Thursday, December 20, 2012

No pre-Christmas Release (sorry guys!)

Just a little heads up, I won't be releasing the next version before Christmas.  I decided since I'm short of money and can't really afford to buy gifts for loved one's, I will program them some games instead.  (chess, card games, and so on.)  It's definitely going to take more than a day or two to get that done, so progress on SQ will be slowed/halted until I get those "gifts" made.  Another thing is, I took another part-time job.  It might pay well, or not, depends on a lot of things ~ won't go into all the details at this time.  With both of those things added to my schedule, I'm not expecting to release Ver 0.2 until before New Year-ish.  Expect some screenshots at the very least until then.  Tonight I was trying to get the inventory/equipment system setup so that you can use the items your holding instead of just the one you picked up.  Not quite finished, but once it's done it should work nicely.  Oh and other cool stuff is planned as well!  :)  More details later on next post.

Cya guys!          

Saturday, December 15, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.15

Sorry for the long delay but here it is - Seduction Quest Ver_0.15

Event Log




Directional Field of View





New Item - Potion of Hidden Vision





MUSIC!!! 
(use [o]ptions to switch songs or music off)



The field of view should work correctly now.  (prior version some parts were being shown that shouldn't be and vice-versa)  You now use SHIFT + left or right arrow keys to turn direction OR you can use 1-6 on the numpad to move/turn.  I'm planning on making it so that the direction you are facing will have an impact on combat and sex positions.  =P   Be aware the day/night/moon-phase has an effect on your vision too.  I also stretched out the time change between day & night by x3.  The moon-phases should work correctly now as well.  (8 phases instead of 4, that was a bug)   

Also big thanks to Vivid Reality from LOVE2D for making some songs for SQ!  His blog here, and soundcloud here as well.  I met him via IRC talking about some random stuff and then the subject of current projects came up, and I told him what I was working on.  To my surprise he offered to make some music for the game if needed, so I took him up on his offer.  Again, I can't say how much I appreciate him for doing it.  :)

Oh, and a few other things.  Potion of Vision has been nerfed.  Only gives a bonus to forward vision.  Potion of Hidden Vision gives a bonus to behind you.  (dropped by a certain monster girl) Let's see, what else?  I'm aware there is a text bug when you try to check the status of certain parts of your body.  And another bug where after you view someone that the text goes out of bounds once it reaches the top of the text box.  I had a whole lot of other bugs pop up while making this update that I managed to squash.  (average time it takes me to fix a bug is 5-10 mins if I'm lucky and it's easy to spot/fix, hard to find bugs a few hours usually)  Those two bugs I will try to fix next update.  Before I get to that though, did I mention all NPC's now have randomly generated names?  It's done based on breaking up syllables in a data set containing names and then rearranging them.  I thought it was befitting to give plant NPC's native american names, Valkyries viking names, and gothic names for everything else.  More names and variation to be added later.  Now about next update ~

I feel as if enough has been done to declare SQ ready for Ver_0.2 so the next update will be just that.  There is still a lot that needs to be made before the SQ engine is ready for all the content that I want to add, but it's getting there!  The fun and hentai factor right now is still pretty low. Maybe a 2/10, 1/10 for both categories.  Meh, wasn't expecting it to be so difficult to setup the game framework.

It's getting late...  Next update will move SQ into Ver_0.2, hoping to have some really cool stuff included with it.  Stay tuned guys!       

Friday, December 7, 2012

News Regarding - 0.15

Hey all.

Sorry I haven't been able to throw up a post in a while.  A lot of stuff has come up and I kept putting off the post until I felt like I had decent information to contribute.  I've decided that I'm going to skip releasing 0.145 and just aim for 0.15 instead.

So here's the scoop.

Fixed the Field of View bug.  Now working on implementing a much different type of movement system than most roguelikes use.  In fact, I have yet to see a roguelike use the kind of movement system I have in mind.  (for grid-based RL's, I've seen Real Time games do it) Mathwise - it's complicated.  The numbers that I kept reading again and again weren't making any sense.  It's not done yet, but... it's close.  People may not like the movement system when it comes out, but I think it will be something you will just have to adjust too.  It's going to open more tactical possibilities and ways to use items, for both the NPC's and yourself.

I read a good article on RogueBasin about name generation by using a list of names and breaking them down into syllables.  Upon further reading, I stumbled across another site devoted to word-generation not just for names, it had everything.  Ranging from magic spells, wrestling moves, skills, abilities, and so forth, but the important thing that caught my eye was the way it was done.

Here is the site, Seventh Sanctum, and the article containing the method I plan to use later for a lot of cool stuff I want to add.

Right now I was able to generate some interesting names for our NPC's.  :)  Here is a look.


Gothic (for Succubus)



Native American (for plant-monsters)




Viking (for Valkyrie)


The name generator still needs some tweaking but for now it will have to do.  Other stuff is being worked on too, although I don't have time to mention it because I need sleep.  =P

As for the next release... if I wasn't going to be working all this weekend I would say Sunday, but since I am, the aim is for the middle of next week.   

Monday, November 26, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.14

It's out - Seduction Quest Ver_0.14

Field of View


New Item - Potion of Vision



Effect: - Boost's your FoV



Almost had music ready to be added, but it's not quite finished.  Added trees, mountains (for cold areas), and some misc plants, shrubs.  Trees and mountains function like walls, blocking the FoV and preventing movement.  Did a bunch of polish on some things.  (two new animations @ startup)  And I went through and greyed out the buttons that aren't ready yet so there is no confusion.

I'm aware the FoV is a little buggy.  Some tiles that should be seen are not visible.  I will be looking into this for the next day or so.  Expect Ver 0.145 out in a few days with that fixed, music added, and an event/map log.

:)           

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Another H Roguelike - "Noxico"

So it turns out Seduction Quest isn't the only game on the block when it comes to erotical roguelikes.  I just recently came across Noxico, and while testing it out, I jumped on the rogue basin IRC and contacted the Kawa (who is making the game).  We had a quick discussion about the respective games we were developing, pretty good conversation for the most part.

A little competition is never a bad thing, and if anything it should encourage us both to make our games better.  Heh, I told him that this would sorta mean we are rivals, and he responded with a challenge of fisticuffs.  (jokingly)  Noxico was started in early June October 2011, so development has been ongoing for six months almost a year.  I thought it was worth mentioning here because from what I saw, it looked good and has great potential.  I think our games will still be vastly different from one another, but it's nice to get a selection.    

=P

In other news, next SQ release should be Sunday or Monday and I'm almost late for a Thanksgiving party!  Ciao!    


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Status Update

It's been a few days since last release.  There are a couple of things I need to address.  Right now, SQ needs a lot of things and I can't do them all at once. 

Polish - Lots of things need to be done in this department.  I want to add three animations at the start, one for logo, another for LOVE2D, and then the third animation for the title menu.  Go around the game menu and remove a lot of the unusable buttons. (so people don't get confused)  THIS BLOG NEEDS TO BE REDESIGNED!!!  =P

Music - Intro music for startup animation/logo.  Also need simple background music loop for main game that fits the theme.  (something mellow, soft, etc.)  So one startup intro song (10-20 secs) and one song to loop over the gameplay. (20-50 secs)

Items - Can't really add weapons/items that do anything with health yet because the health system isn't fully setup.  Also want to add some really interesting effects to some items and possibly be able to give them a history.  (artifact status in DF)  Aiming to ad a lot of flavor items that do nothing but amuse as well.  And expect a lot of kinky items too!  (whips, chains, flails, and so forth)  

NPC'sMore types, different anatomies, descriptions, spawn locations, attributes, skills, abilities, etc... 

