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Author Topic: [WIP] Racod's Lair - a coop dungeon crawler [Demo Released]  (Read 94382 times)

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Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #30 on: October 12, 2014, 12:15:50 pm »
Development Paused

The development of "Rage" will be paused for some time, because the new university term will start soon. I will use the next days to cleanup the code and document architecture and other decisions. This will hopefully help to continue working on later. So this project isn't dead ;)
Again, thanks to all your feedback. I'm looking forward continuing development as soon as possible 8)

Kind regards
Glocke

Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #31 on: November 23, 2014, 12:31:51 pm »
Meanwhile, minor architectural changes are made. I also applied some performance-relevant improvements, so the game is now able to run on my netbook smoothly. By the way: the machine has a single-core cpu with 1.6 GHz and a low-end built-in intel graphics card. That's not much, but quite enough to run the game - at least at 30 FPS, yet!

Because of too little free time, I wasn't able to really continue development. But I studied about modern C++ style, architectural designs and possible performance improvements. Therefore I started to write a huge list of (pure internal) changes need to be done. I'm not sure about how quickly this list's items can be implemented - referring to having not enough free time. But again: This project isn't dead ;) I'm looking forward to be able to continue development 8)

Kind regards
Glocke
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #32 on: February 04, 2015, 08:04:28 am »
Hi folks,

meanwhile nearly everything changed :D I was redesigning the whole architecture from pure OOP (fail due to performance) to a hybrid of DOD and OOP. Now, pure DOD is used for the core systems such as physics and rendering. A hybrid of DOD and OOP is used for less performance-critical systems such as input.

Also I started writing unit tests for nearly everything I can imagine. So the entire physics system's testing code is as large as the physics itself - but covering many edge cases. Because I totally rewrote the systems, using those unit tests I discovered bugs which might have shoot off my entire leg :D The old code was out-dated referring to coding style, so rewriting and redesigning everything from scratch was a lot easier ^^

So meanwhile, I also stepped back to topdown perspective in order to simplicity during development. I use predefined vertex definitions (parsed from files) to describe 2d terrain- and object-"meshes" built from triangles. It isn't looking like before but it's working for development purpose ^^

Here's a short video of a performance test: I was hitting spacebar to spawn 500 "flying" chests (they're handled as bullet objects for testing purpose) at once. Hitting the spacebar agains spawns another 500, hitting return removes all objects (except the player). This is some kind of performance test to check out how many objects can be handled by the game in current release mode on my netbook. So, looking back to the "old days"-code (as above), I eliminated many performance issues by moving to a more DOD-like design.

But the, here's the video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtu.be/cH6LETygPeI

Technical Stuff: It's using C++11 (now, really ^^), SFML 2.2, Thor 2.0 and my own extension SfmlExt (which can be found at my signature below all posts) for further implementations, which aren't covered by SFML of Thor (not covered at or all not in the way I'd like to).

About further dev steps: I'm going to finish documentation and unit testing within the next weeks. So reimplementing the lighting system and writing a simple audio system will be the next steps after documentation and testing :)

About the visuals: I decided to simplify, because everything is easier if you don't focus too much on graphics. Because I'm a totally newbie to graphics design, I'd need a graphics artist for the dev team. But that is totally unecessary at the current state of development. So I'll stick with this for a while. But I'm also now sure whether staying at topdown or going back to isometric perspective is better. Future will show!
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #33 on: February 09, 2015, 02:06:09 pm »
Hey, meanwhile the graphics changed again. I created very simple non-animated pixel graphics which are now displayed by the render system. Also, the sight-range-based lighting system was implemented - with very hasty flaring effect (just temporary, because it's too fast :D ). To give it a touch of atmosphere, I also wrote a simple ambience theme which is also shown in the video. Enjoy.

http://youtu.be/74YOBMdiCrk
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Mörkö

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #34 on: February 10, 2015, 06:09:19 am »
Nice progress. Yeah, I also often prefer starting over in favour of refactoring old code  ;D That's why I recently started challenging myself to do small projects from start to finish in one month time, so that I'm forced to finish something rather than just rewriting the same "epic" project again and again every time the old code starts to look embarrassing.

