A final competition demo has been uploaded to Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/BrettWoodard/tunnel-lords-demo/downloads.

Last day of work
Yesterday, we added in exhaust for the rocket ship and allowed it to travel up into the atmosphere. The end of game sequence is looking better, but will probably get some more tweaks before being completed.

I'm planning to take a break on the project for the next 3-4 weeks. At that point, hopefully I'll be able to finish the game without too much more time. Perhaps it will line up with the next competition.

I am happy with the game's progress even though it isn't completed. Feel free to leave feedback if anyone plays the uploaded demo. It is getting very close to the final project. If you have an XBOX 360 compatible controller, it should play fine on the PC. If not, keyboard instructions are on the first post.

-Brett

So, I may have missed a day, since I think that 20 September was supposed to be day 30… I'll plan another update either on 21 or 22 September.

Testing XBOX 360 Memory Unit (MU)
I tested the following conditions:

• pulling the memory stick out when actively saving/loading to it.
• removing the memory stick after selecting it.
• removing the memory stick on the select storage device screen.
• Attempting to save to a full memory stick.

All cases failed or reverted fairly gracefully. It might be nicer to give some more feedback when you do stuff like this, but the game will at least not crash. Although the user is hopefully wise enough to not repeatably remove their memory stick when saving to it.

Testing controller configurations
A code 4 (unhandled Exception) was occurring when when not using PlayerIndex 0 as the signed in gamer. I managed to fix the issue though and am a little smarter about how XNA stores a SignedInGamer. Now you can sign in with any of the 4 controllers. There is some sort of bug where the game gives angry messages after you reconnect the primary selected controller. Of course, it doesn't give the error while the controller is unplugged, which was the original goal. I'm guessing this an error on my part, but will take more troubleshooting to nail down.

Testing When Signing Out Gamer
I could not test this because XNA just kept throwing a Code 7 and crashing whenever I sign out the gamer profile that has my Creators Club account. A Code 7 means that you are using XNA Game Studio Connect and have lost connection to your Creators Club Account. This makes since why it is crashing now for Code 7, which was relieving. I also managed to get a Code A twice while testing turning off the internet connection while trying to buy the game. I'm not sure what this means, but it fatally ended my game. For now, I'm not going to worry about it, since I think the Code 7 issue would keep me from really testing it.

Game Startup
When starting up the game, it will display a black screen while loading all my classes in the main game's LoadContent method. This may push me to make some sort of loading screen, but I'm undecided right now.

Conclusion of Testing
I should test more on controller disconnect messaging. I should also review useful messaging when storage device use fails. However, after some minor fixes, the game doesn't fail tests for guide/storage/controller index issues. So, good news overall.

Progress was slow due to my day job being very busy. I concentrated on fixing issues identified when porting XBOX 360. The size of font in a couple of places was increased for easier readability across the room. The temperature gauge white background was darkened some more (it was a bit of an eyesore being too bright). The SaveScreen is no longer as jerky as it transitions in while accessing save data.

The biggest fix was making the purchase manager play nice with the rest of my game and the XBOX guide. Now, at no matter what point you decide to close out of the guide with the game purchased or not purchased, the game will gracefully bring you back into play with the main menu updated to not have the purchase game option if no longer applicable. I have written some code to handle edge error cases but it is not tested yet. Edge cases like you lose internet halfway through trying to buy the game or force sign out of your XBOX account while in the purchase menu.

The spaceport sprite has been updated including the clamps that hold the spaceship to the space port. It was loosely modeled by my wife on the Vehicle Assembly Building that NASA maintains in Florida. The clamps now have a 2 frame animation when they release the rocket. The next big sprite will be the flame coming off the rocket. I replaced some placeholder graphics on the Inventory screens as well.

Day 27 (SEP 18)

Today, I focused on solving performance issues that slow game load time, since creating or loading a new map was taking about 3-4 seconds to complete on the XBOX. This is not a long time, but it is awkward, especially in a arcade style game that isn't taxing the system's performance abilities.

I was initializing many map/gameplay related classes when a new map was loaded in order to reset their variables. This was easy because it allowed not writing code to reset all the variables in the classes. I went back and traced through these classes and added the ability to reset them by adding methods that would set their initial values and remove non-default information from them. I then moved their initialization to the main LoadContent method in the base game class as opposed to when you created/loaded a new game. This did the trick and dropped the load time to almost unnoticeably small pause. The downside is it now takes a few seconds to bring the game online since the heavy lifting was moved to initialization. I like this a lot better because you only pay for it once on startup as opposed to every load/reset of the game.

