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
Sunday, 31 May 2015
Sunday, 24 May 2015
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
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
Sunday, 17 May 2015
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
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
Sunday, 10 May 2015
The slow period
Hot damn have I got so little done this week. Thanks to an annoying mix of uni coursework and upcoming exams I haven't really done much in the way of Revolver developments and sadly that'll probably continue throughout next week. It's always a shame when I have to stop work on something I enjoy for a while but, getting my degree is kinda important so I don't mind. Hopefully all things going well I should be back developing like I like to do after a week on Monday. That's the plan at least. Here's this weeks Revolver Dev Log:
05/05/2015:
-Removed the wave counter and improved the spawning and level selection code.
-Added a basic muzzleflash after much effort.
-Made a start with tiles by making a basic wall tile. Wont add these properly until the full level design is finished.
-Added a bullet speed variable that I can use later to add a really cool bullet time trait.
06/05/2015:
-Worked on several levels.
07/05/2015:
-Created a couple of metal floor tiles.
-Added a bullet time and maximum revolver capacity trait, both are fun.
-Each starting character now has an individual sprite. Surprisingly nice effect it has.
08/05/2015:
-Created a system that tells the player what traits they already have during selection. Combine this with a proper randomly picked trait and not showing already picked traits and we have a good solid system.
So as you can see a little less than usual got done in the past week, still I was able to add some muzzle flash (albeit a little crap) and I've added a nice feature that highlights traits the player already has when they are on the selection screen:
Mmmm that bland GUI. Also of note how the player can currently re-pick traits they already have. I need to fix that.
That's all for this week I'm afraid. I need to get some revision done today before I head out for dinner with the family so I'll leave talking about other stuff for another week.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
05/05/2015:
-Removed the wave counter and improved the spawning and level selection code.
-Added a basic muzzleflash after much effort.
-Made a start with tiles by making a basic wall tile. Wont add these properly until the full level design is finished.
-Added a bullet speed variable that I can use later to add a really cool bullet time trait.
06/05/2015:
-Worked on several levels.
07/05/2015:
-Created a couple of metal floor tiles.
-Added a bullet time and maximum revolver capacity trait, both are fun.
-Each starting character now has an individual sprite. Surprisingly nice effect it has.
08/05/2015:
-Created a system that tells the player what traits they already have during selection. Combine this with a proper randomly picked trait and not showing already picked traits and we have a good solid system.
So as you can see a little less than usual got done in the past week, still I was able to add some muzzle flash (albeit a little crap) and I've added a nice feature that highlights traits the player already has when they are on the selection screen:
Mmmm that bland GUI. Also of note how the player can currently re-pick traits they already have. I need to fix that.
That's all for this week I'm afraid. I need to get some revision done today before I head out for dinner with the family so I'll leave talking about other stuff for another week.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
Sunday, 3 May 2015
Quick Update Post
Not much important to say about Revolver, just general developments. I'll just post the log and get on with other things:
27/04/2015:
-Started work on another room called rPower. It's going to look like a sort of large space full of turbines. I have no clue how or if I will furnish this area.
-Began furnishing rPower with ammo and healthkits. Added spawning and chasing code for the enemies.
28/04/2015:
-Created a basic zombie corpse sprite (very basic) to test placing a corpse on a zombies death. With improved art this'd actually look pretty cool.
-The gas now does less damage but upon leaving the rooms are the player instantly dies. This means players aren't penalised as much for accidentally or purposefully walking into the gas but leaving the room still has the consequence it needs.
-Renamed rOpenSpace to rGuardPost seeing as that is basically what it is.
-Began work on rFactory. Will need to create a conveyor belt object or tile before this map can finished though so I'll be leaving this one for a while. I realised now that the player needs to be told how they are actually getting from room to room and why they are collecting floppy disks. My old idea for a character guiding you over a tannoy speaker or something will have to revived I think.
-Began rHousing and also edited rPrison a bit to make it look more like a prison.
-Tweaked and fixed a lot of small problems with multiple levels to do with the gasses placement.
29/04/2015:
-Added a player health bar and placed the ammo counter so that they follow the player.
-Tweaked spawning, chase ranges and added basic stuff to new rooms.
-Began another room called rLFireTesting, which will have a lot of turrets.
-Vastly improved the corpse sprite as it was bugging me. Should add a blood effect.
-Experimented with tiles to get an idea on how to use them later.
-Made character selection into an actual fucking menu. YEAH SON!!!
-Altered alpha for the lighting so that the player can slightly see what is in the dark.
30/04/2015:
-Added a perk that increases the flares radius and reduced the starting flares radius.
