Lolz Invaders

Video log

This list of videos from the posts below

I started this game around January 2017 (after previously messing with C2 for a few months). As i didn't know the first thing about game development , or programming and didn't know much about C2 capabilities there was little point in making a plan. The only plan is that I was going to make a side scrolling shmup.

There still isnt any plan. the way it works is that I have an idea, I try it out, maybe it works maybe it doesn't, if not I try something else.

Everything here is done in with construct events, mostly by following tutorials I have found on the forum and help from forum members and the Scirra devs.

Note to prospective indi game developers!

I dont want to put you off so please note that this dev log is not a real indication of how long things would normally take. If you were able to do this full time you could probably do what i have done below in a few weeks or even days.

I just do this for relaxation as one of my (too many other) hobbies when not at work or doing family / social stuff. I dip in for a few hours a week, mostly on the weekend, usually with an intention of trying to implement something I have been daydreaming about during the week.

I'm not actually sure I will ever make a finished game. There is so much more to it that I ever imagined. But for now it has a life of its own and it will evolve as it wants.

I am just its custodian. A slave to its needs. Lets see where it goes.

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2017

Jan("3D")

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9z ... sp=sharing

FEB ("3D" and bezier)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxdl80TV9pQzNnN0k/view?usp=sharing

("3D" and bezier and lazer)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxRmlxVEg1Q3hRS0E/view?usp=sharing

MARCH(Working on Formations)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxa0V2UWw5OFhneDQ/view?usp=sharing

APRIL (Messing with Z and scaling)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9znz3zwxTC1qZWNIMmlpMEE

MAY (got enemies following paths listed in an array)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9znz3zwxNW9tQnY5WThhbXM

JUNE (changing AR and adding Z and parallax backgrounds

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxQWRhek1GS0dwb28/view?usp=sharing

JULY (starting editor)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxTnEyNUhXWjllOFE/view?usp=sharing

SEPTEMBER (fisrt try scrolling parallax background)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9znz3zwxeUpId1hIbTgtNE0

(working touch! Almost...)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxOGlxejVKNXdXNkU/view?usp=sharing

(just trying different things with background cut up a deviant art pic and made it parallax)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9znz3zwxNnFwRllkaGJPQTA

OCTOBER-ISH death respawn system, sound system, score system and menu system started

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PAF8yDP6Mez7UUWjMKLmhhOTPN8VtYPB

November A little driveclub stylee rain for you sir....

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17bxB49CywcDb3etHY-ffAe-pexHkFZWq

OMG A WHOLE YEAR AND THIS IS ALL IVE DONE!

(Note over Christmas Ive made the jump to C3 but will keep the dev log here for now)

2018

January Fun with letters for start screen

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XK782XhlXvcdqTuUz8PphaKE9hfoEKXr

April 3 months since last video !!! and so little progress.....meh....

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PyBBskF44RJUFj0zeavRDsTdfi7FFb3N

Finally got to work on some game tonight after many days instead of just lurking around this forum at work. Took me an hour to remember what I was doing but I finally got these enemies to follow a path, then go into formation, then just sort of waver side to side Galaga style. Not that you would notice it with all the randomness going on. But its a small achievement for me. They are all just spawning in centre for now while I put together an editor that will allow me to script some nice enemy movements ...within a few weeks hopefully. (ignore all graphics, all just placeholder for now..background will eventually be 3d paralax...im not sure about the flying girl im thinking i will go back to a spaceship but we'll see...obviously need to work on some propper bullet patterns and pickup etc.......so much work and no time.....)

any suggestions for gameplay ideas mechanics welcome, its surprising how dry one's imagination becomes as one get older..... or anyone knows anyone who likes drawing pixel art spaceships you know where to send them...

VIDEO LINK

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9znz3zwxNW9tQnY5WThhbXM

Pretty badass gameplay (and soundtrack) !

The bigger enemies could maybe do a little more than just follow the players movements. Right now they look pretty static and inactive (apart from all the enemy fire). Maybe one of them could reach out and try to hit the player? Just an idea

Other than that: keep up the good work!

Cheers dreikelvin, it is early days, all the graphics are just placeholder for now just to get the feel of the game as I work on the engine. Yes definitely the enemies will eventually be animated and attack.

I like your idea of "reaching out" to hit rather than shooting. Maybe something could come out of their mouth, like another mouth...Alien style...... !

The music track is not mine. (It is Carpenter Brut, I think he is too famous to want his music in my game). But it is part of the vibe I am looking for. (Not necessarily dark, but high energy)

I am trying to resist doing any graphics and music until I have the game machine running properly. Only then then I will get to the fun stuff!

I checked out your soudcloud. You are Pro. Once my engine is ready I will need sound effects and music and you will be on my list if you don't mind.

Cheers dreikelvin, it is early days, all the graphics are just placeholder for now just to get the feel of the game as I work on the engine. Yes definitely the enemies will eventually be animated and attack.

I like your idea of "reaching out" to hit rather than shooting. Maybe something could come out of their mouth, like another mouth...Alien style...... !

The music track is not mine. (It is Carpenter Brut, I think he is too famous to want his music in my game). But it is part of the vibe I am looking for. (Not necessarily dark, but high energy)

I am trying to resist doing any graphics and music until I have the game machine running properly. Only then then I will get to the fun stuff!

I checked out your soudcloud. You are Pro. Once my engine is ready I will need sound effects and music and you will be on my list if you don't mind.

Thanks! Sure, hit me up if you need some sound! I am really curious about how your game will look when it's finalized. I mean, it looks already quite slick to me. But I'm just an amateur when it comes to game mechanics and gameplay analysis

Right Ive promised myself that I will try to share a vid a month on my progress.

