Zordak [NEW DEMO - 2022-04-23] [WINDOWS/LINUX]

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 65

Only text this time as well because of time issues.

Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a new menu: "Gallery" with the sub menus "Unlockable Art" and "Fan Art".

"Unlockable Art" - In here you can view images unlocked by completing achievements.
"Fan Art" - Name is self explanatory.

The "Unlockable Art" menu was always planned to be added but the "Fan Art" one I just thought would be nice to have in there as well so therefore it has been added.
So if you draw or create anything based on Zordak (has to be an image) and you want it to be shown in game then there's a decent chance that I'll add it.

- Added a bunch of images as "Unlockable Art" for completing the "Fresh Air", "Exterminator" and "Escape Artist" achievements.
More will be added later.

- Improved player suit running animation a little bit.
- Fixed credits menu back button display issue.
- Fixed weapon selection icon getting stuck on screen when pausing.

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Did not get much done this week but I think this small demo update is now pretty much ready so hopefully it will be out next week.
You can check the previous devlog for more fixes included in this upcoming update.

I'll be taking another look at Linux this week to see if I can improve a few things related to launching the game, but we'll see if it works out or not.

Anyway, that's it for now.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 66



The demo has been updated.

Changes:
Check my previous devlogs (64 and 65) for changes lists as nothing has really changed this week.
Most notable changes are: controller improvements, unlockable art / gallery additions, balancing, fixes and a new secret.

ANY OS:
- Added more fan art to the gallery.

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-- Linux stuff:
This week I was planning to make running the game on Linux smoother, unfortunately I got nothing but issues so it's still the same install procedure.
I was also going to try running the game on a few more distros but only had issues there as well so I'm going to have to stick with testing on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS only as this is too time consuming.
So I'm sorry but I think it's going to have to stay this way for now.
--

Anyway, that's it.
Let me know if you find any new issues.
This will probably be the last demo update for quite some time unless there are major issues in this version.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 67


(same gif again, new stuff soon)

The demo has been updated. (again)

Changes:

ANY OS:
- The oxygen meter text now changes color based on how much is left or if it's draining: Yellow to Red if draining otherwise White.
- Removed the "health and oxygen refilled" part of the game saved message.
- Scaled the player death text down for better localization support.
- The background for area names on the fullscreen map now stretches separately based on text length. (better for localization)
- Updated the gallery menu button description stating that images may contain game spoilers.
- Tweaked a certain upgrade a bit.
- Reduced ShellBomber and O.R.B enemy health a bit.
- Updated some old rooms.
- Cleaned up the "en" localization file, removing a bunch of unused stuff.

- Fixed pausing the game with the keypad open leads to visual issues on the fullscreen map.
- Fixed two flyer enemies flying straight towards each other and collide causing them to get stuck in place.
- Supposedly fixed item collection percentage going over 100%.
- Fixed preservatory tile issues.
- Fixed gallery image selected not being reset to the first one when leaving the menu.
- Fixed unlockable art unlock status not being reset when switching save file.
- Fixed achievement system not actually fully using the localization system for text.

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Apparently there were some semi-big issues in the previous version so I had to update once again.
So once again, this will probably be the last demo update for a while unless there are other big issues with this one.

-- Regarding the repeating audio bug:
I can't seem to make this one happen.
I have seen it happen on videos so I know it's there but I'm not sure how to fix it without being able to reproduce it.
So it's still going to be there in this version.
--

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 68


(maybe not the most interesting gif but at least it's new)

Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added missing font character: '
- Added a more standardized font as an option.

- The "Large Font" option is now just called "Font" and allows you to cycle through game font options.
- All text drawing now has a black outline when using the standardized font, this will help it stand out on any background color.
- Permanently disabled the old HUD as the new one seems stable enough.
- Moved misc HUD elements around a bit.
- Updated misc rooms.

- Fixed toxic gas HUD icon not taking text length into account.
- Fixed misc Door vs Projectile collision issues.
- Fixed misc Player projectile collision issues.
- Fixed misc charge beam issues.
- Fixed time played being displayed as "time player".
- Fixed demo version text background not scaling based on text length.
- Fixed cryotank display using the same font as set in the options, it should always have used the normal game font.

------------------------------------------

Did not get to spend much time at my computer this week and the time I had was mostly spent looking through fonts trying to find one that works.
I went through every single font available to choose from within GMS and only a single one seemed to be small enough to work that didn't have some weird offset issues.
So that one is now the "Standardized" font option in the game, some localization options will likely require the use of this font.

Next week I'm hoping to get back to room creation, I've spent way too much time changing / fixing things for a while now.
One of my hard drives started failing recently (luckily before black friday) so I got a new one.
And I haven't reinstalled windows in a while so I'll be doing that next week as well to clean up a bit, hopefully that won't take more than a day at most.
I guess that's all I have to say so until next time.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 69


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added community translation: French. (this will help me find various UI issues with localization)
- Added a new room. (took a long time to finish as I'm currently working on a very tile heavy area)
- Added some new tile graphics.
- Added a new interactable tile type.
- Added a new "Other Supporters" category to the credits and an entry to that category.

- Updated misc old rooms.
- Updated localization files.

- Fixed misc interactable tile collision issues.
- Fixed "standardized" font not using the full range. (éëáó etc)
- Fixed credits scroll position not resetting when leaving the menu.
- Fixed an issue with destructible tile chain reactions.
- Fixed a map issue with a certain room.

------------------------------------------

So, I didn't feel like I had enough content to post a devlog last week and this one is not going to be very long either for the reasons below:
The current plan is to only create rooms and things relevant to those rooms for a while in attempt to help me focus more on the game.
So devlogs will probably be pretty short for the foreseeable future and new gifs will not be very frequent as they are very time consuming to make.
Screenshots are obviously easier to include though so there will probably be more of those in the future instead.
So yeah, just thought I'd let you all know this in advance.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Hey everyone, sorry for being so silent for a while.

I took some time off for the holidays and it spiraled into me working on my side project, which is now becoming more of a real thing and not just an idea.
And I think this is probably a good thing for me as I really need something to change in my life, it's just very tiring working on the same thing every day.
So, I've given myself until the end of January to get this side project to a playable state (or at least close to) and then we'll see if it feels like the game could become good.

So this means Zordak will get less time for the time being, I'll still be working on it but every other week or something like that instead so I can hopefully keep both projects going without much interruption.
I understand this might seem like bad news for some of you but this is what I've decided upon so it is what it is.
This side project is something I've always wanted to do and I think it's a good time to try and get it going as the new year begins.

I'll probably be putting out some more info about the project at some point during this month but for now I'll just say this:
It will be an old school Doom-like FPS, if you know my jam game Y.A.W (https://apapappa.itch.io/yaw) then it will be like that but more advanced with completely different graphics and somewhat of a story.

Anyway, that's all I got for an update, I'll be trying to get some work done on Zordak for next week and get a new devlog out.
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 70


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added new rooms.
- Added a new upgrade.
- Added a new interactable tile type.
- Added a new mechanic.

- Tweaked an old upgrade a bit.
- Updated misc old rooms.

- Fixed 4 bugs/issues.

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I got more done than I thought I would considering the time spent this week, so that's good.

Making some good progress on the side project as well, going to get started on a simple level editor soon so I can make some testing levels, and then I can start testing some basic gameplay to get the correct feel for everything, but more on that later.

So that's it for this one, next one might be two weeks from now or maybe next week, depends on how much I get done.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Status Update + Side Project Progress Showcase

Hey everyone.
Not much has really happened regarding Zordak since the last devlog, I've added a room and tweaked some stuff but that's about it.
I just wanted to focus a lot on the side project to get it into a playable state before the end of January.

