Developer's BlogManTis

Hi, sorry for no activity for last month, but as always after vacations some of us returned to universities and you know how it is for those first couple weeks. Both moomoo and me are relocating to new flats, which means some time will pass till the internet will be available for us at home.

On the coding side, we're in the alpha - we've started introducing some alpha features, while some preprod features that were non-blocking are not done yet. Will have to re-work the roadmap. Lately we've been receiving coding and net design help from a friend of mine, Age of Conan developer. His expertise is invaluable and got us to redesign some portions of the engine so that Ekaiyo can be more than silly attempt at MMORPG making. Thanks Joe!

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So, with two weeks to the end of preprod phase all af us are yearning for more time, but know that it's hopeless. I haven't had good night sleep since my vacations, damn it :P

Anyways, I was kinda too lazy to update the roadmap, so here you are, list of all things that are left to code for preprod:

Animation of characters, to be implemented by ManTis
Fuzzy low-poly grass (impostor based), ManTis
Movement prediction (dead reckoning) for smoother action, ManTis
Standardizing shaders (we currently use two shaders that have inversed normals), ManTis not applicable any more
Adding better looking water, ManTis
Movement (and not only) physics, ManTis
Rotating/Moving/Deleting objects in level editor, ManTis
Public/Whisper chat, Theorem
Level exporter/importer in level editor, Theorem done
More objects support in level editor, Theorem done
Undo function in level editor, Theorem done
Roaming pokemon AI, TopYoash
GUI, TopYoash

and maybe battle engine used in-game, but that's only if we'll really have time.

As you can see yours truly will be swamped with work for next couple days. Maybe I'll offload some of it to Theorem :P. Anyways, if all will be as planned, we'll start coding on closed Alpha with the start of next month. We will also pick our testers, like promised, based on how much did they helped us develop this game. I think that's only fair, as opposed to picking up people who PM me with 'pick me for testing' or, even better, leave a comment 'mail me when this game is ready and I'll test for you: idiot@somany.isps.com'.

With this optimistic accent I'd like to end todays rant. Our next show will include moomoo juggling flaming chainsaws and babies.

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First of all, I'd like to say that I'm grateful for all the praise - I don't really think it's deserved, as the things I'm really proud of in preprod state - networking, physics, scripting and battle mechanics aren't visible in the picture I uploaded. Still, it feels nice.

I will add some eyecandies for Preprod, couple roaming pokemon and we'll move on to working on Alpha (unless Theorem will add something in the meantime, while I'm working on that ;)).

Oh yeah, did I mention that couple new models made their way into the Ekaiyo Pokedex?

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The vacations were amazing. Since I was out of range of any mobile phone, I was offline. And it was good.

But I'm back and time to work. Preprod is more or less functional, and we're adding final stuff to it. Guess I should update the roadmap once I'm back home. Theo is working on ABE so we prolly will have ABE functionality in some form within the game engine (as opposed to console only text-based battles). Swarming AI are developed for the pokemon and I'm taking all things that others don't have time to wrap their heads around and implementing it (gaming-specific code that I have background with, and other programmers may not).

I'm in two minds about showing our current progress. The map is just a heightmap crudely textured and there are no models other than players and some pokemon. There is no real GUI, as etix mysteriously disappeared again and the console looks ugly. Ugly things tend to scare people off. The reason we're not going public with preprod is because if people see 'omg, Pokemon MMORPG!', download it and see glitchy 3D-chatroom-game they tend to go away and never look back. OTOH, it does show some progress. Also it shows that we care about you guys and that there IS some code working. I'll ask the team how they feel about it. Tell me what you think as well - do you want ugly pictures couple times a week showing off what we're currently working on or rather bunch of pictures displaying polished features once a month or so. TIA.

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We finished Alpha at work, so I can get a little breather - took 1.5 weeks off and going to spend them with a middle of woods with my gf, far from everybody else, swimming in river and watching grass grow. It will be awesome.

Other than that with theo we played a bit on preprod demo. Nearly all elements work flawlessly - shader, movement, conversations, etc. He will work on some parts of it while I'll be gone, and I'm taking my laptop with me, maybe I'll work on it if it'll be raining and I'll be really really really bored :P. On 10th we'll prolly wrap all of this and finish the preprod stage.

Have a nice week.

