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Work in Progress / Celestial Layer ~ Action Puzzler Thing

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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 10:16 Edited at: 18th Nov 2008 03:53
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Celestial Layer WIP Thread

Hi all! My old thread got locked from inactivity so I've had to start a new one (as if anyone was paying attention anyways. -_-)
I present here a new (and hugely improved) demo of CL.

()Downloads:
>>> Demo 2: (11.17.08 Updated!) [/b]Download!!!~20MB
Everything is done through the ingame tutorial. Please give some comment and feedback!



()Challenge: (eg: download this please)
I've been told the final stage is difficult. Cookie to those who can beat it.


()Concept:
Two wip threads later, I still have no bloody idea what genre this game falls under. I hope everyone will enjoy it for the unique gameplay it brings.

The concept is simple – you need to knock your enemies off of a grid, and you accomplish this through making pieces of the grid fall down. Be careful that you don’t get knocked down first though. =) The game mechanics are designed to be as simple as possible but still provide a lot of depth once you get into it.


()Screenies:
The screenshots really don't do any justice. Just check out the demo pleasee? =)





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C0wbox
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 12:37
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@ Final Epsilon
Wow, I never saw your previous threads but I wish I had, this game's amazing.

I played it and loved it. I was sad to see the tutorial end.

The final boss is hard, but I got the hang of him eventually. (I only lost the battle once. )

A recommendation from me would be to make the cubes more cartoony, maybe even cartoon shaded to make them seem less plain.

But other than that I can't suggest any more improvements.

I hope you find your artist soon. xD
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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 22:31
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Thanks so much for the kind words C0wbox. Thanks too for trying out the game!

When I get around to it, I'll definitely script up some new levels. Look forward to enemies that have lots of unique attack patterns.

With respect to the block textures, I'll definitely make them more detailed. I'm hoping to have various level themes with different sets of block textures and skyboxes (ie: space, ice, mountain, ocean). The ones I'm using right now are still technically temporary.

Really amazed that you beat the boss in only two tries. o.o I can't even get that sort of consistency when fighting him.

Cheers,
FinalEp
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kaedroho
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 22:54
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Nice work!

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Xenocythe
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 23:24
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Man, some really professional looking engines and games are showing up in the W.I.P. boards! I'm liking what I see

3.11 We do not tolerate posts made for the purpose of putting down another forum member, group of members, religion, our company, our staff or any of our moderators, past or present.
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C0wbox
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Posted: 17th Nov 2008 23:33
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@ Final Epsilon
Yeh I nearly died on the second try, but I sussed out how to attack him quickly without standing in his line of fire for too long.

@ Xenocythe
Heh, you should wait for Soharix's next WIP in that case.
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Mr Tank
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 01:31
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Nice! works well. At aome point i got an object does not exist error. Think it said line 101.

Fun game. Got my heart pumping. Good "twitchy" gameplay.

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Mr Tank
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 01:58
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Actually it's object number not found: 109
This occurs when restarting the level with the red boss
then there follows error message
Runtime error 7008 object does not exist at line 5707

this doesn't always happen when restarting that level.
Besides this bug, it's be cool to have some kind of measure of progress on the level- like how many lives the boss has left or something. Energy bar or whatever.

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Not_Maindric
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 03:01
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Wow. Amazingly fun for a simple game. I got that error once too, but nothing to major. Hope to see more updates!

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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 03:03 Edited at: 18th Nov 2008 04:00
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@ kaedroho & Xenocythe:
I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for checking it out!

@Mr Tank & Maindric

Edit: After thinking for a while, I think I might know where the issue is arising. It's one of those weird bugs where 4 different things have to be aligned before it triggers. I'll upload a fixed exe after I change the bugged portions.

Quote: "Besides this bug, it's be cool to have some kind of measure of progress on the level- like how many lives the boss has left or something. Energy bar or whatever."


That'll definitely go in once I get a working GUI up and running. You'll be able to graphically see the number of lives the boss has remaining without having to strain your eyes on debug information.
It'll also be easier to check things like remaining MP and such.

Thanks so much for the bug report and feedback though!

Cheers,
FinalEp
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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 03:56 Edited at: 18th Nov 2008 03:56
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I think i fixed the issue! =) Here's the fixed build: Demo2R1.
The first post has also been updated with the new link.

If anyone encounters any other problems, please do post about them.

Thanks again for everyone's kind words and support!

Cheers,
FinalEp
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White Fang 12
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 15:06
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Great game beat it , could use one thing the stats for the play should be more readable, like larger text for the lives and maybe a mana bar, other then that i agree with the other suggestions made great game.

I'm a noob help will be accepted
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Deathead
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 17:36
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Hey dude sorry for not having made alot of models well I tried but it failed miserably. But the Chibi was good, but how about as its a puzzler more cartoony approach you know like red devils or something, rabbits, you know like a StarFox concept where you play as a animal.



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Mr Tank
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Posted: 18th Nov 2008 21:44
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Nice! New verison hasn't crashed. I actually finished it!

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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 19th Nov 2008 04:24 Edited at: 19th Nov 2008 04:43
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Thanks so much for testing the game guys. =)

@ White Fang 12
Yeah, a graphical stats HUD is definitely the absolute next thing for me to do on my todo list now. I'll definitely start work on it this weekend.

