Incline Das Geisterschiff - turn-based cyberpunk dungeon crawler

[Severian Silk]

So what?

 

[MrRichard999]

Colors should be adjustable with a RGB dials.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Green shade is not an option since I tried to keep the palette limited to orange and black with some small additions of red.

Check the help screen. Does it feel better now?

Yes, that looks better. I'd try even darker shades in later iterations, but that's for fine tuning at late development stages. And it's not just about eye irritation, but also how the GUI blends with the world.

Eh, I'm not 100% convinced yet, because technically the UI is an overlay on the computer screen inside the mech.
For now, I'd rather keep the original look for the demo and then fine-tune it for the final game (or add an option to switch between them). I wish this kind of suggestion would come up earlier, because redoing some parts of the UI is going to be a daunting task because of a big number of objects.

BTW: Is there a difference if you turn 180° to the left or 180° to the right? :D

It's one of the few leftovers from the time when the game was conceived as a faithful fan remake of Carmine, and when the concept changed into its own thing I got used to the control scheme so much I've decided to keep it.
Technically there's no difference, but it could be useful to peek at stuff while turning back and for those who want to have full control of their movement, especially when dungeon crawlers can't decide whether the player should turn back clockwise or counter-clockwise.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Looks cool zwan, is the mussolini face something that follows you around and stays in the center of the screen constantly, goading you to commit suicide?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

It's the weakest enemy who tries to kill you with a weak laser gun.
While it's easy to destroy them with a few shots or by running them into a corner and ramming them, they're always trying to keep their distance and they're constantly firing, which means you can lose a considerable chunk of your HP if you don't deal with them quickly. At the same time their usefulness is only viable on open spaces -- their model is very outdated according to the lore, thus they're easy to get rid of them by locking them inside a room and running away.

 

[Reinar]

Green shade is not an option since I tried to keep the palette limited to orange and black with some small additions of red.

Check the help screen. Does it feel better now?

Yes, that looks better. I'd try even darker shades in later iterations, but that's for fine tuning at late development stages. And it's not just about eye irritation, but also how the GUI blends with the world.

Eh, I'm not 100% convinced yet, because technically the UI is an overlay on the computer screen inside the mech.
For now, I'd rather keep the original look for the demo and then fine-tune it for the final game (or add an option to switch between them). I wish this kind of suggestion would come up earlier, because redoing some parts of the UI is going to be a daunting task because of a big number of objects.

You need to find balance between realism and usefulness. If it looks like shit, people won't play it even if it has the best gameplay. Anyway, I am not trying to force this on you, just giving constructive criticism. It's up to you if you agree or not.
The reason this kind of suggestion didn't come earlier is because I always saw one pic at a time for few seconds with huge delays in between. Now that you increased the rate of updates though...
I find it strange you need to change a lot of things. I assumed only the frames are textures and the background is just filled with color by code (technically texture as well).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Green shade is not an option since I tried to keep the palette limited to orange and black with some small additions of red.

Check the help screen. Does it feel better now?

Yes, that looks better. I'd try even darker shades in later iterations, but that's for fine tuning at late development stages. And it's not just about eye irritation, but also how the GUI blends with the world.

Eh, I'm not 100% convinced yet, because technically the UI is an overlay on the computer screen inside the mech.
For now, I'd rather keep the original look for the demo and then fine-tune it for the final game (or add an option to switch between them). I wish this kind of suggestion would come up earlier, because redoing some parts of the UI is going to be a daunting task because of a big number of objects.

You need to find balance between realism and usefulness. If it looks like shit, people won't play it even if it has the best gameplay. Anyway, I am not trying to force this on you, just giving constructive criticism. It's up to you if you agree or not.
The reason this kind of suggestion didn't come earlier is because I always saw one pic at a time for few seconds with huge delays in between. Now that you increased the rate of updates though...
I find it strange you need to change a lot of things. I assumed only the frames are textures and the background is just filled with color by code (technically texture as well).

I was talking about fine-tuning the color, but I guess I've gotten used to that look so I don't mind it. If it's that bad -- it can be tweaked and improved, and I'll gladly do it while fine-tuning stuff, because the frames and backgrounds are untextured panels, so iterating through them can take a while, and right now I'm focused on the content. However, I'll do a few tests and add stuff to speed things up later today (I think these color tweaks can be done using a material).

Anyway, I'm always open to suggestions and criticism, bro, but I had to discuss it properly first to 'get' your point of view.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Bah, I've been fucking around the wrong parts of the UI too much I've lost the adequate track of time necessary to implement something. Done and done in less than 10 minutes, boyos.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Decided to rebuild the demo area from scratch, because I didn't like the direction where the previous attempt was going. Instead I've decided to build a small underground district. And of course, I've decided to keep the trees.

 

[Repulsive]

!

