Bowstring Snap

The other day I completed working animation of the bow.  It looked great, but when I was done, I realized something.  When I equiped the bow to my right hand, it was indeed the hand the bow was being held in, which means the player uses their left hand to fire arrows.  This is opposite of how a right handed person would use a bow.  So now I have to switch all the animations.  Not only that, I have to program the drawing of the bow so that the hand holding the bow is opposite of the hand the bow is actually equipped to!

Then there's the question of different arrow types.  The player would have to equip them to their off hand, which would act as the quiver, instead of equipping them to the player's back.  This would allow the player a wearable item on the back (Wings/Jetpack/Scuba Tank), but still be able to fire a bow.

I also have to figure out how the game behaves when you try to equip a two handed item to a hand when the other hand has an item in it (or both hands have items).  Do the two items return to the inventory, unless there is no room in the inventory?  Darn. I think I just answered my own question.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Sorry I haven't updated over break like I said I would, but between travelling, visiting family and friends, and just relaxing, I have been getting some DDP work done.  And I am quite happy with the progress.

My old list of things to do:

• Title and Main Menu - Basic functionality almost complete
• Player Actions (punching) - Complete
• Player Actions (stabbing) - Complete
• Player Actions (throwing) - Complete, but no object is thrown yet
• Other players appearing on screen - Started. Finished Code Rewrite!
• Inventory screen and handling - Complete
• Additional Tiles and Textures - Few Complete
• Autotiling Feature - Complete
• Health, Magic, and Money - Complete
• Health and Hotbar HUD Display - Complete
• Wearable Items (No more nude player!) - On Hold
• Pickup-able Money System, Moz - Complete

Okay, so some of those items are repeats from last time.  But look at all those completed items!  I also introduce the Moz, a small square currency.  They even have a magnetic-like reaction to nearby players!  They come in different colors, by value, and I find it fun already just to be able to pickup something other than the knife.

For now, I am holding off on wearable items, at least for the player's body, as the sleeves of shirts will have to match all of the arm animation.  So I need to make more arm animation, which means more hand items!

Some exciting things are in the works for the near future:

• Thrown knives that are able to be picked up again.
• Target's that can be broken. (Basic Enemy)
• Bow and Arrows
• Guns - Pistols, Shotguns, Rifles
• Melee weapons with different arm animations
• In-Game Menu Basic Functions

I think I'll try to figure out how to make an "In-Progress" page or side item or somewhere on the site wear you can check these items out, and future things that I am planning.

And as a holiday gift, a few screenshots.

Christmas is Coming

Merry Christmas Eve!

Sarah and I are visiting her family, but in some of the downtime, I've been able to figure out a large portion of the autotiling code.  Later I'll add some code for the inside corners, but I'm not worried about that right now.

For now I have some basic tile placeholders.  Not 100% happy with them, but I don't feel it's necessary to have them perfect at this stage in the game development.  I think a tile graphics overhaul may occur late in the game, so I'll worry about it then.

I have designed the menu to shift screens underground, descending deeper with every option selected.  Eventually, these backgrounds may incorporate items or dynamic players / monsters that will move about in the background.

Now I'm trying to hash out some code I redid for the player graphic to make it easier to create non-controllable players (for the player select screen and multiplayer player entities (no I did not stutter).  In the meantime, I'll just dabble on the code when I have time, and fill you in over break!

Network Connection Failed

As I have posted previously, I started using Game Maker which has built in multiplayer functions.

Correction, it DID have multiplayer functions before coming out with the Studio version, which they declared them to be obsolete.  Multiplayer functionality may not come out in Game Maker:Studio until late next year!

I was very... frustrated... to find this out last night as I looked for the correct functions to start adding networking to my game.  I wanted to start adding networking as early as possible to avoid having to re-code sections of the game I create.  I'm going to have to set networking aside for now and just focus on solo-play at the moment, which is fine; there is plenty to develop.

My list of things to do:

• Title and Main Menu - Basic functionality almost complete
• Game Setup Screen and Multiplayer connection - On hold until Game Maker supports this.
• Player Actions (punching) - Complete
• Multiplayer Chat - On hold until Game Maker supports this.
• Other players appearing on screen - On hold until Game Maker supports this.
• Inventory screen and handling - Complete

 I'll turn my focus now from entirely networking and functionality to include content and visuals, including:

• Additional Tiles and Textures
• Autotiling Feature
• Health, Magic, and Money
• Health and Hotbar HUD Display
• Wearable Items (No more nude player!)

On a good note, before YoYoGames comes out with network capability for GM:S, they will be adding shader functions.  This means shadows and advanced lighting would be possible again.  I might be able to keep the torch item after all!

Purple Purple Purple Pur...

Currently working on a Title Screen and Main Menu, which will lead me to creating network connections, which will lead me to creating multiple instances of plays on screen, chatting abilities, etc.  AND will give Alpha testers something to play around with.

Of course, I also want things to look somewhat decent, so I'm putting a little work into auto-tiling  and will soon create something other than these darn purple bricks. Dirt, stone, sand... anything non-purple.

Imagine walking away from your computer and this is all you see.

On a completely unrelated note, here's a quite humorous list of unrealisms in video games.

Chipping Away

I've been working, almost daily, little by little, on the game. I now have an inventory that almost works the way I want it to, and I've started player arm animations. About 90% and 15%, respectively.  Once they are done, I'll throw together a basic menu and see if I can get a network connection with functioning multiplayer chat.  What fun!

Welcome to Game Maker, Descend!

I have also started putting together a GDD, or Game Design Document, to keep track of my ideas.  As much as I DON'T want to do it, I think it just might be a good idea in the long run.  The biggest reason I don't want to do it is because the time I spend on that document is time I could be using to code the game together, however, I guess it's still all progress on the final result.  Right now, it's just section headings, and is about 10 pages long.

As I complete it, is anyone interested in seeing bits an pieces of the GDD?

Playing Catch Up

Things are moving along smoothly in Game Maker.  It is quite simple, as I learn to use it.  I've already have a little guy with arms and a rotating head who jumps about and collides into walls.  Next up I want to tackle opening the inventory, picking up and storing objects, and being able to move them about in inventory (or dropping the items back to the world).

I'm reluctant to share any pictures/video for a while, since everything I'm doing, you have already seen and more.  It will be interesting how guick I'll be able to catch up with this system.

The following objects need to be done before I feel caught up:

• Title and Main Menu
• Game Setup Screen and Multiplayer connection
• Player Actions (punching)
• Multiplayer Chat
• Other players appearing on screen
• Inventory screen and handling

Not that i'll be doing any of those things in that order.  I also may work on some new content before finishing all of those.

Best part about using Game Maker is it is supported by steam.  I can release free demo/incomplete games on the Steam Workshop, for everyone's access.  However, I'm not sure how to approach this as closed alpha testing.  Maybe I'll just have to make a private Drop-Box location for testers.