So, here's a video showcasing the current progress of the project:


Obviously, I'm using pretty much all placeholders until I can get the gameplay sorted out.
I'll be creating my own textures, sounds, music and all that once the engine is pretty much done and I can get started on the actual game.
So far this is turning out quite well so I'll very likely continue making this for the forseeable future, alongside Zordak of course.
Also, some lag made it into the video since nothing has really been optimized yet so this will be improved later.

So now that I've gotten a lot done on this side project the plan is to get some work done on Zordak with a devlog likely coming next week.
And then alternate between these two projects for an undecided amount of time in order to try and make some progress on them both.
That's it for this progress update, not sure if I'll be posting any more any time soon, regarding the side project that is, Zordak updates will come soon, I just wanted to show that I'm actually doing something.

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Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

ReidDC

Member
What theme will you be going with do you think? With the side project I mean. Doom? Or something like Heretic? Either way it looks like you have a solid foundation, please keep it up!
 

Apapappa

Member
What theme will you be going with do you think? With the side project I mean. Doom? Or something like Heretic? Either way it looks like you have a solid foundation, please keep it up!
It will probably be very similar to Doom in terms of gameplay / graphics style, I have plans for somewhat of a story and some influences from the game - Condemned: Criminal Origins, but not sure how much of that will make it in, it depends on what I deem doable in a reasonable timeframe.
This is all assuming I can manage to pull off more "realistic" sprites than I usually do, the plan is to try and use real life photos a lot, even for enemies, but we'll see how that turns out, worst case I'll just sprite everything and it won't look as "realistic".
And this is currently just focused on the gameplay / feel portion of the project + getting the engine set up, so things will change later on and there's still a lot missing as well.
 

Joe Ellis

Member
Oh my god I love your fps game. It looks way more fun to play than doom, so that's gonna be a massive quality of the game. Once it's got original graphics, it'll be it's own game, and I already wanna play it cus it just looks so satisfying to shoot all the enemies and they all die really satisfyingly\quickly haha. But then as the game gets harder I can see it being really addictive still, cus you wanna slay all the enemies like you did on the first level. The first level is always a huge element of the game in a first person shooter if you ask me. Like Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Witchaven, Tekwar, Quake, and Doom. They always have this "first level" vibe and an epic first level song to go with it. I love the idea of using photos of people for the characters, I think that's what they did on rise of the triad and tekwar, cus on the credits of rott each enemy had a name like "Lightning Guard - Dan Peterson"
I think it's a good idea to focus on gameplay and feel first and do the graphics after, cus I would literally play this game if all the enemies were tellytubbies.
Also, if you're thinking of doing more realistic graphics, like using photos, remember you have the power to mix these with your skill for pixel art. I think that's what a lot of the graphics on duke nukem were like, you can tell with some things that they were made from a photo but then touched up pixel-ly. Oh and the weapons on doom were like that, they bought a load of toy guns from an actual toy store. And some of the enemies were modelled out of clay and photographed, like the baron of hell.
 

Zizka

Member
Just read through the 6 pages.

I want to be sincere: I salute your consistency, hard work and perseverance. Truly inspiring. Truly. One of the gem projects here.

I wouldn’t recommend tackling two projects at once unless you have to.

Zordak has *a lot* of potential. Customers will want this game too, it’s not a niche thing. I hope you keep sticking to it, to see this turn unto vapourware would be tragic.

Get on Early Access if you need money. You should get a fair bit with a game like this not to mention tons of feedback.

I also appreciate your kindness and consideration when getting feedback.

One thing, I would really, really, really, really recommend putting your animations as transparent gifs (hosted on imgur for example). I’d love to give feedback or provide edits but then I’d need to download the game, rip the art etc... it just too tedious.

I’ve had ideas about the animations and could add a couple of frames here and there but you’d make my life a whole lot easier by making them readily available.

Keep it up, it’ll all be worthwhile in the end!
 

Apapappa

Member
Just posting to say that I really love both Zordak and your Doom-like side project. That's a pretty nice looking 3D map editor too.
Hey, thanks, glad you like them. ^^

Oh my god I love your fps game. It looks way more fun to play than doom, so that's gonna be a massive quality of the game. Once it's got original graphics, it'll be it's own game, and I already wanna play it cus it just looks so satisfying to shoot all the enemies and they all die really satisfyingly\quickly haha. But then as the game gets harder I can see it being really addictive still, cus you wanna slay all the enemies like you did on the first level. The first level is always a huge element of the game in a first person shooter if you ask me. Like Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Witchaven, Tekwar, Quake, and Doom. They always have this "first level" vibe and an epic first level song to go with it. I love the idea of using photos of people for the characters, I think that's what they did on rise of the triad and tekwar, cus on the credits of rott each enemy had a name like "Lightning Guard - Dan Peterson"
I think it's a good idea to focus on gameplay and feel first and do the graphics after, cus I would literally play this game if all the enemies were tellytubbies.
Also, if you're thinking of doing more realistic graphics, like using photos, remember you have the power to mix these with your skill for pixel art. I think that's what a lot of the graphics on duke nukem were like, you can tell with some things that they were made from a photo but then touched up pixel-ly. Oh and the weapons on doom were like that, they bought a load of toy guns from an actual toy store. And some of the enemies were modelled out of clay and photographed, like the baron of hell.
Thanks man, definitely appreciate it.
As you probably know, I'm all about game feel and atmosphere so I'm happy it looks satisfying even when it's pretty much just a testing version, atmosphere is not quite there yet though but it will come later with audio triggers and more effects for example.
This is just a testing level and won't be in the game but I know what you mean, and the games you mentioned are in the type of style I will be going for with this one.
Haven't played Rise of the Triad, Witchaven or Tekwar though but I've seen screenshots.
The plan is to at least try and use pictures of IRL friends as the base for characters and go out and take pictures of walls, concrete, grass, whatever and use them for textures.
They will be heavily scaled down though and touched up pixel wise as you mentioned.
If that doesn't work out then I'll just go with a less "realistic" style and pixel it all.
I'll likely have to use google for weapon bases and pixel them as buying a bunch of things is not really in the budget here.

So the great thing about the way I'm making this engine is that everything is externally loaded, enemies, props, items, player weapons and attributes, everything.
That means that if I want to make another FPS game in this style I can "just" build new levels, make new graphics, define new enemies etc without having to redo everything.
Like, this is the "Pinky" enemy for example:
Code:
[ATTRIBUTES]
DAMAGE="15"
GIB_TEXTURE="GIB"
GIB_NUMBER="32"
GIB_FRAMES="3"
DEATH_PARTICLE_TEXTURE="FIREBALL"
DEATH_PARTICLE_NUMBER="4"
[CHANCE]
ATTACK="100"
[ANIMATION_SPEED]
ROAM="8"
ATTACK="6"
[PHYS]
SPEED="0.065"
ZHEIGHT="1.75"
[SOUND]
HURT_0="AI_PAIN0"
DEATH_0="PINKY_DEATH0"
ATTACK_0="PINKY_ATTACK0"
ALERT_0="PINKY_ALERT0"
Adding a file named "enemy_name.ini" in the AI data folder, "PINKY.ini" in this case, will allow you to place it in the editor and then it behaves like the ones in the demo video.
There are a lot more customizable attributes available to define an enemy but this is all that is needed for the Pinky, the rest is listed in a help file in the AI data folder.
Same goes for props, player, items, etc.
Required textures are loaded from the Textures Data folder and any texture require the same name as the defined game object, PINKY in this case, there will be a help file for this as well.

