The Kranky Boy

OK I am back - Skyrim is dead to me.

2012-01-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

What an amazing game. Anyway I have finished it and will slowly start working on RiseOfBoreas again, to be honest what has stopped me from working on it is waiting for Unity 3.5. Right now it is in beta but has many features I need. Once it is out I will likely spend a couple of weeks tweaking it and implementing the new technologies into my game (built in pathfinding, new occlusion culling, new LOD system, etc..).

Also I have been working on a secret project with an artist friend of mine....shhhhhhh.

Skyrim.

2011-11-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

It is out tonight so I can safely say I will not be working on my game much over the next month!!

Even the preview make me want to quit my game, as it looks so amazing.

Tomb Of Meran - VERY early look

2011-10-29T22:52:00.002-06:00

Just showing off some ideas I am playing with for dungeon/tombs.

Oh and I know about the bug in the treasure generator ;)

New quick vid

2011-10-15T21:45:00.000-06:00

As per Wulfeous' suggestion I have lowered the players speed when in a dungeon (80%) and will likely tweak this further.

Here is a small video showing me kiting a skeleton into the blade trap!

Tomb of Meran

2011-10-15T00:14:00.000-06:00

First shots of the first tomb (there are three in the first area to explore).

Small vid of some lighting and the first death trap...

And a small look at some basic corridors with no dressing as of yet. I may have to turn the torch light intensity down a bit more as well....

More fleshed out environment

2011-10-04T21:28:00.000-06:00

Here are some more screenshots of my first outdoor area (a forested valley). I am tinkering with breaking from the norm and making the area VERY heavily organic and covered with growth. Might be hard to see, but that is the point.

I have not used any occlusion culling yet so framerate blows right now and I am still tinkering with detail distance (billboarding) on the grass/flowers/trees/bushes.

Anyway here we go:

Making Great Progress

2011-10-02T10:06:00.001-06:00

I have made some great progress over the past week or so. Here is what I have been doing:

-Fixed A LOT of bugs, too many to list really. Many of these were things I was aware of but did not have the time to fix. I went back from the start of the game right through to the two scenes I have and tried to clean almost everything up (see the one exception below).

-Started to add some voice clips for Boreas. Yes I use my girly voice, but I modify the pitch and some other parameters so it sounds a bit more heroic. I want the hero to narrate his story as it unfolds. This along with his journal should help engage the players and have them wanting to hear more of the story (fingers crossed).

-Tweaked the stealth system (and overall AI detection). Still struggling with balancing this a bit. Basically you need two different systems, one for indoor and one for outdoor - right now all I do is change the AI distances, the issue is that since right now AI and detection is based on distance (well sound detection anyways, visual detection uses ray casts obviously). Monsters in caves or dungeons are "hearing" the player through walls which is an issue. I guess what I could do is use a raycast at first and then use this for both detection systems, using large auditory penalties if the raycast fails. The only other thing I could do is limit the sound detection to a small radius indoor and make it much larger outdoor.

[EDIT] I implemented the raycast for sound as well (well I do it once and use the results for both audio and visual detection chances). See blog writing is productive!

-Re-creating the first outdoor scene (textures, grass, flowers, trees, rocks, etc..). I needed to pickup a new system for automating placement of these assets so I took the plunge and bought a terrain mapping, 3rd party editor add-in for Unity. It's pretty slick and brings normal maps to the terrain and allows me to auto add textures and details based on height/slope.

Here is a small shot of tree placement, no other details yet (bushes, rocks, etc..).WIP.

I have made SOME gui changes, namely the inventory screen has changes and looks much better. Here it is:

Finished some other small things, such as creating Runes for the new Shock spell I created. I am sure there are other things that I have forgotten.

So, one of the issues I have is that a new version of Unity is coming out and I don't want to work on some things until it does. For instance I started to fix up the GUI and then realized the new version has a new GUI system and since the current version's GUI system blows, I will wait until the new version comes out. Same for Occlusion Culling (I have not ran this against my scenes yet), the reason is that the new version changes the time to bake a scene from 10hrs to 5 min - no joke, you read that right. There is also a new particle engine, so I will not touch some of my spell effects until I see what people can do with it.

So I will be finishing up the creating of the first outdoor scene (named "Awakenings") and then fill it out (it has several tombs and dungeons in it that I need to flesh out). And then I can perhaps release a playable demo.

Stay Tuned!

Update

2011-09-22T21:04:00.000-06:00

So right now I am banging my head against the wall on area (scene) transitions and maintaining state. I feel like a complete noob and am definitely stumbling through this (code-wise). What I am doing is when the player leaves a scene I save the player, save the scenes state, load the next scene, load its last known state and then load the player as he existed in the last scene.

Sounds simply (and in a way it is), but there is a lot of things to trip over. Anyway I will keep you posted on how it goes.

I have also acquired a lot of new assets of late, including a new dungeon building set, a new cave building set, some dragons (oh yeah), and some other monsters and small props. So I am processing all these things as well.

Sorry again for the slow updates, I was sick for six weeks (yep) and in that time I played some games (Dead Island, Deus Ex HR and Dead Space 2 - all of which were quite good).

Back to the CODE!!!

Sorry I have been sick...

2011-08-18T19:36:00.001-06:00

Had a flu/cold for two weeks, so no real updates to talk of. I will be working on some GUI stuff (making it look shiny) soon and I will post an update when I have something.

New Spell Effects (and a new spell - Shock), and enemy selection indicator!

2011-07-30T20:44:00.003-06:00

New "On-Fire" effects for the fireball (Meteor Spell):

Shock spell which does light damage in an area around player and stuns enemies who fail a save:

new enemy indicator:

New root spell effect

2011-07-20T21:20:00.000-06:00

Small vid of it.

NOT DEAD!

2011-07-16T20:28:00.002-06:00

No I am not dead. Summer has simply sucked more of my time than I imagined. First off I have been playing soccer at least three times per week, which means the other nights I am covering for my wife so she can go out and enjoy the summer as well.

