GraLL - WIP Topic (Game Released. Check Other Topic)

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GraLL - WIP Topic (Game Released. Check Other Topic)

Post by nikki »

Image
Demo Released!
Click here for a download.
The demo is a bit outdated. Some features already added are not there. The demo might be very difficult to play, because I wanted to pack all the features into it. The Visual C++ 2005 runtime dependencies are required.

I've been working on a game since around October 26 (2006 of course :) ) and I thought it is time to put up a WIP topic about it. It is in the style of Chip's Challenge and Jumper 2, and its called GraLL.

Website
GraLL Website

Trailers
Trailer 1

Story
In the year 2047, scientists all over the world are competing to make the greatest robot. One company, Gravity Systems, had come up with an idea never thought of before. They thought that a robot, shaped like a sphere, would have no chances of loss of stability, and would have extreme maneuverability. So, the scientists of this company started working on this idea, and came up with a working prototype by 2054. They named it GraLL, an acronym for Gravity BaLL. The last two letters were capitalised because it looked better that way. They carried out every sort of test imaginable, and yet the chairman was not satisfied. He wanted a mega test, a test no other robot would be able to pass through. So, the scientists got to work again, and got the test ready by 2065. This test was riddled with traps, doors, keys, acid, crates, enemies and a lot of other things. There was only one thing left to do. Put GraLL in there and see what it would do. And you, the player, have to show them that. Can you do it?

Features Added Until Now
- A Player (rolling ball) with perfect physics using ODE
- Mouse or A and D to turn, W and S to move. Arrow keys can also be used.
- Q to look left, E to look right. Both to look back. It transitions to the new angle smoothly.
- Acid that kills the Player when he falls into it
- Crates that can be pushed around or into Acid to make bridges
- Invisible walls that never appear
- Appearing walls that are invisible at first, but appear when touched
- Bombs that explode and kill the Player when touched
- Moving Bombs that turn around when they touch an object. They can also
follow a path. Different segments of the path can have different speeds.
- Moving Platforms that turn around when they touch an object. They can also
follow a path. Different segments of the path can have different speeds.
They can help the Player go over large pits and gaps.
- Pits that the Player should not fall into.
- Doors of 3 colours (red, green, blue) that block the Player's path.
- Keys of 3 colours that must be collected to open doors.
- Gold Doors that, unlike normal doors, need ALL gold keys to be collected.
- Electricity
- Electric fields that need electricity
- Electric doors, that need electricity to open
- Switch pads that toggle electricity
- Timed switch pads that turn off electricity for a limited time
- Ice, on which the Player has zero friction
- One ways, through which the Player can pass from the green side, but not the red
- Speed boosts, that make the Player rotate 5 times his current speed
- Traps. After a Player passes over a Trap, a Bomb is created above it after some time
- Help boxes. When the Player enters a certain area, a help message or a tip can be
shown.
- A Main Menu
- Spikes. Don't touch
- Retracting spikes. Don't touch either. Has variable time intervals.
- Jump pads. Make you jump.
- Fans that blow the Player away.
- Transporters, that teleport you to a Receiver.
- And lots more that I was too lazy to type in. :)

Level editing is extremely easy. It uses Blender. First, the user creates the level, which is a mesh. He then exports this mesh to .mesh format. Then, he adds the different objects by appending them. Finally, he exports them to .NGF format. This format is loaded by the game.

The screenshots are in decreasing order of their age (older first). The older ones may not display some features already added, such as shadows.
Screenshots
Main Menu
Image

Traps, moving platforms, pits, bombs and crates
Image

Pushing crates and making bridges
Image

Running on a bridge of traps
Image

Moving on a moving platform
Image

One way doors
Image

Electric fields
Image

Switch pads turn of electricity
Image

Doors, keys, timed switches, speed boosts and moving bombs
Image

Open Sesame!
Image

Ice skating
Image

Appearing walls (the walls in front of the Player were not there before)
Image

Speed boost
Image

Retracting spikes
Image

Jump pads
Image

Shadows
Image

Believe me, the game looks better in action!
And please give me more ideas for obstacles etc.!


