I forgot to include Zelda on the Game Type description. Item-wise the game would greatly borrow from Zelda. (items such as: the hook shot, boomerang, bombs, etc)

Will he have a single main weapon (like Link)?
Or will he have multiple main weapons (Cave Story)?

Fluttershy's calming magic is needed to calm the dark settings of certain rooms for you to progress
One of the best parts of Metroid/Zelda is the abilities having multiple uses. This power seems like a one trick pony unless it has additional effects.

Other than that, looking forward to Spike's Metroidvania game.

>>10570
I'd like to give him multiple weapons so the Castlevania/Cave Story setup will do :3

And the Fluttershy trick will have multiple uses. I've had an idea of having a certain cave monster who blocks the entrance of a certain room and no matter what you throw at him he wont die or budge.

Summon Fluttershy and let her work her magic and he'll simply give in and move out of the way. (think of the walrus in Zelda Links Awakening)

There's also a couple of rooms where by some dark magic things like doors or platforms will be hidden. Fluttershy's magic would calm the evil energy and the hidden things would be revealed.

So yeah, she'll have multiple uses ;)

bucking

I can see AJ moving heavy things and Dash helping Spike with a race or out running something, I know Pinkie can do some cheering up for somepony but what will Rarity will do...make something for Spike or whip up something for somepony?

I applaud this great concept. My concept was too uninspired and I lack the skills, and patience to acquire them) to make it work. This contains the same elements I imagined and the best of luck to your team.

>>10620
An outrun sequence sounds like a great idea for RD. If fact I may use that for the boss battle required to rescue her and I may add the race concept as a kind of mini game :)

As for what Rarity will do, once she's rescued she'll return to the surface. And when you find a way to get back to Ponyville you can visit her at her home where she'll be making certain 'outfits' that can help you on your quest. These outfits will require special material that you'll have to scavenge around for in the caverns (and possiby forest inspired settings) you'll need certain gemstones or material used to make certain fabrics. I'm still debating about how this system could work.

Applejack will also return to the surface and set up shop in Ponyville where she'll sell you apple cider to refill your health and a few other apple goodies. I haven't given this store much thought yet though.

As for Pinkie.. I figured she'd be the first pony you rescued so she could pop up at certain times, break the fourth wall and explain to the player how to accomplish certain things (confusing Spike while at it) she'll be our Navi for this game ;)

Oh, and while in Ponyville you can visit Pinkie's home to play mini-games.. that might be where I could do the race sequences with RD

>>10621

this type of game design can be totally overwhelming. especially if your only team member is yourself. I'm still toying around with code trying to figure out what sort of graphics system would work best with this game. There had been many times that I considered making it a Metroid Prime style game going in first person 3D. But lately I've felt it would just look good with good old classic Metroid/Vania 2D style.

Go with what feels "true" to you. This may vary from person to person. I was more or less of the same opinion as you. I can't see an mlp game running in 3d, maybe because the cartoon is 2d and we feel we have to be true to that aspect too. I can see aspects of 3d in a fim game, mainly in regard to boss fights, imagine taking on Nightmare Moon in a 6 on 1 across a lan connection, that battle is far more epic in 3d. Though I can also see it being pretty epic in 2d. Basically, pick a style and see it through. Sorry I can't be of more help.

>>10544
Yo bro, this shit sounds awesome. I will gladly give you my assistance as somepony with a lot of time on their hands, if you'd like a semi-constant helper. Just doing my part for something that sounds badass.

>SALUTE

>>10688
well, I will be needing some beta testers as well as somepony who'd be willing to give some opinions on certain things if your really interested.

I may piece together a production forum specifically for this project so keep an eye out for that too ;)

>>10689
Oh? I'd be happy to do testing or opinions, my friend. Always happy to help my bronies. :3

>>10689
That would be awesome, actually. I'm better at opinions and suggestion when I can feel some conception and try it.


Hmm... have you considered something like Castlevania:PoR style? Also, main character IS Spike, right?

What's about battle system? Grinding/specs system? Free-exploration like SoTN?

>>10704
>Hmm... have you considered something like Castlevania:PoR style?

You mean like there being a hubworld in which you access certain levels through paintings or something?

>Also, main character IS Spike, right?

Indeed ;)

>What's about battle system? Grinding/specs system? Free-exploration like SoTN?

I actually want to take the Metroid/Zelda approach and keep it simple. The player would only need to grind for money and other such items. I may use heart containers like in Zelda (you start with 4 and work your way up) and there would certainly be more powerful weapons as you progress.

All this kind of inspires the player to explore. so yeah...

>>10711
I wouldn't mind being a tester, It'll be a new thing for me.

And I kinda prefer this kind of play for 2D games. Big red heart like ruby's for a heath upgrade, small ones restore it. Color bits to tell how much they are worth?

>>10769
Ayep. That's pretty much the way I have it planned ;)

I started to do some serious coding last night. I may have a first test demo ready later this evening (its 10:58 am here in Tennessee now) so keep an eye out :D

but also remember, since this is a test demo dont expect much. The graphics will be basic shapes (unless I take the time to do some graphics work instead of coding today) the demo will be to test simple platforming elements. Note the screenshot included here: Basic and boring looking graphics (all currently drawn by code). That red box that you see there will later be Spike's collision box. but for now it acts as the player's sprite... The demo I'll post here later will have more than what's in the image, so please dont panic (yet. lol)

Here's a list of things 2b tested:

Tile platform collision system:

there are 9 different types of tiles.

1.) Scenery Tile - these tiles are simply meant for decoration and exists on both layers in game (foreground and background) the player sprite will simply pass through these undisturbed.

2.) Obstacle Tiles - These tiles are completely solid and will make up the majority of the game. The player cannot pass through these tiles.

3.) Platform Tiles - The player can jump through and land on top of these tiles. Also when pressing down and the main action button the player can leap off thee tiles into the area below (this is used in games like Kirby, Castlevania and I think some Metroid games)

4.) Ladder Tiles - These tiles function as a single ladder. The player can climb up or down on these.

5.) Global Ladder Tiles - These tiles act as an open ladder allowing the player to climb on it in all four directions (example: Mario World fence ladders)

6,7.) Upper Left Slope & Lower Left Slope Tiles - These two tiles make up a single slope facing the left edge of the playfield. I literally have to hard-code the player's Y position (every 2 pixels forward or back sets the player's y position up or down a pixel according to where they stand on the tile.) These are the tiles that may have the most bugs.

8,9.) Upper Right Slope and Lower Right Slope - See description above...

And of course there's the player's movement (left and right moves the player left or right and the 'z' button makes the player jump)

everything is pretty basic here so again, don't expect a full fledged game ;)

>>10793
Hey man, you got a messenger? I'd love to discuss this game with you in a more active form. ^^

Also, I'll be waiting. I'm in the same time-zone as you. I'm in Virginia. :D

>>10794
Yes, I do, actually.
AIM: Avesthefox
Yahoo: Avesthefox
Skype: Avesthefox
MSN: Avesthefox@hotmail.com

I'm about to hop in the shower and then fix myself a late breakfast (stayed up late coding, and thus woke up late) so dont get discouraged if I dont respond instantly. lol :P

>>10795
which one you mostly use?

