FBGD Seasons of the Year Competition (Nov 2012 – March 2013), 350 $ 1st prize

[SMC]

Man, these are all looking great.  I think this is going to turn out to be the best compo yet.

[ssjx]

Hi,
Another update : http://ssjx.co.uk/windows/fbgd.php  (v0.3)

Changes include:

* More colour
* Blocks that drop in autumn
* Fire and a bucket for water
* Level selection
* Level editor!
* More levels, mainly simple introductions to the properties of things.
* Various bugs removed/added...

The level editor is almost fully functional but a few notes:

* It is a little clunky at the moment as it is keyboard only.
* Pressing 's' saves the level put does not give any indicator that it has done anything.
* Allowing the player to fall off screen is not handled yet! I will make him appear from the top which should allow for some interesting and weird levels!
* You can only make 12 levels, this is a current limit of the selection screen. I really doubt anyone will make 12 levels...
* No checking is done for the essentials (player,ring,exit)
* Created levels are saved in the 'user' folder as bmps.

A general tidy up of the interface (inc some confirmation dialog boxes) and some mouse control is on the growing list of thing to do, maybe a nicer larger font too...

Enjoy! 

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I still can't pickup a yellow seed I drop in Autumn. Also, restart key is needed. Don't like having to press ESC, go to levels menu and then choose my level again.

Not sure how much I'm fond of the new puzzles, and some levels that supposed to exploit them didn't (like the first one with fire). Flowers, wines, water and ice work. New stuff, not so sure, but I can assume it can be frustrating to devise good ones that add to gameplay.

The backgrounds really add a lot to the visual experience. Thanks for implementing that.

I will repeat the last time that in my opinion orienting the gameplay toward being able to change seasons only on certain locations would allow you to design, implement and test game puzzles as well as levels utilizing them more easily, and would allow you to refine the gameplay better. Seasons change on every location could be retained only for special (maybe difficult) levels.

Jonge, Landeel, Mitchell, Eponasoft, BadMrBox, gothon, relsoft? How about you, guys? Got something to report, show? Don't be shy.

[Jonge]

Progress has halted a bit for me the last week. It turned out to be hard to make some decent sprites, so I have been using a lot of time on pixeling, reading tutorials and repixeling   I'm close to finishing a ok sprite of the first enemy, I will then continue on some simple AI for the enemies.

Here's a mockup from a couple of day's ago:


The green guy is supposed to be a goblin.

ssjx: Will test out your demo when I get home, I'm at work now.

[landeel]

Made a lot of progress this weekend.
I still have many placeholder graphics to replace. Maybe I'll post some screenshots this week.

[Eponasoft]

My entry is moving forward, although it's difficult making things look nice at high resolution when you're working with initially low-resolution assets. hqx produces a lot of alias noise in transparent regions, which is obnoxious. I'm pretty sure that I saw, at one point, a similar tool that would apply scale2x resizing and preserve edges against transparent region bleeding. Aside from that minor graphical issue, everything's moving along nicely. I set the overall design plan in stone from the beginning and haven't changed it. That way, it can be finished on time. It's easy to start a project and get carried away with features; I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen this time around.

[ssjx]

Minor update (0.4) http://ssjx.co.uk/windows/fbgd.php , main changes of note:

* Menus / selection and editor screens can be navigated by mouse.
* Player falling off screen appears at the top of the screen. (this is more for user levels)

My updates will probably not be as frequent from now, there are still some things to add though:

* Limiting the season changes so more forward thinking is required. Collectables to recharge season changes..
* Maybe update menu selector for 24 levels to fit above change
* More sounds/music
* Transition effects, movement on the title screen so it is less dull
* A name would be good too...

One thing i have realised making this is that all games should come with a level editor!

Thanks for looking!

[Jonge]

ssjx: There seems be a bug, at some levels there is a invisible wall in one of the seasons. Heres a couple of pixs:



One time I also had trouble picking up a seed on a platform, I had to go back on the ladder and then back onto the platform to be able to pick up the seed. I haven't managed to reproduce this.

[ssjx]

Thanks for mentioning this, it's strange i noticed the same problem on another pc this morning. Except it was the grass platforms in spring not showing up.

Edit: Ah, i see your screenshots are both Spring too..

I thought was down to some weird graphics card issue (GeForce FX5200 on Win7) as it has only happened on this PC and it was not random.

I may be trashing some memory somewhere...

Thanks again for pointing this out, i'll try and get it fixed!

[Pritchard]

"One thing i have realised making this is that all games should come with a level editor!"

While level editors are awesome, it takes some amount of architectural genius to make a very complex game with a level editor.  "The Witness" ala Jonathan Blow seems to have a really high-tech editor, but I can't imagine that he prototyped/designed the game using it.

Source:  Me.  I've spent more time making editors for games than I have games.

Of course, if the level editor and game both run on the same engine, that can simplify things.

[Jonge]

One thing i have realised making this is that all games should come with a level editor!

Its nice to let the users be able to add puzzel levels, you never now what cool things other user might make.

Source:  Me.  I've spent more time making editors for games than I have games.

Of course, if the level editor and game both run on the same engine, that can simplify things.

Oh yes, I've also used to much time on editors And it has killed the motivation for a few projects. I'm currently working on one editor, though this time I have included it into the game engine. This helps out, though GUI elements take up some time. For my entry, I use a 256color BMP file as the map, and hard code anything else into the engine.


I'm still working on GFX for my entry. Currently I'm updating the Hero sprite, which is a sprite I origionally made a few years ago. When this is done I'll start work on some code for "bullets".

[relsoft]

Jonge, Landeel, Mitchell, Eponasoft, BadMrBox, gothon, relsoft? How about you, guys? Got something to report, show? Don't be shy.

Relminator switches to shy mode...
 

I'm doing all the "boring" stuff for my entry first. :*)

[ssjx]

Hi,
I think i've fixed the graphics bug. It's not appearing on the pc where i was seeing the problem so version 0.5a on my site should work. It looks like the problem was down to the font recoloring function, it looks like i was over shooting the bitmap and trashing whatever was next. I am a bit surprised i was not seeing more stability problems and Windows crashes.

This release also features some dialogs and other gameplay fixes but i am only uploading it due to the above problem!

[Jonge]

Its a bit quiet here so I decided to post a screenshot. I'm working on the main character, to get him firing some magic bullets. At the moment, he only lifts his arms, but no bullets, I hope this will change soon 



I currently have a three button control, with one button for left, center and right. This lets you fire in two directions at the same time. Gun Smoke used two buttons, where you could fire strait only when pressing both buttons. I might change the controls, but I will have to see how this works.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I dig the 3 button control concept.

Nice looking sprites.

You think you'll have enough time to wrap this up? I'm a bit worried, because I would hate to see this not completed. Sounds like a lot of fun concept.