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Author Topic: Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads [hiatus]  (Read 440118 times)

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jamesL

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #525 on: March 06, 2016, 04:45:41 am »
just saw somebody streaming a game called
Stardew Valley 

and it reminded me of the game in this thread

here is Stardew Valley 
go here and watch the video from 1:58 to about 2:25
http://store.steampowered.com/app/413150/


SpeCter

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #526 on: March 06, 2016, 12:23:03 pm »
Stardew Valley is a completely different game ???

jamesL

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #527 on: March 06, 2016, 09:00:32 pm »
Stardew Valley is a completely different game ???

duh, obviously

but the video portion I mentioned made me think of the screenshorts posted on page 33

Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #528 on: March 06, 2016, 09:28:58 pm »
Well, to be fair, the only similarities I see is the same perspective and some colors... But that's a bit of a stretch :)

New dev log. January-February 2016.
Here's a new dev log! It talks about the stuff that I did in the last two months.
Some of the stuff I've already posted there, but there's also new stuff!
Here's one of the new screenshots which I haven't posted before.

I'm pretty satisfied about the progress in the last few months. It may not seem that big from the outside, but the changes and improvements I make are making my engine and game a lot better.
There's also a lot of unfinished / spoiler-y stuff I've yet to show.
What do you think about my progress? :D
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #529 on: March 08, 2016, 09:13:01 am »
I'm working on depth and height in the levels and the progress is great so far.
Check out how one of the sides of the platform is not seen when it reaches the lowest point.

I've tested some of the stuff in lots of SNES top down games and it seems like they use the same method that I use: some tiles are just drawn on top of other tiles. The rules of this are not trivial, so I'll probably write an article about it later. More height updates soon!

Btw, here's an awesome chibi Renatus which my GF drawn. It's the first fan art for my game ever. So cool :D


And I've just realized that I forgot to tell you that the protagonist has a name, Renatus! So, here it is :D
The name will be customizable for laughs.
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

Rhimlock

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #530 on: March 08, 2016, 09:20:42 am »
Really great project you have here.

I'm just wondering about your depth-rules.
Shouldn't it be enough for a top down 2d-game to sort the draw-order by Y-coordinate?
Things at the top get drawn before things at the bottom.

Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #531 on: March 08, 2016, 09:34:05 am »
Thank you!

No, that's not enough. First of all, if you have flying objects or objects on the ground, you need to introduce z coordinate. Then you'll have to sort by Y and Z at the same time.
And this method only works for sprites, it's different for tiles. Especially considering that I draw tiles using VertexArrays and don't want to render each tile individually, so I have to keep "layers" of tiles which gets complicated pretty quickly. I'll explain more a bit later. :)
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

Hapax

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #532 on: March 08, 2016, 04:49:09 pm »
I'm working on depth and height in the levels and the progress is great so far.
Check out how one of the sides of the platform is not seen when it reaches the lowest point.
(click to show/hide)
Even though, technically, it's perfect, it doesn't actually look like that platform is lowering. It looks like it's sliding from one side of the gap to the other.
If it's lowering, it really should have some suggestions of that. Shadows (cast onto the platform and/or cast by the platform) are the best but possibly most complicated solutions. However, perceived occlusion (just darkening it as it's lower) can help. Darkening something makes it appear smaller, further away, more occulded and/or less-significant.

I love this project. It's really progressing and I like reading about it.
I don't think it would actually be the type of game that I would play but I'd love to have the entire story to read (along with images and the humour!) ;D
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Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #533 on: March 08, 2016, 05:21:56 pm »
Even though, technically, it's perfect, it doesn't actually look like that platform is lowering. It looks like it's sliding from one side of the gap to the other.
It's moving in Y axis, so yeah, it is sliding from on side of the gap to the other. I'll make it more explicit a bit later (by making the gap wider and drawing better vertical tiles).
Thanks for the suggestions, though! I'll totally have it in mind once I'll start implementing platforms which move up and down. :D

I love this project. It's really progressing and I like reading about it.
I don't think it would actually be the type of game that I would play but I'd love to have the entire story to read (along with images and the humour!) ;D
Thank you!
Well, maybe someone will make a playthrough or "story-only" video for you to enjoy. Though I'll go by the Earthbound route and put some funny stuff in random interactions and dialogue even with unsignificant NPCs :D

Progress update
And here's what I did with tiles... Now the height totally works! I'm very excited about it because I couldn't figure out the way to do this stuff for two days. And there weren't any articles which could help.

