View Full Version : 21: Reckless
Elyaradine
11-12-2008, 12:03 AM
,.-= Reckless =-.,
Blurb
Nothing could have prepared you for what would follow those three loaded words: "My water broke!" Now, it's a mad rush to the hospital - before your child-to-be spills blood all over the back seat of the car you bought just last week. "Honey! Breathe!"
Brief
I've never actually done this before, so I've opted for something easy. Better to have relatively small expectations for now and be encouraged by actually completing a project than to set the bar too high and get overwhelmed. :)
The gameplay's essentially been done many times before (most notably on a really old game-boy lookalike I used to have). You're a car at the bottom of the screen; all you do is move left and right. The scenery will fall downward to make it seem like you're moving forwards. You'll pass various vehicles (as wild and wacky as possible). There's a bar on the side showing how much time is left before your child is born. If you crash into a vehicle, among other things you'll have time removed.
Reach the hospital in time, and you finish the level... only to have your other wife (lol?) fall pregnant for the next level. Faster, new cars, more obstacles, etc.
I hope to spice it up with various bonuses, including a power-up that turns you into a monster truck so you can ride over all of the obstacles, air strikes that blow them all up, or pain killers that buy you a little extra time.
And original pixel artwork! Yaaay!
I'm doing this in the free version of Game Maker. It might not look all that pretty without cool stuff like particle effects for the collisions, but perhaps I can get around that with some creative sprite use or something. See how far I can get. ^_^
--
The main thing I can think of that might be a problem at the moment is spawning the obstacles in such a way that it might always be possible to manoeuvre through them. I've always hated games where - by my bad luck - all of the "lanes" had obstacles simultaneously, making it impossible to pass unscathed. In the end, you should lose the game because your reflexes weren't quick enough, as opposed to your being pwned by bad luck. Not sure how to solve that, so I'll pass that hurdle when I get there. Ideas would be appreciated.
edit: It's this kind of thang.
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u89/Elyaradine/reckless01.gif
I was just skimping there; I won't be using the same car model all of the time. XD
Worth doing? Yay? Nay? Wootles? Poodles? All welcome.
edit2: Download here. (http://www.mediafire.com/?zq45ozzto3z)
edit3: New version here. (http://www.mediafire.com/?ngyhx0yhurn)
edit4: Final (?) version here (http://www.mediafire.com/?a4zzdmnwxsn) (though for some reason the link's taking forever to load...)
Agrajag
11-12-2008, 04:57 AM
Will you only move the car left and right or will you also have it that you can accelerate further forward onto the screen and brake to drop back to the bottom? Moving up and down can be very useful when dodging obstacles but I don't know if that would become fiddly on a cell phone keypad.
HolyMackerel
11-12-2008, 06:54 AM
I think it's a great idea
Fengol
11-12-2008, 08:57 AM
Build it, it's a solid idea!
Good on you for setting achievable goals, solid and polished gameplay is always more enjoyable.
Elyaradine
11-12-2008, 11:08 AM
@Agrajag: Thanks. I want to keep it simple, but up-down movement's quick to add (and remove), so I'll try it out and see if I think it'd work for a phone keypad.
Thanks for the comments. ^_^ Got stuff to do today; tomorrow I'll make some more pixel art, and I should have a demo with the basic stuff in place by early next week. I like giving my self a lot of cushioning time, since I'm easily distracted. :P It's why I posted the thread - to try and force myself to enter.
Elyaradine
13-12-2008, 09:37 AM
Will you only move the car left and right or will you also have it that you can accelerate further forward onto the screen and brake to drop back to the bottom?
I've made it so that up and down accelerate or decelerate the car. (The car itself remains at the bottom of the screen, but everything scrolls faster.)
With more difficult levels, I'll have the minimum car speed getting higher and/or your time limit getting shorter.
edit: There's nothing there yet (no obstacles/scoreboard), but a demo of what it looks like so far can be downloaded here (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?lzkyz50md0f).
Nandrew
16-12-2008, 10:24 AM
Good on you for setting a nice first project!
