Topic: ∞ Bit

[Vince Twelve]

Alright, so I'm still working on Resonance, but for the last week I've been letting myself spend an hour a day on Infinity Bit to help me purge some pent up creativity that isn't getting properly channeled since Res has been pretty much entirely designed for well over a year.

I'm making this for the "A Game By Its Cover" contest at TIGSource.  So it will be done this month.

The idea of the concept is to take a fake box art from somewhere like here and make a game inspired by that case.

I chose

∞ bit

The game will involve piloting a shuttle craft from level to level and then platforming around to collect upgrades for your craft to get you to the next level.

This is intended to be a very open development, so I'll be posting alpha versions of the game every couple days or so, and hoping for whatever feedback you can give me so I know how to tweak the game.  When I release, the game will be open source as well.

Screenshots

Download Alpha


8.1.10 - Alpha 9

-Mouse controls corridor, spaceship
-Arrows or WASD control character.
-Down or S to open/unlock doors.


Help!

If anyone is interested in whipping up some improved ship, character, and enemy sprites in roughly the same black-and-green, lo-res style you see above, send me a PM.  I need the ship angling in 9 directions (up-right, up, up-left, right, straight, left, down-right, down, and down-left), character running/jumping animations, and some enemies.

Also, if you're interested in whipping up some NES-era or chip tunes for the game, let me know via PM!

[Dualnames]

Looks, utterly amazingly amazing Vince!!!

[CaptainD]

Looks, utterly amazingly amazing Vince!!!

Like the docking sequence of Elite, but with added epileptiform features! 

[Ascovel]

Looks loopy and out of this world!

[Wonkyth]

Lovely concept!
little bit on the difficult side, I mean with the general dyingness and all...

[Vince Twelve]

New Alpha 3!  I added a simple particle system to make things asplode.  Tweaked a number of other things to optimize drawing and to make room for future gameplay.  Also improved the game's ability to interface with Mappy.

I just tested this out on a better machine than the one I'm developing on and the game goes way too fast.  Stupid dev machine.  I'll have to slow some things down a lot.  Let me know if you're experiencing things going faster than you think they should.

[Vince Twelve]

Download Alpha 4

Alpha 4 has a close-to-final level one. There are still a few bugs getting squeezed and features to stick in.  I've got to get the save squares working as well as the gas squares.  Initially, your ship will have next-to-no gas and you'll have to step on that gas square before you'll be able to take off towards the next level (which isn't out there yet, and if you get far enough, the game will crash! )  But you can imagine how that works.

This should give you a pretty good idea of how the game will start out.  When you take off with your ship, you'll be on to the next level.  Each consecutive level will be harder with some new twists thrown in like enemies and breakable blocks, etc.

Now, I know that this build is getting some pretty miserable frame rates.  My dev machine was getting around 15 fps, and then when I tested it on another, it ran at 20, and the guy ran too fast and became difficult to control.  Once I can get the frame rate under control, I'll have to tweak the speed of everything to feel right.  Unfortunately, AGS isn't really intended to do all the things I'm forcing it to do right now (go figure), so, I've got to find the best way to optimize the drawing routines.

I'd be interested to hear what kind of frame rates people are getting on different hardware.  It's intended to be run at 30, though that is almost certainly unbearably fast, since I tweaked speeds on a machine that was getting 15 (but I hadn't noticed at the time).

Thanks for trying it out!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hehe, this is a cute little game ^_^.

[Zyargeikunn]

I got around 18 fps, but I didn't get this jump done you see in your latest screenshot and also I didn't know how to interact with the diskette-symbol (which I assume means save?).

[Radiant]

I get about 4 fps. Perhaps you could improve performance a bit? A retro game could likely be made to work on low-end systems too.

[Vince Twelve]

Went on vacation for a week.  Just got back and here's a new alpha:

Download Alpha 5

Zyargeikunn: Levels have been tweaked a lot. Saves now working in latest build.

