GMC Jam Discussion The Chimerical GMC Jam #8 Discussion Topic

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ThePandaSenpai

Guest
I am finally DONE~!
Seriously, my neck is so stiff! ;-;
Anyway, good luck everyone :D
 
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Bart

WiseBart
Okay, here's my first Jam game:

Boss Off!

It's not complete, but good enough to be called playable :)

More info in the post in the Jam Games topic.
 

Zodaris

Member
Submitted just in time! So happy I managed to find a workaround to that problem I had earlier. I can't wait to start playing everyone's games, so many good looking ones!

My game
 

sylvain_l

Member
noooo, still 2 minutes to finish the upload on google drive.
ok, not a big loss as game not really playable
(in fact I just realised the only thing working, drinking coffee is just bugged again in the version I'm uploading )
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
@sylvain_l and others: Just for the record, I temporarily reopened the topic, so get your download links in while you still have a chance. Please don't push it, though.
 

mimusic

Member
phew, barely made it! Also, I just risked everything by testing my exported game after submitting, so it was good to see that nothing broke on it's way out of the IDE :p


 

The M

Member
I did a small modification to my entry (which is noted in the readme). It turned out some sound effects played every frame which was rather unpleasant to listen to.

Edit:
Aaand, when you kill the final boss the game crashes. Awesome!
I've included both a fixed and unfixed version in the download link for good measure.
 
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Misty

Guest
Just 2 let everyone know, my game has 2 links.

The good link is the one that says "redsabergm", the old link is "redsabre" and has a bug. Do not download the old link because the bug wont let u get past one of the third levels of the game.

Anyway, rubs fingers together, its gettin' good can't wait to play all the games. :p
 

Alix

Member
Sweet stuff! How do you go about doing the shading on that? It doesn't look hand made but rather tool assisted or automated, or at least with some certain type of brush?
Hand made, its just ambient occlusion type a thing (couple layers of multiply, soft light, and of course using any soft brush you like).
 
Yeah, so it is basically impossible for me to do any voting this time around. The voting time frame goes from now, until the day after I graduate from Highschool.

Heh heh. If anyone really wants me to play their game PM me and I'll make a short video for you a few weeks into the summer.
 

trg601

Member
I'm pretty happy with this jam. The theme was fantastic. I haven't made a lot of game bosses so this was a nice challenge.
I can't wait to see everyone's games!
 

Gravedust

Member
Whoops! Was not conscious enough to write this at submission time, and I spaced on the fact I would not be able to edit it in after jam time so I'm putting this here, hopefully peeps will see it:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay so VIA just reminded me there's some instructional stuff I was supposed to tell you guys before you start the game so here goes:

::CONTROLS::
+ Movement is on WASD keys.

+ You control you character's aimpoint with the mouse.

+ Left-mouse is a rapid fire ranged attack, which will home in from a certain distance.

+ Right mouse is a rapid melee attack which deals a lot of damage.

There's a bit more to your attacks than that, bit VIA will explain.

::SCORING & OBJECTIVE::
In this game, you don't win by killing the boss, you win by surviving the duration of the song.
You score points for damaging the boss. Your points are increased by a multiplier, which will build up as you continuously damage the boss, and depelete when you are not. Once the Boss' HP is gone, the game will enter OVERTIME mode, and all your point gain will be doubled. So hit the boss hard to get OVERTIME sooner and score more points before the song ends. Your score is still saved if you die, so go crazy.

!! important for enjoyment and sanity !!