EDIT: I posted a video with extremely bad quality showing level editing here:-
GraLL Level Editing

Thanks!
:)
Last edited by nikki on Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:24 am, edited 27 times in total.
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Post by SuprChikn »

Very nice. Looking good already in stills, don't worry about that :)

I would suggest you add shadows though. At least cast by the GraLL and obstacles (without them, sometimes the GraLL kinda looks like it's floating or something).
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Post by nikki »

SuprChikn wrote:Very nice. Looking good already in stills, don't worry about that :)

I would suggest you add shadows though. At least cast by the GraLL and obstacles (without them, sometimes the GraLL kinda looks like it's floating or something).
Ok, I will add shadows, surely. Thanks for the suggestion. :) Currently, I am looking for gameplay ideas, like obstacles etc.
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Post by M »

coil springs and rubber bands ;) (or any other thing that makes the ball bounce)
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Post by nikki »

M wrote:coil springs and rubber bands ;) (or any other thing that makes the ball bounce)
Nice idea. Why didn't I think of thinking of it? :) It can be used to cover gaps or when one floor is higher than another.
Currently, I am working on spikes and and retracting spikes. I will add the jump pad (what I have named it) tomorrow (or today if the spikes don't take long).
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Post by irrdev »

The screenshots are referenced to a "dead link." :wink:
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Post by nikki »

irrdev wrote:The screenshots are referenced to a "dead link." :wink:
That's funny! It worked fine yesterday. I might have to change it to another host. Anyone knows of a good batch image upload host?
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Post by Kencho »

http://www.photobucket.com works fine for me :)
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Post by nikki »

Ok, just added two new features (I will put up screenshots later):-

- Spikes. Don't touch
- Retracting Spikes. Don't touch either. The spikes go into the floor and come back up with a pre-define interval. 3 paramters can be set from the level editor- firstTime, downTime, upTime. At first, the spikes are down. firstTime is the amount of time after which the spikes will rise the first time. downTime is the amount of time after which the spikes will rise every time except the first one. upTime is the amount of time the spikes stay up.

Now I will start work on the jump pad.

ps. I fixed the screenshots. :)
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Post by kneeride »

The pics are dark. I can't really see what's going on.
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Post by nikki »

kneeride wrote:The pics are dark. I can't really see what's going on.
It's ok for me. But maybe you're right. I will increase the ambient light. Thanks! :)
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Post by Jerky »

Catapults. You roll over it and it launches you up and back a ways. (ie. you lose progress).

Looks good.
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Post by nikki »

Jerky wrote:Catapults. You roll over it and it launches you up and back a ways. (ie. you lose progress).

Looks good.
Ok, I will see about that. Currently, I am working on jump pads. Thanks for the suggestion! :)

EDIT: I finished adding jump pads. I also updated the first post with screenshots of spikes and jump pads. The power of the jump pad is variable, and is set in the level editor.
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Post by PolyVox »

Looks really cool, though the screenshots also look too dark to me. Might just be my monitor though as I do have problems with it.

I think it's a cool concept and it looks like the technology is coming on well. My main question would be how dynamic and how big are the levels? It's hard to judge this from the screenshots but I guess you're just working on the technology at the moment. Maybe it would be possible to have multiple levels? The level above or below the current one could be drawn mostly transparent. Can you have bridges which extend oved a hazard like Lava when a switvch is pressed? I'm imagining this is more of a puzzle game instead of an action one but maybe i'm wrong - are you fighting people as well?

Are you releasing it for free? I think a game like this is really defined by how creative the levels are. If the level editing is really then you can probably find people to design some levels for you.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't expect blender to be the best tool for level design. I'd expect the level could be designed in 2D in a tile editor (as they are essentially flat) but rendered in 3D. Maybe this would make the level designers job easier? Also you need different block types, having one looks a little bland. But again this is just a matter of content creation.

Anyway, keep up the good work!
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Post by nikki »

esuvs wrote:Looks really cool, though the screenshots also look too dark to me. Might just be my monitor though as I do have problems with it.

I think it's a cool concept and it looks like the technology is coming on well. My main question would be how dynamic and how big are the levels? It's hard to judge this from the screenshots but I guess you're just working on the technology at the moment. Maybe it would be possible to have multiple levels? The level above or below the current one could be drawn mostly transparent. Can you have bridges which extend oved a hazard like Lava when a switvch is pressed? I'm imagining this is more of a puzzle game instead of an action one but maybe i'm wrong - are you fighting people as well?

Are you releasing it for free? I think a game like this is really defined by how creative the levels are. If the level editing is really then you can probably find people to design some levels for you.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't expect blender to be the best tool for level design. I'd expect the level could be designed in 2D in a tile editor (as they are essentially flat) but rendered in 3D. Maybe this would make the level designers job easier? Also you need different block types, having one looks a little bland. But again this is just a matter of content creation.

