Trees

Hi,
I know, the updates… I can only apologize for lack of them here.
Here’s the thing- whenever I’m focused on work, I’m totally ONLY focused on it.

For the last six months (yikes!) I’ve actually not added much to the game code. At this point most of it is already created. However, I’ve done a lot of rework of some mechanics, and I mean A LOT OF REWORK.

Firstly I’ve had such a struggle to create a good marine transportation mechanic (aka using the boats to swim from island to island). As it turns out, my initial idea, to keep it only in side-scrolling, was actually a huge mistake. A boring disaster, and let’s spare the details.

Right now player will still be able to travel via boat, ship, or any other source of transportation from island to island. However since the two dimensional, side-scrolling plane was actually a limit, I’ve decided to scrap that idea (after three months of struggle with it! :/), and this whole mechanic was moved to a top-down, free for exploration, „mini” game. Now players not only will have an option to go to left, or right. All four directions on your modern day compass will be accessible! This opened some opportunities to add new islands, new events, and actually expand already huge world.

And you know what that means? A lot of new sprites to draw, some to animate. Actually the whole overworld map is now being in redone with top-down perspective, ready for the players to navigate on it, and encounter some nature’s finest… gusts of wind, whirlwinds, islands, wreckage of ships, NPC controlled ships (ready for combat, trade, or quests), and a ton of other things that I should probably remember, as a designer of my own game… Yeah 🙂

On top of that, I’ve realized that my pixelart skills are little bit better now, and some of my graphics are totally… crappy. Bleh, like really, take a look at older tree model:

– It’s like, reallly, realllllllly primitive and not fun.

As comparison, here are two trees (out of thirty-forty various trees planned):

– I think that these are little bit better. I wish that I will get some time to make them move. Animated trees would be so awesome to have!

A lot of older sprites, as well as new ones were being created in the last three months.

Someday I will release the demo for the game. Someday.

Love,
– Vojtas

PS: I also blame my lack of will against Overwatch, for being lazy and not writing here. It’s just too good to not play it.

Sea Dwarfs

New day, new stuff to develop. Platformowe Karły / Platforms & Dwarfs (I hate in-dev names, a title like Gnomyssey has more elegance, even if it’s just a pun, argh :/) are having a water/sea rework. The previous version of water (which you can find two posts ago) wasn’t hitting the „Let’s do something fancy with pixel art” graphics level that I wanted for this game to have.Like usually in those cases I’ve decided to do some Google-Fu and I’ve stumbled upon various sea themed pictures and pixel art, and after brief analyzing I was able to find tons of things that would not work for a game, but on the other hand I was able to adopt few cool ideas.

Firstly- water surface level. It will be procedurally generated now, instead of using premade images/animations of waves. This process will be actually really simple- let’s say X is height of water, counting from the bottom of level, and it has value of 64. Y is width of one „water tank” and it will have value of 1 (pixel). Next water tank will have Y = 1 as well, but X will have a random parameter, for example 10% chance of changing height by 1 (either lower it or raise it), but only if height is lower then 68 and higher then 60. By setting the percentage chance as low as 10% I was able dodge the „saw blade” waves, but still allowing waves to by quite various height and width.

Just a disclaimer- the image below don’t have random surface level script added, because I’m still tweaking it.

Secondly- lights hitting the surface level. Simple script that will have random chance (this time around 20%) chance to draw a short line starting at X, Y and then lowering X values by -1, and raising Y by +1 in each step. There is also a tiny chance to add short (1-2 pixels) tail to end of each sun ray.

Next stop is dark „shadow” for every object that will be under the surface level. To indicate that this a object is submerged and that those waters are dangerous I’ve decided to hide submerged objects and show only their body „shadow”. This trick was used in various games in the past, and it’s forcing player to avoid directly swimming in water if possible. Various modern pixel art games are focusing much on transparency of water, which is cool, but it gives player a feeling that not only he can swim in water, but it’s also safe and maybe there will be some diving elements later in the game. To be honest I don’t feel like adding diving for now and would prefer to use water as hidden enemy from time to time, which actually sounds rather funny, because player will spend a lot of time near water, but in a boat or ship.

