Hey! Welcome to the production log of my current project: DiggKiller:The Game. It is a top-down shooter that implements the digg api. Here is where I'll be posting updates, design documents, drawings, and demos of the latest build. Enjoy!
Also, visit my website if you'd like. |
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Lucky number 13 - 9/19/2007
This could be the last build!.. Theres probly some bugs and stuff, but I added a "how to play" screen, sounds control on the main menu, pimped out the main menu with some spacey backgrounds, and added credits and a title screen. It might just be ready.
Play it below.
Off to go buy webspace now.
Sound, non-linear levels! - 9/18/2007
Just added a whole bunch of sound effects, and the ability to turn them off on the pause menu. I'll probly add more, cuz its not hard. I totally re-did how the levels work now, allowing the player to choose a different level when they die, and after they complete a level. Beat all 7 levels to unlock the boss battle. Sweet.
Click the screen to choose your destiny!
Damn dude. I'm almost done! Just need to put some title and how-to screens in, and maybe add some more sounds.
Some fancy effects, better load screens - 9/17/2007
I added some neato shrapnel-like stuff when you hit an enemy or get hit, and added a sweet flame thruster to the ship. I also made the load screens so you can navigate to a story during the load screen.
Check it out below.
Sound is next, I promise.
Kevin Rose is a BEAST - 9/14/2007
I'm less tired than usual for some reason. Maybe its because my game is pretty much functionally complete! I added the sick end boss battle.. and man, its pretty sick. You fight the Digg creator himself Kevin Rose as he rides atop the highest dugg story of all time (that one with over 42000 diggs). You have to figure out his pattern and beat him with his own Rose bombs. A small tip though, if you grab the comments that come out of Kevin's beer bottle that he throws at you, you're more likely to get something EPIC. He's tough, but beatable if you figure out a good strategy.
Fight for your life below!
Presentation, and sound are next.. plus I gotta make those load times more bearable.
Rose Bomb, faster load times - 9/13/2007
I implemented a pretty sick screen-clearing bomb when you collect a comment that says "kevin rose" or "epic", and also when you max out your weapon power BEYOND the max limit. You can only hold one at a time, and they are pretty rare to get, so use it wisely! I also put in some final art for the F bombs (they're golden now!), and probably tweaked some other stuff. On a kick-ass note, I think I decreased the load times for the levels by asychronously loading comment data. That is, all the http request are now being made simultaneously, instead of wiating for one to finish before another begins. It was not a simple fix and I am quite proud of it. It's not much, but it should be noticable.
Blow shit up below.
I STILL gotta do the final boss battle, then some presentation stuff, then tackle sound..
Epic powerups, lost in SPACE! - 9/12/2007
Finally some paralax backgrounds. Well, one anyway. It's SPACE! It gets faster and faster as the stages progress. I tweaked the look of some things too, like the good comments now glow green. I like the glow filter. Oh shit, I added a bunch of more powerups too. See the list below. if the word in quotes is found in any comment as you collect it, you recieve the powerup associated with it. you can have any number of powerups active at one time.
The Complete list (so far)
"fuck" - gives you f-bombs to fire with the shift key
"suck" - activates the comment vacuum to suck up good comments
"ipod" - gives you a shield that absorbs enemy fire
"colbert" - gives your ship a speed boost (get it.. the "colbert bump"?)
"environment" - turns your ship semi-invisible. Enemy fire goes right through it
"mirror" - creates a mirror around the enemies that makes all of their fire bounce off and come back at them
I added one more weapon powerup as well, making 4 levels of weapons, and made it a lot harder to power up all the way.
ill it below
I gotta do the final boss battle, then more art and sound!
Stages, Weapons, and some better art! - 9/11/2007
Sweet, I now have 3 stages in each level, showing the enemies with progressvely higher diggs later, and with more powerful weapons. I toned down the notifiers a bit, so they dont block your view, and stacked them so you can actually read them. I put some decent art in for the ship now too, instead of that triangle. I'll miss it, as I've grown fond of it over these past few builds :(... With the new look of the ship I finally tweaked the controls to make them more precise because the vector addition thing I was doing, while I thought it was cool and different, turned out to be annoying. It should be rock solid now. I probly made some other changes and bug fixes I can't remember too.
Clcik it below
So close now. Next is MORE POWERUPS! Then paralax scrolling backgrounds!
Levels, Notifiers, and you can LOSE! - 9/10/2007
Cool, I finally got some levels working now. Complete one to move on to the next. But if you die, you're effed. Theres some notifiers on screen (really big ones) that tell you what kind of crazyness is happeneing onscreen. WHile doing this, I started messing with filters. Man those are going to make this game look sick when I'm done. Can't go overboard though, there are precious cpu cycles at stake! Al lthe levels feel the same now because there is no final art in. When the games done, each level will have a sick unique look. But art comes much later.
