Vertigo - Arcade game

[amireh]

Hi guys! I'm not sure if my project is worthy of posting here, but it's the first game I ever release and I'm very excited about it

Vertigo is an arcade game that is completely free, open-source and cross-platform. I built it using Ogre and BulletPhysics. The UI and menus were fully made using Ogre overlays, tried to keep it simple. At the moment it's compiled only for Windows and OS X, but Linux binaries will be coming soon, hopefully this week, and a link to the code repo will be given once I clean it!

The gameplay in a nutshell
You are a probe which is set with 2 shields to protect from fire and ice drones, but only 1 shield is active at a time. You will engage zones, each of which might have a different game mode and different objectives, and you'll be briefed once you're in. You have to flip shields in time to protect yourself, and you can possibly move left and right to avoid some obstacles. It's a pure reflex game, a brain teaser

Gameplay trailer
The trailer shows all 4 game modes and 3 of the camera modes. And I made it HD, which took 3 hours to upload to YouTube using my laughable 2mbps Jordanian connection, so watch it in HD!!!
[youtube]6x6BfZNGabc[/youtube]

Screenies
You can see different states of the game in a couple of the zones below.





Links
Try it out! You can find everything at www.vertigo-game.com.

I hope you find it fun, and I'd love to hear any kind of feedback!

Edit1: added a few old screenshots
Edit2: made and linked YouTube video, added new screenshots, and made the post a bit prettier!!

[spacegaier]

Please provide a video or some screenshots here within in that thread to comply with the forum rules!

[jacmoe]

Really nice stuff!

[amireh]

Honestly, these shots are one of the lamest, I posted them in a hurry as a response to spacegaier's warning. Definitely my bad for not taking the time to make a proper post, I'm noob to this.

Request to post the best of my shots + a video in this topic again later today if that's ok (have to go to school now)!

[betajaen]

Request to post the best of my shots + a video in this topic again later today if that's ok (have to go to school now)!

Of course you can. It's your topic.

[jacmoe]

I really like your lame screenshots.
Can't wait to see what you're going to replace them with.

[amireh]

Check it out! I made an HD video just for you

Cheers guys

[spacegaier]

Wow, that is looking really good. Great visuals and good movie.

You deserved your mention in the front page news, we should published today!

[amireh]

Wow, that is looking really good. Great visuals and good movie.

You deserved your mention in the front page news, we should published today!

OMG, the grin was so wide now my face hurts I think if I was a bit green i'd look like that emoticon, thank you that's very motivating

On another note, I managed to achieve every visual detail in the game merely using multi-texture-units material passes and plain textures.. the whole project was done so I can learn more about Ogre in preparation for future projects, and honestly, I find the material scripts to be literally amazing.. all those "illusionary" effects you can achieve by creating multiple passes with rotation and waveforms, beautiful.

I used bump maps for the spheres in the beginning, but that had some very bad effects on some older machines I tested with, and I didn't know how to set fallback materials, since the bump mapping was achieved by using vertex shaders.. donno, I dropped it in the end, I think the game would look a lot better if I can make the spheres look better. Any tips on how to either set some fallback material behind the bump mapping, or how to achieve better looking spheres without the need for special models?

I also used ParticleUniverse, had some trouble with getting it to work on Linux and Mac but it was well worth the effort. The engine is well worth the cost IMO, especially for programmers like me who don't have the taste for creating pretty things, it's a life saver

Again, thanks a lot for being so nice

[avengre]

Well i'm not exactly sure what you're looking for in that.. but i might suggest

Code: Select all

material MyBallTexture
{
  technique SexyLookingTechnique   // Optional Name
  { 
     pass
     {
     }
  }
  technique FallBacks   // Optional Name
  {
    pass
    {
      texture_unit
      {
         texture myball.png
      }
    }
  }
}

It would try the first technique, if that didn't work it'd fall back to the normal fixed-function stuff. You can set schemes too in each of the techniques if you wanted.

Ie.