 

[Burning Bridges]

Way too much orange.

 

[Severian Silk]

Original color was better.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'm writing new rendering code to avoid using expensive IPP for simple effects. Since I'm using low-level GL functions now, it should run faster and look cleaner than before. Also rewiring the UI to make it more flexible and less tied to the functions that break the Mac version. There are some minor annoying bugs left to fix too, but I'm going to do it once I see the results of the current tasks and start revising the gameplay-related code (while being absolutely free to continue working on content).

If this works out, I can use procedural generation for static geometry AND make the game run even better. Right now it runs at 50 fps @ 720p on my shit-tier rig (and runs without any lags or issues on more powerful PCs), but I'd like to push it up to constant 60 fps on this rig just because.

I'll post some updates later.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Edge detection is replaced, which lowers the minimum requirements to something on par with my shit rig (or even slower). At the same time it introduced several side effects that I managed to exploit to my advantage after some tinkering.


On the positive side, the tests run on my shit laptop at constant 60 fps and the stats suggest that it can run even faster on default settings.

 

[Severian Silk]

Also rewiring the UI to make it more flexible and less tied to the functions that break the Mac version.

Always a good idea to fix the stuff that break some version of your game.

Being able to step is also a nice feature.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Aaand I'm back.

Testing the new look.

This will most likely change, but I decided to ditch edge detection (too expensive and unprecise but may come back if I don't figure out a nice alternative) and use hand-created lines to create smaller details instead (door frames, cracks in the walls, outlines for consoles, etc), while keeping the static meshes rather simple and rely more on fog and ambient light to do the basic stuff.

Any suggestions?

 

[Rhuantavan]

Aaand I'm back.

Any suggestions?

Welcome back. I would fade those cracks with lighting/distance... unless they indicate a crackable wall or something...?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Aaand I'm back.

Any suggestions?

Welcome back. I would fade those cracks with lighting/distance... unless they indicate a crackable wall or something...?

Thanks bro!

For now I've only considered using them to outline small details (cracks, static interior objects like light sources, etc.) and usable objects (door frames, control panels, force fields etc.). I never bothered with crackable walls because you can already crack doors.

 

[Zombra]

The new look is creeeepy!

I like it.

The darkness fade on the walls looks great. It does make it look "off" that the cracks are glowing. The ceiling crack doesn't parse well; there should be something to indicate perspective. Agree with Rhuantavan. Should either be wider or brighter closer to the camera.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I added the change of line color to the lines based on the distance from the player, but I've already got an idea on how to improve it -- just need to do some tests.

Meanwhile, played around a little bit again and got this. I think this is pretty good for now -- the ambient lighting makes the shapes of level meshes easier to parse, while the lines are hand-crafted to add detail to them as well as show a simplified version of the mesh itself. Men, I think we're close to that creepy and less aggressive look that doesn't burn your eyes.

 

[Zombra]

Very stylish, looking good.

 

[Jaesun]

I really like this idea and look. PLEASE continue!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Since I rewrote the codebase from scratch this year I can finally implement certain things without kludges on every step.

Implemented elevators to add some additional vertical movement to the dungeons as well as switches to control certain objects remotely. Gotta focus on the dark areas next, got a nice idea on how to fuck with the player.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Another graphics test. I'll prolly stick to "more lines with simple meshes" approach, because fake lighting doesn't work very well with more or less complex meshes.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

So, another update:

• Implemented the majority of interactive stuff -- elevators, switches, doors, force fields, dark zones. There are still certain tweaks I need to do (finish the destruction of doors, finish the dark zones, double-check everything, etc).
• Started restoring the combat system. Automated functions (Advance/Stay/Retreat commands) are back, but Retreat() is still problematic. Still figuring out the best way to make it work, since the current implementation is somewhat hacky.
• Ramming is back and implemented in a more elegant way.
• UI is partially implemented. Alerts (what happened when you pushed a switch, what's in front of you, etc.) are in. The 'object in front of you' alerts are important for dark areas, which turn off the main view and force the player to use the minimap to navigate their way past it / reach the switch and turn it off / crash the source. Also some preliminary work for convos is done -- nothing special for now, just a few tests here and there.

Hopefully I'll finish the combat system this week and start working on the enemy AI as well as start building the actual content while finishing some of the ingame systems.

Speaking of systems, I'm currently implementing a small idea that fixes a tiny design flaw that kept bugging me for months. Since the game doesn't allow healing and similar stuff, there is alsolutely no incentive to explore the areas unless you're a storyfag. Therefore, I decided to drop a few permanent upgrades that only start working after the mission is done. Small things like increasing the max HP, slight accuracy/evasion improvements and stuff, which should improve the player's chances of survival, but they are usually well-hidden or require some risky actions (e.g. a nice upgrade is hidden across a minefield).