Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log. This week I was busy researching and testing explosion effects.

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

To get an idea how I should create stunning explosions I’ve investigated games like Gratuitous Space Battles or Crimzon Clover in motion. For this I ripped some of their gameplay videos from YouTube with UnPlug. IMO it’s hardly possible to research a game while you’re playing it. Therefore it’s better to investigate videos. YouTube is a game researcher’s best friend.

The most impressive fact about explosions and particle effects in general is that they are made from just a few sprites:

Check out the sprites in the top left corner. This masterpiece of smoke, fire, debris and glares was made from 6 simple sprites. The trick is the procedural arrangement of the graphics. Such an explosion would look great in Nordenfelt but it would also bring the game’s frame rate to its knees. Therefore it’s necessary to bake smaller explosions and reuse them as prefabs.

For this reason I’ve integrated animations into the particle engine. This new feature allows combining several smaller effects into a prerendered sprite sheet. The good news is that there are some good explosion sprite sheets available on the internet. Have a look at this free one from TurboSquid:

At the moment I’m testing a few explosion animations with some extra particles for debris, glares, shockwaves and smoke. I’m curious how these SFX will evolve.

That’s it for this week. As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. See you next week.

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log.

I can sum up this week’s accomplishments in a single word:

Nada!

Booting my new job, moving to another city and making a website for some extra money left no time for the game. Today was the first day I could work on Nordenfelt again. At the moment I’m integrating animations into the particle engine. The cool thing about a given engine/framework is that adding one more is a breeze. In most cases, the devil never sleeps.

I’m looking forward to show you some explosions next week.

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log.

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

Let’s see what happened since last Wednesday.

New Issue Tracker

I’ve decided to funnel all my todo lists into an online issue tracking system. The reasons are simple:

• having a centralized task repository,
• better progress transparency for you and
• no longer repeating myself.

The latter was the main trigger for setting up such a system. I got sick of repeating myself in discussions which features are planned and what is going to be improved. In future I will be able to just refer to the tracking system.

There are quite some tasks left to transfer. Nonetheless you can already check out the tracking system.

Beefing up Explosions

Shmup players are special effect junkies, that’s for sure.

I can’t remember how often I’ve heard “make more/better/larger/heftier explosions” from testers. No problem, it was on my list anyway. Currently I’m investigating bullet hell shmup videos for the most brutal demolition blasts. Wet-your-pants stuff!

That’s it folks.

As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. Many thanks to all the people who already bought the game. You’re awesome!

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log.

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

OK, enough calls to action. Let’s see what happened since last Wednesday.

Released 0.5.2

The draft version of level 2 and the revised ingame shop where installed in Nordenfelt’s new version 0.5.2. I’ve already showed you some screenshots from the second level last week. Here is a screenshot of the new shop:

It looks a little empty at the moment. That’s because there are just three pieces of equipment to buy yet. More will come along with gameplay refinement.

Your Project Can Die Any Day

This Monday I was happily working away when my virus scanner started its regular update. Suddenly it bleeped, showed me a virus and the fun started: the shortcuts on my desktop, in my quick launch bar and my programs started to disappear. Dozens of dialogs popped up, telling me that my harddisk is massively corrupted. As you can imagine I was shocked. What if this beast deletes my project files? I backup my Subversion repositories regularly but there are always some development files not included, e.g. large Gimp or Blender files.

Rebooting in Windows’ Safe Mode stopped my cold sweat. At least there was a way to access the machine without triggering the virus again. Two hours of forum search (on my dad’s prehistoric PC which loves to crash randomly) made it clear: it’s all right, just easily fixable malware. One hour later everything was repaired and I headed to the city for a new 2TB external backup storage. No more fiddling around with partial backups due to lack of disk space. From now on I’m backing up ALL DRIVES as they are. Making images would be an even better solution but I did not investigate image software yet.

To make a long story short:

A virus can kill your project IMMEDIATELY. When was YOUR last backup?

That’s it for this week.

