蝴蝶 / Inner99

Post screenshots, binaries and projectfiles of the projects you have made with ZGE that you want to share!

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rrTea
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Caterpillar

Post by rrTea »

A new enemy has just been implemented! It can be seen in action here:
https://share.weiyun.com/6ea0f38f88b3ed ... 2c24e805a0
(click on the video icon to download it, expires automatically if inactive for 7 days)

The body can be split if it hits the player or the wall (I managed to split it in half at 00:20), at which point part of the Caterpillar chases the player independently. I just put it in an empty level so it can be clearly seen what's happening. I hope I made it obvious enough what is its weak point... (It's the tail!)
Last edited by rrTea on Mon Jan 02, 2017 2:23 am, edited 4 times in total.
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rrTea
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(merged with the next post)

Post by rrTea »

(the Followers are now fixed, see last point in the next post)
Last edited by rrTea on Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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rrTea
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New build video

Post by rrTea »

Here is a new build!

Goals for this build:
Articulation 1 (improve readability): I finally went through all the Models and made sure they render in the right order. In the old builds Player model was often rendered on top of enemies etc, this made it practically impossible to pull off any "grazing" type of movement (in this game there isn't any grazing like in Shikigami no Shiro 2 for example, I'm just referring to a type of movement where the player flies along with the bullet) because it was impossible to tell where the bullet is once it got under the Player sprite. There were other problems too, for example explosions would sometimes obscure the bullets etc. So now everything renders in the correct order! Which is:
Background wallpaper
Background "scenery"
Explosions etc
Player bullets and followers
Player
Enemies
Static objects (walls)

Articulation 2 (fix color coding): Now everything adhers to this color division:
Left = harmful, right = beneficial
Left = harmful, right = beneficial
颜色.jpg (22.61 KiB) Viewed 18624 times
Yellow is basically a given, because this is the default color of folders in Windows. From that follows...
Yellow and purple are neutral, blues and greens (and cyan, teal etc) are enemy and reds and oranges (and fuchsia, pink etc) are player. It also fits with the game philosophically too!

Articulation 3 (mesh tweaking): Some of the meshes had some weird offsets, others had some parts badly defined, spmetimes the colors were wrong... So I went through all of them and fixed it.

Set up handling of music: this meant implementing the SunVOX library (including testing it, because it starts behaving weirdly with embedded files) and putting in some basic music. Well that now works!

Improving some enemies: Some enemies were a bit problematic or would behave weirdly under certain circumstances, others have duplicated code,... and some would just crash! Obviously that needed fixing too! After going through this I can't make it crash no matter what so I guess the biggest problems are sorted out for now.

New "Follower upgrade" mechanic: In this project the player's bullets get a power upgrade when the combo counter goes over 40. But in the old build the followers would just skip the "normal/powered up" phase and jump directly into the power up level the moment they were collected... This was inconsistent. Now they react properly to the combo counter (behave the same as other bullets in other words). While I was at it, I also fixed the followers color coding so hopefully they don't look like enemy bullets anymore.

So on to the next build! Meanwhile here is a video showing off some parts of the project at its current stage:
https://share.weiyun.com/db3b1d8f4ed30d ... 1cd41e4561
(click on the video icon to download it, expires automatically if inactive for 7 days)

I'll add some comments to the video later - it's so chaotic that I'm wondering whether anybody can make sense what is going on without any explanations :D
Last edited by rrTea on Mon Jan 02, 2017 2:25 am, edited 3 times in total.
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

I'm very impressed with the attention to detail you give this project and I really hope the game finds the audience it deserves so you feel the work was worth the effort.
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rrTea
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New build: boss sketch + collecting

Post by rrTea »

I already feel the work was worth it even if it's for abstract personal reasons - and I enjoy working with ZGE so much, it's really great! Anyway, I managed to implement some new features for this build!

1. Pellet collecting. This is somewhat vaguely reminescent of how it's set up in the DS version of Bangai-O, meaning deleted enemies leave behind fruit pieces that the player can collect. Collect enough fruit pieces and you get a power upgrade! Here is what it looks like in the lab:
https://share.weiyun.com/a38e9b13ebca20 ... 5a5c7912b1
(click on the video icon to download it, expires automatically if inactive for 7 days)
I hope you noticed that if the player stops shooting, the "attraction" expands (shooting "souls" doesn't affect it though). In the old builds just killing an enemy would bump the powerup counter but that was very confusing because it was easy to mistake it with a combo-deletion. The power upgrade affects player bullets and "souls", whose attack increases a few times and makes a big difference.

