Omnimaga

Omnimaga => Discontinued => Our Projects => Blast Labs => Topic started by: leafy on September 07, 2012, 09:08:49 pm

Title: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 07, 2012, 09:08:49 pm
After getting that new calculator, I've finally started another project. This one's called Blastlabs, and it's an action platformer centered around killing people ^^. The levels are going to be "bite-sized," which means that they should each theoretically take less than 15 seconds to beat, but they'll be as difficult as I can make them and will probably take new players multiple tries :D I might also put in a plot if I have extra space, but don't count on it.

The first thing I've been working on is getting the tilemapper working, and I've also introduced something new in this project - a camera. As you can see in this screenshot, it doesn't snap directly to the player, but has a kind of "inertia" that makes it ease to the player position. Runer has forbade me from using Full, so what you see here is a really slow Normal program. Please guys, help me convince him to let me use Full :P

(http://i.imgur.com/tINRy.gif)

I'm also working on a title screen. I kinda like this one I made:

(http://i.imgur.com/BmF9W.png)

but at the same time, I would have preferred the Blastlabs logo to be centered.

So the way I'm going to deal with this project is to post frequent updates (or as frequent as my progress is) so you guys can see exactly what I'm working on at any point xD Hopefully, that should stop me from giving up so easily.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: parserp on September 07, 2012, 09:56:43 pm
lol me and LincolnB were just making bets about if you were ever going to post about this :P

But nonetheless, looks awesome! I love the new idea of being able to beat a level in 15 seconds or less. :D
Please guys, help me convince him to let me use Full :P
lol I think I agree with Runer :P
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 07, 2012, 10:04:02 pm
Nice!!! this project looks great +1
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Happybobjr on September 07, 2012, 10:58:53 pm
lol, agreed with runner :P

Looks good
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Hayleia on September 08, 2012, 01:48:18 am
Please guys, help me convince him to let me use Full :P
lol I think I agree with Runer :P
I agree with Runer too :P
But that camera thing is awesome looking *.*
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: V1mes on September 09, 2012, 07:23:59 am
If you want the logo to be in the centre you could do so and then have the menu in a circle around the nucleus; mebbe they could be the electrons :D

And great work on the camera btw!
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: shmibs on September 09, 2012, 12:15:40 pm
it's great to see you doing things again, leafy =D
and 15 is a must; leaving it at 6 for as long as possible is always a good idea, though, so you don't get lazy and end up making it slower than it could be :P
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Hayleia on September 09, 2012, 12:22:23 pm
If you want the logo to be in the centre you could do so and then have the menu in a circle around the nucleus; mebbe they could be the electrons :D
Great idea, the menu could be made like in TinyCraft :D
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/TCTiltle.gif)
That would look great and would be very fitting with the nucleus and all :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: V1mes on September 09, 2012, 01:26:41 pm
You know what, I actually had your menu in mind when i suggested that!
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: squidgetx on September 09, 2012, 06:04:33 pm
Gonna side with Runer on this one, unless something really epic gets busted out. (hint hint)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Deep Toaster on September 09, 2012, 06:10:06 pm
Please guys, help me convince him to let me use Full :P
lol I think I agree with Runer :P
Thank you Runer112! Can't wait to see how this turns out on my TI-83 Plus ;D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Builderboy on September 09, 2012, 06:29:07 pm
It really depends on what the final gameplay will look like.  If there are some super intensive things going on, 15mgz might be worth it.  We shall have to see :) Leafy could you give us a little bit more info on what the gameplay is actually going to consist of?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Ki1o on September 09, 2012, 08:11:34 pm
Hmm not really sure what my verdict would be. If you can make it 15mhz-type speed on 6mhz then go for it. This game looks like it could be exciting.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on September 09, 2012, 11:00:26 pm
FORGET ABOUT RUNER AND EVERYONE ELSE USE FULL 15MHZ IS THE FUTURE OF CALCULATORS

but really. Just use Full.

The menu looks good. The action centered around death is good. Tell me about gameplay, that's all I care about.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: parserp on September 09, 2012, 11:11:36 pm
Hm, I was thinking 15GHZ was the future of calculators, but whatever.

Also all caps are hard to read x.x
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Hayleia on September 10, 2012, 02:21:10 am
You know what, I actually had your menu in mind when i suggested that!
Lol, I'm popular jk :P

Also, I think a poll should be made about 6MHz or 15MHz ;)
But as Deep Thought said, that would be great if your game runs on a regular 83+ so every French people would vote for 6MHz :)

(If you really want 15 MHz, just code like a noob in 6MHz and give your code to Runer112 every 10 minutes so he optimizes. He will get lazy some time and tell you "use Full" :P)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: squidgetx on September 10, 2012, 12:49:22 pm
I like how this thread has turned into an argument about 15 vs 6 mhz. Personally, I think that 15mhz is OK in certain cases. I just don't think that it's a good practice to subsititute Full for inefficient coding =/ only when it is needed for high levels of calculation (complicated AI, 3D calculations, textures, raycasting, large amounts of particle physics, etc). Plus it opens the game to a wider platform!