As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. Many thanks to all the people who already bought the game. You’re awesome!

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log. There was much grey this week… You’ll understand when you see the screenshots.

But first:

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

Now, what changed since last time?

Drafting Level 2

Drafting, drafting, drafting – all day long. Here are some wordless screenshots:

Shop Improvement

Today I’ve started improving the ingame shop. Its current version has a rather clumsy function flow. E.g. buying and equipping a weapon needs three mouse clicks. That may not sound that much but it is. The optimal click count for any functionality IS … *drum roll*:

ZERO!

Brain-reading devices are not available by now so I have to aim for the suboptimal single click. Or worse.

Win Nordenfelt!

I have decided to make subscribing to Nordenfelt’s email newsletter more attractive. From now on subscribers can win access to the secret development forum each time a new version rolls out.

So, in case you haven’t done it yet:

Subscribe and Win Nordenfelt!

That’s it for this week.

As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. Many thanks to all the people who already bought the game. You’re awesome!

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log. One minor release was done, more to come.

You can support me, get your hands on the game’s regularly released versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt.

Released Version 0.5.1

Nordenfelt 0.5.1 was released last Friday. As promised I’ve tightened the release cycle. No more waiting months for the next release. From now on updates roll out every 2-3 weeks, right into the secret development forum. Therefore I can announce …

Upcoming Version 0.5.2

The next version comes up on the horizon. Its theme: level 2 conception.

Up to now I’ve made a stamp sketch of the new level and derived dummy background graphics. I’m a little handicapped by the blank canvas fear. It’s always hard to get started with a new level out of thin air. What should be in the background? Which enemies will be there? Formations? Play strategies? As long as these questions clutter your mind you won’t get anywhere. Don’t think, scribble – ideas will follow.

Always Peering at Sales Stats

It’s thrilling when you start selling your own product. Every day you jump out of the bed, log onto your sales account and check out the charts hoping for new customers. The sales curve does not leave the floor very often but some peaks happen. That’s no problem, I never had the illusion of becoming rich by preorders. Like developing the game PR has to be built up continuously. I’m curious if the upcoming press release will prove itself. We will see.

Website Tweaking

As done last week I continued website improvement. Aside the demo download buttons the About button gets clicked quite often. My conclusion:

People need a crisp explanation what your site is about.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to support me by preordering Nordenfelt or simply stay tuned by subscribing to Nordenfelt’s RSS feed or following me on Twitter at @black_golem. New insights every Wednesday.

See you next week.

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log.

Website Improvement

The Nordenfelt website got some important navigational buttons underneath the logo. It’s good advice to present the most important stuff above the fold.

Further on the page’s content was streamlined to a one-column layout. Now there’s no more distracting content beside the main message.

Google Analytics Code Struggle

Some days ago I became aware that Google now provides asynchronous tracking code. Thus I decided to update and improve all my website tracking. After installing the new code tests showed that event tracking (e.g. showing screenshots or clicking outbound links) is not as reliable as it seems. At one time it works, at another it doesn’t (testing the same link). Until now I could not find an answer for this on the net. Do you have a clue?

Squinting at Porting to Linux

Just out of curiosity I fired up Ubuntu and had a short look on porting Nordenfelt to Linux. The game was built with portability in mind so it should not be that hard to do it. The only problem is that I’m a Linux noob. It would take quite some time to port and test Nordenfelt on this platform. And finally there’s this fine excuse: Wine.

Version 0.5.1 is Coming Soon!

The next version is just around the corner and the corner’s imprint reads:

16th of September

Nordenfelt 0.5.1 will be preorder-only and will include the new equipment shop. Buying and improving your arsenal of weapons will be vital for scoring high.

That’s it for this week. Thanks to all the nice people who already decided to preorder Nordenfelt. You rock!

As ever feel free to subscribe to Nordenfelt’s RSS feed or follow me on Twitter at @black_golem. New insights every Wednesday.

Cheers,
Thomas