First real game project - task: clean up / multiple attack types and levels

[GameBear]

Hello SFML folks.

So, I've recently got a lot of extra time on my hands and my hands on some sfml books.
So, ive decided i wanted to give it a go at a game from scratch. my first major project on my own.

my background - an outdated webintegrator education from 2005, some Pacal, Turbo pacal, html, AS, AS2, java and java script, all at a low level mostly by hobby and free time.

gone trough all "making games with Ben" tutorials on youtube. (check thm out, you'll be glad you did)
read all of "SFML game devolopment by example" by R. Pupius (awesome book btw, can recommend, especial if a v. 2 comes out)

and this will be my devolopment log.

A demo can be downloaded here from my google drive:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0wU233V6VHRZms3eGY4Y19acjA&usp=sharing
Latest update - Pre-Alpha : 28/7-16


About the game:

(click to show/hide)

The Game style is Action-Platformer-Puzzle (Think lost vikings)

Story currently not specific.

a little muckup i made to show the "simi taget look"

The worksheet

(click to show/hide)

(green is done, red ongoing and black to come)

i:
Set up a menu class and a stage class to handle all menu and game stages. - 21/7-16

ii:
add an intro stage with a splash screen. - 21/7-16

iii:
add a view port to fit the style of the game (low pixel art).  - 21/7-16
update: smiple GUI image added  - 21/7-16

iv:
add a level handler - render a level from a png - render as RectangeShapes   - 22/7-16
*A bit hardcoded, needs cleanup

v: add a controllable character and hittest to level data.- 22/7-16
vi:
allow for multiple characters on screen, including eneamies (no damage, only bump into each other)- 22/7-16

vi-b: still need to fix a fall down bug where the characters can pass trough 2-4 pixels of ground and get stuck - 24/7-16

vi-c: addad ladders and a not of functionality to the hit tests - 24/7-16


vii:
add texture handler, render level as sprites- 24/7-16

vii-b: ill add standing sprites to characters and monsters, but that will not be shown before next update - 26/7-16

viii:
add actual enemies - 26/7-16
still needs to do a bit of damage to each other on contact DONE - 27/7-16

ix:
characters all need animation, handle in character AND texture handler - 26/7-16
(still needs tuning)

x:add attacks, moves and other to player - later enemies - 27/7-16

x.b: need to make a class for special abilities that can be added to all Agents.

x.c: clean up and rearranging of code, adding of notes

xi:
multiple levels and level save/load

xii:
advanced save/load (character data)

First video in spoiler:

(click to show/hide)

here is a video of my current progress
- 27/7-16 -

[Hapax]

What do the colours represent in your list?

[GameBear]

@Hapax

Oh, forgot to mention that.
Green = done
Red = ongoing
Black = to come.

[Hapax]

If the first three (which includes the menu) are done, maybe you could change the subject (of the original post) to reflect the current task 

[GameBear]

not 100% sure but what you mean, but I've done what I think you say...

[Mortal]

cool

it would be nice also, if you add description about your game, like  storyline and game category and ...etc as much as you could.

[GameBear]

Not a bad idea, I added a muck-up and a style description, sadly there is no story right now, as for me its more the challenge of actually making it...

[GameBear]

So, current progress since last video:

Added a basic GUI.
Added a life/mana counter that dynamicaly updates (but no real data in it for now) to the gui.
Created a levelData class to handle level loading, collision testing and rendering.
Set bounds for the view and GUI so that if the player travels to the top/bottom/left/right we wont look outside the world.

for now a lot of values are hard coded and needs to be more dynamic. Level data still needs to be encapsulated in a level handler so as to also handle other things than terrain.

here is the video of it:
(notes awesome GUI )

[Hapax]

Your current step is 4: "add a level handler - render a level from a png - render as RectangeShapes".
Rendering many rectangles to display a level of tiles can be highly ineffecient. You will almost certainly benefit from using a vertex array (or equivalent) for the display of the level. If the level is a strict grid formation, the vertex array tutorial has an example of drawing a simple tilemap. However, maybe Selba Ward's Tile Map could be useful

p.s. As if you posted while I replying. Still, I think my post is relevant. Are you still drawing multiple rectangle shapes?

[GameBear]

-Snip- 1:
Rendering many rectangles to display a level of tiles can be highly ineffecient.
-Snip- 2:
You will almost certainly benefit from using a vertex array (or equivalent)
-Snip- 3:
Are you still drawing multiple rectangle shapes?

