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General => SFML projects => Topic started by: Evan Bowman on February 15, 2016, 02:06:29 am

Title: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on February 15, 2016, 02:06:29 am
Blind Jump is a procedurally generated space themed adventure game that I've been developing with SFML over the past few months, and now It's progressed to a point where I wanted to share some pictures and videos of it and maybe get some feedback from other people who like making games.

The object of the game is to navigate a series of randomly generated waypoints while fighting enemies and collecting items.

Gameplay video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQRcmj-kvgc

Screenshot:
(http://i.imgur.com/2Wzqyba.png)



Enemies (so far):

Drone: Wanders around and shoots sometimes, fairly weak.
(http://i.imgur.com/T4JQXox.png)

Critter: Chases you.
(http://i.imgur.com/lfeTwvA.png)

Valkyrie: Dashes back and forth and fires projectiles.
(http://i.imgur.com/haz2cYY.png)

Turret: Rapidly Fires patterns of projectiles.
(http://i.imgur.com/6ThPYIB.png)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Roguelike
Post by: Tukimitzu on February 15, 2016, 02:42:19 am
Nice! Good job so far. Reminds me of Risk of Rain, if it was played from a 2.5D perspective.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Roguelike
Post by: Mario on February 15, 2016, 09:21:44 am
Looks neat. If you change the YouTube link from https to http it will even be embedded directly.

Edit:

At 1:02 there's a z-ordering problem, i.e. the player sprite is on top of the enemy despite the enemy being in front.

What I'm personally missing is some sense of depth for the projectiles. While a drop shadow might be odd for them, how about adding some glow that's reflected by the ground (i.e. a colored shadow)? This way it would be easier to properly judge projectiles' positions more easily.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Roguelike
Post by: Evan Bowman on February 15, 2016, 02:22:45 pm
Quote from: Tukimitzu on February 15, 2016, 02:42:19 am
Nice! Good job so far. Reminds me of Risk of Rain, if it was played from a 2.5D perspective.

Thanks! I've heard of Risk of Rain but never actually played it, maybe I'll check out out.

Quote from: Mario on February 15, 2016, 09:21:44 am
Looks neat. If you change the YouTube link from https to http it will even be embedded directly.

Edit:

At 1:02 there's a z-ordering problem, i.e. the player sprite is on top of the enemy despite the enemy being in front.

What I'm personally missing is some sense of depth for the projectiles. While a drop shadow might be odd for them, how about adding some glow that's reflected by the ground (i.e. a colored shadow)? This way it would be easier to properly judge projectiles' positions more easily.

Yeah it's in its pretty early stages so it does have some bugs. Have you run into z ordering before and had to solve it? Off the top of my head it seems like I'd want to push references to all of the sprites in the window to a stack, encapsulated with y-position and image height, and then sort it before drawing.

I actually have been thinking of adding a glow below projectiles, but haven't done it yet because I'd have to check if each effect if over a platform before drawing the glow (don't have to with shadows, because enemies and the player can't leave the platforms  :) ).

I appreciate the suggestions!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Roguelike
Post by: Ztormi on February 15, 2016, 02:48:52 pm
Looks great!

I don't really see any relation to rogue though or any roguelike elements for that matter. I don't want to sound picky but seems like every other developer for some unknown reason wants to slap word roguelike on any game involving procedural tilebased levels  :-\
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Roguelike
Post by: Evan Bowman on February 15, 2016, 03:17:06 pm
Quote from: Ztormi on February 15, 2016, 02:48:52 pm
Looks great!

I don't really see any relation to rogue though or any roguelike elements for that matter. I don't want to sound picky but seems like every other developer for some unknown reason wants to slap word roguelike on any game involving procedural tilebased levels  :-\

Thanks!

I guess I didn't really go to far into the mechanics in my original post; the game also features permanent death and will require the player to do some sort of resource management, so I was referring to that as well. From the Berlin Interpretation (http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation) it's only really missing the turn-based gameplay and grid based movement, but I guess a better description on my part would be "a space themed action-adventure game with roguelike elements". Fixed subject line.

