Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[ERYFKRAD]

zwanzig_zwoelf that sounds like a lot of fun for the developer. Just prepare yourself for the negative reviews that will come from the players who find this little feature of yours.

I'm not afraid of negative reviews.

Yeah it's the neutral ones that keep the dude awake at night.

 

[beardalaxy]

zwanzig_zwoelf that sounds like a lot of fun for the developer. Just prepare yourself for the negative reviews that will come from the players who find this little feature of yours.

I don't know, maybe it's because I AM a developer but seeing this in a game would be awesome, even if I did get a full party wipe I would be flabbergasted. Sounds like an awesome feature to me.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

zwanzig_zwoelf that sounds like a lot of fun for the developer. Just prepare yourself for the negative reviews that will come from the players who find this little feature of yours.

I don't know, maybe it's because I AM a developer but seeing this in a game would be awesome, even if I did get a full party wipe I would be flabbergasted. Sounds like an awesome feature to me.

It is a good feature, but Crom knows there are enough retards out there who get upset if they lose, no matter how well deserved, the more so if they lose to a former teammate.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I am using lwjgl 2.
Do I need to make my own mouse cursor?
Make an image and render at the position of the mouse cursor. And hide the normal (windows?) cursor.

 

[Justinian]

Changed the scale on my game after playing another round of 20 mintues till dawn, and this feels much better. Weapon range matters more, you can see stuff coming from further away & plan accordingly, etc.

Spoiler

Adjusted character/loadout selection screen again. Generating waifus daughters is addicting but I really gotta stop because I have to draw and animate them the hard way, along with their weapons and traits. Aiming for 12-16 daughters to pick from in the final version. How many should I include in the demo? I'm thinking at least 3. Wanted 5, but I don't want people to get tired of the game and not buy the full version.

 

[Justinian]

Oh great, I just had the insane idea to turn hell verses from just a fancy name for active spells to things you build out of short expressions. You pick one to start with then string more as you upgrade through a run.

So you might start with one that burns enemies around you, then add the ability to give yourself a boost for every enemy you burn, then tack on another effect when the boost ends.

I think I'll play around with the idea a little, lots of potential to do something unique. also lots of potential to overcomplicate the design when having a bunch of upgradeable spells would serve just fine.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I made a software cursor as well.

Information about attributes and skills.
1. Make a separate manual or
2. make tooltip for every attrib+skill in the game?
3. other idea?

 

[Justinian]

I made a software cursor as well.

Information about attributes and skills.
1. Make a separate manual or
2. make tooltip for every attrib+skill in the game?
3. other idea?

Tooltips are the most convenient for the player.
And making a manual isn't necessarily less work either, so it's my preferred option.

 

[what am i doing]

I slacked off for quite a while and didn't do much devving for a long time. Today I did a ton of both reworking engine components to make room for editor features, and start adding some of those features.
For purposes of helping avoid cache misses, to keep the size of sim tiles down, a new kind of tile was added, the meta tile. The meta tile is where editor / generation data will go: things that aren't used in the normal game simulation, but are tied to tiles. The meta tile unordered map lives on the simulation controller, and mirrors the sim tile unordered map that lives on each of the world simulation objects (A and B). The first piece of editor / generation data added is the development level, which is used for the generation of basic rural or urban (if applicable) population types. Next is to add tags for urban areas, so that the user can specify prevalence of, say, manufacturing sector, and the generator process can look at the generated populations, slice off an appropriately sized segment (typically gated by what percentage of the tile has been designated as urban), and convert them to specialist populations. That will be a lot of work to code the logic for, of course. But it was important to make room for these systems somewhere without bloating the simulation tiles.

Additionally, tile colour processing has been somewhat improved, including the way tile colours are updated, which leads to painting in the editor causing less framerate drops (but a bit of a delay before a batch of tiles updates).
I would also like to add an "eyedropper" function for editing, so whatever mode the user is in, they can hold alt, click, and whatever relevant data that tile contains will be sampled and used as the active setting for that mode.

EDIT: eyedropper added. Though I'm only partway through adding it for all editor functions, it does work fine for the ones added so far. More cleanup and conversion to using the std:: optional<std::uint32_t> for ids system.

I am pleased to note that SDL2, when a window loses focus, treats that as a "key up" event for any pressed keys, so for modifier keys that were held when the window was tabbed out (for example, the "alt" key used to alt-tab), those modifiers are released even though physically held, and you don't end up with them being latched on despite not actually being pressed when you bring the window back in focus. There are some game engines which have that bug / undesirable behaviour (needing to have a key released while in focus to recognize that it was released), Unreal for example (happens a lot with Satisfactory).

 

[RobotSquirrel]

2. make tooltip for every attrib+skill in the game?

