Polythene productions

Circle physics

I've gone one step further than last week, and created this circle physics simulation. It's based on some code in the processing examples.

Here it is:

This week I made:

A repulsion demo, cooked up in half an hour, to show very simple repulsion, such as between molecules. Its EXTREMELY approximate and not very physically accurate, but it has some good oop and I hope will serve as the ground work for some physics simulations...

Here it is:

Experimentation

I've been looking around for a site for hosting kreis, so others can download it. I've used mediafire in the past, but I feel that its a little too bloated, especially with the long download method. I think i've settled on willhostforfood.com and I've already uploaded the latest version of kreis, very painlessly I might add.

Here it is:

http://willhostforfood.com/users/Num/14113/Kreis_latest.zip

=EDIT=

Unfortunatley will host for food has gone down, so I will probably need to find another good host...

Damn...

I feel the need to make a game based on theese:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superellipse

Unfortunately, the collision detection would probably be out of my league.

In progress

Sooo.... Where to start. Its been a while since I've posted a new blog and I've not only progressed a lot with Kreis, but I've also started a new game for the Assemblee competition. Well, I say started. All I've done really is brainstorm a few gameplay ideas and assemble all the assets which I plan on using in the competition.

The Assemblee competition is a rather ingenious one, with a brilliant idea behind it. The premise is that for the first month of the competition, artists, composers and designers work on assets and then post them on the tigsource forum. Then, for the second part of the month all of the programmers are unleashed (that's us) on the art, music, sound effects and other random assets and create beautiful games with it. Well, thats the plan anyway.

So far all I've done is is find some sprites, tilesets, music and sound effects I want to use and made a couple of mock-ups of the kind of game I want to make. And this is all I'm going to do until the end of the month, because according to the rules ALL of the programming must be done during the second month, in a similar way that all the art must have been drawn in the first month.

The competition structure is a really ingenious and promotes a very open and tolerant approach. Whereas in most normal development you would have control over the theme and way your game progresses in the assemblee competition you are almost entirely at the mercy of the other party, be it artists or programmers. It forces you to take on board the other ideas for a game. As a progammer you are bound to the genre the assets fit with. For example, are you going to use a isometric grass tile in a rhythm game, with strangled screams for the music? Artists lose control as well, due to the fact that ANYBODY could use their assets for any game they wanted and the artist would have no input whatsoever, apart from what I mentioned earlier.
All in all, I'm really looking forward to the results of the competition, so far there has been a wealth of amazing assets, with THIS particularly standing out. Given the quality, quantity and sheer variety so far I would be very surprised not to see some really great games coming out of these two months.

In other news, Kreis is chugging along well, with turrets well under way and lifts in the finishing stages. Lifts were one of the simplest and most satisfying tings to code as they required very little investment for a great reward. I have implemented them very simply, they are basically two vertical raycasts, which, if they collide with a dynamic body (as opposed to static, like the levels) will apply a force vertically at the objects centre of gravity. I experimented with applying the force at the point of intersection, but found that after being lifted up for a relatively short distance the torque generated became high and the player went out of control. As of writing I just need to finish the texture for the lifts and they are done completely.
Turrets are not progressing quite as smoothly, mostly due to morale. The basic bullets and "fire a bullet in a direction" work perfectly well, the only issue is the total lack of physical integration for the actual turret. Currently, the turret is represented by a simple cross at the bullet spawn location. Down the line I plan on having a rotating body for the turret witch would track the player and fire periodically. However, having implemented turrets as I have, it would be much easier just to write turrets from scratch than remodelling my existing code to work with a body, so for that reason they have been shelved for a while.
In the meantime, I recorded a trailer for Kreis showcasing some of the features. Unfortunately since I published the video Kreis has gone through a major graphical overhaul a-la-borderlands, except that instead of ditching a grungy brown asthetic for a cel-shaded brown asthetic, I've ditched a grungy grey asthetic for a more vector based grey asthetic.

Anyway, here's the trailer.
Enjoy!

I've made a lot of progress with kreis recently, most notably getting the player/enemy interaction working ok and a host of little tweaks and optimisations.

So enjoy!

There you go, hopefully I'll get round to recording some footage of my new floating enemys at some point, but until then, Adios!

Photo manipulation

I just took a look at Hornbeams most recent blog (his "trees around nunhead one") and really liked one of the photos he took, so (sorry) I decided to steal it and mess it up a bit in gimp.

Heres the results of my labours (along with some photos I took of the moon and "messed up")

The original