SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

General Category => Game Coding Competitions => Topic started by: Qube on January 30, 2018, 00:10:55

Title: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on January 30, 2018, 00:10:55
Welcome to our 4th Code a Game Competition. Quite an open theme this time around so get your imaginations flowing and create some fun games.

Competition Theme :

TV and Movies.

Pick any film or TV show you want and base a game around it. For example you could base a game around Ghostbusters but call it Ghostdusters instead and have game elements *loosely* based on the film, eg, catching ghosts. Another example could be a TV show like Dallas ( pick your own name ) where you play an oil tycoon and have to fight off other tycoons while keeping all your oil rigs going ( beat-em up ).

Plenty of room for inspiration and to have fun. Good luck to all those that enter.


Limits :

No limitations on how your game is presented.

Of course you can't copy / remake existing games based on movies / tv shows because of copyright or use characters names, images, video, music, sound etc etc from the movie / tv show. Be creative :)

Competition length :

10 weeks ( as chosen by our last competition winner, Steve G )
From Jan 30th to April 10th 2018

Rules :

1.. No copyright media or modified pre-built game templates allowed.
2.. Game frameworks are allowed as are free / purchased media.
3.. Individuals and teams are allowed to enter.
4.. Provide a download with at least a Windows executable ( or link if a web browser game only ). Include other OS's too if you want.
5.. Choice of language is totally up to you. You do not have to provide the source code.
6.. One entry per person / team.
7.. Syntaxbomb has zero rights to any work posted here. You / your team hold total control.
8.. Prize to the winners payable via PayPal only.
9.. All entries must be in by 23:59:59 on the 10th of April 2018 ( GMT ). No extensions to the deadline will be granted.

Prizes :

£500 split over the top three winners ( £250, £150 and £100 )

Members who want to help with the prize fund can send donations via PayPal to my email address ( <myusername>@syntaxbomb.com ) but are under no obligation to do so.

Prize fund donations :

Steve G - £25
ahuang - £25

How to submit your game :

Game submissions must be made in this thread. You may link to your external webpage or showcase post about your game. If you have no means of hosting your game then please PM Qube and arrangements will be made.


When submitting your game please adhere to the following format ( if relevant ) :

Game Title ( and the tile of the tv show / movie which inspired your game )
Download link and OS requirements
Required dependancies
Brief info about your game
Media information ( If using free / purchased media then please state where you obtained said media. )


How are the winners picked :

Voting will take place from the 11th of April 2018 and a dedicated thread will be made and relevant voting information provided.


Side note : If I enter any competition on SyntaxBomb I will not be part of the winners prize fund. If my entry does get votes then they will just be proxy votes and classed as an honourable / joint place mention. This way I have the option to play along while having zero effect on any entries or winners placements.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Yue on January 30, 2018, 00:20:25
Any impediments to my participation in the project I am currently doing?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Conjured Entertainment on January 30, 2018, 03:13:56
Film / TV 8)  Cool

Ten Weeks?

It will only take me 2 or 3 weeks to pick a movie.   ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: round157 on January 30, 2018, 03:54:44
Wow...the 4th Code a Game Competition starts so soon. Maybe "Code a Game Competition" series will become an important competition series in the programming world in the future.
:)
Moreover, there is a donation(£25) from Steve G. His game Van Tourisimo is a really nice game and he is also very generous!!

The competition theme of the 4th competition is "TV and Movies". In fact, it is a very, very good theme. The person who decided to use this theme is a genius! There are so many successful movies from Hollywood. For example, Transformers series, Jurassic Park series, Mission: Impossible series, Die Hard series, Star Wars series, Harry Potter series, X-Men series, etc. There are also many excellent animation movies. For example, Finding Dory, Toy Story 1,2,3, Despicable Me, Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc. 

I really look forward to the games from all the participants! I believe that their entries will be quite amazing!
:D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on January 30, 2018, 06:33:46
Good choice.  Believe it or not my theme suggestion was going to be 80's TV and Film :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on January 30, 2018, 06:50:20
So the game must be referencing a movie/tv-production?


I would like to do something in connection with the creation/production process.


Else I need to look for a documentation...following people doing what I would simulate. Just to follow the rules.
An example would be a game like "The movies" (nope...not planned to do that).




Hmm just had another idea...if someone is looking for one:
TrueManShow
- top down view of a city map
- TrueMan walks around stopping here and there (TheSims style needs)
- everywhere are cameras positioned
- cameras can be active (TrueMan is able to see them after a specific time of "in view") or inactive (invisible to TrueMan)
- players get scores for active cameras filming TrueMan
- the more simultaneously active cameras exist, the more score you get (pay-per-view spectators pay more...or so)
- levels create harder and harder positions for cameras  ... Or more people to simultaneously surveil




Bye
Ron

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on January 30, 2018, 07:26:59
QuoteIt will only take me 2 or 3 weeks to pick a movie.   ;D
I have a movie, it'll just take me the same time to figure out how I'm going to do it. AAA game in my head vs reality :P

QuoteGood choice.  Believe it or not my theme suggestion was going to be 80's TV and Film :D
You just go and do one will ya :P - You won the last comp so at least pretend you are stuck for ideas :D - The 80's is my decade and I'm standing here in a major butch huffy pose ( with mullet... and shades )  8) - * cautiously asks * is there a particular movie / tv series you are planning on?

QuoteSo the game must be referencing a movie/tv-production?
Based around a movie / tv series, yes. Use it for inspiration with elements of said movie / tv series. This allows enough ground to create a unique game in the style of, without stamping over any copyright issues. So no blatant use of material as referenced in the rules.

And before any of you bright lot come up with "Debbie does Texas", forget it :P

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Matty on January 30, 2018, 08:18:09
Derron.  I'm sure a reality tv series exists somewhere that is all about the drama of making and producing film...you could base it on that....no one said the series has to be well known or even Us based in origin.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on January 30, 2018, 08:27:15
Maybe therevills comes up with an Airwolf-ATeam-Rambo based game - aka a HD remake of "Get To Da Choppa" :-)

@ Matty
You might come up with something hand drawn. Am pretty sure you could puzzle something together in that 10 weeks.

Am pretty interested if some games have the same common "movie" as base - and how much and in what aspects they differ.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on January 30, 2018, 09:00:59
QuoteMaybe therevills comes up with an Airwolf-ATeam-Rambo based game - aka a HD remake of "Get To Da Choppa" :-)
NO!!! absolutely not :P - I already hum the Airwolf theme while pressing really hard on the fire button.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on January 30, 2018, 09:55:05
Maybe ask GaborD for some impressive realism-like graphics.
Who does the voice overs for Borgnine?


And who does already create a loading screen having the famus animated red bars and the "wohhh wooohhh" sound of a KITT?




Another idea for the idealess ones: "Coriander - the Barbarian", a Battle-Axe-Sidescroller-Beat'Em-Up with a Conan-esque character (he has a mustache then! - Italian barbarians ;-)).


Hope someone comes up with an "Innerspace" interpretation: killing some illnesses/diseases in the body of some human beings. Could be fun to loose "game over - you destroyed the liver".


I see: I prefer creating other games than I suggest to others - Maybe I know that I would not be capable of doing/creating them.



bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on January 30, 2018, 18:07:48
I have an idea. And a question: Are films based on true events allowed? If not: Are films based on video games allowed?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on January 30, 2018, 22:23:47
Quote from: Qube on January 30, 2018, 09:00:59
QuoteMaybe therevills comes up with an Airwolf-ATeam-Rambo based game - aka a HD remake of "Get To Da Choppa" :-)
NO!!! absolutely not :P - I already hum the Airwolf theme while pressing really hard on the fire button.

OMG, no. You guys are killing me. When Steve said 80's themed I already had Airwolf in mind. Fits perfectly with an old game I used to play and have been itching to remake for years. As there was a helicopter game in the last competition I'm now starting to wonder if it would actually not go down that well ...

<ponders>
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on January 30, 2018, 22:33:05
Quote from: Xerra on January 30, 2018, 22:23:47
Quote from: Qube on January 30, 2018, 09:00:59
QuoteMaybe therevills comes up with an Airwolf-ATeam-Rambo based game - aka a HD remake of "Get To Da Choppa" :-)
NO!!! absolutely not :P - I already hum the Airwolf theme while pressing really hard on the fire button.

OMG, no. You guys are killing me. When Steve said 80's themed I already had Airwolf in mind. Fits perfectly with an old game I used to play and have been itching to remake for years. As there was a helicopter game in the last competition I'm now starting to wonder if it would actually not go down that well ...

<ponders>

Nothing stopping you making an Airwolf inspired game too.  You could always base it on Blue Thunder  ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on January 30, 2018, 22:44:11
Quote from: Qube on January 30, 2018, 07:26:59
QuoteIt will only take me 2 or 3 weeks to pick a movie.   ;D
I have a movie, it'll just take me the same time to figure out how I'm going to do it. AAA game in my head vs reality :P

QuoteGood choice.  Believe it or not my theme suggestion was going to be 80's TV and Film :D
You just go and do one will ya :P - You won the last comp so at least pretend you are stuck for ideas :D - The 80's is my decade and I'm standing here in a major butch huffy pose ( with mullet... and shades )  8) - * cautiously asks * is there a particular movie / tv series you are planning on?

QuoteSo the game must be referencing a movie/tv-production?
Based around a movie / tv series, yes. Use it for inspiration with elements of said movie / tv series. This allows enough ground to create a unique game in the style of, without stamping over any copyright issues. So no blatant use of material as referenced in the rules.

And before any of you bright lot come up with "Debbie does Texas", forget it :P

I've got a few in mind - nothing concrete but definately not Airwolf or Ghostbusters related  :D  I'd like to try a genre I've never attempted before though - maybe turn based scifi.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: therevills on January 30, 2018, 23:30:18
I'll just leave these here for inspiration for anyone  :P

(Not drawn by me)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video_thumb/DSGgFo1X4AAR94b.jpg)

Animated version:
https://twitter.com/herebefrogs/status/946213463575138305

And

(https://img00.deviantart.net/f6ca/i/2015/198/d/d/80s_tv_pixel_art_poster_by_jhorsfield30-d91nuy7.png)
(Again not drawn by me)
:P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on January 30, 2018, 23:43:01
QuoteI have an idea. And a question: Are films based on true events allowed? If not: Are films based on video games allowed?
If it's a film or tv series then of course :)

QuoteI've got a few in mind - nothing concrete but definately not Airwolf or Ghostbusters related  :D  I'd like to try a genre I've never attempted before though - maybe turn based scifi.
Sounds intriguing  :D

QuoteI'll just leave these here for inspiration for anyone
Retro graphics for retro 80's stuff... Nice nice nice ;D

EDIT - ahuang has kindly donated £25 to the prize fund, thanks :) ( 1st post updated )
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on January 31, 2018, 00:05:51
lol nice graphics and inspiration...But all a bit copyright too.

Fighting ghosts in a game is one thing (Ghostbusters).  But all the A Team Characters?  Hmm.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on January 31, 2018, 00:27:34
Haha, love therevills post with the 80's retro images. I'm using the Airwolf theme but I'll have a Dambusters twist on it. So it's a mix of TV and Movie theme really but the game won't be called either.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Dwapook on January 31, 2018, 02:04:59
Tempting to join in on this.. but I haven't had enough free time to play the entries of the last competition yet.. x.X;

I'm thinking .. maybe one of these..

Space Wreck: Star Trek inspired, a rhythm game where you explore and discover new technologies in the wreckage of an old and more advanced civilization..

Cabin of the Vile Death: Evil Dead inspired, search the cabin and woods for pages... periodically a timer will tick, while an evil soul tries to capture and possess the player.. If you avoid it long enough, it goes for another person or object that you must fight..

Goblin Maze: Labyrinth inspired, navigate a series of mazes solving puzzles and riddles and recruiting allies that have abilities to help you

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on January 31, 2018, 10:55:23
Hmmmmm. Not sure if I will or I wont join this one... I've got something that I am coding and thought of a way of using it, but it will need some initial testing to see if it's a valid concept.

But I do have a theme/film in mind - something disastrous from the 70's
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on January 31, 2018, 15:04:49
OK. First peek at what (possibly) might be the game editor - if I finish and enter anything.
I thought I'd post something showing some behind the scenes dev work - So as you can see there is very little apart from a prototype UI being tested...
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/screen-shot-2018-01-31-at-14-58-22.png)

The general UI flow follows the old Quantel Paintbox concept, of a bottom strip, with 6 possible rows, Reading from top/down to right.

So here we can see we are in 'Tiles', and sub section "Tile". Tile has 10 buttons, plus a color palette.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: col on January 31, 2018, 16:56:25
A question just asking for clarity ( rule 2 ) as I won't be doing it myself...

Can someone submit a game made with something like Unreal, Unity etc?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on January 31, 2018, 17:56:30
QuoteOK. First peek at what (possibly) might be the game editor - if I finish and enter anything.
Is that 3D stuff in the background? - Hope you do enter :)

QuoteA question just asking for clarity ( rule 2 ) as I won't be doing it myself...
Can someone submit a game made with something like Unreal, Unity etc?
Of course :) you can use any dev tool you want. What rule 2 means is game frameworks like Pyro / Diddy etc are allowed but what you can't do is use a game template ( like an FPS game in the Unity store ), reskin it and call it your entry. Hope that makes sense.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on January 31, 2018, 18:25:00
Quote from: col on January 31, 2018, 16:56:25
Can someone submit a game made with something like Unreal, Unity etc?

I'm using Game Maker Studio 2 to do my game and there's a thread which discusses it elsewhere in the forum. I wanted to clarify the same thing before I made a start.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: col on January 31, 2018, 18:57:56
Quotebut what you can't do is use a game template ( like an FPS game in the Unity store ), reskin it and call it your entry
Gotcha  8)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on January 31, 2018, 20:21:29
@ Xerra
I think as long as you do not use a "provided sample game", reskin it (create custom artwork), I doubt anyone here will have problems with you using Game Maker Studio 2.


The idea behind the restriction is to avoid projects being reskinned existing ones. So for BlitzMax: opening up the samples folder and change look of the arkanoid game.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on January 31, 2018, 21:40:24
Quote from: Derron on January 31, 2018, 20:21:29
@ Xerra
I think as long as you do not use a "provided sample game", reskin it (create custom artwork), I doubt anyone here will have problems with you using Game Maker Studio 2.

No danger of that. Where's the fun in writing a game if you just put new assets into something you pulled off a website?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on January 31, 2018, 21:56:12
Has anyone actually started a game yet or all still thinking ideas?

I already had purchased a sprite set and some images for my idea before as they were on sale so I've not had to hunt around for some graphics yet. I'll need some more but I've started pulling out bits of code from a couple of previous games to re-use in this game and I've managed to get permission to use a great bit of music already.

Was going to put a WIP picture here but not sure how to do that.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on January 31, 2018, 22:08:00
Just reply to this message and click on choose file (to upload WIP Screenshot).
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 01, 2018, 07:19:55
Damb - you got me Qube! Yep there is some OpenGL 3d in the background - it's a slow work in progress (no 3d frameworks or pre-built stuff here, hehehe)

I need to crak on or there will be nothing to show...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: ahuang on February 01, 2018, 13:59:05
my pleasure, Qube, glad to support such a vibrant compo in a small way.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Conjured Entertainment on February 01, 2018, 14:07:49
Quote from: Holzchopf on January 30, 2018, 18:07:48
I have an idea. And a question: Are films based on true events allowed? If not: Are films based on video games allowed?
lol

Shall we play a game?[/aivoice]


QuoteHas anyone actually started a game yet or all still thinking ideas?
Still thinking, but I am getting distracted by my attempt to create a blockchain, so I have a good excuse.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 01, 2018, 15:01:25
OK. Let's get this thing kicked off with something red, swirly and tasty...
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/fluid.gif)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 01, 2018, 15:13:52
Slow fire... hmm


(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Towering_inferno_movie_poster.jpg)


?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 01, 2018, 18:07:25
Quote from: iWasAdam on February 01, 2018, 15:01:25
OK. Let's get this thing kicked off with something red, swirly and tasty...
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/fluid.gif)

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.xerra.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F02%2Fp8233_p_v8_ag.jpg&hash=550edd33676d47738126d4769ada18c361b3dbaf)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 01, 2018, 18:08:02
Crap. i probably should have resized that  :-X
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 01, 2018, 18:13:10
lol just untick the file on edit, save, and re-upload again.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Dwapook on February 01, 2018, 20:59:01
I have a question.. If the movie I want to use is in the public domain, would I be able to submit an adaption, rather than a parody?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 02, 2018, 00:54:54
Quote from: iWasAdam on February 01, 2018, 15:01:25
OK. Let's get this thing kicked off with something red, swirly and tasty...
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/fluid.gif)
Is it a plasma storm type thing?

Quote from: Dwapook on February 01, 2018, 20:59:01
I have a question.. If the movie I want to use is in the public domain, would I be able to submit an adaption, rather than a parody?
You would still need to be careful as a public domain film can still have copyrighted material like music / art etc. I think so long as you stay away from ripping music / images / dialog / character names etc out of a move / tv show then I don't think the legal teams are going to rain mighty hell down on us.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 02, 2018, 05:06:52
My game is super easy to guess. Here's the loader screen :P

I'm doing retro again just because I enjoyed it but with no limits on colour ( hence the blocky bits ).

