CP - Alien Breed Remake - 9
Community Forums/Showcase/CP - Alien Breed Remake - 9
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       Download site On-Line Todo list Previous Threads: Initial Idea thread: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=37615 Thread 1: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=37773 Thread 2: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=38098 Thread 3: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=38223 Thread 4: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=38400 Thread 5: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=38864 Thread 6: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=39203 Thread 7: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=39435 Thread 8: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=39934 |
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| TODO LIST (Updated 2nd December 2004) Items with a * against them have further details in the engine documentation *here*. ENGINE  Doors do not open if you move into them diagonally / ontouch() area needs extending to cover a wider rangeKilling an alien when up against them can be screwy?Grenade anim needs to drop to the ground quickly if it hits something Slowdown jitters & craziness Hitting escape from the mission select screen is screwyAnimated tilesSound emitting tiles*Improved Aiming*Improved Map layout using new objectives weapons with dual actionsSpawn animations*Tile graphics*Tile decals*Game progress save / load*Destructible / Fixed number respawn points*End Game tidy up*Level self-destruct (and sfx from Rob's gf) PocketPC* (in particular, to show objectives!)Spruce up the mission select screen & gfxconfigurable keys, etc (Space_guy offered some code in thread 1)Motion detector - maybe in intex? Only accessed with a key / security code for the level?Level Intro screens (text, graphic, music, movie?)More maps!Improved HUDLaser TripwireHealth packs as inventory items*Intex - turret override*Intex - cameras*Animated opening / closing of doors ElevatorsSet piece on game start for 1UP / 2UP*Gun recoilDiagonal corridorsMini-game(s) for Intex / PocketPCGun-specific graphic on playerOptional 360 degree rotational controlsOnline score board / level timings? Update notifications?Inventory - Drop*Intex - email system*Intex - adverts?Joystick controlDevice independent renderer (2D/3D)NPC alien types? Conversations?Moveable objects*slopes and sticky areas that player falls, gets stuck in etc. (no instant death though!)Alien acid blood*Antony's map code from threads 0 & 1 never went anywhere...player glow on intex mapEDITOR (& ENGINE) Level objectives / Game Structure EDITORConvert Rooms to Shapes* (see Rob's copy & Paste)Half-height Flag*SkinningLevel Compiler*Tile Editor*Mousewheel for changing tileGAME IDEAS Puzzles*Levels to fit Mark's(?) story (thread 4/5?)Faithful remake*SCRIPTING onplace() trigger*re-closing doors (using switches)createalien(-1,+1,hugger) - creates a hugger SW of the objectcreatealien(123,456,hugger) - creates a hugger at a specific locationsetvar(varname,value)checkvar(varname,value)How to complete an objective on killing an / all aliens?loadmap(map,x,y) - go to another map within a levelif(varname,value,truescript,falsescript)showdocument(text)showconv(text)OTHER Screenies in galleryLicense statement (GNU GPL?)ALREADY DONE? (haven't double checked!) respawners to be count limited (total and on-screen) Push scroll... Instead of the player being fixed in the middle of the screen the player walks around in the centre section of the screen and when he reaches a boundry will push the scrolling. |
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| Just so everyone knows what I'm on at the moment: I'm updating particles.bb, players.bb, initialise.bb, aliens.bb and probably a bunch of other bits... not touching the editor though... I've done animations for bunker and binky deaths and got another main player in the pipeline too. I've got 2 new alien types that I'm going to be adding too. Fixed a couple of buggettes that no-ones noticed about sound! Extended the tile sets and test map. I'm going to be away this weekend so I'll get this lot uploaded before I go away for the weekend! Mark, on the todo list there needs to be a NOW on the Editor about being able to create spawn points for aliens. What's everyone else up to? |
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| Thought Mark is working on the editor atm. I'm not touching that for a while, just testing some ideas here and there (easy to include when ready). Plus i'm busy at real life and playing WOW open beta... But I'll check here as often as I can. |
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| Yup, knee deep in editor muck. Should have some quality time tonight. And the in-laws are visiting Thurs-Sat, so I'll be hiding out in my cupboard then... |
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| I've been dealing with the death stuff and looks like there's going to have to be a whole bunch of changes... loads of stuff is based around 'first' player (as in type) this is not good as when someone dies and that player is deleted it could cause all kinds of problems... also if we do end up networking all the network games will have to share the created players type, again, first and last isn't going to work which is why I included the player ID from the start... Hmmm... I've added the new player Vex, she's complete except for the death animation. Binky has got half of her death animation now, still a lot of work to do on it all. Hopefully I'll get all this sorted by tomorrow evening and I'll do an upload as I'll be away for the weekend from Friday afternoon. Even if I don't get it all finished I'll upload on Thursday night anyway incase anyone wants to pick up anything I've missed. |
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| Level specific object placement is just about in the editor now, the UI is a little quirky, but does the job. I now need to make the default objects use it too and I think that'll be done. There's a few improvements that I could make to it, but I'd rather stick them as TODO's and get on either the animated / sound emitting stuff or level objectives. I quite fancy the former, and don't think it'll be that nasty. It'll also be my first real contribution to the game engine, rather than just editor stuff and moving existing stuff into scripts! I'll probably wait until Rob's post and add my bits in over the weekend, rather than try to squeeze them in before. Regarding level objectives, I'm wondering if this is another script, albeit defined for the level, not an object. What I'm thinking is back to the idea of having if and setvar constructs in the scripting. This could provide a powerful means of defining level completion criteria, without reinventing the wheel. It might look a bit messy, but if we need to define through files what the completion criteria are, we need some kind of 'script' anyway...just a thought...and another reason for holding off on that to think a bit more! |
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| The level objectives definately need to be a script of sorts as I was saying before. gotolocation x,y (primary) activateitem z (secondary) or indeed we could have the objective as variable T = 5 and each time you do something like activate a specific switch or destroy an object it increments T until you've done all 5? Just thinking out loud here. |
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| I'm pretty much convinced that the right way to go is to reuse the existing scripting stuff, but add if() and simple variables to it. This of course gives us the added bonus of complex puzzles in one fell swoop! ;-) Please keep thinking aloud - I'm trying to do so too, and things aren't quite slotting into place yet... |
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| This does mean that we need a general game running script(s) as opposed to ontouch ondestory. These scripts would just run within the main loop. These scripts would check for variables, player locations or whatever regardless of any other stuff going on. We could have several scripts that run at different intervals so we could have an unimportant game script that only runs every 5 seconds say, then the more important ones run every .5 second. Again, thinking out loud. |
