Lots O Stuff

Didn't realize it had been this long since I updated here. >_>

The main thing to report is that I'm getting a bunch of my stuff ready for publishing on OUYA. Yay!

Here's a list of the ones I'm planning on bring over:
-Megatank (v2)
-Laser Carrot Attack (v2)
-Fire Arrow
-Flying V (remix/V5/OUYA Edition/whatever)
- (unnamed Space Harrier type game)
- (unnamed dragon game)

The other thing is that I started experimenting with a little paper doll animation thing that could in theory be used to build a fighting game (or something more interesting, hopefully.)

As you can see, even only using an incomplete graphics set (no side or back views yet), it can yield some interesting results. I've even made it to export all the pertinent data for each animation frame. The issue is, though, that the amount of data that needed exporting took me aback somewhat. Somehow, an 8-frame kick animation managed to take up 900+ lines! Granted, that's with every variable hogging the whole line for itself; but still.

Basically, I'm going to have to figure out some clever loading/data crunching scheme if I ever plan to use any of this stuff.. which I would really like to.

FLYING V - New demo!

http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/95432

Features:

- 4th level
- new music by Raigon
- bonus stages
- Arcade Extra mode
- unique weapon for each ship (Dual)
... lots and lots of minor tweaks


What still needs work:

- some sound fx aren't final
- difficulty settings may require balancing (ok..probably a lot)
- Level 4 still needs some graphical touches
- Bonus stages are functional but aren't quite 'there'

FV update

New videos courtesy of SSK. :)



This is the new mode (it's called "Arcade Extra" on the menu now), where enemy bullets change to medals if you clear the entire formation/wave - some of which only consist of a single enemy. There are some more differences from the standard game, too, such as a simple rank system that replaces the difficulty settings (the ones in the options menu do not apply in AE mode.) Basically, reaching a target number of completed waves - ie. 25/50/75 - will cause a subtle spike in difficulty; but being as the medal values increase alongside this, you'll ultimately have to tough it out with faster bullets and more aggressive enemies if you want the best score.

Speaking of score, AE mode has a much, much higher scoring potential than the other modes, I've made it just under 80 million on recent test runs. This also means the extend requirements are similarly higher - by at least 3x.

Also new (for all modes) is that the Dual weapon is now different for every ship. Hurray for variety!

Fire Eagle - Wide back/forwards spread, similar to the kind seen in Star Soldier games.
Gold Hawk - Focused, narrowing forward shot for concentrating all firepower on a single target.
Jade - Targeting shot similar to the Talon; but focuses on a single target.
Sapphire - Bits independently target enemies, same as the old default one.


Also also new is a bonus for destroying an enemy before they can fire. Right now you get 15x that enemy's value; but that may change.


ALSO ALSO ALSO... I just went back and added tags to all my previous posts here (not there was really that many), so it's easier to pinpoint info on specific games, videos, demo links and whatnot now. :)

Flying V lives!

I've been working on good old 'V again. Here's some of it's lovely new features!

- Horizontal panning added
- Player/enemy bullets sprites redrawn pixel by pixel
- Difficulty settings have been re-enabled, including fake 'bullet hell' ones, like in XYX
- Death's Head LUNA (level 2 boss) has a second attack phase and her wings are now destructible.
- MEGA MEDAL mode (difficulty 7), where stray enemy bullets turn into medals and the scoring potential goes through the roof!
- Old music tracks are being scrapped. Many thanks go to those who helped me with them, of course; but I'm aiming for greater consistency and refinement overall. Raigon mentioned possibly working on some music for this; but I won't hold him to it.

I've asked SSK to help me with a video for the new version, too, so keep an eye out. :)

New Flying V!

Well, not that there's really any new content, just a bit optimization and tweaking here and there. The main reason for this update is that I got it to go from running like complete pig shit to fairly smooth by..

A: Downsampling most of my sfx (which were almost all in 44k), I shaved off 2 megs or more from the .gmk just by doing this
B: NOT PRELOADING said sfx. Why oh why is that wretched box checked by default? I first tried this with XYX and the difference was NIGHT AND DAY. If my jaw could've dropped through the floor and knocked my downstairs neighbor unconscious, it would have!
C: The devastatingly awesome Cleanmem.DLL

Anyways, here it is. I doubt it'll make much difference if you have a decent PC, though.

New demo

Took long enough -_-

New music, 3 levels, 3 bosses. Not finalized by any stretch of the imagination'; but enough new stuff that I think it's worth showing.

(swiped from my post on shmups)
Performance notes:

For lower spec systems (ie netbook), set fx to no blur or minimum, set debris off, music off. Medal mode might also cause a hit from the higher instance count. None of these have a *huge* impact on performance; but it's enough to help.

