So, whatcha doin' SSGX?

ID:71085
 
Jun 1 2009, 5:59 am
Keywords: screenshot, skywurm
With Murder Mansion's new version out and relatively stable and working properly (judging by the lack of recent bug reports and suggestions) I've moved on to other things for the time being (don't worry, though, there's still a list of content I plan to add to it in the future, including 6 or so more maps, and one or two more game modes and/or options for existing modes, on top of a little list of things I had planned to add for this update, but decided to skip)

My current major project is mapping for Tiberath's "Isorath"... Though unfortunately, I have precious little to publically show for it...lol I am working on it, though (it's just that right now, the work consists of roughing in land forms, then smoothing the edges with angled edge pieces; not exactly exciting stuff yet)

What I do have to show is some tinkering I've been doing on one of my neglected projects, SkyWurm...

It's probably my most neglected (released) project, as it's probably the one with the most unrealized potential, and was basically dumped out as-is, turned into an 8k contest entry, and then left for dead...

For now (to keep me from getting in too deep with it, and slacking from work on Isorath), all I've done is improve the graphics (as with Murder Mansion, transparency opens up so much room for improvement), and fix some bugs I happened to notice...

I actually have a list of notes for planned additions and changes (chief of which is a system of levels) and the game will also eventually have a high-score list on the hub (the game will always essentially be an old-school arcade-style play-for-points kind of game) But again, I'm not going to be doing any of that work until I've gotten much more done for Isorath's map...

For now, though, enjoy these screenshots from the game:


These shots show what it used to look like (what it looks like in the currently public version)




And these 4 show the current graphics! Alpha transparency used to make translucent fire effects, shadows, improved screen fade-out effects, translucent wings on the dragons, etc... I've also animated the dragons with flapping wings (in 3 frames, each of which one of these shots shows), swinging tails, and bobbing heads... And some of the other graphics have gotten a "texture" update (the dragon scale icons in the border have more depth, the grass has been softened and given a more textured look, etc...

So yeah, be on the lookout in the future for news of an update (I might just put this version up to replace the old one until I make an actual update)
Jun 1 2009, 7:41 am
Now implement some pixel movement!

Shadows are a nice touch.
Jun 1 2009, 8:17 am
How can you have such beautiful dragons yet be contempt with tiled grass and a barren landscape?
Jun 1 2009, 8:47 am
Foomer:

Pixel movement would actually work for this game, since it's a singleplayer game (possibly two players, at most, in the future) and the action takes place on a single screen (no need for jerky tile-based eye movement), but I'm not sure that the effort to convert the collision detection (currently consisting of a bump()-bumped() system) and enemy movement "AI" (currently consisting of pick()ing from a list of possible directions on a loop) would be worth it for the relatively minimal glitz factor pixel movement would bring...

SuperAntx:

It's due to how the game's "scrolling" works...

Basically, it doesn't scroll at all!

The map is static, and is only the size of the view... The player is stuck to that one row (can only move left and right), and all incoming objects (trees, rocks, and enemy Wurms) are created by a row of objects at the top, then they step() down the screen on a loop, to be deleted at the bottom row (if they make it that far)

The grass tile, therefore, is animated to mimic the look of passing at high speed over grass... Basically, the light and dark bands alternate, to look like a wave-y motion blur...

The point I'm trying to make, though, is that the grass can't really be any more varied or detailed, without ruining the "trick", and while I could probably add in more terrain objects (potentially even creating rivers, roads, farms, etc.), it seems like too much of a resource drain (not that the game is so complex that it can't afford to waste processing time on creating and moving more objects at a time, but still)

[Edit:] Oh yeah, thanks for the compliments from you both!
Jun 1 2009, 8:53 am
I figured as much. Having the grass move faster than the trees, rocks, and dragons would probably be a symptom of that.

It's a single player game and you don't have more than 30 objects moving at any given time. I don't think you'll be having any performance issues by making things look a little nicer.

Also, the drake shadows in your preview screenshots look like they're just faded crosses. How come they don't look like the actual drakes? Shouldn't the winged areas be a whole lot lighter since the wings are thinner and block less light?

Oh yeah, I made some suggestions on the hub page. Please take a look at them!
Jun 1 2009, 9:06 am
SuperAntx wrote:
I figured as much. Having the grass move faster than the trees, rocks, and dragons would probably be a symptom of that.

Yeah, the timing is likely off to begin with, and then is made further off by hiccups in processing, movement handling, etc.

I guess the entire game could be brought into alignment a little better by the addition of an EventLoop to control all aspects from a single loop (as it is, each element has its own "while(src)" loop, which means they can get out of sync), even down to switching the grass icon_state along with the step delay instead of relying on the timing of an animated icon...

It's a single player game and you don't have more than 30 objects moving at any given time. I don't think you'll be having any performance issues by making things look a little nicer.

No, probably not, but something can also be said for keeping down visual clutter in a game that's meant to be somewhat of a simple fast-twitch shooter...

And it's actually even less than 30, because the dragons are constructed of overlays around the central body (the cause of some of the issues and improvements you suggest in your comment on the game's discussion page)

Also, the drake shadows in your preview screenshots look like they're just faded crosses. How come they don't look like the actual drakes? Shouldn't the winged areas be a whole lot lighter since the wings are thinner and block less light?

They essentially are just faded crosses, which is essentially a result of my own laziness...lol I didn't feel like drawing detailed shadow recreations of the dragon pieces (and then duplicating and rotating them to match the enemy direction, even though that's really not difficult work in the least), so I took the generic route of making them as vague and applicable to both directions as possible (also as non-animated as possible... the tails of the dragons now swish back and forth, and the heads move slightly, but I didn't feel like drawing the shadows to match that movement, so those two ends just get a generic, overly wide bar of shadow to cover all the proverbial bases... the shadows under the wings are animated to match the wing movement, at least, but it's just a few pixels in and back out... I think you're right that they should be made more transparent, though, especially since I've also change the wings to be ever-so-slightly transparent themselves)
Jun 1 2009, 9:13 am
Oh, and please don't think that I'm just making excuses and shooting down your suggestions... I'm just explaining why things are the way they are, and I'll keep the critiques in mind when working on it more...
Jun 1 2009, 9:22 am
I think implementing pixel movement (and if you used circular collision detection, that wouldn't be too hard either) would help to bump the game from "cliche BYOND game with blocky movement" to a professional looking arcade game. I'd definitely consider that worth it.
Jun 1 2009, 9:31 am
I suppose you're right... It would help to break it out of the BYOND mold...

Well, at any rate, game improvments beyond the current glitz and some minor bug fixes and tweaks are going to wait until I'm much further along with my obligation to Tiberath with the Isorath mapping (I know that if I jump into making major alterations to this game, I'll completely blow off mapping...lol)

Anyways, I just uploaded what I have so far as the new default public version, just so everyone can play the game with nicer-looking visuals, though the game itself is basically unaltered, so don't expect any gameplay changes (the music is fixed, though, and I think the collision detection is more reliable now)
Jun 8 2009, 1:08 pm
You should totally update DBTC some more, like add in all the New DBZ Info we've learned since DBTC was 'finished.'
Jun 9 2009, 3:50 am
DBTC will get a turn, but since it will likely be a hugely time-consuming undertaking, I don't want to get into it until I'm done with some other things...

Those other things might take a while themselves, so it could be a long time before DBTC's turn gets here... But it will come...