Christmas, magic and the end of the world

Greetings ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!

I'ts the 21st of december, and I'm afraid it's been another two weeks; it's time for another blog post.
Yes, time goes by fast, but so does the progress of our development!


Last wednesday was a day in which we had to give a very short (and by very short, I mean 5 minutes) introduction to our game and show our progress. I believe we've advanced fairly well over the last few weeks, with considerable progress. Watching the presentation of some other teams, I might add that we're quite ahead of some of them, and we should be proud of that! Come on, other teams, hurry up and finish a demo already ;)!


Thanks to Aron and Jaimy, we have a working menu. That's right, you can now actually click on buttons to do things, like selecting a character and thus choosing to be a pirate (everyone wants to be a pirate), or, better yet, assigning custom keybinds! Making the wish of 4 people on 1 keyboard come true!

I probably want to go up when I press that arrow button...

Aron has also made this fancy slider, which we'll certainly use in the future. Soon you will be able to control the volume of the music (more on that later), sound effects (bombs make noise when they explode, mind you) and voices (every race will have custom remarks regarding the actions performed in the game, expect them to laugh in an extremely evil manner as they exterminate their foes).

Look at the pretty colours!

As we've not died yet (I wonder where that apocalypse is hanging out...), we can continue blowing things up in our game, with the addition of the computer trying to blow us up!

That's right, the AI is functioning and deadly, albeit not fully completed. Ricardo has been working hard to make this happen, and all is faring well. Not only will the computer blow up destructible tiles and grab powerups (all the while avoiding getting caught in explosions), it has some nasty tactics, making dodging a deadly fate a hard task at times. And the AI will become even smarter in the near future, oh dear!


Aart has been busy adjusting his engine to allow for sprites to be displayed from top to bottom, as to create an isometric effect. It's pretty much my fault that he has to do it at this moment, as he now has to revise quite a big part of it... Sorry! There seems to be a bit of a problem when it comes to showing particles and making sure they are correctly layered, as these are drawn using a different technique, called alpha blending. Good luck with this, Aart, we know you can think of a solution!


Mars has completed the special bomb for the pirate, alien and zombie. He has been thinking of new ideas to put in the game and has recently started playing with sprites. He's had some problems testing out our game before, somehow, because his GPU is a little outdated. This christmas, he'll finally get his hands on a new computer, which should run the game without any problem. Yay for technology!


Jaimy and I have been making some new sprites. The main four races have been completed, check 'em out!

Exterminating, sneaking, braaaaains and keelhauling everywhere!

There's also some scenery lying around which will be using in the future, as we are planning to add more types of landscapes into the game!

Fancy brawling at the beach? Gliding on ice, while staying warm using the heat of some fresh bombs? Making sure that volcano doesn't erupt, so its lava can't accidentally burn someone? 

It's going to be available soon. Stay tuned!

The major part of random level generating has been completed, keeping the old layout, while also making a new type of random map available, using a custom and very secret algorithm ;).

It is time for me to go. 

I wish you all a very merry Christmas, and until next year!

-Bas

PS: I've made some crappy music for the game which you to listen to while we're gone (even though we might post something during the holidays as well). If your ears start bleeding, you'd better stop listening.

https://soundcloud.com/bird-eater/sets/bomberman

PPS: 42 is the best number.

PPPS: The world isn't ending.

Another two weeks of work

Heya guys, Mars here presenting you with the latest update!

We've invested quite some time into the project over the past two weeks. Luckily, we're already ready to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor, as we already have a working version of the game. And even though it's far from finished, it's still a lot of fun to play.
Pretty much everything of the regular Bomberman is programmed, the AI and the various menus being the exceptions. 

Aron has managed to finish the InputHelper class, making it easier for us to assign buttons for each action per player. There isn't a menu for this yet, he and Jaimy are working on that. Another nice feature is the fact that we are able to use the controllers from the Xbox 360 and differentiate between them. This makes gaming with four players simultaneously a lot simpler than having four people hassling on a single keyboard. 

Ricardo should be able to start working on the AI now, as the player and bomb classes are finished. You'll find out in the next big update (perhaps even sooner!) how much progress he has made.

In terms of Game-design, we've added four different races to play as, each with their unique perks and special bombs. Ever wanted to be a Pirate battling Aliens? Or a Ninja eager to blow up some Zombies? Well, you can now, as those are the races you're able to play as.

The races aren't implemented yet, but we can give you a list of their special weapons. These weapons will appear as power-ups on the field and they differ per race. You'll only be able to have to one of these power-ups at a time, so if you collect one while you haven't fired your current on yet, it will go to waste.

Aliens will be having a neutron-bomb who's explosion is powerful enough to pass through walls. It's reach is limited, but it's a star shaped explosion, meaning it will go off everywhere in a three block radius. Please note that while the bomb is able to pass through the indestructible walls, it will not destroy them.

The Pirates' special weapon is the cannonball. It can't be placed like regular bombs. Instead, it will be launched in the direction the player faces. It will explode on impact, unless it collides with a player with the kick bomb power-up. 

Gas-bombs will be the ninja's special weapon. They won’t cause an explosion like the other bombs, but they will spread a lethal gas across the passable tiles. Bas will be working on this bomb. Seeing as he already made the path finding, he'll be able to use that to determine which tiles will be affected.

Last but not least there's the zombie-exclusive bomb, my personal favorite, the Zombomb! Once placed, the Zombomb will wander back and forward across a straight path. It will chase after anyone it sees, meaning everyone with either the same X or Y coordinate, without a wall between that player and the bomb. It explodes when it comes in contact in contact with another player, or when it's been walking around for too long. It isn't fast, and it's blast range is really small as well, to prevent it from being overpowered.

Also, every race will have their unique passive abilities as well, but to be honest, we aren't completely sure what those should be...

Moving on from the races, Jaimy and Bas have been working on the game's graphics, giving us the sprites for both the pirate and the alien race. The background sprites and those for the walls, both the destructible as the indestructible are also finished. As you're able to see in the screenshot below, there's currently no grass being drawn under the exploding wall.  

We've ran into other bugs as well while play-testing. one of them was that kicked bombs stopped my colliding with a player, would move again as soon as the player stepped out of the way. Luckily for us, the problem was easy to fix, and gave us a few good laughs as well. The lighting isn't done as well, you can see that the lights surrounding the player will pass through the edges of the field.

One other bug we've encountered was an ammo hiccup. If somebody picked up an extra bomb power-up, while they already have one or more bombs out in the field, the maximum number of bombs that player could place was increased again after their bombs exploded.

This is all for now, we hope to see you again in two weeks, but remember, if we have anything else worthy of posting here, we'll make sure to do that too!

Thanks for reading, and have a nice weekend!