NPC AIUltimate goal is to have NPC's be different from one another in terms of their actions, decisions, and personality.  (not aiming for a hive mind like NPC, where they all do the same thing)

Line of Sight - Enemies and player won't be able to see past walls, trees, etc. 

H Content -  Needs to have painstaking detail into every aspect.  From the start of the "seduction" to the lust induced inferno at the climax.  What do I mean?  Those small details, something as little as having the CLANG CLANG of the metal necklace the girl is wearing bang together as she rides on top.  Stuff like that.  Also, I should say this.  There are going to be some NPC's that will be... nasty.  Not every encounter is going to be Miss Voluptuous - double D's.  Something along the lines of a five eyed mutant woman, with weird limbs, disfigured body, that is going to try and rape you.  Why?  Mostly because it will make the seduction from really 'appealing' ones much more worth it, and partly because some people are into that kinda stuff.  I'm also considering making it so that those really attractive NPC's are hard to reach encounters, (alpha/boss female of enemy group) so that you have to work to get to them through some of the less attractive NPC's.

Coding -  Still a lot of stuff I need to learn.  I am far from mastering Lua or LOVE.  Still confident I can do a lot of the stuff I want with my current skills though.  Optimization is one thing I will have to do later once the game gets to be big.  File manipulation is something that needs to be done as well.  I have almost no experience in that department, but I do know that I need to store and retrieve map, NPC, and item information from and to files so that the memory doesn't get too big.  Also a big goal is to have the coding in a way where people can mod the game, add new NPC's, items, etc.  So I need to keep it organized and readable.  (not always the case when I add something new)                  

And some miscellaneous stuff.  I used to dislike seeing some game developers who promised a bunch of features while their game was in development.  My thought was, "Hey, don't tell us (the consumers) that you will code all this stuff when it's taking you weeks and weeks to finish one damn thing! "  Now in hindsight, I can see why they do that.  I think in part it's because if they don't say which direction things are going, and people have no clue which features are being aimed for, interest will wane quick.  Some of the features that I want to add might take months before it's achieved. Others might never get added because later in the development there is either no need for it, or it won't fit the gameplay.  So bottom line, it's hard to predict and plan how everything will end up.  Only thing I can do is to aim for the goals set and adapt to any deviations that might come up.

IRL stuff.  Today I told my mom what I was working on.  It's a long story.  Short and sweet summary, the past few months we've been getting in arguments for me to go back to school and get my bachelors.  I've been against it, partly because I want to work on this and hope it takes off, and partly because I worry that route will lead to working in some kind of cubicle job with a ton of debt.  Anyway.  They have been in the dark about this project... until now.  I felt I had to say it though.  The past few months they have been worrying that I'm stumped in life and want to do nothing or something along those lines.  I understand their concern, and I know they have the best interests for me.. but I just had to set the record clear on what's been happening.  Her reaction was along the lines of, "You're doing WHAT?!"  Lots of shock and surprise on her end.  It was a two hour phone conversation...  End result?  Acceptance.  It was important to me for her to realize that I was trying to accomplish something and haven't been able to talk to them about.  I still left out a lot of details.  All that was mentioned was that I've been working on a porn game, that looks to be promising.  Didn't mention the blog, the game title, anything.  At the end of the conversation, I felt a lot of relief.  I don't think telling her that hurt our relationship in any way.  Still unconditional love between my parents and me and that will never change.

Let's see, last things - music, line of sight, and logo.  So an idea for the LoS (line of sight) was something along the lines of this.

Line of Sight
  
Notice how the player is no longer in the center of the screen, but at the bottom.  You need to turn the player in order to move in different directions.  I'm slightly worried that I might waste time coding it and then not using it because it doesn't feel right.  Some things to consider, will you turn only from N,W,S,E?  Turn NE, NW, SE, SW?  Gah.  Now I want to test it!  =P  Don't expect this in the next update though.  LoS I expect to take a while to implement.

Game Logo
 
I like it.  Simple and to the point.  I did have one person tell me that "Gamemaker" might be associated with the "Yoyo Gamemaker" TM?  Not entirely sure about this...  In that case I might have to make it "Hentai Game Maker".


Music

Bloggers poll system is weird.  There are some songs to the top right of the blog.  Select one you like, or none if you don't like any of them.  Keep in mind, that the song that gets the most votes will be the one looped over the main gameplay, again and again.  If you have a different song you think should be listed, let me know, I will be more than happy to add it.  A friend of mine is making a custom song just for the game.  Will take a few days.  :) 


It's getting late and I have work in the morning.  Goodnight guys! 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.13

Done.  Here it is!    :)     Seduction Quest Ver_0.131  Seduction Quest - Ver 0.13




Alright so here's what's new.

New Items
  • Book of Arithmetic
  • Book of Seduction (will be released next patch, too buggy)

NPC Stuff
  • You can now view NPC's with the view command.  ([v]-iew, and then select the #2)
  • NPC's are assigned some randomly generated descriptions.  (not too many to pick from yet but I will add more, also I didn't get time to add color to the text...)
  • NPC's move a little differently than before.
  • NPC's can now stun.  (the more damage you have the more likely it will happen)
  • NPC's now have a physical attack and a erotic attack.  (more likely to use the ero attack if you are stunned)
Other Stuff 
  • Defeated NPC's can now be walked over.  
  • Reorganized a LOT of stuff in the code.
  • Added pink, light brown, and light green to available colors.  
  • Changed the way NPC's are spawned.
  • Changed the way map information is stored. 
  • You can view items on the floor with the view command.
There is also a lot of stuff that I didn't get finished with.  A really big one was anatomy for NPC's.  I'm still about 50% on the verge of having it ready, but it was a big task, much bigger than I expected it to be...  The current battle system against the NPC's is temporary.  They will have body parts/limbs just like your character, and not just 1 hit K.O.s to put them down.

I will post more later... it's 2 a.m. and I have to work in the morning.

Oh and someone showed me this - http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/deep.htm   pretty cool stuff.  Something I will consider doing maybe for the h-animations?  Possibly...

(edit - ver 0.131 out.  Fixed some bugs.  Game shouldn't crash when you attack yourself, or view items on the floor.  Also there was a bug where going to the edge of the map the tiles weren't displaying, that was fixed too.  New Game menu bug fixed.  (Just disabled all buttons besides [W] & [A])  Last bug fixed was the [S] tatus bug at start, where the descriptions were blank until you were attacked.  Changed the title in the window/application to say SQ ver 0.131 instead of 0.125.  That's it for now.  NPC's still move out of their biomes, but that will have to wait.  (I need to rewrite NPC AI for that, which is a semi-big task)  Going to start working on 0.14 tomorrow.  Oh and in case I didn't mention it... You guys should forgo filling your characters attributes.  For now, it doesn't do anything.  Once more of the gameplay mechanics are setup,  (item weight, equipment bonuses, attacking, magic, etc.) the attributes will be useful.  I will announce when the game reaches that point.  (hopefully soon)  )        



Monday, November 12, 2012

Deadline for 1.3 (and checklist)

It will be out no latter than Thursday, although I will try really hard to have it ready by Wednesday.

