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Super Combat Jr 2 Part 2

We first showed off Super Combat Jr 2 months ago. Then we showed it again. Then we showed it again, but this time in another state. And this weekend we were invited to show it off here in Madison, WI one more time. First a trailer, then some words and instagram links:

#CombatJr #devlog #indiedev #indiegame #instagram #items #notzelda #sprite #The Moon Fields #unity3D #versus #voxel #gamedev

Super Combat Jr 2 Soundtrack

Super Combat Jr 2 Soundtrack was originally published on ISWT&B

#CombatJr #indiegame #music #notzelda #zelda #gamedev

Super Combat Jr 2 Part 1

Two months ago we said we’d make it. We finished it two weeks ago. And then we showed it off, twice. The first showing was at Gib’s Bar right here in Madison, WI. I work here and this is the place Sujan and I decided we would make videogames together. It was kind of beautiful that all of our friends came here to participate in a tournament.

The concept was fast paced multiplayer Zelda. We already demoed something similar with CJr1, but the big thing here was having a ton of items that 1) were easily selectable and 2) varied a lot more than the sword and bomb from the first game. Each item presented a big challenge and being able to have variety from within each class was an interesting smaller challenge.

#Beatles #unity3d #voxel #pixel #indiedev @pictures.i.steal @suj.n

A video posted by interdimensional space wizards (@_interdimensional) on Feb 9, 2016 at 7:22pm PST

We already had the sword class from CJr1, so we then put together the melee hammer. The Bend Hammer enabled us to make the World Mace, Tomahawk, and Treecutter weapons fairly easily. Each weapon was given a startup, active, and cooldown timer in the Unity Editor so we could adjust things on the fly. Even though this gave us a lot of headaches upfront, this implementation helped immensely later on when we were balancing.

#bows and #arrows #indiedev don't worry we fixed it

A video posted by interdimensional space wizards (@_interdimensional) on Feb 17, 2016 at 9:21pm PST

The Bow & Crossbow were similar to each other, but the bow appears on button press, releases the arrow after startup, and is gone after active. And the crossbow is invisible until after startup when it also shoots. In future versions I want to be able to have different animations for each startup, active, and cooldown.

#bows and #arrows #indiedev don't worry we fixed it

A video posted by interdimensional space wizards (@_interdimensional) on Feb 17, 2016 at 9:21pm PST

Item select was a lot more complicated than we anticipated. It had this select screen but also we had to code each weapon to be a function of a variable button. And while most items were controlled by a button press, introducing shields as button holds complicated things even further. I would say it took us three weeks to get this to be functional – we developed this game in eight!

#Working on an arena for #CombatJr's #sequel #indiedev #indiegame #pixel #voxel #magicavoxel #unity3d

A video posted by interdimensional space wizards (@_interdimensional) on Mar 4, 2016 at 9:07am PST

Making the arena was fairly easy. The arena here is larger than the arena in CJr1. At first the arena felt fairly large, but as we got more items and put four players into the arena it started to feel a lot smaller. We tweaked the gameplay to fit the arena size and it works fairly well. One secret – if you have perfect aim with your analog stick you can shoot the crossbow across the screen to score a quick hitting 2 damage bolt.

#magicavoxel #voxel #indiedev #zelda #notzelda

A photo posted by interdimensional space wizards (@_interdimensional) on Mar 7, 2016 at 1:32pm PST

Not Zelda

Super Combat Jr 2 Part 1 was originally published on ISWT&B

#coding #CombatJr #devlog #graphics #indiedev #indiegame #instagram #items #notzelda #The Moon Fields #unity3D #versus #voxel #gamedev

Combat Jr.

Head on over to itch.io to grab a download of Combat Jr. It’s a four player versus game we made to practice our chops for The Moon Fields. It requires four controllers and strong friendships. It was made during the Global Game Jam 2016. Check out our recap of the event.

