GMC Jam Wrath of Stars - GMC Jam!

This is the WIP thread so I can get early feedback from people who are interested. I will also use this thread if I decide to keep working on the project after the Jam.

Wrath of Stars

Programming, Art and Music by, Cloaked Games
Sounds by, Joseph Benedetti


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Download : Enjoy playing the game!
WIP Thread : Give me feedback please!

The game premise is that you are a robotics special agent tasked to help destroy the Nox Empire. Your part of this mission is to destroy Nox Time Loop Generators that have been aiding them by repeatably rebuilding their ships when they are destroyed, allowing them to send endless attack waves toward the Gavic Republic.

It features a cool GUI and real time space-ship combat against advanced AIs and unique scenarios. However, your task is very complicated, because the enemies have something called a Time Loop Generator, which allows them loop back time in a certain region. This means their ships are regenerated every time you destroy them, so you must do damage efficiently and effectively or else you will be overrun. Once you destroy the Time Loop Generator though, it's all over for them!

Total time spent programming: About 26 hours.
Screenshot Timeloop.jpg Screenshot.jpg Screenshot overlord (2).jpg Screenshot2.jpg
Nothing here. Jeez. I need to go to bed! The point is, the game is done!
Today I finished the first two full missions, and started on the third, added the beginning of the title screen, finished the GUI, wrote one piece of music and a bunch of other stuff. Too much to summarize completely.

Here is what I have left to do tomorrow:
-Create missions 3, 4 and 5
-Add a free play mode (where ships will spawn over time and you kill them to get points)
-Write (at least) one more song
-Implement sounds (they will be sent to me tomorrow by Joe
-Finish the menu systems and mission selection.
-Add volume settings.

Come to think of it, I think I'm going to stay up for a little while longer... However, that is the absolute complete list. So far there hasn't been any major bugs... (Crossing my fingers)
Today I got the basics of the player movement and controls. The player can shoot lasers, aim the turret, and fly around.

The GUI is still incomplete, however, right now it has the radar which shows where things are relative to the player; health, shields and energy bars; and a controls image to show how to move around. The left side will (tomorrow) have 4 tabs, that will provide the player with information such as mission objectives, transmissions, and currently equipped weapons.

As for enemies, there are training drones (which sit still and do nothing, they're just for practice) and the time loop generators. The time loop generators show a circle on the mini-map and in game, but do not have an effect yet. Sprites for a basic enemy fighter are implemented.

