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

[railslave]

I was just relaxing playing Batsugun, soaking it all in, researching some stuff (as you do) and it dawned on me , Rozyrgs graphics are, at the very least, on par with this (sprite wise)

Common knowledge maybe, but still... well done !! lol (damn you )

hey, be nice to sea you do a sunny coastal resort town level every once in a while

[mice]

Since when did "far supersedes" and "on par" mean the same thing? Forgive me, I don't speak the language very well.

[nasty_wolverine]

rozyrg no offense, but you gotta get around completing flying v someday...
i know you can do it
all hail rozyrg

[railslave]

Since when did "far supersedes" and "on par" mean the same thing? Forgive me, I don't speak the language very well.

what i mean is that, at the very least, they are the same quality as that classic, beautiful game... which makes me want to go outside and "fall on the sword" lol

[Rozyrg]

Nahhh. Give me 10 years in the biz, real hardware limitations and fast turnarounds to deal with and the battlefield of an ultra competitive arcade market and then we'll talk about who compares to who. I appreciate the compliment, though.

As for Flying V, I don't know. The main issue aside from time is bulk... every time I added something to it, I'd worry about it hitting GM's constrictive memory ceiling and basically breaking playability for lower end machines like my netbook. Even the 4th level seemed to be pushing it; but it could just as well be past bad experiences inflating my anxiety, making me hypersensitive to any slight framerate hitch or other minor problem that would crop up. The other issue is having to work with Illustrator for the gfx: it's still fun, mind you; but getting consistent results is harder when you don't have the restrictions of a fixed scale or (a more noticeably) finite number of pixels.

Like everything else, I'd like to finish it, it's just a matter of when that will be possible. >_>

[Shmuppet]

Haha, Gamemaker is pretty bad when it comes to objects Rozyrg. Which is why I moved away from GM. BlitzMax costs way more(like, 4x GM's price back when it was $20!), but it's been a great investment so far. No regrets.

[Rozyrg]

Believe me, I know about GM's limitations. Still, I've found plenty of ways to skirt them: for instance, keeping the resolution 'traditional', being anal about removing instances, having relatively few objects and having them do multiple jobs (especially for drawing purposes), cutting draw/step phases for objects that don't really need them, never preloading sfx, knocking all sfx down to the minimum bitrate, etc.

That said, Flying V is the one game of mine that I'd think would definitely benefit from moving to another platform (like XNA, assuming they keep XBLIG running.) Then again, there's lots of ancient code in there - back from when I was first figuring it all out - that probably just needs weeding.

I probably sound like a broken record; but I just feel I need to finish something with GM .. especially before I try and learn another language. I'd rather get to the point where I know for sure it's buckling under the weight of the game rather than jump right into unfamiliar waters and have to start from scratch again.

(like, 4x GM's price back when it was $20!)

Hey, I actually paid for the HTML5 version when it first came out, which at this point I consider no more than a 'I like Game Maker!' charity drive donation.

[railslave]

Ever tried construct classic?, its free now because theve gone all html5 with contruct 2...
I expect this was ALOt when it first came out, contruct 2 is £300 (for a business licence)


http://www.scirra.com/construct-classic

Its based in direct x 9

oh and you saying about hardware limitations, when your doing stuff for dreamcast and neogeos!!

[n0rtygames]

Nahhh. Give me 10 years in the biz, real hardware limitations and fast turnarounds to deal with and the battlefield of an ultra competitive arcade market and then we'll talk about who compares to who. I appreciate the compliment, though.

As for Flying V, I don't know. The main issue aside from time is bulk... every time I added something to it, I'd worry about it hitting GM's constrictive memory ceiling and basically breaking playability for lower end machines like my netbook. Even the 4th level seemed to be pushing it; but it could just as well be past bad experiences inflating my anxiety, making me hypersensitive to any slight framerate hitch or other minor problem that would crop up. The other issue is having to work with Illustrator for the gfx: it's still fun, mind you; but getting consistent results is harder when you don't have the restrictions of a fixed scale or (a more noticeably) finite number of pixels.

Like everything else, I'd like to finish it, it's just a matter of when that will be possible. >_>

You know what you do?

Release it. It's most likely 200% better than you think. Might have a few flaws - but that's why you release a patch later. Probably the best thing I did otherwise I'd have driven myself mad developing my game all alone without any player feedback. *sniff*

[Shmuppet]

You know what you do?

Release it. It's most likely 200% better than you think. Might have a few flaws - but that's why you release a patch later. Probably the best thing I did otherwise I'd have driven myself mad developing my game all alone without any player feedback. *sniff*

Heh, you're not alone. Actually you are, because at least YOU got some feedback! :p

[n0rtygames]

You know what you do?