This is to guilt myself into keep perservering with the game and maybe some of you guys find it interesting.

Maybe I will start loading to youtube I just wasn't sure I was going to finish anything but am getting a bit more confident recently.

This month has been very difficult to find time to do anything on the game. Work is just killing me and pretty much every weekend has been socialzing of some sort. Which is not a bad thing but a max of 10-12 tired drowsey hours I have scrapred to work on the game, Most of those hours have been today (I took a meeting room and stayed after work for about 4 hours).

What have I done in 10-12 hours

I have gone ultra wide and gone high dpi. so no more pixel art for now. This is not nessesarily final Im just experimenting.

I have made a quick and dirty system to swap the backgorunds for the different levels. I am swapping them every couple of seconds here. If you also notice I can also change the horizon level and the paralax will match.

TO DO: The background sprites are just temporary for now and the backgrounds will be scrolling. I need to make some sort of scrolling tile map thingy for the backgrounds.

Its not obvious right now but all enemies and backgrounds have a z value linked to scale now so that i can have enemies spawn in the the distance and fly towards the screen into formation. Im not sure what I can do with z values for background but its there now and maybe I can find something interesting to do with.

TO DO: I need to make a system to give them the z coordinates to do this.

I havent worked on the editor. mainly because I still havent figured out how Im going to do some things like store and retrieve and que up the enemy patterns and bullet patterns (which I havent made yet either) and backrounds but Im getting an idea how to do it with arrays and functions and such so should come shortly. Ive made a flowchart to help me link the various things together. Pro Dev!!! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

anyway there you go. Now Im going to the pub..... what? I spent the last 4 hours on the game, thats enough... I need to go get drunk now.....

VIDEO LINK

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9z ... sp=sharing

This looks quite interesting.

Seizure inducing at best.

Spinning white lines will make it even better!

Seizure inducing at best.

Spinning white lines will make it even better! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing">

Dude... please don't tell anyone but.. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_redface.gif" alt=":oops:" title="Embarrassed"> .... I love Fry Me Omelettes

If my game can have half the polish, professionalism, fun, immersion and addiction of your game I will be very happy. really good job there...

Right

I know I said one a month but I started the editor in full effect and have spent almost the whole of the last day and a half on this (and some of it was sort of in place already) I think its pretty cool and probably wont have much time for the rest of the month so here you go.

I don't know really what I am doing or where this is going.

Or even if can handle this kind of complexity but I'm giving it a shot.

essentially this is a screen that will allow me to populate the arrays that will be used by the game side of things.

it is not really connected to the game or arrays yet but that is the plan.

VIDEO LINK

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9z ... sp=sharing

That's too kind of you to say that, — I don't really think i'm pro at anything.

Don't even know how to make complex movements like you do in the game.

I don't know really what I am doing or where this is going.

Or even if can handle this kind of complexity but I'm giving it a shot.

You're doing fine.

Everyone works differently. For me I always have a clear idea what I'm trying to make, and plan ahead before coding. How it looks, how certain scenes will play out, or what I want players to expect of.

I'm more of a "big picture" than "detail oriented" person though. And I work super slow.

Just trying the Construct 3 Android build service (mainly to see how my in work touch control transfers to mobile)

Note : It is exactly the same game as above (developing in Construct 2)

but I just loaded into Construct 3 and changed the resolution to a more mobile friendly one

built very quickly . uploaded and downloaded in about 2 minutes id say

absolutely no issues.

running on a Motorola G4 at around 40 fps .

Note I am aiming for PC only currently so this is not optimised for mobile.

It was just a test of the Construct 3 build service. (There is a lot of stuff I could get rid of to get back to 60 without compromising too much. I may do a mobile version in future)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9z ... sp=sharing

but yea, quite impressed.

Haven't touched this for over a month so not much progress,

but tonight, after a particularly bad few games of Overwatch. mainly caused by a fxxxkin Hanzo fxxxking xxxxxxxer

(blizzard you need to sort out hanzo ffs, dude dosent have to aim and can one shot anyone from the otherside of the map without aiming....

I decided my time would be better spent work ng on a way to do scrolling background.

this is my first try, it kinda looks like i want it to but its not working well behind the scenes also its all using the same 9 512x512 sprites repeated semi randomly and scaled so the back line is about 150 sprites long which is not very performant. but the idea is to replace with clouds and cities etc...

also messing with tinting the game layer for a day night effect. maybe use we'll see

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6AQ9 ... 1hIbTgtNE0

Nice enemy patterns.

Cheers man. The current patterns are kinda just there to make sure the engine works.

But once I got all the other stuff like backgrounds, menus , bullet patterns, music / SE and a million other things, I will return to put all together with some proper cool enemy patterns

... although at my current rate of progress I can’t ever see that happening….. I will carry on though doing a bit here and there when I can it should take form at some point in the far distant future…..

BTW checked your YT link, your game looks awesome, I will definitely try ur demo tonight, (cant at moment am at work)

been messing with an invisible dual analogue touch system for a few months

have had loads of issues but now ( i think, fingers crossed ) its working quite robustly with fast accurate control possible of the ship. it is really nice with the surface pro 4.

makes the game very different to playing with the joypad

still wrestling with backgrounds, im trying to get a system that allows me to specify say 9 or more tiles of any size and then lay them down semi randomly and moving at a speed based on a distance from camera variable. hitting lots of snags, its a bit more complex a problem than I expected.

game is running in C3 BTW in this vid, yeaay

and you can see the snappiness of the dual analogue touch

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9znz3zwxOGlxejVKNXdXNkU/view?usp=sharing