Some more game object examples:
KEY_RED.ini:
Code:
[ATTRIBUTES]
ItemName="Red Key"
ItemType_0="KEY_RED"
[SOUND]
PICKUP="ItemPickup"
[LIGHT]
LIGHT_FOLLOW="1"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_RANGE="1"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_HUE="0.015"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_INTENSITY="1"
SHOTGUN.ini:
Code:
[ATTRIBUTES]
ItemName="Shotgun"
ItemType_0="WEAPON"
ItemPower_0="0"
ItemSlot_0="2"
ItemType_1="AMMO"
ItemPower_1="10"
ItemSlot_1="2"
[SOUND]
PICKUP="WeaponPickup"
BARREL.ini:
Code:
[ATTRIBUTES]
HEALTH="100"
HEALTH_MAX="100"
EXPLOSION_ON_DEATH_DAMAGE="100"
EXPLOSION_ON_DEATH_RANGE="4"
GIB_TEXTURE=""
GIB_NUMBER="0"
GIB_FRAMES="0"
DEATH_PARTICLE_TEXTURE="FIREBALL"
DEATH_PARTICLE_NUMBER="8"
[ALLOWANCE]
EXPLOSION_ON_DEATH="1"
EXPLOSION_ON_DEATH_SAME_TYPE="1"
EXPLOSION_ON_AI="1"
[ANIMATION_SPEED]
ROAM="12"
DYING="12"
[PHYS]
RADIUS="0.5"
ZHEIGHT="1.5"
[SOUND]
DEATH_0="BARREL_EXPLODE0"
[LIGHT]
LIGHT_ON_DEATH="1"
LIGHT_ON_DEATH_RANGE="8"
LIGHT_ON_DEATH_HUE="0.08"
LIGHT_ON_DEATH_INTENSITY="1"
LIGHT_ON_DEATH_FADE_SPEED="0.01"
LIGHT_FOLLOW="1"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_RANGE="1.5"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_HUE="0.33"
LIGHT_FOLLOW_INTENSITY="1"

Naming conventions might not be the most consistent right now but you get the idea.
I realize you didn't exactly ask for this information but I just thought it might be interesting for anyone reading.

Just read through the 6 pages.

I want to be sincere: I salute your consistency, hard work and perseverance. Truly inspiring. Truly. One of the gem projects here.

I wouldn’t recommend tackling two projects at once unless you have to.

Zordak has *a lot* of potential. Customers will want this game too, it’s not a niche thing. I hope you keep sticking to it, to see this turn unto vapourware would be tragic.

Get on Early Access if you need money. You should get a fair bit with a game like this not to mention tons of feedback.

I also appreciate your kindness and consideration when getting feedback.

One thing, I would really, really, really, really recommend putting your animations as transparent gifs (hosted on imgur for example). I’d love to give feedback or provide edits but then I’d need to download the game, rip the art etc... it just too tedious.

I’ve had ideas about the animations and could add a couple of frames here and there but you’d make my life a whole lot easier by making them readily available.

Keep it up, it’ll all be worthwhile in the end!
I appreciate you taking the time to look through everything, a lot of it is very outdated now though but still, it's there to show progress.
Also definitely appreciate the "praise" so to say, so thanks, I try to do the best I can. ^^

I realize Zordak has potential and I'll be working on it until it is done or until I'm forcefully not able to anymore, whatever reason that may be.

I also realize working on two projects is generally not preferable but consider this:
Do I work on a side project or not work at all because I simply can't handle working on Zordak at that particular time?
Forcing myself to work on Zordak will only make the game worse in my opinion and I want it to be as good as I can make it.

This is not really ready for any kind of early access and to be honest, I'm not much of a fan of early access at all, but I understand what you mean, we'll see what happens in the future.

Okay, this is probably going to sound a bit weird but.. I don't really have the animations in animated GIF form.
I work on sprite sheets so I don't actually see the animations in real time when I make them, this is likely why they are a bit off at times.
This is what it looks like for example, same image inside GMS so there's only 1 sprite for the non-suit player:
PlayerV3_temp7.png

And with that being said, I'm not really looking to improve the animations any time soon, they seem good enough for now and I've got a mountain of other things to work on.
And it's not really as simple as "just add a couple of frames" since the animations kind of have a predefined length, like 8 frames for running for example, I *can* add more though but it's not preferable.
But if you have any feedback to give or make edits or something, I will write it down for later.
I am a little bit reluctant on posting the entire sprite sheets on here like this however...

Either way, thanks again for taking the time to look through this entire thing.
 

Zizka

Member
I meant adding frames as an example, not as the only way to tweak frames of course. I understand what you mean regarding timing and animation length although from my own experience, you could speed up the frame rate on a sequence to make up for extra frames as you are probably well aware of.

I doubt there's a chance for theft honestly. I mean, if someone really wanted the sprites they could just rip them in-game.

I work on sprite sheets so I don't actually see the animations in real time when I make them, this is likely why they are a bit off at times.
Well, this is the first time I've ever heard of making animations without checking the final result as you go along. You probably have a good sense of timing in your head. I find having constantly checking and tweaking animation speed and frames really helps me personally.

Also, having gifs allows people to experience firsthand the result and increase the probability of getting feedback about them and fix them before you have too many frames in and it's too late or time consuming to modify what you've already done so far. With a sprite sheet like this, it's a matter of less than a minute to import it and make a gif. It's really hard to say (for me anyway) to get a feel of an animation with just a sprite sheet. Werther or not you wish to invest time with providing feedback ready animations is up to you of course.

I also realize working on two projects is generally not preferable but consider this:
Do I work on a side project or not work at all because I simply can't handle working on Zordak at that particular time?
Forcing myself to work on Zordak will only make the game worse in my opinion and I want it to be as good as I can make it.
I understand completely, I've been there myself. I guess I'm rooting for this project as often side-projects become main projects and vice-versa. You've put so much effort into this and gone through so much, I really hope you'll see this through as you've said.

Regarding the kick, I think a solution could be to have a more say, convenient kick? I can't find a good quality animation but to give you an idea:


A 'door kicking' kind of animation I find would fit the theme well.

This being said, I relate to having a lot of work left to do and not wanting to focus on tweaking animations at this point in time.
 

Apapappa

Member
I meant adding frames as an example, not as the only way to tweak frames of course. I understand what you mean regarding timing and animation length although from my own experience, you could speed up the frame rate on a sequence to make up for extra frames as you are probably well aware of.

I doubt there's a chance for theft honestly. I mean, if someone really wanted the sprites they could just rip them in-game.



Well, this is the first time I've ever heard of making animations without checking the final result as you go along. You probably have a good sense of timing in your head. I find having constantly checking and tweaking animation speed and frames really helps me personally.

Also, having gifs allows people to experience firsthand the result and increase the probability of getting feedback about them and fix them before you have too many frames in and it's too late or time consuming to modify what you've already done so far. With a sprite sheet like this, it's a matter of less than a minute to import it and make a gif. It's really hard to say (for me anyway) to get a feel of an animation with just a sprite sheet. Werther or not you wish to invest time with providing feedback ready animations is up to you of course.



I understand completely, I've been there myself. I guess I'm rooting for this project as often side-projects become main projects and vice-versa. You've put so much effort into this and gone through so much, I really hope you'll see this through as you've said.

Regarding the kick, I think a solution could be to have a more say, convenient kick? I can't find a good quality animation but to give you an idea:


A 'door kicking' kind of animation I find would fit the theme well.

This being said, I relate to having a lot of work left to do and not wanting to focus on tweaking animations at this point in time.
Yeah, of course, adding frames is not the only way, I just had to mention it because, well, you mentioned it.
And I forgot to mention this in my previous post but what you see on the sprite sheet there is not necessarily how it animates in game, I may or may not duplicate misc frames in game to make timing feel better, doing it that way means that I won't have to have a bunch of duplicate frames on the sprite sheet.

It's not necessarily all about theft, it is definitely a factor though but yeah, posting the sprite sheets like this is mostly fine I guess.

