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Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

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Last edited by Plasma Captain on Tue Oct 11, 2022 18:50, edited 7 times in total.
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

Oh wow! This is a neat concept! I haven't played it yet, but by watching the video I would suggest adding a health bar for the boss. Will post later when I play it.
GoldenRishi
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Post by GoldenRishi »

Plasma Captain wrote:Image

Bomberman Tower (Beta)

First of all, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :pumpkeen

Secondly, what is this?

In order to relieve stress from working so much, I decided to work some more and make a game in a couple of months. I only got half of it done. It's called Bomberman Tower.

Image

Bomberman Tower is a Bomberman-style roguelike platformer. It's like an innovated spiritual sequel to Pocket Bomberman. The game revolves around platforming your way through expansive labyrinths, placing bombs and destroying monsters. You can even place bombs in the air and use them as platforms.

1.) Did you do the graphics? The graphics are really nice. The music works well with the game.

2.) What engine is this programmed in? (General curiosity.)

3.) Is there any way to do full screen mode?

4.) Rogue-like games aren't my favorite, so I can't really critique that, lol, but as you mention, the jumping/running mechanics are a bit off, not horribly so. But enough to make a good number of the precision jumps you want the player to do feel very unfair. Bomberman feels like he's walking on ice sometimes but jumping through 100 mile winds other times. It's something you'll have to play with in order to get the mechanics of the character feeling just right. Otherwise a lot of the jumps in the game and platforming are genuinely too hard unless you're the dev who's spent several months playtesting and getting good at the game. =P



But over all, I'd like to say that this is a nice amount of progress for only a few months.
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Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Thank you both.

Yes, I made everything you see and hear in the game from scratch. The songs were based on songs from various Bomberman games; I mixed some of them together when covering them to lengthen and diversify them.

Um...

...Engine?...

Hahah. The game is programmed in Java, using the LibGDX library, which handles things like loading and displaying graphics, sounds, looping music, getting keyboard input, vectors, json file manipulation, etc. Basic generic low-level stuff, and the framework that allows it to run on various platforms (it can run on Android and iOS, for starters... if I was crazy enough to export it to those formats).

Everything else - movement, physics, collision detection, all of the AI, etc. - I programmed from scratch. I don't use other peoples' collision detection or physics systems, like Box2d or whatnot, because I prefer to have more-or-less complete control over how the game world operates. Working within someone else's rules just confuses and frustrates me.

And yes, you are now the fourth person to comment on the jumping physics, hahah. I started out mimicking Cave Story's physics, then toned them down a lot so they're like a more fluid version of Pocket Bomberman, kind of like Super Mario. But as I modified it, I left the air physics how I'd originally coded them... which is to say, there's no friction in the air, absolutely none.

When I play platformers, I have a habit of always pulling my jumps (i.e. if I run and jump right, I immediately start hitting left to precisely control where I land), so the problem in this design went entirely unnoticed by me until other people started playing it.

Thank you for noting it, the number of responses indicates that it's more of a problem than I'd imagined. I will try to fix it for the next version.

**********

On a side note, I've included a new download with a minor fix. There was a level chunk that would generate in stage (world) 2 that was almost impossible to climb without two bombs.
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Post by Levellass »

But does it have any cheats?
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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Post by GoldenRishi »

Plasma Captain wrote:Yes, I made everything you see and hear in the game from scratch. The songs were based on songs from various Bomberman games; I mixed some of them together when covering them to lengthen and diversify them.
That's really cool. You did all of this in only a few months? That's pretty amazing. Do you have professional training or have you been doing this a while?
Plasma Captain wrote: ...Engine?...

Hahah. The game is programmed in Java, using the LibGDX library, which handles things like loading and displaying graphics, sounds, looping music, getting keyboard input, vectors, json file manipulation, etc. Basic generic low-level stuff, and the framework that allows it to run on various platforms (it can run on Android and iOS, for starters... if I was crazy enough to export it to those formats).
I would call anything that supports a game an "engine." =P

I'm currently playing around with a similar enterprise (Although still very far from even a reasonable prototype) using C++ and SDL. I don't even know if I'll make a game, I may just make a 3 level demo.
Plasma Captain wrote: Everything else - movement, physics, collision detection, all of the AI, etc. - I programmed from scratch. I don't use other peoples' collision detection or physics systems, like Box2d or whatnot, because I prefer to have more-or-less complete control over how the game world operates. Working within someone else's rules just confuses and frustrates me.
100% agreed. Back when I used GameMaker, I used their pre-built one, but I was starting to phase out of that before I dropped my old fan game project a decade ago.
Plasma Captain wrote: And yes, you are now the fourth person to comment on the jumping physics, hahah. I started out mimicking Cave Story's physics, then toned them down a lot so they're like a more fluid version of Pocket Bomberman, kind of like Super Mario. But as I modified it, I left the air physics how I'd originally coded them... which is to say, there's no friction in the air, absolutely none.
My old physics engine I developed took a long time to get "right."

