the secret game project - the return

[gimbal]

even though I want one huge expandable game, I decided that it is still best to subdivide into smaller sections (or "levels"). The main outside world will be split into multiple large worlds to at least give you a sense of progress. Perhaps it will be possible to travel back to previous worlds to finish quests there, that will become clear once the development of the game starts.

Each world then has smaller sublevels, like caves, castles, etc. that you reach through the doorways you already know from the original game.

One idea that I was playing with is to include the concept of the "nemesis"; a large boss-like enemy that will hunt you and fight you throughout the game at random intervals. There will be a trick to killing him/it, which will of course be a secret of the game that you have to hunt for through clues you can get from NPCs. Could be fun

[TCD]

/Voice of reason mode on
Might be a good idea not to aim too high in the first place. I know that you want to consider every expandability before starting the actual game design, but so far it sounds complex enough already. You know that most ideas will come *after* people played it anyway
/Voice of reason mode off

MAKE IT FRIGGIN' HUGE! AND LOTSA STUFF! AND I WANT SHARKS WITH LASERS ON THEIR HEADS!!!
I like the quest idea, yet I think an experience system isn't really suited for the game. The 'Zelda' way should be enough Same goes for the 'annoying areas at the start which you need to come back later in the game with the right equipment' I love those

[gimbal]

'annoying areas at the start which you need to come back later in the game with the right equipment' I love those

Yes those will definitely be in there, including areas that you need special gear for that are already part of a secret you have to hunt down

Yeah I know, should keep it simple to keep the "failure rate" low. I can always make a sequel if the first one turns out good

[gimbal]

Okay, I think I've got the quest system nailed. It is not going to be very complex of course, but the way I'm going to do it is going to allow a lot of freedom. Basically it is like:

1. you have a quest, which has a "trigger" (for example, onenter a door, or onkill an enemy). A quest also has an ending goal (onkill enemy, onpickup item, onenter door, etc.). To illustrate: onenter door could easily also be the talking to an NPC or the finding of a boss, as they are only found behind doors.

2. quest are devided into sections, each section starting on a trigger like the quest (except the first one, which starts as soon as the quest starts)

3. a section can have text, which is displayed, optionally in subsequent blocks, when the section is triggered. You can imagine that onenter door, an NPC will talk to you.

4. the start / ending of a section can trigger any number of events. Event types are "kill enemy", "give item", "open door", "make visible/invisible object", "start quest", "progress quest", "end quest" and I'm sure I'll think of more when I start to actually build the game.

Because of the section and event system, you can string quests together. You could advance to the next section because you enter a door (optionally after finding the right key for it first!), or when you kill an enemy/boss, or when you pickup a specific item, etc.

From within the LevelBuilder editor you will be able to name items / doors / enemies / etc. so from within the quest scripts (which are going to be simple text files in a specific format) you can refer to them. Also from within the editor you can create a reference between two objects, for example a key and a door. The game can then use this to know when you have the proper key for a door.

Working hard! Currently polishing off the last bits I need to make the editor work for the game.

[gimbal]

One thing that I do need some assistance with is the sounds; I have tried to turn the music off in the game but I found no way, so my question is threefold:

1) is there some other way to turn off the music tracks, using WinUAE for example?
2) if not, is there perhaps another wonderboy game with more suitable sounds that I could rip?
3) Or perhaps you know of sounds in a completely different game / set of games that you would find more suitable?

Please let me know!

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

1) is there some other way to turn off the music tracks, using WinUAE for example?

If you enable the 'Sample ripper' on the output panel, each sound played will be saved to a wav file. They are saved to the WinUAE exe folder by default. That should do the trick

[gimbal]

... winuae is more awesome than I thought :s

But if you know about replacement sounds (or music!) that fit better, the request is still open

[gimbal]

for the people that care: I've been working hard on the game, but currently I'm in the boring code part that doesn't display anything. Data loading, setup, tools, etc. For proof that I'm actually doing something with the game, check out the latest tutorial of my LevelBuilder editor (which will get a new alpha pretty soon, the well of bugs and mistakes is running dry).

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gimbal/project...tutorial3.html

Grrr, I want to get to the fun part

[gimbal]

making good progress on the first iteration, which will include title screen, menu and will allow you to run around in a test level. The trouble with this first iteration is that I really need to get all the boiler plate stuff done before it can do anything. Currently I'm working on being able to handle moving and animating entities in the game world.

I'm having major trouble getting the sound assets though; the Winuae sample ripper does not love me, producing wonky wav files that do not play properly, and when they do play there is a very audible crackling noise.