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| Actually, I almost posted a whole bunch of stuff with the above, but decided it wasn't quite right. If you think about objectives, the vast majority will be met by picking up / activating / running over an object. Get to location A, get device, destroy power unit. Here's my current thinking: For each level, a certain number of objectives (with ids) will be defined against the level. These will be primary or secondary. Some will be automatically assigned on starting the level (but not all). Various objects around the map will then include a command along the lines of "completeobjective(id)" in their scripts. You'll also have access to a "addobjective(id)" and "deleteobjective(id)" to do funky stuff like re-assigning objectives mid-level. The game engine only needs to monitor the objectives that are assigned and see if they're all complete each game loop. The idea being that the game ends when there are no primary objectives left. I think that works for most things, apart from a primary objective of "blow up power unit and get to exit", as the above would allow you to get to the exit, THEN blow up the power unit. So we need an equivalent to onover() of onoff() that allows us to reset stuff when you move off an object. This will also be useful for pressure pads. An alternative is to put the level completion criteria in the objects themselves. For example, in the example above, the ondestroy() script for the power unit would include "setvar(powerdown,true)" and the object at the exit wold have an onover() trigger of "if(powerdown,true,exitlevel())". I'm not keen on this as it makes objectives harder to understand when editing and playing a level - it would be very difficult to list current objectives. Not entirely convinced yet, but something along those lines... |
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| The primary objective as destory core and go to exit is fine as you just have a primary as destory core then as you said, on destorying the core it creates a new primary objective to get to the exit. That works fine for me! Then we just have level text that spells it all out to you. I think we need a new script of message([message$],1970) and it just triggers a message. This will work straight off as the message library I added works in this way. Maybe add a colour too as we've got 3 colours of text now. I think this will be handy for objectives etc. |
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| Yes, that works... As for messaging, I think I prefer a generic message of "New Primary Objective Received" and then the user goes to their PocketPC to see what it is. This allows the objective definition to be more than a little bit of text. For example, it could include a hazy overview of the level map and indicate where you need to go. Or show an object that you need to find. But feel free to add a script command along those lines - I can certainly see it coming in useful! |
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| Code and GFX zips updated... Loads of changes to loads of the includes! Didn't touch the editor though, added a new character, although the only way to access it is to change one of the create players to 'vex'. Vex hasn't got a death sequence yet so I've used binky's. Which reminds me, we need a todo for the character selection when you start a game. This is probably best done as a dynamic thingy that reads the folders in the gfx\players directory. There WILL be a porfolio graphic for each of the players, again, Vex hasn't got one yet, Bunker and Binky do though. I'm also uploading a full exe version that I'll splatter across a couple of forums to get some beta feedback, I think we need some external input, obviously I'll point out the known bugs and the fact that there's not even one proper level yet! I think it'll be interesting to see what we get back from that as we've been pretty insular so far. |
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| Right... I'm off for the weekend... See ya'll on Sunday! |
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| Updates *here*. I've only included those files that have changed. Changes are: - Fully introduced separation of default and level specific objects - Added object / script editor - Added ability to create objects within the editor - Added scriptref.txt, this is used by the editor so that it knows what triggers are possible. - Added opendoor(x,y) support to enable simple switches and traps - Added remove(nearby) to allow one off events that need to cover a wide area (to ensure the player activate them) get run just once - Updated map to include a switch to unlock door (second door) - Updated map to include a neat 'trap' event using the above scriptng. From the start, go out of the second door, up and left... ;-) A note on the objects in the editor. You'll see DEFAULT objects and LEVEL objects intermingled in the palette. They're separated by a NEW item. Click this and place it to create new objects. Or place existing ones (and remove them from the map) as per normal tile palettes. RMB to edit on the palette. Hope you like - now I can get into some neat gameplay stuff like the two examples in the new map. Hopefully they'll give you an idea of how to create more clever stuff! |
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| The death stuff isn't working for me at the moment. I just get everything lock up for a few seconds (sometimes forever), and then a balck screen. If I exit to the menu I can stil resume, should now only be able to do a new game. But if I do a new game, it doesn't work, I have to restart completely. It's probably worth sorting this lot out now before we get into objective / multi-level territory! Rob, looking back up at your comment about creating alien spawn points, I see this as being as follows: For each new map, you will have to create a level specific object for your spawn points that you need in that level. (Remember that you can edit files directly, so you can copy and paste if you want to reuse any), and then just splat them onto the map as required. Hope that works for you. |
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| Mark, Just tested it again... and... um... it's broken... No idea what's happened there... I did get it working honest! I'll look into it. Just downloading your changes now and taking a look. |
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| In theory it should just be a case of taking the most recent code, extract mine over the top, and it should run. I must admit to not having checked that, will do now. By the way, I've spotted the "2 keys for the price of 1 bug". On all functions that take x,y as parameters, they need to be x#,y#. Otherwise the float calcs screw up, and you get the wrong location when approaching from the bottom & right - hence two keys (or many many more if you stop in the right place!). In particular, in script.bb RunScript and in map.bb puttile are the prime culprits, but this should apply to all instances where we're doing the Floor(x/32) thang. (That's not in my code archive, but if you could add it in your update that'd be handy!) |
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| Ah. Just realised that you were referring to your death stuff, not my changes. ;-) In any case, I've just proven on my PC that taking the most recently uploaded code and overlaying my changes does work. But death is broken :-( |
