The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Summary:

Rebuilding the game that Rb, Emblis and I worked on during Competition #7

The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 06 Jul 2016 19:10

Introduction

Hello! Its already been 40 or so Days since the competition started so I'm a bit late.
My original plan was to work on "The Inside" for the first month and then "Future Game" (my big project) for the rest of the competition, Since I only have 60 or so days left, I'll just start on "The Inside" and see how much I can get done and hopefully get it playable by the end of the competition.

Also, Since we started with 3 people and now its just me, there is alot of unused/unfinished code lying around that I'm not sure what to do with. So I decide to just scrap it all and start the project over from scratch (besides the assets and things I've learned)

The Inside

Four players are inside a structure/ship/object. They will either start in 4 different sections of the map or start together only to be forced to split up right away.

Each player can unlock doors to rooms, and explore using a fog of war/flashlight method (Example from SubTerrain game)
Most rooms will either have supplies or be a room dedicated to a utility that can be used to help other players.

A primary room to find a get working will be a generator room, that will be able to feed up to X number of other rooms power.
Another room for example can be a Lights room, that will light up a section of the map (one players specific area) so that he has no need for a flashlight and is easier to see surroundings.

That is all the information I'm giving out so far, as the project continues I will reveal how to win, other rooms and puzzles the players will need to face.

Sprints #1,2,3,4,5.

Achievement Get!
Lazy: Do nothing for a long time.

Sprint #6

Create a Base Solution, Upload it to Mercurial
Get assets loaded via Pipeline
Import the Monogame.Extended Library into the project

Sprint #7 (Current List)

Create base game structure for objects and etc.

• Create Object class, with "tags" indicating which category it is in
• Create Immovable Object, inheriting from object with Immovable tag
• Create Movable Object, inheriting from Object with blahblah and so on.
• Create Stationary Object, which contains its own list of Objects. (represents a Tile that may have objects inside it that move (for example any number of puzzles, or doors that can slide independently

Look at .TMX values and just generally think about how they can be sorted into lists.

Todo List:

• Sort lists by tag and use them for updating (for processing problems)
• Figure out why .Tmx file doesn't load correctly
• Parse data from .TMX file into framework (That I will be building this week)
• Get Monogame.Extended Camera Code to work with the map (meh.. Low Priority)

I'll be updating this every week with my updates from here on out!

Last edited on 13 Jul 2016 04:58 by Swatacular Show more

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

mdjdejesus 07 Jul 2016 16:03

I'm very curious about this game. I was looking through Competition #7 tread and was not able to see a description. Is there some place I can see?

---

—Javier DeJesus

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 07 Jul 2016 18:50

We have a entire 12 Page Design Document (plus a few other documents that discuss other things)..
and we have a team on Slack https://competition7.slack.com where we talked and talked and talked and everything is recorded and saved for future use.

As far as details of the game, I don't want to give out to much right away just because I'd like to make something and get it out here before I go back to designing.

Believe me.. Its cool!
(Oh, and if I didn't state it before, its still a open call incase anybody wants to hop on the project)

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 13 Jul 2016 03:52

I didn't spend much time actually programming anything, I actually only made my first inital commit, I did however talk to RB a bit about the Monogame.Extended Library and I think I know where I'm going.

I will want to create objects (generally) how they are sorted on the Monogame.Extended classes.. However Ill basically be doing it "my way".

Later I will have some type of importer that will take the classes from Monogame.Extended, and send the info to different classes that I created, effectively separating the rendering and other info I don't need from the Tiled .TMX map while keeping the useful things around.

Sprint #6 Completion List

Create a Base Solution, Upload it to Mercurial Check
Get assets loaded via Pipeline Im not totally sure what went wrong.. it loaded textures fine.. but the .TMX map kind failed, thats ok though.
Import the Monogame.Extended Library into the project Check

Sprint #7

Create base game structure for objects and etc.

