git.r.bdr.sh - rbdr/r.bdr.sh/blob - jekyll/_posts/2014-04-13-from-the-journal-polarity-and-cows-updates.md

   1 ---
   2 layout: post
   3 title: "From the Journal: Polarity and Cows updates!"
   4 tags: english gamedev cows polarity
   5 color: green
   6 header_image: from-the-journal.png
   7 description: "A quick update of what's been going on with my game
   8 projects. There's some updates on polarity, the magnetic arena shooter;
   9 and a brief overview of what's been going down with cows, the bovine
  10 platform game."
  11 ---
  12
  13 I stopped uploading videos of cows development because my computer died a while ago because of water damage, now I'm finally in the land of the living and some updates for the projects. Cows and Polarity II are the two games I'm focusing on this year, Polarity II should release sometime this year since it's pretty simple and Cows should have a one level demo by december.
  14
  15 Polarity II is still being done with MonoGame and there are now working linux, mac and windows builds (That was the february goal.) The march goal was to get the waves system and the first wave working, but I got sidetracked and haven't done any coding. I do have some updates with that though, here are some crappy pics from the journal.
  16
  17 ![The difficulty table][polarity-difficulty-table]
  18
  19 This is the difficulty table for polarity. The plan right now is to have a set of 10 waves each with different sets of baddies, and every time you clear the set you start from wave 1 (eg. 11) but with some difficulty modifier. This table lists what I thought was reasonable, though I still need to test it out in-game. There are only four factors to modify: Number of enemies, probability to randomly spawn a scout instead of a regular ship, probability to randomly spawn a shooter instead of a regular ship, and finally HP multiplier.
  20
  21 ![Trying to define waves][polarity-wave-baddies]
  22
  23 I tried to define which baddies to use in which wave trying to introduce the special ones later. Pardon my drawing skills, but here's a guide: round with three prongs = regular ship, droplet = scout, round with many prongs = heavy, concave top + three prongs = shooter, concave top + many prongs = heavy shooter. There's also a small sketch of the wave screen, which now looks like this:
  24
  25 ![Polarity wave screen mock][polarity-wave-screen-mock]
  26 [Click to open with annotations.][polarity-wave-screen-mock-annottated]
  27
  28 ![First wave of polarity][polarity-first-wave]
  29
  30 I kinda sketched the first wave with a notation I made quickly and annotated on the side. It's only an idea and I need to send it to the big book of levels.
  31
  32 ![Animationstuffs][polarity-animations]
  33
  34 For polarity I also sketched out some ideas for the UI, trying to keep the chain information clear but unobstrusive. I mocked the chain break animation and giffed it with [recordit][recordit], which, btw, I help build :D
  35
  36 ![GIF][polarity-animation-mock]
  37
  38 Cows has had a lot of progress too! For starters We're no longer going to use löve2d, it's an awesome tool and I'm really into lua, but we're doing everything in unity now which will make a lot of things waaay easier.[Toily][toily-twitter] jumped in to help and he and I are going to be working on it throughout the year to try and release a demo with part of the hub and vegetable fields.
  39
  40 ![The hub][cows-hub]
  41
  42 The hub is pretty simple, but it ties all the other areas together. There's Ushi's dojo in the center, there's the milk bar for some hints, the exits to all the levels, and the fruit store which is important now. Every time you enter the hub from another area, your stomach will be emptied. However, there are fruit seeds found in the different areas which allow you to get the transformation from the fruit store and enter any level with any powerup. So that's fun.
  43
  44 ![Level one overview][cows-level-one-overview]
  45
  46 The demo of the game will have the first area available, here's an overview of the basic makeup of the level including the expected route and a quick sketch of how it's distributed. These blocks don't mach 1:1 to a room though. They're just to easily separate the "zones" inside the vegetable fields.
  47
  48 ![Conceptish][cows-level-one-concept]
  49
  50 I tried to draw a visual concept for the vegetable fields. I really want it to be a vegetable wasteland with lots of plantish debris, like ramps made out of giant carrots, giant eggplants half-buried in the ground, etc.
  51
  52 ![Sketch of bovine plains][cows-level-one-area-one]
  53
  54 The first area will be bovine plains, this is quick sketch, trying to draw out the paths and the expected behaviors. I don't know what I'm doing. In the bottom is an allocation of space for the maps, we have to fit them all and maintain consistency with their position. That's going to mean a lot of sky tiles to the sides of the sky fortress. It would be a shame if someone hid something there.
  55
  56 That's al the updates I have for now. Toily has a bunch of drawings, it would be awesome if he could share them as well! *\*nudge\**.
  57
  58 [toily-twitter]: http://twitter.com/escusado
  59 [recordit]: http://recordit.co
  60 [polarity-difficulty-table]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-difficulty-table.jpg
  61 [polarity-wave-baddies]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-wave-baddies.jpg
  62 [polarity-wave-screen-mock-annottated]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-wave-screen-mock-annottated.png
  63 [polarity-wave-screen-mock]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-wave-screen-mock.png
  64 [polarity-first-wave]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-first-wave.jpg
  65 [polarity-animations]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-animations.jpg
  66 [polarity-animation-mock]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/polarity-animation-mock.gif
  67 [cows-hub]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/cows-hub.jpg
  68 [cows-level-one-overview]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/cows-level-one-overview.jpg
  69 [cows-level-one-concept]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/cows-level-one-concept.jpg
  70 [cows-level-one-area-one]: /img/articles/from-the-journal/cows-level-one-area-one.jpg