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| I've just extracted your stuff over the top and it seems to be working fine... I know what the problem with the death thing is... well... sort of... I'd been testing it in 2 player mode... When only one player dies it works fine... The reason why the it messes up when both players have died is the average position get set to 0,0 as neither player are being updated now, hence the screen goes black... I'll get it fixed... Stick the game in 2 player mode and watch one of them die! This was also the reason for the screen smoothing too so you don't get a jerk when one player dies and the screen centres on the remaining player. I like the new puzzles you've introduced, I'll have to look into how you've done them, or if you fancy writing a tutorialette to help us get up to speed with your editor updates it'll be gladly received. |
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| It's not too hard to create the switched door. Simply create a new object in the editor where you want the switch. Set the image to be the 'off' switch, and make sure it is marked as 'visible'. Determine the x,y location of the door, and in the onaction script for the switch, just call opendoor(x,y). You'll also want to set the switch to the 'on' image as before. The 'scripted event' in the cells is neat because it's exactly the same idea, apart from the trigger is onover, and it opens 6 doors. The other part of the trick here is that once an object is created, you can place it again and again, hence you'll find that object exists on four tiles in a row (to ensure you can't sneak past it). The only extra bit needed then is to add remove(nearby) to the onover script which ensures it only gets fired the once. (nearby means remove all adjacent objects of the same id). Hope that helps, it's really not that hard, and now they're in I can start working on more script commands / triggers to really liven things up! ;-))) |
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| When fixing x,y to x#,y# make sure you get DamageTile in players.bb. This was causing some objects to not (or incorrectly) destruct on destruction. New scripting commands for today: +message(message) - shows message using robs messenger +setobject(id) - sets the current tile's object to id +setobject(x,y,id) - sets the tile object at x,y to id +givefullmap() - 'vis-es' the entire map. Handy for a pick up to show the whole level! I haven't uploaded a new test.map with these examples yet, I'm sure you can add them in though Rob (if you understood my explanation of objects!). For example a switch with an onaction trigger of setobject(44,44,1) creates ammo at tile 44,44. Handy! All you need is...this in the RunScript select statement. Case "message" messenger(si\param,3000) Case "setobject" pos=Instr(si\param,",") If pos=0 Then id=si\param xx#=x#:yy#=y# Else xx#=Int(Left(si\param,pos-1))*32 pos2=Instr(si\param,",",pos+1) yy#=Int(Mid(si\param,pos+1,pos2-pos))*32 id=Mid(si\param,pos2+1) End If DebugLog xx#+","+yy#+","+id puttile(xx#,yy#,LayerObject,id) Case "givefullmap" ClearVis(1)and in map.bb update ClearVis Function ClearVis(value=0) ;set initial visibility for all tiles to none at all ;we'll set initial player vis when we create the player For x=0 To 255 For y=0 To 255 map(x,y,LAYER_VISIBLE)=value Next Next End Function |
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| By the way, creating an object that gives you the full map near the map *really* slows things up (for me, in debug at least). Those aliens only need updating if they're nearby *or* actively chasing you. |
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| Mark, Made the updates above and fixed the 2 keys for 1 bug. Also changed the way alienhurt works so you pass the bullet type to it, this now means you can affect how the alien reacts when it gets shot. Working on it now... So far got the particles moving in the same direction as the bullet so it really looks like you've shot it... looks cool... more to come! :) |
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| Code and GFX zips updated (both need to be downloaded). * Updated the messenger so you have have sticky messages also added a ReleaseAllMessages function to unstick them. * As I mentioned above, the aliens get shot around a bit and their blood shoots out in the direction of the bullet by passing the bullet type directly into the AlienHit function. * The 2 keys for 1 bug is fixed, however, it's introduced a new bug! Whoohoo... It means it's difficult to open some doors now, I think this is because the doors are on-touch triggers and because you need to get on the door tile to touch it, and the on-touch is more accurate now, it proves to be a touch tricky sometimes... I think the solution is to put pressure plates either side of the doors rather than some special door kludge... discuss. * Added a character chooser, needs to be jazzed up a bit but it does the job, all dynamic based on the folders in the players directory and stuff. * Fixed the screen flash bug on music changing. * Updated the download site as it was getting a bit cluttered. Everyone involved: If you want to submit some news to the site send me an email with what you want to say and I'll put it up on there, it would be nice to get some thoughts and news up there. |
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| Re: the doors and ontouch(), I suspect we need to extend the area checked. i.e. use the collision area to determine if you are touching a tile. onover() should be used for you being stood ON a tile, ontouch() should include you being within half a square of it (or thereabouts). I guess this is also the reason for the doors sometimes being a bit dodgy bug... |
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| Mark, have updated the editor.bb yet? There's still the "old" editor4.bb in the zip?!? Rob, could u rename it and delete the original one... |
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| Grisu, I think you're wrong! :) There's no editor4.bb in the zip and the editor.bb is Marks updated one. I think you've just not cleared your directories before unzipping. Mark/Grisu/Rims (if you're out there), if you guys want to submit something to the news section of the AB site please send me an email and I'll put it up there. |
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| I'll have a stab at level objectives over the next couple of evenings. As for news, I'll try to knock up some commentary tonight. Talk about the new object stuff and scripting, highlighting the new trap in the map as an example of where this can go. Also a brief word on objectives summarising some of what we've got up there. As for the todo-list, feel free to rip the one from the second post in this thread, I updated it on Monday. Also you might want to grab the docs.html page from me and put it on your site too. Feel free to add some of your own words - I hardly documented anything and it's already pretty big! Grisu, as Rob says, all new editor stuff is in editor.bb. I always unpack into a new directory when I download an update - it's safest! |
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| Yeah, I'll do that this evening Mark, I thought the site was getting a bit cluttered on a single page. It'll be great to get the objectives in this week as I'll be showing this at the Coders Workshop at the weekend. If not, it's no biggy. |
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| Yeah, I read that and thought it'd be cool. I may have another neat trick for you to show off too... ;-) |
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| The neat trick wasn't so easy to pull off as I hoped. Back to objectives then. (And no, I'm not telling). |
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| I won't pry then! I've just improved the look of the character selection bit, looks much prettier! Redone the animation for Vex and added a death animation for her too.  |
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| What's Alien Breed? Please don't kill me for not knowing. |
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| From Rob's Website: "Alien Breed Original Alien Breed Game by Team 17. This is a Blitz Community Project Who didn't love Alien Breed on the Amiga? Well I was thinking about these the other day and thought wouldn't it be fun to get something like this started. Blitz has seen a couple of attempts but none appear to have moved in any direction. So, after the success of Jump Around I thought I'd fire another start of a project into the arena of blitz." More Info here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rob.farley/ P.S.: Great job on the Screen Rob! |
