SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

General Category => Game Coding Competitions => Topic started by: Qube on August 09, 2017, 01:29:39

Title: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 09, 2017, 01:29:39
SyntaxBomb is happy to launch it's 2nd "code a game" competition :D

This time around you have until October 31st to get your entries in and there are cash prizes for the top 3 winners.

Game theme :

Halloween...

Any game style, anything you want so long as it's based around a halloween theme. Make it scary or fun, it's up to you.

Before anyone asks, no you can't adapt your Asteroids game and replace them with pumpkins :P

The boring rules :

1.. Must be all your own ( or teams ) work. I.E. no copyright media or available modified pre-built game templates.
2.. Game frameworks are allowed as are free / purchased media.
3.. Provide a Zip download with at least a Windows exe. You can include other OS's too if you want.
4.. Syntaxbomb has zero rights to any work posted here. You / your team hold total control.
5.. Choice of language is totally up to you.
6.. All entries must be in by Oct 31st @ 23:59:59 GMT.
7.. Prize to the winners payable via PayPal only.

Prize Outline :

1st place - £250
2nd place - £150
3rd place - £100

Happy coding :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on August 09, 2017, 10:37:31
I'm in! :)

We came up with a name for a spooky game a month of so back so this can be the spring board for that game!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 09, 2017, 11:02:36
I'm in!  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: 3DzForMe on August 14, 2017, 22:16:21
I've some ideas brewing in my cauldron, I just need wing of bat and eye of newt - let it simmer until close to halloween time and boom boom boom - my game might be frighteningly difficult - will that count?

The longer timeframe is kool and the gang ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 14, 2017, 22:28:47
Quote
The longer timeframe is kool and the gang ;)

I agree.  Maybe a Christmas Theme after Halloween?  And Halloween was a great choice.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: 3DzForMe on August 14, 2017, 22:44:15
Or, how about a Guy Fawkes / Christmas / Hogmanay theme. I know the three don't generally mix but could make for an interesting competition with voting in the first week of 2018.....

What am I doing major thread de-rail... lets get back to the scary halloween theme.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 14, 2017, 23:01:00
Well I guess that means Nov 5th for Guy Fawkes - just 5 days after the last competition...A mix sounds...nuts lol  ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 14, 2017, 23:09:30
QuoteMaybe a Christmas Theme after Halloween?
Sounds good to me :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 14, 2017, 23:14:34
Cool.  I'm not a Christmas enthusiast, so maybe something darker - or go with the flow  :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 15, 2017, 19:27:44
I hope I don't offend you Qube, but I do think it's a bit out of order you winning your own competition lol.

I know it's a good cause you gave your winnings too, but at the end of the day nobody from the community actually got any prize money.  Some would say why bother?

If you win the comp, then that's fair enough - we must try harder next time!  ;D

But the person putting up the cash, then winning their own cash seems a bit mad lol.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 15, 2017, 20:30:08
QuoteI hope I don't offend you Qube, but I do think it's a bit out of order you winning your own competition lol.
I shall not enter in any more comps :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 15, 2017, 20:36:18
Aw I think you should enter mate, so it becomes a matter of Qube got the best of us this time - we must try harder!  Besides, your entry was an inspiration.

Just not putting up the cash, then winning it lol.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: 3DzForMe on August 16, 2017, 06:10:36
you could always opt for a game in the style of Tim Burton's the Nightmare before christmas ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 16, 2017, 07:20:52
QuoteAw I think you should enter mate
Nah, if I enter comps that I set and then happen to win 1st, 2nd or 3rd, then it my become a bone of contention. I'll just continue doing my own thing in the background :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 16, 2017, 11:59:53
Fair enough  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 17, 2017, 01:36:44
Thinking about it I will be entering :D - What I'll do is just not take any prize money without affecting the top 3 winners. It'll work like so..

Assuming - Member A gets 100 votes, Member B gets 50 votes, member C gets 20 votes and I gets 60 votes.

I will just become an "proxy winner" and the winners table would be :

1st place - Member A
2nd place - Member B + Qube
3rd place - Member C

1st, 2nd and 3rd all get the allotted prize fund. I think it's a better idea and I'm going with it :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 17, 2017, 09:28:42
Yep, that's along the same lines as I was thinking.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: 3DzForMe on August 18, 2017, 00:33:51
@Qube,

My vote is that you compete fair and square with the masses - if you entre' is the best - you take the winnings. No bones of contention will arise as you'll have earned first place by the votes you receive. My 5 pence ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 18, 2017, 00:40:41
Personally I would not enter a competition when the person setting the competition, then wins their own competition.  Qube's solution makes sense...Actually it doesn't.  I'm out lol  ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on August 18, 2017, 01:49:22
QuoteQube's solution makes sense...Actually it doesn't.  I'm out.
It does make sense :D - I still get to play but don't take any prize money / winners placings away from members if I happen to get enough votes. Everyones happy, the sky is blue, the grass is green. Join in, have fun.

If me being in it doesn't have any effect on the winners or the prize fund then all is fine, yes? :)

Just get coding :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on August 18, 2017, 09:40:27
End of the day, SyntaxBomb is here because of Qube, the competitions and prize money are here because of Qube... if Qube cant enter in the competitions no one else can either!  :P

Just get coding and have some fun!  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on August 18, 2017, 09:45:42
Yep, this place is here because of Qube, much appreciated.  :)

Yeah I'm coding something.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: 3DzForMe on September 08, 2017, 17:08:38
I need to get my code on.... :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Blainiac on September 23, 2017, 01:59:34
I think I'll be entering this competition if I can find the time...  I have a good idea for a Halloween-themed game.  I can't wait!    :-X
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on September 30, 2017, 11:19:39
Over a week now and I've not added anymore to my game for this comp :( - I seriously need to get a shuffle on. Does anyone have a time stretching device or a magic spell so you don't require sleep? :D

It's the weekend, I must make the effort... Ruby slippers on, tap heals together three times - "There's no place like code, there's no place like code, there's no place like code".

How's everyone else getting on with their comp entry? :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: TomToad on September 30, 2017, 12:06:42
Here's what I've done so far on my entry.

1. Came up with an idea
2. Launched Graphics Gale to create some graphics.
3. Got fed up with some of the limitations with Graphics Gale
4. Looked for something better
5. Decided to create something better
6. Realizing that if I finish creating my editor, it could be very useful, I decided to write it in B4J so it will run on all systems using Java.
7. Learn B4J
8. Got fed up with B4J's limitations
9. Tried using BlitzMax and MaxGUI
10. Got fed up with MaxGui's limitations.
11. Decided to switch back to B4J, found that getting around the limits of B4J is quite easy using their JavaObject types and custom nodes.
12. I now have the main GUI layout of my editor done. Just need to add some actual functionality.
13. At this rate, i should be done with my entry some time in 2020.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: MikeHart on September 30, 2017, 12:18:03
Awesome Tom. At least yoh have a plan and goal.  :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Blainiac on September 30, 2017, 19:56:40
I've just had time to think of the idea so far...  A Five Nights at Freddy's type of game.  Should be interesting!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on September 30, 2017, 21:25:34
Thats cool Tom.
I also use Graphics Gale, so I'm interested to see what you come up with. :)


@Qube
Watch out for the Wicked Witch of the Web, and her flying army of bugs. ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on October 01, 2017, 00:07:42
Quote@Qube
Watch out for the Wicked Witch of the Web, and her flying army of bugs. ;D
Watching, with bucket of popcorn 8) - hopefully just wicked witches and not Kim's nukes  :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on October 01, 2017, 05:35:08
For pixel art I've been using Pyxel Edit for the past year, its pretty neat.

http://pyxeledit.com/
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Dabz on October 16, 2017, 20:55:13
Quote
Nah, if I enter comps that I set and then happen to win 1st, 2nd or 3rd, then it my become a bone of contention. I'll just continue doing my own thing in the background

*whispers to Qube*

Here's what we'll do... You make the game, I'll enter it as my own, we win, we go halfs on the smackers... Everyones a winner...

