MDDN 243: Actual final version!

This is the actual final version of our game, the older version had some issues saving the scores. But this is the one we handed in and works fine!

Link to game

MDDN 243: Galaxy Guardian Trailer.

This is our trailer for galaxy guardian. We were inspired by the '2001: A Space Odessy' Intro scene and song at the early hours of the morning, and then discovered that the original score (Also sprach Zarathustra) was written in 1896, and was copyright free. We decided it was meant to be. So here it is, the trailer for Galaxy Guardian. Coming this summer.

MDDN 243: Final Hand In Done!

So that's it. Finally done.

This week has been so crazy, trying to finish the last few things.

The things I have worked on:
-Fixing up the overlay. We went through quite a few stages with this. Henrie did the first stage, but that took up too much valuable screen space, so Connor shrunk it down. Then we managed to get the mini map working, so I adjusted it to fit that (shown below). I made it square so that it would fit the mini map better as we couldn't get it to work with a circle.

Then we found a way around that, (making the mini map background invisible) so I changed it to a circle so it didn't look as bulky and out of place.

-I also sorted out the waves (which Connor went on to balance out a bit because I got a bit carried away with the amount of enemies.....).

-I remade all of the home screen buttons, so they are now the same size an colour and don't overlap which caused problems with changing scenes earlier

-Made the mini map (which involved taking a behaviour from stencyl forge and reworking it to include multiple enemies).

-Made a few of the shooting sounds.

-Made the high score counter and made it save so scores are kept when you close the game, which was a mission and a half thanks to a bug in stencyl that doesn't count numbers in arrays properly.....

-Made 6 different kinds of bullets, and got them to switch as you get a higher score through the game.

-Made the counter for the amount of enemies shot in a round and the hit/miss ratio. Also got all of these numbers to print on the final score screen.

-Made the sprites for the bullet and speed boost power ups.

-Made the final trailer for our game (linked in another post).

And a bunch of general bug and glitch fixing and adjustments to enemy speed etc.

So it's finished, and I'm really happy with the final result. I think we achieved what we set out to achieve, and all of our hard work was worth it.

A huge thanks to my awesome team who were amazing throughout the whole process!

                                  

MDDN 243: Slight Hiccup....

So our presentation went fine, and at the end Kah asked us if we had entered the IGF competition, so we rushed off to do that. We decided to fix up a few things before we entered it (minor things like adding buttons, tweaking game play to work better) and well..... in our excitement we forgot to save the version we had handed in differently... and we broke it. So now we don't have a working version of the game. The score doesn't reset each round and just keeps adding up. Should be a pretty easy fix, will look into it when I'm less dead so the numbers on the screen actually might actually make some sense ...

MDDN 243: Galaxy Guardian Final file!

Galaxy Guardian



Link to the demo

MDDN 243: The Mysterious Case of the Blue Fours?

Testing out he game brings about a strange occurrence: Blue fours.  

Every single four in the game.

Just the fours.

No other numbers. 

No other letters.

We have no idea why this happens but it happens soooo..... They are just going stay and be mysterious and confuse people. Mainly us. Seriously. Why.

MDDN 243: Update

This is the latest version of the game as of Oct 23. Basically the same as the version we handed in, though in this version the bosses aren't dying.

Things I have done since the last update:
-Coded the transition for the planet. It now goes from green -> not so green (5 stages)
-Coded the boss, giving it health and movement. Currently trying to get it to change animations as it dies.
-Got the score to go up with time. The longer you survive the higher your score.
-Connor and I managed to FINALLY get the rotation working!
-Set up the death screen (got score etc. to print, arranged where it goes etc.)This is only a temporary death screen.
-Minor tweaks/set up of things (scene switching, getting scores to reset, timing of enemies, etc.)


Next step is to refine enemy movement, get bullets rotating properly....

MDDN 243: Final Interim is Done!

So we had the final interim today, only two weeks until the final hand in!

We have to core game play sorted, and most of the feedback we got was about getting that reward loop working (by having boosts in your movement speed when you're doing well/having multiple types of bullets that you go through as you survive longer etc).

So, we've made a plan of attack for the next couple of weeks. Here is the list of things we're planning on having sorted/our thought of what we can work on:

Overlay

-smaller
-mini map
-grill for score

-Compass needle moves/points

Sounds

-Indicating when boss spawns

Boss

-doesn't get moved by bullets

 -stages of death(animations done, just need to implement)

Work on death screen
-Fix craters

-"Mission report" death screen w/ your score, how you died(planet or player death, maybe some other stats?)

-death screen for player death vs earth death

Earth transitions
-Make them more obviously brown

Bullets 

-Multiple types of bullets(change depending on your score?)
-rotation of bullets

-limit bullets (at start), possibly to go insane later on

Music loop

-Stop it

Waves

-different scene?
-Popup saying which wave you are up to?
Player
-Animation for boosters(done, just need implementing)

Different music

Tutorial stage

Keep enemies moving when spinning

Arrows indicating off screen enemies

I'm sure there's more stuuf we forgot to put on the list, but for now these are our goals/plans.

MDDN 243: Interim Feedback.

After the presentation on Thursday we got some feedback on what we have so far for our game, and where we are heading with it. The main thing the tutors talked to us about is getting our movement (and other key components like the planet health) nailed down as soon as we can. So with that in mind we are now focusing on key aspect of the game play, and will work on more art assets after we have this sorted. 

The things we are planning to have done in the next 2-3 weeks are:
-The planet Health and transition animation

-The player movement (which includes gravity)

-The screen rotation

-The waves sorted out (giving different types of enemies different movements, and having waves that increase in difficulty)

-High scores

-Death screen (Will include your final score maybe some other stats like how long you lasted?)

-Audio (shooting sounds, explosions, boosters etc.)

A few other tips we got from other people during/after the presentation include having enemies spawn out of black holes that randomly open up around the map, and having the shooting direction controlled by the mouse.

We like the black hole idea, and are possibly going to look into it further down the track after we have the main game play done.

The mouse-shooting-direction has been suggested to us by quite a few people. We are going to see how well our current shooting system works once we have the movement and rotation sorted out, to see which would be a better fit.

MDDN 243: Progress!

This is the latest version of our game.



Link to the demo Things I have done/updated since the last demo:
-Added a scoring system. Each time the player kills an enemy, they gain 10pts. The score is reset if they die.
-Added the player getting killed if they collide with an enemy. Game resets if this happens.
-Added a camera follow to the player so they can move around a larger map. 
-Added a title screen with working buttons (Background image done by Almas)

I am currently working on getting a gravity system working that will pull the player into the planet.

MDDN 243: Update

Demo of game so far:

Link To demo
I have done the coding for the collisions of bullets with enemies, causing them to explode.

MDDN 243: Galaxy Guardian Group

The group I am in for the final project is making Galaxy Guardian- A top down space shooter, which involves defending a planet from waves of enemy ships.

People in my group (and links to their blogs):
Almas
Henrietta
Connor