蝴蝶 / Inner99

[VilleK]

Very nice sketches! So you draw on paper then scan and color them on the computer? If you plan to sell your game on a pay-what-you-want basis then you could offer the scanned sketches as an extra to those who pay over a certain amount

[rrTea]

Hey Ville! Thanks Yes, it's as you say (draw on paper + computer coloring). Maybe I could include some of it with the build... but then I'd have to scan and prepare it differently etc (which'd take much more time).

[rrTea]

New update! Here is a quick video showing some of it:
https://streamable.com/1ovzs

First working version of a Guardian!

2018_07_08.avi_snapshot_04.21_[2018.07.08_16.06.41].png (74 KiB) Viewed 27065 times

• The tutorial now has nice arrows and stuff pointing to what is what. Skip to 6:15 to see it in action.
• First real Guardian fight! Guardian is a bit different than the rest of the game - in the video I turned off his 3rd an 4th attack to show off the main mechanic (watch what happens with the background - same thing happens with Guardian's movement and bullets, player's bullets etc). I'm not sure the video conveys it properly but basically it changes dynamically as you play - try it for yourself! I'm planning to implement one more feature but I think it's on the level where it's indicative of what it should be. Skip to the 4:15 to see it.
• Some new graphics and characters + music are implemented.
• All the cutscenes and similar scenes are fully skippable (except the one that plays after selecting "NEW" game). Actually everything was skippable even before but it was not really well implemented. The major addition is to scenes with text on the screen, the fastest way to skip those is to keep Fire 1 and then press Fire2 (or open the menu by pressing Start). The old way of skipping it is still there too.

...still lots of placeholders.

Anyway the new build is here with first five levels (three of which are tutorials, old build started at level 4 or so):
https://nekomuragames.itch.io/inner99
Should be almost completely playable: the Guardian is not fully integrated yet but it'll just roll through - you can still access it (please do ) using this method:
https://nekomuragames.itch.io/inner99/d ... 2018-07-09

Edit: Just to clarify - no itchio account (or anything else) is needed for downloading the build, just click on the file name from the main page (for some reason it doesn't work if clicked from the news) and it'll download.

[Ats]

I really like all those little details you add to your user interface. Well done !
Your ZGE project don't get too messy by adding so much stuff?

Is it normal that the game don't exit when you press "d" at the title screen?

[rrTea]

I'd say it's not messy... it could be perceived as such I guess. While setting it up, I made a few disputable choices that made it much easier for me to manage but probably look rather eccentric. Here's what the Project Tree looks like on the first level https://i.imgur.com/Y84fG5X.png .

Actually pressing "d" on the title screen is meant to throw the project into sleep, this is used for recording videos etc. It goes back to title screen if you press Fire 1 / "S". Forgot to disable it, sorry for the confusion.

[VilleK]

At the risk of repeating myself: It all looks great . The Guardian background, the tutorials, the cutscenes. Very impressive. And I agree with Ats that it is also very impressive that you manage to not get lost in the project of this size in ZGE. It is most likely the most complex ZGE project so far.

[rrTea]

Thanks Ville

Hmm well it is somewhat big but as long as ZGE handles it fine I guess everything's good!

The only problem that comes from size is when xml viewer gets to the point with some imported assets (a bitmap or music for example, even if it's a small file) it chokes a bit if a few of them are together in the Project Tree - but then again I'm not using it that often, so personally I'm not bothered by that (I never understood why is such data even included in the listing but maybe it can be useful for something?).

[Kjell]

Hi rrTea,

I never understood why is such data even included in the listing but maybe it can be useful for something?

Well .. for one, you can easily paste a project or snippet that uses embedded data on a forum But i agree, would be nice if you could choose between embedding the data in the .zgeproj or keeping it external.

K

[rrTea]

Hi Kjell,

Well .. for one, you can easily paste a project or snippet that uses embedded data on a forum

Right, the way I wrote it, it makes it sound like I never copy / pasted anything from the forum. Reading it back it sounds somehow pesky the way I put it... blah...

Anyway I just thought maybe list-unfriendly data like bitmaps would be easier to handle during reading if folded by default? (But then there should also be an option to unfold it etc...)

Update 1:
...and the Guardian is finally integrated with the game for real! The build can be grabbed from the usual place:
https://nekomuragames.itch.io/inner99
(no account or anything else is required, just find the download link towards the bottom of the page)

Laser cancels bullets!