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ExBiEn01.png)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 02, 2018, 06:03:18
Quote from: Qube on February 02, 2018, 05:06:52
My game is super easy to guess. Here's the loader screen :P

I'm doing retro again just because I enjoyed it but with no limits on colour ( hence the blocky bits ).

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ExBiEn01.png)

Nice! Have you been hacking my comp?  :P   Looks like I'll be doing the follow up "ExBiens" in low-fi .. lol.   It was only one of my ideas but I haven't even started so I'll go with another.   ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 02, 2018, 06:23:48
QuoteNice! Have you been hacking my comp?  :P   Looks like I'll be doing the follow up "ExBiens" in low-fi .. lol.   It was only one of my ideas but I haven't even started so I'll go with another.   ;D
Lol no, no uber hacking skills here, just a zillion ideas bopping around in my head before a tick box went with this one and another zillion ideas to do with it popped in ;D - Although I'll have to limit what's possible by a shed load based on time.

Do the same if you want as I'm sure we'll come up vastly different games ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 02, 2018, 06:35:18
Quote from: Qube on February 02, 2018, 06:23:48
QuoteNice! Have you been hacking my comp?  :P   Looks like I'll be doing the follow up "ExBiens" in low-fi .. lol.   It was only one of my ideas but I haven't even started so I'll go with another.   ;D
Lol no, no uber hacking skills here, just a zillion ideas bopping around in my head before a tick box went with this one and another zillion ideas to do with it popped in ;D - Although I'll have to limit what's possible by a shed load based on time.

Do the same if you want as I'm sure we'll come up vastly different games ;D

I already decided against it - too much work.  :o  I was going to attempt a turn based laser squad type game with your team of Berk, Hooks, Hobson, Radley, Mallard etc..  BUT there would have been no chance of doing what I wanted in 10 weeks.  Looking forward to playing this though.

I'll be going lo-fi again with my entry so I can spend less time on the assets and more on the gameplay.   
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 02, 2018, 09:57:34
QuoteI already decided against it - too much work.  :o  I was going to attempt a turn based laser squad type game with your team of Berk, Hooks, Hobson, Radley, Mallard etc..  BUT there would have been no chance of doing what I wanted in 10 weeks.  Looking forward to playing this though.

I'll be going lo-fi again with my entry so I can spend less time on the assets and more on the gameplay.
Yeah, there is a lot of work ahead and I just need to keep things simple. I can't guarantee loads of free time to spend on it so I'm trying to be a little better this time with what I can / can't do in the time frame. * famous last words *

I'm also going lo-fi again because I so enjoyed it last time and I also don't feel that super HD would enhance the game massively.

@iWasAdam... That much, so soon, already? :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 03, 2018, 12:42:38
Looks good.

Maybe I'm missing the point but I thought the idea of the code a game was to do it all from scratch?  Does this mean I can dig out something I was working on but didn't finish?  Can I re-use my own physics engine and older assets etc..?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 03, 2018, 12:48:39
You can use your physics engine ... similar to ready frameworks.

But you cannot reuse existing "assets" - while I am not sure if that counts for textures too (talking about fire particles and the likes).
On the other hand: you are allowed to purchase media to use it in your game, you could purchase them over and over. So why should it be forbidden to reuse existing assets ... hmm.

Think the basic idea of the rules is: do not copy-paste stuff, do not re-skin existing stuff (= have nearly all the assets existing already). Have fun coding and doing some gfx/sfx. The more strict you follow the rules, the harder it will become to not violate one of the rules.


Regarding Adam's Screenshots: as he wrote they do not show the game but they show the editor he is working on - which then would enable doing stuff for a game, if he decides to enter the compo. It is like showing screenshots of a Codeeditor, or SpriteAtlas-Creator or "TimeLine FX"-thingies.



bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 03, 2018, 13:44:42
There is also that the following should be considered:
I am not using frameworks, or anything apart from a base language code, with support for basic sound and 2d images.
I wrote the 3d code, the shader code, the graphics, 3d editor, 3d format, and everything that goes along with them. I wrote the GUI system, the GUI elements, And I wrote the editor I am compiling from.

as for the posted images, they are showing the development process in a nice visual way. The resources being used have been created by me in the past, but all have been re-edited over the past 30 days to add new functions, re-texture, re-format etc. some look like old stuff, because I used them as templates.

So. I suppose that would mean I coded it ALL from scratch...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 04, 2018, 01:26:43
QuoteMaybe I'm missing the point but I thought the idea of the code a game was to do it all from scratch?  Does this mean I can dig out something I was working on but didn't finish?  Can I re-use my own physics engine and older assets etc..?
If you've written your own tools, framework, code, etc then that is fine to use. Same with any assets you have created, purchased or collected along the way. For example using your own physics engine is absolutely fine, same with reworking some graphics you've created in the past.

However, digging up a game you've half finished from the past wouldn't be classed as in the spirit of the competition. Or just re-skinning a completed game either. Of course that's impossible to stop but I think we're being fair with our submissions to date :)

The idea is to make a new game specifically for the comps. You can use any code / graphics and tools you want ( unless a comp has specific rules ).

Hope that makes sense? :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 04, 2018, 08:17:30
Quote from: Qube on February 04, 2018, 01:26:43
QuoteMaybe I'm missing the point but I thought the idea of the code a game was to do it all from scratch?  Does this mean I can dig out something I was working on but didn't finish?  Can I re-use my own physics engine and older assets etc..?
If you've written your own tools, framework, code, etc then that is fine to use. Same with any assets you have created, purchased or collected along the way. For example using your own physics engine is absolutely fine, same with reworking some graphics you've created in the past.

However, digging up a game you've half finished from the past wouldn't be classed as in the spirit of the competition. Or just re-skinning a completed game either. Of course that's impossible to stop but I think we're being fair with our submissions to date :)

The idea is to make a new game specifically for the comps. You can use any code / graphics and tools you want ( unless a comp has specific rules ).

Hope that makes sense? :)

Of course, if I enter it will definitely all be done from scratch.  I might re-use some assets but recreate them in 2d rather than 3d. 

I do have an idea now - am I ok to mix a couple of different movie concepts?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 04, 2018, 08:38:25

@ StevieMix = in one level/game-play?

I think a "movie hopper" game would allow multiple movies (think of Schwarzenegger's "Last Action Hero"). Or there is even a loose connection to "Hot Shots 1/2" (which persiflage multiple movies).

So if there was a kid falling asleep each night, dreaming "another movie dream" - I would be Okay, but I do not prefer to see a beat'em-up game about "Determinator" fighting "Teenage Mutant Hero Toadles".


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 04, 2018, 08:54:38
Quote from: Derron on February 04, 2018, 08:38:25

@ StevieMix = in one level/game-play?

I think a "movie hopper" game would allow multiple movies (think of Schwarzenegger's "Last Action Hero"). Or there is even a loose connection to "Hot Shots 1/2" (which persiflage multiple movies).

So if there was a kid falling asleep each night, dreaming "another movie dream" - I would be Okay, but I do not prefer to see a beat'em-up game about "Determinator" fighting "Teenage Mutant Hero Toadles".


bye
Ron

Not a different movie per level  :o, more the game-play and general theme of the game.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 04, 2018, 09:04:14
QuoteI do have an idea now - am I ok to mix a couple of different movie concepts?
Sure :) just mention the movies when posting your game :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 04, 2018, 10:05:28
Quote from: STEVIE G on February 04, 2018, 08:54:38
Not a different movie per level  :o , more the game-play and general theme of the game.


A pity. Would have liked to play some kind of "Jump suit" - pun intended - every level the player jumps into the suit of another super hero / character - eg. as the default character would not be able to do something (against his "character/moral/ethics"). SuperDan lasering down cities, Spidey using his webs to keep woman from escaping European slave traders. Toadles pranking Pizza Boys ... Ooops. way to "noir" ideas.




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 04, 2018, 12:57:18
Quote from: Derron on February 04, 2018, 10:05:28
Quote from: STEVIE G on February 04, 2018, 08:54:38
Not a different movie per level  :o , more the game-play and general theme of the game.


A pity. Would have liked to play some kind of "Jump suit" - pun intended - every level the player jumps into the suit of another super hero / character - eg. as the default character would not be able to do something (against his "character/moral/ethics"). SuperDan lasering down cities, Spidey using his webs to keep woman from escaping European slave traders. Toadles pranking Pizza Boys ... Ooops. way to "noir" ideas.




bye
Ron

Best start making it yourself then  :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 04, 2018, 13:11:10
Have two games in mind already - but still fiddling around with my other game.
Also I am not really keen to create another arcade/jumpnrun/... alike game. Simulations, strategy, ... these is the stuff I'd like to see in the competitions.


If one comes up with Dr. Moreaus Monsters Island as RTS or tactical war game (with research tree, haw haaarr!). You might get my vote :p


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 05, 2018, 08:46:02
I'm still brain-storming the final ideas - sort of coming down to 3 at the moment.

other news - current 3d engine compiled and tested on windows - rock solid 60fps - phew - I can sleep again tonight!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on February 05, 2018, 21:34:11
Just so you know what I'm working on:

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.holzchopf.ch%2Ftemp%2Fworklogs%2Fpipanic%2F20180205-teaser.png&hash=e38ebaf19cf3aa2572e013b4969a89971c3624c4)

Going low-res because it's making pixeling easier =)

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 05, 2018, 23:42:21
Pipanic - Pipe Mania in Titanic-verse?


Connect all the pipe joints to save Leonardo from drowning? :p


BTW: Willkommen im Forum/Welcome to the forum




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Scaremonger on February 06, 2018, 06:28:05
I love the theme but I'm not going to get much free time over the next couple of months, so I'm going to have to sit this one out.

:(

Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with though.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 06, 2018, 15:31:03


Hopefully I've linked that right.

Anyone remember this game from around 1983 on the Vic 20? I'm guessing probably not but I was a huge fan as a teenager. There were very few Vic games I played more than Envahi.

I'm doing my own take on this but deliberately not going overboard with remaking it. Core gameplay remains mostly the same but I am tinkering with some bits to make it better. Definitely aiming for pretty tough to play like the original though.

As for the theme, it's kind of both Airwolf and Dambusters as in you fly a super helicopter trying to take out different types of aliens to prevent them breaking the Dam, causing the city to flood, or just flat out invading it.

Going with some editing on some actual photo's of city backdrops that are freely available and pretty small graphics for the player and enemies as the game is played on a static screen. The beauty of the game is in the variety of different alien types you need to deal with. The video does show all of them on the Vic version. My plan is to put them all in and tweak them a bit, then maybe think up a couple of new ones, if I have time. So far I'm doing pretty well as the Cloud with acid rain and the Grabber are already in. The Dam eaters are what I'm currently working on so I'm on target to have time to tart it up a bit once the gameplay is rock-solid.

I'll put up a couple of screenshots once I can actually get some decent graphics for the aliens as it's full of coder art mixed in with some purchased helicopter assets, and doesn't look too great right now.

Well on tartget so far anyway...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on February 06, 2018, 15:46:14
Quote from: Derron on February 05, 2018, 23:42:21BTW: Willkommen im Forum/Welcome to the forum

Thanks, it took me an embarrassingly long time to end up here :-[

I reworked the title screen image:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVXMSVPXkAEBf6F.jpg:large)

Now I think I'm allowed to call it pixel art  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 09, 2018, 17:58:06
@ Adam
Looks like something is summoned there - or exorcised :-)


And it seems to be of a bad idea to loose a coin in that room - it will be lost forever in all those chamfers/creases.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 10, 2018, 14:10:52
Could be... I wonder what it is?

Initial provision for 128 individual tiles complete, now starting work on campaign structures and layout...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: IanMartin on February 10, 2018, 17:22:56
Cool idea!  I get lots of AAA ideas with this and super complicated stuff.  Oh, and someone already made Get to Tha Choppa!!! ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 11, 2018, 08:21:00
@iWasAdam - that looks pretty cool :)  my game looks pretty archaic in comparison :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 11, 2018, 08:46:19
it's not about how it looks (that can help  ;D ), but how it plays...
I don't have a game as there is nothing to play. But I'm getting there slowly. At least you can see the progress and how it all fits together this time :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 12, 2018, 17:26:15
Looks great Adam.

But we really need a Worklog Section.  This has gone far off topic seeing as this is a game engine design, rather than an actual game for the Competition.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 12, 2018, 17:39:31
Going back to the original topic of the thread then, how many people are actually working on a game for competition 4?

And how many are going to give an idea of what they're doing?

I think I'm the only person who's basically spilled exactly what they're working on and the theme but maybe I missed something?

As we're a two weeks into the ten week time limit now I'm expecting most people have had thoughts and are working on their games by now,  so they have a chance to make the deadline.

I've got one more enemy type to put into mine before I put in a level selection system and then start balancing it. I went for a different approach to some of the other games I've worked on and started putting all the elements of the game in before starting to think about how they are going to be balanced. At present I'm hard-core enough at it to just play with everything thrown at me as fast as it can but I'll probably go a bit easier on players in the end :)

You can play it as a game now, even without the dam buster enemies but the graphics are so bad that I'm reluctant to put a video up on it as yet.

I've put some screenshots up on my blog yesterday but please don't judge it for looking terrible at present. There's still a long way to go. It actually already plays pretty well when it's all moving, even at this stage.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 12, 2018, 17:49:03
QuoteGoing back to the original topic of the thread then, how many people are actually working on a game for competition 4?
I don't know how many are entering :o

I will be entering ( providing all work hell doesn't break loose ).

QuoteI think I'm the only person who's basically spilled exactly what they're working on and the theme but maybe I missed something?
I've not spelt out exactly what I am doing but I have posted one image ( unfinished ) for the theme of my game.

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ExBiEn01.png)

It's a squad based game where you have to work as a team and individually. That's all I'm gonna give away :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 12, 2018, 17:56:52
Good choice Qube  :D

I'm sitting this one out and working on a game I've been wanting to write for a while.

The art style has changed from rendered to pixel art after enjoying the Retro Competition (sadly too ill to complete my game).

After that I intend to complete my Retro Competition Entry - but without any restrictions.  So basically it will look prettier.   :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 12, 2018, 19:36:21
QuoteBut we really need a Worklog Section.  This has gone far off topic seeing as this is a game engine design, rather than an actual game for the Competition.
We do have a worklogs forum section https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/board,52.0.html ( created about 10 days ago-is ).
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 12, 2018, 19:49:15
Cool.  A few of us obviously missed that.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 12, 2018, 20:57:36
[troll]
I wonder who posts the most screenshots ? Yue ? Adam ?
[/troll]
:P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 12, 2018, 21:08:18
Well Adam posts screenshots every 4 seconds - but Yue posts bigger pictures  ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 13, 2018, 08:38:34
OK. No more posts (I thought people would be interested in the dev process?)

I'll now nail my game to the mast:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/inferno.png)
Based on the Towering Inferno Disaster Film...

And yes, it will use the engine (as seen) and be a turn based strategy game...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 13, 2018, 09:10:42
@Steve>> :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 13, 2018, 11:56:26
QuoteOK. No more posts (I thought people would be interested in the dev process?)
Absolutely interested ;D - Create a post in the Worklog section and I'll move all the dev posts to it. Would be nice to see the progress all in one place :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 13, 2018, 11:59:23
@ Adam
Interested in dev progress too - especially if they contain more "evolutionary" stuff than in Yue's "todays dev shot of the car" screenshots.

Having a "worklog" allows to elaborate here and then on certain thoughts - and it allows for interaction with users - so we could give feedback without affecting people watching this thread here for "other reasons" (eg. the competition ;-)).

BTW: So I was right with the movie, hah.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 13, 2018, 12:27:32
No problem guys - new thread started in worklogs.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 13, 2018, 12:56:46
Quote
they contain more "evolutionary" stuff than in Yue's "todays dev shot of the car" screenshots.
:D (@Qube>>we need a smiley which is laughing, where have you found these smileys ? you made them ?)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 13, 2018, 13:08:47
 ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 13, 2018, 17:45:13
Quote@Qube>>we need a smiley which is laughing, where have you found these smileys ? you made them ?
I didn't make them. I agree we need more smileys and will get around to it.. soon :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 13, 2018, 18:07:26
I have some filthy smileys I made for a chat 15 years ago ... just in case someone's name is Dick, I am sure I have some fitting ones :p


(https://www.gamezworld.de/grafiken/sonstiges/smileys/gw_usersmiley_piggy.gif) filthy stuff :p

While this would be needed for the pizza-nom-nom thread: (https://www.gamezworld.de/grafiken/sonstiges/smileys/gw_usersmiley_marya.gif)

Boring threads benefit from (https://www.gamezworld.de/grafiken/sonstiges/smileys/gw_smiley_kpiks.gif)

I allowed index/listing so feel free to checkout some other smileys. Ok, recognized someone needs to adjust the antialiasing for dark backgrounds (my chat was white - as it was common in the eary 2k years).


'nough derailing of the thread.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on February 18, 2018, 23:44:21
My main dev rig is crippled thru no graphics card, meant to make moves to address that today however had two tyres blow out on the car which ate into my resolve my dev rig issue. I doubt there's ever been a film about pot holes, there was that dodgy film about Big worm things in a desert with Kevin bacon....

