The Dregs of War

Definitely the animation. I can hold my own at geometrical programing, but I just don't have your skills. See here, I managed to make a walk cycle. Unfortunately, that piece of junk came out when I was trying to make it run. Now the animation I have for running looks like crap. There are millions of walk cycle tutorials... and about 0 running ones.

BTW, as I said, I am a bit of an Anglophile, so I like that you noticed it was British! Actually, I think I'll use it more often now!

Yeah, run cycles are a nightmare. I'm afraid the solution is lots of time and energy (I studied 3D animation at university, so that's three years of work right there!)

I've just read through your blog. Congrats on Tube, man! But it's hard! I only later saw that there was a version where I could buy upgrades, I'll give it a go.

Anyway, on the blogpost about walkcycles you have an image showing a walkcycle. Did you just find that image on its own? Because it's from a book I really highly recommend - The Animator's Survivor Kit by Richard Williams. It's focus is traditional 2D hand drawn animation but all the concepts are the same. Read it carefully and absorb the knowledge, believe me it's brilliant. He gives lots of examples of different kinds of run cycle.

Unfortunately, successfully animating a run cycle is beyond the scope of a mere tutorial...

One last thing - On the walk cycle example you show on your blog, the character seems to pause a little every second step - try putting the gotoAndPlay() statement one frame earlier than where it is now...

Okay, cool! Thanks for that tip! I'll try to check out that book, actually I just found it on Google images. I really should site that picture.

As for tube, if you try buying upgrades you may find that they do absolutely nothing! Oh well.

Yes, I've been waaay too lazy with tube, I haven't bothered to add any powers. whoops.

I guess I'll just try to keep working on that run cycle till it looks good, I've just got a lot of things to do lately.

Also that thing in the walk cycle; That's probably just my mistake. I have a version of it where he actually walks with the arrow keys, but for the sake of that post, I just copied the walking frames and had flash loop it. I'm sure I'll get around to fixing that sometime.

Thanks much for your help! Although we should probably get back on topic now don't you think, lol?

Speaking of which, that stupid horizontal block thing has me stumped. I think it will be a bit easier when it gets a background, but it's just a bit disorienting right now. Still haven't found the secret room, so I'm off to go try and find it now.

Cheers,

XenElement


[EDIT] Wohooo! Found it! That's totally Boss! I want like, a glowing golden orb or something for finding that!

Hello!

Right, I've made it so that the thugs all look a little different now - you have white thugs, brown thugs and black thugs. they wear shirts. The sport beards, or mohawks. It's all rather funky.

I'm afraid there's nothing new as far as gameplay is concerned... but it'll be an opportunity to try to get onto the rankings page again!

Enjoy!

I'm loving the graphics. Now I am definitely seeing that amazing animator side of you! Good job with the outfits lolz.

Really, if you released it as is, it would be pretty popular. DON'T.

I really see this game going somewhere, even it I suck at it. (At the time of post I am #42 or something)

Keep it up, and i'm going to go beat the crud out of another mohawk.

Cheers,
XenElement

Wahey! Now Dreg has a suit! I also fixed a couple of bugs.

Oh and I made this hilarious image:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Z1AHsdfvZf...400/united.gif

Soon I'll have some proper gameplay changing stuff. I just wanted to make sure that I could change the characters' appearance. In fact, it's a pity I hadn't worked on this earlier, because it meant a lot of hours fixing all the work I had done before. It was horrible. What a horrible, horrible day. But it's good now!

Amazing. AMAZING. I've imagined how changing appearance could work, but only in my dreams.

Never actually seen how people do that, your game is officially way over my level. Nice LOL pic by the way, definitely use it as a billboard. Do you have photoshop? I think you could do some cool graffiti on the walls, and over this sign. Maaan, I can see concept art already! But seriously, i think your next big goal should be...

Health Bars.

On Dreg would be cool, but not necesary. I am really getting sick of hitting goons OVER and OVER without knowing how much longer it will be till they die.

Great job, and LoL, I totally agree with you about preloaders.

Cheers!
XenElement

Hello!

Thanks for the feedback Xenelement. I agree - health bars would be a good thing. I'll get them sorted eventually.

