Bad news for Nordenfelt’s feature list: the adventure mode has been cut today.
At the moment I’m working on the final version of the first level. Extrapolation of the content creation effort made it obvious that the adventure mode would delay Nordenfelt 1.0 too much. I’m going to finish the game first and maybe add the adventure mode later. It depends on how well Nordenfelt will be received and if the adventure mode fits into the game at all.
You never know how your project comes out in the end.
This old photo gave me the inspiration for a weapon covering nearby enemies with huge electric discharges. It shows Nikola Tesla‘s magnifying transmitter generating millions of volts sizzling through the air. Man, that rocks!
The first prototype of the “Tesla weapon” has placeholder graphics but it should illustrate the intention:
This weapon has the advantage of spreading damage over a wide area. A drawback is the need for recharge. Destroyed enemies can drop charge items which have to be collected like weapon upgrades. So the weapon has to be used tactically to get the most out of it.
I hope to find the time polishing the graphics up to the procedural level I have in mind. Then Nordenfelt can provide some wowing moments.
First of all I want to thank everybody who provided feedback for Nordenfelt 0.4. The overall response was quite positive.
One important lesson I’ve learned from feedback so far is that tastes are different. This fact makes evaluating replies sometimes difficult. Finally it is important to have an own position and learn which opinions can and should be ignored. Otherwise there is little chance to get such a project done.
Anyway, thanks to all of you. I’m appreciating the effort you expended in testing my game. Thanks a lot!
Death of the Demo
Version 0.4 was an important milestone. It marked the end of the engine demo phase. Nearly a year of writing the engine was too long for my taste. This experience belongs to the category “if I only had known…”. In case of a sequel of Nordenfelt I’ll exploit this engine as much as I can. That should distribute last year’s effort over one more project. But that’s all still up in the air.
The next few months are dedicated to making the game itself. Thrilling times ahead.
Core Mechanics
After collecting and evaluating all 0.4 feedback from different sources I started designing the core mechanics for the game. By core I mean irrevocable features and rules. It’s quite hard to decide which of the many ideas should be set in stone. Finally it’s good advice to go with mechanics players are familiar with. Therefore I’ve fixed the following points:
Rank System
Many shoot ‘em ups have a rank systems. It can be imagined as some kind of automatic difficulty adjustment. For example when the player beefs his/her weapon up to a high level the enemies start to get angrier, faster and stronger. This way the player is kept challenged. Experienced players exploit the rank system by keeping their equipment levels low. There are many more aspects in the game which influence the rank system. Figuring out what affects the rank is essential for beating the game as well as the highscore.
Score Hunt
This should be self-explanatory: get the best score, on your machine or online.
Equipment Selection
There will be a few types of equipment like bombs or bots which can be used for strategical play. Each game level is different and therefore should be tackled with appropriate equipment.
Upgrading Equipment
Equipment can be upgraded throughout the levels. This makes your ship stronger but also affects the rank (speak difficulty). Only equipment mounted on your ship will be upgraded in levels. Therefore you have to choose wisely what to take with you in each level.
Version 0.4 is on the way. Only a few times left to go to sleep…
Yesterday I’ve added the initial score system, a simple accumulation of scores given by shot enemies. There are no lives anymore. You can replay each level as often as you want. You just have to pay with your score points. I’m wondering how this will effect gameplay in the future.
Today statistics found their way into the code. For the first impression I’ve implemented the enemy kill percentage which gets reported at the end of each level. Some people like perfect runs so the kill count will be their indicator.
There are several other additions like display options or drop shadows. Version 0.3 suffered from a bug in the particle engine which is fixed now. Nevertheless there are some other magic frame rate hiccups, e.g. coming from the input system (PeekMessage() stalls, very strange). Version 0.4 should give some answers if these problems are just on my machine or on yours to.
It’s time again to show what’s happening. Quite some new stuff found its way into Nordenfelt:
new second level,
new enemy types,
new background music and sounds,
new shield which recovers over time,
new particle effects,
health bar replaced with lives,
increased player ship speed and
many more improvements under the hood
Simply download the game, unzip it (e.g. with 7-zip) and start Nordenfelt.exe. As usual there is nothing to install and the game can be deleted any time without hassle.
Drop me a line what you think. I’m looking forward to your feedback.
Cheers,
Thomas
PS: This blog was abandoned for the last few weeks. Don’t worry, continue button already pressed.
I dismissed blogging because I vowed myself to not write anything before version 0.3 is out. That was in the last week of October. Time flies when you’re having fun! See you next post, very soon.
Nordenfelt 0.3 is coming and it will have a new level and new enemies.
The whole procedure of designing/modeling/texturing/rendering of level parts and enemies is sooo time consuming. These tasks are millstones around the neck in times of feature testing. Therefore I’ve entered “MS Paint mode” (again). Rule of thumb: graphics must be as simple as possible but have to represent the intention.
Second level, MS Paint graphics
The primitive shapes and gaudy colors may bring you eye cancer. But hey, they are functional! Improved test graphics won’t be as distinguishable and may be kept in the game forever for compromise. These ugly geometrics will never survive ’til final release. Critics would eat me alive!
The testing focus of version 0.3 lies on gameplay. Graphics will follow – in beta versions, starting before 2011 (hopefully).
I’ve just finished the basic version of the particle system preview in Nordenfelt. This new mode is for dev purposes only and just can show predefined particle effects. They can be altered in any external XML editor while the preview is running. A mouse click creates a particle effect at the cursor and a context menu allows to change the active particle system type and background color:
I wanted to keep this stuff as simple as possible. Visual feedback is imperative when you want to create particle systems that don’t suck. The shortest path here was to build the preview into the game. It’s primitive but it works – just like me.
The video was made with Screenr so its quality is rather bad. I don’t know if Screenr or my workstation has to be blamed. I just wanted to test this video recording service. Nevertheless, the choppy video should give you an idea what the preview mode is all about.
