New Game Project - Step by Step

[digiot]

The beta release of GE 1.4.1 gave me a kickass, to finally start a project in GE.

The project is a game, which is not specially designed for GE, rather it is a
kind of a reference project, to be used with different programming languages and
authoring tools.

Since I'm on Linux, it has to deal with SDL, and GE was on my list ever since years.
Sometime, I will try coding it directly in any programming language with access
to the SDL-lib, haven't decided yet, which one to choose...

GE offers so much possibilities to create a game, you have strictly to focus on
your basic requirements, not to get puzzled.

I have no practical skills in GE-ing, but I understand the core features theoretically.

To help other newbies, too, I would like to document the process of creating a
game, from the very beginning to its final release (hopefully!) in this thread.

All your ideas, expieriences and suggestions, related to technical aspects (code
and GE tricks) are not only appreciated, I'm sure, they are strongly needed !

So, try to take part actively on my journey, if you can and will !

The second post I will save to document the real steps the project makes.

In the rest of the thread, I hope, I'll find some people, to discuss the
development strategies and tactics with!

[digiot]

Here the progress of the project !

[digiot]

Luckily, the first steps, having an idea, and trying to make a game concept
of it, are solved on my side.

Generally, it is a space game, with some light resource managing, mostly
productive gameplay, but the game also features destructive violence.

It is divided into sectors and levels.

The game consists of 3 screens:

–The start screen. Here you can choose story, gameplay, saveplay or exit.

–The action screen. At the bottom, there lays the control panel. Above that
panel, your playground, the stonewall where you are moving and acting on.
The large upper part of the screen is the space orbit, where your problems
will come from...

–The intermediate screen. After you have finnished a sector, succesfully, or
not, you are getting your statistics presented here. They are not just data
garbage, this is the hidden part of the game, here the judgement takes place,
if you are banned from orbit, i.e if you're provoking to much damage on Mother
Earth, or sent to the next sector/level.

It will come with simple, relaxed movements, lots of extras, a really abstruse
story with the resulting plot and, on the intermediate screen, a custom save option.

Approximately, ca. 90 % of the game is designed, but there is no single piece
of code, graphics or sounds, yet.

Some time ago, I've started, trying to use nice space fotos for the background,
and stone texture fotos for the ground tiles.
But the contrast of the "style" of my pixel grafics, i'm trying to achieve, to
the fotos, is much to hard.

Now I will put the space backgrounds together out of some space interior, all
placed on a black background.
The stones for the ground, you are acting on, will also be handmade pixel grafics.

This is only a short overview, I'll go into the details, when nessecary.

[digiot]

The first problem I've had, opening GE, I solved temporally through a workaround.
But I will see, if I can screw something in GEs code, to get at least GEs name
displayed in the titel bar.

It's very annoying for me, to see just "Unknown Window" displayed lovelessly, GE
don't need to hide its name shamefully !

The next problem is, to decide, in which resolution the game shall run.

Though my main target platforms may all be desktops, maybe there exists a handheld
device with the same resolution, so I could easily port the game with my favourite
1024x768 resolution?

Now I will build the start screen, just a testing version, the final one will be
designed to meet the style of the game graphics, however they will look like...

What does come to my mind instantly, during constructing the "main" in the global code,
is, what will happen with this initially .ged, when calling another .ged from inside it ?

Is the first .ged totally dead then, or can I come back from inside any other .ged
to the first .ged, continuing, where I left it ?

[digiot]

A little progress here, one step forth, and two steps back.

My idea, how the global code in GE works, seems to be proven wrong.
And also the nested .geds seem to be out of the scope of GE, I'm not sure.

So I had to look for another approach, more tailored for GE.

The general settings can't run directly in the global code, so they have to run
as functions globally, called from some special actors, or somewhere in an action
script, is my conclusion here.

Is that the common way, to achieve general game/level settings in GE ?
Or how would an experienced GE user do that ?


On the grid, I have 4 screens now, all in one "Activation Region" :

– The startscreen with a buttonrow (Story, Manual, Start, Save, Heroes, Quit).

– The textscreen, where the texts or the lists (Story, Manual, Save, Heroes)
will be displayed.

– The actionscreen, here the game takes place.

– The interscreen, your statistics and ratings are shown here, after each sector.

Now I will see, if and how I get this to work...

[digiot]

Between the GE basics and the expierienced stuff, there are some things, which seems
obvious and clear for advanced GE users, but not for newbies, at least for me:

– There can't run any program inside the global code, 'cause the global code is
read into GE before anything else is loaded.
Every single part of code has to be called through an event, that's very essential !