-Made some text more readable.
-Added a perk noise.
-Had game tested. Results: Improve reloading mechanic, make navigation easier, make perks more noticeable.
01/05/2015:
-Vastly improved the reloading. The player can now either mash the space key or hold it to reload.
-Turned spirits into a purely debuff enemy who: reduce your movement speed, reload speed, max HP & bullet spread.
02/05/2015:
-Decided the basic idea for the total of 12 levels and what order the player will travel through them. I could set the traits up so that each level the player gets a choice of one of three and that they're the same each time.
The traits could be practical for the upcoming level. i.e. Flare based traits on the choice before the first level with spirits.
-Rebuilt the first level to make it more architectuallry better. Simplified the level making it more suited to being the first level.
-Added a light to the bullets. Will mess with and make look nicer later.
As you can see I've ditched the idea of randomly chosen rooms and decided to have a coherent order for the levels. This allows me to add some story and a difficulty curve (something which was really lacking in earlier builds) and honestly, I much prefer this to what I was originally doing. Without having properly randomly generated levels it's not really worth having the levels randomly picked.
In other news, I've decided to make a video of Revolvers current stage in development. Not really sure when I'm actually going to make it, probably some time this week, but I'll be using it to showcase to all the lovely people I know what I've actually been up to. There is only so much you can show with a few still images and huge dumps of text. If it turns out well, I might even make it a common occurrence, I don't know yet, we'll see how it goes.
Not much more to say this week, I've been playing a bit of Creeper World III which is a fantastic RTS/Tower Defence game but I've yet to finish it yet so I'll save talking about that until a bit later.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
27/04/2015:
-Started work on another room called rPower. It's going to look like a sort of large space full of turbines. I have no clue how or if I will furnish this area.
-Began furnishing rPower with ammo and healthkits. Added spawning and chasing code for the enemies.
28/04/2015:
-Created a basic zombie corpse sprite (very basic) to test placing a corpse on a zombies death. With improved art this'd actually look pretty cool.
-The gas now does less damage but upon leaving the rooms are the player instantly dies. This means players aren't penalised as much for accidentally or purposefully walking into the gas but leaving the room still has the consequence it needs.
-Renamed rOpenSpace to rGuardPost seeing as that is basically what it is.
-Began work on rFactory. Will need to create a conveyor belt object or tile before this map can finished though so I'll be leaving this one for a while. I realised now that the player needs to be told how they are actually getting from room to room and why they are collecting floppy disks. My old idea for a character guiding you over a tannoy speaker or something will have to revived I think.
-Began rHousing and also edited rPrison a bit to make it look more like a prison.
-Tweaked and fixed a lot of small problems with multiple levels to do with the gasses placement.
29/04/2015:
-Added a player health bar and placed the ammo counter so that they follow the player.
-Tweaked spawning, chase ranges and added basic stuff to new rooms.
-Began another room called rLFireTesting, which will have a lot of turrets.
-Vastly improved the corpse sprite as it was bugging me. Should add a blood effect.
-Experimented with tiles to get an idea on how to use them later.
-Made character selection into an actual fucking menu. YEAH SON!!!
-Altered alpha for the lighting so that the player can slightly see what is in the dark.
30/04/2015:
-Added a perk that increases the flares radius and reduced the starting flares radius.
-Made some text more readable.
-Added a perk noise.
-Had game tested. Results: Improve reloading mechanic, make navigation easier, make perks more noticeable.
01/05/2015:
-Vastly improved the reloading. The player can now either mash the space key or hold it to reload.
-Turned spirits into a purely debuff enemy who: reduce your movement speed, reload speed, max HP & bullet spread.
02/05/2015:
-Decided the basic idea for the total of 12 levels and what order the player will travel through them. I could set the traits up so that each level the player gets a choice of one of three and that they're the same each time.
The traits could be practical for the upcoming level. i.e. Flare based traits on the choice before the first level with spirits.
-Rebuilt the first level to make it more architectuallry better. Simplified the level making it more suited to being the first level.
-Added a light to the bullets. Will mess with and make look nicer later.
As you can see I've ditched the idea of randomly chosen rooms and decided to have a coherent order for the levels. This allows me to add some story and a difficulty curve (something which was really lacking in earlier builds) and honestly, I much prefer this to what I was originally doing. Without having properly randomly generated levels it's not really worth having the levels randomly picked.
In other news, I've decided to make a video of Revolvers current stage in development. Not really sure when I'm actually going to make it, probably some time this week, but I'll be using it to showcase to all the lovely people I know what I've actually been up to. There is only so much you can show with a few still images and huge dumps of text. If it turns out well, I might even make it a common occurrence, I don't know yet, we'll see how it goes.
