Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

In DG2 I'd like to reduce the downtime between player actions as much as possible. In this case, status messages no longer take their sweet time and also provide quick information about objects in front of you.

Guess this will make the exploration and combat a lot faster. Will probably add door access levels/approximate enemy DC %/etc to these messages too.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

so uh

 

[Siveon]

so uh

Spoiler

Wow Zwan, I can't believe you're making an FPS now.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

so uh

Spoiler

Wow Zwan, I can't believe you're making an FPS now.

Das Geisterschiff only sold a million copies, which means dungeon crawlers don't sell, so I gotta make a modern FPS to get that slice of Call of Duty audience.

Spoiler

Gotta make a thread soon, I reckon some of the initial info on changes and additions may cause extreme butthurt.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

zwanzig_zwoelf Can you tell us how many copies it actually sold? And why can't I find you on Steam? Steam's sales volume should crush itch.io.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Can you tell us how many copies it actually sold?

A few dozens, which sounds p bad at first, but if you take all factors into account (niche game, unknown dev, lower amt of users on itch, lack of hype), then it's doing ok.

 

[ProphetSword]

Been working on converting my game from the monochrome look to full color (still a limited palette to give it a retro feel like something made on the Commodore 64, but with better graphics).

Here's a boring GIF of a party walking around in hallways. Nothing really exciting to see here, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like in color at this point...

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I posted these same pictures plus a bunch of others in my Weeaboo Forum thread, but without the technical commentary. I figured this crowd might like to know a little more about what's going on here.

I'm reusing a lot of old meshes in this picture, but adding a new material. It takes the dot product of the mesh's normal and the up-vector, then uses that to blend between the regular texture and a snow texture. That makes the rocks versatile because I can rotate them in any direction and the snow stays on top. I could do the same thing to the buildings, but I wouldn't have much reason to have a sideways building. It's also nice because the vertical and horizontal wooden beams on the buildings use the same section of atlas texture, but the horizontal beams get snow and I didn't have to screw with making a new atlas with new UVs on all my buildings. In some places though, where there's a long single triangle on a mesh, the material doesn't work very well. The long triangle on the mesh picks up the average normal of its two ends, and you get a long strip of snow.

You can't really see it in this picture, but there's also a repeating specular texture on the snow. When the sun (or moon) is directly overhead you can see sparkles on the snow much more easily.

Here's a closer view of some of the building meshes:

 

[Dorateen]

Here's a boring GIF of a party walking around in hallways.

I can watch first person exploration/movement all day long.

This looks so good, ProphetSword

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

In DG1 fake lights were an afterthought and never really got past the initial limitations set for lines (one color per object), which made them look somewhat flat and ugly at times.

This is no longer an issue in DG2 and I can edit the shape of the fake light in any way I want, which should allow some nice lights stuffed all over the place.

 

[Otay]

hello im new here

game dev has been ruining my life since 2011 and this is basically all i have to show for it

my friend linked me to this forum because i like cboyardee videos

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Welcome to the Codex Otay. You made a mobile Dragon Warrior clone? Is the UI just a mockup or is there anything under the hood?

 

[Harkin Hails]

I had to give my characters underwear.

When you take off their armor, they were naked. But then Steam made developers fill out a form describing very precisely what kind of adult content is in your game. I admitted to nudity, pixellated though it was. And that changed the entire "games like this" list to company I'd rather not be in. So I had to add underwear.

Characters from old saved games may not have the right underwear sprite. For a while, the slimes in the game even had bras and panties. That's fixed now, but the dudes still have a surprise for you under their armor.

Are you sure Steam is OK with that? They have been removing anime titles with kid-like characters+nudity, these days, despite allowing them on store for a few days. Might wanna cover them up completely.

Here, I made a family friendly mockup for you:

PS: Seriously though, they have been removing games after letting them on. So your game might get same treatment on the puritan store.

 

[Otay]

Welcome to the Codex Otay. You made a mobile Dragon Warrior clone? Is the UI just a mockup or is there anything under the hood?

its actually just a pc game. i had a playable version 3 years ago, then i transferred to a university and obsessed over math and computer science, then started rewriting everything earlier this year from scratch.

i really enjoyed dragon warrior games when i was younger, and i revisited them recently so the influence shows. but i actually started this game shortly after i got my wisdom teeth out in 2011 and was zonked out on hydrocodone while replaying FF7. hardly any final fantasy vibes came through in the game in spite of FF7 being the inspirational spark.

 

[Pyke]

Epilogue is like 66% done.

LOVE this art style. Anything that reminds me of the original Terminator vision is a plus. :D

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Epilogue is like 66% done.

LOVE this art style. Anything that reminds me of the original Terminator vision is a plus. :D

Thanks. It took a while to pull it off, but it was worth the trouble. BTW, it's coming out on November 24 on Steam, so if you feel like grabbing it, bookmark this fucker.

 

[Otay]

i like your music zwanzig_zwoelf, ive been listening on soundcloud

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I need to code the rest of the sequel, but I can't help myself, playing with new tools is fun as hell.

 

[ProphetSword]

Early version of a weather system I'm adding to my game. Shows rain and lightning.

Same dungeon as before (though with a different backdrop to make it appear to be outdoors for this test). That's why the walls appear to be interior rock walls.

 

[The Avatar]

That's looking pretty slick. Reminds me of old gold box games.

 

[ProphetSword]

That's looking pretty slick. Reminds me of old gold box games.

That is 100% the intention. If you haven't seen the combat engine, here's a link to a video from when I first started converting from the monochrome look to color. If it reminds you of the Gold Box games, then I know I'm on the right track. (This video is out of date, though. The combat engine has improved some since this was taken, and spells are mostly working).

 

[Mustawd]

ProphetSword, your game is looking great so far.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Dungeons, dungeons, motherfucking dungeons.

 

[J_C]

Early version of a weather system I'm adding to my game. Shows rain and lightning.

Same dungeon as before (though with a different backdrop to make it appear to be outdoors for this test). That's why the walls appear to be interior rock walls.

This is looking great. I have a technical question about it. When the player moves in the world, does he/she actually moves, or the player is stationary and you only change the scene in front of him/her?

 

[ProphetSword]

This is looking great. I have a technical question about it. When the player moves in the world, does he/she actually moves, or the player is stationary and you only change the scene in front of him/her?

The player actually moves. The walls are stationary.