GUI's and That

Been concentrating on a few bits of graphical polish this week like the trait selection menu and main GUI. All in all it's really improved the feel of the game bringing it much closer to having a more professional finish to it. Which is always a good thing. Here is this weeks log:

23/06/2015:

-Turrets now only make a noise within about a screens width of the player. No more annoying turret noises playing all the god damn time.

-Worked on rSkyEntrance.

-Final eldritch trait finished; randomly boosts multiple stats. All traits now completed (HUZZAH!).

-Changed design for trait selection screen, filling more of the blank space and making it look much nicer. Added a simple rundown of the players stats at the end of the previous level: hp / hpMax, bullets fired, flares placed etc.

24/06/2015:

-Completed trait list on trait selection screen.

26/06/2015:

-Continued work on rSkyEntrance.

27/06/2015:

-Created a proper HUD for the floppy disks, flares and mines. It looks 10x better than it did before.

-Added an xp bar similar and just below the hp bar.

Figured I'd throw in a couple of pictures showing how it now looks:

Flares and floppy disks are now graphics. Mines (if you have the trait) also show up there. Note the XP bar just below the health bar.

Player stats on the left, list of traits to the right (the text turns white if you have the trait) buttons in the middle and a little hint at the bottom. You can also see the simple dot cursor that I'm using for the moment.

So there you go, not much else going on at the moment I'm afraid but as you can see Revolver is reaching the stage where it's all about presentation. There are still a couple of levels to finish and a lot of graphical updates to make to the actual levels, through the use of tiles, but it's getting ever closer to being finished. Getting this far is honestly something I'd never thought would happen, I've always been someone who gives up when it gets tough but seeing this as far through as I have is an amazing feeling and I hope it continues.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Traits Complete!

This week has been pretty good to me. I've still been concentrating on other things than Revolver but I made a lot of important progress yesterday including the addition of MINES. I've wanted to add mines for a while and now there is even a trait that allows players to place a few per level. Combining the mines (which fire 24 bullets each on explosion) with the bounce bullets trait garners some hilarious and quite deadly results. With the addition of these traits the system is now complete bar moving them about a bit to balance, but I need to do the testing before that can happen. Here's the dev log for the past week:

15/06/2015:
-Designed a traits.

16/06/2015:
-Altered medkits so that they regenerate health rather than instantly heal.
-Rebalanced characters so that all have valuble positive stats but some have negative stats.
-Added Regenerative Medicine trait. Triples the heal rate of medkits making them take effect really quick.

17/06/2015:
-Designed last 3 traits.

20/06/2015:
-Added mines. When they explode they release a load of bullets that hurt both players and enemies. Mines can be detonated by both players and zombies and the bullets it fires are effected by bounce & pierce traits making
them incredibly powerful and dangerous.
-Added Shredder Rounds trait. Gives shots against zombies a 10% to deal double damage.
-Added Luminescence trait. Flares deal a small amount of damage against zombies. Damage stops when they reach 1 hp.
-Added Frag Mine trait. Player doesn't detonate mines (still hurt by bullets though) and can place three per map with "X".

Unfortunately I haven't been playing many new games recently, just Civ V and dirty bomb so I don't really have anything to write here again. Drat. I did start watching an interesting show called person of interest which I'll probably talk about some time but for now I'm going to keep this short and sweet for another week.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Slow and Steady is not Optimal

I'm a bit of a perfectionist. It's both really good and a curse. I'm never happy unless I try my hardest so it is a real pain in the arse when I get less work done than I want. With credit to myself, I've still made leaps and bounds over the course of this project and the slow down in project work that is happening at the moment is caused mostly by the fact I still have a placement to get and another university module to complete. Ugh. All that said, the traits are almost finished, I've added a nice replacement for the cursor and the movement mechanics have been overhauled. Here's this weeks log:

09/06/2015:
-Finished basic layout of rLivingQuarters.
-Worked on rSkyEntrance.
-Added Bounce Coated Bullets trait. Gives bullets 75% chance to bounce of off walls. It's fun as fuck and surprisingly useful.
-Added two of three final traits. These grant multiple bonuses to their specialisation (Revolver or Player Stats). There is a third option but I need something cool for it to do.

11/06/2015:
-Created a sprite for the "helper" character, who turns up in the last level in person.
-Added Telekinetic Bands trait. Pulls pickups towards the player if they within range and no walls or pits are between them.
-Redone the movement controls. "W" moves the player towards the mouse while "S" moves them away. "A" & "D" strafe. The controls take a little getting used to but have that old school survival-horror awkward control thing going. Although due to being top down it isn't anywhere near as bad to control, just different.
-Invented three more traits to program later or tomorrow.

12/06/2015:
-Added basic cursor.
-Added Heavy Bullets trait. Increases knockback. Decreased standard knockback for balance.
-Added Sixth Sense trait. Adds a small circle of light around nearby pickups.

13/06/2015:
-Added a giant chasm to rPower, signifying where the initial explosion took place.

