Under The Earth

Under The Earth Alpha Release

2009-03-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. I'm releasing the alpha release today of the Windows version of Under The Earth. I had some problems putting the release together with py2exe but I hope everything works.

Here's the .zip you need. Extract it and double click on UnderTheEarth.exe to play.

Here are the controls:

Arrow keys move.
W shoots up
A shoots left
S shoots down
D shoots right

1 picks weapon 1
2 picks weapon 2
3 picks weapon 3
R reloads your weapon

Let me know what you think. Also let me know if it's crashing (it shouldn't).

Logo

2009-03-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

I added the menu logo today. It's nice. The goal is to push out the alpha by Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Death Adders

2009-03-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

I added a new monster today. Well I started to anyway. The Death Adder is like a snake but it does not take damage. Tomorrow I'm going to improve it so that it chases you. Fear it!

Menu part 100538095

2009-03-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

I got the menus interacting with the director today. Hooray!

Menu Movement

2009-03-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

Ok! The dude is totally walking around the menu. Still some bugs to work out here, but the point is it works basically.

Back in the Swing

2009-03-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

I got combo-broken twice last week! Unacceptable. Gotta make it up. To that end I'm making this menu week. A topic which apparently gives me deep seated psychological trouble. I could never finish the menu on Quaggles Quandary.

But no! You won't stop me this time, Menus!

I got a good start today. The menu you're going to "walk around" and "interact" with "actors". Read that again, but take out the quotes. Well, you can leave the one on actors. I mean, no Tom Hanks. We got Walken though.

So I have grass right now. Tomorrow: grass and walking around. Wednesday: Ability to enter the level, and being dumped back to the menu when you lose.

After that I need to add some scenery and actors.

Yay!

Bug hunt

2009-03-07T17:45:00.001-08:00

I fixed a couple of different bugs today. Nothing major though, but rocket launchers work more like they should now, for instance. Any Linux nerds know how to get print screen to work like on windows. The problem is that I'm running full screen, and so when I press the button, my game captures my input. I don't think Windows would do that. The OS would just take care of it, I think.

Short on time

2009-03-05T19:29:00.000-08:00

Not much time today, again. I looked at powerups again but didn't manage much.

Powerup Redux

2009-03-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

I am in process on a redo of powerup generation. I need to make items become more probable over certain level ranges. I'll probably store separate powerup distribution vectors and pull from each of them for different level ranges.

I didn't get too far into this today, but will continue tomorrow, most likely.

Rocket Reloading

2009-03-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

Now you can reload rockets and pistols! Joy!

Reloading

2009-03-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

I added reloading for the pistol today. No rockets yet, that's tomorrow's task.

I need a good reloading sound. I could reuse my pick up ammo sound, but I don't know, that seems cheap.

Dynamite

2009-03-01T12:11:00.000-08:00

I added dynamite to the recently vacated weapons slot (that used to have the rocket launcher in it). Now you start with three dynamite instead of the old fashioned three rockets.

This is a lot more reasonable.

Ubuntu

2009-02-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

I migrated my development environment to my new laptop with Ubuntu today. I'm having some path troubles with Pydev and Eclipse, but it's not so bad just using gedit and a terminal. There was no real trouble porting the game, just some minor stuff.

For one, my laptop can't really fit a full 1024x768 window on its display without losing a couple of rows. I made Under the Earth run full screen and that took care of that. Then I realized I had no way of quitting, aside from clicking on the X, which, of course, was not around because of full-screen mode. I also don't know the equivalent of ctrl-alt-del on Ubuntu so I did a hard reboot and made it so ESC quits.

I made the rocket launcher and pistol share the same weapon slot. I think you're going to start with no ranged weapon at all. Just a knife and some dynamite. I haven't added dynamite yet, but that's on the short list.

New Weapons

2009-02-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

Despite my last post I had a brainstorm and decided to add some new weapons before I make the menu. I added a sword. It's like a knife but it hits two squares.

Still need to update the status bar for this, but then again, that guy needs a overhaul anyway.

