Hello all Zach here, today was turn in day, and also the last day assigned to post on the blog. I have some good news and some bad news.
First the bad news:
I will not be posting pictures of the game today, sadly one of our merges last night did not turn out as well as we though it did. Our game currently has encountered quite a few crashes, we have implemented solutions that work for some of them, and some that only work some of the time. For this reason, I am choosing not to post pictures of the current build.
Now for the good news:
We will most likely continue to update the blog throughout the next sprint towards beta!
Also, it is going to take some work, but we are going to go back to a previous build of the game, and implement the broken parts (along with one part we know broke during the merge) correctly.
Pictures to come soon! This sprint is all about making everything fine-tuning, so look they should be quite nice.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Friday, June 13, 2014
GODS IN THE HEAVENS
This merge was scary... a wild crash appeared and it was supper effective, 10 hours before the turn in. But we found the issue and fixed it, now the game looks better than ever with animations, new AI, a world map, and new sweet sweet intro cinematics and title screen with a new title screen.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Crunch Time!
Hello everyone!
The whole team is here again today! We had a very productive class day today and got a lot into the master build. Full functionality in Level Select is present now, multiple level are able to load (not just the first level), a ton of new animations and AI are also in now. We are getting very close to being ready for our Alpha sprint turn-in, probably about 90% playable at this moment.
On another side note, E3 has excited us this week and has us looking forward to a lot of new games. E3 has also convinced some of us to finally get a Wii U for Smash Bro's and the new Zelda game :O ! Battlefront 3 also made a few of us scream like a fan-girl out of sheer excitement. Sunset Overdrive looks pretty unique and we love how they poke fun at other games in their trailer. Basically E3 overall got us super excited to be in this industry! Look forward to our post tomorrow, as that will basically be the full working game!
The whole team is here again today! We had a very productive class day today and got a lot into the master build. Full functionality in Level Select is present now, multiple level are able to load (not just the first level), a ton of new animations and AI are also in now. We are getting very close to being ready for our Alpha sprint turn-in, probably about 90% playable at this moment.
On another side note, E3 has excited us this week and has us looking forward to a lot of new games. E3 has also convinced some of us to finally get a Wii U for Smash Bro's and the new Zelda game :O ! Battlefront 3 also made a few of us scream like a fan-girl out of sheer excitement. Sunset Overdrive looks pretty unique and we love how they poke fun at other games in their trailer. Basically E3 overall got us super excited to be in this industry! Look forward to our post tomorrow, as that will basically be the full working game!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Teamwork
Hey, Taylor here,
Today I am going to spice things up a bit and instead of talking about game progress, talk about teamwork. In the game industry, team work is a HUGE asset to every proper game development team. My experience with teamwork during this sprint were very interesting. Zach and I are always requesting time from the other because we are dependent on the other's user stories. This past week Zach and been asking if I have done the player's dash yet, and today is the day that it is finished. When I told him I was going to work on it, this was the look on his face -> (O..O) soon after with a "FINALLY" with a little bit of cheering at the end. All in all, though, we haven't had any issues with team work on the team, and without that, we would have not gotten anywhere on this sprint.
Today I am going to spice things up a bit and instead of talking about game progress, talk about teamwork. In the game industry, team work is a HUGE asset to every proper game development team. My experience with teamwork during this sprint were very interesting. Zach and I are always requesting time from the other because we are dependent on the other's user stories. This past week Zach and been asking if I have done the player's dash yet, and today is the day that it is finished. When I told him I was going to work on it, this was the look on his face -> (O..O) soon after with a "FINALLY" with a little bit of cheering at the end. All in all, though, we haven't had any issues with team work on the team, and without that, we would have not gotten anywhere on this sprint.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A bit of everything
Hello world! Zachary here.
This post is for june 9th, I apologize for being somewhat late, my power has been out and therefore I had no internet to post! But nevertheless today was a successful day! We got together and got quite a bit of work done. We also merged, which for once was super easy! I would post more, but I need to try and get some sleep before class tomorrow, so goodbye for now.
This post is for june 9th, I apologize for being somewhat late, my power has been out and therefore I had no internet to post! But nevertheless today was a successful day! We got together and got quite a bit of work done. We also merged, which for once was super easy! I would post more, but I need to try and get some sleep before class tomorrow, so goodbye for now.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Inspirations, Part 2.
Hey guys Anthony here again!