Secondly, I had a lot of games saved up from sales over Christmas (Steam). And since I have not had much time to work on the game I was playing those in small spurts instead.

So having said all that I am not going to say that I am now back and ready to code. This will not happen until late Sept.

There is one other thing was has stopped me from doing too much work - Unity3D (the engine I use) is releasing a new version shortly (and another one in early winter) that have features that could my game in several ways. I will do another post on that at a later date (once I know what they features are for sure in the releases).

However, tonight and when I do get to work on the game I will be re-vamping some spell effects as I just purchased some cool effects. I also think I need one more spell - an AOE (Area of effect) stun spell which casts fast but has a slow recast timer on it. I found when play testing that I could get surrounded and mobbed too easily, and I want spell tactics to play a part instead of just button-mashing-the-nuke-button. I enjoyed this as a necro in EQ1 (and a SK) where you could Fear-Kite several mobs at once, but it was a very hairy/scary thing to do and one mess up (mis-cast/fizzle or spell resist) and it could all go badly in a hurry (of course then you would feign death).

Break Over!

2011-06-07T20:04:00.000-06:00

I took a small break to play "The Witcher 2", but I am back working on the game now.

I enjoyed the game, however I think I enjoyed the first game more. First off the story for me is too epic and falls into the same trap as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. There is almost nothing personal in the storyline (other than a weak attempt to have you clear your name for a crime you did not commit, though almost no one believes you did it anyway). The rest of the plot has to do with Kingdoms vying for power, with some twists and intrigue thrown in for good measure. I will say that I usually hate dwarves (and elves for that matter) in fantasy games, they are overdone and boring, however, for some reason in the Witcher series they are interesting and cool. Most of the elves are terrorists and outlaws and that gives them an interesting edge. The dwarves are pretty stereotypical, however the dialog in the game for the dwarves is hilarious (the insults in particular).

Anyway back to my game (which now looks painfully awful after playing the beautiful Witcher 2). I have finished the first go of the Load/Save code and it's working for now, I will need to add to it and finish off at a later date, but for now it is in place in a rough state.

What I will be working on now is finishing off a small demo level (the caves I have mentioned about 200 times). SO stay tuned.

Not much progress.

2011-05-24T20:23:00.001-06:00

Still working on Load/Save code (almost done for now - will need to add more later). Just handling the enemies (player, treasure, secret doors, pickup items all done).

I did switch to using ULIB, what does this do for me?

Well I am back to saving binary files (and away from xml) which is a good thing and was always the end-goal. This is because ULIB gets around the limitation on serializing some Unity built in types such as Texture2D, Vector3, Quaternians, etc..)

Also, now I can get away from the "waypoint/checkpoint" system. However, having said that, the player cannot save during combat, spell casting, while dying, and while being underwater. The reason for this is a) I do not want the player saving at a point where death is imminent, and I don't want them saving when there are things on the screen that I cannot (or rather, will not) save, such as particle effects.

I hope this pans-out. But as it is in the early prototyping phase, I can modify as I see fit.

Anyway, back to it, I want to try and finish the rough code up tonight, so I can move onto much more exciting things.

Oh and yes I am still planning on releasing the demo caves level. No ETA right now.

Saving Grace

2011-05-17T20:23:00.000-06:00

Was pretty sick, the past week, but feeling better now.

I am now working on Loading and Saving the game state. This has turned into a much bigger issue than I thought it would (big surprise, right?), but why?

Well I was originally wondering if the best way would be to go with a normal save/load function where you can save at any time. I wanted to do this because I dislike checkpoint saving.

So this is the direction I set out, only to quickly run into what appears to be an insurmountable obstacle. Basically the Unity API I use, for the most part, cannot be serialized!! Even simple data types like Vector3 and Quaternion cannot be serialized, but even all the custom classes cannot be as well. So that means I could not use a binary reader/writer. Next I could try XML, but to save the entire state of a scene (level/zone) would be gruesome (large and slow). I did attempt to "just" save to XML only the things that could vary (enemies, player, etc..) but it still looked to be too complicated. For instance, though I could capture the "state" of the spells you have and when they can next be cast, etc.. if you have JUST cast a spell and the spell effects are still on screen, and then you quickly saved and re-loaded, they would disappear, which looked horrible.

So with little options left (and the thought that I am a hobbiest so screw the AAA correct answer), and hating standard save points, I decided to use something in between. So the player cannot "save" the game. Basically when he leaves the game or a scene the "state" of all objects that have a state (treasure chests, traps, secret walls/levers, loot, enemies) are saved.

I have not decided how many "old" game states to keep yet and how to properly manage them (need at least a backup in case a save gets corrupted). Right now I am using XML again for obvious reason (see above), but in this case I am saving a small amount of data. So far save/load times are under a second.

Any ideas/thoughts?

Couple more videos

2011-05-12T09:15:00.000-06:00

Partial walk-through of the caves area.

Part 1

Part 2

Yes they are dark, watch them full screen in 1080.

BORING!

2011-05-06T18:58:00.000-06:00

Just finished doing the following things:

-Optimizing AI (created LOD AI) and pathfinding a bit.
-Finished decorating the first cave area
-Finished the level up code!
-Added in the ability to backstab an enemy for 4x damage, you need to be unseen by the target.

Working on right now:

-Adding MANY MANY MANY more runes (they are the loot in the game that give bonuses to all skills, stats, and spells). This is the boring part as described in the title.
-GUI Revamp using a third party tool (Unity3D GUI blows and is a bad FPS hit).
-Make sure telekenesis spell works as designed (think it does but need to verify this).
-Add XP for stealthing through levels and not fighting - just figured a way to do this properly.

Working on Next:

-Create in depth informtaion windows for all stats, spells and skill in the character Gen and level up screens.
-Save/Load system - this one scares the crap out of me...

Coming Soon:

-Playable area (caves) as demo.
-Full length video of me playing through the caves area.

Video Night!

