On Updates

*walks into the room, changes the burnt out lights and clears the cobwebs*

Welp. It's been a couple of years... A couple of very busy, very crazy years. Multiple cross country moves and job changes, profound personal life changes, a new baby... lots of things. So many things that I totally forgot I had this Dev Blog!

 Well, I've remembered!

 So let's see if we can't pick up the pieces from where we left off.

And The Game Kept A Rollin' All Night Long

Just a quick update since it's been a little while. Progress continues, if a bit slowly over the last few weeks. Between Guild Wars 2, helping out in XNA Chat and general Laziness, not too much has been accomplished but there HAS been progress.

I've added in a few more monster types, cleaned up quite a bit more of the Vita code, added a splash screen and several other minor tweaks under the covers.

Hope to have more soon, maybe even an updated demo! For now, I'll leave you with a couple more screen shots off of the Vita build:

Heroes of Eterna on Vita! This Could Work!

A few weeks back I made a post mentioning the potential for HoE to run on a Vita using MonoGame/PlayStation Mobile, and another outlining some of the issues. Today, I'd like to share that progress on that front has been staggering! After spending a couple of evenings running down some issues, I can proudly report that the game is running at almost full steam on a Vita!

Heroes of Eterna: Now on IndieDB!

This weekend marks a couple of neat milestones for Heroes of Eterna!
First, we have the creation of the IndieDB entry for it (found here). This is a pretty big step for me as it gets the project out into the real internet world, beyond the confines of this unviewed blog.

Next up we have the first official demo release! I spent the early part of the weekend polishing it up for the masses and have released it, with a fancy new installer! You can find the demo here.

For anyone interested in such details, I used InnoSetup, which is pretty great, to create the install package. For you other XNA devs out there looking for an installer system that lets you conditionally install the XNA runtimes, this couldn't have been easier to set up. I found an excellent InnoSetup script by one Daniel Truong that I only needed to fiddle with a tiny bit to get working. You can find the script here.

Heroes of Eterna: A Casual Quest

Well folks, we finally have ourselves a finalised title!

These last few weeks, while quiet here, have actually been pretty big weeks for updates with some significant changes having been made. Now then, lets get on to the good stuff!

Big Bugs And Small Fixes

So, I've had on my list a nasty little collision bug for quite a while now. I was sure I'd have to make significant changes to squash it. Well, I didn't! It's fixed, and with just a few lines! After putting it off and putting it off, the problem finally clicked and it was resolved in minutes WOO!

Not much in other news today. New art keeps rolling in at a steady clip, and progress continues to be made.

Updates since the last post

• Fixed the pesky map collisions bug
• Linked Item SFX
• Added fancier Life/Aura bars.
• Heavy foundation work for Summon skills (It almost looks like it works)
• Fixed the Seeker skill type. (for real this time!)
• Added a second Large Map
• Seriously, fixed that collision bug... It was freaking gross.
• Fixed monster spawning bug.
• Several minor bug fixes.
• Add a little speed to everything.
• Add support for Boss spawn and boss treasure drops
• Add Item Debug draw
• fix Item bounding boxes
• Fix Player bounding boxes
• Fix Skill bounding boxes
• Fix Tombstone (wasn't drawing)
• Prevent the same map from being picked twice in a row when possible.
• Prevents region change from blinking in
• End Gameplay song on shutdown
• Stop drawing black wave complete box

Stay tuned for more updates as their available.

Still Kickin!

Been a quiet couple of weeks around here (as usual -_- ...), but that doesn't mean things aren't still being done!

While a number of the changes made over the last few weeks have been completely under the hood as I work toward implementing Summons, there are a few things to talk about.

First off, if you look up at the top of the blog here you should see a link to Project Progress. It's a little check list I'm keeping of things to do and I'm lining things off as I complete them.
Next up: A bullet list of updates!