The first things I'm going to do tomorrow is finish the GUI, program basic enemy AI for the fighters, and then start developing missions to play. By the end I want to have at least 5, decent length missions. But I'll make as many as I can in the time.
All times in PST -
--- DAY 3 ---
10:30 pm - Finished and submitted the game. I never got to free play, but I'm still pretty satisfied.
8:30 pm - Build half of the final mission. It's so cool I almost just want to play the game and not actually work.
7:45 pm - Made player turret fire rate faster. Increased maximum energy. Started setting up the final mission.
7:00 pm - Added a proper failure state for missions. It gives you a tip too, hopefully that will prevent some possible confusion. Took a break for dinner.
6:45 pm - Finished the 4th mission. The player's damage now doubles when you've destroyed all of the time loop generators to speed up the aftermath process. Began the 5th and final mission.
6:15 pm - Still working on the 4th mission. There have been a disturbing number of obscure bugs showing up due to overlapping time loop fields and weird death states. I added various fail-safes, but I'm still very uneasy. I'm also trying to decrease the amount of time the player has to spend mopping up after sniping the time loop generators. Trying to add an explosion that deals damage around it when you blow up the time loop generator. Might also increase player damage if time loop generators are all gone, can't decide if that's weird or not.
5:00 pm - Improved the text box functions. Increased maximum energy (again). Fixed an issue (maybe...) that would cause mission three to not finish correctly. Not sure if what I did actually fixed it, but I couldn't replicate the issue so...
4:15 pm - Added the EMP shock-wave introduced in mission 4. It stuns everything "permanently" until they are reset by the time loop generator. You can use it on a cool-down. It will let you shut down an entire flank of a fleet in order to reach the time loop generator, if you use it strategically.
3:25 pm - Added a new download link. (Mission 4 does not work yet)
3:15 pm - Added a bunch more sounds and started working on the 4th level.
2:15 pm - Added proper mission victory, so it progresses to the next level. Started working on mission failure state. Stopped for now to write the second song.
1:50 pm - Finished the third mission and added sounds. Sounds made by (Joseph Benedetti). I had to increase the maximum shields of the player, reduce maximum energy of overlords and generally make a bunch of things easier in order to use any more dangerous setup than the 2nd mission. Apparently, this game is going to be fairly challenging, something I don't mind, as long as it's not frustrating.
11:55 am - Took a break for lunch. I have begun adding the seeker missiles the player can use. I have two more weapons planned as well.
11:20 am - Started working again.
8:30 am - I made a few adjustments to overlord AI and added the mission briefing for the third mission. Ate breakfast and left to go to church.
7:30 am - Woke up and started working. I have a few things planned for today, but I can stay up tonight if I need to finish the game.
--- DAY 2 ---
9:20 pm - Stayed up a bit to finish fixing a few things. Overlord missile launcher is complete, and you can now collide properly with satellites and turrets. Also fixed an issue displaying the mission objective.
8:30 pm - Had to give up on the lasers for the overlord. I have added a missile launcher instead. Going to bed now, so finishing summary for Day 2.
8:00 pm - Added a capital class ship: the Nox Overlord. Trying to get all of the turrets to line up correctly while the ship rotates. (I have code that does this already, the question is reusing it correctly).
6:30 pm - Watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb to clear my head. Then I finished the second mission (minus a few slight changes.) Taking a break for dinner.
5:30 pm - Added Nox satellites, and Nox turrets for use in the second mission. Also, I'm loosing focus. Maybe I should go watch an episode of something on TV to take a break.
4:40 pm - After a break for a snack, I have begun the coding for the second mission. I also added a new logo (thanks to cooltext.com) and the main menu screen. In the finished game it will probably still be crude: I prefer to focus on game-play.
3:30 pm - Wrote the first song for the game. Haven't decided on a name yet.
2:30 pm - Did a lot of finishing touches. Actually finished GUI now. Added collisions with space objects that are moving. Added temporary download link and a WIP page.
1:00 pm - Finished lunch. I wrote 1 minute of the music I will use in the game. Started finishing the GUI, for real this time.
12:10 pm - Finished the first mission. Should be smooth sailing from here on out. Every mechanic is in place, I have just to code mission objectives. (Still haven't finished GUI though. Did some more at least).
11:45 am - Added a way for training drones to move around.
11:30 am - Added a transmission log to the GUI. I can display messages during the game. (More limited than my other message function though).
11:00 am - Added the buttons to the GUI.
10:40 am - Finished time loop mechanic. Ships will regenerate if they are destroyed within a time loop periodically. There is an animation of sorts that is truly spectacular while the ships regenerate. Now I really have to finish the GUI! (There's nothing left I can do except that.)
9:10 am - Added death state and explosion animation for Rvex fighters. Next I will add time loop mechanic. Stopped for breakfast.
8:50 am - Finished the Rvex AI in detail. Still will use a little bit of tweaking, but I'm pretty much satisfied with it now. This AI script will be modified for all of the enemies, except a few, so I'm almost ready to start programming missions into the game, I just need to finish the GUI.
8:00 am - Programmed a lot of the AI. Added a targeting system so it will fight anything on a particular team. This will allow me to program allied fighters that use the same AI and they will fight each other!
7:20 am - Woke up and finished explosion animations for time loop generators. Began programming basic fighter.
--- DAY 1 ---
9:40 pm - Got home and added some screen shots and day 1 summary.
7:00 pm - Took a break to go to an event at my church. There was pie there.
6:30 pm - Added shields, health and energy bars.
6:00 pm - Added explosions for training drone and added the time loop generator.
5:00 pm - Made the sprite for the time loop generator. It is totally awesome, can't wait to finish GUI so I can take some screenshots to share!
4:30 pm - Finished programming radar system. Also added training drones that can be destroyed with your lasers.
3:15 pm - Ate a snack. It was delicious. Also started working on the GUI and control tutorial.
2:30 pm - Finished all of player movement and added ability to shoot lasers. Took longer than I wanted it to, but I'm very pleased with the outcome.
1:00 pm - Began programming basic player movement.
12:00 pm - Got home from school after finishing finals. (Went well, thanks for asking.)
7:00 am - I programmed a message display function and added the intro cut-scene.
 
