This is my entry for the mix-it-up competition - Creepy Crawlies. I'm going retro shooter here as it has elements of Gridrunner (a classic Vic 20 game), Centipede (which needs no introduction) and whatever else inspires me along the way.
A few lovely bugs that you'll be shooting at are also attached for a look at.
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Ever since human life evolved on Earth the insects have always been there.
We thought they were indigenous to Earth.
They were not ...
Defend the solar system from the threat of the insects who have colonised all the planets in the solar system
and now seek to wipe out the existence of their greatest threat. Man.
Shortly after the evolving of our solar system the insects colonised Earth. They hoped no other life would
form there but instead evolution went out of control and the colonised Creepy Crawlies found they were forced
to share the Earth with a species that mostly both hated and feared them. Now their ancestors have returned
and decided they want it all.
In the Twenty-Fourth century man had finally achieved its greatest goal in setting up airborne colonies in
the hemisphere of the gas giants that could not be directly populated. With outposts now being present on
Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus, humanity had spread to every possible world in our solar system short of the
cold, lifeless chunks of rock in the Kuiper belt that were too far from the Sun to be worthwhile.
Realising the very real threat from the insect species, huge planetary grids were placed in the vicinity of
the 8 major worlds in our system. As Pluto had been qualified as a planet once more in 2023, it was also
included in the plan and defence systems were installed to protect each one from the invading insects that
had proven remarkably resistant to each of the harsh worlds they invaded.
This was a war with heavy casualties on both sides but the general consencus was humanity were losing.
Enter you. Elite pilot and top of your class in the academy. You've been given access to a brand new
prototype ship and given the task of eliminating the Creepy Crawlies from each planet that have come to the
grid to destroy it.
You are the humans last hope as extinction beckons.
Only you can save the worlds.
Where have we heard all this before?
Who writes this stuff anyway? ...
Oh my, the narrative and the quality of your insects..... words almost fail me. Having some time to wait for this competition has given everyone the chance to re-invigorate their indie coding genius.
Really looking forward to your entry - there used to be a coder back on old blitz forums that made an impressive 3D entity path thing - its eluding me for now.
Could you maybe track the input of a mouse - and use the varying inputs as the base for how your different insects fly? ;)
I always loved Centipede and Millipede in the arcades, and the home conversions/variations. Fast frenetic gameplay - good luck.
I think the code for my centipedes may have gone a bit wrong :-X
Looks a bit othello esque. ;)
Keep a thought for everything having the same look.
Mixing hard style graphics with retro with alpha blending can make thing look a bit nasty - if the styles are completely different.
Pick a visual style (or the same artist) and keep everything looking the same 8)
Quote from: iWasAdam on September 21, 2019, 10:33:58
Keep a thought for everything having the same look.
Mixing hard style graphics with retro with alpha blending can make thing look a bit nasty - if the styles are completely different.
Pick a visual style (or the same artist) and keep everything looking the same 8)
Yep, those are just placeholder green circles i put in for sprites to test run movement patterns. Oh, and the terrible centipede head graphic that I drew to get rotation stuff right that's not in yet. That image is from the first run after i put in all the code in one go for the centipede rather than do it bit by bit. Lots of obvious work needed now but I was chuffed it at least ran first time without any syntax errors , even if it did fuck up completely, lol.
QuoteNow their ancestors have returned
and decided they want it all.
I like the ominous sounding nature of that narrative...... :o
Some more stuff gone in now. The Centipede itself has placeholder graphics (along with most of the rest) and is also moving at 32 pixels which looks crap on video recording - especially as the game plays faster when not recording with Snagit. I'm definitely changing that but thought I'd throw a new video out as I've been grinding away the last week on this game.
https://youtu.be/L2pOVWaKJvw
I like that. It's great.
This is progressing nicely Xerra. Less programmer art now and some satisfying sound explosions - although they could still do with something extra. Hopefully the pace picks-up to frenzy speeds on later levels.
Coming along well and I like the art style :)
Quote from: Steve Elliott on September 24, 2019, 15:03:28
This is progressing nicely Xerra. Less programmer art now and some satisfying sound explosions - although they could still do with something extra. Hopefully the pace picks-up to frenzy speeds on later levels.
Absolutely. The video makes it seem a fair bit slower than it actually is I've noticed while rewatching it. I've got to get a balance right with the number of shots fired and the speed of them in comparison to clearing mushrooms. The original centipede arcade game got it fucking perfect because there was always something there to shoot at - even if just a mushroom. And that game was like Boulderdash in a way, where OCD people actually enjoyed clearing the mushrooms to keep things tidy, just like I always used to clear out all the dirt in a boulderdash map to move all the rocks.