*Whistles*

STICK A PONY IN MY POCKET, TAKE THE SUIT CASE FROM THE VAN, IF YOU WANT THE BEST'UNS THEN DONT ASK QUESTIONS, COS BROTHER, IM YOUR MAN

Dabz

P.s. I do realise you'll be £250 down anyway, but that's just a technicality innt! :D    Lovely Jubley
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 16, 2017, 20:57:32
lmao.   :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on October 17, 2017, 18:28:47
Lol, great idea Dabz but we'll have to talk about it in private or forum members may find out :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 17, 2017, 18:41:06
Maybe the person who decides the theme (and owns the website) could start coding before the start of the competition?

For fairness I suggest a poll to decide the theme.  Yes I know we all had an informal discussion beforehand :)

Not that Qube's integrity is in doubt, he's always come across as a great guy, and I'm not entering this time so no sour grapes.  Good luck with your entries guys.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on October 17, 2017, 20:32:03
QuoteMaybe the person who decides the theme (and owns the website) could start coding before the start of the competition?
This is true, I could but didn't.

Members can pick the theme for future comps. That's grand by me. I'll also not be submitting anything for this comp or others for fairness.

Good luck to those who do enter. We'll also need a member to be in charge of the comps, organising, polls, winners etc. Any volunteers?




Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 17, 2017, 21:15:41
I also said this, Not that Qube's integrity is in doubt, he's always come across as a great guy, and I'm not entering this time so no sour grapes.  Good luck with your entries guys.

Your entry looks good mate, so go for it.  You already made it clear you couldn't claim the cash, so it's all good  :D

https://youtu.be/mMTAslgE8Xg

Sometimes the written word doesn't come across as friendly as it should - sorry  :)

Quote
We'll also need a member to be in charge of the comps, organising, polls, winners etc. Any volunteers?

Nah, because I'd like to win one at some point lol.   :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on October 17, 2017, 22:42:24
Maybe who ever wins the competition gets to run the next one?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: bobysait on October 21, 2017, 16:22:25
New on the board, I totally missed this entry.

Anyway, is it possible to just -not- provide an "exe" (*) ?

I'm coding webgl stuff (100% javascript - with my own 3D framework which is intended to be open sourced as soon as it's fully polished)
So, it would be playable in any web browser (on Mac, Linux, Windows and probably on most Android/IStuff devices)
... and of course, the full project would be available in zip with sources and media included

BTW, I haven't started anything yet, I'm asking first, and then I'll see if I have a bit of time to build something in a small week

(*) I don't have a windows PC anymore> ... (actually it's in a crate as I'm moving in south France on november 2nd)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on October 21, 2017, 17:05:34
QuoteAnyway, is it possible to just -not- provide an "exe" (*) ?
If all you making a game that just works in a browser then providing a link ( or I could host it here ) is perfectly fine :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: IanMartin on October 24, 2017, 17:51:52
Do we post that we are making something, or just get it in by the deadline? 

If I get done, can I post it on itch.io and put a link to it here...or where do I upload it? :)

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on October 24, 2017, 20:30:26
QuoteDo we post that we are making something, or just get it in by the deadline?
Just get it in by the deadline :)

QuoteIf I get done, can I post it on itch.io and put a link to it here...or where do I upload it?
You can post a link to it or if you want I can host it on here.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 24, 2017, 22:55:14
I try to finish something - but I already try to do all these little unneeded things (small object movements to make things less static). Gameplay is not yet finished and there are a lot of assets to still get modelled/rendered out.


Hope nobody minds if I do not do a "storymode/level-map" nor "profiles" but just a casual/easy-to-get game play.


  (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FDAJHICNl.png&hash=f9ec8015af0ad4a3b13fd3068d77925704b0141b)
(http://i.imgur.com/DAJHICN.png)


  (https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FhUzPDsWl.png&hash=367e11ab663b9a71c5d54eddf52257237d0066ac)
(http://i.imgur.com/hUzPDsW.png)

some shots from Blender...


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on October 25, 2017, 00:26:12
Wow! Your going all out Derron.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on October 25, 2017, 20:59:34
QuoteWow! Your going all out Derron.
Isn't that what you do to win a competition ?

It's great to up the bar of quality.
If the compos keep going then I'd like to think eventually you'll see some incredible achievements with participants putting in more and more effort to win 8)

Big up for the compos!! \o/
:P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 25, 2017, 21:09:33
Totally agree with col. 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 30, 2017, 08:44:45
When is exact deadline?


I am pretty sure that asset creation will need its time and so I will surely have to do till tomorrows evening. I am GMT+1 now (09:4x when posting this thing here).




(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FKDoy6In.png&hash=3aa8a908c2f6533676527875d2541cd3a50b5363)




Already fixed some stuff in my framework and learned some bits in Blender. Such projects always help improving (at least a 0.01%).




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 31, 2017, 01:17:39
Think I will submit a not-that-finished game. Cannot imagine to fill the stubs my code already has (tech-tree for upgrades, story mode, items with effects, boss fights, online highscore/replayability).

Will use tomorrow to create some levels (better than the random ones) and check if balancing fits at least a bit ;-)


(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FrfairQT.png&hash=7c5d86151b1aed36bf50303fea51df6ea8a09b39)



Today(s sparetime) I had a hard time rendering the stuff on "shadow catcher planes" without shadows reaching until border of the sprites (looks "cut" then). Rendering that stuff over and other occupied my computer and made it barely useable (I should consider going "low res" instead of full hd...).
I also had a big fight with my sound manager when trying to extend sounds to loopable songs (play a 20s loop for 3 times and then crossfade to another loopset - but be able to also use normal songs). I just wrongly set one song to 0 seconds playtime ... "they mostly code at night" - I should not do that.



Let's see what you guys come up with. Time for bed, son will be awake in 4 hours.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on October 31, 2017, 02:15:14
Quote from: Derron on October 31, 2017, 01:17:39
Think I will submit a not-that-finished game.

