Moving on from game development news for now.

No, this does not mean the demise of Telpath Studios, it is actually a giant step in a more suiting direction.

By this I mean we have officially released a software, not a game.

All the information and links you need here:
https://github.com/mcmonkeyninja/TelMusic

Major Update 2c.5

So I originally wasn't going to consider this worthy of an update, but I changed my mind. Especially because I've ripped my hair out(/s) in the process, so its going to get attention.

The .5 in this update stands for artificial intelligence. Or AI. Or chase the player to murder him.
So I don't think it needs a bullet point system, so I'll just explain it.

There are 3 states an entity can be in(technically 4 but I'll get to that), wandering, chasing, stopped, and idle. While an entity is wandering it will randomly frolic around(not at the moment, but in theory). While an entity is chasing, it going after something. It seems counter intuitive but the chasing doesn't have to be the player or even an entity. It can simply be a point, it just means goto. And this may sound debatable, but there is a difference between stopped and idle. Stopped happens after the entity caught up with its target, so it will keep targeted on it, but not spin circles around it trying to get directly on it, but can't because of the way the pathfinding works. When an entity is idle, it has NO active AI status and will remain stationary. So if I were to set an entity to idle after it finished chasing down its target, it would stop, and not keep following the player if it were to move. Which is not a desired behavior.

Sorry if this message seemed a little choppy, I haven't had alot of sleep.

Stay Crazy, Monkey

Major Update 2c

It's here! Combat!

Well, rough combat at that, but none the less combat. I have been working very hard over the past few weeks, with my primary focus on cleaning up the project and obviously combat. Let me tell you, I was not ready for what I had to do to get it to play decent.

So to start off, I had to COMPLETELY redo the entire movement system. I went from about 16 lines of code, to 200+ with just character movement, but it was not for a redundant cause, the character is now based on a velocity system instead of simply adding 0.1 to his position 60 times a second while a key is pressed. It took me about a week to implement, but the movement feels much better and more suited for combat.

Changes/Features

• Debug Information
• Before I had to manually add a new string to the design to observe behind the scenes stuff, but know it automatically formats it and adds it to the screen in the proper order. Should significantly speed up development.
• Target System
• Overhauled and we went in a new direction, where every attack is AOE, so as long as an entity is within your range, and your weapon uses a swinging motion, it will damage all entities around you. 
• Preparation for AI elements
• Combat System
• When you swing your sword, it now spins around you(in a rather glitchy fashion that I will fix).
• Does damage respective to the item in your characters weapon slot. 
• Combat Text
• When you use a move, or an entity uses a move against you, text will scroll down the screen at a relatively random position on the horizontal x axis, and will fade away before it reaches the end.
• Character Movement
• Switched from point system to velocity system, feels significantly better to control, but still a bit awkward. 

That is pretty mush it on the major changes, obviously there are hundreds of more improvements/changes but I can't keep track of every change I make to code, nor are all of them significant. One problem I still have with the velocity system is that once the play stops moving the velocity rapidly maxes out the capacity of an integer. Like, the debug info says 1.401298 x 10^45. Somethings not right there, but I haven't worked out a solution yet.

On the story side of the game Arcie has been working VERY hard on the plot and its turning out pretty good. he won't be able to make any post about it because no spoilers.

Anyways, I think that's it, I'll edit if I forgot something.

Stay Crazy, Monkey

Update Notification: Combat (and some extra stuff)

So school hit me harder than I expected so I haven't got as much work in as I have wanted, but I assure you I have been working.

I got combat implemented! Well, by implemented, I mean it in its most basic form.  I will trail with a simple diagram of whether an entity is targeted or not. Text in caps is a transition word, anything in parenthesis is an conditional and anything else is an argument.

         
IF  (entity)  IS  (less than)  (equipped weapon's range)  distance from  (player's position) THEN   add  (entity)  to  (players target array)*

FOR EACH  (entity)  IN  (players target array)
IF (entity's DistanceToPlayer)  IS  (less than)  (previously focused entity's DistanceToPlayer)
THEN  (players target) EQUALS (entity)

*The list of possible targets for the player

I don't think that logic I shared was above anyone's head, I tried to simplify it as much as possible. I can assure you the targeting system is longer and more complex than that, but that is essentially how it works.

