00:00
00:00
mongoid
I'm a freelance game developer working for all sorts of companies big and small, as well as spending time pushing out my own indie titles.

James Dalby @mongoid

Age 44, Male

Game Developer

UC Irvine

Irvine, CA

Joined on 1/3/02

Level:
9
Exp Points:
740 / 900
Exp Rank:
87,821
Vote Power:
5.09 votes
Rank:
Civilian
Global Rank:
95,762
Blams:
28
Saves:
26
B/P Bonus:
0%
Whistle:
Normal
Trophies:
4
Medals:
300
Supporter:
4y 2m 10d

[Conjurer] Spider enemies

Posted by mongoid - September 25th, 2008


Giant ice tarantulas have been added to the game. Here's a video demo of them in action. Read more about them over at the blog! Let me know what you think!

.
/* */


Comments

wow looks amazing

wow looks amazing

Is there an echo? lol...

It's looking pretty damn good so far :D

It's cool that you can kick them down as they descend.. and their web stops growing at that time.

Yeah, it took me a bit to figure that out. The web is dynamically drawn as the spiders descends. I'd like to incorporate some sort of swaying motion when it detaches. That may be more trouble than it's worth.

This could be the first professional quality flash game.

Already been done. Check out dofus.com and Wakfu.com. Amazing Flash based MMOs.

:-)

It could be cool, I think, if some of the spiders let themselves fall on you when you walk beneath them; since they have such a big icy spike on their back, it would hurt the character... Just an idea

The game looks really promising, keep up the good work

Are you doing EVERYTHING? Including art, programming, and such? If so.. WOW :O If not still WOW because it looks amazing :O

Everything except music. MaestroRage has helped me a LOT in that regard.

:-)

Looks great.. im not a fan of the art style.. because its not very origional but it is still really clean and impressive..

you need to extend the hitbox of the kick.. so it has as much reach as the swinging stick... also, screenshakes/blurrs (CPU rape though..)/ flashes/blood/sparks/fire/"swoosh" yeah..i said it.. FX...etc..etc. Go a long way in combat.

How long have you been working on this?
Will there be different weapons/ ability to lvl up?

Looks brilliant so far though :D

Not original? But... it's my art style. Haha! What is it about the artwork that you don't feel is original?

Screen shakes are coming. I've already dummied in the method. I'm waiting to get all the enemies up and running before I implement it. In the way that I've designed the game, it won't hurt the CPU too much. More FX coming, I'll probably add more toward the end of production to make sure they fit well.

This game has been in production since February. You can see everything since day one at the blog. Just sort by the Conjurer category.

Sorry, no leveling abilities, but you do receive a new magic attack when you complete each level.

ALso, the animation on those spiders is brilliant :D
How did you go about coding the multiple levels/overlapping layers.. like when running up a staircase? i have no idea how to go about that..only basic.. 1layer for the level ground.

It looks like you need the code it, so it isnt hero.hitbox collecting items.. but hero._x...so that you need to be properly over the item.. else it just looks wrong, an you dont get to see what an enemy dropped before it is gone..

The stairs are just a piece of bitmap artwork with invisible platforms on top that the game elements such as the hero can interact with.

That little glitch of not seeing the items dropped has been noted. Thanks!

Even if one thinks art's unoriginal, originality is nothing but a type of quality.

Ohh, good for me to remember, How the heck do you work with the BitmpaData? Because I firmly believe each sublevel breaks the pixel limit for bitmapdata objects. So, if you don't create a big bitmap for the whole scenario, how do you do it? create a bitmap for each object? won't it create unnecessary objects, as for repeatedly used items, therefore wasting RAM?

All I know is that your intrincated scenario runs faster than my no-detail one.
AS2 + me as coder = fail.

Any help's aprecciated.

The maximum dimensions of bitmap data a BitmapData object can handle is 2880 x 2880 pixels. The tallest level is level 2-2, which clocks in at around 2600 x 2400 pixels. So even though it doesn't look like it, all bitmap data is within the limits of Flash's limitations. However, there is a way to circumvent this limitation by using bit-101's BigAssCanvas class. Check it out!

http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=11 99

Game sprites like the hero, enemies and particles are kept in vector format. I make sure that all art is drawn with the line tool instead of the paintbrush, which cuts the file size almost in half, and thus helps speed up the rendering. This combination of using bitmapData for the background and vector data for the sprites makes for a very speedy combination. Though right now I'm tempted to see if converting all sprites into bitmap animations will help as well. The problem is that I use snippets of Actionscript on some frames to help control the gameElement's state, so I'm not sure how to mix the two.

Speaking of originality, never seen such tarantulas before so it's nice )
Maybe you should make them diguised as ice sickles when they are attached to the ceiling ^^

Haha, you can find parallels to anything these days. In fact, I think there were icy spiders in World of Warcraft. Only they were the size of a bus. :-P

Well thanks once again for your advice. I will check the site imediately. But first here's mine:

don't convert characters to vector. Bitmaps are not easier for the cpu to draw. the big thing with them is that you store them in the RAM so you can reproduce them fastly. That doesn't work with a character with over two hundred frames of animation. Despite what a said above, usually vectors are faster to draw.

On other note, I've been told that Flash's lines are the exact opposite of what you say: they take twice the time to draw, something about they being rendered twice... I'm really not sure about this.

Well anyway, thanks and keep it up.

I did tests where I filled the stage with sprites of the main character drawn with the paintbrush and then did the same image drawn with the line tool. Then I had them all tween back in forth in a looping motion and examined how much CPU usage there was. It was quite a noticeable difference. The paintbrush sprites were about 10% more taxing if I remember correctly.

And you're right, it takes longer to draw a vector image to bitmapData and render it on the fly. But, if you do it all before hand when the level loads, thereby creating sequences of bitmapData that act as the sprite's frames of animation, the rendering speed for each sprite animation should increase as well.

Here's a great tutorial on the subject by 8-Bit Rocket:

http://www.8bitrocket.com/newsdis play.aspx?newspage=13430