So far this is my checklist,

  • Fix NPC_defeated view bug.  [Done]  
  • Walk over defeated NPC's.  [Done]
  • Recode Move and Drop/Pickup Item functions. [Done]
  • Organize items in a more efficient way [Done]
  • Give NPCs a field of view. [Done]
  • Recode how map stuff is stored/generated.  (uses less memory) [Done]
  • NPC's movement is more random when in pursuit.  [Done]
  • NPC's are assigned unique descriptions.  [In progress]
  • NPCs now can use items. [In progress]
  • H-content - 1 [In progress]
  • H-content - 2
  • H-content - 3
  • Update NPC AI for H-content
  • Add drop item function
  • Fix Candy bug (appeared when I changed some code structure) [Done]
  • Fix status check bug at game start
  • Fix Main Menu bug
  • Fix NPC's moving out of their biomes
  • Add a few custom items for NPC's
  • Code player's Field of View
  • Time of day & moon phase will affect NPC's and player's Field of View.

I'm not leaking details about the upcoming H-content here, so you will just have to wait and see!  :)

(edit - Will be out Thursday night)  


 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

About Development and H-Stuff

Hey guys!

I have been working on getting that defeated NPC bug squashed.  It's just about done, but while doing so I noticed some other problems in my code.  So I've been tasking myself with going through and recoding certain things.  Initially, I had SQ setup and focused around the player and it was built upon that.  Many parts of the code treated the player different from a NPC.  That was going to be a problem later on when players choose the option of playing as a NPC.  So I went back and am still in the process of turning a lot of the player actions, into NPC actions.  (right now the player is considered NPC[0], while all other NPC's are NPC[1] - NPC[total npc num] )  Things like attacking, moving, etc. now use one function.  Before there was a function for the NPC to move, and one for the player. Function for the NPC attack, and another one for the player.  Next version NPC's should be able to pickup items and use them as well.  Which should lead to some interesting things... (heh)    I guess to summarize all this, is that I'm trying to code this stuff with a forwards compatibility, so that later on if you decide to play as "Alexandra Alanis the Succubus of Temptation" that the experience won't be restrictive.  (Hora hora!)       

For development releases I wanted to explain the model I'm following.  Every 0.1 increment in the version is considered a major release, while every 0.01 increment is considered a minor release.  Every 0.001- 0.005 increment will represent a patch or bugfix release.

Ex.

Ver 0.2 - Major release  
Ver 0.14 - Minor release
Ver 0.125 - Patch release

I'm forecasting that Major releases will take one to three months.  Minor releases will take a few days to a week.  And patch/bugfixes will take one to a few days.  There will always be a minor release that serves as a polish, before a major release.  (add more descriptions, items, etc. - basically make it look nice and finished)   

This all is building up to the final product, Ver 1.0.  (the completed game)        


The next upcoming minor release (ver 0.13) will be due in less than a week.  An H-Battle system will be functioning to some degree.  I've got some good stuff planned that I won't spoil here, but I did want to discuss general H-related stuff in the game.

MGQ battle system was pretty cut and dry.  You just physically fought with your attacks not to lose, while your enemies attacked you with a mix of sex and normal attacks.  There was no sexual attack you could perform against the enemy.  And once orgasm is reached, it's game over. 

Other H-Games usually give the player some H-attacks to use against enemies.  A lust meter, energy meter, for one or both combatants.

SQ -  I'm against making the lose conditions that once orgasm it's gg.  Rather I had something along the lines of say, an addiction/insanity meter that increases every sexual act that is performed against the player.  Once that's full, then you become enslaved.  Other possible losing scenarios, if you are eaten (vore), or brutally injured to death (masochist).  Not every enemy intent would be to kill/vore/enslave, but the ones that didn't would have negative setbacks.  (ie. thief would take your money)  Since later on the plan is to make it so that NPC's can be played as characters, giving the hero/heroine sexual attacks seems redundant IMO.  (since if you want that, you can play as the NPC)

But.  To a certain degree I want to leave the possibility for the hero/heroine to participate/interact with some of the H-stuff and not necessarily be totally useless once it happens.  I think the losing conditions will come down to how the H-battle system plays out.  I know what I have in mind for the battle system, and until that's made, losing conditions aren't finalized.

On another note, I'm trying to avoid gore in the game.  Notice, "defeated" enemy, not "killed enemy/slain" enemy.  I think as a general rule, having sexual stuff with a character who's arm was slashed off, or legs broken and crippled is kinda..... a turn off?  (although I understand that appeals to a few)  I'm going to try to limit that sorta stuff so that you have to go out of your way to make it happen.  (ie. normal battles that won't happen, but there would be some scenarios where it could)    

   

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.125

Seduction Quest - Ver 0.125

The event color system is fully integrated into the code now... parts of it were a major hassle.  I wasn't able to use LOVE2D's word wrap function to print the words, so I had to make my own.  There were a lot of bugs along the way... so for this update, that's the only thing added.  I wanted to play with NPC's a bit, but that will have to wait until next update.  Also I tweaked the parameters of the world gen, so you can't pick a big map.  (it's now between 500-2000)  Anything bigger than that might crash your computer.  I was talking with some of the folks on IRC about it, and they suggested I store the map in a file to avoid memory problems so I will get around to that maybe Ver 0.14 or later.  Not a big issue right now.

Oh and text colors!  I am planning to make certain colors indicate things,

i.e.

Yellow -> Damage/Attack related
Green -> H-related
Purple -> Status effects
Red -> Important things

Right now the injury system is white, yellow, orange, red.

I'm going to play around with it tomorrow to finalize which colors are for what.  I will finish this post tommorrow, it's 4 a.m. and I need sleep!

That bug that was mentioned before, crash upon viewing a dead body, is still there.  Didn't get a chance to mess with it.  Next update priority will be to fix it.

(edit - added this stuff below)

Here are the colors I currently have loaded into the game...  (20 in all)



 I picked them really based upon the RGB values without looking too closely.  There are quite a few of them that look similar...

White and Black,
2 Blues, 2 Browns, 2 Yellows, 2 Greys, 2 Greens, 2 Pinks
3 Teal/Aqua/Cyan looking one's (light blue?)
1 Purple, 1 Red, 1 Orange

Looking at getting rid of cyan, magenta, & brown (that looks too close to maroon).  Replacing those with, pink, light brown, and light green.  :)

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Event Text Color System

(edit2 - Added it to the code, it looks good, should release 0.125 by tonight!)



(edit - got the word wrap function working properly!  Now I need to insert it into the code and it should be good to go.)

  

Alright so here is the status update on Ver 0.125

I've run into some serious problems with word wrapping the text.  Here are some screen shots to show what I mean.



As you can see, the problem is that when the text surpasses one line, it wraps improperly.  The way I have the color system to color certain words makes this problem a little hard to solve.