Combat Jr. was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #gamejam #indiedev #indiegame #notzelda #The Moon Fields #unity3D #versus #voxel #zelda #gamedev

戦闘ジュニア (Combat Jr.)

We made a game for Global Game Jam 16. It’s called 戦闘ジュニア or Combat Junior or 戦闘 Jr. to be specific. We weren’t.

@suj.n #cat #indiedev #unity #magicavoxel #ggj16

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Jan 30, 2016 at 3:18pm PST

#ggj16 #notzelda #voxel #pixel #pixelart #indiedev

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Jan 31, 2016 at 10:49am PST

#unity #indiedev #ggj16 #turkeyjerkin #notzelda

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Jan 30, 2016 at 3:39pm PST

#ggj16 #isthisfree #no #indiedev #pixel #pixelart

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Jan 29, 2016 at 10:54pm PST

To prepare for the game jam we did two things. First we picked through Sunburner and Guulbusters to go over techniques we already learned. Then we used the Annual Game Career Guide 2014‘s Game Jam article to psych us up and construct a timeline for how we wanted to go through making the game. We went wildly off schedule, but it still worked great for us.

At the event itself we met up with three other developers. I have worked with Jordan before, but we also picked up two totally green kids named Nik and Sean. Most of the art and code were done by myself and Sujan, but we were able to delegate the rest to the rest of the team. Jordan ended up cutting together music from our friends Dense City so it looped really well in game, and the two newbies helped design a lot of the game. One of the greatest things (to me as a person in charge) was getting Nik to make some pixel work that was great but never made it into the game. One day our lizard zombie bud will wreak havoc somewhere, but he was cool enough to understand when things got cut. My very Dragon Quest inspired “poo” golem also got the chop, so, it happens.

We think we’re going to develop this further to showcase again at Midwest Gaming Classic, so if you’re there come check us out. Cheers.

戦闘ジュニア (Combat Jr.) was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #devlog #indiedev #indiegame #instagram #notzelda #The Moon Fields #voxel #gamedev

Playstation 4 Controller Mapping Unity

In addition to keyboard controls, we’re also interested in using controllers. We don’t have any of those indie darling XBox controllers, but we do have some (too many) Playstation controllers lying around. For our ControlGet script we did some very minor reverse engineering to figure out what connects to what. Edit: in the process of trying to find a PS4 controller image we found someone who did it first. We can’t take credit for that above image, but we can tell you that it’s great. Click through to find out a little bit more.

The few things we found interesting is that 1) both analogue sticks’ vertical axes treat up as negative and down as positive which is the opposite of the d-pad and 2) L2 and R2 both function as axes and buttons. As axes they go from -1 to 1 giving them huge range. As far as Unity’s Input Manager goes, we found that 0.1 deadzone worked for us, but that was not nearly as extensive testing as we’d like.

We’d like to get other Steam/XBox/XBOne controllers to add compatibility to those ASAP. I’m thinking for completeness I’ll do USB PS2 and PS3 controllers soon. I’m sure there are minor differences?

Buttons: Square = joystick button 0 X = joystick button 1 O = joystick button 2 Triangle = joystick button 3 L1 = joystick button 4 R1 = joystick button 5 L2* = joystick button 6 R2* = joystick button 7 Share = Joystick button 8 Options = joystick button 9 L3 = joystick button 10 R3 = joystick button 11 Playstation = joystick button 12 Trackpad Click = joystick button 13

Axes: Left Stick X = X-Axis Left Stick Y = Y-Axis** Right Stick X = 3rd Axis Right Stick Y = 6th Axis** L2* = 4th Axis R2* = 5th Axis Direction Pad X = 7th Axis Direction Pad Y = 8th Axis

For completeness, this was developed on a Win7 machine with the white PS4 controller connected via USB. It is a classy setup with a Lenovo X230 that has been dropped one too many times. If your findings are different than our findings, please get at us. Thanks!