2011-04-29T23:10:00.001-06:00

Some vids of me messing around in my caves zone.

Enjoy, and make sure you watch them on the highest resolution.

Very small - Caverns screenshot.

2011-04-16T14:37:00.000-06:00

Update : The two weeks that past.

2011-04-14T18:59:00.000-06:00

What have I been working on you ask (all ten of you)? For those not in my facebook net I have been working on some spell tweaks, creating flocking behavior for butterflies, and created an algorithm for leaves falling and then implemented it. I basically created a master class (spawn controller) that handles groups of objects that need a behavior attached to them (leaves, birds, butterflies, rabbits, storks, etc..). It handles the behaviors and the lifecycle of those objects. Fun stuff.

One thing I missed when I was working on my battle tech demo was the fact that when monsters are on a slant (ramp say), the animations look horrible because they are using a capsule collider and don't have walk animations for this situation. Fortunately, Unity has an extension which adds in foot locomotion where the animation is modified on the fly (based on local space, Vector3.down raycasts) . So this "should" solve the issue, but I am not sure that a) all my models will be supported by the extension properly and b) that I can live with all those raycasts for all my active monsters. We will see.

I will post a video soon of what I have accomplished in the first bandit camp. There is also a cave behind the player's spawn point so maybe I will reveal some of that soon.

Anyway, back to it for me.

New Video

2011-03-29T21:49:00.000-06:00

I have created a small video that shows off (briefly) the intro to the game as it stands (WIP). Go to YouTube to view it and choose 1080i so you can actually see it.

Character Skill Buying Screenshot

2011-03-22T20:22:00.000-06:00

Here it is - still in beta, but about as good as my crappy skills will allow for:

March Update

2011-03-20T11:14:00.000-06:00

I have changed directions again (love being a hobbiest, I can do this at will!). I have finished working on my combat prototype and will leave it alone (unless I change direction again - no one can stop ME!!!) for now. I have moved all the code changes I made to the combat system, while doing the prototype, to the main game code base.

So at this point I feel more and more that if I keep "tweaking" my core game code, instead of actually building the game, then my interest will wain. So I have started at the top and have started to build the "game". Once small change I will be making is to change the name from "The rise of Boreas" to just "Boreas". Not sure this is a good move, but "The rise of Boreas" made is sound like he goes from zero to lord of all things, which he doesn't. Anyway, this might change again at any time - suggestions welcome.

[SIDEBAR] Did I mention that the "ally" spell is done and working? Basically if you see a room full of enemies, you can cast "Ally" on one and boom he is now in your faction group, let the carnage begin.[/SIDEBAR]

I have also been toying with the idea of a helper or companion entity which will follow you around. Nothing intelligent or interactive, but more of a magical archon, where you can choose ONE spell that it can cast, and it will cast it when appropriate. So you could choose the Restore spell and it would attempt to heal you automatically (mana and refresh timer permitting), or you could choose maelstrom and it would spam magic missiles when enemies are in range. This would take a few days to code properly (would need to add a passive mode option for it so it did not attack things when you are sneaking - hmm or maybe it would auto passive when you are in sneak mode only....).

So anyway right now I am starting at the beginning of the game and moving onwards from there. I have a REAL issue with making title, menu, character creation screens looks nice, as I mention every second post - I have no artistic abilities whatsoever. So please keep that in mind as I post updates (shortly).

Two new enemies....

2011-03-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

Introducing the new Demon and Reaper models that will be dropped into the final Dungeon Wars:

Demon

Reaper

And an action shot in the dungeon....

OMG it's been how long?

2011-03-02T18:53:00.001-07:00

Sorry for no updates. It was Christmas, then I was in Australia for a month, then I had catch up, then I had Borderlands, then I had D&D Online...

Fine I am lazy, I can live with that. Anyway I am back on track and working on things. To be honest what is killing me is the pathfinding, getting it correct in a dungeon setting is terribly sensitive,

Anyway - I will be updating more regularly again now *snicker*.

Demo is out!

2010-11-30T10:39:00.002-07:00

Sorry for the wait:

Here are the demo's

Windows

MAC_OS Intel

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, read the Intructions.txt file or you will be clueless on what to do (it's in the zip file).

Please note as I do not own an Apple computer I cannot test the Apple build.

Demo

2010-11-25T22:40:00.001-07:00

Playable demo coming soon - stay tuned.

Screenshots & Video

2010-11-23T21:15:00.002-07:00

It never fails. You decide to do a video and it is while recording it that a bug appears. So please ignore the dead monsters standing upright. I have fixed this already.

Please watch it on 1080i and fullscreen:

Video

Video2

Screens:

GAH - one month!

2010-11-16T21:50:00.002-07:00

Sorry about that - it's been one month since my last post. Lets see, what are my excuses:

1) Unite2010 - Yeah I was there in old Montreal. Ate too much. That killed a few days.
2) Fallout : New Vegas - Played this for almost 60hrs of my free time which equates to many nights.
3) Actually working on the game. Yeah I was working on the game (well the mini-game anyway). I just wasn't posted blog posts for some reason.

So where am I with Dungeon Wars (my mini game spin off from Rise of Boreas) ? Well in two words, it works. You can go from the main menu to the game itself. This has been an excellent exercise (spinning this mini-game off) because it has forced me to focus on combat only bugs - which have been way more prevalent that I thought possible.

I will try and get the first demo out. The problem with this is that for people that tried my "tech demo : Arena" for Rise of Boreas, there will be almost no difference in game play. I have just added many more typed of enemies and you can select the ones you wish to battle in the arena. It's a free for all, so enemies will combat one another so technically you can hide and wait until there are only a few enemies left.

Here is a video of battle with a top down view. Watch it on 1080i in full screen mode so you can see stuff.

Play Demo

Some screenshots of Dungeon Wars - Initial Setup

2010-10-15T16:40:00.002-06:00

Here are some WIP shots of the config screens. Right now I have a working prototype that moves you through config and into actual combat. I will creating a movie soon that shows it all.

