Sodaware

Splodey Boats 2000 - Post Mortem

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 06:51:00 -0500

Splodey Boats 2000 was my entry into the 2021 Finally Finish Something jam. It's an update to a game I made for Ludum Dare #29 (way back in 2014) that adds new features and content.

Development Statistics

Source Files	123
Lines of Code	6,092
Entity components	27
Entity systems	42
Development Time	30:54

The last two weeks saw the most development time, but I paced things pretty well this time. The last day was spent packaging things up and writing documentation, rather than fixing bugs and panicking about missing features. That made a nice change.

What went right

It got done

The last game I released was back in March 2017, and even that was a half-hearted update to a flash game created in a couple of hours. Since then I've had a few tries but all have failed, so I was a little apprehensive about trying to release something this time.

Feature-wise I'm extremely happy with how things turned out. I would still like to add a fullscreen mode and an online score table, but everything else I wanted is in the game.

It got polished

Getting the core gameplay working early meant I could spend more time cleaning up the rough edges. Adding a title screen animation didn't make the game better, but I think it improved the experience and made it feel complete.

There are other little improvements like animated plants on the ocean floor, homing missiles from powerups, and a full morning-day-night cycle of backgrounds.

Entity component systems are really useful

Years ago I built an ECS for my game engine and it has been a huge time saver. Being able to modify the behaviour of a game entity by adding and removing components works really well, and keeping the actual behaviour code in systems makes it easier for me to organize things.

Data-driven entities are really useful too

At the start of the project a lot of data was hard-coded, but I slowly moved things to be loaded from template files. This had a couple of benefits:

It was much easier to test out new ideas - I could modify how may explosions come from a depth charge, how often submarines fire missiles, how fast the ship moves, and a whole bunch of other things, all without recompiling.
The template system uses inheritance - I created a base type of submarine that all others extend, so adding a new type of submarine could be done in a couple of minutes.
Balancing the game took much less time. I was able to tweak individual levels and play the results within seconds.

Getting rapid feedback makes balancing much easier, and it also encourages experimentation with gameplay elements. I'm much more likely to test an idea if I can create it, test it, and then remove it within a span of 5 minutes

What went wrong

Early decisions came back to bite me

A few days into development I noticed some weird behaviour with powerup crates; they were being spawned correctly, but the second crate that dropped would wobble erratically. Picking up one of these wobbly crates would grant two or more powerups, and they would explode multiple times.

After some digging I found the problem. It was a pretty fundamental one.

The ECS system I built stored system associations in a 32 bit variable. This made it extremely fast to check if an entity had a component as it could be done with a single bitwise check.

However, once system 33 was added the bit wrapped back to its initial position and things got weird. The powerup crate handler was system 33.

Fixing this bug took a couple of days and involved a rewrite of some pretty fundamental code.

When I wrote things originally I took an "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it". Well I got to that bridge and had to cross it, so thanks for nothing past me.

Hardware is hard

Adding controller support was a pain. The same controller gives different input values on Windows and Linux, so each system needs its own mapping. And of course different controller also needs a different maps.

I also spent a couple of hours trying (and failing) to get Microsoft Windows to recognize Microsoft hardware. Good times.

I'm still not happy with how this turned out and I think I'll give it another go in the future.

Nobody played it

Splodey Boats 2000 has received a whopping 12 views and 7 downloads on itch.io. Considering it was part of a game jam with nearly 400 entrants I'm pretty disappointed with these stats.

Lessons

Entity systems work really well

About a week from the deadline I decided to add boss submarines. I already had a health component for the player ship, so I added that to the base submarine entity and tweaked the collision system to use it. It was a quick change and it made me happy that it was so easy.

A small amount of customization goes a long way

Levels can choose which kinds of submarines they spawn, as well as how often and how many. These are all small variables, but it means I can have a level with 1 boss submarine, or a level with 10 speedy subs on screen at the same time. All with just a change of a level file.

Small amounts of polish go a long way

The title screen animations aren't going to win any awards, but they made the game feel finished.

Spend time making your game easier to test

I added keyboard shortcuts to skip levels, spawn entities, and test different powerups. This saved a tonne of time when balancing later levels.

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Splodey Boats 2000 can be downloaded from the Splodey Boats page, or from its itch.io page. If you download from itch please consider leaving a comment or review.

Splodey Boats 2000 released

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 21:00:00 -0500

Splodey Boats 2000 has been released! This version contains everything from the original Flash version, along with new levels and powerups. The whole game has also been re-balanced, and new enemies have been added to keep things challenging.

