Developing Ramblings

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jayenkai
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

JNKAtoms
A quickly cobbled together remake of a game I used to enjoy on the Amiga.

The idea's simple.
You select up to four players. (The atoms on the right. Tap to turn them off/on/or CPU)
You need at least 2 players to start, but thankfully there's a CPU player for those lonely folk out there!

You can then choose between Easy (Small grid) Normal (Medium grid) or Hard (Large grid)

Place Atoms into either grey or "your colour" squares.
If you overfill a square, the atom explodes, and spews rogue atoms into surrounding squares. Any squares you hit will become your own squares.
The object of the game is to try to kill off all of your opponent's atoms, by bursting all over their squares.
Lovely stuff!!

Lemmie know if you need better instructions than that!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Tormuse »

Hmmm... intriguing... This is actually a pretty cool game! :) After playing a bunch of rounds, I think I've figured out the strategy enough that I can win against three computer-controlled opponents most of the time at easy or normal difficulty. I only played one game at hard difficulty and it took *forever* and still didn't end. :| (Though one player got wiped out earlyish on) Once the board gets that size, there are so many atoms around that it seems to be virtually impossible to completely wipe out all of them. (Though, that may just mean that I need to reconsider my strategy; hmm...)

Basically, you want to set up chain reactions, that rip through your opponents atoms and not through your own. So, you have to be wary of where you set up your clusters of 3 (or 2 by the edges; 1 in the corners) so that if a chain reaction occurs, you don't lose all your atoms. I'll have to play this some more to see if I can figure it all out. :)
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

I haven't rambled much, this week, have I?
In all honesty, it's the fault of Breaking Bad.
Someone suggested watching it, last week, so I grabbed a hold of Seasons 1-4 via "Methods Undisclosed" and started watching it..
I'm already halfway through Season 3. Whoops!!

So, yeah, that's good! It's also soaked up a lot of my usual rambling time, so I've not been posting as much stuff around the inter-the-webs as I usually do.

No matter, there's still time for AGameAWeek!!

This week's game started randomly during a conversation with @Madgarden.
He mentioned an idea he'd had of a platform game being a bit like that bit in TRON, where they use the same Disc as both a weapon and a shield.
I'm not sure what game he's going for, but look out for that in the future.
Meanwhile, my head went off on a tangent, and within about 5 minutes had given birth to a completely unrelated idea of having the Tanks from the Atari 2600 classic "Combat" fighting with Bean Bags.
.. yeah, I'm not entirely sure how those are related, either, but that's how my head works!!

And so, since Friday, that's what I've been tackling.
Somewhere on Sunday, I lost interest in the project.
I'm not sure exactly why. The pieces are in place, and the game "works", but .. I dunno.. There's something missing.

I have a feeling that the missing something is in fact "Player Two"..
Maybe I should start thinking about looking into some of that new-fangled "Online" stuff?

I dunno.
Anyway, the game is playable, and it does work, and it's kinda hard but also nice.
It probably doesn't play too well on little Android devices, although it should roughly work!!

Works better on Windows with keyboard controls.

Bean Bag Tanks - Works, but isn't great. Could be better.
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Tormuse »

Ooh, Combat! That's a game out of my childhood! :D I'll definitely be checking that one out! :)

And I wanted to share that I won Atoms at hard mode. :) I won a few times, actually. Generally, the game seems to be about setting up clusters of 3 atoms (or 2 on the sides, 1 in the corners) two spaces away from any of your opponents' similar clusters, so that if they try to expand into your squares, you can immediately push them back. It gets tricky if there are more than two players, because sometimes you have to battle on multiple fronts and, of course, you only get one move per turn. :| So, to win a four player game, it seems I have to focus on wiping out one player at a time and just let the others ravage me until I get the opportunity to push them back later. There's enough randomness in it that I still lose sometimes, but enough strategy that if I play right, I win a majority of the time. Seems like my kind of game! :D EDIT: Oh yeah, one more thing. I just want to add that the touchscreen controls work very well on my Android device. Kudos! :)

If I can make a suggestion, I wonder if the "Game Over" screen could instead say "You win" if you were playing a one player game. (It might make my victories more satisfying) :D
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

I've started two different games, this week. One is a quick game, the other will require a little more care and attention.

