Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Dorateen]

The version with the wall art looks great. Now it has a Might & Magic II vibe going on. Maybe add some occasionally spaced torches where appropriate?

 

[ProphetSword]

Looks like I have to break my promise and post again today after all.

You guys are making me work for it...but damn, I like that you've got me pushing the envelope and not letting me get by on being lazy. Is this an improvement?

 

[CryptRat]

Without a doubt, I was thinking the outdoor one was perfect but the indoor one could be improved.

 

[Zombra]

Is this an improvement?

Very much. Great work.

 

[ProphetSword]

The version with the wall art looks great. Now it has a Might & Magic II vibe going on. Maybe add some occasionally spaced torches where appropriate?

Torches aren't hard to pull off. I can create a dramatic light effect like this:

Here's the previous image from above for comparison:

The problem with it is that I don't know if it fits the old-school vibe I have going on. There are a lot of fancy tools I could add to this engine (like the ability to use a mouse and screen resolutions beyond 1024x768), but I'm not sure it gets me where I want to go in the end.

 

[Zombra]

I can create a dramatic light effect.
The problem with it is that I don't know if it fits the old-school vibe I have going on. There are a lot of fancy tools I could add to this engine (like the ability to use a mouse and screen resolutions beyond 1024x768), but I'm not sure it gets me where I want to go in the end.

If it's that easy to put in torches, I say do it, that lighting effect looks great. You don't really need to worry about "I hope the graphics don't look too good" as long as you're not actively trying to make it look "modern". That shot looks plenty fucking old school, I didn't get it confused with Crysis 3. One zebra's opinion.

As for the parenthetical asides:
* Keyboard-driven games are the best. I don't use a mouse unless I have to. Please continue to support keyboard-only play even if you add other options.
* You don't have to use higher res textures but please support higher resolutions. If I have to play a game in a tiny window, or change my monitor resolution or some shit, no sale.

One other note:
I observe that your Barbarian only has 5 hit points. Even for a level 1 character this looks pathetic. This leads me to speculate about character creation. I really really hope that it isn't super randomized with "press Reroll 5 billion times" as an expected part of gameplay. If stats are random, fine, but the game had better be playable with mediocre numbers because I'm not going to sit there rerolling for hours on end. That goes for hit dice too. If I level up and roll a 1 for hit point gain on my d12, I'm just going to keep playing so that had better be sufficient. But you didn't ask about all this gameplay stuff.

 

[DavidBVal]

Makes me want to play it by just looking at it.

You could market it as "compatible with CGA screens!"

 

[ProphetSword]

I can create a dramatic light effect.
The problem with it is that I don't know if it fits the old-school vibe I have going on. There are a lot of fancy tools I could add to this engine (like the ability to use a mouse and screen resolutions beyond 1024x768), but I'm not sure it gets me where I want to go in the end.

If it's that easy to put in torches, I say do it, that lighting effect looks great. You don't really need to worry about "I hope the graphics don't look too good" as long as you're not actively trying to make it look "modern". That shot looks plenty fucking old school, I didn't get it confused with Crysis 3. One zebra's opinion.

As for the parenthetical asides:
* Keyboard-driven games are the best. I don't use a mouse unless I have to. Please continue to support keyboard-only play even if you add other options.
* You don't have to use higher res textures but please support higher resolutions. If I have to play a game in a tiny window, or change my monitor resolution or some shit, no sale.

One other note:
I observe that your Barbarian only has 5 hit points. Even for a level 1 character this looks pathetic. This leads me to speculate about character creation. I really really hope that it isn't super randomized with "press Reroll 5 billion times" as an expected part of gameplay. If stats are random, fine, but the game had better be playable with mediocre numbers because I'm not going to sit there rerolling for hours on end. That goes for hit dice too. If I level up and roll a 1 for hit point gain on my d12, I'm just going to keep playing so that had better be sufficient. But you didn't ask about all this gameplay stuff.

I will probably allow for other screen resolutions...I was kidding about that. I do intend to make the game keyboard only, though.

Also, don't worry about the numbers you are seeing. The characters are all random numbers with no regard for class or anything else just to fill in the fields. As I said, I started working on this engine last week but haven't imported all the class info from my other game yet. You are seeing very early work.

I am literally having the game generate a random number of health between 5 and 30 with absolutely no other criteria. I just got tired of looking at zeroes all the time.

 

[Zombra]

Haha, cool. Just ignore me when I start going off on stuff. You say "thanks for the feedback" one time and suddenly I think I'm the Executive Producer.

 

[Jaesun]

Will you be doing your own new tile sets for this, or are these just place holders/tests?

The mono-chrome idea is honestly brilliant (art direction wise).

 

[ProphetSword]

Two things: I will be doing my own tiles; because these already are my own tiles. Those walls and floors were drawn by me, and I will be doing more (the limited palette likely means I will need more unique walls). I see no reason not to use the stuff I have already created, though.

Unless I have misunderstood your question...in which case I will ask you to clarify.

 

[gaussgunner]

Your walls look fine to me.

The floors could be better, and the ceiling should be different. But it's not bad the way it is.

 

[Morblot]

Looking good!

Just a thought: I wonder how it would look like if you also had some purple color thrown in there to make it even more CGA'ish?