I'm going to need a little more time to come up with my own word wrap code...  (which doesn't look too fun....)  Maybe another day or two, or maybe tonight.  One thing I'm worried about is that when I get it setup, that it will effect the order of other events.  (i.e. the one on the screenshots was just one event, if there are like 3, then even more chaos)

So that's just a quick updating on what I'm working on.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Ver 0.125 and Ver 0.13

If you downloaded Ver 0.12 before seeing this post, then the game was wrongly packaged and will not run properly.  (see previous post at bottom (edit) for reasons why)  Reloaded Ver 0.12 download file so it works now!

Going to have ver 0.125 out by tonight with a few more things. (so say, six hours?)  Then after ver 0.125 is released, going to work on redesigning the blog too, shouldn't take too long.  I'm planning on adding some serious H-content for Ver 0.13.  This time, I won't provide much details on what I plan to add, but I will say this, it's time to make this game, into an H-game.  Aiming to have it out in less than a week.

:) 

(edit - Had some stuff at home come up tonight.  Ver 0.125 will have to wait until tomorrow.)




   

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.12

Happy Halloween!

:)

Seduction Quest - Ver 0.121


Six New Monster Girls

Yuki-Ona, Snow Fairy  (spawn in cold regions)
Alraune, Dryad  (spawn in grassy regions)
Basilisk Woman, (spawn in desert)
Valkryie (spawn anywhere)

Three New Items

Sword
Book of Shadows
Candy

New Buttons

Use [P]  to pickup items off the floor.
Use [I] to interact with the item you have.
Use [A] to go in the attack mode, and then select a target then press [A] again.

New Menu Option

When you start a new game, there is a new menu, "World Gen", let's you use custom seeds for maps and play with the size & scale.  (although it's recommended that you don't set the size too high, otherwise the game will freeze for a minute while it generates the map)
 
Here are some quick screenshots!






~Some spoilers~
  •  To get candy - defeat some monster girls.  Using it will act as a healing item.
  • There are two ways to acquire a sword.  Only one monster drops it, or use a Book of Shadows.
  • One monster will always drop a Book of Shadows, but only during a certain moon phase...
  • Using a Book of Shadows can result in one of two effects...         
(edit - WHOOPS!  The game was packaged incorrectly.  One of my folders for my files was, 'Libs' and I referenced it in the code as 'libs', the case sensitivity mattered after I packaged it, not while I was testing it!  Sorry!  Should be fixed now...)

Ver 0.12 TBR in 16 hours. (aka Halloween Update)

 Hey guys!

I expect to finish the update sometime around 6 p.m. in my timezone. (15 hours from now)  This coming update feels like it has a little more stuff in it than the last one, which is a plus.  Still some bugs popping up though.  Some were really bad, (game-breaking) and others were minor.  Managed to find and fix the worst ones, although I didn't have time for all of them.

News about the loan.  I went to my local bank and talked with my banker.  Told them what I wanted and gave details about my current financial situation and I was told to check back a few days later. The result? - Denied.  My credit was good, but the problem was that my income amount wasn't enough to meet the debt to disposable income requirement %.  I'm not too thrilled about it.  There are still other options available, but most of them are pretty unstable.  Some of the other loan routes that my banker suggested were to possibly go to one of those "EAZY MONEY" loan places, but expect to be charged a ridiculous interest.  That is going to be a last resort, if at all.  Something else I'm going to try and see how it goes - working miscellaneous one time jobs on Craigslist.  Combine this with additional shifts from my current job, and a cut in my food budget, should work out ok.  I'm hoping that will get me through December at least.

Additional stuff.  Received some feedback about the current layout I'm using for this blog.  After this update, I plan on revamping the design.  It was already something I was planning on doing later that I never quite got to.

If I don't throw  a deadline on something, I know much won't get done, but if I do, I need to make sure there is a reasonable amount of time available.  Deadlines in general are good and bad.  Good because they make you work faster.  Bad because then you rush to slap everything together and just barely get it in a working state in time.  Finding the right balance for deadlines in this project is something I'm tinkering with so bear with me.   

Future stuff.  I feel like I really need to release more H-content.  (because right now there is almost none)  As I've said in the past, the framework for the game is still being built, but I'm getting closer and closer to where the framework is stable enough to easily add more content.  Ideally, I want Ver 0.13 to be a big push for H-content + some other small stuff.  Once that's out of the way, then Ver 0.14 will be a purely aesthetics update.  (start menu will actually have a logo, small start-up video, and music.)  During game I need to find the correct song to loop over and over that will fit the theme well...

And then once those updates are out, then Ver 0.2 will be next with some big features expected!!! 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Info on loan and Ver 0.12

Alright so here's the scoop.

I will be finding out whether my loan gets approved by tomorrow or not.  If it does, then great!  I can continue working on this project for a few months with a lot of effort.  If it doesn't then... well.  I'm going to have to find a find another part time job or quit my current one and get a full time job.  That will mean that the time available at my disposal on this will be severely limited.  I anticipate that updates would come in the form of every 2 weeks or more if that happens, instead of just every few days to a week.

With that being said.  Here are my goals for Ver 0.12


Customize Terrain Generation (via the "New Game" --> "[W]  orld Generation" Menu)
  • Enter custom seeds ("Random Seed", "M0nst3r Gir1s", etc.) or use random one
  • Scale the biome sizes
  • Determine map size
  • (This too possibly, Display Map, if you like it, then proceed, if not, reset)
 Attacking
  • Enemies that are beaten will be colored red and upon viewing will have a "defeated" status
  • Defeated enemies will no longer be active
Events
  • Add color to events of certain types  (ex. The Succubus attacks your left arm!  Your left arm is disabled!)
  • New event that displays when your limb/part has sustained enough damage that it becomes disabled
  • Change wording of "is" to "are" after plural things  ("Your eyes are ok", instead of, "Your eyes is ok.")
NPC's
  • Add the six new NPC's (that were mentioned before)
  • NPC's spawn in their relative biomes
  • Update NPC AI so that they stay in their biomes
  • (Possibly, different attacks for NPC's)
Items
  • Add a few basic items (one healing, 1-2 weapons, one miscellaneous)
  • Items will affect your weight, thus affecting your speed


That's what's being aimed for.  I have to work at my part time job consecutively for the next few days so progress will be a tad slow.  Also, working from home is too much of a distraction so I've picked a public location where I can work on this project that suits the needs for privacy, a free electrical supply, and quiet area.  Hoping to have Ver 0.12 out within a week. 

For Ver 0.13, I want to work on adding trees, flowers, rocks, and other landscape to the terrain.  Then make ones that should be solid, (ex. trees) not be passable. After that, I really want to add raycasting to the players field of view.  (you won't be able to see past trees, etc.)  Then some work on descriptions for things.  (NPC's, items, terrain, etc.)

Let's see... what else to mention?  I threw up a thread on the LÖVE2D forums about this project, and the response was much better than I expected.  Received a lot of support on how to code certain elements that has already proved useful.  I'm really glad I didn't get banned though, heh.  Thought it might happen... but thankfully it didn't!  ;)  I think I'm the first person to make a game like this, using LÖVE, so I was a bit nervous posting it up on the forum.  The forum thread I made is here, if you want to see for yourself.

