Owner: Videogame Biscuit URL:http://www.videogamebiscuit.com Join Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 07:06:22 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: I'm an amateur game developer. I publish the progress of the games I'm working on, finished games, reviews of tools and books and anything game development related Site statistics:Click here
First screenshot 2007-06-03 05:39:13 Here’s the first screenshot of Gridblaster. I have placed the blocks in a grid and put the player in it. The controls seem to work fine, the player can move between the blocks without bumping into them.
I don’t know about the blocks. I thought they looked good when I was drawing them, but now that I see them in the game itself it’s a lot less impressive. I think I’m gonna try to make something else. The next step, after creating another block, will be to add a status display and to make the player shoot. Read more:First
Torque Game Builder 2007-06-03 05:29:28 I use Torque Game Builder
for developing games. TGB is a full-featured 2D engine and development tool created by Garage Games, aimed at sprite-based games (although it has some 3D support).
Programming is done with Torque Script, a programming language that resembles languages such as Java and C++. If you are familiar with these, Torque Script should be easy enough to learn. TGB doesn’t contain a built-in code editor, however, so you will need an external one. Although you could just use Notepad, an editor with syntax highlighting is recommended; I use J-Edit. Another option is Torsion, an editor made by the same developers that allows you to use the full debugging capabilities of TGB. Personally, I think this should have been a part of Torque Game Builder instead of a separate product.
The greatest thing about Torque Game Builder is the fact that it’s cross-platform. The same project can be compiled for Windows or MacOS without having to modify anything. With a separate l
Gridblaster’s first graphics 2007-06-02 10:13:48 Here are some of the first graphics of Gridblaster. I’m also working on the code and I’ve already got a player moving through a maze of blocks. Well, it’s not actually a maze, it’s just a grid. At this point the level I’ll be using for testing and developing will be just a grid, but in the final game it will include barriers, traps and other sorts of cool stuff. Here’s the player:
Took me quite a while to come up with something good, and I like this one the best. This will be the one I’ll be using. I also made a basic block for the grid; I will base all other blocks on this one.
And then finally I came up with some sprites for the enemies. I haven’t implemented any code for them yet, but I decided to start drawing something anyway. The four enemies are part of a single image. The first stage is the top left one, the last one is the bottom right one. I’m not too sure about the last one, I think it just doesn’t look good. I&rs
Introducing Gridblaster 2007-06-01 10:00:22 Here’s my first upcoming game: Gridblaster. If you are, like me, old enough to remember the Commodore 64, you may have played a game called Crossfire. This was one of my favorite games. You moved through a grid of blocks, with enemies outside of it. The enemies would enter the grid, move around and start firing at you. When you hit one, it would go back to it’s starting position, take on another form and restart. After getting shot four times, it would be gone forever. The objective was to destroy all the enemies, after wich the level restarted. Here’s what the game looked like:
Gridblaster will be a remake of this great game. But unlike the original Crossfire, it will contain several levels. Every level will contain extras such as booby traps, powerups and moving barriers. I plan to put five levels in the game, each with unique features. Read more:Introducing
Ready to rock! 2007-06-01 09:22:09 Okay, here we are! Hosting all set up, Wordpress up and running, a cool theme installed and ready to get started! In case you wonder what this blog is all about, read the “About” page. I will update this blog several times per week with updates on the games I’m working on, reviews of game development tools and books, comments on any gamedev related stuff I run into and anything else I might find interesting and relevant enough to put here.
Gridblaster progress 2007-06-05 11:26:50 I posted the first screenshot of Gridblaster a few days ago, but I wasn’t really satisfied with the way the building blocks of the grid looked. They looked a bit boring, so I decided to try to come up with something else. I fired up my drawing program, got to work and a bit later I had something that I think looks much better. Here’s what it looks like now:
I think these blocks look a lot better. Remember that the final game will contain several different blocks, but this is the basic type on wich I will base all others. As you can see, I have also added a status bar (doesn’t do anything yet) and gave the player some firepower. To create these things, I have used The Gimp and TGB’s particle engine. I will explain in another post how exactly I did this. Read more:progress
Status display 2007-06-07 13:22:18 In the previous screenshot of Gridblaster, the status display was added to the game. I made it with The Gimp and here’s how I did it. It’s actually very easy.