DO NOT FIGHT VIKS UNTIL YOU HAVE PLAYED A FEW MINUTES OF VIA.
YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AND IT WILL BE HORRIBLE.
ALSO VIKS' TWO STAR RATING IS WRONG.
VIKS ATE THE THIRD STAR WHILE LOOKING DIRECTLY INTO MY EYES.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention in the readme that I did use my own asset Jen_scripts for The Hoard, which was of course made before the jam. (For generating the army formations). I had forgotten because it was the first thing I had done and then after 3 full days...
 

makas

Member
sometimes is dissapointing that when you see the reviews you notice that they dont even read the readme :( well at least it was fun to make :p
 
I really didn't anticipate so many people having problems with my game, Overtime. For the record, there *are* tells when he is about to punch. His fist will start moving to the side slowly.
For anyone yet to play, or perhaps might consider giving it another shot, here are some tips:
- Block when you aren't sure, it only hurts a little. Then if you see him block, it's safe to stop blocking for a second.
- If he isn't blocking, watching his hands, if one of them starts moving to the side, then dodge.
- After dodging, you can quickly throw in like 3-4 punches and they do the most damage.
- Then you should block again just to be safe.
- If he hits you, all you can do is block for a second, so block.
And there you go, that's the basic pattern to win. The fight will be over in seconds. I meant to change the values a bit to make it last longer but I was worried that would make it too difficult.
 

Dr. Wolf

Member
For people who are wondering what the heck Project: Hellkite is: it's a cave flyer!

Also, a few tips:
-The target display might not work in the jam version (I forgot to put in the line of code to actually draw the image on top of the background), but targeting itself does work-- you'll see the direction indicator and the target highlights change color-- and is important, because aiming is much easier with target + autopilot than trying to aim "manually". If you've played the Escape Velocity series of games, Project: Hellkite works basically the same way in terms of targeting and autopilot.

-The core of the enemy starbase, is always down, since it's positioned at the center of the starbase's gravity. If you've played Retrobooster or Destination Sol, Project: Hellkite's camera rotation works similarly (it's even got Retrobooster's sneaky ship rotation to counteract the camera, which IMO makes that view mechanic feel a lot better than it does in Destination Sol, even though the latter is more "honest" about your ship's direction).

-You're fighting an enemy that's much stronger than you are. Even though your ship's basic weapon can shred a single spinner in a fraction of a second, letting into a pitched battle with the enemy spinners in empty space, or worse, within range of the starbase's own weapons, is a good way to get killed without accomplishing much. Get inside, where there's cover (and where you'll be especially safe in the Jam version, where the crawlers don't really work right and are basically free sources of powerups), get to the target, and destroy it.

-Conserve ammunition! Remember: short, controlled bursts. You'll need around a hundred rounds-- or a little over eight seconds of fire-- to take out the enemy core with your starting Vulcan cannon.

Anyhow, on to the main point of this post: if you're experiencing crashes, slowdowns, or other issues with Project: Hellkite, please let me know your system specs and any error messages that the game displays! As I mention in the README file, there are a couple of nice assets in there, ones that I'm likely to want to use again, so I'd really like to get to the bottom of any issues with them that are manifesting on the systems of others. Thanks!
 

mimusic

Member
My game has controller support btw, for anybody interested in that. I intentionally didn't mention this before since I had implemented it before the gameplay and didn't know if it broke during development, but I tested it last night and it works. Tested on a wireless Xbox One controller, but I think it'll work for any XInput device.

Gamepad (Xbox) Controls for 'SWAMP':
  • L-Stick for movement
  • R-Stick for aiming
  • Y to toggle camera focus
  • X to swing sword
  • R-Trigger to pull back and release to shoot arrow
Controller might make the game easier, since in the KB&M set, your sword slash is aimed towards the cursor, but in the Controller set, your sword slash is in the direction you're currently moving, making the process of gathering ammo and firing in the right direction a lot faster.

Also, I've seen several comments (both here and from friends) about the sword swing -- mainly the collision range -- being pretty bad, and I agree lol. I got a little too used to it while testing, so it didn't occur to me to adjust it again. Lesson learned - external testing is important :p
 

var

Member
His fist will start moving to the side slowly.
Ah, okay. That's the main thing that I was missing. Replayed it, and won fairly easily. I feel like you could get away with making it a bit more difficult (maybe 1.5x boss health?) once the tells are made slightly more obvious.
 