I was lucky solving this way though, as I didn't profile first to make sure I understood the problem. It only took me about a half day to revise how all the classes were getting initialized and sort out resetting their variables. I count this as a win on my codebase being clean enough to apply high level project changes without fretting about breaking it for a long period.

I'm curious now if the game will sit on the blue XNA logo while the root LoadContent method runs. If so, I'm very happy. If not, and it will just show a black screen, I should implement a loading screen system of some kind to cover the short lag, but more testing to follow.

We did some minor tweaking of the edge grass tiles on the mine's surface to match up with the dirt better. The Temperature formula was also tweaked to dampen faster. I was happy the temp gauge catches up a little with where the player goes over time, but it would continue slowly for about 90 seconds towards equilibrium even while you were not moving, which was annoying to watch the gauge slightly move for so long. Now reaches equilibrium a few seconds after you stop moving.

I tested code to delete saved games and change the storage container. Both seem to work great. I still need to test the edge cases like disconnecting the storage device in the middle of a save/load or trying to save to a full device. I've written some basic code, but just haven't had time to test yet.

Approaching end of contest

Well, I'm not going to finish the contest with a game submitted for peer review, which was my goal. While there are a lot of small things that could be done before release, below are the big hitters that are necessary before release:

• XBOX testing of error conditions on saving/loading.
• XBOX testing of error conditions on game purchase manager.
• Finalizing drillship graphic (We want to make the wheels/tracks look better)
• Picking screenshots and building trailer for game (This is pending the drillship graphic, since most all screenshots will include it).
• Completing spaceship's engine exhaust graphic.
• Adding Music
• Game balance testing of Mid-Late gameplay

I will probably focus on the XBOX testing and the spaceship engine exhaust in the last days of the challenge. I'll put in another update or two on the end of contest and also highlighting the overall progress. I plan to push a demo at the end as well.

-Brett

Maximo, I replied to your original post with more info on downloading and using the XNA app on the XBOX. Let me know if you want more/different information.

Day 21 (12 SEP)

I refactored the namespaces, class names, and file names in the solution. I wanted everything organized exactly right before making XBOX 360 copies of the project. The last graphics for the HUD were added.

Day 22 (13 SEP)

I created XBOX360 copies of the projects in the solution. Visual Studio mostly automated this. After some minor troubleshooting, the XBOX360 accepted the game. It ported well overall, with only a couple of minor issues:

• Creating a new game or loading a game takes much longer than on the PC. It is a full 2-3 seconds which is just long enough to be awkward without a loading icon. I am on the fence about adding this though because I would probably want to push loading the game onto a background thread while the main thread handled the loading icon, which would take some time to complete.
• Several of the colors look different (more or less vibrant, or tinted). Overall this is just different, but not really bad for any sprites. Except the white background on the temp gauge really sticks out. This should be an easy fix by dulling the white into more of a gray though.
• The title menu font and the version number font are both a little small when viewed on the TV. These will be easy fixes though by bumping up the SpriteFont size in the content project.
• A screen pops up when you reach a certain depth explaining you need to buy to dig deeper. If you click on purchase and get forwarded to the XBOX Guide, but then back out and decide not to purchase, the game gets stuck. I think the code understands the game isn't unlocked, but doesn't back out of the purchase manager. More testing will be required.

Some of the issues above are already fixed. The rest will take some time to troubleshoot, but I won't have time today. Hopefully on the 14th of September, I will have time to resolve them all. I'm happy how well it transferred to XBOX. I think this is a testament to the quality of XNA considering how easy it was for a hobbyist.

-Brett

I just ported the game to XBOX360 this weekend, with success after only some minor troubleshooting.

You need to download XNA Game Studio Connect. You should be able to find it when 'browsing games' on your XBOX 360 and searching for XNA. Do not search in the Indie Games section, but search the main XBOX 360 games section. This link will take you to the description of what you are looking for: Microsoft XNA Creators Club.

I downloaded it with an XBOX Gold Membership active. You may need a gold membership in order to download, but not sure. Before using the software, you will have to purchase a Creators Club Account ($99.00 annually). Even if you do not plan to sell your game, to upload it to your XBOX, you have to purchase the Creators Club Account. If you try an use the software without a Creators Club Account tied to your profile, it will prompt you to purchase one.

Once you transfer a game to XBOX using the XNA Game Studio Connect, it starts up instantly. A local copy is saved to your console that can be played whenever you want without hooking your XBOX to your computer.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,
Brett

Looking forward to hearing how the XBOX test goes!