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| Coding rush is off... real life has got in the way of fun and I can't afford the Doncaster trip... Bums... |
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| Just been doing a bit more playing... Added a new alien, added alien attack power to the alien class, and added player attack and defence to the player class. This now means that you can kill aliens by running into them and they hurt you more or less dependant on how much defence the player has. Also moved the death stuff so it's less glitchy. Added an alienhurt function for the above stuff to work. This all seems to work although got to do a lot of playing with numbers to get it looking right. This also gave me an idea for difficulty levels as we could easily ramp up the defence of the players to make them harder thus making it harder to die. Anyway... I've still got a lot of tweaking to do so I'll probably have an upload tomorrow night. |
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| Not checked into this for a while.. its realy come along. 1 thing how to i change weapons? =) |
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| PL1 = Ins, Home, PgUp, Delete, End, PGDown PL2 = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 I'm going to be changing this so each player just has weapon up and down. Maybe even just a next weapon button. Any thoughts? |
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| The game looks extreamly cool, but it's 10 megs! On my connection it would take a year to download! |
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| You only need the code and gfx zips (possibly sfx too?). The other media, while used, if it's not present doesn't cause a problem. |
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| It should run without the SFX due to my funky soundcontrol function :) That said the upload this evening be the SFX.zip, Code.zip and GFX.zip... Did quite a bit of stuff last night and should have a few other bits for this evening. |
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| Just received an email, I've removed the names however, I hope you all agree with my answer (my answer is first so read the original email first): To answer your question directly I would say no. Moleboxing Alien Breed to totally against the principle of the game being open source and open media. The various elements of the game are all copyright to the programmers and artists who created them so none of the media is freeware. The code itself is based around an open source licence where you can add to it as long as anything you release from it is also open source. I hope that clears everything up. Cheers, Rob. http://www.mentalillusion.co.uk > Hello > > I tried to compile alien breed with blitzbasic which worked fine. However > i have a tool called Molebox which compiles recource files(jpeg,bmp,media > files and such) into the execute so the .exe fiile can run independently > from these files . When tested your files with molebox i was unable to run > the molebox compiled .exe file outside the file directory(alien breed) as a > test . > > In order to find out where the problem lies i must send your files to > Moleboxz. is that ok? > > Best regards |
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| Fair reply. I think we need to sort a license text out. |
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| Code, SFX and GFX zips updated. |
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| The game looks awsome. I've never played Alien Breed, but I'd like to help you out in any way I can. What should I do? |
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| 1) Get your head around the code as much as you can. 2) Look up at the second post in this thread and you'll see the current todo list. If anything there takes yer fancy, shout up, and if you haven't achieved point 1, we'll point you in the right direction. There are a couple of simpler changes still in that list. Adding player location glow to the map in the intex system for one. Or just graphics would be useful - I'm certainly no artist! |
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| Well I suck as a programmer so you probobly won't get that much help from me. I may be able to make an intro, but I suck at modeling too. I pretty much all around suck! Oh yeah, I suck at drawing too! |
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| Test, test and test then. ;-) I think we're probably pretty stable on the mapping front and level file formats (I still need to finish coding objectives, but that should slot in easily enough), so you could start making a map of your own using the editor. And whilst doing that, if you've got any suggestions, speak up! |
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| Oh forgot to mention, added only updating aliens in a certain radius too so you don't get the slowdown when all the vis opens up. Note to self: Update the history |
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| Okay, I'll test the game. |
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| > Oh yeah, I suck at drawing too! When you eat sweets do you suck at sucking? |
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| No. I can eat candy all day long. |
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| Can we please try and keep this thread on topic... Thanks.. Time for a roll call I think... What's everyone working on at the moment? I'm currently working on re-vamping the weapons so we don't have 6 keys and all this soft/hard coded stuff... Looking at pretty much ripping them out and starting again more-or-less as they appear to be all over the place. Also, can't get the on-touch to work at a higher radius for some reason, can someone else take a look at this and see if they can sort it? |
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| game & level definitions + objectives. This will include a very basic level of skinning each game (i.e. which image to load for the title page) for now, someone can extend the idea later. I'll be including a very basic mission selector based on a map image (again, defined in the game file) and then each level available to you will be an x,y location on that map, with a name & image. Simple stuff, and with my basic gfx skills something that anyone else can (and will need to!) improve upon. |
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| Okay, a proper status update from me - no code, just info. Rob, please feel free to pop this on the web site. After much thinking about (and talking about!) game / level structure, and objectives, I have made a solid start on this aspect today. I'm building this with a view to ultimately being able to "skin" the engine and create completely new games using the engine without changing any code. Okay, so in reality you're likely to want to tweak some code, but you get the idea! The engine now looks at a "game" file, which defines basic stuff like the imagery for the main menu, the world map, and the first level. When you select "New Game", after selecting a character, you now select a level from the world map. I'm an appalling artist, so for now I'm just using a real world map, but this could be as zoomed in or out as you like. For example, a really complex base, a country, a world, a star map. Each "level" then has a file defining it, including the x,y on the map, a small image to display when selecting on the world map, and a descriptive text. On selecting the appropriate level, you start on a "map" file of the same name as the "level". This is where I've got to, the remainder is to be coded over the next coupld of days. From each map, you could move to other maps through a new script command, but you stay within the one "level". This allows complex levels with buildings to enter, stairs to climb, etc. Objectives apply to the level (not to an individual map!). Again this will allow for some neat level design, especially when you include plans to assign primary and secondary objectives at the start *and* partway through a level... All of this is currently just using handcrafted files, eventually it should move into the editor. But it's always so much easier to just get it working in the game engine, rather than ending up having to rewrite everything over an over! |