'No blur' gives the game a slightly sharper look, too. I think I prefer it slightly.

Random stuff/glitches/ little crap I forgot to fix:
- small medals are occasionally counted twice at the end of a stage
- if you change weapons while a powerup is moving towards you, it will keep moving
- snake segments sometimes won't die with the head section
- train sections sometimes take longer to self-destruct than they should
- Talons sometimes target enemies that can't be hit

Almost.....there....

Sound Test

I just finished a creepy little song for the Game Over/ Continue countdown screen, too.

New boss!

One to go (for Level 2) and the demo's a wrap I think...

Working on ZPF again, new Flying V demo soon..

Maybe it was just burnout from working on the same thing for so long (Flying V); but i started tinkering with ZPF again.



- Updated enemy bullet patterns. No more messiness, patterns screwing up once the enemy starts/stops moving.

- New sound effects (mostly from Kyutwo.com and Shockwave Sound.) The ones I had made in SFXR were generally fine until they all played at the same time..ugh.

- Options (into which the Enemy Test mode is embedded)

- Enemy Test is more configurable and up to date with FV's now. You can select variations on the current enemy's behavior/ movement patterns, how many times to loop, and number of steps between loops. (1 step = 1/60th a second)

- New Maximum Fire mode which replaces each weapon's previous level 3 setting. When the meter is visible (the flaming sword in the HUD), hold X to a fire a more powerful shot.
- You can now use all three ship variants I've made so far.

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

New FV demo coming soon, too.

I had to cut down some of the content of level 1, leaving stuff that could be added in other places. Basically, the demo will have 3 levels instead of 2 now, although they will probably be on the short side. I think I just need a few more enemy types to fill in the gaps that are there.

New music and Yoyogames.com troubles

Prepping to put in some new music (finally), Flying V now has tsg1zzn's Super Sound System installed. (I used the handy .gex extension version by Melcastro.)

I even cranked out a few cheapie test tracks in Garageband...hahaha. The one I made for the first boss actually came out kinda good, though, so it's probably staying. <_< Anyways, I know I don't get much traffic here; but I think it's worth mentioning anyways: YYG is apparently having some virus trouble, so be wary of clicking on any game links here for the time being.

Progress?

*Finally* making some progress on level 2.

New snakes - they're more like the standard snakes you see in most shmups, where you can break off any body segment and see the 'skeleton' underneath.
New enemy - kill the little nasties and the ship flies off! :)

Other stuff :
- Green snakes are more interesting and fun now (ie they don't suck/aren't completely FUBAR)
- Enemy test mode added. You can adjust the time interval between enemy spawns and how many times the pattern loops.

Holy crap, key config!

Big deal, I know; but it is my first.

FV : Some things

-Redid Fire Eagle's sprites
-Redid orange tank sprites

-Snazzy new big number font and other random new graphics
-New Medal Mode (ok, I just swiped what I had in ZpUltra; but it's new for this game at least)
-End stage display/medal total countdown
-Arrangement is now strictly per-moment time based (like XYX) rather than loop based
-New enemy patterns (made possible due to simplifying a lot of what I already had)

The next step is pretty much just rebuilding stage 1. Now that I don't have messy loops to deal with, I think I can make the timing much, much smoother than before.

Flying V (V2) - Newest version footage

Sorry about the watermark, the ugly low res and the lack of sound... it's the absolute best I could get with my crappy pc. >_>

Also, Dxtory is officially the winner out of all the screen recording software I've tried.

Flying V updated

Flying V: New version

No big additions or anything, just lots of tweaks. Options menu (from XYX), new effects, improved bullet visibility etc.

Back to the grind...

Got back to work on XYX. Nothing major yet; but it has snazzy new intro type stuff and lots of little fixes and tweaks.

I forgot how much I hate stage arrangement, though....ugh -_-

Flying V is up to it's current (pre-Eeepocalpyse) version now, too.

Newest shot... now just XYX, taken not half an hour before my laptop crapped out on me.



XYX: DEAD demo version @ Yoyogames
Not the version from the screenie above, unfortunately... it's the last one I had saved somewhere other than n my (now dead) laptop. :P



FLYING V demo version @ Yoyogames

The demo is newer version than the video, it's resolution was changed to a (more) proper 3:4 screen ratio and there are a number of other improvements. Again, not the newest version; but there's not much I can do about that right now.



ZpULTRA demo version @ Yoyogames.

My first Game Maker project, which I stopped working on not long after I started to come to grips with GML. This one's got a lot of problems....so, you've been warned.