Same... :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: muruba on October 31, 2017, 02:35:07
I got stuck at the menu (which was very cool by the way) - can I submit a game with only menu screen?!?!?!?!?!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: iWasAdam on October 31, 2017, 06:59:36
Cry's. My game broke. Wail. No candy for me
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on October 31, 2017, 10:12:47
My unfinished Game:

Night of the Unfed!

http://www.therevillsgames.com/code/NOTU.zip (http://www.therevillsgames.com/code/NOTU.zip)

Excuses: Work, Life etc  :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: IanMartin on October 31, 2017, 12:08:13
Nothing from me this time, unfortunately :(  Too many things going on outside the house :/
I was hoping to do a smaller prototype of a game concept about black elves and make it about Halloween dinner, heheh
I couldn't get the graphics to look decent...graphics are my Achilles heal, ugh, heheh 
At least now I know what not to do at a stoplight.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone came up with! 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Dwapook on October 31, 2017, 15:17:17
Here's my entry.. Arrow keys to move, escape to exit.. player appearance is randomized so you might end up playing a character that looks odd.. x.X!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23VwTc0S49gZkgtaUVOcElCWEE/view?usp=sharing
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on October 31, 2017, 20:00:13
Hi, here is my entry for the Halloween-themed compo (Windows only) - 'Forces Of Darkness'.

Please note that when running the game for the first time, it might take quite some time for the main EXE to unpack its resource files (and especially if Windows Defender wants check them all). Then the program algorithmically generates image data which takes some time and which it then caches on disk for future (fast) retrieval. Subsequent runs of the program should load much, much more quickly (a few seconds, usually). I apologize in advance for the waiting time!

http://www.proggies.uk/progs/zip/fod.zip (http://www.proggies.uk/progs/zip/fod.zip)

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.proggies.uk%2Fimg%2Ffodss1.jpg&hash=a257f925e00944035d623c74efeb0f824b093b23)
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.proggies.uk%2Fimg%2Ffodss2.jpg&hash=b6409322cf5503196417b214684c0f0bca106c2b)

Enjoy, and... Happy Halloween!


EDIT: Here's a YouTube video of me playing from start to finish (could be a bit of a spoiler for many!), and sorry for the poor visual quality (very washed-out colours)





Regards,
BasicBoy.
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 31, 2017, 20:47:59
Hope my local time is the deathline ;-)
still have ~2hrs to jam features in it.




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 31, 2017, 20:57:00
Good luck to all!  It seems this was a major step-up from the Asteroids theme, so some time completion problems - but Qube did give us plenty of time, to be fair.

I think it's fantastic of Qube to put up cash prizes and a theme to concentrate the mind.

*raises a glass to Qube and SyntaxBomb!*

I look forward to entering some day, so keep the competitions rolling! 
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 31, 2017, 21:25:29
BasicBoy that throws a Virus warning.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on October 31, 2017, 21:32:20
Quote from: Steve Elliott on October 31, 2017, 21:25:29
Therevills, that link doesn't work for me, and BasicBoy that throws a Virus warning.

The download is safe - it has been checked with F-Secure, Bitdefender & Windows Defender, and the EXEs are digitally signed.

Your "Virus warning" is almost certainly a false positive.

EDIT: Just put the download (fod.zip) through VirusTotal.com: no threats detected (score: 0/60).

Download my game with confidence  :)


Regards,
BasicBoy.
--


Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on October 31, 2017, 21:39:06
ok, trusted you.  Great entry!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: wookie22 on October 31, 2017, 22:04:31
I've just found out that there is a contest, 2 hours before end  :( - so my question is: when will be next contest?
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 31, 2017, 22:58:09
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F7vlZQ1B.png&hash=77a50a63bb551b60361c7b9af1a61f0d26d0ba74)

Trick or Sweets

What is it about? Place Sweets from "grannys/grampas" house to the bags of the upcoming waves of children.
Make sure to keep children satisfied - if you do not give them sweets fast enough they get impatient (reducing time for this level).



What's in?
- basic profile support (storing current level, scores, coins, ...)
- basic configuration support (check config/settings.xml to enable fullscreen or reduce resolution. Native is 1920x1080)
- sound loops - short loops are chained into longer ones and then crossfaded with other loops (sounds strange ;-)
- random level generators + scripted ones
- Limits for productions (max 3 per item-stack)



What's not in?
- Tech upgrades: Production speed upgrades, bonus items to keep children "patient" (gummy bears ...), Production limit increase, ...
- Coins (for tech upgrades)
- Boss fights (Children accepting sweets only "ordered" and hiding everything but the top most needed sweet)
- Item bonus/malus: some sweets should gain score multipliers, speed up production time for X seconds ...
- GUI-selectable profiles (had not enough time to add the modal window properly - while the code is there already, thanks to my framework)
- better GUI graphics (have some stuff in mind but time was running out)


Tech Notes:
- graphics done with Blender + HUD-Elements/Overlays with Photoshop CS1
- written using my DIG-framework (https://github.com/GWRon/Dig (https://github.com/GWRon/Dig))
- sounds edited by me and original sources are noted in res/sfx/sources.txt
- gradient/shadowed fonts are done dynamically (via hooking in custom functions to the Freetype-To-BitmapFont-Loading function)
- partially uses Col's Render2Texture code (wanted to try it) - for now the score-entities and the "items on the bag"-graphics use that to minimize draw calls.


What I have learned from it:

- improve Blender knowledge (especially materials with Cycles - and texture painting with my new digitizer/pen)
- some casual "gameplay ideas" (I am not that experienced when it comes to casual games)
- creating a 3d-ish Text-Logo-effect isn't that hard ;-)




Time consumed:
- think >10 evenings for modelling the complete stuff. Means >50hrs (including render time)
- ~5 evenings and a long weekend's sparetime (time after lunch when son was asleep) to code the stuff (including nasty debugging when missing a "bla = 0" dev variable somewhere). so I would say ~30-35 hours. But framework code was surely in the hundreds of saved hours





Title Screen:
(https://abload.de/thumb/screenshot_001u1jby.png) (http://abload.de/image.php?img=screenshot_001u1jby.png)

introduction / helper for unknown new items:
(https://abload.de/thumb/screenshot_002tgkty.png) (http://abload.de/image.php?img=screenshot_002tgkty.png)


Ingame:
(https://abload.de/thumb/screenshot_0030tjq3.png) (http://abload.de/image.php?img=screenshot_0030tjq3.png)


Edit: here is a gameplay video:


Download v0.1: http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1_fixed.7z (http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1_fixed.7z)
(Linux 32 bit and Windows 32 bit executables included).

Download v0.1.1: http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.1.7z (http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.1.7z)
(Linux 32 bit, Windows 32 bit and MacOS 32 bit executables included)
(v.0.1.1 created _after_ deadline but only contains some "throw"-lines to narrow down potential errors and an improved viewport-adjustment as letterbox might introduce render2texture issues)

Here is a v0.1.2 for Win32, Linux32, Mac32: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.2.7z (https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.2.7z)

Here is a v0.1.3 for Win32, Linux32: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.3.7z (https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.3.7z)

-> current development is done in this thread here:
http://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,3585.msg8451 (http://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,3585.msg8451)

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on October 31, 2017, 23:06:40
Some great entries. I have my vote in mind already but I'll wait until the deadline passes.
Good luck to everyone  8)

@Derron... you still have another hour! it's 23.06 here in the UK.

I get an EAV on your entry, the log states
[23:56:45] ERR      | SOUNDMANAGER.SETAUDIOENGINE(): audio engine "AUTOMATIC" (configured) failed.
[23:56:45] DBG      | SOUNDMANAGER.SETAUDIOENGINE(): initialized with engine "LINUX_PULSE".

on a window 7 unit.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 31, 2017, 23:15:23
Will try now (as stated in my edited previous post).

