Swarm Development: Postmortem

Tabata · Tue 02/08/2011 19:43:16

The latest build shows a big step forward!
Thank you Scarab and Baron!
I really loved the appearing robot and the twins in it are looking veeeery cool! 8)

Two points I want to mention:
If you opened the door, but didn't take the magnets the char goes to the door and stops walking without a response. There could be the same text, as when looking at the cross or better something like â€žDon't you see that cross?â€œ (breaking the 4th wall) because afterwards the player will look at it an get the response.

After you did the job with the umbrella and crossed over to the next scene go back and directly trough the scene. The char will walk savely in the shadow of the umbrella (wich is placed at the wall)?

I tried a talking version of the twins without the blackline, which I think is a bit â€žstrongâ€œ:

btw. Are you all on holiday? Where is the whole swarm hidden?
Hey all: I am missing you! :'(

Baron · Wed 03/08/2011 02:28:08

The robot shadow without an umbrella is probably the result of....

Quote from: Baron on Fri 29/07/2011 04:31:39
non-robust scripting (heading backwards through the exercise yard will not work), etc.

It's on the list of things to fix/improve.

I like both of the vampire twin talking versions, but Tabata's is stylistically closer to the ones that already exist for Merrick and the scientists (although the evil surgeon in the first cutscene has quite a different talking animation, so maybe the more different styles the better?).

Crimson Wizard · Wed 03/08/2011 17:07:20

Quote from: Tabata on Tue 02/08/2011 19:43:16
btw. Are you all on holiday? Where is the whole swarm hidden?
Hey all: I am missing you! :'(

I am around somewhere, checking this thread from time to time

TomatoesInTheHead · Sun 07/08/2011 13:28:00

Quote from: Baron on Fri 29/07/2011 04:31:39
7) From their current positions, the soldiers must also shoot. This would probably just require a second frame for each of them with a flashing gun-muzzle and the gun inclined slightly: played quickly this should give the desired effect.

I had a try on this one:

And here's a little action demo:

Not too good, but might suffice for an animation that's only used once (and hopefully doesn't look as stupid if they do not stand all in a row and fire at the exact same time). Feel free to change it!

Anyway, the main purpose of my post is to give the project another little push!

Crimson Wizard · Mon 08/08/2011 17:10:16

I'd say that the right part of the gun should also shake during fire

Ghost · Mon 08/08/2011 17:23:57

Quote from: Tabata on Tue 02/08/2011 19:43:16
btw. Are you all on holiday? Where is the whole swarm hidden?
Hey all: I am missing you! :'(

Still recovering from heavy caffeine abuse, but also still part of the swarm. ~~I'm fiddling around with that biting animation, should have something done tomorrow.~~

[edit] I've made a biting animation. I love undead biting stuff.

e voila, et all.

[edit]

I wasn't sure if the metal plate should "mirror" for the two directions- here are both possible variants.
The actual biting/sucking is done by cycling the last two frames, hope the Sawrm can use this

Igor Hardy · Mon 08/08/2011 18:22:41

Great biting animation Ghost! I wanted to do one myself, but I got lost in other responsabilities, so it's better someone else did it before the "lacks the bite" description stuck to the Draculator character forever.

Ghost · Mon 08/08/2011 18:25:30

Nah, we can't have that!

Tabata · Mon 08/08/2011 18:37:52

Yummy! - He really seems to enjoy the biting â€" and it looks so coooool!

Ghost seems to have an affinity to bitings somehow

Baron · Tue 09/08/2011 05:31:03

AWESOME WORK EVERYONE!
These latest sprites fill in a lot of the gaps. I've already implemented them in the LATEST BUILD

It's not quite a beta, but you can finish the game, such as it is. There's music, I've fixed the corridor door bug, and the walking back through the courtyard bug, and I've implemented a rough version of the final climactic showdown (with animations where available). Things I haven't done but should get to shortly: killing the scientists, a bunch of more visual tweaks (Sunlight, Secret Fawful's outdoor background in the final cutscene was missed...), etc. We're getting close to the stage where we invite writers back to build some sense into the game (object responses, dialogs....). Also, I've got like six music volunteers I have to contact (although I'm really liking JackPumpkinHead's MIDI for the intro theme -it's catchy!).

SWARM THINGS LEFT TO DO:
1) Those guards are still awkward. They really should face the door, maybe kneel. Standing is fine when shooting but it's a little unbelievable as it is now. And the death "animation" really needs some help (play build, above, for details)
2) We need a control panel for that laser in the surgery lab -clicking on the laser itself is not in any way intuitive, given that it's about 30 feet above the main character's head.
3) We still need a background for the inside of the robot monster. Not much will be visible around the vampire twin close-up portraits (see build, above), but we still need SOMETHING in there.
4) I'm still keen on having one scientist get up on the cabinets and attack Merrick with a broom for comic relief. Anybody?
5) We need the charred remains of the base -abstract is fine- with a sprite of Merrick's hand coming up through the wreckage (for the very last scene).
6) A proper title screen is required. I've been using the title "Byte of the Draculator II" in the builds as a sop to the strong 2nd place finish of "Byte" as a title, but as far as I'm concerned just "Draculator II" is fine (It won the vote, after all). Contact me if you need graphics (or better yet screenshot them from the build, above!)
7) Sound Effects! If someone could go through the build (above!) and make a list of sound effects that would add to the gaming experience and then post it here that would be awesome. Then we can get the 50ish swarm members to all scour their resources and see what we can put together.
8 ) GUI -The default inventory pop-up has got to go, and it needs a speed slider and option buttons (quit, save, restore, about...). We don't need someone to program it (although that'd be nice too!) so much as someone to draw a mock-up of what it should look like.
9) We also need a quick discussion about how the carrot pigment puzzle should work. Should Merrick need to eat a lot of carrots (like a human) in order for his skin to turn orange? Or can he just suck on one and turning orange is the "power" that he steals from it?

