[show/demo] Artificial Intolerance

[DancingOctopus]

I've posted this game previously, in it's own thread looooonnngg ago, and recently in the current games discussion thread. I wanted to get some significant progress completed before posting again, and well, I guess it's time.

Artificial Intolerance
Controls are on the page, but I'll post them here too:
Controls: W: Jump, A/D: Left/Right, S: Float, 1-5: Change Weapons, E: Use objects, F: Flashlight, Mouse/Click: Aim/Shoot.

It's only 315kb so far, so no preloader and I won't post any screenshots because well.. it's only 315kb.. see for yourself!

Much of the art is still placeholder stuff, or my own fun dev graphics. so go easy yeah? And there's no sound thus far.

I should mention there's not much in the way of actual game flow, just a few levels that show off the game engine I'm working on here.

I'd really like some feed back, especially concerning performance, with and without special features such as lighting and particles. I feel just about any computer should be able to play the game with these effects turned off, so if it's a bit sluggish with them on, try turning them off and see how it goes. Information on your computer specs would be especially handy here, also.

And finally, the known bugs:
- Collision detection for roofs/sloped roofs is buggy/non-existent.
- Certain guns don't do radial damage, eg: rocket launcher/flame thrower.
- Framerates are unreliable between browsers (sigh) I managed to get firefox to play nice by adding blank frames to the main time line and letting flash play through them. This method only works for IE if I stream audio at the same time, but I'd rather not do that.
- There's some level design glitches, boxes floating on nothing, switches not working properly. No big deal, exactly, just little oversights. Since these are just my testing levels, i'm not too worried.
- Currently there's no particle limit, so sometimes you'll end up with absurd amounts of particles ultimately causing slowdown on some machines. If this is an issue, turn particle levels to medium or low.
- Stoping and starting trains can cause problems with the objscripting involved. Not such a big deal since trains will be fully automated in the release anyway.

That should be it. have fun.

[ihoss.com]

wow, that looks incredible! I love the forcefeedback and the accurate controls! One thing I miss is some effect of shooting the enemy, even when they dont die. Make them stop in their path or something. A torch would also be neat.

[DancingOctopus]

wow, that looks incredible! I love the forcefeedback and the accurate controls! One thing I miss is some effect of shooting the enemy, even when they dont die. Make them stop in their path or something.

Excellent idea! I do recall having something similar to that in the original iteration of this engine, but I think I can work something much better out this time. Thanks for reminding me of that!

As for the torch... press F

[EvilKris]

Niiiice game. I think the particle effects are awesome, they really add to the game. I was especially impressed by the fact that you've used source lighting for the rockets and flamethrower, and I'm amazed you can get it running at the speed at the current dimensions- which is a credit to your coding skill (AS3?).
I'd probably beg and plead for someone like renderjhs to come along and touch up some of your graphics though, as they're a little lacklustre in places. The main sprite design could do with some work. Gameplay is all there though, well done.

[DancingOctopus]

EvilKris: Pure AS2. AS3 scares me

Ray Beez: That right there is the biggest challenge of using the lighting system: I know on my monitor everything is visible, but others have difficulty seeing the darker parts. I have set it up so the user can adjust the default darkness levels (not yet implemented though), but in a web based game most players won't bother going into the options to change it. One solution I though of was presenting the user with a slider and a grey gradient with the instruction to slide until "eveything left of this line is visible" like many console games use.

render: Yeah, I have a partner working on graphics. He's a college student, so I guess he has quite a bit on his plate. At the moment, only a small percentage of the graphics are actually finished (10%, at an estimate) and everything else is just a mish-mash of stuff I had lying on my computer, or quick dev-graphics. Since this showing is essentially a tech demo, I'm glad that side of things is throughly impressive.

mr_malee: heh, yeah, those 2 guns are particularly unoptimised. Another case of "waiting on the final graphics" before I do any more work on them.

UnknownGuy: I'm curious if you get better performance from turning the lighting and particles off. These two things are the biggest framerate killers, and although they add alot to the overall feel of the game, everything is playable without them on. (press esc then go into the options from there to turn them off)

[Ray Beez]

This has alot of potential. Just needs better "pacing" and intelligence to the enemies.
This reminds me of Abuse.

One problem though: I played map 3 and didn't even know I had a character to move because it was so dark I couldn't see him unti lI left through the door.