• Seekers! The Mage's most powerful ability, the Seeking Blast has finally been properly implemented and now homes in on the nearest enemy.
• Items can now be collected by touching them (rather than just by attacking them).
• The Revive skill has been implemented
• Several little bugs have been ruthlessly murdered.
• The range on a handful of skills has been corrected.
• Players now have shadows!
• Several new player and weapon sprites
• Two fully finished Tilesets!
• New Fonts
• More Help Text

See? Not too bad... The pesky map collisions issue is still out there, and I'm still pondering the best way to implement his demise.

Oh, and before I forget:

New Screenshot! We spent some time going over ideas for how best to fill the screen at a REAL resolution (1280x720) when we settled on this here. I think it looks kinda nice, and I'm sure it'll get better as we grow the ideas. The map has been blown up to 29x22 tiles and the ChatBox has been moved off to the left. The Wave display has been moved up to the top left there. All in all I think it's coming along pretty nicely.

That's all for now, till next time!

And Now, Bosses!

I really need to update this thing more frequently... XD

Today's update brings news of Bosses to CQX! Although heavily distracted by Skyrim the last week or so, I've been able to make some fairly significant progress. To start, I re-factored the collision detection system to be a bit more robust (or a lot, really). I've also gotten the Boss logic mostly implemented. Bosses will now spawn on the X9 waves like they're supposed to, and the Spider has had all his behaviours properly implemented!

Video after the jump!

The REAL CQX Update!

I promised an update and here it is!

So for those who don't know, my current project is CQX, or Casual Quest XNA (Working title). The project began as a direct port of a BYOND game by Jacob Brennan (IainPeregrine) called Casual Quest. After making significant progress on the project, and taking a long hiatus due to busy times, I finally picked it back up a couple months ago and began making great strides toward completion. Once I realized how quickly the project was progressing, I decided I should ensure I still had permission to continue. I was able to confirm my continued permission to continue relatively quickly, along with a friendly request; If I could manage to re-brand the project with new  art and a new title, it would be appreciated. Which brings us to today. (More details after the jump)

Quick CQX Update for those looking.

Just a quick update regarding CQX (The port of IainPeregrine's Casual Quest):

This project is currently in full and active development. I've acquired the talents of a new artist to assist with this project.

I'll be making a more detailed post this evening, but for now I'll leave you with a video I put together about a month ago: 

Details on progress and my plans to come.

Libraries make things bigger :)

Decided to port my ~90 line XNA project TinyGame to Java using LibGDX, cuz, why not?
The setup (application wise) is fairly similar, and Java is a lot like C# right?

Well, it ended up taking quite a bit more time than I originally assumed (at about 3 hours), but it works, same as the original. Technically, it's actually a bit better now, as the XNA version has an issue with artifacts on some of the sprites due to the way the sprites are packed and  the way things get blended with floats.

One thing I'm not happy about is the 5MB package size... Compared to the 14k of the XNA version, it's a regular behemoth. Most of this though, has to do with how the required libraries get packed along for the ride (The code is only ~170 lines compared to ~90), and with that being said, it's a sight better than a 7MB installer required for XNA 4 (and it doesn't have that pesky Shader 1.1/2.0 requirement).

Anyway, if you're interested, you can download it here and give it a try.

As an added bonus, having written it using LibGDX means the "game" cross compiles to Android. Tested it out in an emulator using both 2.1 and 4.0 and it worked well enough. Too bad a device that fits the game (Tall 480,600 or so screen with keyboard) pretty much doesn't exist. XD

A very tiny game!

So, last night over in XNAChat, a conversation led to someone mentioning having used 93 lines of code for a fairly trivial sounding task. This led to someone claiming that they'd seen games written with less lines than that. This, of course, I interpreted as a challenge, and got to work.

 Took a few of the sprites from the CQX project, hacked about for a couple hours and, 91 lines later, we have mission completed!

You can try the project out here, and if you want to see the terrifying code I came up with, you can look here.

Speaking of CQX; I've nearly finished refactoring the game state management system. Won't be long before it's functionally back to where it was with MUCH more maintainable, usable, extensible code. Stay tuned for more updates!