– The mysterious actor pointers (Actor *) and the actor structs are automatically
created with every actor. Wondered, from where they come...

– The normal actors 0,0 positions are their centers, not their home/topleft ones.
More natural for game purposes, but you have to know !

– Surely, there will appear others, but they can be cleared in this forum !


After fiddling around a while now with GE, I must say, the workflow is exceptionally rapid !

GE appears to be an intelligent, graphical code browser, which only shows code parts in
the actual context to you.

And you don't have to shoo your mouse around, all the dialogs are popping up at your
mouse cursor. Ooh, what I'm hating these menubars and toolbars !

The huge grid layout can save whole woods, also very convenient !

In short, GE makes developing fast and easy, only the funny work is left for you !


That's, what I have now:



At the beginning, when I searched for a way, to give several initial settings to the new
sectors and levels, I tried to use a direct global code, i.e. no subroutine or function,
just a kind of the "main" in C.
Then I figured out, with the help of sky, how the global code is working in GE, so I've
had to look for another approach.

I did find a solution, using a special actor for the initial settings. But my error was,
I was too stuck at the monolithic code, which would do everything at one place.
The actors refuses to live up to their name, I had to take "Activation Events" for making
them alive.

The more natural, GEish way is, to let every actor do its stuff, a more modular approach.

Now, every button actor sets its position in a "Create Actor" event, with an actor script
action.


Where I'm really unsure about, is, how to handle all the wire frame regions along the
stone row, used for centering the player and for switching to the next stone.
Eighter I create them dynamically, or I place them on the grid, what would be better ?

The first case unclutters the grid a little, only using the current 3 wire frame regions,
but it comes with calculating their positions every frame, and possibly placing them
at a new position.

In the other case, all the needed wire frame regions are already there, just waiting for
a "Collision" event, but the grid ( and the actor list ! ) looks messy with all the regions.

Concerning the graphics, I decided, to give the natural stone textures a chance...

This is now the point, where I have matured a little in GEing, and can concentrate on
pixeling all the graphics, now the real fun begins !

P.S.: How do I get the preview pictures ?

[lcl]

– The actors 0,0 positions are their centers, not their home/topleft ones.
More natural for game purposes, but you have to know !

It's actually that way only for the 'Normal' actors. Canvas actors, Wire frame region actors and Filled region actors have their positions in the topleft corner.

And by the way, (this is really off-topic, I know) is it really supposed to say Titel on your game startup screen?

P.S.: How do I get the preview pictures ?

remove the █'s:
[url█=█http://postimg.org/image/bsfcm5mpl/][img█]http://s12.postimg.org/bsfcm5mpl/cs_scrot01.jpg[/img][/url]

And you get a picture with a link to the larger picture:

[digiot]

It's actually that way only for the 'Normal' actors. Canvas actors, Wire frame
region actors and Filled region actors have their positions in the topleft corner.

Yes, sorry, forgot about the distinction, fixed !

And by the way, (this is really off-topic, I know) is it really supposed to say
Titel on your game startup screen?

No, but I wanted to avoid to sound too "wannabe", you know, presenting a fat titel,
and having nothing behind it.
The start screen is just a rough model, yet, to have the buttons working.

And, that was not off topic, you are right here to discuss, or even question everything
I'm coming up with !

With your picture posting hints, I'm lost, there is nothing to left out in the tag:

|url=http://postimg.org/image/bsfcm5mpl/||img|http://s12.postimg.org/bsfcm5mpl/cs_scrot01.jpg||/img||/url|

[] = |

But thanks for your participation !

[lcl]

And by the way, (this is really off-topic, I know) is it really supposed to say
Titel on your game startup screen?

No, but I wanted to avoid to sound too "wannabe", you know, presenting a fat titel,
and having nothing behind it.

What I meant was to ask why it says Titel instead of Title?
I see it's a test version of the start screen, I'm just a little confused.

With your picture posting hints, I'm lost, there is nothing to left out in the tag

Umm.. my example had some black rectangles with ascii code 219 inserted in the tags, to make it show the thing just as a text, but I think your browser didn't recognize the character, and thus my example failed badly..
I should've used the [ code ][ /code ] tags, I just had forgotten about them. So... here's what you have to use to get the image shown:

Code: Select all

[url=http://postimg.org/image/bsfcm5mpl/][img]http://s12.postimg.org/bsfcm5mpl/cs_scrot01.jpg[/img][/url]

And the result of that when I take it outside the [ code ][ /code ] tags, is:

I'm sorry I messed up, I don't know how I was able to forget about the code tags..

[digiot]

Title, titel, maus, Mouse, that are my german genes, messing up my writing !

