no animation)
- 3 types of attacking for the player (melee, ranged and magic)
- A randomly generated level of sorts with 5 "bosses" that you can try and defeat.
- Random item drops from enemies
- Random adjustments to difficulty
- Transmutation (BEWARE! DANGER! GEVAAR! Extremely erratic enemy difficulty could be introduced ;) you might get lucky and get an easy to defeat roll on the transmute, use at own risk)

There is no win condition, there is no way to get better weapons/spells, there is no potion mechanic, the game is still damn hard.

I hope it is fairly intuitive to play, but just in case:
- Arrow Keys/WASD to move
- Left click to interact with enemies (yellow options can be clicked to perform the attack)
- Melee has range 1, Magic range 3, Ranged has range 5
- Each movement counts as 1 turn, Each consecutive attack after the first one from the last move counts as 1 turn, enemys only move and attack every second turn.
(The "level" takes a while to load)
- T to teleport - Teleporting (5 turn cooldown)

My final thoughts so far:
- I need to try and fix up the feeling of the combat, right now you just need that 1 item that gives you tickets to a free ride.
- I need to work out nice boss behaviour to give the game real difficulty and challenge.

Tuism

Cool stuff! Using sprite pack's a great idea, think even I should get into that as opposed to fiddling with a bunch of stuff. Looking forward to progress!

edg3

Updated the OP.



Tomorrow I hope to finish the base mechanics (in Prototype 2), then I can fiddle with things more (and share something playable).

edg3

Ok, so another update ( + a link to a playable version).

Here is what I have so far:
- Player combat (no animation)
- Enemy combat (no animation)
- Enemy "AI" (no animation)
- 3 types of attacking for the player (melee, ranged and magic)
- A randomly generated level of sorts with 5 "bosses" that you can try and defeat.

There is no win condition, there is no way to get better weapons/spells, there is no potion mechanic, the game is damn hard.

I am posting it as is right now to mark the end of the 7 days for the 7DRL experience.

I hope it is fairly intuitive to play, but just in case:
- Arrow Keys/WASD to move
- Left click to interact with enemies (yellow options can be clicked to perform the attack)
- Melee has range 1, Magic range 3, Ranged has range 5
- Each movement counts as 1 turn, Each consecutive attack after the first one from the last move counts as 1 turn, enemys only move and attack every second turn.
(The "level" takes a while to load)

Get the playable prototype: https://www.box.com/s/0o5zn6cfmrfgxu8ud11o

I will update the OP when I have a more rounded experience to share.

Edit: Known bugs:
- The "helper text" at the top is blocked by the health :(
- The "enemy turn" runs rather slowly

edg3

Last shameless bump till my next prototype, OP updated with a better more playable version that captures more what I am going for.

Rigormortis

So apart from wanting to be a badass and totaly hit the crap out of anything, there isn't really a reason not to use the ranged attack. If the damage was a spread of say 1-3-5 for ranged-magic-melee, and there were enemies that had more health it could have been something different, but I always used the ranged attack.

Also I think(but can't be sure) that the enemies only "see" you if you are within 4 squares. I could pelt the bosses with arrows without them ever moving closer.

TREASURE...! :D the game needs something to look for other than the bosses. Or at least reward you somehow for killing the bosses.

Other than that, I never got a crash or bug :P and I always like procedurally generated levels.

Are you planning on working on it some more?

edg3

Yeah, it was difficult trying to fit in everything in with work, so its kinda halfway there. I also sat with my dad playing for an hour seeing how things worked and ended up tweaking the numbers and it is now a legitimate challenge. I actually have still been working on it (as i cant decide what to prototype next) so im just rounding off the entire experience as best i can.

The enemies have slightly different sight and attack range and purpose. Swordsmen and axemen see you at 4 blocks in that and head towards you, its up to 6 in my current build, and the archers have infinite sight for chase and will chase to 4 range but try to maintain that distance. Swords and axes are only 1 block range (no diagonal), and bow enemies shoot only when within 2 to 4 range.

My original plan was to have an inventory with limited space, and you then had to decide what to carry and equip, but i recently realised i would rather try keep the interaction as simple as possible (so the next version will most likely use the mouse only as this translates easily to touch). Part of the realisation meant i didnt want to be putting a player into some complex item-managing scenario, but chests and item drops need to be worth it for a player, and similarly need to be rewarding. It is difficult trying to decide if the hot-swap only system really works? Or fits? But treasure wise im not sure what to do yet...

The way that the difficulty ramps up is in the enemies you face from level to level, so im balancing so that mid- to top-end stats from lvl1 will be alright to start out in lvl2, but in defeating every boss from lvl1 you should get bumped up to at least 1 item that fits entry perfectly for the next level. So currently a mid-range weapon froom lvl1 is just enough to help me out in lvl2, but a high end one just has that minimal damage advantage making me take 3 hits instead of 4 from certain enemies. Im trying to find the right amount of loot to give a player to keep the challenge but reward clearing an area (which is risky for your hp which carries through level changes). Also, you cant get to level 2 in the linked build because i forgot to add the progression chest (bad edg3, bad).

Some thoughts on drops:
- should i add some modifier so the longer you dont get drops the more the percentages increase? (for getting a drop)
- should normal mobs only drop trash/good loot and bosses only drop good/rare loot?
- should a boss start deactivated and if a player enters the "boss area" it damages the player if they run away?