CQX Progress Update.

Progress on the Casual Quest XNA port has been coming along rapidly since project start a few weeks ago. Data driven class, baddy and skill systems are all built and functioning. Collisions with the map are fully implemented for both players and monsters, while rudimentary collisions with skills is in progress and partially working. In game chat is also working at this point.
The project is officially greenlit by the original creator, and I have the support of the current maintainer of the BYOND version. Things are looking pretty good so far, let's hope it continues.

Network Framework up and going

So, using the Network Library RakNet, I've been able to get some semblance of a Client/Server setup going.
Currently Joining a server, toggling ReadyState, and multiple users mulling about on a map are implemented.

Need better handling of Client Disconnects (Should attempt to immediately reconnect once or twice before dropping altogether), as well as Drop In support (Join while a game is running). Perhaps more importantly, there needs to be some actual GAME (No monsters spawn, or anything like that yet). There's no prediction or interpolation, so it'll be pretty susceptible to lag, and in general, there's a lot to do. But hey, Progress!

New Project!

This one is already Designed and Arted up, in fact if you've been around the BYOND community you may have heard of it:

Still in the early stages of development, but progressing nicely. Currently the Networking code is under the lens. More updates as I have em!

A quick post to show a video!

Hurrah! A new video! Groundwork has started for weapon types that don't actually fire bullets, as well as animated weapons. The vid shows off the RockSaw a new WIP weapon which will be able to dig through, you guessed it, rocks (It also shows the other weapons off too).

It's starting to look like a game!

It's been quiet in here lately, and for a few reasons. I've been hooked pretty hard by Terraria lately. It's a remarkably entertaining little gem, and impressively, is an XNA title. But I've also been coding.

For one, I started porting Alpha Blasters over to XNA 4. Most of the immediate compile errors have been cleaned up, but the storage framework seems to have changed completely, requiring a rewrite of the save system. Another time perhaps.

I've also been working on the current project (Which I've codenamed "project 0" for no good reason). I've gotten some art from the artist, and it's looking swell. Have a handful of new dirt tiles to use, so I built the framework to build the terrain by randomly placing them, works and looks great =D. I've also gotten the first pass and basic game state management wired up with some help from the XNA samples over at the App Hub. I also finally got around to wiring up XACT. I have a few songs for use, and some first pass SFX as well. The game mode system is more or less setup, and kills/deaths/respawn has been implemented.

There's still a lot more code to write, and a lot more assets to be built, but it is starting to take a basic shape. I'll be putting together a video soon but, for now, here's a screenshot:

P.S: This also still works flawlessly on Xbox 360 (Better even, as player 1 & 2 can both play).

Progress update!

It's been sorta quiet around here lately. I wish I could say it's just because I've been busy coding, but I can't as it's only about half true (see, I found League of Legends and it's quite the distraction). BUT! There has been some heavy code work done and things are moving along quite nicely.

I've started, and progressed a good ways toward, building a GameManager to handle all of the Specific game rules (e.g. time limits, kill limits, how many players etc...) as well as handle drawing the game and it's UI objects. It's mostly functioning at its basest level but there's still plenty left to do. Bullets now collide (and do damage to) other entities (not just dirt). There's a rough lifebar and rougher still UI block. The zooming camera has been fine tuned and now works brilliantly. There's also been some heavy code re-factoring (basically pulling out a bunch of junk placeholder code and replacing it with more functioning stuff where it actually needs to go).

More updates to come as I have them. For now, I leave you with a new ScreenShot!

New Video!

I've made some progress with the weapon and digging system, and even gotten a cool new little avatar to user.
here's the new vid, Be sure to watch it full screen at 720!

 

And for good measure here's a screenshot showing off both 2x Zoom and a mini-map that came along with Tuesdays camera work for free! 

WEAPONZ!

Oh man, my overly complicated data driven weapon system works beautifully, and on the first try!

Still a long way to go but progress is happening!
Here's a video!