39 replies to this topic

[Jakyl11]

Not major just wanted to let you know. Still doing a play through.

EDIT: I just noticed its when there are a few ghosts in the room because when i killed them the fps shot back up.
EDIT 2: Well im not so sure it was the ghosts now... Im not sure whats causing it sometimes it just drops way way low cant even move low
I didnt have this before when i played so im guessing its something recently changed, and the map is a good idea.

Edited by Jakyl11, 02 February 2011 - 10:06 PM.

[M_I_Soft]

EDIT: I just noticed its when there are a few ghosts in the room because when i killed them the fps shot back up.
EDIT 2: Well im not so sure it was the ghosts now... Im not sure whats causing it sometimes it just drops way way low cant even move low
I didnt have this before when i played so im guessing its something recently changed, and the map is a good idea.

I've modified that section a bit so it may or may not remedy the slow down in that section.
I've tried altering the zoom level too in my debug mode and as less is drawn on screen the frame rate does go back up so I'm sure it's an object that's having trouble when it's being drawn somewhere but after deleting pretty much everything in that area I still can't find it!

Let me know if that change has improved things though - hopefully it has otherwise I might have to think about re-drawing that room from scratch until I find the problem.

[Osiris]

OK. So I played through a bit of it. (up to the room with the note in it, i had no idea how to read it, so i gave up)

First off, this is very very good graphically and the gameplay is good too. I could not find any major bugs (or any at all), so i will just give you some feedback on what might make your game more enjoyable.

-A tutorial/intro: Even though I know this is just an engine to work out the bugs, it might help introduce the player to the game and the controls if you had this. A quick 5 second pan of the camera and then a refresher on the controls might be all thats needed, and will also hook the player right away.

-More detail: Again, I know this is just an engine so its not a priority, but some extra things in the room to give it life, like pictures on the walls, windows, cobwebs, etc... just little things.

-tweek the monsters: I noticed that when the monsters (ghosts especially) attacked you,you couldn't really get a chance to step back and shoot. Consider making them pause after hitting you or something, so you can get away, and then you can just raise the dmg they do to counter this.

Thats all I can think of, other than that this is amazing work! Hope my feedback helps! Can't wait to see the end product!

[M_I_Soft]

Thanks for the input, myself and Jakyl11 have been tearing the engine apart over the past couple of days so it's nice to know it's working well!

-A tutorial/intro: Even though I know this is just an engine to work out the bugs, it might help introduce the player to the game and the controls if you had this. A quick 5 second pan of the camera and then a refresher on the controls might be all thats needed, and will also hook the player right away.

The instructions option on the main menu runs through all the game play and control options - I added this a few weeks back to make sure it was enough to set the back plot and tell you how to move around and interact properly.
I've opted for Enter for the interaction key, but I may add this to the list of re-definable keys in the game.

-More detail: Again, I know this is just an engine so its not a priority, but some extra things in the room to give it life, like pictures on the walls, windows, cobwebs, etc... just little things.

In some of the rooms there are already things like pictures and mirrors, mainly there as a proof of concept before adding more around the general playing area, but I love the idea of cobwebs - I'll definitely add some of those around for more atmosphere think!

-tweek the monsters: I noticed that when the monsters (ghosts especially) attacked you,you couldn't really get a chance to step back and shoot. Consider making them pause after hitting you or something, so you can get away, and then you can just raise the dmg they do to counter this.

I've set the engine so that if you're being attacked it will shove you around and slow you down, but you are still able to use the run key to move away and get some decent shots in - even with the faster moving ghosts. You can actually outrun anything that comes at you if you want to.

Definitely getting close to the engine being finished now though, the speed and lag has been an issue but it's slowly coming together now with input from the forum and great help from Jakyl11. There will be more monster types in the end linked to certain actions as trigger points. I've already set a lot in motion with floor switches and invisible trigger points to spawn the monsters. There will also be more puzzle work to do to make the game more challenging and increase it's longevity so it becomes more of an adventure than and all and out shoot em up.

One quick word of warning though - the load and save functions work at the moment but not between releases of the beta as it tries to load into game data that has changed so can have some odd effects so they're more made for the final release when no more code changes take place.

