At 11/7/09 02:28 AM, big-jonny-13 wrote:

At 11/7/09 12:47 AM, Goat-Man wrote: This is for the cell stage, based on the hydra genus.

Interesting design, though in reality hydra's are way too big compared to cells, as well as hydra's are not located inside a human body/cell.

Is it possible to bodge the creature so that it's some form of virus running through the body?
To be fair, I think it's fine to pull ideas off of microscopic organisms, rather than being literally true, since most people won't have a clue what they look like.

... OR if we did our level "text book style" we could have pop-up labels that inform the player what the organisms are meant to represent (just a name), as well as giving them the opportunity of blowing 'em all up and getting a medal for it.

But like I said, it's easier to get ideas off the mechanisms of the cells, rather than a full blown representation.

To Goat-man: I like the stream-lined look of your guy! If it's a tentacle based organism, you could flip it vertically and try attacks that way (effectively two concepts in one), or adding more tentacles so it's more ... creepy.

At 11/7/09 06:47 AM, TurkeyOnAStick wrote:
... OR if we did our level "text book style" we could have pop-up labels that inform the player what the organisms are meant to represent (just a name), as well as giving them the opportunity of blowing 'em all up and getting a medal for it.

Outside of the realm of group level concepts, I think it would be interesting to have a bestiary of all of the enemies, with descriptions from the artists who made them, optionally. In order to get the enemy in it, you'd have to destroy a certain amount of them.

At 11/7/09 06:47 AM, TurkeyOnAStick wrote: To Goat-man: I like the stream-lined look of your guy! If it's a tentacle based organism, you could flip it vertically and try attacks that way (effectively two concepts in one), or adding more tentacles so it's more ... creepy.

I agree with TOAS in this aspect. A tentacled creature would make a good addition to the enemy roster. If you added more tentacles, it could effectively whip it's tentacles at the players in an attack, giving something new and interesting to the game, because projectiles are just overdone, but a tentacle attack would be new and innovative. It could be a stationary enemy, attached to the wall by it's back tentacle, or it could be propelled forwards by it's back tentacle. Either way, let's have a creature attack with it's tentacles.

this is quite funny pms sent people added we want mindchamber to be leader obviously but we need a response, hes probably really busy and i dont know who has msn and who only has aim lol this is working great

POST APOCALYPTIC TEAM
Get on AIM today troops, we gots shite to disscuss.

Maybe once (or even before) level leaders are chosen, each team can make their own progress thread and leave this main thread for 'global' updates. Otherwise it's going to get way too confusing.

Plus that way it will be easier to keep track of individual level progress. If any particular level's thread dies or isn't seeing as much activity as it should, Kraig will know that he needs to kick some asses, or inject some life into it by recruiting new people to keep it rolling.

...just a thought :P

name them consistently:
[shump] Steampunk Level
[shump] Surreal Level
etc.

IS there going to be a steampunk level after all? Because I would love to jump on the bandwagon for that.

aight ,

to the steampunk level people fishing for ideas and concepts.
take a sec to look over some steampunk basics. it will make your pieces more believeable

http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_stea mpunk/

IMPORTANT!

MindChamber has agreed (after much intense negotiation) to be the team overseer, the leader of the team leaders.

As well as being part of the steampunk level team he will keep all the team leaders on the same page and he has some really great ideas about the way the teams need to be structured for this projects best shot at success.

Transform and roll out!

At 11/7/09 03:48 PM, BlackmarketKraig wrote: Transform and roll out!

Can I be a Beast Wars transformer instead of a regular Transformer?

At 11/7/09 02:27 PM, ReNaeNae wrote: Maybe once (or even before) level leaders are chosen, each team can make their own progress thread and leave this main thread for 'global' updates.

I was going to ask about this too, for basically the same reasons ReNaeNae pointed out.

ATTN: TEAM SURREAL

Okay, so, we haven't really had anybody step up for the leadership position yet, and ReNaeNae said since I've been sending out PMs I should just run with it, so, for the time being, I"m going to be acting as temporary team leader. I still want either UltraPitchFork or zooominsh to act as co-captains or at the very least technical advisors since they have actual exeprience working as artists on games, but, if all else fails we'll just do this the hard way by trial and error.

Once we get the okay, I'll start a Surreal Team thread for updates, discussion, and general communication.

In the meantime, I want everybody to create an account with MSN (hotmail or live.com) and download MSN Messenger because that's going to be our instant messenger of choice for this project. I can be contacted through email or on MSN Messenger as johnnycancer@live.com

Also, as our first assignment, start researching surreal art and putting together a body of photographs, sprites, paintings, and other art that we can use as references and inspiration for creating out own unique level. Keep in mind we have a VERTICALLY scrolling level, so certain concepts may work better than others.

To get everybody started, here are some sites to visit:

Wikipedia Article on Surrealism

beinArt Surreal Art Collective (has a nice collection of various contemporary surrealist art)

The Art of Dave McKean (really cool contemporary artist whose style is a mixture of painting and photographs, you know him best as the guy who did the covers for the comic book The Sandman and also the guy who illustrated Batman: Arkham Asylum)

As you look at this stuff, think about what role or roles you want to play in designing the level; backgrounds; foreground objects; enemy design; ship design; boss design; etc.

That should be enough to keep everybody busy for right now.

I need your help everyone. I need to test the frame-rate of my engine:

Johnny Utah is helping me build some demos which will turn into the 7th "final boss" level that unlocks when the player beats the other 6 levels.

Here is the demo: http://bomtoons.com/ngshmup/demologin.ph p
password: precious
(I'll be changing the password after today)

Please post back here your frame-rate when shooting the crab boss on the 2nd level. Mine stays between 45 and 50, but I'm wondering what every else's experience on the crab thing is. (Crab won't be in the final game, but his parts are .png-ized for performance so it's a good test)

THANKS!

