My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

[BPzeBanshee]

I'll tell you this much about doing handling like that - when I first made the Gleylancer ship in GMOSSE I used drawing events and variables and stuff instead of objects. It didn't end well.

That said though, if your cutting-edge method gets the kinks out of it and you can get a system using such working I wouldn't mind taking a look at its source.

[Rozyrg]

Cutting edge..

At this point I don't think it's worth the hassle, although I did get it working for generating medals with a very slight improvement in speed and efficiency. It's easier just to chomp those up, though... so, there's not quite the same issues with ones lingering around.

The issue I have now is resetting/rearranging the array once it gets too big, basically filling in the gaps made by 'dead' bullets and knocking the size back down to how much are actually on screen. Everything I've tried so far just makes it go wonky, making them 'transport' to places they shouldn't be or where ones that shouldn't have been generated would've been(?!!) It's all very confusing and, as you could imagine, playing with bullets appearing in random places isn't too easy.

If I ever squash this bug, I'll be happy to share, though.

[Rozyrg]

I think I'm wrapping up with FV... finally. -_-
Catch up time for everything! Plus, I actually have lots of ideas for XYX's map editor accumulated at this point. If all goes as planned, the final version *may* have a level editor.

Most of what I've been doing just concerns ...extra*.. stuff; but I have included such astounding innovations as an actual ending screen (vs. simply 'GAME OVER') and having the credits as the end of the game rather than as a second demo reel. Hurrah! I've actually broken down and opened up Illustrator to draw some new stuff for it, too; but the process is going extremely slow for me... vectoring is fun, just not nearly as fun as playing with pixels.

Other new stuff:


This is with only a single no-death level clear (I think), so 100m+ is definitely possible.

You can also now select a difficulty setting under Arcade Extra. It merely sets the minimum allowed rank, though, as you can still (eventually) reach the hardest rank starting from 'Easy.' I'm really curious as whether players will find the increase in difficulty sufficient. (Probably not.)

The third level boss for ZPF has finally been drawn, too.

*4th level reached by completing secret objective.

[Rozyrg]

Trying to make some of the ship specific weapons in FV more unique, I think I solved the beam issue. It took me all morning (starting at around 4am); but I think I nailed down a better method.

Basically, it uses two separate objects, one for drawing the beam and another that's the actual 'bullet' part (with all normal collision attributes intact.)

• -The beam object remains as long as the player is firing, no duplicates can be made as long as one is active. It creates each bullet after a set number of steps, matching the ROF of other weapons. It also disposes of the previous bullet if necessary.
  
  -The bullet is invisible. It uses the same sprite as the beam sections; but it's scaled to match the exact size and position of the drawn beam. On creation, it's scaled to extend from the player ship to the top of the screen. If it collides with any enemy, it sends back the enemy's id to the beam obj., which uses that to position the end of the beam and judge how many sections are necessary to draw. If the distance is less than a single section, it defaults to a minimum amount.
  
  - The beam is drawn section by section using repeat/loop commands. There are different images for the start and end; but all are the same dimensions to avoid overlaps.

Pretty simple, really.

[BPzeBanshee]

That sounds pretty damn cool. I've tried doing laser beams before and they haven't exactly worked very well, mainly due to my lack of experience with such stuff. Definitely post some screenshots at least when you get time.

[Rozyrg]

Commas, yay!. The number at the bottom left is the number of waves remaining before the rank goes up... might only be temporary.

I tried a bunch of different things with the individual images (including a zig-zag pattern which turned out to look very ugly in game);but this is the one I've settled on for now.

Functionally, though, there's still a few kinks to work out. Rarely, if you get hit while firing, it gets caught in some kind of loop, causing the game to freak out and jump ahead a whole bunch of frames... very nasty. The same thing happened as well when I hadn't set a minimum times for the image to repeat. Going directly over an enemy that couldn't collide with you and firing (meaning the repeat variable would be at zero or less), you could make it happen without fail.

The other current challenge is finding a good sound for it. It seems like you either end up with the grating, high-pitched 'nails on a chalkboard' variety or the kind that sounds like a continuous stream of synthesized flatulence. >_>

[BPzeBanshee]

Well at least it looks convincing. I guess the skipping frames stuff happening is because you're heavily using drawing events for this and when that said glitch happens it's doing a lot more work when its supposed to.

Looks quite nice though, almost just like Cave lasers. I dont suppose you plan on posting the source for that this lifetime?

