Messages

31

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 08, 2010, 10:27:40 am »

Yes I'm using 64 bit. You seem to have not completely fixed it.

Ok I added some more fixes to the code. Please check now if it works. http://sourceforge.net/projects/uzf/files/uzf/0.1/uzf-0.1.2-source.tar.gz/download.

BTW you can get the latest unreleased source from git:

Code: [Select]

git clone git://uzf.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/uzf/uzf

You could make a small controlled explosion after holding up a windows for too long

Hehe . Seems a bit random though.

If you feel that the game is too hard at the moment, that is because the level isn't balanced very well. A well designed level will let you progressively get stronger (in terms of weapons and escape routes) as the zombies get harder.

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SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 08, 2010, 02:31:26 am »

Take a look at the Boost.Graph library.

Thanks didn't know about that. Looks interesting.

I see your using micropather for a*, how is that? Was it easy to get working correctly?

Micropather is a generic path finder so you can use it for 2D, 3D and with edges or vertexes or areas. However despite it's genericness, it was quite easy to use it for my 2d, vertex based pathfinding. I think you only need to override 2 simple functions and it does the rest for you.

Make zombies weaker(less damage to wall) when health is low

However that means that a player can hold up a window forever if the zombies next to it are weak. This will be a problem if there are 3 people playing since they will never die .

33

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 04, 2010, 03:48:43 am »

Yeah I did get the graphics package. It's got some nice sprites and textures. For the moment though, we might use some in-house graphics to keep consistency. If we do use some parts of it, I'll let you know. Thanks for uploading that.

I chose Box2D because it meant I didn't have to write my own collision system. Also it gives you rigid body physics allowing the game to feel more realisitc.

Box2D is designed for games so while there is some overhead, on modern computers it is barely noticable. The pathfinding is not very effecient at the moment at that is probably the biggest culprit at the moment. Even then the game only uses up ~15% CPU here.

The .exe runs fine with Wine on ubuntu x64

Ok that's good to know. It runs fine here on 32bit wine as well.

34

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 03, 2010, 10:48:22 pm »

i think ill make a screensaver then a AI demo then ill start making my game, cuz im WAY in over my head, ive barely finished making the console apps. But whatever, the only thing i really need is the will to do it

I remember I had the same problem 5 years ago when I tried to make my first game in c++. I could make pretty complex games using game maker so I set my sights VERY high. I had features planned like skeletal animation, slow motion physics, advanced weapon systems etc. After 1 month of development I gave up. My code was getting really hard to modify and my game wasn't very playable.

As I started on working on more projects I started setting my aim lower and lower. Eventually as my aims decreased, and my skills increased I was able to start making more complete projects.


My advice is to set your aim low for now. I know that when you are thinking of ideas it is easy to start getting wild and excited. Focus on doing the easiest parts (eg a character moving on screen) first. This will give you more encouragement and a better judgement of how far you can go.

There are many people out there with little experience who want to make the greatest MMORPG of all time. However they never end up producing anything. With experience you get a better understanding of what you are capable of. In fact I now realize that I still wouldn't be able to make that first game I started even after all the experience I gained after it.

I think i may wanna contribute to your project, if you need any more help just ask

We keep our latest source code and data in a git repository:http://sourceforge.net/projects/uzf/develop. At the moment our team is small but sufficient. My friend and I are doing coding and the artwork together.

However our game is designed to be easily modified (weapons, enemies, maps), so it will be easy to make your own mods and stuff for it.

35

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 03, 2010, 10:17:23 pm »

Tried and failed building it on Fedora Linux.

Ahh. You must be using 64-bit linux am I right? There was a small bug that I just noticed from your compile output. I just fixed it and uploaded a new source package. You can get it from here. Please test it out again to see if it works.

Thanks a lot for reporting the error. I wouldn't have realised it if you didn't report your problem.