Anyways, good luck!
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Levellass wrote:But does it have any cheats?
Nope. I never really think about implementing cheats... just secrets and unlockable content and stuff... I think I abused cheats enough when I was a young child that I may have grown to dislike them. Maybe I'll put something in the next version, but if I do, the cheat(s) won't let you save any progress.
GoldenRishi wrote:That's really cool. You did all of this in only a few months? That's pretty amazing. Do you have professional training or have you been doing this a while?
Thanks. I started out with Game Maker back in 2003-ish, then worked my way up. I've just studied and practiced on my own over the years. I've released small, basic projects and demos over time, under various aliases, most of which are now offline. I'm one of those people who spends forever working on something and then never releases it... This is the first time that I set a deadline and actually tried to make something this complex happen this quickly. I'm surprised that I was able to get even half of it done...
GoldenRishi wrote:I would call anything that supports a game an "engine." =P
Yeah, I can never tell what people are referring to when they use that term, so I just tried to be as clear as possible. For the essentials, I use libraries. I have no interest in reinventing the wheel; I know some people do but for me, it feels like a waste of time.
GoldenRishi wrote:Back when I used GameMaker, I used their pre-built one, but I was starting to phase out of that before I dropped my old fan game project a decade ago.
Yeah, their hitbox and gravity systems were fine, as long as they were implemented properly. Toward the end of my run with Game Maker, I started writing my own movement scripts so that things would flush against or automatically move around walls.

As for the physics, I'll keep tinkering with it (mostly jumping and fitting through tight spaces) and watching people play. Fortunately I am in no shortage of people who are either bad at platformers or who just don't like these types of games. As long as they can maneuver around properly enough (i.e. their mistakes are no real fault of the game's), I think it's okay... After the next release, I'll take any more criticism into account for the more serious stuff that I'll end up using this for.
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Post by GoldenRishi »

Plasma Captain wrote:Thanks. I started out with Game Maker back in 2003-ish, then worked my way up. I've just studied and practiced on my own over the years. I've released small, basic projects and demos over time, under various aliases, most of which are now offline. I'm one of those people who spends forever working on something and then never releases it... This is the first time that I set a deadline and actually tried to make something this complex happen this quickly. I'm surprised that I was able to get even half of it done...
Yeah, I started out with GM around then, too, maybe a year earlier. I never really figured out the programming part (GML) until 2005 or so. I took some programming courses in high school. I learned the beginnings of C++ there, and it remains my favorite programming language, although I rarely program. I did a lot of programming in computational science in undergrad, but that was largely MatLab. In retrospect, I should have just coded my work in C++, but oh well. I'm probably going to practice coding in C++ by building some math libraries anyways. My first college programming course was in Java, which I never really fell in love with.

But yeah, I've basically taken a game-making break for about 10 years, so this is taking me a while to figure things out, lol.
Plasma wrote:Yeah, I can never tell what people are referring to when they use that term, so I just tried to be as clear as possible. For the essentials, I use libraries. I have no interest in reinventing the wheel; I know some people do but for me, it feels like a waste of time.
I use libraries as well, I am nowhere near dedicated enough (or have the time) to learn about serious hardware programming. So SDL it is for me. I'm going to be supplementing SDL with OpenGL as well though. So I'm learning a bit about OpenGL.

I would call an engine the complete libraries+code that let's you build and run a game, e.g. Source, Unity, Unreal Engine, etc.
Plasma wrote:Yeah, their hitbox and gravity systems were fine, as long as they were implemented properly. Toward the end of my run with Game Maker, I started writing my own movement scripts so that things would flush against or automatically move around walls.
Yes, GameMaker's not bad, but I always felt like it's better to program your own thing for your own purposes.
Plasma wrote: As for the physics, I'll keep tinkering with it (mostly jumping and fitting through tight spaces) and watching people play. Fortunately I am in no shortage of people who are either bad at platformers or who just don't like these types of games. As long as they can maneuver around properly enough (i.e. their mistakes are no real fault of the game's), I think it's okay... After the next release, I'll take any more criticism into account for the more serious stuff that I'll end up using this for.
Yeah, it's just stuff to keep in mind.
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Hi, people! I'm releasing a new version of the game. This version fixes the following things, from what I can remember:

* Physics are tighter. Please, please, please let me know if this is better!
* Fixed a glitch involving unlocking the characters while beating the demo.
* Spawn rate of the Drop enemy in Stage 1 is fixed (they weren't spawning enough before).
* Music volume is lowered.
* Probably other stuff, though I can't remember.

It also includes a detailed guide for basic gameplay as well as the first stage, including enemy, trap, and boss details and strategies.

If you've played the earlier version, please give this version a go. If not, this is totally a better chance than before to give the game a try!

Download Bomberman Tower 0.5.3

Q: Hey, jerk, why are you releasing it like this? Where are the other stages?
A: Sorry, to the one or two of you who might have cared! I don't have time to continue working on the game right now... This version is what I had completed by the time I stopped working on it, a couple of months ago. I'd actually implemented the third stage, complete with goals and music and everything, but it's

1) Missing the boss!

and

2) Not rigorously tested, so I dummied it out... Maybe it will be included in a later release.

I wanted to give people something better to play with since so many had trouble with the physics last time around. Please let me know if this tweak is better.
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Post by Roobar »

Oh wow! The physics are so much better now! Please implement a full screen mode.
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Wow, the first positive remark about the physics in over two months. I'll take this as a step in the right direction. :)

Somehow I completely missed the request for full screen last time and I can't believe I didn't think about it... I'll put it into the next version.
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Post by Levellass »

Gonna second that physics comment, it's darn tough to nail it.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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Re: Bomberman Tower (Beta) - Version 0.5.3

Post by Plasma Captain »

Mega-necro... sorry, I hope it's alright!

A new version has been released, 0.7.5, with a new world, bug fixes, difficulty fixes, and more (details in the first post)! Please try it. Happy Halloween!

Download Bomberman Tower v0.7.5!
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Re: Bomberman Tower (Beta) - Version 0.7.5

Post by troublesomekeen »

Sweeeeet. I love this game. Great to see an update!
(downloading...)
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Commander Keen in... Canteloupe Quest!
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