>>10805
I use Trillian so almost all of them are online (Skype is separate, but its on anyway)

http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q.%20Test%20Demo%20%231.zip

Spike's Quest - Test Demo #1
July 7, 2011

There's not much to this little demo. But I spent quiet a few hours working on it.

This demo is just to show off an early build of the platform engine and a very basic tile engine.

Features:
1.) Jump control and gravity. (button 'z')
2.) Climb ladders
3.) Fresh tileset created for demo tests
4.) Basic tile collision engine
a. Obstacle tiles (solid tiles. you cant pass through them.)
b. Platform tiles (stand on top of them. the leap down feature not yet added)
c. Ladder tiles (amazing up and down climbing action!)
d. Ladder Top Tiles (added to assist the basic ladder tiles)
e. Scenery tiles (they do nothing... they're there just for decoration.)

That's all there is to it! Play around with it and let me know what you think. Critiques and bug reports would be most apreciated.

Ok I play around and you got the basics down so that's good. I feel like the falling down speed should be tweak a bit. The speed is ok and the jump is perfect. That's not going to be the default screen size is it? I kid kid.

>>10843
I'm using the Gameboy Advance resolution to give it that special GBA feel ;) you will be able to resize it with the next demo so dont panic!

>>10843
What this guy says! The fall is a little fast. But I love that resolution and the look of your tiles. :) It's a nice little engine.

Production Start-Up Log for 7-14-2011

This thread is now a production Blog (for now) until I've conjured up enough inspiration to put together an official Blog (or website) for this project.

Anyway...

Started work on a tile map editor for the game shortly after posting up yesterday's test demo. Much of today's production will be focused on that program. And maybe a few add-ons to the current game engine.

I also tweaked the jump (slowed the gravity value from '4' to a '3' which looks much more smoother. I'll need opinions on this supposed fix when I release test demo #2 later this week.

Also I've decided that for the music for this game I will actually reach out to the brony community as a whole and see what can come out of that. I'll start accepting music entries very soon! First I'd like to put together some of the in-game tile-sets so I can make some dummy images (to help inspire the direction needed for the music). Also with this package (with the dummy screenshots) I'll include an actual freeware music editor (the same music editor used to create Pixel's Cave Story's OST) I'll require the music submissions to be created using that software and nothing else. :P If your wanting to play around with this software now and not wait around for me to post the production package then here's a link to the software download: http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_musictools.php (Org Maker 2 is the most preferred especially since its in English.)

And as an additional bonus here's Cave Story's full soundtrack in ORG format so you'd get an idea of how this wonderful software can be used: http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_music.php

And even though I wont be accepting music entries until later your free to e-mail me your work: bullockarts@gmail.com

Also please dont forget to try the test demo I posted up here earlier. Just in case you dont feel like scrolling through the entire thread to find it then here's the link again: http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q.%20Test%20Demo%20%231.zip

That is all the news I have for now.

Until the next update have a tiny fawn. Lets call it Bambi. :3

Location and music need to have the same feel to it, I know the bronys here will help with that.

*bucking*

*bucking #2*

Yesterday's work had its ups and downs and I feel like I literally did not accomplish much. Sure the tile editor has progressed greatly but I hit a snag while trying to figure out a way to link tile information between the editor and the game itself. I stayed up til 3 this morning trying to solve this particular problem.

Now that I've got a bit of sleep in and I'm 'fresh' and awake (note the sarcasm on the word 'fresh'.. I'm groggy as fuck this morning!) I think I've finally figured out what needs to be done...

So I discarded the problem code from yesterday to tackle this obstacle with renewed energy and fresh ideas. I anticipate today to be a very productive day. :)

So with all that being said, all I have to show for my work yesterday is this screenshot. Its only a small part of the editor. its the tile palette in fact and it functions perfectly just as it should! Now all I need to do is apply that idea I had this morning that would link the tile information between the editor and the game. And then after that I may begin work on the map screen itself.

Wish me luck!

>>11008
Good luck! I can't wait to see this game finished! :D

Please keep going! I don't want to see something this awesome die! I've been waiting for a Metroidvania MLP game for quite a while, and this just looks downright perfect!

>>11008
Hah, no way! Another Blitz programmer making an MLP fan game?

Happy B3D coding then :)

Ugh! I stayed up late last night watching Dr. Who on Netflix on a 3DS. and thus I slept in late (just now getting up) its 1:19pm at the time of writing of this post.

but before all that, I can assure everypony here that there was so MUCH progress yesterday. the map editor is coming along quiet swell and I was able to add a whole bunch of code almost entirely snag-free and almost entirely un-distracted!

Screenshot shows what progress has been made. It may not look like much but the map is far more operational than it was the day before!

Today will be spent adding a few additional features (one very important addition would be the ability to save maps and then upload them to the game) and then a polishing up on the code in whole. After spending hours coding something there's usually always a mess of unnecessary code to do away with :P

If anypony wants to know what I used for the first test demo map, well here's what I did:

.testmap
Data beta_tiles
Data 04,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,05
Data 11,15,15,00,00,15,22,15,22,15,00,00,15,22,09
Data 11,14,14,00,00,14,14,22,14,14,00,00,14,23,09
Data 11,14,14,00,00,14,22,14,22,14,00,00,14,23,09
Data 12,21,03,00,00,14,06,06,06,14,00,00,01,21,13
Data 04,20,19,00,00,14,22,14,22,14,00,00,17,20,05
Data 11,16,00,00,00,14,14,22,14,14,00,00,00,16,09
Data 11,16,00,00,00,01,02,02,02,03,00,00,00,16,09
Data 11,16, p,00,00,09,10,10,10,11,00,00,00,16,09
Data 12,02,02,02,02,13,10,10,10,12,02,02,02,02,13

first line of code " .testmap" is a label for the data below it. I could make several of these data bits and call them ' .level1 ' and ' .level2' and so on and in the code I have to call them into memory using these labels. Pretty straight forward, really.

Second line of code "Data beta_tiles" reads into the program what tileset to use for the level. For this demo we're using a tileset I simply named "beta_tiles"

And for the rest of the code...Every number after the Data tag and in between the commas represents a tile. The numbers themselves are the frame numbers of the tile-map image. So tile# 01 represents the first, tile#02 represents tile number two and so on.

To those of you who are not code savvy, this is the most primitive way to produce in game level maps. It works, but its often a pain to have to go through and manually type in the number of each tile. Also for me to add things like items, doors, enemies, etc I'd have to add a whole other block of data to act as a layer over the main tile data and that's.. well... a pain if I may say so.

To think that that data set I posted above only represents one whole screen of tiles. Just think of what an entire level would look like. That's a huge block of data!

And That, my friends is why we need map editors! ;)

--------------------------------
>>11074

Dont worry. I dont plan to let this one die. ;) I feel like its a promise and a gift to the brony community. so I have to finish it no matter what! Its just a slow process of coding and graphics design, and planning. :P

>>11088

Glad to see another Blitz User! :D I'm Avesthefox on the BlitzBasic.com forums (though I hardly ever post there) if your ever curious. ;)

Blitz is such an awesome coding tool! Maybe not as powerful as these more recent C style languages, but its easier to learn in my opinion. I've been a Blitzer since 2002 but thee past three years have been the height of my learning curve.

To think, I was gonna use my old version of The Games Factory to make this game... but despite being easy to design with, that program is just to dang buggy!

Blitz 3D ftw!

>>11120
I'm Noopony on blitzbasic.com, though I'm really only active in the German part of the community.

