HayMan's UFO game

[HayManMarc]

Hello GMCer's!

So, I decided to bite the bullet and make a WIP post for this thing I'm working on. The current working title for it is...

Zorxian Pets

...but I'm not sure if that will remain its title. It's an arcade-ish, 2D, sideview, alien abduction game where you play the alien in your UFO. You fly around abducting humans, then take them back to the mothership. Why? Because the humans will make great pets on the homeworld Zorx, of course!

Here's a screenie...

(This screenie is a little bit older than the game's current progress, but the game still looks pretty much the same.)

I have a loose idea of a game design for this, but nothing concrete or written out in a design doc or anything. I think I should probably do that, but things are progressing along okay so far. Here are some ideas I'm going with so far...

Game Design Ideas (spoiled in the spoiler)

Spoiler

I wanted to make the ufo harder to control as you fill the holding tank with more humans. The holding tank would have a max it could carry (maybe 10). If you filled it to the max, the UFO would be really hard to control. You don't have to fill it all the way up before returning to the mothership, but if you do, you must fly it up to the mothership to unload before you can gather any more humans. A full load will be more rewarding than a light load, whether with points or ship upgrades or both -- not sure yet.

The mothership will be like a 'shop' and 'status report'. Besides unloading your cargo of abductees, this is where you'll be able to manipulate certain systems on your ship, recharge your power supply, view your game progress, and other such rpg/menu-like stuffs.

To beat a level, you'd have to successfully abduct and transport a certain amount of humans to the mothership. As the levels progress, there will be obstacles introduced that will get in your way. Tanks, aircraft, rockets... whatever those pesky humans can think of to try to stop you.

You will be given a selection of 'appliances' to outfit your UFO. The Abduction Beam and the Lazer Beam will be standard issue appliances included on your UFO, but add-ons may be available. Stuff like a Photon Blaster or an EMP Emitter, maybe. The UFO only has so much space, so the number of appliances it can have mounted would be limited. However, you can swap them out while visiting the mothership, with whatever appliances she might have available for swappin'.

The UFO has a main power supply that powers its basic functions, like its antigrav unit, life support, and other such UFO mandatories. For the appliances, it has a Limited Auxiliary Power Supply Enclosure that needs recharging. The LAPSE can be fully recharged at the mothership, or little-by-little by stealing power from human constructions.

Appliances, holding tanks, antigrav units, and such will have upgrade options to certain degrees throughout the game. On the flipside, those pesky humans will be researching tech and upgrading as well.

I haven't thought of a win scenario for winning the game outright. I've been leaning towards it being an arcade-type of game with a high score table. The game will have online high scores, if I can figure out how to do it.

I also plan to add lighting effects, particle effects, and possibly other graphics effects to feed those gluttonous eyes. I also plan on adding lots of little animated content to make things interesting.

Controls are keyboard or gamepad. I've set it up so I can have custom keys for the player. I just need to add it in.

I've done some extensive work on the auto-zooming to get it working acceptably to my liking. Hopefully I don't have to remake it all because of resolution issues. I might need to account for resolution sizing for different monitors and such. I've never really done that before. Right now, my GUI drawing messes up if I switch to full screen, so that will need resolved. Oops - this little brainburp was more like devlogging than design listing. Sorry about that. Devlogging is supposed to come later.
​

Since I love sci-fi from the 50's and 60's, this game will be set sometime in the 1950's. Probably 1954.

Inspiration comes from movies like "Earth vs The Flying Saucers", "Mars Attacks" (I know, it's not a 50's movie), "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and from the game "Destroy All Humans".

I'm repurposing sprites from some old games I've made and sprited for. This style is very easy for me to create and I really enjoy it. Some folks may think it's crap, but I don't care one iota. It's the style I'm going with, so they'll just have to get over it, right? Ha! So there!

So, what do you think? Are the design ideas enough to make a game out of? Have I royally screwed up when I skipped coding the resolution stuff first? Is the large-ish scope scaring you as much as it is me? Am I completely nuts and should spend my time more productively on immediate life stuffs, like chores and home improvements instead of wasting it away on something that may never really be recognized or accepted? Well, I can answer that last one: Yeah, and nah. I can still do some chores while I plunk away on this. And if it goes unnoticed, I'll still have it for me.