• Create Object class, with "tags" indicating which category it is in
• Create Immovable Object, inheriting from object with Immovable tag
• Create Movable Object, inheriting from Object with blahblah and so on.
• Create Stationary Object, which contains its own list of Objects. (represents a Tile that may have objects inside it that move (for example any number of puzzles, or doors that can slide independently

Look at .TMX values and just generally think about how they can be sorted into lists.

Todo List:

• Sort lists by tag and use them for updating (for processing problems)
• Figure out why .Tmx file doesn't load correctly
• Parse data from .TMX file into framework (That I will be building this week)
• Get Monogame.Extended Camera Code to work with the map (meh.. Low Priority)

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Brett208 13 Jul 2016 04:40

Hey Swatacular,

Good to hear about the progress. We used MonoGame.Extend to port Tiled Maps into the Xevious clone during the last collaboration, so you might want to check that out as an example if you haven't already.

I've also had good luck with TiledLib, a library designed to port TMX maps into XNA. I think MonoGame.Extend is probably generally a better choice since it is newer and targets MonoGame, but throwing it out there. https://github.com/babelshift/TiledLib.

Looking forward to seeing this game unfold.

-Brett

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 26 Jul 2016 15:12

Well apparently I didn't post anything last week, so I am squishing everything over the last few weeks into here.

Sprint #7

Create base game structure for objects and etc.
Check
- Created Base Object
- Created Wall, Corner, Floor objects

Sprint #8

Create Importer/Map Generator
Kinda Check
- Created Importer Interface and Class.

Sprint # 9

Change Map class to have a "Add Item" method that checks tags and adds new item to correct lists.

Edit Tiled Importer class to actually take values created from Monogame.extended and create respective objects from them, and then add them to the Map Class.

This weeks Reveal.

Maps will be randomly Generated, each map generating with alot of different rooms, and several of the same rooms. with each map being just as mysterious as the last.

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 02 Aug 2016 18:24

All of my work that I spent on the game was before last Wednesday. Nevertheless, I still got everything on my list done.

Sprint #9

Change Map class to have a "Add Item" method
Check, This was WAY easier than expected because I had already "tagged" my objects as I wanted them sorted.
Edit Tiled Importer to create objects and add them to Map
Mostly Check,
This went pretty smoothly as well, except a few things:
One, All floor objects have to be currently set as same type of floor, regardless of what I set them as in the TMX file. (due to it being sorted by layers and blah blah blah)
Two, I don't actually know if I pulled the correct information from the TMX maps, due to not knowing completely how monogame.extended works.
Three, There is no way to test it yet due to me not being able to load a TMX map into the game yet, and the art not being drawn (but thats a lesser problem)

Sprint #10

Get a TMX map loaded in the game.
Try to test it and see if I can identify what happens
Look into next goal

This Weeks Reveal

There will be enemies that attack you and put pressure on your players.

Last edited on 02 Aug 2016 18:25 by Swatacular Show more

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 08 Aug 2016 17:57

Sprint #10

Get a TMX map loaded in the game.
After a few tries, I discovered that I had to basically rewrite the map using a tileset that was located inside the new content folder.. blah blah blah interesting stuff here..
and then while I was at it I discovered Object layers, that have colliders, I think that they will become handy later, because blah blah blah more interesting stuff here.
Try to test it and blah blah.
With a little testing and tweaking.. everything is successfully loaded into the game and created as objects in the game. just need to draw them before everything is written.
Look into next goal.
Seriously, I said to RB last night that to actually say I "Completed" anything during this competition I would have to make this project WAY smaller.. Its just to massive to finish in 3-4 more sprints.

However, I am not planning to pitch it entirely, as a matter of fact, I want to make something playable pretty soon.
That being said, My plan going forward is to turn this game into a "Maze".. with a stretch goal being shadows/flashlight.

Sprint #11

Create some basic drawing code
Create a simple player object that can move around on the map

This Weeks Reveal

Doors, Keys, Locks, Lockpicking and Button mechanics.

