Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

Program Announcements / Climb That Big Tree

Author
Message
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 00:39 Edited at: 19th Feb 2010 15:40
Link
UPDATE!

Right, have responded to the comments below and have updated the following:
- Collision is now FIXED thanks to the collision dll. Gameplay better as a result.
- You can see the shadow when the level goes tranparent
- Transition to a transparent view of the level is smoother
- Have added a lovely little particle effect to make it prettier
- For cheats: 'z' stores a check point which yo can return to with 'x'

Download Here

Original Post:

Hello. Been working on a simple but nice little 3D platformer.

Simple graphics, simple premise. Atop a giant pink, abstract tree is a damsel (cube) in distress. You are a similar looking cube, climbing to the rescue.

Download it Here

And view the website Here

Only 2mb



LMB to start the game. WASD to move, spacekey to jump, mouse to look.http://lukeoc.co.uk/climbthatbigtree.html

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Website
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 01:18 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
Link
! Loox awesome
<Downloads>

AFTER PLAYING:
K well, I got to the top after falling back down a few thousand times, I found 1 major bug, and 3 things I found annoying about it.

The bug is shown in the screenshot below (this caused me to fail some of the time even when I was going fairly well. (It comes of jumping up into a branch when there is part of the tree between the camera and the object.)


The first thing I found annoying was simply the fact it doesn't tell you anything about the game, how to play or how to even start. (I had to work out it was the left mouse button (a button which isn't used in the game))
The second thing I found annoying was the floppy mouse movement, I don't know anyone who likes it like that or can play a game properly like that, but I know it just annoyed me.
The third thing was that there was no polish, there's no title on the window, no fancy effects or anything to make it stand out or any sort of presentation (I mean how often do we get cubes stuck up trees made of cuboids, c'mon this has got to be themed to be a part of the world of cubes or something :S) But yeh, most of these simply effects or polish could be added with little to no effort.

Finally, I'd just like to say that I've never encountered a better game on TGC. (Regardless of what I just said up there^ I truly loved it, despite getting quite annoyed at myself for not being able to do it. )

Please make version 1.1 and make it better !

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
dark coder
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: Japan
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 01:22 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 02:02
Link
OK, you have succeeded in making the most annoying game ever(no idea if that's a good or bad thing ). I noticed the collision detection was a bit dodgy; I was able to get into the cubes near the base a few times. Other than this, you should improve the graphics a bit, right now it looks just like a bunch of aliased cubes: maybe rounding their edges off a bit and adding anti-aliasing would help. When the cubes go transparent that looks quite bad as you can see the hidden cube edges stack up, that could be improved. The player model could be something more interesting and finally you should record stats like amount of jumps taken, times fallen, etc etc.

[edit] It appears C0wbox already said pretty much everything I did, echo echo.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 02:36 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
Link
^^Oh yeh I forgot to mention it is more difficult to see the shadow of the cube when the tree inverts its polygons, so trying to land on something is virtually impossible when this happens. xD
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Venge
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Sep 2006
Location: Iowa
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 03:26
Link
This is one of those "GAAAH THIS IS SO ANNOYING WHY DO I KEEP PLAYING IT oh maybe one more try GAAAAH" games.

After several failed attempts, I got up to about 3 jumps away from the "damsel" and then missed, and fell straight down to the very bottom, exited the game, deleted the folder, deleted the zipped folder, emptied the recycle bin, and ate some chocolate.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good idea, but it needed to either:

A) be shorter, but with multiple levels
B) have at least one checkpoint

I will live forever or die trying.
Back to top
Profile PM
FireIndy
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2007
Location: US of A
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 03:42 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 04:57
Link
It's a great start, but the bug that C0wbox pointed out needs to be fixed and checkpoints seem like a must for this. Falling to the very bottom every time and starting from scratch made it very hard to replay.


Want to work on Desolation? Click my sig!!!
Email: davekramer@live.com ; MSN: davekramer@live.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Hassan
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th May 2009
Location: &lt;script&gt; alert(1); &lt;/script&gt;
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 08:17
Link
checkpoints would be good, but i didnt find it much annoying, just the bug when i get stuck inside the boxes, it's nice

Back to top
Profile PM Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 12:24 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 12:55
Link
Thanks for the comments everyone. Obviously there's a few things I'll look into fixing. Hate to admit I noticed the collision bug, failed to fix it and gave up... Will try again.