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/

7.1 on imdb, so not so dodgy, and I recall it from... 28 years ago, jeez.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 19, 2018, 17:12:45
Quote from: 3DzForMe on February 18, 2018, 23:44:21
My main dev rig is crippled thru no graphics card, meant to make moves to address that today however had two tyres blow out on the car which ate into my resolve my dev rig issue. I doubt there's ever been a film about pot holes, there was that dodgy film about Big worm things in a desert with Kevin bacon....

So you're going to be making a game about giant worms coming out of pot holes to eat giant cars?

I would play this !
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 19, 2018, 19:07:11
If he made a game for "part 1" of the movie franchise then the game would be about hopping from rock to rock - as the worms were not able to dig through them.

Difficult parts in the game would be areas without rocks - so you might "bait" the worms to another area (other side of a "deep-buried-rock-lane") and then rapidly hop-hop-jump-jump to the end of the rocks, pass the sandy ground to the next rock area.

If he brings in the creatures from the other parts of the franchise, then the "fire farters" (dunno how they are called, just watched the German dubbed version) might come as flying attackers ;-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on February 19, 2018, 23:29:37
You can't beat a bit of paper prototyping:-

The spirit and imagination are firing on 4 outa 6 cylinders, a bit like a 2.3 ghia cortina I bought a while ago...

So, the spirit and imagination are kinda working, alas, the flesh (might...) be weak.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 20, 2018, 00:00:33
Still wrote no single byte for the compo. Just enough other stuff waiting to get done first. *grr*


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 20, 2018, 00:03:26
So just Adam and Qube on this one?  Or are we gonna see some late entries again?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 20, 2018, 01:10:49
Quote from: Steve Elliott on February 20, 2018, 00:03:26
So just Adam and Qube on this one?  Or are we gonna see some late entries again?
Cool, 1st or 2nd suits me ;D - Mind you if there is only us two then Adam gets the full £500 so it's not all bad :P - I'm sure there are others who are busy working away. Tip tap, tip tap.

Today was a good productive day. I managed to get five new tiles drawn ( don't ask ) but the main good part is I now have shadows and lighting in. Yup, my good old tile map maker which I knocked up for the last game comp actually scales quite well for new features, yay me \o/
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Yue on February 20, 2018, 01:22:16
Am I eligible to participate in my project?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 20, 2018, 01:23:22
Don't be so sure, there were some late entries that came along and left everybody thinking wtf?  I've never heard of this guy...and yet he won the comp.

lol as we've realised after the retro comp, pixel art ain't that easy -but satisfaction from improving.  Shadows and lighting?  Cool.  Gotta be dark for that game.

Yes, a map maker is essential - good job.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 20, 2018, 02:58:41
Quote from: Yue on February 20, 2018, 01:22:16
Am I eligible to participate in my project?
Of course you are :) - But keep in mind the rules. Also keep in mind that some may not be happy if you enter something you've been working on way before the comp was announced. Also keep in mind that if you are in the top three then I can only send winners funds via PayPal.

Having said all that guff, of course you are eligible to enter.

QuoteShadows and lighting?  Cool.  Gotta be dark for that game.
Yup, aiming to add a little atmosphere to the 2D tile map. Trying not to get bogged down with fluffy stuff due to time constraints so keep slapping myself to be smarter this time around ;D. There is also a more intense darker section which is just pure action in the dark with a little light and a motion detector :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on February 20, 2018, 05:20:25
I'm participating too!

But I write my game in Cerberus X, which from time to time needs a little attention too. And I have started a project just right before this contest, so my entry has not the highest priority for now. But there are still some weeks left and towards the end I might reorder my priorities just so I can finish my game in time ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 20, 2018, 07:18:24
Working on the gameplay now. you have a 4x4 grid where you can place 'base' at the edge. they build buildings, that then catch fire. Bloody hard getting it to work though  :-X
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 20, 2018, 08:41:49
Quote
Pick any film or TV show you want and base a game around it. For example you could base a game around Ghostbusters but call it Ghostdusters instead and have game elements *loosely* based on the film, eg, catching ghosts. Another example could be a TV show like Dallas ( pick your own name ) where you play an oil tycoon and have to fight off other tycoons while keeping all your oil rigs going ( beat-em up ).
the theme of this "competition" is too vague imo, there are movies about every subject.

There is a tv show / documentaries based around searching finding precious metals / gems in the ground, this gives me an idea for a game  ;) (just joking)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 20, 2018, 08:46:37
Awww. Come on. Be inspired. Take an existing film/concept and twist it into something more interesting  :P

I know you are working on a 3d cavern type game. How about the film "Descent". Set in caverns with monsters...

Push yourself a little and make your current system work with rock textures, lighting and something nasty?

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 20, 2018, 09:11:51
Mars Attacks -> Space Invaders
Deep Throat -> adult text adventure of your choice
Dallas/Black Oil -> Oil Imperium (does that even know someone except me ?)
Kevin alone at home -> Like "Dungeon Keeper" but household traps + home invasion
A beautiful mind -> some logic game
Saving Private Ryan -> cannon fodder clone in WW2 setting
Braveheart -> cannon fodder clone with swords in the highlands of Scotland
Tootsie -> children game in which you choose what clothes to wear
Hot Shot -> mini arcade games around a dude looking like a 99ct "Rumboo"
Sherlock Holmes (whatever) -> Hidden Objects Game
Columbo -> never ending text adventure ("I have a question" as single answer to all conversations)
Miami Vice -> try to transfer drugs with your speed boat escaping the police/detectives
Emergency Room meets Scrubs -> a fun hospital simulation like "Theme Hospital"
It -> horror clown monster in a labyrinth under a city... could again be a "dungeon keeper"-style game (do not let the kids escape)
Our Little Farm -> farming game (plant flowers, weeds, corns, ...)

There is plenty of stuff possible, if you like to choose "freely".


I still hope to create something for the compo, but bugs for the current dev version of my game are swarming in and I really like to create a "normal" release before doing something different.


PS: @Yue
If you would win I would redirect the money via Western Union once I received Qube's money on paypal. So do not be afraid. BUT... do not use your racing game as project. Do something which could be finished in time. Maybe even skip the 3D part if it creates too much problems or time consuming areas.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: TomToad on February 20, 2018, 09:58:31
I'm working on a game.  Basing it on "Bringing Out the Dead."  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163988/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163988/) Calling it "Bring 'em In Alive." You are an ambulance driver who must rush sick and injured people to the hospital before they die.  The more that die, the more you slip into insanity. The game ends when you go completely insane.

Don't know if I will get it done in time.  Seems every time I have free time, something comes along and fills it.  Also trying to do it in AGK which I'm still learning.  Last time I touched this project, I had just figured out how to load a JSON file into the game. 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Yue on February 20, 2018, 12:19:00
I'm inspired by the movie el marcian, the one that sowed potatoes with shit. I started working on the project on December 26th 2017, soon I will be two months old.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 20, 2018, 12:35:58
Here's the Martian Rover from that film (for your thoughts):
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CO9L0IEUEAAGZv1.png)

Have a good look at the how the background looks as well ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 20, 2018, 12:56:34
If you desire a look of "The Martian" you should google images for "jordan rocks desert" ;-)

Nonetheless december is one month earlier than the compo start. Means you would have started the project before the compo started - which would disqualify that project.

So if you really want to take part, start a new project - and use your current knowledge. And i would suggest to not try to create a full featured 3D environment. Better concentrate on a small game (with concise game play elements and less "flexibility"). Better to get a simple game finished in time than doing the same thing over and over without "sighting land".


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 20, 2018, 17:55:43
Quote from: Steve Elliott on February 20, 2018, 00:03:26
So just Adam and Qube on this one?  Or are we gonna see some late entries again?

I already said I was having a go previously. Everyone forgets little, old me :-(

Screenshots hopefully displayed if I added them right.

Title screen is a mock up placeholder thing as it's ugh. Especially the logo. I just wanted the backbone of that part in for now.

The sprites (apart from helicopter itself) are my crap coder art so I'm looking to replace them as soon as I can get someone to do it.

No sound in the game yet, apart from a remake of the Airwolf theme that I've got permission to use.

Couple of enemies you can't see in these screenshots - one still to be added that will be trying to break a hole in the Dam on the left side of screen.

Plays pretty well but it's not going to be the game of the decade :-)

On course to get it done in time - so far.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: therevills on February 20, 2018, 21:13:09
I've been busy with my next proper game, but have a week off in March so hopefully can have fun creating something for this compo :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 20, 2018, 21:54:02
Wasn't going to post anything but in the spirit of sharing, here's an early video of my dudes ( who have no animation yet ) walking around a section of the highly unfinished map. Still lots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE3-mqzoP6k
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 20, 2018, 22:05:23
Looks nice. Avatars/Person-Pictures rendered on your own? Somehow I doubt that as the perspective of them is different. But if so: Poser, MakeHuman, ... ?


I think you will enjoy adding the "splattering blood" - as these top-down-shooter games always have it. And as therevills raised the bar for us pixel-gorehounds you will need to add a lot of ugly smelling innards :-)


Ah and do not forget: most of us are male, so use the top down view to give us nice details of "siggy".




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 20, 2018, 22:11:14
QuoteLooks nice. Avatars/Person-Pictures rendered on your own? Somehow I doubt that as the perspective of them is different. But if so: Poser, MakeHuman, ... ?
I didn't want them all at the same angle / pose because not everyone poses the same way. They were done in Daz3D.

QuoteI think you will enjoy adding the "splattering blood" - as these top-down-shooter games always have it.
Yup, lots of over the top explosions and death. But there is also puzzle elements, it's not just a shooter. You will have to split the team up and work alone for parts.

QuoteAh and do not forget: most of us are male, so use the top down view to give us nice details of "siggy".
Lol, no :P - no sexualised imagery will be gracing my games :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 20, 2018, 22:15:53
Great atmosphere, as per the film.  Good sound and it's shaping up very nicely.

How did you do the lighting, in a 2d game?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Yue on February 20, 2018, 22:39:15
They're right, I'm not going to participate, I'll continue at my own pace, it's only been two months and I have 10 months left to play the game, at least something simple with what I have.  About the vehicle I'm thinking about taking it from the free NASA models.  :)

(https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/shared_assets/models/nmss-sev/MMSEV_428x321.png)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 21, 2018, 06:16:16
QuoteGood sound and it's shaping up very nicely.
Yup, I'm aiming to do more in the sound department with this game :)

QuoteHow did you do the lighting, in a 2d game?
Not quite sure which part you are referring to but overall there is no lighting at all :P. To go through the generals :

1.. The wall shading is part of the map tiles on layer 3. A simple black image with alpha. The map has three layers. Layer 1 is the main map. Layer 2 is the floor ( plus all floor based action ) and Layer 3 is the collectables / shading / lighting and pickup items. The map is rendered layer 2 first, then layer 1 and layer 3 on top. Then layer 3 is parsed again above all other images for additional effects like the spinning hazard lights and static lights.

2.. The spinning and static lights are just simple alpha gradients in blend mode.

3.. The overall fade out of the map is a circle gradient from 100% opaque to solid black, double scaled and centred on the player(s).

This gives a good overall dark atmosphere to the game. It looks better than the YouTube video and I'm happy overall with how it looks.

Still heaps of work to do yet but I'm happy with the basic look of the game at this early stage. I did look into various shaders but in the end the good old fashioned methods worked better for the base effect I wanted. I did have the option of using shaders to cast shadows around objects on the floor but it didn't add anything for the extra work it would need to do the effect justice.

Tonnes of work to do yet but it's starting to take shape ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 21, 2018, 07:03:57
Quote from: Qube on February 21, 2018, 06:16:16
QuoteGood sound and it's shaping up very nicely.
Yup, I'm aiming to do more in the sound department with this game :)

QuoteHow did you do the lighting, in a 2d game?
Not quite sure which part you are referring to but overall there is no lighting at all :P. To go through the generals :

1.. The wall shading is part of the map tiles on layer 3. A simple black image with alpha. The map has three layers. Layer 1 is the main map. Layer 2 is the floor ( plus all floor based action ) and Layer 3 is the collectables / shading / lighting and pickup items. The map is rendered layer 2 first, then layer 1 and layer 3 on top. Then layer 3 is parsed again above all other images for additional effects like the spinning hazard lights and static lights.

2.. The spinning and static lights are just simple alpha gradients in blend mode.

3.. The overall fade out of the map is a circle gradient from 100% opaque to solid black, double scaled and centred on the player(s).

This gives a good overall dark atmosphere to the game. It looks better than the YouTube video and I'm happy overall with how it looks.

Still heaps of work to do yet but I'm happy with the basic look of the game at this early stage. I did look into various shaders but in the end the good old fashioned methods worked better for the base effect I wanted. I did have the option of using shaders to cast shadows around objects on the floor but it didn't add anything for the extra work it would need to do the effect justice.

Tonnes of work to do yet but it's starting to take shape ;D

Looks great.  You can't go wrong with a mix of Alien Breed and Cannon Fodder   :D   Just make sure you can deploy the remote sentry units  :P

I'm still messing around with ideas but don't have anywhere near as much free time as I did over Xmas and NY.  Doing pixel art is much harder to get right so if I eventually nail down an idea it'll be in a minimalist style.   
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 21, 2018, 07:26:54
Got loading and saving of tiles sorted and I'm deep in mechanics now, getting it all flowing.
But good news is I can debug, reset, test, try out new things very quickly from the editor and catch what's not feeling right.
Basic dropping and tile movement all done as well.

First pic:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-21-at-07-20-391.png)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 21, 2018, 07:27:36
@Qube>>nice. :)
I like the fake volumetric lighting using alpha.

I have worked so much on 3d games that i would use 3d textures flat meshes to create a similar 2d game (with flat meshes having a different zorder so that some are drawn one on top of the other)

But i am curious, are these textured flat meshes ?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 21, 2018, 09:56:47
Quote
How did you do the lighting, in a 2d game?

Not quite sure which part you are referring to but overall there is no lighting...

There is no spoon  ;)

I was referring to how the darkness is lit up as players move forward.

Quote
3.. The overall fade out of the map is a circle gradient from 100% opaque to solid black, double scaled and centred on the player(s).

Neat idea.  And very effective.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 21, 2018, 10:52:32
When I did such a "light circle" I created only the circle with the fade out - so the texture/image was quadratic - then I rendered the "outside" via 4 rectangles/quads. Maybe it added some draw calls but used less vram. Else you would need a texture which is nearly 2 times appWidth and 2 times appHeight - as you need to be able to move the circle across the whole screen.
On a tile based game (only tiles are "lighted") you could of course keep it as "circle + fadeout + 2*tileWidth" - and then just skip rendering all the tiles further away from the light center than "0.5(circle + fadeOut) + tileWidth". Handling of light sources would be a bit more difficult then. So img+4*drawRect() seems the way to go - for me.

How did you tackle that? ... harr, time for a worklog to stay ontopic here.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 21, 2018, 11:25:07
OK, So I couldn't resist posting this one of the 'tower' (or 3 views of it)...
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-21-at-11-21-43.png)

Complete with original angled structure plus 3 scenic lifts
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: TomToad on February 21, 2018, 15:32:38
I now have level loading working, and ambulance control working.  Next I need to create building tiles, improve the road tiles, and set up some collision polygons on the sides of the roads for the ambulance to bump into.

Edit: Seems you cannot upload an animated gif as an attachment (at least, it doesn't animate) so I uploaded it to my site nd linked to it below.  Note that the jerkiness comes from the screen capture, the actual game runs smoothly.
Edit2:  can't seem to get the gif to work at all.  Well, here's a direct link to download
http://www.tomtoad.com/images/GIF.gif (http://www.tomtoad.com/images/GIF.gif)
Edit3: Seems to be a case issue.  One more try
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tomtoad.com%2Fimages%2FGIF.gif&hash=48eb88051b8b3bfb2c8db2de78da365608e4c038)
Success!!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on February 21, 2018, 17:38:36
Quote from: iWasAdam on February 21, 2018, 07:26:54
Got loading and saving of tiles sorted and I'm deep in mechanics now, getting it all flowing.
But good news is I can debug, reset, test, try out new things very quickly from the editor and catch what's not feeling right.
Basic dropping and tile movement all done as well.

Seeing this the first thing that came to mind was Populous. We all remember that game, right? :-)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 21, 2018, 18:36:45
@TomToad>>ready to remake GTA2 (it looks similar)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 21, 2018, 18:41:17
Some interesting games here.  Great stuff  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 21, 2018, 19:29:54
Quote from: RemiD on February 21, 2018, 07:27:36
@Qube>>nice. :)
I like the fake volumetric lighting using alpha.

I have worked so much on 3d games that i would use 3d textures flat meshes to create a similar 2d game (with flat meshes having a different zorder so that some are drawn one on top of the other)

But i am curious, are these textured flat meshes ?

Thanks :) - Its all just plain images, no textures.

Quote from: Derron on February 21, 2018, 10:52:32
When I did such a "light circle" I created only the circle with the fade out - so the texture/image was quadratic - then I rendered the "outside" via 4 rectangles/quads. Maybe it added some draw calls but used less vram. Else you would need a texture which is nearly 2 times appWidth and 2 times appHeight - as you need to be able to move the circle across the whole screen.
On a tile based game (only tiles are "lighted") you could of course keep it as "circle + fadeout + 2*tileWidth" - and then just skip rendering all the tiles further away from the light center than "0.5(circle + fadeOut) + tileWidth". Handling of light sources would be a bit more difficult then. So img+4*drawRect() seems the way to go - for me.