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| I was actually about to hardcode all the guns into the game as the softcoding route appears to be so damn tricky... should I embark on the tricky part of softcoding all the weapons then? As hardcoding them would be somewhat against what you're doing here. Or are you talking about skinning the game to make other Alien Breed style games? There's so much stuff hardcoded as sci-fi style that I can't really see the point of softcoding stuff like title screen art etc. After you change the art you'll be wanting to move where the menus are and stuff, do you not think this is taking it a step to far?! Anyway, don't get me wrong, I like the idea of it, I'm just not sure if it's worth the effort involved. The problem with the weapons is that some use particles others don't, they have different fire spray, etc etc. On top of this you have the alternate fire. There are very special weapons like bombs and grenades. Now, in theory we could work out all the possible variables for what each of these do and soft code it, however, is it worth the effort? Discuss. Oh and on another note we had a very positive review from one kindly fellow ;) The graphics are terrible, im sorry to say this but if you want this game to be good you really need to get a good graphics artist, these graphics does no good for the game your making. It's always nice to hear such things! :) About as constructive as mudflaps on a tortoise I think you'll agree. This is a key element to building the tension and mood that is Alien Breed, and your current graphics artist has failed in every way. The lighting is bad for one, there are edges that could be drawn alot better to make the graphics blend in, there are actually so many mistakes that I could write a whole page of them. Most importantly though is that there is no feeling what so ever in them, this just looks like a poorly made duplicate. Im not trying to be a b astard, but anyone with a small sence of how to use photoshop could have made that, and the graphics in the originals were just that, original. The graphics, screenshots, are what most people look at first when they decide if they want to play a game and if they think its good, and these reminds me mostly of some poorly made .gif popup commercial. Your graphics artist needs to be able to do ALOT better than that, and if he cant, it might be time to find another. Here are a few suggestions; work with light and shadow, contrasts in color. The original graphics managed to build a tense atmosphere with alot fewer colors. Right now there is no feeling at all in the settings. The explosion looks pretty good, but the edges ruins everything, those has to go. And theres plenty more that needs to be remade. One of the things that I saw first was that everything appears very flat and clean. And those barrels are in a color that doesnt fit in with anything else. And the HUD is bug ugly and confusing. These things are hard to teach, either you got a feel for it or you dont. Sorry i know this is a harsh first post, but i signed up just to see this, and i tried to give some help in my crits. |
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| I couldn't get the game to work, but the editor worked fine. It's really cool. I'm making a map now. |
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| On skinning, I'm not going overboard on this - just allowing customisation of the simple stuff. My thinking is that you should be able to have multiple games installed at the same time and use the same engine for all. To do this, you need a definition file that tells you which title image to use, rather than just over-writing the image file. But yes, they are all likely to be in a very similar sci-fi style (although I reckon you could make it gauntlet style fairly easily by having a hand-to-hand weapon type). I actually added the game definition file just to specify the worldmap and first level - I could have hardcoded these, but thought I may as well soft code them from the off. Whilst there, I added the title & choose player imagery to show how skinning might work, if we decide to go for it. I certainly don't plan on trying to hard on that front, but it's something self-contained that other coders could help out on. Maybe the best thing to do with weapons is to have them hardcoded in the engine, but allow the game / level / map /player definition to dictate which ones are available. The only thing you may want to be able to change are the weapon images and names. Their behaviour can be hard-coded. As for the comments - pfffft. If this person is such a great artist, why not help out? We know the HUD needs work. And other than that, his comments seem to focus on "lighting" and "edges", whatever that means. Useful! (And if anyone out there reading this agrees on the graphics, and reckons they can do better, give us a hand! I *really* cannot draw to save my life) |
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| I just got it to work. Played it with 8AD_A55 for about an hour. It is an awsome game! Killing aliens is such fun! |
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| I made some test level. How do you get it in the game? It just loads the test level. |
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| I just spent the whole of last night dismantling and putting the weapons back together, I'm like an assassin who can assemble a sniper rifle blindfolded now... I also tried soft coding the lot and that was about 3 hours wasted, I thought it'll be worth trying but there are just too many variations to make it work. I've updated the particle system so particles have the option not to be dampened. Updated Players.bb so instead of having 6 keys for weapons you now have one key that is 'next weapon'. Still a couple of tweaks to put in but should have an upload this evening. |
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| And Clown: Look at the Case MENU_START_1P: startGame("maps\test",1); one player game Case MENU_START_2P: startGame("maps\test",2); two player game In engine.bb |
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| Thanks. |
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| Objectives locked and loaded. Just need to add the code to complete them in scripts and to check for there being no primary objectives left, and it'll be done, bar tweaking. Hopefully will post this lot tomorrow night, will be busy tonight. Oh, and with the new "game" definition file, Clown's request above would become a case of changing the first level(s) available on starting a new game - no hacking code... ;-) |
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| Ok, I've got weapons working 100% again and now you only have one key... next weapon... which I think is better. Oh... and had a play with some special fx... Have I gone too far with  2D Add blend particles? It does get a bit slow if there's too much going on but for blood and flame thrower it looks the business... It makes me more tempted to think about using a 2d/3D sprite library for special fx like explosions... I'm sure we could add it in as a render layer like we do all the other layers? I know we've talked about keeping it 2D only for the minimum specs but the specs are far from low spec now with 1024x1024 bitmaps for the sprites etc. The reason why I say this is just doing blood splats, gore and the flame thrower with the add blend particles makes all the other particles look total pants. Let me know what you think. |