Not sure what else to write here. I'm only a hobbyist developer with very little spare time and no formal schooling in programming and game design. (Correction: I took a few semesters of Apple Basic back in the 80's from a teacher who knew next to nothing.) I've been using and learning GameMaker for several-plus years, in my non-existent free time. This is my Work In Progress, Design In Progress, and Continued Learning In Progress. Welcome to my journey.

ETA: many moons. Many, many moons.
Current Build (ZIP): Zorxian_Pets (zip) (2.06MB) (windows) (13FEB2018)

 

[Lonewolff]

Nice man!

Struggled to read the alien text, but that is part of the beauty of it. Adds to the coolness factor.

Downloading to have a go at it.

 

[HayManMarc]

Nice man!

Struggled to read the alien text, but that is part of the beauty of it. Adds to the coolness factor.

Downloading to have a go at it.

Thanks, man! I showed this to a couple of people and they said the same thing about the fonts. So I added a font option. I find that the alien fonts are hard to read at first, but after a while you get used to them.

Currently, I'm working on AI for the people and making them able to take shelter in buildings. It's sorta working, but still pretty basic. There are a couple of things I'm trying to figure out about how to approach and program the people/building relationship. If all goes well, I should have an update by next week.

Anyway, thanks for checking it out! I can't wait to hear what you think of the controls and the auto-zoom, as that's pretty much all there is so far. (Oh, and abducting humans with the abduction beam, of course.)

 

[flyingsaucerinvasion]

Sounds like fun. I approve of the idea. I've wanted to make something like this myself, but I keep getting sidetracked with other stuff.

You know what would be fun? If you could get one player to play as the aliens, and another to play as the humans trying to avoid being abducted (hiding under trees or something).

 

[Ampersand]

The font caught me off guard, but like a good programmer you were one step ahead with the ability to swap the font Interesting project. Like @flyingsaucerinvasion said, it would be fun if there were something a little more... lively to chase around.

 

[HayManMarc]

Thanks, guys. Including more "livelies" is part of the plan. Tanks, artillery, rockets, hicks in pickup trucks... all part of the plan. Also, I forgot to mention, all the buildings and trees and people and stuff will all eventually be destructible.

 

[HayManMarc]

I had 2 hours to work on the game today. One of those hours was spent asleep in my computer chair.

However, I got a few things accomplished...

• fixed a graphical glitch I was experiencing
• got rudimentary human AI going, they have a 'ufo awareness' level now.
• humans can seek shelter in buildings, and leave them.
• buildings have a 'ufo awareness' level now, too.
• started a 'mothership' screen.
• changed some GUI things slightly.

There's a few more things I want to tidy up before releasing an update, so maybe tomorrow or next day.

Here's a screenie...

 

[MadPropz101]

That looks very cool, however the screenshot had me tripping that i have a window open lmao

 

[Guest User]

Excellent! Nice to see its coming on.

 

[HayManMarc]

Sounds like fun. I approve of the idea. I've wanted to make something like this myself, but I keep getting sidetracked with other stuff.

You know what would be fun? If you could get one player to play as the aliens, and another to play as the humans trying to avoid being abducted (hiding under trees or something).

That sounds like it would be fun, but I'm afraid it would really increase the scope of the project. I'm still coming to terms with its current scope, full well knowing it's not all laid out yet. lol! Perhaps there will be multiplayer in a 'UFO Game: Part 2'? Stay tuned!...

That looks very cool, however the screenshot had me tripping that i have a window open lmao

Excellent! Nice to see its coming on.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the comments!

 

[Paul Green]

What would you like to go by, Fox or Mulder?

Looking good @HayManMarc

 

[RichHopefulComposer]

Gave it a try! It seems there's not much to do besides abducting people and flying right now, but the controls themselves feel fun. The ship has a good sense of weight to it, I think. It's fun just messing around grabbing people, hahah! I like the overall look, too, especially how the camera pans way out when you fly high up.