...and here is what it looks like in real action! I went for the two most chaotic levels in the game just to see whether it makes any sense once the whole arena gets covered up in stuff. This really needs some proper testing! To me it feels very right while testing it but maybe it's too much. See for yourself how chaotic it can get:

https://share.weiyun.com/16908a0c0ccdd1 ... 3382a3ebee
(click on the video icon to download it, expires automatically if inactive for 7 days)
My poor laptop really struggles to support these levels (not strange considering there are a few hundred models around) but not that much: the framerate drops to maybe 30 but it's still playable. I also implemented cutting out some particles etc effects once the framerate falls below 50 so this should help too.

2. Boss sketch! Yes it works! Here it is... the "triangle" boss (it's literally a bunch of triangles for now, no graphics yet!) Right now each turret only has 1 hp but of course that's just for demonstration purposes :) It might not look like much but it functions: it spawns a few turrets, moves around a bit and when all the turrets are deleted it explodes.

https://share.weiyun.com/b92e9b81d0675b ... d0531715b4
(click on the video icon to download it, expires automatically if inactive for 7 days)

3. Other tweakings. Fixing the colors of the player etc.
Last edited by rrTea on Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:40 am, edited 3 times in total.
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

Wow, those notebook pages, that's obsession... in a good way :D

People often underestimate how much hard work it is to actually finish a game but you definitely have the amount of dedication needed.

New videos look cool!
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rrTea
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Re: Butterfly

Post by rrTea »

In real life it doesn't look that crazy, it's just that I draw every day so it accumulates over time. But yes it does look a bit distracting (edit: disturbing...) once seen on a pile like that, I removed it.
Last edited by rrTea on Mon Mar 13, 2017 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

It just shows that you really plan your game well. You could scan those notes and display as a slideshow in the game as end credits.
Imerion
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Re: Butterfly

Post by Imerion »

Couldn't see the videos for some reason. But it sounds cool!
You could scan those notes and display as a slideshow in the game as end credits.
Agreed! I always find it fun when such things are included as unlockables or such in games. It's fun to see how others creative processes work and what goes into the making of games you like. :)
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rrTea
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Year one!

Post by rrTea »

So I've been working on this for a year, more or less (not full time obviously, and not counting the first "sketch" version)... here is what it looks like right now: (link)

This being a developer build, all the overworld elements are turned off (to compensate I'm attaching a WiP preview of what some parts currently look like) and as soon as the project is launched it throws you into the "post-game" where all the levels are unlocked. The first two are fully playable so please try them out and see what you think! The later levels are playable too but some are just thrown together etc (just so I can test particular enemies etc). After level 5 / room 5 it's just empty rooms with one placeholder enemy (all the rooms have the same music for now). Some levels have an "optimal" solution paths, others are more freeform, while others have a certain "best strategy" to beat (for example in Level 3 Room 4 it's a good idea to trigger a defenser link). The master battles (boss) are not properly integrated in this build.

Commands:
Joypad and keyboard are supported. Keys:
Cursor keys: move
A,S - action buttons
Space - menu (used only for restarting the stage for now)
Esc - exit game

If the FPS gets critical, the background graphics will be turned off and the explosions will be switched to simple circles. I guess the low resolution might be off putting but in order to atone for that I'll make a high resolution project sometimes in the future. As for the rest I'm curious to hear if there's anything wrong or weird with the project as is, before I start making simple explanatory videos (I already started making them: example, note the button in the bottom right).
Attachments
Including wildly experimental parts...
Including wildly experimental parts...
剪贴板图片 (10).png (243.88 KiB) Viewed 18383 times
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

This game is beautiful and mysterious :). I played through 6 levels in this build and found no issues at all. Nice video about the Radius effect, it makes it clear how it works (very nice gameplay idea).
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rrTea
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Re: Butterfly

Post by rrTea »

Thanks for the nice words :D ...Do you mean you played through 6 rooms (single screens) or 6 levels (a set of ten rooms / single screens)? (In the selection screen, the level is the vertical number and the room is the horizontal number.)

The radius idea might have been used elsewhere (although right now I can't remember any titles where it's used in the exact same way like here) but I hope it's well integrated with other elements like powering up etc, in a "classic ingredients, new recipe" kind of way. Other game ingredients are from completely unrelated games (Super Smash, Resident Evil), hopefully it'll all go well together in the end. We'll see :D
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

I played 6 rooms, today I played some more rooms from various levels. I fought those mushroom enemies that spawns mines (?).

I like the fact that the first seconds when arriving in a room there is no enemy fire so that gives to time to plan a strategy.

It is a real cool game and I like it a lot :)
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rrTea
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New build (select screen)

Post by rrTea »

That's nice to hear, thank you very much :D Here's a part of what I managed to prepare for this build, it's mostly mode selection and some other stuff. The majority of new things is not visible in this video, should hopefully be accessible in the next build (I actually already put it in game but it's not connected to the main part).

https://share.weiyun.com/f35fe695483d5d ... 1f273a7972
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VilleK
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Re: Butterfly

Post by VilleK »

Nice update rrtea! The presentation now looks quite professional.
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