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| I reckon we should stick with pure 2d up to the point where we could build a full game. Then we separate out the rendering stuff to allow us to plug and play a pure 2d, 2d+3d or fully 3d FPS engine in. Looks like a very cool effect mind you! (although we could make a start on this separation now I guess) As for it being slow, just add it to the options to be able to turn it off. |
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| Code.zip updated |
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| The level I'm working on is almost done. I think I have too many big rooms. I'll divide them into many smaller rooms. |
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| Rob, I've been taking a hard look at AB. I love Top Down Shooters, with "Heavy Barrel" by Data East being my all time favorite. I'm overlooking resources, to see where I can contribute. I was curious if AB is using a 2D graphics engine or 3D Sprite based graphics engine. If you not using a 3D Sprite system, JimB has put together a awesome Free 3D Sprite Package called SpriteMaster containing a command set equivalent to Blitz. It could be integrated without much fuss, moving from a 2D Engine to 3D Engine. This is not a suggestion, just recommended reviewing. |
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| It's 100% 2D at the moment. I'd like to move a few bits over to 3D, I created a 2D add blend particle system that obviously would be much better using 3D accleration. On top of this it would be nice to use 3D models for the characters, and 3D sprites for the weapon blasts, blood gore etc as then you get the alpha/add/multiply blend stuff. Do all of this but keep the walls and floors 2D. Not sure how far we should go with this... I'm going to have a play this evening to see how easy we can just throw this stuff in. |
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| I'm going to have a play this evening to see how easy we can just throw this stuff in. Rob, Do not let this suggestion interupt you current work. I desire to contribute, so, allow me take a deeper look into it. I'm not certain that the entire 2D Sprite command set is totally supported in SpriteMaster. My goal will be to aquire or develop a 3D Sprite System that functions exactly like the 2D Sprite System, so, all you have to do Include "3DSprite.bb", Set Graphics3D, and toss in Update/Capture/RenderWorld into the update loop. Hopefully achieve integration with very little or no modification to current source. PS: Maintain 2D Style. Full 3D characters are cool, but, are not necessary. Keeping the vintage 2D style graphics will keep the current work flow. |
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| JFK has a 2d3d sprite positioning routine in the Code Archives that looks like the one I'll be using, because there won't be much 3D going on using standard sprites will be fine, no need for a single surface thing. I've already got my own particle routine that uses standard sprites so I'll be able to chop that down and use that with JFKs algo for positioning. I would be nice to use exactly the same particle routine and just have a different draw style but I think if you're using 3D sprites you're going to have many more and overlay more using different blend modes to create nice effects. I think it'll be more work to have one particle routine than 2 and probably won't look as good. I've already added a usealpha flag for using my alpha particles so to change this to a use3d flag and use a slightly different command set is fine as far as I'm concerned. |
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| 8AD_A55 kicked me off the computer and is making his own level. It's very nice at the moment. He wants to know how you get the turrets off the map. In the level, the first player has to kill a bunch of aliens, get a key, and then free the second player. I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a level. |
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| Something I've missed... In the class.txt files for the players with the lastest version of code you need to change the default weapon to a number from 1 to 3, personally I have binky has a 1 (machine gun), bunker a 2 (shot gun) and vex a 3 (flamethrower). |
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| Currently there are a whole host af randomly created aliens, including turrets, created on loading a map. The turret is probably as a result of that - if you can find the code that does it (at work at the mo, so can't point it out for you) you should be sorted. Speaking of which, can you remove that random aliens code for the next update Rob? I think the spawners we have (and can create) take care of aliens now without needing any random ones. |
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| I just thought i would try out the latest version and I get an object does not exist error in weapons.bb p\fireRate=p\weapon\fireRate in function giveWeaponToPlayer |
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| Enigma, read my previous post. |
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I have just implemented 3D sprites as a layer and it looks the business and is fast! I really think we should go down this route, the coding is the same, it's just another particle routine but it looks 100x better. |
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| Rob Your FAST! |
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| I've just finished the objectives / game structure stuff. Feels very, very cool now that you can see how a full game can grow from this - even if my gfx are, shall we say, crap? ;-) I reckon the easiest thing to do is for you to post up a new code.zip by tomorow about 7PM GMT, have a moratorium on change whilst I do my thing tomorrow night, and I'll post up an update file later that evening (say by 10PM GMT. I could just post my changes, but I think it's easiest for me to do it - there's just so many bits and pieces tweaked. And particularly in light of the new 3d stuff! I do have b3d, so it's not really a problem for me if we go down this route. And I guess come bmax, when even the 2d is really 3d, it'll make no difference (assuming we move over). |
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| Mark, I've been spending a bit of time stripping out the 2D particles and reducing the amount of graphics we need for the whole game now, I'll get the update uploaded tomorrow ASAP. Time for bed now! |
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| No problem Rob, I'm at work all day, so 7PM is probably the earliest I'll get a chance to start putting my stuff in. There are also a few bits of housekeeping that I intend to do to make something else as painless as possible... I should forewarn you that a lot of my new stuff really is "barebones". i.e. it works, but only in a minimalist way, to be expanded upon & spruced up. For example, viewing objectives assigned and their status is currently just a case of hitting "P" and getting a series of messenger messages letting you know what's going on. Handy for testing, but we need that PocketPC idea now (anyone care to take up that beauty?). Oh, and the world map / level images I've used aren't exactly appropriate - a real world map with levels in the UK, Alaska & Cairo! Purely 'cos I can't draw and just pulled out some stock photos for level summary images - they're easy enough to change if someone wants to have a go! |
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| I get home from work around 6ish so I'll by the time I've had some food and stuff it'll be the best part of 7 too. Just got a couple of tweaks so it should have stuff uploaded by 8ish. |
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| could everyone involved in this please check their computer for viruses, I've had several sent from Mark's address although it may not be coming from his mailbox (may be spoofed), it seems to be affecting some of us involved with this project. Rims got one sent from my email address, spoofed obviously, my system is a clean install and I have a virus scanner running constantly (and two firewalls between me and the outside). *EDIT* if you use outlook, it more than likely is you or will affect you. (I use thunderbird). |
