Red Wizard Island

[r0ber7]

With tile borders I assume you mean the single line gap in the second image? If so, fixed that.
Also added a blur. This whole thing eats cpu so if the wiz jumps + warp fps goes down. I think I can fix that by pre-calculating all the SINs and COSs.

Now with blur:

[Wampus]

Very nice indeed.

[r0ber7]

Hey,

As promised, I deliver unto you a new video of gameplay.
New in this video:

- caves
- locks and keys
- lighting
- powerup starry effects
- big viking ship
- blood spitting viking ghosts
- fireball upgrade
- black hole warp spell

The warp spell still needs some tweaking and optimizing. I actually had it looking a lot more  "warpy" before, but I lost that in a half-assed attempt at optimization. Slow framerate in the beginning and a few choppy frames later on is because of spiral calculations + video recording software being evil. Also the sound seems to be slightly out of sync, sorry.

Given time, I'll fix all of the above, but seeing how I promised to give you a new video this week (and I have to go to work soon), here it is.

[matchy]

Great dev blog and W.I. is looking fine. Keep it up! I'm curious to know how the music and sounds are produced.

[Hatonastick]

This is _really_ looking good.  I LOVE the warp effect.   Only thing I'd change with it is to add more sound effects to the warp.  Considering what it does, it should sound a little more epic.

Brilliant stuff! 

[Ruidesco]

Even if it needs more tweaking, the warp already looks great!
Poor vikings are being slaughtered left and right.

[r0ber7]

Thanks guys. Your comments are all much appreciated. Once I feel confident enough to share a test alpha, you'll be first on my list.

I refined the warp code this evening. It's more warpy now I think. Short video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BR-OMEQN6o&hd=1

Before, it was more like all stuff was getting pulled into one direction. Now I think it looks more as if the stuff gets swirled around before it disappears. May not look like a big difference but I just had to get it right damnit.
I also added pre-calculation for the x & y points of the (invisible) spirals that are used in the warp. Now it's no longer the cpu hogging beast it was before.

Great dev blog and W.I. is looking fine. Keep it up! I'm curious to know how the music and sounds are produced.

Thanks. The sound effects are made by me. I haven't paid much attention to them yet to be honest. Basically I download stuff from freesound.org and then edit it in Audacity.

As for the music, I spoke to the musician today. He and I sometimes jam together (I play a few instruments). I could have decided to make the music myself, but I figured he'd like it, and he has more experience in mixing and editing than I do. So anyway, we've set up a meeting on sunday. He told me he'd have some music ready by then, so if it sounds right I'll probably share it here. He also has acces to my "official" devlog, so it could be he posts it there before I share it.

[Wampus]

Oh those videos look fantastic. The triple fireball spell pwns.

[matchy]

Development video game plays are worth half a dozen of beers/colas.

Great dev blog and W.I. is looking fine. Keep it up! I'm curious to know how the music and sounds are produced.

Thanks. The sound effects are made by me. I haven't paid much attention to them yet to be honest. Basically I download stuff from freesound.org and then edit it in Audacity.

As for the music, I spoke to the musician today....
[/quote]

Sound effects are made how exactly? For example, I might use Fruity Loops in design time or SFXR in runtime.
I understand it's early but it's cool that you are instrumental in creating music also. I respect that you originally work on all media and it is cool. 

[r0ber7]

Sound effects are made how exactly?

I log in on www.freesound.org. I search for a sound I'd like, such as "bird howl". I download, open the .wav in Audacity audio editor. I add/ change pitch, reverb, echo, length, fadeout, etc. Sometimes I mix a few sounds together. I export .wav.



Today I:

- tweaked the fireballs a bit (there was a glitch where they'd move extra hard when the player moved).
- started on the viking world.




It's very likely that viking snowmen will make their way into the game. I also want to add snow slowly falling from the sky. Shouldn't be too hard. I've also thought of a really trippy powerup, but you'll hear more about that later. Will spend the rest of the evening improving the level editor. Cheers.

[r0ber7]

- further optimization of warp spell
- correction of glitch in landscape building
- worked on sfx a bit
- added code for ceilings (jumping through solid ground didn't feel right)
- received an e-mail that my website has exceeded the data limit 
- viking swordsmen now attack the player when he's near



Does anyone know if using the color option on POLYVECTOR with a value other than RGB(255,255,255) causes issues on some systems? Someone a few pages ago mentioned something along those lines. I've been thinking about using it, but I don't want to code something and run into problems later on.

[r0ber7]

Spent most of my time improving old code and working out the glitches resulting from the improvements.
Other than that, optimized the warp spell even further, improved the background graphics, and added another background layer. Before it looked like there was a flat world with some mountains in the back, now with this extra layer (and probably one more) I have parallax scrolling trees also, adding to the depth.

Background graphics still need a lot of work though, especially the mountains. I think I'll dedicate an entire day to pixeling mountains in the near future.

[r0ber7]

Added:

- sheep (friendly critters)
- wizard pushing animation
- background graphics, rocks, trees, and such

Fixed:

- glitch with rock pushing
- objects bounce off walls instead of through them

[r0ber7]

- automated parallax tree scrolling
- added another background layer
- pushing animation fully coded in
- received first music

We've decided not to share the music yet until the game has been more fully developed. Another idea has risen: a spell which makes spikes rise out of the ground. Using the same grid mechanic as the warp, the ground would rise up in spikes. First, while charging, the wiz would rise up rotating in the air. Then he comes down, making an impact on the ground and making spikes rise up. Think Matrix 3 endfight when they plummet to the ground. Boom. But before I implement that I'm making the background gfx a lot more pretty. 

[Ian Price]

There's a saying we use over at Retro Remakes all the time that applies right about now -

"Is it done yet?"