PH2K Dev Blog

[ph2k]

Got a few hours to work on Random Cat tonight and was able to squash a bug with moving platforms I was fighting before my extended break.

When the platform moved down it was making Random Cat bounce on the platform. I solved it by refactoring the way the moving platform interacts with the random cat class so instead of Random Cat moving because he is touching the block, the block now sends messages to random cat to move!

I need to apply these changes to a few of the other interactions between elements such as the enemies. Currently the death of Random Cat or the enemy is handled by the Random Cat class but handling so of this in the enemy itself would be better. That's a job for next week!

[ph2k]

Going to try get back into Game Development.

In retrospect trying to complete 1 game a month was a silly thing for me to attempt.  

At the start of this  year I started what was supposed to be just 1 or 2 levels of a platform game for submission to the first month of the 1 game a month challenge but I fell in love with making the game and I couldn't let it loose in to the world that month, it wasn't ready yet! So I waited for the next month. February passed and I still wanted to work on this game more, I felt bad I was going to miss another month but I couldn't let this baby go just yet. March passed by and the polish on my game was really starting to shine it went from a really basic platform game to one with some more advanced mechanics and my own art, still it wasn't ready and I really started to feel like I had failed.

Some time around May it got to me. I had failed my goal of making 1 simple game a month. In 5 months I had completed a grand total of 0 games and even though I had this amazing game coming to life it had the feeling of failure mixed in with that success. All I could think while working on Super Random Cat was I had failed and if I tried to start something new I felt like I had failed even more. So I stopped working on anything.

I think its time to try get back into it though. Its now September this month I have failed at completing 9 games and I don’t care anymore. I have realized now that 1 Game a Month just wasn't for me. I never failed as I never even started in the first place. I love the idea of 1 Game a Month I can see how it would help some people’s confidence and ability by completing lots of smaller simple games but for me personally it added a level of responsibility and stress that just made me feel like I was failing when I was actually winning.

[dragonglitchllc]

Hate the tumblr radar?

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I was tired of the pretentious gifs.

Reblog this. 

[veshchsev]

For the greater good

[ph2k]

Thought I would give 3d modeling a shot over the weekend, pretty impressed with how it turned out for the first time playing with Blender.

[ph2k]

Was able to get a little coding done last night so I worked on getting the crushing blocks motion looking good and easy to use in the level editor.

The path points are taken from the level XML file and a motion tween is created using them, so it can be made to drop any distance and speed from the level editor! Next is to get moving platforms working in a similar way!

[ph2k]

Completed a few changes to Super Random Cat on the weekend! 

The camera now centers on Random with a small dead zone in the center. 

Added 1 UPs in the form of larger cat food tins with randoms face on them!

Added Bomb Dogs, I still need to add a count down and damage to other dogs to them. Before they explode you can kick them, they also stick to walls when kicked.

This weekend I hope to get crush blocks and moving platforms working!

You can play the latest version Here!

[ph2k]

Gabicoware Playing my game, Super Random Cat!

You can play it here http://ph2k.nfshost.com/superRandomCat/

[ph2k]

Super Random Cat. New test version!

I put up a new test version of Super Random Cat on the weekend! Made a few changes to the controls but still have a bit of work to do on that side of things!

You can check it out here http://ph2k.nfshost.com/superRandomCat/ 

Also Gabicoware on youTube did a awesome play test of my game on youtube Here! Pretty amazing that someone took the time to do a video of my little game! :D

[ph2k]

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

First time in a while I haven't had much time to work on any of my projects which is a little sad. Being a new dad doesn't leave much time for GameDev!

Last week I submitted Super Random Cat to Feedback Friday on /r/GameDev and got some amazing feedback! I have been using the little time I have had to try work on some of the suggestions made.

I have got some awesome cheap hosting with nearlyfreespeech.net for better testing Super Random Cat, I noticed some weird lag issues from testing in Dropbox that I wasn't getting locally so that should help a lot next time I show it off!

Hopefully this weekend is quiet and I can get a new build up for testing! Still aiming to have it complete before the end of February!

[ph2k]

I had a fun error last night.

I was setting up a nice little particle effect for when you collect a Cat Food tin in Super Random Cat, but some how I did it horribly wrong which resulted in a hilarious totally unexpected result. Expecting to see a little bling and seeing Random Cat vomit out 1000s of cat food tins sent me into hysterics last night.

This is what I was expecting to see, a nice little bling for each tin you collect. You can check out the effect yourself Here 

Errors like this is what I love about Game Dev, no other hobby allows me to make such a funny mistake.

[ph2k]

Its so close to the end of the month but my game is not yet complete. Looks like I will not make the dead line and have the game complete to a level I want. I might continue on and post it as next months game and attempt something a little simpler for the following month. I have replaced all but one item with my own graphics (the sign post), and the music is Pinball Spring by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). I'm pretty happy with the progress I have made even if I don't complete it for this months game. Between work, my 3 month old daughter and other real life things I don't get much time. You can play what I have done so far here, all input is welcome!

[ph2k]

I started work on my 1GAM game on the weekend and I'm pretty happy with how it is turning out. I ended up going with a basic platform game staring one of my pet cats, Random Cat.

I'm using flashPunk as the engine, Ogmo to create the levels and most of the art is from OpenGameArt. Really impressed with Ogmo, it exports a really tidy xml file which I import into my ActionScript 3 code. I was really, really impressed how easy it was! At the moment I just have a basic small area working but no real game as yet, hopefully this weekend I get a chance to work on it a little more. You can play  with the basic idea here.

[ph2k]

The Start of One Game a Month

I joined One Game a Month last year and now that its Jan 2013, its time to start and I'm a little scared.

I have been working on tileWorld's engine for 6 months now and it is really my first big attempt at game development. I had no clear game in mind when I started and it may never be truly finished because of this.  So I hope the One Game a Month challenge will push me to make some smaller simpler projects with clear beginning and ends while I play with tileWorld, also giving me a chance to play with some different technology and try some ideas.

My plan for month 1 is to make a jumping game like Winterbells. Thinking of using FlashPunk or Flixel as an engine to make this months game as then I can just pop it online easily. 

[ph2k]

Over the Xmas & New Year week I was able to get a lot of work done on the engine. Larger sprites such as trees are starting to work and combat is looking a lot better now (Just not visually but better in code and feel).

Had a few issues with the larger sprites being on the same Y axis and overlapping that I was having difficulty solving.   Thanks to a quick post on Reddit r/gamedev I was able to solve the issue by adding the X axis into the calculation. I seems obvious now but I spent a lot of hours thinking about it and just never clicked to also add the X axis into the calculation.

(pos.Y + pos.X/1000) / 1000 

This seems to be working perfectly now. You can see the original issue here. 

[ph2k]

Started work on combat for tileWorld.

At the moment it is very basic place holder combat system.

In this example the attack speed of the NPC is 2 seconds and a attack D8 is rolled, the player then rolls a D8 defense dice. defense value is deducted from the attack value if the result is 0 or less no damage is taken (a miss) else the result is deducted from the players HP.

Can also see the start of my battle text system displaying damage taken as floating text.