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.

Work in Progress / MineClimb - A TGC Competition Game

Author
Message
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 6th Mar 2014 22:44 Edited at: 4th May 2014 21:08
Link


Concept:
In Mine Climb, you play a Jim - your average miner. On the job deep in the mines, Jim unintentionally releases the forces of a dormant volcano! Luckily Jim is wearing his climbing boots and has a chance to escape by rapidly climbing up the side of his mineshafts. The mines are quite a work safety violation, though! On the way up, Jim must jump out of the way of any obstacles that will knock him off the walls and into the rapidly rising lava below.

Control Jim and his boots as he climbs up out of the endles deep! Try to reach all four distinctive zones, and see how far you can travel as you compete with others to give Jim the fate he deserves.

This game only has one key! By pressing the space key, you can jump from one wall to another to avoid obstacles as Jim climbs out of the pit. Which might be endless... Jim has been digging for a while. Poor Jim. I hope he gets paid overtime.

[EDIT]I'm now finished this game! Please go to the new thread in Program Announcements, here, for more information!:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=210966&b=5&p=0


Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
BMacZero
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Dec 2005
Location: E:/ NA / USA
Posted: 9th Mar 2014 21:54
Link
I like the story . Poor Jim...

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 9th Mar 2014 22:35 Edited at: 9th Mar 2014 22:42
Link
Mockup of some of the pixel art scenery:



My pixel art skills are slowly improving
The challenge with this will be developing procedural environments in realtime that have appealling pixel art. Right now I'm using a tile-based system but I might switch that.

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
ShellfishGames
10
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Feb 2013
Location:
Posted: 10th Mar 2014 00:35
Link
That does look very nice! Great choice of colors and contrast. It really is quite pleasing to look at.

Quote: " you can jump from one wall to another to avoid obstacles as Jim climbs out of the pit (which might be endless... Jim has been digging for a while.)"


Ha. Poor Jim indeed.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 10th Mar 2014 00:40 Edited at: 11th Mar 2014 02:45
Link
Procedural generation is proving easier than I thought! It's pretty easy to generate random tunnels but my main problem is determining the correct tile to display. I currently have 30 or so terrain tile types and growing, so I decided not to hard code every possible state the tiles could be in. Instead, I'm working on creating a database that the game can use to determine what tile a block should be based on its surrounding blocks. This makes it easy for me to develop new terrain features. I'm concerned about the speed but I'm still experimenting.

[EDIT] Here's the current state of the terrain tile renderer. As you can see, I have the basics down but there are a lot of cases that I either haven't coded yet or haven't created the pixel art. Even so, I'm happy with where this is going. Note that these aren't procedurally generated yet, but they are realtime! I just made a simple editor using the mouse to place tiles. Each tile is either solid or nothing and the engine fills in what type of terrain tile it will be.



[EDIT 2] Updated screenshot of the menu! note the nice particle effects, I coded a particle system today.



Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 4th Apr 2014 04:11 Edited at: 4th Apr 2014 04:12
Link
Current graphics:

Watch out other entries! I may not have worked on this at all yet but I'm coming! Also I do have some procedural generation done under the surface.

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Ched80
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Sep 2010
Location: Peterborough, UK
Posted: 4th Apr 2014 19:42
Link
This looks awesome!

Loving the lava, especially the glow

Back to top
Profile PM Email
BatVink
Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 23rd Apr 2014 10:52
Link
Just 7 days to go before the competition closing date.
Make sure your entries are posted here with the relevant information.
Good luck!

ten-net consulting limited
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 24th Apr 2014 05:37 Edited at: 24th Apr 2014 05:38
Link
Just an update, I've done a lot of work behind the scenes on this game. I havent done much regarding the gameplay, but I have coded an entire game engine that's tuned for pixel art games. It has an entity system, a particle system, automatic loading of textures and animations, screen loss recovery, pixel fonts, and more. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to show something more playable.

In the screenshot below - just testing some animated sprites - all set up automatically by the engine, all I have to do is call one function to render them.


Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 24th Apr 2014 12:36
Link
Wow, that's what you call pixel greatness. It is to build the engine the way you are, it makes it more efficient for reuse.

I like the screen wipe transition effect.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 24th Apr 2014 20:12 Edited at: 24th Apr 2014 20:15
Link
Sorry to keep posting animated gifs, but I'm very proud of how this looks now! Previous versions had everything hardcoded but with my engine its now very easy to create scenes like this. This is basically the final version of the menu.



Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 24th Apr 2014 21:05 Edited at: 24th Apr 2014 21:05
Link
I like watching your GIFs. It seems like some of the frames of the mine backdrop are missing on my screen, it doesn't play seamlessly. Instead of the last frame resembling the first frame, the scenery goes back to the first frame half way through. Or perhaps this is intentional.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Barry Pythagoras
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Mar 2014
Location:
Posted: 24th Apr 2014 22:24
Link
Look snice!
Back to top
Profile PM
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 25th Apr 2014 01:02 Edited at: 26th Apr 2014 06:51
Link
@Chris Tate: That's just the GIF ending. In the actual game it's a procedurally generated endless tunnel. I am using Bresenham's line algorithm to create diagonal tunnels easily.

Barry Pythagoras: Thanks!

[edit] More screenshots, with some gameplay this time



Back to top
Profile PM Email
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 26th Apr 2014 19:35 Edited at: 26th Apr 2014 19:36
Link
I had a feeling it was a gif animation issue.