@Deathead
It's all right. =) With respect to the art style, I'm not _too_ sure what direction I want to take everything -- most of my work right now is focused on the engine (which is one of the main reasons a functioning HUD wasn't coded yet).

@Mr Tank
Thanks so much for testing it again. =) I'm glad I got that bug sorted out. Hope you enjoyed the game.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback and support!

------------------------

Mmm... now I'd like to turn around ask the community about something completely different. So, for those of you who've tested/played my game, you know how exceedingly simple the basic concept is. At a very low level, the game can be picked up and played by anyone -- the learning curve is virtually nonexistent. I bet most of you blazed through those intro tutorials . However, as I'm sure you're also aware, as you take a step back and analyze the gameplay at a much higher level, various complexities and advanced strategies begin to present themselves.

So, this presents some particularly interesting ideas when writing enemy AI, in that this game presents a very simple set of rules, which when used in tandem can lead to some very interesting gameplay. (eg: not taking into account advanced attacks, only five decision choices are available: left,right,up,down,fire). In the initial development stages of the engine, I challenged my friend to write an alternative AI for the enemies. When we loaded them both up to fight against each other, the smarter AI would win consistently.

What I would like to know is if enough people would be interested in me developing some sort of AI battle-version of the game. I would imagine interested users could write an AI, upload their script, and I (or some server if I can automate it) simulates out battles between those AIs to determine the winner. Battles would be perhaps 3v3 to allows for some cool group coordination on interesting board geometries. Maybe I can code in some network support to allow for real-time spectating.

I personally think this would be a really cool idea. It doesn't require _too_ much work on my part because the system is already very flexible and could support such battles (all hail barnski's lua plugin!), but I'd still have to go through and document / make apparent a lot of the intricacies of the engine. (I also have to hide a lot of the functionalities I don't want AI writers touching. =P) For AI writers, it wouldn't be too bad either. Consider those 'drone' units in the final boss battle of the demo. Those function on just about 50 lines of code, and if optimized (or just written in a more standard fashion) could
easily be cut down further. My thought is that because writing an AI for this engine is much much easier, there would be a much lower barrier to entry than say those AI competitions where highly complex RTS engines are used << thus we see more people participating and trying it out.

----------------------------

So, In Conclusion: (or for those of you who skipped my long rant =P)

>>Would you like to see an "AI Battle Arena" version of the game?<<


Comments and feedback would be really awesome.
Thanks so much guys!

Cheers,
FinalEp
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White Fang 12
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Posted: 19th Nov 2008 04:41
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Why not

I'm a noob help will be accepted
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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 03:14 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2008 03:15
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fun game; looking forward to more levels

1 issue: when the dialogue is showing (as the characters become visible), i get a buzzing sound; the kinda buzz you get from repeatedly playing a sound before the last instance of it is complete.

1 suggestion: simple shadows beneath characters.

thanks for sharing

Virtual Nomad . California, USA
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C0wbox
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 10:25
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@ Final Epsilon
Quote: "1 suggestion: simple shadows beneath characters."

Yeh I'd agree with Virual Nomad actually, they should be reletively simple to do because you don't have to map them onto anything but a cube, so you can just use a plain underneith the characters.
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Final Epsilon
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 07:17 Edited at: 24th Nov 2008 07:23
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Hey all. Sorry for the slow response time. Life is starting to pick up again so I'm doing my best to keep on top of everything. You'd think that with thanksgiving just around the corner things would be winding down, but unfortunately it's all just a big rush to get everything done before then.

I'll keep doing my best to respond to everyone individually though.

@ White Fang 12
Quote: "Why not"

Haha. It's just that it'd take me quite a bit of time to actually clean up the source code for other people to be looking at it. So it'd be nice to know if people would actually use it / write for it.

@ Virtual Nomad
Thanks for testing out the game! And thanks so much for that bug report. I was wondering why that weird sound happened occasionally.... now I know! =) I'll try to get it fixed up by next release.

@ C0wbox
Yeah. I was definitely thinking either shadows under the characters... or circular indicators... or both! =) I'll try to implement plain-based shadows in the next build. Maybe shader based shadows if I'm feeling like adding a little extra eye-candy... although I have a feeling that with so many blocks things are going to get ugly....

---------------

Anyways, just a small status update here:
I didn't get a chance to get as much done over the weekend as I would have liked =(

But I have started prototyping the HUD stats display. Most of the system is written, and I've also designed what I think it'll look like:



It's actually a transparent sprite, and several of them stacked side-by-side actually look ok.

Comments and criticisms anyone?

Cheers,
FinalEp
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Mr Tank
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Posted: 28th Nov 2008 04:25 Edited at: 28th Nov 2008 04:26
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HUD looks nice enough. Hard to say without seeing it in the game and working. I trust your judgement!

Quote: "I'll try to implement plain-based shadows in the next build. Maybe shader based shadows if I'm feeling like adding a little extra eye-candy... although I have a feeling that with so many blocks things are going to get ugly...."


For each block the character, or the character's shadow is partially (or fully) over, have a plain ghosted object on top. This will probably mean four or nine plains per character, depending on how large your shadows are. Then you need a single texture for the whole of the player's shadow applied to all these objects. You can then use "scroll object texture" and "scale object texture" to make the correct shadow parts appear over each block.

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