I do check the animations but not in real time like having a small window constantly animating in the corner for example, I have to put them in game and start up the game to actually see how it looks.
It basically goes like this:
Finish almost entire animation, put it in game, "this doesn't look right", then go back and fix the issues then repeat.
Probably not the best workflow ever but it makes it so I only have to import 1 sprite whenever I change anything on the player instead of importing like 15 from the example sheet I posted, also helps reduce memory usage a bit but that's minor.

The problem with the gif thing is that as mentioned above, the animations in the sprite sheet might not look like that in game as I can set any frame to repeat as many times as I want from code, thus helping with animation timing.
So it's not necessarily just import and export as a gif, it won't look the same timing wise.
Like for example, the "Idle" sprite in the top left has 4 frames on the sprite sheet but in game it uses 10. (first one is multiplied a bunch to help with timing)
So I'm not really sure what to do here to be honest.

And I will be finishing this game unless I'm literally not able to anymore, it will probably take quite a while though depending on motivation.
The side project will stay a side project until this is done then it will likely become the main project if it's still around at that point.

A kick like that would work except for one issue, the only issue really, how would you kick an enemy at your feet if the entire kick is up at around your waist?
I mean this by, how would it make sense to kick an enemy that way, I could of course just add a hitbox but I kinda want it to make some sense.

Right now I can't really afford to work on animations, I need to work on the game world in order to ever finish all rooms, I've still got about 3.5-4 entire areas to make.
I will however note any feedback I get as mentioned previously.

Love the dark atmosphere. I hope you finish this game.
Thanks, glad you like it. :)
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 71


Changes:

ANY OS:

- Added a bunch of new rooms, finally all rooms in this area now exist in game.

------------------------------------------

This may not seem like a lot but thanks to the break I took to work on the side project I now managed to add this bunch of rooms in a matter of days which would likely have taken me weeks if I would have attempted it before taking a break.

Hopefully this motivation sticks for a while now and since this area is now "finished" I can get to work on another area and/or some mechanics so it will finally be something different.

As mentioned in a devlog before, I will still be in room creation mode so devlogs will likely stay similar to this for a while as there is not much else to say when just creating and adding rooms.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 72


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a bunch of rooms, finishing up yet another area.

------------------------------------------

Things seem to be going good since I somehow managed to finish up another area, it was one of the smaller areas but still.
Next time there won't be any finished areas though since the next one I'm planning to work on is basically untouched so far.
So that's it for this one, hopefully I can keep this going for a while.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 73


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added another bunch of rooms, finishing up about one third of another area.
- Added a new mechanic.
- Tweaked an enemy a bit.
- Added some new tiles.
- Updated some old rooms.
- Reduced the bloom graphical effect intensity by about 50%, no idea how I didn't notice it being a bit too much until now.

------------------------------------------

Things still seem to be going good, it's real nice seeing my internal game map fill up with completed rooms, reminds you that working on this isn't endless after all.
So let's hope this continues and I'll see you next time.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 74


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a few rooms.
- Added some new tiles.

------------------------------------------

Another short one this time, I got a bit distracted so did not get as much done as the last few weeks but it's still progress so I can't complain.
Not much else to say here other than I'll continue working on new rooms for the foreseeable future.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 75


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a couple of rooms. (more than last time so that's good)
- Updated a few old rooms.
------------------------------------------

Once again only room stuff.

I think I'm going to have to take a break from making rooms and work on some other part of the game for a bit though, because it's starting to become a bit rough and I can feel the quality of the rooms degrading.
The "rooms degrading" part is not that bad though because many of them will be altered later anyway.

So next time maybe there will be something else in here other than just "added some rooms", but this is it for this one.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Hey, keep it up, that slow grind is what makes quality games. Looking forward to seeing more as always!
Yeah I hope that's the case so I'm gonna keep going, just have to figure out what part of the game to switch over to now as room creation is getting a bit tiring. ^^
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 76


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added an "Action" button, holding this button while pressing another button now perform certain actions.
This was added to free up buttons at the cost of having to hold one for certain actions instead.

- Removed the "Aim Straight Down" dedicated button, this is now done with "Action+Aim Straight Up" instead.
- Removed the "Secondary Fire" dedicated button, this is now done with "Action+Fire/Attack" instead.
- Removed the "Secondary Weapon Swap" dedicated button, this is now done with "Action+Weapon Swap" instead.

- Added some new player sprites/animations for an upgrade.
- Added another set of player sprites/animations for another upgrade.
- Added some new sprites/effects to a certain upgrade.

- Heavily reworked a certain upgrade.
- Reworked another upgrade to work like a secondary weapon and added relevant HUD icons for this.
- Tweaked another old upgrade a bit.
- Updated localization file.
- Updated misc old rooms.
- Fixed 9 bugs / issues.

------------------------------------------

Some IRL stuff has been going on the past 2 weeks so my focus has been completely obliterated, that's why there's hasn't been a devlog in a while.

But that being said.. some decent changes/progress have happened to the game since then as can be seen in the changes list.
I've just about started working on a new boss as well so things are definitely still moving forward.

Anyway that's it for this one, as always, I'm aiming for the next devlog to be out next week, but we'll see.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 77 [+ Status Update]


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Still pretty much only working on the new boss, all sprites for it are now done, it's got some movement patterns, etc.. still a lot missing though.
- Added better save file loading safety checks. (should improve compatibility with older saves and make them less likely to crash the game)
- Updated the demo boss sprite a tiny bit.
- Misc particle emitters now react to screen shake.
- Updated some old rooms.

------------------------------------------

It's been a while...

As mentioned in the previous devlog, I've been dealing with some personal stuff for a couple of weeks now with very minimal game development going on, so that's why there's not been any updates.
I won't go into detail on what the issue has been but now I'm hoping this is mostly sorted out and I'm working on getting in the groove for working on Zordak again.

So yeah.. not much else to say right now, still aiming for a devlog every week (even though this obviously failed recently) but hopefully it won't this time.
So, until next time.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 78


(wasn't sure what to do for a gif this time so I just recorded a bit of the title screen)
Changes:

ANY OS:

- Still mostly focused on the new boss this week and I'm happy to say that it is now fully playable, so I'm calling version one of this boss done for now, will go back later at some point in time to polish it up / balance it better.

- Added a few new enemies.
- Added actual boss health values to the boss health bar in addition to the current percentages.
- Added a new mechanic.
- Updated a few old rooms.
- Fixed 8 bugs/issues.

------------------------------------------

It has not necessarily been a super productive week but I guess that's okay, any progress is good progress.
So with this new boss considered done for now it's time to move on to another part of the game, not entirely sure which part just yet.
Probably something related to the player progressing through the game, testing intended paths, making sure everything connects properly, adding missing things and such.
But that's it for this one, maybe the next devlog will be more interesting, who knows.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 79


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a bunch of new rooms.
- Updated a few old rooms.

------------------------------------------

So, as you might have noticed, there was no devlog last week, this is because of some more bad news piling up on me resulting in me barely getting any sleep that week so not much of note got done on the game.

I'm still waiting for some answers to said news so there may be more interruptions coming up in the future, I can't know for sure yet.

But anyway, on to the actual devlog:

Only a few more rooms left to add and then version 1 of another area has been finished.
Not many areas left to do now until all planned areas exist in the game, version 1 of them that is, meaning that many rooms will be changed and/or fully reworked in the future if needed.
But this is still good because it means that soon the player is able run through every room in the game. (with many things missing of course)

So.. yeah.. still moving forwards with the game, slowly, but still forwards..

That's all I got this time, not very interesting changes list but that's how it is when working on certain parts of a game.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 80


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a couple of new rooms.
- Heavily reduced the flickering effect of laser turret enemies.
- Fixed one bug.
------------------------------------------

Hey everyone.