Last but not least are clouds. Yup, it’s like a year in development and I’ve just added clouds… kinda late. Here there are no math (almost) involved. Currently I’m thinking of adding around 20 base clouds which will be randomly placed on the horizon, and can be colorized to change weather on fly. On the other hand I would prefer for clouds to be more static and just be a part of parallel background. Again, two-minded, most likely time and cost will decide which option will be selected in the end.

There are few other things like bubbles, water splash, wind gusts, but those will come little bit later, as they do not require much math to consider while drawing them.

End result looks like this (again, without waves on water surface):

click on it 🙂

PS: Maybe Gnomysey isn’t such a bad title after all?

The Baroness, And How Boss AI Is Quite A Exaggeration

Currently I’m in the middle of stitching together demon content for the game.  While this is all fun and games, it still requires some special work that I would not think of at this stage of development.

One of those special things is preparing boss for the demo. After player will finish first simple series of quests (which serve more like a tutorial, then actual character development), will be introduced to first bigger threat- The Barroness, a enemy so powerful, even the „The” in front of her title is capitalized!

Under the game visuals, Baroness is a simple boss AI, with few basic attacks, interpolated with pause time. Attacks are selected randomly, with some random variables here and there, just to make the fight less predictable by advanced player.

On the other hand, Baroness fits just right in in the whole NES-boss archetype. Her pattern looks like this:

1. Wandering around until triggered
2. Selecting and executing a attack from attacks list.
3. Preparing for next attack, while she is vulnerable.
4. Repeat from step 2.

This makes her predictable, but not necessary easy enemy for new player.

And here is the main problem that many people will have with her. Her AI is not a true AI. It’s just a series of IFs, triggers and values, sequenced in specific order that animates her sprites. And to be honest- I’m cool with that, and so should be you.

Why? Isn’t an inferior AI a flaw? How come a randomized script is better then a proper AI?

– That’s how I initially thought as well, when I was developing Mumbis (which was one of the reason why Mumbis is on hold right now).  In order to understand what exactly I’m trying to achieve with a boss character, I had to understand why I should never do that.

Firstly you need to know what exactly you are trying to do with a particular NPC. A good example is enemy NPC movement- You want the NPC to follow your character moves in order to get closer to the player. Of course you can „ghost move” player movement, you can write simple code for NPC to move towards you, or put a designed A* (a-star) algorithm, that will calculate every single object near NPC and based upon that, will create a dedicated path which NPC should use to got from it’s current position to position where player was when calculation started. Which one you should choose? „The bigger the better?” – nope, rather „Don’t order, more then you can eat.„. You should choose the one that fits your NPC needs. If you are working on a real time strategy, with top-down view, where hundreds of troops will fight on both sides against each other, then of course you should create a A* pathfinding system. However not only A* will eat a lot of resources to calculate that, it will also require more time to develop for your needs. Even more- A* is considered as kinda basic pathfinding system nowadays, so you should definitely do some research and find something that will be able to calculate changes mid-movement.

On the other hand if you are developing a platformer-sidescroller, then you should definitely avoid A*. You don’t need such complicated system, and you can spend time developing it for your game on something else. Most likely you would like your NPC to move, shoot or fight player if player is in certain distance to NPC, as well as do some special attacks regardless of player position. All of this you can achieve in very simple form, a script containing few triggers and value changes. and in case of movement simple X position change through time, on top of that add spritesheet of walking cycle and when NPC encounter a solid object, add another code in which Y position change is included.

Of course that is just a basic example, and your NPC could have more advanced move, but the base rule is the same. Creating/selecting basic script for your NPC AI and expanding it to your needs. Writing a very complicated AI template and then using it on NPC will result of longer calculation time, development time, and most likely will still result in modifying AI script to your needs.

That’s almost all for today. Let me just post two pics:

And now that’s all.
See you later!

Things Have Changed

Since my last post a lot of things in my life changed. Some for good, other for worse.

For anyone who was interested in Mumbis development  the most important question is- where is the game?

– Mumbis is unfortunately set on hold. Due to lack of budget necessary to continue this project, as well as few minor technical difficulties, I’m not able to continue developing it at this moment. To  clarify- that doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned it or that the project is canceled, that only means that it’s on hold.

