July 2nd, 2009
So I started building yesterday and I hit a snag, and it’s the kind of snag that really has me scratching my head. Before I get knee deep in the actual development, I’m attempting to make sure I have all of my ducks in a row. This first nag I hit. AI…
Artificial Intelligence
This has been something that I’ve lacked in my previous games. Most of the games roll a random number or the enemy mindlessly wanders forward off a cliff. Never have I given any real thought to how I’m going to approach artificial intelligence on a project I’m building from scratch. So with this competiton I’ve decided that the enemy AI is going to have a predictable pattern that you can pay close attention to, and follow. Leading to easier defeats of the boss and the such.
I’m not going to attempt to come up with any crazy algorithms that anticipates what the player’s next move will be and preemptive strikes. Nope. I want a very old school feel to this next project, and I’m going to pull it off in a month.
Graphics
In the meanwhile I will be using blocks and squares to get my point across, this will only be the case while I am developing. So the first few videos you may(or may not) see will contain “programmer’s graphics” just until I manage to get everything up and running. Then I will focus more on the real artwork.
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July 1st, 2009
I had Troy vs Troy running at a decent speed. I had 3 players almost working. One player was controlled by the user, the second player was controlled by AI(Randomly running in a circle) and the Third. Well the Third was going to work via network. That was until I went to Wizard World East(in Philadelphia). After that happened I shelved Troy vs Troy and decided to focus solely on Travis vs Troy.
In my infancy(my actual experience) regarding AI programming, I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to do things this time around. I’m not going to lie or hide anything that I’m doing this time around. I’m going to try and document/blog better this time around and talk of my mistakes and shortcomings. So here’s a few things about this competition.
The Rules
1. Travis got a two week head start on me because …
2. It has to be a platform game. (I’ve built one before so I had an advantage)
3. The game has to work within a website. (This loose rule has me scared what Travis may pull off)
4. The competition ends on August 31st.
5. The game has to be written in Flash. (This was a damper because I was going to try something very slick.)
The Game
So with these four rules I’ve decide to revisit the concept of a literal “Travis vs Troy” concept. The main character is going to be Travis (voices by yours truly) and the antagonist is going to be MrTroy (voiced by Mikey McFly). And since I’ve already had experience with building a platformer, I want to dedicate more time towards building something very polished. As I was saying above I went to Wizard World East and I saw the New Grounds booth and thought to myself. Maybe I should make something very polished instead of thinking of only functional.
So… at the time of this writing I can only say this…
“Abuse” - Look it up. It’s what I’m attempting.
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June 4th, 2009
I know some of you may be asking where the second version is that I was suppose to post last week. Honestly enough I’ve been side tracked with paying attention to other gaming news and working with Torque. I managed to get Torque to do some fantastic(”normal” to others) things, and I started neglecting flash. So I’m uploading what I have thus far. I’ll continue to work on this on the train until I’m done….
Read the rest of this entry »
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May 22nd, 2009
I’m currently rebuilding in Flash the Troy vs Troy application I built last year whenever I’m sitting on the train. It’s become a little pastime of my for the past few weeks, but I’m attempting to take things a step further this time.
This time around I’m going to attempt to build it with portability in mind. I want to see if I can build it in a way with making minimal code changes, to have it port over to Torque. Of course the huge difference is I have to switch out the assets so that they work within a completely different system, this is mainly just an exercise in prototyping for me. Right now there isn’t much to show I will try to have something up by next Friday.
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May 21st, 2009
Tags: Torque, Video, Web
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May 13th, 2009
I’ve been trying to get Torque game of my own. Move back to Director or move on to Unity.
I don’t know much about Unity, I did play a few games made with it, and I’ve heard buzzing Garage Games’ forum about it. Apparently it’s a competitor… yet it can do web based 3d.
To be far Torque can, technically. But that’s Torque 3D. Which I have to pay $1,000 for that ability. That’s why it took me forever to be able to afford Director. So back to Director. Strangely enough, my biggest beef with doing browser based games with Director is the lack of gamepad/controller support. Sure, most people on home computers don’t use gamepads, but that’s mainly because no one supports it.
I can’t move to Unity3D because I would have to start everything all over again. That would be another 3 years down the toilet.
Tags: Director, Torque, Unity3D
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May 11th, 2009
Gross. I hit a major major snag and I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to see if I can buy an older version of 3D Studio Max to no avail. To make matters worse, I tried installing the latest demo on a rendering machine I’m borrowing(until I get my good machine up and running) and it says I don’t have the right kind of processor. It looks like I’m going to have to move to different modeling software to do all of my tests after all.
As far as the engine I’ve been working on goes. I installed some additional code to Torque Game Engine Advance(version 1.8.1) to allow me to use a better camera. After looking at what a bunch of other people have been doing, I feel pretty good about what I can and maybe can’t do with Dig. I have a lot more experimenting to do before I have something solid to show. And I also need a 100% functional test machine… and not something running Windows 7 Beta/RC1.
The browser based plugin I was working on hit another snag as I need to now come up with additional monies in order to afford the version of Visual Studio to easily create the DLLs I need to create. I guess I’m going to have to sell off a few more of the games and stuff I’ve collected over the years to get my money up… or maybe I should stop buying books (I picked up 6 books this weekend at various flea markets) ’cause every little but counts.
Tags: Developing, Games, Programming, Torque
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