Hmm, seems is crashes on windows because of your DX9 render2target stuff ... comented that out and it works here.
crashes there: d3d9max2d.bmx

Local driver:TD3D9Max2DDriver=D3D9Max2DDriver()
If driver SetGraphicsDriver driver




Will reupload a fixed version (without DX9)
bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on October 31, 2017, 23:45:23
Uploaded a fixed version (and adjusted link accordingly).

Had to disable the DX-stuff for windows targets as it creates some EAVs. Will raise issues on your github project @ Col. Will check it further tomorrow - compiling via a portable blitzmax installation in my virtualbox XP leads to an exe which crashes on windows 10 (the vbox one is OGL only - which has FBO issues, aka "no r2t"). Compiling it then with the same installation on Windows 10 creates a working executable.


Sorry for derailing the thread with these things.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on November 01, 2017, 00:01:04
Sounds cool and looks good!

I've not played it yet - waaay too tired tonight, but it load's up now with a funky sound track  8)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 00:23:24
Quote from: Derron on October 31, 2017, 23:45:23
Uploaded a fixed version (and adjusted link accordingly).

Had to disable the DX-stuff for windows targets as it creates some EAVs. Will raise issues on your github project @ Col. Will check it further tomorrow - compiling via a portable blitzmax installation in my virtualbox XP leads to an exe which crashes on windows 10 (the vbox one is OGL only - which has FBO issues, aka "no r2t"). Compiling it then with the same installation on Windows 10 creates a working executable.


I've just downloaded TrickOrSweets_v0.1_fixed.7z (I don't know if it's the latest version), and I get a Windows exception error (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION).

My system is Windows 10 (64-bit), Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, integrated graphics adaptor (Intel HD Graphics 4600).

The program ends/crashes with the EAV as soon as I've clicked to continue on the 'WELCOME' dialogue box.


Regards,
BasicBoy.
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 00:43:34
I meanwhile edited my post to contain a youtube-video.


I assume it crashes because of the render2texture thingy. Dunno if Col (whose module/code it is) knews about issues with Intel IGPs ?
As I do not really need the render2texture stuff (my Bitmapfont-class can render to texture in "software" ) I could modify the code to not use r2t.
But on my notebook (i5 processor) it works. Hmm. I might add some "--opengl" and "--directx" params to allow different drivers (then also available via settings.xml).

Edit: I updated the download (and changed server as the other one was under stress now)  - when now starting one of the Bat[ch]-files you could force either OGL or DX9. With DX9 I got some graphic issues (black background for the render2texture images). I also seem to have missed a image in the "fix"-download which is now added.
I really should use my "Registry" as it used default-images for non existing ones (instead of segfaulting for the null-access).


Will see if others get that error too - or if it is gone now.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 01:39:11
Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 00:43:34

Edit: here it is:
http://www.digidea.de/files/TrickOrSweets_Win32.7z
unpack that and override the TrickOrSweets_Win32.exe  - when now starting one of the Bat[ch]-files you could force either OGL or DX9. With DX9 I got some graphic issues (black background for the render2texture images).

From my machine:

App Log v1.0
[01:34:15] DBG      | GRAPHICSMANAGER.INITGRAPHICS(): Initializing graphics.
[01:34:15] DBG      |                               : SetGraphicsDriver "OpenGL".
[01:34:16] DBG      |                               : Initialized graphics with "OpenGL".
[01:34:16] DBG      |                               : Initialized virtual graphics (for optional letterboxes).
[01:34:16] LOAD     | TREGISTRYLOADER.LOADFROMXML: file 'config/gui.xml' not found or invalid.
[01:34:16] LOAD     |                            : file 'config/hud.xml' not found or invalid.
[01:34:16] DBG      | SOUNDMANAGER.SETAUDIOENGINE(): initialized with engine "AUTOMATIC".
[01:34:16] LOAD     | TEVENTMANAGER.INIT(): OK
[01:34:16] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[01:34:16] DBG      |                    : start activeMusicChannel


and

[01:33:51] LOAD     | TAPP.APPLYAPPARGUMENTS(): Manual Override of renderer: OpenGL
loaded profile: Granddad
1440x810
[01:33:51] DBG      | GRAPHICSMANAGER.INITGRAPHICS(): Initializing graphics.
[01:33:51] DBG      |                               : SetGraphicsDriver "OpenGL".
[01:33:51] DBG      |                               : Initialized graphics with "OpenGL".
[01:33:51] DBG      |                               : Initialized virtual graphics (for optional letterboxes).
Document ~config/gui.xml~ not found.
[01:33:51] LOAD     | TREGISTRYLOADER.LOADFROMXML: file 'config/gui.xml' not found or invalid.
Document ~config/hud.xml~ not found.
[01:33:51] LOAD     |                            : file 'config/hud.xml' not found or invalid.
[01:33:51] DBG      | SOUNDMANAGER.SETAUDIOENGINE(): initialized with engine "AUTOMATIC".
Loaded assets
[01:33:51] LOAD     | TEVENTMANAGER.INIT(): OK
[01:33:51] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[01:33:51] DBG      |                    : start activeMusicChannel



The message in the cmd32.exe window says (and I don't know if this is in any way relevant):

Starting Trick or Sweets in mode "OpenGL" ...
TDigAudioStream.GetChannel() failed to CueMusic


This happens even if I run TrickOrSweets_Win32_DIRECTX9


BasicBoy
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 01:41:39
Could you download it again (the _fixed...) thing from the initial post?


It should contain "res/gfx/sunburst.png" and "config/gui.xml" (which your log states to not be able to find...).
I hope it just EAV'd on yours because of the missing image -- the image was not drawn here, because my game profile already "deactivated it" (have seen the item before).

Meanwhile I will visit bed and wife ... 2:45 here and in 4-5hrs the little one will be awake, ready for kindergarten.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 02:06:05
Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 01:41:39
Could you download it again (the _fixed...) thing from the initial post?

Same problem as before (gets as far as "WELCOME", then when I click to continue I get the EAV).

I can confirm the existence of "config/gui.xml", but sadly not "res/gfx/sunburst.png" which seems to be missing.


BasicBoy.
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on November 01, 2017, 04:03:58
Fixed my link (I miss the : from http ;))

http://www.therevillsgames.com/code/NOTU.zip (http://www.therevillsgames.com/code/NOTU.zip)

Some top entries!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: NRJ on November 01, 2017, 07:16:50
Good luck to all, downloaded all the game entries and will decide whose game is the best to vote for, after playing the game.  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 07:23:09
@ BasicBoy (and others who downloaded)

I am ashamed to say: the fixed link was outdated ... when changing download url I just pasted the new one over the old one - but this wysiwyg-editor here just replaced the "printed text" and not the actual link behind. So it displayed "gamezworld.de/files/..." while it downloaded from my other host "digidea.de/files" (which contained the old download).
(I myself needed a while to find that out - downloaded, sunburst.png missing ... uploaded again, downloaded again ... still missing, checked archive before upload and it contained it...).

Seems I am more the non-wysiwyg-just-bbcode-type of forum user.


In short: download my "TrickOrSweets_v0.1_fixed.7z" again.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: RonTek on November 01, 2017, 07:30:44
Happy Halloween and Good Luck to all! Lots of cool entries. :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 07:42:09
Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 07:23:09
In short: download my "TrickOrSweets_v0.1_fixed.7z" again.