Work from yesterday and today
I refactored a lot of code today, including the namespace structure. I wanted everything very clean before starting to push to XBOX 360. I cleaned up the demo screen notification screen that kicks in at a certain depth if game is not purchased. We added new mine border graphics that look great and made some minor updates to the hud. The Hud background needs one more tweak probably before being called completed.

Upcoming Work
I may push to XBOX360 tomorrow. I may also focus on using the Open Broadcast Software (OBS) to see if it can make quality recordings of the game. I'd like to make a game simple game trailer soon and am hoping this software will do the trick.

I hope everyone else' projects are going well.

-Brett

The newest demo, version 0.7.0, can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/BrettWoodard/tunnel-lords-demo/downloads/TunnelLords070.zip.

There are some small bugs, but nothing that should prevent a decent play through. Bugs include giving a temperature warning when low on fuel and occasionally trying to drill when drilling not available. Overall, there are too many minerals in the mine, so in the next demo I'll reduce the percentage of minerals, probably by about 15%.

If anyone tries the demo, please feel free to leave feedback. I'm pleased it is feeling like a polished game when played.

-Brett

Stencil
My codebase has been refactored to support adding DepthStencilBuffer to different draw calls from the major game sections like the map, or in game screens, or title screen. When setting a DepthStencilBuffer for a SpriteBatch draw session, I could not get SpriteBatch.Draw() to accept LayerDepth or Color inputs properly. When using a DepthStencilBuffer, the game would refuse to draw any textures without a LayerDepth setting of 0. Also, if I set a color besides Color.White, the game would not shade the texture with the color. I'm assuming these are not bugs, but being caused by my lack of understanding about how DepthStencilBuffer interacts with LayerDepth and Color. To avoid the issue, I separated the SpriteBatch.Draw() calls in a way that avoided needing to set Color and manually arranged draw order as opposed to relying on LayerDepth. Not the prettiest solution, but it also isn't a major hack and I think acceptable for now.

In Game Screens
Numerous updates were made to different in game screens. Some screens could probably be called finished now. A couple like the HUD and upgrade purchase screen will need some more work. I am happy with most the results.

Gameplay Testing
Using Pressure as an in-game limit didn't make sense, so I removed it. Temperature was overhauled to hopefully make a more enjoyable gameplay experience. The temperature changes slowly enough that it has to catch up as you descend or climb in the mine. This hopefully makes for more interest as you see the gauge slowly respond to your depth changes.

Demo?
Unfortunately, I haven't placed the new gauge sprites into the game yet, and I removed the old health status bar. I won't have time yesterday. Hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to get the gauge in and push a demo. It didn't make sense for anyone to playtest until the health bar is showing, much as I wanted to push a new copy.

Unfortunately, taking the time to work the Stencil plus generally being behind already pushed back my XBOX testing schedule to maybe next weekend.

Brett

You are right, a DepthStencilBuffer is exactly what I will need. The good news is I think this can be implemented without major changes to my code. I will just have to render all the textures from the screen to a RenderTarget2D first. I need to work out the details of if this will require a separate SpriteBatch.Begin() and SpriteBatch.End() call since I don't want the DepthStencilBuffer to apply to all textures.

You are correct about performance concerns. After some research, using Texture2D.GetData is not the recommended solution.

I don't see anyone reporting Stencils as being an implementation concern on plausible hardware choices these days.

-Brett

Progress has been slow. I am working on the dashboard or heads up display (HUD) that shows the drillship's status. I redesigned the cargo gauge and am very happy with the results. Individual slots on the gauge fill with a color themed for the different mineral you pick up. This looks great but required redesigning the gauge and the save/load data to incorporate the order in which minerals were picked up. It also required inputting the types of minerals dumped or sold to the gauge so it removed the proper mineral slot based on what was sold or dumped. This all took work since these connections were not planned previously. I'll plan to post a screenshot in the next couple of days. Until the HUD is cleaned up, the shot would look a little jumbled. I'll also plan to release a new demo when I have the HUD and screens at about 80% completion.

I spent some time improving the gauges/status bars base class which makes the code simpler but doesn't show anything different during gameplay.

You can now dump/sell a single mineral or all of one type of mineral. This was a feature my beta tester wanted and wasn't too difficult to implement.

I have altered the in game screens (like sell screen, fuel screen, repair screen) to start matching the new HUD. I have a great idea on how to tie these into the HUD, but I don't have the technical knowledge of XNA to do it. I'm going to spend the next day researching/experimenting and seeing how it goes. If it starts turning into a quagmire, I may have to abandon the feature, but it would be sad to lose. The part I'm experimenting with is how to draw part of a texture that isn't bounded by a simple rectangle.