First is a little puzzle game. It's like your normal everyday "match three" thing, except with two little timers going. I'm aiming to make it as fast paced as I possibly can. Should be fun, but it's currently undecided exactly how the mechanics will all fit together!!

My larger project is a bit different. It's my Big May Project, and requires some of those fancy art skills that I don't have, as well as lots of complex coding.
The game is currently titled "Advanced Cavern Simulator", and will be a bit like The Sims, except that you build a little dungeon, instead of a house!
You layout your dungeon, hire monsters and try to defend your hoards of gold from incoming adventurers.

I've only just started this one, and it needs a lot of attention, so it's going to be a while before you get to see anything from it.. ... But the idea seems like it oughta work.

*shrugs*
More later!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Little Project is done and will be posted tomorrow.
It's not the greatest game in the world, but it's a fun little plaything. I guess.. Maybe..!
Bah!

Anyway, Bigger Project is stalled for two reasons.
First, all that artwork that needs doing. Oh boy, there's a lot!
It's proving trickier than I originally thought.
And then there's the fact that a sim-alike requires a GUI, for buying things and moving things around, and stuff like that.
Hmmm..
I don't like doing GUIs!
I especially don't like doing Touchscreen GUIs, because there's no Right Click!! Aargh!!

Big project doesn't need tackled quickly, though. It can quite apply go slowly, and build whenever I get the time.

Which brings us to next week's AGameAWeek.
Somebody today suggested I make a board-game based minigame collection, like the MarioParty games.
.. That's not really something I can cram into a week!!!
But it did get me thinking about board-games, and an old unfinished idea popped back into my head.

.. I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to have to redo a lot of this game from scratch, because it's been a heck of a while since I drew the original assets, and .. Well, they're probably unsuitable!

No guarantees, but next Tuesday might finally be the day that I release my fabled monopoly style game, Patent Wars!
Have to see how "playable" I can make it..!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Here's this week's game.
It's nothing major, and is rather cheap and gnatty looking compared to some of my other games, this year, but it's more of a "gameplay experiment" than a full game.

Smash Lines sees you drawing over lines of matching blocks, to make them disappear.
It's a lot like Stringy Things's Strings game, in that sense.
There's also a little ticking combo timer, so you can score more if you're quick, and you'll have to be quick, because the Round Timer is also pretty darned fast!

It's all a case of "Get in, Play, Get out!", as the game rapidly tries to stop you at every turn!

It shows that I sort of fell out of love with the gameplay midway through development. Sorry about that!
Seems that even doing things at a rate of AGameAWeek can result in me getting bored with game ideas!!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Tormuse »

When I try opening the .APK file for Smash Lines, my phone gives me an error message that says, "There is a problem parsing the package." I'm not sure what that means, but I can't seem to install it. :|
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Ooooh! I'll have a look tomorrow. For today, I'm spending some more time cataloging all my photos. There's literally thousands of the things, all with "DSCwxyz.jpg" type filenames, all disorganised, all in folders with labels like "Dull Day" or "Pics 37" or other useless tidbits.
Chaotic mess..
This is day 4, and I've still got over 500 photos to sift through..

ugh...
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Things are getting crazy!

So, I have the lengthy project going. That's my target for the end of the month.
I haven't gotten very far with it, though, because I'm also working on the slightly smaller project.
Juggling is fun.
Usually..
Until a Twitter conversation spurs an idea, and suddenly you're working on three games!!


... And then you realise you've little/no chance to get any of those three games done by Tuesday, and instead start work on a fourth game, in the hope that you can at least release something on Tuesday!!!
Aargh!!

*sigh*
So, today I took the time to do something entirely unrelated to the other projects, and remade a fun little shooty thing within the space of the day.
Tomorrow I'll get back to one of the other three projects, and see how far I can get them.

