Having Fun with Protonaut

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 172009
 

It has been a few days – all the changes seemed so minor over the last while I couldn’t bring myself to mention them on the blog. But as a whole they’ve started to become their own beast. I didn’t even mention Build 19, so here are the biggest bullet points for 19 and 20 (I logged everything in excruciating detail back in the this post and this post) on the Protonaut Site).

* Aluminum is now square. All metals will probably end up being square..
* Pressing “R” while testing a level from the editor will reset the test level instead of the previously loaded level
* New death, running, idle, and midair animations for the character
* Added a healthbar for gameplay. It works – trust me – it just taught me that I have to rewrite my damage code. :/
* Addition of some chunky bits of art floating around to help give a microscopic field impression.
* New level load/save animated boxes.
* You no longer take damage from terrain. That means being flung against walls by explosives no longer hurts you; feel free to rocket-jump!
* The player no longer physically interacts with the capturable elements (no more “bouncing” off of things as you capture them)
* Fixed the off-center zooming bug that’s been driving me CRAZY for weeks now :D

It seems that the art and the UI gets closer and closer to perfection every day, which feels a bit strange since the gameplay isn’t perfect yet. Isn’t UI supposed to come later?
Oh well, having fun, I guess that’s all that matters. :)
Greg made a summary post for protonaut over on his blog too.
Posted by Andy Moore at 9:58 am  

Protonaut adds animated menus

 Protonaut  1 Response »
Jun 142009
 

Build 18 just went live on the Protonaut site, and it includes a discussion forum for the game. I’ll put all the nitty-gritty changelog details in there from now on, and just summarize here. :)

  • The biggest change in this one is a graphical overhaul, animating all the menus to pop in/out on the screen. It’s subtle, but I think it adds a lot of flash and flair to the game. I really like it.
  • A lot of statistics tracking events have been rewritten and the game/level/user stats will probably reset in the future. Since we haven’t finalized the gameplay mechanic yet, I’m betting most of the ratings will be irrelevant upon release anyway.
  • Our beta-fan support is really great. Around 350 levels and approximately 1000 plays!
It’s been a stream of constant work for the last few days – I still found time to chill out and socialize, but usually when I wake up Greg has a nice pile of work for me and before I go to bed he refills my inbox.

Not that I’m complaining – it feels like the project is picking up momentum. It’s like I can see the finish line just cresting on the horizon!
Posted by Andy Moore at 10:52 am  

DYN-O-MITE!

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 122009
 

I’ve been working pretty solidly this week on interface stuff, and sure things look slick – but the gameplay hasn’t changed too much. This latest update fixes that – check it out at the Protonaut website.

  • There is now an indestructable “Aluminum” element. This should make level design a bit more interesting.
  • I made the Aluminum joints “stiff” so they didn’t rotate – unfortunately the physics engine didn’t handle it too well. I might revisit it later, but I think it’ll do as-is.
  • Victory and Gameover screens have “Next/Previous/Retry” buttons on them.
  • You can now set your levels to be publicly visible or not in the editor save dialogue. This (along with the lock-edit button) aren’t editable at this time but will be in the future. (Public visisbility doesn’t affect the DB view yet, but will soon)
  • I now have a basic selection of levels in the level selection menu. They don’t exactly speak volumes about the game, and may not be good choices at all. I just grabbed the top rated levels as of this writing and stuck em in there. As the game evolves I’ll slowly figure out a nice level set.
  • A level tester is now in place – no need to save dozens of level iterations just to test it out!
  • The game now tracks two independant games – the play area and the editing area. You can swap between them freely.
And of course the big one…
  • DYN-O-MITE. No idea if this will stick in the game forever, but you can press “SHIFT” to toss a stick of dynomite, which will auto-detonate after 60 seconds. “E” will detonate them all early. Note that more than 1 stick of dynomite can cause.. irregular results. It’s fairly weak but I’m thinking eventually you’ll be able to “collect” things with it.
I’m attending a few events this weekend so it looks like it might be a relatively slow one for the game. Enjoy build 17!
Posted by Andy Moore at 7:06 pm  

More for the Menu

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 112009
 

Danged menus take an annoying large amount of my time.

