Development Log — Jérémie Tessier's website

After a little hiatus, I'm back full steam on the project, I've added a new gun that shoots spread bullets in five directions and I've continued the story a bit. The gun deals less damage than the regular weapon but fires slightly further and has the much beloved spread that fans of Contra games will remember.

After picking up the tenth infopack, the player shifts the world into a fiery alternate dimension. Then you fight the first boss which is your ex-buddy Brigadier B. What is he up to? I wonder how I am going to code the bosses's artificial intelligence, maybe fuzzy logic and state machines, that was my bread and butter in university. In any case,

Currently working on: Creating the first boss

Time spent on the project so far: 116 hours

Screenshot after the jump: New gun, new challenges

PostedSeptember 8, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Another short work day on the game, I'm working on adding side rooms you can access at some point during your progress, you need to backtrack a little, but they're nifty optional areas. This specific challenge is about dodging acid projectiles for 30 seconds and the reward is a new gun, I'll have to code that new gun quite soon! It's a spread gun.

Currently working on: Adding more rooms

Time spent on the project so far: 113 hours

Screenshot after the jump: Another challenge room

PostedSeptember 5, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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I can't work at all on the game today due to consequences outside of my power. The inventory screen is done though, here it is!

Currently working on: Adding the inventory screen

Time spent on the project so far: 112 hours

Screenshot after the jump: Usable item inventory

PostedSeptember 4, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Not much to say today, I didn't have much time to work on my game and right now I'm just working on UI stuff. Nothing exciting about inventory screens!

Currently working on: Adding the inventory screen

Time spent on the project so far: 111 hours

PostedSeptember 3, 2014

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Some of the challenge room are pretty straightforward; kill X enemies under Y seconds, some of them are a bit more involved than that, such as the last one I've just made. You have to get to the end of the room in under 30 seconds and there are plenty of enemies about. Killing them all probably would be safer, but it will also make it difficult to get there under the allowed time.

In my design doc, I didn't plan for the game to be really difficult and this particular challenge room didn't have any rewards to give, now it's giving a small healing item, because hey, let's be fair with the players, if I'm having trouble keeping my life, they probably will too.

Another small issue I tackled is the way players can skip certain parts of the game or go out of order, I fixed that by unlocking certain things no matter what after a while, so it won't break the game too much if you decide you don't want the bonus damage from the gun part in that first challenge room.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 110 hours

Screenshot 34 after the jump: A small challenge

PostedSeptember 2, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Still working away on the story and on new rooms, not much to say today.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 108 hours

Screenshot 32 and 33 after the jump: Shooting gallery and Puzzled

PostedSeptember 1, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Still going at it with the story! I still have a ton of stuff to go through but I work at it, room by room. I'm not too sure when the next big hurdle is, we'll see!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 105 hours

Screenshot 31 after the jump: A new room type

PostedAugust 29, 2014

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A few issues to fix today! I had made a mistake and one of the maps that was supposed to be a lab wasn't. That didn't take too long to fix. Then I have to spend a bunch of time fixing the way collisions work regarding my monsters because the way I make them move isn't playing nice with large colliders on them. In any case, I'm moving on with the story.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 104 hours

Screenshot 30 after the jump: Buggy giants

PostedAugust 28, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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I'm close to a new area in the map, the map is divided in a bunch of different places - the surface, the lab, the ship, etc. and they all have a distinct look and feel. I've also added invincibility frames because getting knocked back back and forth was really annoying. Onward to new mechanics and new things to implement!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 102 hours

Screenshot 29 after the jump: Edge of lab

PostedAugust 27, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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A few systems are in place, now you can do the titular Breaking Down (and the convenient Restoring) but so far it won't get you anywhere, why is that? It's because the stuff you find in that room is broken, that's what I have written in my development document in any case. Maybe I should change the sprite a little so you know it's broken.

Also, the game is a bit difficult so far - you start with one healing item but there's none in sight, the only way to heal is to gain a level and that's easier said than done. I think it's okay so far. Although navigating these enemies with very low life is a bit annoying. I can't wait to be able to heal myself!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 100 hours

Screenshot 27 and 28 after the jump: Breaking Down & Almost Dead

PostedAugust 26, 2014

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Didn't have much time to work on my game this weekend, but the gun system is more or less completed. You can now switch guns and socket systems into your gun using a grid. The higher your Energy stat is, the bigger the grid is. I've also made a few maps and laid the foundations for new mechanics, tomorrow I'm going to expand on them.

Currently working on: Creating the breakdown/restore system

Time spent on the project so far: 98 hours

Screenshot 26 after the jump: Guns part deux

PostedAugust 25, 2014

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Phew, the challenge system is more or less completed, there is no issue with the save system, it's not enjoying being modified on the fly like that. Once starting a fresh game, everything works perfectly.

