Snowman


Ziz

Advanced Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Messages
3,584
Hi guys,


after a long time (I think 1,5 years... time is really an asshole) I did some work for snowman.


Maybe you can remember it? 1,5 years ago it won the third price in a competition (first price was a Wars by b-Zar and second one Greyout from foxblock). And now it is back! I decided I should really finish some games before I start new ones. Especially as it seems, that soon™ (maybe two months™?) a new competition starts and I HAVE to win a pandora. :> Or even a third 16 GB sd card...


Snowman was my first (published) try of a 3d software renderer. Of course I did some things not optimal. I sorted the primitives in the 3d space on my own instead of using a zBuffer and I had no texture support. But it was the base for a rewrite of the 3d engine called sparrow3d (you may know).


However: After this long time I ported snowman back to the new engine sparrow3d and did some first optimizations and changes. The coins are now real rotating snowflakes, the snowman looks much better, the levels are brighter, the doors look better and I improved the font (it looks badder than it is in the video because of the bad compression of red color).


Still missing are:

  • new enemy animations
  • a new broom
  • complete new enemies
  • new levels (and deleting of some stupid old ones maybe)


Here is a video of the old levels with the already made changes:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MCk2z9EziIo?feature=oembed

Now I have one problem:


I have NO idea, what I could use as enemies animations. Rotating ellipses were fine for the old version, because they are easy and fast drawn, but it doesn't make any sense and the contour is to "flaky".


I thought about the "natural" enemies of snowmen, but in that case I only think of the sun and a blow drier. Maybe the spring, but how to animate the spring? With an easter bunny?


Or I could use the main characters of the competition where snowman got the third price. Then the snowman could fight against the greyout character, the Wars fighter, a yellow-pixeled ape and so one.


So, what are you thinking about the new style and especially about the new kind of enemies?


greetings,


Ziz
 
Since you seem to be using the traditional carrot-nosed snowman, an enemy bunny seems quite appropriate.
 
Easter bunny should be the boss - throws chocolate eggs at the snowman!


Hey! 2048 posts :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Maybe the spring, but how to animate the spring?
I'm assuming you mean a water spring, and not a metal spring? You could use a partical system?


Or a little fire guy (I attached aquick mockup). Could even make the flames particles

fireguy.png
 
In fact I meant the season spring... because spring melts the snow...


Hm, fire guy with fire particles... I'll think about it :)
 
Water drops are a good idea, actually. Rain will finish off a snowman far quicker than mere warm air.
 
+1 for flaming daemons! although mythical, so are animate snowmen
 
I stareted to redesign the enemies. I will post a screenshot or video, when I have better internet (e.g. at work on monday).


However as nobody seems to like the "use characters from competitive games" idea, I decided to try the "typical enemies of a snowman" idea.


I have implemented right now a glowing coal (but I am quite sure, it doesn't look like one ^^), a water drop (which fires water drops) and a sun (the bug blue tank is now a sun). All of them rotate like the snowman.


I plan to implement a dryer and a bunny next, but I need more ideas from you! The bunny will fire random color bullets ("eggs"). ^^ The bunny and the dryer will not rotate. The dryer could just "vibrate" when moving and the bunny could "hop" a bit.


greetings,


Ziz
 
Just wanted to post this video. Some changes are obviously:

  • new font
  • new enemy sprites
  • snow
  • mini map
  • (new) clouds
Not so obviously are new levels (I will show more later or you will just see at release) and two difficulties. I noticed, that (especially) the new levels were much too hard for not-ziz-people, so I decided to implement an easy mode, where you get more snow and don't have to start at zero at every new level. However, I will implement compo4all someday and then only the hard levels will count. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KF_oPosQ5mQ?feature=oembed

Now I just have to finish more levels, add a new enemy and have to wait for a new competition to release. ^^'
 
cool, looks awesome, I'll have another play of this... :)

I request compo4all scores for snowman, so we can compete to conquer the snow worlds!

_wb_ and I have done this for our games and can explain how to do it if needed
 
Thanks, but I already spoke with skeezix, so I know, how to do the implementation. Furthermore puzzletube even has ready to commit categories at the compo4all website, I "just" need to implement it to puzzletube. :)
 
Back
Top