[Original Game] EfC - Escape from Castle

[ThomasSeban]

Hi,

this will be hopefully my compo entry for coding competition 2013. It's my first opengl es game and at moment not very playable. As my graphics skill are low, i will use a simple tileset, simple colored meshes. I have some graphics glitches by playing, that i have to fix. You can rotate the scene with shoulder buttons and/or shift + dpad, reset view by pressing "r" key.

The goal will be escaping from a castle, by making some quests, killing enemies and find a way out from my castle.



Planned features:

- More switches,

- hidden doors

- hidden rooms

- enemies

- quests

But all will first on a basic level, i try to get first a functional gameplay.

12.02.2013 - New Version

- Support OpenGL ES Culling Mode, which reduce texture drawing

- Replaced arch graphics

- Written my own model parser

- Rewritten level definition file

But bad news. I had not enough time getting a working game play.

15.02.2013 - New Version

Now with doors and switches to unlock doors. Not really a game play, but you have more to do, to get the exit room

Thomas

16.02.2013 - New Version

Faster start, optimized precalculation of normals

efc.pnd

 

[atari_afternoon]

Thanks

 

[Neelix]

Interesting... I look forward to seeing this when more of the features have been implemented.

Some thoughts:

I'm not sure how useful the view rotation is going to be, or how useful you plan it to be. Given the default view though I'd recommend changing which axis is on the shoulder buttons, as it would seem to be the least useful axis to be the easiest to manipulate.

Should camera angles be restricted to above the floor?

There are no floors under the walls.. this makes the leading edges look odd...

The flicker glitches seem to go away when there are no horizontal surfaces being rendered. (see attached screenshot for example)

- Neelix

 

[ThomasSeban]

Thanks for testing. The view rotation is only for debugging at moment, maybe i can use it for some quests, i don't know.

The flicker glitches are very strange. I'm developing the game on PC by using the ARM OpenGL ES 1.1 libraries and there i have never any flicker glitches. Only on pandora, but not on all compiled program versions.

Thomas

 

[Neelix]

I took a whole bunch of screenshots while it was flicker glitching... I managed to capture several glitched frames. I can attach some images if you like, perhaps they can help you figure out what is going on?

Perhaps the oddest thing is why they don't happen in the starting room but they do happen elsewhere.

- Neelix

 

[ThomasSeban]

Adding new version, see first post. But i have not enough time for getting a working gameplay to competition end.

Thomas

 

[Neelix]

Oh good, I was hoping to see another build of this.

I like the new arches. I notice the flicker glitches are gone too.

It's a pity you weren't able to get any game play elements in... It feels like there should be a puzzle to solve. Perhaps how to open an exit in the exit room...

I notice that the player's arms have a tendency to disappear into the arches if he walks too close to them.

I gotta say though, The level looks pretty odd when viewed from below now - invisible floor

- Neelix

 

[ThomasSeban]

Thanks, for response and testing.

The glitches are gone by doing nothing. I have no idea why it happens or not. The render code hasn't changed, only the models, but that are simple triangles.

The invisible floors comes from culling mode, in this mode only triangles in counter clockwise drawing order are displayed, so from above the floor, all triangles are drawn, from below there will be invisible. You can see the same effect in arches, from below you see only some faces, not all.

Thomas

 

[ThomasSeban]

15.02.2013 - New Version

Now with doors and switches to unlock doors. Not really a game play, but you have more to do, to get the exit room

Toogle switch with "B" - button if you are near by them.

Thomas

efc.pnd

 

[Neelix]

Nice!

It was actually pretty straight forward for me, since I memorised the level layout, so knew exactly where to go, and had decided to explore the entire level in the new version - found every switch with minimal backtracking.

You definitely need better door graphics though

Have you considered looking for graphics on OpenGameArt? http://opengameart.org/

I'm hoping you intend to continue development now that the compo is closed.