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| GFX and Code zips updated. Sorry for all you blitz2d and blitz+ users out there, it's blitz3d only now. The 3D particles still need tweaking as they're not 100% yet, but as a starter for 10 they're look pretty damn good! (even though I say so myself!) Mark: Once you've made your changes if you want to write a little news piece about what you've done that would be cool. |
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| Okay, downloading now. I'll focus on getting the changes in and posted tonight, news piece may have to wait until the weekend. As for viruses, I have a virus scanner and firewall running permenantly on my PC, so I'm pretty sure it's not me. I've done a full virus scan and nothing's shown up, so unless I've been bit by something brand new, I think they must've harvested our email addy's from somewhere - I presume the readme in the zip. That seems extraordinary lengths to go to harvest a few emails though... |
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| Just been busy checking out these emails. I've had a second one "from" Rob today. The earliest entry in the headers is as follows: Received: from [66.68.149.197] (port=3439 helo=Equinox.net) I've found reference to Equinox.net websites as being a known phisher. The IP address certainly isn't one attributed to my ISP, so I'm 99.9% sure it's not me, even though I do use Outlurk. (I tried Thunderbird, but didn't get on with it). |
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| Did a virus scan on my PC and 100% clean, I don't use outlook either so it's not coming from me, I'm on NTL which isn't that IP range anyway. Bizarrely I've not received any virus' from you guys. |
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| Odd. That IP isn't in the Tiscali range either. A full virus check using up to date files revealed absolutely nowt on my PC. Anyway, here's the update -> *clicky* Again, I'll warn you that it's a bit barebones - this has opened up a wide range of things that need to be done, and bumped up the priority of others (I've updated the todo list at the top). You should find on extracting my changes over the top of Rob's update above will give you: - Added breed.game file to define imagery / map / first level(s) - Added levelname.level files to define map location / imagery / objective definitions - Added some naff media for mission select & level imagery - Added Mission Select screen - Added basic objective update - press "P" in game for a summary - Added scripting support for adding, deleting and completing objectives - Added logic to complete a level once all primary objectives are complete, and on doing so, open up any levels specified in the objective definition - Updated map and objects to include some basic objectives. Blow up the radioactive barrel (down, left, up from start), then get to the exit. Secondary objective can be 'collected' by going down to the bottom of the first room, then into the cells up from there. Note seriously naff images - someone please improve! - Fixed a bug whereby exiting and restarting didn't clear collected objects properly (i.e. keys) - Minor changes to code to avoid potential variable / function / type name clashes - Minor changes to code to explicitly cast Strings into Integers. Tomorrow / Saturday I will write up a short piece on what I've done here, and also more detailed documentation on how it actually works (so you guys can play with it!). Clown Hunter - if you save your map as test2, it will now be available on completing the test level, instead of having to fiddle code to make it work! Or, change the breed.game file to read as below for it to appear from the start: <firstlevel>test|test2</firstlevel> Hope you all like! |
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| Actually, here's the update for the website: Mission select, objectives and unlockable missions are in! It took a bit of doing (and a lot of forethought!) but we now have a semblance of a game structure emerging. The screens and graphics may be a bit ropey (I'm *not* an artist), but we can start building a game now. To give you a taster, here's how our test level works. At the start, you are given two objectives: one primary - Destroy some radioactive barrels; one secondary - kill all aliens. If you look around the first rooms, you'll spot a terrible placeholder graphic that is supposed to represent a document. On picking it up & reading you realise that there is a prisoner trapped somewhere on the level. New secondary objective added: free the prisoner. If you find this prisoner, they tell you the location of a secret base in Alaska. Of course, as this is a secondary objective, you don't have to complete it... After destroying the barrels (exit the first room, go down, all the way to the left and up and destroy them all) you have to escape the base. Ideally we should have a timed level-destruct countdown here. The pick up point you have to get to is outside the building - it should be obvious when you find it, as the graphic is the same one as mentioned above! Once you've got to the pick up point, you are returned to the mission select screen with the Cairo level available. If you freed the prisoner, you also have the Alaska level. (Okay, so I know the context is all wrong, but I told you, I'm no artist, and I just grabbed the first images off my PC!). You can view objectives by pressing "P" - although this should really be a PocketPC in your inventory. And the kill aliens objective can never actually be completed. But the *structure* is now there for us to build a real game around... ...and now, it's time for bed! |
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| Cool, it feels like a game now! I'm not sure I like the being on Earth thing but this is just cosmetic... A thought... Seeing as we're using 3D stuff now how about actually having a planet as a sphere and spinning it to the various locations?! Anyway... I'm off to bed now. |
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| Had an idea with the doors, could they open from the middle out instead of disappearing? Or even slide from one side to the other and with some doors, have them slide back and close again? |
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| Sorry for all you blitz2d and blitz+ users out there, it's blitz3d only now. Rob, how could you? I only have B+! Oh well, I plan on buying B3D with my Chanukkah money anyways. |
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| Enigma, that was one of the things I suggested after I created the door open function, the problem is knowing where the middle of the door is as the door open function works for any door of any size, on top of this the collision would be tricky to say the least. It's a nice to have I think but far for essential. |
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| I'm not sure I like the being on Earth thing but this is just cosmetic... Agree, but as you say, it's cosmetic... Seeing as we're using 3D stuff now how about actually having a planet as a sphere and spinning it to the various locations?! Nice idea. I guess the map.png becomes the texture to wrap round the globe and the x,y just operate from wherever the seam is on globe. I've never really used 3d before, so I'll let someone else pick that up. Enigma, that was one of the things I suggested after I created the door open function, the problem is knowing where the middle of the door is as the door open function works for any door of any size, on top of this the collision would be tricky to say the least. I think we need this animation at some point, if only to make closing doors work. For example I really want to be able to close doors behind the player. While we can live with disappearing doors, magically appearing doors won't work. So we need animated closure, the first step towards which has to be animated opening. I had wondered if this could work along the following lines: On opening the door, grab the image of the door, and split it in half and store each half in an animation type. This animation type would be the same as the ones I keep thinking about for spinning fans etc. The animation type then controls having the image roll back at a given speed, and you stop drawing the door object on the map, just draw the animation type. It will have to know to kill itself off when it's size reaches zero. Closing doors will then work in the opposite direction, drawing the final door image in memory, chopping it in half, and showing it gradually on screen as an animation, and at the end you stamp the door object on the map. The problem comes with the collision layer. You can stamp the map with the collision info as the door closes, but this could be tricky. I think animated tiles will be my next project... |