It'll be fast and bullet-hard if I can get away with it. There's a section in the video where i hit a spawn bug key rapidly in succession to get loads of mosquitoes flying down the screen rapidly. Thinking there's a bonus section doing something like that potentially.
I've got 10 insect types I could potentially use so there will be a lot more going on too. Just need to get the Centipede right first.
Great to hear, one of my favourite games back then. Millipede takes it up a few more notches though.
That is bewildering to watch, my wife remarked she'd play it (she doesn't ordinarily play games too much).
Love the electronic whooshing sound effects, the whole centipede meets Galaga vibe. Thats defo the third substantial gauntlet thrown down for this compo, the quality of the entrants so far are knocking it out of the park. 8)
Working on the beast all day today and have added a few things:
Frog - appears every 10,000 points but you gotta shoot it to get an extra life. Every so often he hops forward a bit just to make it harder.
Firefly - replaces the old gold ring for bonus activation. Not so easy to hit, either, as it's a bit quicker.
I've been working on creating everything to be aware and adjust to the window size while creating this game as I'm conscious that none of my previous games had any kind of resolution option. Not sure I'll have time to get it working well enough to support in the time we have left as there's so much more still to get done but I'm planning for it. Screws everything up in full screen mode too as i'm only checking window size but I'm pretty sure I can get that fixed.
I've replaced the centipede with more coder art (I'm so sorry, please forgive me). I'll have to replace it later but I've set it up so that I can have different coloured Centipedes just for more variety. They also move a lot smoother now as I've lowered the pixel update and made them update less often to compensate.
I now have three rather than five game levels. As I've got most of the creatures and the centipedes adjusting to this to control speed and frequency, and I can code in new ones to do this from the start, it's much more playable using just three. I always play it on the hardest setting just for balancing as it is now anyway.
Next on the agenda is to add in the turtle. This old beast is going to come in either left or right and you can shoot it for some points. Same old, same old until you notice that he will change direction each hit. And double his speed and points each time as well. See how long you can keep him on screen to boost your score up, while trying not to get yourself killed with everything else going on.
So far, apart from a little fading trick on the HornBug and the points display for shooting a mosquito, I've done very little to the creatures when they get shot apart from remove them from screen. Once I get everything in and working well is when I plan to start thinking about how to get them removed in creative ways. That means explosions, and traps possibly.
There's literally very little time been spent on presenting the game at the moment. I'm determined to do it the right way this time and have the game nailed down before I spend the rest of the time polishing as much as I can.
If I could just stop playing so long on testing sessions then I might just make the deadline .....
Worked out an awesome system for implementing the use of methods within an object using GMS2 today. Doesn't really help the game too much but it's going to help loads when I update my game project framework/template after this game is finished. The high score table object that I've put into Creepy today can almost be dropped into one of my other games as a complete object and work right off. I know proper support for stuff like methods is coming but at least I don't need to wait for it now. Prior to this I've had to use loads of external scripts and hard-to-remember references to integrate stuff.
Gameplay is now complete apart from the polishing up element of each creature.
Today I finished the addition of the elusive frog that appears every 10,000 points that you need to make sure you kill else you're not getting that extra life.
I also put in the turtle who likes to plod across the screen and will give you points every time you shoot him, but can't actually die. Each time you hit him he does increase his points value and reverse direction, though. You can rack up a nice score boost if you can shoot this creature more than a few times while the bonus is active.
What's still to do:
Implement a proper HUD - only the bonus countdown progress bar is done at present.
Spruce up the rather spartan title screen.
Add some explosion effects onto the creatures when they get destroyed.
A level complete sequence so the player can move to the next planet.
Despite my terrible graphics skills I have actually gone with mostly my own stuff this game. Some of the creatures are from an asset pack I purchased an a couple of bits are free artwork I could use but, other than that, I'm going to leave it be.
So, unless i have some kind of disaster, I should be good for making next Sunday's deadline.
Quote from: Xerra on October 12, 2019, 17:53:06
Gameplay is now complete apart from the polishing up element of each creature.
So, unless i have some kind of disaster, I should be good for making next Sunday's deadline.
Great news :) - Happy to hear you will complete in time ( pending any disasters ) ;D
Quote from: Xerra on October 12, 2019, 17:53:06
Despite my terrible graphics skills I have actually gone with mostly my own stuff this game
Ack! never worry about that as each time you do something you'll learn and improve for the next time. I'd say continue with creating your own graphics as it's great fun and an achievement to see your own work in action.