That one works  :D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: NRJ on November 01, 2017, 08:02:48
@therevills

your game is not working on my pc.
when I double click on NOTU.EXE nothing happens ...

I have windows 7,32 bit.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: NRJ on November 01, 2017, 08:12:12
@Derron

I  have installed your game from the updated link ,but is still showing EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION on my pc.
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi67.tinypic.com%2F18fy47.png&hash=bcb49c9d3dc0316da4dfde7366933269ee963afc)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 08:28:23

@ NRJ
In Both versions OpenGL _and_ DirectX9 ?
Also your binary has a different date than mine (yours: 1:22 PM, mine: 2:26 - hours do not matter but minutes are different)


It should have similar dates like this (ignore hours as local timezone might differ):
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fw3OoMfy.png&hash=82c61181a88ae373df8ee33424c8a652cff66dfb)
(files are newer than "deadline" because of the bugfixes regarding segfaults - and the option to use DX or OGL, no gameplay enhancements were done)
Your screenshot also exposes that there are some issues with the letterbox code (the sunburst behind the lollipop and the overlay used there - are offset by the size of the upper "not-seen-on-screenshot"-letter-box bar). Will have a look at this.





@therevills
I sometimes died "out of the sudden" (no enemy in sight). Also I loose HP when the enemy is aside of me (are they "shooting" at me or is the hitbox offset?)


@ BasicBoy
Tried to start your game but it seems to not be able to create the directories - So I could create each directory by hand (starting - noting error, creating the missing dir and the next pops up) but this is really cumbersome so I stopped doing that. Is there a reason for this kind of compression?


@ Dwapook
Are the players supposed to die somewhen ? I stood in the middle of the crowd but nothing happened. At the game begin I thought "ohh, bugged? enemies are outside and no door is there". Maybe add a sprite on the wall or a increasing rectangle (simulate a sliding-up door) at the spot at which an enemy enter.


@ Qube
Where is your "not-taking-part-in-the-combo"-combo-entry you presented in an earlier post?


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: therevills on November 01, 2017, 08:39:06
Quote from: NRJ on November 01, 2017, 08:02:48
@therevills

your game is not working on my pc.
when I double click on NOTU.EXE nothing happens ...

I have windows 7,32 bit.

Hmm no idea really, its a MX2 app I've tested on Windows 10 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit :(

Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 08:28:23
@therevills
I sometimes died "out of the sudden" (no enemy in sight). Also I loose HP when the enemy is aside of me (are they "shooting" at me or is the hitbox offset?)

I did say it was unfinished :D I hacked the collision stuff really quickly in late last night - I was having issues with my A* path finding and was running out of time :(

Well it seems most of our entries have some spooky bugs in them  :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: NRJ on November 01, 2017, 08:46:41
@Derron

Earlier I have only checked TrickOrSweets_Win32.exe which shows the error.
I have not looked at the TrickOrSweets_Win32_DIRECTX9 , TrickOrSweets_Win32_OPENGL file  :-X.

Yes, both the directx9 and opengl file are working fine . :)

Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 09:03:33
Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 08:28:23
@ BasicBoy
Tried to start your game but it seems to not be able to create the directories - So I could create each directory by hand (starting - noting error, creating the missing dir and the next pops up) but this is really cumbersome so I stopped doing that. Is there a reason for this kind of compression?

Hmm strange. Just to be sure, did you extract the 'Forces Of Darkness' folder from the Zip folder first before running the EXE?

Which version of Windows were you trying to run it on?


Regards,
BasicBoy.
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 09:47:55
Running it on wine (linux) and an XP-machine. Works on windows 10.


Intro is nice - thought about that too but when creating some PNGs of each 4MB sized I stopped to keep download size "nice". Will have to do them procedurally (like your palette/color-adjustments). Already planned some moving "fog-clouds" on the start screen but hey... time was running out ;-D


Gameplay seems some kind of "slow". I do not know how to describe it but moving the ship feels like it moves through thick air. Not as "snappy" as used in such side scrollers.
Aside of that: it runs smooth and I think if it used some polished up sprites, it could look pretty nifty.


PS: Got hit pretty hard when I tried to collect the "blinking pot" on the ground. Thought it was a "magic power up soup".




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 10:07:53
@ therevills (spooky bugs)
Hmm, that reminds me of the plan to add some checks to my bigger game project: if you run it during holidays (christmas and the likes) you get a penalty of 75% ("care of your family"-malus). HawwHaww.


@ BasicBoy
I added some file checks to the executables to make sure things load properly. I also created some error messages if the render2texture is failing. So we could try to narrow down the issue.

v0.1.1 contains:
- error messages thrown if files (images and sounds) are missing
- a "v0.1.1" on startscreen ( so we see if you are using the "latest version")
- some viewport adjustments (before doing render2texture) to avoid texture displacement when running in a letterboxed window (non full-hd-ratio resolution)
- a MacOS (32bit) build


Download v0.1.1 : http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.1.7z (http://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.1.7z)



bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: RonTek on November 01, 2017, 10:40:10
I got all working here.

@therevills

ah I see a Negan as player there, nice.  :D

@Derron

Only having problems with the window position. It was way up the top left corner and trouble moving it by mouse. I have to do Alt-Space then directional arrow keys to get it in place to be playable, everything else looks good!
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 10:49:39
Quote
Running it on wine (linux) and an XP-machine. Works on windows 10.

Gameplay seems some kind of "slow". I do not know how to describe it but moving the ship feels like it moves through thick air. Not as "snappy" as used in such side scrollers.

You're running his game under emulation and wonder why it's slow?!  An XP machine?  haha.

Runs fast and very smooth here.  In fact it runs too fast - 75 FPS instead of the required 60.  Some time limiting needed really.

And all the games work without any problems here.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on November 01, 2017, 11:48:52
Some cool entries!

All games work great here too with the latest downloads.

Win7 x64 Nv750ti
Win7 x64 Nv650m
Win7 x64 Radeon 4000
Linux Mint 18 x64 Radeon 4000
Linux Mint 18 x64 Nv650m

Great job!
I see the bar for quality is definitely getting higher  8)

@Qube
What happened to your Match3 style game? That had promise :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on November 01, 2017, 12:33:23
Great entries  :D - I will get the voting poll up thing evening.

Quote@Qube
What happened to your Match3 style game? That had promise :)

Quote@ Qube
Where is your "not-taking-part-in-the-combo"-combo-entry you presented in an earlier post?

http://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,3325.msg7758.html#msg7758

As said, I will not be entering any more comps here. For the next comp members need to pick someone to run them :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on November 01, 2017, 13:12:08
That's a shame as you also help to 'up the ante' too  :)
I thought you were going to submit your entry but not claim any prizes.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 14:53:52
Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 10:49:39
You're running his game under emulation and wonder why it's slow?!  An XP machine?  haha.

Runs fast and very smooth here.  In fact it runs too fast - 75 FPS instead of the required 60.  Some time limiting needed really.

And all the games work without any problems here.


- I try it out in virtual machines first (saves headaches with security problems)
- I use a "MiniXP"-vmachine for it (give it 512mb of RAM, a single core, and you have a fine windows-build-machine)
- I tried to run it (the game) on "wine" to see if it handles directory permissions correctly. My game created the needed directories (config/profiles) when run under wine - so he might have used another approach to create missing directories
- run on Windows 10 I had no trouble unpacking the whole thing.


Regarding "slow": I was _not_ talking about FPS (my full-hd-game is displayed with ~2500 fps if I do not limit it). I was talking about the "feel". So it felt as if there was some kind of "inertia" compared to the snappiness of fast-paced-rtype-clones. It felt too "smooth". This is why I was talking about "Gameplay seems some kind of "slow"" and not "game runs sluggish" (which it doesn't!).


@ RonTek
open up config/settings.xml with the editor of your choice and adjust "screen_width" and "screen_height" to your desire (and enable fullscreen if needed). A new version would probably add an settings-screen (could nearly copy-paste it from my other game - as I expose renderer, fullscreen, vsync, resolution, ... there too). But these compo-entries should surely be a bit "bleeding edge" and "full of bugs" :p


@ col
Yeah, I assume too that Qube will post his game too - so people could see what's "possible". I think his game has surely advanced a bit since last video-gameplay.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 16:11:34
Derron, thanks for the feedback on my game. Yes, I felt I wanted to give the player's 'ship' at least some inertia in order to make the physics a little bit more realistic. It's been so long since I played any R-Type-style games that I forgot what the handling was like back then. Instead, I watched some YouTube videos as a poor substitute. Luckily the inertia thing is something that can easily be adjusted and I'll consider doing so in a subsequent release. As for making the sprites a bit more polished - if you were mostly referring to them being non-anti-aliased (jaggies on the edges) then yes, fair enough, I could have given them an anti-aliasing mask (especially as I wrote my own tool to do just that!). You might have noticed that the flowers/grass on the ground are anti-aliased with respect to the background imagery, but not the enemy sprites. I think the main consideration is that since all my graphics are software-rendered (no DirectX or OpenGL GPU acceleration!) using my own sprite library (GFXLIB), too much software-based alpha blending (to achieve anti-aliasing) is rather expensive in terms of CPU clock cycles, and could really hamper performance on slower PCs. I should have at least tried, but time was short.

Tonight I will start work to make my game full-screen, because I think it will make for a more immersive experience.

I downloaded v0.1.1 of your game and it runs without any problems on my Windows 10/Core i7 machine. I know you didn't request it, but I'll include the log file it generated below. I must say your game appears visually very polished (your game graphics certainly are anti-aliased!), and the music is light and unobtrusive.  I will give your game a proper play at work tonight. Incidentally, you have inspired me to learn Blender, probably starting sometime this week.  :)


Regards,
BasicBoy.
--


App Log v1.0
[15:31:01] DBG      | GRAPHICSMANAGER.INITGRAPHICS(): Initializing graphics.
[15:31:01] DBG      |                               : SetGraphicsDriver "OpenGL".
[15:31:02] DBG      |                               : Initialized graphics with "OpenGL".
[15:31:02] DBG      |                               : Initialized virtual graphics (for optional letterboxes).
[15:31:03] DBG      | SOUNDMANAGER.SETAUDIOENGINE(): initialized with engine "AUTOMATIC".
[15:31:03] LOAD     | TASSETS.INITIALIZE: Loaded assets
[15:31:03] LOAD     | TEVENTMANAGER.INIT(): OK
[15:31:03] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:31:03] DBG      |                    : start activeMusicChannel
[15:31:37] DBG      |                    : GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:31:39] SAVE     | TPLAYERPROFILE.SAVETOFILE(): profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config".
[15:31:40] SAVE     |                            : profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config/profiles".
[15:31:53] SAVE     |                            : profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config".
[15:31:53] SAVE     |                            : profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config/profiles".
[15:31:54] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:32:22] SAVE     | TPLAYERPROFILE.SAVETOFILE(): profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config".
[15:32:22] SAVE     |                            : profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config/profiles".
[15:32:25] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:32:52] SAVE     | TPLAYERPROFILE.SAVETOFILE(): profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config".
[15:32:52] SAVE     |                            : profile path contains missing directories. Creating "config/profiles".
[15:33:00] DBG      | PLAYMUSICORPLAYLIST: GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:33:46] DBG      |                    : GetDigAudioStream from Playlist "default". Also set current playlist to it.
[15:34:23] SAVE     | TGAMECONFIG.SAVETOFILE(): config path contains missing directories. Creating "config".





     
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 16:46:20
Quote
Tonight I will start work to make my game full-screen, because I think it will make for a more immersive experience.

Games should always have a full screen option imo.

And don't forget that tweening/delta time/frame limiting.  My monitor refresh is 75 hz, so runs faster than your default 60 FPS - too fast!   :)

Interesting that you use software rendering in this day and age  ;D
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on November 01, 2017, 16:51:46
Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 10:07:53
@ therevills (spooky bugs)
Hmm, that reminds me of the plan to add some checks to my bigger game project: if you run it during holidays (christmas and the likes) you get a penalty of 75% ("care of your family"-malus). HawwHaww.
I like your thinking. ;)

Now I'm going to try and sort through all this mess, and find the right downloads! :P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on November 01, 2017, 17:04:43
@Derron
I tried the v0.1.1 download on Linux, but the window is to big, and trick or treater's are on the off screen part. :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 01, 2017, 17:19:13
Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 16:46:20
Games should always have a full screen option imo.

Hopefully mine will very soon.


Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 16:46:20And don't forget that tweening/delta time/frame limiting.  My monitor refresh is 75 hz, so runs faster than your default 60 FPS - too fast!   :)

I considered right at the beginning of the project making the game framerate-independent (so, yes, delta time etc.), but I figured that since the game was purely a horizontal scroller, such scrolling if not perfectly synchronised with the monitor's refresh (VSync) can look quite bad and hard on the eyes. Vertical scrolling is more forgiving, I think. So, for better or for worse (I guess the latter in your case!) I opted to 'lock' the scrolling & sprite motion speeds to the monitor/screen's refresh rate on the basis/assumption that most (?) users will have 60Hz displays, and further hoping that at higher refresh rates (75Hz isn't uncommon) the game would still be playable. Although it's probably too late for the current game, a future game project will probably be framerate-independent.


Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 01, 2017, 16:46:20
Interesting that you use software rendering in this day and age  ;D

I'm certainly of a dying breed  :)


BasicBoy.
--
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 17:40:14
Quote from: BasicBoyI will give your game a proper play at work tonight.

Thought I am the only one who does private coding fun (and similar) while at work ;-)

And yes, my GFX are using antialias very very often (in my other game, TVTower, I only use it for Font-Rendering and datasheet/GUI-Stuff ... other things are "pixel style" and do not need antialiasing).


Quote from: RoosterI tried the v0.1.1 download on Linux, but the window is to big, and trick or treater's are on the off screen part. :(

When exiting the app you will find a file "GameDirectory/config/settings.xml" - just edit the variables there ("screen_width" and "screen_height"). Was the first time I did a "full hd"-thingy. TVTower runs on 800x600 so did not receive complaints yet. Seems for "ToS" (nope, not Star Trek) I need to start with a decent windowed resolution of eg. 0.5 * HD (960x540).

What's your native screen resolution? Right-clicking on the application's window in the "task bar" might open up an context menu (of your OS) with "Move" as option. Click that and move the window.


@ My game on its own
If you (all of you) see some potential in it I would create a new thread to discuss possible game ideas (power ups, boss fights, tech trees). But for this I will wait what your thoughts on this are, _after_ playing it a bit.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on November 01, 2017, 18:12:13
Thanks Derron. :D
As for my screen resolution, running
Code (blitzmax) Select

Print DesktopWidth()
Print DesktopHeight()

outputted a width of 1600, and a height of 900.

Quote from: Derron on November 01, 2017, 17:40:14
@ My game on its own
If you (all of you) see some potential in it I would create a new thread to discuss possible game ideas (power ups, boss fights, tech trees). But for this I will wait what your thoughts on this are, _after_ playing it a bit.
I'd like to see some more. :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Rooster on November 01, 2017, 18:34:33
@Derron
On level five the new purple candy does not show. I don't know if this is a bug, or one of the things that didn't get added in.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Yue on November 01, 2017, 19:34:56
All very nice until he says:"You have to have a paypal account" :(
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 01, 2017, 20:42:54

@ Yue
I think people would be able to help you (if you trust them to "receive the money first before redirecting it to you - subtracted by the fees").
So that is no excuse to not take part in such a financially rewardful competition.



@ Rooster
Yeah, I have a "random level + random wave" generator which is not that tightly fitting as it should. So for the levels I define what sweets are allowed and what slots/lanes are "open", how many items per bag are allowed and so on. But I do not have a "this sweet NEEDS to be used at least once" - yet. So you seem to be out of luck when starting that level. Starting it again _should_ show the pink ones ;-)

Hey, just checking if it was a bug revealed that I left in a manual override to always "continue" with level 1 ...


I also saw that I did not get the pink pomelo in the bag ;-) - and of course this is another bug leading to this. The original bug is that the bag was not aware of "holes" in the chain of sweets, so passing 4 sweetIDs just used them as "1,2,3,4" instead of the actual IDs. Leading to eg. only the first 3 or 4 or 5 sweets being put in granny's bag ;)



Here is a v0.1.2 for Win32, Linux32, Mac32: https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.2.7z (https://www.gamezworld.de/files/TrickOrSweets_v0.1.2.7z)


Changes:
- without a settings.xml the half-hd-resolution is used (960x590)
- start screen contains two buttons to set windowed screen size to 960x590 or full hd
- on windows the app window _should_ center itself after creation (not pretty but might help for people not being able to move the window)
- bags contain the items they should, not the items "in order" (1,3,4,7 -instead-of- 1,2,3,4)
- "continue game" starts at profile-stored level, not level 1 (bad developer-tests-override ;-))


(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FUQVxfHN.png&hash=40298be58aa19c08b2ca63c4aa830c7e2e79ba09)
(Pomelos are now available ;-)).


Will create a new Thread for the game - copying my initial posting in this thread, please consider replying in the new thread then to not further derail it.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on November 02, 2017, 03:28:50
Quote@ col
Yeah, I assume too that Qube will post his game too - so people could see what's "possible". I think his game has surely advanced a bit since last video-gameplay.

I thought it best that for comps I set that I should not enter. It was suggested that it may be construed that I could start my game early and then announce the comp having an unfair advantage of starting my game early in secret. To stress, this was not an accusation but a possible thought from members. To that end I agreed fully and thought it best to hang back from this current comp. Once again, it was not an accusation but pointed out as a possibility which in reflection I agree with. If I set the comp and win the comp then that may come across as a tad dodgy, even though I never gave that scenario a seconds thought. It was always aimed at having fun.

So, from this day forth members are in charge of the comps. Ideally members should now decide who is to be in charge / pick a theme / time scale for the next comp. When the theme / time scale is chosen I will allocate the winners prize fund.

I will get a poll up today for this comp ( sorry, ran out of time yesterday ) and see it through to the winners and payouts.

There have been some great entries this time around and I was very pleased at the creativity going into the games considering the time constraints. I say those that have entered should be very proud that you've pushed through and made a game.
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 02, 2017, 08:45:56
If compos take place semi-regulary it might be a good idea to "promote" the winners (or 1st,2nd,3rd + "link to other entries") on the portal page. Past competitions should get added to some archives (or a overview page).


@ taking part
You could always add your game fitting to the game and write that you do not take part in the competition. It would be similar to header graphics in a graphics contest. They (authors/competition-HQ) show a bit, what they thought of when creating the theme. It also gives "proof" that the choosen theme is "solveable".

Reminder to myself: one should consider making screenshots / videos of the progress so others could see how the game gets created (eg. asset creation first, then gameplay around "what has been done" or vice versa).



My procedure (if one is interested in reading - if not then this post ends here for you):
I had a simple idea of the game but first wanted to see if I was able to 3d-model them in "good enough visual quality" first. This is why I created the hand+bag items first (always have trouble creating good looking "organic" stuff). After that I "evolved" the gameplay idea. Created the background image (took the most time with the interieur and lighting setups). Then I started the game code itself - but instead of using the game sprites already I used placeholder rectangles this time .... this was done to avoid getting distracted by doing GFX only and then not finishing the logic in time (better a working game with cheap gfx then gfx with no game at all).

While creating the game I already changed gameplay ideas as a continuous play (new children knocking on the door without breaks - faster and faster getting impatient and reducing "health" or time until it reaches 0 and you are "game over"). I also planned around techtrees, customizable levels/waves (everything is "dynamic" now, no predefined level behaviour consisting of "if...else").
The game needed some animation effects which got implemented on the placeholders too.
After the game was "basically working" I created the sweet assets in Blender ... fiddling how to create proper "plastic foil/wrapper" for candies. Learning how to do "chocolate" included modelling with high-resolution, baking the normals then ("bump mapping") so I could use them on a low-res model to keep rendering time low enough when used for high-res-"100 chocolate bars in a bowl"-shots I have never done then ;) . I modelled the bumps with my new graphic tablet to get used to it... still prefering my mouse. Had to fiddle at least an evenings spare time until I got soft shadows right (too wide shadows around the model lead to way too big images/sprites). Creating "realistic" renderings are cpu/gpu heavy so render times for the sweets (in 512x512) were about 20-800 seconds each time. Adjusting the materials to fit my needs (there is some kind of "bright corner" on the items) also needed time.
After sweets and background were done I needed to think about hud and co.
These were done in photoshop. Logo was done as a simple experiment on how a "move duplicated text layer down a bit"-3d-effect will look. It did not look decent enough, but adding some clouds and "overlaying/multiplying/..." later it looked pretty enough. I again recognized that the basic font choosen decides on how a logo looks. One cannot apply the style to all fonts with the same "final look". Title screen was done first in "layers" so I could animate the fog easily. But sprites went rather big (4mb pngs ...each.) so I skipped that then and made a "single image" background.
Adding Buttons guiding through the game was done right before the semi-last step - adding text descriptions for the new items (I know, they are "cheap jokes" so excuse that ;-)). Last was to replace the "random generated levels" with some predefined ones (defining what sweets might appear, how many sweets a children could require, which slots might be used, how many waves a level has, how many "flexible children" are allowed to join the group of a wave...). 