FYI: I plan to run the final game at 60 fps, but while building a game I like to drop the rate down (to 50 in this case) so when I finally release it I can re-up the frame rate and feel like it's playing in hyper-speed.

At 11/7/09 03:35 PM, MindChamber wrote: aight ,
to the steampunk level people fishing for ideas and concepts.
take a sec to look over some steampunk basics. it will make your pieces more believeable

Like this?

I know, I need to learn to draw bigger, but my hand just doesn't want to make large sweeps with the mouse...

At 11/7/09 04:12 PM, BoMToons wrote: Johnny Utah is helping me build some demos which will turn into the 7th "final boss" level that unlocks when the player beats the other 6 levels.

Eh.....pardon?

I got a steady 45 fps while shooting the crab ( Pentium D processor, 2.6 GHz)

At 11/7/09 04:12 PM, BoMToons wrote: Please post back here your frame-rate when shooting the crab boss on the 2nd level. Mine stays between 45 and 50, but I'm wondering what every else's experience on the crab thing is. (Crab won't be in the final game, but his parts are .png-ized for performance so it's a good test)

It stayed at about 40 - 45 for me.

Also, may I recommend making the firing automatic? I mean, you really want to keep firing in shmups, and mashing a button to fire can be grueling.

ATTN: SURREAL TEAM

My MSN is idiot-monarch@hotmail.com

At 11/7/09 04:13 PM, Wivernryder wrote:

At 11/7/09 03:35 PM, MindChamber wrote: aight ,
to the steampunk level people fishing for ideas and concepts.
take a sec to look over some steampunk basics. it will make your pieces more believeable

Like this?

I know, I need to learn to draw bigger, but my hand just doesn't want to make large sweeps with the mouse...

your not steampunk
and the game ran 30 - 40 fps for me but i have a bad laptop, and why the giant boss crab meme

Fighting the crab, I got a range from 45-50fps

At 11/7/09 04:12 PM, BoMToons wrote: I need your help everyone. I need to test the frame-rate of my engine:

For the most part it stayed around 50-51 for me, although it occasionally dropped to 41 and at least once went down to 28.

Oh and idiot-monarch, thanks for adding me on MSN!

Went all the way to 80fps

I am letting it stay on the crab boss... he is defeated.. and the frame rate just keeps climbing.. it is at 200fps now lol

Don tknow if this is a glitch

At 11/7/09 02:30 PM, Wivernryder wrote: IS there going to be a steampunk level after all? Because I would love to jump on the bandwagon for that.

Yes there is and it will be GLORIOUS!!!

You're in.

For BoMToons, playing through the game I was getting a consistant 50fps at the first boss.
But with the crab, it dropped to about 35-40fps. It varied in that range.

For the cell team, I thought the human body aspect of ours might have been dropped. I wasn't too sure what was going on, because in the team line-up it now only said "Cell"
I'm fine with it being human body though. Actually I like that better!
I figure every enemy doesn't have to actually look like single-celled organisms, because that would be pretty damn boring. Haha.

I'll concept some more stuff tonight. Then pick out the best, and prepare it for our chat tomorrow afternoon :)

Some very messy surreal concept stuff. idk

At 11/7/09 04:40 PM, just2pale wrote: I am letting it stay on the crab boss... he is defeated.. and the frame rate just keeps climbing.. it is at 200fps now lol

You're probably mistaking the total number of seconds for the fps

Don tknow if this is a glitch

At 11/7/09 04:45 PM, Goat-Man wrote: For BoMToons, playing through the game I was getting a consistant 50fps at the first boss.
But with the crab, it dropped to about 35-40fps. It varied in that range.

For the cell team, I thought the human body aspect of ours might have been dropped. I wasn't too sure what was going on, because in the team line-up it now only said "Cell"
I'm fine with it being human body though. Actually I like that better!
I figure every enemy doesn't have to actually look like single-celled organisms, because that would be pretty damn boring. Haha.

I'll concept some more stuff tonight. Then pick out the best, and prepare it for our chat tomorrow afternoon :)

If you've ever played life-force for the nes, or contra, you'll remember levels inside an alien body...I think something like that would be a lot more interesting than just a human body...a lot more options for creativity too...the final boss was like a big brain or a big heart but you passed by ribs and weird alien organisms along the way

At 11/7/09 04:12 PM, BoMToons wrote: Please post back here your frame-rate when shooting the crab boss on the 2nd level. Mine stays between 45 and 50, but I'm wondering what every else's experience on the crab thing is. (Crab won't be in the final game, but his parts are .png-ized for performance so it's a good test)

I got down to 32 moving and firing... obviously, using bullettime increases framerate.

Sorry team I cant get on aim tonight but ornery I think you are the best candidate for team leader so you have my vote :D

Post Apocalyptic Team,
Any way we can converse outside of AIM?
or can i be moved to a team who uses msn if that will work?

i dont mean to be a butthead, but i cant really get AIM or trillion going.
I know most all the team uses AIM and i don't want to be inconvenient to you guys

At 11/7/09 07:28 PM, Ani-x wrote: Post Apocalyptic Team,
Any way we can converse outside of AIM?
or can i be moved to a team who uses msn if that will work?

i dont mean to be a butthead, but i cant really get AIM or trillion going.
I know most all the team uses AIM and i don't want to be inconvenient to you guys

We can figure out something, keep trying the AIM though, my sn is ornery scotsman
Once i get the post apocalyptic thread made communication will be much easier.

At 11/7/09 07:33 PM, ornery wrote: We can figure out something, keep trying the AIM though, my sn is ornery scotsman
Once i get the post apocalyptic thread made communication will be much easier.

alight, get the thread going and that should work for now