Calus CoRPS' site

Recent Progress on BYOND Football

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:30:17 +0000

Vocal_nebula here again using Calus's blog to provide updates for my upcoming game BYOND Football, so a shout out of thanks to him for lending me a post on his blog!

Anyways, since my last post basically welcoming the idea and a snippet video to the public, I've progressed with a few updates since then. I've added a blocker to go along with the offensive playcalling now, along with actually passing the ball to a reciever. Now that the core AI is developed, from blocking, to running, to catching, and to tackling for the defense, the last things needed is a down system and the rest of the offense and defense haha. Below is a video of the progress so far, and with fall break recently being put upon me, a playable version will hopefully be released before I go back to school.

The ball is caught determined by the height, and the vertical jump of the player. The height of the ball gradually get's lower as it approaches where the user has clicked. When the ball zooms over the linebackers head, if his jump and height were high enough to snag the ball, it would have been intercepted.

Well, that's what the game offers so far. Comments or criticism is appreciated, I need all the help I can get!

P.S. The icons exhibited in the game are placeholders. If anyone would like to volunteer to do pixel art for this project I would greatly appreciate it, and you can contact me at thomas.hamilton62@live.com on MSN.

Also, sorry about the choppy quality in the video, I assure you that's not how it looks in-game.

BYOND Football

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 01:33:48 +0000

Basically self explanatory, like the title says, it's 'BYOND Football'. I've been working on this project for about 2 weeks now on and off throughout my first year of college, and I've gotten a tad bit done so far, at least I think so. I guess my main point in this post is, I want to know if the community would actually be interested in playing such a game, so hopefully I wouldn't be wasting my time haha. But anyways, I have a video url link posted below, hopefully some constructive criticism, or maybe ideas that you would like to see yourself?

Note: I do not have a down system implemented yet, I was hoping to get a lot of core functions such as the AI, and respawning in the right places before I put the little things in place. Also the icons I have now are currently placeholders. I'm hoping once the game is playable someone will notice the potential and offer to pixel some art for it.. and yes, when I was on defense I got juked out..

Oh and thanks to Calus Corps for letting me use his blog to advertise this, I really appreciate it!

Release: Compound Dwellers 1.2

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:44:27 +0000

Saturday, October 01, 2011
I am fairly satisfied with this release as I got quite a few things completed and fixed. I have added three songs to the splash screen, thanks to my brother. Unfortunately, the songs will repeat as BYOND does not have sound.length or a built-in queue system that would allow you to add songs to it, and if it plays the last song in the list, start playing the first song all over again. So you'll have to die and go back to the splash screen to listen to the other songs. Also, reactions are in!

Release Notes:

New: When you create an element that is not needed, a consequential reaction may occur.
New: Three splash screen songs have been added, thanks to my brother.
New: Added another compound (Acetate).
Fix: Previously, when elements collided, nothing happened. They now ricochet off of each other.

I have been receiving good feedback from those who have played the game, which is always motivating. I am very happy with how smooth Forum_account's library is, nice job man! My previous plans were to release this Game in a Day game and then move on, but I have enjoyed working on this.

The next release should have more sound effects and compounds. I hope to have a contest for this game in a week or two as well. Also, if you have any compound ideas, please do tell! In your comment, provide the name, formula, and any possible reactions.

I hope you enjoy the game!

Patch: Compound Dwellers 1.1

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:10:37 +0000

Thursday, September 29, 2011
Three days ago I released my 2011 Game in a Day game, Compound Dwellers. Due to time restrictions, I was unable to fully test the game for any bugs. But apparently, it's the first time I have ever released a game with no errors appearing. Therefore, I started to work on an update.

Patch Notes:

New: You can now pause the game with the 'P' key.
New: I have implemented hud scores.
New: When the round ends, it displays the points won/lost.
New: If you create the requested compound before time ends, you get a 'time bonus' added to your score.
Change: Now when you have shot the correct elements needed for the compound, the round ends. (Falacy)
Change: The help guide has been edited to inform the player that touching an element is harmful. (Falacy)

My next release should contain more compounds, perhaps sound effects, and actual reactions. As an example, if you were commissioned to create Oxygen but instead you made Sulfuric Acid, acid would temporarily appear on the map, thus causing damage to your ship when touched.

I would also like to start having contests for this game. What would probably happen is that I would create a special hub for the contest to collect the scores for the day, release a special 'Contest Build' dedicated towards placing scores on the hub, and offer monetary rewards for the top three people on the score list. But before I do that, I want to have some hardcore testing done on this release to insure it is bug free.

I hope you enjoy the game!

GiaD Entry: Compound Dwellers

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:49:58 +0000

I have participated in every Game in a Day event, yet every single one of my entries were left unfinished. This year I opted to go with a simple game idea, an idea that was actually possible for me to complete in the time limit.

