Dudeman the QARPY Muppet

MOST RECENT TEST BUILD ALWAYS AVAILABLE HERE:

HAVE A TEST PLAY

So a few years ago, a few of the guys from the forums here and myself got together and started working on a few ideas.

For the last several years those ideas have sat dormant.

Recently I've started putting a few things together, and have an awkwardly but procedurally animated "noodle man". Currently I'm still working on the inventory systems and so-forth that will be used in the game, but have a somewhat reliable and intuitive "dude selection system" and a solid foundation for making new animations easily.

Added in some IK chain solvers

There's no "gameplay" yet as this is a system implementation only up to this point. There are some loose documentations in the game to describe the buttons to use etc in order to test things. There are a few undocumented buttons but they shouldn't be required as far as I can recall. There is a seed for random generation but it's hard coded at the moment - I will add something to change it at runtime in the future.

CHANGELOG:

See thread posts by me for updates to the current features

~Sol

Day and night cycle added.

Also - uploaded a HTML5 version (no data handling - so no loot spawning etc) just as an easy alternative to people who just want a quick look at it.

You can preview the web build on my domain (yes I'm lazy and haven't actually made a website for the main page yet); HERE

~Sol

It seems like procedural animation is taking shape in Construct 2 more and more every time I see it mentioned. Nice demo!

Thanks

My animation "keyframes" need a bit of work... but with the way I've set it up, I can make the character move, quite literally, however I want to - automatic zordering and limb generation means I just have to place the hands/feet and elbows/knees... my limb placement code does the rest.

I have actually added a fair bit to this, but haven't uploaded it yet as most of it is fine tuning and cosmetic changes to make customising the look of the "blank dude" a bit easier. There is now also two genders, and persistence of individual instance data is now a lot better (for saving inventories, etc).

I'm also toying with a few ideas that MIGHT mean I can forget having to use NWJS data handling for saving and loading stat data... which will make a web-based release (at least for testing) a more workable idea.

Cheers for checking it out!

~Sol

[ADDED]

• New "crafting menu" with scroll ability, activated from Work Bench
• Dudeman is now gender specific (and clothing absent for now! - BEWARE NSFW!)
• Better persistence of item information and inventory storage (not reflected visually yet)

[FIXED]

• Waypoints work a lot better now (but can still trigger out of order)
• Day and Night cycle tweaked and improved

[WHAT'S NEXT]

• Map generation for exploring the world
• First craftable items (probably going to start with walls/building type stuff)
• Removing NWJS data handling (hopefully) in favour of newly made persistence system
• Adding first clothing items

~Sol

good !

First stages of being able to build rooms has been added.

For now there is no error checking (rooms overlapping etc) or snap-building. You also don't require any resources to build rooms yet - but the framework is there and working.

• Place a "dude" next to crafting bench (the thing that looks a bit like a chair or table at the moment) and right click for the "make" menu.
• Click Make
• Click the icon in the menu for small wooden room
• Click on screen to "prepare" first wall section for placement
• Click again to place it where you want
• Click once more to "prepare" the second wall section
• Click one last time to place it where you want

Press Escape to exit the crafting/make mode.

~Sol

Got a bit carried away and decided to add my beginnings of weather effects

~Sol

• I have fully added in the weather components (subject to change based on Gigatrons new fogfx he's working on)
• Added in nice colouring for dusk and dawn during the day and night cycle change
• Added a sun and moon in the sky
• Added snap-building to the room construction (still needs full error checking to make sure you can't build rooms overlapping the entire structure)

~Sol

Looks like a very interactive sandbox game... Will definitely look into your work!

Thanks —

I'm hoping to be able to sit down over the next day or two (if work doesn't keep bugging me) and start adding in the basics of map/world generation.

I'm still thinking about how I want it to work exactly - I have a few options depending on how I want the player to be able to re-locate their "base" on the world map, but it looks like I'm going to have to dive head-first into NWJS data handling (even though I was trying to build the game without it at all) if I want maximum flexibility.

I feel like I can still build the game without having to commit custom save data, but then the player will be stuck at "layout 1" for their base and I really don't want that.

~Sol

I love this thing and am mystified and delighted that you could make something like this! Very impressive

A suggestion: I've run the demo on two separate occasions and both times it took me a while to realise that I needed to click on the guy before I could make him walk (I know it says it in the text at the top so it's probably just my fault, but the fact that the same thing got me confused both times makes me wonder if it could be made more intuitive). Like when you have an empty screen with just a guy, the first thing you want to do is to make him walk somewhere, so it seems a little bit counterintuitive to have to click him first. Or maybe I'm just dumb and picky

mikehive

Thanks for the feedback The reason he must be clicked first, is that the player will be in control of several characters - think along the lines of any RTS game where the player must first select the unit they want to give orders to, then issue a move/attack command.

The control scheme will be made far more obvious later on, after I have finished adding core mechanics to the game - I will make a short "tutorial" sequence to get the player started.

Characters will also have a certain level of autonomous behaviour as well, so they will also do things on their own to a certain extent (like eating food if they get hungry and food is available, or sleeping if they get tired, etc) but primarily the player will "order" them to complete tasks by selecting them first and then issuing a command.

My next step is actually to get the world map generating locations, then working on how I'm going to save and load data from said locations onto the game screen for the player to interact with. Still a long road ahead before any real "game" happens.

~Sol

Ohhhh, yeah, it makes more sense in context. Fair enough

Being sick the last few days and really unable to do any work, I've had a good time to think about how I'm going to build my map system... I've now run into another conundrum with the way saving and loading will work - so it looks like NWjs file control and hard drive access is here to stay, frustratingly.

First steps to a "proper" save and load system is now in the works instead of using state saving. This will be essential for complete freedom on the map, and total persistence of objects between a potentially infinite amount of locations.

If only there was a way to dynamically create a new "layout" during runtime, then state saving would be just fine - but I'm going to have to shuffle locational data in a single layout, hence my pending headache.

*EDIT*

So after my 500th attempt at trying to understand the dictionary object, and the way to combine it properly with NWJS file access... I have made a fully workable save and load system - which makes me a happy camper. I would expect things to move along rather nicely from now, as this was really one of my major hurdles in developing the game in the way I wanted it to work... yay for my 2d cardboard cut-out brain.

~Sol