Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's DONE!

REMEDY IS FULLY FINISHED!!!!

AT LAST!!!!

Now I can relax. I would put up a video of my actually playing the game but I can't work out how to.

I've altered a few things to make it look a lot better, like tuning up the resolution on some of the rooms, adding a few animations in, etc.

It feels like an actual game now.

Although it does have it's bugs:

• Snapco's head doesn't quite turn right when he changes direction
• Snapco sometimes gets stuck on the walls 
• since he bounces off the walls, he sometimes gets stuck
• Sometimes Gwyn will get stuck on the wall if he's walking against the wall
• sometimes gets stuck on door frame

That's all I can find that I've been unable to fix.

Things I didn't include were

• Mini-map 
• But I made the view in the room bigger so that players can see more of the room
• HP bar
• The boss didn't seem to need one, testers found it alright without
• Unable to figure out the coding for one to follow the player and when I did have it, it didn't look right

After this post goes up, I'm going to be going through the music and things that I borrowed from other places to credit/reference them.

But that's to be done in a bit

Moosche Out for the final time

The Last Hurdle

Finally

All the coding is done for the game so those who wish to play it could at any point now!

I just want to get some aesthetic stuff sorted first and the leveling in the sound a bit more balanced, before I hand it in fully.

There are also a few features from feedback that I'll be putting in. I was going to leave them out but I've been advised from testers of my game to put them in.

They are:

• health system
• mini-map

There are other things that I need such as an end screen and a small plot screen, but they'll be done in no time. And an options screen. I forgot about that until I just looked at the game. 

Aaaaaaand . . . 

Here's a teaser of what Clot is going to be like:

I'm so proud of how he's turned out. 2 days of fighting with him and I've finally got a working boss and he just looks so cool! 

I'll appreciate all of the feedback on Wednesday for those who have a go.

I know there are still a few bugs that I just cannot work out how to fix. Like Snapco still gets stuck in a corner from time to time and his head is odd. But he's working at least. 

Moosche Out 

SOON!!!

Tonight, I just finished my second level!!

THE GAME IS ALMOST FINISHED!!!

Which means you all get to have a go soon! I just hope it all stays together.

But that wasn't the only thing I wanted to tell you guys. I would love to introduce you to Snapco:

I wanted to give you guys a variety in enemies as you go through the levels and Snapco is the main enemy in the second level.

He has a lot more health and the biggest difference is that he can split into a few of himself if the middle sections are killed before the head. I had a lot of fighting with each body part to get him to actually become a snake.

Would you like to see them? Well, here they are anyway:

• couldn't get the pieces to follow at the same pace
• they then merged
• then they had a fit when the head was destroyed
• then they didn't move when it was
• they occasionally got stuck in a wall or jittered on the spot
• when I had two of him in one room, the parts from one body just split apart and went their own way! (which was way too funny)

But I managed to get them all going. My main problem now is getting the sprite to change according to the direction its moving in. I've tried using different sprites, but then I just had heads everywhere. So I've currently got this:

image_angle = direction

But he travels upside down now. So if any of you know how to correct it, I'd appreciate it.

Next is my last level with just consists of Clot, the big bad Boss. He's halfway to being fully finished with the stages he goes through during the fight. I just need to get my head around alarms. 

If you want to see the size of Clot compared to Gwyn, then here's an example:

The room you fight him in is going to be way bigger than that. It's just the only room I have of the third level where you can see both Gwyn and Clot together easily.

So the only things I have left are:

• finish Clot's fight stages
• put a health system in
• put a minimap in
• soundtrack
• fix any bugs

So now it feels that I don't have much left to do.

Well, it depends on how many bugs people can find.

Moosche Out

Level 1 Complete

Almost . . . .

There's one more thing left to code and that's the pesky enemies that have become one hit wonders I mentioned in the previous post.

For those who wish to have a go of my game and are in tomorrow's seminar, they are welcome to! If I knew how to work technology then I would send out a downloadable version of the game for feedback. But for those who aren't, here's some screenshots of the progress so far:

starting point:

The main room:

The items:

And lastly, the One Hit Wonder:

Now that this level is near enough finished, the second level is the next mission. But seeing as I got most of the coding for the enemies and objects, I can just copy and paste them.

And hope it works unlike the One Hit Wonder. . .

Moosche Out

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Hey guys, I need a little bit of help this week.

My first level is two pieces of coding away from being completely finished. I just have one major problem.

The enemies die in one hit!

All the enemies in the main room die after being hit several times. They work perfectly fine. But when I copied their code into other enemies, poof, the code just decides to not work at all.

This is what I have for the coding:

Under the Create event:

Under the collision event with the player's bullets:

These were copied from enemies that work perfectly fins so I don't see what's gone wrong. If anyone can help me I'd appreciate it.