Experimenting on partially drawing textures

Basically, I want to draw only part of the texture below a 30 degree line. XNA has built in support through the Draw method overloads for drawing only part of a texture, but it has to be the shape of a rectangle. See drawing below.

Way Forward

• I cannot simply cover up the unwanted part of the texture because the texture above it is partially transparent. Some of the unwanted texture would blend with the partially transparent texture it was beneath.

• I can pull the sprite's texture data as an array, Color[] and then create a new texture which removes all pixels above the line. The math is straightforward if not a little cumbersome since the texture's Color[] is a 1D array representing a 2D texture.

• Concern #1: Since the texture being partially drawn will be moving over time, I will have to pull and create a new texture every frame. Since it will be a larger texture, say 400x400 pixels (not exact) plus a half dozen smaller textures, will this cause performance issues? I don't know without trying…

• Concern #2: My game's rendering/draw logic was not designed to allow textures to make alternatives of themselves that don't include all the pixels. I don't have a plan on how to integrate this feature yet, and it could be a very time expensive feature to add (by time expensive I mean my time hacking at the code).

If someone has a different solution, I would be interested in hearing. Otherwise, I'll just report back on how it goes.

-Brett

Yes, I have taken inspiration from Motherload, Miner Dig Deep, VGA Miner, and Glean. Motherload is the iconic mining game and VGA Miner was the original. VGA Miner has some unfortunate adult content text that sort of spoils an otherwise great game. I don't think these kind of games are too popular, so hopefully someone will want to play it. :|

-Brett

On day 8 I made some major improvements to the title screen and options screen. They are both now at about 90% complete, both needing hopefully only minor touch ups that I will probably save towards the end of the competition. Also fixed some small sound effects bugs. Check out the screenshot of the new title screen. The dirt is from pre-fixing of tiling issues. Also, a new demo was uploaded on day 8 if anyone is interested in checking it out.

On day 9, we improved the tiling of the dirt sprite. It is much better, but could still use some minor tweaks that stand out when tiled. I fixed a couple of bugs and non-completed features in the save game process that prevented minerals and seen bulletins from being loaded. I'm not sure why I didn't do this in the past, but now the letter 'I' opens the inventory. This is hopefully more intuitive.

I worked some game-balancing as well, but it is difficult to quantify this as it is just tweaking the settings to make gameplay progress more enjoyably. Things like changing the costs of upgrades, the strengths of the upgrades, and the money recouped from selling resources. It still needs a lot of work to be balanced.

For the first week, progress was good. Now it seems slower than I want mostly due to lots of small requirements that I didn't foresee needing to complete.

-Brett

The player now owns a spiffy house where they save their progress. When mining minerals, a convenient text pops up telling you what mineral you just found.

Also, the mine's width has been finalized to 32 tiles wide. This will allow balancing progression into the mine with upgrade costs since the width of the mine affected how many minerals were available. I haven't decided if I want to mathematically calculate out our just go trial and error. I think I'll start with trial and error and switch if it is proving too time consuming to replay for changes.

-Brett

Thank you for checking out the project.

I'm planning to push the project to XBOX probably sometime next weekend (If I stay on schedule). I'll let you know how it goes and what steps I had to take. I have done it before but it was about a year and a half ago and my account is expired right now, so I need to relearn myself.

-Brett

I remember I was trying to publish some sample project some time ago but I was unable to download XNA Game Studio Connect.

I was following manual on microsoft site. - https: // msdn. microsoft. com/en-us/library/bb975643.aspx

Is there any other way to download this XNA Creators club?

Thx in advance!

Minor progress adding 2 new sound effects and cleaning out some small bugs in the menus. There is now a unique sound for when you purchase a sweet new upgrade for your drillship and an angry noise when you try to do something not allowed in a menu (like buy something you don't have the money for).

I suppose, overall a better shopping experience.

-Brett

Yesterday was a lighter work day. I just pushed in some bug fixes and a couple of new graphics. There is now a nice icon on the refuel and repair screens. Once the spaceport graphic is designed, I should be ready to get serious about balancing gameplay.

-Brett

Drillships now take damage when exposed to too much heat or pressure based on depth. In retrospect, I'm not sure how much it makes sense to take pressure damage, since it isn't like you are a submarine under water. I'm going to leave the effect in for now though.

I'm adding a screenshot to the main listing as well and a newer demo (if my internet and Bitbucket combined can handle the upload.)