Shame on me, had a "]" too much in there, thanks !

[lcl]

Title, titel, maus, Mouse, that are my german genes, messing up my writing !

Ah, okay I could've made just that same mistake, as I'm from Finland, and well, the pronounication of the word in english would be titel if written in finnish..

Shame on me, had a "]" too much in there, thanks !

Yup, glad I was able to help

[digiot]

First, all good wishes for your new year, make the best of it, or take it, as it comes !

Active development here, but pixeling, what is currently my main spot, takes its time...
Even such nearly simplistic style is a lot of work, every single pixel wants to be well set.
You can imagine every animation like a puzzle, but without pieces !


This is the actionscreen with a testing background, the naked vehicle, a random stonewall
and the dashboard at the very beginning of the game.

Let's take a look at the dashboard: On the right side, it starts with a section of displays
for the interior machines, you have installed.
At the start, you only have your accu, the oxygen supply, and damage displays for the hull
and your body.
The empty slots are marked by closed valves, which will open with a little animation, when
their associated machine is installed.

If a machine gets destroyed, its valve will close, running the same animation, but in
reversed direction.

On each such display, you have the upper left status light, beneath it the tuning light,
in the center a shape of the machine/functionality, and on the right side the vertical bar,
which will show different states in 10% steps, depending on its context.

THE ACCU : The most important unit, nearly every activity of the vehicle depends on some energy consumption. The states are:
Charge > 0, and at least one active machine -> green
Charge > 0, but no active machine (standby) -> blue
Charge = 0, out of service -> red
White tuning light : Double capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of energy

OXYGEN-SUPPLY : Your elixir of life, fortunately, this unit is independent from the main accu.
The states:
Oxygen is being pumped into the vehicle -> green
Standby -> blue
No oxygen left, out of service -> red
White tuning light : Double capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of oxygen

THE HULL : The armor around the vehicle, the states are:
At least one impact, measuring the damage -> green
No actual impact, standby -> blue
No energy, out of service -> red
White tuning light : Double hull strength
The vertical bar : Hull integrity

YOUR BODY : Your health is monitored, with autonomous energy supply.
The states are:
Health > 20%, you are more or less alive -> green
Health < 20%, you are unconscious, but alive -> blue
Health = 0%, you are nearly dead. Thanks to the advanced medical technology of the 25th century, you can be brought back to life, if it's not too late...
White tuning light : Yes, you can also tune your body, enhances your strengh. But it's not
legal, and you have to pay for using drugs on work!
The vertical bar : Body integrity

The next section of the dashboard, the raised one in the center, is your control system.
Here you can act by just using the arrow keys, no searching over the keyboard, or recalling
any keys.
Only on the startscreen and its friends, there you have to confirm with eighter space or return.

The wheel on the left side has three levels to choose, using the up or down arrow keys.

BOTTOM LEVEL :
The engine. You can accelerate or slow down with the left or the right arrow key.
Arrow key down will stop the vehicle immediately, damaging the chassis a little,
depending on the speed.
Arrow key up turns the wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the engine level.
According to the other displays, you have a status light, a tuning light and a horizontal bar.
The states are:
You are driving around -> green
You have stopped the vehicle -> blue
No energie, or chassis damage 100% -> red
White tuning light : Double highspeed
The horizontal bar : Chassis integrity

MEDIUM LEVEL :
The exterior facilities stock. You have to enter the stock menus with arrow key right, then you
can move the choosing-frame from left to right, using the left/right arrow keys.
Every facility is displayed as a symbol in the stock menu. If you have more than 8 symbols,
a right arrow is the last symbol, leading to a second menu, which has a left arrow as its first
symbol, for going back to the first menu.
With arrow key up, you can engage or turn off the facility inside the frame.
When a facility is running, the symbol gets displayed inverted.
The red or white dots in the upper left corners of the symbols are marks for "out of service"
or "tuned", so you don't have to activate any facility, just to get its states.
With arrow key down, you can leave the stock menu in a quick step, or you have to leave
the menu by overstepping its left side.

TOP LEVEL :
Here you can operate an activated facility. Like on the engine level, you have a status light,
a tuning light and a horizontal bar.

