Hi fellow GG devs.
I've re-started work on an old game I started around 2 years ago and have it mostly back up and running 100%. So I thought I'd make a WIP thread to gather some opinions on how it is looking so far.

The concept is fairly simple - Find the lost decorations and get your house decorated in time for Xmas. It's mainly aimed at a younger audience, but anyone who likes this sort of thing are welcome

Here's a few screenshots of various areas of the game.

Menu (sort of) I may well change this to a small intro as the built in menu is not as easy as it was to bypass.

The empty house at the start (no decorations).

Outside.

The fair.

Coconut Shy.

Riding the hot air balloon.
Finally a video of it so far, albeit a week or so old now


I'll probably be looking for beta testers at some point soon. I'll be after a decent range of machine specs to test on so let me know if you are potentially interested and what specs you have

Looks like fun !!
Cool how its still snowing outside ... Not quite sure how you managed that..
Usually its either off or on .

Thanks Syncromesh!
I got the snow working with some lua coding to show or hide it dependant on where you are, or rather when you walk in or out of a building It took some doing, as I had to manually create my own zones that would switch the snow effect, rather than using GG zones. I could have of course, but I find using lots of zones ugly in editor and difficult to edit nearby items when you use them. I avoid zones for this reason only in general, but it is a major pain getting them exactly right when manually forcing, many, many tests, lol. This is a technique I first got working in DB Pro many years ago I'd be happy to help you if you need a similar effect.

As I have added more places to do this, it becomes more difficult to make it fairly seamless Simply because I have to keep adding snow boxes around the buildings and so the snow then can get very dense. I've played with sorting it, but it will take more than a simple one script solution I think. All my efforts so far have only stopped the snow in the main menu, or caused some areas to be non snowy, lol. I've marked it as to do when most other stuff is done I'm fairly happy with it as is, but fairly happy is not my favourite position with my games, I like near perfection in general. Probably why I never release much stuff

Looking great.

very nice looking. looks like a cool game.

Looks pretty good, really looking forward to trying this out when i can. I have Saturday to Wednesday off of work, so i'll get a good few hours in on those models you asked for hopefully, ticket booth just needs the normal/spec maps sorting and converting to dds and i'll shoot three different colour versions over to you. I might redo that tree with no decorations, and make individual decorations, lights, and a star and fairy you can place yourself, also a sprig of mistletoe, some light strings, and cards on string.

Edit: Here's a christmas tree with no decorations (zip attached), i'll work on individual decorations for you.



and some string lights (haven't uploaded them yet, still working on them)

@ Pirate Myke and PCS. Thanks I've spent a lot of time getting it to look fairly populated and still run at a nice 60 fps, on my system at least. I've a way to go to get it finished but it's getting there.
@ Belidos. Thanks a lot, I'll give it a whirl a bit later The lights are looking nice as well I may need some glowing versions of the items as well for placing them down. You will see what I mean when you test the version I sent you. The video demonstrates it with the decorations, but the tree also works in similar fashion.

Spent way too long tweaking the balloon ride today Already spent hours on it and was hoping to finish it quite quickly, ended up taking several hours in the end. Thankfully it's working pretty much 100% now and doesn't feel like your disembodied while flying as it did before (you didn't rotate with the balloon in the first attempt). Did a tiny bit of work on the HUD as well so it's easier to see what you have to collect.
Here's a couple more pics.

Beautiful looking game. 'tis the season to be jolly !

Dang it, just realised i forgot to put the cartoon outline on that tree, i'll fix it tonight.

I like how it proceeds! Good job.

@ Tarkus. Thanks a lot! I'm mostly enjoying getting back and running and adding new stuff.
@ lotgd. Thanks, It's mostly going well, bar a couple of niggles I will mention below.
@ Belidos. Ah I knew something looked different!

Found a few bugs that seem to have crept in Some NPC's stop animating for some reason, mildly concerning, as some still animate fine and all use the same script. No idea at the sec what is causing this.

In standalone one of the rides completely vanishes I'm not sure why as yet, multi-texture used to cause this but not even sure the model uses more than one - off the top of my head it doesn't I rarely test standalones as I'm normally not at that point, but in making a demo to try I have soon spotted this weird issue.

In GG.

In stand alone demo.

Otherwise, it's going well and I have sorted the main issues I was having yesterday.

Edit- Okay, I've sussed why the npc's stop animating, or at least the reason why. As I suspected, it is something to do with the balloon ride and the scripts stopping working until you run out of range and then back again. I should be able to sort this when I actually start work on them properly (just using a default script at present). Still no idea about the vanishing ride in standalone though, that will take a bit of trial and error I imagine.

I have the same problem too, I tried the previous version of GameGuru and the animations work. It is a bug of this release I think.

