Chainsaw Deathrace Update - Walls!

I promised a status update, so here it is!

I have made a semi-working map editor for Chainsaw Deathrace! The only features left to get it working are saving and loading. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it'll take long at all to implement those things. I'll be doing that tomorrow morning. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like right now:

As you can see, autotiling is just about done. Mouse placement/removal works too.

My second semester college classes begin this coming Monday, so Chainsaw Deathrace v2.0 is probably going to be put on hold soon in favor of Textyventure. Depending on my workload, though, I may go back in a week or two.

Chainsaw Deathrace Design #3: Speak up!

Wow! My last few posts were kinda depressing. Let's brighten things up with a two post day: Design post now, status update later. Enjoy!

So, this also has nothing to do with speed. That's because I'm currently rethinking how I want to handle that. Let's instead talk about a new feature that I want to implement: Sound.

In version 1, getting Billy/Sammy close enough to the Chainsaw Killer would  bring up the message: "[name] hears a chainsaw revving!" This worked alright due to the lack of sound in the game. To tell you the truth, prior to my second Sprint project, I didn't have any sort of audio system in place. I do now. However, that's a little unrelated. I want sound, ingame or not, to be a gameplay mechanic of its own. Here's how it works:

Let's say Billy falls down some stairs. That would be fairly loud. If an enemy was close enough, they might hear Billy fall and know where he is, even if he can't be seen. However, let's also say the Chainsaw Killer is chasing him. Now, the chainsaw could possibly drown out most other sounds. The enemy would not be alerted. This works for the player too. If they hear something, like a chainsaw, they'll also be told what direction it came from. Be forewarned: If the sound is too faint, the direction may not be accurate! Depending on the sound's "strength," the direction may be offset. Also, keep in mind that the chainsaw you hear is just a chainsaw, not necessarily the killer himself.....

How do I plan to add this to the game? Things will create a sound, with a position and strength. Depending on the strength, it will reach everything with ears within a certain range. Then, on something's turn, it compares all that it "hears." Currently, it works like this:  take the strongest sound's strength, and halve it. Everything with less strength cannot be heard. Everything else loses half of the minimum strength. Then, the directions are determined by strength. Let me bring you a visual example:

Let's pretend that the Killer's sound reaches ??? with a strength of 400, and Billy's sound is 155.

1. 400 is highest, so we halve it to get 200.
2. Since Billy's sound, 155 is less than 200, it is drowned out.
3. ??? hears the Killer quite clearly, but that's it.

But what if Billy's sound was 255?

1. Same as before
2. Billy's sound is now higher than 200, so it stays.
3. We take half of 200, 100, then subtract that from Billy's sound.
4. ??? hears the killer's chainsaw with a strength of 400, and Billy's trip down the stairs with strength 155. It now knows where Billy is, and probably goes in to attack. Billy crawls off to the left.

I hope this post wasn't too confusing. The next design post will probably be what I wanted to write about before. Later today, I'll be posting a quick update on what I've actually gotten done.

Delete.....Everything.

You know how I said movement would be next? Scratch that for now.

I may have accidentally broken my computer's window borders, menu bar, etc. a couple of days back. Fortunately, I backed up all of my files and wiped my computer. I can work again. Unfortunately, I've now lost several more days of productivity in an already unproductive vacation. Now, that said, I have gotten a bit of work on Chainsaw Deathrace done. I've been writing a new method of drawing autotiles that's better suited to my engine. This allows for walls, corners AND full sized tiles(to a degree). Also, it makes for smaller tilesets. I'll write up a proper post about that later. Another thing that has come from my little wipe is that I now keep Windows in a virtual machine, rather than dual-booting. This means that I may have trouble testing/releasing Windows builds, until I get the hang of it.
I still have a few things left to set up, but I have my code back. I'm reinstalling my libraries right now.

Chainsaw Deathrace Design #2: The Grid

This is my second post on the design of the new version of Chainsaw Deathrace that I'm working on. This one will be about the grid and the placement of various objects. The previous one was about the characters. Read it here.

If you've played my game at this point, you might ask "What's wrong with the grid now???" The answer is, of course, nothing. The grid isn't what I'm worried about. Walls, on the other hand, are a gigantic pain in the rear to deal with.(You may want to skip this next paragraph, which is a gigantic rant about walls)

Chainsaw Deathrace Design #1: The Characters

Now that I'm back to regular development, I'm planning on writing several posts about designing the next version of Chainsaw Deathrace. Obviously, since the original version was the quick and dirty product of a game jam, the whole thing needs to be remade. However, beyond the code, thought must be put to the design to make sure it's well balanced and fun. During the jam it was about quantity; now it's about quality. Now that that's been said, on to the first topic: the characters.

The original concept behind the characters in Chainsaw Deathrace came from the jam's theme: "Disadvantage." After all, what's a bigger disadvantage than missing limbs? Unfortunately, I didn;t spend much time on balancing. In the end we had:

• Billy, who was slow. Anyone who ran into the Chainsaw Killer was dead anyway, so he had no real downside.
• Sammy, who could only carry one item at a time. Occasionally this turned into an issue, but blood bags could be used immediately anyway, and there was no "health" cap, making his disadvantage nothing more than a minor annoyance.
• Fred, who couldn't see, couldn't use blood bags, didn't know what any items were, and couldn't know when the Chainsaw Killer was near. Also, he had far less health than everyone else. This was an enormous disadvantage.

In this remake/next version, I'd like to rebalance this. In the end, I'd like to see each disadvantage bring some sort of unique unforeseen advantage as well. On harder difficulties, these would be more pronounced, leading to a more careful and strategic game. At the moment, here's what I'm looking at as a more balanced way of doing things:

• Billy who can't run. I'm adding a running mechanic to allow you to escape traps/the Chainsaw Killer. However, Billy won't be able to do so. His advantage is his(lack of) height: As I plan to add combat mechanics of some sort, Billy will be harder to hit, and may have some other combat-related perks.
• Sammy, who(again) can only carry one item. This is similar to the first version, but he'll also have trouble climbing, if he can at all. As an advantage, he'll be faster at running and capable of breaking down doors easier.
• Fred, who can't hear, can't really see, and dies quickly. However, he will have a sort of "Instinct" from what little brain is left. This means he can sense things, even through walls. Also, his random lashings out may grant him some advantages in combat. Also, I have another idea for him. Suppose he couldn't use most items correctly, but they had some alternate purpose only he could find? For instance, blood bags could change from healing to bait, leading enemies to a certain place while he went elsewhere. I'm still toying with that.

Obviously, none of this is final. I'm going to spend a long time testing their traits to make sure that none of them are too hard or easy. This does give me a nice guideline to go with, though. That ought to be a big help moving forward.

Next post: Walls, Floors, and Ceilings!


Also, I should mention this quickly: The album for my last game, A Wheelie Good Time, can be found here. 
I plan on posting more images as I go into Chainsaw Deathrace's album here.