Last edited on 08 Aug 2016 17:58 by Swatacular Show more

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 16 Aug 2016 22:28

Sprint #11

FAILED Create a simple player object that can move around on the map FAILED
Ok while this would only have taken around a hour for the bare minimum, I was already a day late on the rest of the project, but super excited about what I got done, so I figured I would push this to the next week.

Create some basic drawing code

Well, Bad news is that it took WAY longer than anticipated, I probably worked for a total of 10-12 hours this week on just this.. on probably 3 separate days.

Good news however, is that I decided to do this more official than basic, So, like my map importer, I created a interface and etc allowing anybody to use there own tileset and create there own importer very easily, And then I got it all working and showing up on the screen after multiple fails once I tried pressing "play" for the first time after 13 hours of programming and no debugging.

The problems weren't to severe, the main one that I should have realized was that if a tile had the type of (no floor), given to all of the blank spaces, they were rendered as floors and covered the entire map with grey bricks.

However, As seen in the pictures below, when the Tiled Editor "rotates" a tile, it also sets its ID to something like -1327326, I have no idea why so my workaround as seen below, is to not rotate tiles, and manually program that in (which was pretty easy cause I was already separating the horizontal walls from the vertical ones.

This is the final product, with Black background, and walls/doors/floors all rendered correctly.

This is what the editor looks like. (note the horizontal walls)

This is the first test map editor. (again, notice the walls)

And this is what the first test map looks like. (walls are acting goofy)

Next sprint details in next post.

Last edited on 18 Aug 2016 21:17 by Swatacular Show more

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 16 Aug 2016 22:29

Goals for next week seen here!

Sprint #12

Create a Character
Create a object can support physics.

This Weeks Reveal

Make your own maps!!! WooHoo!! Challenge Time!

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Brett208 18 Aug 2016 11:54

Swatacular,

I'm interested in seeing your work in Tiled, but the pictures you posted to do not seem to display on my computer.

-Brett

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 18 Aug 2016 21:18

I see that, I guess OneDrive doesn't work TO well with uploading pictures.. I created a Imgur and edited my post. I expect to be uploading more there so it wasn't a huge deal.. and Imgur seems really nice.

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

rbwhitaker 19 Aug 2016 02:24

Wow! Looking great, Swat!

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Brett208 19 Aug 2016 07:24

Looks like you are figuring Tiled out nicely. I am a huge fan of using Tiled for sculpting hand crafted Tile Based levels.

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 22 Aug 2016 20:34

Well I didn't work on my game at ALL this week due to me looking into coding bootcamp or online courses for websites. which is kind of a bummer cause of the progress I was making and the speed I was making it.. Nevertheless!!! I have 2 more weeks and all I really have to do is get a simple phyisics system in and automatically generated (Sounds easy!)

Sprint #12

Didn't get anything done.

Sprint #13

Create a Character
Create a object can support physics.

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

rbwhitaker 23 Aug 2016 01:03

They can't all be super effective weeks, right? Good luck with your character and physics!

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Swatacular 01 Sep 2016 21:34

These last two weeks have been spent mostly working on a application for the bootcamp, and now the resume for the interview, however.. I did watch a bunch of tutorials and now understand the difference between a dot product and a cross product (Used in vector math) so I can understand how the math works in this http://blackpawn.com/texts/pointinpoly/default.html tutorial.

So getting the collision detection should be quite a bit easier.
Regardless, I feel completely justified adding 2 more weeks to the duration of this project.

Next monday I will continue with Sprint #15

Re: The Inside. (Swat's Entry)

Brett208 03 Sep 2016 00:59

Swatacular,

I hope the interview goes well! I always find writing resumes an awful chore.

I'll be with you making a couple of updates after the official competition end date. Tunnel Lords is close to being ported to Itch, and I want to post about the completion.

Looking forward to seeing your progress in the coming weeks.