I had another basically sleepless week recently so I've been feeling pretty garbage.. but at least I've gotten the "answers" I was waiting for and now I have to wait again for another answer.
So pretty much nothing has really changed since the last devlog, not much game dev has been going on, and I'm expecting more interruptions coming up.

So.. yeah, I don't know what else to say at this point regarding this, I just hope things can return to normal soon so that I can get some real work done.
At least I got something done during these weeks though, just a few more rooms left until version 1 of this area is done.

So that's it, next devlog will be out whenever it's out I guess because a weekly schedule is clearly not working out right now.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
I hope things get better for you soon, dude. Until then, don't stress yourself out unnecessarily. Even a wee bit of progress is still progress, and I even consider taking a break to be progress if only because it's just as needed sometimes.
Yeah I hope so too.. It's just a bit hard to not be stressed out right now, which in turn makes it extremely hard to focus.
Any progress is good progress but you always want it to progress as fast as possible you know.
And yeah I agree, taking breaks are needed but this time it's not really up to me which makes it a bit frustrating.
But anyway, hopefully this will be over with soon.
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 81


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added *A LOT* of new rooms.
- Added some new tiles.
- Tweaked a mechanic a bit.
- The electricity coming from broken lights no longer damage the player.
- Updated some old rooms.
- Fixed a few bugs.

------------------------------------------

Hey everyone.

So I know it's been a while since the last devlog once again..
But this time I've just been focusing on work instead of thinking about posting devlogs, it might not seem like it but keeping track of posting these actually do add a bit of stress.

But anyway, there's been quite a bit of progress since last time:
I've added a LOT of rooms effectively finishing up what was left of two areas, now there's basically only two areas left to make, one small and one big.. so that's something.
Still have to mention that it's only version 1 of these rooms so all of them are not necessarily considered finished and is also missing a bunch of stuff, but still, soon the player can run through the entire game.
So that's pretty much the main thing I've been working on since the last devlog, the rest is just mostly small changes.

But yeah.. I'm probably going to stick with posting devlogs whenever I feel like it instead of trying to be on a strict schedule, so the next devlog will be out whenever it's out I guess.

So that's it for this one, I'll probably continue doing mostly room stuff so the next devlog will likely be similar.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Hello everyone.
It has come to my attention that there is someone out there trying to scam people using my game as a scapegoat or something.

So I have to tell you:
** DO NOT click any links from anyone claiming to represent my game. **

If I want to ask someone to play my game, then I will do it myself using one of my accounts, so I repeat:
** DO NOT click any links from anyone claiming to represent my game.**

I know two cases of this happening so there is likely more out there so I feel I have to post this.
If you've been approached by someone claiming to represent my game, please tell me so I can better understand the gravity of the situation.

Not sure what I can really do about this since anyone could just go around doing this without me knowing but the least I can do is tell you all.
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 82


Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a brand new tile set.
- Added some new rooms in a new area.
- Added some new particle effects.
- Added a new fluid type.
- Added some new fluid effects.
- Updated a couple old rooms.
- Fixed 2 bugs / issues.

------------------------------------------

Hello again.

I struggled a bit to get this new area going and as such didn't exactly get as much done as I wanted..

But at least the puzzle pieces for this area now exist so I can keep on building and hopefully finish version 1 of the area as soon as possible.

I'll probably keep making rooms for the foreseeable future as there's not that many left now, will likely still take at minimum another month, maybe more, but that's just how it is.

So, not much else to say about what has happened since the last devlog, hopefully I'll be able to get a lot of rooms done until the next devlog is out.

------------------------------------------

In other news, I recently ran a poll over on twitter and discord regarding DirectX9 (GameMaker Studio 1) support and moving over to DirectX11 (GMS 2).

And it looks like DX9 support is not very important as pretty much 85%+ of all voters can use DX11, the remaining ~15% mostly use Linux which use OpenGL so it doesn't matter in this case.

A small portion of that ~15% use Mac which might not use OpenGL anymore but I don't own one so I can't test and/or release for Mac at this time anyway, might happen at some point in the future but for now it's not possible.

So with all that being said, I may or may not get started on GMS2 porting after all rooms have been added to the game, but we'll see, I'll talk more about that later whenever it's time.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

CMAllen

Member
Porting from 1x to 2x of GMS is no small task. Don't undertake it lightly. Just a word of warning. It could take weeks to rip out all the compatibility scripts (which you can't leave in) and reconnect all the pieces of your game's code. And then debug everything (which is everyone's favorite past time, am I right?).
 

Apapappa

Member
Porting from 1x to 2x of GMS is no small task. Don't undertake it lightly. Just a word of warning. It could take weeks to rip out all the compatibility scripts (which you can't leave in) and reconnect all the pieces of your game's code. And then debug everything (which is everyone's favorite past time, am I right?).
Yeah I know, this won't exactly be a one button thing... but I have no choice really if I ever wanted to put the game on consoles for example.
Hopefully it won't be too bad though.. I'm trying to decide if I want to import the project or just copy everything manually. (essentially re-write, should be safer and allows me to improve a lot of things instantly but takes longer to do overall and no need to deal with compability scripts)
And one good thing is that there are no rooms in Zordak (except the one required room) so that's one thing I don't have to worry about at least.
The more annoying parts will probably be importing graphics and then of course fixing all the bugs.

Overall this should only be a good thing though:
The GMS2 runner should perform/work way better, especially on Linux. (I'd be surprised if it doesn't...)
The editor has a lot of QoL features compared to 1.4 (except workspaces.. ugh..) and better code management overall with all the new features.
There's more than that of course, just wanted to list a few examples.

Either way, as mentioned, this basically has to be done at some point and the sooner the better.
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 83


(old gif this time, way too sleepy to make a new one, sorry)
Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added *A LOT* of new rooms, finishing up the area shown in the previous devlog.
- Added a bunch of new tiles.
- Improved misc old sprites.
- Tweaked an upgrade a bit.
- Updated misc old rooms.
- Fixed 2 bugs/issues.

------------------------------------------

Hello again, it's been a while since the last devlog and I'm sorry for that but it is what it is I guess.

I was originally going to post a devlog about 2 weeks ago but apparently these scammers I posted about a while ago are still around so I decided to leave my tweets about that up for a bit so people can find them easier.

Then right after that I got sick for about a week and am now just starting to feel mostly normal again..
So there's some context on why I've been postponing this devlog a bit.

And because of all this I've not worked very much on the game during this time.
(anything in this devlog was finished right before I posted the tweets)

Hopefully I can get back to it again on monday or something like that.
Anyway regarding finishing game areas, there's not much left now.. basically only like a small/medium sized area left.

After that is done then it might be time to port this thing to GMS2, which I'm not really looking forward to as I will have to check for a bunch of new bugs and such... but it has to be done at some point and the sooner the better.

So yeah, that's it for this devlog I guess, hopefully there won't be a month until the next one.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 84


--- [Current Version, GMS2]
Changes:

ANY OS:
- Replaced / Added new functions for all relevant obsoleted functions from GMS1.4.
- Removed the "Vertex Buffer Method" game option as this is no longer a thing in GMS2.
- Removed the "Alternate Sync" game option as this is no longer a thing in GMS2.
- Improved rendering performance by removing a bunch of unnecessary calls.
- Improved Lighting visual quality and performance a bit.
- Improved Glow Map visual quality.
- Glow Map rendering no longer require a special shader and as such it has been removed. (easier to maintain and better compability)
- Improved Ambient Occlusion visual quality and rendering performance a bit.
- Improved Bloom visual quality and rendering performance a bit.
- Improved Surface Blurring performance. (new shader, same result, used for misc effects)
- Surface Blurring now use a single shader and the two previous shaders have been removed. (easier to maintain and better compability)
- Improved Object Outline rendering performance.
- Outlines are no longer rendered to the Glow Map. (ie: they no longer glow, it was a bit too much)
- Outlines no longer use a random color like the menus and now always use a green/lime color.
- Removed some more assets which are no longer used and the usage of misc variables/functions that are obsolete.
- Fixed 40 bugs / issues. (90% related to GMS2 port)

--- [Before GMS2 Port, GMS1.4]
Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a depth sorting system in preparation for GMS2 as it uses a completely different rendering system compared to GMS1.4.

