Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Rika and Nitori's Garage Experiments => Topic started by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 11, 2010, 04:55:59 AM

Title: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 11, 2010, 04:55:59 AM
NOTE: I don't know where original non-touhou games that are being developed by people in the community are supposed to go, so I'm sticking it here. Move if necessary.

So I'm trying to do a shoot-em-up for my first game. My "goal game" is a game that is like mixing concepts from Kingdom Hearts and Crescent Pale Mist (well, that's not the greatest description but the system description took 4 or 5 pages alone, and the story... we'd be here forever :V) but that's not what I'm writing about. I might get motiviated to type it up -- again -- later.

A shoot-em-up with a water-based system. Sounds odd? Yeah, because it is. I actually got the idea from F-Zero some how (don't ask, i can't tell you how either :P) and it's not 100% finished yet. Your character relies on water some how - water magic, water-powered tech, whatever.

You have a water tank meter. As long as it's above 50% you shoot at the Touhou 10 equivalent of power level 5, which is your max power level. From there, your attack power decreases by 1 for every 10% of the guage you lose. (I'm thinking about making this gradual, instead of 10% for every power level, or maybe even making it vary by character/shot type or something. However, this works for now.) Being in focus mode makes your attacks more powerful, but drains the meter faster. Different shot types have different water usage needs. Finally, you can shoot without using your options by tapping the shot button instead of holding it. This uses no meter. Also, it'll probably be configurable between hold and two-button modes.

I wanted to do something interesting for the bombing system. That's the reason that water is used: however your character uses the water produces steam. This steam is reserved in a separate tank. As the water is used, depending on the shot type, the steam meter fills up a certain amount. Also depending on the shot type, a certain amount of steam is used to activate a bomb or deathbomb. Using a bomb pumps the steam into one of your options and overheats it, causing it to do something amazing for a short period of time, and become unusable for a short period of time afterwards, decreasing your max power level. If I decide that the focus bomb is different, it may also dip into the water tank to provide more power, but this will also deactivate the option for a longer period of time. I'm also thinking about making dying add some steam to the tank and remove some from the water tank.

Filling the water meter can be done in a couple of ways. First, in preset areas of each stage, a stream falls. Fly through the stream to fill up your water. Staying in a stream constantly will get you points, but restrict you from moving on either the X or Y axis depending on where its coming from. You can think of them like the recharge strips in F-Zero games.

Certain bullets, when grazed, refil the meter a little bit. And other bullets can be collected. Due to collectable bullets, otherwise impossible patterns can be dodged through (think Ikaruga, but only with one color).

Some enemies can drop their own tanks and you can collect them to refil your own. The less of the water they use the more you get to keep for yourself.

Depending on the area, not all of these will be (or can be) used.

I'm debating a Mega Man-style game flow where you start with an intro stage, get to pick the order of the next 6 stages with the obligatory crisis stage in the middle of the game, and the final area. You'd get different options from each boss.

The game would save after each stage (if you tell it to) and offer to save a replay. Whether or not the Mega Man-style select thing is implimented, saving between stages, continuing later, starting a new game if desired, and a mode without saving or stage select for score ranking and replay saving will be.

So, what do you think? I'm open for suggestions (especially on whether the Mega Man thing is a good idea; I've been wanting to see a shoot-em-up do it for a long time but I don't know if I should just save that for another project).
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: Stuffman on January 11, 2010, 05:03:26 AM
This sounds rad.

Most of the water collection methods you mentioned sound like they'd be primarily geared towards stages though, would bosses have different gimmicks to let you refill?

Also once you've got something playable to show we'd be glad to see it over in the Garage, non-touhou danmaku games are welcome in there.
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 11, 2010, 05:06:43 AM
Wow, that was fast, a reply already ;P
Bosses would usually have collectable/grazable bullets and maybe destroyable options that could help you out. But don't rely on them too much... Water sources tend to dry out after a while. ;)
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: Edible on January 11, 2010, 03:00:28 PM
Quote from: Stuffman on January 11, 2010, 05:03:26 AM
Also once you've got something playable to show we'd be glad to see it over in the Garage, non-touhou danmaku games are welcome in there.

*cough*  :yukkuri:
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 12, 2010, 05:33:42 PM
This board doesn't seem to be as active as the others... a shame, I was really hoping for some feedback and ideas.
Pretty much, I need to decide:
1) Should deathbombing incur a penalty, like in IN, or not?
2) One of my other friends recommends the Mega-Man style stage select and getting shot types from bosses mechanic. I'm leaning towards it too. I would like some thoughts on that.
3) Would a different bomb for focus mode attacks be a good idea?

Aside from that, I've been making some progress. I haven't been doing much programming, but the logic is coming along well. Parts of the game engine are being recoded completely, which sux because I haven't even hit version 0 yet <_<

My goals for this project is to learn scripting, game programming logic, and, of course, to make a fun game. I seem to be succeeding in all but the last one so far.

I'm moving more stuff to scripts by recommendation of seasoned programmers, requiring sweeping changes to the code (which, honestly, was pretty crappy anyway). I was originally just going to go straight C++ but every postmortem I read was pretty much either "Man I wish we used scripting" or "Man I'm glad we used scripting." So I did. It's slowed this first part of my work down immensely (months...) but I feel that it'll be worth it.