I started by creating a vertical bilinear gradient. I set the dark color to #899C89 and the light color to #B5CDB5.
Next I added the inset line. I selected a two pixel wide vertical strip and with the brightness tool (Tools > Color > Brightness/Contrast), I set the brightness to -50. Next, do the same two pixels to the right but set the brightness to +50. This creates an inset line effect. If the effect is reversed, a light line on the left and a dark one on the right, a raised line will appear.
The next step is creating an inset area that will form the border of the actual display. This is, again, done with a gradient. First, however, a selection is made. Using the rectangle and circle selection tools, a rectangle with rounded corners was created. The the dark color was set to #879987 and the light color to #B4CCB Read more:Status
The Gimp 2007-06-07 12:56:26 No, this is not about the leather-clad freak from Pulp Fiction. The Gimp, or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is a graphics editing tool similar to Adobe Photoshop. Originally created for Gnu/Linux, it has been ported to Windows and MacOS and is released under the Gnu General Public License.
First of all, I’m gonna make one thing clear: unlike what’s often claimed, The Gimp is not Photoshop! Although it is quite powerfull and has lots of features, it misses some of the most usefull things Photoshop has. One of these things are layer effects like bevel & emboss, drop shadows, glow, etcetera. Many of these effects can be replicated by other means or are available as macros, but it’s something that takes a bit getting used to.
Another thing that I found a bit annoying is the fact that the application itself puts two buttons on the taskbar when it’s launched. The main application window and the window for layers, channels and paths behave like two separate appli
Gridblaster progress 06-09 2007-06-09 14:43:45 I did some more work on Gridblaster. The enemies enter the maze and the player can shoot them. When an enemy is hit, it returns to the start position outside the maze and changes shape. After four changes he is destroyed. Also, the player explodes when he collides with an enemy.
Scripting the collisions wasn’t too easy. The enemies had to bounce properly when they bumped into each other, something that took some time to get right. Respawning the player was also a bit tricky at first. I originally intended to work with a timer. A few seconds after the player had exploded, he would automatically pop up again at the start position. The problem was, when an enemy happened to be there at that moment, kaboom! The solution was simple, though: ask the player to press the space bar to respawn, so you can wait until the start position is cleared.
The third enemy on the top row is the final shape, before it’s destroyed, and I’m not happy at all with how it looks. It simply does Read more:progress
Bryce 5.5 FREE now! 2007-06-14 14:43:02 Okay, this tool is serious overkill for sprite based games and you probably won’t really need it, but it seems that you can get Bryce
3D 5.5, a powerful 3D rendering tool, for free! It’s available for both Windows and MacOS.
Tools like this have a place in 2D game development, and that’s for creating pre-rendered sprites. Of course, most of them have a quite steep learning curve, and I don’t really know if it’s worth spending so much time on learning advanced applications when there are several much easier tools available. Might as well download it, you never know when it will come in handy!
Another Gridblaster screenshot 2007-06-14 14:30:32 Although I didn’t intend to use a background when I started, I experimented with it a bit today and here’s a screenshot of it. It’s nowhere complete and I don’t know if I will be using this background, it’s just an experiment to see how it looks with the player and enemy sprites and how it blends with the explosions and the particle effects of the projectiles. The red “default texture” text on the sides are a default texture that Torque puts on empty tiles in tilemaps; don’t pay attention to those.
The idea was to create a background that doesn’t draw too much attention, wich I think worked quite well. This is the kind of background I’ll be using in the game. You also see some projectiles (the green one is from the player and the red ones are from the enemies) and an explosion.
The stuff I have made so far was just for testing purposes. The motion and shooting work as they should so now I’ll get started on the first rea
Plasmaball trail 2007-06-18 15:23:01 Yesterday I explained how I created the plasma balls that are used for the weapons. The ball itself is only half the job, it also needs a trail of glowing sparks! For that, I created a green glowing ball pretty much the same way I created the plasma ball. This time, however, the shape is circular, and the center is pure white.
