Thursday, December 25, 2014

Defining paths

Fixed the bug. It all boils down to one or two lines of code in the end. The following images shows the possible paths the flying enemies can take in each of the arena.





We define the way-points in Tiled. The generated level files (.json) are then loaded into the game where we run the way-points through our algorithm and create a graph of interconnected points you see above.


Epic fail

So I spent a good part of the day writing code for setting up waypoints for our upcoming flying-type enemy for Spacejacked. This is what happened when I finally started testing if the waypoints are correctly linked.

Bummer

My goal for the week is to finish up a new enemy by the end of the week for this week's stable build. Wish us luck~

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Creating a tag in git

Annotated tag:
git tag -a pre-alpha-v0.1 -m "First public build"
git push --tags

First Review of Spacejacked (WHAT?!)

As was previously mentioned, we released our first pre-alpha build to gather feedback. So far there has been zero response - with the exception of one published review.

http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Spacejacked.shtml

Thanks Alexandru, for the review!

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Working on a new enemy

 Was going to go to the office to work for the day, then decided at the last minute that I'd just animate from home. Worked on smoothing the animation for our new flying-type enemy (designed by Victoria). It's a good thing Victoria provided 3 key frames, makes things a lot easier.

Before:
After:
Next up would be coding some basic path-finding and attacking behaviors. I should also work a little faster >.<

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Preparing a playable build

We still think Spacejacked's far from ready for showing, but it's decided that we should just release the pre-alpha to gather feedback (and to motivate ourselves).

Things we are seriously considering to change or add in future builds:

  • Redo tutorial by integrating it into single player mode.
  • Storyline
  • Engineers room (upgrade + sleeping*)
We are releasing the pre-alpha in a couple of days. Stay tuned!

*Yes, sleeping could become a feature.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Death Cabin is not dead

Feels like we're in a little bit of a slump lately.

The constant bombardment of deadlines from work and school has put a strain on the development of Spacejacked - progress has been minimal for an entire month now. Jon observed it was a sign of burn-out.

Sheet. We don't need that now. It would be hilarious(ly sad) for a project to fail not because of a lack of budget or poor sales, but a lack of motivation. Addressing this issue, we've set up a weekly schedule indicating that we are to prepare a weekly playable build of Spacejacked, as well as to review our older games for player feedback (we'll never know when we want to expand upon any of them).

In addition, we've also imposed upon ourselves the need to do a game jam once every 2 months, to occasionally keep our minds off Spacejacked. I suppose H.T.P is the first of the jams.

Here's hoping this would keep things going.

***
Speaking of keeping things going, Death Cabin isn't dead!


Friday, December 5, 2014

UI work

Just working on creating some assets for It Came From The Deep.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Mock up


Jon and I had a discussion about the urge to release a game, and how we know Spacejacked will not be launching in the immediate future, given our ambitions for the project. We then decided to once again work on a side project that would be much smaller in scope - something we can finish in a relatively short amount of time just by setting aside a little time for it every week.

The game is "It came from the Deep", something we attempted but quickly abandoned in one of the previous Ludum Dare attempts. Jon's concept was simple, play as a person at war with a beast from the deep sea as you fight it all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

From that concept, I've come up with a simple mockup (as above), and penned down the core game design. That said, I haven't gotten far with the coding due to other ... commitments (meeting with friends + catching up on my part-time work). I should probably note down the various aspects of the game in more details so Jon and I can better work on the game asap.