Videogame Biscuit

Wasabi Defense update 08-02

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:04:19 +0000

As promised last saturday, here come the cannons! The player has three different cannon setups at his disposal. You start the game with a single barrel, single shot cannon. It holds ten rounds and after that, it takes 3 seconds to reload (this may be altered before the game is finished). All cannons have infinite ammo.

The first upgrade adds a small but powerfull blaster cannon. This is also a single shot cannon, but it’s a lot more powerfull than the main cannon. It also fires and reloads a lot slower. Because of its heavy punch it’s perfect for shooting larger enemies.
The final upgrade replaces the single barrel cannon with a triple barrel autocannon. This fires five round bursts and holds fourty rounds (enough for eight bursts). Because of the rapid fire, this is a perfect weapon for taking on fast moving enemies. The blaster will also still be available on this weapon.

So that’s it for the cannons. I already started working on the rocket launcher, wich I’ll probably finish next week. When all weapons work properly, I’ll make a video to demonstrate the firepower.

A Better Looking Star Field

admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:25:11 +0000

I have done a tutorial on star fields with The Gimp before, but I have found a new method that yields much better results. It’s very easy and can be done in a few minutes.
Start up The Gimp and create a new image. In this tutorial, I’ll use a 480×320 image (otherwise it would be too big for this page), but you’ll probably use something bigger. Fill the background with black and create a new layer named “Small stars”. Fill this with black as well and add some RGB noise (Filters -> Noise -> RGB noise). Uncheck “Independent RGB” and set every color to 0.5. Set the mode to screen. This won’t make a difference against a black background, but it will if you want to put other layers behind the stars.

Now we’re gonna adjust the density and brightness of the starfield. Open the brightness and contrast dialog (Colors -> Brightness-Contrast) and set the brightness to -40 and the contrast to 40. This will filter out a lot of the noise and create something that already looks a lot like a decent starfield.

Duplicate the layer with the stars and rename it to “Big stars”. Scale this layer x2 (Layer -> Scale Layer). You will probably end up with a layer of blurry dots. To turn them into stars, open the Treshold dialog box (Colors -> Treshold). By moving the left slider, you can control the density of the second layer of stars and it will sharpen the dots. Here’s the result:

This already looks like a pretty good starfield! For a finishing touch, you can adjust the opacity of the small stars layer. The final result, with the small stars layer’s opacity set to 70%:

Wasabi Defense update 07-26

admin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:12:49 +0000

In case I hadn’t mentioned this, I’m gonna do all my game development updates on saturday from now on. During the week I’m gonna do all other posts, such as tutorials, interesting websites, book and tool reviews, etcetera. But since today is Saturday: another Wasabi Defense update!
First of all, I have changed the background. The color of the sky has been changed, I have made a new starfield wich looks a million times better than the old one (gonna write a tutorial about it, it’s really easy) and I have added more contrast to the hills. And second of all, I have completed the gun engine! This is the central component of the weapons platform; cannons and rocket launchers will be attached to this. Here’s what the engine looks like:

Vector graphics plain and simply look so much better than the pre-rendered graphics I used in my first attempt! I have also added a nice effect to the engine. Notice the bright yellow lines on it? They glow! Originally, they were just static lines, but I decided to try out a glow effect using layered sprites and cycling the alpha channel settings, and the result is amazing. Of course, you don’t see the effect properly on the screenshot, but when the weapons are finished I’m gonna make a video wich should show everything perfectly.
And with the gun engine also comes the launch out of the bunker. In the previous attempt, this was just a beam of light and then the thing faded into existence. I hadn’t taken into account the amount of space I would need to make it actually come out of a bunker and that was the best solution I could come up with. Lame, but it worked. This time, things have improved quite a bit. I have made a launch bunker that’s big enough, so now you’ll actually see bunker doors open and the player launching from the bunker. I did decide to keep the beam of light, though. Instead of a teleport-effect, it now just looks like light shining from inside the bunker:

Next step are the weapons. Instead of a whole range of completely different weapons, I’m gonna design two weapon systems (a cannon and a rocket launcher) that get upgraded during the game. Hopefully, I’ll have something to show off next saturday!

Fireball and smoke explosion

admin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:23:17 +0000

It’s been a while since I did a particle tutorial, but here’s a new one at last. I tried something different for this one. Instead of putting lots of screenshots in this post, I combined them into a video file and published it on Vimeo. I didn’t put in on Youtube since you can’t download the original video file there, wich can come in handy from time to time. As usual, this tutorial assumes you’re familiar with Torque and the particle editor.

Fireball and smoke explosion tutorial from Videogame Biscuit on Vimeo.