For this tutorials, I assume that you have at least some basic knowledge of the Torque particle engine. I won’t be explaining the very basics such as creating an emitter and loading particle sprites. This effect has only one emitter, so I’m just gonna use the default emitter. To start, I did the following things with the emitter:
load the green particle for the image;
set type to POINT;
set orientation to FIXED;
uncheck all checkboxes, except “Fixed aspect”, “Intense particles” and “Rotate emission”
Next, I set all the emitter graph parameters. I’m just gonna put the screenshots of the things I changed here
Plasma balls 2007-06-17 06:36:56 Here’s how I created the plasma balls the player and enemies in Gridblaster shoot. I have created it with The Gimp. I started by creating an image with a black background and creating a drop-shaped path.
Next, I converted the path to a selection (right click -> path to selection) and blurred it with a radius of 8 pixels (select -> feather). I then filled the selection with solid green.
To create the lighter center, I created a new layer, shrunk the selection by five pixels and filled it with a lighter color (#e7fdb1 in this case). The result is an elongated plasma ball.
I also created a small green plasma ball in a similar manner, wich I used for the particle effect that forms the tail of the projectile. How I did that if for the next tutorial; I want to keep the Gimp tutorials separate from the particle tutorials. Read more:Plasma
Gridblaster progress 06-22 2007-06-22 13:06:54 I’m working on the first level (out of five) of Gridblaster, and here’s a screenshot of it.
As you can see on the full size screenshot, I have added a complete background. I have made it quite dark so it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the graphics. It took me quite a while to build the tileset for this. Also, I have added a few new items to the game.
First of all, you’ll notice the blue spheres. These are bonus items. When the level starts they are stored in the maze blocks, but they will pop up from a short period of time during the game, giving you the opportunity to score extra points.
Second, there are the blocks with the holes in the sides and the yellow squares in the middle. These aren’t fully funtional yet; they will hold moving barriers that block passages in the maze. The player and the enemies can get crushed when they are between them when they close, so you’ll have to be careful when you pass one!
I have planned two more special ite Read more:progress
POV-Ray and Moray 2007-06-25 09:33:35 Sometimes a 2D game uses images that are made with 3D tools; these are called “pre-rendered images”. Two tools I sometimes use for this are POV-Ray and Moray. These two programs are usually used together. POV-Ray (Persistence Of Vision Raytracer) uses text scripts for describing 3D objects and scenes, wich is of course not very user friendly. Several graphical front-ends exists wich allow you to do wysiwyg editing. The most popular one is Moray.
But let’s start with Pov-Ray. This application is quite popular and has a huge user base and lots of add-ons and tools. However, creating scenes with it is a very time-consuming process since all work is done with text. Here’s a screenshot:
The program mainly works with primitives. This means you describe objects such as cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, etcetera, and use boolean operations (add, subtract, intersect) to create custom shapes. Unlike the polygon approach, primitives mean a sphere is actually a sphere with
Girdblaster progress 06-24 2007-06-24 07:33:43 In my previous post, I mentioned moving barriers in the maze. I had already made special blocks with holes in them that the barriers moved through, and now I have completed the barriers themselves. Here’s what they look like:
I have put three sets of barriers in the level. Each set moves at a fixed time interval. The barriers block everything: the player, the enemies and all projectiles. However, if the player or an enemy is caught between them when they close, it’s kaboom! And don’t think this is an easy way to clean up enemies, because first, it doesn’t happen that often that they get crushed between barriers, and second you don’t get any points for them! Read more:progress
Gridblaster progress 07-01 2007-07-01 14:05:10 Here’s another progress
report on Gridblaster! The first level (out of five) is more or less completed. I finally figured out how to use fonts in the GUI Builder (wich was, as I expected, very easy) and added two more elements to the grid.
The block with the green cross sends upgrade globes into the maze. When you catch one, you get a random upgrade for a few seconds. Not all of them are beneficial, however. Three possibilities in this level: double fire (shoot in two directions at once), rapid fire and reverse controls. There will be different upgrades in each level. Second, there are the two blocks with the flame between them. That’s a booby trap. It shoots flames at regular intervals, and if you happen to be in the wrong place, you’re toast! The enemies are flame-proof.