The default facilities, you have at the start, are:

THE MATERIAL SHIELD :
The most important facility, with 3 functions:
Protection - All matter, touching the shield, will be turned into dust.
Filtering - Extras and organic objects can pass the shield and enter the vehicle.
Harvesting - Can suck in the dust of destroyed matter, if the bunker-system is installed.
The states are:
Getting an impact, and handling it - green
Standby, no contact - blue
No energy - red
White tuning light : Double shield capacity
The horizontal bar : Shield charge
Actions: Arrow down - Turns the wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

THE CANNON :
For a cheap energy price, you can fire grenades into orbit. The states are:
Aiming or firing - green
Standby - blue
Out of energy or grenades - red
White tuning light : Double explosive power of the grenades
The horizontal bar : Amount of grenades
Actions: Arrow left/right - aiming, arrow up - firing, arrow down - turns the
wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

On the right side of the control panel, a resources related section of displays follows.
Here you can install units for storing and consuming resources.

The next section on the dashboard, the 3x3 block of lights, displays the number and species
of rescued guests, you have in the hangar.

On the right end of the dashboard, your remaining time, the current level and your
sector-score are displayed on the info-screen.

As you can see, no outstanding grafics here, but they should meet the requirements.

In the next post, I will show the dashboard with everything installed, that's all for now.

Cheers !

[digiot]

Here is the complete dashboard, expanded with a new interior machine, and the vehicle, with the CANNON activated :

Starting with the remaining interior machines of the left section, the missing ones are explained in prior post :

THE RECEIVER : Scans the orbit for radio signals, with a wider range than your view, so you
can hear some objects before they enter the view. The states are:
Receiving radio signals ------> green
Scanning, no signals there --> blue
Out of energy -----------------> red
White tuning light : Wider range
The vertical bar : Strongest (nearest) signal out of view, objects in view are being skipped

THE SCANNER : Shows you the strengh and the condition of the current stone, you're above.
These unit has a second bar, inside its symbol, which displays the stone strengh.
The states are:
Entering a new stone, scanning --> green
Standby, no scanning ---------------> blue
No energy or no stone -------------> red
White tuning light : Half energy consumption
The vertical bar : Stone condition
The horizontal bar : Stone strengh

THE SPACESUIT : Saves your ass for a while, when OXYGEN-SUPPLY out of oxygen.
The states are:
OXYGEN-SUPPLY out of service, helmet closed --> green
Standby, helmet open -------------------------------> blue
SPACESUIT out of oxygen ---------------------------> red
White tuning light : Double oxygen
The vertical bar : Oxygen fuel

THE COOLER : Hides your hotspots for heatseeking missiles. The states are:
Heatseeking detected, extrem cooling --> green
Standby, light cooling ----------------------> blue
No energy, out of service ------------------> red
White tuning light : Half energy consumption
The vertical bar : Cooling state


The remaining exterior facilities on the control panel, the missing ones are explained
in prior post :

THE ENERGY SHIELD :
Your strongest protection shield, turns any matter into energy, and absorbs
any energy impact. If the CHARGER is installed, the absorbed energy gets stored.
The states are:
Getting an impact or charging --> green
Standby, no contact --------------> blue
No energy or charge -------------> red
White tuning light : Double shield capacity
The horizontal bar : Shield charge
Actions: Arrow down - Turns the wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

THE GLUE-SPRAYER :
Spraying glue on the surface of the choosen stone, repairing any breaks. The states are:
Adjusting sprayer or spraying ----------------------------> green
Standby, glue > 0% ----------------------------------------> blue
Out of energy or glue, or not centered on a stone --> red
White tuning light : Half glue consumption
The horizontal bar : Glue fuel
Actions: Arrow left/right - adjusting sprayer (only, when centered on a stone),
arrow up - spraying (only, when sprayer is adjusted), Arrow down - Turns the wheel mark
to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

THE ACID-SPRAYER :
Spraying acid on any garbage on the choosen stone, etching it away. The states are:
Adjusting sprayer or spraying ---------------------------> green
Standby, acid > 0% ----------------------------------------> blue
Out of energy or acid, or not centered on a stone --> red
White tuning light : Half acid consumption
The horizontal bar : Acid fuel
Actions: Arrow left/right - adjusting sprayer (only, when centered on a stone),
arrow up - spraying (only, when sprayer is adjusted), Arrow down - Turns the wheel mark
to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

THE STONELAYER :
Forms a medium strengh stone and inserts it into a choosen gap, if the BUNKER-SYSTEM is
installed and has some stonepowder fuel. The states are:
Any form field activity or loading stonepowder ---------------> green
No form field activity, stonepowder > 0% -----------------------> blue
Out of energy or stonepowder, or not centered on a stone --> red
White tuning light : Forms double strengh stones
The horizontal bar : Stonepowder fuel
Actions: Arrow left/right - adjusting the form field (only, when centered on a stone),
arrow up - Stone-forming and -laying (only, when form field is adjusted),
Arrow down - Turns the wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

THE LASER :
Has to be in every space game, and you will need it...
The states are:
Charging, aiming or firing --> green
Standby -----------------------> blue
Out of energy ----------------> red
White tuning light : Double capacity
The horizontal bar : Laser charge
Actions: Arrow left/right - aiming, arrow up - firing, arrow down - turns the
wheel mark to the medium level, leaving the facility level.