If you get this down to pat, you can extend it later with other fancies. For now, working on a solid, functional game is definitely an A-grade idea. :D
Elyaradine
17-12-2008, 02:14 AM
Thanks, Nandrew! ^_^
Just a quick update: Drew an army truck sprite as my test obstacle. The game itself works (even if I had to put in some embarrassing workarounds...). All that's left is to make the scoreboard show the various stuff, like how much time you have left, and the distance between you and the hospital.
And LOTS of pixel art. >_< (I might have to pull in some favours there...)
Originally, I wanted to make the obstacle-spawning random. I might actually go back to that later on. As much as I hate losing a game because of "bad luck", winning a game because of "good luck" is rather satisfying too... even if winning with skill is even better. When the room is created, a massive array is created with the pre-determined obstacles to be created. I wonder if there's a better (quicker?) way to implement this than by typing out the hundreds of array entries. T_T
dislekcia
17-12-2008, 02:32 PM
Originally, I wanted to make the obstacle-spawning random. I might actually go back to that later on. As much as I hate losing a game because of "bad luck", winning a game because of "good luck" is rather satisfying too... even if winning with skill is even better. When the room is created, a massive array is created with the pre-determined obstacles to be created. I wonder if there's a better (quicker?) way to implement this than by typing out the hundreds of array entries. T_T
There are many ways to have obstacles come down the screen at your player...
The easiest is probably to make a really long room and use views to put the player car down at the bottom, then you could place obstacles manually wherever you want them. This has replayability and lack of randomness issues, but you can make multiple levels quite easily.
You could write a dynamic spawning system, where a spawner object created obstacles at random intervals. There are numerous things you could do to make these obstacles "fair" instead of completely random: Tweaking the timing of obstacles based on the current number on the screen, having different classes of obstacle "coverage" spawned in logical sequences, etc.
Elyaradine
17-12-2008, 05:00 PM
Shot, thanks. I'll do the long room first, explore how views work. I can always make the spawning in another room as a different stage, and then I've - woot - learnt twice as much. :P
AndrewJ
22-12-2008, 01:19 PM
Nice idea Ely! I've always found little games like these nice distractions for 10, 20 minutes, more if I can decompile and change them! ;-)
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 01:36 PM
I kind of failed at time management, what with Christmas and New Years (and Wintersday XD) and such, and I didn't get to put in nearly as much polish as I wanted. In particular, I wanted to make loads of quirky pixel vehicles, but the only ones that are included in this version are really just dummy cars. :( Also, the pick-up bonuses weren't done either.
Latest version here (http://www.mediafire.com/?zq45ozzto3z).
On the bright side, it's not the 3rd yet... perhaps I'll get bitten by the inspiration bug, though I'm not very optimistic.
Thanks to realmdrifter (at Pixofile) for the ambulance sprite. Now, if only I could replace those army trucks...
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 02:13 PM
Cool game! I like the menu art and I've never seen a game of this kind with a story before. :) I can't promise anything, but I can take a stab at drawing you a replacement for your army trucks. What do you have in mind to replace them with?
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 02:25 PM
Well, I originally had ideas of making things that were a little bit unusual. But right now I'd be open to anything, as long as it fits with the theme of pixel art.
Some ideas: funeral car, limo, hot dog or ice cream truck, UFO, monster truck, news van...
Just make sure you take a screenshot of the lanes and make sure your vehicle fits nicely into one of them. (Or two of them, and make it some kind of bastard obstacle that takes up two or three lanes.)
Thanks for offering, btw. ^_^
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 02:29 PM
Alright, let me give it a shot. I'll make a normal truck from the army truck first, and then perhaps start trying other more elaborate things.
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 02:43 PM
Thanks. ^_^
In that case I'll spend my time playing with the code, and trying to get more replayability/fun into the game-play. I'll check back around 4pm, grab anything that's posted that I think is suitable, and upload a new version.
If you want pictures of just the truck/car on its own, I've uploaded them here (http://pixofile.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11908#p11908).
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 03:11 PM
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/5672/truckwo4.png (http://imageshack.us)
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 03:22 PM
Hahaha! :D Great work! :D
/save-as
edit: I think it's asking for multiple frames with flashing lights. :P
Kensei
02-01-2009, 03:25 PM
:: waits till 4pm before downloading the new version ::
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 03:40 PM
http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/7724/hatchbackgreenvg2.png (http://imageshack.us)
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 03:48 PM
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5827/truck2va5.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8174/truck3kp3.png (http://imageshack.us)
I'm not sure if the lights are going to make a massive difference, but you should be able to create any flashing pattern you want with the three images.
