Been over a month!

Finals are finally over so now I can spend all break working on Pants. I've already taken out most of what I had gotten done, like the 'almost' level editor and terrain painter. My goal is to rebuild the engine to be as simple and flexible as possible. I thought that was what I was doing, but I soon realized it could be even simpler. I'm getting more of the core done on this iteration such as Lua scripting, level management, system communication, serialization, and object composition. That's basically everything... I kept some simple parts like input, skeleton graphics, and the window (oooo fancy!). I don't want to start coding gameplay or the level editor until the engine is sufficiently ready. ( I jumped the gun before ) The thing I've yet to get concrete is how much of the game I'm going to do in Lua. It's something new for me, and I know that it could be a performace hit later, plus I'm still learning it.

Things at this point: Window, Input, graphics core, object management, exposed systems in Lua.
Things to do next: Object composition, serialization, graphics( xml materials, scene sorting, effect sorting, cameras ), exposed object functionality in lua.

We're still here

I promise we haven't died already. Brett is still coming up with awesome powerups and I've been insanely busy with school. Coding will start again soon.

Coding has started (Evan)

I officially got a small, free, private svn going and started coding the game this week. And by "game", I mean nothing at all that has to do with pants. Just the super bare bones of the game engine. This means a project that can use systems, pass messages, and load/save settings with xml. Next comes bare bones graphics, then input, game objects, physics, sound, etc. I'm just glad I can work quickly without getting caught up in planning for advanced things that aren't needed for the game.

I hope to have a playable game by December, sooner if possible, so that a demo can be released by Christmas. It seems like an impossible deadline, and will be unless I can figure out a way to get some art going. This means textures mostly because even I can fake a good pair of pants and shoes in a modeling program. The other problem is that I've never made a program that is guaranteed to be compatible with everything it runs on. This will be the biggest difference between this and something I would code for fun.

If needed, Brett and I will decide if inviting other people to work on the project is something to consider. Of course we'd like to do it alone, but it all depends on whether we want to get it done on a deadline, or keep it as a fun hobby.

I will post pictures, maybe videos as soon as I finish something worth showing.

Woops!

Well due to code license restrictions, I may not be using GoogleCode. I'll either find a private SVN to use or see if the other licenses google lets you use better fit our needs.

SVN IS UP! (Evan)

I found out that google has some svn stuff. For those who don't know, SVN stands for subversion. This is a system to keep track of large scale projects between multiple people. You use programs like TortoiseSVN to manage a project. You can make additions, changes, etc. and it will keep track of everything and merge changes, and let you go back to old versions.

This google stuff is all open source. So this means other people can get read-only version of our project. If you're interested, and have an SVN program (I use TortoiseSVN), you can download Pants The Game and all related files for your viewing pleasure.

When you checkout the project, the URL is:
!! Woops! Will put up new one once it's made. !!

Have fun seeing everything Brett and I make!

Early tech plans (Evan)

So I figure I'll post some stuff on tech because Brett posted stuff on design. The game will be simple because it is 2.5D. No fancy physics, no fancy spatial partitioning. That being the case, it will let me focus mostly on making it pretty. A lot of time will also be put into an in-game level editor. This means being able to play the game, pause it, and edit the level, then un-pause the game and continue playing. This will allow for easy fine-tuning of jumpable gaps, etc.
For rendering I figure I'll go for a deferred approach, or a light prepass approach because I don't think we'll be having transparency all over the place. This means lots of pretty lights all over the place. However this plan could change depending on how well it works for my current junior Digipen game.
The architecture will be a super simple component based one. That way if things need to be torn down and rewritten, it won't be a big deal. Of course I'll still try and make it as flexible as possible, but a lot of corners can be cut because of the simplicity of the game. I'm guessing the biggest challenge will be setting up a scripting system like python or lua so that Brett can script the powerups and boss fights.

-Evan

Brett:  Evan and I spent a bit of time a few days back thinking over how to make our game unique and fun.  We decided that after defeating most enemies, perhaps using them as a sort of power-up would be cool.  With this in mind, I spent some time today (yesterday by now) thinking up some enemies for our denim hero.  So far I've split them into two main groups- shoes and gloves.  The player may have one of each equipped at any one time, and hopefully differently combined boots/gloves will give the player multiple fun ways to play.  Here are the examples that I came up with so far:

SHOES

• Joggers: Increase the player's movement speed by a good deal. No other effect.
• Basketball Shoes: increase jump height by a great deal. No other effect.
• Work boots: Jump height greatly reduced.  allows the player to walk over spikes and some other obstacles.
• Steel toe shoes: Allows the player to walk into, and kick enemies.  Slows movement speed by a bit.
• Cleats: Allows the player to walk up walls and  on ceilings. The player cannot jump and their speed is slowed while cleats are equipped.
• Lugs: Landing after a jump makes a small shock wave that kills enemies and breaks through some floors.  Slows move speed by a bit.

GLOVES

• Ninja gloves: Allows the player to throw throwing stars for a long range attack
• Clown gloves: Gloves extend out on springs for a somewhat increased range attack, also grabs hooks at longer range.
• Boxing gloves: Rushes forward to punch an enemy, or sends the player flying forward after a jump.
• Silk gloves: Poke with a magic cane for a same-range attack, also, the first damaging hit that lands on the player after attaining the gloves disappears in a poof of magic and is redirected back at the enemy - the gloves disappear after the effect.