I struggled with coming up with an idea though, so I asked my brother, who is a huge fan of Cave Dwellers for an idea. He promptly said: a game where you be a bean, the character from Cave Dwellers, flying around space while attempting to collect elements to make compounds. So I went with it.

I decided to use Forum_account's pixel movement library and it was horribly slow throughout the development process. But I eventually updated my BYOND client to the latest release and everything was fine, go figure. Unfortunately, I did not get to add all the sounds that I planned on adding nor the chemical reactions when you make the wrong compound. So I simply subtracted points from your score instead.

I have almost an hour and a half left, so I have decided to release this in hopes of people finding bugs for me to fix. I may add a few more compounds too. I hope you enjoy the game!

hub

Preview: clunky ships

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 04:03:51 +0000

So it has been well over a year since my last blog post, and while I occasionally posted on the forums, I have not been too active within this community. My reasoning: preparation for my final year of College. I have also spent time working on an album with my brother and writing short stories.

A few weeks ago a game concept popped into my head and I decided to use it to refresh my memory of DM. I also wanted to work on a project for the Poplava Challenge, so this was perfect timing. The idea I had was inspired with my long-term dream of creating a game related to the unknowns of space. Basically, you are thrown onto a planet, possibly with three of your friends, and you are given materials to build a ship, maintain it, and attempt to maneuver it throughout space.

I loved the idea as it was very simple and apparently, building games are addictive. For the first time in months I opened Dream Maker, created a new environment, and started to program. I actually enjoyed it for the first time in years. It is just like being God, I can create anything I wish, and I liked it. Similar to my last two projects, I planned on incorporating my pixel movement engine. Unfortunately, or perhaps luckily as my engine is clunky, I reformatted my laptop months before and all of my projects were on a flash drive over one-hundred and fifty miles away. So I opted with using the standard BYOND grid.

But the creation of this new project, named clunky ships, was not a smooth ride. Just days after starting there was a storm that knocked our power out for nearly a week. Not too long after, our basement flooded and I was stuck with using the WetVac, Pine-sol, and a blade to cut the wet rug. But these distractions did not discourage me, but they did disrupt the flow of the progress and I was not able to finish my project in time for Poplava's deadline.

Nonetheless, I still had motivation and the day after I returned back to my College townhouse, today, I spent hours programming in more features. Unlike my previous projects, disturbances actually give me even more motivation to continue working on this project. In fact, I am happy that I was not able to complete my project in time for the Poplava Challenge. It just gives me more time to produce a more professionally appealing project that could potentially garner me a few bucks. With that said, I present to you a short demonstration of clunky ships.

(I suggest using the highest quality setting along with using full screen)

There is no actual goal in this game; you are only there to experiment and to have fun. My plan is to come up with more building objects, whenever they pop into my head. I also do not plan on releasing the game until it is absolutely complete, although, I do want to gather a few to help me test prior to the release. This means that the finish product will have better graphics and interface, along with having music made by yours truly. The idea is that I will go back into hiding while working on this as I tend to get distracted by this community, and I also find daily/frequent bloggings about little-to-no progress ineffective. I have a schedule designed to tell me what to work on each day, when I finish the day's work, I do not move onto the next day. This prevents me from being stressed out, so do not expect more progress related news until I have something substantial to show. I want to surprise you all with the development of this project each blog post.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the preview of the project that brought me back to the beautiful DM language!

deMOLEstration

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:31:35 +0000

While the pursuit of creating my first polished game is nearly in my reach. I decided to create a 'proof-of-concept' engine for a game I have long wanted to create. I have dabbled in the mining genre once before but failed miserably. The game was unpolished, broken, and was an embarrassment to the Calus legacy.

In 2008, once I was finished with the LineWalk demonstration I came across Hedgemistress' Miner League. I read numerous forum posts and searched throughout the web to find more information about this piece of art. Alas, while I could find limited information, it was not enough to satisfy my thirst. I then made an attempt to create a similar game but quickly realized that, at the time, my engine was not suitable.

Fast-forward to nearly two years later. Once again I came across Miner League and decided to create a 'proof-of-concept' engine that included both digging and some sort of slime physics. Two days later I came up with MOLE.

A person can start digging by pressing a directional key and then bumping into dirt. Originally, a 4x4 tile would be removed for each time you dugged. I decided to go with slime for one solid reason, it moves much slower than water and would require less cpu as it does not need to flow at a realistic pace.

I quickly noticed that once I implemented a terrain generator and applied it to a bigger map, the slime would demand too much cpu. So the tiles were increased to 8x8 and I implemented some checks within the procedure to ensure the slime would not move unless a player was near.

As I have stated, this is a 'proof-of-concept' demonstration, there is no game play. The purpose of this demonstration is to see how it holds up on other computers. I have realized that it is still cpu taxing once you get a ton of slime flowing. The goal would most likely be to create some sort of strategy-action hybrid where you must manage your resources and focus on base construction, similar to a RTS.

I would also like to thank Cinnom for providing me information on Miner League.