Another feature I added is the possibility to shoot enemy projectiles. I found it very hard to evade them. I tried making them slower, but that made it look too silly. Now you can shoot enemy proje
Girdblaster preview video 2007-07-04 15:14:55 I have made a short in-game video
of Gridblaster, to show what the action looks like. I used Cam Studio for capturing the video. Although it did the job quite well, the quality is quite low. I had to reduce the framerate and the resolution to make it possible to capture the video. It should give a good first look on how the game plays, though. I have uploaded the video to Youtube because I don’t want to waste too much bandwidth. Until I figure out how to embed them without messing up my layout, watch it here!
Dev.Mag 2007-07-08 06:49:22 While not exactly a book, I think this is definitely worth putting in this category. Dev.Mag is an online game development magazine. It’s based in South Africa and launched in 2005. All issues can be downloaded for free on the website; free subscription by email is also available.
The magazine covers a wide range of topics, ranging from programming, tool reviews, game design, graphics, game reviews, interviews and much more. It is clearly focused on amateur and independent developers.
Currently, there are also three different series of articles in the magazine. First of all, there’s “Back of a napkin”, wich explains the basics of 3D rendering. Second, there’s a series about mobile game development in Java. And finally, there’s a series of tutorials about Blender 3D, an incredibly powerful and free 3D modeling tool.
New issues are published every month; the latest one is issue 14. A must read for every game developer!
Dev.Mag homepage
Gridblaster progress 08-07 2007-07-08 06:36:12 With the first level finished, I did some work on the second level this week. I had to think of what I was gonna put in it first, that’s why it took a few days. I also decided to change the maze blocks a bit, so all levels won’t look the same. I changed the color a bit and added slanted corners to them. Here’s a screenshot of the new blocks:
I’m also gonna make a new background tile set. Although the color looks different than in the first level, it’s the same tile set; I just changed the blending color a bit for this screenshot. It will be replaced with an entirely new one, though.
Here are some of the objects that I will put in this level: a trap that shoots lightning bolts, walls that block the player and enemies but can be penetrated by projectiles and splitters at intersections that split projectiles in two. I haven’t made any graphics for these objects yet, that’s something for the next few days. Read more:progress
Gridblaster progress 07-14 2007-07-14 07:10:59 I’ve completed the background tiles for the new level. Here’s the result:
I think the result looks quite good, and this was my first attempt! For the first level, I had to restart three times before I came up with something I actually liked. Read more:progress
Gridblaster progress 07-18 2007-07-18 14:11:33 Had a minor setback two days ago. My computer didn’t boot up anymore after a failed attempt at installing Windows Service Pack 2 and there was no way I could restore it. I couldn’t get into Windows and system restore from the command line didn’t seem to work. I had no choice but to do a full reinstall. Luckily, I keep all my documents on a separate harddrive so I didn’t lose anything.
Everything’s up and running again, so what’s new in Gridblaster? I have built barriers that can be penetrated by projectiles in certain directions. The player and enemies can’t move through them. Projectiles can penetrate them either in only one direction or in two directions, making it possible for the player to hide behind certain barriers while still able to attack enemies. Of course, the opposite can also occur!
You can see on the barriers in wich direction projectiles can move through them; it’s indicated with a couple of arrows on them. The two barrie Read more:progress
Inkscape 2007-07-27 06:25:00 Can’t believe I haven’t talked about this application yet, since it’s my main graphic tool. Most of the graphics in Gridblaster have been drawn using Inkscape. Inkscape is a so-called vector drawing program. What does this mean? Drawing programs basically come in two different kinds: pixel based and vector based. In a pixel-based program, when you draw a line the application figures out wich pixels need to be filled, and that’s it. When you are done no additional info about the line is stored. With a vector-based program, only the starting and ending point coördinates are stored, because that’s basically all the information the program needs to draw the line. The same goes for circles, rectangles, curves, etcetera. The advantage of this is that vector drawings can be scaled and transformed without getting blurred or distorted. This also means that vector drawing programs are only usable for actual drawing and not for photo editing.
Inkscape is a free, op
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