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Welcome back, people. Summer's upon us and the work (as always during summer) is redoubled. Theo updated the website (be sure to read about all the new features if you haven't already), and artists are producing models faster than ever. Since everybody was confused about which pokemon are done and which aren't, with the rejuvenation of the website we created a small suprise for you: Ekaiyo Pokedex. In it you'll find all models that have been approved and finalized. There's tons of models that you haven't seen yet, so take a look at it! If something's in there, you can expect it in the game. So far it has 90 pokemon, but only because we reverted some of them after deciding that they are not of the quality we want to have in our game. You have probably seen some of the not-quite-finished on the forums, or if you came to IRC. About 40 more pokemon are being polished, expect them to be added very rapidly.

On the programming side I'm finishing final stages of preprod demo. It will take place on n00b island and will be laying grounds for public alpha. No, do not ask when it's done. It will be done when it will be ready, ok? Good. The deal is that I simply don't want to give you a 3D chatroom with no gameplay. If you want a _real_ Pokemon MMORPG, give us some more time. I can promise you that it will be worth it.

PS: As you already (seriously, do it) read in Theorem's news post, we have RSS. Don't bother to read mine there, instead read what I've written here. I usually re-edit my post couple times - I prefer to have one long post than 13059735107 small ones in one day.

PPS: 91st model added. Woo!

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Well, I'm back. Don't have decent net at home, but I do have normal home. I've worked on integrating basic physics (movement, not like all those fancy demos you're thinking about), collision and controls. Worked a bit on animation and that's about it - spent rest of my week disassembling and assembling furniture, moving them down and upstairs, cleaning, packing, unpacking, being tired, being frustrated, being angry. Thanks god it's over (at least for now).

Also started working on my small DS project that may bring me some cash. Won't talk too much about it now.

What else, what else? Ah, I've extended z00ttheater.com for another year. Hopefully it'll be eventful one, right? ;).

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Just a quickie - finishing my moving to hamburg, took me whole week, tomorrow will be done, will update more.

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Me and Theo are currently working on the fucked up animation system. It's really annoying and I've restarted it couple times already.

Haven't been working much during the weekend because I spent it on painkillers and in hospital (don't ask, guess one should get proper healing instead of saying 'I'm cured' after 1 day of lying in bed :D). I'm feeling better now, but I'm still in bed with sickness. Actually, this means I'll regain the time I lost on weekend. Hopefully.

jahajazz created couple pokemon, out of which 2 have caught my heart especially:

Poliwag
and
Psyduck

Enjoy!

PS: Oh yeah, a very important thing - if anybody out there has Pokemon Revolution and could take pictures/videos of every single pokemon for reference for our modellers (as it's sometimes hard to tell how something is supposed to look from just pokedex pictures), we would be very grateful, and it would speed up graphics creation process considerably.

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So, animation still isn't done. Yish. It's starting to make me angry, but I'll work a bit in the week. Hopefully it'll work out.

bezet, our newest addition to team, audio specialist, have started creating sounds for Ekaiyo. Here are some examples: Tail Whip, Hydro Pump, Bite, and Tackle. Enjoy.

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Well, finally something new to show regarding Glass Trap. It's finished level tree generator. It displays connection between the rooms - look on the right side, you see part of the map and how it translates to rooms (black squares), and connections between them (red = signs). Connection between two rooms means that there's either no wall between them or there is a door. So this 2x2 room could be one big room, four small connected by door, one 2x1 and two small rooms, two 2x1 rooms or one L=shaped room and one small room. That's of course disregarding connections with other rooms.

I hope that my explanation isn't too convoluted ;).

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I worked a bit on Ekaiyo (as you can see on project roadmap). Collision stuff mostly. I've mostly created system for collision to work with, now I'll return to updating other basics of the engine. Damn, why Theorem has so little work and I have so much? ;_;.

Anyways, I'm bit sick, so I'll prolly spent whole my weekend in bed, coding. Will keep you updated and be sure check the roadmap from time to time!

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I created some new stuff for the game. Not much to display, mostly behind the scenes - etc, but I managed to create weapon trails which look cool (I think)

Also, a lot has changed in the mechanics departament. Instead of 3 classes to choose, you'll have 3 tree skills:

-Snipe (sniper rifle-like)
-Speed (minigun-like)
-Spread (shotgun-like)

With each having it own merits, for example Snipe mode has high chance of piercing the enemy or scoring a critical hit, speed mode has higher average damage, and spread mode has highest damage potential and is absolutely devastating at close range. Here's a picture of early concept testing.