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chiyoko

Guest
hh. i made the stupid mistake of not putting in a screen wrap. Rip my ratings. ...well, at least ill have a fix out next week or whenever voting's done.
 
Ah, okay. That's the main thing that I was missing. Replayed it, and won fairly easily. I feel like you could get away with making it a bit more difficult (maybe 1.5x boss health?) once the tells are made slightly more obvious.
Yeah, I really had trouble balancing it. I found it way too easy myself. I honestly thought the tell was too obvious, it used to be so much more subtle. Health and damage was tricky because I could always beat it super fast, but the couple of people I got to test took much longer. So this is the easy version. Thanks for replaying it.
 
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Wraithious

Guest
Sooooo.... In one of the reviews I was told that my shader to flash the player upon damage crashes the game, I couldn't get it to crash while testing so I played the game from my upload and it crashes! it says shader compliation failure or something, so I went ahead and built the game to my desktop as an executable and as an exe, on both built games it crashes! I run it under administrator mode, it still crashes!! I run it from gamemaker studio NO CRASH at all....... what the .. is going on with that? I had also made sure to check the box "use alternate vsync" so no one would get black screen if full screening the game so I have no idea why that is happening, im using gms 1.4.1804, and this is my shader code:
Vertex:
Code:
attribute vec3 in_Position;
attribute vec4 in_Colour;
attribute vec2 in_TextureCoord;

varying vec2 v_texcoord;

void main()
{
    gl_Position = gm_Matrices[MATRIX_WORLD_VIEW_PROJECTION] *     vec4(in_Position, 1.0);
    v_texcoord = in_TextureCoord;
}
Fragment:
Code:
varying vec2 v_texcoord;

uniform float time;
uniform vec2 mouse_pos;
uniform vec2 resolution;
uniform float strength;

void main()
{
    vec4 colour = texture2D(gm_BaseTexture, v_texcoord);
    gl_FragColor.rgb = vec3(1,0.9,0.9);
    gl_FragColor.a = colour.a;
}
Usage in draw event (this is when it crashes)
Code:
if(flashc=1 && behitC=0) {
shader_set(whiteout);
draw_sprite_ext(sprite_index,image_single,x,y,image_xscale,image_yscale,image_angle,-1,image_alpha);
shader_reset();
}
I'm not happy, I spent a day and a half on the graphics and a day and a half on programming it, another waysted game jam attempt
Here's the .gmz too while I'm at it, to prove that it works when running from gamemaker and not when you final build it. I tested the crap out of it too before I submitted it, never thought to test the exe tho, BUT WHYYY
:glassbreak:
 
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var

Member
I honestly thought the tell was too obvious, it used to be so much more subtle.
Once I know what to look for it's pretty obvious, but—as evidenced by me not noticing it—it's IMO subtle enough that people who don't know what to look for may not see it at all.
 
Once I know what to look for it's pretty obvious, but—as evidenced by me not noticing it—it's IMO subtle enough that people who don't know what to look for may not see it at all.
Really hard to gauge what the average player will notice. I only had two people available to test it out before submitting, and one of them thought it was too obvious. Glad I didn't listen and make it even more subtle haha.
 

Micah_DS

Member
Sooooo.... In one of the reviews I was told that my shader to flash the player upon damage crashes the game, I couldn't get it to crash while testing so I played the game from my upload and it crashes! it says shader compliation failure or something, so I went ahead and built the game to my desktop as an executable and as an exe, on both built games it crashes! I run it under administrator mode, it still crashes!! I run it from gamemaker studio NO CRASH at all....... what the .. is going on with that? I had also made sure to check the box "use alternate vsync" so no one would get black screen if full screening the game so I have no idea why that is happening, im using gms 1.4.1804, and this is my shader code:
Vertex:
Code:
attribute vec3 in_Position;
attribute vec4 in_Colour;
attribute vec2 in_TextureCoord;

