Buzzword Games Blog

Siege Engine

Greg — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:35:51 +0000

As you probably figured…Hydrogen has kinda gone to the wayside. This isn’t because I don’t want to work on a game, it’s more because I was trying to create and engine and a game at the same time. Bad idea. That and Ogre was a bitch to make a game in. Kinda like trying to pull a bears teeth in the middle of mating season.

This time around I’m going to FIRST learn a good part of OpenGl and Python before work will begin on a game. An engine will probably be molded out as I work with the coding stuff. More robust and open ended this time.

Next Project…New Code

Greg — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:29:01 +0000

So I’ve been doing some reading in a number of game development books. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ll be moving away from Ogre for our next project and probably being using an actual scripting language along side the actual C++ or Java code that will be the base engine. The three that I’m considering are JavaScript, Lua, and perhaps Python. Lua and Python have been used in big name projects like Far Cry and EVE online (respectively). Ogre is good for Hydrogen and good practice, the problem is that it is a 3D rendering addon. All the game logic is done in C++ which has become a bit clunky. But it will not work for a more complex project. I’m thinking of moving the engine up to Java because it’s cleaner and more powerful than C++. The problem is that I’m not sure if Java is supported on all the game consoles ATM. But from what I’ve read there are a number of ways to get around this problem. Plus I’m not sure if the next game will be a PC or console title either. There are numerous advantages to Java compared to C++, it’s cross-platform supported, and has built in support for multi-threading.

Net Multiplayer Hydrogen…

Greg — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:02:13 +0000

GOOD NEWS! I just got 3 of the books I requested from the library on programming multiplayer games. They all involve using C++, which makes life easier adding it to the current game. So for a few days I’ll be putting aside the other stuff I was working for the game and give this a look. Partially because this would make beta testing the game a heck of alot easier. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the work.

Running.exe File

Greg — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:59:10 +0000

So Andrew has requested a working .exe file of the current progress. Well I haven’t actually made on of these in about two weeks. : p So I’m figuring about Sunday to get the thing working and most of the bugs ironed out. This is because Ogre doesn’t sometimes like to play nice when I make a release version. Anyhow the .exe will have mapping (duh), player movement and clipping working. Systems there but that may not be usable are the bombs, music/FX, and the animations. This is because of all the detail work that goes into how these damn things work, that and I don’t have any models with animations atm.

Another reason that alot of gameplay functions haven’t been added in is because I’m also adding in under the hood functions. Such as a materials system and entity creation system. This is because the plan is (at least mine) is to use Hydrogen as kind of a platform of testing out our home brewed 3D engine, and hopefully use it in later projects instead of creating a whole new engine. Alot of stuff won’t be added to after Hydrogen is released. Like HDR lighting support. That’s right I did say HDR lighting. Sexy.

Update..5000 Lines

Greg — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:35:08 +0000

Coding progress has come to a temporary stop. No I haven’t given up on the project, what I’m actually doing is trying to map out every possible aspect of the game that I can think of and maybe how each is interconnected. This is better than having to go back through and update code already written. Also I’m working on the side with getting my own site up and running currently I’m just working on the set up and stuff. Also another thing that needs to be discussed is sound effects and networking. ATM I’m doing some reading on basic networking communications. This is because the system needed to network Hydrogen shouldn’t have to be terribly complex considering the game mechanics aren’t either. BTW the game has reached 5000 lines of code. Not alot really. Considering it isn’t completed yet. Hell this isn’t half the amount of code used for one item in Dungeon Siege, which had 9000 lines per item. Crazy.

New site look again

nucleocide — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:15:53 +0000

This one looks nice, unlike the last. It’s reminiscent of one of the VALVe sites…

Greg and Beattie, what do you guys think of it? If it looks good enough I’ll add a CMS to it and we can all start adding content.

Progress

Greg — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:54:56 +0000

Yes I’m still working on the game. Although the past week I haven’t gotten much done because of other stuff that’s come up. But it’s moving along. The plan is to have this whole thing wrapped up by the end of August I’m hoping.

FYI

Greg — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:16:28 +0000

Just so everyone knows… I’m not sure how much of the game I’ll get to work on this weekend, because of a wedding I have Saturday along with the party. We’ll see…

New site look…

nucleocide — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:42:19 +0000

…is hideous. It’s just there to prove I haven’t forgotten.

Keep an eye out for interesting websites that are game company related. e.g. idsoftware.com. Also keep in mind we have an emphasis on our team and we only have one game to write about.

Progress…

Greg — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 20:40:06 +0000

So I figured out a couple of different things that I had said previously couldn’t be done. One of those was perpendicular movement onto adjacent tiles of a moving tile. Turns out the the system I came up with originally would already cover this problem…I just needed to look at the situation a bit deeper. Another problem that I think I solved was how to keep track of the number of bombs placed by a player. At first I thought just a counter would work but almost immediately I realized that it didn’t take into when the bombs exploded to decrease the counter. Turns out that the system that I was going to use as a count down timer for the the bombs would also solve this problem. Since I was using an array for keeping track, I’m going to assign specific parts of the array to each player and use the counter along side of it.

The third problem which I’m not sure how we’re going to handle this but there are a number of solutions for it is player spawning points during the matches. Tom suggested random selection of a tile, although this may work I think that we might run into problems…Such as the computer selecting a tile that’s in transit. Also what type should the player spawn as…ACID/BASE. My thought to this problem and this is where I’d like some opinions and suggestions, is to give the player say like 3 seconds to switch to an appropriate type during which they are temporarily invincible. Also the player during that time will not be able to lay bombs since this would be an unfair advantage. Also if the player hasn’t chosen a type within the alloted time the computer will default to the type the player was at the time they were fragged.

As for start locations my thought was to perhaps have indestructible tiles across the map. Only a handful though. These would move and act like normal tiles except that they would be used for player spawning. Giving us a little better control of what is going on. This would also help with checking if the starting conditions for the player is correct since there would be fewer.

Please email me or post on here suggestions, opinions, or even random thoughts.