Anyway, back on topic, we are all waiting for you to give us something awesome regardless of Full/Normal, leafy (no pressure of course, hahaha). But seriously, like Builder said, can we get more details on the game?

Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 10, 2012, 06:27:31 pm
This is looking cool so far! I hope the game will turn out awesome :P
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 10, 2012, 06:35:11 pm
Hey guys,

Like squidgetx said, let's not get this off on a discussion about 6MHz vs 15MHz. They both have their merits. I'll try and keep it 6MHz if possible, but I've got a lot of cool features planned for this game that might not be possible at that kind of speed. I've had a few discussions with Runer, and what I might end up doing is making two versions in the final release - one will run at 6MHz but have no greyscale (which saves a lot of time in shifting buffers and DispGraphr and whatnot - it might also not include a lot of special effects) and the other will have all the features but will run at 15MHz. I personally don't like it when games sacrifice quality just for the sake of a wider audience; I see this happening a lot with iPhone games these days, and I think it's right to not force games to run on devices that can't run them. That being said, Tegra-only games are a total ripoff >:)

This game is going to be a fast-paced action platformer - The max level size will be 32x32, but I'm aiming for around 25-30 for both width/height for each level. It'll feature arcade-style platforming (think walljumping and soforth). The player will get a shotgun near the beginning of the game, and the objective of each level will be to kill all the enemies and grab three optional intel briefcases. The briefcases will be located in difficult-to get to places and will unlock new levels. Once all the enemies are killed, the level ends (I've got a cool bullet time effect planned out for this :D ). You'll also get a rating based on the time it takes you to beat the level, but I'm still working that out.

As for tilemapping, I'm using full-byte RLE but I might switch to half-byte if I don't need the extra tiles and I need the extra space. I have some ideas on how to use dynamic tilemapping to load more tiles into a single tile, and I'm really trying to get this to look nice.

That being said, does anyone want to help me sprite a player character? :P I might end up using the sprite from Graviter if I don't come up with something else and theme the entire game around that instead :P
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Ki1o on September 10, 2012, 06:55:24 pm
Er no Graviter sprite plz... iirc that sprite was used in quite a few games...
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 10, 2012, 06:56:28 pm
Yeah, because it is such a awesome sprite ^^
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 10, 2012, 06:57:34 pm
No, I meant the one I used in the new Graviter, which if I'm correct, is totally original :P It's okay, because the awesome Deep Thought has sprited me some cool stuff :D I'll see what I can do with that! ^^
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 10, 2012, 06:58:28 pm
Ok, and don't forget to make the most awesome animations EVER XD
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on September 10, 2012, 08:05:31 pm
Any AI planned, or will all the hazards be static?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 11, 2012, 02:27:17 am
There won't be any real AI; however, that doesn't mean the hazards will be static either ^^

Check out this awesome sprite made by our very own Deep Thought!

(http://i.imgur.com/Cogct.gif)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 11, 2012, 03:22:28 am
This is looking really nice! Also diggin the new animated sprite. :)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Deep Toaster on September 11, 2012, 02:15:05 pm
Glad it turned out like that—I hadn't actually seen it animated at actual size XD

The hands look a bit weird though.

(I'm also wondering what a ninja is doing in a laboratory...)

The delayed camera is really nice, but it's really abrupt when it changes direction, which seems a bit odd to me since normally it's so smooth.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: shmibs on September 11, 2012, 04:20:24 pm
that does look pretty fantastic!
obviously, using a standing still sprite when he's not moving but the other thing i noticed was that his sprite doesn't change if he's against the wall and jumps up./me thinks that using a "jumping and facing towards the wall" sprite when he's moving upwards rather than down would look a little better.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Yeong on September 11, 2012, 06:52:21 pm
Do I spot the "wall scaling"? :D
EDIT: by wall scaling, I mean that the player "crawls" up the wall. Is it intentional or is it a glitch from wall jumping?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 11, 2012, 07:42:21 pm
it's looking awesome! :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on September 12, 2012, 06:34:21 am
Wow, that looks amazing! Well done on the sprites Deep Though!
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 13, 2012, 09:33:54 pm
So guys, I'm extending this question to you - what would you want to see? What kind of enemies do you like, what kinds of platforming techniques do you want to see programmed into this game?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Yeong on September 13, 2012, 09:37:31 pm
hanging from ledge would be nice to see. :)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: parserp on September 13, 2012, 09:40:28 pm
Different guns with cool effects added to them (like a bazooka kicks you back).
A system either based on picking up powerups in-game or a money system like in Zombie Gun would be nice to see.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 13, 2012, 10:58:39 pm
Alright, so after thinking about my game for a while, I've decided to take a different approach that will hopefully be a lot more epic. Instead of guns (which could break a lot of things with long range), I'll give the player a variety of melee attacks and just polish it to give it a nice platformer feel.

