[WIP] Asterz

[Slasher]

Thanks for the input! That seems like a very interesting direction indeed. Although the only problem I have with it is that it seems way too ambitious, like something that I alone would not be able to accomplish lol. I have Team Duck with me, but most of our projects are done independently as it is right now, so I'm not sure how willing they would be to help.

In order to cut down on this ambition, I've read up on Armada and have came up with a variation of my own. Hopefully this makes sense to you:

As it is now
- Ship placed in space
- Kill things, do objectives; proceed through levels
- Level 10 signals the 'Annihilation Star' boss battle
- After this battle, then what?

Future possible influences:
- After boss battle, it gives access to 'Homeground' (earth)
- Homeground is a large area that you can fly throughout. This Homeground consists of different things to do (Buy ammo, enter multiplayer arena, find missions to do, etc)
- This would allow me to update the game with different types of missions and whatnot.
- Completing missions gives you money for use in home ground
- Homeground allows you to take flight back into space when exiting it - triggering your active mission, or being empty if you have no missions that are active (except for the random space asteroid and enemy encounter battle)
- You are only allowed to have one mission active at a time, so that it can be triggered when exiting


I feel that this would be the best way to go about it. This would allow it to not be too ambitious, yet still awesome and attainable at the same time. The first group of ten levels is sort of an introduction to the game, whereas having access to Homeground afterwards opens the game up to endless missions and things to do. Tell me what you think?

 

[NeilR]

'Homeground' sounds really cool. How long do you figure it's going to take to get through the first 10 levels?

 

[Slasher]

'Homeground' sounds really cool. How long do you figure it's going to take to get through the first 10 levels?

The first ten levels takes about 10 minutes to complete as it is right now, not taking dying into account

 

[Noriyuke]

Thanks for the input! That seems like a very interesting direction indeed. Although the only problem I have with it is that it seems way too ambitious, like something that I alone would not be able to accomplish lol. I have Team Duck with me, but most of our projects are done independently as it is right now, so I'm not sure how willing they would be to help.

In order to cut down on this ambition, I've read up on Armada and have came up with a variation of my own. Hopefully this makes sense to you:

As it is now
- Ship placed in space
- Kill things, do objectives; proceed through levels
- Level 10 signals the 'Annihilation Star' boss battle
- After this battle, then what?

Future possible influences:
- After boss battle, it gives access to 'Homeground' (earth)
- Homeground is a large area that you can fly throughout. This Homeground consists of different things to do (Buy ammo, enter multiplayer arena, find missions to do, etc)
- This would allow me to update the game with different types of missions and whatnot.
- Completing missions gives you money for use in home ground
- Homeground allows you to take flight back into space when exiting it - triggering your active mission, or being empty if you have no missions that are active (except for the random space asteroid and enemy encounter battle)
- You are only allowed to have one mission active at a time, so that it can be triggered when exiting


I feel that this would be the best way to go about it. This would allow it to not be too ambitious, yet still awesome and attainable at the same time. The first group of ten levels is sort of an introduction to the game, whereas having access to Homeground afterwards opens the game up to endless missions and things to do. Tell me what you think?

Wonderful idea, and i agree it is too ambitious for one person alone to do, i didn't realize that when i would force all of my ideas onto Xigency back in the day, kinda overwhelmed the bum.

There's 10 levels to the game already? I thought it was randomized? Well my suggestion to you, if your looking to make a more story oriented game, please let me know! i would love to spend my idle hours on the bus from here to there, to jot down ideas about what a good story could be for the game! Mind you, right now is not a good time to be jotting things down, as an armada remake has been on my mind since i placed that post!

But i would like to ask of you one thing, that armada does have and that i think you can make possible before you start working on all the extras. Possibly design a way for when you reach the edge of the map it continues! like a sidescroller, kinda, maybe, i dont know, youd have play armada to understand me i guess, but i wold like to see the possibilities or larger levels in that scheme, if anything.

 

[Slasher]

Wonderful idea, and i agree it is too ambitious for one person alone to do, i didn't realize that when i would force all of my ideas onto Xigency back in the day, kinda overwhelmed the bum.

There's 10 levels to the game already? I thought it was randomized? Well my suggestion to you, if your looking to make a more story oriented game, please let me know! i would love to spend my idle hours on the bus from here to there, to jot down ideas about what a good story could be for the game! Mind you, right now is not a good time to be jotting things down, as an armada remake has been on my mind since i placed that post!

But i would like to ask of you one thing, that armada does have and that i think you can make possible before you start working on all the extras. Possibly design a way for when you reach the edge of the map it continues! like a sidescroller, kinda, maybe, i dont know, youd have play armada to understand me i guess, but i wold like to see the possibilities or larger levels in that scheme, if anything.

Well I wasn't really aiming for a huge in depth story per say, I was aiming for more of a do-different-types-of-missions type of game.

