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Program Announcements / Climb That Big Tree

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hmm
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 00:39 Edited at: 19th Feb 2010 15:40
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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

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C0wbox
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 01:18 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
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! 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 !

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dark coder
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 01:22 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 02:02
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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.

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C0wbox
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 02:36 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
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^^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
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Venge
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 03:26
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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.
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FireIndy
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 03:42 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 04:57
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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
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Hassan
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 08:17
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checkpoints would be good, but i didnt find it much annoying, just the bug when i get stuck inside the boxes, it's nice

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hmm
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 12:24 Edited at: 17th Feb 2010 12:55
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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!
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FireIndy
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Posted: 17th Feb 2010 14:22
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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!!!
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C0wbox
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Posted: 18th Feb 2010 00:16 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:35
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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.
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hmm
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Posted: 18th Feb 2010 10:28
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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?
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dark coder
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Posted: 18th Feb 2010 14:47
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Here's a video showing how it's done, I amazingly managed to get through the floor as well!

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C0wbox
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Posted: 18th Feb 2010 16:32 Edited at: 18th Feb 2010 16:36
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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. )
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hmm
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Posted: 18th Feb 2010 21:51 Edited at: 19th Feb 2010 00:56
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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
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C0wbox
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Posted: 19th Feb 2010 14:05
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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.
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hmm
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Posted: 19th Feb 2010 15:41
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Update available (see first post). Hopefully this will have tweaked all the issues in the first version.
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Matty H
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Posted: 19th Feb 2010 17:49
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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
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C0wbox
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Posted: 19th Feb 2010 17:54
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!

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>
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Diggsey
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Posted: 19th Feb 2010 19:41
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Lol @ the ending

Nice game!


New DBPro IDE + integrated debugger!
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thenerd
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Posted: 20th Feb 2010 17:00
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I think it's pretty good, a bit annoying but really addicting, although you need to add textures and a bit of polish.

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FireIndy
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Posted: 20th Feb 2010 18:33
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The update made it a lot more playable =] Turned out to be a lot of fun actually xD


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hmm
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Posted: 21st Feb 2010 20:48
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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.
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Valle
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Posted: 8th Mar 2010 11:26
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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


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arlojeremy
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Posted: 9th Mar 2010 09:00
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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.
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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 25th Apr 2010 16:20
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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!
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C0wbox
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Posted: 25th Apr 2010 17:12
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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.

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Matty H
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Posted: 25th Apr 2010 19:36
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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
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C0wbox
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Posted: 25th Apr 2010 20:44 Edited at: 25th Apr 2010 20:44
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Yeh, this game would look awesome if you actually modelled a tree around the currently blocky tree !

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hmm
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Posted: 3rd May 2010 09:33
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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.
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Ermes
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 16:06
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i think is a small but nice game.
good work

ciao faccie da sedere!
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Daygamer
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2010 06:24
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great game. I loved it!

yrotate when you can spin?
God Bless!
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Daniel TGC
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 13:28
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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.
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Dr Tank
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 15:11
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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.
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hmm
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Posted: 9th Sep 2010 19:17 Edited at: 9th Sep 2010 19:17
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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!
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Michael P
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Posted: 16th Sep 2010 12:04
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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
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