I really had a lot of fun with good old B3D, but I switched to BMax a couple of years back and I'm pretty happy with it. The OOP is a bit lacking here and there, but apart from that it's my favourite language (for games, at least).

So anyway, good luck with your project and keep us posted.

Stayed up late again marathoning Doctor Who. and again I wake up late (1:09pm this time) lol I need to stop doing that :P

Anyway...

Once more, I've got quiet a bit done. I can now save maps and use them in the game! And because of that, I can now start focusing on the game engine itself. I'll add more features to the map editor when I need them, but the focus of this project is not to put together the ultimate map editor. :P

I may be working myself double effort (and time) today to put together Test Demo #2. When will it be ready? Well, if not tonight then possibly tomorrow night (I've got my bets on the later)

Things to look forward to in the second test release:

1.) Fixed jump and gravity speed
2.) Screen scrolling
3.) Added tile collision testing:
[indent]- Slope tiles (four types all together)[/indent]
[indent]- G Ladder tiles (unlike regular ladder tiles these let you go up,down,left or right)
4.) Added ability to change screen resolution
5.) Added new tile layers so now there's a foreground.
6.) And possibly Spike's sprite.. but it may not be animated (yet)

Keep an open eye. I'll be posting a link very soon!

Right just don't burn yourself out dood, last thing we need is something rushed.

>>11217
I'll try not to. In fact, thinking about it, maybe I should extend the demo release to Wednesday and only release them on Wednesdays

does that seem fair?

>>11218
Uh hold on, let me check my scheduled

*see's gaming at 6 PM for every Wednesday*

yeah I think it's ok, gives you time and lets me piss off people who has sticks in them and have trouble walking. My kind of fun.

>>11226
>"lets me piss off people who has sticks in them and have trouble walking. My kind of fun."

lolwut?

anyway.. Wednesday it is then! :D

[see screenshot] What your looking at is pure and beautiful progress! :)

So what has been done so far?

1.) I've got the slope tiles working rather smoothly.
2.) I had a few snags between the tile editor and the game but they've been fixed.
3.) Upgraded the beta tileset to assist in the coding and to sort of beautify the map.
4.) Got the tile layers to function like they should. I was worried about how I was going to do it but dawgonit I got it!

Still, I have til Wednesday before posting up the second demo. So I have plenty of time to tweak, tinker and add to it. I think the second demo is going to be something well worth looking forward to! :)

Anyway, I'm posting this start-up log rather early... its 3:39 in the morning here and I figured I should brag about my hard work before bed. ;)

later on today when I wake up I'll continue my work on this game. Expect great things!

>>11266
And I forgot to mention that you can now resize the screen. But I'm sure the screen shot here speaks for that fact.

I'm sure there's other things I forgot to mention.. but all will be revealed soon. ;) g'night bronies!

bucking

I honestly did not get very much done yesterday as life intervened. I got called away to do some work for family.

But I suppose what little I did complete is better than nothing at all.

I've been working on the g_ladder tile function which functions like a chain-link fence that you can climb around on. (example: some Super Mario World boss castles have these) unlike the default ladder tiles the g_ladder tiles enable you to climb in all four different directions.

You'd think something like this would be easy to program. Well... not entirely... In addition to working on these types of tile I had to produce 8 additional tile types:

g_ladTop: tiles that are the top of the fence ladder
g_ladBottom: bottom tiles of the fence ladder
g_ladLeft: left tiles f the fence ladder
g_ladRight: right tiles of the fence ladder
g_ladTL: top left tiles
g_ladTR: top right tiles
g_ladBL: bottom left
g_ladBR: boottom right

Each of these additional tile types serves a purpose. Not only to define all 8 corners of a fence ladder but also to tell the program when to cancel out the g_climb flag (upon leaving the fence ladder you fall from it and not keep climbing) without these, you could climb off the g_ladder tiles and continue to climb just about all over the screen, and we cant have that! :P

When I left off from yesterday's progress I was having certain difficulty getting this to work 100% there were several little snags that kept on popping up. The player would fall in the most unlikely places while climbing around.

I'll continue to work on this today and after that I'll begin work on tomorrow's little demo.

That is all I have for now. Again, wish me luck!

>>11440

Nice, I always did like the SMW fences. Now they just need those fancy side-flipping tiles (not really, but it would be neat).

Nothing really new today except that I'll be putting together this weeks demo. I'll post it up tonight 6:30 central eastern time.

Things to look forward to that may or may not need testing:
1.) Slopes
2.) Screen configuration (activated through an external program)
3.) Scrolling
4.) Fence ladders
5.) Foreground and background layers

And there may be more. I dont rightfully know just yet but if there are I'll post it up with the demo link later on.

And for the rest of this week I'll begin work on a proper sprite for Spike. The red square box thing kinda gets dull after a while :P

Wish me luck as usual. :)

the demo will be a bit late, guys... give me another hour to get this darn thing ready :P

Spike's Quest Test Demo #2
Released on 7-20-11

This demo is to test the following:

- Slopes
- g_ladder (aka fence ladders like from Mario World)
- screen scrolling
- screen size configuration
- fixed platform tiles
- fixed jump and gravity speeds
- foreground and background layer tiles

Be sure to run the config.exe file to set your desired screen resolution.
Bug reports, opinions and compliments are most appreciated!

Download Link: http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q.%20Test%20Demo%20%232.zip

>>11675

Looking good, gravity and movement are fine, nothing weird with the platforms.

Nothing to report so far, the controls are solid. Climbing the chain fence is ok, same speed as the one in Super Mario World. Like that you press the jump on a ladder to zip down to the bottom.

And a random note; got my flank kick by Blanka today.

A new day and a whole new week of work ahead. Today I've decided to begin work on Spike himself. That red box with white outlining will be no more after today.

The next week as a whole will mostly be focused on graphics and the next demo will be to show off those graphics and possibly one major test that I'll be requesting opinions on.

With the addition of graphics I may be releasing the production packages to the public for the in game music. Like I said in one of the recent updates, before the music I'd like to throw together some dummy screenshots with various different tilesets that will set the settings of the game. This would help the would be composers to get the right mood for the needed music.

I still request anypony out there who may read this post to please give the most recent demo a spin. Any such help here with this game would be greatly appreciated.

download link: http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q.%20Test%20Demo%20%232.zip

I know it may not seem like much but I've poured many hours and my full attention into this project in the past week. This game will continue to progress and with progress it will continue to get better and better. It wont be long before the game itself starts to take shape into what its supposed to be...

So with all that said I shall now get back to my work. Stay tuned!

So I finally went and did it. I went and created a blog for this project!

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/

So,if you have a blogspot account and happen to be following this project then by all means please go and add me to your watch list! :D

Yes, the layout is still one of the basic default templates. I may customize it down the road but the main priority for now is the game.

Speaking of the game, how far have I got exactly? Well like I said yesterday I wanted to begin work on Spike's in game sprite and that's what I've been doing.

Right now I dont feel there's anything worth showing screenshot wise but there will be something soon!

Again, stay tuned for further updates!

You have a good solid start, I like it! Assuming you're using Game Maker, here's a couple of things that will help though:

- If you go to the far bottom right corner (in the short nook) and jump, you'll see the screen shake pretty violently to follow "Spike". If you reduce your HBor and VBor a by about 2-4 block's worth it will get rid of this and make the camera move much smoother.