Edit: I'm not really a professional game developer, just a college student who wanted to make a video game, so I guess I was less concerned with what genre I described it as. I agree that 'Roguelike' feels like a buzzword right now (or maybe it's just become a looser definition).
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Hapax on February 16, 2016, 02:45:27 am
Looks rather playable. Nice work  :)

Naming-wise, just thought I'd point this out:
STAG = Space-Themed Adventure Game
 ;)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on February 17, 2016, 03:33:24 am
Quote from: Hapax on February 16, 2016, 02:45:27 am
Looks rather playable. Nice work  :)

Naming-wise, just thought I'd point this out:
STAG = Space-Themed Adventure Game
 ;)

Thanks! Of course my plan for it is to be playable, but I don't know much about game design so I've just been trying make something that I enjoy playing, and hope that that translates into it being fun eventually.

Also some people mentioned a lack of depth on the projectiles, but when I added under-glow to the effects it looked out of place without a more full featured lighting system, so I ended up going further with light sources than I had originally planned. But I think with some more work it has the potential to look really good (the lighting looks ok now but it could be more evenly distributed. I've been reading about poisson disc scattering, maybe that's the solution I'm looking for for light sources). Here's a video:

http://youtu.be/x-eCuS2aU90
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Hapax on February 17, 2016, 09:00:24 pm
I see you got the lighting idea working. Excellent!
I think the transporter should glow when used too  ;)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on February 18, 2016, 01:29:32 am
Quote from: Hapax on February 17, 2016, 09:00:24 pm
I see you got the lighting idea working. Excellent!
I think the transporter should glow when used too  ;)

Yeah I agree with the transporter glow thing, currently it just glows all the time, but the beam itself should cast a glow as it appears and also upon entry to the next level.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 05, 2016, 05:13:14 am
I've made a lot of progress this past week, and thought I'd share! Drew some new item designs:

(http://i.imgur.com/fIutwRf.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/8IrfKma.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/irWSNFL.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/2IxIxcl.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/W9swbeQ.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/qkFYG99.png)

I've also updated the original post with new images and information. Reactions? Any suggestions?

New video coming soon demonstrating the pathfinding, updated UI, more detailed map generation, and item placement (probably)!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: eXpl0it3r on March 05, 2016, 12:48:28 pm
Nice! Like the art. :)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 07, 2016, 05:08:39 pm
Quote from: eXpl0it3r on March 05, 2016, 12:48:28 pm
Nice! Like the art. :)

Thanks!

Here's a little preview:
Edit: This was mostly to show efficiency of the pathfinding I wrote, in actuality the game places a lesser number of difficult enemies rather than swarms of smaller ones.
(http://i.imgur.com/DVONxYv.gif)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 10, 2016, 06:36:05 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/SaCYgcX.gif)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: dabbertorres on March 10, 2016, 11:14:22 pm
I know it's not that different what others have already said, but, I absolutely love how the game looks.

That smooth-pixelated look is just awesome.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 16, 2016, 07:36:31 pm
Quote from: dabbertorres on March 10, 2016, 11:14:22 pm
I know it's not that different what others have already said, but, I absolutely love how the game looks.

That smooth-pixelated look is just awesome.

Thanks, I've been putting a lot of time into the visuals so I'm glad people appreciate them!

HD screenshot:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: MrMuffins on March 17, 2016, 05:54:40 am
That is absolutely beautiful viewing it fullscreen.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 17, 2016, 05:20:10 pm
Quote from: MrMuffins on March 17, 2016, 05:54:40 am
That is absolutely beautiful viewing it fullscreen.

Thanks, that's the idea! My code adapts the window size to screen's aspect ratio and runs fullscreen, so it should look something like that on all displays.

First boss concept:
(http://i.imgur.com/H9mDKhU.png)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 17, 2016, 05:57:38 pm
Altho the games are entirely different, everytime i see your game it makes me think of Another World.

Aaah the good ol' days. That too was an awesome game!

Anyways - Good vibes!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 17, 2016, 07:01:15 pm
Quote from: bitano on March 17, 2016, 05:57:38 pm
Altho the games are entirely different, everytime i see your game it makes me think of Another World.

