Thursday, April 03, 2008

c-c-c-changes

An update to the progress of Orbs is well overdue.

orbs_grab3.jpg

Some big changes. I've re-done the collision routines. They were a simple brute force method ( Checking bullet 1 against each baddie, checking bullet 2 against each... ), now they're based on a grid system. I've done simple sectors before in my old asteroids clone, X, but that was just splitting the screen into quarters, this uses smaller sectors ( So it's more of a grid than just sectors. Moot point I know ).

I've also altered how the particles were plotted. I always wanted to use the Add blendMode as it looks so good ( The Orb itself is a sprite and uses that blendMode ) but the particles are blitted into a bitMap using copyPixels for speed.
I bit the bullet and changed it to use Draw(). Slower ( As it uses Flash's vector renderer ), but I think the visual pay off is worth it. I'm panting to code the smart bomb as it should look great a whole screen full of baddies blowing up in go, with the blendMode it should nearly white up the screen.

With the collisions, I've had to code a bounce routine for the orb, so when a baddie hits it, it moves. Added to that the player bullets now hit the orb and bounce off realistically too ( As opposed to a pong still rebound where the direction just changes ).
In doing this I was badly anal and coded up a faster version of atan2, just to save a handfull of ms
I'm really pleased with how it feels, you can shoot the orb and push it into a baddie to kill the baddie. It feels great being able to move it around the screen by shooting it.

The title screen is in place, and I used papervision for the background. Having never used it before, I was blown away! Really straight forward, and stupidly fast. I now totally believe the hype.
As part of the title screen stuff I've started on the stats page, and got some medals in there ( Achievements with a different name ).

orbs_grab4.jpg

Going back to the collisions, I knew the player > orb collisions were going to be a bit of a mare. I was toying with using Box2D for them, but realised that was overkill for this game.
The solution ? Give the player a shield ( As seen above ) and then it's just a simple circle-circle collision check. Much quicker and much easier. With the Orb already being able to rebound it was just a case of making the player ship do the same. So now you can push the orb around the screen as well as shoot it around.

The shield also sorts the problem of a baddie teleporting on top of you. If that happens, the shield will just kick in, and the baddie dies. Two birds with one stone, great.

There have been quite a few more updates, but time talking about them is time not adding new stuff. I'm hoping to post an alpha here in the next 2 weeks, just to get some nice early feedback.

Squize.

game development
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

It's the truth

I just got to thinking ( Not keeping myself awake at night or anything ), but with the self importance of the whole "blogosphere" where we all act like our words may be of some importance to strangers, today would be a good day to get something really bad off your chest, and just put it down as an April fools day joke.

It could be anything from "I had a sly smoke in the bathroom this morning" to "I shook a baby to death", so use the cover of it being a day for big fat lies and jokes to purge your soul. It'll make you feel much better.

Maybe I'll do the same.

Squize.

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Monday, March 31, 2008

GYW in new game shock!

Recently we were approached by GameJacket to see if we had some content that we could re-purpose to support their new ad system.

Digging around we found an old ( Flash 6 or so ) reskin of the even older JBJ Sisters game.

It seems that the game has leaked from the gamejacket site, and is floating around the net now, so it's kind of pushed me into pimping it.

http://www.gamejacket.com/gamejacket.asp?gjid=00040

( It was on newgrounds, but it got blammed! )

Bit of a damp squib of a release really. Such is the world of ads and sponsors and that.

Squize.

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Nero did not only burn Rome - he busted Vista as well ...

Another rant post (but once I get back on game coding I'll do some more coding oriented posts. Promised.).

The reason I din't post about the current game of mine is that it's more or less on hold while I slave for another project (which is I'm sorry to say 100% not game related :|).

So why is that another rant post?

I bought a new box, a new shiny f$%&ing fast one (and to slow it down a bit I also installed Vista Ultimate on it :) ) (no need to point out that there are other OSes, because I *like* it).

Sometime last year I bought a copy of Nero Burning Rom, the once best cd/dvd burning app. You may have noticed "once".
The version I got was 7.5.7 and except for the darn amount of useless shit that came with it, I was quite happy with it on XP.

Because I like the ease of Nero Express I just wanted to install this (and the Nero app of course) but who the f$%& needs "recode", "showtime" a wave editor(!) ?
Anyway, I decided to install it on my new box and it turned out to become quite a nightmare ...

Once Nero was installed everytime I opened a folder that contained a video file I was greeted with as "rundll32 crash". Sweet.
First and (why not) choice to blame was MS for their OS, but after a quick google I found out that the problem is Nero. To be precise, one of the things I didn't chose to install, the shit codecs that came with it (there's no option to *not* install them).

But how do you remove a codec under Vista?

Quick google again, here we are: InstalledCodec v1.00
"InstalledCodec is a small utility displays the list of all Codec drivers and DirectShow filters currently installed on your system. For each component the following information is displayed: Display Name, Type, Disabled Status, Installed/Modified Time, Description, Company Name, Filename, and more...
It allows you to easily disable or enable any Codec/DirectShow component or export the list into text/xml/html file."

A few clicks later I disabled all codecs that started with "Nero" and viola. no rundll32 crashes.