That's all I can think of for now. If anyone has any suggestions for improvements now's the time to offer them. Do bear in mind that major edits are probably off the table at this point, but if you can offer an easy way to make the game more exciting/interesting/hilarious/sexy, I'm keen to hear it.

Armageddon · Tue 09/08/2011 07:37:50

I'd love to try my hand at the title screen.

Ghost · Tue 09/08/2011 08:25:27

Regarding the carrots:
I think sucking one and then "getting its power" makes more sense in context. Okay, a carrots doesn't HAVE blood, but as far as I understand it, for Merrik it's "one suck, one-time power-up". So yeah, suck one carrot, turn orange. That also makes it easier for players who want to cross the UV light several times; we don't want them to go through a lot of carrots each time...

Regarding the latest build:
Superb. This is a big push indeed; sweet!

Ghost · Tue 09/08/2011 08:26:05

Argh- I didn't read that last claim, and now have this one anyway. Might as well post, then. It's not as if surplus material's a ba[t]d thing.

Ali · Tue 09/08/2011 14:37:19

I'm sorry I haven't made any contributions recently, and I'm sorry I won't be able to for a while. I just wanted to say this is looking cool and good luck!

Crimson Wizard · Tue 09/08/2011 16:30:30

Quote from: BaronWe need the charred remains of the base -abstract is fine- with a sprite of Merrick's hand coming up through the wreckage (for the very last scene).

I can try making this one, unless someone else wants to take it.

Tabata · Tue 09/08/2011 20:46:28

It's amazing! Good job again! A big step forward!

Only little thingies:
- Watching at the digital-lock will bring up the correct dialog plus 2 x the dialog (+ animation) for the cross.
- If you switch off the light and click on the door afterwards, he isn't walking to the door (it's more like being teleported).
- During the cut-scene of the twins the dialog-colour of the dark one should be done a bit brighter, because the part that appeared in front of the dark hair is hard to see.

- Normally I would say that Merrick is a bit to small for biting the guards, but in this game I like it the funny way (He seems to nibble at their hands like someone takes a little sip of a glass of good wine

)

Also the musik works well for me

Ghost · Tue 09/08/2011 21:53:58

Quote from: Tabata on Tue 09/08/2011 20:46:28
- Normally I would say that Merrick is a bit to small for biting the guards, but in this game I like it the funny way (He seems to nibble at their hands like someone takes a little sip of a glass of good wine )

We... could have him... stand on tiptoe, couldn't we? Vampires be sneaky...

Tabata · Tue 09/08/2011 22:03:51

Well, we could, but do we want it?

I like him, as he is - it makes him special!

A real gourmet, who ist tasting something to do his critics about it - like the dialogs tell

Baron · Wed 10/08/2011 04:25:30

Quote from: Tabata on Tue 09/08/2011 20:46:28
- Watching at the digital-lock will bring up the correct dialog plus 2 x the dialog (+ animation) for the cross.

Ah. That's a conflict between my and Scarab's code. It's now on the fix list.

Quote
- If you switch off the light and click on the door afterwards, he isn't walking to the door (it's more like being teleported).

The teleport was implemented because there was a suggestion that clicking on an (unblocked) exit should result in automatically going to the next screen, instead of waiting for Merrick to slowly saunter across the screen. I was under the impression that we were moving towards this for all exits, but do you feel the teleporting breaks some of the continuity of the game?

Quote
- During the cut-scene of the twins the dialog-colour of the dark one should be done a bit brighter, because the part that appeared in front of the dark hair is hard to see.

Added to the fix list.

Quote from: Ghost on Tue 09/08/2011 08:25:27
Regarding the carrots:
I think sucking one and then "getting its power" makes more sense in context. Okay, a carrots doesn't HAVE blood, but as far as I understand it, for Merrik it's "one suck, one-time power-up". So yeah, suck one carrot, turn orange. That also makes it easier for players who want to cross the UV light several times; we don't want them to go through a lot of carrots each time...

Without anyone to make a compelling case otherwise, I think this is sensible.

In other news, I've PMed all musician volunteers a list of our musical requirements. We have six volunteers and sixish rooms, which will work out well. Hopefully they will post their work here for us to appreciate. They have been instructed to use JackPumpkinHead's work as a theme (which I am in favour of keeping for the title screen and possibly more, depending on what the musicians submit, of course).

As for finalizing the writing (messages, dialogs), I was wondering if anyone would be interested in forming a working group to haggle over the wording and content of the textual part of the game. It is probably unrealistic to do everything as a group, but everything of substance shouldn't be that time consuming. I envisage the group spending roughly an hour or two spread out over the week debating the merits of different approaches and offering suggestions for improvements. I can compile a text script of exactly what's in-game to speed things up, so it will just require a bit of reading and correspondence. Please post in the thread if you are interested (PMing makes you anonymous to the group and this is more of a high-profile role).

Icey · Wed 10/08/2011 07:16:25

Hey Baron do you think you can send us the source? Maybe we can work on different parts and send them into you.