- When "Spike" gets on ladders and fences, you can visibly see him snap to orient to the ladder. This means your grid snap values are way too big. Reduce them to give the game better immersion.

That's all I can see right now, and both of those are pretty quick value fixes. Again, really solid start, good collision detection (you're being sure not to use solid, right?), good movement, all around good. I hope to see more from this.

Good luck,
Gent

>>11906
Actually I'm using Blitz 3D for this. I'm aware of the snap at the top of the ladder but that wont be very visible once the main sprite is applied.

Much appreciated for the advise though ;)

>>11906
And yeah, the snaps at the bottom will be fixed too. :P

So yesterday honestly wasn't all that productive. I spent much of my time watching Equestria Daily for this Blog Post here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/07/game-spikes-quest.html#comments

Yep, I went on ahead and submitted this project as news granted possibly a bit too early but news nonetheless. I wanted to try and draw some more much needed attention to the project so I figured why not hit up ol' Seth? (yes, I'm a most wretched little attention whore. Sue me!)

Also I've just started officially using the new blog: http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-now-spike-walks.html?showComment=1311401994881#c7709782073124216381

I will update this blog a few times a day concerning the project's progress so if your really interested in this game and would like to follow along then I'd highly recommend you subscribe to that blog :)

btw the pic is animated. Its not the final walking animations really but its a start. I'll be animating the arm a bit more since it does seem a bit unnatural the way it is now (thanks to a few kindly chaps over at the blog for pointing that out)

So this morning I'm up and about. Got a full pot of coffee and my laptop set at my dining table. I plan to go full throttle on the project today and pound as much code into Blitz Basic as the day would allow!

So wish me luck and as always stay tuned!

Oh lookit. Its BlitzMax. Have fun coding with BASIC.

I know I am. /sarcasm

>>11927
Actually I use Blitz3D which is somewhat better than Basic.. or so I've been told

One of these days I'll purchase BMax but until then I'll use what I got.

It could be worst. I could be using my old copy of The Games Factory which honestly is a buggy mess despite how easy it is to use...

Anyway... Dont judge me! :O

Well at least its not going to take as long to complete the game knowing that he uses blitz3d. Im pretty sure in blitz3d you can just start adding sprites and testing collision while in a language like C/C++ you have to learn several different apis and even when you do know them, you have to write code for tedious tasks like texture and memory management , fonts,api initializations ,etc. So its probably better that he is doing it in blitz3d if you consider that he can just get to game making without dealing with most of the issues above.

>>11934
This man speaks the truth. It's not really suitable for large projects, but I couldn't think of a better language for a small 2D platformer like this.

>>11927
I wouldn't really call BMax a variant of BASIC with it being OO, modular and having pointers and all. Also, it's the only Blitz language not having Basic in its name.

But yeah, we should really lead this discussion somewhere else not to hijack this thread. Sorry OP!

>>11935
Eh, its no problem, really.

I've toyed with the demo of Blitz Max before... it does seem a bit more complicated but within just a few hours I started to figure things out. The software only costs $80 which is actually cheaper than Blitz3D for some silly reason.

If I do buy BMax I'd have more cool features such as using png files with alpha layers and things like that. Also if I do decide to convert this project over to BMax I'd have the ability to port the game to os's like Lynux and Mac which would actually be pretty cool :)

Anyway, back on topic.

Bmax uses BASIC for coding. Its a pain, but it works.

Anyway. Props to you Misterbull.

Please, oh please, use this Spike sprite then I done it

>>11948
that's a pretty cool looking sprite if I may say so myself. However if I were to actually use it I'd request you to scale it back down to its proper resolution. (the small none pixelated version before you upscaled it)

But really since I've been hard at work with my own sprite I'm not sure I want to abandon it just yet for another one.

Is there more to that sprite than just the one static standing frame?

Curious only. Are you sticking with diamond dogs, or will there be enemies that are native to levels?

Say (this is part of something I am working on, no stealing) a you have a will-o-wisp, but it is only on a swamp level.

>>12005
Certain enemies for certain areas. It would be boring if it were just the diamond dogs. lol :P

>>12015
Wonderful.
AI programming is going to be so fun.

>>11972
But your Spike sprite bigger than mine. Whatever here a walk animation

>>12067
I'll tell you what.. you e-mail me your contact information (instant messengers mainly or just your e-mail. whatever your comfortable with) and we'll talk.

Lately I've been upgrading the tile system for the game and a bit of tweaking on the game engine. I've also fixed the snap distances of the ladder and I'm currently considering the sprite talent of another person other than myself.

The tile system upgrade will allow me to have more tiles in a tileset than what I was allowing myself before and I'd be able to assign each tile its own individual layer and obstacle type more easily (before this upgrade I was assigning these things manually which meant more code than what was really necessary) I'll continue working on this upgrade throughout the day and then I'll move on to other things.

If I do decide to let this anonymous user design the in game sprites then I can just focus on other things such as the tilesets and some other much needed code. I really wanted to make this project 100% my own but considering the amount of work that lays ahead I finally figured that things would probably progress faster if I let other people in on the work. And yes, that includes the in game music that I've mentioned a couple times already.

I still wish to tackle everything else alone. But if somepony else would like to contribute their talent to the project then I wouldn't mind seeing what you got. That's not a promise though.

Another person offered to try and port the game to the PSP as a homebrew game. So I guess that's another thing that can be considered as additional help.

More news to come soon! Be sure to check the blog for additional updates.

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/

I tried out the latest demo. I'm so glad you're not going with floaty Cave Story jumping! It's kinda played out, IMO.

If you want some inspiration (and a great game, to boot), I highly recommend trying the game Akuji. I can't help but be reminded of that game, in a very good way.

Also, I could argue game design forever, but I'm strongly opposed to the idea of having a hub town, and having "buyable" upgrades. I don't know if this'll get read, but if it does, I'm more than willing to elaborate.

>>12101
I'm always listening ;)

and rest assured none of the upgrades will be 'buy-able' I prefer scavenging myself. The only things I'd imagine that would be sold in shops would be simple items like health and things of that matter.

And also, please do elaborate on what you mean by hub town. You mean like the Mimiga Village in Cave Story or something?

The screenshot of the game your talking about looks awesome, I'll have to look it up and give it a try. Thanks!

Yesterday I spent many painful hours trying to code the tile system upgrade. In fact I did not get the darn thing to function properly until late last night. Thankfully now that task is now behind me and I can now work on more other newer and exciting things! [/flutter_yay]

Now with the addition of the new upgraded tile system I've gone and added a simple parallax background system with just a couple simple lines of code. And then I went and completely fixed the slope tile function which was a little jerky.

And now I find that I'm having bug trouble with the ladder tiles. When at the top of the ladder you cant climb down for some silly reason. Such bugs are common after certain code overhauls :P but I'll deal with that today.

As for this morning I took a little break from the game to just clean up the production folder. Its truly amazing how messy these things become when in use!

More to come soon. Stay tuned and be sure to check the blog for additional updates!

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/

>>12202
That why you always separate files into their specific folders they belong in. Anyways, glad you seem to be making progress either way.

Custom folder ftw ;)

I'll be using this template for future demos.