Also, as part of my brainstorm I made switching weapons take a turn. This makes it so you have to plan ahead a bit more and should up the difficulty.

I want to work in reloading too.

Sworded!

Menu Time

2009-02-26T16:36:00.001-08:00

Started some preliminary work on the main menu. Most of it's in my head. It should be pretty easy to interface with the director I hope.

Cranium Periapts

2009-02-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

In perhaps a nod to Problem Sleuth, I added Cranium Periapts. These will basically be the currency of unlocking things once the metagame is added.

Right now I spawn levelNum/5 every fifth level. I think this makes it have a constant expected reward stream that improves with your depth. The levels are pretty short now, so I think one of the game modes (primary game mode?) will be an endless mode. The challenge will be generating enough variety and difficulty to maintain that. Part of the solution to that problem is increasing the ecosystem of enemies. The other part is working on levels that have more variety.

There's really only one programming problem left which is to improve level generation (and the argument could be made that this is a game design challenge). I find that as I'm working on this that a lot of my game design intuitions are off. For example I'm not sure I can make this game difficult. With no performance related problems (you have infinite time to make your move) I'm not sure where the difficulty can be! I need better tools for spawning enemies in nasty configurations. Configurations that will force the player to solve the puzzle the right way, or really drain their resources in order to get past them.

I think the next big phase of this thing is to start integrating the monster placement with the floor generation. The two are almost completely decoupled elements right now. While I'm at it, integrating powerup placement with this will be important.

I think I need to formulate level elements (rooms for example) and store this stuff off when I generate the floor. These elements will dictate placement of enemies and powerups. This way I more predictably create interesting situations.

Get that Periapt, Hero!

Fancy New Tiles

2009-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

I recolored the tiles today. I'm still not completely satisfied with them. Any ideas, anyone?

Super Specters

2009-02-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

New monster today!

Super Specters are like big specters that fly around a spawn little specters. Spoooky!

Animations

2009-02-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

Yay! I finally worked out the animations needed for firing weapons (e.g. rockets and pistol). This means I finally made the player return messages like the rest of the actors. This was easier than I thought it would be (stuff that touches the main processing loop tends to be nasty and full of side effects).

That's it for today!

Hah

2009-02-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

I bet you guys thought I wasn't going to post. Wrong! I have momentum!

I coerced the stairs so that they spawn (usually) farther away from the player. I also fixed the powerup distribution. So there.

No picture today though. Sorry!

Monster Sets

2009-02-20T15:47:00.000-08:00

To conclude monster week I added sets of monsters. Basically when a level is generated it picks a set of monsters. This varies the probability distribution of which monsters are actually in your level. This should give some variety to the different levels that make up a world.

Specters

2009-02-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

I added specters. If you get close they chase you. They'll chase you so hard they'll go right through walls. They use some alpha so you can see right through them. Bonus monster! Bombs that walk around. Dangerous!

Like a ghost but ghostier!

Burny

2009-02-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

Today's monster is Burny the fire guy. He's like a Grower, but he might burn himself out. He's something that will probably not be used directly but used in special rooms. This is one of the things that I probably will design this weekend.

Into the Fire

Fear my Nibs

2009-02-17T19:55:00.000-08:00

I made the following concept art posters for Under the Earth Today.

Greebles

2009-02-17T17:24:00.001-08:00

Today's creature - the greeble! They wander aimlessly, but if you get too close, they run away. Noooo!

The Greeble is always scared.

Just Stay Home and Play Synthesizers

2009-02-16T19:49:00.001-08:00

I wrote the following music. I bet it won't get old when you listen to it on repeat for 53275049826584 times.

It's called "Fear the Grower".

Creature Week: Commence

2009-02-16T17:31:00.001-08:00

It's creature week here at Under The Earth. Every day, a new creature, just for you!

Today's creature: The Snaker. This guy will grow and turn like a snake. Kill the head! Aiiiiegh!

Oh snap! Sneak away, it's the snaker!