Ledge hanging is certainly a possibility, but I'm not sure what money could buy. Hats maybe?
/me runs
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: turiqwalrus on September 14, 2012, 09:10:03 am
Hats and skins would be the obvious options. otherwise, maybe add buyable 'special effects'(e.g. fireworks) at the end of a level or new tile sets.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 15, 2012, 08:36:15 pm
How about adding some magic? :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: parserp on September 16, 2012, 12:19:54 am
How about adding some magic? :D
I second this motion.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Deep Toaster on September 16, 2012, 01:07:19 pm
Ninjas don't have magic.

They have throwing stars though ;D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 16, 2012, 02:49:56 pm
Actually some ninjas have magic. I think magic or throwing stars could both be cool. Depends on the nature of the game though.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 16, 2012, 07:41:14 pm
Alright, magic it is. I'll see what I can do. I've spent a lot of time fine-tuning the player movement engine so that it feel natural. This involved adding a slight "stickiness" to the wallsliding, fixing walljumping, adding player inertia, and just all-around tweaking of values. I've also done quite a bit of optimization and taken out greyscale so that it'll run on all devices. Here's a quick screenie (everything's running at 6MHz):

(http://i.imgur.com/2S5Nr.gif)

I've attached the screenshot level so you can test out the movement and tell me what you don't like about it.

(I haven't put in the new sprites yet, I'll do that eventually :P )
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on September 16, 2012, 10:30:38 pm
It's got a nice look and feel. Can't wait to see some game elements.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 16, 2012, 11:50:06 pm
wow, now that is awesome! You got the player perfect IMO :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 18, 2012, 11:15:32 pm
Runer's helped me optimize the particle engine to perfection, and I've also gotten dynamic tilemapping working! I'll probably make some more detailed tilesets in the future, but I've just made a simple line tileset for now.

(http://i.imgur.com/vnQV1.gif)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 18, 2012, 11:16:31 pm
wow, this is awesome! I really like it, and wall jumping gives these cool dust pixels :D
I also like that the walls aren't solid now, so just borders :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Builderboy on September 18, 2012, 11:28:08 pm
Aww i liked the particle effects you posted on Cemetech better :[
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on September 18, 2012, 11:30:55 pm
Well, calc84maniac said they looked questionable (read: urine) so I changed them :P I think it still looks pretty decent, but if you want to make any arguments against it I'm all ears!
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Builderboy on September 18, 2012, 11:39:29 pm
Mmm I supose I could see that.  Either way though it looks great ^^
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on September 18, 2012, 11:42:11 pm
hahahaha the ceme screenie totally looks like urine.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: parserp on September 19, 2012, 12:55:56 am
O.O it totally does- makes you wonder what the real point of this game is x.x
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: nikitouzz on September 19, 2012, 12:30:57 pm
this is a really good project :) but you can have it with the code for particles? : p
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on September 19, 2012, 12:44:04 pm
hahahaha the ceme screenie totally looks like urine.
For the people who don't go on cemetech, share our laugh( >:D)
(http://i.imgur.com/7Jb0U.gif)
j/k Leafy
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: TheMachine02 on September 19, 2012, 01:09:59 pm
I don't see wath wrong...  ???

else great project !
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Sorunome on September 19, 2012, 11:28:06 pm
lol/me runs and lost
the new way looks more awesome IMO anyways :P
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2012, 10:51:33 pm
Lol I remember checking this and saw the urine part XD. By the way is that still being worked on? ???
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on October 21, 2012, 10:36:05 pm
Runer's helped me optimize the particle engine to perfection, and I've also gotten dynamic tilemapping working!

