Hey everyone! My name is Eduardo and I'm an indie developer from Argentina publishing under the name "Regulus Games". Recently I decided to make a series of short games using Haxe, working a few hours every day and trying to write a small blog post showing the progress made. I also wanted to get the game prototype to players ASAP (in order to balance stuff) and go from prototype to final release fast. The first game I'm working on does not yet have an official name- I've been calling it spaceship for lack of a better name and inspiration (will definitely look for a better name before it goes live- I promise!). It is an endless shoot em up (shmup) where the player tries to reach the end of the wave and later upgrades the ship to keep going. The game will be available for iOS and Android, as well as an online version. I don't think I'll be adding ads unless I see a location where it absolutely won't bother the user. In any case, any IAP would remove ads as well as giving something to the player. Since the game will be free, I'm still figuring out what to put into IAPs. So far I've thought about things to help the player advance faster, but I wouldn't want anything to be just premium (even cosmetics). I'll keep this devlog updated as well as the one on my website. Features: Endless shmup Plenty of upgrades Procedurally generated levels with varying difficulty settings The prototype is ready and can be played online here (It is usually updated at the time I post on the blog): http://regulusgames.com/spaceship-prototype/ Thanks for reading, I hope you like it, and please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!! (Love all of them ) -----------------Last Devlog Post---------------------------- Hey everyone, it's been so long since the last update on the spaceship game! Unfortunately, I've been caught up with some work as well as desperately trying to fix a couple of (frequent) crashes happening in mobile. I'll go into details for any other HaxeFlixel user later, but for now, onto the changes. I've added Tech Packages into the game: These will now be received throughout the different stages and can be unlocked with crystals. Once opened, these will offer high grade upgrades as well as the chance to get more crystals. They are hard to come by, but players should benefit greatly from opening these tech treasures. Mysterious objects flying in space Also implemented in this version are the equipment bonuses: those pretty colours the items display are an indication of their rarity. Each of them has one of the following random bonuses depending on it's how hard it is to come by: - Armor - Turn speed - Weapon damage - Cooldown reduction So HaxeFlixel... Let this be a warning to all who come after: apparently, you can't initialize Flixel-UI objects (and I assume this applies to all HaxeFlixel objects) in the variable declaration (like you would do in Java). So the following class will work on <strong>Flash</strong> targets, but crash with a false stack trace on neko and mobile devices (when being added to a state): Code: ... var _crashLover = new FlxUISubstate(); ... override function create() { add(_crashLover); ... Moral of the story, always, ALWAYS, initialize your objects during create(). What treasures does this box hold? Finally, since the mobile version is up and running, I'm opening subscriptions for mobile beta testers. To get drafted, simply subscribe to this list: http://regulusgames.com/become-a-beta-tester/ You'll get extra chances by following us on Facebook and Twitter! ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- Saturday 8/15 Yesterday I've been working on some visual tweaks as well as adding new assets. First of all, the ship has been improved for a better aerodynamic profile (tho there is no air in space). Here's a side by side comparisson: While the boxy look might inspire some confidence on some, I'm confident the new shape will stick with more people. I think it needs a different paint job tho. Bullets have also been updated to look a bit better, but I think they need to stand out more. I also added ramping difficulty so it gets more challenging as it goes. Here's how it looks like now: On the side, I've tested the game on a mobile device and it works great. Still need to sort things out like different aspect ratios, but performance wise it's coming great. So, for Phase 1, these are the things missing: - Asteroid art - Enemies art (at least 2 or 3 variants) - Healthbar - Sounds - Music Hopefully the game will be fully completed in 2-3 weeks, which would be awesome
Spaceship Prototype: New Assets Monday 8/17 ---------------------------------- Today (actually yesterday, since I'm writing this the day after) was asset day. I worked on updating the remaining placeholders as well as fixing a couple that could use some work. First off was adding the new enemies as well as the asteroids: I got around to making 3 kinds of enemy ships that I'll assign to different AIs. This will give more variety to levels. I'm pretty happy with how the asteroid looks and I'll probably be adding a new type of asteroid which would be a broken one so you could go through the empty part. I also tweaked a couple of existing assets: the ship's color scheme was changed as well as resizing it a bit- bullets are now brighter and the credits image is a bit more rounded. Check them out: I also made the HP bar into an asset but I still haven't implemented it ingame, so you'll have to check it next time I post an update. Here's how the game's looking now: As always, the prototype has been updated if you feel like shooting down some baddies.
