I’ve finally finished alpha 0.0.3 , but I did not make it public yet, new features (since 0.0.2) :
Player levels
Monsters levels
Weapons upgrade
Warehouse for item storage
World map (episodes, levels)
Items collecting (wood, iron, diamonds,…) used for building stuffs (weapons, ammo, …)
Experience / energy support
Player progression saved on server (ammunitions, level, maps done, items available, …)
Shop
Destroying walls (if you have enough firepower)
New website
New graphics, and sprite support for particles (missile, explosion effect,…)
New sounds (no music yet)
One new monster (fatman, shoots 3 fireballs at low level) and modified behaviors for existing ones.
Animated sprite support (only the missile is currently animated)
Moving platforms
Teleporting
Spawning monsters
Random gift boxes
Mini map
And I must forget other features….
Explosion effect comes from Lost Garden (very nice site)
Roadmap (mostly temporary) :
Alpha 0.0.4 : add missing website features (port, mine, multiplayer island protection & attack, achievements,…) and add corresponding game features (attacking other player islands)
Alpha 0.0.5 : first 2-3 levels
Alpha 0.0.6 : bug fix, public release
Alpha 0.0.7+ : new levels, bug fix
Beta 0.1 : when all levels for episode 1 are available
Beta 0.2 : episode 1 boss
Beta 0.3 : episode 2 start or secondary quests
I think alpha 0.0.6 should be ready by mid-february
Gameplay video :
And some screen shots (building weapons, upgrading, maps, warehouse, …) :
Added borders on tiles, it’s very nice and corrects some isometric perspective visual problems (F4 to switch it on/off)
Optimized again, now the game is almost playable on a Asus Eeepc 1015PN netbook (on quick light calculation mode, there are still a few lags sometimes), and perfectly playable on my 10 years old computer
Fixed sound problems on Windows this time (if you don’t flush buffer after playing, java will repeatedly play last buffer)
Fixed performance issues on Windows (mainly because I didn’t test the game enough under windows, there are some small differences that were causing troubles)
Added a multi-thread support, if your computer has more than 1 core/cpu it will be automatically enabled (F3 to switch). It increases performance nicely.
I’ve also added a small video of the first level on youtube :
I’ve finally bought a fraps license to record it, I couldn’t get any other screencast software to work correctly. Encoding has changed colors a little, but it’s good enough.
Another small update : I’ve finally almost fixed sound on Ubuntu, it seems the problem was that you can’t open lines too quickly, once you have opened one line, you must wait before opening another.
It’s working fine with OpenJDK, there can still be some troubles with Oracle JVM, but it’s more a JVM issue than a problem in my code (my guess is the Oracle JVM doesn’t use PulseAudio by default). It’s not so important as OpenJDK is the default JVM and Oracle JVM is not included/updated anymore in Ubuntu repositories.
A small update to alpha 0.0.2, by pressing F2 you will switch to quick lightning calculation, which use a lot less CPU than normal calculation.
So I’ve done some benchmarking :
Works fine with my PC (Intel E8600, 6gb ram), under Ubuntu Linux and Virtualized Windows XP, with full lightning calculation
Works fine on a few years old laptop (Intel T7300, 2gb ram)
It is not playable with a netbook (Asus Eee PC 1015 PN, Atom N550 dual core, 1gb ram), it could almost be playable, but there are some big lags often, making it unplayable (usually when shooting, or when monsters awake)
Works fine (basic calculation) on a 10 years old laptop (P4 2.5ghz , 512mb ram), some small lags because of the lake of memory (swapping occurs)
What is the most interesting is that the 1 year old netbook is less powerful than the 10 years old laptop, of course this is a very specific case, if I want the laptop to play a full HD video it will crash, whereas the netbook will play it smoothly.
I need to investigate more on what is happening on the netbook, I am quite sure the game could run smoothly with a bit more optimization.
I’ve released alpha 0.0.2 about two weeks earlier than expected, everything is really going quickly now, the engine is working nicely, and adding stuffs is really easy.
The biggest update in this new alpha version is the script engine, I can now execute scripts in my levels (pushing buttons, opening doors,…), which means a lot more interactions.