Found the original files, for you, how does this look?

They look cool from the shots I'll give them a try in a bit. Thanks!

@lotgd. Possibly, I've been using the PP version for quite some time now. It was updated today I think, according to Lee's post in the AI update thread. Not tried it out yet.

Nice project m8 and just about the right time to get it going I soo have to get to grips with sprites again yours look really cool

@ Honkeyboy. Cheers. I've only recently added those in, but am at the part where I need to start prettying up the text and stuff. Don't get me wrong, there's a fair bit left to do before I call it finished, but the tarting up process has to be done at some point, so may was well get it done. Sorted that script that was driving me up the wall, a simple error in the end that was not being picked up by GG at all, although it was literally a typo, or rather lack of data in the command. I managed to miss it for hours while reading it over and over. I spotted it within ten minutes the next day

I could probably have started it a month or so earlier to be sure I can finish in time lol. Or at least make it a lot less of a mad rush. I'm already thinking might need to be next xmas lol.

@ Belidos. Here's a pic of the new booths in game. The only issue I can see here is they are making my rides look a little dull and too realistic looking! Not that they are made by me, the're OldPman's off the store. But I did have to do a little editing for them...

Ill take a look at them sometime today and "dirty" them up a bit for you.

Ah cool Don't go too mad ;p I've tried the lights as well, but haven't put them into the game properly as yet, will be working on that today.

How does this look?

Looks great! Tried in game and suits it well Thanks a lot!

Youre welcome.

Started work on another part of the game. Having to try to make a an object to get started, so rusty in Blender lol. I'm hoping you can tell what it is, although I need to do a bit more work on it yet.


Considering it's just a diffuse map it looks quite cool so far, to me anyway

Great work Dvader, congratulations. It's inspiring.

I cannot wait for a demo of this, very nice work, if you have AGK this would be awesome for mobile release... kids and there tablets

Thanks Medmatheus and Graphix. I appreciate it.
I do have AGK, but converting this over using GGloader would not be a simple task. Pretty sure I would have to rewrite all my scripts and there are a lot of em. Will be sticking to getting it finished in GG first. That's the priority

Almost have this scripted and working. Will take a little more to finish it, but the scripting is near done (took a good portion of yesterday) and I mostly need to finish the texturing.

This looks fun. I was thinking you should have a bunch of ginger bread blocks you have to collect and you bring them to a table that slowly assembles a ginger bread house

Thanks Teabone, I could add that if I had the media Although the house part is starting to become a bit of a bottleneck fps wise It still runs fine (dips to 53 fps on occasion), but I have a fairly fast machine. I also have a few things I can do to help the speed inside the house that I haven't bothered with yet as well.

Are Gingerbread houses a thing in the states and Xmas? I've no idea.

In Canada they are pretty popular with Christmas. I believe so in the states as well.

with the FPS issues, is your grass at Highest shader quality? I generally keep it at Medium and they still look decent.

It's at lowest. Works fine with the cartoon grass I only really get any slowdown (if you can call it that) in the house and occasionally by the fair. I can grab some fps back still, in fact I may as well work on that next as a rest from the harder stuff

Might as well post another pic while I'm here

The Maze.

I've been beavering away at this a fair bit this week and have sorted all the initial issues I had when I first re-looked at this game. I've also added a lot of new game mechanics and a bit more polish to boot.

I've discovered that it doesn't run as well on all machines Which is no surprise, but the difference in fps is quite alarming I've spent a little time grabbing a few fps back since and have another idea which is still to be perfected, but should help those with slower systems to get a smoother experience.
Not too much to show that looks massively different, but here's the fair in action so far.

I'm a long way from being a kid, but I find this a very soothing game style experience somehow.

Maybe it just reminds me of being a kid 500 years ago

Great stuff though - like it a lot.

Cheers.

Thanks cybernescence. Back when I started it I thought I'd do a real simple quick cartoon game I could release as an Xmas demo. It's still fairly simple, but I keep adding to it, as I was quite liking it and thought I need to make this as good as I can Of course I got bored and left it, but thankfully have got back into it since trying the DX11 version of GG.

It's hard to tell how kids would respond to any game these days. I mean if I got a game that looked even semi-close to this back in the Spectrum days I would have been blown away, lol. Not quite the same in this age of AAA blockbusters.

Here's a bit longer video of the game in action.

Been beavering away at some minor niggles in places and added another (future) puzzle. It all works but the puzzle element is not quite in yet



I'm not sure if I prefer the new health/cold hud layout as yet. Any input from you guys on the matter would be appreciated. I've worked on it so much It's getting hard to tell, lol. The bar previously was a small thing in the bottom left corner, I've changed it to up top and bigger for now, which I think is better. I still have some scaling niggles here which I have to resolve (mainly due to having too many bits of code altering it I think, but I couldn't be 100% sure yet).
What do you think? Better with the bigger bar or leave it small and in line with the other items?

