My next project!

Hello, all!  My next project will not be, as previously stated, some kind of Minecraft thing (though I think that will be my third project), but instead something different.  I will try to also incorporate some form of storyline as well.  This project is to help me learn more visual and superfluous aspects of game creation - you know, models, animation, and UV mapping.

The basic idea is . . . get this . . . an island of minigames.  Yep.  An island.  With minigames.  Some will take you to other separate things, some will be part of the island itself.  Etc.  Mazes and stuff.  You know.  I just want to learn to make visual stuff, so I'll try to have fun with it.

Ahhhhh . . . just like old times, eh, blog?  A single image of something not even remotely playable yet.  Beautiful.

Just so you guys know, I plan to finish this project, do that last Minecraft-y one, and then move on to Pop.  By that time I hope to be in college.  Majoring in Game Programming.  That's what I wish to accomplish. 

If you decide to read through the posts, please forgive my lack of knowledge in how much work it is to make games; what I've detailed there would take forever for a single guy to make, and it's very ambitious.  I'll definitely have to dull that down a fair amount.  But that's okay!  I wrote all that stuff before I even knew what game development really is.  And I still don't really . . . ah, well.  Hopefully one day I shall.

Anyway, I'll see you all later with another development post!

An Update

Hello. I know I've been MIA (Not that anyone's really cared), so here I am making an update.

I've decided to add one more feature to the game (Involving the improvement of the camera) and a start menu. Not any saving functionality. Then I'm gonna be done.

However, I'll then be moving on to my next project. I've decided it'll basically be a Minecraft clone, except with no play value. I just want to make it so that it generates a world and you can place and destroy blocks. Then I'll move on to something else! Excited? I know I am . . .

So, I'll try to have an update of the real variety next weekend, since I have a long weekend this weekend to work on it.

See you later!

Mini Update 1.6

You can now download the first three levels (LABYRINTH BLASTER Alpha-thing) by clicking "Downloads" or right friggin' here.  Or, if you're not a fan of downloads (or aren't using Windows), you can play the web version too.

Edit:  Hard at work, making new levels!  :)

Points!

Ta-daa! A scoring system!

Right now, it's ten points per ball enemy, fifteen per regular sentry, and twenty per super sentry (A sentry that either shoots in 3-4 directions at once, or shoots every .75 seconds instead of every 1).

Oh, and I added life boxes. Red rotating things. Pick 'em up, and you get an extra life. However, the cap is five lives, and you only get points (Five of them) if you are able to pick the thing up; i.e. if you have five lives and you try and pick up a life, the box will go bye-bye but you won't get a life or points.

And the only way to get a perfect score is to get all the points.

Mini Update 1.5

Imma back from camp!

This means I'm back at it.  I'll have an update in about a week.  See you then!

Mini Update 1.4

What a week for updates!

Except this will actually be a mini update.  Only two things to say!

One:  I utterly annihilated the collision problem.  Just decimated it.  Like, blew it to oblivion and back twice.  There aren't even any atoms left of the thing.

Two:  The next thing I'll be working on is a scoring system.  Yay!  Points!

Oh, I lied.  Here's a third thing:  I won't post a real update for two weeks, since, as I said earlier, running camp is going down like an a-bomb, but . . . at least I'm notif-ing you!

Mini Update 1.3

Just thought I'd pop in and say this:

FREAKING-YES-I-FINALLY-GOT-THE-LIVES-SYSTEM-TO-WORK-OH-MY-GOODNESS-I'M-SO-RELIEVED-THAT-THING-WAS-TAKING-ALL-OF-MY-TIME-AND-I-COULDN'T-FOCUS-ON-ANYTHING-ELSE-BECAUSE-IT-WAS-SO-ANNOYING-BUT-FINALLY-DEAR-GOD-YES-IT'S-DONE!

Ahem.

So, yes, I have completed the lives system. No GIF or anything, but I'll be able to post something this weekend, I'll betcha.

Right now, there's one problem that's bringing development to a screeching halt: The collisions are all messed up with the player object. He either just completely slides through the wall objects, or they resist him a little bit, but it's completely hit or miss. Random. I don't get why . . . I'm using Unity's FixedUpdate function, which is specifically for physics . . . I feel like the solution to this problem will be a long and difficult one.

Somewhat Technical Hindrances

Two days late is better than never, right?

So, this week I . . . well, I broke the game.  :)

Not really, but it doesn't play right now.  You see, I'm in kind of the middle of the game's metamorphosis - you know, that point in your first game where, at first the game worked as planned, but since you had no idea what you were doing, everything was wrong, and it only was being kept from falling apart by a single thread, but now that you're adding more complex systems to it, all of the poorly made duct-tape-and-spit stuff bursts apart into a kablooey of gooey ewey.

So, that's where I'm at right now - wallowing waist-deep in a pool of swirling gooey ewey.  Don't worry, nothing's permanently broken - just temporarily out of service.  When the game comes out of its metamorphosis, it should be a nice solid platform that I can continuously build upon for all time!