Spaceship Prototype: Upgrades Tuesday 8/18 -------------------- Today's update is a very short one, as there is not much to show. I've been working on the upgrade interface and its assets. When a player finishes a level, he can use the credits earned to upgrade his ship and improve several stats. He can opt to equip more weapons at the expense of HP, or go for a nimble ship equipping lateral boosters. Here's a small preview of the items: These upgrades will come in different variety and will affect the way the player takes on the levels (that will also offer different variants). So no work that can be shown on the spaceship prototype- the online version has not been updated today. I think I'll probably won't have anything to update the prototype anytime soon, as this phase will probably break the game as it is. I'll have more to show tomorrow!
Spaceship Prototype: Interface Wednesday 8/19 -------------------- Super short update for the spaceship prototype today: not much to show, been working on the upgrade scene. The layout is looking good and there's just a few assets missing here. There should also be a couple of pop-ups to prompt the user which weapon he wants to equip and displaying it's stats. I started making a Flixel-ui layout, but I don't think it works with what I wanted to achieve. Probably it's just that I don't know how to do it. Ended up coding the whole screen. I'm still a bit sceptical it will look good with everything implemented, but I'll see as it develops. For now, what do you think of it?
Spaceship Prototype: Flixel-UI Thursday 8/20 ---------------------------------- I finally made Flixel-UI do (more or less) what I wanted: Today was a good day. After hours of fighting with the XML and the plethora of config options it has, it's working... sort of. I'm concerned by a few things that aren't working, such as points configuration (super important when it comes to mobile devices with variable screen sizes) and... this: I'm not sure what's wrong since both buttons' configurations are exactly the same. But there must be something I'm doing wrong (hopefully). I need to fix it, but I also need to keep moving with the game- I still haven't coded the equipment part. I also need a pretty font: I feel the standard Flixel font is not cutting it. Hopefully it'll be less than a week until the spaceship prototype is feature complete: then I'll have to test it on iOS and Android for release. Stay tuned!
Spaceship Prototype: Weapons, missions, everything, nothing Friday 8/21 ---------------------------------- Today there's going to be a super long post, with no screenshots or preview. The reason for this is that while I was working on the Upgrade UI for the Spaceship Prototype, I got carried away with defining the weapons and how they were generated. AAAAAANNDDD... while working on that, I once again got carried away and started defining level types. So in the end, I did a bit of UI, a bit weapons, and a bit of levels. But I didn't do much of anything and I feel a bit bad about that So, when the player finishes equipping his ship, he then moves on to the level selection: The further the player goes, the harder the missions will get. This goes hand in hand with ship upgrades: How the player equips his ship will affect which missions he decides to take on. So far, I have come up with the following mission types: Asteroid Fields These levels will test the player's endurance, being longer than the others and presenting a high number of asteroids to dodge every time they come. Enemy presence is low however, so players won't have to focus on them as much. Comet Debris While Asteroid Fields present an endurance challenge, Comet Debris levels test the players' reflexes, bombarding them with relentless waves of high velocity obstacles. Be sure to have a nimble ship if you expect to survive these levels. Enemy presence should be minimal or non-existent. Pirate Raids When travelling the dangerous, vast space, it is not uncommon to come across a pirate raiding party heading to their objective. Here, the player will be faced with hordes of enemies, so be sure to equip good weapons or high armor to take them on. If you manage to go through a pirate raid and make it victorious, you should see your balance greatly favored. Pirate Controlled Sectors: Space pirates always honor their most ancient tradition: To claim all for themselves, even if there is nothing to claim. Pirate Controlled Sectors are often of no particular interest, and nothing of interest usually happens. But expect to encounter some hostile patrols in these areas. Nebulae: Highly dangerous, nebulae are brimming with electric storms, treating your sensors with an exquisite EM buffet. Expect little to no warning of incoming dangers when navigating these extremely dangerous sectors- and hope your sensors are still operational after leaving them. So that's it for today. I know I should be focusing on something to show, as well as updating the spaceship prototype, but defining the kind of levels was very much needed. I'm trying to fight the feature creep, but I don't know how long I'll last. Aww, who am I kidding? I love screenshots (who doesn't?) so I made this: Higher accuracy? Check. Lower cooldown? Check. Definitely an upgrade. These screenshot features different levels of the Spread weapon upgrade. Okay, we are doing it again! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read ye olde weapon profile here: Weapons Hot!) SPREADER The Spreader (also known as the Vulcan) is a low cooldown, low accuracy gun. These are constructed with little regards to one's safety (and others), pushing the limits when it comes to heat dispersion and mount stability. Banned in most armies because of it's tendency to friendly fire, the Spreader is the weapon of choice by madmen and destroyers alike. Enjoy the cacophony of sounds and the pretty lights when firing this piece of equipment. Don't expect to hit your target tho.
