Lazy days

Well, I spent a while getting a startup logo for my game. It's a nice distraction from coding the NPCs which can get a little tiring. I have implemented some simple vector art functions so I can make a nice animated logo that's rendered in real time. Not very impressive but at least fairly honest.

Here is a craply looped gif of a tracing of a falcon. I made it wobble around a bit.

Might look better in firefox because last I saw, IE couldn't render fast gifs well.

Anyway I do need to think of a name for my development (consisting mostly of me) along with a logo. Then I can use it in the future. Hilarious antics!

The Strangest Thing

Well, I can't get this bug to reproduce for the life of me. I've tried all sorts of stuff for ages and it just doesn't seem to be crashing any more. I went through the code and it all checks out. I guess whatever it was wasn't my fault. Still, I'd like to know.

I've finished up on the boss and now I've drawn and partially implemented a little scorpion. That's pretty narly. I need to implement a lot of bad guys, mostly from a list but I do need to brainstorm for some more non-mammalian creatures to use as enemies. If I make a sprite-sheet I am particularly proud of, I will post it here.

I was also thinking about what I'd like to achieve in the future with regards to games which I make. The next game I make will more than likely be a shmup because there's less of a media black-hole in regards to development of graphics with them. In the future I would also like to make a metal slug type game.

Here's a list of what my long-term game creation interests are:

-Levels streamed from the disk.
-Large seamless worlds (would be interesting in 2d, wouldn't it?)
-Pseudo-3d effects.
-Effective scripting or effective precompiled bytecode, similar to what is used in zDoom or Quake.
-Online cooperative play, as well as writing online games with fair protocols.

Oh, well I guess I have nice ideas for most of these but some of them are idle interests that I might expand on in the far, far future. Such as, 2015.

Soggy bumps

I've got a mysterious crash with my boss now. That's not good. Anyway, it only happens when the cannons are firing so I suspect the cause is in the cannon-firing code.

I added a small red blob effect whenever you hurt anything damagable. It's very subtle and kind of annoying. Ideally I'd like a palette shift flash like in the metal slug games, but as the game is not paletted that would be rather difficult. Maybe if I make the motion more jerky it'll seem more like I'm hurting the enemy.

I also changed it so the enemies release a lot more puffs of smoke when they explode. That's better.

Bossy boots

Today I implemented the boss attack and worked out some sound effects, which I might replace later. I also worked out how to get the boss graphic to align with the background, which has applications elsewhere in my game.

I've also redone the gp2x build a bit, it's a little faster now.

Tomorrow I aim to misbehave sort out the levels a fair bit, as the crypt and basement need work badly, and a few places need (temporary, at least) music.

Start of blog

I am using this to record progress on my game, 'arecibo'. I feel noting down my updates will help me progress steadier.

Here is an old video of my game.



Currently there are 376 frames of animation in my game, and I'm making a boss at the moment. The boss graphics are done, it just needs coded.

Let's see if I get it done by the end of the week?