Jay's game thread (The Towers of Trembolon)

[Juutis]

Ohh nice! Very nice work, once again.
I can't wait to get my hands on something playable. I really hope you're planning to release a demo at some point.

And I think that there are lots of people who are looking at this topic and admiring your work, they're just not posting.

BTW, wouldn't this belong to the Game Designs? It seems that this thread is more about the development of your game than crashing of hard drive.

[psYco]

Yeah i was just thinking that this really needs to have the subject changed. Oh and as far as it only being juutis looking at your stuff, i agree there are probs loads of ppl checking it out, I for one loved your fire golem but i was viewing the forum on my PSP and i hate commenting from it cuase its hard to type with and then i forgot to check back and comment sorry

as far as the new screens go they look AMAZING, that tunnel is really cool I cant work out how you got it like that are you using RFeditpro? anyway your game is looking REALLY cool and is one of the better RF titles ive seen in progress... Im also on holiday ATM but im a lazy bum so my game is still not really moving

[darksmaster923]

your game is coming up nicely. i like the rat. REALLY! sorry bout the hard drive, it sucks to lose alot of work

[scott]

i have also been keeping an eye on the topic and agree that you are doing some exelent work, just havnt been on this topic while i have had time to reply, the out door level looks good, nice textures, i agree i cant wait for a demo, some good games coming out of rf now ith scruf aswel, its not easy and am impressed by what i have seen so far

[Jay]

Thx for the comments, i was beginning to really think that Juutis was the only one who was looking at this topic. Seems i was wrong

Here are two new pictures. They show how you give orders to your party members:

When you right click on a party member, an ActionMenu will appear:


When you selected 'Attack' you can select the target. In this case i make Kriston attack the rat.


The pictures and the health/mana bars on the right top corner are rendered using script commands (that's the scripted hud i spoke of). I will replace the pictures with better ones afterwards.
I also have the Inventory system running good with actor changing for the inventory items. But there are not that many of them yet. This is why i have no pictures of it. Maybe in the future when i have made a complete cahinmail or so.


The cavern was made with a self-invented technique:

First, i made the rough structure of the cavern in paint - the tunnels were black, everything else was white. I used a 64x64 image size.
Then i fired up TextureMaker, duplized the texture and saved those two textures as cave_floor.bmp and cave_ceiling.bmp.
Then i applied the waves generator to the black parts of the textures - this was to get random yet smooth floor/ceiling
At the end i used the smoth filter on both textures to smothen them out.
Saved and shut down TextureMaker.
Then i started Milkshape3d (btw it was such a good decision to register i never regreted it) and imported the 'floormap' with the TerrainGenerator (under tools)
Now i selected the upper row of Vertices and...deleted them. (Saves a TON of Triangles)
I hid the group.
After that, i did the same with the 'ceilingmap'.
I used Vertex->Mirror Top <==> Bottom on the ceiling.
I made the floor visible again.
Now i moved the ceiling up until it fitted. I had to make sure that the floor and the ceiling mesh were overlapping because otherwise you may look out of the mesh later in the game.
After that i textured it and then exported different parts of the caverns seperately, floor and ceiling also seperately to make it's use as different staticmeshes effective. I have 5 staticmeshes all in all.
I used a CollisionLevel of 2 for the staticmeshes.

This technique is very powerfull. Try it yourself, you will be stunned by the results!

[psYco]

WOW DUDE! Those characters are looking nice and (im a bit of a scripting n00blet) that hud and party member select system is really clever! also thanks for explaining how you got the cavern affect I will defonitely be using that technique in my game for the tunnel type level. Great work as always cant wait to see more.

[zany_001]

should be moved 2 game designs.looking good tho.

[Jay]

Inventory is now fully working (it didn't work perfectly before but now it does)

We have no special equipment on?


Ah, but we have something in our backpack:


Let's put it on:


With this equipment, it will be easier to beat the rats:

[Juutis]

Whoa! Cool! I had a similar inventory in my RPG project, in case you remember it. This seems a lot more advanced though.
Does the inventory have mouse support? Like do you move the stuff in the inventory with the mouse or the keyboard?
Anyway, awesome work! Keep it up.

About the previous screens:
Thanks for sharing that cave creation technique. I really wondered how you did those great looking caves. And the party system seems pretty darn sweet too!.

[darksmaster923]

wow, nice inventory, but u need the graphics look better

[psYco]

ounce again, really looking good! I like the inventory system, it seems very profesional.

[Jay]

You use the mouse to do thinghs in the inventory, like equipping items, moving them around, getting to other characters, doing thinghs on the world map (which is not completed yet) and manipulating various other thinghs. Everything is done with the mouse.

Ok, i have an update, which is mostly about interacting with objects.

reading books, don't worry, i will change the font color soon if it is too unreadable (it is readable very good in game, it may not be because of the JPG compression):


opening chests:


resting on beds:


beds in the inn will cost you money to sleep there, you will only be allowed to sleep on certain beds, you cannot go into a house, take the bed of somebody and claim it as your own by sleeping on it.

I am planning to do the shopping system soon, it will be much more directly than how you normally buy thinghs in games. No boring 'go to shop owner, talk, select right answer, select item(s), say to him it's ok' anymore. You will just go to the thing you want to buy, then selecting it with the mouse, and right click (everything is used by right-clicking on it) Then a dialog box similar to the one that pops up when you want to rest will come up. In this you will just select if you want to buy it or not.

[Juutis]

Sweet! I see you have built a very complex system there with scripts. I'm amazed at how many different actions you have made. The fact that it all is made with the mouse makes it even more impressive!

I also like the shopping idea very much! Finally someone does it differently.

[psYco]

wow, this is all really cool, I like the way your game is starting to take on its own look and feel... its not just a clone of most other games out there, its got something different, I really like what were seeing so far and great job on the menus (sorry i mean the "in game interface">??)

anyway greatwork... and like that bed looks soo cool

[Jay]

I finished the level geometry yesterday, so now i am adding atmosphere objects, and more interactive objects. Next are pawns.

This is the room of Dioran (also the first room in the game):


In this room, you will also find the first items: Gloves (+1 armor, +1 ice protection), Black Shoes (+1 armor, +1 fire protection) and a shortsword(2-4 base damage):


I am also adding signs near the door of the shops:


Last but not least, the shopping system works, here in the potion shop:


I am especially proud of the potions.

I hope to release a demo soon.