How did you tackle that? ... harr, time for a worklog to stay ontopic here.
Lol, no time for a worklog :P - As I'm using a virtual res of 640x400 then it's just one image at 320x200 zoomed in. There was no visual benefit at all using larger image. Also as it's such a small image there would probably be a loss if I split it up and made more draw calls.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 21, 2018, 20:51:20
Quote
You can't go wrong with a mix of Alien Breed and Cannon Fodder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_j8W-SDefU
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 21, 2018, 20:55:45
But everybody else thinking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siRpBH6wUUk
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 21, 2018, 21:20:38
Wait until you see the carnage of these puppies ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u19dt_-StZA
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 21, 2018, 21:24:44
Quote from: Qube on February 21, 2018, 21:20:38
Wait until you see the carnage of these puppies ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u19dt_-StZA

Those are the very chaps I was talking about  :P  Will they be making an appearance Qube?

I think they were only in the special edition of the movie.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 21, 2018, 21:29:25
QuoteThose are the very chaps I was talking about  :P  Will they be making an appearance Qube?

I think they were only in the special edition of the movie.
Oh yes! in one level you have to split your team up in order to get the guns working before a mass hoard of aliens breaks through a barrier. If the sentry guns are not active then game over man, game over! :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 21, 2018, 21:35:28
F*cking love the Alien films.

You secure that shit Hudson!!  Always has me in stitches haha...Secure?!  Not shut it private.  Secure?  Shit?  Hahaha.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on February 22, 2018, 19:02:54
Quote
How about the film "Descent". Set in caverns with monsters...
thanks for the movie suggestion, i did not know about this one, quite good (credible fiction)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 23, 2018, 00:54:14
I'll just leave this here :P

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ExBiEnCSoon.jpg)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 23, 2018, 08:36:58
I've now got preliminary movement and colliding tiles.
Need to make more tiles and extend the checking routines to accommodate.
Collisions are more or less predictable - which is good.
One thing that now becomes evident is the polish aspect. It will need loads of stuff to make it enjoyable to play and players to get a nice sense of reward for playing it - more animation and glittery stuff?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on February 24, 2018, 07:54:56
I've cleared of the dining table to make room to possibly flesh out some initial ideas.  :o

Still got a bit to go on my entry....

I love the ambulance thats moving GTA2D style - some great submissions. The 3D populus style inferno is also looking good.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 24, 2018, 14:17:58
First real shot of the game:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-24-at-14-08-03.png)

You can see the wooden play board and some tiles being played, plus the direction arrows.
basic play is:
pick a direction - the base tile falls into place and the board tiles move (if possible) in the direction shown.
2 base tiles = the start of building
If another base tile hits this, then a small fire is started, then a big one, then an inferno, and finally the tile blows up - removing it from the board!
The building process moves up a level if tiles of the same kind (fire or no fire) hit each other.

It's sort of 2048 with flames!

So it's basically a strategy, puzzle game...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 24, 2018, 14:48:17
Hope you finish it this time ... still waiting for the "flag"-game you started 1-2 years ago.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on February 24, 2018, 15:49:01
tremurz:

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 24, 2018, 22:50:17
Aliens on Sky 316 right now people.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on February 24, 2018, 23:17:28
Quote from: Steve Elliott on February 24, 2018, 22:50:17
Aliens on Sky 316 right now people.
All pile around to Steve's :P - I'll bring the beers ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on February 24, 2018, 23:25:26
Listen up people.  Sounds like a plan. 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 25, 2018, 14:36:56
Too far from bonnie Scotland for me  :(

OK. For todays pic, lets see some street stuff:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-14-33-53.png)

Needed to add some life to the scenes. so maybe cars and some people next?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 25, 2018, 15:01:36
Maybe gameplay first. Polishing can be done a later stage.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 26, 2018, 12:21:08
Gameplay is (generally) sorted now.
It's more a case of joining all the dots.
One thing that I might add is a snapshot and build option. Where you can just build a skyline and burn it...

Using the standard 4x4 tiles and defaults you can get some wonderful results. just watching everything burn and slowly rotating the map is mesmerising:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-26-at-12-15-08.png)

Maybe as you play you could earn 'points'. more points means more things to play with when building and burning?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 26, 2018, 16:45:26
Ok, did try to create a tilemap system for some isometric stuff.
Am not sure whether I go with my "economical simulation" idea, or with some gardening-simulation which I think could be a game my wife would play.

Hardest thing was to get around with the "layers" idea - always wanted to have "furniture/trees/..." to be on some kind of "collision layer". Have learned that things which could cover entities (player, enemies, ... are "objects" and no "tiles".
So "tiles" are only flat things like a "floor tile" or "wooden planks". This explains why most tile map engines seem to just store an integer for "what tile to draw". I do not like that approach, so my tiles are all fully fledged objects for now - with their own "update/render" methods (coordinates are passed by the renderer/tilemap to allow the isometric 2:1 coordinate calculations without making the tile objects tightly fit to that display mode/view).

Did that on the weekend evenings. Friday and saturday for the isometric map stuff (+ z-ordering objects), yesterday evening and today for writing an A*star path finder algorithm and an entity-move-along-path-system.
Base code (aka tilemap stuff) of the potential game will land in my Dig-Framework, so others could use that as well. Depending on how much I like the progress the whole project become FOSS too.


(https://i.imgur.com/AhmMpy9.gif)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 27, 2018, 06:31:44
OpenGL on windows!!!
Nothing simple, something with the monkey2 code itself - SHEESH. AGK2 anyone?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on February 27, 2018, 21:54:16
@derron, respect, good looking work.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 28, 2018, 14:22:19
Here's an interesting problem with a brute-force answer.
The problem:
OpenGL color Picking not functioning under windows - something nasty lurking inside the language and can't work out where.

Answer:
Reverse engineer the actual 3d display into 2d.
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-28-at-14-13-49.png)
The spots are the point I am going to track and they must be able to rotate and generally conform to the perspective as well.

One I have the spots, I can simply check for mouse in triangle, meaning I can now track the mouse positions I am interested in.

Code is not nice, but will function perfectly under MacOS and Windows and also allow some other UI stuff that was missing.

Good example of trying to solve something that suddenly popped up...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 28, 2018, 14:32:48
I do not really understand what your problem was Adam. Color picking versus "mouse position" ?

Can't you just take the points  of the already existing quads (the ones with the double arrows on it) and extend the vector between two corners ? If you do that on the original vertices then you get the position in the non-translated 3D world. Or you use the translated one ("camera view") and get the 2D vector of the end points you are looking for.

So I somehow miss information about your actual problem to understand what you are describing (or is it just me?).

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 28, 2018, 14:50:57
Everything is in 3d. pushed to the GPU, scaled, rotated, everything else.

So I can't track the mouse in 3d as in 3d there is no mouse.

The blobs/spots/ color triangles are in 2d. They live in the 2d screen/window layer.

You have no access to the 3d data whatsoever. hence reverse engineering the 3d back into 2d.
The only data I have access to is the yrotation, screen width and height....

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on February 28, 2018, 14:57:23
Ahh so you wanted the "3d world  mouse position" ? But you got the rotation already - so with the angle of the board compared to "flat" you should be able to calculate the "elevation" of the mouse to the grid/ground plane. Angle + height allows to calculate distance to "grid start"-"mouse" if the mouse was on the ground and not in the air.

Regardless of this: shouldn't the 2D projection be enough to "select" an item? How would you handle selecting a "taller building" then? you could only select it then when clicking the "ground grid". If you moved higher ("towards top of the window") then your mouse "z" would increase and you would be able to select an item "behind". Is that intended?


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on February 28, 2018, 15:07:50
There's also the problem of scaling and perspective - which is handled by the graphics card.

I know you can reverse project with a matrix - but I have absolutely no idea how to do it.

I came up with a manual tracking system of the 3d in 2d, to do what I needed ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on February 28, 2018, 15:48:35
Quote from: iWasAdam on February 28, 2018, 15:07:50
There's also the problem of scaling and perspective - which is handled by the graphics card.

I know you can reverse project with a matrix - but I have absolutely no idea how to do it.

I came up with a manual tracking system of the 3d in 2d, to do what I needed ;)

So, with the language you are using you can't select a 3d object using the mouse co-ords, the equivalent of a camerapick in Blitz3d?  Seems bizarre that you have to implement a hack to work around something like that.  You sure there's not a simpler way?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on March 01, 2018, 06:06:55
Quotethe language you are using you can't select a 3d object using the mouse co-ords
unfortunately not. I haven't written such a routine. I wrote the 3d render system  :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on March 01, 2018, 11:59:58
OK. Here's the final result:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/ui.gif)

It shows the UI rotating with full 2d checking of the mouse position. 3d picking wouldn't have worked with the scenario as the 3d object have 'holes' in them and there would be no 3d model to be picked.
So... this way actually solved 2 issues :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on March 01, 2018, 12:41:35
Quote from: iWasAdam on March 01, 2018, 11:59:58
OK. Here's the final result:
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/ui.gif)

It shows the UI rotating with full 2d checking of the mouse position. 3d picking wouldn't have worked with the scenario as the 3d object have 'holes' in them and there would be no 3d model to be picked.
So... this way actually solved 2 issues :)

But you would have either used a pickable plane and determined the button from the picked co-ords or used proxy pickable quads for the buttons. 

Seems like an over complex solution to a simple problem BUT if it works - who cares :D 

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on March 01, 2018, 12:51:49
if there were pickable planes... THERE AREN'T!  :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: meems on March 02, 2018, 20:57:29
>£500

where is the cashpot coming from? qubes pocket?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on March 02, 2018, 21:07:14
Yes - until some people offer money to reduce financial "load" from him.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: meems on March 02, 2018, 21:35:12
god he must be crazy, or rich, or both. If i was putting my money into the indie community it would be to polarize it towards a group project, so that we gain XP with working with each other, binding the community tighter into a team, becoming powerful, towards being commercially viable. Its more challenging to do, but the rewards are greater.

I admit little indie games have that c64 charm about them, but well, we done that in the 80s, 90s retro amiga demo scene, and 2000s in blitzbasic. He must love em.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 02, 2018, 23:44:38
Quotegod he must be crazy, or rich, or both.
Not rich, I wish, but probably a little crazy ;D

QuoteIf i was putting my money into the indie community it would be to polarize it towards a group project
Shudder at the thought :o - It's very hard to keep a group motivated and I've seen loads of times groups form ( like on the BB forums ) to create something only for it to fizzle out. Great out of the gate but not much for the long haul.

QuoteYes - until some people offer money to reduce financial "load" from him.
Members sometimes do donate towards the prize pot. We've had two donations for this comp so far and I always update the first post with the info :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 08:22:46
Quote
and I always update the first post with the info
except for my donation, apparently... (for the previous competition) (not the end of the world, but same treatment for all members is more fair imo)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 08:31:03
Quote
If i was putting my money into the indie community it would be to polarize it towards a group project, so that we gain XP with working with each other, binding the community tighter into a team, becoming powerful, towards being commercially viable.
sounds cool in theory, but in practice, as we have seen in the past, there are some problems :
->we don't use the same languages / engine and programming style, so it can be complicated to work together, but doable, we could always have a main programmer who converts the procedures made by others in the chosen language / engine.
->most people are motivated when discussing the ideas, but not really interested in doing the boring works...
->real life constraints will get in the way of some people and they will give up. (not enough time because of x reason)
->some people knows 2D but not 3D and vis versa
->we don't have the same views / tastes / preferences about what constitutes a good game.

However, this could be an interesting experiment to at least try once... Especially that some people here seem to have enough free time to make good progress...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 03, 2018, 12:17:09
Quote from: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 08:22:46
Quote
and I always update the first post with the info
except for my donation, apparently... (for the previous competition) (not the end of the world, but same treatment for all members is more fair imo)
Did I miss yours? :o - massive apologies and if ever do it again then please pm me so I don't make that kind of mistake. Quite surprised I did miss yours, could you pm me the email address you used for the PayPal donation?, thanks.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 13:02:27
@Qube>>no problem, pm sent...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 03, 2018, 20:34:45
Quote from: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 13:02:27
@Qube>>no problem, pm sent...
Not sure why I said thanks in the thread but didn't update the first post ( must of got distracted ). Updated now :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 20:46:53
You were probably thinking about your master plan to conquer the world, (or to win the competition)  ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 03, 2018, 21:28:37
Quote from: RemiD on March 03, 2018, 20:46:53
You were probably thinking about your master plan to conquer the world, (or to win the competition)  ;D
Lol, well I failed on both :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 04, 2018, 08:46:14
Just about half way through the 10 weeks deadline now. Anyone starting to wonder if they're going to get their game completed in time yet?

I was putting in a balanced level system and the last enemy into mine yesterday which meant the gameplay part is very nearly complete and I can get on with the presentation side after that. And I'm still not confident that I'll have enough time, even though logic says I should be be ok :-)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on March 04, 2018, 08:47:38
Had no time since last weekend, and will not have time this weekend either. So nothing done than a bit of "brain work" (you can code in your mind while doing a walk or so).


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 04, 2018, 09:30:04
Quote from: Xerra on March 04, 2018, 08:46:14
Just about half way through the 10 weeks deadline now. Anyone starting to wonder if they're going to get their game completed in time yet?
Umm, yeah.. It dawned on my tonight that I have an absolute shed load to do and last week I thought I was doing so well too :P - For some reason my game is coming together in spurts. One day loads happens and then after four days later it looks like minimal progress has happened. At the moment there is no game to play apart from walking around and blowing up stuff. I have a lot of the game elements half done but now is the long slog of putting it all together. Just over five weeks to go and a truck load to do.

I know this week I can't work on my game much so I'm in panic mode a bit :o - I'm not too worried yet as I'm hoping things will come together magically. There is a lot to do and I just need to make sure I find / make the time to put into it.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 14:51:02
I'll probably have to bow out of this one.  Too many ideas and too little time.  I think the movie / TV show theme was a bit too open ended for me, not a dig, more a case of I couldn't nail down one idea.  I managed to get a couple of prototypes working but nothing that really feels fun enough to take it further. 

A screenshot of a Apollo 11 / Thrust style prototype ...

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.steviegoodwin.plus.com%2Fimages%2FLander.png&hash=9d6cc3afeadac611d218099eadf1e0945e1f4669)

I have been playing about with boned animation on tiny 16 pixel high sprites which IS a lot of fun.  Planning on designing thousands of frames of animation but again, not 100% sure what I'll do with it.

Looking forward to playing all the entries at the start of April.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 04, 2018, 19:00:45
QuoteI'll probably have to bow out of this one.
Aww, nooooo!! :(


QuoteI think the movie / TV show theme was a bit too open ended for me, not a dig, more a case of I couldn't nail down one idea.
Yes, it was a bad idea. When asked about a theme no one could decide beyond the cries of "no limits" and mass talk about how long etc etc. So I came up with a theme with practically no limits which in hind site I should of just dreamed up a comp and rules rather than asked.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 04, 2018, 19:02:42
After what happened today ( in the boring real world ) looks like I'm out too :/
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 21:06:49
Quote from: Qube on March 04, 2018, 19:02:42
After what happened today ( in the boring real world ) looks like I'm out too :/

Boo!!  Just stick some Exbiens in there and let us at them for deadline day?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 04, 2018, 22:51:39
Quote from: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 14:51:02
A screenshot of a Apollo 11 / Thrust style prototype ...

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.steviegoodwin.plus.com%2Fimages%2FLander.png&hash=9d6cc3afeadac611d218099eadf1e0945e1f4669)

That looks cool. Always liked the glory vector stuff. You should finish it off :)

Quote from: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 21:06:49
Boo!!  Just stick some Exbiens in there and let us at them for deadline day?
Lol, I'll aim to get the game completed but I'll just have to pray to the coding, graphic and music Gods that thinks fall into place quicker than hoped. Pesky critical work that comes in at the most silliest of times :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 04, 2018, 23:27:38
Just a suggestion for the next competition if the general opinion is that this one was too open-ended.

What about - Remake your favourite game from when you first started playing computer games.

Lot of scope there for people to remember great moments from the past. I can think of some absolute belters that I'd like to do a new take on just from my Vic 20 days.

Rockman, Matrix, Myriad, Omega race, Cosmic Jailbreak, Radar rat race....

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 04, 2018, 23:28:57
Quote from: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 14:51:02
A screenshot of a Apollo 11 / Thrust style prototype ...
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.steviegoodwin.plus.com%2Fimages%2FLander.png&hash=9d6cc3afeadac611d218099eadf1e0945e1f4669)

OMG! Stevie, you HAVE to finish this.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 10, 2018, 19:31:12
1 month from today is deadline day. Seems like plenty of time but when I think of how I've practically done nothing but tinker with a progressive level balance system in my game that still isn't quite right, it's pretty daunting.

How's everyone else doing? Anyone close to completion yet? I'd put myself at around 60%, roughly.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on March 10, 2018, 21:50:58
spent 4 evenings + sparetime tinkering yet. Family and friends are just too time consuming. Only got some basic stuff done: yet-to-extend iso-tile-grid + basic entities interacting with each other. Pleeeenty to do - but a month is plenty of time (3.5 times of weekends of what I spent yet :-)).


bye
Ron   
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on March 10, 2018, 22:04:23
Quote
OMG! Stevie, you HAVE to finish this.