These first 10 levels are randomized in the sense of where the enemies are located each time and whatnot, but each level (and stages within the level) follow its corresponding purpose ->
For example, level 5 has 2 stages, the first stage is a wave of asteroids coming from the top of the screen, and the 2nd stage is a wave of asteroids coming from the bottom of the screen. Another example, level 6 is a scenario where your thrusters have burnt out for a short amount of time and while your on-board computer is trying to fix it for you, you must survive by shooting the incoming asteroids.

Each level has a distinct purpose, but it's a bit of a different experience each time, if that makes sense?

One way you could help out is by making different mission scenarios. I have a few laid out already:
- Protect another ship while it travels through space until it reaches its destination. Asteroids and enemies will be pitted against you.
- Waves of asteroids coming from random sides of the screen, all of which are invincible. Once the asteroids reach the opposite side of the screen, they are removed from the playing field. Goal is to dodge and maneuver around the asteroids for X amount of time.
- (This could take place on a different planet) It's an extremely large level, with randomly scattered asteroids and enemies, you must find the lost space ship that you've been sent to find and guide him back to safety.

Just creating different types of missions and different types of scenarios would be really helpful. Going back to my earlier post about levels, you can be as creative as possible when thinking them up. Once you see the Annihilation Star boss level, you'll see what I mean by being creative virtually anything can be done


I'm not totally sure what you mean by the side scrolling thing. Do you mean having it as it is now, and when reaching the edge of the screen, it goes to a different section of space? I guess I would have to try out Armada like you mentioned to understand it

 

[Noriyuke]

Well I wasn't really aiming for a huge in depth story per say, I was aiming for more of a do-different-types-of-missions type of game.

These first 10 levels are randomized in the sense of where the enemies are located each time and whatnot, but each level (and stages within the level) follow its corresponding purpose ->
For example, level 5 has 2 stages, the first stage is a wave of asteroids coming from the top of the screen, and the 2nd stage is a wave of asteroids coming from the bottom of the screen. Another example, level 6 is a scenario where your thrusters have burnt out for a short amount of time and while your on-board computer is trying to fix it for you, you must survive by shooting the incoming asteroids.

Each level has a distinct purpose, but it's a bit of a different experience each time, if that makes sense?

One way you could help out is by making different mission scenarios. I have a few laid out already:
- Protect another ship while it travels through space until it reaches its destination. Asteroids and enemies will be pitted against you.
- Waves of asteroids coming from random sides of the screen, all of which are invincible. Once the asteroids reach the opposite side of the screen, they are removed from the playing field. Goal is to dodge and maneuver around the asteroids for X amount of time.
- (This could take place on a different planet) It's an extremely large level, with randomly scattered asteroids and enemies, you must find the lost space ship that you've been sent to find and guide him back to safety.

Just creating different types of missions and different types of scenarios would be really helpful. Going back to my earlier post about levels, you can be as creative as possible when thinking them up. Once you see the Annihilation Star boss level, you'll see what I mean by being creative virtually anything can be done


I'm not totally sure what you mean by the side scrolling thing. Do you mean having it as it is now, and when reaching the edge of the screen, it goes to a different section of space? I guess I would have to try out Armada like you mentioned to understand it

Actually about the side scrolling thing, you hit it right on the money! And i guess im going to have to lower my expectations on the whole story thing, i was already thinking about making something grand!

But you know what, i started to play the game a little more, trying to get to level 10 and i mustv'e spent about 10 minutes shooting at this one thing that kinda looked like a satellite or a space ship or something, but it just wouldn't die! Is it a bug or what?

But yeah, back to the thing about the side scrolling, that could not only add some depth to the gameplay in terms of the missions you speak of, but could also allow for a deeper level of randomization, like per square of map you could have some level of AI on said square or set of squares, while on another square, or set of squares you could have a different AI designation. Like you said earlier, one tile will have asteroids going up, while another has em going down. Get me?

 

[Slasher]

Build #6 doesn't have 10 levels, it only goes up to that space ship thing that's invincible. Quoting the readme: "Please keep in mind that this is a test build. It's not a fully functional game. You can only get up until about Level 3 and then you can't kill the enemy so you can't proceed, in which case you can press SELECT at any time to go back to the menu if you wish."

The build that I have right now that sports additional levels and many changes is approaching release

I guess having different squares per level is a possibility, though it would have to be linear I think. A massive playing field with different squares would likely be a pain to maintain. Missions focused on specific duties (like collecting things, protecting things, killing things, whatever types of missions I create, etc) probably don't require a big load of tiles per mission. I have it right now so that I create the level and give it certain properties, like the length of the level and width of it. You could easily make a level that doesn't allow you to travel up/down (having the camera focused the same vertically), but allow it to scroll horizontally left/right. So if you have a long 'hallway' that goes from left to right, you could have it so that the far right then opens up a new playing field (or a new tile) specified by a new width/height combination. In combination with this, it would be fairly easy to place AI in specific areas. All in all, I don't think having several tiles per mission would be suiting, I can see it happening only if it were to be a fairly linear path (left to right, or up to down, etc), and not open to going in any free roaming direction

Here's what I mean:

 

[Noriyuke]

Yeah, i kinda see where your going with it, but with that idea in mind, about linear and open, i would have to bring something to your attention, you know that one level on halo 3 with all those turrets on the border that will kill you when you cross it, whats stopping you from doing something like that? Im guessing the way you have the game engine designed right now wont work with that either way?

