Eric's Weird Pong Rip Off With No Actual Title... Dev Diary.

[EricT]

I'll appease fog.
The game itself is essentially Pong (tm Atari) at the heart of it. But heres where my concepts come in:


- The player controls a box in the center of the screen. It is controlled via the mouse, and has an undecided amount of free movement to the four main axis directions.

- Around the edges are four small rectangle ball receptacles, one on each edge. The plan is that they move around on their main axis (Ex. If the receptacle is on the right side of the screen, up and down, if its on the top, left and right).

- On the four corners of the screen there are cannons that shoot out balls. These randomly change their angle of fire, and shoot out 1 ball at a time, being of multiple types:

   - The White Regular Ball (A regular ball at a regular speed)
   - The Blue Slow Ball (This ball moves slower towards the player)
   - The Green Fast Ball (This ball moves quicker)
   - The Purple Curve Ball (This one does come curves and loops on its way into the player area)
   - The Red Exploder Ball (This one explodes on player contact, damaging the player.)

- The goal of the game is to get 4 balls (probably more or less depending on difficulty/level/etc.) into any of the receptacles, while avoiding the Exploder's, as they will damage the player (whom can take a total of 2-3 hits (am not quite certain on this, when I get farther into the dev, I will decided) from the Exploders.


Thats pretty much it right there. I'm sure more will get piled on when I get farther into the dev.

What is done right now is:

-Player placement/movement
-Receptacle placement (movement patterns for them to be added, but I can't test anything else efficiently with them moving)
-Cannon placement and ability to eject the regular ball.

What is being worked on:

-Recognition of proper collision with player, followed by correct angular reflection of ball.
-Recognition of proper absorption with receptacle after ball has been hit by player.
-Thinking of how to deal with a player missing a ball, what sort of penalty, if any, and what to do with the ball after it leaves the players playing field.

Doesn't sound like much, because it isn't much. Been more into thinking about how the game works than making it work. But anyway, expect to see the game in 2318!

Edit: Also, this is being done in pure 2d, so I am already questioning my use of DBP. I may switch over to a more 2d base form of BASIC. Also, I may make the box a circle... We'll see. But the game will maintain the core elements displayed above.

[T_M_C]

Cool.

Nice to read another Dev Diary.   

You can't go far wrong with a Pong game.

This version sounds fun with a novel twist. 

Will look forward to playing this when you release it.

As an idea, how about the ability to shoot the ball to defelct it.  It's always great to have something to shoot at.

Oh and are you using a physics engine or doing that yourself.

TMC

[fog]

Yeah you can't go wrong with Pong.  The basic concept is simple enough for anyone to play but there is still plenty of scope for adding new and interesting things.  Gameplay wise does it get any purer than Pong?

Edit: Also, this is being done in pure 2d, so I am already questioning my use of DBP. I may switch over to a more 2d base form of BASIC. Also, I may make the box a circle... We'll see. But the game will maintain the core elements displayed above.

Nothing wrong with DBPro's 2D.  It might be a bit limited if you want super fancy effects but it should be fine for what you're planning.

[EricT]

As an idea, how about the ability to shoot the ball to defelct it.  It's always great to have something to shoot at.

That ran through my mind, but I haven't thought of exactly how to implement it correctly. Will think about it more

Oh and are you using a physics engine or doing that yourself.

I'll be doing it myself.

My aim with this is not to have fancy dancy specific physics, but as to have more simple form of reflection and refraction.

Nothing wrong with DBPro's 2D.  It might be a bit limited if you want super fancy effects but it should be fine for what you're planning.

Well, I've never really done much in 2d with DBP, so this is sort of a learning experience for me with 2d in DBP. I always felt DBP more of a simple 3d oriented language, with 2d just "there". We shall see if I can convince myself otherwise.

I'm gonna sit down tonight and get a little work on it, couldn't get much last night after a nice snow storm decided to flicker my power.

[fog]

Well, I've never really done much in 2d with DBP, so this is sort of a learning experience for me with 2d in DBP. I always felt DBP more of a simple 3d oriented language, with 2d just "there". We shall see if I can convince myself otherwise.

well it's true there's much more emphasis on the 3D than the 2D but, aside from pixel perfect collisions, it does pretty much everything you would need.  And the only thing you need to remember is to switch off the awful backsave setting ( SET SPRITE spr_no,0,1 )

[EricT]

So, tonight I did a little playing around, still unsure how exactly I want to pan  this out.

What I did tonight was experimented in what it would be like with the 3d side view style. Even solid colored textured objects looked weird to me. Maybe with some good texture work, this could work out...