[Virtanen]

I don't have much constructive criticism to say, but I do want to say
that this game looks interesting and that I'd gladly play it.

Good luck with the project!

[M_I_Soft]

MAJOR update released after many hours of testing and adding features - full details in first post. Big thanks to Jakyl11 for putting in the time and effort to help with the testing and suggesting modifications and additions - certainly has moved on a long way in a short time!

[Rani_sputnik]

Hey I went to play and got this error immediately after loading

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object obj_ctrl_init:

In script scr_init_controls:
Error in code at line 89:
       ini_write_real("version", "index", fileever);
                                          ^
at position 41: Unknown variable fileever

I tried ignoring it but the game just gave me a white screen so I eventually quit. I hope it's nice and easy to fix I'm keen to play
Cheers

[M_I_Soft]

Yes, sorry about that! My bad!
Had a typo in the controller creation code if you didn't have an existing ini file - have now fixed and uploaded the fixed file.

[M_I_Soft]

Just uploaded a new tweaked version - more speed this time - see first post for details.

[M_I_Soft]

Sizeable update made - see first post for full details.

[M_I_Soft]

Yet another update - some nice additions so see first post for details.

[M_I_Soft]

Brand new lighting engine installed - see first post for details.

Be great to get peoples take on the lighting to see if there are any major slowdowns with the new ray casting method.

[M_I_Soft]

Another quick update made - anybody got any comments on the progress at all? All seems a bit quiet despite the downloads

[john_smith]

I played it.. The shadow engine is very fast, got a continuous 60fps. shadows are a tiny bit jittery, but that is much preferable to slow-mo lag, which was what i expected. Everything looks good, especially the physics and stuff - the atmosphere feels fun and creepy, with the intro scene really topping everything

One thing i think could use some work is to increase the skeleton's aggressiveness. their paths look very realistic, but they seem a bit timid - you can just run right past all of them. Also, you should be able to still push boxes with a low stamina. I got through the gigantic maze are, to the yellow key, but could not move the boxes due to my depleted stamina.

[M_I_Soft]

Thanks for the info - great to know the lighting engine is working well.
The smaller boxes aren't movable (might well be soon though!) but you can shoot them to destroy them.
The energy level has no bearing on what you can do, it's just you black out if it gets too low.
I'm guessing you were in the basement stores instead of the main maze in the gardens too - the basement is tiny compared to the rest of the house
I'm currently looking at the ai on the skeletons so they should be a little more dangerous on the next release all being well.
More stuff being added all the time though but reading the instructions will be very useful soon as the new stuff comes on line.

[M_I_Soft]

Sorry it's been a while since the last update - you could say we've been rather busy! Full information in the first post and download link updated.

[Kedora19]

I only played for 3 mins, but I love the engine . The only thing that I noticed which bugged me a bit, was when the light hits the wall, the light glitches up a bit and it seems like the light stops at an invisible wall just before the actual wall. But other than that, amazing game!

-Kedora19

Edited by Kedora19, 01 May 2011 - 02:21 AM.

[M_I_Soft]

Thanks for the feedback.

The lighting has had to be a trade off between high performance and high quality so we've slotted it pretty much in the middle of the scale where it's got enough performance to be playable and enough of an effect to look right too. If we could guarantee it would work on every machine with no problems then the quality would be turned up to 11

We're working on some more enemies at the minute and the first couple of cut scenes have been added too so hopefully soon that will be ready to upload for you all to have a go at.

The game is now just about half way through so you get some idea of exactly how big this is - with us knowing exactly what to do the current play time is around an hour so we're guessing the finished game will be upwards of two hours total play time. And there's a few ideas being passed around at the minute between myself and Jakyl11 about the ending of the game and possible alternate scenarios with a chance to extend even further to another section.
All on the drawing board so far but definitely exciting times ahead!

[Kedora19]

The game is now just about half way through so you get some idea of exactly how big this is - with us knowing exactly what to do the current play time is around an hour so we're guessing the finished game will be upwards of two hours total play time.

Thats a pretty long game, Can't wait for it to be done. Keep at it

[icuurd12b42]

Well made game there. Though I dont know how to quit gameplay.