Definitely.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 11, 2018, 05:43:58
Quote from: Xerra on March 04, 2018, 23:28:57
OMG! Stevie, you HAVE to finish this.
All chant together.. Steve!, Steve!, Steve! - It does look cool and I think Steve should complete it ;D

Quote from: STEVIE G on March 04, 2018, 21:06:49
Boo!!  Just stick some Exbiens in there and let us at them for deadline day?

Your wish is my command :

They are coming, mostly at night.. mostly. Get ready to unleash the M41A Pulse Rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher ;D

It's pure over the top pixel & audio carnage. Once the motion tracker starts off then get ready for over the top action. Yup, we have a full on 360 degree motion tracker and it's heart pumping. I'm coding it and know what is coming but once that sound kicks in :P

Level 1 = face huggers
Level 2 = E x B I E n 's ( Aliens *cough* ) and a whole load of them
Level 3 onwards = ? ( including the sentry guns )
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 11, 2018, 23:47:51
Real life work complete.. Beta app finished for client and now back to proper coding :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 20, 2018, 17:13:06
3 Weeks to go /panic. Have a look at one of the static images going somewhere in my game once I have the front end designed properly.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 21, 2018, 00:16:56
Quote from: Xerra on March 20, 2018, 17:13:06
3 Weeks to go /panic. Have a look at one of the static images going somewhere in my game once I have the front end designed properly.
Nice :) - Are they 3D models but hand painted?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 21, 2018, 22:39:15
I saw an original image which I liked the look of but I didn't have any rights to use it. So I got a guy on freelancer.com to draw me something in a similar style and he came up with that. Same guy has done my game sprites for me. Think I paid around £22 all-in.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on March 28, 2018, 06:29:17
Very nice helicopter - you gets what you pays for. I confess, my mojo has been otherwise used up (so far) by other life stuff for this compo (I might be getting old...) :o. Still time to go though to dust off that keyboard.  Explored another avenue briefly for 3D ness (my JV-ODE license appeared to be locked to an old computer), its eluding me for now though.

Still just over a fortnight to go... tons of time.

QuoteThey are coming, mostly at night.. mostly. Get ready to unleash the M41A Pulse Rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher ;D

Sounds awesome ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 28, 2018, 21:33:56
I've taken a week off in preparation for some heavy crunching over the four day weekend coming up. I'm going to regret this, i know.

Game is feature complete but the balancing of the difficulty is a mess at present and I've got no transition to gradually make it get harder the longer you play apart from the level selection stage. I'm aiming for something that's pretty tough to begin with but gets gradually tougher and tougher so you get maybe 5 - 10 minutes a game. I'm not a fan of overly hard games but there's some out there that are pretty tough but they don't cheat you and you feel like you have progress every time you play.

At present this one is going to get pretty boring if it plays at the same level constantly, and you get good at it, because you'll be at it forever.

Also lacking a lot of polish such as decent screen fading and any sound effects at all right now.

Still, there's a couple of weeks to go. Plenty of time, right?

Right?

...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on March 28, 2018, 22:08:38
QuoteStill, there's a couple of weeks to go. Plenty of time, right?

Right?
Yes, plenty of time :P - I keep telling myself that too. Still lots to do but it's getting there.

I should of thought it through doing this game as not only is it graphically heavy, so lots of drawing, it's also a huge massive time sucker doing the maps.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on March 29, 2018, 11:59:38
Quote from: Qube on March 28, 2018, 22:08:38Still lots to do but it's getting there.

That about sums it up. I'm too still working on it and I'm not even at a stage where I could easily summarize what's missing. But at least I'm not at a point yet where I have to decide which features I won't include. I just work, add tiny bit per tiny bit and eventually will come to an end =)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on March 31, 2018, 23:14:53
Couple of WIP screenshots that show the new sprites I'm using for Envahi. A lot of the other stuff is still being jigged, though. Such as the HUD.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 01, 2018, 06:36:54
Quote from: Xerra on March 31, 2018, 23:14:53
Couple of WIP screenshots that show the new sprites I'm using for Envahi. A lot of the other stuff is still being jigged, though. Such as the HUD.
Looks intriguing. Curious how it all fits together as there are a few mishmash visuals going on.

What's going on with the cyan panel on the left?. If looks like a screen shot taken off a CRT ( banding effect? ).

Overall though, chopper, bullets, ufo's, airwolf theme in my head, I'm in ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 01, 2018, 07:57:25
I would say this is some kind of water-container.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 01, 2018, 10:41:39
Hope people like flight sims... in the form of a bargain basement homage to Jane's Longbow. Does anyone still use joysticks or a proper mouse, or is that ancient tech now?
Always loved helicopters, so I wasn't just being unimaginative when I plumped for an Airwolf/Blue Thunder scenario...

(To fly is heavenly, to hover is divine.)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 01, 2018, 16:29:21
Quote from: Derron on April 01, 2018, 07:57:25
I would say this is some kind of water-container.

Yep, graphics aren't my thing. That's my dam. Tiles blocking off the water but the little Nibblers coming across the screen eat bits of the wall eventually causing a breach. Then the city below floods. It probably would make a lot more sense when the game is actually moving. Maybe I should try a video to make it clear. There's a simple little waves effect at the top of the dam but that won't be visible either in a static screenshot.

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 01, 2018, 16:47:49
Here you go. Envahi in a little playtest showing normal mode and suicide modes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka9g6-0bEok&feature=youtu.be
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 03, 2018, 07:17:02
As we are just one week away...

Sheesh, literally 20 seconds into level 2 and already those pesky beasts are after me :o

Note : it all looks better when moving :)

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ExBiEnB1.jpg)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 03, 2018, 07:55:41
They all look brilliant :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 03, 2018, 08:04:09
Except the "left hud background" it looks pretty intriguing. I like the lighting of the portrait-characters, makes them looking more painted than rentered. Last time I checked out poser/daz3D/... it looked a bit different (I know my lighting-skills are ..ahem ... questionable "improveable").


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 03, 2018, 08:06:39
Definitely looking good.

Qube's got atmosphere with that use of shadow and smoke/steam. And Xerra has a lot going on judging by the video.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 10:13:11
Great stuff!  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 03, 2018, 16:05:30
Quote from: Derron on April 03, 2018, 08:04:09
Except the "left hud background" it looks pretty intriguing. I like the lighting of the portrait-characters, makes them looking more painted than rentered. Last time I checked out poser/daz3D/... it looked a bit different (I know my lighting-skills are ..ahem ... questionable "improveable").
I didn't render them with the better renderer ( iRay ) as that looked a little odd compared all the other graphics, so instead went for the for the 3Delight one with very little lighting to give a more hand drawn look. The title screen has larger versions rendered in iRay and look better.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 03, 2018, 16:51:24
A week to go. Nothing to panic about. Everything is going fine. Who needs to worry? Not me. Oh, no.

/flap

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 03, 2018, 17:11:00
Quote from: Xerra on April 03, 2018, 16:51:24
A week to go. Nothing to panic about. Everything is going fine. Who needs to worry? Not me. Oh, no.

/flap
Nope, nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter that there's a week left and have lots to do. It also doesn't matter that I was greeted with extra real life work in my email box after the Easter break meaning even less time. So no, nothing to worry about :P - Not that I'm worried as it'll either get finished in time or it won't :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 21:33:58
Everybody flapping, but what about the previous comp winner Stevie G?  The Thrust game?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on April 03, 2018, 21:57:54
Quote from: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 21:33:58
Everybody flapping, but what about the previous comp winner Stevie G?  The Thrust game?

I'm totally chilled  ;D   No chance of entering this one - the thrust game was just a prototype which played pretty well but I haven't had any time to work on it since posting that old picture.  It looks like there are some great entries - I'm looking forward to playing them all.  I've only counted 4 entries so far - I just hope there are some who are working on theirs in secret :) 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 22:12:43
Quote
No chance of entering this one - the thrust game was just a prototype which played pretty well but I haven't had any time to work on it since posting that old picture.

Aw a shame.  I have my pi running the old arcade classics - including the old vector graphics games, but they are not the same.  The originals had sharp lines and glowing lines too!

Quote
I just hope there are some who are working on theirs in secret :)

We may yet be surprised.  The last comp was very popular, with some high quality entries - even though the restrictions were high.  It's bound to vary from comp to comp.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 03, 2018, 22:20:11
QuoteThe last comp was very popular, with some high quality entries - even though the restrictions were high.
Then a lot asked for less restrictions, so I came up with an idea to let the imagination run wild, but people complained it was too open, lol. Ya canny win either way :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 03, 2018, 22:22:26
I do not think it is the rules or freedom you give. It's a coming and going, an up and down of interests/motivation/...

Maybe next compo is to try something "smaller" so it is easier to get _more_ entries in (but with lower average in quality/polishing).

But let's wait and see who finally enters and adds hist entry.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 22:30:49
Don't beat yourself up over it Qube.  Early days for the new (ish) SyntaxBomb.  Competition wise I think peeps here are still finding their feet - and more importantly being motivated by the quality entries and ideas they may take forward at a later date.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 03, 2018, 22:34:52
QuoteDon't beat yourself up over it Qube.
I'm not :P.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on April 03, 2018, 22:52:19
Quote from: Qube on April 03, 2018, 22:34:52
QuoteDon't beat yourself up over it Qube.
I'm not :P.

Good to hear :) 

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 03, 2018, 23:02:19
Haha cool  8)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 04, 2018, 02:29:56
Huh, didn't think doing a game in a virtual resolution of 640x400 that I'd start to worry about filling up a 2048x2048 sprite atlas, but it's getting very tight :o - It currently contains 537 images to which 194 belong to the tile map alone. Note to self : next time keep it simple, think text adventure or PacMan :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 04, 2018, 07:47:09
Note to you: Do a "SnackMan" (dunno if that exist yet but it just came to my mind ... )


@ Images
I wrote a new python script yesterday evening to automate rendering items in different rotations. And as this exists already I of course had to do a bit more :-). I have a .blend file in which I have the lighting setup (and shadow catchers etc - and the "base tile grid bottom thingies"). I link in items I want to composite for "devices" - or just link in ready "devices" and so on. All these things get auto-aligned by the script to the needed camera (depending on 1x1, 2x1, 3x1, 3x2 ... you need an individual camera position, which I else need to hardcode anyway as position in 3d space of a rotated camera is ... nothing I like to tinker with). Now the script runs over all the stuff and outputs the sprites in all layout options (top,down, left, right) in the correct render dimensions.
Real time saver - once it was written. Spritewise the count increases a lot once you add animation (and I already skip a lot of frames). having a 1024x512 atlas for each character now - adding 1-2 idle animations will surely bring it to 1024x104.
All in All I am pretty sure I already have 400 sprites in use. And this without hud, fonts, ...

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on April 04, 2018, 07:54:14
Personally i am not interested in participating in a competition, i have adapted a game idea that i wanted to make to enter the previous one, but i don't see the point in competitions, a lot of effort / time spent for not much reward.

I would prefer to participate in a community project, where a prototype of a type of game / gameplay is created and each coder / graphist brings some of his knowledge / skills / procedures / systems, and we all progress by learning something. (then the prototype could be used by any participant to create a customized game on a specific subject / theme.) (since we all have different tastes / preferences...)

But good luck anyway !
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 04, 2018, 08:22:12
When I learnt of the previous comp it inspired me to write something just as an entry. When it finished, I delved back into C and created my first dll for drawing 3D nets, based on old code, but something I could use with Basic. The the next comp arrived and it gave me the motivation to write something I've been wanting to for a while. (I broke away from another project, so wouldn't have done any of this otherwise.)

I've seen what others can do, and I still wonder how some of it is done. I have a website of my own, so what I write will be posted there.

I think Qube is doing something great. Reminds me of 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' where the idea was to pool ideas from around the world.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: therevills on April 04, 2018, 10:26:42
I love these little compos, it forces me to actually do something! :)

Unfortunately my project is no where near finished and RL is getting in the way :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 04, 2018, 16:19:41
Quote from: RemiD on April 04, 2018, 07:54:14I would prefer to participate in a community project, where a prototype of a type of game / gameplay is created and each coder / graphist brings some of his knowledge / skills / procedures / systems, and we all progress by learning something. (then the prototype could be used by any participant to create a customized game on a specific subject / theme.) (since we all have different tastes / preferences...)
Then why not start one? :) - I keep hearing about community projects and would like to see them go beyond just mentioning them. Do it, do it :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 04, 2018, 17:35:57
A community project is all well and good but, unless you're all using the same language, there's a lot there that can't be shared.

One person doing the artwork.
One person doing Audio. Maybe two if there's a musician and effects person.
Few people with game design.
Maybe a level designer.
Play testing can involve lots of people.

When it comes to coding, however, unless there's a few people using the same dev system for sharing code and they can work in a shared project, then it's kind of difficult. I can't think of any community project I've ever seen that's got off the ground and got to a fully developed game. I could be very wrong here but I can't think of an example as I type.

Personally, I like the idea of being the sole-person, even though I am probably badly hindered by it. It's not from the control aspect of the project where I don't need to answer to anyone. Rather it's because I don't consider myself to be that good at any particular part of it.

With the game I'm working on for this competition, I've got most of the graphics done by a freelancer, the title music I obtained permission to use the track by the author, and I've developed my own system of using random loops of 8 second retro music rifts to use for in-game background noise as I'll be doing my own sound effects and I'm not too great at that part either.

I'd be useless in a community project as I don't consider myself to be a very good game designer, and most of what I've done over the last few years has been remakes of ideas that other people have done already. I'm not complaining about this part as most of the time it's easier to me to code something from looking at other games as 99.9% of games aren't original anyway.

I'd end up being a tester or something if I tried to help out and I do that at work all day already...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on April 04, 2018, 17:58:24
Quote
Then why not start one?
because i don't have enough free time for that (the excuse most people would use after some time)

The Alien breed "remake" was a good start on the blitzbasic forums...


Quote
unless you're all using the same language, there's a lot there that can't be shared
indeed that's a problem, different languages / engines, but also different programming styles, but the main problem i have seen again and again is that there are plenty of people with ideas, and very few people willing to do the boring works...

So i suppose that in the end, that's why i create everything myself...


Quote
With the game I'm working on for this competition, I've got most of the graphics done by a freelancer
good approach, i like to outsource some things too.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on April 04, 2018, 18:43:52
Anyone remember Jump Around for Blitz3d?  It remains the only community project that got finished iirc and it was a great wee game.  Making a very small project is the way to go I think but even then there must be coding standards which are adhered to. 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 04, 2018, 19:24:28
Yes I remember Jump Around.  Cute fun game.  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 05, 2018, 08:33:33
I'm hoping we see entries from everyone who entered last time, as well as new contenders. Everyone had a different idea and it added to the richness of the competition.
I still find that I only learn by 'doing', and this forum has pushed me to try something new.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 05, 2018, 08:43:15
In the spirit of something new. Here's something.... disasterous
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/screen-shot-2018-04-03-at-11-21-38.png)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 05, 2018, 14:30:47
I'm not sure. But I think there has been a disaster?
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/water.gif)

Maybe a tidal wave?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 05, 2018, 17:36:09
the fire would be extinguished if it was water ... maybe it it is the inflammable cape of a monstrous alien commander. Or it is the high-density-toxid-whatever-fog of a lacquer producer (accident at a nearby industry complex).


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on April 06, 2018, 00:45:53
@Remid, I appreciate your slant on the time issue. However, you seem to have the energy and impetus to state what you'd like to happen as a group coding thing.... So, why not start a thread in the vein you were eluding to? Nothing ventured... Nothing gained my old B3d coding maestro.  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th
Post by: Rick Nasher on April 06, 2018, 09:32:03
Quote
The Alien breed "remake" was a good start on the blitzbasic forums...
Qube's thing certainly looks like heading into that direction. lol

"If you build it, they will come"  ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: RemiD on April 06, 2018, 15:00:33
@3DzForMe>>i sometimes rant, and i sometimes troll, what can i say, i am not perfect. :-[

i think that i prefer to contribute to this community in 2 ways :
->by helping people find a solution, if i know one.
->by posting some of my understanding and experiments in a way that everybody can understand and learn from it.

Other than that, not sure if it is worth the time / efforts, and since the sunny hot days are comming back, i am going to go out more ! (and code less...)

but good luck in your things. :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 06, 2018, 21:10:57
QuoteQube's thing certainly looks like heading into that direction. lol
lol, not quite. From level 2 you have to start working as a team to do certain things. Also on level 2 you can't zoom around treating it like an FPS ( you'll get chomped down pretty quickly ) and have to be a little more strategic in your movement :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 07, 2018, 09:12:16
Blue TIGAR entry...

A bit early, but after using the last of my leave and spending every spare moment of it on this production - I'm done. Finito.