In addition to the targeting system, targets have health and you can damage them, and you have health, but they can't damage you. In order to damage yourself press B and to heal press N. Obviously this is only for debugging purposes and won't be present in the final game. (But I am considering going back to the classic 'cheat codes' and have something of sorts, for nostalgia's sake)

UI:
Moving to the topic of UI, I converted every thing to a frame system so instead of saying whether a button is visible at this point in the loop, you say whether a frame is visible and its children components will be visible based in its parents visibility. Once I get more stock UI components I will make an options menu, but that's not a priority.

Backend:
For the backend of the game I got pissed off with some camera problems like that I couldn't convert a screen point to a world point and vice versa because I only used a transformation point matrix to calculate the sprite batch's position, and the 3D to Screen point Projector/Unprojector requires a world matrix, view matrix, and a projection matrix, which I couldn't provide obviously. I tried simulation the required matrices but I guess that didn't work because they were created, but never accounted for. So I got rid of ALL matrices and instead of moving a camera, I move the map, which has no noticeable visual/performance affect. So no projecting matrices is required, screen points are on the same definition plane as the world points.

Near Future:

• Usable networking
• Usable combat(currently its walk up to entity, attack, wait a second, attack again. I don't consider it usable)
• Featureful GUI
•  AI for entities(bit longer off than the rest)

I guess that'll be it, I'll edit any information I left out.

Stay Crazy,  Monkey

Update Notification: Soon

Greetings, Monkey here. Sorry its been awhile but i have been working nonstop. I will make the minor update 4 hopefully this week.

It has been so long because I have been experimenting with lighting. I have went from very complicated transparent tile arrays  that span the map except for near the player(only crash from OutOfMemoryException) to attempting actual shaders. The problem with shaders is I can only get them to work with 3D models, not flat sprites. So I converted the entire procedural level loading system to create 3D cubes with sprites on the front. To say it simply,  I had SEVERE camera issues. The camera I've been using is apparently only applicable for 2D surfaces. I got so pissed trying to fix the camera rotation problems that I went back to 2D sprites.

Luckily I came up with a solution that I'm disappointed that i didn't think of before. I have yet to test it so I'll save my embarrassment and not explain it.

But I'm currently uploading the glitch to our youtube channel, Telpath Studios.




Also I have been working on Networking support, since the game will be built with co-op in mind. I am able to get a connection established on a separate tool I made, but once I introduce it to the games loop, it flumps. So I'll need to find a way to integrate it to be able to exist in a game loop.

I believe that's it, so

Stay Crazy, Monkey

Major Update 2i

I decided to make a Major update out of a couple of minor updates, because I like the idea :). So there will be 3 major update 2's to come all ending with the aspect of the game that it changed.

So I'm changing Minor Update 3 to Major Update 2i. The i is for inventory since that was the major thing that changed. There was some changes between Minor Update 3 and Major update 2. 

Major Update 2i:

everything from Minor Update 3 and:

• Character  Screen
• Slots for equipment(only the right piece can go into the right slot)
• Equipment displays on character in the center of the armor screen
• Action Bar
• Has 2 sec cooldown

Upcoming:

Major Update 2c for combat

Major Update 2g for graphics 

Minor Update 3

Greetings,

It is I, Monkey, here to bring more great news of improvements and additions. I have been working very hard on the inventory system lately and it is a a point of sharing!

Inventory:

• Slot highlighting much more consistent
• Pick up items
• Put down items
• If there is an Item in the slot already, it will swap.
• Item count(moves with item)
• Currency(Haven't come up with a name yet)
• Points(required to progress to next level)

Other Changes/Additions

• Fixed fullscreen to also change resolution, not just stretch
• Allowed camera to adjust to different screen sizes
• Improved resolution scaling across the board for sharper, better textures

Currently working on:

• Procedural UI System(Buttons, sliders, drop-down boxes)
• Tweaking inventory here and there
• Starting to work on a database system for storing large amount of data(ex. items)

Very soon:

• To finish off the GUI Systems bulk will be Armor and stats buffs and that stuff
• Completion of databases to begin the implementation of lots and lots of items

Near Future:

• Combat System
• Lighting(Brainstorming currently in the works)
• Multiple levels