LineWalk: The Beginning

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:51:33 +0000

History
Late 2008 I was introduced to Line Rider: a small flash game that allows one to draw lines and then watch a little man on a sled fail miserably as he attempts to complete the drawn track. While my knowledge with pixel movement was scarce, I wanted to confirm that a game similar to Line Rider could be accomplished on BYOND. At the time I had no idea that the collision system I was constructing was named 'bounding box', I just believed it would be a great idea to adjust an atom's x1, x2, y1, and y2 coordinates based on its size.

In no less than a week I created LineWalk: a pale white creature who walks on lines drawn by the player.

I had intended to create a full game with this little engine I developed, but there were a few flaws. First of all the collision was severely broken, at certain points on the map you could walk through solid objects. Next, for some odd reason when one jumped the game would frequently crash. The last flaw was that BYOND could not correctly handle online games that used pixel movement. Tied with my frequent loss of enthusiasm, the game was quickly dumped onto a flash drive and it sat there for nearly two years.

Recently
Late 2009 I met Fugsnarf, who was one of the few active developers who were exploring pixel movement. We frequently discussed the possibilities of it and I had fun attempting to impress him with my numerous demonstrations. Soon thereafter, he and SuperAntx created numerous pixel movement related bug/feature reports which grabbed Lummox JR's attention. In early 2010 Tom and crew released, in my opinion, a landmark update that vastly improved networking. I quickly created a shooter to see how this update worked online.

I was excited that playing online was just as smooth as offline, so I was enticed into creating several other online demonstrations. This urged me into completely remaking my engine.

Recently Qubic asked if I was going to release my 'pixel movement & bounding box collision' library anytime soon. I stated that I would and started working on it, but as an hour passed I somehow was remaking LineWalk. In no more than two hours, I already had a demonstration ready to be played. Also, sorry Qubic, I will get you the library one day!

LineWalk is essentially one of my dream games, an online cooperative casual game that allows customization and can be played for hours. I love playing this game just as much as I do making it. To my knowledge, it is still the only game that uses bounding box collision and it is also the first online pixel movement game on BYOND. Presently, in LineWalk a Guide is selected, this person is allowed to draw paths and their goal is to get the players to the exit. Points are awarded to players who complete the map while the Guide gets one point per escapee. Once every player is either dead or finished, a new round commences in which the player with the most points is designated as the Guide. The game is a very amusing as you watch numerous players fall to their death as they are trying to escape in the time allotted.

In the upcoming weeks I will do an overhaul on the graphics and interface. I may also scrap the 'work in progress' name: LineWalk. Before the release, I plan on creating a series of posts that slowly introduces the community to the features of the game. Along with that, I would also like to get some online testing done, just to ensure the game is bug-free.

I would also like to thank Lawlergasm and Abysion for taking the time out to help me test LineWalk online. In addition, thanks go towards Forum_account and SuperAntx, your recommendation of a line tool, which automatically fills in gaps between lines, drastically improved the game.

LineWalk: The Pixel Moving God (part 2)

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:02:05 +0000

This will almost certainly be the last demonstration released. I want to focus on creating a polished LineWalk game.

For the past few days I have been focusing on fixing the collision that was severely broken. To my knowledge, all runtimes and bugs have been removed. Fugsnarf suggested that I increase the tick_lag from zero to a half. The performance noticeably changed for the better.

I also worked on the game play for LineWalk, which is playable in this demonstration. Essentially, the player with the most points will be designated as the guide. The Guide's goal is to get as many Walkies, the other players, to the exit by drawing paths. I created 9 maps and tested each one with my brother, Lawlergasm, several times.

I am fairly happy with the current direction of LineWalk. But I am disappointed with the sluggishness of the mouse procedures in BYOND. Due to this, you are forced to slowly draw lines. I believe this issue would turnoff those who are not accustomed with BYOND, and perhaps those who are.

Now, if no bugs arise, I will polish the game, implement small features around the basic game play, and release a map editor.

These are the main developments in LineWalk since the last release:
- Corrected severe collision issues
- Adjusted the tick_lag
- 9 new maps
- The basic game play has been implemented
- The game can now be played alone or online

http://www.byond.com/games/CalusCoRPS/LineWalk

The Return of LineWalk: The Pixel Moving God

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:20:15 +0000

I got that itch. The itch propelled me into working on what was my single player platformer, LineWalk. With the recent changes to BYOND, I can actually make this demonstration into a fun online game. My previous release from 2008 was full of bugs, so over the past two years I have been working on my pixel movement engine, and what better way to show it off than to recreate the demonstration that amazed so many.

As stated, this is just a demonstration of pixel movement, there is no set time in which one could expect a release of the official LineWalk game. I am currently making sure the pixel movement along with collision is perfect. So, please report any bugs!

Controls:
W Jump
A & S Move
Left Click Draw Line
Right Click Erase Line

http://www.byond.com/games/CalusCoRPS/LineWalkDemo