varying vec2 v_texcoord;

void main()
{
    gl_Position = gm_Matrices[MATRIX_WORLD_VIEW_PROJECTION] *     vec4(in_Position, 1.0);
    v_texcoord = in_TextureCoord;
}
Fragment:
Code:
varying vec2 v_texcoord;

uniform float time;
uniform vec2 mouse_pos;
uniform vec2 resolution;
uniform float strength;

void main()
{
    vec4 colour = texture2D(gm_BaseTexture, v_texcoord);
    gl_FragColor.rgb = vec3(1,0.9,0.9);
    gl_FragColor.a = colour.a;
}
Usage in draw event (this is when it crashes)
Code:
if(flashc=1 && behitC=0) {
shader_set(whiteout);
draw_sprite_ext(sprite_index,image_single,x,y,image_xscale,image_yscale,image_angle,-1,image_alpha);
shader_reset();
}
I'm not happy, I spent a day and a half on the graphics and a day and a half on programming it, another waysted game jam attempt
Here's the .gmz too while I'm at it, to prove that it works when running from gamemaker and not when you final build it. I tested the crap out of it too before I submitted it, never thought to test the exe tho, BUT WHYYY
:glassbreak:
That's very strange. I get no crashes with the player flashing when damaged, and that's with both the version included in the zip with the other entries, and with the executable I created from the gmz you provided. I had GMS closed while playing, and I played plenty long, testing it out, taking and giving damage. Flashes but no crashes.

My version of GMS1 is 1.4.1788 (not the latest) and I targeted Windows (YYC), but this might not be worth mentioning, since even the original jam entry works fine for me.
 
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Wraithious

Guest
That's very strange. I get no crashes with the player flashing when damaged, and that's with both the version included in the zip with the other entries, and with the executable I created from the gmz you provided. I had GMS closed while playing, and I played plenty long, testing it out, taking and giving damage. Flashes but no crashes.

My version of GMS1 is 1.4.1788 (not the latest) and I targeted Windows (YYC), but this might not be worth mentioning, since even the original jam entry works fine for me.
Thanks for the info, I'm glad its working for you and some other people, so I'm wondering if it might be the version of windows then? Im on the latest windows 10 release and there is an issue mentioned with focus assist causing graphics glitches when gaming.
 

mimusic

Member
Thanks for the info, I'm glad its working for you and some other people, so I'm wondering if it might be the version of windows then? Im on the latest windows 10 release and there is an issue mentioned with focus assist causing graphics glitches when gaming.
Possible that GM is bypasses/auto-correcting an error at compile time that doesn't get fixed in the actual build. I've never seen it happen before, but I can only guess that's what's happening because of this line:
Code:
gl_FragColor.rgb = vec3(1,0.9,0.9);
You're using an int in your fragment shader here -- vec3( > 1 < , 0.9, 0.9 ) -- but afaik, you're required to use floats when declaring a color. The logic of the shader seems fine, but this type of syntax error usually keeps my program from even compiling even in the IDE, so it's interesting that you somehow got past this. Change it to be '1.0' and see if the build still crashes?

EDIT: wait, I just tested this out in my own shader and got no errors in the IDE or the build, so actually it seems I'm wrong about the requirement of floats when declaring a component of a color. Sorry!
 

Coded Games

Member
Hello all, so a few of you have played my game now ({Insert Game Title Here}) and I'm glad that most people are enjoying it.

I'm thinking about continuing to work on it so I thought I'd just share some tweaks I think I'm going to make to the combat system.

1. One of the most fun parts of the game is teleporting around. Because of this, I want to remove the Teleport card from your deck and instead have Bosses also shoot blue squares that allow you to teleport. Along with this, after a certain distance all projectiles will turn blue making it easier to catch up to a fast moving boss. I plan on reducing the spawn rate of green squares to about 2-3% (was 10%) and fill the remaining 7-8% with blue squares.

