The Daily Click

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The Engine: Demo (v0.20)

Author:

Pixelthief

Submitted:

9th June, 2009

Favourites:

Genre:

Engine

Downloads:

929

Rated:

31st Place

(4.62 / 5)

This is the 2nd Demo of a quite a bit more fully fledged engine I am working on. Some of you might recognize it a bit; its a vastly upgraded version of my "Super Mario Galaxy" gravity engine. As it would happen, I am planning to make a FULL GAME out of this engine! But I am not a pixel artist, and the screenshots should show the extent of my abilities. So my main purpose for posting this is (like last time) to find a pixel artist who would love to partner up for a great project!

The engine includes:
360 degree movement, platforming, gravity
360 degree enemies
Grappling hook! Verlet whip!
Lighting engine, parallaxing!
TIME TRAVEL!
A beastly level editor

For this demo, I actually created the 2nd level in a single sitting! You can do the same and create your own levels with the level editor I provided, though it may not be very intuitive (made it for my own use so far). The game will randomly choose between loading either level, so if you reload the game, you might get to try the *other* level. I hope this demo showcases just how far this engine has come, and what it is capable of. A good feedback I would REALLY love to hear is what sort of FPS you get while it runs; it is very HWA heavy, so older machines might experience terrible slowdown; mine runs it at 50 fps just about everywhere, except when there are many many objects on screen.

Controls are as follows:
ARROW KEYS: Move
CTRL: Attack
SHIFT: Jump
ENTER: Pull a friggin Doctor Who?
SPACE: Fire a ring of fireballs
^that one is not part of the engine, its just for stress testing, to see how much the engine can handle before it slows down/crashes

Oh, and please, don't forget to try out the ENTER key. You might think the engine is really cool up until you do it, then I hope it really amazes

Anywho, last bit:
I'm really looking for a pixel artist who would love to work on a game with this engine. I am extremely flexible with what I would be making; I do not have anything specific planned as far as the game itself. To be honest, I'm not merely looking for someone who is just a good artist, but someone who can both draw and has ideas of their own. I'd like to work with someone who can have a vision of the game itself, like plot, setting, etc. Nothing is set in stone so far, besides the things already coded. But another note; I'm quite serious about going ahead and creating a full game out of this, so I'd like anyone interested to make sure they'd have the time and ability to work on a medium-large scale project. Frankly I was thinking something like "Lyle-in-cube-sector" sized, most likely a Metroidvania genre. So yeah, if anyones really interested, PM me or shoot a message down here. Sorry, know I've asked before, but the last attempt at collaberating didn't work out as well as I'd have hoped, but its all good.

oh and ps: I'll be at my cabin most of this week, so don't be alarmed if I don't reply right away! I'll be back in due time, just wanted to get this engine out before I leave!

Review This Download

http://claniraq.googlepages.com/TheEngineDemo.zip (6.48 mb )

Posted by Pixelthief

9th June, 2009

Oh and if anyone figures out the level editor enough to create their own levels, post them here! Not that I expect anyone to, but that editor is all I used to create those two levels!

Posted by MBK

9th June, 2009

Rated :

Sweet! .. PixelThief made a level editor!
Anyone who doesn't know who PixelThief is, just to let you all know, his work is always pure Awesomeness!

Btw, PixelThief ... check out my 2.5d engine project page when you get a chance! I'm getting better at kliking now

Umm .. hey PixThiefy ... I don't know if you realise this or not, but you've got yourself a glitch. Whenever I hit the spacebar, it kills the app and the send an error to Microsoft thing appears.

Comment edited by MBK on 6/9/2009

Posted by Pixelthief

9th June, 2009

Ah thanks! I'll take a looksy when I get back!

Posted by Pixelthief

9th June, 2009

Humm I'll take a look later, but thats odd. All pressing enter does is create a bunch of particles, and the enemies are already doing a ton of that. Getting no crashing here, perhaps its a lua compatibility issue? If anyone else gets that problem, LMK!

Posted by Dr. James MD

9th June, 2009

Rated :

This is just incredible. Can't wait to see the full game.
I'm having no spacebar crash.

Posted by OMC

9th June, 2009

Rated :

Pixelthief, you never cease to amaze me. It just gets better and better, somehow. Rewind mechanic is win! Looking forward to what comes of this, I hope you get a spiffing spriter.