I still need to add shadows to make it look more cool, but you get the idea. I'll also add jumping down (and falling!) later.
I'll also write an article about how to do this stuff. It's pretty complicated, so it's worth talking about it in depth. :)
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

Hapax

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #534 on: March 08, 2016, 09:37:46 pm »
It's moving in Y axis, so yeah, it is sliding from on side of the gap to the other. I'll make it more explicit a bit later (by making the gap wider and drawing better vertical tiles).
Oh, I'm sorry! The irony of me thinking that it did something but did not look like it because it looked like it did something that I thought that it did not look like!  :-X
So, it's travelling from one side of the gap to the other? What would it look like if it was lowering?  ;)

Progress update
That height stuff is a massive step. Good work!
Be aware, though, that obscuring the character is a bad thing. Displaying it through the obstructions (walls etc.) as a transparent or outlined "ghost" sprite is a common solution for this.
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Ethan.Calabria

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #535 on: March 09, 2016, 05:23:16 am »
Looks pretty cool!  Some of your marketing efforts must be working too as I see screens of your game re-tweeted from time to time.

I didn't go through the entire thread, but I saw mostly questions / updates about the game mechanics / programming.  How is the story / writing progressing?
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Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #536 on: March 10, 2016, 07:56:20 am »
Oh, I'm sorry! The irony of me thinking that it did something but did not look like it because it looked like it did something that I thought that it did not look like!  :-X
Ha-ha, no problem! I realize that this was kinda confused and I'll fix it

So, it's travelling from one side of the gap to the other? What would it look like if it was lowering?  ;)
I don't know, I'll try to make this effect soon and then I'll show it to you :)

That height stuff is a massive step. Good work!
Be aware, though, that obscuring the character is a bad thing. Displaying it through the obstructions (walls etc.) as a transparent or outlined "ghost" sprite is a common solution for this.
Thank you! Btw, the stuff in that gif was fake depth done with some overlays. But now I've made a system which will allow all tiles and entities to have true height as I've found how to draw them properly!
Be aware, though, that obscuring the character is a bad thing. Displaying it through the obstructions (walls etc.) as a transparent or outlined "ghost" sprite is a common solution for this.
Yeah, having an outline will certainly help, though some games are okay with player hinding behind walls and stuff... Well, I'll see, it's not that hard to implement with a simple shader. :D

Looks pretty cool!  Some of your marketing efforts must be working too as I see screens of your game re-tweeted from time to time.
Thank you. Glad to hear that. I didn't do marketing much though, only dev logs and gifs. Once the game is more playable, I'll focus on it more, I'll mail some journalists, make some videos, trailers, Steam Greenlight, etc.! :D

I didn't go through the entire thread, but I saw mostly questions / updates about the game mechanics / programming.  How is the story / writing progressing?
It's progressing quite great! The more I think about the story and characters, the more it makes sense to me. I want to make a connected world, not just a randomly connected sequence of events.
Lots of stuff I develop in the story now is pretty spoiler-y, so I don't talk about it. :D
Non spoiler stuff is not being made yet, because I'm making some stuff which will allow me to do cutscenes / dialogues pretty quickly. So far, the progress is pretty good in this direction. I can make dialogues and cutscenes pretty quickly. I'm also working on all stuff in the gameplay and the engine, so it takes a bit of time.

I plan to focus more on the story stuff a bit later, so maybe you'll see more details about it a bit later. :)
It's certainly richer and deeper than simple "humans fight undeads and they fight back" plot.
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

Elias Daler

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #537 on: March 10, 2016, 12:22:13 pm »
3d stuff update! I can now make levels with height in my level editor!


The gif that was posted previously wasn't using "true" height, the height was emulated by drawing some tiles above everything with less Z. But now I've realized that I can make levels with "cubic" tiles, which kinda work like voxels. It makes collision detection and height stuff much easier.
I'll write about how drawing algorithm works a bit later, because there's so much more stuff I have yet to do and improve. Hopefully, it doesn't suck in the end. :)

(Btw, the tiles don't look very well without outlines and shadows and that's something I'll work on in the future)
Tomb Painter, Re:creation dev (abandoned, doing other things) | edw.is | @EliasDaler

SpeCter

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #538 on: March 10, 2016, 02:04:44 pm »
So basically your tiles have a real z-position now instead of emulating this behaviour with x/y offsets?

Looks pretty neat btw :D

Hapax

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Re:creation - a top down action adventure about undeads
« Reply #539 on: March 10, 2016, 07:22:46 pm »
Can your editor hide certain things? I'd suggest a modifiable height limit. If you build a wall like the one in your example above, you still might need to change the floor behind it that is obscured (or build a smaller wall behind it).

If you're feeling adventurous, the editor could now be fully 3D... hehe  ;D
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