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 03:58 PM
A slight colour change on the hatchback before time is up:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/2825/hatchbackyellowld5.png (http://imageshack.us)
Hmmm... It might be a bit too bright. Your call... ;)
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 04:27 PM
Here (http://www.mediafire.com/?ngyhx0yhurn)'s the new version.
Changes from the previous version:
* Obstacles are randomly generated.
* Sprites added.
I'm not entirely sold with the randomly generated stuff. I play the two versions, and the one where I manually placed the objects just feels like it's more fun. Obviously, replayability becomes a problem, but I'd like to hear your opinions about which is better / more fun.
Thanks to Nerosis and realmdrifter for the sprites (the only one included here is the Space-truck thing; the others will be added soon), and edg3 for some help with code. I'll add some names to the welcome screen when I upload the final version later tonight. :)
edit: Hahahaha! So, like, if you crash into vehicles and don't move fast enough, the random generator still spits out vehicles at a (more or less) constant speed... and it builds up... to give you...
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/122/oopste7.gif (http://imageshack.us)
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/oopste7.gif/1/w258.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img293/oopste7.gif/1/)
THIS! *evil laughter*
liquid.silver
02-01-2009, 05:56 PM
is it just me or are some of those vehicles overlapping in the screenshot? haven't gotten around to playing the actual game, but i imagine that might make things a tad confusing. last time i looked, vehicles couldn't drive over one another...
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 06:01 PM
Yes, I know. It's a bug that I... er... worked around. :) Just awaiting one more sprite, and then I think I'm about done. ^_^
Also, I was asked about sound. I play quite a lot of cellphone games, and I've very, very seldom ever played it with sound. Partly because due to the mobility of cellphone games, they're usually played in class (oops!), in queues, or in other places where the sound would create some kind of unwanted disturbance. Partly because with the (hopefully) small game file-size, they often put in some kind of looping music or something, and it quickly gets annoying.
Yeah, that's a cop-out - but it's something I did consider.
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 06:39 PM
The new random generation code has really broken things. I got through too easily the first time I played, and since then every game I've played has at some stage given me a row of four cars/trucks side by side. I preferred the original non-random version - you did a good job of making it increasingly harder, but not impossible, so I kept thinking "I'll just play one more time".
I also encountered another non-critical but rather annoying issue the first time I played - I reached the end with tonnes of time to spare, but I had to wait for the time to run out before the level ended.
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 07:02 PM
Yeah, I prefer the pre-determined obstacles, but it took quite a while to create, manually placing the objects and testing it myself.
The waiting at the end has been fixed. Thanks for letting me know.
New version can be downloaded here (http://www.mediafire.com/?nq0tlnwdgum).
* Tweaks to the obstacle spawns. Better, but not ideal.
* Workarounds to the game becoming impossible if you somehow slowed down for a while.
* Win screen (It says Next Level, but it just plays the same level over again. This is for the static obstacles in an alternate version tonight.)
* Win trigger
* More sprites
Aside from the obstacles (I think I'll make 2-3 levels with increasing difficulty later tonight, with manually positioned obstacles, when I have time), please check for anything else that might need fixing.
I'm house-sitting at the moment. It's just 2 minutes from my house, so I get to go home and eat my mom's food still. :D Anyhow, I'll only be back here at my PC at around 9 tonight. Hopefully I'll have some time to create some levels of pre-determined obstacles before midnight, and fix any other things I might have overlooked. Thanks for helping to test.
edit: Bug - redirect after winning isn't right. Will be fixed for later tonight.
Nerosis
02-01-2009, 07:46 PM
The random spawn is much better this time. :) I played quite a few games, and it was rarely that I was presented with 4 in row (and if I wasn't driving so badly I might have completed in time anyway, sice there is some time left over if you drive perfectly). In general the timing of the waves of cars seems very good.
I didn't find any other bugs.
The new icons are hilarious! :D There's a certain something about whizzing past the batmobile...