This here's a link to a short video, just to prove the thing does fly:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jJC5WgmfPVp-eYgg5wiSrFX1p4nnE0jj/view?usp=sharing

...And this is the game:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMpdnxu2K-IFLkkK3rHdsBumAILpVtj3/view?usp=sharing

I advise the use of mouse or joystick - not total keyboard.
There are 6 training scenarios, plus 5 of level 1, 5 level 2 and 3 level 3. The missions are shuffled on the start of a new campaign, and you only have to complete a fixed number of each to win. Between shuffled missions and some variations in graphics/scenery, I wanted it to be replayable.
Some missions are not easy, and it's more flight sim than FPS, so may not be to everyone's taste, but I hope you enjoy taking on the role of Longfellow Stork  8)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: 3DzForMe on April 07, 2018, 09:34:18
@Blue Tigar, brilliant chopper sim, I like it.  8)

@RemiD, yeah, seeing as the longer days are here I like to get out and about, hence my lack of progress in this compo. Good luck everyong, 3 days to go... I think ?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 10:10:43
@bluetiger. What 3d engine did you use - it looks really good :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 07, 2018, 11:10:27
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 10:10:43
@bluetiger. What 3d engine did you use - it looks really good :)

It's what I've learnt over the last 30 years, stuffed into a tiny dll. (What I know fits onto a postage stamp!)
Always been a fan of Elite and vector graphics. I can define objects as a list of vertices and a list of 'links' and colours, and the code draws the object where I want it, in the order I want. There's (single) point of light shading and an attempt to makes colours fade in the distance. The drawing makes use of Windows GDI triangles, and cuts triangles that are partially behind the viewer. I draw to a bitmap and copy the bitmap to the display. That way I can use ordinary BASIC commands for drawing the HUD over the top.
Something like DIrectX would be way faster, but there are always trade-offs. (The helicopters were an inspired fudge to get them to draw right.)
The dll was written in C, using code 're-animated' from a few years back. It also draws the stars and calcs the position and scale for Windows bitmaps e.g. the explosions, for 3D effect. No texture mapping though, and sorting gets a bit sticky.

All the collision detection and 'object' control is done in Basic. Can't beat Basic for developing ideas!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 11:19:40
Brilliant work. Windows GDI as well. I was a systems programmer and know how difficult it is to get anything usable from the GDI - keep up the great work there :) I'm well impressed

As for manual depth sorting. the best (fastest) sort routine I found was "shell meiser sort" it was by a factor of 10 faster than any other sort - just a thought
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 07, 2018, 11:53:41
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 11:19:40
Brilliant work. Windows GDI as well. I was a systems programmer and know how difficult it is to get anything usable from the GDI - keep up the great work there :) I'm well impressed

As for manual depth sorting. the best (fastest) sort routine I found was "shell meiser sort" it was by a factor of 10 faster than any other sort - just a thought

Thank you! Windows GDI wasn't so bad, once you get past the odd way Windows does things.
As for sorting - i cheat. When I'm processing a list of objects to be drawn, I do an otherwise very slow Bubble sort pass. One pass each frame, so the order of drawing improves over time. I can add objects to the start or end of the list, or after another item, to give the sorting a head start. Not perfect, but nothing in 3D is. Even sorted objects don't always appear right, which is why the scenery tends to appear in a grid layout (another cheat).
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 12:15:53
I like cheats. You get a feel for other approaches to doing things - like your sorting - a great example.

Doing 3d in 2d is much more involved and much more rewarding when it all comes together - I think you've done a great job here.

I've done some strange 3d stuff myself and picked up some completely off-the-wall concepts like lighting that isn't 3d and reverseing 3d into 2d for object picking.

What is the core language you programmed it all in - I know it's some form of BASIC?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 07, 2018, 12:34:54
Quote
What is the core language you programmed it all in - I know it's some form of BASIC?

The credits say it's BBC BASIC, the dll using C.

http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcwin/bbcwin.html
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 07, 2018, 13:57:26
A flight sim written in Basic. I never thought I'd see the day that could be done at 50 fps. This looks technically brilliant. I can't test it yet as I use a Mac all the time but I've got to get my windows laptop to compile a Windows version of my game over this weekend so will have a play then.

Well done. At least you don't have to worry about the deadline now, too. It's been at the front of my mind all week. I've been scribbling notes and stripping out ideas from my working notes all week to try and beat that :-)

Still not sure I'll actually make it but I'm pretty close...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 07, 2018, 14:37:49
@Xerra. I'm on a mac too and use VMWare to host Windows10 - I compile for window there and test on another windows system for compatibility.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 07, 2018, 17:43:01
@Xerra: It tries to run at 50fps, and squeaks by on my cheap 1Ghz dual core laptop. BBC Basic for Windows is nippy, but calling the routines in the DLL speeds things up a lot. So the game isn't pure Basic.
BB4W has a SYS command for calling API functions, although there is a slight fudge (R.R. won't like that term) for converting floating point parameters to be passed.
I usually settle for 25fps, but found that 50 made a huge difference to the feel of the game.

I expect a lot of us tend to be perfectionists, but even an incomplete game is worth entering and demonstrating, especially for those who haven't before (who may be reading this). It's a boost to see your work online. My dad's in his 80's and posted a demo of a Deltic engine online today. It gave him such a buzz that he's already planning a follow-up project.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 07, 2018, 22:15:26
Hehe, if only I could just put it online now and be done with it. I'm one of those people that just looks at their game and thinks, yes, that works well but people are going to think it's rubbish because this doesn't work so good. The majority of my work this weekend is just getting the balancing right so it plays well. It's either too easy or too hard, depending on the level. And I've got very good at playing it even on the stupid, suicidal mode so I also have a problem in knowing if it actually is too hard or not.

Still, I'm down to 8 lines in my to-do list now, so I'm looking forward to getting done with the thing. I kept a log of how many hours I've spent working on it on the different areas now that I'm going to put into a spreadsheet. It's actually a lot of man-hours - mainly due to my lack of experience at getting things actually finished.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 08, 2018, 11:50:01
ok, disasters done!!!  ;D
Sound added - not the kind I originally wanted though (the chip synth just wouldn't play right)
new news ticker added (including lots of fake news!):
(https://vjointeractive.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/screen-shot-2018-04-08-at-11-47-11.png)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 08, 2018, 19:50:03
5 bugs to go and I'm done with my entry. Been slogging away all weekend. Bugs are just minor little tweaks that don't crash or affect gameplay at all but they're proving elusive to me in an OCD way so I'm determined to track them. Still have this evening to get them fixed and hopefully put Envahi online tomorrow evening.

Boy will I be glad to get this one done :-)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 08, 2018, 22:00:19
Quote from: freeman69 on April 07, 2018, 09:12:16
Blue TIGAR entry...

A bit early, but after using the last of my leave and spending every spare moment of it on this production - I'm done. Finito.

This here's a link to a short video, just to prove the thing does fly:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jJC5WgmfPVp-eYgg5wiSrFX1p4nnE0jj/view?usp=sharing

...And this is the game:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMpdnxu2K-IFLkkK3rHdsBumAILpVtj3/view?usp=sharing
Yay, first one is in \o/ - Perhaps put up a showcase post with screen shots and or video's with description etc? :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 08, 2018, 22:01:17
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 08, 2018, 11:50:01
ok, disasters done!!!  ;D....... new news ticker added (including lots of fake news!):
Fake news, lol, very political :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 09, 2018, 11:37:03
Hehehehehehe. Who would have known that "Man arrested for everything!"

Now onto campaigns. I've got the campaign success already done... Balloons!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 09, 2018, 13:52:42
Looking forward to trying the Competition Entries.  One big push and you're there guys!  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 09, 2018, 15:05:02
Inferno:

Inspired by the film 'The Towering Inferno' (it features 3d replicas of the tower as the final building) and other disaster movies.

You are in control of your city and drop new land. Crash land together to make buildings, crash buildings together to build higher, but crashing into existing building causes fires - too many fires and BANG.

Every move you make increases the chance of a disaster. and disasters spell trouble.


Controls :

full mouse control


Who did what?:

Graphics done by me
3d models by me
Sound editing by me
3d engine by me
other editors by me
me by me
me me me me me me me me


EDIT - Additional :

Game complete and functional with fake news, 7 campaigns leading to free play.



AARGH!
compile to mac - YAY  :P
compile to windows - BANG  :o

sorted - updated core modules with new color information.

Latest news is:
"Alien held in slammer!"

At last. Here it is for both MacOs and Windows:
https://adamstrange.itch.io/inferno (https://adamstrange.itch.io/inferno)
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjQzNDYzLzExNjIwMDMucG5n/original/Rr983y.png)
Title: Envahi
Post by: Xerra on April 09, 2018, 21:34:33
Game Title: Envahi - based on the tv show Airwolf and the movie Dambusters.
Download link: https://xerra.itch.io/envahi - Windows and OSX versions available.
Required dependancies: None
Brief info about your game: See below
Media information:
I purchased a helicopter set of graphics from GameGorillaz for the helicopter sprites - £3.99.

I hired an artist to do the enemy sprites from freelancer.com and I also engaged him to do the big helicopter on title screen - £22 total.

The Airwolf music was used with permission from the composer Mr McNoggin.

All the city backdrops were originally free photo's from unsplash.com which were shrunk to the required size and I edited to make the backgrounds transparent.


Ok, Envahi is finally done and is up on ItchIO as a download for both Mac and Windows.

I'll probably talk a bit more about the development of this game in the worklog forum so I don't clutter up this thread. This is the first game I've actually completed in a while so I'm pretty chuffed that I've got it there within the deadline and very proud of what I've achieved after completing my first game with GMS 2. I've worked on a few others but this is the first out of the door, so to speak, so was a huge learning curve.

You can download via this link: https://xerra.itch.io/envahi

Envahi (C) Tony Brice, 2018
www.retroevolved.co.uk

Remake of the original Vic 20 game shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt8u2fwCvRs

This game is freeware and was written for the Syntax Bomb coding competition 4: https://www.syntaxbomb.com
I give full permission to distribute anywhere and everywhere but I retain the copyright and reverse engineering the game is not acceptable.

Controls:-

Either Shift key to fire.
W or Cursor Up - Up
S or Cursor Down - Down
A or Cursor Left - Left
D or Cursor Right - Right

Objective:-

Save the city below by taking on the aliens attacking in the sky over the dam. Your job is to protect the Dam from being eaten by the "Nibblers" that move across the screen as well as preventing invasion of the city by either the "Zoomers" or the "Droppers"

UFO's move across the screen and are indestructible. They will spawn "Droppers" as they move from left to right and then will later come back for another pass over the city.

Zoomers also appear randomly and will traverse the screen left to right as quick as they can move down to try and invade the planet.

Additionally you should watch out for the clouds and their acid rain that can spill in light or heavy showers. Usually it's worth sacrificing your own shield to save the city but definitely shoot them out of the sky as soon as possible.

Periodically you will also see a "Grabber" who will announce his presence and try to lift you off the screen so that the city is defenceless.

I blogged a lot during the development of this - and other games I've been working on. You can read about it , if you're interested, at my homepage: http://blog.xerra.co.uk/

Updates and other games will shortly be available at: www.retroevolved.co.uk
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 10, 2018, 06:55:44
Oo, cool beans, new entries to play ;D - Inferno looks very intriguing and Envahi being a modern clone from one of the finest 8-bit computers will be a blast from the past. My first computer was a Vic-20 and that'll always have a soft spot ;D

As for my entry, it should be in before the deadline. I've a couple more things to do and a final tidy up but it's looking good to go. I've been at the keyboard for the last 12 hours+ to head towards finishing it off. Currently 06:53am, my misses and puppies are in la-la sleepy land and here I am whacking the keys like there's no tomorrow :P - Me done, time to find my pillow...

Hope there are a few more last minute entries as it's great to see what people come up with :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 10, 2018, 08:44:59
yep. I'm waiting til after the deadline for everyone to finish too :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: therevills on April 10, 2018, 09:40:52
Cool entries!

What Movie/TV is Envahi based off?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 10, 2018, 10:57:44
First time I can't get one of the games to run!
I unzipped the Windows version of Inferno and ran the Inferno application. It started to open a window frame with a title bar (Inferno V1.01) and icon on the icon bar, then closed itself down. Tried as administrator and from hard disk and thumb drive.
I'm using a laptop with 768 pixels vertical resolution (too small?) and Windows 7.
(My old Mac died a death a few years back otherwise I would have tried that version.)

Envahi works fine (although my screen seems to be limiting the cityscape at the bottom). Airwolf theme tune immediately recognisable, I'm trying to live long enough to see the dam break - but that's just my evil side.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 10, 2018, 12:43:37
hmmm - not tested on windows 7, just windows 10.
I'll see about getting windows 7 and sorting out any issues...

Just a quick update - the base info about the white window and title bar was excellent - I am tracking down the issue. I know where, but not exactly what. I'm on to it :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 10, 2018, 14:31:44
OK... Interesting.
Windows 7 (64bit) installed, Inferno downloaded
It ran perfectly!

Not to be outdone. I have added a light fix for ignoring the settings file (if it can't find it), hopefully this might be a fix?
redownload and give the new windows one a go.
Let me know how you get on...  :-X
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 10, 2018, 15:04:14
Quote
What Movie/TV is Envahi based off?

Quote
Airwolf theme tune immediately recognisable

Good question lol   ;)  Perhaps the author should have mentioned it though!

All games so far run without fault.

As for Inferno, looks cool - but no real objective or instructions.  Are we meant to be causing or preventing disaster?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: freeman69 on April 10, 2018, 15:40:50
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 10, 2018, 14:31:44
OK... Interesting.
Windows 7 (64bit) installed, Inferno downloaded
It ran perfectly!

Not to be outdone. I have added a light fix for ignoring the settings file (if it can't find it), hopefully this might be a fix?
redownload and give the new windows one a go.
Let me know how you get on...  :-X


Nuts. Same result - empty window that shuts itself down. Still says V1.01 at top, but created 14:26:24.
I had no problem with your earlier syntax game, which used the same dll's.

If the problem remains then Qube should nominate someone able to vote in my place (and not allowed to vote for my game).
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 10, 2018, 17:23:08
Quote from: therevills on April 10, 2018, 09:40:52
Cool entries!

What Movie/TV is Envahi based off?

It's a hybrid idea. The game is a remake of a game that came out in the 80's and was obviously influenced by the Airwolf or Blue Thunder tv shows involving a super helicopter. The Dambusters could also be a loose film link although your ultimate aim is to protect, rather than destroy it. I really wanted to use the theme tune from Airwolf in the game so it was one of the first things I got permission for before starting most of the coding.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 10, 2018, 17:25:13
Quote from: Steve Elliott on April 10, 2018, 15:04:14
Quote
What Movie/TV is Envahi based off?

Quote
Airwolf theme tune immediately recognisable

Good question lol   ;)  Perhaps the author should have mentioned it though!


Yeah, I probably should have put that in the actual post with the game. I've made several posts earlier in the thread and the discussion thread about what I was thinking of doing but it was a while back. I'll make it clearer next time.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 10, 2018, 17:28:08
 ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 10, 2018, 17:28:20
Quote from: freeman69 on April 10, 2018, 15:40:50
If the problem remains then Qube should nominate someone able to vote in my place (and not allowed to vote for my game).

You can just vote for another game if you're not able to play this one? I'm sure there's at least one more entry by now <whistles innocently> :-)

Actually, I don't know if it's really proper to vote for a game just based on what you can see from a video or screenshots. I voted for "Get to the chopper" last competition in 3rd place, even though I couldn't play it at the time, and just because I liked the idea of it. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Dunno if Qube counted it.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 10, 2018, 17:35:14
Quote
I voted for "Get to the chopper" last competition in 3rd place, even though I couldn't play it at the time

Quite an admission, personally I think that's not on.  You can't vote for a game you've never played!  In this case your vote was a good one - Get to the Chopper was well worth a vote!  :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 10, 2018, 17:49:48
Quote from: Steve Elliott on April 10, 2018, 17:35:14
Quote
I voted for "Get to the chopper" last competition in 3rd place, even though I couldn't play it at the time

Quite an admission, personally I think that's not on.  You can't vote for a game you've never played!  In this case your vote was a good one - Get to the Chopper was well worth a vote!  :)

I did say in the actual post where I voted that I couldn't test the game at the time.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on April 10, 2018, 20:44:09
Here's mine:

Pipanic

The almost official game to the film about the world's most famous average (Titanic).

Dowload Pipanic.zip (http://www.holzchopf.ch/contents/bin/games/Pipanic.zip)

- Runs on Windows 7 and Windows 10
- Don't extract into Program Files since it needs write access to the location where it's stored for the savegame.

The game is all about leveling your main character up to level 20 (by destroying weaker enemies and thus gaining experience) and then facing the "boss". There are items that will help you throughout the game. Also, you can collect money and there's a shop where you can trade money for items (or the other way round?). Controls are WASD and numbers 1,2,3, as well as the space button and escape. Or you can use the mouse to use the items or press the buttons.