[Rozyrg]

Sure.
I tried to clip out most of the unnecessary bits, like additional instructions that also terminate the beam if the player collects a different weapon powerup; but I was still lazy and left most of the variable names the same. <_<

Creation:

Code: Select all

//used in ship's firing event, the variable 'beamfiring' 
//must be 0 to call this script

    bol=instance_create(argument1,argument2,beamshot_obj)
    bol.dir=argument3
    bol.master=array_mstr
    if argument4=0 {bol.depth=depth+1} else {bol.depth=argument4}
    bol.image_speed=.5
    bol.maxscale=argument5
    bol.minscale=argument5/2
    bol.damage=argument6
    bol.length=sprite_get_width(beam1_img)

Note: The variable array_mstr refers to the player ship or bit object, which is passed on to the beam so it can have an origin point, etc. and can vary in different ways depending on what's firing it. This is done because a separate object is used for all firing instructions... if this was being called directly form the ship/bit, you could simply use master=id.

beamshot_obj only contains the instructions below (in it's draw section):

Code: Select all

// CHECK FOR TARGET*********
if nearen!=0
      {
       rep=round(abs(master.y-(nearen.y))/length)
       //reset target
          if instance_exists(nearen)
          and nearen.no_hit=0 //collision modifier
          and nearen.enemy_health>0
          {}
           else {nearen=0}
      }
      if nearen=0 {rep=round(master.y/length)+1}
     rep2=round(master.y/length)
     
     if rep<=0 {rep=2}
        
// CREATE BULLET*********
    if start=0
     {
      //mastr_shot is the default enemy bullet object

        bol2=instance_create(x,y,mastr_shot)
        bol2.sprite_index=beam1_img
        bol2.image_yscale=maxscale
        bol2.image_xscale=rep2
        bol2.image_alpha=0
        bol2.damage=damage
        bol2.master=id
        bol2.extra_type=1
        
        start=1
        master.beamfiring=1
       //player can only create beam obj 
       //while this variable is zero
     }

// DRAW BEAM*********
        if fadeok=0
        {
           // scaling effect -expands from 0 at start, then 'wobbles'

            if phase=0 {if scale<maxscale {scale+=.05} else {phase=1}}
            if phase=1 {if scale>minscale {scale-=.05} else {phase=0}}
            
            repeat(rep)
            {
               //beam1_img = start/firing image
               //beam2_img = main image
               //beam3_img = 'hit' image

            xx+=1
            xmod=master.x+lengthdir_x(length*xx,dir)
            ymod=master.y+lengthdir_y(length*xx,dir)
            if xx=1{img=beam1_img} else 
            {
             if xx<rep {img=beam2_img}
             else {img=beam3_img}
            }
            
            draw_sprite_ext(img,-1,xmod,ymod,1,scale,dir,c_white,1)
            }
            xx=0
            

// BULLET OBJ MATCHES DIMENSIONS,POSITION OF BEAM (for collisions)*********
            if instance_exists(bol2)
            {
            //since it will be scaled from the center,
            // bullet is placed directly 
            //in the middle of the length of beam

            bol2.image_angle=dir
            bol2.x=master.x+lengthdir_x((length*rep)/2,dir)
            bol2.y=master.y+lengthdir_y((length*rep)/2,dir)
            bol2.image_xscale=rep
            }
            
       //replace bullet
            shottimer+=1
            if shottimer=4
            {
            if instance_exists(bol2) {with bol2 {instance_destroy()}}
            start=0
            shottimer=0
            //nearen=0
            }
        }

//TERMINATE BEAM******
        
        if instance_exists(mastr_ship)
        and (keyboard_check(global.fire_button)
        {} else {fadeok=1}
        
        if fadeok=1
        {
           // beam's scale shrinks back to zero, then 
          //destroys itself and any remaining bullets.
            if scale>0 {scale-=.05} else 
             {
            if instance_exists(bol2) {with bol2 {instance_destroy()}}
              instance_destroy()
        master.beamfiring=0
             }
        }
   

Bullet collision (in addition to the expected stuff of course)

Code: Select all

  
if extra_type=1 { master.nearen=other.id}

As for the jerking/lag issue, I *think* I've corrected it by immediately having the player ship destroy the beam and it's spawned bullets once it's hit, rather than leaving it up to them to figure out they need to self-destruct. I think what's causing it is the objects getting 'lost' once the ship is gone since many variables are dependent on it's position/status.