Radiant: Yeah, I'm having big framerate issues with all the drawing commands.  I'm working on optimizing.  Part of the problem is that all along I've been making the game without really knowing where it was all going.  So it's been cowboy coded into the state you see now.  All the drawing code is modular, so I should be able to rewrite it, but I'll do that later.  Gameplay first.

New features:

-Saving tiles work.  Step on them to save.
-New level zero which serves as the load-a-game and options menus.  (I always liked when game menus are built using the games' mechanics, so I wanted to try that out!)
-Level one significantly updated.
-Ship now lands on new levels to allow actual progression.
-Tweaked guy's running speed for the intended 20 fps.
-Gas tiles now fill up the ship.

Still to do:

-All levels after the first. (Right now your ship will just die at the end.  This will change when an actual level two gets dropped in)
-Fix that damn frame rate.  It still chugs on slower PCs.  I'm working on it, but not sure how much I'll be able to improve it, especially in the time frame.

Try it out and please let me know what you think!


EDIT:

Another alpha:

Download Alpha 6

New features:

-Much improved framerate!  Still not perfect, but better.
-A few tweaks and bug fixes.
-Better on screen messages.
-Taking off gives you a few seconds to get your bearings before giving you control.
-Kind of started putting in level two.

Still to do:

-Levels
-More framerate improvements.

I'm getting to the point where I can just focus on level design.  I'm thinking around 10 levels.  I've got some ideas to keep it fresh.  Should be able to bring this in on time!

I totally still need some music and sound.  Anyone interested in helping with some NES-era stuff?

[Vince Twelve]

New alpha, new levels.  Level 3 underway, but if you can get there you can see the new projectiles feature.  Frame rate also has some improvements.  (Screenshot not a very good demonstration of this )

You'll have to clear your saves using the top right door in the menu level since old saves won't work.

Download Alpha 7

[Vince Twelve]

Download Alpha 8

New Features

• The gun
  • Mouse button to fire
  • Move mouse to "bend" the shots
  • Use it to destroy green blocks
  • Currently, it just lets you shoot whenever.  In final game, you'll only be able to shoot after collecting the gun in level three.
• Debug hotkeys to jump to a level and try it out:
  • Press the 1, 2, or 3 keys to load the respective levels.
• Toyed with depth transparency to make the game much easier to read. 
  • Front level is now much easier to distinguish.
  • While shooting, the front level fades out to let us see what we're shooting.
  • Level 3 - It's in, but it needs lots of tweaking.  Actually, I'm thinking all the levels might be too hard.
  .
  
  If there's no extension to the competition time limit, the game might end up with just these three levels.  With an extension, I hope for several more plus a boss fight.  I also still want to find the time to improve the frame rate.  We'll see!

[DrWhite]

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

For some reason, Bitfinity sounds catchier to me than Infinity Bit...could just be me.

[Kweepa]

Well maybe, but... I'm sure you've noticed that ∞ bit is 8 bit with the 8 on its side. Plus, it looks like the box cover dictated the name.

[Zyargeikunn]

The original name sounds much better. Bitfinity sounds cheesy.

I see there's a 7 day extension, does it mean more levels? I like the level design of the playable levels, not too hard, not too easy and not too annoying (enough save points).

[Vince Twelve]

Thanks DrWhite!

ProgZ: I like bitfinity, too.  But ∞ bit has grown on me!  I didn't have to let the cart dictate the title, but I liked this one!

Zyargelkunn:  Yup, getting more levels in there now.  The goal is six levels plus, if there's time, a boss.  The new version below has the first three levels revamped to flow much better, plus a new fourth level.  The fifth is underway, but not in this alpha.

Download Alpha 9

New Features

• Revamped levels 1-3
  • Use number keys 1, 2, and 3 as quick shortcuts to jump to the level
  • There's no flying challenges after level 3 yet.
• New level 4
  • Press the 4 key to skip to it.
  • Moving platforms!
• Level names
• Bunch of new in-game text

It still needs some speed tweaking.  Levels 5 and 6 underway now.

[Vince Twelve]

Little youtube preview of what to expect when I release later today.

[Chicky]

Mind melting!