Polishing

2009-02-15T14:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I added preliminary joystick report. It's a bit harder than I thought it would be. Everything works, but I need to re-architect the control loop so that it polls for buttons instead of gets events depending on key-repeat. It's a shame. They should have a joy repeat. Maybe they do.

Today I scoured the internet for free sounds. Partners in Rhyme has some good ones. So most of the sound effects are in now. Notably missing is some kind of sound when the player takes damage, because all of the screaming sound effects are like "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!". Which would get annoying. I mean, it's not like I'm making DROD.

This now makes a explosion noise, instead of a guitar chord. Progress!

Power Ups and Powermoves

2009-02-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Well, power ups anyway. I added those today. I added pistol ammo, rocket ammo, gold, and health packs.

Also screwed around with the sound system a bit. It still has some bugs, but I added solos to it.

I changed level generation a bit, made some hallways that are bigger than just one tile wide.

I added a game over screen that shows all the gold you've picked up and the level you got too.

Also, new enemy, the ghost house, simply enough, spawns ghosts.

Hooray!

Silver and gold, or gold, anyway

Silhouettes

2009-02-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

Big day today. I did the re-architecture necessary to have animations stop stuff. It was a bit of debugging hell, but it didn't take very long once I drew a flow chart.

I also added a torch light around the player. This was super cheesy, but I just made this giant black .png with a hole in the middle. This is drawn whenever the player is drawn (last).

I also wrote some (terrible) music, although the loss theme is cool and reminds me of pitfall. Check it out.

Sounds and Music

2009-02-12T17:43:00.000-08:00

I added sounds and music today. This tutorial is a good resource. My library sound manager is similar one but is a singleton and has a music flag that makes a playing sound repeat when it ends. I need to figure out where I can get a good free sound effect library. Otherwise I'm going to just chop noises out Top Secret Blog xPose (iTunes).

If you squint really hard you can see noises in this picture

Upgraded Stuff

2009-02-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

Not much new today. I spent a little bit of time upgrading level generation. At some point (soonish), I'll have to design the first set of levels. This means getting things right, instead of just randomly mish-mashing elements together. I mean total randomness is OK, but things could be better.

ChuChu Factory

2009-02-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

I added the ChuChu Factory today. Basically every so many turns it pumps out a new ChuChu monster.

I'm still thinking about the animation problem. I think the solution is to use actor messages. That is - take in a player input, have it create an animation and an actor message. Put the actor message in a queue. Lock the input. Process all animations until the specific animation is done. Then unlock the input. Then process the actor message, which is, in this case, the explosion or whatever.

We're surrounded!

Rockets

2009-02-09T16:55:00.001-08:00

Still haven't done animations for weapons in flight but I did put in knives and rockets today. Take a look!

That was so easy. Python/Pygame are my friends. If this were C/C++ I'd be an hour in and still trying to figure out where the memory for the actor message I used would come from and where it would go.

Explosions

2009-02-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

I added bombs. If they get hit they blow up the area around them. This makes a couple of different things happen. First of all anything in the explosion is collided. This means that bombs in the reaction will also explode, as they should. Also, walls (and floors) caught in the explosion are turned into a new tile that is a destroyed kind of floor.

The stuff above doesn't seem so impressive but it was harder than it should have been.

I also added some new particles for monsters, so I have ghost gore.

That section of floor that looks blown up, was blown up.

Status

2009-02-08T11:19:00.001-08:00

I added a status health bar today. It only shows the player health for now, but it will be showing more later, like weapons and level number.

I need to think about a way to make this auto hide. Maybe I can just scroll it onto and off of the screen whenever you press ESC or take a hit or pick up a weapon or something.

Yeah, that's probably what I'll do.

Revenge of the Ghosts

2009-02-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

I fixed a couple of problems today. First I got the speed good again by only checking collisions on all the monsters that moved. This makes it fast even when your screen is full of growers.

Next I added a call to pygame.key.set_repeat so the player doesn't have to tap tap tap 14757382147098 times in the course of a game.

Finally I added ghosts. Ghosts are like good old Super Gork! robots.

Ghost Party Under the Earth!