Not much more to say this week, I've been playing a bit of Creeper World III which is a fantastic RTS/Tower Defence game but I've yet to finish it yet so I'll save talking about that until a bit later.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Busy Busy Busy
Damn have I been more busy than usual. Then very lethargic. None of this excuses not posting thought and I'm actually quite annoyed that all this has gotten in the way of posting weekly (see absence of a post on the 19th) but hopefully, with assignments mostly out of the way that wont happen again. Hopefully.
Here is the log on Revolver for the past two weeks:
13/04/2015:
-Turret kills now do not give the player XP.
-Created basic version of the blockade enemy. Not sure if worth continuing with so will leave out for now.
14/04/2015:
-Started work on a new room. Got the pit object to work meaning levels can have a little more variety compared to just having walls everywhere the player now has huge chasms blocking their path.
-New room is a about 1/3 finished. Building it up and then sticking great ass chasms everywhere.
15/04/2015:
-Finished basic layout for rOpenSpace, the large chasm filled room.
16/04/2015:
-Made a poisonous gas object that will cover the edges of the room to deters the player from leaving the game area by dealing massive damage to them.
-Began editing rTest to accomodate this gas by increasing the room size and adding it to the edges while shifting the room around.
17/04/2015:
-Finished and shifted the whole of rOpenSpace to accomodate the new gas objects.
-Reduced view so the player has a smaller view of the map (think zoomed in).
-Finished architecture for rOpenSpace. Furnished area with turrets, ammo and healthkits. Also added spawning for this room.
-Altered the spirit sprite slightly to make it look less shit.
-Small tweaks with the player sprite and flashlight to make it look much nicer.
18/04/2015:
-Turned rOpenSpace into rChasm as it is a more fitting name. Now creating a real open space kinda map.
20/04/2015:
-Redesigned rOpenSpace to increase combat. Need to set turrets on this level to only hurt the enemy.
-Messed with views and found that it changes differently sized rooms differently making some look good but the tall rooms look like dick.
22/04/2015:
-Worked on screen stuff to try to set up the screens better. Still tired from uni work but will begin getting back into the swing of things tomorrow.
23/04/2015:
-Fixed the screen bug. Turns out I just didn't have the view code in rOpenSpace's creation code.
-Started and mostly finished rPrison, a new map. Thinking more about details for maps like tables, doors etc. Adding these and making the levels seem more like real buildings rather than bizzarre mazes would greatly improve aethetics.
24/04/2015:
-Tweaked chase distances for enemies and added a sound effect for a spirit chasing. Fixed a bug I didn't notice with oFlashlight not being created properly.
As you can see I've been concentrating on level building mostly which has actually been a lot of fun. As much as I enjoy programming, taking some time to design and build levels (especially with the goal to make them play and feel generally different) is really enjoyable. Here are some pictures below:
rTest:
rChasm:
rOpenSpace:
rPrison:
Important things to note here. Firstly, I really, really need to add some decorative stuff to the maps now that I'm attempting to make them look like real places. Tables, chairs, doors, beds, furniture basically just the give the game a bit more colour and look a bit more real. They could also serve some sort of application in gameplay too. Maybe I'll make them work like the big black pits do in that no-one (apart from the spirit enemy) can go through them but the player and turrets can shoot over? Either that or I'll make it purely decorative. Secondly, while I originally decided on the setting I wanted the levels to be randomly chosen but I'm getting a feeling that it would work better in a sequential order with dabs of story thrown in here and there.
As for what I've been doing in my downtime I've actually found myself spending more and more time playing short bursts of little games. Two in particular come to mind. Hoplite and Dungeon Warfare. Hoplite to me is like a weird first person chess game. You and the enemies take turns in a large hexagonal room either making moves or attacking in variety of ways. You, the player have a bash ability, spear throw and leap with each being able to be vastly improved at prayer shrines found on every floor. A neat little trailer can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=WI84xaw2tEk I really do love this little game and how each run feels so different even though each floor always seems to have the same enemies. Oh and the basic version of the game, with no achievements (which unlock extra abilities) is totally free, so you have no excuse not to try it.
