Year: 2010

RiU. Report 5

Работаю, работаю…

There are a lot of stuff done, but there are still a lot of to do.
I’ve made 3 levels so far and there should be around 20 in total. 🙂
Most of the graphics are ready, different effect are ready too.
We still don’t have SFX and looking for someone, who can make them for us.

I was thinking to post some video of the gameplay today, but I don’t have time, may be next time.

RiU. Report 1

Ok. First report.
In the light of new big modifications of the code at Space Age I have modified code of RiU too, it took me awhile.
Not, it’s working fine, here are the things left to do:

  1. Game levels;
  2. Enemies AI.
  3. Units animation.
  4. Story line.
  5. Code fixes.
  6. Graphics.
  7. Sound.
  8. Payments.

Some fresh screenshots (i don’t have all the graphics yet, so somethings are just from old artist or brown boxes :)):

Space Age. Report 6

I hope there will be no more than 100 reports. 🙂

Ok. I’ve made menu with all the required controls.
Also, there is one enemy(that green square) and satellites can shoot at him with bullets.
I’ve added new way of zooming, now it is possible to zoom with mouse down & move. When moving from the center it zooms in, to the center – zooms out. Works a bit glitchy so far.
And I’ve made my own mouse cursor.

I’ve decided to not use music in game (first time I came up with this idea when I was working on RiU game) and use internet radio instead, because even 1 small (3 minutes or so) well compressed song increase game size for ~1MB.
In Main Menu -> Options there is a Radio volume and a list of radio stations. User will also have an ability to add his own stations. Radio does not work at the moment, but all the required code is already written.

Space Age. Report 4

So, game menus are done. They look ugly at the moment, but working fine.
You can star researches and construct satellites.
I think I’ve finished around 25%-30% of the game, what is quite slow, as it is 4 weeks already in development.
I wish I have more time.

Here is what I have right now:

Things to do:
1. Units and enemies;
2. AI;
3. Bullets, rockets, lasers;
4. Explosions;
5. Timing and balance;
6. Some events on Earth with population;
7. Main menus, options, load games, etc.;
8. Intro;
9. Find artist;
10. Find sounds;
11. Translation to Russian, Belorussian, French. (maybe German and Spanish).

Space Age. Report 3

Ok. Nothing new to show this week.

What I’ve done:

  1. I have reconsidered Research(science) in game. Before it was a hierarchical with roots like Armor, Engine, Weapon and branches like “Steel Armor”, “Plasmagun”, etc. As it seems too difficult for casual players to decide what research they should choose, I have switch to linear Research. Now it’s just 14 positions, following one by one, player won’t choose which research to start first.
  2. Before I was planning to let player construct a spaceship like in Lego, so he chooses base of the ship, armor, weapon, etc. and construct the ship. But, as it also quite not casual and it definitely will be difficult for most players, I’ll just make predefined spaceships. Each new ship will appear after each finished research.
  3. I have redesigned menus in game. It gonna be floating panels, that will hide when you move out your mouse.

I’m working hard 🙂 on a new menu (coding and design) at the moment, because it’s an essential part of the game. Hope to show something new next week.

Space Age. Report 2

Report #2, and I have something to show.
While working on project I have discovered some problems.
1. Away3DLite is “too lite”. 🙂 It doesn’t not support a lot of features, that Away3D supports, like Sprites. Although Away3DLite version from SVN (http://away3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk) has Sprite3D, but it doesn’t work correctly with FastRenderer so far.
2. Away3DLite has horrible mouse behavior performance. FPS drops significantly on MouseEvent3D.MOUSE_DOWN event, so I’ve just turned it off for now. I still need to explore this problem.
3. Flash can’t draw dashed lines and circles. Fortunately there is a graphics.curveTo function.
Her is my code:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

graphics.lineStyle(2, 0x00FFFF);
graphics.moveTo(_midX+_radius, _midY);
for(_i = 6; _i <= 360; _i+=12)
{
  graphics.curveTo(_midX+(_radius)*Tools.cos(_i-3), _midY+(_radius)*Tools.sin(_i-3), _midX+(_radius)*Tools.cos(_i), _midY+(_radius)*Tools.sin(_i));
  graphics.moveTo(_midX+(_radius)*Tools.cos(_i+6), _midY+(_radius)*Tools.sin(_i+6));
}

It draws circle with dashes every 6 degrees.
_midX and _midY are the coordinates of the center of circle.
Tools.cos and Tools.sin are my own functions for cos and sin, they return values from a prefilled arrays.
4. Game is 800×600, but as I know that some sponsors don’t accept that.

Next week I’m planning to do a lot of coding and planning and game menus and logic.

Ok. Here is what I have for today:

Space Age. Report 1

Here are the things I did for the last week:
1. Found textures for Earth, Moon, Earth’s clouds and some others
2. Made notes (on paper :)) about gameplay, menu, game science and logic.
3. Took part of the core files from RiU, like input, audio, timers, etc. and started to add first classes to the new game.
4. Played a bit with Away3D and decided to use Away3DLite, which is smaller and works faster. (Good tutorials about Away3D are here.)

This is it. I hope to have something visual next week.

Space Age

Unfortunately, RiU development takes too much time, still no graphics, so I’ve decided to start new game under the “Space Age” name.
It should be some sort of space defense game with lots of new features, science and storyline.
I’m planning to make the engine myself and find artist on FGA website.
I will also use Away3D to render Earth, but everything else will be in 2D.

Unlike other projects, I will make a weekly reports to describe, what I’ve done for the last week.
I hope, it will help me to keep track of my progress, better control my time and stop being so lazy.

AlertPay, a good PayPal alternaive?

I have recently singed up with AlertPay.
Some of their advantages:

  1. Lower fees for receiving instant payments: 2.50 % + $0.25 for any amount comparing to PayPal’s 2.9% + $0.30. But after $3000 PayPal has a lower fees of 2.5% + $0.30, and they can be even more lower.

  2. AlertPay supports some countries that PayPal doesn’t, for example Pakistan. This is the main reason why I’m going to use AlertPay, some of my customers just can’t pay me with PayPal, so I hope they will can do that with AlertPay.

  3. Better considered user interface and Business Tools, comparing to PayPal.

And some disadvantages:

  1. Bank transfer: $0.50 for any amount, while PayPal is free for $150+.

  2. Higher fees for receiving payments by credit cards, AlertPay: 4.90 % + $0.25 USD, PayPal: 2.9% (3.9%) + $0.30 USD

  3. Verification process. Although they don’t ask for scan of personal documents, they have 3 types of personal account verification:
    a. Bank Account Confirmation – like PayPal.
    b. Credit File Confirmation, “For Credit File Validation, we submit your name, address and date of birth to a credit bureau to verify your identity.” – an interesting way toverify my identity.
    c. Attestation Form, “An Attestation is a form that you must fill out and have signed by a guarantor or Commissioner of Oaths.” – well…
    You have to complete two out of three verification types to be verified. I just wonder, why is one type (like bank account confirmation) not enough?

  4. While AlertPay’s home page says, that they have 4500 sign-ups every day, I actually don’t know any website that accept AlertPay, but I know many websites accepting PayPal.

So, are you looking for PayPal alternative? Try it!

AS3 String VS Number

I was accidentally storing numbers as strings in my objects.
Something like that:

data = {x: "200", y: "100"};

instead of that:

data = {x: 200, y: 100};

So, the problem starts when you try to sum or deduct these “numbers”.
For example,

trace(data.x+90);
Output: 20090
trace(data.x-90);
Output: 110
DISCLAIMER: The content in this blog represents the opinion of the author. No information here should be used for any purpose except for entertainment.