What a poor little man in all that trouble. Looking at the poor man surrounded by sharp spikes, molten lava inside a deep dark claustrophobic vertigo instilling mine pit makes you want play just to save him; oh and there are mines! Now all you need is a big hungry filfy looking troll seeking to gobble him up for lunch. Erm.. nah just kidding.

Looking forward to see how this turns out.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 27th Apr 2014 06:15 Edited at: 27th Apr 2014 06:16
Link
Thanks Chris.

I'm uploading Alpha 1 of MineClimb right now! This test is just to see the performance on other people's computers, weed out some graphics bugs, and just practice releasing the game as a download. This version is completely playable, but it has no highscores and effectively no world generation - it just repeats the same section over and over (I've gotta keep some things for the final release!) I'd appreciate if anyone who sees this could download the game, see how the performance is (FPS counter in the window title) and if there are any immediate bugs. Also, try out the automatic screen loss recovery - use Ctrl-Alt-Delete on windows 7 or switch display modes and if the game doesn't crash, the recover works! Thanks! My high score is 14... I can't seem to get past that first spike

Download - MineClimb Alpha 1

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 27th Apr 2014 12:49
Link
I got to 780 metres. My FPS is 100.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Sasuke
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Dec 2005
Location: Milton Keynes UK
Posted: 27th Apr 2014 13:08
Link
Really great so far thenerd, I love the look, it's runs well and functions well too. I got 230 ish FPS on my.

"Get in the Van!" - Van B
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 27th Apr 2014 14:48 Edited at: 27th Apr 2014 22:38
Link
Thanks guys! I'm working on getting some harder / more exciting terrain in.

Blog post - April 27th, 2014 - Worldgen
The game is effectively finished! The majority of the graphics are complete, most of the bugs have been weeded out, and the game is completely functional. I'm having a problem with the score uploading and downloading so I've disabled the scores for now. I only have one task left, and that's an important one - world gen. Right now the current world has a plain level with spikes that just repeats endlessly. Sure, it's challenging, but it's boring. My plan is to have 4 different "zones" each with different random level generation - the lab zone, the cave zone, the mine zone, and the volcano zone. Watch this thread for the next release which will be entirely focused on level generation.

[edit] Here we go! The next Alpha release is here:

Download - MineClimb Alpha 2

I've added two of the zones to the game... Hopefully it adds some more variation This version has the difficulty level turned down - I mistakingly had the speedup very low for testing and forgot to change it back. Oh well!

My questions regarding this release?

1) Does there need to be more variation in the levels?
2) How does the speed feel? too slow, too fast?
3) Would you rather have the game extremely difficult, or easier? An easier game would guarantee everyone sees all of the zones which I've put a lot of effort into. However, a more difficult game is also more satisfying for those who are able to master it.

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 30th Apr 2014 06:34
Link
Sorry for the double post, updated the original post with the final version of the game!!!


Back to top
Profile PM Email
Van B
Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 30th Apr 2014 13:48
Link
Really like the style of this, will have a play tonight - just wanted to leave some kudo's on the pixel art

I am the one who knocks...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 1st May 2014 01:50
Link
Thanks Van - hope you get a chance to play!


Back to top
Profile PM Email
Sasuke
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Dec 2005
Location: Milton Keynes UK
Posted: 1st May 2014 12:35 Edited at: 1st May 2014 12:35
Link
Fun Times


Quote: "1) Does there need to be more variation in the levels?"


Yes but since this is an alpha I'll imagine you'll be adding a ton of stuff

Quote: "2) How does the speed feel? too slow, too fast?"


It can go too fast sometimes and because the position on the screen is in the middle you don't have a lot of time to react, but I do get a sense of achievement if I do get past it.

Quote: "3) Would you rather have the game extremely difficult, or easier? An easier game would guarantee everyone sees all of the zones which I've put a lot of effort into. However, a more difficult game is also more satisfying for those who are able to master it."


Keep the difficulty I say, it's good where it's at and I imagine it will change slightly as you progress.

A further note: The music files could be greatly reduced if you have the permissions to do so. It would help for a much smaller download.

Other than that keep up the great work so far.

"Get in the Van!" - Van B

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 2nd May 2014 03:29 Edited at: 2nd May 2014 03:29
Link
Thanks for the advice Sasuke. Make sure you check the OP and play the final version!


Back to top
Profile PM Email
BMacZero
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Dec 2005
Location: E:/ NA / USA
Posted: 2nd May 2014 07:50
Link
I finally got a chance to play it! The difficulty was spot on for me. I was just about to give up when I managed to get to the second zone, so then I had to keep playing to see what else there was .

Could be a very good mobile game if you could port it.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 2nd May 2014 20:53
Link
1) Does there need to be more variation in the levels?
I am not sure. The variation seems fine to me.

2) How does the speed feel? too slow, too fast?
The speed seems fine. I die mostly by colliding with walls, but it feels like a good speed.

3) Would you rather have the game extremely difficult, or easier? An easier game would guarantee everyone sees all of the zones which I've put a lot of effort into. However, a more difficult game is also more satisfying for those who are able to master it.
[b]I believe you cannot please everyone, at least when there is only one way to complete a video game. I would have liked to have been able to make it to your additional zones.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
thenerd
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 4th May 2014 21:07
Link
Thanks Chris.

I'm now finished this game! Please post any feedback in the new Program Announcements thread, here:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=210966&b=5&p=0


Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2023-06-10 02:18:54
Your offset time is: 2023-06-10 02:18:54