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Work in Progress / Dumbo & Cool - monthly update thread

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Drew Cameron
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Joined: 30th Jan 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 7th Dec 2004 21:54 Edited at: 7th Dec 2004 22:18
Dumbo & Cool is a 3D platforming game, where the player can switch between 2 players with different abilities etc. I talked about this concept in the game design theory board, and hopefully the game will become the game I wanted Dumbo's Adventure to be.

URL: http://www.drewsgames.com/dac.zip
SIZE: 1mb
UPDATE DATE: December 2004 update



THIS MONTH: Basically, this is an ALPHA demo showing off some basic gameplay elements. Controls are listed in the README file. I am looking for comments on the following areas...

GRAPHICS: What are they like? The trees and 2D are to be redone, but what about the rest?

CONTROLS: Intuitive?

MATRIX PROBLEMS: Can you walk up certain areas of the matrix? I had a lot of problems when writing the matrix collision code for both characters, and some bugs may not have been ironed out.

SOUND: FORGET SOUND! All sounds are to be redone.

SPEED: Sluggish? Too fast?

BUGS FOUND / SUGGESTIONS: Anything else you can think of, paticularily bugs you may have found.

I would welcome all comments, and would appreciate if they are in the categories above. The game has been in development for just under 2 months, and so is still early in development. In the end, I hope to see it with 6 large levels and no bugs!

Thanks in advance,
D.C

Drews free DB games - http://www.drewsgames.com/
Time Ship : out now! Check out the link above!
Van B
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 02:01
GRAPHICS:
I like the nice bright colour scheme, but the main characters are a little plain, perhaps some stuffed-toy fur would look cool.

CONTROLS:
The controls were all pretty easy to suss out, I like to use space as jump, but maybe map the special use key to '0' on the keypad too, it's easier to get at than shift while keeping fingers on all keys. The movement is very responsive, if I was to do anything to it, I'd try and get a smoothly rotating camera, like turning slower than the player so weaving around obstacles feels better.

MATRIX PROBLEMS:
I did'nt notice any bugs other than when it told me, but there was nothing that jamp out except some Z-Depth battling with the shadow plains.

SPEED:
Seemed ok, a playable speed anyway - did you lock the frame rate?

BUGS FOUND:
* Both players start in the same spot.
* Z-Depth problems on shadows.

SUGGESTIONS:
* Tart up player textures.
* Smooth rotate camera.
* Map special key to '0-ins' too.
* Use a negative ghosted plain with a blurred shadow texture instead.

Nice work, keeping an eye on this one .


Van-B


It's c**p being the only coder in the village.
Tifu
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Joined: 13th Sep 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 02:05
I don't have permission to access /dac.zip on this server. Apparently

Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 02:14
Ahh, forgot to say, you should copy and paste into your browser, did the same to me.


Van-B


It's c**p being the only coder in the village.
Cian Rice
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Posted: 8th Dec 2004 02:50
It looks good but I fear to download it because my computer got all messed up when I played the first dumbo.

Have a heart and join my message board.
Tifu
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Joined: 13th Sep 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 03:41
VanB: Ah, that's sorted it, thenko

Anime Blood: Possibly cos the first one used (I believe?) some other program beside DB to access levels... this one looks to be all DB so it should work if that was the problem

GRAPHICS: Love the water And the way Dumbo/Cool now actually display their power-ups on their body is a big improvement.
CONTROLS: I've never been a huge fan of shift/control/etc as controls. If the game is big enough, i'd suggest making a custom scontrol screen, then no one can complain
MATRIX PROBLEMS: Seems to be working fine, assuming they aren't supposed to be able to walk up that brick-like texture without putting on the speed boost thing.
SPEED: Fine-a-doodle
BUGS FOUND / SUGGESTIONS: Nothing to suggest at the moment, though I second VanB's suggestion of making the camera turn slower. It would also let you see the characters faces a little =)

Cian Rice
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Posted: 8th Dec 2004 03:43
Thanks for the info, but Drew can you confirm this?

Have a heart and join my message board.
chilledoutjohn
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Posted: 8th Dec 2004 05:58
EH-UP, all good apart from i found i could press shift as soon as i jumped, if i kept pressing it i would just get higher and higher, apart from that, sweet
Drew Cameron
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Joined: 30th Jan 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 22:47 Edited at: 8th Dec 2004 23:07
Responses:

The SHIFT key is meant for debugging, please ignore.
No, you are not meant to be able to scale the brick area without the speed ability.
About Dumbo's Adventure: that used VB, and this one doesn't, so this version probably won't cause you any problems
The framerate is set to 0, but on my version of DB, that means it can never rise above 60fps. Too fast VanB?

To implement:

Shadow bug
Slower rotation camera
Customizable controls (will follow anyway)
Perhaps new textures for characters (not personally sure about that, but will give it a try)

Thanks very much, see you all next month!

Drews free DB games - http://www.drewsgames.com/
Time Ship : out now! Check out the link above!
Benjamin
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Location: France
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 23:19 Edited at: 8th Dec 2004 23:20
The speed is good for me. I managed to scale the brick area as dumbo .


Quote: "To implement:

Shadow bug"

It looks like you already implemented that shadow bug . Try disabling object zdepth on the shadow or whatever..

Raven: That said, I DO say 'that said' a lot. 'Nuf said.
AluminumPork
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Location: Duluth, MN, USA
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 23:22
I remember that the game was practicly un-playable it went so fast on my box.

I've only got a 2.8P4 HT, 512MB RAM, and a Radeon 9600 128. Nothing too great. That's why never got into the dumbo games, they looked cool and everyone said they were so great, but they just ran wayyyy too twitchy on my box. As in press left and he rotated 90-180 degree, it was unplayable.

Please set the framerate to stay below 60 or so. Cuz I swear I was getting 200 - 250.

P4 2.4Ghz HT, 512MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 128MB, 19" Samsung SyncMaster 997DF, 80GB HD

Drew Cameron
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Joined: 30th Jan 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 8th Dec 2004 23:27 Edited at: 9th Dec 2004 18:49
Have no fear - there will be an option to lock the framerate aluminium pork.

I meant remove the shadow bug

Updates


Have just implemented the following new features:

Camera curve (as requested)
Sped up player animation slightly
A few more bug fixes

And some problems I didn't fix:

I liked your idea of fur VanB, but the fur thing really doesn't work too well I'll keep looking for alternate textures, as I agree they are very bland textures

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Next month's update will feature a lot more stuff, like an objective, voice acting, sound, options screen etc...

Drews free DB games - http://www.drewsgames.com/
Time Ship : out now! Check out the link above!

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