Check the pimp new build below.
Man this is gonna be siiick when I'm done...
A HUD, upgraded weapons, small tweaks - 9/7/2007
Man, this is getting exciting. I added a hud to the right side of the screen. The two bars are for health and weapon power. You increase weapon power by collecting green comments (the red ones with take away your weapon power bar, so try to avoid them) and when it fills up all the way, your weapon is upgraded to a triple shooter. Be careful, because getting too many red comments will downgrade your weapon again. The plus or minus on the comment is determined by the up and down diggs it has on digg. One dumb comment could downgrade your weapon by itself.
Also in the HUD is the F-bombs. If you collect a comment where someone has said "fuck", you get a powerful fbomb to throw (by pressing shift). If someone says "suck", the comment vacuum is activated for 10 seconds. Also, I added an overall score to the bottom right, because every game needs that.
This is only the beginning. Check it out by clicking below.
Also, I switched the category from Technology to Video just for a change of pace. Of course multiple levels are coming soon.
Pausing and more Comments stuff - 9/5/2007
I added the ability to pause the game (with the space bar) and surf the links by clicking on them. Also, as you collect comments, they show up in on the screen, and behind the scenes are being searched for keywords. For now, if you collect a comment with the word "suck" in it, it activates a comment vacuum, that will suck in more falling comments. Its pretty neat.
Click below to check it out.
I think in my lack of sleep I accidently overwrote the last build with this one. Whoops.
Comment Spillage and Clickable Story Links - 9/4/2007
I'm up again! Now when you kill the enemies, collectible "comments" spill out of them. Also, you can see the story name next to the enemy, and can click on it to open in a new window, but for now you might want to wait until they're all dead, because there's no pause functionality yet.
Click below to check it out.
Simple Ship and collision detection added - 9/3/2007
Cool, I just pulled an all nighter (that started at about 2am) to put in the hero ship (just a blue triangle for now) that can shoot at enemies. I also made the loading screen more interesting by showing the stories as they load.
Click the image below to check it out!
Next up is exploding enemy comments, ship health, and different weapons. Can't wait, but first I should get some sleep.
First Build, some enemies - 8/31/2007
Man, the past month has been so filled with job hunting, I haven't really had time to sit down with this game. Fortunately, I've picked it up again and I've got the first running build! It doesn't do much right now, but I am getting a whole bunch of data from the digg api and creating some "enemies" that wander about. It's totally simple right now and all the enemies act the same and there's no hero ship, but it's all coming together very soon.
Click the image below to have these mofos firing at your mouse.
Rockin' Some Digg Api - 7/30/2007
Sweet, I've got the hang of this actionscript 3.0 stuff, and I've got my data structures populating with live data. The proof is in this epic screenshot:
It's exciting, I promise. Next up is enemies!
Best implementation of XML Traversal. Ever. - 7/29/2007
If you tried any XML parsing in any language, you know it can get pretty hairy.
Adobe's implementation of it in ActionScript 3.0 is so sick, and easy to use, it's simply mind boggling. Example: say I have an XML document called myXML that has a bunch of stories that have titles and descriptions, and a bunch of attributes (I do).
Accessing the forth story's title is:
var title:String = myXML.story[3].title
Accessing the first story's id is:
var id:int = myXML.story[0].@id
No dumb children arrays or firstchild().firstchild() crap from as2.0. Sick! That digg api server is lightning fast too!
First Post, some design sketches - 7/28/2007
Sweet. The whole idea for a game based on the
digg api happened before there even was a digg api, with my other project,
Commentia. That was really more of a visualization of the comments system, and worked for a whole two days before the site's html was changed, causing it to break. Fortunately, now digg has unleased its sick api on the world so I can use it to make games! It's weird because I don't see any games that currently use the digg api. Wtf? There was a digg api contest and everything, but no one made any games! Weak!
Well I'm correcting that with this little idea I've had in my head for awhile now. It's not completely fleshed out yet, but the general Idea is a top down shooter game where instead of battling boring ships as enemies, you battle the digg stories themselves! The number of diggs a story has will determine its strength and be harder to kill, and will give it more advanced weapons. Upon destruction, the story's comments will come showering out, the contents of which will power-up your ship. There will be some cool swarm-like enemy behavior, and all sorts of humorous, digg-memes thrown in. It's too much to describe all in one post, so I'm going to try to document the design in a semi-professional way, through updates to this page.
For now, check out my initial basic sketch of my visualization of the game. Sketched ever so ghettoly on the back of an old resume.
And since I am not the only the designer, but the engineer, I started thinking about class structure too. Here's my attept at a simple class diagram.
That's all for now, I'll posting more stuff later. Maybe some prototypes, cuz I'm anxious to get coding!