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.holzchopf.ch%2Fcontents%2Fgfx%2Fgames%2Fpipanic01.png&hash=03c0657d17795a5af54a43f9250df748b8443cd8)

Dowload Pipanic.zip for Windows (http://www.holzchopf.ch/contents/bin/games/Pipanic.zip)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 10, 2018, 21:08:01
Yay are games to play \o/

Could members posting a game please remember the comp details / rules from the 1st post, thanks :

When submitting your game please adhere to the following format ( if relevant ) :

Game Title ( and the tile of the tv show / movie which inspired your game )
Download link and OS requirements
Required dependancies
Brief info about your game
Media information ( If using free / purchased media then please state where you obtained said media. )
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 10, 2018, 22:13:32
Quote from: Qube on April 10, 2018, 21:08:01
Yay are games to play \o/

Could members posting a game please remember the comp details / rules from the 1st post, thanks :

When submitting your game please adhere to the following format ( if relevant ) :

Game Title ( and the tile of the tv show / movie which inspired your game )
Download link and OS requirements
Required dependancies
Brief info about your game
Media information ( If using free / purchased media then please state where you obtained said media. )


Oops. i'll go edit my original post then. Sorry.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 00:00:00
(https://abload.de/img/logoqfp8h.png)

Linux: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/CreatureCorp.linux.7z
Win32: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/CreatureCorp.win32.7z

Some unneeded stuff removed (png files) - for the low-bandwith-dudes of us:
Linux + Win32: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/CreatureCorp.Linux_and_Win32.7z

(if the game is not running on your lowres-display: open up config/settings.xml and adjust resolution)



GameTitle: Creature Corp
OS: Windows + Linux
Based on: "Saving Mr. Banks" or "Time and Again" (documentary about Jim Henson)

While the game is far far far ...did I say it already? far... away from completition the base idea was to have some company running which solely purpose is to create cartoons, effects - and after some research also CGI movies.
As time was running out (and gui interaction stuff got pretty complex) it is more of a techdemo-kind than a real game (albeit I tried to plug in some stuff in the last two day's evenings).

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F7J7muhU.png&hash=4c7f683f00a40dd3ba6f21ea8163c6d6deabe283)

So start the game and hire some applicants to do the work for you. As there is no "custom production" now you can only use the auto-created "contract production".  With the money you have you can buy new devices (just click on the paper-boxes laying around to open up the buy-dialogue).
To sell stuff you click on the devices and hit sell ;-)

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F3wzRqQC.png&hash=f2d6f1b5f214af197dd63b32ccd78676d68ecffd)

To fire dudes: select them and there they go.
With "tab" you could enter into some debugview, but there is not much to see.

With cursor keys you could move around on the map.


So this means:
CURSOR KEYS: move camera (if desired)
KEYS 1-4: adjust speed (time and movement)
LMB: confirm actions
RMB: cancel actions

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FjGgNb53.png&hash=1fabc7e96b87a36d9a83048f82c8b51783b5999a)


The game was written in BlitzMax (and should compile with NG). It features a person name generator for various countries, and a tile grid system written for this game (never done before).
As I always want to learn something with the competitions I tried something new this time:
- grid system
- sprite-split to automate sprite splitting from a "rendered whole item" into "grid pieces" for proper z-indexing/hiding
- automate stuff in Blender via python scripts (wrote some to render the various figure animations, item-views...)
- randomize stuff in Blender (variable hair/skin/cloth color)


Excuse again for this "tech demo" without sound/music ... you could add one via config (game is aware of playlists) but I thought it is not really needed to add SFX/music now - as the game lacks so much gameplay already.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 11, 2018, 00:02:47
@Derron - Your upload time is 12:00:00. You are 1 second too late :P... Just kidding, we'll blame the servers clock ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 00:14:25
Everything from a flight sim to an Aliens game to a retro shooter to a unique couple of games!  Great work guys.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 11, 2018, 00:37:49
Wow, Qube was cutting it fine. Not as fine as Deron but still pretty close.

I make that six games that made the deadline now then. I think last time was 10 but it's still a pretty good showing.

Everyone that's had a crack at this should be commended. It's really hard to turn a game around but it's only the people who do it that actually realise this. Well done everyone. Looking forward to testing them all out over next couple of days.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 00:50:19
Yeah ... as it is unfinished nonetheless, it does not really is of importance whether I was in time or not. Sorry. Should set my sights lower.

pheww...this post took over 30 minutes (son woke up from a nightmare or so ... and I needed to calm him down to avoid my pregnant wife to wake up... awzzz).


Tomorrow I will try out the entries.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 11, 2018, 07:22:59
My entry updated with all the information, etc

@freeman69 could we continue the debugging in the game showcase for inferno :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 11, 2018, 12:37:56
I've removed my entry from the comp as I find the absolute negativity over a 10 week game shocking. Obviously mine was a pile of shit as every post bar one was negative. Why? Why the hate?

I'm going to play all yours tonight and provide REAL feedback!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 12:40:57
Qube's entry-thread is gone/missing?

Edit: ok you posted meanwhile. I did not see "bad feedback". Only worries were the controlling? Aside of that (and the explosion) it looks pretty cool and the beating-sound keeps tension. I mean, you were even able to shoot and destroy ammo-packs - nice "negligibility". And as written in the PM: I liked the music (also: at least your entry has some ;-)).

And yes, you can give "REAL" feedback - think we are all old enough to _expect_ "REAL" feedback. I know my "tech demo" is aehm... "improveable", I know that I could have fixed some tiles (borders not fitting together). I know that some last-minute changes make certain elements like "from another world". I released something so "unfinished" (which I normally do NOT do as I feel kind of "ashame" then) but I wanted to show what I have done (and what not).
Most of the problems of "gameplay" or "game mechanics" are hidden to the developer as they get used to the stuff during development. And as we do not hand out "milestones" to testers (here in the forums) things get unsaid until release.

Recover your thread - your entry is worth to get played by the people (hey it is even worth to get played by some more people - outside of this forum).

----

Think IWasAdam's entry could benefit of a "lighter theming" (so exposing more details, looking a bit "cleaner"). Think the basic idea could attract a wider audience if the setting would be adjusted here and there. People enjoy being filthy/bad boys. Just think of Dungeon Keeper. So if one could add a bit of "fun" into the idea of destroying something I see potential in it. Of course clicking on 12 arrows is something perfectly suiting on mobile/handheld devices. But destroying buildings is maybe not something many "casual gamers" will enjoy to play. Dunno if it is possible but wrapping the gameplay into another theme might be worth some efforts.


@ Pipanic
you should have waited for another retro compo :-)
But cool to see so "varying" entries as soon as there is no limitation there. 3D, prerender, pixelstyle ...


@ ExBiEn
Windows was not able to do simple "Print"-Key-Screenshots and during startup I had a black rectangle in a white application screen (think during ressource loading). Is "AGK" starting with a "defined resolution" and you add the virtual resolution-scaling-thing afterwards?
I tried to "alt-tab" out of the game (to exit - as Alt+F4 did not work this time - hey, Linux+Wine, good job ;-)). It somehow still displayed the game on the desktop (without refreshing) but I was not able to do something. "Alt-tab"ed in again and it continued to play. So is this some AGK-limitation or are you using some kind of "windowed fullscreen" - or is it the fault my my Windows 10?

For now this game looks like the "best overall entry" as it has: monsters, a suiting look and nice music. Gameplay wise I did not check them all thoroughly so others might win there, but "presentation wise" I liked it the most. And yes, controlling is an issue - I got used more and more to it but for people judging by a "single try" this might be a lil put-off (next to stucking units - but this might be intentional so I wouldn't judge that as "bug").


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 11, 2018, 13:54:28
I too think that removing the entry was not the best thing to do. it was only the controls I didn't really like - and certainly not negative.

I even thought of removing my entry over the gameplay, but thought better about it - any feedback is good - even negative ones as it gives you an idea of people like or don't like. but in the end you must grow a slightly harder shell and not give in to the negative ninnies!

There is always something to learn. Game are horribly complex to create, you put your life and soul in them only to have them thrown against the floor and walked over. To complete a game (even if it isn't what you would have liked, etc) is an achievement.

I will be playing all of them this afternoon (in-between crying and bug hunting of course)...

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 13:56:23
Quote
I've removed my entry from the comp as I find the absolute negativity over a 10 week game shocking.  Obviously mine was a pile of shit as every post bar one was negative. Why? Why the hate?

I think ploughing time into the project into the early hours has made you tired and over react a little bit mate, but understandable getting Derron's usual in-depth critique, to a 10 week (in this case) game competition.  It's not like you spent a year on it and had time to sort out any small niggles.  But it is a very good game!

I did mention to you that regards competition rules, having immediate critique by other 'competitors' could be seen by some as sabotage so shouldn't be allowed until all the votes are in - except for bugs that could then be fixed.

I think somebody that uses a track pad as a gaming device ffs shouldn't harp on about controls! (Adam).  Derron will always find the tiniest faults (in his eyes) and go into great detail.  I think this is well intentioned rather than wanting to 'pick apart' a project.  It's something that I've got used too and take it in the spirit of helping suggestions.  At first it annoyed though lol  :)

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 11, 2018, 14:27:28
Oh Steve - your so predictable...

Bloody F%*%(%(% windows!!!
edge turns to crap, wtf is sticky keys and no narrator is chatting to me and everything turned slooooooow - Way to go MS
Lets just reboot !!! |%*%^&%*%*%*  More fu%*%*% updates.
I'm about to blow a gasket here!!!!!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: round157 on April 11, 2018, 14:41:06
Qube,

Please don't delete your entry. I think that many members want to try or play your game.

Every entry is priceless.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on April 11, 2018, 17:10:59
Quote from: Qube on April 11, 2018, 12:37:56
I've removed my entry from the comp as I find the absolute negativity over a 10 week game shocking. Obviously mine was a pile of shit as every post bar one was negative. Why? Why the hate?

I'm going to play all yours tonight and provide REAL feedback!

Boooooo?!  >:(

I though some of the comments were a bit harsh and nit-picky myself.  I didn't read them all but most were about controls, one from someone who didn't even have a fecking mouse lol and others may just be uncoordinated.  You'd never win :)  Take it on the chin I say and get the link back up as I and many other would like to give it a bash and give you constructive feedback!!   

Failing that, could you send me an e-mail with a link to a copy please as I would love to give it a go?  I think it's only fair as you stole my idea  :P

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 11, 2018, 18:15:27
I think I must have missed some comments then as I didn't see anything negative about someones game. I'll admit to being ready for Derron to lay into mine but he seems to have missed it out. Maybe I got lucky :-)

I think because it's a competition then we're kind of opening ourselves up to get feedback we might not like. We are being judged on our work after all. I've just bleated about mine being the first game I've written with GML as an excuse to maybe avoid some harsh judging but it's not really a valid excuse as I've messed about half coding games for years now in other languages. Doesn't mean you can all lay into Envahi, now, though, guys, ha ha.

Please put your entry back in Qube. I did download a copy before you pulled the post but it deserves to be included and I'd like to be voting on five games, not four (obviously not voting for my own). I'm betting you worked a lot harder on yours than I did on mine.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 18:19:50
@ Xerra
Your's is still to come. So don't worry, your game won't get away from me ;-). Let's hope for a nifty/attractive gameplay as I do not know the original one (started with Atari 2600 as console and KC85 as "computer" - went right into classic consoles and 286+ computers then). Graphical wise other games look more attractive but gameplay first (at least in almost any case)!


@ critics
Think Adam did not like the music and the controls and I blamed the controls to be "uncommon" and the missing "exit"-ability from within the game. Rest (aside of the personal opinion about the "explosion effect") was positive stuff I think

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 18:20:45
Yes the comments were deleted along with the whole thread Xerra.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 11, 2018, 19:40:33
QuoteI think ploughing time into the project into the early hours has made you tired and over react a little bit mate
I don't think so :)

Critiquing is one thing but it was over the top harsh bitterness hiding as "constructive criticism" and there was nothing constructive about it. No other entry got piled in on like mine did within minutes of posting.

Me : I wrote the music.
Adam : I don't like the music.

What is the point of even saying that?.

Sure, point out any bugs and feel free to offer genuine constructive criticism but the way it was done came across as bitterness.

Granted, the control system may not be to your preference but within a minute you're used to it. I will shake my head at complaining about that because you use a trackpad. Congrats, that's the first trackpad gamer I've come across in my life.

The way the "comments" were worded just sucked any fun out of the comp for me and that's why my game is not part of the comp anymore. It's supposed to be a bit of fun yet for some reason it's in immediately with every nit pick detail they can find.

Yes, I know the game is not perfect but Jesus, it's a 10 week game written in my spare time ffs. Not 3 years of working on something all day long.

QuoteI and many other would like to give it a bash and give you constructive feedback!!
Be my guest :) - but it's not part of the comp anymore.

ExBiEn - Windows (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/software/ExBiEn-Win.zip)
ExBien - Mac (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/software/ExBiEn-Mac.zip)

Edit - Forgot to add how to control your squad...

Key 1, 2, 3, 4 to pick individual player.
Key 5 to select all your dudes.
Key W to move your active dudes towards the location of the cross hairs
Key S to move your active dudes away from the location of the cross hairs
Key A / D to strafe your dudes around the cross hairs
Key G for grenades.
Key B for bullets.
Right mouse to fire.
You can also click on the dudes in the side panel to pick who's working and who isn't.

Level 1 is face huggers
Level 2 is Aliens ( EBE's )
Level 3 is both the above + sentry guns

I think that's pretty much it.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 20:01:00
I am pretty sure to not feel any bitterness.  Also "nitpicking" is what is doable after the first minutes of playing. I think it is important to describe what the first thoughts in a game are. If you get "used" to something, you won't judge it neutral anylonger. You are using a Mac for 10 years, now judge Mac versus Windows - who wins?

Regarding controls: Yes, I got a bit more used to it, but this just made other little things more visible (units get "stuck"/"left behind") - maybe intended, maybe not). But still I got plenty of moments in which I moved the "wrong way". This was always when looking at the minimap or at the game surroundings.

Now assume someone is having some games to play this evening. They start yours and get a bit disappointed by the controls. Do they say "ahh, let's get used to it and continue playing..." or do they say "nahh, not my kind of game, let's play XYZ".  Yes, we as the ones here on the forum play the game "differently" (knowing the efforts put into, the time, motivation, ... even know the people a bit and their hobbies/interests to explain certain stuff in a game). But at least for me theses games are written for: oneself (to see what is able in a timeframe - or in my case, what is not ;-)) - and for others. So the more people enjoy a game, the better.
This is the reason why it would be nice if games are not suited to the developer but to the "big bunch" of potential players (even if it sacrifices some stuff for that).


When I post software, assets, ... I am glad about a "fast response". If done before the deadline it would even give the chance to change something (if done with some lines of code). These quick responses can just consist of "looks good/not cool", "sounds nice/not nice" ... You cannot go into detail after playing it for ~10 minutes (more or less).
But at least my person is interested in responses/reactions to the stuff I post. I think it is better to have some quick responses first (while I am still watching at the forum) than to wait hours and hours not knowing what people think.


So for now (sorry Xerra, still not played yours, somehow (thanks cube and your midnight-deadline ;-)) I am a bit tired) I enjoyed all tried entries. It's cool to play something which is a bit "exclusive" (you are one of the first users to try out the stuff...!). And for now nobody put online some "unity template game" or games with magenta backgrounds instead of transparency (slight wink to GML - cliche :-)).
While I understand that people are sometimes offended by critics I have to repeat myself: we are old enough and know what "might come" when releasing stuff to the public. If you are not self-confident about the stuff you do: do not release it. But hey - we released it, we are proud of it. And who cares if someone does not like the music or controls? I _bet_ we all enjoyed (somehow) to have played something _new_ - and to find out what the other forum user achieved/tried to do. It's like opening a gift. Put your game back into the competition: I bet it gets voted into the TOP 5!


@ ExBiEn
Maybe add (if desired to enhance later on) some kind of "come together" button. A bell or so. Hitting that icon makes all the units come together towards the cross hair. Also some kind of "rotation" might be of interest. So you hit the "rotating arrows" icon and unit A moves to unit B, unit B to unit C ... so they "switch places". Why? sometimes you have an injured member in the group, this enables to put behind the front line.
This can get even more useful if you plan to add more weapons and "friendly fire" (but I wont add it as it removes a bit of "fast paced" gameplay).

BTW the baldy old man looked a bit like the dude from Lost :-).

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 20:04:31
Mate I saw it as largely positive, talking about the atmosphere the game generated and such - the other stuff I would dismiss as personal preference.  Only a 10 week comp and people either were unable to complete, or just got something in by the skin of their teeth.  Therefore I can understand you getting pissed at people when you have no time left to address any personal preference on details.  Nothing you can do about it then, so why comment negatively?  If some feedback had come *before* the deadline then that's all good.  After then I can understand how you feel.

I disagreed with arguments that the controls were off and pointed that out - WASD keys and mouse are pretty much standard for a reason.  A is to the left of D, W is higher on the keyboard (so is obviously forward) and S is lower on the keyboard (so is back) it's logical, my fingers took to this configuration immediately (plus I have a proper mouse so all fluid shooting).

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 20:11:34
Steve - it was not about "WASD" at all, but the "fact" that the movement was based on the local position/rotation of the units towards the cross hair rather than a screen based orientation. This works well for cars (think it was the same way in "Van Tourismo") but somehow it felt a bit odd when it got connected to the mouse movement (crosshair movement). Maybe it was as the mouse used screen based orientation (move up and it moved to the top of the screen) which made my brain go wonky.

As said I tried it again today (on Windows - so to get sound, successfully ofc) and got a bit more used to it (still doing errors). But as described above I always try to think a bit like the "casual player" - of course it does not work in most cases, but at least I try ;-) - so if I (as a more experienced player) stutter at things, others might too.