>>12237
I am the sprite artist and I want this *-*

In the upcoming test demo I'd like for everypony to run one specific test for me.See the two screenshots? Notice there are two different background types here. One is your standard 2D background the other one has 3D cubes in the background.

What do I wish to accomplish with the 3D backgrounds you might ask? Well, remember one of the old DS Castlevania games - Dawn of Sorrow?

If not then have a look-see at this screenshot here:
http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/615/615551/castlevania-dawn-of-sorrow-20050517064343010.jpg

Now doesn't that background look just awesome?

Now imagine Ponyville done up in a style like that. Yeah, that's what I'd like to accomplish here.

But the problem is that with some computers, mainly the older ones with crappy graphics cards often cant render 3D graphics from Blitz 3D created software. That's where this next test demo comes in. You can switch between 2D and 3D background modes in the config.exe so I'd like for you bronies to play around with it and tell me how well it runs on your machines. Does it work? and if it does then does the 3D effect the game's performance?

I'll try to have the demo ready for tomorrow (remember I post these demo runs every Wednesday). Until then be patient and stick around. there's more progress to be had! :)

Hey guiz, guess what today is?

Today is Wednesday! And that means today is Demo day!

That means that today I'll be spending production time throwing together an executive file compiled with all my hard work. All for the sake of showcasing it and bug testing.

As always I'll try to have this demo up and ready for your downloading pleasure by 6:30 CE time (or Tennessee time) so be watching for it around then.

What's to be expected?

- Spike sprite. No more red box thing!
- 3D and 2D parallax background option
- New tile system means more new tiles
- Completely new customized folder view

With the demo I'll include a bug report file with currently known problems. If you find a bug check that list. If its not listed then report it.

That is all for now. Keep watching!

Hey, Misterbull. I've been keeping an eye on this project and it looks very interesting. I love a good Metroidvania.

I'm also interested in making an MLP action-platformer. Very different story and abilities, but same genre and such. However, I personally have almost no experience in making games, aside from some small turn-based projects with no physics. I was wondering if you could give me some advice on learning to make a proper platformer. A few questions coming to mind at the moment.

What is the value of a tile based system?
How do you handle collision and walking upon sloped surfaces?
Collision in general. Currently I was thinking that each animation would have a series of manually created hitboxes tied to it, but I dont know if this is the optimal method.
Any other advice that comes to mind would also be great. Feel free to ignore this though, I imagine you're plenty busy working on your own game.

>>12412
Its all really a learning experience. And there are many many methods for doing certain things.

I've only tinkered with programs such as Blitz 3D, The Games Factory and Quick Basic over the past two decades and I still feel like a total newbie. but that may be because I honestly havent made it a full time thing. Just the occasional tinker here and there.

It takes patience. And quiet a bit of it! But stay at it, put your mind to it and you can achieve great things!

And now, on to your questions:

>> "What is the value of a tile based system?"

What exactly do you mean by 'value'? o.0

>> "How do you handle collision and walking upon sloped surfaces?"

its not too complicated really. You measure the distance of the player's x position as compared to the tile that he's on. Here's a bit of the code I used for slopes:

======================================
;Right Slope
If tile\typ=LR_slope
If ImagesOverlap(player,player_x,player_y,tile\img,tile\x,tile\y)
If jump<1
If player_x>tile\x And player_y>tile\y+4 Then player_y=tile\y+4
If player_x>tile\x+2 And player_y>tile\y+3 Then player_y=tile\y+3
If player_x>tile\x+4 And player_y>tile\y+2 Then player_y=tile\y+2
If player_x>tile\x+6 And player_y>tile\y+1 Then player_y=tile\y+1
If player_x>tile\x+8 And player_y>tile\y Then player_y=tile\y
If player_x>tile\x+10 And player_y>tile\y-1 Then player_y=tile\y-1
If player_x>tile\x+12 And player_y>tile\y-2 Then player_y=tile\y-2
If player_x>tile\x+14 And player_y>tile\y-3 Then player_y=tile\y-3
End If
ground_detect=True
End If
End If

If tile\typ=UR_slope
If ImagesOverlap(player,player_x,player_y,tile\img,tile\x,tile\y)
If jump<1
If player_x>tile\x+2 And player_y>tile\y-4 Then player_y=tile\y-4
If player_x>tile\x+4 And player_y>tile\y-5 Then player_y=tile\y-5
If player_x>tile\x+6 And player_y>tile\y-5 Then player_y=tile\y-5
If player_x>tile\x+8 And player_y>tile\y-7 Then player_y=tile\y-7
If player_x>tile\x+10 And player_y>tile\y-8 Then player_y=tile\y-8
If player_x>tile\x+12 And player_y>tile\y-9 Then player_y=tile\y-9
If player_x>tile\x+14 And player_y>tile\y-10 Then player_y=tile\y-10
If player_x>tile\x+16 And player_y>tile\y-11 Then player_y=tile\y-11
End If
ground_detect=True
End If
End If

====================================

Notice how my slopes take up two tiles per slope. one tile covers the lower half the second covers the upper half. All I do for the player is I compare the x and ove him up or down accordingly. I hope that makes some sense if not then read this article here:

http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/

somewhere in there they discuss slopes. It may be helpful.


>> "Currently I was thinking that each animation would have a series of manually created hitboxes tied to it, but I dont know if this is the optimal method."

You mean collision boxes? Well, look at the past two demos I've posted up here. Notice I use a red box graphic in both of them for the player. And when it comes to the actual sprite I just make that box invisible and use that as a collision box with the sprite positioned over it ;) ... again, there are many methods out there for doing this.

>> "Any other advice that comes to mind would also be great. Feel free to ignore this though, I imagine you're plenty busy working on your own game."

I'm not the ignoring type of guy :P .. s'all cool, bro

Thanks for the information. To clarify my first question, what are the benefits of dividing the play area into tiles, as opposed to placing platforms and other entities using loose, pixel by pixel coordinates?

>>12433
for me, tiles feel more organized and systematic. While platforms can feel a bit more realistic but could be a bit harder to program (unless your using some simple software like The Games Factory or MMF)

But then again, I really haven't tried doing free floating platforms so I really cant say for sure.

Download: http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q.%20Test%20Demo%20%233.zip

Spike's Quest Test Demo #3
Released on 7/27/11

This demo is to test the following:
- Spike's animation
- 3D/2D parallax background (optional through config.exe)
- New tile system allows more new tiles.
- Customized folder layout (do these custom folder themes work on all computers?)

Run the config.exe before running the demo and select which background mode you'd like to test. There's 2D and 3D mode and of course there's your screen resolution setup.

Spike's animation is still a bit buggy and it certainly doesnt look perfect just yet... Still a work in progress!

If you find a bug, check the bug log. If its not listed then report it!

That is all. Happy testing! :)

>>12454
The 3D option didn't give me any slowdown. It runs just as smoothly as the 2D one on my laptop.

I'm liking the engine so far. I spent way longer just jumping around on that area than I expected. Metroidvania is my favorite genre, so I'm really looking forward to the finished game.

The flexible window option is otherwise handy, but could you force it to keep the correct aspect ratio? It distorts easily when resizing the window.

>>12464
unfortunately no I cant force it to keep the aspect ratio. I'm using all three of the screen modes that Blitz 3D allows... the screen flexibility is just one of them and so far I havent found a way to do away with the blurryness.