  • Fixed an introduced bug where security rights were always being rejected (resulted in victory counters not increasing on the DB)
  • Added an animated dialogue box to tell you what’s up (incorrect password, logged in, etc.)
  • Logout button
  • Checkboxes now have the correct graphics
  • Level editing lock now works.
  • Gameplay change: You now only need to collect gasses to beat a level. Solids will disintegrate upon touch, and metals are indestructable. They each have a unique visual style to help you along.
  • You aren’t allowed to save levels if there are no goal objects (gaseous) in the scene.
  • Disintegrating/Collected elements now have an animation and sound effect.
I’ve nearly tapped out what I can do in terms of menu design, which has me really happy! There’s no metal objects in the game yet (coming soon) but the functionality is all there. I think, once they make it in, it’ll be time for me to sit down and do some good example levels and stick them into the level picker.
Since I have some spare time on my hands – I think I’ll start work on the web-based level browser. Wew!
Posted by Andy Moore at 11:08 am  

Ratings Live

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 112009
 

I hardly moved today!

I sat in my chair coding almost the entire day, start to end. It probably has something to do with being hung over.
Instead of introducing any new gameplay ideas I really want to work on nailing this interface and getting it out of the way.
  • Login and Signup menus now work properly (logout button coming soon)
  • Swap Controls toggle now works (in options menu)
  • Password change now works
  • “Next Level” takes you to the next incremental level number (even if it doesn’t exist)
  • “Retry” button on gameOver screen works now
  • Rating buttons on the gameOver screen work now! You can only rate each level once (despite the buttons being there always…), and the rating not only reflects on the level, but on the level creator as well.
  • Implented security measures – valid username and password have to exist for all database transactions
  • Death graphic should now line up with the player graphics properly.
  • When dead you can’t move and collect balls anymore. :3
I’ve got such a huge heap of data on levels, users, ratings, and votes now that I can start thinking about a level-browsing website. Should be interesting!
In bigger news: the game is now hosted on it’s own website! Welcome one, welcome all, to PROTONAUT.net! (.org also works)
The latest build (now #15) is always live on this site and I’ll be phasing all the older links from the previous blog posts over to the new domain over the next few days.
Now then.. it’s 2AM.. time to get some sleep.
Posted by Andy Moore at 12:52 am  

Original Title

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 102009
 

The latest build, #14, is looking a little chaotic. Greg drew up a bunch of wonderful art assets, but a lot of them had a tiny problem here or a tiny change needed there, so there’s a bunch of things I haven’t done yet but look functional, are half implemented, or are just plain buggy.

Things like the User Editing menu, the Level Selection menu, the Lock Editing button in the level editor…
I could work around the issues, but I’d rather leave them hanging like this until I get the new art assets, which won’t be long at all. I’d rather just wait and do it right, than build some workarounds I’ll just have torn apart by tomorrow anyway.
In this issue:
  • Victory and GameOver screens (the rating/next/retry buttons don’t work yet)
  • Gravity Selector now works in the Level Editor (use keyboard shortcuts for fine control)
  • New wall art – looking for feedback on this!
  • New visible (if misplaced) mute icon shows status properly
  • A bunch of minor updates to visual elements and menus
  • Fixed death animation/sound
Posted by Andy Moore at 5:02 pm  

UI Progress

 Protonaut  4 Responses »
Jun 092009
 

Been working long and hard the last two days. There’s been many intermediate builds, but this is officially enough work to warrant a new numeral. Welcome, Build 13!