Spaceship Prototype: More Interface Saturday 8/21 ---------------------------------- Another day with not much to show. Working on backend functions is tough... you spend a whole day on generation features, programming event handlers and finding out how to improve visuals. Next thing you know, your mom thinks you are a good for nothing and kicks you out... The Spaceship Prototype- is it correct to still call it like that? I think I'm way past that point... Anyway, the game is coming along nicely. I've finished the Upgrade screen is ready, which means you can now equip and swap items to your heart's content. This means a prototype update is in the works! So very soon you'll be able to try out all the configurations by yourselves! Obligatory preview gif coming up: Let's move this around a bit. Full cooldown reduction! Hope you are having an amazing weekend!
Thanks noteatino! The prototype is live online, but I'm hoping to release the full version very soon. Would you rather try it on Android or iOS? (I realise this is the iOS forum, but I have to ask: I have an iPad at home but use my Android in my everyday life ). Cheers! Hope you are having a great weekend!
Spaceship Prototype: Number Crunching Thursday 8/27 ---------------------------------- Hey everyone! I'm sorry I was away this past couple days- I've been wanting to post for a long time but... life. Anyway, I've been working on balance, trying not to make items OP nor feel underwhelming. There are lots of spreadsheets and boring numbers, so I won't show that. The Spaceship Prototype has not seen much progress in terms of graphic enhancements, but the items now have real values (and not bogus ones). Hopefully there will be a new playable prototype update before the next week: can't promise much tho, I'm a bit obsessive with all things numbers and formulas. Here's the same interface pic you saw some time ago but no longer mocked: Dual weapon has 2 beams... seems correct...
Spaceship Prototype: Progress, weapons, TODOs Saturday 8/30 ---------------------------------- Super important post today: the progress mechanic is ready. I've been adding a lot of logic to the spaceship prototype so that players can feel what it's like to advance and test different weapon configurations. Right now, the prototype is set the following way: every two waves the difficulty is kicked up a notch, spawning more enemies and asteroids. As you go, you get better items to equip in the shop: they will provide you with more damage, armor or speed. These get better as you go, increasing the bonus each item gives. The purchase logic has not been implemented (and doesn't have much sense right now since the game is set to increase the difficulty really fast) but I didn't add the update on the bars on top which reflect the current ship values. Unfortunately, I didn't implement the different level types I talked about before (read here). Also the baddies HP does not increase as you advance, so you end up one-shooting them- but IT IS A PROTOTYPE (I will fix it soon tho, as this is less and less of a prototype and more of a complete game every day ). The level transitions are quite rough, just jumping from one to the other without any warnings. I have something in mind for this, but as you can tell, this is not my priority right now. The weapon mechanism is also different from what I want it to be. Right now, the weapons work this way: Weapons are all fired sequentially, in the order you equipped them. The average is then calculated and that average is divided by the amount of weapons your ship has. So, say you have 1 BEAM I weapon equipped, you'll have a 0.8s cooldown. If you equip a second BEAM I, the cooldown would now be: (0.8 + 0.8) / (2 * 2) = 0.4 Which makes perfect sense, since you are firing 2 weapons in alternation. But what if you equipped a SPREAD I, which has a cooldown of 0.5s: (0.8 + 0.5) / (2 * 2) = 0.325 Now that makes no sense at all, since the BEAM is firing before it's cooldown time and the SPREAD is being idle for over 0.1s. In order to fix this, I'll let the player fire weapons as soon as they come online, doing alternating shots for same model weapons and firing whenever each is off cooldown. So, enough words and values, here's a gif of progress in action: Disregard safety, acquire weapons! You can test this progression right now, as the prototype has been updated! (YAY, achievement complete). So, what's next? The feature creep bites me every day, but I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. So here is the SORT OF TO-DO LIST: Upgrade Scene: - Make it prettier (mainly the background and some font sizes) - Purchase logic (take money from the user) - Status bar logic (show ship values updating, probably based on a log scale) StarMap Scene: - StarMap (yep, nothing here yet) Game Scene: - Levels - Proper difficulty increase - Enemy's HP - Nice transitions - Some enemies shoot back (it is a bit boring right now) and move around - Sounds (In space, nobody can hear you scream, but this is ridiculous)