Magma Fortress's Blog (Hoplite): magmafortress.com/p/hoplite.html
Dungeon Warfare is an amazingly satisfying game. For me personally it's a brutally difficult tower defence game with a huge plethora of traps to plant which deal with the huge range of irritating good guys trying to reach your portal. The game play involves fighting multiple waves of these "good guys" and you mashing them, spearing them or throwing them in pits in several different ways just to keep them from reaching your portals. It's very fun and somewhat addictive but I've found each level can be beating in a pretty short burst, you're not going for a perfect run that is; and although it's only in it's (10th?) alpha build a lot of the core game is there. A huge range of levels, traps and other goodies are available for you to play with but be prepared to play with the easy mode on to start with, I had to at least. Here's a trailer just for you:
Personally I'd recommend playing it on a website like Kongregate or Armor Games first as I did find the cost on Steam a little high, although that said the amount of content you get is pretty damn high with 20+ levels all those traps I mentioned, and endless mode and difficulty modifiers. My favourite way of adding difficulty levels to games I might add. Just give it a try first and see if it is for you. It was for me, and still is.
Anyway that's all from me for now. As always following me on twitter is the best way to see what I'm up to, if I ever post that is.
-Beau
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Why Portal & Half-Life 2 are still worth your time
Another week has passed and the Easter holidays are over. I'm going to be getting busy with uni work again so this'll probably be the kinda progress I'm going to be making at best. Either way I don't have much else to say about Revolver this week so I'll leave talking about it for future posts.
05/04/2015:
-Created a spirit enemy (AGAIN) that can follow the player through walls.
-The spirit enemy can now be hurt by any placed flare using the power of circle_collision! Two important things need to be done soon: The players flash-light needs to somehow be able to hurt the spirits & the flare needs to burn out (instance_destroy()) after a period of time. This period could be altered by a trait as could the flares radius (global variable for the radius could affect both the flares radius and the spirits collision).
06/04/2015:
-Changed the variables for the flares radius and spirits damage range to a global so it can be affected by a trait.
07/04/2015:
-Sprits now deal a small amount of damage to the player both in the form of health and movement speed. This has a minimal cap to prevent game breaking but can still be very detrimental.
08/04/2015:
-Using a fake flashlight (copy of the light sprite used for the actual light) set to an alpha (opacity) of 1 and setting it to the samish location as the actual light I've made an effective collision for the players flashlight and the spirit enemy. For balance reasons the range of damage is actually a little shorter than the flashlights length but, if it is a problem, I'll fix that later. Just copy over sLight and re-make it. Next job turret enemy.
-Created a basic turret base sprite. Create the turret tomorrow.
09/04/2015:
-Did some turret stuff. (FORGOT TO WRITE IN AND NOW I'VE FORGOTTEN) From looking back it seems like it was a basic attempt at the AI.
10/04/2015:
-Vastly improved the turrets look. It looks like a god damn turret now rather than a gross looking blob.
-Started work on its aiming capabilities. It can aim at the player if they are within range and there is nothing blocking its view. I need to find a way to differentiate its aiming so it can aim at either the player or the zombie enemy and shoot whoever is closest.
-Discovered a bug where the xp always carries over 10 no matter what.
-Can't get the turret to shoot at the zombies even though both they and the player share the same parent class, will attempt to fix tomorrow.
11/04/2015:
-Turret now works pretty well. Next thing to do is limit its ammo, allow no exp for a turret kill, allow it to harm the player and balance it.
-All works now. Next step Goliath enemy.
I was kinda bored yesterday so I decided to play the first Portal again. All of it. I kinda forgot how interesting and fun that game was. The puzzles are rewarding to work out and flinging yourself around with the power of SCIENCE is incredibly enjoyable. The game has a great atmosphere too. While playing it I remembered the first time I beat the game and how rewarding it felt (hearing Still Alive for the first time was really awesome) and playing the game I remembered how scary I found the game the first time. It's funny really because the game is not really like a traditional horror, there are no obvious monsters with more claws and eyes that it should have, but the whole being a lab rat constantly guided by an omnipotent AI that you can hear going haywire while mocking you is incredibly unnerving. I also think this game would be really good for someone who hasn't played many or any first person games. It's cheap these days, has a great story & the whole game is based around teaching the player which is great for new players. Although it was just a short romp back into the world of Aperture Science it was one that I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm definitely going to play the second now.