Title Screen:

Character Generation

Map Selection:

Enemy Selection:

Obviously there is work to be done (I don't like the character generation screen at all - I am soooo uncreative artistically). But so far it works (you can play one map called Arena and it is very boring ).

New mini-game coming...

2010-09-19T23:05:00.002-06:00

It's a spin off from my Arena Demo. Basically I wanted to re-vamp combat a bit, so I thought what better way than to throw out a new mini-game. Something I could finish quickly where all the art assets and most of the code already existed.

The details are still being fleshed out, but I can tell you that the first run through of the "configuration" part of the game is done in an alpha/rough form. What does that mean? Well it means you can start the game, create your character, select your combat map (only one done so far), and then select the monsters you want to fight in the arena including their levels.

Stay tuned for more info VERY soon, including screenshots and videos....

Couple of things.

2010-09-04T21:46:00.002-06:00

So a couple of updates and ideas. First off an update. I had to slightly re-design the way runes are equiped. The issue arose, because initially I had it so that there were three armor rune slots, and any armor rune could go in there. Problem was, what if you have one rune with gives +2 protection and one that gives +3, do they stack? Or does the better one count? I didn't like this, so I broke the armor rune slots out into three different armor slot types. 1) General - so this is where you can add magical bonuses, 2) Resists - this is where a rune which gives energy resists goes, 3) Armor Type - this is a rune that changes the armor to a different type (Leather, Chain, etc..). I also broke the weapon slots out as well - 1) General - again for bonuses, speed bonus, etc.. 2) Special Damage - fire, elect, cold, etc.. 3) Max damage type - so an upper damage roll of 7, 8, 9, etc.. There are many other rune types, so the player will have to juggle them.

OK now for the idea. I am thinking of breaking part of the game out (combat) into a separate game - almost all the mechanics is already in place. I did an arena demo and to be honest I had a lot of fun play testing it. I will need to add the ability for the player to swing and hit, instead of the auto combat I use now, and I might have to add some new spells.

Basically there will be several maps, and the player can choose the number of combatants and which types. Right now I have a least a dozen, including a new Troll model. The player can then customize them a bit and then start the free-for-all.

Any thoughts? Any ideas? Anything you would like to see?

I am Runed!

2010-08-05T11:34:00.005-06:00

OK well the game has become RUNED, in that I have added them. Here are some screenshots of the new inventory screen and rune icons I have worked on - please no snickering, I am no artist.

Some Icons I created:

Some Equiped:

Mouse over tooltips on one:

New Armor/Weapon System

2010-07-31T19:28:00.002-06:00

I have started work on a new way to give the player magic items. As a one man team I simply do not have the resources to create hundreds of magic items for such a small indie game. So what I will do is have several base weapons in game, and these can have abilities associated with them, however they will also have rune slots. Each slot can hold one rune of power. For armor, the player will be wearing their father's old armor, so there will be no need to swap this out. I am also toying with the idea of letting the player have other "slots" such as ear, finger, neck, etc.. where a rune can go.

The runes will be split (so far) into three main groups, weapon (offensive) and armor (defensive), with some others going into either weapon or armor slots (maybe). So an example of a weapon slot might be a rune which gives a +1 to hit and to damage. An armor one might increase the players AC by 1, or allow him to "soak" some fire damage. An example from the third group might give the player +1 on stealth, or +1 on Fireball spell (+1 skill increase that is).

So far it's in the early design phase so I will update more here as it evolves. Please let me know what you think, and if you have any ideas (for better or worse), please please please, let me know!

Stuff

2010-07-05T20:04:00.002-06:00

Anyone who like emersive horror games, check out this: Amnesia

Also here is an interesting article about alternate game play elements to combat in RPG games: Non-Combat Gameplay: Myths & Reality

Still SLOOOOOOOWWW

2010-06-28T21:32:00.006-06:00

Soccer is still consuming my time - both playing and watching the world cup.

I did get the Beta of Unity3D early and have been playing with that. It is quite amazing and has increased my FPS considerable (2x to 3x). I will write a blog on this at another date.

It has also broken quite a bit of stuff, so I am cleaning all that up. Here are some new not-so-impressive screenshots...

SLOOOOOOOOW

2010-06-14T21:22:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of update. My kids and wife are suffering in the same way because of the WORLD CUP!! I know soccer is not big in North America, however I am a footie nut ball. I also play soccer a couple of times per week. So unfortunately, right now, updates will be slower.

More Screenshots....

2010-06-05T14:06:00.002-06:00

Yes still hard at work on the dungeon level. However be forewarned that the World Cup starts next Fri - and I will likely be a bit less productive during that time.

Remember to click on them for larger images...

Started work on first real dungeon

2010-05-30T15:09:00.005-06:00

As title states, I have started work on the first playable dungeon demo. Still a bit of a tech demo, I will release it as a stand-alone bin.

Here are some VERY early screenshots!

New Tech demo release

2010-05-23T20:12:00.003-06:00

Here is an update. Remember this is just a tech demo, not the game. It showcases combat, AI, and pathfinding. There is one annoying visual bug - when monsters are at the edge of melee distance they stutter as they alternate between melee attack and chasing the target.

OK here are the goods (video and binaries):

Video

MacOS
Win

Controls:
Q - toggle melee attack
T - toggle torch (put it away to hide)
Z - toggle sneaking (make sure your torch is away!)
1-6 - Cast a spell
WASD - move
Mouse - mouselook
LMB - select a target
MMB/ESC - clear all targets
TAB - cycle through targets
I - inventory/skills

Just an update

2010-05-17T22:35:00.002-06:00

Been a while so thought I would post an update.

Basically I have been spending my time tweaking the combat system and hunting/squashing bugs. It is always amazing to me, when I find a bug I always think - how the hell did I not notice that before!? For instance I obviously never played my own demo for long enough because I had a bug where I could only cast the same number of spells as I had total types in the players arsenal - six. Lame.

