Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Reinar]

its surrealist and its a game where you're a small town

Here goes another surrealist idea. A game where you play as a town. And do what? Idk, kill your inhabitants? Destroy roads so cars crash into each other?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

its surrealist and its a game where you're a small town

Here goes another surrealist idea. A game where you play as a town. And do what? Idk, kill your inhabitants? Destroy roads so cars crash into each other?

Invite refugees to steal jobs and wives.

 

[vonAchdorf]

its surrealist and its a game where you're a small town

Here goes another surrealist idea. A game where you play as a town. And do what? Idk, kill your inhabitants? Destroy roads so cars crash into each other?

A smaller version could be based on this:

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Latest trailer is up. It's been 9 months since I made a new trailer. I figured it was time to show more of what I've been up to.

 

[Mastermind]

man, animating 16x16 sprites is such a pain in the ass. i'm not talented enough to make much bigger ones (where I could use animation software with skeletons) but having to slowly redraw a sprite 32 times just to have 4 frame movement/attacks is p demoralizing. especially for melee attacks which look shit without large movement.

no wonder all my games turn into abandonware

 

[AdolfSatan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't animating sprites be one of the very last stages of development? You're putting the cart before the horse.
What's your workflow, anyways? Perhaps it could stand some optimization to make the workload lighter.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

man, animating 16x16 sprites is such a pain in the ass. i'm not talented enough to make much bigger ones (where I could use animation software with skeletons) but having to slowly redraw a sprite 32 times just to have 4 frame movement/attacks is p demoralizing. especially for melee attacks which look shit without large movement.

no wonder all my games turn into abandonware

Are you making a turn-based game or a realtime one? Maybe you could try abstact animations w/ some minor sprite movement if it's a TB game?

 

[Mastermind]

man, animating 16x16 sprites is such a pain in the ass. i'm not talented enough to make much bigger ones (where I could use animation software with skeletons) but having to slowly redraw a sprite 32 times just to have 4 frame movement/attacks is p demoralizing. especially for melee attacks which look shit without large movement.

no wonder all my games turn into abandonware

Are you making a turn-based game or a realtime one? Maybe you could try abstact animations w/ some minor sprite movement if it's a TB game?

real time. there are low res games on steam by lazy fucks which have no character animation even though they're real time but I don't want to lower my standards that much

 

[Mastermind]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't animating sprites be one of the very last stages of development? You're putting the cart before the horse.

No idea, i'm just doing it piece by piece until i get fed up with it and stop developing anything for half a year it's done.

I'm gonna work on it in chunks anyway, i just want a few enemies (and the main character) animated so i can test other features as I implement them.

What's your workflow, anyways? Perhaps it could stand some optimization to make the workload lighter.

make base sprite -> edit/redo from different perspectives and frames as necessary. I don't think there's a whole lot of ways of increasing efficiency. i already edit instead of redo when possible. it's mostly just grinding away otherwise

 

[AdolfSatan]

Well, organized layering and palette economy can help a lot. Also, depending on the amount of fps, you can reduce the workload by half by blending every in-between.

 

[Mastermind]

Well, organized layering and palette economy can help a lot. Also, depending on the amount of fps, you can reduce the workload by half by blending every in-between.

they're 4 frame animations, reducing the number further will look significantly worse

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Epilogue is like 66% done.

 

[Lord of the Files]

Some recent progress:

* Title screen
* Character creation screen (similar to character sheet)
* Improvements to all user-facing UIs
* In/Out animations for all user-facing UIs
* Equip shields in the off-hand
* Two-handed weapons are enforced
* Shields give damage reduction on a successful Block
* Armor provides reliable damage reduction
* FP introduced as a per-rest resource
* Stealth drains FP
* Attack and destroy props (e.g. doors, items) as well as NPCs
* An approximation of a targeted entity's condition is shown in the upper-right selection HUD (uninjured, barely injured, near death, etc)

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Mastermind I feel your pain. Drawing sprite sheets is one of my least favorite parts of development. How far into development are you? Are you planning on making it a commercial release? If you think your game would work as a Himeko Sutori mod, you could use my sprites and save yourself months of work.