Sorry, had no time for fiddling with SmashLines, today, but I'm assuming it's to do with the upgrade tweaking I did last week. Grrr! Wlll fiddle and let you know.
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Tormuse »

Heheh, this reminds me that you recently said that you're surprised that you've been able to keep agameaweek.com going for so long considering that you have ADD, but I think this shows that you've been able to keep it up so long *because* of your ADD. :D I would say that the ability to go from project to project (or project to three projects as the case may be) ;) seems to be a natural complement to your ADD. :)

Also, I tried redownloading Smash Lines again and it seems to have worked this time. I don't know if it's because my first copy got corrupted or if it's a result of your fiddling, but I'll give the game a try and let you know about it. :)

First impressions: Makes a nifty little smartphone game. I still frequently miss the gem I'm trying to touch, but I think that's mostly the product of my small screen size again. I still think it's useful to have a button on the menu which brings up a brief description of the rules; at first glance, I thought it was like Bejeweled and that you're supposed to move the gems around by dragging them. It took me a few minutes to figure out that you're supposed to trace a pattern through adjacent alike gems. (The first game I played, I got 1st place with zero points!) :D The ability to get combos by quickly tracing patterns through other sets of gems is pretty cool and works well as a game mechanic... again, once I figured out that I could do it. :)

Also, a bug! :o When I pause the game, it doesn't pause the timer. It runs itself right to zero and takes me to the game over screen. Being able to pause smartphone games is an important feature when you're out and about.
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

*phew*

Good timing, Tormuse, I was about to tear my Dev-kit apart, to try to diagnose the issue!
I gave it a couple of tests, deleting the version on my device, and redownloading it from scratch, and the thing seemed to work fine, so I was slightly worried it might be something more complex, and was literally about to start digging my heels in to find the problem!
*sigh*

Ok, I can relax!

As you've probably noticed, instructions are very very very rarely put into any of my games. I should probably do more of those, but when I'm rushing over a weekend to get a game done, it's those sorts of features that tend to get put on the backburner!
It's bad enough when you're getting ready to launch a game, then suddenly realise you've not drawn the titlescreen yet!!
.. that happens far more often than I'd like to mention!
If you see the rainbow, it means I ran out of time!!

Same goes for the pause button.. Sorry 'bout that.. It's the little things I tend to forget about!
In my older frameworks, I literally stopped the game engine from running whenever you hit Pause, took a screengrab, then drew the screengrab onscreen until the game was unpaused..
Can't do that using Monkey, so instead I had to keep the game engine ticking away in the background, so the gameplay appears behind the pause menu.. This has lead to a few "it's not paused!!" issues, like the enemy in Karl's Tiny Adventure still animating away, and other silly quirky things.
.. for the most part it's fine, and works ok, but occasionally I forget to switch things off, and gameplay goes awry!

Luckily it's not been anything too bad, yet, although this might be a first example of it breaking gameplay! D'oh!

OK, back to the code.
I'm currently fiddling with Patent Wars again. Definitely ain't going to get that one done for Tuesday!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Tormuse »

jayenkai wrote:...and was literally about to start digging my heels in to find the problem!
Typing with your heels? This shows the difference between how you and I code. I would have used my hands! ;)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist) :P
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Heels, Toes, Anything goes!
Fling everything you can at the evil Duck Dragon, as he storms the city!

Idigidragon Returns!

Given that I crammed this entire game into the space of about 5 hours, it's actually turned out quite nicely.
A simple little shooty thing.
Tap to shoot, hold to move, aim at the duck dragon's eye, and score as many points as you can before he inevitably kills you with his evil blocky-fire-breath.

You can Download Idigidragon Returns here.
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Oh dear, I haven't posted ANYTHING since last week!
Ooops!
Sorry.

AGameAWeek
This week's game is a little bit random, but I've given you the option to play either of two pseudo-random (always the same) versions, or a completely random one.
One Of These Will Kill You sees a grid of tiles appearing onscreen. You have to click/tap one, and hope it's not a bomb!
Nice and simple, and should help kill a couple of minutes while waiting on a bus, or the kettle, or whatever else it is you're doing with your phone!

Other Projects
SpikeDislike2 v1.3 was released on iOS on Sunday, so if you've got an iPhing, be sure to grab that. Lovely new additions, including Portrait mode, and a few extra gameplay modes.

Meanwhile...
Patent Wars has had it's board layout half-organised, but needs a whole lot of GUI work before gameplay can really be added. I HATE doing GUI stuff.. Gah!

ACS (Advanced Cavern Simulator) isn't moving along, much, either. That, too needs a great big bunch of GUI stuff adding, with all manner of menu systems required. .. I REALLY HATE doing GUI stuff!!