To go into little bit more details, as I mentioned, due to lack of budget I’m not able to make the game that I want, but a game that is just resembling my thoughts. Yes, even if Mumbis doesn’t have a cutting edge 3D graphics, but a 2D top view plane, it’s still a hard work to do it as good as I want it to be. Additionally, due to misfortune of events in my life I’ve found myself in a very low place shortly after my latest post about Mumbis. It’s a really difficult for me to share it it on this blog, so excuse me for not going into more details about that.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. I’ve got a job in GOG.com (a truly wonderful place to be, especially if you want to learn more about games, development and working together with a community), and this was able to put me on my feet once more. I decided to continue development, but to work on a different project, that was also in quite advance state. It started as one of „make an engine of a game in one weekend” project that I make from time to time for fun, as a training, and tiny distraction from life.

The game itself doesn’t have a title, but I’m referring it as Platforms and Dwarfs. It’s a  2D side-scroller metroidvania settled in exaggerated fantasy, filled with monsters, heroes that aren’t worth a penny and one blacksmith that wants to make a difference. And yes, in game you will be playing mainly as the blacksmith character, which will have to go on a adventure of his life… umm, let’s cut the spoilers for now.

I can add that, since you’re playing as a blacksmith means that you have skills to create, upgrade, repair, and combine weapons, as well as other gear for yourself, but you will also have to take care of your smithy. It’s up to you (and few little helpers 😉 ) how would you balance between adventure, dungeoning and your own founds.

From technical point of view, the game is developed with usage of Game Maker Language.
– It’s currently utilizing both- procedural-generated content, as well as hand crafted levels.
– Game is utilizing various control methods, like: keyboard+mouse, keyboard only, and Xinput controller. All of which you are able to change on fly. Oh, and keyboard controls are adjustable.
– Art style is  pixel art, which in my opinion is great choice for grid-based environments, as well as I genuinely prefer it, over current Mumbis art.
– For combat I’ve created a mix between various melee and ranged weapons (each with it’s own set of strengths and weaknesses), as well as special skills and abilities.
– Speaking of abilities, player will of course start rather weak in comparison to the „maxed out character”, but it will still allow player to enjoy the game. Few of player abilities/utilities examples are: wall jump , wall-slide, ledge grab, handglide,  grappling hook, power glove and protection shield. I’m still two-minded about good old double-jump.
– There is a lot a lot of environmental effects added, like for example: reduced visibility areas in some instances, parallels scrolling, (some) destructible terrain, and screen-shake (LOTS OF SCREENSHAKE!), but as with all great things, there are great responsibilities, and I’ve set them as adjustable options for the player to decide, because not everyone likes LOTS OF SCREENSHAKE!

It’s still a long road ahead of me to finish this game, however it’s looking much better from budget perspective, and my skills fulfilling the idea behind this game, when compare it to Mumbis.

Below you can find few screenshots from current state of the game:

I’m working on playable demo, so hopefully I will be able to get feedback from you, wonderful friends of mine.

See you later!

PS: If you are one of few people who pitched in for Mumbis IndieGOGO campaign back in the day, please know that I remember that. Not only you will receive Mumbis when it will be completed, as free of charge bonus, you will also receive this game as well. Because you deserve it- that’s why.

Mumbis 0.6.3 Update

It’s been a long time since I’ve last updated. I really need to update more often. So here’s what’s up:

– I’ve finally finished script that will procedurally generate towns, villages and camps. In the last three months I’ve jumped to this script in and out, because it was such a pain to merge it with rest of the game engine.
Right now it’s Ok and in the future it will be used in other „outdoor+buildings” scenarios like burgs, fortress’s and castles.

– I’ve also designed few missing animations for the priestess and added her as a playable character. That’s 3/3 basic playable characters, and rest is hidden until the launch day.
Her power comes from light and she will use variants of holy, fire, light spells, both offensively and defensively. She will learn magic from spell scrolls, enchanted weapons and in unique random encounters. Later she can use any combination of three of those spells into the battle.

– I’ve created few new enemies, with the latest one a angry goblin that throws dynamite at the player. He’s hard to deal with, but due to the splash damage of dynamite explosion, he can hurt not only the player, but also himself and other creatures.
Before anyone asks- yes, it’s an homage to one of the best games of 2014- Hearthstone.