Posted by Sketchy

9th June, 2009

Very impressive and all, but I still liked the old version better - even if it did make me a bit sea-sick.

Posted by [EclektiK]

9th June, 2009

Rated :

PixelThief is a Click Legend. (well In My Opinion.)

Posted by Codemonkey

9th June, 2009

Rated :

You should add this time travel to desktop turd.

Posted by Codemonkey

9th June, 2009

Rated :

Seriously though, this is pretty cool stuff. It runs at 40 fps for me and slows down when it gets dark.

Posted by Poobical

9th June, 2009

Rated :

F**k Me. Totally epic.

Posted by OMC

9th June, 2009

Rated :

Forgot to mention, 50FPS Constant on a C2D 1.6Ghz 3GB RAM Vista.

Posted by UrbanMonk

9th June, 2009

Rated :

Dang, this is crazily awesome coding of craziness. Geez, I code like this in my dreams.

Full 50fps on my machine. I couldn't play it though because I was so amazed I passed out.

EDIT: hmm it seems that the lighting engine isn't working correctly. It focuses on the top left corner of the screen. I'll get a screen capture.

http://www.jsoftgames.com/topfocus.bmp
Comment edited by UrbanMonk on 6/9/2009

Posted by ben mercer

10th June, 2009

Rated :

This is rather bloomin cool!

Posted by Ski

10th June, 2009

Rated :

Well.. the basic movement seemed very nice, but three times I have played it now, and became stuck in the first lift as the world rotates. I also found the the movement a little slack, making it too easy for enemies to kill me (or at least I think they did?)

At points I couldn't actually see my character, just a bar slowly going down, leaving me wondering if it was a bug or whether I was doing something wrong.

Posted by W3R3W00F

10th June, 2009

Rated :

Very innovative, I will say!

I haven't seen a Click game like it- it's absolutely a spectacle. And I might be able to help you with the graphics.

Posted by Jon Lambert

10th June, 2009

I too get the lighting error. When you get hit, that decreasing bar is supposed to tell you how much time you have left until you won't be able to time travel back. I do think though that one hit is too few to have to take to die.

All sorts of fun though!

Posted by Bricnic

10th June, 2009

Rated :

The coding behind this is brilliant. I don't think the actual mechanics of how easy it is to die etc. are relevant- you should have no trouble whatsoever if you abuse the hell out of time-reversal anyway. It all runs great on my (average) system, and the lighting is amazing. With some proper graphics this would be a modern click marvel

Posted by Rhys D

10th June, 2009

Sent you a mail Pixelthief

Posted by alastair john jack

10th June, 2009

Rated :

This is really great concept and coding, I just don't like the fact that you get squished by moving platforms. Maybe if you distance them from the ground a bit so that its impossible to get squished. With some good level design and graphics this could be a really awesome game.

Posted by Simon Colmer

10th June, 2009

Rated :

Been a while since ive been on TDC but id have to say that is very impressive!

Posted by Dynamite

10th June, 2009

Rated :

360 degrees..finally!

Posted by OMC

10th June, 2009

Rated :

I agree with what Adam said... a few movement issues need tightened, like the running jump. Could easily be fixed though, I'm sure.

And shmoly goofus, Rhys D graphics with Pixelthief coding??

Posted by Shiru

10th June, 2009

Very impressive.

Posted by bigredron

10th June, 2009

Rated :

This is awesome. I would suggest though that you use some cooler graphics that pixel art. Why do people still want to use pixel art for there games? If you had someone good at modelling or even photoshop you could create some much more impressive graphics that would compliment this engine much more than a 1990's look-a-like.

Posted by OMC

11th June, 2009

Rated :

Hmm, well the thing is, mediocre photoshopping or modeling is far worse than good 2D sprites, even from the point of view of someone who hates that style. Pixel art when done well is much more leet than any photoshopping or modeling I've seen around here, and if Rhys D's on the job, they're set.

Posted by Rhys D

11th June, 2009

I don't just do pixel

Posted by Jess Bowers

11th June, 2009

Rated :

Amazing. Thanks for sharing this with us, PixelThief.

Posted by MBK

12th June, 2009

Rated :

It seems like it only crashes a few moments after hitting F2 to restart it. The fact that the first few times that it crashed happened during me pressing spacebar was coincidence I guess.