I have added some new content as well. I have added an on screen "roll", which shows what you rolled and if you hit or missed (and what you needed). I have added a lot of text feedback on the screen for combat and spell casting in particular ("Not enough mana." - for instance).

I added a couple of new spells - enchain (root) with a nice effect where chains grow from the ground and anchor the target for a time. I added Pestilence which is a DOT and movement slower similar to the Necro "Darkness" spell line from EQ1 (like clinging darkness). I am not happy with the visuals of this spells yet - looks lame, so will be working on this once I have nothing else to do.

I have also changed the AI so that when enemies are detected they "RUN" at targets, and only "WALK" when they are wandering passively.

That's it for now - will post some pics and maybe a video shortly.

New lighter video

2010-05-08T18:14:00.002-06:00

Had to add a new video - because it was too dark for some people.

It is here: New Video

Again please use 1080p and full screen to see anything.

Fear the Rogue

2010-05-06T13:27:00.004-06:00

OK here are two videos of the rogue enemy in action - sorry for the jerky camera work but I was paranoid that he was flanking me cloaked - which is his sexiest of moves.

Please please please watch them on HD setting or they will look horrible.

Video1
Video2

Very minor update - summer expectations

2010-05-03T18:27:00.003-06:00

With it being spring/summer you can expect less updates as I tend to play a lot of soccer. Don't worry I still work in the game all the time, but I just have 2 less nights per weeks to do so.

Right now I am just working on the rogue AI - his ability to hide/cloak is basically done and screenshots and videos will follow soon (within a week). I am just adding in some more AI actions for him such as evade, and modifying the cloak/hide ability visually so that the effect (alpha) is Lerped and not sudden (this mean he slowly appears/disappears instead of popping in and out of existence).

Anyway that's it for now, but again there will be some media soon showing off this shifty little fellow/class. After him I will likely create a ranged enemy class (Archer), as I had previously coded this, so it will just need some touch-ups.

Arena Demo - Phase II - Ready for download

2010-04-28T23:18:00.005-06:00

Added in this version:
-Spells (Meteor, Maelstrom, Restore)
-Sneaking (player only)

Keys:
Q - toggle melee attack
T - toggle torch (put it away to hide)
Z - toggle sneaking
1-3 - Cast a spell
WASD - move
Mouse - mouselook
LMB - select a target
MMB/ESC - clear all targets
TAB - cycle through targets
I - inventory/skills

webplayer
OSX Standalone
WINDOWS standalone

New Laptop - and OMG it ROCKS!!

2010-04-28T20:29:00.002-06:00

Have to brag - sorry. Its an Asus G73JH-A2, but the basics are it has 8 Cores, and 8 Gigs of Ram, and a 1Gb ATI 5870. Went from running my own game (in dev mode) at 20+ FPS on "Low graphics" mode to running at 80+ on Fantastic mode (everything maxed out).

I am almost done Phase II - just some cleanup. Any day now.

New videos of Arena - Phase II

2010-04-21T19:51:00.005-06:00

Still need to add in the Restore (heal) spell, but almost done...

Anyway here are some videos of gameplay. If you see me put out the torch and move slowly, I am sneaking (hiding) - you can see my hidden and noise indicators at the top of the screen.

Anyway here are the links - please watch them full screen on 720i resolution or they will look bad.

Video1

Video2

Video3

Video4

...Bicho...

2010-04-19T22:50:00.003-06:00

No it's not a Spanish swear. I have spent the past week hunting down some terribly well hidden bugs. I think I have rooted them all out (for now), they were all related to my spell system. Adding in a second spell (Maelstrom) brought them to the surface.

Now I am tweaking my agro system a bit (can you say "introducing more bugs"!!), since with all my play testing some things seem a bit off. Basically if I "hide" after being on an enemies agro list, it does not seem to be calculated correctly anymore.

The good news is that I am VERY close to releasing Phase II of the Arena demo. Once the agro system is fixed up a bit, I need to add in one more spell (Restore) and then fix a couple of other naggling little tid-bits. I give it a week....which means four =)

Oh and I will release some new visual treats soon.

So now what?

2010-04-11T21:26:00.002-06:00

OK so the stealth engine is done (well version one - I am sure there will be many tweaks as I go). So now what am I working on you ask ( all two of you)?

Spells. For some reason I hate doing spells, and I don't even have that many to do ( for this first game anyway). Since I created the new spell engine it is definitely not as bad as it would have been, but I still hate it. I think particle effects is one area that Unity could improve on - but until they do I have to make do.

For the next Arena demo I need to do the spells "Maelstrom" and "Restore".

Anyway I am writing this because I don't want to code - did I mention I hate creating spells...

Stealth

2010-04-06T21:29:00.014-06:00

Well, phase I of my stealth engine is done. So far it works pretty well, here is how:

Visibility:
-Visibility ranges from 1.0f (visible) to 0.0f (hidden).
-Depending on the light sources around you (and whether or not you have your torch out) will dictate the value.
-If you go into active stealth mode (movement is 1/3), you will be more invisible.
-Every level you gain, you can put points into stealth, this will decrease your visibility.

Sound
-The sound you make ranges from 1.0f (Noisy) to 0.0f (Silent).
-Depending on the terrain you are walking on (yes I check this), you will make more or less noise.
-If you go into active stealth mode (movement is 1/3), you will be quieter.
-Every level you gain, you can put points into stealth, this will decrease the noise you make when moving.
-Walking, increases sound produced, jumping is worse, melee is much worse, casting a spell is the worst.

Right now there are two indicators (one for sound one for visibility) - there is a numerical indicator which shows how silent and how visible you are at all times. The icons also get brighter as you become more visible/noisy.

When you come within "detecting" range of an enemy he will make a "detect" check against your combined stealth score. Certain monsters will be better than others at seeking you out.

Here is a short video of the scores being changed based on actions (using YouTube because you need to see the icons at top of screen) ...