[walsher]

Sweet game dude. She ran great on my computer. Dell Precision, Intel Core 2, with IE 7. Loved the particles, the use of the lights and shadows added to it too.

[renderhjs]

@EvilKris: As far as I know DancingOctopus already has a hired artist or at least someone else doing sprites for this game- I wouldn´t want to butt in an taking away that spot- all I could do are some suggestions

@DancingOctopus: From a technology standpoint veeeery outstanding from others. Doors, moving brushes, switches, dynamic object hadnling (destroy crate -> spawn enemy), light mapping, dynamic map loading,...
From the graphics ^^ the main character and the enemies are not to my liking,- explosions could use a lifting as well but as you already said not everything fin there. At least it already looks so much better with the new tiles and lightning system as the previous demo from the currentGames 4 thread

[mr_malee]

sweeet, ever since i saw this in the current games thread i've been really interested in seeing a demo with your features. I love the lighting, haven't seen a platform game with that before in flash. I'd love to see you push the scary factor in this game, no flash game has ever made me jump before, maybe you could be the first. And i really want to know the story behind the robot, what he's doing there and what he has to do.

The game ran fine for me, however one of the guns (the one which shoots big blobs and they bounce around the screen) did slow the game down and the flame thrower too but not as much (you caching those gradients?). I think there was a small bug with the lower left elevator on the first map, didn't seem to go up when i was standing on it.

Other than that, great demo.

[UnknownGuy]

I remember this from the very first demo.

I'm currently on 1 Ghz machine in FF, so it runs at around 12 FPS.

I really enjoy the particle system, along with the variety of weapons. Looking good!

[swak]

You should make the float thing switchable instead of holding it down. Makes things a bit easier.

[adit_ya_sharma]

Very cool, had seen the earlier version way back sometime/ maybe some year/s ago? Was gonna report the bug chirpily about the sloped collision's 'negative' response, but then read your first post carefully about the known bugs and fell of the tree like a rotten mango. Wish that'll be fixed.

Anyway, keep it up, hope to see the full version

[DancingOctopus]

I've made a few minor changes, updated the tilesets, made the levels more uniform (even though they're only testers) fixed the elevators (although they still need tweaking) and bumped the default light levels up a wee bit. Feed back on the lighting is especially welcome.

Link is still the same, or here for the lazy. If you see a bunch on nonsense tiles, it means you need to clear your cache or try it in a browser (again, for the lazy)

edit: Oh yeah, I've removed the method to make firefox render faster as it was unreliable and somewhat unstable, so if you notice a framerate drop, that's it. sadly.

@swak: I did toy with that idea, but it gave less control to the player. I personally don't think it's that hard to pull off but it may take a little practice.

@adit_ya_sharma: That bug has been in the engine forever and even though it would only take a few lines of code tweaking in the collision detection method, i've kinda grown attached to it. It has come in handy when testing and I need to skip from one part of a level to another quickly. I guess it might stick around for a while

@Rockytastic: There is a screen shake loosely integrated. It is, as mr malee mentioned, rather subtle. Try standing still and firing off a few rockets, you should notice it.

@lesli_felix: See above, I've updated the default lighting so give it another shot and let me know if it's any better. I'm considering making the solid tiles somewhat brighter by default since they're currently at the darkest level, I feel this will make the game overall feel a bit less dark.

[Rockytastic]

Nice setup. Definitely needs work and some focus on areas, but it's a good setup.

forcefeedback

Forcefeedback? What forcefeedback? Am I missing hardware that flash is capable of using??

[mr_malee]

i think he is referring to the subtle shake effect of the screen

[Rockytastic]

oh . . . I didn't see a shake effect. . . .

bug?

For reference, I am using firefox.

[Squize]

That's sex!

Didn't check it out in the current games thread, and I'm glad I didn't to be honest 'cause it's great having no prior expectations and then seeing it play.

Good work mate, really impressive stuff even at this stage.

Squize.

[lesli_felix]

Nice, reaaally nice.

It's too dark in many places, I know this accentuates the lighting effects, but it's overkill.

Thats my only criticism, this looks like a great engine.

[lesli_felix]

Yep, that's better, still dark enough to create an atmosphere, but you can see whats going on.

Really impressive stuff.

[UnknownGuy]

On the same machine, without particles or lighting runs around 20 FPS. With particles on high and lighting off, it runs at 17ish.

Note: This is while moving.