Introducing Chacker, The Angry Mockingbird

[null1024]

Finally, a playable release!

It's actually not too bad.
Some [bad] things:
Graphics suck.
Music loops badly.
Chaining is confusing [is it RSG style chaining-- kill the same type to chain?]
Confusing when you get hit or not.
Appears to have a horrid mess of a memory leak -- there was a exclamation mark next to the window, and when I dragged the window around, the desktop didn't repaint.

Some [good] things:
It was kind of fun.
If chaining is RSG style, this could be really fun to mess with.
Your speed doesn't suck.
It's no longer seizure time.


I think the middleware you used did NOT like being an applet [therefore it puked white rectangles at the idea], rather, it preferred being an application [most Java apps do].

[SandtouchLC]

Graphics suck.

It will get spit-and-shine as we go along. We are somewhat constrained by the file size, though.

In particular, the first pano set was taken in a hurry and we are going to redo it. The second one is better but has an off-by-one error where you fight the Shih Tzu, so you can see a seam. That too will be fixed.

Music loops badly.

Here, again, the concern is with the file size. Eventually we'll talk to the browser and get it to play better (MP3) music.

Chaining is confusing [is it RSG style chaining-- kill the same type to chain?]

A streak ends when an enemy leaves the playfield. No worries about timers or which enemies you shoot in what order (although to get the feather power-ups, you do have to worry about that.) We will document the streak system after mopping up the hosting blog to reflect that the JNLP version doesn't suck.

Confusing when you get hit or not.

A 2-fold solution is in the works:
1. Hit box for Chacker
2. Spin animation will not be interruptable by the player (you are invincible for 3 seconds anyway, so no effect on gameplay)

Appears to have a horrid mess of a memory leak -- there was a exclamation mark next to the window, and when I dragged the window around, the desktop didn't repaint.

Yikes. We'll look into that.

Some [good] things:
It was kind of fun.

Yay!

If chaining is RSG style, this could be really fun to mess with.

No, but you do have to shoot down the same type of bird repeatedly in order to get the 3 feathers required for a power-up.

Your speed doesn't suck.

Good. This was a topic of some debate. There is a speed-up powerup that increases speed by about 50% per level up to 150%--hopefully that will not foul the balance up.

Also, we are going to remove the acceleration in the next version.

It's no longer seizure time.

(insert sigh of relief here)

[null1024]

Filesize isn't the huge issue you make it out to be. If you can use PNGs for graphics, they shouldn't be big, even for very large sprites. For the BG, a long JPEG would suffice, and if you fiddle with the quality, you can make it small and still look passable. Also, look into using tracked music (XM/IT/MOD): it's extremely small due to it's nature -- stores instruments and notes, similar to MIDI, however MIDI only stores notes in the file.

[SandtouchLC]

Filesize isn't the huge issue you make it out to be. If you can use PNGs for graphics, they shouldn't be big, even for very large sprites.

We've found that the frames do add up, unfortunately.

For the BG, a long JPEG would suffice, and if you fiddle with the quality, you can make it small and still look passable.

The BG is actually the space-sucker. We use a PNG since we can't use a JPEG yet--we couldn't get the game to load a JPEG out of the JAR and blit it (and Java security restrictions got in the way of loading it from elsewhere.) We'll try and work around that.

Also, look into using tracked music (XM/IT/MOD): it's extremely small due to it's nature -- stores instruments and notes, similar to MIDI, however MIDI only stores notes in the file.

Modules do rock. We'll look into getting a mod library as Plan B (MP3 being Plan A).

[null1024]

Filesize isn't the huge issue you make it out to be. If you can use PNGs for graphics, they shouldn't be big, even for very large sprites.

We've found that the frames do add up, unfortunately.

For the BG, a long JPEG would suffice, and if you fiddle with the quality, you can make it small and still look passable.

The BG is actually the space-sucker. We use a PNG since we can't use a JPEG yet--we couldn't get the game to load a JPEG out of the JAR and blit it (and Java security restrictions got in the way of loading it from elsewhere.) We'll try and work around that.

Also, look into using tracked music (XM/IT/MOD): it's extremely small due to it's nature -- stores instruments and notes, similar to MIDI, however MIDI only stores notes in the file.

Modules do rock. We'll look into getting a mod library as Plan B (MP3 being Plan A).