Anyway, keep up the good work!
Blender is a good level editor (from the experience I've had with it so far). Adding objects is very easy. The NGF exporter uses the logic properties of the object. The creator will not have to set any properties, just put the objects and export. It will be a strategy/puzzle/speed/skill game. Look at this screenshot of a level I made (it took 10 minutes to make totally):-
Link

In the start of the level, there is a line of moving platforms and a pattern of bombs above it. To pass, the Player has to move back and forth on the moving platforms. This will give you an idea of how the levels will be. In another level, there is a large line of moving bombs moving around. They follow the path to the exit, so the Player has to get in between two bombs and go in the correct speed. So, the level design is obviously a very important part in this kind of game. I don't think a 2D map editor is useful. Blender is good enough (and better than 2D editors).

The screen shots in the first post are from a test level that will not be in the game (its just for testing the obstacles).

Thanks for your suggestion and repy! :)

EDIT: I posted a video with extremely bad quality showing level editing here:-
GraLL Level Editing
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Post by Borundin »

Its looking great!

I bet it feels good to have gotten so far in your project :D Also nice to see a bit of the "not directly Ogre related" stuff such as level editing. Seems like you have a solid level / art pipeline going. This is often a sign of a mature project I would say.
Thanks for sharing and good luck!
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Post by PolyVox »

So is the level just a mesh? In that case I misunderstood - from your screenshots I thought the world was just built out of a 2D array of blocks and that it would be easier to edit these with a 2D editor. If your level is really a 3D mesh then obviously it makes sense to use a real 3D application.

Plus, if it's a mesh then maybe you can support level-above-level already? Or at least it could be added. Your levels can be much more free form involving ramps, spirals, etc?

Did you ever play kids games like Marble Madness or Screwball-Scramble? Depending how good the physics is in your game you could try mimicing some of the traps etc. If you're building on ODE or something that's probably not too hard...

Anyway, looks good!
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Post by yuriythebest »

looking very promising- as pointed out above better lights is a must.
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Post by denreaper »

What about a large gap (too large to jump) with a booster pad in front of it that has to be activated in order to clear the gap, so you have to get to a switch which has obstacles blocking it in order to activate the booster pad to continue on with the level. Also, looks great to the point of commercial platformer thus far! Good work!
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Post by nikki »

esuvs wrote:Plus, if it's a mesh then maybe you can support level-above-level already? Or at least it could be added. Your levels can be much more free form involving ramps, spirals, etc?
Yes, thats why I said Blender is good. You can have levels with ramps, spirals , any arbitary type of geometry, arbitarily complex. Much better than a 2D array of blocks. :)
Borundin wrote:Seems like you have a solid level / art pipeline going. This is often a sign of a mature project I would say.
That is mainly because of my game framework which is NGF (nikki's game framework). It manages GameObjects, Worlds (different scenes of the game, like level 1, level 21 or main menu), level loading and has a few other useful functions (calculations, encryption etc.). So, to see the level, you just need to export it from Blender. All the objects are created through a callback function called by NGF.
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Post by Aiursrage2k »

Looks good.

It would be cool to have springs (ala sonic the hedge hog).
http://www.free-games-online.net/grafik ... dgehog.gif

You might have something like a magnetic field (or wind) that blows you towards spikes, you have to apply a stronger force to evade them.
Last edited by Aiursrage2k on Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by nikki »

Aiursrage2k wrote:Looks good.

It would be cool to have springs (ala sonic the hedge hog).
http://www.free-games-online.net/grafik ... dgehog.gif
Jump pads (like springs) are already present. :)
esuvs wrote:Are you releasing it for free?
Yes, it will be free. I think I might even release the source code one day (don't be too sure though). :)

I am looking for game play element ideas (such as obstacles etc.). I have run out of ideas.
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Post by nikki »

Aiursrage2k wrote:You might have something like a magnetic field (or wind) that blows you towards spikes, you have to apply a stronger force to evade them.
Ok. I am thinking of how it will be implemented. I will start working on it today. Thanks for the cool idea! :)

EDIT: I finished adding fans (actually, I finished 3 hours ago). You can set the power and range in the level editor.
If you guys have more ideas, please tell me. Thanks! :)
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Post by nikki »

I have started working on the levels now. Levels can be made really fast. I finished making the 1st level (which is kind of a tutorial). Now, I will start on the 2nd level. If you have game play object ideas, please tell me. It will be included from the level which I am working on onward.
Eg. If I am working on the 5th level, and you give me an idea, it will be there only in levels after the 5th.

Thanks! :)
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Post by Sycle »

How about transit pipes (like Sonic, but they could look more like the ones in Futurama) that could move you about the level?

Or a 'gravity switch' or 'sticky mode' which would allow you to travel along the walls temporarily?
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