Edit Annoyingly I cant replicate the bug so cant fix it. Anyone figured out when exactly it happens????

NOTE TO FRUSTRATED CHEATS 'z' will store your current position. 'x' will restore you to that position. If of course you are a CHEAT!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
FireIndy
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2007
Location: US of A
Posted: 17th Feb 2010 14:22
Link
It's when there is a branch above you and they swith to transparent. As if in your code that your checking for how far back the player is and theyre far enough, but they aren't behind anything. That's what it seemed like.


Want to work on Desolation? Click my sig!!!
Email: davekramer@live.com ; MSN: davekramer@live.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 18th Feb 2010 00:16 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
Link
Yeh you really need to just make the 3rd person camera move closer to the cube so there can never be a branch in the way, because even when the trans-mode is working and you're not stuck in the tree, the shadow below the cube becomes harder to see.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 18th Feb 2010 10:28
Link
You can move the camera with the mouse, so you can usually move it so it doesnt go into transparent mode.

And I still cant replicate the bug. It has happened to me once or twice during development but seems to be gone now. How often does it happen for you guys?
Back to top
Profile PM Website
dark coder
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: Japan
Posted: 18th Feb 2010 14:47
Link
Here's a video showing how it's done, I amazingly managed to get through the floor as well!

Back to top
Profile PM Email
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 18th Feb 2010 16:32 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:36
Link
Regardless of whether the user can move out of trans mode, when you're jumping to somewhere and trying to concentrate on where you're landing, if it suddenly switches to trans mode, you're like "Wuhhhh" because you can't see your shadow, and everything's changed. - If you just make it so it moves the camera infront of any branches, it'll be fine. (State your request for the method if you can't do it yourself. )
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 18th Feb 2010 21:51 Edited at: 19th Feb 2010 00:56
Link
I actually have the code for that rem-ed out! I prefered the look of making the level transparent.

Obviously its not perfect, will have to see if I can fix, and if not then I'll resort to the other method, but because of the number of branches the camera ends up jumping forward and back quite a bit.

Thanks for all your comments and help trying to make the game better, and slightly less annoying!

Edit Ok, Relented and am now using Sparky's collision DLL. And its now all perfect. Tried and failed to do collision myself. Have added nice snowy particle effect to make it all more pretty, may add bloom or something too to prettify it more. New version soon
Back to top
Profile PM Website
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 19th Feb 2010 14:05
Link
Eugh bloom... (you know it's not actually a real effect yeh? - It only happens rarely with camera lenses)

Either way, I thought instead of the transparent mode you've got where it kinda ghosts the tree and flips the polys. - Just make it ghost the tree cos it'd surely work better as you'll still be able to see the shadow.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 19th Feb 2010 15:41
Link
Update available (see first post). Hopefully this will have tweaked all the issues in the first version.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Matty H
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Oct 2008
Location: England
Posted: 19th Feb 2010 17:49
Link
Great game, I would suggest putting spawn pills in hard to get places on the way up, its players choice then if they want to risk going for the pill and getting to spawn there when they fall off, or leaving it and going up without safety net of a spawn point.

Good fun though.

fulcrum physics - free collision/physics plug-in for DarkGDK
Back to top
Profile PM Email
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 19th Feb 2010 17:54
Link
!

Well, it must be either all the practice I got last time, or Sparky's DLL, but I did it first time that time.

The ending is nicer, with the black screen and snow (although I think a better choice of font would be better)

I still think you should make the game restart as the other cube when it hits the bottom, and you've got to go back for the other 1. - But that would just create a never ending cycle which stupid people would get stuck in.

Other than that, I like the snow and the transparency is nicer, but still could use a little tweaking.

As for checkpoints are concerned, I think matty halewood's idea is better because that way the game is still challenging; it's not just holding your hand the whole time.



<Sufficiently more impressed than last time>
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Diggsey
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Apr 2006
Location: On this web page.
Posted: 19th Feb 2010 19:41
Link
Lol @ the ending

Nice game!