The second stock menu holds 7 kinds of rockets and mines, their states are generally:
Launching -------> green
Standby ---------> blue
Out of energy --> red
White tuning light : Double (explosive) power of the rockets/mines
The horizontal bar : Amount of rockets/mines


And in the section right of the control panel, some resources related displays:

THE METAL-BUNKER : Part of the BUNKER-SYSTEM. If the MATTER SHIELD is installed
and active, the metal part of the harvested matter dust gets stored here.
The states are:
In use by the MATTER SHIELD and/or the REPAIR ROBOT --> green
MATTER SHIELD or REPAIR ROBOT in standby mode --------> blue
Neighter MATTER SHIELD, nor REPAIR ROBOT accessible --> red
White tuning light : Double metal capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of metal

THE STONEPOWDER-BUNKER : Part of the BUNKER-SYSTEM. If the MATTER SHIELD is installed
and active, the stone part of the harvested matter dust gets stored here.
The states are:
In use by the MATTER SHIELD and/or the STONELAYER --> green
MATTER SHIELD or STONELAYER in standby mode --------> blue
Neighter MATTER SHIELD, nor STONELAYER accessible --> red
White tuning light : Double stonepowder capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of stonepowder

THE REPAIR ROBOT : Repairs any HULL damage, if the BUNKER-SYSTEM is installed
and has some metal fuel. The states are:
Repairing HULL, or loading metal --> green
Standby --------------------------------> blue
Out of energy or metal --------------> red
White tuning light : Double metal capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of metal

THE CHARGER : Stores the absorbed energy from the ENERGY SHIELD, flashing it into
the ACCU, when CHARGER 100% or ACCU 0%. The states are:
Charging or discharging --------> green
No charging or discharging ----> blue
No ENERGY SHIELD active -----> red
White tuning light : Double energy capacity
The vertical bar : Amount of energy stored

The next section, the 3x3 square of lights, shows the rescued guests you have in the
vehicles hangar. Their states are :
Happily living --> green
Unconcious -----> blue
Dead -------------> red


That's the whole panel, and now I have to put everything together, bringing all the displays
to life. It adds some complexity to the vehicle and the gameplay, hopefully making it a little
bit more appealing for the player.


Cheers for now !

[digiot]

Annother essential feature is the EXTRAS-SYSTEM. There are 5 different kinds of EXTRAS available,
every one marked with an unique color.


The EXTRAS are :

RESOURCES - Green :
–––––––––––––––––––
FLASH -------> Energy for the ACCU
OXYGEN ----> Fuel for the OXYGEN-SUPPLY
CANISTER ---> Glue for the GLUE-SPRAYER
TON ---------> Acid for the ACID-SPRAYER
GRENADE ---> Up to 10 grenades for the CANNON

INTERIOR MACHINES - Red :
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
ENGINE, RECEIVER, SCANNER, SPACESUIT, COOLER, BUNKER-SYSTEM, REPAIR ROBOT, CHARGER

EXTERIOR FACILITIES - Blue :
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
MATTER SHIELD, ENERGY SHIELD, GLUE-SPRAYER, ACID-SPRAYER, STONELAYER, CANNON, LASER

ROCKETS & MINES - Yellow :
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
ROCKET I ------> Standart ROCKET
ROCKET II -----> Atom ROCKET
ROCKET III ----> 5d ROCKET, tears the spacetime continuum open
MINE I ---------> Standart, passive MINE
MINE II --------> Swarm MINE, spawns 8 standart MINEs
MINE III -------> Atom MINE
MINE IV -------> Smart-MINE, destroys all orbital objects inside the view. With tuning on,
also the objects out of the view are beeing destroyed.
All the ROCKETS and MINES, except the Smart-MINE, have the double explosive power
with the tuning on.

MISCELLANEOUS - Purple :
––––––––––––––––––––––––
WRENCH -----> Repair kit for the chassis
HEART ------> First aid kit
TIME+ ------> One hour longer to work
TIME- ------> One hour earlier end of work
MUSHROOM ---> Doping for your body
BONUS I ----> Score +1000
BONUS II ---> Bonus-Sector

Here is a short overview :

I hope, the EXTRAS-SYSTEM is complete now, and I don't get any more ideas...

Cheers !