And then there's "MLG : Microscopic Lifeform Genocide!", the sequel to Microbes which sort of works but is a bit lacking in the gameplay department.

ugh...
So much to work on, all at the same time!
And I've still not entirely finished SpikeDislike2, yet, either!
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

I'm coding the same thing, over and over and over again!!!

Over at AGameAWeek, I've been doing AGameAWeek Gold, where I trawl through my archive, and pluck out games that I've previously released on this day in history.
Today, it seems, is the 10th birthday of the original Stringy Things.

Ten whole years ago!
Wow..

So I downloaded it, like I've been doing with all my AGameAWeek Gold games, to ensure that A) The online file still downloads correctly, and B) The resulting .exe is still playable.
I gave it a whirl.
... you can tell that it's old. It doesn't quite feel as "complete" as future editions of Stringy Things.
All those gripes that Tormuse had about the newer version of Stringy Things are nothing compared to the annoying issues in the first version!

Ten years ago!!?

Then, I paused the game, (spacebar) and THIS showed up..
Image
... Yes, Ten years ago to this day, I made a Testcard pattern show up when the player paused the game.
How odd that, just this week, I spent about 5 hours creating a Testcard Generator, with the idea of transplanting the thing into my games as some sort of Pause/Credits screen...
I mean, seriously, what are the chances of that? Me doing the exact same thing, 10 years later?
..

I appear to be stuck in some sort of highly repetitive rut, whereby I keep coding the same things, over and over again.
hmmm..

I think it's time to start coming up with some new ideas.
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Maz »

Developer ramblings...

Fine. Lets go then. Thread hijacking =] I am odd code writer. Kind of a dinosaur. I do it the old way. I want to know exactly how the bits sit in a memory. Anything higher level language thanC freaks me out. So does GUIs. Commandline is the UI for me. Vi is the IDE. If my program needs runtime controls, then I go with ncurses.

I have obsession with network protocols. I've been writing more than handfull of tools handling raw network data. And I always want to do it all by myself. For example my network traffic sniffer which writes packets to pcapng file does not use pcap lib but handles pcapng format itself.

I enjoy inventing new solutions to problems, and I am proud of them. Unfortunately most of the tools I write have limited or no audience. Not all of us need ethernet packet generators , sniffer, UDP print listener, hw peripherial simulators etc...
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by Maz »

Oh, and it happened to me too. I've been using svn for ages. But now I fell in love. Light local branches stole my heart. Thus I moved some of my projects to github. Feel free to fork and play with them =] Although playing may not be what you thin it is - this is gaming forum after all...
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

Hurray! Another coder!! :D

I can't stand modern GUI driven "development environments".. Nnngh. Just give me a screen and a keyboard, and let me type! That's how I was brought up.
I can understand the need for more-and-more GUI driven stuff, nowadays, but for us oldies, it just doesn't work.

If I want to shuffle my buttons across by a couple of pixels, I'll shove a +2 on their drawing routine, not desperately attempt to move a tiny element 2 pixels with a mouse. That's not how you do it! Code with keys, not a mouse!

But.. Tackling Networks. That's something I've never really attempted. To be fair, it's more down to the fact that I've no decent way to stress test my code, so am never happy that it'll "just work". Some day. Maybe.. :/
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Re: Developing Ramblings

Post by jayenkai »

This week's game is .. Um... .. Hmmm....

I've made two versions of Microbes before (Microbes and Microbe2), and decided to make a third, but didn't want to go for another silly number-in-the-title sequel.. Instead of Microb3s, I've opted to call this one MLG:Microscopic Lifeform Genocide!!!

.. Feel free to kick me, if you think that was a bad decision!

Second, there's a distinct lack of "right mouse button" in Monkey coding, what with Browser games not letting you use the right mouse button, and Android devices obviously just having a "touch or no touch" style of interface. Grr..
So, no right mouse button means no "bullet time" features.

Third.. I wasn't sure how to do powerups, so have currently left them out.

What's left is half the game that it could've been, but I'm willing to expand upon it, if anyone has any ideas as to how I can implement the various powerups.
.. I'm all out of ideas!!

You can Download MLG here.
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