So today is the conclusion of my first post, "Inspirations...", in which I discussed where the origins of some of the ideas I've had for God's Glyph's came from. I went over idea of color starting black and white color, and started to touch on the sound, and it is this aspect which I feel can totally make or break a game. I wanted to have a beat heavy bass line that increased in tempo the faster combat started to go. This idea came one day when I was playing "Zone of the Enders", I noticed a key piece of making their combat feel super fast paced was the music, it is so fast paced and fits the feel of every battle exactly! I wanted to take this idea and make a system that reaffirms to the player every second through sound how well they are doing, while always trying to inspire the player to go faster. This actually brings me to my last point, my idea of the momentum system, which I actually contribute to "Star Wars: Episode 1", specifically the scene where Anakin is met for the first time. They say something about him being the only human able to fly pod-racers and it shouldn't be possible for any human. I've always wanted to make a game that feels so fast to the player that it feels you are doing the impossible and have reflexes faster than anyone alive. So our momentum system governs the conversion of color, sound, and general overall game speed to seemlessly generate the feel and reassurance of how well the player is doing. Well that is it for me tonight folks, see you around :)
So today is the conclusion of my first post, "Inspirations...", in which I discussed where the origins of some of the ideas I've had for God's Glyph's came from. I went over idea of color starting black and white color, and started to touch on the sound, and it is this aspect which I feel can totally make or break a game. I wanted to have a beat heavy bass line that increased in tempo the faster combat started to go. This idea came one day when I was playing "Zone of the Enders", I noticed a key piece of making their combat feel super fast paced was the music, it is so fast paced and fits the feel of every battle exactly! I wanted to take this idea and make a system that reaffirms to the player every second through sound how well they are doing, while always trying to inspire the player to go faster. This actually brings me to my last point, my idea of the momentum system, which I actually contribute to "Star Wars: Episode 1", specifically the scene where Anakin is met for the first time. They say something about him being the only human able to fly pod-racers and it shouldn't be possible for any human. I've always wanted to make a game that feels so fast to the player that it feels you are doing the impossible and have reflexes faster than anyone alive. So our momentum system governs the conversion of color, sound, and general overall game speed to seemlessly generate the feel and reassurance of how well the player is doing. Well that is it for me tonight folks, see you around :)
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Making a Diverse AI
Hey everyone, Taylor here
Today my main goal was to complete all the AI for our minion type enemies. In God's glyphs there 19 separate enemies that all have their own tactics and think differently than the rest. The main idea for our AI, is diversity. Nothing makes a cool game like AI that all act intelligently and in different ways. I think the most fun part of being able to do this is that I can kind of plan a whole battle based on how the enemy interacts with the player. I can make them go from attacking to shooting a web to flying and slamming down on the player and ultimately, any move or tactic. It is one of the most satisfying things writing out the AI code and then seeing it actually work in game and see the enemies dynamically take action based on what other enemies and the player are currently doing.
Today my main goal was to complete all the AI for our minion type enemies. In God's glyphs there 19 separate enemies that all have their own tactics and think differently than the rest. The main idea for our AI, is diversity. Nothing makes a cool game like AI that all act intelligently and in different ways. I think the most fun part of being able to do this is that I can kind of plan a whole battle based on how the enemy interacts with the player. I can make them go from attacking to shooting a web to flying and slamming down on the player and ultimately, any move or tactic. It is one of the most satisfying things writing out the AI code and then seeing it actually work in game and see the enemies dynamically take action based on what other enemies and the player are currently doing.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Early New Combat System
Today I worked on the new combat system. I made the primary key a weaker hit while the secondary key deals more damage. I also added special key combinations such as left-left-primary which will trigger special skills acquired by defeating enemies. I got this idea from the megaman zero series, where if zero defeats a boss with his sword, he would get a new combo with his sword instead of having to select the new power and use it. These special combinations are registering but not triggering anything yet since I haven't thought of what each combination will do. The player deals damage WITHOUT weapons now, as well as increasing damage depending on how long the combo is (still needs balancing).
The image below shows a string being shown below momentum depending on keys pressed. L-R-U-D are the movement keys, while P-S are the primary and secondary keys
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Break Points!!!
Hello world! The entire group is here posting today!
So today we decided it was time to do a merge with everyone's new content and it was quite bumpy. We had several conflictions between our branches that took some time to sort through, and when we finally finished, CRASH! So a great majority of our day was debugging and working through code that was merged in the wrong places or not at all. After that was fixed we thought we were done... and then, memory leak!!! Basically after a long day of commenting in and out code we fixed everything and everyone now has a working base again :) It definitely was a bumpy day full of bugs but now we should be able to progress again smoothly. This weekend we will have to play a little bit of catch up, so look forward to a lot more content over the next few posts!