Aaah the good ol' days. That too was an awesome game!

Anyways - Good vibes!

Thanks! Never played Another World, it came out before I was born, but I've heard of it and it looks cool!

Some old concept art (I may not end up doing cutscenes, but if I get to it they'll look something like this, but with light and shadows. I really like the cutscenes from Transistor, so I'm interested in doing something sort of like that):
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 18, 2016, 06:34:58 pm
Dodge mechanics:

(http://i.imgur.com/aVqWLLW.gif)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 18, 2016, 07:29:32 pm
SOooo....When can we alpha test it? :D
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 21, 2016, 05:40:38 am
Quote from: bitano on March 18, 2016, 07:29:32 pm
SOooo....When can we alpha test it? :D

I feel like it's too far from finished right now for a real release, I do have a good deal of the base code written but I feel like there's still so much more to be added in terms of enemies, items, tilesets, etc. (and the last thing I want to do is rush).

I've been making some good progress though, it's definitely getting closer to playable!
(http://i.imgur.com/1f0Ibll.gif)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: AFS on March 21, 2016, 11:44:15 pm
That last gif is fantastic, I love the art style.

(That beam attack looks ridicuously difficult to dodge, though)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Hapax on March 21, 2016, 11:52:58 pm
Is the "indexed/limited palette" look a part of the overall style or is it just due to it being a GIF?
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 22, 2016, 03:23:42 am
Quote from: AFS on March 21, 2016, 11:44:15 pm
That last gif is fantastic, I love the art style.

(That beam attack looks ridicuously difficult to dodge, though)

Yeah I've been playing it as I've been making it so it's probably way too hard (although the difficulty is partly intentional). I'm planning on adding some UI elements to let the player know when it's time to dodge. Thanks for the comment!

Quote from: Hapax on March 21, 2016, 11:52:58 pm
Is the "indexed/limited palette" look a part of the overall style or is it just due to it being a GIF?

Part of it being a gif. As I understand it the gif format stores pixel color values as 8 bit (single byte) integers, and allows a max of 256 colors per frame (I would have thought it would be 512 (8^3), maybe this has something to do with the alpha channel). In order to store more colors it is possible to partition the images into blocks and have each block's colors correspond to local reference values, but the recording tool I had handy doesn't support this. Time to find a better one I guess!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Hapax on March 22, 2016, 07:58:02 pm
Quote from: Evan Bowman on March 22, 2016, 03:23:42 am
Part of it being a gif.
Kind of a shame. It kind of suits the style ;)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 22, 2016, 08:22:42 pm
Quote from: Hapax on March 22, 2016, 07:58:02 pm
Kind of a shame. It kind of suits the style ;)

This could easily be solved with: VIDEO Settings -> Hapax mode :D
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 23, 2016, 04:12:09 pm
Quote from: bitano on March 22, 2016, 08:22:42 pm
Quote from: Hapax on March 22, 2016, 07:58:02 pm
Kind of a shame. It kind of suits the style ;)

This could easily be solved with: VIDEO Settings -> Hapax mode :D

Yeah the look I'm going for is something smoother, but I guess I won't be able to stop people from messing with their computer's display settings  :)

To be honest, I'm not trying to recreate the look of older games, the only reason everything's pixelated is that I'm studying engineering and I don't have any experience with more complex art tools like photoshop (I've been drawing everything with a paint tool called PikoPixel).
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Mörkö on March 23, 2016, 04:43:27 pm
The art style is just perfect, love the palette.

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the player can only shoot in cardinal directions, especially since enemies seem to have full 360 degree freedom. I think it would be more fun if you aimed with the mouse and could shoot in all directions, eg Hotline Miami mechanics.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 23, 2016, 05:20:21 pm
Quote from: Mörkö on March 23, 2016, 04:43:27 pm
The art style is just perfect, love the palette.

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the player can only shoot in cardinal directions, especially since enemies seem to have full 360 degree freedom. I think it would be more fun if you aimed with the mouse and could shoot in all directions, eg Hotline Miami mechanics.