I've had similar glitches have happened with enemies which have lots of subsections. Basically, the controlling section would be destroyed for going out of bounds; but their subsections wouldn't be (since they'd be traveling behind them in most cases and still visible on screen.) As best I could figure, they'd be left in some kind of loop where they're left waiting for feedback from the head section... which they will never receive.

[BPzeBanshee]

Damn, nice job there! I'll see what I can do about using it for GMOSSE sometime. Thanks.

[Rozyrg]

No problem.

Keep in mind, I still get some slowdown if there's lots of enemies onscreen and I have all 4 options/bits firing at once; but I'm sure there's ways to further optimize it. Then again, GMOSSE's resolution is lower than FV's anyways, so that might cut down on some of the repetition in drawing.

[Rozyrg]

Addendum: one quirk with the above method seems to be that it will almost always hit an enemy further away rather than one closer to you... which is definitely an issue when you have smaller, more aggressive enemies breathing down your neck. Trying (unsuccessfully) to control when exactly it terminated also caused a bizarre glitch which could instantly kill a boss if it happened to destroy you under specific circumstances while you were firing the beam.

I fixed this by making it behave more like a normal bullet, albeit a very fast one, and not trying to manually control it's position.

(Under the hood) updates: I also scrapped FV's old, bulky scrolling system (it used at least 5 separate specialized scripts and multiple object types... ughh) and replaced it with a modified version of the one I made for XYX's faux tile system. The advantage to this is it's much, much simper, I can actually have...*GASP*... more than one image and, in the end, have something that looks like an actual stage now. The levels that are already done probably won't be getting serious makeovers, though. I just want this sh*t to finally be over with so I can move on, honestly...

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Perhaps you could give a quick demonstration of it via a gif or small video? The scrolling was always a bit wonky to me but I never mentioned it.

[Rozyrg]

This probably isn't all that helpful, sorry. I had my usual luck getting a consistent framerate using FRAPS. -_-
(Enjoy the first several seconds of the new level at least.)

It's really just an upgrade in manageability from my end more than anything else... and hopefully it performs a tad better too. The main difference is it's using only one object (per set) opposed to lots of them, and it has much tighter control on where everything is placed.

IN OTHER NEWS:
The boss for the new level is already far more complex (and interesting.. maybe) than any of the other ones...hmmm. Partly because of this (and partly from getting some fresh input from a friend), I've decided to make it a 'regular' level with no special entry requirements and added a few significantly less complicated bonus stages to fill the gap.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Wasn't there a more in-depth description of how you did it just a day ago?
And yes, it looks much better from what I'm seeing so far, but yeah, I can't be in-depth without playing it myself.

I'm very interested in the new content as well.
Also if you can, reply to the messages I gave ya.

[Rozyrg]

Yeah, just kinda went edit crazy there. I kept paring down what I had written until I decided it wasn't that useful anyways.

To summarize as best I can, though.. think of having a set of bars stacked vertically that move downward, each with an image on it. When the set has been moved down the height of a single bar, the bottom bar is placed on top and the current images are shifted down one row, and a new image (the next in queue) is given to the top bar. Way simpler and easier to manage than what I had, believe me.

Oh, and I'll get back to ya ASAP. I hadn't gotten back to working on that yet, that's all.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Ahh, layered loops. Been trying to do that manually in photoshop myself, but I never get it down.
Man, I feel like a oddity here.

[Rozyrg]

Manually? O_O
Hmm... maybe if you can make an action in PS that:

• 1. moves the whole block down 1 pixel. If the sections are all separate layers, you could probably link them to do this.
  2. copies a selected area defined by where you want the edges of the 'screen' to be. You could then paste this into ImageReady or whatever.. I'm assuming you're trying to make an animation.

Then, simply repeat that action until the second lowest row touches where the edge of the screen would be. After that, placing the part that's gone past the lower boundary back on the top would be all that's left. You could probably make another PS action that does that for you too.

Back on the topic of scrolling methods, ZPF and XYX both use ones where the sections actually do overlap. It's honestly not very efficient, as the game is having to draw as much or more off-screen than what you can actually see for the transitions to be smooth enough. Chances are I'll be replacing those once I get back to them.

Further tweakery:

You can't see it too well in this; but Jade's Dual shot now only changes direction in 45 degrees at a time, making some neat angular patterns as it blows everything to bits.