I'll ask around the Blitz Basic community though and see what they have to say

I should add... there's a secret passage somewhere in the demo. somepony find it and snap a pic :3

Its making a lot of progress, but I did encounter one bug. While holding the back and forward arrows at the same time (don't ask why I was doing this), the sprite goes all funny.

Keep up the good work.

The games running incredibly fast here, like, too fast, making jumps a little trickier than they should be.

Are you using the CreateTimer and WaitTimer commands?
Or do you just have those disabled to make the demo run fast as possible for testing :?

>>12476
actually, I never thought to use it... o.o

of all the things I forget to use really. my apology

>>12478
Easy to overlook :)

This is looking great anyway, love the mario world style fence thing :D

I got one bug, screenshot attached, which left me stuck and I had to close down. It seems to happen sometimes if you jump around on the ladders while holding down. I can't get it to happen on the floor with a solid tile though, the very bottom-right one.

>>12482
added to the bug log. thanks :)

Wow your collision method sounds very inefficient.

I'd recommend implementing a collision algorithm like separating axis theorem(S.A.T) or minkowski difference.Then Start pruning the total amount of collision checks by using a Broad phase collision grid or a quad-tree.

Both methods require a bit of knowledge of vector math.

I think S.A.T is harder than minkowski difference to implement ,however, S.A.T is much quicker because you can determine if the object is colliding by just checking the first axis if the first axis is separating then there is no collision.This speeds up collision checking a lot.

All i really know about the other algorithm(minkowski difference) is that it requires that you subtract all the points from polygon a and b. this makes a combined polygon with all the sides merged together.
If the merged shape has an point on the origin then there is a collision.

Resources:
minkowski difference:
http://www.pfirth.co.uk/collision.html#Polyhedra

separating axis theorem:
http://www.metanetsoftware.com/technique/tutorialA.html

Once you implement one of these collision methods you can check collision against any polygon.
This will enable your game handle more geometry.

This is really just a recommendation you dont have to do this but it is a good learning experience.

>>12466
Found The passage way. Cracks and the floating platforms were a big give away. Not saying the current style is bad, as it will help people with not as much skill of noticing secrets like me, but if you want to add an extra bit of challenge, make it a little more subtle. but either way, good none the less. Might I suggest a acceleration system in the falling when you jump or walk off a cliff as I know the style of games your trying to replicate do have that kind of system.

>>12500

my collision method may not seem very effective. But the important thing is that it actually works. Still, I'll give those links a look and see what I can learn. Its always nice to learn new things! :) much thanks!

>>12523
lol I knew it would be a giveaway. But if I had not mentioned it then you probably would have never found it ;) I guess I kinda ruined the fun when I gave that little spoiler

so I've got my work cut out for me today. Plenty of bugs reported here and there. Most of them concerning animation, ladders and platform tiles.

There's also been plenty of good suggestions out there that I should probably consider.

Sometimes today Demo #3 will be announced on Equestria Daily so I'm expecting possibly more bug reports.

Oh yes. I definately have my work cut out. But it was to be expected!

Still, so far I am very pleased by the overall response on Demo #3

So today I'll be wondering around the internet collecting these bug reports and updating the log. And then I'll begin working on them one by one. There are so many other things that I want to do but I feel that certain bugs should come first.

Wish me luck!

Updated Demo #3 zip with new Bug Log and additional information concerning player controls.

When ever I tried the 3D BG the game lagged a bit in the top and bottom right corners.

Since after the release of Demo #3 I've been busy logging bug reports. I've also been busy adding to the config system as you can see in the screenshot.

It still looks very basic with dull code-drawn graphics but as you can also see I've advanced the screen resolution system a bit. The program can now read your graphics driver and output what resolutions are available for full screen mode on your computer.

I've spent the whole of yesterday implementing this system. Half the day alone was trying to figure out just how to get the dratted scrollbar to work :P

It probably would had been somewhat easier using the Visual Basic gui system (I think its VB, I could be wrong) but I decided to just hard code everything through Blitz 3D. The system is now fully functional and I can now proceed to the next project which is a custom control system where you can customize what button layout you want to use to control Spike with. That project may take a few hours to complete but I've got all the time in the world. :)

Other news, Equestria Daily finally posted up the update concerning the Demo 3 release. I've been debating about whether I should send Seth every Demo update (once every Wednesday of course) but I cant help but feel that every demo release will really be news worthy. For example, I believe Demo #4 may only focus on the new config system and some minor bug fixes. Demo #5 on the other hand may have the addition of connecting additional maps via doorways and screen exits as well as moving platforms and a health system. Demo #5 would probably be much more newsworthy than Demo #4. Wouldn't you agree?

>>12695

Yeah, things like interconnect rooms, health, etc are probably more worthy of being posted than config and bug fixes.

So...Running the version (as found at http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/07/spikes-quest-game-engine-demo-3.html) through WINE 1.2.2 in Ubuntu 11.04 the game itself looks great and runs great (the window's a bit small and I can't figure out how to change it, but I'll deal with that), but config.exe produces a window that looks like this.

I don't know if it's a Linux-Windows compatibility issue, or if you're gonna help me out as an Ubuntu user, or if you just hate Linux, but I didn't see this in any of the bug-lists so I thought I'd just put it here.

>>12713
What I'm going to assume is that Lynux does not recognize the default font that the program uses and thus produces those weird square things as a replacement... :P

I can try swapping the font and then test it on a Lynux based machine with wine but I cant garentee anything as I've never really used Lynux before.

I'm still considering the purchase of Blitz Max which would enable me to port the game over to Lynux and Mac. though I would have to go back and port the code over entirely as BMax and B3D are extremely different in their coding language.

We shall see though...

Also sorry for the inconvenience of this matter...

I've just applied the option to switch display drivers. Meaning if you have more than one monitor connected to your computer and you'd prefer to use a specific one then you can simply set the program to use that monitor through the config exe!

For this example I'm using my Sony PSP as a secondary monitor and streaming the game to it through a program called PSPDisp. Its not the greatest way to play the game but it'll do as an example for right now

I've noticed that in demo 3, if you get to the blue platform in the far left (above the starting position) and press down, spike's falling animation plays for as long as the button is held. Is this intentional (or fixed)?

>>12726
its a bug... I knew about it before publishing the demo but did not have time to fix it (I had a deadline for the demo...)

Basically it only happens on none-solid platform tiles and is a part of a code that's supposed to enable you to drop down from the platform like in Castlevania. (hold down and hit the jump button) I just need to fix the animation to recognize the ground_detect flag which is set to false when the player does this


its also been reported by other folks and logged. I should have it fixed before demo #4

I can't run config.exe, when I try, I get the message ''memory access violation" why is that?

>>12741
Have you moved any files around? o.o that's the only explanation I can think of.

What are your computer specs?

>>12717
If you're going to switch, better sooner than later! :)

I've used both Blitz3D and BlitzMax, unless you're dead set on using the 3D features, I'd switch to Max. It runs way faster, and allows you to do more things to the graphics... rescaling and rotating images in real time (sure, Blitz3D has rotation and scaling - but you can't do it in real time without major slow down), it also allows recolouring and alpha transparency stuff. I've been working on a big game in Blitz3D for a couple of years now, and I wish I had started it in Max - too much trouble to convert now =[

Yesterday I spent some time adding a few finishing touches to the config.exe code with the addition of a Display Driver selection menu and a few minor tweaks on the full screen resolution menu. One bug that I'm sure about but cant test atm is this:

- you start the game on one computer and you select the first option on the full screen selection menu.