Not only that, but I'm (finally) upgrading to Unity 3.5.4, after weeks of ignoring the popup.  It has some new features, I guess, and is generally shiny.

So that's what's up with me.  On my plate I have:

• Finishing the lives system (GUI and all)
• Working out the creases so the thing works as an EXE
• Making a start menu and an in-game menu with fully functional properties
• Making about twenty levels
• Moar stuff
• Putting it on the internet

More or less in that order is what I'll be working on.

Adios!

XWolfHunter Is Not Dead.

This is true.  I yet live.
The reason I haven't made an update in - oh, what is it, two weeks?  One week?  A year?  Who knows?  Anyway, the reason is because I haven't really made much progress, due to a number of factors, one of which is definitely procrastination.  Sorry.

So, in the end, I did a great amount of good since last update, but also some bad as well.

I'll go with the good first, "best for last" be damned.

Mini Update 1.2

Edit:  How do you all like my new comments system?  I like it.  It's pretty awesome.  You can go to disqus.com to make an account for the system, or if you want to add it to your blog.  Be warned:  If you use your Google Account, it will display your name, not your email/username.  Just so you know.

 

Nothing to report today except the fact that I'm still alive and that I'm working on the arcade-thing (You know, I really should come up with an actual name for it . . . got any suggestions?). Right now I'm working on getting a nice lives system in there - it'll provide a welcome change. It's going to be very simple: Start out with three lives. Get hit, you die, and you restart on the level you were on. If you hit zero lives, you restart at level 1 and get three lives. There'll be little red floating and rotating cubes that grant you another life (With a limit of five lives). I'm going to set up the life-box placement with some thought (So your lives will be sustainable if you only die once per level up to level five, then you can only die once every two levels, etc., with the die limit spreading out further and further until you inevitably will die unless you're me or cool), so don't worry that I'll just be putting them wherever.

In the future, I want to add some simple A* AI, but my coding skill is not at that average level yet (Any reference materials you like? Send links my way). Also in the future, I want to add a tutorial level just because.

You know what? Here's a little list of what I want to do:

• Custom textures with kewl things on them


• Juiciness (Courtesy of Davian Black of Big Bad Wofl)


• Some cool sounds, though they're probably more long-term than the other stuff.


• Lastly, I want to get a playable version out to anyone who happens across it in the next lifetime or so. Maybe a couple a y'all will take the chance that I'm not secretly a coding expert who wants to virus-ify everything.

See you in approximately 4-5 days with a few updates!

Mini Update 1.1

It's only numbered 1.1 so it'll look more professional.  But don't tell anyone that.

Here's the mini-update, which just shows the finished turrets:

Do they look to easy too kill to you?

Yeah, they definitely are.  I'll remedy that.

See you next update!

New Level!

As per usual (Happened in half the previous posts!), here's a video before the meat of the post:

What I did was basically added a new level (It is possible, and it's going to be easier, I just wanted to make it look cool), added turrets, added a death notification and a way to restart the level, and . . . well, that's more or less it.  Not a very productive two days.  Ah, well.

What I want to do now is make a few more levels, add some more enemies and features (A start menu, an enemy who follows you, an inventory system), and then maybe put it on the web for fun.

After that, well . . . I'm planning something that will be more like a real game, but we'll see where it goes.

I just noticed something:  All of my post names end with an exclamation mark.  Gonna have to remedy that.  Ha ha.

That's all for now.  I probably won't make an update until next weekend, so adios for now.

Prototype level complete!

The completed prototype level!  Note that when viewing from the y-axis, like I am now, the shattered blocks don't appear to fall, but they really do.

Hello, three people who may or may not ever read this!  :)  This week I got a lot done, but when you’re only working with cubes and code, you can’t not.  It wasn't even a week. 

Here’s a basic list of what happened:

•     I added a light.  It needed to happen.
•     I’ve got the basic move-where-I-tell-you-to AI down pat on my little blue spheres.
•     The red box dies if he hits a blue character (No death notifications yet.  All that happens is he turns into a bunch of red cubes and falls to infinity.  I made it so you can still move the camera around after he dies, though!)
•     The blue guys can die now.  Also, the little cubes that act as barriers will break into pieces if shot enough times.
•     Fixed that bug where the player-wall collisions were really funky (Thanks to drakfyre for that solution.  Link to his tutorials here - not that he’ll get much traffic from this site).
•     Got a simple level up and running.  It’s not going to make it very far, but it’s simple enough to test things on.

Welcome to the Blog!

Hello, all, and welcome to renaxs-dot-blogspot-dot-com!  You may be wondering what this is.  To be honest, I am too!  I'm just setting up the foundations right now, and hopefully by the time that's done, I'll know what's going on.

So.  To business.  I plan on this game being an aesthetically simple cubes-and-spheres game, but I want it to have some depth to it as well.  We'll see what happens, though.

Right now, I have a two-hand-on-the-keyboard setup with a top-down view of the place.  Let's be honest, I just started on this this morning, so don't expect anything special.  I don't even have any AI or anything kill-able yet.  In case you couldn't tell, though, the blue sphere will eventually be the first enemy.