Also, I can now more confidently say I'm ALMOST FREAKING DONE

As this 'minor upgrade' drags on forever and I continue to test FV, I've come to the conclusion that it's simply too easy (on Extra mode at least), so I've been tweaking the difficulty. Don't be surprised if it seems I've overcompensated a bit with it when the new version is ready. I've tried to balance it to where you can clearly tell whenever the rank notches up; but hopefully it's not too jarring. That said, I think it's still perfectly playable at MAX rank, so it *still* might be fairly easy for the vets out there. <_<

[SenpaiSamaKun]

I agree with that. No upgrade runs are difficult enough (as usual), but you can blaze through it if you're fairly competent.

This isn't something that should be a huge concern, but have you considered making a forced pillarboxing mode?
A good number of video codecs don't work for recordings without a 4:3 or 16:9 ratio due to their format limits.
Also those with clarity obsessions wouldn't have to worry about coloring burning on full screen and things like that.

[Rozyrg]

It would be annoying (there are many, many calls to room_width); but not impossible. I actually wouldn't mind having a dedicated Yoko(?) mode in this or XYX, as I'm accustomed enough to playing stuff like Fire Shark and Twin Cobra on Genesis that just uses the extra space to display information that might clutter the screen otherwise. If nothing else, it'd probably work towards recreating the experience of playing an old arcade-to-console port. I know I'm not the only one who spent more time at home playing this stuff rather than at the arcades.

Whether I'll get off my ass and actually do it is another issue, though.

About the difficulty... the next time I played, I decided I had definitely made it too hard... hahahaha. Ahh, the joys of late-night coding/testing and sleep deprivation. Fortunately I was sane enough to keep the vital changes, I just bumped the settings all up one spot and added an Easy mode that was least somewhat more difficult than the one I had before. MAX rank now occurs at 99 waves completed, too, which at least makes sense.

[Rozyrg]

NEW DEMO!

Lots of things still need work; but I'm honestly getting pretty burned out... and also having a serious case of feedback deprivation. I know it's understandable from talking so much about things no one has yet had a chance to try out, though. Any feedback is welcome, of course. Granted, I might just take a long, long break now...


Anyways, here's what definitely needs work :

• - the ending... it's just a single screen followed by credits
  - bonus stages, they're functional at best now
  - some sfx are unfinished
  
  - Level 4:
  -- needs some more background gfx, especially at the road sections
  -- needs serious performance tweaking
  
  - AE Mode display. I could never settle on whether it made more sense for it to show either:
  -- when the enemy rank will increase (this is what it shows currently)
  -- when the medals will upgrade
  -- if showing any of this info is really even helpful or necessary.
  
  - Difficulty. I'm very interested in feedback regarding this.
  -- does it start off too hard?/does it ramp up too much on rank increase? That sort of thing.

[BPzeBanshee]

I have no idea what I'm doing, I can't get past stage 2 on ANY settings let alone default, everything except for the angle shot feels like its underpowered (and even then) and I can't see anything because it's a kaliedoscope of trippy colours I'd expect to see when I'm on the bong while time travelling back to Woodstock while drinking "Charlie Sheen" just before my face melts off.

Madness aside, the enemy rank variable I found useful as I was able to judge by that how I'm doing (once I noticed it among the kaleidoscope of colours).

That laser shot thing of yours I managed to see, I can see the problem you're having there with it going over enemies and stuff like that. Once I'm done in the rewrite of GMOSSE's sound material for the unteenth time I'll muck around with it and see if I can come up with anything better. The guy who made DoTonPachi basically just made object spam that used image_blend, sharing x position with player and explosion effect on hit to simulate a working laser beam but at least his one cut out when other enemies showed up including the stuff that was past the enemy. His blog info on it isn't helpful though since it errors (I know, I tried, and its not because the code is in Korean or that either).

As for the difficulty, I can't tell. It seems that since my eyes are full of fuck watching this game and its colours (actually my eyes are kinda hurting now...:S) I can't really comment on whether it was too difficult or whether it was just that I suck.

[Rozyrg]

... and I had just redrawn some of the explosions to be more colorful. Uh oh. Sorry about the color overload (it's kinda my thing), I appreciate your putting you eyes through the ordeal just to try it out.

