PureBasic Forums - English

Greetings,

This is a game I'm currently working on. It's getting close to completion and I thought I would put it out here for the PB community to check out. I'm only going to keep it up for about 24 hours and I'd really appreciate it if everyone kept this version to themselves (don't share it.) I do plan to release this as a shareware game for about $10.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'm planning about a total of 20 levels initially, of which the first 6 are in this version (after level 6 it goes to level 50 and just stays there.) I'm also planning some power-ups to make things more interesting.

There are instructions, but generally Esc will get you out, Enter continues, Arrow keys to control, Spacebar to fire.

Unfortunately I'm keeping the source private (I'm a starving programmer tying to make a living), but I will gladly discuss and/or provide sections of code if you want to know how I did something in particular.

http://www.ksoftware.net/gemminer.zip

To install, just unzip in a directory and run the .exe. The highscore file will be created, other than that it does not touch anything on your machine.

Enjoy,
Matthew

Cool!

I've tried your game and it looks great.
(I wish I could do stuff like that..)

I've found out 2 things when running the game:

1. The movement is a bit insensitive especially when turning around.
2. When running in a window the volume slide of the taskbar will not
disappear when used. It will show 2 times when used 2 times for
example.

(XP home edition Dutch, fully patched. Athlon 750Mhz, nvidia MX
videocard plus simpel soundblaster)

I will test it on another machine if you like.


Good luck with the game!

Rolands wrote:Cool!

I've tried your game and it looks great.
(I wish I could do stuff like that..)

Thanks. It's actually not as hard as everyone thinks, it just takes time. But most beginners writing games want to go-go-go, and making good graphics just takes time. By far I've spent more time on the graphics than the code.

Rolands wrote:I've found out 2 things when running the game:

1. The movement is a bit insensitive especially when turning around.
2. When running in a window the volume slide of the taskbar will not
disappear when used. It will show 2 times when used 2 times for
example.

(XP home edition Dutch, fully patched. Athlon 750Mhz, nvidia MX
videocard plus simpel soundblaster)

1. Can you be more specific about insensitive? Are you using absolute or relative control?

2. I cannot reproduce that on my machine. I did have a problem like that once on a computer I had, but I don't remember what caused it. I'm not entirely sure I can do anything about it either. Fixing a problem like that is probably something Fred would have to address??

Rolands wrote:I will test it on another machine if you like.

Yes, please do. I have several machines, but they are all running XPpro and the slowest is over 2GHz. Any feedback on how it performs, lag, etc. is greatly appreciated.

Matthew

Hi Matthew,


I will do some intensive testing for you on the 2 computers I have overhere.
The detailed results will posted here asap.
Hope you can use the information.

Best regards,

Roland

Hi Matthew,


Did some testing for you on the 2 machines as promised.
First of all I think it's a great game. I made it up to level 3
but I'm not much of a gamer (100.000 points).
When you sit in front of the game it has an addicting effect
and that's how it should be..
When do you plan to publish it?


OK, some testing results:

-Tried to reproduce the problem of the volume control on
the desktop but (luckely) I did not succeed. I tried on both
machines but everything went fine. When windowed the
game I tried everything to bring trouble to the game but
nothing happened. The only thing I noticed is that you have
to set the focus back to the game-window before you see
the volume control. When you don't do that you'll have to
wait for about 10 sec. before it shows up ontop of the game
or the taskbar. When dubbel clicking on the volume control
to run the 'play control' the behaviour is slightly different:
It will never popup unless you set focus back to the game.
I think this is DirectX behaviour (or PB behaviour?).

-The insenstivity of the controls seems to be by design in the
game. What I did not know is that you probably designed the
tank to move horizontal or vertical and not diagonal. I tried to
shoot diagonal and of course that's not possible. You cannot
move the tank when shooting, is that correct? Anyway, when
I was used to the movement of the game I did not bother
anymore. Oh yes, before I forget, I tested both relative and
absolute controls.

[edit]
-I'm able to run the game several times at once. I don't know
if you planned it this way otherwise you could try some Mutex
code to prevent that. (I'm not sure if that will work on games.)
[/edit]

-So, to conclude: seems the game is pretty solid. Of course I
will try to reach more levels and on the way I may find things.
When that happens I will let you know.

-By the way,
Can you keep us in touch of the progress of the game? Also
when you become a miljonair, will you please let us know? ;o)

-I attached the system properties of the second machine I
tested below. Good luck!


[edit- removed systemproperties]

I'm glad you like it. I've been playing it so much that I cannot tell if it will be truely fun for other people or not, so your comments are very encouraging!

I'm pretty sure the volume control issue is out of my hands. At the very most it is an annoyance and does not prevent the game from being played.

Rolands wrote:-The insenstivity of the controls seems to be by design in the game...<snip>

This has been the biggest complaint from the people who have tried it so far, i.e. no diagonal movement. I designed it that way on purpose. If you could move/shoot on the diagonal, it would not be a very challenging game. And yes, the tank stops when you fire a weapon. Maybe GemMiner 2 will allow diagonal movement/shooting...

Rolands wrote:(edit-->)
-I'm able to run the game several times at once. <snip>

Hmm, I never thought about that. The only thing that might get messed up is the highscore table. I'll do a forum search and see if PB provides a way for me to check if the game is already running.

Rolands wrote:-So, to conclude: seems the game is pretty solid. Of course I will try to reach more levels and on the way I may find things.
When that happens I will let you know.

Currently there are 6 levels, after which you are taken to level 50 (my original level count, but in the release the highest level will be 20.) At level 5 you get a second weapon, and after level 6 (when you jump to level 50) you will have all 5 weapons available to mess with. Level 50 represents gameplay how I had originally imagined it, i.e. constant shooting, lots of explosions and reactions, constant action. I've been adding the other components (obstacles, barriers, multiple weapons, power-ups, etc.) to help make the game more interesting along the way.

Rolands wrote:-By the way, Can you keep us in touch of the progress of the game? Also when you become a miljonair, will you please let us know? ;o)

Haha, I don't think games like this will make me a millioniare, but you never know! I will certainly keep everyone in mind who helped me along the way.

I'm planning a release as soon as I add the power-ups, all 20 levels, and maybe some sort of offensive unit that shoots at the player (I'm undecided about this aspect though.) I will continue to post annoucements and updates here as I get closer to release.

Thanks for all the feedback Rolands!
Matthew