You will be able to pick up weapons and armor, with each having different abilities. To further differentiate weapons have couple damage types, and each monster type can be resistant or immune to given type. The types of damage are:

-Smack (base damage)
-Slap (blunt damage)
-Splash (fluid damage - acid, holy water, lava, etc)
-Slice (cut damage. it was supposed to be called Emo damage at first but then I noticed that nearly all of mechanic stats in my game are beginning with S, so I decided to roll with it)

Here's a simple editor I whipped up for testing if this makes sense, simulates player attacking a boss, MaulingMonkey ;)

PS: Yes, this entry is very old and copypasted from my gamedev thread. Since 4E is dead, updating this journal sounds like a more reasonable thing than updating the gamedev one.

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Unfortunately, 4E finished while I was in really fucked up period in my life and couldn't code for 2 months. This doesn't mean I'm giving up on this project. I mean, how could one give up on Accountants From Jungle shooting Mutated Unicorn Ponies, while sniffing Crystal Meth and seeing Exploding Stuff?

In other words, time to code some :D

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I got a flat! Or, actually, a room. But it's sealed off from the rest of a house and self-containing; kitchen part, toilet, BAR :D. It's also in middle of Hamburg's alternative centre, so lots of pubs around. Landlord seems a nice fellow (he whipped out a vodka after we've done the bussiness). I have a nets over there, so expect me to work again.

Well, that's about it. TTYS

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Yesterday was another coding night, so we moved ahead a bit. Even mooms found some time to join us, even though he has finals starting next week and is busy as hell.

I'm working currently on supporting some decent 3D model format that can be created using Blender (COLLADA text mode for now), and it's progressing bit by bit. I should have full usability for that done very soon.

For the weekend I'll head to my old flat, and maybe fix my gf's comp - that is, if her hard drive is not physically dead - that would allow me to take my laptop back. And that means way more work may be done, as now I can only develop on evenings at work.

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Hullo thar, haven't seen you in ages!

I'm moving to another city, as some of you may know, to new company. Now instead of working on DS and PSP games, I'm working on games for Wii. I had to leave my laptop with my gf in the old city, cause her comp broke down, as usual. I'll prolly have final appartament before 1st May (now I'm living @ my mate's) and somewhere after that, my network at home.

Theorem and me have again more time, and as usual in summer season, Ekaiyo is going back to life. Since people've been asking for it, we have added roadmap for the project (clicky). It's not fully done yet - we started working on it yesterday, it's not updated with what we've done, and it doesn't have all the issues we'll be adressing, but it is out there, and you might want to check out from time to time, as it will be best way to measure progress.

We still have to wait for moomoo for more content, but we will keep progressing on our own. Well then, enjoy the ride.

Update: if you click on 'Feature #something' you'll see description of that feature, might help you understand some weird names.

Also, keep in mind that the list is not and probably never will be completed. There will always be something added, if not feature, then bug. It's good approximation to where are we with the project currently however, and good way for us to keep track of how the team is progressing, and this was the main reason it was uploaded there.

So please no 'THAR WAS SUPPOZED 2 B VERSIOON RELESD 2 WEEKZ AGO BUT U ADDD 10 TASKZ, WAAAAAH! U SUCKZ!' complaints. I will ban by IP and username people who will provide such unconstructive criticizm :). Have a nice day.

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Well, we have update on the text chat issue.

To clarify the intention of Section 2.d. of the 2.0 EULA: this restriction only applies if your program is interacting with Microsoft's networking services, e.g. Xbox or Games for Windows LIVE service ('LIVE'). If you are implementing a solution that does not in any way interact with LIVE then this section would not apply. We are evaluating an unencrypted means to implement text chat in the next GSE release so that you would be able to implement text chat functionality over LIVE.

Please note that if you do decide to implement any non-LIVE networking functionality with communication capabilities, you are responsible for comply with any applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

YAAAY, we don't need to revert to XNA 1.0 refresh!

See you all in couple days.

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First of all - sorry for not only the wait, but also for lack of informations. Last couple weeks have been really frantic - I was supposed to have 3 weeks off from work, but since the game we're working (at work) is coming late, they revoked my vacations and I'm staying here every day for ~12-16 hours. It'll be this way till 9th of January, which is the final submission date (hopefully). After that we're regaining works.

In other news: Microsoft released XNA 2.0 which is pretty sweet, but the EULA has a gotcha - you can't use text chat within it, as the LIVE network is encrypted and it violates Patriot Act and other stuff like that that forbids encrypted conversation. Using Windows Sockets system may or may not prevent this - dunno, XNA team still haven't answered this (prolly at least THEY have vacation ;) ). The other solution, proposed by Shawn Hargreaves (XNA dev) was that they will add something that will allow for unencrypted data sending. Have to see how this will turn out. For the time being, Ekaiyo is still developed in XNA 1.0 Refresh. Since I won't have even one evening free before 9th of Jan, probably this issue will be resolved before I'll sit back to working on the game ;).