Do you have a github page or similar? Having a look at your source would be interesting.

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #35 on: February 10, 2015, 09:32:38 am »
Nice progress.
Thanks :)

Do you have a github page or similar? Having a look at your source would be interesting.
Well I have a github page, but I don't want to publish the game code for the moment.. maybe later after a playable version when the code feels "ready" :D It's too embarrassing at the moment but I'm looking forward to ;D

But if you have some questions I'd like to answer them!

But you can browse some code I'm using inside the game: https://github.com/cgloeckner/SfmlExt

Kind regards
Glocke
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #36 on: February 17, 2015, 05:42:35 pm »
Hi, after experimenting with GIMP, I finally found an art-style which fits my game idea best and is easy to be made on my own. Here's a short animation video introducing a dude who might become the player avatar :D He's currently idling, moving and attacking using eight different directions. Because the perspective is topdown, the sprite can be easily rotated for different facing directions, so I won't need too many graphics :)


By the way: I'm using my Image Atlas Generator (see SfmlExt) which creates a tightly packet texture atlas for the sprite (see attachment).

Kind regards
Glocke
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #37 on: February 20, 2015, 05:12:34 pm »
Well, splitscreen isn't all. So I experimented with another camera handling approach: A shared camera instance using some additional math :)

Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #38 on: February 22, 2015, 06:39:21 pm »
Meanwhile, I reimplemented the lighting system including hard-edge shadow casting. The lighting isn't optimized yet. Also the game is running in debug mode on my netbook. So, the low FPS and some lags occure :S But I'm looking forward to fix that!

Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #39 on: February 25, 2015, 02:54:01 pm »
Meanwhile, I fixed most of the performance issues with dynamic lights and hard-edge shadowcasting. The final result looks like this: Every lightsource can cast shadows, including players and fireballs.

Next step will be an animation handling system for sprites (frame animations) and lighting (flaring lights).
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #40 on: March 16, 2015, 12:24:40 pm »
Today, after some weeks with too little or without any free time, I spent time writing an initial implementation system. Next step might be creating more animation and objects for a more interesting demo video :D

Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #41 on: March 19, 2015, 11:41:49 am »
Hey followers! :)

Here's another demo video. I implemented a minimal combat system as well as a player hud. This time, two players are slaying non-acting enemies... not really heroic but it's working ;D


Of course there are still some bugs referring to the targeting system .. going to be fixed :)
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #42 on: March 20, 2015, 05:40:55 pm »
Meanwhile, some visual effects have been added. There's also a simple teleport mechanism, which will be used later when moving between dungeons (stairs -> teleport ^^)

Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #43 on: March 23, 2015, 05:29:07 pm »
"Split, or not to split. That's the question."


Meanwhile, after heavy reconstructions, I finally improved multiple systems, especially the camera system. Now the screen can be splitted into multiple parts. Each part can observe one or more players (camera is zooming etc.). It's now working with resize, with fullscreen and without breaking the lighting or hud system.... Yeah ;D

So, leaving the decision - whether split or not - up to the player is now possible. Maybe this can be adjusted while playing (without restarting the session)... Stay tuned!
« Last Edit: March 23, 2015, 05:31:22 pm by Glocke »
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG

Glocke

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Re: Rage - a "modern" rogue-like
« Reply #44 on: March 26, 2015, 05:55:50 pm »
Hey guys! Meanwhile, I implemented a menu structure including settings menu (in and off game) as well as a lobby menu (where to select players and profiles) and a profile menu (where to configure the keys). There are still some bugs in the menu.. But I hope you like it :)

https://youtu.be/tfB3auvul-M
Current project: Racod's Lair - Rogue-inspired Coop Action RPG