Speaking of Valve I've also recently finished Half-Life 2 again using the Half-Life 2 update that was recently released. Damn is that still a damn fine game. Yeah the graphics are not great by todays standards (although the update helps that) but, like Portal the atmosphere for each area is brilliant. Ravenholm didn't scare me this time round but the whole area felt like I was walking through the aftermath of a horror movie apocalypse. To be fair, the whole game has that kinda setting but this area is still creepy as all hell. Oh and the combat, while feeling a bit dated due to its lack of iron sights and a few other features is so well designed (along with the levels of course) that running and gunning is still really fun to this day. It's funny actually, I've never really believed this to be the be all and end all of FPS games like some people think but honestly I can't name an FPS I like more. I don't know if that is a good thing though. It came out in 2004 I think and there isn't a game since then I feel that has surpassed the overall quality of HL2. Certain aspects; yeah of course. There are FPS's with better graphics or combat but none that have the complete package of story, combat, design, direction and atmosphere. I think that's what has made it the powerhouse it has been. It's such a fantastic all around game, all its parts work so well together that we have this wonderful whole, that to this day at least, stands the test of time and continues to be the wonderful game it is.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
05/04/2015:
-Created a spirit enemy (AGAIN) that can follow the player through walls.
-The spirit enemy can now be hurt by any placed flare using the power of circle_collision! Two important things need to be done soon: The players flash-light needs to somehow be able to hurt the spirits & the flare needs to burn out (instance_destroy()) after a period of time. This period could be altered by a trait as could the flares radius (global variable for the radius could affect both the flares radius and the spirits collision).
06/04/2015:
-Changed the variables for the flares radius and spirits damage range to a global so it can be affected by a trait.
07/04/2015:
-Sprits now deal a small amount of damage to the player both in the form of health and movement speed. This has a minimal cap to prevent game breaking but can still be very detrimental.
08/04/2015:
-Using a fake flashlight (copy of the light sprite used for the actual light) set to an alpha (opacity) of 1 and setting it to the samish location as the actual light I've made an effective collision for the players flashlight and the spirit enemy. For balance reasons the range of damage is actually a little shorter than the flashlights length but, if it is a problem, I'll fix that later. Just copy over sLight and re-make it. Next job turret enemy.
-Created a basic turret base sprite. Create the turret tomorrow.
09/04/2015:
-Did some turret stuff. (FORGOT TO WRITE IN AND NOW I'VE FORGOTTEN) From looking back it seems like it was a basic attempt at the AI.
10/04/2015:
-Vastly improved the turrets look. It looks like a god damn turret now rather than a gross looking blob.
-Started work on its aiming capabilities. It can aim at the player if they are within range and there is nothing blocking its view. I need to find a way to differentiate its aiming so it can aim at either the player or the zombie enemy and shoot whoever is closest.
-Discovered a bug where the xp always carries over 10 no matter what.
-Can't get the turret to shoot at the zombies even though both they and the player share the same parent class, will attempt to fix tomorrow.
11/04/2015:
-Turret now works pretty well. Next thing to do is limit its ammo, allow no exp for a turret kill, allow it to harm the player and balance it.
-All works now. Next step Goliath enemy.
I was kinda bored yesterday so I decided to play the first Portal again. All of it. I kinda forgot how interesting and fun that game was. The puzzles are rewarding to work out and flinging yourself around with the power of SCIENCE is incredibly enjoyable. The game has a great atmosphere too. While playing it I remembered the first time I beat the game and how rewarding it felt (hearing Still Alive for the first time was really awesome) and playing the game I remembered how scary I found the game the first time. It's funny really because the game is not really like a traditional horror, there are no obvious monsters with more claws and eyes that it should have, but the whole being a lab rat constantly guided by an omnipotent AI that you can hear going haywire while mocking you is incredibly unnerving. I also think this game would be really good for someone who hasn't played many or any first person games. It's cheap these days, has a great story & the whole game is based around teaching the player which is great for new players. Although it was just a short romp back into the world of Aperture Science it was one that I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm definitely going to play the second now.
Speaking of Valve I've also recently finished Half-Life 2 again using the Half-Life 2 update that was recently released. Damn is that still a damn fine game. Yeah the graphics are not great by todays standards (although the update helps that) but, like Portal the atmosphere for each area is brilliant. Ravenholm didn't scare me this time round but the whole area felt like I was walking through the aftermath of a horror movie apocalypse. To be fair, the whole game has that kinda setting but this area is still creepy as all hell. Oh and the combat, while feeling a bit dated due to its lack of iron sights and a few other features is so well designed (along with the levels of course) that running and gunning is still really fun to this day. It's funny actually, I've never really believed this to be the be all and end all of FPS games like some people think but honestly I can't name an FPS I like more. I don't know if that is a good thing though. It came out in 2004 I think and there isn't a game since then I feel that has surpassed the overall quality of HL2. Certain aspects; yeah of course. There are FPS's with better graphics or combat but none that have the complete package of story, combat, design, direction and atmosphere. I think that's what has made it the powerhouse it has been. It's such a fantastic all around game, all its parts work so well together that we have this wonderful whole, that to this day at least, stands the test of time and continues to be the wonderful game it is.
-Beau
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