Hmm... no JPEGs? Crap.
Also, frames really don't add up that much [from experience], especially considering there aren't many frames of animation here. Also, you could try GIFs [if possible].

[the2bears]

I have never seen a Java game with a problem like yours, so I really doubt it has anything to do with Java itself. Check some other Java game source code and see how they do it. Chances are you are just doing something wrong.

I've never seen such a bad flicker either. Shade is very simple in terms of programming and I've never seen it flicker in either Firefox of Chrome. Can't be bothered with IE.

Bill

[SandtouchLC]

We take it it's still flickering even in JNLP form? :-/

The problem seemed to be related to a forced redraw caused by the browser, and switching to Web Start removed it, at least for Null.

[SandtouchLC]

Also, you could try GIFs [if possible].

So far the results from GIF have been pretty disappointing. If you think the graphics are bad now, well...

[null1024]

Eww.
Maybe try using a different method of simplifying the palette: try using patterns instead of random dots [ALA Windows 3.1 when faced with colors it can't display because you're using generic VGA drivers].
Or zip everything up [while in PNGs] and unzip at runtime. However, that probably won't do any good.

PS: redo that bird model please, make it more cohesive and less blobby.

[SandtouchLC]

Or zip everything up [while in PNGs] and unzip at runtime. However, that probably won't do any good.

That would lead to a pretty significant performance hit for not much space savings.

PS: redo that bird model please, make it more cohesive and less blobby.

Weekend project it is.

Edit: This is what the actual bird looks like... kind of blobby.

[worstplayer]

Whatever you're using to compress that gif isn't very good. Looks like it uses default palette and doesn't do any kind of optimization. Also, make sure the background is different color than the object. Black parts seem to randomly disappear (apparently they turn same color as transparent).
Also, if you want the model to look blobby, just make it out of one smoothed mesh instead of multiple spheres. At this moment it looks more like alien spacecraft than bird.

[SandtouchLC]

Here is our first go at trying to salvage the existing model. The bird is two-toned now, like a real mockingbird.* The body now has some shape to it, and the wings are less blobby because there is a simple triangle mesh supporting them now. After rendering, it looks like the triangles have the wrong specular (shiny like the white spots when they should be matted) so we'll fix that.

Otherwise, is it at least passable?

*Yes, the line between the tones should be smoother. That can somewhat solved by tweaks. The only way to make it perfect is a combined mesh + texture mapping + a lot of trial and error.

[null1024]

Hmmm... the model is better in some places, worse in others. Like the beak, and the eyes. Both look TERRIBLE. Or maybe just they weren't noticeable before.


PS:What modeler do you use?
PPS:Why are you using separate shapes for the object?
PPPS:You may want to look into modeling via metaballs [essentially objects that stretch the geometry of other metaballs when placed near eachother.]

[SandtouchLC]

Hmmm... the model is better in some places, worse in others. Like the beak, and the eyes. Both look TERRIBLE. Or maybe just they weren't noticeable before.

Unchanged, so they weren't noticeable before, and have always been bad. Any suggestions for the beak/eyes? All that one could really do with the beak is add some curveature...

PS:What modeler do you use?

Blender exported to Poser 5

PPS:Why are you using separate shapes for the object?

Because we didn't expect the sprites to get so much attention.

PPPS:You may want to look into modeling via metaballs [essentially objects that stretch the geometry of other metaballs when placed near eachother.]

That sounds much faster than making one (or a few) large triangle meshes. Will have to look into that.

[worstplayer]

Come on, subdivision meshes aren't that hard. It's almost like using Spore Creature Creator.

It took me about 20 minutes, including coffee break.

[SandtouchLC]

Come on, subdivision meshes aren't that hard. It's almost like using Spore Creature Creator.

It took me about 20 minutes, including coffee break.

Nice work with the curveature, especially on the wings. You clearly have talent and experience.

Your model looks more like a hummingbird though (particularly Kolibri). Let's see if we can make a mocker with the same technique...

[SandtouchLC]

OK, NOW we're cooking with gas.



Edit: If you just clicked into this thread, scroll down to see the latest release notes/comments or click here to try the game. (Folks tend to end up here because of the large graphics in this thread causing the browser to scroll up.)


Take a bow, good mocker.

[null1024]

Niiiiice. I'm wondering, how will that fit with the rest of the graphics?

[SandtouchLC]

Niiiiice. I'm wondering, how will that fit with the rest of the graphics?

Thanks.

