[WIP] Antarctica

[Wixner]

Hi SFML community.

I'd like to present to you the early WIP of Antarctica, a tribute to the platformers of old.
Been in development for a couple of days, Antarctica has nothing fancy to show yet but I intend to update the binary and this topic as soon as any progress is made.

Using this http://www.wixnet.se/bin/win64/launcher.exe you will always get the latest release of the game to try out for yourself.

Update
I have received reports that the launcher.exe might be flagged as a trojan and at the moment you can bypass the autoupdating function in the launcher by downloading the game client here: http://www.wixnet.se/bin/win64/game.exe

So what is this game about? Ever played Metroid? Then you get the idea!
The game begins with the first antarctic expedition and the fact that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophiles were harvested and had their DNA extracted for the good of mankind. But as usual something goes wrong and I'll let you guess twice who will be responsible for the cleaning process...

What is implemented
Crosscompilation over Linux and Windows using the same source (only 64bit windows binares are maintained at the moment)
Basic Box2D implementation
Basic World and Zone implementation
Collectible items with cause and effect (doublejump and gravity alterator present in Proof of Concept)
Weapons (handgun, machinegun, shotgun)
Fragmentation- and particlesystem randomness
Collision filtering
Able to fire in eight directions
Go from Box2D 2.2.1 to 2.3.0

What's next
Weapons (handgun, machinegun, shotgun)
Update the fragmentation- and particlesystem with lifetime and more randomness
Collision filtering
Able to fire in eight directions
Go from Box2D 2.2.1 to 2.3.0
Enemies (placeholders with cause and effect)
UI Profiler
Protagonist skills (Crawling, Walljumping, climbing ledges)


What's distant
Finetune controls
User Interface
Artificial Intelligence
Tools to build the environment and assets
Crowdfunding

Known bugs
Box2D highspeed body bounce
Switching weapon does not reset rate of fire correctly
ballistic spread does not work properly on handgun and machinegun

[eXpl0it3r]

Some screenshots or a video would be nice.

Until then, I don't advise to open that launcher in a non-sandbox area.

[Wixner]

Did you receive a trojan warning on the launcher  ?
I have update the initial post with information about this issue and posted a direct download link to the game client itself

The launcher is a standalone application that will read a list of files (www.wixnet.se/update.aca) to download from my server. Each file and predefined sha1 is compared to previously downloaded files and if the local sha1 differs from the remote sha1, the local file will be replaced by the remote one.

The actual game client (game.exe) can be found here: http://www.wixnet.se/bin/win64/game.exe

[Wixner]

The Weapon system has been designed and an fully automatic handgun (unlimited ammo, 0s fire- and reload rate) has been temporarily added, however I have some issues with the deletion of the dynamic projectile bodies: Sometimes they just kill the entire application  . Perhaps I've reached the limits of std::list and need a faster container? std::deque?

That has to be the task for tomorrow though...

Update
Simple, on slow computers (remote developing on a virtual machine) Box2D might register multiple detection points between objects in the same frame. This was easily solved by determine if the current detection point already was registered.

[eXpl0it3r]

Did you receive a trojan warning on the launcher  ?
I have update the initial post with information about this issue and posted a direct download link to the game client itself

No, but I learned to be careful with things I download from the internet, so if I see an abstract description, a link to an exe that can't be the full game and a rather unfinished "website", then my bells start ringing.

The launcher is a standalone application that will read a list of files (www.wixnet.se/update.aca) to download from my server. Each file and predefined sha1 is compared to previously downloaded files and if the local sha1 differs from the remote sha1, the local file will be replaced by the remote one.

I thought so, but without knowing for sure, I didn't want to try my luck.

Seems to work fine though, hope to see more!

[Wixner]

Update 2013-10-30 GMT+1

A good day today:
All weapons are in the game - use 1 (handgun), 2 (machinegun), 3 (shotgun) to equip weapon and press CTRL to fire. Please take not that my collision filter is bugged and item that shouldn't be able to collide does.
As a bonus a simple fragmentation- and particlesystem was implemented.

[AlexAUT]

Really nice physics/collision engine, works really good 

But you should improve the particle system (or physiks engine, not quite sure where the performance drop comes from), because after shooting about 3times with the shotgun the performance is really bad (Have a high end computer).



AlexAUT

[Wixner]

Thank you for your feedback AlexAUT.

I am  aware of the performance issues with the physics engine, I have however no idea why Box2D runs so slow in my game... I haven't bothered myself with removing dead bodies so that will probably increase the performance

[Wixner]

Implemented lifetime and randomness for ballistic fragmentation particles and ballistic smoke.
I have a couple of hours of code reiteration and modulation before I head to the next step: Enemies Fire in eight directions!

[Wixner]

Rewrote a couple (!!) of lines of code, implemented eight-direction fire and ledge detection.
Found out that the version of Box2D I'm using (2.2.1) seems to behave strangely with high speed bodies. Very noticeable when firing the shotgun on the floor while running.

[Wixner]

I haven't been able to put as much time as I wanted into Antarctica the last day due to some serious overtime but I have managed to change the scaling factor ( Box2D uses MKS, meters-kilogram-seconds, and I've used centimeters as unit in-game) and started to work on the boring and tedious work of zoning...

Cheers

[Wixner]

Another slow development week - living with a toddler and running your own business really drains your energy and consumes time.

However, some progress has been made to the ingame editor.
Zoning, parallax- and sublayer is implemented