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Finally, mooms has finished his internship at a company he's been working at and we can resume working on Ekaiyo. We want to work on animations this weekend, concluded by networking test.

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Since I've worked sum on Ekaiyo, I didn't have time to code for this project. I did however, create a full grass-dirt tileset, and am adding walls now. They lack distinguishable borders, but still they're better than whatever I created up till now (clicky here for pictures).

Will finish polishing (or rather destroying ;) ) the walls, and resume working on level random generation. I really don't want to have to fall back to hand-created levels.

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And, the rooms are now created correctly (insert triumphant music score here). In this picture you can see rooms rendered as gray fields, though whole level is 3x smaller than real one, just so you can see how the created level looks like.

Skip what I said about adding the level elements, first I'm going to implement Line Of Sight algorithm. Well, walls MAY be added ;)

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I've been working on level creation, but level created are nothing like those in Diablo - they're maze of twisty little passages with some rooms. Will have to tweak it.

I was also idly wondering about adding more RPG-like elements in the game, like stats. I know that creating full Diablo (clone? parody?) is out of my reach, even if I would work whole 6 months, but I want to add some things from it - I don't want the game to be boring and for one sitting only. I want to add that something that Diablo had. The 'one more level' factor.

Oh well, enough ranting, back to coding. After I will manage to create good levels, I'll work on adding some more graphics into the game for a while (walls mostly), and then will work on adding random stuff in the rooms.

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I've worked on random level generator, and actually something came out. So far I'm generating labirynths - first step on the way to random dungeon, or office buildings as the case may be. Next thing to add will be rooms, and after that - doors and other randomly placed level content.

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Haven't updated this project in long time, now have I?

Since moomoo/Laroon are still working on getting animations to work correctly with new file format, I had some time to play with my side project. They're getting closer to working it out, so I returned to coding for Ekaiyo. We're aiming on starting new network test (just one type of player/one pokemon to play with, but still it's a huge step.

The network test WON'T be using any final map, most probably it'll be just flat surface, but I'm writing it in a way that'll let me expand it through patches (kinda like Blizzard does), so probably the network test will eventually grow into game once all other stuff is finalized and added.

I'm playing with Level Editor atm, making it easier for designers to use it, but I broke something (picture). Maybe I shouldn't pre-optimise the code? ;)

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Well, I've worked a bit on the moving and I have it nearly figured out. Player's character wanders in the same way the one in Diablo does - it goes to the closest point that's available to place where user clicked. Camera also follows the main player like in the aforementioned game.

I have small problems with creatures following the avatar: I've released the Secretary and ordered her to charge at the player, but from time to time she'll pick random direction and cross any walls and go there. Dunno yet why's that happening.

So far, the game looks more or less like this.

Next on: Random level generation. For now it'll be just walls from holes, but later on I'll add actual walls.

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I'm bored, so I created another 2 characters for my game: Janitor (he may not be smartest person out there, but he can get your head off with the mop) and hot Secretary (Bond's girls are NOTHING on her)

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Well, this year's 4E contest was announced.

The elements game must consist of are: Accountants, Ponies, Crystals and Explosions.

Sounds ridiculous enough? Well, let's get started on my game idea:

There was this HUGE ASS building, with lots of companies in it some shopping mall, etc. Due to some cataclysm, it was shut off from the outside world. Well, the people managed to live couple years on the supplies inside, then eventually started cultivating seeds etc. You are their descendant. Descendand of the tribe of V. Rich and Co. This was very bad year, crops grew weak, so you are sent by your tribe elders to find the magical key to big bird on roof (helicopter).

There are big ass rats, mutated people from floors closer to roof, CRAZY VAMPIRE LAWYERS, and so on.

You can gather a 'Crystals' left overs from Yup-Pie tribe of your ancestors, which make you move faster and feel less pain ;)

You can hunt for Ponies, which escaped from a local petting zoo - they are cute and don't attack you if you don't attack them, so you're presented with moral dillema - kill the innocent creatures (powerful when attack!) to gain health, or leave them be and hope that you can find something else to eat.

Game will be cross between Chaos Engine/Cyberdogs style, Get Medievial/Gauntlet and Diablo.

You'll have one of 3 classes:
Accountant armed with Staple Gun - fast attack, but weak,
Secretary armed with Coffe Dispenser - medium speed, medium strength,
Janitor armed with buckets - slow but powerful.

I'm going to make the game in simulated 13h mode style (320x200 res, 256 colors). Upscaled with nearest neighbour so you can play on TFT displays as well ;).