The beam is set to not return the hit position marker if an enemy is under a set amount of health. It *should* still be hitting them, though, as I changed it to prevent it prioritizing higher (lower y valued) enemies. I can see how it would block things from view, though. It's actually a bit worse with medals.. some enemies can pass under them. -_-

...and Level 2 is a clinch point for me too, usually. If you do make it past and get towards the end, you'll be happy to know some of the more ridiculous stuff has already gotten the axe. Some of L4's 'bonus level' elements just didn't quite cut it... also, things like overly gratuitous bullet patterns didn't help performance much either.

edit: updated the file to include these changes (10/26/11)

[mice]

I've manged to get to the boss at stage 2 on arcade extra, easy, jade and only collecting Ts.
In normal arcade / other difficulty setting / ship /weapon I never reach the end of stage 1.

Still, I keep getting back to it...
Getting a proper PAD today as well, might help a bit.

Granted, I might just take a long, long break now...

You deserve it!

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Annnnnd I'm just going full force for gameplay videos myself.
ITS HARD like everyone else said, but CAVE, Psikyos, and ZUN will be my three guided hands through the pain.

[Rozyrg]

Awesome... can't wait to see. I'm definitely happier with the feedback I've gotten on the difficulty so far than I thought I'd be. "It's hard" is always better than "THIS IS BULLSH*T!"

That little break was nice; but I still managed to jump right back onto XYX somehow. I've been trying to mix up level 3 some.. there are now these higher road sections (although I'm honestly not sure the difference in scale really makes that much sense) and also some factory-type buildings you can blow up.


I'm actually still hoping to finish it up by the end of the year, although that probably won't include all the extra goodies (manual, etc.)

[tiaoferreira]

All dificulty levels are good enough for me. We only need practice, and be happy.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks, man!

I noticed a slight issue with Flying V playing it at my friend's place this weekend. Due to the way I have the horizontal panning change speed depending on where you are on screen, it can appear to jitter a bit if you're moving in an out of that specific 'speed transition area' a lot. It seems more noticeable on a laptop/netbook display for some reason, though.

Anyways..other than trying to finish up XYX, I've been coming with ideas for smaller-scale stuff. Sort of a budget-line if you will.
Although I'm sure they'll eat up no less time in production...

• - Something vaguely like Scramble or even the old DOS game Sopwith/Striker, with the focus being just as much on bombing the crap out of buildings and ground targets as straight-up shooting.
  - Twin-stick style single-screen shooter; but with actual distinguishable levels and jumping between lots of different themes : aliens,bugs, zombies, medieval, etc. I had already built some of the base for this (three control schemes and all) working on a collaboration that didn't pan out.
  - Single level vertical/horizontal shooters - either based on some of my old Blast Works projects or just having a more focused theme/direction. This kind of hinges on a level editor I intend to make for XYX, though, as I want the levels to be pretty long.

I'd still like to do a platformer eventually; but I don't foresee conquering the issues I had anytime soon, best to face ones I can actually wrap my head around first, I think.

Also, I'm thinking about finally breaking down and doing some shirt designs, either related to my games or just shmups in general... I can't guarantee they'll be all that cheap or anything, though. Let me know if any of yall would be interested and/or what kind of stuff would be cool for those.

[mice]

T-shirts ftw!

...but I don't foresee conquering the issues I had anytime soon...

What were these issues?

[BPzeBanshee]

T-shirts ftw!

...but I don't foresee conquering the issues I had anytime soon...

What were these issues?

Platformer mechanics, I believe.

If you want to see how I managed to cobble a platformer together Rozyrg just ask. It's got moving blocks, basic swimming, death and jumping. Oh, and Hadou Bombs and squid.

[Rozyrg]

It was pretty much the fundamentals I was getting hung up on embarrassingly enough. Basically, I'd get something to work right (ie jumping and landing) and then something else would break, creating a maddening loop of negated progress and frustration. So yeah, I might have to take you up on that sometime.

I've made some progress on the level builder:


Actually, this thing is focused wholly on enemy placement, so I guess arrangement editor would more accurate. The points on the grid correspond to x values, the "time" indicates at what step the enemy will be generated and "entry" indicates where they will originate. Not the best obvious visual indicator from a WYSIWYG standpoint, I know.

I *may* retool the map builder I have (likely to use horizontal strips rather than pseudo tiles, similar to Flying V) and combine that with this for a more concise package; but I doubt I'll have anything that lets you modify enemy/wave behavior directly. This should be fun enough as it is to integrate into the game. I still have to add assignable checkpoints and boss markers and such.