DOWNLOAD METALLIC FOREVER PRE-ALPHA 2 - I made it possible to play the development test and made a tiny adjustment to the menu screen. The mouse controls the camera.
I just couldn't keep that awesome menu screen to myself. While you're loitering on it, in's hard not to imagine a catchy ambient techno tune playing in the background..
However, it has its flaws, and I'm not going to fork over $20 for the sequel. So I'm making a clone of my own :ohmy.gif:
Wish me luck.
What it does do so far:
Loads & draws ship components in groups as individual ships
Move the camera with a handy middle-mouse button panning function.
Zoom in and out
What it doesn't do:
Draw ships correctly when rotated EDIT: turned out to only be a matter of forgetting to put "+ang" in two lines of code. Fix'd.
What will set mine apart form the other game:
You'll be able to purchase new ship parts, sell, and bank them. You'll be able reorganize your ship's construction here without worrying about being bothered by enemies
Swarm AI for some enemies, self-preservation for others, some AI will escort/defend others, etc. Ships will generally be less aggressive unless fired upon first. In which case they will hunt you down, and they will find you, and they will kill you.
Lotsa parts, and they will be more sturdy, and they will become blackend when broken but will autorepair over time.
Significantly larger ships than are found in Capt. Forever
Ships will requiew more than simply a core to operate; they'll need fuel tanks and stuff, too. A lone core will have all the necessities, but on far too small a scale to power anything large on its own.
Totally moddable.
It will have a little bit of a story to it and sidequest types of stuff to go with it. (maybe.)
I will use this topic as a progress log to help encourage me to actually finish this game
I'm normally a complete idiot when it comes to graphics code, but I got the entire significant parts of the graphic engine down in 10 minutes. I'm on a roll, baby. Been awake for 30 hours straight and I'm still on a roll. Thank God for caffene.
Dev Screenie:
Yes. The gigantic green thing is a ship object. The white thing is the cursor so you can see what you're going to click on.
Perhaps.. Metallic Forever (Metallic Earth wasn't necessarily referring to the planet, just the soil. But it still gave off that cool vibe.)
The file you can use to modify what ship parts appear in the game (almost 100% working. Will add more options for weaponry and stuff as the need arises. Because of the way the parser acts, new fields that are irrelevant to components that I specified a while back will have a default value.
// This is a comment.
[Component]
Name=Iron Hull //There's going to be a bunch of materials. Iron will be the weakest.
Info=Ship hull, made of Level I material.
Cost=50
Rotation=0
Imagepath=Images\hullrect.png
Red=175
Green=235
Blue=255
// Quartzium will go somewhere in here.
[Component]
Name=Steel Hull //Steel will be a level up from iron.
Imagepath=Images\hullrect.png
Red=210
Green=235
Blue=255
This_Line = Gets ignored by the parser. The only place you would NEED a // is after setting a valid parameter (like after Iton Hull near the
top)
In fact, this text also counts as a comment. Neat, huh?
// Going up, there will be Carbonite, Lodium, and Diamond.
// There'll be options for giving the components weapon, support, or shieldlike qualities later.
All game data separate from the engine (that is implemented so far, at least) is 100% modifyable, and my plan is to keep it this way. The shown screenshot used the component file in my previous post in combination with the brand-new ship file code.
EDIT: first post now has a download link for the latest release. Right now it's in pre-alpha 1 :biggrin.gif:
I don't usually pay that much mind to graphics in my games, but I'm going to make this time different.
I know it doesn't look that grand as a static image, but it's wonderful in motion (the background moves, the menu lights up when you mouseover, and there's a pretty neat effect to introduce the text.):
TODO on menu screen:
change the mouseover lightining up just a little bit; I got a really great idea while I was writing this post that would take nothing more than a couple lines of code. (done)
Deciscion made:
There will be 3 gamemodes:
Story, which is the normal game with an ultimate goal and side quests in it, all of course following a storyline.
Arcade, which would pit you against a horde of enemies which slowly increase in difficulty. It'll have a curve for how quickly things heat up; you'll be able to set it, or, like I did in one of my other games, it will adjust the curve according to how well you're playing to keep the experience fun and balanced.
Sandbox, where you can't completely die, and by destroying enemies you gain funds that can be used to purchase ship parts, like will be available in story, in addition to snatching them from enemies. It will differ from arcade in that there will be a great variety of enemies in the world at once, and you can choose whether to hunt down the weaklings or to try and get behemoths on your tail, etc.. basically just a way to play around freely with all the features.