@ Qube
If you feel somehow attacked by my notes/opinion then please excuse. As I write again and again: it is meant to _improve_ stuff, not to demotivate you. I also do not have any problem to repeat myself: the game looks polished (except for ingame-Exit :p - maybe you want to make us addicted) and you see that a big bunch of time and effort was put into.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 20:20:23
lol Derron, you always seem to over-complicate things WASD - Up, Left, Down and Right - simples.  And your fingers fit naturally to that configuration - and have done since Doom.  Because it's logical  :)

But you overlook the problem of people 'running out of time'.  Therefore unable to cater for casual players.


I already said Derron will always find the tiniest faults (in his eyes) and go into great detail.  I think this is well intentioned rather than wanting to 'pick apart' a project.  It's something that I've got used too and take it in the spirit of helping suggestions.  I guess I've got used to your 'wonky brain'  ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 11, 2018, 20:33:32
QuoteMaybe add (if desired to enhance later on) some kind of "come together" button. A bell or so. Hitting that icon makes all the units come together towards the cross hair.
I had planned to a feature like that and alternate controls, like joypad but ran out of time. Same with the in-game exit.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on April 11, 2018, 20:44:04
The discussion about the controls made me curios. I tried it. I personally prefer the relative WASD-controls where W means "forward" and not "north". But I know the struggle (of dealing with players who dislike it) and even once had to implement the option to chose controls type so the other half of the players were satisfied... ::)

But something felt odd when controlling the whole squad. Couldn't point out what exactly but sometimes it felt like they weren't really doing what I wanted them to do :D

More detailed feedback might follow in the voting thread ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 21:04:44
You guys are weird lol.  In my brain as previously mentioned W is forward of the S key - A and D are physically left and right.  Unless you're not using a Qwerty keyboard then that would explain it.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: STEVIE G on April 11, 2018, 21:13:01
Thanks Qube, downloaded.  Will play tomorrow.

As far as I'm concerned it was submitted before deadline so in terms of voting it's a valid entry whether you want it to be or not.   :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 21:15:44
Quote
As far as I'm concerned it was submitted before deadline so in terms of voting it's a valid entry whether you want it to be or not.   :D

My thoughts exactly  :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on April 11, 2018, 21:16:44
Quote from: Holzchopf on April 11, 2018, 20:44:04But something felt odd when controlling the whole squad.

I figured it out! They all stop moving as soon as one has reached the crosshairs. That's why things get pretty complicated once your squad "opens" - as long as they all stick together, it's almost easy ;D but if one once get's stuck, it's almost impossible to bring them back close together unless you control them individually. Not a great pleasure when facing a dozen of huggers :'(

Btw: I don't know how AGK handles this, but in B3D / BMax a CPU load of 100% was a sign of activated vsync and not using a timer
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 21:24:18
@ Steve Elliot
As Holzchopf described (in better words than mine). WASD is used as "forward/backwards,left,right" instead of  "north/south/east/west" (which the mouse movement - and so the crosshair movement) does.
I am more used to movement being individual to/separate from aiming. So you aim with the mouse (crosshair) but move independently.
The "USP" here was that you move all team members at the same time.


@ Holzchopf
Maybe Qube cheated a bit on path/wayfinding. Locate your units on a side of the wall - the mobs will try to attack you from the other side of the wall instead of moving around the wall (little cheat hint: you can shoot them from this position ;-)).

Edit: you posted meanwhile, yes this might indeed be the case. Maybe "later on" there could be an option to continue moving until "all" reach the crosshair (or the minimum distance to it).
CPU Load in main menu was lower than in the game itself, so dunno if it's a vsync thing then. During the game one core was utilized from 50-70% here (emulated using wine). My "game" uses 25-28% CPU when the ingame screen is shown (and 8% in menu) - with native full-hd-resolution. Would be interesting to find out what causes it: the byte code interpretation (tier1?) or maybe the sound playing, ...


As always I suggest that "bugfixes" (avoiding successful game starts, sudden crashes...) are allowed to increase the circle of potential voters. As you know the interest rapidly falls after a release, so keeping up the momentum sounds like a good idea.


Fun question: What would have happened if there were only 3 entries and one of these entries would not have gotten a single vote (eg. I submit a "black screen" ). Would it auto-become place 3 in the compo ? ;-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 21:31:40
Quote
I personally prefer the relative WASD-controls where W means "forward" and not "north".

??  W *is* forward in the game.  And in my eyes forward and north are the same thing.  I do not understand the logic here.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 21:53:34
Quote from: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 21:31:40
??  W *is* forward in the game.  And in my eyes forward and north are the same thing.  I do not understand the logic here.

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F8ixZa7h.png&hash=753ef88559d89c4c18e69bae32cef6782f6e7b9a)

Except you think of "N" stands for "Nose direction"  ;D


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Holzchopf on April 11, 2018, 21:57:52
What I mean: I prefer WASD controls the way Qube has it implemented! Because I'm used to press W to move a figure forward - or in other words: the direction it's facing - and not north (a synonym for "up on your screen", "where the ceiling is", "where y=0 in computer graphics unless you're Inkscape-Designer"). That's relative movement. You move in the figure's space. Relative to it's orientation. Absolute would mean "in world coordinates".

But in the end it's a question of taste I guess. Some prefer one, some the other.


Ron - in your sketch the figure moves in Z direction :-\
(It's a joke, don't worry)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 11, 2018, 22:03:06
lmao crazy logic.  But I guess I've learnt something - that some people aren't always logical.  So always always let them redefine the control keys! :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 11, 2018, 22:03:17
y = 0
Hah ... OpenGL anyone? Think their "top left" is different to our "top left" :-)


@ z-index
Indeed...
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FFRKMt1Z.png&hash=b1aa31250b4a84ce516c7752e75a198f57b78a15)
Und nein, ich mache keine Querstriche in meine Zs.

Edit:
---
@Steve
It is not the control key (/key mapping) it is the way it is interpreted: "w = upward" like "move mouse up = crosshair moves up" or "w moves all chars towards the crosshair".
---


As said I think "my" problem with it was the mouse movement + team movement coordination. See how we flood the thread with life - and offtopic stuff.


Think it is time for Qube to setup the "vote thread" with all the entries (so they do not get buried under the load of derailing posts *hehe), so we can continue doing our stuff in this thread here :-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 11, 2018, 22:58:48
I've played Qube's and Adam's entries now. Just having to endure another load of flippin' Windoze updates before I can actually get on my crappy laptop and play the other three games. I really should switch it on more often as it's so slow to load up and run - wouldn't believe it's only 3 months old. That's the problem when you don't spend the money and get a powerful machine, sigh.

I'll comment on the games once I've actually played all five. I agree that it's probably time to get the voting thread started now. How long does voting usually last for?

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 11, 2018, 23:00:17
QuoteHow long does voting usually last for?
About a week I usually set it for. I will get the thread up soon :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 12, 2018, 04:13:14
QuoteAnd in my eyes forward and north are the same thing.
Lol, really?. OK, face South, now walk forward. Which direction are you traveling in? :P - Also, when playing something like Doom, W moves you forward in the direction you're facing and not north.

QuoteI figured it out! They all stop moving as soon as one has reached the crosshairs. That's why things get pretty complicated once your squad "opens" - as long as they all stick together, it's almost easy ;D but if one once get's stuck, it's almost impossible to bring them back close together unless you control them individually. Not a great pleasure when facing a dozen of huggers :'(
<----- holy crap balls, proper constructive criticism :P ;D
Huh, good point. It would of made more sense to have the others keep moving until they too reach the cross hairs.

QuoteMaybe Qube cheated a bit on path/wayfinding. Locate your units on a side of the wall - the mobs will try to attack you from the other side of the wall instead of moving around the wall (little cheat hint: you can shoot them from this position ;-)).
Not on level 2 you can't ( thicker walls ). I have seen you can wiggle a little into the slim walls sometimes and then be able to shoot through. Silly bug that I thought I'd fix ages ago.

No pathfinding at all. I did try A* path finding but it was too slow to do in real time when you have 20+ EBE's after you at once. Downside of AGK being interpreted. I did attempt to split the path finding over vsyncs which would of worked but as time was critical I had to abandon that idea and base it on distance / angle.

Quotelmao crazy logic.  But I guess I've learnt something - that some people aren't always logical.
Everyone else is a bloody idiot :P

QuoteAs said I think "my" problem with it was the mouse movement + team movement coordination.
If you play for a while it becomes second nature. I think learning to play a game is a lost art these days and things are expected to be dumbed down. 90%+ of the old classic games that people coo over are so hard that they just wouldn't be tolerated these days. For example Manic Miner. A classic, yet show it to someone who's never played it and they quit within a couple of minutes as it's too hard for them.

Believe it or not I mentioned to Steve a while ago about the controls being a little different. I also had planned on 3 methods of controls via an options screen but there's only so much you can do in 10 weeks.

QuoteThink it is time for Qube to setup the "vote thread"
That's done.

QuoteThanks Qube, downloaded.  Will play tomorrow.

As far as I'm concerned it was submitted before deadline so in terms of voting it's a valid entry whether you want it to be or not.   :D
Rebels, the lot of you :P

As been requested by a few people I'll revive my entry. Without going into personal detail it's really not been a great few days in Qube land and the criticism of the game just put the icing on the crap fest cake. My apologies for the outburst, it was not warranted and unfair.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 12, 2018, 04:52:01
It lives :P - Feel free to critique all you want :)

ExBiEn

OK people, listen up... Take your elite squad of mercenaries and save the space station from destruction of an unknown EBE threat. You will have to work together and alone in this top down shooter in order to complete your mission.

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/images/ETS01.jpg)

Downloads
Windows (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/software/ExBiEn-Win.zip)
Mac (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/software/ExBiEn-Mac.zip)

Controls :

Key W to move towards the cross hairs
Key S to move away from the cross hairs
Keys A / D to strafe left and right around the cross hairs

Keys 1, 2, 3, 4 to select individual players
Key 5 to select all players

Key G to select grenades
Key B to select bullets

Key M] to turn motion tracker on / off

Media info :

Graphics, coding and music done by me. The Alien and Face Hugger models are fan created but animated by me. The characters are Daz3D models. Sound effects are a mixture of modified / unmodified AGK sound library sounds and modified fan made Aliens sound effects found on YouTube.

Intro Video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azMLUJa7mV4

General Notes :

If you're wondering...

Level 1 = Face Huggers
Level 2 = Aliens
Level 3 = Face Hugger, Aliens and Sentry guns
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: iWasAdam on April 12, 2018, 06:56:09
@qube. There was no offence meant when I said "I didn't like the music."
Q. How should I say that I didn't like something?

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 12, 2018, 07:01:52
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 12, 2018, 06:56:09
@qube. There was no offence meant when I said "I didn't like the music."
Q. How should I say that I didn't like something?
I know :) - Just say it unfiltered. Yesterday was just the final of a really bad time for me and I took it out on the forum to which I apologise. Luckily all is sorted now ( no need for a long story )

If you like, dislike, loathe or hate something then please fire away unfiltered. If you think my music sounds like a 1980's Casio keyboard played upside down then say it. Honestly, it's all good ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 12, 2018, 07:05:31
@ IWasAdam
Say "The music was not my kind, too many harps playing a heavy metal track just does not fit - imho". Think "hating" is a strong word for some of us. I did not feel offended as I thought it was some kind of "exaggeration" but as written words do not express your face expression/mimic things can get interpreted a bit more harsh than meant.


@ path finding
Why not cheating there:
- every 500ms (plus bit individual randomness to avoid doing it all on the same time) you do a path finding to avoid "running against walls for too long"
- everytime the "current grid cell" changes you do a path finding
- everytime collision-layer changes, do path finding (this is still a "'TODO:" comment in my code ;-)) 
- if the level is big: only do path finding if grid-distance to player is smaller than "1.5 * Max(onScreenGridCols, onScreenGridRows)" (depends on how you spawn mobs)

I write this here as I am not sure if my approach would work - I just came up with that idea.



@ Music
I think it had this "80s music" style with that overly used synthesizer sounds, I liked that. TVTower needs some 80s music too ... so come up with some music for my FOSS game and I will happily add it - if it fits ;-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Qube on April 12, 2018, 07:52:54
Path finding - I tried to add it in recursively per frame to not have an impact on frame rate but it just wasn't working for some silly reason. As time was critical I had to abandon the idea and go for a quicker alternate solution.

Music - yeah, it was meant to sound like a cheesy 80's tv theme ( the title music ). Again, time plays a big part in how long you can spend on such things.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Derron on April 12, 2018, 11:50:44
@ envahi
As there is no custom thread for it:

I played it a short while.
Music track in main menu and ingame is nice and pulsating. Think it fits into the early 90s era of action games. Good find.
The sound effects got pretty fast into the box labeled "annoying". Maybe make them a bit less loud than the music. And add some variations, so it does not sound the same over and over.

I then killed all the incoming ufos (without trouble in the time I tried it for now). After some minutes I tried what happens if I move into this "catcher" thing. It catched my helicopter and moved it out of the screen ("towards top"). Then for 3-4 seconds nothing happened - then all units vanished (think "life lost" or so). And then nothing... I pressed fire, nothing, pressed cursor keys... nothing. Pressed "Q" and got a "Game Over" screen.
What to do once you loose a life?

What could get improved: some more animations / variations of the invaders (the rotating balls rotate too "stuttering")
What could get improved2: sound effects
What could get improved: gameplay alterations. Else it will become repetitive pretty fast
What I did not like: the building backgrounds - they do not fit to the other parts of the game (maybe trace them in your painting program and do some "pixel art" out of it)
What I like: the water-container gfx - make the rest of the game in the same quality and it looks consistent and nice
What I like2: as said the music was cool

May I ask why the exe is 79MB - uncompressed audio?

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Jan 30th - Apr 10th 2018 - £500 worth of prizes \o/
Post by: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 22:42:01
Quote from: Derron on April 12, 2018, 11:50:44
@ envahi
As there is no custom thread for it:

I played it a short while.
Music track in main menu and ingame is nice and pulsating. Think it fits into the early 90s era of action games. Good find.
The sound effects got pretty fast into the box labeled "annoying". Maybe make them a bit less loud than the music. And add some variations, so it does not sound the same over and over.

I then killed all the incoming ufos (without trouble in the time I tried it for now). After some minutes I tried what happens if I move into this "catcher" thing. It catched my helicopter and moved it out of the screen ("towards top"). Then for 3-4 seconds nothing happened - then all units vanished (think "life lost" or so). And then nothing... I pressed fire, nothing, pressed cursor keys... nothing. Pressed "Q" and got a "Game Over" screen.
What to do once you loose a life?

What could get improved: some more animations / variations of the invaders (the rotating balls rotate too "stuttering")
What could get improved2: sound effects
What could get improved: gameplay alterations. Else it will become repetitive pretty fast
What I did not like: the building backgrounds - they do not fit to the other parts of the game (maybe trace them in your painting program and do some "pixel art" out of it)
What I like: the water-container gfx - make the rest of the game in the same quality and it looks consistent and nice
What I like2: as said the music was cool

May I ask why the exe is 79MB - uncompressed audio?

bye
Ron

Ok, from the top.

I worked on the sound over an evening trying to make sure I didn't overuse it and it was too noisy. I think maybe the UFO sound was a little excessive as it's going back and forth all the time, pretty much. If it's any consolation one of my testers was made to play the original game for a while to get an idea of what my remake was all about. He claims to this day that his ears are still bleeding :-)

The background music in the game was a set of 9 (as I recall) retro loops of music that were each 8 seconds in duration. I put in a random system to give the background a constantly changing beat and left it running a while to make sure it didn't appear to get annoying. Sounds like that part worked out ok.

Not sure what happened to you when the grabber took you off screen as I've not seen any other reports of a problem. The idea of the grabber is that if it catches you then you get taken off screen and you can no longer participate in defending the city and you have to watch as it gets either invaded, destroyed or flooded. Due to the random nature of the enemies I put in a warp mode to increase the speed of all the action so you didn't get bored waiting for something to happen. This has a side-effect of making the enemies look like they're on red-bull so one of them must have triggered one of the events and maybe you didn't see it?

When a dropper hits the city, or the zoomer reaches it, then the city is invaded and the game says so while waiting for you to press the fire button (shift). If the acid rain from clouds destroys the shield of the city completely then that will explode but you would have noticed this, I assure you. Otherwise, if you somehow don't have that happen then the Nibblers are going to eat through that Dam. I'll leave it to your imagination to guess what happens then. I hope you have an umbrella.

Pressing Q does quit the game, hence why you saw that message and went back to the title screen. On loss of life you just press fire to go to the next life. Perhaps give it another go?

Point taken on the sprite animations. I didn't ask for many frames as I was doing a remake and wanted a resemblance to the original game. I was a bit pushed for time as well as I had to cancel the work for the first artist I picked as she just couldn't come through. It's the first time I ever hired someone to do art for anything I've written so I could have been easily pleased.

As for the 79mb executable, I can't really answer. I did strip out a lot of stuff I didn't use before building the final version on Mac and then moving the project files to the laptop to build for Windows. I'm tied to what Gamemaker adds to the project although it was compiled in YYC mode, rather than with the interpreted language that you would normally build with, so wouldn't have had excessive amounts of debugging stuff in it.

I could probably do the entire game in BlitzNG now and make it a lot smaller but it would also take a lot more time. Gamemaker is the perfect dev system for developing games to a short deadline.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I was getting worried that not many people were even looking at my game for a while.