These are what im currently toying with in an attempt to give incentive to put oneself into danger, obviously to try gain higher reward.

Rigormortis

Upload the new version when your done. I would like to give it a play :)

I don't now if the modifier should be there. I usually tend to think of something like that in averages(which has not always worked out). If I want the player to gain one item per level and I want about 100 enemies per level I would want to make the chance of a drop about 1%. This of course doesn't take into account that the drop might not be an upgrade if it is random drops, but that is how I tend to think of it. I think the increased chance might work, but it's probably better to test it instead of speculating.

I think the bosses need to drop something other than the mobs. It doesn't have to be strictly better, because otherwise it becomes kind of a chore to kill normal enemies. For instance, have the normal enemies drop gold and potions to prepare you for the fight, and have the bosses drop items that you can equip. Something else you might want to try out is not have normal enemies drop loot. But instead have treasure chests scaterred throughout the map. Because of the random nature of the level I would assume that there will be chests that are easier to get to than others. You can then have the chests with lots of enemies surrounding it give better loot. Or something like that. That way the player can look for "weak" chests at the start of a level to gain access to better chests and eventually gain access to the bosses' loot.

I'm not a fan of punishing the player for running away from a boss fight. I think smart warriors know when to run away, a tactical retreat :P. The only "punishment" I would visit on the player is that he has to kill the boss in one sitting. So whenever he enters the boss area the boss will be at full health and energy or whatever. So he can't whittle him down, he has to be badass enough to kill him from start to finish.

Hopefully some of the stuff I posted here is useful. :)

edg3

I will sit and play the other prototypes for a bit and then afterwards release the latest version when I've made a few minor changes to it to make it more fun :)

edg3

Ok, updated the OP, here is the latest version.

Changelog:
- Misc balancing (enemies, player, items, etc)
- It is possible to reach level 2
- Bosses now drop chests (which are guaranteed to give an item (no guarantee that it is a good item)
- Transmutation now works (it works based on the enemy's current health/damage/defence, extremely volatile, potentially OP for the player though, use at own risk)
- Misc effects to show damage taken and dealt
- At the "Main" boss area there will be a chest at the top left which will teleport you to the next level when all bosses are defeated (will be changed at a later stage).

Known bugs:
- Boss' chests spawn under the map and cant be seen, they can still be picked up though
-----------------------

@Rigormortis: It was mostly just thoughts on the system, after tweaking it feels more rewarding now, so hopefully it will feel better to me (Im probably the only one it bugged anyway).

The bosses drop chests which drop the same items that mobs can generate (at the moment), however it guarantees a heal and item, and probably a gold (whose mechanics are not yet in the game) in the future.

I haven't done boss activation/deactivation yet, but the idea that if I go far enough away it heals itself and goes back to normal is really cool and I want to give it a go! Similarly, the boss' sight range was also fixed, however they still need an extra mechanic or two to make them feel like bosses (theyre just a particularly difficult mob right now).

edg3

Necropost (kinda).

Added False Eden (pre-alpha) to the top post.

TL;DR - need help finding and fixing a bug.
Download (~1.9mb, Windows): https://www.dropbox.com/s/n81yngigxmng94m/Rogue-Default-0.0.0.8.exe - F1 for controls.

Rigormortis

@edg3, I tried to reproduce the error. My findings have been that the first time the error happened it seemed random, but after that the map didn't randomly generate anymore, it just stayed the way it was at the time the error occurred. I was also then able to consistently reproduce the error by having an enemy next to me and trying to move away from them. It wouldn't crash every time I moved, but the most I had to move before it crashed was 4/5 times.

I did actually die at some point and only after that death did the map start reloading in a random way. I tried to reproduce the error again by running alongside enemies and it wasn't as successfully as the first time, but after a crash the level stopped loading randomly again.

I also googled a bit about the error code (Exception Code: c0000005) and it seems to be memory access related.

My suggestions so far would be to look for memory leaks or references gone missing. Or maybe even a recursive method gone bad?

Also, have you tried this yet :

Some Forum said:

Are you guys using the new asset compiler? You can check in the "Preferences" at the bottom of the General tab. If you have it on, test with it off (and vice versa).

it seems to be a solution in some cases.

edg3

That option isnt in Preferences anymore, so I couldn't try the different asset compiler.

The map stays the same until you die. The system is this way (with saving) so that you can play and progress, drop the game at any point and pick it up again and continue with your playthrough.

Your experiences seem basically the same as mine for reproducing it, where I can consistently reproduce it, but it also comes and goes. I think Im going to need to add debug writing to console for every script to pinpoint where it occurs (though I am quite dissapointed that having been reported so long ago to YoYo they still haven't quite sorted script debugging).

Thanks for giving it a go!

Rigormortis

Cool, I'll try a bit more tonight when I get home with the new information(about the level not reloading) in mind. :)

edg3

Oki doki! I have updated the OP because I want to share what I am doing. Yes, I am making a "new" engine that can be used with a lot of libraries to make games (on lots of platforms, which is why the different libraries are needed currently). You can read more above but here is the summary:

I am making small games and trying to make them in a quick way again. For me to do this I have needed to change my gamedev. XNA keeps giving me issues (I can only use a project on my computer and not my phone, or the other way round). So I chose to make (and share making it) something that is new for me! If there are suggestions for changes that is also fine.