2. Remove elemental damage. I really don't like the elemental system in the game. It causes you to have to guess at the beginning of fights and requires you to fill your deck with a bunch of cards that may end up being useless. Instead, I want bosses to be made up of multiple pieces where some of them act as weak points that glow a different color. Not the most creative system but I think it will complement the new movement system and streamline deck building a little bit.

These are the two main changes I want to make. Overall, this game has been really difficult to make since I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how I want to gauge difficulty. In the Jam version basically all that happens is bosses move faster and get more health, which is a pretty poor way to increase difficulty. Other options like having the boss shoot more bullets or make more unpredictable bullet patterns don't seem like very good methods either.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
So, I've got quite a few pieces of feedback about my short entry (You Have To Drop The Bass) and I'm glad it made many players happy a little bit.

Also, since many reviewers mentioned how they liked the graphics effects (especially the platforms), I decided to go ahead and publish the game's source (with a bunch of extra comments for slightly easier reading). It's not like an entry made from scratch in 3-4 hours includes some super-secret programming techniques, anyway.

Link to the source

(as for platorms themselves: for each platform segment, spanning across 32px, I basically create a pixel-type particle moving downwards at a random position in the platform, with some extra decaying)
 

Micah_DS

Member
The music and sounds were nice, but Micah, your music is always so loud XD
Gotta respond to this :p.

I'm used to trying to match professional audio levels. The reason for this is so that the music can be played along with other music in a playlist without being too quiet and thus interrupting the listener's experience, forcing them to turn it up (and once the song is over, BOOM, the next track blasts their ears). That's the only reason.

Here's the link to the stream and download of the Hooktic Theme, so you can play back to back with a professionally mixed and mastered track to see what I mean (mine likely won't stack up in various ways, but at least the volume should be about right):
https://soundcloud.com/frznfire/hooktic-theme

So I'd argue this track is not actually too loud. But last jam? Yeah, my music for Yor Game was an example of being too loud, I admit that, and it was terrible on many levels. I rushed that thing so much more than the Hooktic track.
 

Micah_DS

Member
@Micah_DS I actually had the opposite problem, I know how loud my headphones need to be for listening to music but I had to turn them down a bit lower than usual for your game.
Interesting, I guess the problem seems that I should've told @matharoo to make the volume levels reach even lower when set at the lowest in the menu. I assume you turned it down there, but it couldn't go low enough?

Well, noted. Whether I work with someone or by myself in future jams, I'll be sure to have a lower minimum volume setting.
 

Bentley

Member
So, I've got quite a few pieces of feedback about my short entry (You Have To Drop The Bass) and I'm glad it made many players happy a little bit.

Also, since many reviewers mentioned how they liked the graphics effects (especially the platforms), I decided to go ahead and publish the game's source (with a bunch of extra comments for slightly easier reading). It's not like an entry made from scratch in 3-4 hours includes some super-secret programming techniques, anyway.

Link to the source

(as for platorms themselves: for each platform segment, spanning across 32px, I basically create a pixel-type particle moving downwards at a random position in the platform, with some extra decaying)
Playing your game made me smile.
 

Ralucipe

Member
Just published my last reviews and my full rankings.

I don't usually say corny stuff like this, but I am really impressed with the sheer number of quality games in this Jam. I say this in my voting post but I really feel like the top 10 games or so will all deserve to win.
Unlike in past Jams, I don't think there's any crystal clear consensus on who will win any particular rank or Best-Of award. Often times it's clear before reviewing ends who is going to win what, but not this time. Maybe with the exception of Best Presentation though.
 
Interesting, I guess the problem seems that I should've told @matharoo to make the volume levels reach even lower when set at the lowest in the menu. I assume you turned it down there, but it couldn't go low enough?

Well, noted. Whether I work with someone or by myself in future jams, I'll be sure to have a lower minimum volume setting.
Oh, no. I didn't touch the sound settings in-game. I adjusted my PC volume. It's no big deal.
 
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