This version was released as part of the 2021 Finally Finish Something Jam. There were 386 entries this year, compared to just 52 in the original jam. It's great to see so many new games being finished!

Splodey Boats 2000 can be downloaded from the Splodey Boats page, or from its itch.io page. If you download from itch please consider leaving a comment or review.

FFSJam 2021

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 17:51:00 -0500

This year I'm entering the 2021 Finally Finish Something Jam (FFSJam). It's a great jam that focuses on finishing off existing projects, something which I could always use help with.

My entry will be a finished version of Splodey Boats 2000. I started work on this a couple of years ago, but I didn't get around to adding things like powerups or a working high score table. There's also some extra polish I want to add, and I'd like to tweak the levels so that it's fun from the start.

You can see WIP screenshots and statistics on the Splodey Boats 2000 updates page.

New BlitzMax tools

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:23:00 -0500

I released a couple of BlitzMax tools in 2019:

blam: A build tool for BlitzMax. It's a rebuild of BlitzBuild and works on Windows and GNU/Linux. I use this to build and package all of my BlitzMax software.
blitzmax-mode: An Emacs major mode for editing BlitzMax files.
docgen: Extracts information from BlitzMax source files. Not particularly useful, but I'm hoping to turn this into a tool for automatically building documentation. Very much a work-in-progress.
MaxCop: A style checker for BlitzMax source code. Useful for ensuring source code all follows the same style and layout.

All tools are released under the GPL and can be freely shared and modified.

Tiny Tactics - Post Mortem

Sun, 31 Mar 2019 16:36:00 -0400

At the start of the year I set myself the target of making four games, with the plan to release one each quarter. Tiny Tactics was first game I started on and was due for release today. The big red "failed" label on the game page is a pretty good sign that things didn't go to plan.

What went right

Slim pickings here…

I got a lot of other things done

By mid-February I had a pretty good idea that things weren't going to work out. I kept going for another week, but my enthusiasm quickly disappeared so I turned my attention to other things.

I did manage to complete some game-related code:

Built a movement range calculator. This was quite fun to make, and the finished version supports multiple movement profiles and land types. This makes it possible to have characters that are fast on some types of terrain (such as paths) and slow on others (such as forests or sand).
Added autoloading of components to the Pangolin entity system. Previously components had to be declared in a configuration file, which was a pain when trying to quickly test things out. Component date can now be extract directly using reflection.
Built a tilemap and tileset converter for working with Tiled maps.
Created system for animating UI elements. This is something I've continuously struggled with, so I'm happy to have a slightly better way of doing things.
Created NPC's that walk around a map at random.

Still, I would have preferred a playable game at the end of everything.

What went wrong

Aiming too high

I haven't released an original game since "Mini Shinobi" at the start of 2017, but for some reason it seemed smart to try and build a collectible card game.

Not playing to my strengths

I can't draw. Collectible card games have a lot of art.

I can't design user interfaces. Collectible card games have a lot of UI.

It seems obvious when it's written down.

Not planning my time

With a 48-hour game jam, you have no option but to work hard and quickly. Three months seems like an eternity, but those hours quickly disappear if not properly scheduled.

Taking an "I'll work on it when I feel like it" approach was not successful.

Lessons for the future

Even though things didn't work out (at all), I still created some useful bits and pieces and learnt some new lessons. It's still a game I'd like to revisit, but next time I'd like to have a more complete plan.

Tiny Tactics - Update #1

Fri, 25 Jan 2019 18:14:00 -0500

Research took up most of my time for the last week, although I didn't spend as much time on it as I would have liked. A couple of questions kept cropping up:

1. How should energy be handled?

Every card game I looked at had some kind of energy system to prevent powerful cards being played too early. Hearthstone has mana crystals, Pokemon has energy cards and Card Fighters' Clash has "SP". In some games cards in the hand can be discarded to generate additional energy.

One challenge I'm expecting is how to balance energy gains at different stages of play. Because of the tactical battle elements, players may go several turns at the start without ever being in range of an enemy. Combined with discarding cards for energy, players could be in a position to play high level before the other team has even reached them.

2. How large should a deck be?

Deck building is an integral part of collectible card games. Decks need to be large enough to last an entire battle, but not so large that they end up being mostly filler cards.

I'm thinking around 35-40 cards for a deck, but that may change during balancing. One thing I want to do is make this configurable so it's easier to experiment with.