Well then, im cool with either way, ill work on some missions for you after the new release, kinda like a space age GTA without the openworld, just linear gameplay aspects.

But i think you could implement the whole idea of diff ai in diff areas.

 

[Slasher]

Yeah, i kinda see where your going with it, but with that idea in mind, about linear and open, i would have to bring something to your attention, you know that one level on halo 3 with all those turrets on the border that will kill you when you cross it, whats stopping you from doing something like that? Im guessing the way you have the game engine designed right now wont work with that either way?

Well, that would definitely be an option having turrets or something killing you if you go out of the area of play. Might be something I would consider adding later on. Right now though, it's just a distinct boundary

Well then, im cool with either way, ill work on some missions for you after the new release, kinda like a space age GTA without the openworld, just linear gameplay aspects.

Precisely! Find missions to do in 'Homeground', then when you leave Homeground, it activates your current mission for you to do. I think this would allow for a great number of different missions to be made available. I could then even easily update the game just to add different areas to Homeground and make more missions available. I really like the sound of this

But i think you could implement the whole idea of diff ai in diff areas.

Not a problem


I'm considering implementing the entire Team Duck TEDGE engine instead of just using seperate parts of it (like the lighting, and the particles). This would force me to not be lazy with some parts, as I've been doing right now It would make the game more manageable with this new plan

 

[Noriyuke]

Gotcha, well ill keep things in mind and i cant wait for the new release so i can add more input!

 

[MiKeY188]

looks really nice man hopefully we see a release.

 

[Noriyuke]

Ay, if its not too hard, get me some source material to maybe work on my own spaceship model, my little brother has gotten into this weird thing where hes making these crazy shit designs out of paper and i like one, a lot, so i would like to maybe make some kind of 3d model of it.

 

[Slasher]

You would be best off either giving me the images, or drawing them up yourself and giving me the images. I could then hand over the mockups to my 3d modeller for him to make

 

[Noriyuke]

eh, your going to have to wait for me to get a battery charger for my digital camera, which i just sent back the wrong product these guys on amazon just sent me so i have to wait for them to receive the one i sent in order to send the right one. so its gonna be a while, but dude, its looks sweet.

 

[Slasher]

Just a quick little update here:
I've started utilizing the tedge Team-Duck engine and have made quite a bit of progress in regards to setting up Homeground and the rest of the game. It's pretty tough going from a completely messy and rough coding style into neatly organized OOP. I have to essentially change the way I code which is a great step in improving my abilities for the long run. I've decided to make Asterz Homeground basically an entirely new addon to Asterz. It will take quite some time and a lot of effort, but I'm looking forward to the end result.

I've come up with flowcharts as far as how the general game structure is going to work, so maybe I'll upload those as content in a bit. I've also come up with a list of potential objects that could be used in Asterz, and have came up with both the base classes and derived classes to help in organizing the structure of the game.

...

So now going back to the original Asterz: Progress is resumed as of now. I'm going to finish up level 10, set up the menu, add the 'sword' weapon to gameplay, make the player have health, make dying a possibility, and then it should be ready for a full fledged official release exclusive to mformature ofcourse.

Bump:

Ehhhhh, I've decided I'm going to add wifi multiplayer infrastructure deathmatch to this game before I release it. I'm waiting for youresam to get started on the server side of things, and then I should be able to get started on it. Hopefully it doesn't take too long

Also, I've updated the menu a little bit. It looks nicer I think. The game is virtually ready for release, I'm just going to add this deathmatch mode.

 

[Slasher]

Would anyone here be willing to help me test something quick? It requires you to have a PSP and a wifi connection

 

[Noriyuke]

im game yo, and i have lots of time goof off!

 

[omracer]

yep i have both.
i'll help you out.

 

[Slasher]

Youresam and I have been working on both the client side and server side respectively. The server seems to be nearing complete, and the client side is seeing a lot of progress especially with my latest breakthrough lol. I've worked pretty much every night till the early hours of 4-5am on this, so I hope it's worth it. It's been quite the learning experience and creating wifi infrastructure is certainly not as easy as it may seem to be!

Once things are functional enough I'll message you guys that would like to help out. It should hopefully be done within the next week depending on how smoothly things go.

The details of the multiplayer are that it's going to be a 4 player deathmatch. Kill others, be killed yourself. Hopefully it's chaotic. You will be automatically placed into a room with other players, or if no other players exist or the room is full, then you automatically start up your own new room. It's all automated, so sorry but no choosing distinct rooms to be joining. I'm using UDP sockets&packets so it shouldn't have trouble sending the data fast enough.

 

[NeilR]

I'll help test things too if I'm available.