So, yeah! Looking good so far! =)

 

[HayManMarc]

Not much to show today. Thought I'd make some larger sprites for the mothership screen, so I made a quick and dirty 256x256 version of the UFO.

And a 32x32 man (repurposed and altered sprite from previous games)

Hopefully I'll have some time to put together a new build update this weekend.

 

[FROGANUS]

chiggity checked it out real quick. great work!
the pixels all seem in clean order and the motion is smooth.
you could probably easily turn the background into a parralax effect so the stars stay same distance when it zooms in and it would make the space perspective look way better i believe.

another little bit- when you drop a dude while flying sideways, if you could add your momentum to his falling body he would drop sideways more realistically before splattering.. >8') okay...

other random idea- some reference to conspiracy types? - eg tin foil hat dude is harder to pick up or something? lol

cool, def would like to see where this goes.

 

[HayManMarc]

Yes, @FROGANUS, you are having some of the same thoughts as me!

I thought of tinfoil hats, but since the sprites are so small and they may not work, it might be tinfoil umbrellas. I thought about the stars, too. Thought maybe putting in an actual sky pattern of constellations. But backgrounds are coming later. I'll have many different backgrounds and times-of-day, and parallax backgrounds are part of the plan.

I hadn't thought of adding momentum to side movement for falling people, so thanks for the suggestion. That would look better. I also didn't think about the zooming of the stars yet, so thanks for that, too!

@Paul Green -- haha! I guess HayManMulder sounds better to me.

@RichHopelessComposer -- Thanks for giving it a go! Yeah, there's not much there yet, but I figured I'd start the WIP in case people wanted to follow along. Glad to hear the controls feel good. The camera system was quite a chore to get working right, but it's great now because it will work with any size room I decide I want to use for a level. Right now, the level objects (trees, buildings) are kinda auto-generated. Might leave it that way, and make level progression dynamic to the player's ability. We'll see how that goes, if it does. lol

 

[onjai_x3]

Just tried it. There doesn't seem to be much going on atm, but I like the way the ship handles and the zoom. I'd like to see where this goes.

 

[HayManMarc]

Thanks, @onjai_x3 ! Like I said in the first post, it's going to be slow going, but I have a passion for old, campy sci-fi so I hope it rolls over into this project. So far, so good, I think. I've been stumbling from game idea to game idea hoping to find one I can really fall into for years. It feels like this is the one.
Thanks for giving it a whirl!

 

[HayManMarc]

I've added UNLOADING HUMANS to the mothership screen. Eventually, there will be background graphics to make it look like we're inside some huge-ass alien mothership, but for now you'll have to make do with a pink line.

Here's a bad gif that wouldn't record the counting font for some reason:

New build created on 4-FEB-18 (2.01 MB)
Added features:

• Stuff from post # 7 ^^
• unloading people
• updating some gui elements (abducted, delivered)

I think next on the agenda is some code cleaning.
Edit:
Nope, I decided to make FIRE! next...

 

[HayManMarc]

It's been a very productive weekend!

Now, ALL THE THINGS can catch on FIRE from the LAZER BEAM!

Here's a gif (...that seemed to record in fast-forward for some reason)...

It's still just a toy and not a game, but it's already a lot of fun, if I say so myself!
Here's the current build if you'd like to give it a whirl...

New build created on 5-FEB-18 (2.05 MB)
Added features:

• Trees, buildings, and people can now be set on fire. (fire is a particle system)
• Burning objects will be destroyed when hit points are depleted.
• Multiple lazer hits on objects cause faster damage.
• Momentum added to people if released from abduction beam while moving. (Thanks for the suggestion, @FROGANUS !)
• Other "in the beam" coding (to make things work correctly), plus implementing color changing of person when in/out of the abduction beam.
• More AI -- people will not enter burning building, and will leave a burning building if inside.
• added a 'cheat' to recharge the LAPSE (energy) for playtest purposes. Can you figure it out?

Not sure what I'll do next...

EDIT: Yikes. With everything burning, it caused very noticeable lag. Gonna have to figure out how to fix.

