Month: November 2006

Finishing Touches

Alrighty. The gameplay, graphics, art, music, and sound are all complete. I have a few finishing touches to put on it:

  1. Some of the background music has a different average level than the others, so I’m normalizing that all out
  2. I want to add the credits
  3. I need to provide a manual, so I’ve got to write that. Shouldn’t take long

.

But effectively, Mop of Destiny is complete, and should be showing up sometime tomorrow evening (Tuesday, PST).

Until then, here is the final boss music:

Final Boss!

Scripting

Scripting’s done. And I use the term “Scripting” lightly.

All “scripts” are hard-coded into the game. For instance, a sample short script would look like the following:

    Add(new StopMusicPoint(m_audio));
    // Whistler fades in.
    Add(new CreateEntityPoint(this, m_audio, m_renderer, m_world, "Whistler", "Whistler", Vec2(14,1)));
    Add(new LerpEntityVarPoint(this, "Whistler", "alpha", 0, 0.5f, 50));

    Add(new DialogPoint(m_audio, m_renderer, 0xFF7FFF7F, 20, "Sound\\3-1.ogg",  "<WHISTLER> 'Nuther seal down, Jack?  Good for you!  Man, you're sweatin' like a pig...you look like you could use a towel."));
    Add(new DialogPoint(m_audio, m_renderer, 0xFF7F7FFF, 20, "Sound\\3-2.ogg",  "<JACK> Silly me for leaving home without it.  Arthur Dent would be so disappointed."));
    Add(new DialogPoint(m_audio, m_renderer, 0xFF7FFF7F, 20, "Sound\\3-3.ogg",  "<WHISTLER> Who?"));
    Add(new DialogPoint(m_audio, m_renderer, 0xFF7F7FFF, 20, "Sound\\3-4.ogg",  "<JACK> Just a...nevermind."));
    SkipTo();

Basically, that creates an entity named “Whistler” given the entity type “Whistler”, lerps its alpha value from 0 to 0.5, plays a bunch of dialog (the dialog point both plays the ogg dialog sound file and displays the text), then ends.

The SkipTo lets the script know that this is the point that it skips to when the user skips a cutscene. I’m not using it to make unskippable sections, it’s just a quick hack because I’m also using scripts to set up the background music at the beginning of each music zone, so I don’t want the player to be able to skip THAT.

Anyway, a couple of screenshots to tide you over. The first shows a script that’s running (along with the shopkeeper, Whistler P. Higgins), and the second shows the game running in wireframe (That’s right, I’m not using textures! For anything!)


Click to enlarge

Anyway, I hope to finish up the history details in an entry soon…I haven’t had much time to do so!

Ruins! Blocks! Ruins Made From Blocks!

Again, not much energy to say stuff. I remember what sleep was like. I remember it fondly.

Level 2 is not quite as varied in appearance as level 1 – it’s a bit narrower in focus.

Here are a couple screenshots. Jack’s standing on a falling block in the second shot.

Side note: Keep in mind, when viewing these screenshots that I have a strict “NO TEXTURES” policy. Every detail is a polygon. The idea was to have total resolution independence. There are a lot of polys in my little 2D sidescroller. …In retrospect however, maybe I should have just had textures.


Click to enlarge

Level 3 tomorrow! I hope to have the background art done by the end of the weekend.

…then all I have left is the cutscenes/music/sound. It’s a bit of an uphill battle to finish, but sometimes those are the most fun battles.