Trigonometry Wars 4

[Giest118]

Trigonometry Wars 4: The Partial With Respect to T



So technically this game has already been finished and released, but I'm still working on it.

A basic rundown: It's the fourth game in a series of shmups by me, the first two of which went unreleased because I didn't think they were really good enough to release. The third game is much better, and has probably the best scoring mechanics I've yet come up with, but overall it was way too hard, even for a bullet hell. This game I feel is my most polished effort yet (even surpassing My Little Pegasus, which I released later), but it still needs work.

There's a few things that I've found about it that need fixing. For example: In a good enough run of the current version, you can loop the score into the negatives. Also there's new features I want to add.

So, here's the list of things I'm currently working on adding to the game:

* Trig Wars 3 Arrange mode (basically TW4 with TW3's mechanics, including the ship with three modes of attack)
* Death Label mode (concept stolen from Odd Mobs Zero Arrange, with it being basically a True Last Boss rush)
and possibly:
* Configurable controls (subject to when I get around to looking at GMOSSE and seeing how practical it is to incorporate it into the current game)

And here's a list of other changes that will be in the next version:
* Music files kept outside of the game exe
* Capped the multiplier at 1000 to fix the aforementioned score looping issue
* Fixed the bit of dead air that occurs late in stage 3
* Added several attacks (but NOT extra HP) to a few of the bosses, to improve the pacing of those boss fights
* Reduced the TLB's HP by 20%
* Other changes to current bullet patterns to make them more lively/challenging

Of course, since the game is in active development, now would be a good time to bug me with feedback regarding other stuff you think should be added/changed. :V

[Giest118]

The rules don't specify anything about double posting, but I'm gonna assume there's an exception if there's a development update or something.

Trig Wars 3 Arrange mode is fully implemented, and most of the bosses and such that I wanted to adjust have been adjusted. At the moment I'm working on the extra bosses that'll go into Death Label.

[BPzeBanshee]

The mods couldn't care less about multiple posting in Development, otherwise GMOSSE would've been locked and sunk ages ago from quadrillion-posting.

Looking forward to this. If you need help with configurable controls or anything else let me know.

[Rozyrg]

The mods couldn't care less about multiple posting in Development, otherwise GMOSSE would've been locked and sunk ages ago from quadrillion-posting.

My thread too, probably. I usually just wait a few days or a week to post again if I'm worried about it.

[Giest118]

Death Label is nearly done; just have two thirds of the eighth boss left to make. I'll be rather impressed if anyone actually makes it to it though. :V


I had a brief look at GMOSSE earlier, and I'm bouncing back and forth on whether to actually use it for configurable controls, or to implement it in another way entirely. I'll have to dick around with it more thoroughly to figure that out. :V

[BPzeBanshee]

Death Label is nearly done; just have two thirds of the eighth boss left to make. I'll be rather impressed if anyone actually makes it to it though. :V


I had a brief look at GMOSSE earlier, and I'm bouncing back and forth on whether to actually use it for configurable controls, or to implement it in another way entirely. I'll have to dick around with it more thoroughly to figure that out. :V

I've actually just a few days ago made a revision to the system in such a way that it now allows for friendly keyboard AND joystick button reconfiguration instead of the current menu that's in GMOSSE MK-VI. If you'd like I could come up with a standalone example showcasing it and you can use that for altering and such.

[Giest118]

I've actually just a few days ago made a revision to the system in such a way that it now allows for friendly keyboard AND joystick button reconfiguration instead of the current menu that's in GMOSSE MK-VI. If you'd like I could come up with a standalone example showcasing it and you can use that for altering and such.

Part of the issue would be idiot-proofing it. Some people might be dumb and bind the shot and laser functions to the same key (or something worse). Though I'm guessing there's a way to restrict what keys the player can bind.

A standalone example would be quite helpful though, so if you have the time, I'd appreciate it. :V

MEANWHILE, IN THE GAME
These are the last two bosses that appear in Death Label. Before this is all my own creations, and then I decided I needed a couple of Cave cameos because there wasn't enough of the player dying.




No, these are not from actual plays; I'm in the debug mode that lets me cheat my little ass off. :V

[Giest118]

So today I learned (by looking at documentation) that Game Maker has these fucking functions.

Code: Select all

keyboard_set_map(key1,key2) Maps the key with keycode key1 to key2.
keyboard_get_map(key) Returns the current mapping for key.
keyboard_unset_map() Resets all keys to map to themselves.

Soo... that... makes things much easier.

*cough*



Another update: Death Label is done. Now I need to playtest the shit out of both it and the changes I made to the main game. :V

[BPzeBanshee]

That works fine for keyboard stuff but joystick buttons are a little more difficult. Gotta run a loop through the joystick_check_button function and get whichever one returns something other than 0. Slightly tricky but I managed to get a neat little bit working.