- Ported the rendering of every single object over to the new depth sorting system as required for GMS2, this also fixes misc issues like things missing from Ambient Occlusion / Glow Map rendering and such. (better graphical effects)

- Improved Occlusion Map Z Culling by manipulating the view matrix and as such no longer requiring a shader for this. (better performance)
- Improved "Swarmer" enemy visuals.
- Improved the visuals of a certain upgrade.
- Improved performance of Ambient Occlusion and Glow Map rendering.
- Improved rendering performance of Special Tiles.
- Removed misc assets which are no longer used and the usage of misc variables/functions that are obsolete in GMS2.
- Fixed 13 bugs / issues.

------------------------------------------

Hello again.

So I decided a while ago to just get going with the GMS2 port already and at this point it's nearly complete.
Thanks to this I no longer need to use GMS1.4 for.. anything really.

I've been trying to make the GMS2 port look as identical to the GMS1.4 version as possible and it's mostly worked out, some things no longer look exactly the same though, such as the sentry bot with the spinning light cone (O.R.B is what it's called internally) for example, I couldn't get this one to behave exactly the same rendering wise (yet.. might try again later) but most people will likely not notice anyway.
I just wanted to mention this is to let you all know that some things will not look exactly the same as before but I'm doing all I can to make it look as good as before.
And just a quick word on performance, the GMS2 version is going to have worse performance, at least at first, maybe forever depending on GMS2, I haven't done any extensive performance testing or anything but it's definitely worse when looking at profiling tools.

Anyway, as you can see above, I've divided the changes list into two categories to indicate what was changed because of porting and what was simply changed. (ie: things that changed in the original GMS1.4 version of the game and things that required change because of porting)
This category divide is a one time only thing since next time there will only be the GMS2 version.

I'll be continuing to port the game to GMS2 and whenever I deem it complete enough I'll be running some demo tests over on Discord and then update the game everywhere else.
But don't get too excited because it will be the same content as before +/- whatever has changed over time, but anyway if you want to help out and test the demo before it's out everywhere else then feel free to join my Discord server listed below.
I'll be posting over there whenever this testing is available.

And this devlog got a bit delayed because I ran into some hard drive issues, one of my drives started corrupting files and straight up removing random files so I had to start backing up whatever I could as fast as possible.
Fortunately it was not the same drive that my gamedev stuff is on so nothing was lost there, I did loose a number of recently recorded videos that wasn't backed up yet though which was quite annoying...
So yeah.. currently waiting to see if I get a new one from the place I bought it (only had it for less than a year) or if I have to buy a new one.

Anyway I guess that's it for this one, we'll see when the next one is out, once again, hopefully before a month has passed.

------------------------------------------

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 85


Okay.. so this one got pretty huge... enjoy a wall of text.
Anyway, hello everyone.
I've decided to put the "Changes" section below this section for now since these devlogs are getting out of hand in length here.

So, the port is pretty much finished at this point at least regarding the standard Windows version, Windows YYC (aka the higher performance version) and Linux will be fixed up a bit later.
The plan now is to get the new demo test up on Discord (link at the bottom of this post) within a week (at most two weeks) and start testing the new standard Windows version of the demo and then later do the same for Windows YYC and Linux. (YYC will probably come before Linux)
After that the demo will be released for everyone and the port will be considered 100% done and I will continue moving forwards with the game content.

So yeah, don't really have much else to say right now so until next time.

------------------------------------------
Changes:

ANY OS:
- Added a new game option: Sleep Margin, default value is 10.
Higher values should help fix FPS issues at the cost of CPU usage.
Lower values will heavily reduce CPU usage but can cause FPS to fluctuate or be stuck at lower than 60 FPS.
60 FPS is what the game is supposed to run at (unless frame skipping is enabled then it will render at 30 FPS), anything lower will cause things to move in slow motion and anything higher will cause things to move too fast. (the latter shouldn't really happen though)
So if the game is running in slow motion for you, try changing this option or enable frame skipping if you are fine with 30 FPS rendering.

- Added a new game option: Sleep Timing Method, default value is "VSync" but "Sleep" may be more beneficial for laptops.
This works in tandem with the Sleep Margin setting and may or may not result in a smoother experience on either setting.

- Added automatic setting of sleep timing method depending on OS and available settings (this only happens if whatever setting it is on is incompatible) as the sleep timing method option does not work on all platforms.

- Added new mechanics to fluids (water, etc), acting like somewhat of a disadvantage to the player.
- Added an error logging system which now logs various warnings, errors and misc information, it also writes this log to a text file.
- Added an "error log" menu button, pressing this will display the log in-game.
- Added more robust checks for game option compatibility.
- Added missing shader compilation checks.
- Added low-end compatibility for misc rendering effects.
- Added non-shader support for glow effects, they can now be enabled even if shaders did not compile.
- Added non-shader support for ambient occlusion, it can now be enabled even if shaders did not compile.
- Added non-shader support for the new fluid mechanics and some of the effects.
- Added clamping to misc settings for better compatibility with older setting files.
- Added more information to the "Shaders" menu option.
- Added information on the error log menu screen on how to navigate the log.
- Added a red "!" in the bottom left of the screen indicating that an error has occurred which has been logged in the error log, entering the error log menu removes this indicator until a new error has been logged.

- The error log menu button now pulsates in a red color when an error has occurred, this does not go away when you enter the log unlike the red "!" icon.
- Added game option to disable the red "!" error log icon, this option is off by default and forced to off in the demo.

- The game now uses a new folder structure, "Bin" and "Data", "Bin" is where the executable file lives and "Data" is where misc data lives.
This folder structure change had to be done because GameMaker Studio 2 does not allow you to write files in the same directory as the executable file, so this is a workaround for that so that files can be written into the "Data" folder.

- The game now uses the new "Data" directory to store saves, settings, etc.. instead of using "C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Local". (or some other path depending on OS)

- Added a custom error message and triggered game crash if the file "folder_identifier.txt" was not found in the "Data" folder.
This has been done to be kind of like a safeguard to make sure the game is reading/writing to the correct directory and that the executable has not been moved to an incorrect path.

- Added a custom error message and triggered game crash if a room file was not found in the "Data" directory so the game now crashes instead of being stuck in an infinite room transfer loop.

- Added some new debug performance metrics.
- Aiming straight down while ledge grabbing can now be done by holding both the diagonal aiming buttons.

- You can now hold down and press jump to let go off ledge grabbing with the "Ledge Grab Extra Aiming" option enabled as this option prevents simply pressing down to let go. (or simply press the jump button but then you jump instead of letting go)

- The "Ledge Grab Extra Aiming" option is now enabled by default as it makes aiming while ledge grabbing easier, it is now required to do the above to let go unless you disable the setting in the game options.

- Holding the "Action" button and the "Aim Straight Up" button no longer cause the player to aim straight down as this prevented the player from shooting secondary fire while aiming straight down since holding the action button is required to use secondary fire.

- Bloom and Glow Map game settings have been combined into one setting called: "Glow Effects".