Posted by Pixelthief

12th June, 2009

WOW so many comments to read

thanks for the input everyone! Just got back from my cabin!

@Codemonkey: Definitely re-release time for desktop turd. Making the flies go backwards in time, anyone? ~_~ And thanks for input on FPS!

@Urbanmonk humm thanks for pointing that out, I'll look into it. Judging by everyone elses comments on the lighting, I think I'll can the HWA effect (I used the "hole" pixel shader on a black square) and use a text blitter engine instead, like Sketchy taught me >.> Oh and thanks sketchy!

@Adam: yeah I should add a shunting effect to platforms to avoid making you stuck, but that led to bugs of its own so far, and I'm not entirely sure I want to. Just smarter level design so you don't get sandwiched, would do the trick. Oh and that bar counting down is what happens when you die! Its how much time you have left before the game ends (you can rewind time to before you died, of course)

@Bricnic yep thats almost exactly what my idea was; with a "free rewind" in the game, I could entirely avoid health counters and stuff, and instead make it so that enemies either kill you in 1 hit, or have nasty 2ndary effects (slow you, stun you, or even send you back in time a few seconds). In a regular game, that makes it nigh impossible, but the rewind makes it interestingly balanced. And I'm thinking that the lighting effect problem is based on your video card, so I'll definitely swap it out for text blitters. Plus text blitters aren't nearly as GPU intensive, so it might avoid slowdown.

@Alastair yup thank i'll make sure to think out my platforms in ways so that they don't squish players too much. Its especially a problem since if an enemy kills you, it can shave off some of your precious "8 seconds"

@MKB hrmm yeah that crashing might be related to the level loading system then, which isn't set up for reloading yet (it adjusts global variables; i shoulda disabled the F2 button actually). I'll definitely look into it!

@Rhys D: I will DEFINITELY pm you back later aha. I absolutely love your art style

And thanks for the input everyone! I think what I've learned, also from my experiments with other computers this week, is that I'm going to need to remake the lighting effects, fidget with the gravity engine, speed up the enemy AI code, and most of all, reduce the draw size from 640x640 to 512x512, to make it easier on peoples graphics cards (The reason why I think some people get 40 fps). This would reduce the game window from the current 452x452 to 362x362, or I could round down to 320x320. But really, if games can be made in 320x240 windows, thats not terrible. I just don't want to crimp anyones graphic styles

Posted by Bricnic

15th June, 2009

Rated :

"And I'm thinking that the lighting effect problem is based on your video card, so I'll definitely swap it out for text blitters. Plus text blitters aren't nearly as GPU intensive, so it might avoid slowdown."
I actually said it ran with no problems, despite my system being average. It works like a charm, but yes maybe text blitter would be a good idea to cover a wider range of systems anyway.

Posted by bigredron

16th June, 2009

Rated :

Also I forgot to note before that the lighting does not work for me either as pointed out by a lot of ppl already. Also the editor is buggy as hell and I get errors and crashes galore

Posted by Pixelthief

16th June, 2009

Yeah I definitely did not make the editor for "other people's use" right now. I just included it not really so much so people could use it, but so that people could see what these levels looked like inside the editor, to get a feel for how it works. AFAIK just about everything you can do will crash the editor if you don't create/load a map before you do it.

Posted by Dr. James MD

17th June, 2009

Rated :

Not to put pressure on Rhys but his art and this engine, with some really memorable levels and design would be outstanding. As I think I mentioned many times before I can't wait to see what comes out of this engine.

Posted by erghhhhx

17th June, 2009

Pretty trippy stuff.

Posted by Codemonkey

24th June, 2009

Rated :

Did you do the time reversing effect by setting the frame rate to negative numbers?

Posted by Pixelthief

24th June, 2009

O_o i wish it were that easy, but that wouldn't work

you can read the LUA script in gamedata/scripts/timemachine.lua, that handles most of it. Events like creating objects are stored in lists of stacks in which each event triggers a message which is stored, and when read in reverse, it triggers the opposite effect. So if an object was created, when done backwards, you destroy it. If it was destroyed, you create it.
Comment edited by Pixelthief on 6/24/2009

Posted by Codemonkey

1st July, 2009

Rated :

That was a joke btw.