Also, Alluro uses that method in Xeno Fighters R to allow SHIFT/CONTROL keys to work the same as Z/X, however that game has issues with stuff like the keys not working outside of the game and registering as always pressed down and stuff, not to mention the autofire completely breaking on one button whenever the music changes (although he solved the last one I believe). Needless to say I don't trust the functions one bit myself.

You planning on porting this to GM:Studio any time soon?

[Giest118]

That works fine for keyboard stuff but joystick buttons are a little more difficult. Gotta run a loop through the joystick_check_button function and get whichever one returns something other than 0. Slightly tricky but I managed to get a neat little bit working.

Also, Alluro uses that method in Xeno Fighters R to allow SHIFT/CONTROL keys to work the same as Z/X, however that game has issues with stuff like the keys not working outside of the game and registering as always pressed down and stuff, not to mention the autofire completely breaking on one button whenever the music changes (although he solved the last one I believe). Needless to say I don't trust the functions one bit myself.

Joystick buttons are also pretty easy actually, as I found out when I started to actually read the Game Maker documentation about player inputs.

Basically, you ask this question in a Begin Step event:

Code: Select all

if (joystick_check_button(1, firebutton))

Where the value of firebutton is literally an integer representing the number of the button you have assigned to firing.



I have not run into those problems with the keyboard remapping, but I haven't done too much with it yet... what I have to say about it so far though is that it works for me. :V

You planning on porting this to GM:Studio any time soon?

I didn't because I don't have GM: Studio. Is there something that would make that worthwhile?

[Giest118]

So, I actually have configurable controls fully implemented now; I ended up not using the keyboard remapping commands, and instead went for keyboard_check so I could use keyboard_check(keyboardmapFire) in the same conditional as the joystick check. The thing I'm not sure about is whether it's better to use these in the Begin Step event or the Step event for an object; I'm reasonably sure at least one of the Step events would result in input lag.

A thing I discovered about the keyboard controls: If you try to bind keys other than letters, numbers, and the spacebar, the controls fuck up and die. This basically means that I had to restrict what keys the player can custom-bind, but I'm at least 38% sure that the entire range of letters, numbers, and space bar is reasonable. I even idiot-proofed it by making it so that Escape always pauses, and Enter always confirms choices, so the player can find their way back to the config menu in case they somehow totally forgot what mapping they set.

Unrelated: I finally got around to fixing up the laser auras to make it more obvious that point-blanking does double damage.
Unrelated #2: I fixed a rare bug. Basically if you died with no lives left, and then paused and hit Retry fast enough, the Continue screen would pop up after restarting the game, and then pressing Continue would cause a second player ship to appear. Fixed that.

Next on the agenda: Moar testing to make sure nothing stupid happened while I was adding all these extra modes and features.

[BPzeBanshee]

Joystick buttons are also pretty easy actually, as I found out when I started to actually read the Game Maker documentation about player inputs.

Basically, you ask this question in a Begin Step event:

Code:
if (joystick_check_button(1, firebutton))


Where the value of firebutton is literally an integer representing the number of the button you have assigned to firing.

How are you getting the firebutton variable? The loop I was mentioning was actually for getting that variable (which corresponds to the button you're pressing of course) and then storing it - once you've figured out what button you're using it's pretty easy.

I guess now that you've got your own method in, my example is pretty useless, but I'll upload it anyway. http://www.mediafire.com/?4d2e1bi3uaoxewj

[Giest118]

How are you getting the firebutton variable? The loop I was mentioning was actually for getting that variable (which corresponds to the button you're pressing of course) and then storing it - once you've figured out what button you're using it's pretty easy.

I used a loop too; on the config screen, it loops through every possible joystick button to find out which one you're pressing. If it finds that you are pressing one, it assigns that to the firebutton variable. The same example is followed for the laser and bomb buttons.

I also added checks to see if the same button was bound to a different function; if it is, they trade bindings rather than both having the same one.

Sorry about asking you to make that example and then doing it my own way anyway; I work really fast when I actually know what I'm doing. :V Thanks anyway though.
Still, I guess it gives you something to add to your GMOSSE thread.




In other news, I fixed another silly bug; if you pressed right on the joystick, AND right on the keyboard, it would double your movement speed. This applied to any given movement direction. Funny thing is I actually did fix this in My Little Pegasus, and then have been forgetting to add it to this game... BUT THE FIX IS THERE NOW

A release is imminent. I can feel it in my bacon.

[Giest118]

Aaaaaand http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41740 released.