3. How should characters move?

My initial plan was to give each character a movement range (e.g. 6 squares) and limit them to that each turn. I think it makes the map more interesting and makes it possible to have movement buff cards.

I'm also considering having a central character that moves one square each turn, and then goes into a separate battle mode when they meet an enemy. This would make combat more like Final Fantasy, Grandia and Evolution.

4. How should attacking work?

Should attacking require a card to be played, or should all playable characters be able to attack each turn if they are in range?

Requiring attack cards means the deck has to be balanced a little differently and reduces the chances that a player will start with a large number of high power cards.

Next Steps

A third of the project time has already elapsed and I don't have much to show for it. There are plenty more questions to be answered, but those are the big ones on my mind at the moment and I need to start actually building something.

The next step is to get a small battle up and running so I can experiment with different mechanics. My plan is to have that complete in the next few weeks.

Visit the Tiny Tactics hub page for a more detailed view of the project's progress.

#1GAM 2019 - Initial game ideas

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 07:34:00 -0500

I've always struggled with what do with a blank canvas. Once I get going I'm usually fine, but the initial decision on what to create is always tough.

The same is true when it comes to creating a new game.

Coming up with ideas isn't always the challenging part. I have a bunch of notes for games I'd like to make, but sorting the good ideas from the bad (as well as the realistic ones) is a little tough.

Reading through my ideas there are some themes that crop up frequently. Two of the most common are turn-based strategy and collectible card games. So for my first game of 2019 I'm going to try and combine the two.

Game One - Tiny Tactics

For now I'm referring to this project as "Tiny Tactics", although I expect that name to change as time goes on.

Strategy Games

Right now I'm still collecting ideas for how to structure battles and merge the different elements. Games I'm looking at include:

Shining Force CD: The first tactical RPG I ever played. I have a fair amount of experience with how the mechanics work so it will be a good starting point for whatever I end up creating.
Final Fantasy Tactics: I played the GBA version a long time ago, but that's about it. The job system is an interesting way of managing skills and attributes.
Tactics Ogre: An isometric turn-based strategy game.
Evolution: This isn't a turn-based RPG, but I quite like the combat system. Enemies can be knocked back a turn by using certain moves, so there is some strategy in lining moves up correctly.

Card Games

For card games there is a lot of choice. I'm looking at some of the more popular ones - Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! I'm particularly interested in how they handle turns, card strength and any limits on what can be played and when.

One Game a Month - 2019 Edition

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 08:25:00 -0500

I've taken part in "One Game a Month" for the last couple of years. Sadly 2018 is the last year for the contest, so for 2019 I'll be setting my own challenge.

The #1GAM challenge was pretty good at getting me motivated for the first months of the year, but over time I'd fall behind and then stop. I liked the quick turnaround on games, but it didn't give me much time for reflection. Post-mortems aren't always easy to write, but they're an important part of the process for me.

So for 2019 I'll be making two changes to my usual process:

Each game will be developed over three months. This gives me extra time to prototype, write post-mortems and learn more.
I'll be documenting the entire process, rather than just dumping a game online at the end of the challenge period. Prototypes, design sketches and everything else will be posted on each game's page.

Games and updates will be posted to the #1GAM 2019 hub page.

#1GAM 2017 - March's Entry: ZAP 2000

Sat, 08 Apr 2017 21:41:00 -0400

I spent most of March working on my game framework, which didn't leave a lot of time for my #1GAM entry. I still wanted to enter something, so I fixed a couple of minor bugs in Zap and added "2000" to the title. Exciting!

Changes made:

Scores stopped saving correctly after the switch to https. Now fixed.
Enemy explosions now match the colour of the enemy. No more green particles for red enemies!
Enemies can no longer spawn on top of the player.

Play `ZAP 2000`

#1GAM 2017 - February's Entry: Splodey Boats 2000

Sat, 04 Mar 2017 14:23:00 -0500

Splodey Boats 2000 is a port of Splodey Boats, a game I wrote back in 2014 for Ludum Dare. There were two main reasons I went with a port instead of a new game:

I wanted to see how much effort was involved in using my game framework
Mini Shinobi was really, really hard to make and I wanted something less taxing

I'm a bit on the fence about the finished product. It wasn't as much effort to make as Mini Shinobi, but it's also quite half-baked and missing some polish. It's also missing features from the original, such as powerups and the online score table. I'd like to get them added in a future update, but for now it seemed better to just get something out the door.

That sounds quite negative, but I did manage to port things relatively easily. There were some bumps along the way, but overall it's pretty close to the Flixel version.

Play `Splodey Boats`