Jackalsoft Development Blog @jackalsoftdev-blog - Tumblr Blog

Come check out the development of Beelzebox and download the prototype from itch.io!

http://beelzebox.net

Better photo of random “effects” being played, such as dirt being removed, or a door opening.

Not much of a screenshot, but major progress. Today I spent several hours gutting old code and refactoring it into a more structured system that tracks instances and templated objects, so I can just do something like Animations.Create(type, position) and it handles everything else.

#agdg #gamedev

You can't really tell from just the picture alone, but objects can now sparkle using more modular code. I also made it so they sparkle randomly! Right now, every object can sparkle but I just need to shove a bitflag in some drawflag logic or something.

Create a value called SparkleTime and SparkleTimeMax

Check if the current object/tile can sparkle, then ensure we only do this check every N steps/frames.

Roll a value between 0..SparkleTimeMax. If it's less than or equal to SparkleTime, create a sparkle and set the sparkle time to 0. Otherwise, increase SparkleTime by 1, and force create a sparkle if the timer is at the maximum.

Basically, this has a cumulative 1/N chance of making it appear every frame, and if it's been too long, we make one anyways. (this sort of thing is how Path of Exile calculates it’s to-hit / evasion modifiers to make a guarantee on accuracy)

Also made a lovely mirror which protects you from laser beams, and a shield that prevents monsters from hurting you

#agdg #gamedev #pixel art #programming

jackalsoftgames

Started deving on my laptop, while I wait for Black Friday to buy new desktop components.

Started to use Aseprite as an alternative to Photoshop. It’s pretty great for pixel art and was basically built around it. Still need to get more comfortable using it, but the way it handles some things feels faster than PS, and slower in some other ways. Overall a good piece of software, though.

Split my one big sprite file into 5 others (actors, blocks, effects, floors, objects)

Finalized my palette and applied it to everything. Using an extended NES palette as a base, plus additional RGB color ramps for a few gradient effects. I find myself drifting towards these colors more than the NES ones.

Made a much richer set of debug information. Had to change my resolution for my laptop and ended up with a bunch of extra space, and it just happened to work out nicely. Things “collapse” when I toggle them off.

Started up a simple way of handling animated sprites that probably disappear when they’re done animating. Useful for one-and-done style things eg, explosions, smoke, opening doors, making dirt disappear, etc

Re-added the ability for objects to rotate their sprites when rolling.

It should rotate only after rolling and continue rotating until it hits the ground.

Started to add the ability to pull objects around. In practice, this will require a “magnet” tool.

legendariumgame

Moving accounts... soon!

So, Tumblr doesn’t really let you change emails for your blog easily, or merge/combine accounts, so I had to create an entirely fresh identity, since moving and restructuring things is a hassle.

I will continue to use this blog in the meantime, and repost major milestone posts on the new blogs until I have released a playable demo, at which point I will be fully onto the new blogs.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackalsoftGames

Tumblr: https://jackalsoftgames.tumblr.com/ (announcement blog)

Tumblr: https://jackalsoftdev.tumblr.com/ (development blog)

Email: [email protected]

jackalsoftgames

This is the new blog. All my old posts can be found at @legendariumgame

You can also visit https://jackalsoft.net, which will take you to this blog.