- The "Effect Render Scale" game option has been renamed to "Effect Quality" and now controls resolution among other things related to effects. (ie: glow/bloom, ambient occlusion, lighting, etc)

- The "Fluid Quality" game option has been renamed to "Dynamic Fluids" and can now only be set to "On" or "Off".
- The "Glow Effects" game option can now only be set to "On" or "Off".
- The "Foliage Quality" game option has been renamed to "Dynamic Foliage" and can now only be set to "On" or "Off".
- The "Ambient Occlusion" game option can now only be set to "On" or "Off".
- The "Lighting Quality" game option has been renamed to "Dynamic Lighting" and can now only be set to "On" or "Off".
- Improved fluid visual quality with new effects.
- Improved Glow Map performance and visual quality.
- Improved Bloom performance and visual quality.
- Improved Lighting performance and visual quality.
- Improved Ambient Occlusion performance, visual quality and rendering compatibility.
- Improved fluid smoothness while the view is moving, should be no more choppyness.
- Greatly improved the lightning bolt / electricity effect performance and also reduced it's memory usage and improved it's visual quality.
- Reduced Laser Turret enemy laser flickering so it's not as jarring.
- Tweaked player momentum a bit, the slowdown when landing is now based on falling speed so you don't come to a complete stop when doing small jumps.
- Increased the speed of the room transition animation a bit.
- Improved the visuals and mechanic of a certain upgrade.
- Reworked the save station animation with new visuals and a faster animation.
- Improved Spark particles visuals / physics a bit.
- Improved player beam visuals a bit.
- Improved fading smoothness of "Category" type menu buttons, "Options" category for example.
- Improved surface memory usage by using "surface_depth_disable" (disabling the depth buffer) which supposedly reduced surface memory usage by ~50%.

- Effect resolution now clamps to game resolution so we don't render effects in a higher resolution than needed. (improves performance when not using 400% render scale and high effect quality)

- Removed the "Effect Frame Skip" and "Lighting Frame Skip" game options, while they did improve performance they also caused many visual issues so decided to remove them for now.

- The previous "Minimal" global graphics option has been removed and now uses the "No Shaders" setting but is still called "Minimal", there was not enough difference between "Low" and "Minimal" to warrant them both existing.

- Removed a few unused shaders. (could help with game option compatibility if one of these were not compiled and as such forced "Shaders to "Off")
- Removed the "Scale Interpolation" game option and anything related to it as it is no longer being used.
- Removed the "Advanced GPU (Graphics) Options" menu category, it's existence was pretty pointless.
- Removed the "Misc Options" menu category from the "Display" menu.
- Removed the ability for the player to disable upgrades on the upgrade screen as there is currently no real reason for this to exist, will be enabled again when/if there is a mechanical reason for this to exist.

- Re-organized misc menu buttons. (a mini menu organization rework is underway)
- Reworked "ElectroPlant" enemy collision checking for more accurate collisions and it also fixes misc previous issues with it.
- Converted all 2D arrays from the old GMS1.4 syntax (A[0,0]) to the GMS2 syntax (A[0][0]). (GMS1.4 to GMS2 compatibility fix)

- Removed all usage of "d3d_set_projection_ortho" (GMS 1.4 compatibility function) and we are now 100% free from GMS2 project conversion compatibility functions. (aka: the game is now fully using GMS2 code and the "port" part of the port is done)
This should also improve performance a little bit since we now use pre-calculated matrices instead of calculating them every "d3d_set_projection_ortho" function call.

- Removed the GMS2 default camera, apparently this was being "used" even when it was not being used. (new issues may or may not crop up thanks to this)

- Disabled all usage of "Views" and "Viewports" as these should not have been used (defaulted to enabled when converting the project) and may or may not have rendered things that should not have been rendered.

- Improved "Shader is compiled and can be used" checks. (better compatibility)
- Removed all remaining references to "Alternate Sync" since it no longer exists.
- Fixed 47 bugs/issues. (many related to GMS2 port but not as many as last time)

------------------------------------------
Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

alper41

Member
There is a place with a password, I entered that password and opened the door, but I could not find what to do next.

+ There are quite a few settings in the menu, of course I haven't reviewed them all, but it's nice to have so many options.
+ The gloomy atmosphere of the game is well reflected
+ Very good sense of discovery
+ The animations are pretty good (except for the kick animation of the character)
+ I like that the atmosphere becomes paler when we have low energy or oxygen

- I don't like the look of the bars in the upper left
- I think more information should be given about the items we found in the game, especially I don't have the slightest idea what the green battery item is for.
- Place designs are very similar to each other, I feel like I'm going back and forth to the same place
- I experienced fps drops in some places
 

Apapappa

Member
Hey everyone, this is just a bit of a status update..

So I got some news very soon after I posted the previous devlog, apparently I'm moving somewhere very soon (someone basically just came in and said "you're moving in around two weeks or so") so I'm going to have to delay the demo testing and as such the release of the new demo.

This is simply because there is a very high chance I won't have access to the internet for an undetermined amount of time, could be a day, a week, a month, I don't know.
I need to have access to the internet to respond to demo testing feedback for example so it simply has to be delayed.


This also comes with another problem, I'm going to start losing money real quick compared to before so I'm going to have to start thinking about ways to get more income. (Patreon is currently pretty much my only income so thanks A LOT to everyone who supports me there!)

And as you've probably heard before, I've been talking about side projects and such every now and then and right now it is looking like that is becoming reality, start releasing small side projects and selling them while also working on Zordak.

I've always worked a tiny bit on side projects alongside Zordak but now it's looking like I'm going to have to take it more seriously.

So I currently have a few ideas for side projects: small and simple games, GameMaker Studio 2 assets, re-releasing my previous game Journey of Johann with some updated graphics / added graphical effects, new levels and bug fixes, sort of like a "remaster" and maybe something like freelancing but I'm not sure about that one.

This doesn't sound very good for Zordak I know but I don't want to rush the game more than I have to because rushing it will result in a worse game and that is the last thing I want.

I don't know how much time will be given to these side projects but I'm probably going to have to go as high as 50% of time spent for the foreseeable future.


There's one plus side to this though, I've always wanted to stream but never really been able to because of my living situation, but since that has now changed there's a high chance that I could start streaming on Twitch in case anyone is interested in that, I would likely be doing some game dev and playing games.

But that's about it when it comes to positives...

So that's all I have to say for now, I know it's not exactly the best news for anyone really but it is what it is, and depending on the internet situation I might not respond to any messages for a while. (well, I still have a couple of days left... but after that.)


Feel free to join my Discord server below if you want to be more involved in the development of Zordak (or my other games) or just ask questions / be part of the community.

And of course, if you want to help me out financially the link to my Patreon is also listed down below, any support is extremely appreciated.

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a place with a password, I entered that password and opened the door, but I could not find what to do next.

+ There are quite a few settings in the menu, of course I haven't reviewed them all, but it's nice to have so many options.
+ The gloomy atmosphere of the game is well reflected
+ Very good sense of discovery
+ The animations are pretty good (except for the kick animation of the character)
+ I like that the atmosphere becomes paler when we have low energy or oxygen

- I don't like the look of the bars in the upper left
- I think more information should be given about the items we found in the game, especially I don't have the slightest idea what the green battery item is for.
- Place designs are very similar to each other, I feel like I'm going back and forth to the same place
- I experienced fps drops in some places
Hey, thanks for playing the demo.

I don't know if you played with tutorials on or not but if you did there should have been outlines on interactable objects which could help you out a bit.
And just to be clear, there's definitely something you can do after opening the door with the password, it's of course not exactly obvious what to do but that is how I want the game to be.

I'm glad you like the atmosphere as it's a big part of the game.

I'm still not exactly sure what the issue is with the kick animation really but others have said the same, it's in my notes but not high priority.

The HUD is not completely final, including the bars you mentioned so they may or may not be changed in the future.