- Team Glyph Out!
So today we decided it was time to do a merge with everyone's new content and it was quite bumpy. We had several conflictions between our branches that took some time to sort through, and when we finally finished, CRASH! So a great majority of our day was debugging and working through code that was merged in the wrong places or not at all. After that was fixed we thought we were done... and then, memory leak!!! Basically after a long day of commenting in and out code we fixed everything and everyone now has a working base again :) It definitely was a bumpy day full of bugs but now we should be able to progress again smoothly. This weekend we will have to play a little bit of catch up, so look forward to a lot more content over the next few posts!
- Team Glyph Out!
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Sprint 2
Today is the official first day of Sprint 2. For this sprint, our Wheel of Misfortune was to create a developer blog. Which means we will be posting on this blog every day, until up to and including the 14th. Our main goal for this sprint are to complete all of the game specific features. This should be the more fun sprint, especially since all of the fun in the game will be added now. No more boring game core, hello bugs features!
A fresh Sprint means a fresh board!
A fresh Sprint means a fresh board!
Monday, June 2, 2014
Momentum.... whoosh.
Hello, Everyone! Michael here.
Momentum. What is it you ask? Dictionary.com's definition of momentum is "force or speed of movement." In theory, momentum is the numerical value of an objects speed. The way we define momentum in God's Glyphs is quite the same, except... with a twist. Momentum isn't just how fast you are moving through the world, it is how fast you are attacking, dodging, and your most powerful weapon. You must be fast to defeat what stands in your way, and when you are fast, you are everything's greatest threat. Momentum is everything. Abuse it.
Momentum. What is it you ask? Dictionary.com's definition of momentum is "force or speed of movement." In theory, momentum is the numerical value of an objects speed. The way we define momentum in God's Glyphs is quite the same, except... with a twist. Momentum isn't just how fast you are moving through the world, it is how fast you are attacking, dodging, and your most powerful weapon. You must be fast to defeat what stands in your way, and when you are fast, you are everything's greatest threat. Momentum is everything. Abuse it.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Inspiration...
Hey Guys! Anthony here!
Today I figured I would take the time to go over some of the inspirations for some of the ideas I've had for this game. The first comes from a PS2 game named "Blood Will Tell", in which the player assumes the roll of a samurai who had all of his vital organs stolen from him by demons. Normally this would kill a person, but a 'Frankenstein' type doctor put him back together with machinery for internal organs, blades for arms, and a cannon embedded in one leg. The player then sets off on a quest to obtain the stolen body parts, as the game starts everything is in black and white and upon defeating the first boss and regaining your eyes, color comes back into the world. I always viewed this as a really cool mechanic in a game and was the main inspiration for the color change momentum system in God's Glyph's. Another inspiration of mine having to do with the color in our game was how I had envisioned the color scheme, a very vivid, bright, almost fluorescent scheme of turquoises, oranges, and green/yellows. The game I first saw this was another PS2 game, "Zone of the Enders" and is still one of my favorites to this day for its insanely fast combat. I have seen this color scheme in a few other games, namely PixelJunk, and love how the colors they chose contrast perfectly together. Another inspiration that "Zone of the Enders" gave me was the background music, and how it changed in combat to a more upbeat faster rhythm, but that is a story for another time :)
Today I figured I would take the time to go over some of the inspirations for some of the ideas I've had for this game. The first comes from a PS2 game named "Blood Will Tell", in which the player assumes the roll of a samurai who had all of his vital organs stolen from him by demons. Normally this would kill a person, but a 'Frankenstein' type doctor put him back together with machinery for internal organs, blades for arms, and a cannon embedded in one leg. The player then sets off on a quest to obtain the stolen body parts, as the game starts everything is in black and white and upon defeating the first boss and regaining your eyes, color comes back into the world. I always viewed this as a really cool mechanic in a game and was the main inspiration for the color change momentum system in God's Glyph's. Another inspiration of mine having to do with the color in our game was how I had envisioned the color scheme, a very vivid, bright, almost fluorescent scheme of turquoises, oranges, and green/yellows. The game I first saw this was another PS2 game, "Zone of the Enders" and is still one of my favorites to this day for its insanely fast combat. I have seen this color scheme in a few other games, namely PixelJunk, and love how the colors they chose contrast perfectly together. Another inspiration that "Zone of the Enders" gave me was the background music, and how it changed in combat to a more upbeat faster rhythm, but that is a story for another time :)
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