Bug squashing...

Well I have been looking at the code and have managed to squash a number of annoying bugs these are as follows:
1) Player searching of beds sometimes brought up the terminal, this has now been fixed so only active terminals will bring up the terminal system.

2) Broken terminals - you can now turn off the backing effect of the broken terminals as this was seen by my tester to be too annoying and headache inducing. This effect will be changed later on.

3) Searching - now you get health or some ammo at the moment. Later on you will get some other items, I have also added a system that will allow for key in game items to be placed on areas in the game this basically means we can place things like logs and keycards in the game for players to find :). Dont worry special items will be displayed on the game screen for the player to pickup.

I still have loads to do on the game however, things like:
1) Fog of war on minimap - this will be next
Edit:Emm requested this one, and its now been implemented. Now the entire map is blank unless you uncover it as you go.

2) Aliens injuring player - this is also on todays list. Yes gone will be immortality ;)
Edit:Well this is in, it needed some tweaking of the main system because one alien could kill the player in two seconds. We know it would be realistic like that but it was rather difficult when the player gets attacked by up to fifty aliens.

3) Gibs (pronounced - jibs) - this is on todays list. Aliens will explode in a gush of body parts, those who played the old Amiga game Gloom will know what I mean :).

4) Credits - players will find money by searching as well. Credit chips or something like that :D
Edit: This is in now, the player can get credits from searching :)

5) Tick - this little critter will also be in the game by the end of the day
Edit: The tick is now in there as an image file, I just have to add the code in the background to load the little critter in and then that will be comeplete as well. Once the whole thing is in there and the new monster data is loaded the game will be one more step to completion :)

Once all these things are in then I can move onto other areas like artificial intelligence or adding more to the hud. I still need to work on the searching dialog so you see what you actually get for your trouble if anything :).

Edit: I have also fixed some issues that arose from certain aspects of the game for example only player 1 would clear the fog out the way this has now been changed so both players can. There are still two things to sort before I can relax for the day and these will be done soon. I will probably fix other things as I go to make the game much more complete.


Also the entire system has had a major overhaul gone is any code in the game that is game dependent its now all in the pak file. Now when the game starts it locates these files loads them in and it sets up the game this makes it more independent of everything and allows us to expand the system later. Adding other pak files will when complete just be a case of loading them as required moving through the game.

More soon...

Progress for the future...

Ok today I have coded the sections of the game that make it look more appealing to the eyes, and I sent Emm a demo ;).

Also I have got the XBox 360 controller working on me mac, this has already been encoded into BlitzMax so that I can use that for other things and controlling the player in the game. Once the player is in there its my intent to allow for keyboard plus mouse control and XBox 360 controllers for those people with them. I will add a redefine system for other joypads so that other players can define joysticks that they have :D

More soon...

Merging of code...

Well after having a rather hectic weekend I am now back at the keyboard and coding DyEd, this has to be finished so we can move forwards with everything and get our games out there to the masses. I have managed to merge the new packing code with the editor now and after some testing and adjustments (it still needs the selector and being able to show the user where the tiles are) and once everything is in there and working and I have reworked the saving and loading system I will send Emm another build.

On the saving and loading front I want to have a system in place that checks to see if any images are used from each atlas sheet this will keep memory requirements down as we done really need to load textures and images in if they are not used in the system. Once all these adjustments are in there I can move forwards and start getting the levels done for JJ and once they are done we can actually move onwards with the graphics and everything getting the game planned out and complete.

More soon...