I'm not completely done with the gun customization system, but the gun window is going along smoothly, although my menu code is now a bunch of spaghetti.

Currently working on: Creating the gun customization system

Time spent on the project so far: 97 hours

Screenshot 25 after the jump: Guns!

PostedAugust 22, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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I'm having some issues with the save/load system, I think it's because I'm adding new fields to it while I'm progressing through, or something like that. The end result is that saving/loading freezes the game for a few seconds and since it saves every time you leave a room, it's not ideal at all. The challenge system is almost complete but I didn't have time to start the gun customization system yet. That'll be for tomorrow, I hope!

Currently working on: Creating the challenge system and the gun customization system

Time spent on the project so far: 96 hours

Screenshot 24 after the jump: These snails are actually called 'Octobits'

PostedAugust 21, 2014

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Not much to talk about today, the challenge system is almost complete, I have to decide what happens when you "fail" a challenge, at the beginning, my idea was to simply allow you to reset the map and retry, but I realized that in some challenges (the first one for instance) you could grind monsters easily by simply failing on purpose.

So now when you fail a challenge, it acts as if you had died. No big deal, it's just a reset at the entrance you came in of the current room.

Currently working on: Creating the challenge system and the gun customization system

Time spent on the project so far: 95 hours

PostedAugust 20, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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In some maps of the game, you'll find challenge terminals, activate them and a challenge will start, sometimes it's to kill enemies under a certain time limit, other times it'll be more difficult and weird. Of course, to make any of this work, I have to create the actual system that governs the way challenges are triggered and what they do to the game. When I'm done with that, I'll have to add the reward of the first challenge, which is a gun part.

You're able to customize your currently equipped gun in 100RTBD, the way it works is simple, you have a grid - its size is based on one of your stats - and you drop parts in it. Gun parts have various effects, simple ones and more complex ones. None of this is implemented yet, of course.

Currently working on: Creating the challenge system and the gun customization system

Time spent on the project so far: 93 hours

Screenshot 23 after the jump: Beginning a challenge

PostedAugust 19, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Working on the story adds a lot to this kind of game, working square by square and adding features as they are needed. I've also replayed the beginning of the game a whole bunch and balanced things around. Now when you level-up, your HP is replenished. I decided to do that because there are no healing items for a while and walking around with really low hp can be dangerous.

Making new enemies is taking longer than I expected, but once I'm done with an enemy, it's usually fine and wont need any extra tuning. Same thing with maps, hand crafting everything is quite harder than having random procedural levels. Coming up next is the first challenge room and the first piece of gun customization, that's going to take a longer time than a plain random room!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 91 hours

Screenshot 21 and 22 after the jump: A room with a map, the world map so far

PostedAugust 18, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Today I had set to change the fundamental way some things work in my game, change things so in the future it would be easier for me to make it work. Things like coordinate systems - now replaced with things I drag and drop on a map - and the way the map is made. But then everything broke and I had to fix things up, that's the part of making games that I like less, working a lengthy bit of time on something that won't really have any impact on gameplay.

It's worth it in the long run.

Currently working on: Changing the way warps work, continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 83 hours

Screenshot 19 after the jump: Altar of cube

PostedAugust 14, 2014

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Nothing too noteworthy today, I've just went on with the story and fixed a few small bugs here and there. Nothing special, really!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 83 hours

PostedAugust 13, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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Sometimes, enemies get giant in my game, you'll fight many giant enemy as you go through it. Some say that you could theoretically fight each enemy in a giant form... They are going to have special powers and abilities that make them different from their usual smaller selves. The first one you encounter doesn't have anything fancy, more health, more damage, a bigger hit box, it's the first one, after all!

Now the player can die (your health could go down indefinitely before) and when you die, you basically reload into the room (like if you'd exited the game and selected 'continue' from the main menu). The game auto-saves each time you go through a door, so it wasn't too hard to do. Only a few issues with the way I save and load my objects. Now I have to do what happens when you defeat the first giant enemy and move onward!

Currently working on: Adding a boss fight, fixing the main menu, adding a way for the player to die

Time spent on the project so far: 82 hours

Screenshot 18 after the jump: Giant Worm

PostedAugust 12, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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And now I have a quasi-functional achievement system, which you get by doing things. Achievements have gameplay implications in many different ways in my game, such as reinforcing some gear and unlocking secrets. In that way I think achievements are fine. The cards will act in a similar way, putting secrets to light while also giving the player a reason to do things.

I'm still moving with the story and while I'm making changes to the script I had prepared beforehand, it's still going more or less like I planned. Onto a boss fight!

Currently working on: Fixing a bug with the achievements, advancing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 80 hours

Screenshot 17 after the jump: Achievements unlocked

PostedAugust 11, 2014

AuthorJérémie Tessier

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