Tool tip with Right-Click to then get even more information, this is how I'd do it. You'd have a brief summary and then says (Right Click to learn more) if the concept is a lot more complicated, The reason is that you have limited screen space for tool tips so its best if they're just brief. If you're doing the paradox thing where you write a literal essay in the tool-tip the text is going to end up off screen and it's annoying a simple right click to popup a window fixes that issue. Make sure you align the tool tip based on what side of the screen its on as well (take the screen size width divide by 2 anything under the number is left (tool-tip is therefore Right Aligned) anything above is right (tool-tip is therefore left aligned) this prevents the text going off screen you can also do it for height as well but try to limit how much text is in the tool tip. Having an encyclopedia in game can be useful if your mechanics are really complex that you have to do it for everything.

 

[what am i doing]

2. make tooltip for every attrib+skill in the game?

Tool tip with Right-Click to then get even more information, this is how I'd do it. You'd have a brief summary and then says (Right Click to learn more) if the concept is a lot more complicated, The reason is that you have limited screen space for tool tips so its best if they're just brief. If you're doing the paradox thing where you write a literal essay in the tool-tip the text is going to end up off screen and it's annoying a simple right click to popup a window fixes that issue. Make sure you align the tool tip based on what side of the screen its on as well (take the screen size width divide by 2 anything under the number is left (tool-tip is therefore Right Aligned) anything above is right (tool-tip is therefore left aligned) this prevents the text going off screen you can also do it for height as well but try to limit how much text is in the tool tip. Having an encyclopedia in game can be useful if your mechanics are really complex that you have to do it for everything.

Yeah, do right click. Don't do that nu-paradox shit where you have to hover your mouse for a specified time, that's always aggravating to the user. They should be able to bring the expanded tooltip up immediately with one click, not have to sit and wait.

 

[curry]

I'm using placeholder graphics but you'll get the idea

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Finally finished the game and sent it to a few testers to sanity-check the whole thing.

Time to start working on that trailer thing everyone's talking about and catch zzzs for a month or so.

 

[Justinian]

Finally finished the game and sent it to a few testers to sanity-check the whole thing.

Time to start working on that trailer thing everyone's talking about and catch zzzs for a month or so.

when is release?

 

[beardalaxy]

Fixed some bugs, ironed out some inconsistencies, and fixed lag on the file select screen while also making it a little cleaner. Now there are only 16 save files but they fit nicely into the window, and I can't imagine people needing more than that. If you do, well, copy and paste is your friend I suppose.

Finished a side quest about delivering some supplies to a camp in need of them. It's not all that it seems, though...

I also started working on another side quest where there is a man about to attempt offering his spirit to the Elder Tree. You can do meditative yoga with him that grants some health benefits.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Finally finished the game and sent it to a few testers to sanity-check the whole thing.

Time to start working on that trailer thing everyone's talking about and catch zzzs for a month or so.

when is release?

Later this month. I'm going to start working on the trailer tomorrow -- most of the material has been recorded during the development, so it won't take too long.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Uploaded a short gameplay vid to show the early game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Aaand the trailer is up. Sorry for tripleposting, shit's moving faster than my own shit after two coffees and chainsmoking session.

 

[Butter]

Why does the camera not point forward?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Why does the camera not point forward?

It's slightly angled to help the game look less 'flat', the decision was somewhat inspired by old Macromedia Director games and The Dark Spire.

Initially, I thought about doing it to make screenshots look a bit more interesting, but I posted a short clip as a joke and noticed that people were feeling uneasy about it -- which is exactly what I needed.

 

[beardalaxy]

Aaand the trailer is up. Sorry for tripleposting, shit's moving faster than my own shit after two coffees and chainsmoking session.

It's looking really good, I agree that the slight off-centered camera gives a strange, uneasy feeling. I like the aspect of having to choose who opens chests and takes potions too, that seems like a really unique feature but I haven't played a whole lot of games like this so maybe it's one of those "what was old is now new" kind of things haha.

 

[Abu Antar]

Finally finished the game and sent it to a few testers to sanity-check the whole thing.

Time to start working on that trailer thing everyone's talking about and catch zzzs for a month or so.

when is release?

Later this month. I'm going to start working on the trailer tomorrow -- most of the material has been recorded during the development, so it won't take too long.

Fuck...

 

[Tavernking]

Torn between side projects, mega projects, and mega mega projects. I still haven't published a game in 10 years.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Torn between side projects, mega projects, and mega mega projects. I still haven't published a game in 10 years.

How much time can you put towards your projects? What do you know how to do? You want to do some free labor for me? Then you'll have worked on a released game and I'll put your name in the credits.

Edit: If you want, you could use all of Septaroad Voyager's assets to make a new campaign. Tell your own story. What would you think of that?

 

[Tavernking]

Torn between side projects, mega projects, and mega mega projects. I still haven't published a game in 10 years.

How much time can you put towards your projects? What do you know how to do? You want to do some free labor for me? Then you'll have worked on a released game and I'll put your name in the credits.

Edit: If you want, you could use all of Septaroad Voyager's assets to make a new campaign. Tell your own story. What would you think of that?

You'll pay me a salary right?