I'm still aiming for a mid-late July release and really hope I can make it. There aren't many more big hurdles in the way at the moment apart from building the menus and improving the art. Other than that the game is mostly finished, apart from polish, so as I've said hopefully the game will be finished by then. Hopefully.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Difficulties, Delays & Dirty Bombs

I've been having a weird week, and unfortunately it's been a real uphill struggle to get anything productive done. For those that don't know I have problems with depression and anxiety. Now I'm fortunate enough that these aren't severe enough to greatly impact my life but they are significant enough that certain aspects of a "normal" life are quite difficult for me, enough so that I'm seeking medical help. In this case I started taking SSRI's last Monday (01/06/2015) and for anyone who knows about this form of anti-depressant it's common that the first couple of weeks on them are generally not a fun couple of weeks. The body has to adjust to the new balance of chemicals in the brain. That said all in all I'm honestly feeling pretty fine in and of myself it's just that I'm very tired, not feeling motivated and not very creative. As I mentioned this is usually just a short adjustment period, I just wanted to say things are going slow now, but hopefully, as I've had positive results from SSRI's before I should be feeling better than ever soon enough and at that point I should start making leaps and bounds with everything from my uni placements, referral work and of course Revolver developments. Speaking of which:

31/05/2015:
-Created a crate tile.
-Began work on rSkyEntrance.
-Changed up the trait selection so that the same traits appear after each level. i.e After rWarehouse the player always has a choice of: Cyborg Eye, Bullet Ritual, Bionic Legs.
-Added a HP+ Speed- trait and a trait that deals damage to zombies attacking the player. The second doesn't seem to work though and I don't know why.

01/06/2015:
-Created a conveyor belt tile.
-Fixed the Shocking Touch trait.
-Added Blood Pact trait. Doubles HP but HP slowly drains during the level.
-Added Vampiric Embrace trait. Kills against zombies heal the player slightly. Good in conjunction with Blood Pact.
-Added Double Barrel trait. If the revolver has an even number of bullets loaded it fires two at once.

02/06/2015:
-Added Nano-repair trait. Gives a small health regen to the player. Half speed of blood pacts degeneration.
-Added Mysterious Journal trait. Gives the player a bonus 2 exp on everything that grants exp. Allows a player to get stronger in levels quicker.

03/06/2015:
-Worked on rLivingQuarters.

04/06/2015:
-Created a randomly chosen hint system for the trait selection screen.

05/06/2015:
-Added several hints.

06/06/2015:
-Added a script that should allow me to add text to the bottom of the screen at the start of levels. This will be used for the character who talks to you via walkie talkie.
-Added Bullet Proof Vest trait. Halves turret bullet damage from 16 to 8.
-Added Full Metal Jacket trait. Gives shots a 50% to pierce on each hit.

So after that heavy beginning I want to talk about a game I've recently been enjoying quite a bit. It's called Dirty Bomb and it's filled a little hole I've had since I got bored of TF2. Dirty Bomb is a neat little class based multi-player FPS. Basically it's two teams of highly characterised mercenaries shooting, blowing up and smacking the shit out of each other with the goal of completing their objectives, usually either attacking or defending. It's a pretty generic format but Dirty Bomb does a few things really well.

First is the fast fire game-play. Most classes can't take much of a hit but re-spawning in waves (whole teams may re-spawn at once) rather than with individual timers and with some character being able to revive players quick, allows for a constant flow of combat. The characters that can't take much of a hit are also pretty fast movers and with all characters you can do a little parkour, which is often really useful for dodging if used right. It's fun anyway so I do it all the time.

Secondly characters all have their own personalities, fun quotes and most importantly awesome tactical abilities. Every character has a unique cool ability like sky lasers, air-strikes or healing stations and some also have a common ones too like defibrillators. It's this mix that makes all classes have their own feel, but most mixes of classes will still have enough coverage of skills that it's still practical to use. This gives a nice balanced feel to the characters I think.

Lastly I really like the load-out system that gives a specific set of weapons and augmentations (1 - 3 little perks) meaning specifically balanced characters to use and neat augmentations that vary how the character plays. Just changing from a shotgun to smg or having a melee damage bonus can change how that class plays, or having a perk that reduces ability delay can be really useful for defending or attacking quicker. It adds more personality and character to the loadout and getting good with a loadout can really benefit in many situations.

All in all I've had a lot of fun with Dirty Bomb and will continue to do so. I don't think I will be spending any or at least much money on the game however. It is free to play with the ability to purchase everything form characters, to loadouts and even special money granting items. Here is a link to their website so you can get more info, and with that I'm getting on with something else now. Sorry for the delay.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Revolver Continuations

I've gone and done it. Go HERE and you can watch my first video log. It's a little hit and miss with quality and the sound balance is poor (I did try though), but it does the job. Any future ones will be better made I promise. As for the standard dev log, here it is:

24/05/2015:
-Tweaked several levels.

25/05/2015:
-Created a new tile for hazard looking floors.
-Replaced the perk system with a simple, small increase in maxHP, movement speed & reload speed. It now only heals 10HP too.