While coding the game I found bugs in my framework (copying TImageFont-based-"BitmapFonts" when adding special effects to them, ...) and also added new functionality. So at the end other users of my open source framework benefit from the compo too.

Comparing the development to my last compo entry ("Apes Banana Conquest (http://digidea.de/games/abc)") in the monkey forums: different gameplay but still "arcade/casual"-like. More flexible gameplay (most is just planned - no techtree yet). No online highscore but profiles - online highscore is way easier as the server-side thing is already existing. HD graphics with a potentially higher level of quality (a personal opinion). Lower resolution allows for cheating - a 4x4 pixel button does not need a label on it. A little ape does not need fur - and so on. Would I say I improved? I think regarding "managing/organizing development" yes. Regarding a to create a "casual game experience" yes. Regarding game quality ... so la la.




bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: iWasAdam on November 02, 2017, 08:56:56
Wouldn't start on mac os - looks like it is a blitzmax game which is 32 bit. 32bit no longer supported on mac os. so I would either use monkey2 or not have the mac os app at all - as it cant be run. ;(

close, but no candy for you...
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 02, 2017, 09:05:51
I cannot compile the 64 bit variant now ... not owning a Mac, just running it emulated now (10.6 is the one working here... AMD, no Intel-Hackintosh), also I wait for Col's commit to make his render2texture code compatible to NG (for android - else I would need to do 2 functions in software rendering...which is possible but not desired).
Shouldn't you be able to execute the windows-exe using wine (for mac) ? Providing a mac binary was just a service and not needed for the competition.


@ monkey 2
Nope, not my language of choice.


Edit: I do not care mind giving out the code or keeping it secret - so if you want I could publish the current game code here (or the local git repo ;-)) so you could compile the 64 bit variant using BMX NG...

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: iWasAdam on November 02, 2017, 10:59:46
10.6 thats snow leopard! circa 2011!!!!

sorta like saying it works on windows 3.1 - definitely no candy and no dinner for you Derron!

I'm on monkey2 here (NG just wouldn't work, and is really out of date compared with monkey2)


OK. Been through the resources - nice graphics
Heres some thoughts on the sound files for you:
- use mono and not stereo you'll half the resources and be able to pan properly - you can split the stereo tracks and use either left or right as the new mono track
- check normalising of the sounds. the (non music) ones could all do with it. Means you have 'good' audio to play with.

If any of the above seems like hard work - download my audio tool and you can do it all in about 2 minutes ;)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: col on November 02, 2017, 12:21:50
Quote10.6 thats snow leopard! circa 2011!!!!
At work we have electronic equipment that does its job perfectly fine for more than 25 years. It's a whole ton more reliable than the crap served up in todays times.

Gone are the days when people accept good quality eh. Always need the 'latest and greatest'.

A: 'This computer is pretty cool'
B: 'meh it's out of date - id get a new one'
A: 'But there's nothing wrong with this one'
B: 'Sure there is, it's old. And the company have released much newer ones now'
A: 'Does my existing stuff work on the new one?'
B: 'Oh no! You need to redo everything'
A: 'But why? This is working perfectly ok'
B: 'Because that's the way it is'
A: 'Does it do anything that my last one doesn't do?'
B: '*sigh*'

:P
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Derron on November 02, 2017, 12:58:54
It's like 2011... hey my whole computer is from 2011 too. Also Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard are running smoother than newer OS in virtual environments. Should really replace it with something more productive, less energy consuming, bigger woman-acceptance-factor ...
Seriously: I planned to buy a used mac just to be able to compile for mac users. But guess how many (potential) users of TVTower complaint about a non-64-bit app. For now I even only know 3 people using a Mac to play it - but about 10 using Linux. Of course I do not know if only mac and linux users give feedback but the big bunch is using windows - and they are fine with 32bit.

Monkey2 is not my language as it contains stuff I just do not need for these game thingies. Even doing things in monkey were cumbersome at least. Not to talk about case-sensitivity... which is a no-go for rapid prototyping - especially with the editors available. I code my BlitzMax-things in Geany but could do that with Notepad (+ command line) too. No need to think about "DrawSubImageRect vs DrawSubimageRect" and the likes. Does monkey2 contain modules for playing streamed audio? Even monkey only had just one channel to output audio data (or was that the diddy-framework?) needed to hack it a bit to allow crossfading multiple sound streams into another. For BlitzMax there are plenty of modules doing the job - and luckily Brucey is lurking around keeping things working if they really break apart (and are of use for him). But hey, do not want to derail that thread with m2-talks.


If NG is not working for you - and you are interested in getting it running (I assume it _should_work_ as Brucey is using a Mac too) open up a thread (or guide me to one) and we could try to make it run.


If there is someone out having an "old mac" lying around, not caring about energy consumption: build up a "community build bot", install monkey, m2, agk, bmx, bmxng ... and if there is one needing a mac-compile ... voila. Think that would be a nifty service (not paid as there are not enough users lurking around here).


@ sound
Yes, I am aware of stereo, mono ... and the likes. There is no need to make panning or other features as my sound manager is already capable of positioning audio. For the sake of simplicity I just use "simple sfx" which is positioned in the center compared to a sound position corresponding to the screen position of an entity. A similar thing is used in TVTower already. I also only normalized some sound files because they were "too silent". Working with "audacity" is nothing I do not know nd it is easy enough for me to achieve the desired effects: changing speed, pitch, cut/edit, fading.


@ graphics
I am also aware of some sprites not being properly aligned (scores on the hud) but also this was something I have done in the last 2 hrs until deadline.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: BasicBoy on November 07, 2017, 07:10:55
@ Dwapook

I was determined to complete Halloween Candy Rescue - and I just did  :D

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.proggies.uk%2Ftemp%2Fhcr_completed_scrshot.jpg&hash=41f5803a907a0aa2eed7852bc6941a48ed3e41ed)


I actually got bitten quite a lot though?

It's a fun game, well done.  I can't help thinking 'Dawn Of The Dead' when I play it.  :)


BasicBoy.
--



Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on November 07, 2017, 17:16:14
Do we have a winner yet?  :)
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Qube on November 07, 2017, 21:55:34
Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 07, 2017, 17:16:14
Do we have a winner yet?  :)
Not yet :) ---> Voting closes on the 9th of Nov 2017 @ 23:59:59 GMT
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Steve Elliott on November 07, 2017, 22:01:23
Oooh, drum roll  :o
Title: Re: Code a game competition - Aug - Oct 2017 - £500 worth of prizes
Post by: Dwapook on November 08, 2017, 12:43:05
Quote from: BasicBoy on November 07, 2017, 07:10:55
@ Dwapook

I was determined to complete Halloween Candy Rescue - and I just did  :D

(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.proggies.uk%2Ftemp%2Fhcr_completed_scrshot.jpg&hash=41f5803a907a0aa2eed7852bc6941a48ed3e41ed)


I actually got bitten quite a lot though?

It's a fun game, well done.  I can't help thinking 'Dawn Of The Dead' when I play it.  :)


BasicBoy.
--

Thanks! I liked your game too!
x.X; Eh.. Yeah, I fixed the bite counter glitch and made some updates based on feedback just for the sake of it.. I'm not gonna make a separate thread for this game or probably bother to update it again, so will just post it here..
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lRxxZUl7iNkHRFOcM6yrfp-wZL9hpeAK/view?usp=sharing