Pay attention to icons at top of screen (watch it in 720p):
STEALTH VIDEO

Screenshots & Vids of the Arena Demo Phase II

2010-04-02T23:19:00.009-06:00

So I thought I would add some new screenshots to the blog. They aren't great as its hard to catch a spell caster in action. Here also is what I have accomplished in the past few weeks.

1) Finished the Wizard (spell caster) AI. I am not saying its done done, but for now I am happy with it.
2) Finished and polished the new spell casting manager class and verified it works for both the player and enemies.
3) Re-vamped the agro system so its a bit more natural.
4) Added in enemies line of sight and field of view. So what this means is an enemy only "sees" if an enemy is in range of vision AND is within the creatures field of view which is around 180 degrees in front.
5) Put in some basic code to detect the terrain type the player (and enemies) are walking on. This is for two reasons, so we can change the sound effects for foot falls, and also so we can use this info for sneaking (maybe).
6) Working on the light based part of sneaking - if we are in light, decrease sneak ability, etc..

I am sure there is more, but for now here are the screenshots.

The Barbarian about to eat the Skeleton Warlock's Fireball:

My Fireball in flight:

My Fireball exploding:

Warlock casting fireball:

What the hell have I been up to?

2010-03-15T20:08:00.003-06:00

Well I have been working on the game at the same pace as usual. I have continued work on phase 2 of the arena demo. Specifically I have re-written the spell system. I never liked how it worked previously, the code stunk. As it is now, I am happy with it. Just last night I got the first spell (cast by the player) to work correctly with the new system (by correctly I mean - bug free as far as I can tell).

The reason I chose now to redo the spell system was because now that the fighter AI is done I was to move on to the wizard AI, and this required spell casting. So now I am using a Spell Manager class to handle all spells. Previously I was using more of a messaging/event handling system and it just got too complicated and convoluted.

The new system is elegant and has less spaghetti code. Now the challenge is making the spells look decent. Sounds easy, but for some reason special effects are not my thing.

Anyone it is likely a few weeks away until I can release an update where spell casting is included. My next update will hopefully show off some spells.

Arena Demo - Phase 1

2010-03-05T20:19:00.009-07:00

OK so I have uploaded the MacOS & Win32 versions (see bottom of post).

Video:

OK before you load it up, read this:

This demo is phase 1. What this means is the following are in the demo:

-Three enemies + player in a free for all.
-Enemies will roam around and engage anyone they can see within their view range stat.
-Its a test of A* pathfinding and my basic AI system.
-So far all enemies are FIGHTER class, so no spells or sneaking. Those will be added in the next phases.
-Standard keys to move around - 'Q' to fight (must be within melee range). 'T' puts your torch away as its annoying.
-Use TAB to toggle select the next enemy, or left click.
-Once all enemies are dead you get the option of a respawn.
-Enemies are roaming around moving between seven waypoints at random, and then using a SEEK for any enemies on their agro list
-Enemies use an agro list to track enemies and will switch to the highest agro target.
-Full debug info on all enemies, their stats, their current targets, and their agro lists, this is kind of fun to watch while you hide.

Limitations:
-Its kind of boring right now - what is fun is watching the enemies duke it out.
-Sound effects are lame and the volumes are too high.
-There is no indication you are in combat, this needs to be improved on.
-No treasure on kills yet.
-No sneaking
-No spells

Next Phase (2):
-Will be adding in ability to sneak
-Will be adding in spell casting and spell caster enemies
-Will be adding more enemies
-Will be fixing all the issues in the "Limitations" sections above.
-Will add some cool effect to battle
-Will fix any reported bugs

Windows Version: WinOS

Mac Version: MacOS

Any issues/comments, email them to me at h2hjastermereel@shaw.ca.

Very close to releasing - Arena Test 1

2010-03-03T18:50:00.002-07:00

Just a couple more nights work, then I will be releasing the Arena Demo 1. This version of the demo will include just the fighter class. There are three enemies, currently, but easy to add additional ones, so not sure I will end up with just three.

All I have left to do is have them wander when they spawn.

Stay tuned.

Update: A* Pathfinding is done and in place.

2010-02-25T21:20:00.003-07:00

Small update folks. I have finished testing the A* pathfinding - for those of you who have not heard of this fine little algorithm - you don't want to. Its awesome for pathfinding and works well, but a bitch to implement properly and optimize!

Basically what it means is, if you go hide behind a wall, the enemy (assuming he knows where you went) will find you and not walk endlessly into the other side of the wall like that one guy at every late night party.

Right now I have split the AI into classes (basically warriors, rogues and casters) - they all inherit from the same base states but I break them down differently because they will behave quite differently (I hope). Warriors will seek and engage, rogues will try and hit you from distance, sneak and be invis, and casters will nuke and evade.

The first iteration of the Arena Demo will likely only test the warrior class. Candidates are : Ogre, Knight, Skeletal warrior, Viking, and knee biting chimp. OK the last one was a late scratch.

Anyway look for a video in next day or so showing the bad-ass seeking ogre. Ciao.

[Update] Managed to slide in the agro system. So monsters should start to fight one another in the arena. I am basing this on a sort of faction system which is tied to the monsters "type". So undead will fight animals who will fight humanoids, etc..

OK good night!

Arena - First Screenshots

2010-02-19T14:03:00.008-07:00

Very early work - not happy with it yet, but thought I would share. There are also two shots with one of the arena denizen's in them. Sorry there have not been more updates, but I was hit by a fun little side project I like to call "stomach flu FTW!" - yes, I was pwned for four days. I likely won't have another update until Monday/Tuesday of next week, so for now, enjoy!

The Arena and an Update

2010-02-12T19:12:00.004-07:00

Sorry there have been no updates of late. After putting out the small demo I took a week off. I played Mass Effect 2 and though it was OK. I now have the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Bioshock2 lined up. I will start programming again tomorrow.

My next big thing will be a free-for-all arena deathmatch scene where you will fight against three other opponents. This will enable me to polish the battle system, AI and spells. Should be fun, but will likely take me about 2 months.