Dwayno
02-01-2009, 08:04 PM
Nice game elya tho sometimes it is impossible to dodge obsticles and the game is a bit like jerky everything else is good :)
It would be nice to switch lanes by holding a key instead of tapping left or right twice to get to lane thats not next to you.
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 08:34 PM
GAH!
Power failure. :(
I was busy making the game so you could choose Survival mode (randomly generated, play until you lose), and Stage mode (pre-determined). But yeah... No idea how long the power will be out...
Sigh. :'(
edit: So, like, I phoned home and we still had power there, so I moved my stuff across (beeeg effort!) and am finishing it here.
I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY MERE POWER FAILURZ.
/touchwood
Elyaradine
02-01-2009, 10:42 PM
Yes, I do realise how hilarious this is. But the power just went out at my house too.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
edit: The power's back, but I'm fast becoming bleak, and am too... AAARGH... to continue.
This version will be the final one before I drive back to the house-sitting place. It's missing a couple of things that I would have liked to add, but I'm a bit sick of putting work into this thing only to have yet another power outage. zzz.
Missing:
* More levels (there's only one here)
* Bonuses/powerups (rocket launcher, monster truck invulnerability, speed boosts)
* Saving your survival score.
[ Download here (http://www.mediafire.com/?a4zzdmnwxsn) ]
Kensei
03-01-2009, 12:22 AM
I like it :)
My greatest gripe seems to be that the game is fairly unforgiving :( After I hit one car it messed up my entire game and I couldn't finish the level. Is there a way for you to make the car increase in speed faster after a crash?
I was the victim of your random generator several times ^_^ with my car been given half a car length to move through. Perhaps a check when you create the cars? i.e. Check if there is less than 3 instances of the object 'car' , if so, create another car. (Don't forget inheritance in Game maker, exceptionally useful feature in GM :D )
The concept is there and is damn addictive :p
Elyaradine
03-01-2009, 11:30 AM
Yeah, I experienced that now and then. I put in a workaround that stopped spawning vehicles if you were moving too slowly, but clearly that hasn't worked quite as it should. (Though it certainly works better than the screenshot on the previous page! :D )
The instancing is difficult; partly because all of the obstacles are different objects since GM Lite doesn't allow you to switch sprites for an object in-game. Furthermore, the fact that the objects are of different lengths (from the small hatchback to the very long army truck) means that the timing is a little tricky - usually it's either far too easy (huge gap between vehicles) or too difficult (impossible spacing). I'll admit that when I was ever given a choice between easy and difficult, I went for making it harder; it's a simple game, and the only way of really making someone to play more is to make it so they think, "Ah, crap! I was so close! Maybe one more time..."
Thinking about it now, a better way to fix the spawning issue is to create an invisible rectangle, with height some factor (2?) multiplied by the car's length, that collides with everything at the top of the screen (except the road/background). When the spawn alarm activates, it checks to see if the rectangle's colliding with anything, and only creates obstacles if the collisions aren't there.
I'd try it today, but given that the deadline's passed and I've got some design jobs awaiting my attention, I'll have to give it a miss for now.
--
As a side note, I'd be happy to make graphics for games if anyone needs them (time allowing). As much as I understand that most of game.dev is about great ideas and good programming, it doesn't hurt to polish things up with some prettiness. :P
Agrajag
03-01-2009, 03:07 PM
The instancing is difficult; partly because all of the obstacles are different objects since GM Lite doesn't allow you to switch sprites for an object in-game.
What you can do, as I think someone might have mentioned previously, is use parenting instead. For example, you would have an object called Obstacle and then all of your other obstacles would select Obstacle as their parent in the little drop down box. That way, when your code refers to Obstacle, it will also refer to all of the instances of your cars and trucks and stuff.
On an unrelated note, I found that the army trucks blended into the road since they are both quite dark. If you think of the possibility of glare on a cellphone screen, it could cause a real problem. Or maybe you intended it to be that way to increase the difficulty since you can see the front of the truck more easily.
On a more positive side, I loved the gameplay, controls and stress tips. The game over message alone is worth a mario party style bonus star.
Elyaradine
03-01-2009, 05:43 PM
Thanks for the parenting tip - I'm sure it'll come in handy. :D
Kensei
03-01-2009, 06:07 PM
::whispers:: Just because the deadline has past it does not mean you should stop developing this game :D
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