Battle Cry v0.1.3 - Depth, Camera, Ghost!

[kikito]

Hi,

This is the forum post where I will be writing about my latest attempt at making a game. It's name, for now, is Battle Cry.

I'm trying to make a mixture of several games.

• The graphic style and gameplay should be similar to zelda
• The game will be much more combat oriented, with nearly no puzzles, and the player fighting with several monsters simultaneously. So in a way it will be inspired by gauntlet
• Finally, I want to have procedurally-generated levels, and I want to have a non-trivial magic and abilities system, inspired by roguelikes.

I'm experimenting on having creatures separated into "bodies" and "minds"; each creature, including the player, has one body and one mind. I'm not yet sure of what I will do with this; maybe the player will be able to exchange bodies with the bad guys. I'm not sure yet. But it's cool, and allows me to swap code easily.

The code is visible on github:

https://github.com/kikito/battle-cry

The game is terribly incomplete at this point. I can't call it a beta or an alpha yet. I'll call this version 0.1.3

Here's how it looks right now:

battle-cry_v0.1.3.png (12.01 KiB) Viewed 5228 times

And here is the current .love:

battle-cry_0.1.3.love

(52.12 KiB) Downloaded 330 times

• The player controls the little guy on the left.
• The other guy will try to follow him around, but only when it can see him. Otherwise he just stands there. Notice that he can "see" through the glass windows.
• The pterodactyl with sunglasses is scared of the player and tries to flee from him when it sees it. It can fly over holes, which are impassable for walking creatures.
• The ghost can fly, will follow the player if he sees him, and can go through walls. However, it can't see through opaque walls.

Bugs I know about and I'm thinking of fixing:

• z-sorting. Entities are not drawn in the right order. The ones at the top of the screen should always be drawn first. I've to think this through, because likely the tiles will also be involved on this at some point(I plan to give some tiles a bit of depth, as in here).
• There is a theoretical bug in the tile collision system. I say theoretical because I know mathematically that it should happen, but I've never been able to reproduce it. In any case, I should plug it all the same.
• Out-of-map check is not enforced. Bodies are "free" to leave the map, if not restricted by AI or their body limitations. I want to enforce this.
• Sight should have a finite span. Currently an enemy can see the player from the other side of the map.
• I'm considering making the map a global variable. Yeah I know. But having to pass it around to all beings is not fun.
• I want to separate bodies from their animations

Features I'm planning to do next:

• I'm starting to need a camera and scroll system.
• Once I have the flying thingy, I want a ghost. Something that floats and also crosses walls.
• Then I'll make a menu to select the player body - human, flying solid thing or ghost!
• Collision between entities not checked

Were I need help:

• Artists! I know you may feel overwhelmed by my artistic dexterity by now. Don't! I can probably use your help, even if you are not as talented as me. Let me know if you are interested in drawing a frame or two, or maybe some tilesets. Bonus points and an extra heart if you like Zelda - A Link to the Past!

[SudoCode]

Code: Select all

lib/love-loader.lua:154: Could not open file lib/love-loader.lua. Does not exist.

When running it as a .love or opening the folder in love.

[kikito]

I have made a change. Hopefully this will fix it. Please try again with the new version.

[SudoCode]

New version works fine.

[gloriousVIKING]

You have some great ideas, I'm excited to see what you end up doing with the minds and bodies.

I ran it compressed and uncompressed on Windows 7 and it ran fine.

[kquidote]

I can't wait to get a copy of this game. Great job!

[kikito]

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

I'm happy that the love-loader bug is fixed.

Now, what do you prefer for a flying animal? A bat? A bird? I'll end up doing a small swarm of flies, just because they are very easy to draw .

[Roland_Yonaba]

Great job, issue now fixed. Runs fine on my computer.
What was the problem with Windows, by the way ?

I love the game idea. And the simple graphics.
OpenGameArtshould be fine, for graphics, if ye need birds, bats, etc.

Well, question: do the black rectangles represents wall ? If so, can the NPC see through ? I guess no...
Then they may be an issue. When I moves along the direction of the red arrow, the NPC still follows me ...?

[felix24]

hey man. nice work so far! i tried running the game on windows both using the love file and an uncompressed folder. worked fine
i think a bat would be cool anyway. but that's just me

looking forward to seeing more!!

[kikito]

Thanks for the encouraging words, guys!

What was the problem with Windows, by the way ?

The problem was that I thought that windows needed "\" on the paths of love.thread.newThread. But nope, it expects "/", just like Linux and Mac do. I fixed the bug and made the code simpler, too.

Well, question: do the black rectangles represents wall ? If so, can the NPC see through?

The black holes are not walls, but "holes in the ground" (Obviously! How could you possibly make that mistake? I might need an artist). Everything with working eyes should see through them. Walking creatures should not be able to cross them, but flying things should. That's why my next thing should be a flying thing - to test that.