On another note, for my birthday my little sister made me some more spell icons for the game, so look for them in the next release.

Its here!

2010-02-03T23:06:00.009-07:00

And....its done. Well there are loads of issues, but here it is anyway! 1. WIN_OS, and 2. MAC_OS. Remember its a small demo, not an alpha or beta build of anything. Its me playing around with design ideas.

Please, please, please, read the Readme file, you will be lost if you don't! Enjoy (or don't).

So damn close...

2010-02-02T19:04:00.003-07:00

Believe it or not I have not played Mass Effect2 since I posted last. I have been working on the small demo. And I am here to tell you that it is two days away! That's right I will be releasing the demo on Thursday February 4th, which just happens to be my birthday!

So grab your panties, hold your breath, pray to whatever you believe in, and get lost for two days!

Mass Effect2 will not break me!

2010-01-28T21:39:00.003-07:00

I am not writing this to say how awesome it is, or how over-hyped it is, etc. I am writing this to say that even though I have just downloaded the game, I WILL persevere and NOT play it every free moment I have (which is not that much with two small kids). I WILL keep going with my game so I can get a small playable demo out the door ASAP.

Good, got that off my chest. Though I do have to say the main female in the game is um..er..sexy as all hell.

Fine I will put a small update here. Yes I have been working hard on getten-er-done as some of my fellow Albertan's might say. All I have left to do is:

-AI (again its actually done, I just need to rig it up to the baddy!)
-Music?
-Some decorating of the joint.
-Atmospheric effects in the starting area.

Sounds like a lot but it is not. I have the item looting working again, so you can loot chests IF you find them. Visual armor updates are not there, but I am (as we speak or type or read or whatever) writing code to swap models in out for weapons when you equip them.

Ok back to Mass Effect2...I mean coding.

Update

2010-01-23T14:49:00.003-07:00

OK so I am well into the dungeon scene. Like I mentioned previously it is small so don't expect too much (put down your bells, flags, and fog horns). The things I have finished so far are:

-About half done decorating the joint.
-Added in a secret wall and all the logic needed to detect it (and open it of course).
-Added in a secret lever which disables a gas trap (which will damage you if you move through).
-Added an enemy. Right now he is idly standing by and does not react even if you kick him in the nads, I know because I tried.

Since this is the last scene to do, things are going well, but I am still a ways away. Why, you ask in a small pouting voice? Well because I have these things to do:

-Add in Hotbar with shortcuts (easy)
-Add AI to our bag of muscles with the axe.
-Add in spells (maybe one for the demo).
-Finish decorating the place. (easy)
-Add in music? Might skip this one for now. (easy)
-Add in a treasure chest for the secret room (easy).

So should be a week or so! Even I am getting excited and I have ran the damn game over and over and over...

Anyway here is another teaser screenshot!

Odin's nostrils that looks good!

Dungeon time!

2010-01-18T21:04:00.002-07:00

As I race to finish a small demo, its time to work on the small (think two rooms and a hall) dungeon I will showcase (to show off some combat and other stuffs). It will be small but there should be some cool screenshots from it as I progress. Here is a small - not so great - screenshot!

Skill based (behind the scenes) checks!

2010-01-14T21:30:00.002-07:00

I have been working hard towards the demo I plan on putting out soon. Even though I know in my dark little heart that I am not going to make the two week "promise" I made, I will still keep going. Anyway, tonight was all about skill checks. These are the ones you can make (well the game will make them behind the scenes and display information if you make it).

Strength - if you are say strong enough to tip something over you will be notified by an icon change and a screen message (icon is strong arm).
Intelligence - if your smart enough to know something you will be notified with an icon change and screen message (icon is brain).
Agility - you get the picture (icon is winged boot)!
Spot - if you have put enough points into this you will auto notice things that might not be obvious to the player (icon is eye).

Sometimes it might not be as you hover the mouse over an object, for instance if you move past a secret wall AND make your spot check the door will appear and a sound will be played, same for hidden levers, etc..

Anyway here is a screenshot of it in action!

Game Information

2010-01-12T19:38:00.002-07:00

So I was asked in the Unity forums for more info on my game and I realized I have likely not written enough here about that. So here is the post I made there:

"The game will be an RPG-Lite action puzzler. Now that is quite a mouthful, but basically it will have some RPG elements: Stats, levels, skills, spells (not too many) inventory system and rpg combat (RT) system. However the primary focus of the game is 1) Story - I know we hear this a lot, but seriously the game is about telling a story I have written. And 2) Thinking to solve puzzles. These will likely be of the variety: "Hmm how do I get out of this room?". Its Physics heavy in that you will need to manipulate the environment to solve many puzzles.

I am also planning right now to try and balance the "three" major "classes" (there are no classes, but the skills are basically in three main categories) of rogue (which means you would put points into stealth/spotting things), caster (put points into spells) or warrior (combat stats). Now I am hoping to balance the three and hoping you can use at least any 2 of the 3 at any given time to get past an obstacle.

For instance you might use a spell (telekinesis) to pull an item through a gate to you, OR have the strength to lift the gate OR have a high enough Spot skill to see a hidden lever (will be invis otherwise) which raises the gate. That sort of idea. I have about 80% of all the code behind me and am concentrating more and more on level design/building."

If you have any more questions (or ideas/advice) - please ask away!

Stay Tuned - First playable demo (not a beta) coming soon!

2010-01-10T18:59:00.002-07:00

This is not a beta. Its just a small demo of the starting area with some things working. It is likely a week or so out still, but wanted to throw the news out there for the three people who are following so stay tuned!

And here is the Diary/Journal in action

2010-01-08T10:15:00.003-07:00

Oh the adventure!

Boring I know. The diary dynamically organizes itself so that as I add entries they will automatically be formatted and displayed properly which is nice.