Regarding giving players more information, this is a bit hard to answer, my whole thing about this game is giving the player as little information as possible forcing them to explore themselves, of course I try to guide / give hints in the rooms but it doesn't always work.
So, the Green Battery is a prime example for this (which is why the text for it is "???"), the player is not supposed to know what it does but rather figure out what to do with it.
And just to be clear, I used to have information on items when the player picked them up (not the green battery as it didn't exist yet) but this resulted in conflicting feedback so I just removed it all instead, which also falls more in line with how I want the game to be.
So I guess my response here would be: I won't be adding more information to items any time soon, if ever.

I understand that areas could feel a bit similar but I can't make every room have a completely unique layout with a new puzzle every room for example, it's made up to be a continuous world where everything is connected so there's bound to be similarities.
And for the record, every room is hand made with nothing procedural what so ever, including every tile being hand placed. (in fact the rooms only contain tiles and no actual objects)
That being said, room layouts are not completely final and it's likely that a lot changes will be made over time.

And finally, I can't know why you get FPS drops without more information, all I can say really is that I'm using quite a lot of effects which makes the game require some kind of GPU.
But I've got a new demo ported to GMS2 coming out here at some point which may or may not solve your FPS issues.

Anyway, once again, thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback. :)
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 86 [NEW DEMO UPDATE]
(download links can be found in the main post of this thread)



Okay, so uuh..... it's been a while.
Things happened and as usual, nothing went as planned.

But the new demo is finally done, the sad part is that it's 95% the same content as before as this was only supposed to be a GMS2 port.
However, a lot of things have changed in many aspects of the game so while it may not be new content, the demo has been updated to more accurately reflect the final product.
I know this might not be very exciting but as I've mentioned a long time ago, this port had to be done for multiple reasons.

Anyway, now that this is finally done, I will be declaring this the *FINAL* demo release until the full game is complete.
(with the exception of this demo being completely broken and unplayable)
I just have to stop caring about the demo and get on with the full game, especially since my IRL situation always seem to get worse, making everything harder and harder to do, but I won't get into that.
So, that's it, this is the final demo for the foreseeable future.

As for the old "Changes" list I've always used, I'm going to take a new approach now:
To combat the changes list being too long and having to rewrite it multiple times for each website since every website has different limits for unknown reasons, I will be hosting the changes list as a text file on my dropbox instead like this:

v0.54 Changelog:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nik2ktaeeshh9en/v0_54_Demo.txt?raw=1


This changelog only includes changes since the last devlog, for all changes since the last demo, you have to look through devlog68 until now.
And this will make these devlogs a bit more boring I guess but I have to save time and brainpower here.

So now on to some notable changes for the new demo:
1 - Windows now uses DirectX11 instead of DirectX9, so DirectX9 is no longer supported.
2 - This change (among others) also means that Windows XP is no longer compatible at all. (not that it really matters)
3 - Windows executable is 32bit for now but it will move over to 64bit only the next release whenever that is.
4 - Linux executable is now 64bit only.
5 - Linux now has mixed controller support, most things work but a keyboard may be needed to customize some controls and some controller buttons may not be detected, this all depends on controller type.
6 - Linux now also comes with a YYC (c++ compiled code) version for better performance.
7 - Linux now supposedly only require 2 dependencies when using the YYC version, otherwise there should be no need to install anything.
8 - The game no longer uses %appdata% on Windows or equivalent on Linux for saving, it now uses the Data folder in the extracted game folder.

That's mostly it I think, there may be other significant changes but I'm drawing blanks right now.

So I think that's about it for this devlog, hopefully I can return to more frequent updates soon but I still have to work on other stuff alongside Zordak so it likely won't return to the same frequency as before.

The plan now is to try and get going as fast as possible with the main game (although I have less time and every time I say something everything goes wrong) in hopes to finally get this close to being finished.

Let me know if there are any issues with this new demo.
If any major / critical issues are found within, I don't know, maybe a week then I will fix them and update the demo again, but after that I will leave this demo as it is until the full game is done.
So yeah, that's it, see you next time.

Links:
Patreon
Discord Community
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 87


(trying to showcase the new cold screen effect with limited success)

Once again, it's been a while.. nothing has been going to plan as usual.
I think I'm just kinda done trying to explain everything that has been going wrong all the time and I'm just going to stick to anything related to the game from now on.
So, sorry if you want to know the reason why there hasn't been an update in along time but I won't get into it anymore, the best you'll get is whatever I post on Discord since that is pretty much the only place I leave small updates and such now.
Anyway, onto the devlog:

v0.55 Changelog:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/46mobweswx741to/v0_55.txt?raw=1


So I just got back to working on the game a few weeks ago so this one is a bit short.
Anyway, I started working on a new boss but as soon as some sprites were ready to be imported into GMS2, this was all interrupted.
Reason being that the GMS2 sprite editor is just... bad, at least to me.
So the current focus is now porting over every single sprite and draw call into my own sprite system for the sole purpose of bypassing GMS2's sprite editor, I just can't handle using it, even the simplest thing like pasting an image is a hassle.
Not sure exactly how long this is going to take but it's mostly straight forward, it's just a lot of sprites and draw calls that needs to be updated, so expect to see this again in the next devlog.

Anyway, that's about it for this one, the game is still alive just slower updates than it's ever been right now.
Next devlog will be out whenever it's out.

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ApapappaGames
Discord:
https://discord.gg/fTTEUNZ
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 88


(new custom particle system with misc effects)
(ignore the screen shake on hitting every enemy, it's a bug)

v0.56-0.57 Changelogs:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/44bbmish9za1p5m/v0_56_0_57.txt?raw=1


Hey again, I realize that it's once again been a long time since the last post, I'm looking to fix this in the very near future, hopefully starting now.
Last time I started porting over sprite drawing to my own custom system, which is now mostly complete.
This time I have created a custom particle system because since I no longer use GMS2 IDE sprites, the built in particle system does not work, this new particle system is close to finished as well and I'm in the process of porting over old particle effects to this new system, as well as creating new particle effects.
So my next goal is to be completely done with these two custom systems, hopefully in time with the next devlog.
I guess that's all I have to say for now regarding the game.

So I have been posting some updates over on Discord, this is pretty much *the* place where I post smaller updates and talk about the game and such.
So if you use Discord and want more smaller updates and/or want to talk about the game, feel free to join my server listed below as I won't really be doing much other than posting Devlogs anywhere else because it's just too cumbersome.
(you can still of course ask questions and such anywhere else and I will reply at some point)
Well, I've got nothing more to say then I think, so until next time.

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ApapappaGames
Discord:
https://discord.gg/fTTEUNZ
 

Apapappa

Member
Devlog - 89


(more particle improvements, should probably reduce particle count for these effects)

v0.58 Changelog:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0cxhnzub5elu4i2/v0_58.txt?raw=1


Okay, so I really wanted to be finished with the particle stuff before posting this devlog, but apparently there are way more particle effects in the game than I thought and I can't delay the devlog any longer so here it is I guess.

So as last time, I've been porting over particles to my new custom system but I've also been improving and adding new effects to make things look better, might as well do this while I'm going over all particle effects anyway right, and I will continue to improve / add new effects over time where I see fit as well.

I've also begun upping the system requirements for the game in order to keep things simpler for myself by removing a bunch of low-end rendering code.
So what this means is that the game can no longer run without shader support for example, but since shaders should be supported on like 99% of all computers, this shouldn't really be a problem.
And while doing this I've also removed the ability to turn off various effects through the options menu, "core effects" like dynamic lighting will now be mandatory to run the game for example.
I will be making more adjustments to the options later at some point but for now I just removed the ability to turn off most effects to simplify things and depending on how vital an effect is for the game visuals they may return as options later.

So that's all I got this time, this particle stuff should be done by the next devlog and we'll see what news I got next time.

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ApapappaGames
Discord:
https://discord.gg/fTTEUNZ
 
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