Playstation 4 Controller Mapping Unity was originally published on ISWT&B

#coding #controllers #devlog #indiedev #indiegame #Playstation #unity3D #gamedev

Pink Moonwalk

@suj.n #indiedev #indiegame #opengameart #pixel #notzelda #chiphop #fruityloops

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Jan 18, 2016 at 9:48am PST

Pink Moonwalk was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #femalelinkjam #instagram #notzelda #The Moon Fields #zelda #indiegame #gamedev

Heavy Metal Shields

@suj.n #indiedev #themoonfields #pixel #voxel #unity3d @dudley_noon #notzelda #indiegame #gamedev

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Dec 31, 2015 at 2:04pm PST

Heavy Metal Shields was originally published on ISWT&B

#indiegame #instagram #items #shield #The Moon Fields #voxel #zelda #gamedev

Moon Fields Dev Log #2

This entry went over possible boss ideas. Some of them are pretty well developed mechanically, others more developed aesthetically. Possible boss ideas for the demo are the Mega Goo (needs a new name) & Polyface. The Necromancer is in contention for a miniboss. Buttstomper is also in contention for a miniboss, but he’s Buttstomper, so there’s that. Lots of pictures in this post, so we’ll hide these behind the link.

Moon Fields Dev Log #2 was originally published on ISWT&B

#boss #buttstomper #devlog #indiedev #indiegame #The Moon Fields #unicorn #voxel #zelda #gamedev

Pretty Lights in The Moon Fields

@suj.n #indiedev #indiegame #zelda #notzelda #themoonfields #pixel #voxel

A video posted by raphael.a (@pictures.i.steal) on Dec 21, 2015 at 8:30pm PST

Pretty Lights in The Moon Fields was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #devlog #indiegame #sprite #The Moon Fields #voxel #zelda #gamedev

Syncing Voxels and Sprites

We have wanted to sync voxels with sprites since our second game, Guulbusters, but we hadn’t figured out how to sync things perfectly until just today.

Let’s specify exactly what the goal was:

Using an orthographic camera we wanted to sync a pixel to each face of a single voxel. That means a 16^3 cube of voxels will match identically with two 16×16 sprites. Essentially the game can be pixel perfect while also being 3D. We can use 3D lighting effects, 3D shaders, and whatnot.

Before I go into how I did what I did in Unity3D, here are a few things I have yet to implement and won’t be able to discuss in this thread: shadows cast from and onto sprites or normal mapping,

I can’t take all the credit for this technique. This video from Amplitude, the developers of Dungeon of the Endless illuminated a lot of what is going on.

First, the assets are brought into the scene at 8 pixels per Unity unit. And the voxels we bring in are set to 1/8 scale in each X, Y, and Z. You can keep the assets at 100 ppu and then set the voxels to 1/100. I used 8 because it helps my math later.

Now that we have our assets synced for our scene, we have to set the camera to see the voxels properly. The size for the orthographic camera is half of the height of what the camera sees in the gameworld. We want the pixel size of our game to be 384×216. At 8ppu that means that the vertical size of the screen should be 27, and the orthographic size of the camera should be 13.5.

The camera angle is rotated down at 60° on the X axis. At this angle your vertical sprites are shrunk in half. The solution we discovered for this was to place our game objects inside of a container. We attached a script to stretch the World Container 2 in the Y direction.

At this point you can use this to do cool stuff like Final Fantasy Tactics type games. You can test it out, but you will have to move your camera to get a better angle.

But there are some problems! A square on the XZ plane is not displaying as a square on the final image. It is slightly short compared to a square on the XY (sprite) plane. Stretching the Z by (2/sqrt(3)) will solve this problem. (You can use 45° rotation on the X axis and stretch the Y and Z both by sqrt(2), but I like stretching the sprites by integers). I do this via a script and the function called is:

float zStretch = 2f / (Mathf.Sqrt(3f)); float yStretch = 2f; void StretchWorld() { transform.localScale = new Vector3 (1, yStretch, zStretch); }

I call the StretchWorld function on Awake, so now we have the XY plane synced with the XZ plane. You might want to place your variables somewhere else, though.