LÖVE2D Seduction Quest Thread      

And if you want to put the LÖVE2D game engine to some use, here are a bunch of free games you can play that were made by people using LÖVE.

LÖVE Games

Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.11

Here it is!

Seduction Quest - Ver 0.11

A few things added.

Basic terrain generation. (with color!)
Status check your limbs for damage.  Via -> S -> Pick 1-7 (#8 doesn't work yet)
Succubus attack different body areas.  (upper, lower, middle)
You can attack using a -> and then a again, but it's a bit bugged, and unfinished.

I can across a major bug when I changed the terrain generation.  It was causing the NPC actions some grief and it kept crashing.  Still not sure why it was happening, but I removed certain elements and it is fine for now.

:)

I had a few ideas recently for some stuff.  For terrain biomes, I was thinking of three factors,

1. Temperature Level
2. (insert another variable)
3. Ero Level

The first two would work something like this. (taken from Minecraft biomes)


Except I'm not planning on using rainfall to determine which biome is generated.  Something else that I need to think of.  As for #3, the Ero Level, this will determine the biome/area's strength in terms of number of monsters, the strength of monsters, and some really cool things.

High Ero Level, would mean biomes like,  
"The Forest of Seduction", "The Debaucherous Ice Mountain", "Impure Desert", etc. etc.

While a Low Ero Level would be the reverse,
"Immaculate Forest", "The Virgin Ice Pillar", "Desert of Chastity", and so forth. 

Anyway.  So yup.  I'm going to throw up a few pictures of what the terrain generation looks like now.  It's honestly ten times better than before.





Monday, October 22, 2012

Almost

SQ Ver 0.11 will be out in a few hours.

=P

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Next Update and a few things.

Alright so I want to release the next update by tomorrow night, although it might get pushed back to Monday depending on how tired I feel after work.

Here's what should be ready.

  • Terrain generation.
  • Health system displaying properly and updating when attacked.
  • Being able to attack enemies. 
  • And maybe some other stuff if I have time. 

 Ideally, I'm trying to make this game something that people can play, even if they have no interest in the hentai part of it.  Solid gameplay is what I'm aiming for so that people won't get bored an hour after playing...

Here is a list of what's being planned on the future off the top of my head.  (more stuff to be added and this list may get revised)

Ver_0.1-0.2
  • -- Test demo. 
  • -- Basic items.
  • -- Few NPC's.
  • -- Make working formulas for stats and attributes.
  • -- Basic combat.
  • -- Event system.
  • -- Basic terrain generation.
  • -- Basic AI.
  • -- Basic random descriptions for NPC's, items, terrain, attacks.
  • -- Some basic verbs, swim, jump, etc.

Ver_0.3-0.4
  • -- Z-levels. (towers, dungeons, etc.)
  • -- Ray-casting for player.  (maybe enemies too?)
  • -- Sense system included in battle calculations.  (taste, touch, smell, vision, sound)
  • -- Save/Load.
  • -- More items.
  • -- More NPC's. 
  • -- NPC damage system.
  • -- Advanced biomes.  (DF had temp, sea level, evil, neutral, good, something similar to that)   
  • -- More verbs, read, throw, climb, etc.
  • -- Improve AI.
  • -- Improve random descriptions.

Ver_0.5-0.6
  • -- Improve biome generation.
  • -- Add villages for humans and certain monsters.
  • -- Social encounters system. 
  • -- Trade system.
  • -- More items.
  • -- More NPC's. 
  • -- Improve AI.
  • -- Improve random descriptions.

Ver_0.7-0.8
  • -- Special boss monsters.
  • -- Add special time events.  (eclipses, and other events do certain things)
  • -- Add AI tactics.  (in groups, attacks, etc.)
  • -- Improve random descriptions.

Ver_0.9-1.0 
  • -- Final touches. 
  • -- Optimize code.
  • -- Heroine mode.
  • -- Improve random descriptions. 


One last thing I wanted to add.  I've followed dev blogs on many different games.  I notice that some developers have a really good game or concept, but they keep coding it as a hobby. (making the development extremely slow and the features lacking)  Not all of them do this, just some, and I think in part, it's because of a lack of confidence in the project.  There is a fear that it might not be successful, and it's a financial risk. 

Well... fuck that!  Risk or not, I'm going for it.  This coming Monday I'm going to start visiting banks in an attempt to secure a $2000 loan to work on this for a guaranteed three months.  I'm not saying this project will be finished that soon.  I'm hoping it will be developed enough by that point that I could do something like Notch did with Minecraft.  Some kind of price model where buying it early gets a steep discount on the anticipated final price. 

My current financial situation is this.

Living expenses per month: $0900 - $1000
Single part time job (10-20 hrs a week): $0400 - $0300
-                       
Anticipated cost needed per month: $0500 - $0700

3 months of funding: $2000

Of course, when I go to the bank asking for the loan, I'm going to need to come up with a good excuse for the money...  heh.  I don't think they would respond kindly if I said, "It's for a porn game I want to develop." 

=P  I will let you know how it goes! 



      

Thursday, October 18, 2012

[Released] SQ - Ver_0.10 Demo

I didn't get everything that I wanted in, but I've delayed this long enough.

First, you need to download and install this.  LOVE2D
It's the game engine I'm using to code SQ.  (most people seem to use RPGMaker though)

Then just download and run this.

Seduction Quest - Ver 0.1

Here is a list of the stuff of what I planned to have before launch.

[Terrain]

BIOME GENERATION

Terrain generation for biomes
Color for biomes
Generate items/loot

[Menu]

V - View function.  Examine terrain, items, characters

E - Equipment function.  Take off and equip items. 
W - Wait function.  Time progresses while you do nothing.

[NPC]

- spawn different types in biomes
- have a field of view
- drop loot, attack player, different attacks

- six types of monsters
- ICE:  Yuki-Ona, Snow Fairy  (spawn in cold regions)
- GRE: Alraune, Dryad  (spawn in grassy regions)
- DES: Basilisk Woman, (spawn in desert)
- NEU: Valkryie (spawn anywhere)

[Time]

- time progresses
- 1 day/night = one moon phase
- one day == 20,000 ticks (you can travel 400- 650 blocks in a day, roughly 3-4 biomes)
- travel 300 blocks ish = 1 day
- max speed = 30-50 go 500 blocks
- perform x action = time_progress(x_action) compare to other NPC's actions.

[Player]

- health system working

- health menu display
- magic menu display

[Battle]

- damage system against enemies
- some functioning spells

[Items]

- things to heal
- items have weight

[Event System]

- attack event

- day change event
- moon phase event
- equipting items event

- attack miss event

[Main Menu]
- music

-- optional (if there is time)
- traits
- randomly generate the ascii image
- add the LOVE2D logo/animation
- add logo
- add credits


The end result?  Maybe half of that.  I got so boggled down in the terrain generation, and I still didn't finish it.  It's not ready so I ended up cutting it out.  Here are some screenshots though of what it looks like,

KEY
Blue = ICE and ARCTIC regions.
Green = GRASS and FOREST regions.
Yellow = DESERT region.

Lots of desert and ice.




 Lots of forest and desert.



 A little bit of all three.