- You then move the game on to another computer. The other computer's first full screen setting has different vales for width x height and depth.

- Game would probably error out because of this.

so for Demo #4, if any pony out there has multiple computers that may have different values for a certain mode, please test this out and let me know something.

Unfortunately I still wont release that demo until Wednesday so for now just go about your daily business.

In other news I've finally got around to fixing some bugs. I now have two different logs because of this. One log is for bugs and suggestions that have yet to be touched the other log is of the bugs that have been fixed each following a simple answer to the problem.

You can find these logs here:
Bug Log:
http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/Bugs&SuggestionsLog.txt

Fixed Bug Log:
http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/FixedBugsLog.txt

Today's project shall be to resume work on bug extermination. Currently working on ladder related bugs. I go through a can of Raid every hour. Its that tedious. :P

If only code in related image could really work then life would be so much easier. (code is a joke that only code bronies may only get. :P )

That would be awesome magic code, but I am scared of what the PinkiePie(x) function might do =S

If you've got a Nintendo 3DS then open up your internet browser and tap the following link:

http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/sq3d/SQ3D0001.mpo

Pretty nifty, huh? Of course, its not real. I was just fooling around with layers in Paint Shop Pro 7. Exported two seperate images for the left and right eye, opened it up with my 3D imaging software and BLAMO! 3D Spikes Quest!

So now that you've seen this, answer me this, would you play the game if it could be viewed like that?

I could probably make it happen though it might cause terrible lag due to the screen being rendered twice. But wouldn't it be cool?

On to other news, today I'll be going on a rather long road trip. I'll be riding back seat with my laptop and other devices in tow so I should be able to do some coding for four hours straight. I'll be visiting relatives down on the gulf coast for the next three weeks though so my progress may be slowed a bit.

Still, keep checking in! I'll try to update as much as possible!

I've been kind of stuck on one of the bugs lately... and because of this I might actually have to delay Demo #4 for another day. Bad news aside, this should give me some time to improve on other things before the 4th demo release.

I'd like to actually make the next demo something more than just a few bug fixings and the new config system. In fact I'd like to expand things a bit.

That being said, I'm thinking about getting Blitz Max and upgrading the game into that language. I have the money and the time to do it, the real question is would I have the patience of the game's followers?

In the long run I feel it'd be well worth the investment! I'd be able to port the game to Lynux and Mac (no more Wine conversion issues! [FlutterYay] and I'd be able to do certain things I normally cant do in Blitz 3D.

As far as 3D backgrounds are concerned, there are ways to apply such but right now it is the least of my worries. :P

Anyway, to those of you who are following this project, would you mind maybe waiting another week for the 4th demo? And what are your thoughts about me changing to BMax?

>>13163
I think it would be a great move on your part to go for Blitz Max, considering Macs are gaining popularity for home use, and also it means no one's left out on the fun.

Also I don't mind waiting w extra week for a new demo.

Its just as I've feared... The switch from B3d to Bmax would mean I'd need to code everything again from scratch. (direct conversion is a buggy mess and can be totally overwhelming.)

At least I have the basics down and the graphics so that should cut down the time needed to recode all this.

The language swap will take a good deal of getting used to but so far it hasn't been so hard. :)

Anyway, time to get back to work. Wish me luck and I'll keep everypony posted on the recoding progress!

Thank you so much for sticking with this despite having to code it all over again! As a game programmer myself, while there is the lucky project now and then that can all get coded in one hit, it's more likely that something needs to be changed around somewhere between 2-8 times. :) The benefit is that all of the creativity and learning that happen the first time around usually don't have to happen again, just writing everything back down with perfection.

Good luck, I think I speak for many people when I say that you have plenty of people thinking about your project and mentally supporting you day in and out. :)

>>13488
those are very encouraging words.

Thank you. :)

Re-coding progress is awfully slow going at the moment. But progress is still progress!

I've been putting many hours into the rebuild of the map and tile data editor which has been somehow exciting. The more I progress in this new language the more confident about this project I actually feel!

Still, slow progress is slow. I'm really worried about whether I'd have anything ready for a demo next Wednesday. I have a whole week to finish the tile and map system and then also have a functioning game engine to work with it.

To top it off, since I'm visiting relatives for the next couple of weeks, my production time is a bit hampered with the occasional chore or visiting time. That, and well my grandparents gripe about me being on this laptop all the time :P

Anyway, aside from life and the occasional stress over demo deadlines, I've recently started up a twitter account for the project and directed a blog feed to it if anypony here wants to subscribe to it:

http://twitter.com/#!/SpikesQuest

basically all you'll see there are the usual blog updates and the occasional random tweets here and there. I'm new to twitter so I really dont know how everything works. But maybe it'll grow on me over time...

I should also remind everypony to subscribe to the blog:

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/

there I post daily updates (like what you see here) and some additional tidbits about the game. Twitter should also record all that if you'd rather just stick to the twitter account.

More to come soon!

lol I wasted so many hours on a coding snag only to find out I misspelled a variable name :P

pic related...

After a full day of coding I've finished converting the 'Tile Data Editor' code to Bmax! It works exactly how it should allowing me to set each tile's depth layer and obstacle type by the click of a button.

Now I just need to finish the map editor and then I'll proceed on to the game itself

the good news is that the game's engine should be a straight and easy port :) much of that code will be just copy/pasta from the old B3D code. And the map editor was already half done while working in the tile data editor. I just need to add the functions to create and edit a map and then save it to the map data folder.

Things are looking up! I may just yet have something ready for the Wednesday deadline!

[/flutteryay]

YES!!! This game is going to be epic! I'm love me some 2d platformers and knowing that this will be like Castlevania/Cave Story... I'm really looking forward to this! The concept sounds amazing and i really hope that the development works out for you! But will it be compatible with an xbox controller? I don't think that I can do it without, much like Super Meat Boy, I just play better with one.

I'm looking forward to future updates!!! :D

>>13864
Once I get everything working again via Blitz Max code I'll be redoing the config system where it will have game pad support. Now as to whether or not you can use an XBox pad is currently unforeseen, but I wouldn't doubt it!

The map editor is almost fully operational. And by that I mean that I still need to tweak the save/load map functions. Everything else is almost perfected :)

I also added alpha layers to the beta tileset. As an example by alpha layers, see those lanterns in the screenshot? you can actually see through them! That's the beauty of BMax and alpha layers, you can use these things to create some pretty fantastic looking particle effects and other things!

Anyway, with the map editor nearing its completion I'm looking forward to working on the game itself :) I cant wait to see my hard work in action!

I've been giving this some thought and I think I might delay the 4th Demo until the first Wednesday of next month (September 7th) here's the reason why...

reason #1.) I dont actually own Blitz Max yet and I wont have the money to purchase the full license until the third of next month.

reason #2.) I dont currently have access to a Mac OS or a Linux OS atm, I have an old Mac laptop at home and a second PC I can install Linux on. I'd like to have the 4th demo ready for these OS's when its released and even f I did have these systems in hand I wouldn't really be able to do a Linux version as there's no BMax trial version for Linux. :P

reason #3.) I actually want to make the 4th demo worth your download with all sorts of awesome features :) more time = better stuff!

Opinions?