A better question for myself, when the hell am I gonna stop digressing away from my original goal, and focus on one item?!

More to come!

[T_M_C]

lol, ahh the joys of game dev.

I'm looking forward to your first all night coding session for this project.  I've had several so far so i consider myself well into dev now. 

TMC

[EricT]

i'm actually having an all night of non-coding.

I keep laying down, suddenly having a great idea, going over to the computer, lighting up a cigarette, clickity clackiting on the keyboard for a few minutes... then suddenly saying "Wait, this a stupid f**king idea, why did I think this was a good idea?!" and going back to bed.

[fog]

i'm actually having an all night of non-coding.

I keep laying down, suddenly having a great idea, going over to the computer, lighting up a cigarette, clickity clackiting on the keyboard for a few minutes... then suddenly saying "Wait, this a stupid f**king idea, why did I think this was a good idea?!" and going back to bed.

Yup, diversion or feature creep are project killers.

I still use the same technique I always have.  Write 4 or 5 lines in Notepad describing the basic elements of the game, that's your design doc and it's very very rare anything else gets added.  You generally do find that your basic original idea is the best and anything else just dilutes that or over complicates the gameplay.

[EricT]

i'm actually having an all night of non-coding.

I keep laying down, suddenly having a great idea, going over to the computer, lighting up a cigarette, clickity clackiting on the keyboard for a few minutes... then suddenly saying "Wait, this a stupid f**king idea, why did I think this was a good idea?!" and going back to bed.

Yup, diversion or feature creep are project killers.

I still use the same technique I always have.  Write 4 or 5 lines in Notepad describing the basic elements of the game, that's your design doc and it's very very rare anything else gets added.  You generally do find that your basic original idea is the best and anything else just dilutes that or over complicates the gameplay.

Good idea...

Though, some ideas running through my head before I finally passed out... sound cool, but about 10 minutes after trying to think how they would work I'll think they're shit, haha.

Tonight nothing done due to attending a pointless funeral (seriously, this was the WORST funeral I have ever attended, since everyone agreed the guy was a nut and was due to off himself at any moment, considering no matter how much help he got, he'd mention it EVERY DAY, as sick as that may sound. Everyone was just "there".)

[EricT]

So I saw this today:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kabomb/zwingo

Now how the hell do I NOT steal from that.

Back to the drawing boards! *mumbling something about how all his ideas have already been used*

[fog]

So I saw this today:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kabomb/zwingo

Now how the hell do I NOT steal from that.

Back to the drawing boards! *mumbling something about how all his ideas have already been used*

Not bad

I wouldn't worry about it though as pretty much everything you think of will already have been done to an extent.  I mean I'm currently working on block based puzzle games and there are gazillions of those already and, while I haven't seen my exact ideas done anywhere else, I'm sure there will be something very similar out there.  You just need to make sure yours has a little twist in the gameplay or, as I tried with Echoes, that it's as playable as you can make it.

[T_M_C]

We've all had those, "i've got this amazing idea for a game" moments, it's gonna make me gazillions, but i find the best approach for me, is to sleep on it, and if i still remember it in the morning then it has merit.  Another day and the idea usualy takes on a new light.

The real test though, is if that idea still seems good, a week or month later.

More often than not, it doesn't.   

TMC

[fog]

Are games like jokes then in that there's only supposed to be 5 different ones and everything else is just supposed to be a variation on those.

[EricT]

Hahaha.

Did some more thinking on the concept while at work doing NOTHING today. I woke up 5am to open and get started, and a total of 3 people showed up due to snow. Sat around for another 6 hours till I said "yeah, I think thats enough free pay for the day".

Anyway. I've decided the mouse control, too simple. Waaaay too simple. Came home and confirmed that with myself. Ideas that crossed my mind instead also seemed simple and inventive. Thats when Star Trek TNG came on the tube, and it suddenly came to me. A ship, sorta like The Enterprise, that has lost all of its offensive functions due to some stupid accident involving coffee and a sex bot. All that is left is the shield and the boosters. Many aliens have surrounded them and created a border of movement, with their alien technologies and such, that allows the ship to travel only in that area. Thats when the aliens started the offensive, they began to shoot shit at the ship... the ships captain came up with an awesome idea, with the shield still intact, he can pilot the ship into the line of fire and attempt to deflect the oncoming fire back at the attacking alien ships, and the border generators.

So, in the game, more or less it would work like this... directional keys, press up to boost up, down to counter that boost (if still moving) and to begin to boost down, left and right the same. combinations of the keys to create the different angled boosts, etc.

Sounds like a REALLY awful Star Trek episode. But I think I can work with it a little better than what I had been working with.