Agree top one is much more suited

yeah at the top looks better, have you tried them all at the top? it may look better if all were up there

Thanks, I'll stick with the new layout then

Not tried having the collectables across the top, as it would mean a bit of resizing to get everything to fit. Unless I moved the clock down to the bottom right corner maybe. Although, it may look a little crowded on lower resolutions.

Had myself a day off working on it, but just tested in the new version of GG and it seems to have not caused any obvious issues. It may be running a tad slower in places now though, but that may be my imagination. It seems to have lost a couple of FPS in places

Just another shot while I'm posting

Its remarkably cute and I love the animated fair!
Call me the grinch but I do have to point out that those summerly green trees and the cartoon grass irk me a little



-Wolf

@ The Grinch Thanks Wolf, I had to do a lot of customising to get those static objects to animate. There's a lot more than just an animation to it as well, plenty of stuff to help with speed and some code to make sure the objects have collision even when in motion. They also have start and stop times to get on and off them. I haven't as yet made it so you can ride them though, that may be a step too far, but I was thinking about it. pretty difficult though from having a couple of tests though, there's no easy way to sync to a car that I can think of. Limb commands seem to do nothing here Also, even though I have optimised the rides pretty nicely, the glut of them all together, combined with my two mini games and balloon station also nearby, causes the AI bar to hit over 50 at times

I'm not too worried about the green trees and grass as yet. As far as I know grass is pretty much an all round thing and even when it snows some ends up sticking out in places Hence there's not much of it overall but some has shaken loose on the taller grass. The trees well, the're evergreen I may add some snow to them, but I want to keep a jolly cartoon atmos and spiky bare trees would not cut it, lol. I actually wanted to have snow that would gradually get snowier on trees and stuff, but judging by speed at the moment that will not be something I can add

There's also a real dearth of cartoon style floors and grass so I'm fairly limited unless I can make my own at some point. This is a WP though and I am putting it here to get thoughts and suggestions so I have no issues with your critique. I'm not mega keen on the grass, if I can find or make better down the line I will.

So far since getting this back operational my main area has been scripting all the stuff needed. I've added a few more graphical items when needed and have had a couple made for me by Belidos but mainly it has been getting the game mechanics to actually all work properly. Getting all the collectables coded and placed to work, getting mini games running etc. Just adding a house means I have to go add a bunch of code to get the snow to work in and out properly for instance

Playing about looking at standalone's also brings many more issues that will need fixing Saves for instance do not work properly and will not even load if you attempt it from the start. They load when in game, but still have some issues. I will need to go through all my code and set appropriate stuff to globals there's a LOT of code to go through. Even then, I know the issue when loading from the start is going to be a pig to fix. I have an idea what is causing it, but it will be a lot of rewriting to fix it, so prefer to be a lot more sure before I begin that task! All I have to go on is error 301, 3/4 of the way loading the map in standalone. (I think, it's 300 something anyway). Making a standalone has a lot more issues when using custom code than just running a normal GG level and this is pretty much ALL custom code.

I (think) I work in reverse to you also I have to get the game almost completely functional before I really worry about the final look I like to know how much horsepower I have left to play with. You tend to go mad on graphics and really seem to enjoy the level design part more than the game mechanics (I could be wrong, it just comes across that way). That said, I have spent a lot of time optimising most the graphics already, but I have a few left to do and a few new ones I may need to look at.

It goes to show to any people wanting to make games, that even though a lot of this media looks out the box, most has been customised for speed and animation. It looks the same of course, but it has all been poly reduced and if appropriate LOD's added/altered. I've also dramatically reduced draw call count. Even after all that, now the game is near complete mechanics wise, it is beginning to struggle in places. I will have to give it another round of checking and optimising and such at some point. I can't see me grabbing too much more fps without reducing quality though. I have a fairly decent machine, so I can only guess how much more I need to get it running nicely on a slower system

Not done much so far this week, took a bit of a break. I've updated the layout a little (not sure I like it yet) and fixed some bugs here and there, but nothing else added that is obvious since my last few posts.

Just tried adding snow to the trees This is the 3rd try, but I am basically painting snow randomly at the second. Not gonna say I'm happy with the result so far...

I like the counters u are using, they look great.
I still have problems with custom counters...

Coding is my main area of expertise so counters are a walk in the park :p I could probably give you a hand if you need one. I assmue you mean my HUD display and the relevant info there.

Yes, I mean the HUD display counters. They are nice.
Maybe I will ask you again about the counters...