– I’ve also added some little improvements here and there and removed a ton of bugs and made some tweaks to it’s difficulty.

Mumbis is still in development, and anything can change. Suggestions are more the welcome.

Thanks for following this project. I’m dedicating my full time to finish it as soon as possible.

PS: Sorry for no screenshot today.

Mumbis 0.6.1 – Latest Screenshots

Hello Mumbis fans! Today is a game gallery update. All of the are made across three game sessions. Unfortunately I had a bad luck and I didn’t found extra weapons this time. 😉

Anyway here is the „0.6.1 Screenshots Gallery”. You check them out and I’m diving back into coding to implement new UI to journey parts of the game.

Mumbis Update – 0.6.1

Hello Mumbis fans! I’ve waited till this day to post new update to Mumbis. It’s mostly user interface,  message boxes, buttons, etc. + camp design + heroes health and abilities are updated to utilize more of new work-out system.

Right now UI looks like this:

And camp (with console commands 😉 ) looks like this:

Right now red/brown area is to indicate player that he will go and scavenge by entering this area. Green area will indicate player that he will be leaving camp, by entering this area.

Every time You spawn a new camp You literately spawn a new camp, just like in those scavenge rounds. So when party will move on their journey they no longer feel like next camp is the exact same copy as the last one. On the other hand when your party will be camping, player can choose a character, and then go scavenge, and after he comes back, the camp will be the same camp just as he left it and not another random place. This will help player feel more immersion with surroundings.

Below list of things that what was changed:

– Updated Health Points UI
– Updated Action Points UI
– Created procedural generating algorithm for camps, for every environment that heroes can encounter
– Left-Click on other character, while player will be in the camp, can change controllable character in fly
– Left-Click on camp fire will make characters rest, replenish health and make some time fly
– Left-Click on backpack will move player to backpack/inventory tool
– Mouse hover over character will give player this character summary
– Mouse hover over camp crates will give player supplies summary
– Nerfed ambient light devour-nature of RAM
– Designed new death system compatible with new camp area (old one was not and caused some bugs)
– Limited hunter hero special abilities  to always use action points
– Resolved a ton of bugs

Update On Ambient Lights

Howdy! Today I have a new pack of screenshots from Mumbis and a little core update.

I was tweaking with ambient shadow system to make it feel more natural. Hopefully it looks better then the last time. I’m still concern about desert landscape in scavange mode of the game, at night time. It’s really hard to get that feeling of dark void surrounding you from all directions, and even harder to make it feels like the player is hemmed by his surrounding. I’m still not satisfied with results.

Anyway new pack of screenshots below (with dedication to my friends Turpat, Kelen and Baton):

PS: Before anyone asks- Yes, the Hunter will be able to use two ammunition types while scavenging (for left and right mouse buttons).

Mumbis – Development Plan

Hi there Mumbis fans! I was asked by a friendly YouTubers- Vixen and Raptor (from YouTube channel of the same name- Vixen and Raptor) what is my current development plan? To answer that I first need to explain how do I divide my game in few sections and why each section is developed independent.

First section is The Camp. Just after creating your own team of heroes player will be throw in the middle of camp. This is probably the safest place in the game and it’s players base of operations, but just temporarily, because they need need to continue their journey. Here you can safely manage your heroes inventory, heal, rest, scavenge or prepare for next journey. Time is flowing without any breaks so You need to think fast and sharp to make the best decisions there as quickly as possible.

Second section is The Scavenge/Survival, where heroes are hunting for their basic supplies. While searching through the forest, plains, dessert, mountains or any other landscape, they need to stay sharp and focused. Danger will come and players have to quickly defend themselves while scavenging. Some encounters here are random, some are procedural generated- there is a difference between those two, and I hope that it will be clear do understand where.

Third section is The Journey. Here players travel through map. The longer path to next point on map, the bigger chance to get into hard random encounter, but on the other hand it’s faster to take few long paths, then more of short path. Every time players enter journey section, it will generate new paths for them, because older paths are no longer safe, after camping.

Fourth section is The System. This is pretty much straight forward- all algorithms, scripts, systems and audio-visual rendering of the game.