  • You are now signed in as the user “Anonymous” by default. He’s a poor chump and isn’t registered.
  • Unregistered users can’t use the level editor.
  • You can now sign up for an account – anyone who signs up during the beta period is “registered”
  • Log into your account once signed up (to login, don’t type an email address). Sign-in information is stored in a cookie.
  • Lost password doesn’t actually send an email yet, but the UI and DB functionality is all in place.
  • The login fields will disappear on confirmation eventually, but until I get a status/response window up and running I just overwrite some text fields.
  • Press-and-hold spacebar is once again the word of the day instead of press-to-toggle (for slow-time)
  • I and O are two new zoom in and out buttons, to aid those that don’t have a working mousewheel for zoom.
  • Level views and victories are recorded in the database now, to aid in determining difficulty and/or quality factor of the level.
  • I’ve added a back-end to receive level ratings.
  • Levels are now saved and credited to the user who created them (now that you must login to edit). Any levels saved before Level #186 remain uncredited, but can be manually adjusted if you feel it’s important – drop me a line.
  • Levels record the originating level # to the database to help let people know if a level has been “copied” from another.
  • Levels have an “edit locking” flag to prevent others from editing it (no UI for this yet)
  • Many updates to the Editor UI and help menus.
  • New Gravity-Selector tool doesn’t actually work yet, but it looks cool!
  • New death animation and sound effect. It’s a little borked in this release but at least it exists!
  • Users themselves now have a ranking that is calculated as an aggregate of all their level ranking scores (again no UI for this yet)
  • A bunch of database optimizations and back-end work.
I feel like a steam-roller today, just plowing over issue after issue. It feels really good.
Posted by Andy Moore at 3:18 pm  

Bug: Destroyed

 Box2D, Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 082009
 

Another entire weekend devoted to a single bug! I thought it was a seperate hideous bug from last time, but it was in fact the same bug in a different disguise.

After some help with the Box2D Community I was able to trace it down to a bug in the engine – and upgrading to the latest SVN (unstable) version fixed everything. There have been no intentional bug-fixing code put into place, but it appears it’s all better now.
The really good news is my stupid hatred shunt-code I put in a few days ago is overwritten and no longer necessary. Hooray!
So now I have an incremental update, build 11, that just fixes the “flying around” glitch. :)
The FC community has been having some fun – there’s now around 110 levels generated, and I’ve only made half. :) Several people are getting really excited about the gameplay, which is making me excited in turn. Whee!
Posted by Andy Moore at 2:40 pm  

Evil Birds

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 072009
 

So I woke up ultra early this morning, despite a notsogood sleep, because…

Stupid goddamn birds. Squawking and caw-ing outside my window. Arrgh!
So instead I made a few small updates, bringing me up to Build 9:
  • Element size is now static
  • Drawing bonds now snaps-to the destination and changes color to indicate a fit
  • Viewport auto-zooms to the player character at what I think might end up being the default view size. Have to fix the zoom orientation still though.. it’s a bit off.
  • Made bonds connect to the outside of the elements, not the inside. This helps them freely spin a bit when falling apart (and reduces collisions, increasing performance)
  • I’ve made quite a few test levels now, and I keep making the default level my latest one. The current one is pretty hard to beat, yet simple!
  • Several fixes to the editor.
Posted by Andy Moore at 8:26 am  

Sloooow Moooo

 Protonaut  No Responses »
Jun 052009
 



That’s right, Slow Moo!

I’ve just uploaded Build #7, which is just a slight modification from the blog post just a few hours back.
This time I’ve removed pausing of time – now you can just hold down spacebar and it’ll slow down to 25% normal speed. You can play the entire game in slowmo if you’d like.
The object is still the same: Collect all the balls without dying! Every time you are clubbed by terrain it reduces your health accordingly (if the weight of an entire structure crushes you, you die in one hit. If you just get nicked by a single falling rod, it’s less catastrophic). I really should put a health indicator on there or something.
Posted by Andy Moore at 2:09 pm  
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