Next:
I'm going to make it so that the AI or a player can control a ship with thrusters and weaponry.
PLANS:
I'm going to make there a whole ton of different options for how guns and their ammunition work so that there will be enough combinations to make weapon modding a fufilling activity as opposed to there only being a few different ways to go. Same thing with other items, but to a bit lesser extent than guns. Every part you put on your ship you'll be able to assign a key to for activation. I'm still trying to think of a way to make it intuitive, but this feature is a must IMO.
BTW: could a mod edit the title so that it instead reads "Metallic Forvever"?
And the alpha development is just stuff to test the graphic engine, and I thought it'd be easier to test the zoom with the mouse than a key. So, whala, testing is done with the mouse. The final game will not be like that :smile.gif:
comments on the menu screen? did you like/dislike? I'm going to spend a lot of time giving this game a distinct graphic feel. The other Forever games all follow a certain simplistic style, but I want to set a new standard.
I'm plenty open to suggestions, here. The sooner you suggest something, the more likely I am to put it in.
That and exit game. I haven't actually done any of the others yet. ATM I'm working on the audio, and I've got a sweet humming effect in the background, the letters make little clicks when they come on/offscreen, and it makes a little pulsy sound when you mouseover menu items.
I'm still fishing for opinions of the title screen here.. do you like the graphic effects? Dislike them?
1) Finish sounds
2) Fix a small bug with going to the alpha development option, coming back to the menu, and returning to the alpha development.
3) (maybe) make it autodetect if there's a new version available and give the option to automatically download it if there is.
Feast your eyes. The graphics engine is coming along extremely nicely. Again, however, it's much more interesting in motion than as a still image.
The one thing I still haven't done is actually making the ships work. Even though I made the test ship use something that actually looks kinda like a ship, it still only spins around. That'll come once the graphics are in place. I am very nearly done with them at this point.
This seems really awesome... Whats it written in? Also...as a suggestion and for the hell of it... try to find a way to make it online multiplayer :biggrin.gif:
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from NuclearDemon »
There are 10 kinds of people who understand binary.
Those who do.
And those that don't.
Quote from HeadHunter67 »
"I'd like to sssssssspeak to you about Jeeesssussssss...."
Quote from Theonlydoh2 »
Rain, rain, go away,
THAT'S WHAT ALL THE HATERS SAY.
Ugh. You ruined my "secret" plan <.< Yeah. hardly anymore. (I hadn't said anything mostly because I know nearly nothing about networking and can't guarantee that it'll find its way in)
...
I will forever despise you if you do. Silby's right up there with Notch on the cool list. (He's the guy who makes the Blitz Basic languages.) Bmax is worth every penny.
Farbs: I want you to prove this is not some sort of a prank if I'm going to take anything you say seriously.
EDIT: Oh, and just a neat statistic, MF has about 500 lines of code ATM.
DOWNLOAD METALLIC FOREVER PRE-ALPHA 1
I just couldn't keep that awesome menu screen to myself. While you're loitering on it, in's hard not to imagine a catchy ambient techno tune playing in the background..
This is an awesome free game: http://www.captainforever.com/captainforever.php
However, it has its flaws, and I'm not going to fork over $20 for the sequel. So I'm making a clone of my own :ohmy.gif:
Wish me luck.
What it does do so far:
Loads & draws ship components in groups as individual ships
Move the camera with a handy middle-mouse button panning function.
Zoom in and out
What it doesn't do:
Draw ships correctly when rotated EDIT: turned out to only be a matter of forgetting to put "+ang" in two lines of code. Fix'd.
What will set mine apart form the other game:
You'll be able to purchase new ship parts, sell, and bank them. You'll be able reorganize your ship's construction here without worrying about being bothered by enemies
Swarm AI for some enemies, self-preservation for others, some AI will escort/defend others, etc. Ships will generally be less aggressive unless fired upon first. In which case they will hunt you down, and they will find you, and they will kill you.
Lotsa parts, and they will be more sturdy, and they will become blackend when broken but will autorepair over time.
Significantly larger ships than are found in Capt. Forever
Ships will requiew more than simply a core to operate; they'll need fuel tanks and stuff, too. A lone core will have all the necessities, but on far too small a scale to power anything large on its own.