1: indeed, this is only the solution until Texture and sprites are added later, it is simply because it is faster to set up

2: true, currently i use a grid system based on the image (more in 3)

3: yes, or that is, i use 1 rect that are moved to the needed position and then drawn. I use a (flat) 3d int array [width][hight][2]
where 2 is set as 1 or 0 in the first space to indicate if anything is there, and the second is used to determine what type.

I know this is overkill, but it is set up to later support multiple different tiles of each type (so that all grass is not the same, but with some variation to it

I also intent to implement it so that the level handler will not render any tiles outside the level
//Edit: done - in the spoiler is a sample of what i mean...

(click to show/hide)

//in this version i use 3 rectangelShapes, so that i do not have to set the color for each new tile.
//this also show the point of the 3d array

• [y][tile type, type color/image]

but thanks for the link, ill give it a look

[Hapax]

3D array? You can store these sorts of levels in a 1D array and it's still as (probably more so) simple to use. You only need to know the width of the level to use it: level[y * widthOfLevel + x]
As for that third dimension, you can use a single integer value to represent if something exists and which type if it does by using a single value (maybe zero?) for 'nothing' and the other values for which type.
As a bonus, map editors like Tiled and Mappy store the tile maps in this way so it's simple to use the maps directly

[GameBear]

-Snip- 1:
3D array? You can store these sorts of levels in a 1D array

-Snip- 2:
As for that third dimension, you can use a single integer value to represent if something exists and which type if it does by using a single value (maybe zero?)

1: yes, i know, and do.. that was what i meant by (flat) 3d array. not sure what else to call it? my arrow looks like so:

   _xSize = _levelImg.getSize().x;
   _ySize = _levelImg.getSize().y;
   int size = _xSize * _ySize * _depth;
   _tiles = new int[size];
   for (int i = 0; i < _ySize; i++) {
      for (int k = 0; k < _xSize; k++) {
         int Tile = 0;
         if (_levelImg.getPixel(k, i) == sf::Color(0, 0, 0)) Tile = 1;
         
         //Tile can later be 2,3... for sloops, edges... and so one
         _tiles[(k * _depth) + (i * _xSize * 2) + 0] = Tile;
         //the tile set i've drawn have 3 versions of each tile, so determining a random number to make it more seemless
         _tiles[(k * _depth) + (i * _xSize * 2) + 1] = rand() % 3;
      }
   }

2: yes, i could use 0 = nothing, 1,2,3 = ground, 4,5,6 = slope left and so on, I'll consider it

*Thanks for all the interest and suggestions, that is awesome and motivating

*added a video to my previous update, that explains a bit of it

[GameBear]

Aaand last update of the day..

phew.. I've got a lot of things done.
I cleaned up a lot of code (broke it into functions, deleted unneeded double code, rearranged stuff) but i still need some cleaning of all those hard coded values...

please note that the game is not this laggy, but the cam recorder and other stuff is killing my laptop cpu...

I've added colored blocks to show the "randomization" of the ground tiles
I've added Agents that can interact with the ground
added spatial partitioning so that agents only check the closest ground tiles for collision
added jump ability and move
added the ability to shift between 3 different Agents (This is really important for the game-play)

now, a lot of cleaning up to do.. and i have to figure out why my hit test misses the ground at specific places... maybe i need to convert from float to int :S hmm...

any how.. here is the latest video:

[Mortal]

wow, that's really impressive all those updates done in one day!.

keep up the good work. 

[GameBear]

@Mortal
Thank you, i do what i can, when i can. Mostly i don't work much on code, but that day i had a lot of time, so a lot was done

ps. does anyone have a good suggestion for a screen capture program, the one i use lag even at 8% cpu usage (3% for the game, 3% for the cam program 2% for mics others), so not wort much :S (frame rate set between 30 and 60, all lag :S

Next update is here:

1: I've added ladders to the terrain, as i figured their use is heavily tied to my terrain hitTest.
2: Fixed the fall down bug, so items no longer gets embedded into the ground or the walls.
3: added a "head" hitTest, so that you cannot jump up trough the ceiling.
4: added a "auto center" function to ladder
5: again removed a lot of double code
6: added a "focus rectangle" to the character image area on the left, showing what character is active
7: added individual mana and hp to each character (randomized for now)

I think that is is.. next up, textures