New DBPro IDE + integrated debugger!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 20th Feb 2010 17:00
Link
I think it's pretty good, a bit annoying but really addicting, although you need to add textures and a bit of polish.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
FireIndy
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2007
Location: US of A
Posted: 20th Feb 2010 18:33
Link
The update made it a lot more playable =] Turned out to be a lot of fun actually xD


Want to work on Desolation? Click my sig!!!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 21st Feb 2010 20:48
Link
Thanks for all the feedback, glad to hear that the tweaking has made it that much more playable and pretty. I do like the spawn pills idea, may play with that one tomorrow.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Valle
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Mar 2006
Location: in your girlfriends bed
Posted: 8th Mar 2010 11:26
Link
wow, i love this
Especially all the little details like the windblowing-sound when you climb higher, the squares that fly around, all the nice sound-fx and the end. It has a cool mood which i did not find in any other dbp-game
I think the main-character should be improved visually though


Back to top
Profile PM
arlojeremy
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2010
Location:
Posted: 9th Mar 2010 09:00
Link
I'm playing the latest version of the game, so the previous criticisms that people had might not apply.

Great quick time-waster! Reminds me of older games where it took you a long time to beat simply by shear difficulty and set-backs, not just because there was a lot of content (think Super Mario Bros without warps, or Kid Icarus).

Thanks.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Sixty Squares
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Jun 2006
Location: Somewhere in the world
Posted: 25th Apr 2010 16:20
Link
Wow great game! I loved the foggy environemnt, the ambient sounds and how it got windier as you went up. The jumping/landing sounds were great too. That bird sound could be a little less frequent though, it got a little annoying after a while. Anyway, I got to the top, (with the help of the cheat a few times) and the ending was pretty funny . As others have said, checkpoints would help a lot. Also, I'm actually not bothered by the transparency thing, I thought it was helpful. Keep up the good work, this could become an even better game with different environments and maybe some enemies or power-ups along the way to switch things up a bit.

<-- Spell based team dueling game!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 25th Apr 2010 17:12
Link
I definitely think you should just keep everything the same and make more trees/maps. Only change gameplay mechanics if you really think it will help the gameplay.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Matty H
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Oct 2008
Location: England
Posted: 25th Apr 2010 19:36
Link
Yeh, I thought it needed checkpoints at first but I'm not so sure.
What would be better if that was a later level, with smaller trees for the first few levels, perhaps with less random geometry, pretty trees lol.

fulcrum physics - free collision/physics plug-in for DarkGDK
Back to top
Profile PM Email
C0wbox
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jun 2006
Location: 0,50,-150
Posted: 25th Apr 2010 20:44 Edited at: 25th Apr 2010 20:44
Link
Yeh, this game would look awesome if you actually modelled a tree around the currently blocky tree !

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 3rd May 2010 09:33
Link
Seems like this thread has had a bit of a revival since I've been away. Thanks for all the positive comments! I've ignored all the negative ones.

Don't plan to develop this game any further, but I may expand upon the gameplay in any future games I make. Its been an interesting experiment in simple design, and I'm very happy with the results.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Ermes
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th May 2003
Location: ITALIA
Posted: 10th Jun 2010 16:06
Link
i think is a small but nice game.
good work

ciao faccie da sedere!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Daygamer
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Mar 2010
Location: United States
Posted: 22nd Aug 2010 06:24
Link
great game. I loved it!

yrotate when you can spin?
God Bless!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Daniel TGC
Retired Moderator
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Feb 2007
Location: TGC
Posted: 25th Aug 2010 13:28
Link
This looks like a very unique, and interesting concept! Have you considered submitting this to the Intel AppUp compeition?

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=173613&b=40 for more information, you could win a $5000 holiday, $1000 cash prize or a new netbook.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dr Tank
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Apr 2009
Location: Southampton, UK
Posted: 25th Aug 2010 15:11
Link
This is really cool. I like the aesthetic, and the wind noise, and how it gets louder as you get higher. Nice cinematics too. The gameplay is a little frustrating, but not so much that I didn't finish the game, and it's good for something to be emotionally involving.

Main thing to sort out is the shadow when it's not fully on the tree.
Back to top
Profile PM
hmm
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Oct 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Sep 2010 19:17 Edited at: 9th Sep 2010 19:17
Link
Thanks for your comments guys. I've been doing a lot of work on this game since I last posted. The guys from Powerboard Productions got in touch, and it'll soon be re-released on the AppUp store in its glorious new form!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Michael P
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Mar 2006
Location: London (UK)
Posted: 16th Sep 2010 12:04
Link
This is very good!! You should look at making this for iPhone or Android. Unique addictive games like this do very well.

DarkNet - multiplayer plugin
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-04-19 09:36:53
Your offset time is: 2024-04-19 09:36:53