Release it. It's most likely 200% better than you think. Might have a few flaws - but that's why you release a patch later. Probably the best thing I did otherwise I'd have driven myself mad developing my game all alone without any player feedback. *sniff*

Heh, you're not alone. Actually you are, because at least YOU got some feedback! :p

AFTER release! To be honest though: I actually got pretty depressed after day 2 - when the initial "WOW AWESOME" phase had worn off and people were able to critique it. Mostly because I'd put in a lot of effort but had to accept that I'd spent way too long looking at my own product and was blind to some of the issues.

Then I bounced back and realised the critique was because people cared. From this forum anyway. The only other complaints I've had was from someone who claimed to love bullet hell games but didnt understand the need for tate.. and someone who uses a rubbish xbox controller and complained about the deadzone (valid)

So seriously, releasing a build - even if to a select few people to get decent feedback is good. Also, some of the suggestions can be ignored/said no to. You have to pick and choose... but player feedback is so valuable. Feedback is more than just "GREAT GAME, WELL DONE" - it's stuff that hurts, rips your pride to shreds and then makes you a better developer as a result. That's what you need. People to slap you upside the head and say "OI, DICK" once in a while.

If you're developing in solitude without any public release, you'll never ever get that

[Rozyrg]

You know what you do?

Release it. It's most likely 200% better than you think. Might have a few flaws - but that's why you release a patch later.

That's sort of my plan for FA, at least concerning scoring and difficulty (for Novice)... just sort of let other people tell me how hard I failed and clean up the mess afterwards. Especially when it comes to scoring systems, I have to concede I might not know precisely what I'm doing. With the other games, there's just nothing new to show yet, much less evaluate. If/when I get back to working on FV, I'll be tiptoeing through it to make sure there aren't major performance problems creeping up; but if it works fine on my other (very slightly faster) PC regardless of that, then I'll probably let it loose into the wild. I won't be 100% happy about it; but whatever. >_>

oh and you saying about hardware limitations, when your doing stuff for dreamcast and neogeos!!

Well, I'm not the programmer on those projects (thank god), all I have to do is draw the pretty pictures.

[Shmuppet]

If you're developing in solitude without any public release, you'll never ever get that

Even when you include public releases, you'll be lucky to get folks to talk even a smidge about your game. Some folks just DON'T talk to people all that often, and like it that way. It's usually the extroverts who really get people talking.

[Rozyrg]

That's the sad truth of it, really; but I personally find the process stimulating, challenging and fun enough on it's own. I could honestly see myself still doing it in an alone on an island/post apocalyptic type scenario (assuming there was a generator around somewhere.) You're really in this to make something that's fun to you, anyways.

At least if you're a perfectionist, you already have someone on your case about how shit what you're working on is.

[Shmuppet]

I like working on games alone. While I would like to talk to people about stuff especially my projects, it takes away from my development, which is just about all I need to be happy.

Hey, I actually paid for the HTML5 version when it first came out, which at this point I consider no more than a 'I like Game Maker!' charity drive donation.

Well, I do hope that the GM line of cross-platform products are stable and feature-full by now. I wanted to do some cross-platform development and while I could use Monkey(cross-platform dev product from the Blitzmax guys ), I know that GM was established way before Monkey. However, I'm afraid GM still has that legacy of Delphi dependency, where anything that's good gets slowed down. Plus, ever since I got to know Blitzmax, I like that syntax/design better than GMs.

I hate it when stuff is done for me, but it takes tons of tinkering to get it working right to where I'M satisfied with it. Like the whole room business. If I wanted a scrolling camera, I'd rather create a simple camera class in Blitzmax and be done with it, instead of tinkering with different room options in GM, or god forbid making a camera in GML. I NEVER got anything decent done in GM, even with mastering GML.

[Rozyrg]

Cameras/views are still over my head, the only cases I use views (TATE scripts) it's pretty much copy pasted from Banshee's code. I just gradually figured out my own simplistic, brute force way to do most things.

I think the room system is pretty odd, too... at least how they show you what is apparently it's intended use, like a room per level as it is in some of the tutorials. What I do like about rooms is that they make for easy reset switches: for instance, I like to keep just about everything (title, menu, score tables,main game) all in one room, so wiping everything and starting the game over is as simple as telling it to reopen the current room.

I imagine Studio is way better now; but I was having too many frustrations with the HTML5 specific one to continue bothering with it. I basically came to the conclusion it just wasn't really intended for super fast/smooth arcade games and gave up. Even early versions of Laser Carrot ran terribly on it.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well, I do hope that the GM line of cross-platform products are stable and feature-full by now. I wanted to do some cross-platform development and while I could use Monkey(cross-platform dev product from the Blitzmax guys ), I know that GM was established way before Monkey. However, I'm afraid GM still has that legacy of Delphi dependency, where anything that's good gets slowed down. Plus, ever since I got to know Blitzmax, I like that syntax/design better than GMs.

I hate it when stuff is done for me, but it takes tons of tinkering to get it working right to where I'M satisfied with it. Like the whole room business. If I wanted a scrolling camera, I'd rather create a simple camera class in Blitzmax and be done with it, instead of tinkering with different room options in GM, or god forbid making a camera in GML. I NEVER got anything decent done in GM, even with mastering GML.