Once that is done, all that is left of the first level is a starting room and an end room. But I haven't got the second level room start yet so bear with me.

Moosche Out

Warp Factor 9!!

Sorry, just had to do that

Well, I've figured out warping between rooms finally with the help of Will. So now I can move between rooms easily. The only thing is that the rooms are much smaller than the main room so I have to change the view of the room. It doesn't seem right to me, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist with these things so I may be overreacting.

Have a look:

Main Room:

New room:

The new room is just too small for the same view and you'll need to see the whole room for the small fight. This room will be basically copied a few times across the main room before the end of the level so you can explore the place to get used to everything.

Next is an instructions screen before I go any further so that if anyone wishes to test the game, they'll know how to play.

Moosche Out

One thing I forgot to mention in the previous post:

I have items that you have to collect in the game, not only to aid Gwyn in fighting the infections. But they will also be used as keys to get to the next room/area.

The first one is Heparin:

Since the infection for the first level is a blood clot, I looked at what doctors can give you for it, to tie in with the medication/ remedy theme. Heparin is a blood thinning treatment that allows the blood to flow better and not stick, forming a clot. 

This will help you break through into the next level . . .

Once you've gotten past Clot of course.

And also give you a small stat boost. But I'm still debating on which one. I'm either thinking Gwyn's speed stat or his damage stat. I would like to do it as shot frequency but I can't seem to code a fire delay on him now so I've left that stat out of the game. It's something I may come back to later on.

But there will be other items like this in the game to aid Gwyn in his journey. . .

But where they are . . . I'm not saying *evil grin*

Now to figure out how to program warp gates. Otherwise Gwyn will never be able to pick up items.

Moosche Out

Doors?! Who needs them?!

So last week I got all but two of my menu screens done!!

Now it was onto moving between rooms in the game. . . Harder than you would think!

I've got locked doors that open once all the enemies in the room have cleared. However, I'm yet to work on actually not spawning the enemies when you move back into it. But I may just be cruel and leave them in.

After all, you are fighting an infections that's spreading. . .

I've also altered the way in which the game is played so that the difficulty of each level is seen much more clearly (thanks to John). I won't be having a boss on the first floor, but he may be featured as a smaller mini boss that guards the objective of the level. The second level is still being debated on as I have a few ideas on it. And then the third level will be the giant boss battle that can take over numerous rooms.

Just need to get that transition between rooms fixed first.

So really, I've almost finished since everything else will be copy and paste with just a different sprite on it.

Oh, want to see some characters:

These are the first level characters; Gwyn, Blud and Clot. Once everything links up, the next set of enemies will be drawn and will replace Blud for that level.

Moosche Out



Things done:

• Main room
• Title screen
• Menu screen
• Game mover screen
• Blud fully coded
• Gwyn fully coded (and animated)
• Doors 3/4 coded
• Walls coded (Gwyn doesn't walk through them any more!)
• Blocks coded (these are instant death areas since Gwyn kept getting stuck)

The 1st level is almost done!!!!

It's been a while since I posted on here . . .

But . . .

My first level of my game is so close to finishing. All that is left is the Boss Room and then connect each room up. And I think it's looking pretty good. Plus, once most of this is done, I can just copy and paste most of the code and just change the sprites over to the next level enemies.

I altered the room layouts to not make it look like a re-paint of Binding of Isaac. The art style has stayed the same but that seems the be the only way I can draw well.

So the things I've finished fully are:

• Gwyn is fully coded
• First floor enemies are fully coded
• Title screen works
• Game Over Screen works
• Bullets shoot in the right directions
• Next level enemies are designed as sprites but not coded

I did panic a little earlier on in the week but I sped through a lot yesterday so I think I've caught up in time.

Moosche Out

Prototype is coming along!!!

I've been working on my prototype lately, which is why I haven't been posting here much.

I keep restarting it because I hate how it looks. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to detail so I had to get it perfectly right before I posted anything about it.

So here is the layout of the prototype room:-

Ignore the corners of the room, that'll be sorted once I have all the coding sorted. I fiddled enough with the background and walls, I gave up on the corners. He only walks around the room, but the walls work! He doesn't walk through them! But I now have a problem with him getting stuck on the blocks I've placed in the room. But if he floats/moonwalks, he can escape the top-right one. He gets completely stuck on the top-left one. So that needs to be sorted soon...

But the best thing is . . . GWYN MOVES!!!

Isn't he adorable?!

Moosche Out

It works? What?

Remember that trouble I had with the enemies firing bullets?

It now works perfectly

How? I will never know. I got a friend to have a look and he made the homing bullets fire infinitely so my game just became a mess and now it's fine.