Tools:
Eclipse IDE (http://www.eclipse.org/) - everything in the same place. It's pretty much a free copy of Visual Studio but with crappier intellisense popups (but the actual error detection seems better IMO).
C++: main program's language, mostly for creating the executable and intensive calculations
AngelScript (http://www.angelcode.com/angelscript/): scripting language. It's pretty sweet, and I was going to recommend that Nuclear Cookie check it out for his scripting language in MnD but he's got something going already.
Notepad: for taking notes. I have a million little text files floating around with old logic and game concepts in the program directory :P

I'll try to keep you up to date when I do something worth mentioning. Which, unless you're a programmer, I haven't. Especially considering that this thing doesn't compile - and won't compile for a while - because of the ridiculous dependencies of my modules to all of the other modules <_< (I really should've tried to do one at a time instead of 6 :V)
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: ChaoStar on January 12, 2010, 06:16:47 PM
Quote from: sonicbhoc on January 12, 2010, 05:33:42 PM
This board doesn't seem to be as active as the others... a shame, I was really hoping for some feedback and ideas.
Pretty much, I need to decide:
1) Should deathbombing incur a penalty, like in IN, or not?
2) One of my other friends recommends the Mega-Man style stage select and getting shot types from bosses mechanic. I'm leaning towards it too. I would like some thoughts on that.
3) Would a different bomb for focus mode attacks be a good idea?

...My goals for this project is to learn scripting, game programming logic, and, of course, to make a fun game. I seem to be succeeding in all but the last one so far..
1) good luck making that. And it's really up to you.
2)Good luck doing that. That sounds pretty hard to do. Players and Stages are seperate.
3)Obviously. It's basically a standard.

Welcome to the land of Coding! You shall never sleep well again. ^__^

Anyway, nice to have you with us! Welcome to Rika's Garage~
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 12, 2010, 06:32:55 PM
Quote from: Houraisan Kaguya on January 12, 2010, 06:16:47 PM
Welcome to the land of Coding! You shall never sleep well again. ^__^

Tell me about it. :P
I'm getting to work right now. As for stages and players being separate, that should not (key words being "should not") be too much of a problem the way I want to put the engine together.
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: Nat Tea on January 12, 2010, 11:38:28 PM
Remember me, sonicbhoc?~

Anyways! Your idea is nice and lovely. I do enjoy the sound of it.

However! I would like you to take this game (http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/04/vacant-ark.html) for a spin.

Off of that, you can expand and specify on what qualities you prefer and those you do not!

Nonetheless! I will be happy to provide you with help.

You could do a pseudo stage select like Radiant Silvergun where you can pick which three stages you do first. Maybe you can pick stages by above/bottom selections like in G-Darius! Just some suggestions.
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 13, 2010, 12:52:26 AM
I remember that game. Good times. <3

It's nothing like what I'm making though.

...Crap, now I have another distraction to worry about :P

Thanks for that. It may just prove to inspire me somehow later.
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: RuneDevros on January 13, 2010, 01:46:44 AM
Welcome to the neighborhood.

Your idea kind of reminded me of Super Mario Sunshine. It certainly sounds interesting.

We use Python next door in our project so I can't give you any feedback on C++ level programming. Eclipse + Pydev is my IDE which I've found to be very useful. Code completion + error checking on the fly are godsends.

Regarding a scripting language. I've never really heard of the one you posted. I have heard a large amount of scripting stuff attached to a C++ engine is either written in Lua or Python. You might be able to find more resources and support for those languages since they are more popular.

Let me refer you to this gem of a book first: The Art of Game Design (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263347043&sr=8-1). It is an excellent introduction to designing games that I just finished reading and was highly enlightening. It'll discuss everything from gameplay mechanics to art and story design.

Good luck!
Title: Re: So, I'm making this game...
Post by: SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER on January 13, 2010, 02:09:33 AM
My budget is currently -800 dollars. I need a new computer badly <_<
The book I'm working with is XNA Game Programming 3.0 Unleashed. It might be a book for C# and XNA but all I'm out for is the logic, not the code, and the author seems to do a decent job with that. Could be better, but I bought it for a course at school so I use what I have.
Most of my logic is coming from my own head, though. It's gonna take a lot longer to do it this way than to consult an expert, but it's free :P (and it's great a exercise for me as a programmer).

One of my friends recommended angelscript to me because of its high compatibility with C++ - most of the data types are immediately interchangeable. The library is C++ based, not C based (although it has wrappers for C). It seems to be pretty efficient, and its being actively developed.

I used python before, and I loved it. But I don't know why I'm so drawn to C++; I think its just the level of control I can have over the program. I love the concept of pointers and probably won't part from it until you pry it from my cold, dead hands. :P

And... I never thought of comparing my idea to Super Mario Sunshine. But it does share some similarities, now that I think about it...

EDIT:
FIFTY MILLION COMPILER ERRORS   :toot:

EDIT 2:
Fixed! But now Boost is complaining because apparently it was built wrong <_<

EDIT 3:
Fixed! Now it compiles! ...I can't wait to see how my script engine bombs out :V
I would get a twitter (or a blog or something) for this, but I can't access twitter at school, so there's no point :V

EDIT 4:
I'm not going to double-post unless something worth posting about happens <_<
I ran it and nothing happened, so I'm compiling gdb and I'm gonna debug it, which will hopefully let me figure out where it's crapping out (if it's crapping out). I have the program writing to cout; maybe it should right to cerr instead?

EDIT 5:
:V
Windows hates open-source. The project built... but it ran and nothing happened. So I tried to debug. Eclipse wouldn't integrate properly with GDB, so that didn't work. Apparently its a common problem in eclipse in Windows <_<
I am going to switch to Visual Studio... as soon as I can find my disc for it. If i can find my disc for it. <_<
So I can't find my CD... but I'll just go for the Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 instead. ;)

EDIT FINALLY!:
It works! YESSSS! Now I just need to make some scripts to test it.