Dynamic tile mapping? Tell me more.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Hayleia on October 22, 2012, 02:47:38 am
Dynamic tile mapping? Tell me more.
He means that in the data, all the walls are represented by the same number, but on the screen, they are represented by different sprites according to their neighbours ;)
I made that too in Robbox and for some reason, it works perfectly for level 1 but not for level 2 ???
edit nvm, it was me being stupid, it works now
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on October 23, 2012, 10:23:47 pm
Hm, like what I saw in Portal X. Me gusta.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on October 23, 2012, 10:50:12 pm
Tag and Graviter used it too :D
As for Blastlabs, I'm thinking of turning it into something different. I'm not sure what yet, but I'm thinking about it :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: shmibs on October 24, 2012, 11:27:18 am
/me stabs leafy to actually finish something!
(though it's not like i'm much of a role model in that regard :P)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: chickendude on October 24, 2012, 01:45:49 pm
Leafy, how do you handle the dust/urine? It looks really cool but i have no idea how you could handle that.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on October 24, 2012, 02:47:38 pm
It's basically runer's super optimized code. It uses a particle system that emits with a random velocity in a range of values for x and y, then deletes those particles after a certain period of time.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: thepenguin77 on October 24, 2012, 02:54:48 pm
I'm going to assume I found a glitch. (Unless you want to use this to make really sneaky levels)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Builderboy on October 24, 2012, 03:27:11 pm
If that's not a glitch, it would seem the player has almost unlimited mobility in the game, which might make platforming difficult.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 24, 2012, 03:49:33 pm
Double jumping would be cool actually lol.

By the way I wonder if this engine could be used for a Metroid or Megaman clone?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on October 24, 2012, 04:02:00 pm
I fixed that, but I'm not sure I'll be using this engine anymore.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Builderboy on October 24, 2012, 04:16:57 pm
Ohh no why not? D:
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: shmibs on October 24, 2012, 05:48:42 pm
both megaman and metroid would  benefit more from cycles devoted to enemies and projectiles than to camera motion, and smooth cameras make precise "precision platforming" more difficult as well. we still really need a decent megaman for the 8x series, though, so that would be pretty fantastic
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: chickendude on October 25, 2012, 02:29:43 am
http://code.google.com/p/zmegaman/ ;)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: TIfanx1999 on October 25, 2012, 02:54:42 am
@Shmibs:I agree, and it may be comming sooner than you think. ;)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: chickendude on October 25, 2012, 09:55:38 am
It's basically runer's super optimized code. It uses a particle system that emits with a random velocity in a range of values for x and y, then deletes those particles after a certain period of time.
Ah cool, thanks. I guess it's not as complicated as i thought. I think it could be pretty cool for an explosion effect or something along those lines, too. At first it seemed like the particles were slowing down each frame. I really like it though :D

EDIT: And i'm sure it's been said before, but the running animation is amazing (just that you can't tell what it is when the player is stopped).
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: shmibs on October 25, 2012, 09:59:41 am
ooh, that looks fantastic! the sprites are a bit big, though. i know it's really hard to make decent looking 4*4's, with a 4-6*8 megaman, but on the nes he's a 10th of the screen's height, and even on the gameboy he's still only about 17%. here he's half, so boss battles would be basically impossible. oh, and the screen scrolls when he's in the centre (on the nes, at least; i've never played the gameboy version) which would also help with visibility for this one.

EDIT: not that i'm discouraging the game in any way; it looks fantastic =D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Yeong on October 25, 2012, 10:31:52 am
http://code.google.com/p/zmegaman/ ;)
Looks awesome. But do I see bullet wall-porting?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: contra-sh on October 25, 2012, 01:00:58 pm
The screenies are really really outdated :)
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 25, 2012, 04:42:00 pm
Wow from where is that? I wonder if the authors are members of any forums out there? It would be nice if it's still active if they kept us updated :D
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: LincolnB on October 26, 2012, 09:00:45 pm
Hey, if we want to talk about Mega Man, let's make a new thread. This thread is about Blastlabs.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 26, 2012, 11:33:10 pm
Quote
I wonder if the authors are members of any forums out there?

We are the authors (chickendude and me). Madskillz also help us a lot with nice graphicals stuff (bosses and other stuff).

Quote
It would be nice if it's still active if they kept us updated

Still very very active (12 commits for 7 days)
There's actually no topic about this game anywhere this was really a "secret project" in fact.

We could open a topic here but I will wait a bit before. If chickendude want to do that, he could :)


Ah ok thanks :). And yeah I agree with LincolnB
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: stevon8ter on December 09, 2012, 07:36:39 am
Hey leafy, are you still working/planning to work on Blast Labs?
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: Matrefeytontias on February 20, 2013, 06:05:55 am
Bump. Same as above.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: leafy on February 20, 2013, 10:03:21 am
Yes, I hope to eventually get back to this when I have time. Unfortunately, I may not have time until late March or early April.
Title: Re: Blastlabs [Axe]
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 11, 2013, 09:30:26 pm
What about May, June, July and August? :P