 Zoomed out the size a bit.


Do you spot the recurring problem?  It all flows vertically.  The grass, ice, desert doesn't cross horizontally, and I know why it's happening.  I've been trying to experiment with a couple of solutions and should have it fixed soon...  Once that's done, I can start going through the other stuff that I need to finish.

Feedback on the demo would be appreciated.  I understand right now, it's more a proof of concept than anything.  It's in a test-able state, not a play-able one.  I'm hoping once I have that list of things done, playability should be existent.  (bare minimum)  Then after I crunch through the rest of the framework, I can start adding more items, monsters, special stuff to make it more interesting.

heh.  :)

One last thing.

.
..
...

HORA HORA HORA!

;)

(edit:  Be aware there is a bug after you go -> New Game -> Proceed, it tries to generate water/lakes outside of the map causing the game to crash.  It only happens like once every ten times it's run.  Just restart the game again.  I should have that fixed next update, which should be in a few days with other stuff. (hopefully the terrain biome generation fixed and ready!)  )

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Monday, October 8, 2012

Cause and Effect





I was working late tonight.  Much later then usual...

I felt like I was untangling a thick knot that didn't seem to end.  Initially I was trying to get the text for events to display in the text box at the bottom for the last screenshots I threw up.  I had in mind something like this,

[] - Darkness has fallen.
[] - You dash off in the East direction.
[] - You are attacked by a Succubus!
etc. etc.

Before I could get to this part, (and I still haven't) I needed to actually setup the progress of time and events for the game.  Moving, performing actions, and the sorts all result in some kind of turn action, or at least that's how it works in most games.  I see some games make it so that any action translates into one turn.  Whether you are doing something that should be taking a long time to do, such as sleeping or eating, is the same as a minor task like taking an item out of a container, or attacking.  I'm not a big fan of those type of time systems.

The idea I had was to make it so that each action will progress time differently, they all won't be lumped together in one turn, or 2 turn sequences.  The actions themselves will be timed differently each time you perform it. (but it can be more precise if you increase a certain attribute)  Here was along the lines I was thinking.

Run with no weight  = 30 time passed (top speed)
Run with some weight = 40 time passed (fast speed)
Run with a lot of weight = 60 time passed (slow speed)
Run with overload = 120 time passed (super slow speed)

Now to explain what I said the last paragraph.  So let's say you run with no weight.  The fastest you can perform the task is 30 time passed.  I'm thinking I will make all actions randomly select the fastest time and 20% of that and RNG it each time.  For instance, 30 * 20% = 36

So running with no weight can take anywhere from 30-36 time.

Or like this,



Run with no weight  = 30-36 time passed (top speed)
Run with some weight = 40-48 time passed (fast speed)
Run with a lot of weight = 60-72 time passed (slow speed)
Run with overload = 120-142 time passed (super slow speed)

 
Then I thought, hmmmm.... what else does it need?  I know!  Attribute dependent factors to make it a more complex.  I managed to whip up a few good formulas that I feel satisfied with.  Speed is dependent on the weight of the items you're carrying, and the lower the level of certain stats means the weight will be more severe on your speed.

After finishing the math part, I needed to setup another menu selection to pick the attributes.  I went overboard and tried to pimp it out.  Definitely liking the layout of it after I finished it a few hours ago though.  :)         

Another thing, I ran into a nasty bug that kept doubling CPU usage over time.  After leaving it running for 30 seconds, my computer froze pretty bad.  I got to the root of it though, so it's fixed and won't happen again. 

So summary,

Make a time system
^Make it more complex
^^Attach attributes to time system  [In process]
^^^Play with Math [Done]
^^^^ Kill Bugs [Done]
^^^^^Make a new game menu to select stats [Done]


Here is the Result


Also, I should mention during tonight's programming binge, I nearly somewhat spilled on my keyboard the yolk from an egg, sandwiched between a bagel, that I made for a late night snack.  LOL.   

Friday, September 28, 2012

Getting Closer

Still working on the project diligently. 

Tonight I just finished coding a function that scrolls through equipment/spells/etc. and retrieves eight things, to a page, at a time.  This should avoid the possibility of having 100 items displayed on one page, which would mess up things badly.

I might as well throw up some screenshots of progress.  :)

Here is the main menu...



Scrolling through some non-working magic spells.




The play menu, and a randomly generated lake.


 

Needless to say, I'm very happy with the direction this project is taking.  Heh.  I need to wrap up a few things before demo is launched.  Originally I intended to launch it as soon as possible, but I figured since it's taken much longer than expected, I might as well add more playability to it.

Some quick comments on coding.  The bigger the project gets, the harder it is to keep track of everything.  I tend to find myself getting lost at times when searching for variables in notepad++.  I'm aware that some of the better programmers keep things better organized in modules and metatables, but I'm just not too used to using them yet so I will leave room for better organization later.  I threw in some small bits of comments, mostly for myself, in case I forget what certain functions do or what things are for.  It should help later. (or at least I hope)

Tomorrow I'm planning on getting the "view" function working, so that it displays, terrain, objects, items, and characters when you scroll over them with the keyboard.  Oh and in case I didn't mention, all the interaction in game will be done through the keyboard.  Having a mouse won't be necessary to play, only a keyboard will be required.

Last week, I worked on setting up a function so that the map is displayed in layers.  It works like this,

Top Layer - Characters
Second Layer - Items
Bottom Layer - Terrain

More layers will be added later on.  Things like furniture, objects, equipment, etc. will come when I get to it.

Some potential game modes I thought of with my spare time,

Hero - You play as a hero fighting seduction driven monsters in a randomly generated world.
Heroine - Same as above but play as a female vs male monsters.
Harlem Onslaught - Survive as long as you can against waves and waves of monsters.
RTS Mode - Like normal game, except that it happens in real time.           

The hero mode is the priority right now.  Once that's done, the others shouldn't take very long to make.  That's about all the new stuff I've been working on and planning.  I'm hesitant to try and predict when the demo will be finished again.  All I can say, is that it seems it will be ready soon.
 


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Seduction Quest - Pending demo

A demo was aimed for last week, but there were a few setbacks for good and bad reasons. 

I'm not so good with time management, and wasted a lot of time doing other stuff.  Other thing I learned was that my skills at estimating how long a coding portion should take isn't that accurate, especially when it's coding something I'm not familiar with. 

Alright so you see, for the main menu I was experimenting with a title layout since the feel of SQ will be very ascii based, and I wanted to have ascii art as the main title image.  Yea, yea, and?  I started to go through old paintings (like 100-200 years ago, that are public domain) and convert them into ascii.  At first, I had to convert each line into strings manually, which was long and tedious.  Then after trying a few, I decided wouldn't it be cool to have an ascii image for each type of creature, but to do so many different images would have to be converted into ascii.  The manual way of doing it was too long, so I needed to experiment with file manipulation.   (and learn a few gimp tutorials!)

Lo and behold!    

After some experimenting, I got it to work.  The title screen looked awesome.  I even found a few kick-ass fonts to go with the theme for the menu options and the title font.  But something was amiss.  When you load the program, it just shows the title screen instantly.  No special affects, no animations, nothing.  Sooooo that was a little too bland for my taste.  My next goal was to scramble the ascii title image, so that the ascii characters slowly fade into view at random.  I'm still working on it, but I'm modifying a shuffle algorithm to get it work.  Almost have it down, but not quite.

