Modern Magic Progress Thread

Today:
Created a few minor enemies, and started level 1

Today had a bit of school errands and stuff. Expect the next few posts to be a lot more important.

Today:
Cheaply finished level 1
Added two new spells for the boss. Regrettably, some are Touhou "inspired". Should be enough now.

Next is the boss's graphics. Then I'll probably mess around with the menus. The last step will be dummy-ing out unfinished content and testing on other computers.

Today:
Messed around with fonts a bit
Created plain sprites for the boss. They are kinda ugly now, but I like the design. It's not often I make a character thinking "how ridiculous can I make this?". Of course, in other peoples' settings, he'd fit right in...

I've found a nasty bug when trying this on other computers, which ruins the bullet graphics. The computers I tested weren't designed for gaming, though, maybe they just didn't have Direct X updated?

Today:
Made dumb dialogue
put old backgrounds on menus
added control info to main menu screen
added ogg music
anything else I forgot

Is it...meant to be dumb? Or are you just unhappy with it?

It's not final. There'll probably be a mini-boss later. But yeah, Donald Lane is a pretty typical "unimportant level 1 boss".

BTW: HERE YOU GO GUYS:
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=3036

So yeah, after that marathon last two days, I'm chillin' today. I am uploading a Youtube video, though. I also have no classes on Wednesday.

Either I'm not as good at shooters as I used to be, or this game is really hard. I must admit that I'm a little confused by the presence of focus attacks and the purpose of the automatic shield (is it supposed to make surviving impossible-to-dodge bullet hits possible or is it a mechanic related to the immediate story--like does he have some built-in rage system or something? The former feels like laziness toward balancing the challenge to some degree.). But I do like the ability to pre-select your opening weapon (I got farthest with the homing gun) and I like the V-2-seconds attack a lot. I know this is just a demo, but I kind of expected some power-ups and several more waves of enemies before the first boss battle. And while we're at it, several more types of enemies. And the music is great. I don't recognize it, so it's either original or ripped well. Either way, I enjoyed listening to it.

Good start. I have no idea what a danmaku is--the main character maybe?--but that little gnome guy has some nasty firepower.

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Place Obligatory Signature Here

Okay guys, I hope this thread hasn't been annoying readers of this forum. Some of you guys may be thinking I'm grinding slimebucks and hyping my game daily. Since I no longer have a deadline, I feel I need to work at my own pace instead, and I'll stop using this thread for daily updates. Instead, I propose I post monthly to report major progress updates. Those reports will have lots more detail, too. I'll try to rely on setting my own monthly goals. For September, I want to complete all of the graphics for both heroes. That includes animated character sprites, dialogue portraits (there will be multiple), as well as options, shots, and bomb graphics.


Oh joy, feedback. So yeah, this demo, I pretty much assumed all players were already familiar with the game style, so I wasn't very focused on explaining the basics. Danmaku is a sub-genre of shoot-em-ups that focuses more on using enormous quantities of bullets against the player's tiny weak point. Also, attacks are usually designed to visually appealing and gimmicky instead of challenging. So in my game, when you hold focus, a highlight appears on the character showing his weak point, which is literally 1 pixel. The final game will have an in-depth tutorial, including the basics for new players.

Auto Shield was my idea to reduce frustration from being hit, even when you have more than enough power to bomb and save yourself. Power Bomb (when you press X normally) and Counter Burst (when you press X as soon as you're hit) use 1 power level, but Auto Shield uses 2, and has bigger penalties to your score. Power Bomb is the only one that deals damage, too.

Yes, the stage portion is quite halfhearted. I should've made it a little longer, and added more minor enemy types, but for the purpose of this rushed demo, the enemies are there to charge you up.

As a design decision that differs from the formula, I'm not including power-ups or items to collect. All upgrades happen as soon as you defeat enemies. When playing other danmaku games, I've felt that dodging some stuff (bullets) but purposefully running into stuff that's usually only slightly different (items) irked me the same why some light-gun arcade games throw in friendly targets that make you lose life when you shoot them. I want the player to focus exclusively on the shots that must be dodged and then the targets that need to be shot at.

I purposely chose placeholder songs that are somewhat obscure, but from awesome things more people need to see. I realized I haven't said song credits anywhere yet, so here they are in the order they're played: The player-select screen from the original Guilty Gear for PS1, a song from the anime Kaiji, and the fighting song for the Prison and City on Water stages from Painkiller.

It's germane to the forum, and something Mog both does and supports. Him and you were the only guys to really stick with it, though.

This month's update has been postponed. I've been spending most of this month playing the contest entries instead. School has been somewhat busy, too. If it's any consolation, I've considered possibly submitting reviews for the games that are complete. Also, it appears that Game Maker 8 is almost released, so I may have to work next month towards updating my game for it.

Sorry for the bad news, folks. I haven't worked on the game at all since the contest. I probably won't for a long time. Lack of motivation, lack of feedback, and college is honestly getting harder. Here's the thing; in one class, I have to learn PBASIC! I cannot possibly work on graded projects for a new language while working on hobbies with a much simpler one.

This project is not being abandoned, I'm just cutting off all deadline promises.

PBASIC? Really? You have my sympathy....unless you get to use it to control a tiny robot that you build yourself, in which case, Awesome!