Well, we can use this model as a master to re-render the other 9 birds (8 enemies + 1 boss that is a bird).

The sprites will need to get bigger in order to preserve quality. That brings up 2 issues:

1. Effect on gameplay - we'll mitigate that with hit boxing.
2. Effect on file size - well, it's going to get bigger. Since we switched to JNLP in order to kill the flicker bug, that changes our deployment strategy somewhat. Originally, we wanted Chacker to be an embeddable application for the big social networks. That can't happen now that it is in JNLP form, but the good news is that we can afford to splurge a few more megabytes on the sprites as a result.

Edit: Here is how the new Chacker sprite actually looks in the game (so far). Now we get to replace the other birds... (and that pano shot which is clearly bleeding from frame to frame.)



P.S. Don't worry, it is hitboxed now.

[null1024]

You need to fix the levels on your mockingbird -- it blends too much with the BG.

[SandtouchLC]

So here is Build 13. The new Chacker sprite is implemented and hitboxed (and has the red levels boosted per Null), and the mouse control is improved (but still not perfect, there is some jitter.) Remember that the mouse control is totally 100% OPTIONAL, and is meant for your mom/mum. You can use the keyboard as described in the manual (same link, scroll down).

While we managed to squeeze the improved Chacker sprite into just 100KB additional memory, the backgrounds have not been updated yet, simply because the weather has sucked for the past week. Also, the enemy birds still have their old spherical sprites. So that is what we're working on for next time, once God lets us shoot the backgrounds and Starbucks sufficiently motivates the CG team.

[SandtouchLC]

And now, here is Build 14. The previous build turned out to be pretty unlucky, as it introduced some new bugs related to the new Chacker sprite. Those are fixed, and the mouse should now work right on Stage 2. Chacker is also no longer invincible on Stage 2, sorry (there was a layering error).

The Robin also has a new sprite, and it only cost us a few additional KB. Thanks for your patience while we got the compression right! This helps keep the download fast for you, and keeps our costs low too. We should have the rest of the birds converted, and the backgrounds updated, for the next build.

[SandtouchLC]

Here comes Build 15, and here is what is new:

• All birds except ringneck dove, pigeon and grackle have new sprites. (For those of you who didn't like the graphics, we want to hear how we're doing!) Those last birds will be redone next build since we need to change the model to reflect their proportions.
• Vine Shot (laser) appeared segmented rather than as a continuous beam. Fixed.
• Vine Shot (laser) was WAY too powerful. It now only pierces at level 2 and higher.
• Sonic Coo (shield weapon) didn't work with autofire (space bar/middle mouse). Fixed.
• Spread shot generated off Chacker (failure to compensate for new sprite's dimensions). Fixed.
• Chacker can be moved with the mouse when a power up announcement is up. Fixed.
• Animation glitch when Chacker eats a seed or berry while charging resulting in a giant mockingbird. Fixed.
• Thunder Clouds damage was based on Chacker, not his hitbox. It is now based on the hitbox, so you do not get fried for having Chacker's tail touch an active cloud.
• Thunder Cloud animation should be more obvious. Now it flashes yellow.
• On stage 1, mouse is jittery. On stages 2+, mouse works only on click. Fixed.
• Stage 2 still has the old chacker sprite for the wing flash. Fixed.

We think we've made progress, but roast away otherwise...

Edit: If your Chacker title screen still says "Build 14" or lower, you probably need to clear your Java cache (seperate from browser cache).

[jonny5]

still has a memory leak \


just read the thread....youve come a long way...kinda wish i got to play what they were talking about in the beginning.....

[SandtouchLC]

still has a memory leak \

Bummer. We'll look into it.

just read the thread....youve come a long way...kinda wish i got to play what they were talking about in the beginning.....

Thanks! Still more work to be done on the graphics front. Hopefully fixing that memory leak won't make more bugs but... whatever it takes.

[SandtouchLC]

We seem to be on a roll, so here is Build 16, our first try at fixing the memory leak bug. In addition to that, there are some other fixes:

• New pano background for stage 1-1 (finally!)
• Mouse control further refined.
• Stage transitions (fades) sometimes did not occur or happened too early. Fixed.
• Enemy seed shots froze in place during a power-up announcement and would not restart afterwards. Fixed.
• Boss life bars and feather display did not update correctly. Fixed.