Thought I'd put up another video now that the end is in sight. Again, video is a bit slower than actual gameplay and it's on easy mode so don't expect to last as long as I did.
Still lacking a lot of whiz-bang creature destruction but that's where i'm going to do as much as I can once the planet stuff goes in and i finish off the title screen. That way I don't run out of time with game stuff still to put in.
https://youtu.be/1E4QWIh7dyU
2 quick comments / suggestions :
->your sound effects are disturbing to listen to (imo), why not use sounds of insects instead of these weird sounds (you can probably create them with your own voice / tongue/ lips with some experimentation)
->maybe split your existing images of insects in parts, and when an insect dies, make it exploses in several parts, with some added green blood particles, and it will be more fun ! (imo)
I think two of the sounds do need to be replaced. The boom sound when the player explodes and the looped screech when the hornet dies. The more i listen to it by playing the video so I don't have to concentrate on the game, the more it seems out of place. That laugh when the turtle gets away has to stay though. It sounds like a witch cackling and it's my little reminder that haloween is coming.
Besides, when the missus plays the game, I can keep mentioning that it sounds like her mother. Says me typing from my hospital bed :-)
Quote from: Xerra on October 14, 2019, 07:05:27
Says me typing from my hospital bed :-)
Tell them you have a non-reallife deadline you cannot miss - and let them send you home :)
bye
Ron
Quote from: Derron on October 14, 2019, 21:28:22
Quote from: Xerra on October 14, 2019, 07:05:27
Says me typing from my hospital bed :-)
Tell them you have a non-reallife deadline you cannot miss - and let them send you home :)
Or maybe, to be even safer, I should just avoid making jokes about the mother-in-law ;D
Title screen jazzed up a bit today so i could add the starfield I've been promising myself that I would add finally. This ticks another milestone off the list.
Started work on balancing some of the creatures - especially the mosquito's - today. They move a bit faster depending on level now while still retaining the "Shit, get out of the way" aspect they had due to their speed at any level. I did have them generating mushrooms at varying amounts on the way down dependent on the game level but I found it was pissing me off because the screen filled up too quickly making the centipedes a threat way too early.
I've made the hornet collision window a little smaller now as it's always been the toughest creature to deal with and avoid. I want it to be nasty still so it's wider than the size of the creature appears, but not by too much. The danger element has always been offset by the fact that it's actually helping clear mushrooms in the player area while it's active so the game decision is to leave it if you need some space made quicker than you can or shoot it if you can nail the bugger before it gets you.
I'm thinking mushrooms may need to be cleared with fewer shots as it's a slow process right now - which doesn't feel very game-play friendly. I may strip out some of the decomposing animation to do this when I do some more balancing near the end.
So, planet intermissions based on a timer goes in next session and that's the final major element. After that it's just tweak, tidy and polish. Bet I still end up tinkering with it late on Sunday evening....
QuoteThey move a bit faster depending on level now while still retaining the "Shit, get out of the way" aspect they had due to their speed at any level. I did have them generating mushrooms at varying amounts on the way down dependent on the game level but I found it was pissing me off because the screen filled up too quickly making the centipedes a threat way too early.
....... just an idea - the first time your Mosquitos get 'hit' I'd like to see them get one of their wings 'holed', thus causing their flying to become somewhat erratic. In fact, this logic could be expanded in one form or another to all enemies.
This would probably entail a couple of additional collision entities for each wing....?
Hmmm, wonder where that idea came from......
QuoteQuote from: Xerra on October 13, 2019, 09:20:43
We best have the first headshot taking the hats off or I'll be right grumpy :P
;D ;D ;D ;D 8) :P
Grumble. Try to make me more work, would ya? Eh! Eh!
Guess I deserved that :P
Planets now in and working correctly for attract mode. Now working on implementing the level change intermission that happens every time you get 5000 points and move onto the next planet. It's not going great at the moment but I still have time to get it right.
Also replaced some of the wonky sounds and made the mushrooms a little quicker to shoot through.
The missus loves my game but it's possible she's a bit biased so I won't let my head swell just yet.
Two days to go /panic
Xerra, you are highly priveleged - you'll have your very own 'hat mode' of the game (thats if I get it far enough to actually release into the wild!)
QuoteGrumble. Try to make me more work, would ya? Eh! Eh!
Guess I deserved that :P
The concept is good - however - seeing as I've got the functionality in there - it just needs some ironing (which time wise I can ill afford) - it needs to remain in its un-polished state.
Will I be able to refine it during thwe bug-fix week without incurring penalties - who knows.