And if you're just prototyping right now, I don't think you would be sued for using anyone's sprites. Not saying that it's legal or that you should do it. But if you need placeholders, there are options.

zwanzig_zwoelf so what's the deal with some of the walls being opaque and some of them being wireframe? Looks good, but I'm just wondering.

Lord of the Files sounds like progress. Now show us the screenshots! Gifs and videos preferred, but screenshots will do.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

zwanzig_zwoelf so what's the deal with some of the walls being opaque and some of them being wireframe? Looks good, but I'm just wondering.

Glass, bruv.

 

[Mastermind]

Mastermind I feel your pain. Drawing sprite sheets is one of my least favorite parts of development. How far into development are you?

Early alpha.

Are you planning on making it a commercial release?

Yes. Unfortunately due to my shitposting history I won't mention it here or even post screenshots. Much better to segregate business from codex these days.

If you think your game would work as a Himeko Sutori mod, you could use my sprites and save yourself months of work.

It wouldn't, i think your sprites are too high resolution anyway and straight up anime art wouldn't work with the tone of my game anyway.

And if you're just prototyping right now, I don't think you would be sued for using anyone's sprites. Not saying that it's legal or that you should do it. But if you need placeholders, there are options.

I might do that, but I need the art practice anyway so i'm just building them as I need them.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Sleepy as fuck, but I guess the trailer has reached the 'good enough, needs minor tweaking' stage.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

CryptRat, I was too lazy to check if there's a thread dedicated to THWG, but w/e, I'll post my impressions here.

It's a surprisingly solid game so far. I had fun exploring the dungeons and to my surprise I didn't encounter any critical (or even minor) bugs, considering that it's a jam game and these are usually made quickly and without detailed testing.

I'm definitely going to play more later this week.

Minor note: Sometimes when browsing items, 'Buy' option is not available (lack of $$), and the game switches to 'Haggle'. When I scroll down to buy an item, the selection remains at 'Haggle', which kinda forces one extra keypress when it feels like it's not necessary.

 

[CryptRat]

I was too lazy to check if there's a thread dedicated to THWG

There's none.

I didn't encounter any critical (or even minor) bugs

Actually there may be no critical bug which is why I never updated with a new version which would correct the minor bugs and add a few quality of life features like full screen support, I fear that it introduces crashes or save corruption or such. When the engine contains everything I want to be there I'll take the time to test THWG before sharing the new version, it's not that big so it's doable.

Regarding bugs there are those :
- the combat text for grenades and other group targetting weapons is broken, it repeats all the damages you made during previous rounds (and probably even during previous fights), note that it's only the text though'.
- Switch between different types of ammo in a weapon creates more ammo.

Minor note: Sometimes when browsing items, 'Buy' option is not available (lack of $$), and the game switches to 'Haggle'. When I scroll down to buy an item, the selection remains at 'Haggle', which kinda forces one extra keypress when it feels like it's not necessary.

I'll think about it, although I'm not certain it may have been intentional so it could stay this way.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Regarding bugs there are those :
- the combat text for grenades and other group targetting weapons is broken, it repeats all the damages you made during previous rounds (and probably even during previous fights), note that it's only the text though'.
- Switch between different types of ammo in a weapon creates more ammo.

STOP SPOILING THE FUN FEATURES IN THE GAME

 

[CryptRat]

I spent the last two weeks pulling many data off the code, one consequence is that I certainly added many bugs I can't see anybody doing that but when I release a new version of THWG anybody who likes manipulating xmls will be able to mod it into a different game (by mimicry which means many implemented things like spells especially are probably unusable because not present in THWG).

Boss in the final version of THWG will probably look like that :

Also testing watercolors (very work-in-progress) :


By the zwanzig_zwoelf I bought your game so the circlejerking can be complete.

 

[Ninjerk]

I can't see your watercolor tag. Post it by direct link (you can usually just add .jpg to the direct link option from imgur).

 

[CryptRat]

https://i.imgur.com/44cbdAh.gif

 

[Grauken]

new status effect >> drug overdose?

btw. love the boss picture

 

[CryptRat]

new status effect >> drug overdose?

Actually it's not in the game yet but I think that in outside maps you'll need to be protected from particles if you don't want to be confused or to be randomly teleported to random locations (although for this second thing passing an orientation test will also work) so even if the intention is more that it feels alien than psychedelic it kind of fits the gameplay too.