Next to that my favorite stream source recorder (Smart Recorder in the creative Audigy suite) now just crashes upon starting, even after reinstalling everything... I'll probably have to reinstall Windoze again to get that working, so I'll try my luck with the Winuae sound output recorder.

In any case I put the basic project page up, which is frightfully bare at the moment for reasons I already mentioned. Expect screenshots ASAP.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gimbal/projects/wonderboy.htm

[gimbal]

Alright, some late night tinkering and I'm showing the first work in progress screenshots. The fact that you see these means that I am already far into development and I'm now ready to start implementing actual game features. Be warned though, I am posting full size screenshots here



Here you see the main menu, which is new but should look slightly familiar. I butchered the credits screen There actually already is a working and animating title screen before this, but it is not interesting enough to make a screenshot of.

Check out the interface also; it is the same as the original game, but this one stretches! All elements will stick to their respective corner. Right now I'm limiting to a 1024*768 window, but I want fullscreen support that will stretch to your entire screen, enlarging the viewport area of the game. Although there are now only 6 pickup item slots, there is now plenty of space for a lot more...

Even though the game is not going to have a clock, the area for the sand clock is still there as some events will be timed...



Here we see a test level in LevelBuilder...



And here you see that same level loaded in the game. Not much going on yet, but I'm working on it. The black border around the level is only there because the level is actually smaller than the viewport, the real levels will always be bigger. This was one of the development tests to make the game space everything properly, the next test will be movement and scrolling!


Keep y'all posted, now it starts to get interesting

[gimbal]

just in case somebody is interested, I'm still working on this (with some guidance from mister JOTD himself, it is amazing how many mistakes I was making!). I finally seem to have nailed the collision detection, what a chore it was! I never had to deal with a bob (animating object) that has animations with vastly different widths before, it gives some specific hurdles to overcome.

The fact that I was having end-of-year-exhaustion (the kind where you don't want to work anymore) didn't help Good thing I had some vacation time, now I'm all rested up.

As said, with the help of JOTD to kick me in the right direction, the "game" is now moving as smoothly as his (into the) wonderful Gods remake does. Now let me work on the level scrolling and I'll almost have a first demo ready...

[TCD]

Good to hear that Looking forward to play the first demo gimby Keep it up (oh and thanks to JOTD too of course )

[gimbal]

The game already supports information and shop screens. This is the screen I use to transform the player into the armored wonderboy. The game knows a simple scripting system which also controls the screens; here is the script as it controls the info screen:

type: info
name: info1
shopkeeper: shopkeeper5
infotext: Hello brave hero!^
This is just an example text, I'm sure the final game will have something very interesting to tell.^
In the mean time, take this sword and armor and begone.
giveitem: swordpickup[gradius]
giveitem: armorpickup[light]

I am lazy so this is as simple as possible, in plain text. So if you want to give yourself the highest available items right from the start, you can easily hack this file

Similarly, this would be a shop:

type: shop
name: shop1
shopkeeper: shopkeeper2
shopitem1: bombpickup
shopitem2: fireballpickup
shopitem1text1: Purchased bombs!
shopitem1text2: Purchased fireballs!
shopitem2text1: Purchased bombs again!
shopitem2text2: Purchased fireballs again!

Just for reference: in the level editor I would assign the name "shop1" to the matching property of the door, and then the game puts it all together. Lazy = good.

[gimbal]

Working towards the first demo now, so I'm implementing some eye candy features way too soon. Its quite cool really;

- implemented scrolling (but still need to track down a very rare hiccup glitch. Nothing serious)

- implemented going from one "level" (world section) to another. If the levels are wired properly, you can revisit any section you want. It is not going to be the "left to right" deal that the original game was.

- the first enemies have entered into the game, although they don't do much yet. Need some fodder to test out attacking and getting hurt, so the stationary red snake is my bitch right now...

- implemented the first parts of the more capable (yet still simple) scripting system, and hooking parts of the game into it. For example a script can now spawn/remove enemies, delay for a specific amount of milliseconds, display text and change the...

- weather system! That's right, the game supports different weather circumstances. I already got one working and it looks pretty cool, if I say so myself. Expect rain and thunder in future versions, perhaps even mist... I get ahead of myself.

The deal is that the demo is going to be the first part of the real game, which is an interactive introduction sequence (did I mention that I want the game to have an actual story?). I want to get it far enough to have something that actually works and looks like a game, to get the rusty playtesting urges flowing in some of you deadbeats...

Wait, did I say that out loud? I meant to say fine gentlemen!