At the moment, however, I'm interested in recording my movements with Dreg to make things like cut scenes. I've done a bit of a test, and the results are heart warming!

Check it out!

Wow. You've got some pretty sweet AI going there! Great job! Um, just out of curiosity, what's it for? Dreg's evil clone level?

Great job though.
XenElement

ooo...usefull info...

Hey AwoogaMuffin, I'm really sorry, I missed your 2 PMs. I really have to figure out how to have FKit email me when I get one.

Anyway, I replied back!

Check it; unlike me. I always forget ^_^
XenElement

Ok guys!

I've been working on the level-design side of things, and as a result you have a new level to flex your platforming muscles on!

The main idea behind this was to test my level-building tools, and check the robustness of the engine. I'm pretty happy with it so far, though there are always things that could be better (I talk about them in the blog).

So please tell me of any bugs you find, or ideas you have to make it better, and thanks to everybody who has given feedback so far!

enjoy

That was amusingly disorientating :) Looking great Awoogamuffin. I kept moving into places I hadn't seen before, while having no clue as to where I was.

I found a bug when transitioning from gravityzone to gravityzone. I ran into a wall while changing zones. While the camera changed, so the wall went from floor to wall again, the physics treated it as if the floor (I hit the wall when it was almost horizontal) was still there. I had to jump to resolve this, but I could walk through everything before I tried jumping. Because of the minimal testing graphics I have NO idea where this occured and will have a hard time reproducing it.

Could you place some visual hints in the background so we can say: "near the rock that looks like Carmen Electra.", that would help us in testing.

Wow. I like it. I didn't see what TOdorus found, but as he said it should be hard to reproduce. One thing that should be pretty easy though.

Jumping. I still have some gripes with it, although I don't mind the holding it down as much now. It still feels very floaty though.

Problem: Try jumping the opposite direction dreg is facing. How does he jump? Backward. That's my problem, I'm finding it a bit hard to turn around.

Great job, you've certainly done a VERY good job with the engine.

In Awe.
"I'm Not Worthy!"
XenElement

You've made some pretty insane level design there Awoogamuffin. I tried it again and tried to find most paths. Since the one with the jump over lava into a new gravity zone is hard to find and insanely hard to pull off I probably haven't found all of them. Just wanted to say that that lavajump and the part where you need to jump up through the squishing platforms are just near the impossible. If you plan to use that kind of design in the game I would use it for secrets only, because it would put the more casual gamer like me off. :)

EDIT:
btw still waiting for that smokin' hot Carmen Electra rock

Hey guys!

Yeah, todorus, I've found that bug too - working on a solution, but I've been too busy playing your excellent game!

As for the difficulty issue, the squishing blocks path is by far the most difficult, and I'd only use that kind of thing for secrets, not for the main path of the game.

Xenelement - I thought the jumping backwards thing would work - it does in Mario. But I've made him face the right way always now and i have to say I agree with you, it feels better.

I'm afraid there's no update yet (I'm currently working on navigation elements - so a map and the ability to look around, more news as events warrant) but I just wanted to say I've finally uploaded my university project (featuring Dreg) on youtube.

Check it out!

That's amazing! No wonder you said you were an animatior! That looks up to the quality of a crazy frog production! I can't wait to see some bungee things in the actually game too.

Hello!

Yeah, I've been relaxing these last two weeks, but now I'm back geekier than ever!

I've added the ability to look around and a map. Check it out and be full of happiness. Xenelement, you'll see he no longer jumps backwards.

The Dregs of War

Okay. My mama always told me if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all. Since other people have seemed to like this game so much I haven't mentioned it but wow did it disorient me quickly. The first gravity zone and I am lost. So now I have to say the addition of the map caused me to truly enjoy the gameplay for the first time since you started posting :) I'm also still quite jealous of your skills, haha.

Wow. So you've made your perfect game engine more perfect. You can stop showing off now!


Just kidding.

It really looks good, and I have to say, this is the game I doodle around on when I'm bored. I kinda like his tux, but it doesn't really fit the grungy, loopy psychadelic look that one level had.

Make a koolio outfit for Dreg. I know you can!

Although, the suit really does look cool.

Hmm... To Wear a suit or not a suit...


I have to admit, I'm kinda getting tired of saying this, i've said it so many times lol.

Great job.