I've been considering changing it, only it really complicates the animations I would need to do. Hotline Miami gets away with it by being fully top down and simply rotating the player's sprite. I would need to animate a walk cycle in every direction the player would shoot. In time I may bring it up to 8 directional (or 8 animations with full 360 degree shooting), but it's going to be a lot of work
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Mörkö on March 23, 2016, 05:58:57 pm
You could demo the mechanic without any artwork before committing to it. Then if it turns out not to be an improvement you just delete the branch from your git or whatever you use. Without having seen your engine, I bet that implementing the such a change wouldn't take very long.

But I didn't come here to tell you how to do your game :D just wanted to post my reaction to the awesome content you've shown. Really good job!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 23, 2016, 06:24:45 pm
Quote from: Mörkö on March 23, 2016, 05:58:57 pm
You could demo the mechanic without any artwork before committing to it. Then if it turns out not to be an improvement you just delete the branch from your git or whatever you use. Without having seen your engine, I bet that implementing the such a change wouldn't take very long.

But I didn't come here to tell you how to do your game :D just wanted to post my reaction to the awesome content you've shown. Really good job!

Thanks! Yeah good point, I am using git and adding a feature like that wouldn't take long at all really. I actually didn't write an engine exactly so much as I created code that implements the game's behavior (although with enough generality to make adding new features trivial like you said). I'm really impressed that a lot of people on these forums have written fully reusable engines, because that's way more impressive than what I've done, code-wise.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 24, 2016, 03:02:22 am
I've been playing around with ways to add a backstory to the game, without it being too intrusive (since the player will die a lot, and most people won't want to watch the same cutscenes over again). So I've been thinking of scattering parts of the characters' stories nonlinearly across the levels, for people who are interested to piece together.
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Sygmei on March 24, 2016, 11:17:48 am
As said before, the project looks damn good, I hope you'll add a lot and a lot of elements :D
(Ennemies, loot etc..)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 24, 2016, 11:20:09 am
Quote from: Sygmei on March 24, 2016, 11:17:48 am
As said before, the project looks damn good, I hope you'll add a lot and a lot of elements :D
(Ennemies, loot etc..)
What i hope to see is some trap mechanics. Kinda like in Bomberman.
So the player can put down a certain kind of trap / bomb with a timer and lure the enemy within range for:
- increased damage
- temporary complete freeze, slowness, or starting freeze and slowly regaining normal speed
- temporary immobalization (can still shoot, but not move)
- temporary blindness
- etc

Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 24, 2016, 02:18:36 pm
Quote from: Sygmei on March 24, 2016, 11:17:48 am
As said before, the project looks damn good, I hope you'll add a lot and a lot of elements :D
(Ennemies, loot etc..)

Thanks! My plan is to add enough enemies and items for good variation between playthroughs, but not so many that people will have trouble adapting to their patterns. So right now it's about finding a good balance.

Quote from: bitano on March 24, 2016, 11:20:09 am
Quote from: Sygmei on March 24, 2016, 11:17:48 am
As said before, the project looks damn good, I hope you'll add a lot and a lot of elements :D
(Ennemies, loot etc..)
What i hope to see is some trap mechanics. Kinda like in Bomberman.
So the player can put down a certain kind of trap / bomb with a timer and lure the enemy within range for:
- increased damage
- temporary complete freeze, slowness, or starting freeze and slowly regaining normal speed
- temporary immobalization (can still shoot, but not move)
- temporary blindness
- etc



That's a great idea, tricking enemies into traps in games is always fun! I've also been thinking about adding traps to the levels for people to avoid (and possibly repurpose?). Suggestions like this are why I posted the project here in the first place, I can only be so creative all by myself!
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 24, 2016, 05:39:01 pm
Story stuff:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 24, 2016, 06:13:59 pm
Polaroid style...With some ambient animations i can imagine? I love it :D
Perhaps when showing them play a bit with (slight) rotation?
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 26, 2016, 04:43:53 am
Quote from: bitano on March 24, 2016, 06:13:59 pm
Polaroid style...With some ambient animations i can imagine? I love it :D
Perhaps when showing them play a bit with (slight) rotation?