I've never done any pixel art, so keep an eye out for ugly pictures :D

My influences include, but are not limited to:

Monty Python's Crimson Permanent Assurance
Chuck Palachniuk's Fight Club
Scott Adams's Dilbert

and games (in alphabetical order)

Bioshock
Cannon Fodder
Chaos Engine
Cyberdogs
Diablo
Fallout
Gauntlet
Get Medieval

Thanks for all the fun I had with these, respective creators ;)

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Well, haven't gotten much work done this week, as I spent it whole on perscription painkillers ( :D ), but will get back to working on weekend. The pain is slowly dissapearing and I can finally use mouse without wincing every second.

I managed to create small test on level editor, but it was a dead-end path, so I've reverted it and went back to normal coding. Will write about that bit more tomorrow.

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So, I'm back from GC Leipzig. It was crazy, I met lot of people from last years Game Developers Conference in London, I had great time. Managed to play Starcraft 2 ( was good), Pokemon Battle Revolution (not revolutionary but still sweet), and Wii Fit (less intuitive to control than I hoped, out of all things that were shipped with it a massive ONE (Ski Jump) might become good party game :/.

I've seen/played lots of other games, but too many to recall, so I won't bother. Girls were, as usual, incredible. And parading topless, with only paint on them. Hur hur hur.

After getting back to my city, we played Tennis and I tore my sinew - it is a pain like hell to type, so I'm coding with one hand. Takes ages. But after whole night on painkillers I don't feel like forcing my borked arm to work.

Well, back to coding I guess.

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After playing with it for best part of the day, I got projective textures more or less working. More or less, means that it displays. Sometimes. Because of z-fighting the radius of terrain tool might not always be displayed, however most of the time it's there.

Tomorrow I'll try to fix this and a weird bug I'm having with camera, and eventually move to modifying the terrain in correct way. After that it'll be adding more usability to the terrain sculptor.

Things to be implemented:
-Raise
-Lower
-Level
-Grab (optional)
-Smooth
-Erode
-Push (optional)
-Ramp

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What's happening on level editor:

Lots of small bugs fixed, added possibility to move the camera, now I'm adding (and this'll prolly take whole day) projected 'select terrain' tool, which basically tells you how much terrain cells you affect with your tool. After that I'll change per-triangle terrain modification to per-vertex.

So far two terrain modifiers are implemented basically - raise and lower. As you can see [http://www.z00ttheater.com/website/users/3/gallery/15]on the screenshot[/url] it doesn't look awesome yet, but hey - progress is a progress.

Update: I changed color scheme to be bit more intuitive, of course still it doesn't look perfect, but i think it's a progress. Check it here.

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Well, it turns out that there WAS somebody in the office. So I downloaded the stuff I worked on at work and am developing it further now. Here's the result so far. Still some issues need to be resolved - quite a lot, actually, but first step has been made.

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Well, I managed to have editor on the level I left the MDX one, as you can see here. The only things that are different are: not implemented picking (that wasn't working very well in MDX version very well either way) and the fact that render loop actually updates correctly in real time. Hardest part, which is dealing with non-pipeline content is through, now it's only coding the 'meat' with very little dealing with graphical devices for long time. Yay.

Update: Oh great, I haven't checked in the newest version I worked on at work. If somebody will be in office tomorrow I'll get it, if not - no coding till monday, as I'm not feeling like re-writing this shitty map code again.

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I've worked some on transfering level editor from XNA to MDX (as the latter totally lost its attractiveness, XNA 2.0 has been announced to be in works, MDX is discontinued). So far I'm displaying only basic stuff, but other stuff will be added shortly. Back to work it seems.

Speaking of work, my company is sending me to Games Convention Leipzig next week. Gonna drink till I drop ;).

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Well, most of you don't even know what this project is about - there was time when me and moomoo decided to close Ekaiyo untill we gathered enough confidence in our skills. Started creating small games (like asteroids clones, 3d arkanoid, and others). Eventually, this idea came to our head - a UT/Quake like game, but where you would use a hovercrafts instead of normal avatars, and the game would be set on small meteor-sized planets. We started working hard, and the effect was more than what we hoped for - we enjoyed it so much, that we had enough energy to go back to Ekaiyo. Well, that means that the project is on small hold (until we'll have next block ;) ). Here's the video of how the steering would look like:

Race!

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Well, after page being finished, we can return to standard working. You may wonder - the vidya was cool, but are we able to reproduce their looks in game? Well, wonder no more; I give you - cel shaded Mudkip!

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I'm the fist of the north star!

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