For what it's worth, YoYo eradicated the Delphi backend runner after GM8.1 and with it most of the more oddball methods of externalisation (execute_file, creation of *objects* via GML, etc), and then replaced with a C++ runner of which I'm still not confident of any speed improvements. In my tests using the Free License no games with GM:S even started on my legacy PC although I did find the sound engine improvements (and consistency between OSX and Windows) to be nice.

Doing cameras in GML (as in moving view to object position) is in theory simple but in practice can be and has for me been a pain if you're trying to keep the ship in sync with decimal or integer+decimal move speeds.

[Rozyrg]

I did detect some vague-at-best performance improvement with GMHTML5's normal (exe) runner but nothing I could really pin down. Other than the fact that I can't de-convert projects back to 8.0, that's why I'm still using it for Last Chance.

Not even getting into the whole touch control madness, web/mobile performance was all over the place - dog slow on my netbook, less slow but not very playable on my desktop (at 1x resolution, mind you); but yet flawless speed on my friend's iPhone. O_o (Again, not the Studio version.)

[BPzeBanshee]

iPhones are supposed to be pretty damn powerful for a telephone. At one point they had the highest clock rate out of all mobile devices although that's probably dated now. Certainly the browser wars were at a early point when YoYo and everyone else rushed to make the most out of HTML5 support, and GMHTML5 itself was a beta and is now defunct so who knows.

For Last Chance, doesn't GMHTML5 support export to gm81? If so, LateralGM can open it up and then resave as a GMK.

[Rozyrg]

8.1 it might; but my workhorse is still regular old 8. The only inconvenience is that I can only directly work on it from my laptop; but I can just as easily be drawing gfx and writing/testing code in an older version of GM from another PC, so it isn't really much of one.

I've been doing that more and more anyways... like, tiny .gmks just for testing a particular effect, enemy movement or boss composition. My project folders are pretty much flooded with them.

[BPzeBanshee]

No 8.1 won't save as GMKs, but I'm sure GMHTML5 had something like that. Alternatively if it has the Save Resources option (.gmres) you can backwards import it that way.

Or maybe LateralGM got updated to support the new GMZ/whateveritscalleduncompressed format and just firing that up will work.

[Rozyrg]

The last ending screen is literally all that's left now; but (as usual) I've been doing some minor polishing here and there during the long periods of procrastination. Having a nasty head-throbbing cold/flu/fever/whatever due to the schizophrenic weather changes here hasn't helped my motivation much, either. >_>

One thing I've added just for the unlockable ships (G and Y) is the ability to 'lock' the gun bits in place - either fairly spread out or very close. Naturally, the damage you dish out is kind of ridiculous when they're right next to each other; but I've scaled it down just a bit for that particular situation.



Their 'extras' (X+C) also detach from the ship rather than staying at a relative position from it; but they don't stay onscreen quite as long as the others.

[Rozyrg]

New version... yaaaay

As long as they took me to get done, please don't expect too much from the endings. They're still pic(s) with some half-assed text, that's all.

Also, fair warning/spoilers: the bonus stage is very slightly NSFW. The game makes it fairly clear when you've met the requirements, though, and I should note that you always have to beat the current stage to enter it.

Anyways, hope y'all enjoy.

[n0rtygames]

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here's a picture with words in it to see if I can speak 2000.

[n0rtygames]

Having a nasty head-throbbing cold/flu/fever/whatever due to the schizophrenic weather changes here hasn't helped my motivation much, either.

I have one of these now due to a schizophrenic doujin shmup.

*stares*

[mice]

When the "You keep me hanging on" - part of the music gets going I'm unstoppable.
Love the credits!

Soon, really soon.

[BPzeBanshee]

Much improved. Is the Metal Black-like firing still in?

[DocHauser]

Great update. I think I may have preferred it when you had 3 bombs per life in the old version compared to 6 bombs total in this version, though. 5 minutes with only 6 bombs is going to be brutal...

Anyway, I was able to clear 3 minute mode in the old version and Novice Mode in the new one. 3 Minute mode is proving to be a lot tougher than before...

I did discover a bug as well. One of the grey block mid-bosses has two snake-like things circling the screen. If you: (1) Kill one of them; (2) Damage part of the 2nd one (one block turns black); (3) Let the 2nd snake time-out so that it leaves the screen - you then see the black block circling around behind the other enemies. Eventually, no more enemies appear and the black block circles around on its own. Then this disappears and you're left with a scrolling background until the timer gets to the end. I was able to do this in 3 minute, 5 minute and Survivalist mode.

Anyway, now that I've 'beaten' all the modes, how do you unlock the extra ships?

[mice]

And what's the last digit in the score telling me? Is that a clue to the bonus?

"Bugs"
1. If you press fire too early in the intro animation the menu text alpha stays at the current alpha.
2. "Change keys" just throws me out of the options menu.

[mice]

And the 13min stage is just ridiculous.




April fools joke...