Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Tavernking]

How do these graphics look? Would you guys pay $15 for a game that has graphics like this? Assuming the game is actually fun, of course.

 

[Wunderbar]

RPG game

 

[Catacombs]

How do these graphics look? Would you guys pay $15 for a game that has graphics like this? Assuming the game is actually fun, of course.

Depends on the story and gameplay.

You do have my curiosity.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

How do these graphics look? Would you guys pay $15 for a game that has graphics like this? Assuming the game is actually fun, of course.

Yep, love such simple style. Could do with some more colour variation though, if you're going to have large crowds.

 

[ProphetSword]

How do these graphics look? Would you guys pay $15 for a game that has graphics like this? Assuming the game is actually fun, of course.

If the game is fun, I would buy it if it had stick-figure art. Fun trumps graphics any day of the week.

 

[Duckard]

Been working on combat prototype.

Iterations 1 & 2

Iteration 1: "Game" was a glorified calculator, and I drove all interactions. 2 basic attacks per character (aoe + single target).
Feedback 1: Can't tell what the attack AoEs are. Contiguous grid could work.

Iteration 2: Added grid system, AoE visualization, and computer controlled turn based combat. Targeting range and AI are still driven by me.
Feedback 2: Too simple, game plays itself. Enthrall is OP. Use contiguous grid.

Iteration 3:


Player on the left. Added a bunch of more actions, including enemy push/moves (Shove, Teleport) and self moves (Charge, Reposition). Enthralling a unit causes it to become stunned for 1 turn. Targeting range and AI are still driven by me.
Feedback 3: Please let me know what you think.

Personally, I still feel like it plays itself after you lose your teammates. I suspect because enthrall is trivially deterministic (half HP or less = guaranteed success), and because the distance stops mattering under the current rules when there's no one to fill the space. Maybe I should make enthrall more complex or random. Maybe I should build a prototype on a contiguous grid with a consistent spatial layout.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Decided to add sections with poison/acid gas to keep the player on his toes and provide some minor tactic00l decisions, and can be identified as shit floating in the air/acid pools (?) and w/e.
Maybe I should make a boss battle inside one of these just to act like a massive dick.

 

[Bad Sector]

Around three years ago i added audio support to my engine, but it was only "ambient" sounds without any sort of positioning information. Today i decided to spend a few minutes and implemented stereo panning based on the sound source's 3D position in the world relative to the camera:



In a few years i might also add volume control :-P.

(note that the level above is also around three years old, it just is the only that has a bit of gameplay and thus i can use to test the sounds - also everything, sounds included, is placeholder stuff)

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Since I decided to go full retard, might as well do it until the end -- enemies in DG2 only know your exact position at the start of the battle, which could make it trivial to run away by avoiding their line of sight.

Not quite. Enemies use their ears now and react to your footsteps and communicate your position to each other whenever you're detected (current sound detection radius for footsteps is 2 cells, but might tweak that later).


In this quick vid both enemies are blind, but react to player's footsteps and immediately inform each other if they've managed to detect the player.

Now I need to turn that into something that allows putting together small diversions to throw your enemies off your tail.

 

[Pope Amole II]

As X Caeli is mostly done (I'm slowly finishing its script and that's gonna be that) and was mostly done for a long time, we've been working hard on a yet unannounced project. As always, codex gets the privilege of a first glimpse into it, particularly into a squad/character builder. I won't explain much but it all should be pretty obvious.

Spoiler

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

As X Caeli is mostly done (I'm slowly finishing its script and that's gonna be that) and was mostly done for a long time, we've been working hard on a yet unannounced project. As always, codex gets the privilege of a first glimpse into it, particularly into a squad/character builder. I won't explain much but it all should be pretty obvious.

Spoiler

Roller-skate derby with power armour?

 

[Pope Amole II]

Roller-skate derby with power armour?

Roller blades are optional. Nah, the easiest way to describe it is Into The Breach with match-3 element and hordes of enemies (even if I literally dreamed the overall concept several years before ITB).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Added your favorite element from System Shock 2 and Deus Ex games.

Of course, I am talking about the security cameras.

These little shits inform enemies about your location in combat and increase the encounter chance outside of it.

 

[Duckard]

Did a stupid amount of coding. Now there's a contiguous grid, pathfinding, LOS calculation, and a targeting system with support for multi-phase targeting (e.g. select a target in range of your character, then select a second target in range of the previous target). Also some nifty tooling that lets me create new abilities easier.