Spaceship Game: Shop Status Bars The shop of the spaceship game (no longer a prototype as of now!) has received a small facelift: The status bars that indicate how much of each stat you have are now functional. The background also had some stars added to it, so as to make it prettier. Here is the preview: Pretty stars and pretty bars Math time! The bars should represent the increase in player move speed, health and firepower. Setting the values for the bars was a bit problematic: equipping small items at the start should be reflected as clearly as well as better ones as the player advances. Since values don't increase linearly, the scale was an issue... first let's say the lowest value of an item is 25 and the highest 400. If the maximum amount of items you can equip is 4, then the maximum possible value is 1600. Therefor, if we take the simplest of formulae: TOTAL_VALUE / MAX_VALUE, we see that: 25 / 1600 = 0.016 400 / 1600 = 0.25 If the player were to equip an item and see a value increase of a little over a pixel (on a 100px status bar), he'd be highly discouraged from ever equipping it again. And that increase he just had, as little as it may seem, might make a huge difference for the current stage of the game. Logarithmic scale works well in situations where values don't increase linearly. So, the formula should now be: LOG(TOTAL_VALUE) / LOG(MAX_VALUE). The result is: LOG(25) / LOG(1600) = 0.44 LOG(400) / LOG(1600) = 0.81 In this case, it scales WAY too fast. A single low value item represents (visually) almost 50% of the maximum available power. One fourth of it is set as almost 80%. This means that the values in between and after, won't see much change. I then came up with the following solution: An average between both. In this case, the formula should be: (TOTAL_VALUE / MAX_VALUE + LOG(TOTAL_VALUE) / LOG(MAX_VALUE)) / 2. This way, the high values of the Log formula would be countered with the low values of the percentage formula and the low increase in difference would be more easily reflected. The result: f(25) = 0.23 f(400) = 0.53 Of course, since the logarithmic formula is a component, values will scale fast at first and slower as the player reaches the maximum. Stay tuned for more updates on this free game (coming very soon!). Play the prototype by clicking on the Labs' Spaceship link on the top menu and subscribe to the mail list to be informed when the game comes out.
Spaceship Game: Increased Enemy Resistance Tuesday 9/1 ---------------------------------- The spaceship game is coming along nicely: today I implemented different enemy AIs. As of now, baddies will take a shot at you every now and then. They will sometimes aim for you and sometimes just fire forward. Most of the time, they won't pose much of a threat, but in big amounts they can be serious trouble. Some random baddie shooting forward Another nice upgrade of the demo (game, prototype, demo... what to call it now?) is that different mission types have been implemented. They can't be selected, but will shuffle randomly every time you change back to the upgrade scene. So great news everyone! The online version has been updated and can be played right now. I really want to release the mobile version soon. Play now: http://regulusgames.com/spaceship-prototype/
Spaceship Game: Destructible Asteroids and Health Bar Hey guys! Today's update to the spaceship game comes with a very requested feature by the game testers: Destructible asteroids. Most of the guys who tested the game insisted that being able to break asteroids into tiny pieces would feel rewarding: And indeed it is! Of course, doing so is no easy task and only those players with the most powerful of weapons will be able to break through. I guess that works to... The health bar in the HUD has also been (finally!) replaced: It now shows not only the percentage of health the player has, but it will also change as the player gets more armor. Also, it's really nice that it is no longer a bland flat bar. No spaceship game update today, sorry! I need to fix a couple of things before I do so.