- Neelix

 

[ThomasSeban]

It seems to be you are the only one, who is testing my progress. I will definitely add more content to the game, more levels and better graphics, Next steps are better door graphics, lock/unlock animations, adding some enemies like creepers    and bats flying around. Shooting is already implement, try "A" button after first moving.

Thomas

Upload new version with faster starting. I had a cos/sin precalculation, which needs to long on pandora, on pc was it fast enough .

 

[Neelix]

Ahh, the reduced loading time is good. with the earlier versions I was sometimes unsure if it was actually going to start. (though it always did after a while)


The shooting mechanism is interesting, the most notable thing about it (other than that the current lack of any character animation has them coming out of the character's chest) is that the 'bullets' are slower than the character... you can walk through them and then they hit you in the back. In fact if you shoot while moving, the bullets emerge from the back and float behind the character.


I've also noticed that if you leave a room while there are bullets in the air, they freeze in place until you re-enter the room, at which point they continue where they leave off.


I also noticed that there is no collision detection on open doors.. the character can walk right through them.


One thing I liked was that you changed the L and R rotation triggers to rotate around the vertical axis. This makes far more sense to me than the previous arrangement.


In any case I expect that you'll get a lot more people trying it out now that the compo is over.


It probably wouldn't hurt to put it up on the repo marked as a beta either.


- Neelix

 

[dummi]

could be an interesting game when finished. Feels like a dungeon crawler(Meritous style). Is it right that there is only one switch for a door currently? I found a second door but no switch. Maybe some hints would be good. A lot of rooms but don't know what to do. The missing collision detection at open doors is okay for me. There are enough corner to stuck.

 

[ThomasSeban]

Latest PND should have three 3 doors, one in "START" room, one in "C5R5" and last one in room "C1R1". "START" unlocks door in "C5R4", "C5R5" unlocks door in "C2R1" and "C1R1" unlocks "C4R5", door before "EXIT" room. If between starting program and displayed competition logo longer than 1-2 seconds, than it is an older version, maybe I have forget to upload it.

@Neelix

New version has faster bullets, so you can't longer hit your self, but will be an nice feature, or? At moment, i have a "play list" for each room, so i you change the room, all animations stops. This behaviour will be corrected, i have to implement a global "play list".

Collision detection for doors is more complicated. When door is open or closed, this are simple rectangles, in animation sequence i have to calculate a rotated rectangle and than check collision with players rectangle. This needs more time to implement.

Thomas

 

[dummi]

What i think that the game have a big labyrinth but with only three puzzles. Im excited to see the first enemies.

 

[ThomasSeban]

I'm working on this game, but implementing billboards make me crazy. I need them to display text at objects, like hints or dropped items on floor. It looks like, that i have to rewrite my camera system, getting it working.

Thomas

PS.: Thanks for voting, i had expected 0 votes for this unfinished game.

 

[graupelschauer]

Does the link from the release thread lead to an old version? I did not find a way to shoot and the game needed at least 20 secs to load. Anyway, nice game could be fun with some additional features. Currently it should at least tell you that you have reached the exit and won Maybe with the time needed, to compare score with others?

Is there anything generated or is the dungeon layout always the same?

 

[ThomasSeban]

Thanks for response. The dungeon layout is the same at moment. Maybe in future i will implement random dungeon generator.

Next planed steps are:

- Billboarding

- Enemies and collision detection

- Hidden rooms

- Treasure with unlock keys, which drooped by enemies

Thomas

 

[ThomasSeban]

Hi,

i upload a new version with some changes:

• Added Billboards
• Added screen aligned text which is shown if the player is near by an item, have some problems with texture, sometimes character lines is not shown.
• New Teleporter to Level 2, which is only a placeholder level

Now I'm working on enemies, faster object drawing and a better collision detection.

Place 8 by user and 6 by jury voting, wow that great, never thought, that i get so high ranking. Thats great and a big motivation.

Thomas

efc.pnd