If you notice a memory leak, excessive CPU usage or Java exceptions (crashes), please make sure your title screen says "Build 16," and then let us know so that we can finish exorcising the bugs. Thanks!

Edit: BTW, we changed our minds about the Vine Shot not piercing until you get two upgrades. It does pierce at level 1, but only counts as one additional hit to each enemy shot (in builds 14 and prior it counted as two, allowing easy bee hive/dove/boss pwnage.)

[Ed Oscuro]

I've got the latest Java installed (the update has been trickling into my various machines the last week or so I think) and re-played the game over the last version. b16 confirmed. Played with the mouse because I don't get to do that often, plus I'm a fan of absolute movement vs. constant acceleration from many years FPSing

Had the following issues:

A yellow ! yield sign appears on the right side of the window after maximizing and then returning to the default size - I don't know what this is about.

Played with Task Manager open and watched the CPU usage a bit. It went from 2-10% at game start to routinely hitting 50% after the first stage. Seems like processor usage spikes when you play a sound. It was apparently over 50% during the humorous "FAIL" sequence (the boss didn't seem to want to be where I could get at it, moving to the left side and eventually heading offscreen after I finally died, not that it mattered).

I noticed lots of flickering on Chacker's sprite.

There are some strange gameplay issues as well. First off, the game feels clumsy because of the time it takes our lovable Mockingbird to catch up with the onscreen feather pointer, and also because of how darn big the bird is. I don't like the screen's scrolling, and Chacker's sprite spazzing out when hit doesn't help reduce uncertainty about this relationship either.

I can't tell what the falling "feathers" do, or what their relationship is with the wing flap special attack. I collected a bunch of them, all sorts of different colors, and nothing seemed to happen.

The little health bar thing doesn't seem to make sense to me. My eye naturally went to the speed indicator. I wouldn't want to eat a lot of stuff because then I'd be going too fast to control. On that HUD, the three health orbs didn't stand out, and I didn't even notice them until just before writing this post.

I think there's possibly some gameplay potential in the "eat or shoot" idea but right now all gameplay seems to be is just eating every bee in sight to rack up a huge bonus multiplier, and that leads to me hitting hives.

I dunno why, but I kind of like the game, even if (or maybe because) some of the things are currently B-movie placeholders. The gameplay just ain't doing it for me though. That, and the technical issues.

Personally, if I were working on this game, I'd go for all sorts of freakish mechanical / bird cybirdnetic enemies that shoot missiles out of obvious locations instead of sort of out of their mouths, and so that there's more variety than size + danger to things that are essentially flying peapods. Maybe there's an idea for the later stages.

[SandtouchLC]

Ed,

Thanks for the comments! This is exactly what we need to see to improve the game.

A yellow ! yield sign appears on the right side of the window after maximizing and then returning to the default size - I don't know what this is about.

This is a consequence of our using Java/JNLP. The Java runtime puts up the warning sign to indicate that the game is a Java applet, so that you do not type your credit card number in it by mistake.

Played with Task Manager open and watched the CPU usage a bit. It went from 2-10% at game start to routinely hitting 50% after the first stage. Seems like processor usage spikes when you play a sound. It was apparently over 50% during the humorous "FAIL" sequence (the boss didn't seem to want to be where I could get at it, moving to the left side and eventually heading offscreen after I finally died, not that it mattered).

The FAIL screen FAILs by using that much CPU.

We intentionally don't destroy sprites, since keeping them in RAM reduces load times. However, we may need to think twice about that approach.

We'll take a hard look at the sound-playing code, too. We've been wanting to swap out the music for some time now, but the issue is how to play back an mp3 or somesuch outside of Java (as it would be too CPU intensive to do so in the runtime.)

I noticed lots of flickering on Chacker's sprite.

Was it white-box flickering like the screen caps on page 1 of this thread? Or visible/invisible flickering (that normally occurs when you get hit and are invincible for 3 seconds)?

There are some strange gameplay issues as well. First off, the game feels clumsy because of the time it takes our lovable Mockingbird to catch up with the onscreen feather pointer, and also because of how darn big the bird is. I don't like the screen's scrolling, and Chacker's sprite spazzing out when hit doesn't help reduce uncertainty about this relationship either.

Chacker does start out very slow. You need to earn a speed up or two (3 red feathers... see below) to make him keep up 100% with the mouse cursor.