Spaceship Game: Enemy drops, progress and crystals Tuesday 9/8 ---------------------------------- Super long update post for the Spaceship Game! I've been working on recording player progress as well as balancing prices and values. A lot of backend fixes and number crunching as well as some tweaks were made. Today, the focus will be on enemy drops! Since destroying baddies is part of the game, I wanted to make it feel meaningful: you are not just killing them for fun- you are doing it for the sweet, sweet rewards. As such, when totalling an enemy ship (be it with bullets or old fashioned head on collisions) you'll be receiving one of these: Let's smash some baddies and plunder their rewards! Credits Good ol' hard space cash, credits will help you upgrade your ship with basic weapons. They are the universally accepted currency, even in those places where "currency" is loosely defined. Life No shoot em up would be complete without a life drop to repair your feeble ship (since you are most likely going to go full ham on weapons and disregard armor). These... ehh.... nanobot clouds, yes, will fix your plating, reinforcing the seems and replacing broken panels. Crystals Crystals are a rare occurrence in space. While most crystalline like stones have known origins, these green gems' are a mystery. As such, they are highly valuable and often traded at high prices. High tier weapon dealers, as well as tech specialists, only trade in this currency. Tech Package Tech Packages are high value cargo, often smuggled by pirates without anyone's knowledge- sometimes even their own. They are tightly sealed and the only way to open them and peek inside will be hiring a Tech Specialist for a small amount of crystals. On the backend, progress is now saved and (sadly for some), purchases now cost credits (meaning you won't be able to equip at a whim). Progression has been slowed to reflect this. The demo has been updated! Go play it here: http://regulusgames.com/spaceship-prototype/
Spaceship Game: Mission Status Monday 9/14 ---------------------------------- Hey everyone! It's been a super crazy week and one I haven't had much time to work on the spaceship game. I've been trying to fix a super lame bug with the endgame screen where the text was incorrectly placed. I've been way too long to fix a simple issue, and I feel really embarrassed by it. Anyway, into the game advances! I've added a very small detail to the game scene: as the level starts, the ship slowly moves into the scene before allowing the player to control it. Getting ready for action! As the player completes the level, the ship also moves into position to indicate this to the player and allow him to relax. A screen then debriefs the player on the results. In case the player doesn't complete the mission successfully, they'll be forced to go back a light year. Let's go away! I'm still missing a mobile test on this last version and then to send it to a few couple people and upload it to the site (so no update yet!)
Spaceship Game: Open Beta Season Hey everyone, it's been so long since the last update on the spaceship game! Unfortunately, I've been caught up with some work as well as desperately trying to fix a couple of (frequent) crashes happening in mobile. I'll go into details for any other HaxeFlixel user later, but for now, onto the changes. I've added Tech Packages into the game: These will now be received throughout the different stages and can be unlocked with crystals. Once opened, these will offer high grade upgrades as well as the chance to get more crystals. They are hard to come by, but players should benefit greatly from opening these tech treasures. Mysterious objects flying in space Also implemented in this version are the equipment bonuses: those pretty colours the items display are an indication of their rarity. Each of them has one of the following random bonuses depending on it's how hard it is to come by: - Armor - Turn speed - Weapon damage - Cooldown reduction So HaxeFlixel... Let this be a warning to all who come after: apparently, you can't initialize Flixel-UI objects (and I assume this applies to all HaxeFlixel objects) in the variable declaration (like you would do in Java). So the following class will work on <strong>Flash</strong> targets, but crash with a false stack trace on neko and mobile devices (when being added to a state): Code: ... var _crashLover = new FlxUISubstate(); ... override function create() { add(_crashLover); ... Moral of the story, always, ALWAYS, initialize your objects during create(). What treasures does this box hold? Finally, since the mobile version is up and running, I'm opening subscriptions for mobile beta testers. To get drafted, simply subscribe to this list: http://regulusgames.com/become-a-beta-tester/ You'll get extra chances by following us on Facebook and Twitter!