Anyway, my point - not too worry you - best I have my 'winged' mosquito mode (Have you seen that film involving a horses head - or was it an antelope, I can't recall.......) :o ;) :D ;D
Quote from: 3DzForMe on October 19, 2019, 07:19:35
Anyway, my point - not too worry you - best I have my 'winged' mosquito mode (Have you seen that film involving a horses head - or was it an antelope, I can't recall.......) :o ;) :D ;D
Gulp! Are you making me an offer I can't refuse, Don Vito Corleone?
If I get a chance I'll see if I can give them a little wiggle. I don't want to end up with an extra head in my bed. Not enough room with the missus nicking all the flippin' duvet....
Finally game itself is done bar a couple of bits to polish up. Spent ages reworking Mosquito's so mushrooms could be dropped randomly by them as they fall today and almost got in a panic about how much I had to rewrite shit to get it going. I felt guilty about removing that bit due to laziness a couple of weeks back.
Planets and level intermissions are all finally in and working correctly. I wanted to have the mushrooms left on screen have a points totaling bonus display between levels to give the player a few seconds down-time from critter extermination and to break the game up a bit.
Hopefully all the sounds disliked from earlier videos are replaced now. The game is no longer an assault on the ear-drums especially for Remid :-)
Tempting to put another video up but I'll be putting it online for people to play tomorrow anyway so I shall restrain myself.
QuoteFinally game itself is done bar a couple of bits to polish up.
I'm guessing that'll be the inclusion of a one winged mosquito struggling to evade as all he can do is fly in ever decreasing concentric circles (what other type is there......)
As Mrs Doyle of Father Ted would say - Go On, Go On, Go On.......
[pause]
Right so!....Go On, Go On, Go On.......
Be warned - horses head has been prepared :o
[EDIT] Bloody hell Xerra, just seen the Video - you've knocked it out the park this time!
Video is old, mate. It's a lot better now... I hope :)
And I'm done. Posted on the competition thread the release information.
https://xerra.itch.io/creepy-crawlies
Good luck with this, Centipede/Millipede were a couple of my favourites. They started as a basic shooter, but then ramped-up the intensity to fun levels.
Quote from: Steve Elliott on October 20, 2019, 21:34:30
Good luck with this, Centipede/Millipede were a couple of my favourites. They started as a basic shooter, but then ramped-up the intensity to fun levels.
Play it on level 3, mate. Hopefully that should give you the intensity you desire :)
As much as it's quite chilled at level 1, I just prefer getting murdered and shit flying everywhere on max difficulty. And I wrote the thing, haha.
just to let you know everything runs fine here :)
Xerra, all good here, love the turtle doing about turns!
Thanks for letting me know everything works so far, guys. Much appreciated.
Anyone had any problems at all yet who's not said anything?
Like maybe a full screen issue? Because I kind of picked up on this late last night :-(
And what do you think of the game? Like it? Hate it? I gotta know. I've compromised a bit at the end for how I originally envisaged the game but still felt it made the cut. Learned some new tricks too - always a bonus.
Quote from: Xerra on October 21, 2019, 17:04:46
Thanks for letting me know everything works so far, guys. Much appreciated.
Anyone had any problems at all yet who's not said anything?
Like maybe a full screen issue? Because I kind of picked up on this late last night :-(
No problems running the game on my Core i7, Windows 10 laptop PC. I can't see a way of getting the game into full screen display? That's not an issue for me by the way (the window is big enough), but you asked about possible full screen issues.
QuoteAnd what do you think of the game? Like it? Hate it?
I, for one, certainly don't hate it. I reached a score of 69124 on Level 1 (and about 20000 on Level 3, I think). Yeah it's a fun game, but I found that I could play it pretty much on 'auto pilot' (especially on Level 1) -- just stay roughly in the centre, keep Space pressed down, and be ready to dodge that pesky swooping ladybird -- speaking of which...
The baddy-player collision detection for the swooping ladybird might need some tuning because I'm convinced it kills you without actually touching you, leading me to protest "
That f****** thing didn't touch me!" Does anyone else agree with me on this?
Is the tortoise indestructible? Does it basically function as a projectile blocker?
Btw, those excessively squashed planets did raise a small smile, admittedly. :D
(Mind you, having said that, there's actually a dwarf planet in our Solar System that's shaped like an egg - look up Haumea)
Quote from: BasicBoy on October 22, 2019, 05:52:38
No problems running the game on my Core i7, Windows 10 laptop PC. I can't see a way of getting the game into full screen display?