Things that are finished,

Health System
Title Menu
Terrain Generation
Ascii art converter (converts ascii images into strings for love)

What's left,

Shuffle Algorithm (currently working on)
UI
Basic AI
1-3 Different Enemies
Combat System
Music?  (maybe, maybe not)   

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Hentai Game Update

So after getting done with a week long family vacation, I'm back.

I've decided for now, I'm going to try and focus on getting the hentai game assembled and a demo ready.  Progress on Void Nexus will have to wait.  A lot of the coding parts of the hentai game, can be used for Void Nexus later on,which is good.  Things like, terrain generation, inventory system, health system, and other stuff (excluding all the hentai sex stuff) can be utilized for Void Nexus. 

This is what I am aiming for in the demo,
  • Working title screen
  • Basic terrain generation
  • Functioning UI
  • Simple battle system
  • Working Enemy AI
  • A few different enemies
Of course, this is just to test things and get it working.  Eventually I am going to make things more complex and advanced.  So far, I've got the terrain generation working.  The title screen and menu is almost done.  I've got the UI mostly planned out.  Enemy AI is going to be very dumbed down for now, (zombie-like follow, and attack tactics) but I will make it more strategic as more battle system mechanics are added.  I was aiming to release the demo today, but I got caught in a bunch of other stuff with my free time.  Hoping to have it finished and ready by Wednesday or Thursday.

And I've 70% decided upon this name for the game... "Seduction Quest".  I think it fits the theme nicely of what the game is about.  One problem I do see is the discreteness of the name, compared to others.  If someone sees you downloading a game called Monster Girl Quest, it isn't instantly assumed it's a porn game, but if they see Seduction Quest, it's definitely going to imply porn, or something of that nature.  Oh well.  I like the name, and unless I think of a better one, I will stick with it.  :)        

Expect the demo soon! 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Resurface

I know it's been a while... 

I didn't quit programming since the last post.  I just slowed down a bit due to work and stuff.  Recently I just quit one of my jobs, and was laid off from another so that is going to leave me with lots of free time for the next couple of months.

Programming-Is-Now-Full-Throttle!

I tidy'ed up the html of this blog a bit.  Added Void Nexus it's own page, and another game I've been working on as well.

So here are some new details.

 Coding - I've learned some new stuff.  Manipulating tables a bit better, organizing everything so that it makes sense, naming my variables properly, and commenting on my code so I can understand if I don't look at it for a week.  One problem I am having is reading other peoples libraries.  Some of the coders on the LOVE forums have bits and pieces of code I want to use, but I can't read their damn libs.  Most of them seem to use metatables and modules a lot and I have a basic grasp of that stuff so it limits me from using their libs.

Void Nexus - I've been working on a collision detection system, and almost have it setup right.  There was some trigonometry involved and portions of coding I was unfamiliar with.  I've got a good portion of it all down, and just need to hammer out the SAT (separating axis theorem) to get it to work right.  After scouring the web for "free for commercial use" music, a few background tracks and sounds were discovered.  Most of them fit the theme quite nicely and don't sound bland after repetitively listening to them.   

Other game - Alright.  I'm a big fan of Monster-Girl-Quest and as such I've been sucked into playing some other hentai games.  Problem is, most of them are in Japanese.  There are only a few that are translated and hardly any good ones.  I've noticed that developers for a lot of these games are getting stuff wrong with their gameplay, story-line, and H-scenes.  Here's a common example.  A game has great H-Scenes but the gameplay is so damn frustrating it ruins everything OR a games storyline might be decent but the H-Content is lacking.  (both seem to occur often with H-games)

Besides Japanese H-Games, there are almost no English Hentai developers!  So I've decided to try my hand at making one.  It's basically going to be Monster-Girl-Quest meets Dwarf Fortress/.Nethack.  There won't be any H-scenes, it will be all text.  But I'm hoping enough things get added to make encounters and game sessions different each time.  One big thing I have planned is to add a "select skills - weakness/resistance".

Something like this,

[  ] - Voyeurism (sexual arousal increased when witnessing sexual acts)
[x] - Submissive (sexual arousal increased when being forced)
[  ] - Necrophillia (sexual arousal when near undead)
[  ] -  Furry (sexual arousal when near fox type enemies)
etc.
etc.
etc.

Which lets you customize your characters sexual preference, so that when you run into encounters you don't want, ex. a female mud golem raping you in the ass, you can easily avoid it without getting aroused.  Also I do plan to make it a mix of regular fighting and erotical fighting.  I haven't ironed out all the details but I've got a few ideas formed in my mind with how gameplay is going to work.  UI is going to be tricky.  I will add more details as the game gets more developed.  (it doesn't even have a name yet!)      

I will have to be looking for a second job in a few months.  I've got a small sum of money saved so that I can work on these projects without interruptions from work.  Funds should be fine until around November-ish.  (maybe October, maybe December, depends on how well I stick to my food budget) 

Should have some new demos up for both games soon!  :) 


Saturday, March 31, 2012

So why this blog?

I may get asked this question later, so why not answer it here.

I want this to serve as the developers blog for Void Nexus, but also a archive of useful information for novice programmers. So I am recording progress on the game as I start from scratch.

There is another reason to it as well... What would Minecraft be without the "Word of Notch"? The developers input is valuable when a project is started. It shapes the community and the game itself. Later on I want people to read and know that it's possible to make a really good idea come to fruition even if you have no expertise in whatever the idea is about.

I will be linking some helpful information on coding later this week. Might even write a guide or two if I have enough time.

Time Invested on Void Nexus Past Week = ~13 Hours
Total Time Invested = ~68 Hours

Friday, March 23, 2012

Learning, Coding, and Bugs (wash & repeat)

Alright, so a couple of new things.

Since I am learning Lua and LOVE at the same time, progress on the game itself has been very slow. Before I can make things like the physics, terrain generation, collision, weapons, players, etc. I need to know how to actual program them without the code blowing up my computer, so I am starting small with my test programs. So far, I have managed to get a simple pong physics program working. There are two balls that have different velocities. For one, if it collides with the edges of the screen it bounces. For the other, when it reaches the edge of the screen it is teleported on the opposite side of the axis it is on. In other words if it travels off screen from the right side, it will teleport to the left side and continue it's trajectory. It sounds simple, but for the first attempt at writing a physics program they both were challenging for me.

While running it, I came across my first bug! I did not think to set the equal sign (=) when I was checking for collision with the ball and the edge of the screen. I only used the greater than or less (< and >) than symbols. This resulted in the balls bouncing correctly up until around 30 seconds into runtime when one of the balls was equal to the exact location at the edge of the screen. The collision check I wrote was bypassed, and the ball continued traveling beyond the screen boundary into the void of nothingness.

So now I'm past that and moved on to playing with collision boxes (or collision squares/rectangles) for two separate objects with widths and heights. Luckily, it took less time to figure out. The next thing I will have to do is adjust the collision check to use angles for the tiles of ships and players. (which looks confusing...*gulp*)

The pong program was the main thing I've devoted my time to, but I have been working on other stuff too. Drawing a few graphics for the game, made a basic chat program that displays text typed by the player, and playing around with some trig functions (that I barely understand) to fire projectiles.