Totally moddable.
It will have a little bit of a story to it and sidequest types of stuff to go with it. (maybe.)
I will use this topic as a progress log to help encourage me to actually finish this game
I'm normally a complete idiot when it comes to graphics code, but I got the entire significant parts of the graphic engine down in 10 minutes. I'm on a roll, baby. Been awake for 30 hours straight and I'm still on a roll. Thank God for caffene.
Dev Screenie:
Yes. The gigantic green thing is a ship object. The white thing is the cursor so you can see what you're going to click on.
YES!
I'll be eagerly awaiting your game. Good luck.
\ \
Also, does the game have a name yet?
Give a little. =♥=
Wha??
Captain Successor is a similar style, and doesn't have forever in the title.
It's my game, I can do what I want with it :tongue.gif:
Hm.
Perhaps.. Metallic Forever (Metallic Earth wasn't necessarily referring to the planet, just the soil. But it still gave off that cool vibe.)
The file you can use to modify what ship parts appear in the game (almost 100% working. Will add more options for weaponry and stuff as the need arises. Because of the way the parser acts, new fields that are irrelevant to components that I specified a while back will have a default value.
celebrate with me.
EDIT: first post now has a download link for the latest release. Right now it's in pre-alpha 1 :biggrin.gif:
I don't usually pay that much mind to graphics in my games, but I'm going to make this time different.
I know it doesn't look that grand as a static image, but it's wonderful in motion (the background moves, the menu lights up when you mouseover, and there's a pretty neat effect to introduce the text.):
TODO on menu screen:
change the mouseover lightining up just a little bit; I got a really great idea while I was writing this post that would take nothing more than a couple lines of code. (done)
Deciscion made:
There will be 3 gamemodes:
Story, which is the normal game with an ultimate goal and side quests in it, all of course following a storyline.
Arcade, which would pit you against a horde of enemies which slowly increase in difficulty. It'll have a curve for how quickly things heat up; you'll be able to set it, or, like I did in one of my other games, it will adjust the curve according to how well you're playing to keep the experience fun and balanced.
Sandbox, where you can't completely die, and by destroying enemies you gain funds that can be used to purchase ship parts, like will be available in story, in addition to snatching them from enemies. It will differ from arcade in that there will be a great variety of enemies in the world at once, and you can choose whether to hunt down the weaklings or to try and get behemoths on your tail, etc.. basically just a way to play around freely with all the features.
Next:
I'm going to make it so that the AI or a player can control a ship with thrusters and weaponry.
PLANS:
I'm going to make there a whole ton of different options for how guns and their ammunition work so that there will be enough combinations to make weapon modding a fufilling activity as opposed to there only being a few different ways to go. Same thing with other items, but to a bit lesser extent than guns. Every part you put on your ship you'll be able to assign a key to for activation. I'm still trying to think of a way to make it intuitive, but this feature is a must IMO.
BTW: could a mod edit the title so that it instead reads "Metallic Forvever"?
And the alpha development is just stuff to test the graphic engine, and I thought it'd be easier to test the zoom with the mouse than a key. So, whala, testing is done with the mouse. The final game will not be like that :smile.gif:
comments on the menu screen? did you like/dislike? I'm going to spend a lot of time giving this game a distinct graphic feel. The other Forever games all follow a certain simplistic style, but I want to set a new standard.
I'm plenty open to suggestions, here. The sooner you suggest something, the more likely I am to put it in.
I'm still fishing for opinions of the title screen here.. do you like the graphic effects? Dislike them?
1) Finish sounds
2) Fix a small bug with going to the alpha development option, coming back to the menu, and returning to the alpha development.
3) (maybe) make it autodetect if there's a new version available and give the option to automatically download it if there is.
Feast your eyes. The graphics engine is coming along extremely nicely. Again, however, it's much more interesting in motion than as a still image.
...
Oh, and BlitzMax.
This is a little awkward but... could you please not clone my game? It's my only source of income.
Anyways, I googled blitzmax...$80? I THINK NOT! Torrent site here i come
I will forever despise you if you do. Silby's right up there with Notch on the cool list. (He's the guy who makes the Blitz Basic languages.) Bmax is worth every penny.
Farbs: I want you to prove this is not some sort of a prank if I'm going to take anything you say seriously.
EDIT: Oh, and just a neat statistic, MF has about 500 lines of code ATM.
You wanna give me $80?