I am not using a quest system - to me they are dumb? Who ever rejects one? I usually run around accepting them knowing I need the XP. Most are not relevant to the central story, can you imagine wasting three hours of your time fetching some berries for someone when an enemy invasion in imminent? Stupid!

So basically I am using a "Past/Present/Future" diary. The past contains all the entries the main character has written in there from the age of eight up to when the game starts (roughly age eighteen). The present will display immediate goals (like I should get out of this pit!), the future will hint at long term or story driven goals needed to finish the game (I need to find out how I got here!?).

Added player torch and finished the journal (diary).

2010-01-08T09:55:00.004-07:00

To give you an idea of how much work a game is, I spent all last night working and all I completed was adding a torch to the player as well as the ability to use the "c" key to toggle between the main and an idle camera. As with all things in life, its all in the details - too much light, torch makes too much noise, its not in his hand properly, the flames looks dumb, the smoke is too far above the flames, etc...

Anyway here is a small vid of last nights work!

Lighting

2009-12-19T12:54:00.006-07:00

So I have been creating some torches that I can spread around the game world, and oh man are they ever system intensive. I created two (using real time soft shadows) and it brought my laptop to its knees. I will likely need to "bake" these shadows into the scene otherwise most systems will not be able to run the game. Anyway here is a run of the scene using my gaming machine, which has a modest 8800GTS (640mb) and a E6600 processor/2gb ram. It runs around 30fps (20 with fraps recording a video at the same time) - OUCH!

Update:

Wow OK - I should have looked at my prefab torch object more closely. It had a model (torch), a particle emitter (fire) a particle emitter (smoke), a light source (Point) and an audio source (fire crackle). What I did wrong was I forgot to uncheck the "Cast Shadow" and "Receive Shadows" options on both particle emitters. So basically I had the Light object throwing dynamic shadows on all the particles - egads! Now I am getting 45fps on my feeble laptop - much better! Another trick I will have to employ for outside environments is to increase the torchlight so I don't need as many in the scene at once.

Game Update

2009-12-16T19:16:00.007-07:00

OK, so kind of a strange title considering I have just started this blog, but it is an update nevertheless.

I was working on the players diary but got side tracked by a piece of code I found at www.pixelstudio.nl which shows a day/night cycle in Unity. I took the code and modified it for use in my game. Since I am using pixel lighting I had some issues with the in game lightmaps and lighting near the camera. The main issue is that the Unity is only really setup for one lightmap at a time. Sure you can swap them at runtime, but it is a bit of a hack. A hack that I am pleased to say works well. What I did is create (initially) two lightmaps, one for day and one for night. Then I methodically created 6 more lightmaps which simulate dawn/dusk. So what happens now is that I use a specific light map based on the position of the sun in the sky. It's still not perfect, and I am not sure it ever will be, but for now its the best I can do. If anyone has any ideas on this I would love to hear them.

Yes another blog about Dragon Age.

2009-12-16T16:50:00.004-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about Dragon Age in blogs and in the media - and most of the reviews are positive. Now I played the game all the way through and like everyone says, it is very polished, there are few flaws to be found. I know, you sense a "but" coming, yes there is one. The story was LAME, I mean what a total Lord of the Rings rip off. I would not say it ruined the game for me because I loved the game play, but come on. How many times do we have to unite the arrogant elves, stubborn dwarves and desperate humans from an evil "god" like being which has summoned swarms of evil creatures from the depths. How much did they spend on that game? They could not have a writer create something unique? I cannot imagine being on the approval committee when the lead writer brought that story to the table. I would have laughed and laughed, slapped him and then laughed some more. Terrible. OK back to working on my game (crap I better re-write the story).

Welcome to my blog

2009-12-16T16:34:00.004-07:00

This is the first in a series of blogs related not only to my game, but also to any other development projects I feel like talking about. Primarily, however I will be talking about my games progress. I have been working on the current incarnation seriously for about two months. Before that I was prototyping it using Unity3D, which is the game engine I am using to create it. For the record Unity is incredible. If you have never taken a serious look at it - you should. The "Indie" version is now free and contains almost all the functionality of the Pro edition (which I own).

The Kranky Boy

OK I am back - Skyrim is dead to me.

Skyrim.

Tomb Of Meran - VERY early look

New quick vid

Tomb of Meran

More fleshed out environment

Making Great Progress

Update

Sorry I have been sick...

New Spell Effects (and a new spell - Shock), and enemy selection indicator!

New root spell effect

NOT DEAD!

Break Over!

Not much progress.

Saving Grace

Couple more videos

BORING!

Just finished doing the following things:

Working on right now:

Working on Next:

Coming Soon:

Video Night!

Very small - Caverns screenshot.

Update : The two weeks that past.

More video goodness (or badness if you don't like them)...

New Video

Character Skill Buying Screenshot

March Update

Two new enemies....

OMG it's been how long?

Demo is out!

Demo

Screenshots & Video

GAH - one month!

Some screenshots of Dungeon Wars - Initial Setup

New mini-game coming...

Couple of things.

I am Runed!

New Armor/Weapon System

Stuff

Still SLOOOOOOOWWW

SLOOOOOOOOW

More Screenshots....

Started work on first real dungeon

New Tech demo release

Just an update

New lighter video

Fear the Rogue

Very minor update - summer expectations

Arena Demo - Phase II - Ready for download

New Laptop - and OMG it ROCKS!!

New videos of Arena - Phase II

...Bicho...

So now what?

Stealth

Screenshots & Vids of the Arena Demo Phase II

What the hell have I been up to?

Arena Demo - Phase 1

Very close to releasing - Arena Test 1

Update: A* Pathfinding is done and in place.

Arena - First Screenshots

The Arena and an Update

Its here!

So damn close...

Mass Effect2 will not break me!

Update

Dungeon time!

Skill based (behind the scenes) checks!

Game Information

Stay Tuned - First playable demo (not a beta) coming soon!

And here is the Diary/Journal in action

Added player torch and finished the journal (diary).

Lighting

Game Update

Yes another blog about Dragon Age.

Welcome to my blog