But there is one last problem. The camera isn’t synced with the squares. The hard part here is that things are not synced on a 1:1, so voxels exist partially in some pixels and partially in other pixels.

In order to sync the camera properly to the grid I used this function:

void ZAdjust() {

float xNow = transform.localPosition.x; float zNew = -startingHeight / Mathf.Sqrt(3.0f); transform.localPosition = new Vector3(xNow, startingHeight, zNew);

}

This function is called on Awake. From this point forward you’ll want to stop your camera in increments that sync up with your voxel size. In my case I would only move the camera by 1/8.

The last thing we need to figure out is how to scale the game properly for different screen sizes. Our screen size is 384×216 which is 1/(5^2) 1080p, and we need to scale up the screen an integer amount to retain pixel perfect sprites. I think it’s a different problem than the one we just solved, so we’ll wait on this for next time…

Syncing Voxels and Sprites was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #devlog #indiegame #sprite #The Moon Fields #voxel #gamedev

Moon Fields Dev Log #1

Sufresh got me a Zelda sketchbook. It is the perfect Moon Fields dev log. This first entry went over some of the items, enemies, and possible dungeon themes for the first demo release.

Moon Fields Dev Log #1 was originally published on ISWT&B

#devlog #dungeon theme #enemies #hero #items #The Moon Fields #indiegame #gamedev

Guulbusters

Voxel/Sprite mashup inspired by Robotron and Halloween. Shoot ghosts for temp points, pick up sneakers to collect the points, score big. Keyboard mouse controls on a beat. Oh also, SU Fresh made the track.

Guulbusters was originally published on ISWT&B

#2d #ghosts #indiedev #indiegame #shmup #shoot'emup #sprite #voxel #zelda #gamedev

Sunburner

Voxel Shmup in Unity 3D. Lots of bullets. Killer chiptunes c/o GlitXO. Get Sunburner here. SU Fresh and I made this game to practice our chops before The Moon Fields. We made it for a shmupjam08. There was only one entry. Obviously, we killed it.

Sunburner was originally published on ISWT&B

#indiegame #gamedev

The Moon Fields

My last project has evolved into something bigger. This is a proper overhead action game with music by SU Fresh. Inspired by everything from Demon’s Souls to The Famicube, The Moon Fields hopes to be something different and something amazing. Weekly progress will be posted here, and milestones will be posted on http://themoonfields.tumblr.com/.

The Moon Fields was originally published on ISWT&B

#indiegame #gamedev

Snow Haven & Horseknights

The first area in my #FemaleLinkJam entry is a mountain pass. There’s a bonfire to rest your character. The aesthetic is pretty for a lot of reasons, and I enjoy how simple it is. There are green trees and blue streams, but hopefully it is not as idyllic as Hyrule Field. The water will turn into rapids somewhere, and you’ll follow it to the first dungeon.

I also took a vine of a Horseknight character. He’s inspired specifically by the Blue Lynel guarding the cave by the old man in the waterfall in the original Zelda. I have a few NES memories, and that’s definitely one of them. Maybe it’s because he’s so hard in such a hard space. It looks pretty much identical to other parts of the game, but I think it was tweaked just right for 5 year old me.

Snow Haven & Horseknights was originally published on ISWT&B

#femalelinkjam #graphics #zelda #indiegame #gamedev

Sprite Drop

These are some sprites I’ve made. I love a lot of different sprite designs from old NES to Super Brothers.

These are videogame sprites. Zelda and River City Ransom are big influences. All of this is custom, so please enjoy.

And here are art projects and promotional work for friends. A lot of my life has been drinking and partying, and we did it pretty hard. In the realm of gamedev this stuff is a little out of the ordinary, but so am I.

Sprite Drop was originally published on ISWT&B

#indiegame #gamedev

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