36

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: August 01, 2010, 09:32:03 pm »

I looked a little at sf::Network and some other low-level networking libraries recently. I think I might choose enet since it doesnt require threads and makes it easy to send reliable packets.

I've never done netowork programming before and so it seems really interesting and challenging. It's almost like a new way of thinking. However every time I think about it I get scared because of all the issues that can occur (high lag, cheating, synchronisation problems). Perhaps I should try to get a basic system working and worry about those later.

Have you made any networked apps before? Is it really as hard as I think it is?

Survived 7 rounds with touchpad on my laptop ran out of bullets

Wow must be hard on a touchpad. You can buy more ammo from where you bought your gun. I'm guessing you ran out of mp5 ammo

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SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: July 31, 2010, 01:04:11 am »

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

You're right the game does take heavy inspiration from COD5. However we also have some ideas that are different. For example the ammo is more realistic: you lose entire clip while reloading. I think once we get more progress, more original ideas will start coming up.

If you made a few tweaks that made your game funner then wouldn't that be better than making a clone?

I agree. The purpose of the game is definately to be fun rather than a strict clone. Do you have any specific ideas in mind?

1. Yeah. After your comment, I've uploaded a zip version as well. However the zip file is 1.8Mb compared to the 1.1Mb .7z file. Hopefully this will convince more people to use 7zip.

2. Yes box2D moves the objects smoothly and handles collisions nicely.

3. Thanks. The camera and weapon bars were actually inspired by the multiplayer game soldat.

4. Particle effects are planned. Vehicles are an interesting idea. Will need to think of a way to balance them though.

Lastly, how much planning have you done? Cause professional games usually start off with a 10 page thing outlining all the aspects of the game, try doing this

Haha. We're pretty unprofessional at this stage. We do most of our work in our free time and in between classes. In fact I'm starting to fall behind now

There is no formal plan yet. We have a rough idea of what to do and I just keep a todo.txt file around where I check things off. Again once we start making more progress this might change. Things planned for future releases include:
 * Sound
 * Particles
 * Corpses
 * HUD effects
 * More weapon types
 * Camera effects
 * GUI
 * Multiplayer

Multiplayer is actually one of the main objectives. But it seems quite hard to do. I've looked at a few libraries it looks quite compicated. Once the single player is in a decent state I might start on that.

I noticed that you are also developing a similar game. How is your progress? I looked at some of your screenshots from your previous game and it looks quite nice. Hope it goes well.

It's really good to get some feedback from someone who has some knowledge in this genre. Thanks again for the advice. Hope your game is downloaded many times too

38

SFML projects / Ultimate Zombie Fighters

« on: July 30, 2010, 10:08:32 pm »

Hi,

My friends and I have been working on a game for the last month. It's called Ultimate Zombie Fighters (uzf). It is an open source, cross-platform, 2d top-down zombie shooting game inspired by Call of Duty 5: Nazi Zombies.

The aim of the game is to survive as long as possible. The zombies will try to break the windows and try to get you. You will need to kill them and repair the windows to stay alive.

Screenshot:


We just released a 0.1 version which is kinda playable. You can get it from it's website: http://uzf.sf.net

There are executables for windows available, but for linux(tested) and mac(not tested) you will need to compile.

To compile from source you need:
cmake
SFML >= 1.5
Box2D >= 2.1 (I think)

Please try it out and let us know what you think.

=========================

Using SFML has been an awesome experience. Compared to SDL it has a much nicer syntax and accelerated rendering makes the game feel smooth. Big thanks to the developer for a great library.

Just one small gripe though: It seems from 1.5 to 1.6 the rendering is slightly more glitchy. You can see in the screenshots that there are some faint lines which are the borders of the zombie sprite. It's small but I hope that it improves in the next version of SFML.

Game Features on the SFML side:
- using sf::Views to simulate camera
- custom ImageManager to cache already loaded sf::Images
- custom code to implement tiling

The source code is available from the website so feel free to look around.

Thanks!