So the changes :
Script engine (with a few actions : moving camera, opening doors, activating lights, ending level,…)
New objects : button and keys
Redesigned existing levels, to include scripts and keys
Extracted most of the media (sounds, graphics) to jar files, so that they are now cached by your browser, increasing loading times
Next alpha should be more PHP oriented, meaning I will begin working on saving player progression, experience and that kind of stuff. Registration won’t be mandatory (a guest account will be created automatically for unregistered users).
I’ve released snorms first alpha version two weeks before scheduled, everything went fine lately, so development has gone quicker than expected, that’s good news.
First of all, a little warning : this is an alpha version, sort of gameplay preview / prototype, it’s not a beta, and not at all a final release ! It’s missing a lot of features, and available features are incomplete. That said it’s working quite nicely, I was not sure what a third-view / isometric shooter could be like, but it seems nice
Some of the included features in this alpha 0.0.1 (build 112) :
3 monsters
Brownie : shoots pellets (rarely fireball), will flee easily when shoot
Bluecan : shoots fireballs and homing fireballs, very strong, can follow you quite a lot (it has permission to use pathfinding on long range)
Small : shoots bouncing laser beam, it has an high shoot rate
Monster infighting is present, but not seen so often in these levels (I should make stronger monsters in order to generate more infighting)
2 levels
They have no end yet, the scripting engine should be available in the alpha 0.0.2 version, when dying just reload the game
Level 1 is based on doom 2 m01 map, don’t forget the secret area at the very beginning before it’s too late
Level 2 is based on doom 2 m12 map, quite a big map, too big in my mind (I could have done the same map using a smaller map size)
Sounds, they are all taken from the freedoom project, I think they fit nicely
Some sprites, graphics : done very quickly, they are not at all definitive
4 weapons / 3 ammo
Pistol : shoots one bullet at a time
Shotgun : shoots multiple bullets (10 bullets for 5 ammo)
Rocket launcher : launch homing missile (the missile will be homing only if target is in sight when firing, else it is a standard missile), use rockets
Laser gun : shoots wall-bouncing laser beams, uses energy cells
Various items
Ammo : bullets, rockets, and energy cells
Life : small and big
Armor : absorb damages
The keys are explained in the game page, it’s quite easy, but movements can be confusing at first (I’ve gotten used to them very quickly, but if I think of something more intuitive, I’ll change them). Furthermore debug mode is available by pressing F1 key (then a lot of keys will have some undocumented effects )
Some technical info :
The game will download all necessary content every time you launch it (sounds, graphics,…), I’ve not signed my jars yet, so I can’t store (cache) items on hard drive to avoid that yet. This should be done later.
I still have some sound issue with Java & Ubuntu, none of my Ubuntu computers can open more than one sound line, everything is fine under Windows (Virtualized or not). I’ve done my best to bypass the problem, but you might still experiment some strange sound. I should really give a try to Java OpenAl…
The game requirements are not very high, you don’t even need a good video card (3d/2d acceleration is not mandatory), but still it certainly won’t play smoothly on netbooks or old computers.
A lot of work remain, but it’s quite a good start !
From now on I think there will be updates every weeks / 2 weeks…
First alpha should be ready, as planned, by the end of December, it will be a gameplay preview, not a beta version, and not at all a final version it should include :
A few monsters (mostly depending on what I can “draw”)
A few levels
4 weapons : pistol, shotgun, missile launcher and laser gun
And all that is needed to make a simple shooter game (life, armor, ammunitions,…)
For the moment, what is mostly missing are the graphics, I still use the quickly made graphics for kleum, and this is not enough Technically, since last update I have :
Improved again performance
Added weapons, bullets and ammunitions
Added HUD
Added life and armor systems
Added monsters with quite a lot of behaviors (fleeing, following players, switching weapons,…)
I had to switch back to basic lightning calculations, in order to keep a good frame rate, I’ll work on improving performance on this part later (quick calculation is enough at the moment)
I think I’ll use some music/sounds from the freedoom project, it will fit nicely in this game (I love doom games, this is a great source of inspiration for me)