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Day two is complete! This thread is updated with the recent dev-log and summary. There's 4 new screenshots too, take a look!

Hopefully I can finish everything I want to by the end of tomorrow. But as long as I add a menu selection system properly, I think I can submit it as it is and still be quite satisfied.
 
New download link! I'd say I'm 80-90% done with the game.

Known issues: No counter for remaining seeker missiles on mission 3. Also, Mission 4 is empty atm.

Will be adding 2 more missions, a volume option and a free play mode. Also more music, if me or my partner get sufficient inspiration to do that.
 
T

TheUltimate

Guest
Wrote some feedback as I played.
  • It would be nice if pressing a button showed all remaining dialogue rather than skipping it.
  • I really liked the music! It's playing in the background as I write this.
  • The sprites looked good. You should add thruster effects, explosion sounds and debris if you have time.
  • Do you plan to add lives or a game over screen?
  • I'd suggest separate controls for movement and shooting. There were so many enemies per level that I spent most of my time flying away or dodging lasers. Using the mouse for both firing and movement meant I couldn't aim the turret behind me, which was frustrating because of the time limit. I think the game would be just as hard but much less annoying with WASD for ship movement and the mouse for aiming the turret and shooting. It would also put my hand closer to the number keys to switch weapons.
  • At first I didn't like the energy, then realized it enforced a bit of a stealth mechanic, forcing me to be very choosy about which ships to destroy rather than going all-out and blasting everything. Interesting idea.
  • The time loop and respawn effect was really nice.
  • Hunting down every last ship after destroying the loop generator was tedious. I'd suggest decreasing enemy health or increasing the energy limit. Or destroying nearby enemy ships when I destroy the generator.
Overall, not bad. :)

EDIT: Found a small bug. If you pause the game, enemies will keep shooting and your ship's energy and shields will keep charging.
 
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1) I'll see what I can do about that. The dialogue code is kind of new to me, it might take too long to do that correctly.
EDIT: No, I figured out how to do that. Give me 3 minutes. Ha ha.
EDIT2: Done.
2) Thanks! There should be a few more songs by the end, but we don't know for sure.
3) Thanks again. Explosions are a must, thrusters if I have time.
4) A mission failed screen, yes. There won't be lives. It's all in or bust.
5) So, I've experimented with WASD controls. I prefer the mouse controls because you have a larger range of movement. You can aim the turret behind you, hold right click and the ship will fly forward on it's own and you can control the turret separately. (There are two guns that face the direction you fly and the turret. Your fire rate is reduced if you control the turret separately). Another reason I like it the way it is is that it's more realistic that the shooting is dependent on the direction you face, because the guns are static. It causes the dive in and dive out motion that you see in Star Wars. I'll think about this though.
6) Thank you. Also, the shields regenerate fast enough, that having energy left over can allow you to avoid a lot of damage.
7) I'm glad, that is the theme after all.
8) I'll see what I can do about this. I think I agree, so let me test a few things.

In the meantime, I added an EMP shock-wave that's pretty fun. :)
 
Phew, completely done! That was a lot of work and I'm going to bed now. (I went to bed 30 minutes ago and then I remembered I forgot one line of code...)

Please play the game and give me feedback, I really appreciate it!

Good luck to all the other Jam competitors, and I envy the ones that finished while they were still awake.

Thanks you everyone!
 
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