Gameplay instructions were also added to the bottom of the main post.

-Brett

A vertical 2D scrolling mining game where you have to provide the minerals necessary for the colony to expand and sell the excess for drillship upgrades.

I started Tunnel Lords during Competition #4. My goal is completely finish Tunnel Lords by the end of this competition. If XBOX Live Indie Games is still around, I would like to attempt to publish on that, if not than maybe I can find a different venue, or just be content with the game's completion.

My wife is drawing most all the graphics, which has been great!

A demo of the game as it currently stands: https://bitbucket.org/BrettWoodard/tunnel-lords-demo/downloads

Short Term Goals (daily):

• Add a Hit the wall too hard crunch sound effect
• Add rocket fire for when spaceship blasts off.

Mid Term Goals (Weekly)

• Balance game-play so amount of money coming in matches right pace of purchasing upgrades

Day 2:

• Updated Smelter Graphic (no longer programmer art)
• Added Temp damage to drillship.
• Added Pressure damage to drillship
• Added a screen to select the controller in use that opens when game first loaded.
• During death sequence, disabled bulletins and warnings from popping up.

Day 4

• Fix bug affecting ability to upgrade buildings past their first upgrade.
• Add bulletin warning about temperature damage.
• Add bulletin warning about pressure damage.
• Added icon to repair and fuel screen.

Day 5

• Added an 'Unable' Sound Effect.
• Added a Purchase Item Sound Effect.
• Cleaned up minor bugs with the menus.

Day 7

• Added Save Spot Graphic
• Fixed Bug with position of cursor placing wrong for one frame on title menu
• Finalized Map width

Day 8

• Fixed menu sound effect bug when contributing to buildings
• Improved title splash screen graphic
• Improved options screen

Day 9

• Fixed dirt sprite so it tiles better (still needs some minor adjustments)
• Fixed bug that dropped minerals in inventory when loading a game.
• Added list of seen bulletins to save file. This way when you load a game, it doesn't replay them all the old bulletins.
• The letter 'I' now opens the inventory.
• Added the choice to turn off bulletins in the options screen for people who want more mining and less story. It also helps when play testing and you don't want to see the same bulletins 38 times.

Days 10-13

• Added ability to sell or dump a single mineral.
• The Heads up display has been redesigned. It still needs more work though.
• Created a new cargo quantity gauge.
• Refactored gauge and status bar code.

Days 14-17

• Refactored draw code into a separate RenderManager.
• Added a basic Stencil effect when rendering to screen that allows cropping screens. (A new concept for me to learn.)
• Reformated all in game screens to match HUD.
• Removed Pressure damage from game. (It didn't make sense).
• Remade Temp damage formula.
• Added discount amount to fuel and repair screens to show when discounts are applied.
• Fixed bug preventing completing tasks when loading a saved game.

Day 18

• Spaceport Graphic Added.
• Added credits screen.
• Removed credits from main menu screen.
• Added improved gauge cluster.

Day 22

• Heads up display was completed.
• Code was refactored to reflect better filenames and namespace hierarchy. (Precursor to creating XBOX copies)
• An XBOX 360 version of project was completed and tested.
• Made title menu font larger since it was a little small when viewed on a TV.
• Made Version # font a little larger for viewing on TV.

Day 26

• Increased size of controller select screen font.
• Darkened the temperature gauge so it looks better on TV.
• Fixed interface between game and XBOX guide when being asked to purchase the game at end of trial period.
• Updated Spaceport sprite.
• Replaced Rocket Clamp graphic placeholder with final sprite.
• Fixed issue with saveScreen transition looking jerky.
• Replaced placeholder text and graphics on the Sell/Inventory screens.

Day 27

• Fixed XBOX loading new game delays.
• Updated Grass graphics above mine.
• Fixed temperature gauge damping issue.
• Tested ability to delete saved games.
• Tested changing storage containers from in game.

Controls
Keyboard

• Movement - Arrow Keys, WASD
• Accept - Left Control, Right Control
• Cancel - Left Shift, Right Shift, Escape
• Open Title Menu - Escape, Delete
• Cheat Mode - C
• Open In Game Menu - Tab, Y, I
• Sell or dump a single mineral - Z
• Pause - P
• Show Safe Area - V (Debugging Only)

XBOX 360 Controller

• Movement - Direction Pad or Left Joystick or Right Joystick
• Accept - A
• Cancel - B
• Remove/Delete - X (Delete a saved game)
• Open In Game Menu / Change Storage Device - Y
• Pause - Back
• Open Title Menu - Start