Above is just a quick summary, but it will help to understand what need to be developed from now on. The list below is without any particular order. Things are done, when they are done and it all depends of lot of inside and outside factors.

The Plan:

First step is to go from alpha to stable beta build:

1. The Camp:  (~66,7%)
   – Finalize sprites and animations (50%)
   – Finalize layout and overlays (80%)
   – Finalize options menu (70%)
2. The Scavenge (~73%)
   – Create sprites and animations to all basic enemies (40% )
   – Create sprites and animations to all boss-type enemies (60% )
   – Create AI to all planned enemy-types (90%)
   – Implement all landscapes algorithms (80%)
   – Finalize generating algorithm (95%)
3. The Journey (~55%)
   – Exchange text overlay and create more suitable (95%)
   – Finalize map variations and modifications (20%)
   – Finalize randomly generated main quest/story line (30%)
   – Finalize end quest / final showdown (80%)
   – Implement all planned vehicles, with their unique properties and aspects (50%)
   – Integrate map overlay with vehicles and creating one organism (60%)
4. The System (~68,3%)
   – Finalize player controllable characters, their sprites, unique powers, pros and cons (70%)
   – Finalize unlockable controllable characters, their  sprites, unique powers, pros and cons (20%)
   – Finalize integration day/night cycle to all aspects of the game (90%)
   – Finalize easy, integrated, moddable text message system (95%)
   – Finalize languages settings and legislate translation to English language (90%)
   – Finalize weapons/skills behaviors, it’s modifiers and global modifiers (80%)
   – Finalize weapons/skills sprites and animations (60%)
   – Balance all modifiers and global modifiers (40%)
   – Balance all enemy-types hit points, speed, pros, cons, AI, behaviors (70%)

After that will come the second step- beta to closed test beta. From here I cannot guarantee any exact percentage, or any what is need to start a closed beta tests. I can only assure You that Mumbis will not be using beta as a „bugfest-demo-WTF-is-going-with-my-pc” thing, like it often happens with high-end, triple A developers.

Time will see and when it will be time for that I will release another summary of current development plans and how things are making.

Steam Greenlight and IndieGoGo – All In Your Hands

Hello! It was a long day and I’m so tired, that I’m barely writing this post. Anyway I’ve finally wrapped the whole „please Mumbis friends and community help us” thing with today publication on Steam Greeenlight. Yes, Mumbis is finally on Steam Greeenlight! But that’s not all- if You wish to engage more in developing of Mumbis, You can do so by checking out our IndieGoGo campaign.

And now comes the hard part. From now on, everything is up to community, so that means You, dear Mumbis fan. To be able to publish our game on Steam and finish it as fast as possible, as well as make it as high quality as possible I need You to help us.

The easiest and most obvious way for You is to check out our IndieGoGo page, it’s description, summary of costs and if You see You want to jump into our Steam Tank (or any other Mumbis vehicle) just find the best perk that suits You can support us!

But sometimes You want to help, but You don’t have the money to make it count. I totally understand that and that’s no shame. You can always gather as much attention for the game as you can. Especially to Steam Greeenlight page, IndieGoGo, Dev  Blog and our social media. That is really helpful and I will be more then happy to thank You for doing that for us.

I’m counting on You!

– Vojtas

Mumbis – Steam Greenlight Trailer

One of the final bricks to start Steam Greenlight promotion.

Fun With Lights

Hello Mumbis fans! This time I’m posting few words about light system. When I was in early phase of development I’ve wanted to implement interesting and live lightning system. Simple „A Link To The Past” technique to cover everything surrounding player in black was good idea for future mobile port, but for modern PC’s I’ve wanted to integrate something more.

After testing few light scripts and engines I’ve finally found CBNA smartlight engine. It’s not the best solution, because I still find bugs within engine itself (mostly in the surfaces area) but when it’s working it’s working really good, especially in Scavenging levels of Mumbis.

Below some more screenshots of Mumbis- this time more showing light engine.

– Vojtas

Random Encounters On The Map

Today I’m posting three images from „map traveling” segment of the game. Text overlay will change in next few days.

– Vojtas

Some screenshots

Hi Mumbis fans! Below I’ve gathered some screenshots from one random encounter (with zombies this time).

– Vojtas