Spoiler

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The battles have been missing something so I've been trying to add more to them. I now have flanking bonuses, informative status effect popups that look pretty snazzy too. Also, walls that give bonuses to attack and defense and attack range. Wall hexes have +1 movement cost if climbing up from a non-wall hex, unless you're moving a flying unit. Test level screenshots below. Behold my 3D-modeling skills! I can make hexagon-cylinders and cubes.

Things are still a little buggy. Sometimes the whole lance doesn't climb to the top of the wall. I should make the ranged attack arc go up more. I should probably also disable melee attacks between wall/not-wall hexes.

And I still need to add destructible gates and maybe some other things. But overall I think the changes are pretty good.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Really nice, but DOF seems broken - or is it an a stylistic choice?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Really nice, but DOF seems broken - or is it an a stylistic choice?

Yeah, the DOF is kind of strong. The more you zoom in, the narrower the DOF is. I was kind of going for an Octopath Traveler look. But then when you zoom out, the DOF is supposed to mostly disappear. I think it's more noticeable in these screenshots because the tops of the walls are pretty close to the camera.

 

[Dualnames]

zwanzig_zwoelf i really like your ideas, so far very intriguing!!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

zwanzig_zwoelf i really like your ideas, so far very intriguing!!

Thanks lah. Will post more shit @ thursday 2072.

 

[Dualnames]

You better!

 

[Mastermind]

Really nice, but DOF seems broken - or is it an a stylistic choice?

Yeah, the DOF is kind of strong. The more you zoom in, the narrower the DOF is. I was kind of going for an Octopath Traveler look. But then when you zoom out, the DOF is supposed to mostly disappear. I think it's more noticeable in these screenshots because the tops of the walls are pretty close to the camera.

just turn it off, a half ass feature is worse than no feature

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Really nice, but DOF seems broken - or is it an a stylistic choice?

Yeah, the DOF is kind of strong. The more you zoom in, the narrower the DOF is. I was kind of going for an Octopath Traveler look. But then when you zoom out, the DOF is supposed to mostly disappear. I think it's more noticeable in these screenshots because the tops of the walls are pretty close to the camera.

just turn it off, a half ass feature is worse than no feature

Or I could fix it. A lot of people when they saw my game for the first time a few months ago said that it reminded them of Octopath Traveler, and I'm quite happy to let people make that connection. Is it a matter of the DOF blur just being too strong? Do I need to make the focused area wider? Should I blur only the background and not the foreground? Or maybe only if the foreground is really, really close to the camera?

 

[Dualnames]

Hey Nathaniel3W, do you mind relinking to the shots in question?

 

[Mastermind]

Really nice, but DOF seems broken - or is it an a stylistic choice?

Yeah, the DOF is kind of strong. The more you zoom in, the narrower the DOF is. I was kind of going for an Octopath Traveler look. But then when you zoom out, the DOF is supposed to mostly disappear. I think it's more noticeable in these screenshots because the tops of the walls are pretty close to the camera.

just turn it off, a half ass feature is worse than no feature

Or I could fix it. A lot of people when they saw my game for the first time a few months ago said that it reminded them of Octopath Traveler, and I'm quite happy to let people make that connection. Is it a matter of the DOF blur just being too strong? Do I need to make the focused area wider? Should I blur only the background and not the foreground? Or maybe only if the foreground is really, really close to the camera?

There's no reason for the foreground to be blurred like in the first one but honestly even the background one looks weird. it's not aesthetically pleasing, it's distracting and it serves no gameplay purpose like a los/vision radius would.

 

[Bad Sector]

Someone on Reddit's OpenGL subreddit asked about writing a shader that generates normal maps on the fly from diffuse maps, so i did a quick test for that in my 3D world editor. Then i played around a bit more with the shader and implemented it in the engine, threw a bunch of lights in the editor and made a small video (warning: i *still* haven't implemented volume control, so mind your headphones):



OBS adds a bit of pausing between switching to game and editor for some reason, but there is a part with the editor before and after the gameplay (which, if you have seen my previous videos, you've already seen how it plays, except now it has rainbow lighting :-P).

This is really a quick test, not something i'm "properly" working on (not that i'm "properly" working on anything at the moment, mostly throwing random stuff at the wall to see what sort of stains will be made).