Weapons

2009-02-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

I added a pistol weapon today. It seems to work but I need to think a bit more about how to draw the bullet animation. Input needs to stop while it is fired. Basically I might stop the game while I draw the animation. That kind of sucks. It would be better to suspend input processing in a more concrete way while the animation is drawn. I'll probably put a flag in the level that says wait I'm not taking any actions until the animation is done. The downside to that is that I need a list of all animations going on. I guess that's not so bad.

Anticipation

2009-02-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

So I wasn't going to keep working today still, but I was screwing around and actually made the game playable. I added a bit of code to make levels get harder when they progressed, but the growers were still killing me all the time, so I slowed them down.

Now they only reproduce every three turns. Then I realized it kind of sucked when they created a new one on top of me, so I made the picture change right when they were pregnant with joy over having a new friend. And it's awesome.

New friends!

I also changed the sprite for the chu chu guy, since I think this the art style I'm going to go with, except for the walls.

Growers Gone Wild

2009-02-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

Oh no!

My work on the actor messages has paid off, as today I implemented Growers. A Grower is a kind of monster that loves to be with friends. Every turn they try to make a friend in an adjacent square.

I ran into some nasty bugs when doing this because it works like this. A grower takes its turn. It passes back to the level a list of messages containing a single message that says hey I want to create this new monster. The level holds on to that. All the other growers do the same thing. Once all the growers are done the level goes through the list of all the messages that it collected and processes them all in order.

All that would be fine and good but I forgot to clear out the list of messages afterwards, so things would get incredibly slow in about three turns. Then when I tried to fix it I accidentally cleared out the wrong list.

Anway, it works now and that's what counts. It's still a bit slow going through the list of all monsters and doing collision tests and such when the screen is totally full. I need to give the player some weapons soon to deal with that.

In fact that's probably this weekend's job.

P.S. The grower sprite I made is kawaii, if I do say so myself.

Actor Messages

2009-02-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

I worked today on adding actor messages. These are a way for actors to effect the level state. For example consider a creature that spawns other creatures. These need a way to communicate back to the level state that they want to do this thing. Fortunately for us, polymorphism comes to the rescue.

After each actor takes its turn it returns a list of actor messages. These contain a process call that may be called by the level class. These have access to the level, so they may create other actors for instance, or modify the floor, or cause collisions with nearby monsters. This will be very useful because player actions may be modeled after this. Actor messages may be also used to do player actions like firing weapons which will be convenient cause weapons are on the short list.

Particles, Frozen in Time

New Tiles

2009-02-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

I updated my tiles since yesterday.

Who wants some waffles?

I think I had waffles on my mind when I made the walls, but they're still an improvement over the old set.

I like the alternating(ish) floor tiles. Hooray for the python random choice function. That stuff is why python > perl.

Level Generation

2009-02-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

I finished the particle system code since last time. It was pretty easy to do. Then again, I feel like I must have coded particle systems 573576015760 times by now. One thing that is causing me some grief is that there seems to be no support in pygame for setting alpha values for sprites. I guess I'd need pyopengl for this. It's strange cause it supports alpha channels in graphic files, so I can have per-pixel transparency on sprites, I just can't modify this all at once from code. What a pain. I guess I could just flicker my sprites to get transparency NES style.

I started updating the level generation/floor generation stuff to give me some handles into modifying the difficulty of the level. I added some parameters that adjust the number of rooms versus the number of hallways. This lets me make big cavernous areas versus and also spindly thin areas. This should be nice for creating some extra differentiation between levels as the game progresses. I also added a nastiness parameter to control the relative risk/rewards of the level.

Your standard cavey level

The garden variety hallway level

This is kind of silly, but I think at this point I'm going to spend some time working on my tiles. I can't stand looking at these fugly tiles anymore.

Good Start

2009-01-31T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm at the point where i have the following things:

Turn based control flow
Random level generation
Player movement
Staircases to the next level
Game over screens

Sorry those graphics are so bad.

The next stuff I need to do:
Particle effects
Pickups
Weapons
More enemies
More level types
Menus
Stores