If the streaming video isn’t clear enough, you can download the original WMV file on the video page. Also available are the tutorials as OpenOffice.org Impress and Microsoft Powerpoint slideshows. And finally, you can download the particle effect file with the particle sprites.

View the video on Vimeo
Slideshow in OpenOffice.org Impress format
Slideshow in Microsoft Powerpoint format
Download the finished effect

Wasabi Defense update 07-19

admin — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:40:20 +0000

Finished the HUD (head-up display) for the lander today. It’s kinda like the display in front of the pilot on a fighter plane. It displays the lander’s angle, fuel and speed. Two different configurations are available, one for approach mode and one for landing mode. Here’s the approach mode display:

On this display, the angle, fuel and horizontal and vertical speeds are displayed. Also shown on the indicators are the angle and speed limits you have to be within before you can switch to landing mode. You’ll have to rotate the lander to a horizontal position and bring the speed back to a slow hover before deploying the landing gear. Here’s what the landing display looks like:

No need for an angle indicator here, since you can’t rotate the ship anymore. Speed and fuel indicators are still available, and a horizontal position indicator, wich indicates how far away you are from the center of the landing platform. This is needed to line up the ship for landing. Ideally, you’d hover over the landing pad until you’re perfectly on top of it, reduce the horizontal speed to zero and then slowly descend until touchdown.

Wasabi Defense update 07-12

admin — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:43:51 +0000

Here’s the first update on Wasabi Defense! May I present you: the new lander! I have thought a bit about what I could change about it and I came up with an interesting idea. The lander now has two modes: approach mode and landing mode. Approach mode was the same as in the old version. You control the ship by rotating it and firing the thruster engine. In landing mode, though, the ship stays level and you can control the horizontal speed. This can’t be used for a long time, though, since landing mode will eat through fuel like crazy. And, because this will make aiming easier, you’ll need to touch down very precisely. Here’s the lander in action, with its engine firing:

Wasabi Defense, the resurrection!

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:05:28 +0000

With Sub Commander finished, it’s time to get started on Wasabi Defense again! I’ve had plenty of time to get everything ready for the new start, and believe me, it will almost be a completely new start. I’ve decided to dump most of the graphics, lots of the old code and basically start over. The good news is that I’ve already completed all the graphics for the base, and even a lot of code. Here’s what the finished base looks like:

I’ve decided to follow a different approach than last time. When I started developing the game, I designed everything I wanted in one level and then moved on to the next one. This means I designed a base building, a weapon for the player, a few enemies and then put them together in a level. This time, however, I’m gonna design the base first, then the player and all the weapons, next the enemies and finally build the levels. I think this will make planning a lot easier and avoiding the huge mess I ended up in last time.
I will also start storing as much of the game data externally in XML files instead of hard coding them. Things like hitpoints, weapon strengths, movement parameters, etcetera, will go in XML files. This will make it easier for me to modify them, since I won’t have to digg through the source code for the correct variable, and it will also make it possible for players to change them, making the game harder or easier!

Sub Commander release

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:55:21 +0000

As promised, here’s Sub Commander! Did some final test playing and bug fixes the last days and here it is. I’m pretty satisfied with it. I think it looks quite ok and the gameplay is just what I had in mind. It’s available for download on the Games page. Of course, it’s possible there are still bugs left, so if you find any, feel free to contact me.
So what’s next? While I was working on this game, I also did some work on Wasabi Defense, wich will be resurrected one of the following days. But first I’m finally gonna play some games! I still haven’t finished Bioshock, for crying out loud!

Go to games page

Sub Commander update 06-21

admin — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:48:00 +0000

The end is nearing! I have added a battleship to the game. Here’s what it looks like:

The battleship takes a whopping 8 hits to take out. Now that most units are in the game I’m beginning to get a good overview of the difficulty. One thing I’m gonna change is the ammo capacity. Currently the player can carry 12 torpedos but I’m gonna up this to 16.
The only thing left now is adding an aircraft carrier, test playing it and writing some documentation. I’m confident enough now to announce a release date: June 30. Of course, this is by no means a promise but a carefull estimation.

Sub Commander update 06-19

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:56:20 +0000

Finally fixed a few very nasty bugs. The menu bug I talked about in my last post, the one that made the game crash, has been fixed. Instead of the sprite-based menu, I decided to give the gui builder another try. It wasn’t easy because this is the most underdocumented part of Torque, but I managed to get it to work, complete with sound effects and automatic centering. The only part that I didn’t get to work for now is resizing it so it always looks the same size, no matter what resolution you use. Getting it to resize can be done automatically, but the problem is switching between aspect ratios. I designed the menu for a standard display, and when you play the game on a widescreen display it gets stretched. I think I can solve this, but it will take me time and a lot of experimenting. Since I think this game has been in development for too long already I decided to keep the menu the way it is and try the resizing thing some other time.