EDIT2: OK, looks like I'm doing particles all wrong. Time for study then re-coding the particle systems.

 

[Kobold]

This is so classy looking... I really like where you are taking this

 

[HayManMarc]

This is so classy looking... I really like where you are taking this

Thanks, @Kobold , but I can't help but laugh.... How's this for classy?...

In my attempt to clean up my code, I inadvertently broke the game! (Pretty cool looking psychedelia, tho.) But no fearz! I always save an exported backup for exactly this reason. So nothing is lost. Plus, it was great to go through the code and find and fix some little things, even if I have to do it again, now. I was adding macros and such and the code was looking really tidy. So now, I'm excited to get back to cleaning the code again, except this time, I'll take baby steps and playtest as I go.

But my weekend is over, and the workweek of the day job begins in just a few minutes. So, see ya next weekend, if not sooner!

 

[Kobold]

...wormhole?

 

[dadio]

Nice work HayManMarc! Alotta fun!

 

[FROGANUS]

take me to your dealer!

 

[HayManMarc]

Ahhh, finally.

After a week of not being able to work on this, I finally got to it today! And I'm happy to report some progress. I was able to figure out the particle system dilemma.

As you know, I wanted to use particle effects for fire. My first attempt successfully showed how awesome they would be, but miserably failed by slowing the game down WAY past unplayable levels. What was going on? Well, let me tell you...

In my noobliness, I was making a particle system AND a particle type AND a particle emitter for every tree AND every laser hit. LMAO! That's like a billion-zillion particle thingies being created! I kinda suspected I was doing it wrong, and upon a little research I figured out I only needed to make a single particle system and a single particle type for the 'fire'. Then any of the objects could use that one, single system and type. Doing this reduced the crazy lag, but not enough. It was still unplayable with all the trees burning. What could I do?

I asked the community. Thanks to @Nocturne and @MilesThatch I was informed that I didn't need to use emitters. All those trees had their own emitters and they were still lagging the game something fierce. What I needed to do was just create the particles directly with "part_particles_create()". Lo, the wisdom of these fine gentlemen are not to be doubted. This was indeed the solution and worked great!....almost.

There was still a small amount of lag when all the trees were burning and the camera was zoomed fully out. This meant there were still too many particles showing off and flaunting it. What to do now?

I had already created a script that would check if the object was in view before trying to show the effect. That helped earlier. So what I needed to do now was REDUCE the amount of particles being created and shown. I created a new script that would account for the amount of zoom and create fewer particles when zoomed out than it would zoomed in. This was done with an algorithm, naturally, so the amount would be dynamic. And it still takes number-of-lazer-hits into account as well, making the fire denser (bigger looking) with more lazer hits. Also, I clamped the amount so it will never go too high. I believe I solved it as there is absolutely no noticeable lag whatsoever.

Here's a couple of pics (for everyone, but mainly @BattleRifle BR55):

Zoomed out, with everything on fire:

Zoomed in, with same amount of fire:

(It's gonna look pretty cool when I add in lighting. But that won't happen for quite a while yet.)

And here's a new build for your pyromania pleasure:
Zorxian Pets (zip) (11FEB2018) (2.06MB) (windows)

 

[HayManMarc]

More progress. Too tired to write more details -- bedtime.

Added features:

• Abduction limit, currently 10 is the max the UFO can carry.
• UFO control worsens as more people are abducted.
• Flicking people if the abduction holding tank is full.
• Fixed person's afraid state bug.
• Added more stats to building types.
• Adding damage-sprite code for buildings.

New build: Zorxian Pets (zip) (2.06MB) (windows) (13FEB2018)

Up next: explosions.

 

[HayManMarc]

On hiatus to play GMC Jam. I'll have an update afterwards.

I started making the part where the alien can get out of the ship and walk around.

Alien outside the cabin:

Alien inside the cabin:

Eventually, there will be stuff inside the cabin, and people to mess with.

 

[Kobold]

...I would have killed for a game like this in my childhood.
Nowadays I just need to follow HayManMarc along
... without thoughts of killing.. that is

 

[Tom Edwards]

looks great