27/05/2015:
-Began work on rGuardQuarters.
-Created another tile.
-Vastly neatened up the spawn code and set up spawning for every level. Obviously the quantities of foes needs testing but the system works.

28/05/2015:
-Did a little work on rGuardQuarters (now renamed rLivingQuarters).
-Created some basic table tiles which I will add "furnished" versions of soon. Also created two varieties of bed tile.
-Alterered grid for pathfinding, allowing enemies that use the grid to move around the edges of the map if they need to, fixing the problem with enemies getting stuck and wierdly teleporting to the top left.

29/05/2015:
-Wrote initial draft of Revolvers main theme.

Ooh that last one looks interesting, eh? I do plan on making all my own music, and Gods be good, that should be the case. There is actually a good chance that the whole soundtrack will be piano based, that'll be cool I hope.

In other news, I've been playing a ton of  Robocraft. Robocraft is a really cool MOBA style game where you build robots out of blocks (kinda like Minecraft) add wheels, hover blades, plane wings, FREAKING HELICOPTER BLADES and caterpillar tracks. You then add guns of many varieties, join random teams and beat the blocks out of each other. It's a very fun game and constantly upgrading your vehicles with the money (RP) you make for fights is a very addictive & rewarding system. Oh, I forgot to mention it's free too. There is actually a paid premium system that doubles your rewards, that I use occasionally and really do recommend. It's not too expensive and double rewards are very big in late game. All in all Robocraft is a lot of fun to be had in small groups (there is a limit to the amount of people in a party: 3 or 4 with a premium user) and the game is a bit buggy with its party and lobby systems but if you can look over that it's a real good time.

That's enough for today I think.

-Beau

As always you can follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Bocodillo

Revolver Returns!

Huzzah! With exams out of the way nothing can stop the progress on Revolver, apart from student finance, placements and other personal issues. Ahhh joy. Jokes aside though I am getting back to work with Revolver and making some good progress in certain areas. A lot of tweaking, a couple more "finished" (I still need to add finishing touches) levels, some AI fixes and the like. All in all a not bad start. Here's the Dev log for your eyes only:

19/05/2015:
-Worked on rFactory & rLFireTesting.

20/05/2015:
-Worked on rScience.

21/05/2015:
-Worked on rScience. Touched up previous levels to make them look more like real places. Added pits to represent where the table, shelves, etc. will go, as the player can't walk through such things but can shoot over them. Makes the maps way more interesting to play and look at than loads of blank rooms.
-Added some code that allows zombies to be pushed off walls they collide with.
-Altered sprites slightly, to fix weird looking heads.

22/05/2015:
-Tweaked more past levels
-Made several tiles including: shelf tops and carpets.

23/05/2015:
-Finalised basic design of rScience.
-Tweaked spawning code across levels.
-Discovered that many enemies that can't move (due to being spawned trapped between walls and the levels edge) are teleporting to the top left corner. I need to either: alter the spawn code so this doesn't occur at all, remove enemies that enter the top left corner so that they respawn (kill or teleport), or alter the path-finding so that they can get around the outside of the room.

Discovery that I can add pits as tables, shelves or anything else the player can shoot over (which the pit objects allow) and then add tiles to simply make them look like tables, shelves, etc. was a stroke of genius! Maybe I'm being a bit over the top there (I totally am) but it's still a great solution to the problem of how I furnish the many, many rooms in the many levels. Now I can fill a room with shelves or have large areas filled with offices, it really does make the maps look and play that more interestingly.

Speaking of playing things I have two pieces of news. Firstly my video log will be made next week. I've had a few issues with the software I tried to use during testing it (I attempted to make a short video I could make into a gif and post on Twitter) but I believe I have the kinks sorted. All I've got left to do is install the very nice mic my brother got me and give it a shot. Hopefully it'll be up some time this week. That's what I'm trying to do at least. Secondly, you may have been thinking at some point, "When will I get to play Revolver?". Good news on that front then because I'm officially aiming for an mid July release. I was originally going to say end of June but an extra week or two dedicated to polish & bug fixes I think is a good idea. You might also think, "Where will I be able to get a hold of Revolver?". At the moment the main location you'll be able to get a copy of Revolver is HERE. That's when it's released of course. I'll probably be putting it in other places too but I'll make sure to mention where, if I do.

That's all for this week, and I'm realising more and more that I need a better way of finishing these posts.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

A Brief Holiday

It's been a super fun week of revision and other university obligations this week. I've been putting side projects to, well, the side for the past week in order to make room for such things but that'll all be changing again start next week. Well more like Tuesday (I have a phase test tomorrow) but still, I'll be back in the swing of things again soon so keep your eyes on this space. In other news I plan on making a short playthrough of my game at its current stage sometime next week so we've got that to look forward to.

Keeping it super short this week (once again eh?) but as I've said above about swings and that, I'll be back into one next week and these posts will become more ramble once again. Looking forward to it!

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo