Beelzebub - my rpg game in development

[3D]

This might not be anything major for you guys but this got me excited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCJ2aq4TBQ

EDIT: Yay, i got it working, can now save and load games and retain the randomly generated weapons, now i need to build the database of weapons possible and the formulas for weapon damage and spread this same system to armors and the much improved items will be in the game fully and lend a much needed reward system to the battles, it also serves to simplify item placement in the world and who doesn't like glowy weapons even in placeholder art. =D

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Hi. Really enjoyed playing your demo. Great work on picking the music and compiling sound effects. The best part of your project so far. Build on this!

I would rework some of the controls. Have no idea why you avoid adding support for ENTER/BACKSPACE and ARROW KEYS together with the ones you have so far. The current setup makes the game cumbersome to play. Maybe consider even adding mouse support, especially with menus. A bit tricky to use them, or maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the game mechanics. I would warmly recommend you try dabbling with the environment graphics before monsters, just to add some face to your game. Not sure how your engine handles it or if you engine supports textures already. Push that up on your to do list.

Would love to help with the project. Will see if I'll be able to find time. Really hectic times for me lately. Maybe I can try helping with textures, I just need to know what kind you need (size, shape, ...). Specify.

[3D]

adding support for mouse menus is on the to do list, adding support for arrow keys / enter would be simple... the game maps well to a gamepad and is definitely the best way to play it atm.

the fact is i would love to add mouse support and better menus in general but there are so many other things that need to be worked on i can't bring myself to spruce up features that I myself have no problem with, i mean i can literally play the game with 1 hand and i think it just comes down to not having enough play time with it.

having said that i DO care very much on how fun the game is for other people to play so expect some changes in the future, i am toying with a complete rewrite of the inventory system but with so many half finished systems it may just have to wait till everything else matures a bit... your not the only one that wishes for mouse support so adding that is practically set in stone now.

as for textures, every wall piece and floor is tied to a tile, that tile can be drawn with a texture i just lack the ability to draw said textures especially with regards to distance and perspective... i can see what i can do in a future demo, glad you enjoyed the demo and definitely appreciate your feedback.  I'm still working on it daily, and would have updated it a day or so ago with my latest version but i hit a snag with the random weapon/armor generator i am coding, nothing i can't fix or make to work but it has proven to be more time intensive then i expected to get working correctly.

if you want to dabble with textures yourself lachie take a look at the tile3d folder, in there you will find the bitmaps that make up the maze, i will admit the naming scheme is lackluster but shouldn't be to hard to figure out what tile your looking at based off the picture thats already there, feel free to edit them to your hearts desire, one only needs to edit them and then run the game and the changes you have made will be reflected in the game (this will alsol tell you what size / shape they are)

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Hrm, I thought I could do this quickly as a proof-of-concept thing:



Ignoring the glaring mistakes, still not right. But yeah, it's quite demanding. I see what you mean. I'll might try later with a different approach. Maybe design a flat texture, and then apply a perspective effect on it. Like this...definitely doable, just...quite time-consuming.

[3D]

yea now at least you see what i mean, doesn't help that even with the limited amount of tiles that are in there that it ends up being  a lot of work, nice proof of concept though, could definitely add to the atmosphere of the game, and i find once black lines are gone you lose some of the sensation of moving through 3d space, but maybe that's just because i am so used to them being there.

the red walls are supposed to be miasma mist would look epic if there were skeletal hands or demonic faces trying to escape, i could animate them in the engine, as i do plan on bringing back the water animation that was once in there, not to sure why i took it out in the first place seeing as it was working in a previous build quite awhile back, its a bit of a pain to add in the animation but once its in there its in there.

one things for sure though because of the way the game engine works (overlapping images) the game has potential to look a lot better then the way i have it now, with a style all its own. thanks for the proof of concept lachie i am a fan of your pixel art so hopefully we can get some more of your charm in there! and remember I'm really not that hard to please and if something looks good to you its most likely going to be ok by me... and pretty sure you understand the mood that i am going for.

