FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby NeoStrider » 13 Mar 2010, 23:23

Hello folks, I have this project, Angstron 2 (http://angstron2.garage.maemo.org), I pick the name Angstron2 simply becouse it started as a sequel to my first released open source game, Angstron. But then, it sprung to a completely new thing). Its aimed towards low-end mobile devices and computers. Right now it runs on mobile Linux devices like the Nokia N770 and descendants, the Motorola Linux phones (EZX family) like the A1200 and Rokr E2 and (albeit slowly) Windows Mobile devices, Windows Desktop (quite fast!) and desktop linux. Old versions also used to work on BeOS. Im also working on a OpenGL ES (regular OpenGL is already supported) fork.

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Every episode is meant to be played in a 20 minutes timespan, and if possible using only one hand (thats why Im currently ignoring touchscreen). Combats are meant to be simple and I want to put big focus on story and puzzle solving (but the vehicle to all this is still a First Person Shooter).

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There is also a big focus on social gaming. I've written recently a multiplayer module that works on local TCP/IP networks with no hassle. It is meant to be played on the same subnet (say, the same Access Point) and the focus is on cooperative playing. Im planning for some special goodies only reachable by two cooperating players.
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I have already a released episode (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw8ptmQ-a5A , courtesy of qubodup) and 2 planned (one almost ready). Right now the engine works quite well and Im working on better tools. The focus is on vector graphics and a very Marvel-Comics-old-style look (or maybe Roy Lichtenstein). I support a subset of SVG and Wavefront OBJ (all the assets done with Inkscape and Blender). For sound, I use some low-bitrate wave.

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I have 4 possible level editors:
- Console BZK Editor: a crude and completely counterintuitive level editor, but a quite handy tool to use with other tools. Its also the BSP compiler, so everything ends here.
- Banshee's Voxel Section Editor: Banshee is my college mate and runs one of the biggest Command & Conquer mod sites Im aware of. He kindly enabled me to use his voxel editor to sketch levels quickly. This method creates blocky levels that tend to be very inneficient but its a very quick and proven method of authoring.
- MonoBED (Mono BZK Editor): My first atempt at a GTK# level editor. Not very intuitive and easy to use - and not very stable, but works. Droid Hunter, Angstron2's first episode was done with it.
- MonoBED2 (Mono BZK Editor2): Currently WIP, this level editor looks very promissing. One of the still-to-be-released episodes was easily done with it.


Biggest workloads on the making of a episode:
- Level editing: This was greatly facilitated by MonoBED2, but there are still lots of grounds to cover. Currently the levels are made of Parallelepiped-based sectors, but I want to relax this need.
- Story writing: Surprisingly, my biggest issue right now. Im in the middle of a writing-block.
- Vector art: Also harder than it seems. The SVG-subset I support right now cant do any curve and gradient. So the art must be very well crafted to work. Inkscape has some very useful "flattening" tools to make freehand look good. Alpha is also a good trick to make gradients. (Im planning to support gradients and curves very soon, as Im switching from SDL_gfx to SPriG)
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- Sound assets: Not as hard as everything else, but still quite a challenge to keep the final package in a reasonable size.
- IA programming: Quite a challenge now, due to the relative lack of proper tools to handle it. Im already working on a scripting language to solve it. Right now, everything is table-driven FSM

BTW, Im also working on a J2ME version that looks promissing!
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Hope this doesnt get too long or too cluttered. If yes, sorry!
Last edited by NeoStrider on 14 Mar 2010, 16:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby qubodup » 14 Mar 2010, 11:00

Very interesting introduction!

Some libraries that might interest you: the old-school soundgen sfxr. One could use it's code to make sounds on the fly. There's also the vector gfx library libcrtxy, although it might only support outlines.
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby charlie » 14 Mar 2010, 14:33

Looks really cool although you forgot to link to the project homepage. ;)
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby NeoStrider » 14 Mar 2010, 16:12

sorry about that...FIXED!
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby Sindwiller » 20 Mar 2010, 12:42

Neat, looks really old school =) Might just try it for the heck of it :D

EDIT: Bah, unplayable :( Movement is way too fast, geometry is often clipped because of viewport/camera properties, and you die too fast^^ It's hard to see what's going on anyway due to all the weird color shading. (Win32 build)

Still, good luck with it. =)
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby NeoStrider » 22 Mar 2010, 01:40

Humm...you tried the pre-built version, right?
If yes, its a quite old (and buggy) build. Since my XP partition is mostly abandoned, there were no new builds ever since, but as you tried it, I will make a new build for you and will let you know. Thanks =-)
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Re: FOSS series of games - Angstron2 (1 episode just released)

Postby NeoStrider » 29 Mar 2010, 03:08

Ok, sorry for the delay. The game speed is finally fixed!
I'm also re-stablishing the PocketPC port (that for some very misterious reason is a lot slower on a 660 Mhz device than in a linux device at 330 Mhz).
RIght now, Im uploading it, but by the time you read it, it will be available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/bzk/files/
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