Damnation Alley - 8-bit wars competition entry

Started by Xerra, January 27, 2019, 18:50:00

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Xerra

Quote from: 3DzForMe on March 23, 2019, 16:06:19
My lord, that's one complex looking Dev UI.

It's initially daunting but that's only because you have so much power behind the hood. Usually I would run and hide from something with this much stuff to tinker with but I persevered because I'd heard good things and adapted to it surprisingly quickly. As it is I do seem to learn some new thing that can be done with it practically every week still. Gamemaker is a whole game dev system so it has inbuilt graphics editing and some basic sound tweaking functions as well, not that you need them if you use BFXr. The advantages of using something like this with practice is how quick you can throw things together because you just create a room and give it dimensions then throw an object in there with some basic movement code in it's step event and you're up and running. Discovering how much more is under the hood with the system comes later.
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Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
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iWasAdam

Nah - here's a complex ui doing much the same thing:  :o


This is the voice control page of the real-time synth I'm using.
You have controls and switches and LFO's and drawn functions. these can then control the parameters above... hehehehe

Xerra

Actually, that's laid out well, though. Some thought has gone into what controls go where so it's approachable compared to some big applications where they feel the need to keep adding stuff and the UI to control it is just an afterthought thrown anywhere onto the front-end.
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Xerra

Got myself a little further ahead last night from where I planned to be so broke my rule of adding nothing not already planned and put in a little title screen info area to show the vehicles, what they do, and how you should deal with them.

Telling myself that there's nothing else that I should be doing now apart from finishing the vehicles movement, the last track and a player death system.

Not unless I get it all done with a couple of spare days :-)
M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
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iWasAdam

very nice text effects (chrome and multi-colored)

Xerra

All four zones in the game now and have been tweaked a bit, along with adding the road lines. Game is going to be pretty tough as you won't just be able to go full speed all the way through the zones like I've been doing in video's. When I put it in hard mode then there's potentially up to six vehicles around you on screen and some of them are going to be doing nasty stuff.

I'm going to make bashing them off the road worth more points as I'm limiting the gun power a bit more and, when smoke and oil go in, they're going to be doing that to vehicles they hit anyway, so the reward has to be worth it. Buying the weapons in the shop takes your score off so it has to be worthwhile picking them up.
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Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
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Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Xerra

Finally the player now has additional weapons as well as the front-firing guns. Probably way over-powered right now because I can't really do much balancing until I've got all the enemy cars working how they are meant to. At present you're a fucking killing machine with Smoke, Oil, Guns and Bombs at your disposal.

Poor bastards never stood a chance. Even the poor civilians who you got penalised for shooting but did it anyway....

I'll be getting the police car working tomorrow to hopefully restore law and order.
M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Xerra

Truck adjustments done today so he isn't affected so much by smoke (windscreen is higher), can whack you a lot harder than other vehicles (fortunately it's likely to be self-preservation rather than aggression) and wont be affected by other vehicles crashing into him as much (because he's huge and heavy).

Enforcer vehicles don't have any AI either but I'm reserving the option to make them seek you out and shunt into you if you get too near. These guys can no longer be shot so you'll be using your special weapons or forcing them off the track to get points from these guys.

The Police AI is now done and they go aggressive for a few seconds and come for you, sirens blazing, if you use any special weapons while there's one on-screen. Again, I'm reserving the option of having them get pissed at you if you use your guns as well but I will add that in once I have everything in play so I can do that if it's a bit easy, or maybe use it just for the hard level.

What's left?
-------------
Shredder vehicle AI (mostly a clone of the police vehicle and just have the tyre screws come out instead).
Bikers being suicidal and trying to destroy you with them if you get to near, or knock them.
Player car needs to drown/explode (saving this once the last two vehicles do what they need to).
End of zone needs my original transition system back in place as it's been broken for a while now, as well as tarted up a bit.

Other than this I just need a day of testing, tweaking and tidying up. Hopefully that won't be on the last day for this game. I'm tired of being in panic mode right at the end :)

There's a couple of other bits I've come up with recently that I have in the back of my mind to go in, such as the police homing missiles and some kind of story to explain what you're actually trying to achieve driving through these four zones but that's only if i get the time.

5 days to go (gulp!)
M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
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Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Xerra

Damnation Alley is now at a point where I can release it. The game is complete and I've even got the Itch.io page ready to just upload the final build and toggle the release button. And I still have three days to spare :-)

I'm not putting it online just yet, however, because I've got a lot going on this weekend so my computer time is pretty limited. If I do get a couple of hours to polish a few bits up then I'm thinking I might as well take the opportunity. If I put it up now then people might not notice if I update it and judge it on the version they have already.

Glad i'm not going to be stressing all the way until release day and getting a game done a few minutes before deadline this time.

M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Qube

QuoteDamnation Alley is now at a point where I can release it.
God damn it! at least make out you're struggling to the end for us slow coaches :P

p.s. super cool news ;D
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Until the next time.

therevills


Steve Elliott

Well done, but bare-in-mind that people might have a few suggestions to improve minor things in your game (only bug fixes are allowed after the deadline).  So might be worth uploading now.
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iWasAdam

yep - looking forward to getting down and giving this and all the game a good play :)

Imerion

Just played this and can confirm it works great in WINE on Linux. No bugs detected, fun gameplay and I really appreciated getting a loading screen game. ;)

Btw, are those pokémon centres at the side of the road? :)

Derron

I am still on wine 1.6.2 (Mint 18.3) - there it crashes right on start.

I then updated wine (so no longer distribution provided but directly from winehq) and it works as Imerion stated. Only had issues with the sound playing faster when I tried to do screenshots of my crashed car. Will of course check later on a real Windows.


BTW you should really remove the alpha effect from your "crashed-car-smoke" ... adds a bit more color then desired.


bye
Ron