2018_07_28_1.gif (2.83 MiB) Viewed 26925 times

There's also a super blurry YouTube video
https://youtu.be/CRceOCdy6Jo?t=2m5s (the first part is just a completely unedited explanation of the mechanics).
Same video but less blurry version:
https://streamable.com/tai4i
or just get the uncompressed video:
https://archive.org/download/SnapshotUp ... ration.avi

Update 2:
I also added the project to GameJolt! https://gamejolt.com/games/inner99/356462 (not sure I'll be updating that page). One good thing about GameJolt is that it offers ZGE as one of the engines - so the game is now marked with "Engine/Language: ZGameEditor" (this can't be done on itchio)!

The game now also includes a short Readme with instructions and basics. Not much but it's a start

[VilleK]

I tried todays build and I played the guardian level. The guardian bullet patterns are just difficult enough but not impossible, so it has that "just another go" feel that makes you want to continue. I like that the music is calm and not the usual uptempo rock guitars that boss battles tend to have. It is also the first time I tried with joypad and it works really well. Very nice update.

I see in the video that you can fire laser at the guardian. I did not figure out how to do that . Does it require charging up for a long time?

[rrTea]

Thanks for trying it!!! That's good if you found the bullet patterns appropriate - I'd like to make all the other Guardians like this (with some reasonable variations of course), I don't want it to be pointlessly hard or something.

The laser recharges when you collect the bits that fly off the Guardian when you shoot him (white / red dots). As soon as you let go off of Fire button, they will immediately start gravitating towards you. The same button is used for laser as for launching those "followers" during the arena-type rooms (on joypad that should be the secondary button - on keyboard it's "D"). The Laser charge counter printout (bottom right) is buggy, it renders characters from right to left (I wanted to make it right-aligned but mixed it up), sorry

btw did you have any framerate drops? ...and did you notice that the Guardian bullet patterns intensity adapts to your attack style?

[VilleK]

Aha, I wasn't sure if the laser was fired using secondary button or special technique with first button. I'm sure your tutorials mention this but I forgot. Perhaps make a note of it in the readme file?

I didn't notice the guardian patterns adapt to my playing style but that is probably because I used the same attack style constantly . I did notice the circle radius closing in when not firing which I think was a nice touch. I probably misunderstood quite a few things but I don't mind that games like this require some figuring out while playing.

[rrTea]

I'll have to make sure the basic concepts of the design are well conveyed. btw this is elaborated in great detail in tutorials but of course nobody reads that

News: finally managed to make the Guardian BaseModel! This was trickier than one might think because the basic behaviour is using a big "switch/case" ZExpression to determine what is the Guardian doing, so I had to disentangle some stuff in order to make it modular (both for how it looks and behaves). What else is new?… I also had to change how the music works, I had some issues with game stuttering on certain occasions (something to do with SunVOX). Gravitational force of the ship (during the Guardian stage) is higher, now the power pellets fly towards the ship much faster (I didn't want to make it as fast as in games like Kaikan etc because this game is not about speed... but on the other hand it should not be too slow and boring either ). …

There are other changes too but listing it all is boring (and reading too I guess) so here is what it looks now, note there are still a few glitches (for example the rendering order is a bit broken, the hitboxes are wrong etc) and I'm using some placeholder graphics just to give an idea.
https://streamable.com/5kh4o So… I'll post the new build as soon as it's ready.

[VilleK]

A disco ball with angel wings . It looks nice. Btw, I've not noticed any frame drops here while I was testing.

[rrTea]

Hi Ville, great to hear there were no framerate drops! I occasionally get them on my laptop when things get hectic – not that often but still enough to make me think it might be an issue. Anyway I'll set the next project up differently so hopefully it will be even smoother

In the new build there are so many new things that I'll just keep on listing them while the video is uploading:

• The health is now restored after KO. This has been a topic in #ZGE for years… Well now it's finally implemented!
• Numerous tweaks to various velocity, timer etc calculations…
• The enemies are not able to play tennis with the butterfly anymore (an enemy could throw the butterfly at another enemy, causing a few hits in a row that resulted in all sorts of situations – sometimes even benefiting the player!). The original idea was to evoke some of the chaotic feeling from Super Smash but this game is chaotic enough as is
• Skipping of cutscenes is now fully implemented. The only one that can't be skipped is the one that plays after the "NEW" game is selected from the main menu.
• Majority of the levels in the second part have been redesigned. Many old enemies have been deleted while some new ones have been added.
• …

Alright I see the progress bar of the video uploader is almost full, here is a recording of one of the missions played from start to finish:
https://streamable.com/gc5xg
There are 10 missions, fully playable but there are still quite a few WiP parts and placeholder graphics. Please try to imagine something else's there
And just to make the page a bit livelier here is a gif from the video!

Can anybody even see what is going on other than some stuff flashing :D

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Update: the old build is removed (too outdated), will try to upload a new one as soon as possible!