The baddy-player collision detection for the swooping ladybird might need some tuning because I'm convinced it kills you without actually touching you, leading me to protest "That f****** thing didn't touch me!" Does anyone else agree with me on this?
Is the tortoise indestructible? Does it basically function as a projectile blocker?
The itch.io page does answer all of these issues in the game description but I had a feeling I should have possibly thrown in some kind of instruction page in the game as well.
Full screen is toggleable by pressing Numpad-Zero. I did a hack on that last thing before submission because I had problems with it previously and removed it from the menu then got it working again. Needless to say I found a fault with it again after submission <sigh>. Also found the Mac version key to do it no longer works even though I modified it with the same code I used in the windows build. Bug fix is going to be needed for this one.
The Tortoise is a little bonus system in the game. Each hit it swaps direction and goes a little faster but you get more points each time you hit it. So get as many shots in on the thing as you can before it goes off screen.
The Ladybird - or HornBug, as I started calling it, does indeed kill you just by proximity to an extent. I made it a bit tighter but wanted it to be more of a threat for when people got good enough at the game to be able to handle most of the rest. The idea was that you had to decide if you needed to leave it so that it removed excess mushrooms, or you took your chances and got 10 shots on the beast while it's moving upwards.
Glad you liked it otherwise, though :)
a good trick with collision is the following:
if they can hit you then reduce the collision size - this give you a better chance
if they are bullets to hit them - increase the collision size - so it feels like you have a better chance of hitting them
:)
Quote from: iWasAdam on October 22, 2019, 07:38:56
a good trick with collision is the following:
if they can hit you then reduce the collision size - this give you a better chance
if they are bullets to hit them - increase the collision size - so it feels like you have a better chance of hitting them
:)
Point noted. What's your feeling? Reckon it's a bit too mean as it stands? I won't alter it for competition entry, as it wouldn't be a bug fix, but it's a pretty easy fix to adjust the area if I do an update after competition is over.
Currently working on a few little fixes that I hope to have done by Sunday for an update on my game.
I've fixed an issue where there was a really stupidly rare chance a problem could occur with the grid spawning. I only caught this by chance.
Turns out I had a broken area on the origin point of the HornBug for setting the collision area so setting that correctly does make it a lot more forgiving in its proximity to the player. As this is how it should have been originally I'm classing this as a bug fix but I'm happy to revert it back (just a sprite area setting) if it's not considered one. Please let me know if this is the consensus.
The code to switch to full screen was supposed to be numberpad_0. This didn't work due to an incorrect boolean so I have bugfixed but it's shown another issue where the player ship boundaries go outside of the window size dimensions which is bloody strange to say the least. I'm looking into fixing this and I do think it's classed as a bug as full screen was meant to be in the game (as shown on itch_io page) but I shall leave it if there's objections.
I don't think there's anything else wrong, or I'm not aware of it. I have to do some UAT testing for my real job on Sunday but I'm optimistic I can get this stuff sorted out as well. If there's anything anyone has noticed that I'm not aware of that's buggy in Creepy then please let me know ASAP so I can put it on the list.
Thanks guys.
I'm stopping my bug fixing at 10 tonight - I'll be play testing creepy crawlies + the other entrants releases to date just after then.
QuoteThe Tortoise is a little bonus system in the game. Each hit it swaps direction and goes a little faster but you get more points each time you hit it. So get as many shots in on the thing as you can before it goes off screen.
I was wondering if it just flipped direction - nice touch. :)
Quote from: Xerra on October 25, 2019, 18:44:35
Currently working on a few little fixes that I hope to have done by Sunday for an update on my game.
I don't think there's anything else wrong, or I'm not aware of it. I have to do some UAT testing for my real job on Sunday but I'm optimistic I can get this stuff sorted out as well. If there's anything anyone has noticed that I'm not aware of that's buggy in Creepy then please let me know ASAP so I can put it on the list.
Thanks guys.
I've been digging around for your updated file Xerra, couldn't find it on your itch.io page - said last thing was 5 days ago - then I read your first line - Doh! - not released the patch yet ;)
I've updated Creepy Crawlies on both Mac and PC to V1.01 to fix a few minor issues.
https://xerra.itch.io/creepy-crawlies (https://xerra.itch.io/creepy-crawlies)
Changes V1.01 - PC and Mac versions
===================================
Modified the collision window on the hornBug to make it a bit easier to deal with.
Grid drawing bug that could randomly occur solved.
Full screen now works correctly on the Numpad_0 and the F key.
Changed the identifying name to prevent potential conflicts with other apps as syntax was incorrect.