You will find the mouse control easier if you hold the space bar down (auto fire) while using it. Note that you should switch to charged shots for bosses (and dove-type enemies if your seed level is 5 or lower).

We'll post the hit box metrics later on and you can tell us if it's too big.

I can't tell what the falling "feathers" do, or what their relationship is with the wing flap special attack. I collected a bunch of them, all sorts of different colors, and nothing seemed to happen.

Here's the scoop. Long story short, you must collect 3 of the same color feather in a row to earn a power-up. Exception: White feathers, which give you one more wing-flash (bomb).

Will BBL with more responses.

[Ed Oscuro]

Okay, follow-up then:

Having the delay to keep up with the cursor is just bad. That said I'm aware of the dual controller configuration idea; IMO you folks should pick a single control setup and stick to it.

The flicker is indeed invincibility time, and doesn't seem really smooth.

The thing I forgot to mention about the processor usage before the FAIL is that it remains high. I'm playing on a C2D E6600 here; there's no reason this thing should be using half a core's time (at minimum) in a new game.

Feathers...I don't see how I'm supposed to get a single powerup before the first boss. I pick up a feather (usually yellow) at the beginning, and then there's all sorts of random ones after that. I've seen two of the same color come one after the other, but only two before the boss. That first boss so far is a wall for me (although I've only tried it twice), not sure how I'm supposed to squeeze between two dog bones, and it looks like it'd take forever and a day to wear down its health anyhow.

That's about it for now, I think.

[SandtouchLC]

The little health bar thing doesn't seem to make sense to me. My eye naturally went to the speed indicator. I wouldn't want to eat a lot of stuff because then I'd be going too fast to control. On that HUD, the three health orbs didn't stand out, and I didn't even notice them until just before writing this post.

We'll be the first to admit that using Zelda-style life for a shmup is, to say the least, unorthodox. It seemed like a good compromise between finite lives and a euro-shmup life meter. We made the life meter red berries to indicate that this is what you need to eat to restore it, and the berries are in turn red because it's the the traditional color for life in games other than shmups. Again, we're open to questioning the wisdom of doing this in a shmup.

We made Chacker faster when using the mouse rather than the keyboard because control with the keyboard is more fine-grained. A faster Chacker gives you more time to correct errors made with the coarse mouse movement before you get plastered by a Kiskadee. Or at least that was the idea.

By speed indicator, did you mean the streak indicator?

I think there's possibly some gameplay potential in the "eat or shoot" idea but right now all gameplay seems to be is just eating every bee in sight to rack up a huge bonus multiplier, and that leads to me hitting hives.

We haven't really done much to distinguish eating from shooting--it's a paltry 150 or so points more for eating a bee. Both eating and shooting the bees increase the streak count the same. (Maybe eating should be worth +2 hits?)

The bee hives are farmable to increase the streak counter. When you shoot them, a bee is released. You can then eat the bees while continuing to shoot the hive until it is destroyed, or wing flash to destroy all of the bees and hives and add 20+ hits to the streak counter. Just don't let a bee leave the playfield, or the streak counter resets.

If you do this consistently on stage 1, you can have 500,000 points and 8 max life before you even get to the end of the block. Since you are using the mouse, use the autofire (space bar or middle mouse) to shoot the hives as mashing the left mouse button is too slow.

I dunno why, but I kind of like the game, even if (or maybe because) some of the things are currently B-movie placeholders. The gameplay just ain't doing it for me though. That, and the technical issues.

Gameplay is king, and so we will listen and change it to make the game better.

But the fact that the game is growing on you means we are doing something right.

Personally, if I were working on this game, I'd go for all sorts of freakish mechanical / bird cybirdnetic enemies that shoot missiles out of obvious locations instead of sort of out of their mouths, and so that there's more variety than size + danger to things that are essentially flying peapods. Maybe there's an idea for the later stages.

LOL!

We admit that Chacker can't deliver the kind of catharsis that a more traditional, sci-fi shmup can. There is a reason we all doodled spaceships in our notes when we were in school. It is very satisfying to have lasers and missiles and huge vulcan cannons, and lots of big alien/robot enemies to use them on. While we have analogues to all of the traditional shmup weapons, it isn't the same and isn't supposed to be. Chacker is supposed to be a gentle parody of the traditional shmup, in the same way that Cotton or Kolibri is. (Although we weren't aware of Kolibri when we started the project, and so UN Squadron was our primary influence. That explains the second boss.)