Yeah I like the rotation idea, animation would be really cool but I'm not a great animator so I might add that later when I get better at it :)
I actually drew them as Polaroids because that way people can obviously tell they are photos, whereas if I just did regular photographs people might not know what they're looking at.


The very first room of the game, prior to acquiring a space helmet. Wonder what's behind that heavy door?
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: bitano on March 26, 2016, 08:26:10 am
Quote from: Evan Bowman on March 26, 2016, 04:43:53 am
Yeah I like the rotation idea, animation would be really cool but I'm not a great animator so I might add that later when I get better at it :)
Oh i didn't mean anything super fancy with animation, but more instead of just showing them onscreen, make them zoom in juuust slightly or (as you will) move the camera a bit from left to right when showing a polaroid and vice versa on the next. So ye basically play a bit with the camera in a very subtle way when fading into the polaroids. :D. Just a suggestion ofc.

Quote from: Evan Bowman on March 26, 2016, 04:43:53 am
The very first room of the game, prior to acquiring a space helmet. Wonder what's behind that heavy door?
(click to show/hide)
A SPACESHIP...OR ....OR....a TELEPORTER PAD !!! a three headed monkey?
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on March 28, 2016, 07:47:45 pm
Intro ideas:
http://youtu.be/i1ZdU4HNgmA
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: grok on April 05, 2016, 06:50:41 am
The game looks great!
I have a tiny suggestion, though. It looks like the main hero moving animation is a bit slow compared to the "speed" of the map scrolling. It seems like it is a fairy flying around  ::)
I'd suggest that you increase the speed of the animation cycle when he runs .
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on April 09, 2016, 01:15:05 am
Quote from: grok on April 05, 2016, 06:50:41 am
The game looks great!
I have a tiny suggestion, though. It looks like the main hero moving animation is a bit slow compared to the "speed" of the map scrolling. It seems like it is a fairy flying around  ::)
I'd suggest that you increase the speed of the animation cycle when he runs .


Thanks! I think you might be right about the animation speed, I'll play around with that and see what ends up looking best.

Small update: Enemies drop hearts
(http://i.imgur.com/ZxfuWgv.gif)
Title: Re: Blind Jump: Space Themed Adventure Game with Roguelike Elements
Post by: Evan Bowman on August 11, 2016, 09:22:39 pm
Hi,
I've still been actively working on this, and thought I'd share a brief demo of what I've completed so far. During the past few months I've been working a lot more on the code parts--I started the project as a way of learning C++ and making my first computer game, and after a few months it had grown into something really unmaintainable. I meant to demo it earlier but at one point I ended up scrapping about half the code and the whole project hasn't been stable enough until now.

I have a lot left to do, and a few things in the current demo are unfinished:
 - Critter enemies (the red guys) don't have an attack yet
 - Chests don't contain items, I'm planning on having opening a chest grant the player certain timed effects that wear off
 - The intro scene has a lot of the features disabled (the door is locked open, you can shoot through walls).

macOS version here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9evoceraioqsgza/BlindJump.app.tar.gz?dl=0

It is also Linux compatible, but I'm not sure exactly how to distribute software in linux as a simple package... in the meantime:
Code: [Select]
git clone https://github.com/evanbowman/Blind-Jump.git
cd Blind-Jump/src/
make depend
make Linux CPPFLAGS=-DLINUX
./BlindJump # <-- This runs the executable
Would a tarball containing the compiled executable be easier?

The only dependencies for building the project are SFML 2.3.2 and a C++14 compatible compiler, so in theory it should be possible to compile it on windows. I have no idea how stuff works in that environment though, so I have no idea how difficult it would be... but if you want to try compiling it: https://github.com/evanbowman/Blind-Jump

Enjoy, and let me know how I can make it better!

Edit:
Oh yeah I forgot, the controls:
x - shoot
z - interact/dash
arrows - move
esc - menu (items don't change yet when you select them, but the quit option should work, it just won't tell you that it's selected :) )
Should also support playstation controllers out of the box. If you have a controller you'd like supported, feel free to add it to this file and create a pull request: https://github.com/evanbowman/Blind-Jump/blob/master/src/inputController.cpp (in the function InputController::mapJsById())