Also, is it just me, or does the command menu on the right side of the screen look a little weird? Maybe if you aligned the texts to left instead of centering them?

And I agree with the above poster about the ceiling texture: it should be different from the floor. It looks like a ceiling mirror now. Still better than the textureless one.

 

[Snorkack]

I'm currently developing an engine for fps dungeon crawlers in the M&M/EoB vein. Technology is C & SDL. I don't have much of a clue about graphics programming and would like to look at some established open source engines to see how the 'big boys' are doing it.
I think raycasting could be the technology of my choice. A good start might be the Wolfenstein 3D sources, although thos might be a bit too simplistic for my demands.
Anyone know some open source projects in a similar vein that are well documented and are written in a clean and commendable coding style? Doesn't have to be C and SDL.

 

[gaussgunner]

I'm currently developing an engine for fps dungeon crawlers in the M&M/EoB vein. Technology is C & SDL. I don't have much of a clue about graphics programming and would like to look at some established open source engines to see how the 'big boys' are doing it.

That's gonna be tough unless you're a pretty experienced graphics/math/systems coder. I did it to see if it was even an option, and yeah, it's not that much work (compared to making a whole game) if you're only going for "basic" features and you know what you're doing.

If you haven't done any 3D, here's what you do.
1. Learn Blender modeling & rigging
2. Make some crappy characters & maps
3. Code a crappy demo using Blender Game Engine
4. Try coding demos for a few off-the-shelf engines. The only ones I would consider (besides Unity and Unreal) are OGRE, Irrlicht, or *maybe* Panda3D or Godot
5. Now think about making a real game...

 

[Snorkack]

Well, normally I'd agree with your advice if my primary goal was to make a game. But I chose this as a pet project to step up my system architecture and object oriented design skills, and maybe learn a thing or two about graphics programming on the way. Whether the actual result will be robust and easy to use is of secondary importance.

 

[CryptRat]

This may be what you're looking for, it's very simple and well documented (game is here).

 

[Alchemist]

I'm currently developing an engine for fps dungeon crawlers in the M&M/EoB vein. Technology is C & SDL. I don't have much of a clue about graphics programming and would like to look at some established open source engines to see how the 'big boys' are doing it.
I think raycasting could be the technology of my choice. A good start might be the Wolfenstein 3D sources, although thos might be a bit too simplistic for my demands.
Anyone know some open source projects in a similar vein that are well documented and are written in a clean and commendable coding style? Doesn't have to be C and SDL.

Are you looking to do mainly software rendering of the 3D scene, and avoid use of stuff like OpenGL or Direct3D? The raycasting / Wolf3D reference made me think this, but I'm not certain what your goal is.

If you're open to using modern GPU-based 3D you could have a look at Godot which is completely open-source, and see how they're handling the graphics code under the hood. It's not specific to 1st-person games though, it's a general purpose 2D / 3D engine.

Currently using Godot for my 1st-person blobber CRPG vaporware, incidentally. Very pleased with the engine so far.

 

[gaussgunner]

Well, normally I'd agree with your advice if my primary goal was to make a game. But I chose this as a pet project to step up my system architecture and object oriented design skills, and maybe learn a thing or two about graphics programming on the way. Whether the actual result will be robust and easy to use is of secondary importance.

I see... suggest you master that in 2D before you get into 3D.

 

[eric__s]

Done a lot of music lately, but this is my favorite song I've completed in quite a while -

http://tindeck.com/listen/srvkd

 

[Snorkack]

Thanks Cryptrat, I'll have a look into that. It's the style I was looking for, although it doesn't seem to support seamless movement.
Alchemist and gaussgunner, yeah, 2d all the way (i.e. just sprites, no gpu accelleration). I'm shooting for the World of Xeen/Shining in the Darkness look.

 

[Zombra]

Done a lot of music lately, but this is my favorite song I've completed in quite a while -
http://tindeck.com/listen/srvkd

Enjoyed. What software do you use?

 

[Alchemist]

Thanks Cryptrat, I'll have a look into that. It's the style I was looking for, although it doesn't seem to support seamless movement.
Alchemist and gaussgunner, yeah, 2d all the way (i.e. just sprites, no gpu accelleration). I'm shooting for the World of Xeen/Shining in the Darkness look.

In that case, yeah a raycasting engine / algorithm is probably what you'll want to look at, if you want smooth transitions between angles. Any attempt I've seen that tries to hack a transition with static wall sprites (like Grimoire) just looks awkward as hell.

The original Doom is open source now too I think, maybe look at that.

 

[Davaris]

Well, normally I'd agree with your advice if my primary goal was to make a game. But I chose this as a pet project to step up my system architecture and object oriented design skills, and maybe learn a thing or two about graphics programming on the way. Whether the actual result will be robust and easy to use is of secondary importance.

Yipes OO. I was using Godot until OO Analysis Paralysis killed my motivation yet again. So if you want to look at pro code and learn how to reach that level yourself, I suggest the Handmade Hero series. Watch him make a game with no engine or libraries in C, trashing C++ and OO all the way. You can get his source code for about 10 bucks.

 

[CryptRat]

Thanks Cryptrat, I'll have a look into that. It's the style I was looking for, although it doesn't seem to support seamless movement.

It doesn't. I'm not sure its code will help in any way if it's what you're looking for.