EDIT to add my attempt (i like yours more then mine)

[Lachie Dazdarian]

To retain the illusion of movement with textures, you will definitely need two versions of each tile, but that can easily be done, with horizontal (floor) or vertical (walls) flip. You just need to code it. Not sure if I recommended this before, but you should check out Witchcraft Adventure . It uses that "trick". Also, I think his engine uses less tiles. I could try to pick his brain on it.

Anyway, really interested in this project. Hope to find time to contribute more. I think I have a clever idea for faster development of walls/floors (at least most of them). But I need few hours to give it a test.

[3D]

well i had thought about that as well, realistically if there were code to mirror and bload the tiles flipped on the horizontal it would allow half the art... which would then make editing carbon copies a lot easier and reduce the game asset size by half... the file sizes are enormous and for the most part not needed to be that big, i mean you see how much of that purple translucency is there for every tile that made my life simpler but is totally not needed to be like that.

I ran into such a snafu with the inventory system i really am thinking of gutting the WHOLE inventory system and redesigning the item generator around it instead of trying to make it fit onto something that wasn't originally designed to be in there. I had a lot of fun doing some of the spell effects, next time you load it up start a new game as a scholar, press G while on the adventure portion and you should see god mode enabled, then spend skill points on the skills and test them out the animations aren't always correct simply but a good way to see them (otherwise you cant because leveling up is disabled atm) bear in mind a lot of the healing or debuff / buff skills are not coded but most of the attack spells should work... although damage numbers won't make sense since i was in process of recoding a lot of that to fit in with attribute system.

a lot is not finalized, everytime i got close to something being finalized i had some bright new ideas that i wanted to add in rendering the previous work antiquated... i just dont want you to be like x skill does not work because i am well aware that a lot are broken or incorrect.

i am adding mouse support as a feature that i want in there, with arrows to click to move around (like old school dungeon crawlers) and an icon based menu system instead of a text menu.

if you wanted to do some icons for that (like a camp fire for camping, a bag for inventory and anything else that fits the text label that is in the menus now feel free too) basically anything you think could be spruced up you have free reign to do art for) one thing that i enjoy about the design is that it isn't all corridors and has some open spaces something that i haven't seen in to many games of this genre besides some of the might and magic games.

I'm working till Friday morning this week so i won't be able to hit the code hard until the weekend.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I understand all that. I'll try to contribute, and hopefully motivate you, not pressure you. The two texture versions idea might even work with very simple code. Change the version of each texture in the game from version 1 to 2 and vice-versa on every move! If you keep the versions similar enough but visibly different, it will work! I think. Because with each move all textures (floor and wall) should move, so you won't notice the switch from, for example, the floor that was two sectors in front and is now one.

Anyway, I experimented a bit in Paint Shop Pro with texture generators and perspective effect, and I think it works rather neat. A note: this was just proof-of-concept done in 10 minutes (yeah, I thought it would take longer for me to figure it out).



This is not a mock up. I can send you the images. But I would really like to take few hours and try to make better textures (and more precise, note the black areas on edges), two versions of them, do all the grass in the game, and hopefully all textures for one wall type, and let you see how it looks in the game.

BTW, could you send me an email: lachie13@yahoo.com

I'm not sure how much others will appreciate our public development.

[3D]

looks like someone may be able to assist in working on the music for the game, although this is not a huge part (already like what i have) it goes with the whole make everything original concept and i'm all for it... who knows maybe his tracks will be even nicer!

how goes the textures lachie? any luck getting a few done, send me an email sometime -   I been busy flying DCS A-10 and DCS black shark 2, so haven't worked on the game in a lil bit... but its always on my mind

[3D]

nothing new lachie? if you haven't completed anything new can you at least send me that example and perhaps hit me up with exactly what process was used to create that effect so that i can try my best to do a similar style.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Sorry, I got sidetracked with personal life, FBGD, FBGD annual competition, BASIC Gaming, my own game dev projects (in the gutter, ATM).

Not sure what I can promise, right now. I'll try to find time to improve my method in the following week and then send you instructions how to replicate it.

[3D]

yea np i havent been very busy with this latley but never dead, im really toying around with some new ideas and concepts for the engine, hopefully i will get off my fat buttocks and get to tryin something new! even still please pm me the steps when you have a chance.