Code: Select all

material MyBallTexture
{
  technique SexyLookingTechnique   // Optional Name
  { 
    scheme HighQualityShader
     pass
     {
     }
  }
  technique FallBacks   // Optional Name
  { 
    scheme default
    pass
    {
      texture_unit
      {
         texture myball.png
      }
    }
  }
}

and then just set the scheme to use by

Code: Select all

mViewport->setMaterialScheme("HighQualityShader");

[Beauty]

I didn't play the game (only watched video + screen shots), but it's looking great !!
Thanks for publishing

[amireh]

I didn't play the game (only watched video + screen shots), but it's looking great !!
Thanks for publishing

watching the vid doesn't do it justice, it's in the adrenaline rush you get while playing it that counts!! :b

@avengre: I was doing something similar to what you suggested, except that I didn't try using schemes.. anyway, I just re-tested, and this time I took screenshots of the symptoms. The machine that exhibits this issue has an Intel GMA 4500M graphics card and the OS doesn't matter; I tried it on both windows and linux and it's the same.

This is a shot of the intro before using the material script that has the bump mapping technique:

This is what I see once I load the script (enter the zone/game)


Okay, going back to the intro screen we saw in #0


Update: I could swear that the problem was also produced when I ran the BumpMapping sample, but now I ran it 3 times and it's working fine, while my game's still isn't. This is interesting, it means the problem is in my own script, but that's funny because I adapted it from the Sample's one and it's working everywhere else. I'll go over it tomorrow, but if anyone has seen this problem before, I'm open for enlightenment. =D

Cheers,
amireh

[Beauty]

I tried the game (zip version) and suppose I found a bug.
After crash there is the text "you have lost" and can't restart the scene.
Even after exit by Esc and click to "resume". Then there again I see "you have lost".
I pressed several keys and the mouse buttons. Nothing happens.
For restart I need to change the level type.
This isn't nice.

Your game causes much stress ...

[amireh]

Actually, it's more of an inconvenience / bad UI design. I just forgot to add buttons to guide the player back to the zone screen or out of the current level. Also, the resume button should be hidden when you lose / win. It's not a bug, just not implemented but yes you can blame me. I've already fixed it locally, but it's gonna take a day or two to get the patch out.

I wouldn't call it stressful, it's just a teaser :p arcade games are fast and full of action, you usually don't play them for long sessions!
But anyway, the zones differ in difficulty/pace, you can skim through them and see which you like most .. also, you can try using a different camera mode that might be easier on your eyes (press 1-4 for camera modes as the overlay tells u)

Thanks for the feedback, cheers

[EricB]

I haven't played it yet, I have a deadline due tonight, so no fun for me

If Proun and Ikaruga had a baby, it'd look like vertigo

[amireh]

I haven't played it yet, I have a deadline due tonight, so no fun for me

If Proun and Ikaruga had a baby, it'd look like vertigo

lool, I really dig the disclaimer on this page for Ikaruga, haven't played the game tho! and I've seen Proun today, and it's jaw-dropping! Especially the track & terrain.. I had a similar idea when I started Vertigo, until I realized I fail at the maths behind generating such geometry, so I sticked to plain tubes :b

When you're free (good luck on that deadline!) and get the time to play Vertigo, beat the zones, and think it's too ez, I'll send you my own "hardcore" zones, and we'll see then..

[amireh]

Hi guys, I just want to announce that Vertigo is now finally released for Linux too! Download it at the main site http://www.vertigo-game.com in the Downloads section.

I've tested it on two machines running Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 and seemed to be working just fine. The archive contains the dynamic libraries (.so) and running the game is done by invoking a bash script that manipulates the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to tell it where to find those libraries. I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone who tries out the linux version.

Cheers

[amireh]

Hello guys,

Vertigo source code git repository is now online. You can check it out at https://github.com/amireh/Vertigo

Code reviews, flames, and even rockets are welcome!! On a sidenote, this is the first step towards getting the game into the official Ubuntu and Debian repositories

Cheers,
amireh

[amireh]

Hi guys,

I'd like to announce that a blog for Vertigo's updates and news has been launched. You can find it at: http://blog.vertigo-game.com stay tuned for updates! It provides RSS feeds as well.

[scriptkid]

It looks very nice. What i am wondering though, i why you say "2 shields to protect from fire and ice drones". To me it looks you don't have to avoid the drones, but have to 'eat' them? Or are there multiple game modes?

Anyways well done

[spacegaier]

Depending which shiled you have switched on, you can pass through one sort of obstacles ("eat them"). You just have to take care not to hit an object with the wrong shield enabled.

And yes: There are mutliple game modes (modes, where there is only one fixed shield or none at all or where you cannot move to the left or right, ...).