While at my jobs, I continue to brainstorm ideas for how Void Nexus will work. I feel like I have how 40%-60% of the main mechanics will function for the game and the rest are beyond my prediction capability. It's like pondering a chess move and where it will lead to. You can predict the first few moves with ease but as you try to go beyond that, it becomes harder to see where the other moves will lead to because of the vast possibilities. That is where some of the other mechanics for the game are at, I can't envision until the other stuff plays out. Although, what I have decided on and thought of currently has HUGE potential, and I'm confident that it can all be done. (it's just going to take time)

I'm going to post the pong and chat program I wrote below for anyone interested.

Pong Program - http://codepad.org/qs13jZmH
Chat Program - http://codepad.org/LAgyXDkL

(To Noob Programmers - I'm sorry I didn't write comments explaining stuff)

Time Invested on Void Nexus Past Week = ~15 Hours
(it feels like 70% of it is devoted to learning Lua though)
Total Time Invested = ~55 Hours

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Gensis of Void Nexus

Before I talk about how the ideas for Void Nexus were spawned, I need to reveal a bit about my background.

Currently, I am a 21 year old male working three part-time jobs simultaneously. I work at a steakhouse as a dishwasher, retail as a sales associate, and a yogurt bar as a cashier. In my spare time at work, I attempt to think of new ideas to add to Void Nexus. When I am not working, I am either trying to code or learning new parts of Lua and LÖVE so that I can be proficient when I need to use the knowledge later.

I've been familiar with video games my whole life. I started off with the simple NES and SNES and then progressed. My parents were often worried while they watched me invest countless hours into many of the games they had purchased. I was the kind of gamer that would be stuck in a dangerous trance while playing. Many times I would forfeit sleep, food, and going to the restroom, as my attention would be completely drawn to completing a level or beating a boss. Needless to say, I managed to rack up a good amount of gameplay in my childhood. As I discovered new games from various systems, I learned what games were unique, exciting, and attention catching, while taking note of the negative attributes (boring, bland, repetitive) which made games bad. Back then, games didn't have the potential that they do now. (nor the amount of entertainment)

I have spent the past few months doing research and testing out things to help me achieve my goal. In the end I decided I would make Void Nexus in 2D, because the length of time needed to make this kind of game in 3D would be daunting. As a person who had no prior coding experience, determining what game engine to use was a project unto itself. I was clueless to the restrictions and freedoms were for any given engine or coding language. The only thing I had to guide me was what people said on forums. I was at first going to attempt to use Java, but then I found out that it consumes so much CPU (Darn you Minecraft!) so I ruled that option out. I was examining some very simple game engines such as Spheriki, GameMaker, and others that I can't recall. Then when I learned about the restrictions of those engines, I continued my search for something that would provide the game structure and environment that I was looking for. And then I found LÖVE.

LÖVE is well... uncanny in it's own right. I was baffled by the homepage when I first came across it. Everything about it seemed so overbearingly cheerful and happy, that it seemed phony. I almost closed the window without giving it a second look, but for some reason I decided to scroll through some of the games made, screenshots, and forums. The more I saw, the better potential I envisioned with using it as the basis for making my game. And so, I started my trek with tutorials in Lua and LÖVE simultaneously to pursue my endeavor for Void Nexus. I began progress roughly three weeks ago and even the small amount I've built so far has shown great promise.

The community on LÖVE has been very helpful and friendly in my attempts with learning. I feel as if I've only learned 5%-10% of all the componets of Lua and LÖVE so far and I seek help on a regular basis. I drop by the LÖVE irc to ask questions related to code or coding and chat about other miscellaneous topics with the folks there. All the cheerful and happy phoniness that I said earlier is not true. The community there is very LÖVE'ing, (get it?) and is a very strong point for using the game engine. Another pro is that the game engine itself is simple enough for a beginner such as myself to learn. :)

Now back to the start of my post as to the ideas and chain of events that lead to this game. I am a big fan of Minecraft. I played it and monitored the progress since the start of classic. I didn't actually buy the game until around the time rail tracks were added. As the game evolved with redstone, I saw a huge potential to build giant powered mechanisms that I fell in love with. Then I thought to myself, "what would be really cool is to make this into some kind of spaceship." The only problem- the ship was static. Thus, I wanted very much to either play a minecraft space mod or make one myself. Time passed, the few mods I was following didn't go far enough to appease my thirst for some kind of block based space game. Then I discovered Blockade Runner.

It was the game I had been waiting for, yet, it was still in early development. (and still is, I might add) So after finding that, I decided to hold off on any game making because what I wanted sounded like it was going to be made already. So I tried to go a different avenue and make a "Minecraft - Space Station 13" server. I learned how to use GIMP to design a texture pack, used MCEdit to build the map, looked at how to use terrain map generators to make planets and asteroids, and even began some beginners tutorials on how to code Java. In the meantime, Blockade Runner had a few updates which added a few things, but nothing that had turned the game into a playable state. They also did a few interviews about the direction they want to shape the game. After reading that, the lack of content, and updates, I became dispirited. :(

From what I gathered and guessed, AI were likely going to be used to crew a players ship, instead of other players. The reason I say this is because with the new updates the ship editor is allowing people to build bigger ships, easier and faster. The size limit was also removed. These two things together mean that players will be able to construct large ships on their own. (which require huge crews to manage) Unless Blockade Runner later has plans to restrict the number of large ships from being built, I foresee most of the players not willing to serve as crew members on others ships when they have the option of building their own. If that's the case then, a huge amount of work needs to be done to code the AI to crew ships. (which will be very time consuming)

Of course, all this is preemptive speculation on my part. I don't really know what their plans are... but this is the direction I see their game going. (of course I could be wrong) Anyway, this all lead to the epiphany for Void Nexus. I envisioned what the space game I wanted should be...

Now I'm here, and passionate about making it as quickly as possible. I think the end results of Void Nexus and Blockade Runner will be vastly different from each other. I have plenty of ideas how I want to shape Void Nexus and am slowly learning to manifest those ideas into code. I'm hoping that I will surpass the progress of blockade runner in a few months (after all 2D games should be faster to code than 3D ones right?) and have a working multiplayer soon. (which is my top goal!)

So that's it. The how, why, and when this game came to be. I've only just started... but the passion has been roaring inside my heart for a long time now to get this project undertaken.

To be fair, a tribute list for the most important games that inspired me to make Void Nexus.

Minecraft - (for the creativity and proof that small scale game developing is possible and can succeed)
King Arthur's Gold - (for showing that team-based coordination is possible on a 2D large scale)
Space Station 13 - (for the sheer amount of crazy mechanics involved)
Blockade Runner - (for being the catalysis that lead me to make Void Nexus)

And for my own personal records, I'm going to be keeping track of the amount of time I spend working on this project every week on this blog. (New programmers have to set benchmarks for themselves right?!)

Time Invested on Void Nexus Past Three Weeks = ~40 Hours
Prior Coding Life Experience = I didn't get very far past "Hello World" on java. That's about it... (sums up to nil )