So before I start my actual game, I'm hoping to get some sprites and rooms down so that I can make a prototype of it this weekend (in-between hosting open days). I don't have many sprites as of yet but here's a full portrait of Gwyn, the player character:

He's a white blood cell that the player controls and uses to fight off Infections in the human body. He can shoot bullets from his hands to damage enemies and bosses. He'll look almost exactly like this in game, just smaller. I have a few sprites done for him for not scanned into the computer as of yet. His design is based of Isaac (Binding of Isaac) since I found it a simple design that works well when animated. 

I also made out a 'floor' plan or map of the first level of the game. But that may be changed around a bit depending on the size room I'm allowed to make. None of it is in concrete just yet. 

The layout will probably stay the same or be very similar. Since you all now know what the first level looks like, I may change it to confuse you all when you play it. But the main things that are going to be hanged around are the enemies and the amount there are. I don't want to make the game too hard or too easy because of the amount of enemies in the rooms. 

But that's all I have for now. The programming will probably come in once I got the first room done so that I can start programming Gwyn into it to see if he works. 

Moosche Out

Confusion

I'm going through the last bit of the scrolling shooter tutorial so that I can get the enemies and the style of game ready for my own game. However, I'm a little confused about something in the tutorial and now the example game has messed up.

I got the rate of fire from one enemy done and dusted. Moved onto another and all of a sudden, the bullets don't fire from that new enemy and the one that I got, now shoots forever. I don't know how I managed it because it worked fine a few minutes ago and now it's all turned chaotic.

I've even tried YouTube tutorials to find out and I still can't work it out.

What s it with technology and refusing to work with me?!

Moosche Out

I suck at reading tutorials . . .

I think I need to re-read each sentence of the tutorials of Game Maker at least 6 times before attempting to program.

I just spent a good 10 minutes trying to work out why my game kept coming up with errors as I programmed the plane to shoot bullets. Luckily after re-reading over the tutorial, I found that I typed one line of coding wrong. ONE LINE! I'm starting to lose it with programming and my laptop almost ended up out my window.

I need to know that programming since my player character in my actual game shoots bullets. So I need this tutorial!

But thankfully, I have a concept of my main character and a concept of my game. I may have gone overboard on it though so I have to make sure that when I program it, I don't try anything too complicated. I think I just need to have someone who knows Game Maker Studio well to double check it.

Moosche Out

ITS ALIVE

Finally managed to get Game Maker Studio alive and kicking.

Thanks to the recent update, it crashed my Game Maker Studio. So after avoiding the updates, it works fine. A little slow in starting up but I'm hoping it'll last a while.

There's so many tutorials, I'm going to go through every one so I can get the best feel of Game Maker Studio.

So here's to hoping it stays alive and I can get through the tutorials quick enough

Moosche Out

One thing I did forget

I can use Game Maker 8.0!

So if Game Maker Studio eventually gives up completely, I can switch to that.

I've already tried out the tutorial game that Game Maker offers and I think I did alright with it:

Except the fruit move a little too fast for me to click on. But I am using a track pad instead of a proper mouse so that may contribute to how bad I am at my own game.

I didn't think it would be as simple as it is to program a small game. Especially when  I found out that Spelunky and Risk of Rain were made in Game Maker. Although they had way more time than I do so hopefully I can get an alright game within the next 6 or 7 weeks.

Moosche Out

A male gamer's worst nightmare . . .

Though probably not so much in this day and age. But to some probably (a.k.a whoever approves of GamerGate).

For those who don't know who I am. . . I'm Moosche formerly known as Jess. And this blog is mainly so that my university lecturer can keep track of my progress throughout my game making journey. Yes, I'm attempting to make a mini game.

As I slowly build the three levels of my game, I'll probably end up ranting on here about how my laptop has died or game maker doesn't like to work for me. And probably a few more other technical issues that I come across in the next 6 or 7 weeks.

Moving on to the type of game I'm hoping to make by the end of it, is inspired by a game called Binding of Isaac. It's my favourite game and what I love most about it is its re-play-ability. Everything in the game is randomly generated so every run is completely different every time a new run has started. It's something I want to put in my game because I feel that the players would get their money's worth out of it. I certainly have with Binding of Isaac as I have almost 200 hours on the game and I payed £1 for it at the time (it was in a sale).

Because of all that, I want to make a game similar to it. I haven't quite gotten down what I could make it different. I have a small idea, I just need to build on it first before I can see if it'll work. All I have at the moment is that I'm setting the game in the human body. It's a theme I've hardly seen around when it comes to small arcade games (from my own personal experience). So more research needs to be done before anything happens yet.

So . . . I'm using that time to familiarise myself with Game Maker Studio. But there's a huge problem in the fact that it WON'T START!!

Seriously! It worked once when I first installed it and now NOTHING! I'm going to uninstall and reinstall it tomorrow and hope that works.

See ya soon
Moosche Out