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| The main problem with the collision even if you do stamp the collision info on the map is that the map only deals with whole tiles not part tiles, the way round this I suppose is to have them open fast enough so the odd glitch didn't matter too much? If the door opened say 4 pixels at a time so it's pretty brisk and you just open up the collision after the square is clear it'll probably look alright. I'll look into creating animated doors this evening, I don't think we need anything as clever as you've suggested Mark. Thinking out loud: Particle method: Delete the door tile, then spawn a particle that is the door opening, after the particle dies it removes the collision block and check to see if there's a door nearby, if so run this again and so on until there are no more door to open. The tricky bits: Odd sized doors (3,5,7 etc) This would mean an additional particle that splits a door. Finding the middle of the door before you begin. The only other problem is that there would need to be a particle type for all the different coloured doors and both vertical and horizonal, it could be possible to generate these at run time, but I'm not sure it's worth the bother, after all, we've only got 4 or 5 door types?! ---------------------------------------------- Bigger bitmap method: We have door types that are the edges of the door eg =][= or ===] etc where ] and [ are the edges and = is door body (as it were). This way we know where the edges are and which way the door needs to move. Then we just generate a graphic of the whole door and move it in the correct direction and assume the map will take up the slack of the overdraw ie have the walls as block overlay so the door will just slide under it. This might be a better way of doing it. This would also look quite groovy for the smaller doors so they slide in one direction only rather than splitting in the middle the whole time? Thoughts would be appreciated. |
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| Guys, I've downloaded the most recent Code. But it fails to compile due to mission images. What I'm I missing? |
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| Not sure, if you download the stuff off the AB site first, upzip that lot, then download Marks extra bits and unzip that over the top it should work fine. Make sure you're keeping directory stuctures and stuff. http://members.lycos.co.uk/marktiffany/ |
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| This might be a better way of doing it. This would also look quite groovy for the smaller doors so they slide in one direction only rather than splitting in the middle the whole time? Agreed - I like the idea of some doors opening centre out, others from left, etc. Even have some that disappear into the floor? Also agree that the whole tile / part tile issue could be nasty; I didn't mention it above as I thought I'd have a think first. But as you say, I'm pretty sure it will just come down opening doors quickly enough. At worst 1 pixel per frame = 1/3 second to open (logic=100Hz, right?), and shouldn't be too bad. The other issue is that you can't just animate the end tile of the door - you have to animate all of them if the door has a pattern like the coloured doors do. Otherwise it'd look terrible. Hence the thought of grabbing the whole image and moving / chopping it. Good idea to use the particle stuff though - hadn't thought of that, and that also ought to be the way to go for animated tiles like fans, etc. (albeit driven by map objects). Possibly even the concept of sound emitters too, although I wouldn't want to overload it with irrelevant stuff...Also make sure you think about closing doors when doing this, I really want to have them! Imagine changing the "cell trap" part of the test map such that the door shuts behind you until all the aliens are dead! Muwahahahaha! Seeing as it looks like you're going to run with this animation thing (at least for doors), I'll take a look at some more scripting / objective stuff. For one thing, I want to be able to run a script when particular aliens die. For example to re-open the cell door in the example above. Or to complete a secondary objective when all aliens in the level are dead. Not quite sure how to achieve this yet - I'm open to ideas! By the way, I forgot to say that I *really* like the new particle effects. Very nice, am very happy with the move to b3d now. |
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| Could we have a recoil on some of the doors, so they quickly close behind you, faster than they open? Now that the game is in B3D, what about some particle jet engine's on the space crafts as though the engines have been left on? We could put in the Intex system an overide switch to get the Intex system to shut the engines down on some parts of the map where the player can't get past unless they are switch off. With the buggies, could we put in some tiles with track indents on them, so it doesn't look like the buggies have just been placed there? Thanks |
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| Enigma by 'we' do you mean yourself or someone else? I'm currently putting 3D models of the characters into the game rather than using dirty great bit bitmaps, this means, more animation, smoother animation and smoother rotations. It also gives us the ability to use dx lighting which could look rather groovy. First experiments are looking good. I would post a screenshot but quite frankly it looks identical to the other screenshots, when you play the game though it's much better. The downside of this is that I've got to do decent animation for all of the characters, aliens, the works. Probably do pain and attack animations for the aliens too just to put the cherry on the top. This does suck big time so if anyone out there is a good modeller, rigger, or animator, please step forward as the media demand has just increased!! The rough and ready animation and rigging I did to get the plain old top down sprites just doesn't cut it when you use actual 3D models. |
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| No, by 'we', I mean 'we'. Thought this was a community project and that should include any ideas that any of the community have? Just because i'm not coding this game doesn't mean that I don't want it to be the best it can be. Do you not want any ideas from me that IMO could make this game better? When I say 'we' it's as a community and nothing different. |
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| Enigma, I wasn't being serious, however, I was suggesting that you actually get involved, everyone else is also invited. Everyone is more than welcome to do graphics, models, sounds, music etc. And, as you suggested, tyre tracks etc would be very cool. |
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| Continued here http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=41085 |
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| My apologies, thought you were being serious. Even though I haven't contributed in any way as far as coding or anything for that matter on this game (as i'm not a very good coder) i will have ideas from time to time. Has someone done a story for the game yet? Is it based from Alien Breed in that the players are members of IPC, or is it going to be completely different? |
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