So far I noticed no problems.

nGFX
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Friday, March 21, 2008

Toxic Shock

After what seems forever "Professor Sauernoggin and the Landfill of Doom!" is live. Hurray!

toxicGrab.jpg

My first ever platformer! ( Well, Loved Up was technically launched first, but it was built on this game ).

A huge thanks to everyone involved for making it what it is ( Marmotte for the always great art, RayB for doing such an excellent job in the project managers role, Matt for the bouncy tune and Olli for the server side stuff that means you can see your hi-score and get a discount on candy if you finish the game! Nice ).

Just to caveat it a little, it's for 6-16 year olds, so it's not hard core, and as with all things Flash, play it in IE ( Firefox will just give you the "Playing in treacle mix" ). There are seperate html pages coming any day now which use the wmode trick for IE users to make it play even smoother.

Happy Easter everyone, now go play my beauties, play.

Squize.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Day x - back from the dead

I doubt you noticed my absence from posting about the current game but I tell you anyway :).

Basically I had a few days off (unplanned) and then a f#%&%$§ cold (unplanned, too) so work came pretty much to halt.

The worst what happened during that time was the constant flow of new ideas. Yesterday was the first day I was working again and I learned my funny little lesson about AS3. I haven't used it much (or for more than a few quick tests) but when I started to code the basic functions of the editor I learned to hate it.
Seeing AS3 from an c++ point of view it all makes more or less sense, but when dealing with it having a few years of AS1/AS2 experience some things just don't come a "natural" as they should.

I think that one of the biggest problems existing AS2 users have when starting with AS3 is the way AS3 deals with the display. It's easy to get by the new event model (which I really like) but the new display model just pissed me off big time during the first 3 hours.
For the editor there are a few things that rely on a timeline so I have to use exported MCs, I got the strong feeling that AS3 isn't made for handling timeline based things. (Some of them might have been coded but to be true I don't see the point in coding a color / alpha tween for some 15 elements.)
But handling a "classic" attached MC from AS3 feels as clumsy as a one legged dog.

back to work ... and hopefully some more code oriented posts in the future ...

nGFX

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

They're golden, and they're balls

Had a quick google to discover that Golden Balls, the game I did the middle of last year for Endemol gaming is finally online ( Has been for a while apparently ).

It's a bit more text heavy than the version I finished up, and it looks like the contestants disappear on level 2, only appearing on mouse over ( Although my work monitors aren't the best so it could be my eyes ), but it's pretty much as I left it.

You can play it in demo mode, which means you don't have to gamble cash for real, and I've got to be honest I found it quite a fun game to play during it's development ( Which was a sweet one too, contracted for 8 weeks, turned it 'round in under 15 days, which meant I was freed up to work on GOL. That's how long ago I worked on it ).

It's well worth a quick play, although remember it's hosted on a gambling site before you go a clicking.

Squize.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

More lazy boy links...

...and a bit of self centered bleating.

As Flash developers we all know how a lot of sites just pull the piss and will quite happily steal games ( And if you're really lucky, drop their ads into them. Nice ), but this story is just a whole new level of pulling the piss.
Really worth a read.

Now on to the self bleating. GOL got a review at Channel 4 games. 5 out of 10. Visitors to the site actually rated it less than that. It works out ( Using channel 4's rating, let's not make it worse ) at 1 point per game. And nothing for the front-end.
Following that down it's natural path, it means that say "Souper Bowl" would only score 1. Hang on, perhaps it scored less 'cause it's a collection of mini-games, let's double that. 2. Out of 10.
It's a sickener to think that the whole is actually less than it's parts. That's quite an achievement.

Sorry, I don't like wallowing in self pity, but when it's the best thing I've ever done, doing so poorly, it's hard not to have 5 mins being a tart about it. All out of my system now, although don't get me started about Loved Up getting poor reviews 'cause it's "gay"
( Wait 'til Loved Up II - A mouth full of spunk, that'll get the homophobic vote ).

Squize.

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Friday, March 07, 2008

Best. Effect. Ever.

After not wanting this blog to be just a linky one, I've just got to show this, although I imagine a ton of you will have seen it already.

Wow!

Squize.

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Day six and seven - only the strong ...

So the menu screen is nearly done - I could resist the urge to do it "right" and add some node-based pathfinding just to display some screen changes.

Today is designh day again, because I have to find a way to do the editor in 640x480 without making it a big pain in the a**. To make this task even easier, I have to fit in the 40 different tiles (which includes buttons and traps) and the 9 different enemy types.

Luckily the maps are only 32x32, but it still means they can't be shown completely at 100% (during play you can see only 9x9 tiles at a time), so I'm going to have to add some sort of scrolling and scaling. Although I think I'm not adding scrollbars and just use space&drag for moving the map, as I use some more key/mouse combinations for the editor (like shift&click to paint a secondary tile (to simulate the right mouse button), ctrl&click to paint into the second layer).

Speaking of the second layer, another neat, yet painfull thing (still thinking of a way to get rid of it). It is in there to allow the hiding things blow moveable tiles, so you can place a fire or a button under a moveable wall tile ... joy.
It may just be a good idea to allow access to the tiles of the secondary layer only if a tile sits on top already ... mhm ... we'll see how that is going to turn out.

nGFX


game development
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