Beautiful alpha stuff will make the transition worth it :)

I made a test in BlitzMax of Xbox controller support a while ago and I got every button working fine except the left and right shoulder/trigger buttons (and the big middle button o'course) - it's incredibly simple to get working, except for the analogue sticks and D-pad which are a little less intuitive. I'm sure you can figure it out, but if you need help with that, or anything else BMax related, feel free to message me on AIM: 'AngelTifu' - I'm no expert, but I've used the program for a few small projects and such :)

Map Editor has been finished, I can now begin work on the game itself. [/flutteryay]

I'll begin work on it later on in the day but for now I'm in a hurry with other things [life related]

But stay tuned!

>>14039
I see you've been busy. How you doing?
If you need playtesting, let me know.

>>14128
Hey, PinkieFan, long time no chat! :)

indeed I have been pretty busy. But I'm glad to have you tag along :)

I'llbe honest. Yesterday I did not get much of anything done :(

Did some heavy work for the family, putting a bed together, helped gramps fix a lawn mower, moved a huge roll of carpet from the trailer to the shop in the back yard,did a bit of yard selling with my auntie. And by the time I was actually free from it all I was too sore to think about coding.

To top it off I just figured I may need to rewrite a certain chunk of the code and that was sort of off putting too... :P

But my fingers are crossed that today will be slightly different. Life will have to intervene every now and then. That's to be expected.

Anyway, its still very early in the morning and I should try to get a bit of work in on the game. Wish me luck!

A new Item Log Entry has been posted!

You can see it here: http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/item-log-celestian-shield.html

>>14295
Another Item entry has been posted:
http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/item-log-health-items.html

The good news is that I almost have the game's engine running perfectly.

The bad news is that after porting the entire code to BMax I now have a huge bug infestation! That and not all the actions I had working in B3D are working as they should. I'll need to tweak the code a bit and get things underway. I hope to have a video up Wednesday of the working code and a few nice little additions :)

Also, I've started posting item logs, ad soon I'll start posting enemy logs and other neat things. Its the least I can do for boring you all to death with my programing updates :P

A new Game sequence log has been added. It involves Derpy Hooves!

You can find it here:
http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/game-sequence-saving-your-game.html

Also three new items have been added to the Health Items Log which you can find here:

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/item-log-health-items.html

I'm happy to let everypony know that the game seems to be functioning near 100% to what it was before the BMax transfer. I even managed to fix a few of the bugs that were reported from Demo #3!

Just a few more tweaks and I'll start to add new functions such as spitting flame balls and a door system that would enable me to link maps to each other.

I is a happy brony!

Still, since I am visiting relatives for another week and a half, progress will continue to be a bit slow going. The next test demo isn't due out until possibly next month (when I'll be able to purchase the full license for Blitz Max) But I do plan on releasing videos on an official Youtube channel for this game.

Stick around and I'll keep you posted! :3

(I couldn't come up with a good pic for this update so have a cool picture of Derpy instead!)

Getting a late start on everything today. Video will [probably] be ready later on but unless your new to this project then dont expect much in surprises.

The video will only be showcasing the engine running on Blitz Max code with a few simple bug fixes and the addition of alpha layer support.

Speaking of bugs, I've just about eliminated them all. Now the only problems I can see is that the engine could use a bit of speeding up.

I'll have more soon so stay tuned!

>>14651
I've been sick with nothing to do, so if you want any help, give me a quick email.
>When I saw this thread I was like, "Hey, I know that guy! So that's why I haven't seen him in so long."

Not muchto report this morning... yesterday was a busy day (away from the game) gramps needed my help replacing a belt on a lawn mower which involved removing the chassy. (however you spell that) and one of my distant cousins had a huge birthday party.

So no.. nothing at all was accomplished on the game...

...

Oh stop looking at me like that! I have a life beyond this silly project ya know!

I shall commence work on the game today if I'm not pulled away from it again. If it keeps your faith a little longer I've done some new map work this morning so not all is lost :)

On a second note, today is the one month anniversary for the start-up of this project!

Pinkie Pie would be pleased if we threw some kind of silly internet party or something. :P [Pic semi Related]

Another late update and again with the lacking of anything to update about. Yesterday was just another busy day helping gramps with that rusty old greasy lawn mower so naturally I havent been able to get anything done on the game.

I know this could start making me look bad (and I hope it doesnt) I've heard the comment before that no fangame ever gets finished because the creator's get so caught up with life. I really dont want you nice folk to think that way about Spike's Quest. I want you all to know that this game is still fresh on my mind and I am NOT making excuses to not work on it.

Every little chance I get, I try to do something with the project and I try to post an update every day. that should let you know that I'm still strong minded about this game.

So I ask y'all to please be patient.

More will come soon, I have huge expectations for this project.

>>14956

You've got a pretty big advantage, workin' solo. No team member drama, nopony can quit on you but you. As long as you keep interest and keep working, you're golden. Afterall, we're not going anywhere, take as long as you need.

Yesterday I spent several hours adding a few additions such as breakable blocks and the ability to spit fire (still a work in progress)

and this morning I've been up a few more hours fixing a few bugs that came with the new additions. And right up to now I've taken a break from code to work with a nice piece of software called Tone Pusher.

This software is capable of outputting random 8bit like sound effects and exporting them into .wav format. It comes in rather handy and I believe that it was once used to create the many sound bits for Cave Story.

Of course, if the majority of folk here dont like the 8bit retro sound then there are some nice chaps offering their help in making some proper sound for the game. Either way, Spike's Quest is destined to have some awesome sounds! :)

Now concerning music. I've mentioned before that I wish to put together a development package with music in mind and post it out to the public to the advantage of any potential composers out there. The current choice of software is called OrgMaker which is freeware and again was also used for the music of Cave Story. I've already had a few nice brony-folk approach me wanting to compose music for the game so I'm feeling kinda confident in that portion of the project :) I'll post more about the music package when it becomes ready.

Stay tuned!

Not much to update on today. yesterday was a full day down in Gulf Shores with family (which was costly on my budget but fun!)

I went to bed around 9 last night and woke up just a couple hours ago (around 12) I guess a full day at Orange Beach and then a huge meal at The Original Oysterhouse (of Travel Channel's Man Vs Food fame) consisting of gater bites, shrimp gumbo, a burger and fries can really take it out of a guy :P

So now that I'm up (and still a bit sore and burned from the sun) I can now go get a quick shower, have a late breakfast and commence work on the game.

I feel that yesterday's little tropical adventure was well worth losing a bit of production time over. :P

Not much to report on today been busy, of course. Still tweaking a few bugs and pondering where to go next.

Feeling kinda homesick but I've still got a little over half a month to go before I get to go home :P

So to put this update short: "Meh"

Added a few sound effects to the game last night. Had to tweak a few of those sounds for it to sound right. Will continue to work on this later this evening when things quiet down around my surroundings here.

I may even add a health system and a few little traps here and there.

More to come soon!

Yeah, I almost skipped a day on updating things. Let's just face the facts, I have nothing new to post about and things probably will continue to be slow until I'm home free from my little 'vacation' in Mobile Alabama. Family will continue to demand my attention with trips to the beach or some sweaty yard work plucking weeds and other fun stuff like that.

And because things will continue to be slow and nearly unproductive, I may not have much to post as far as updates go.

I swore I'd never skip a day in updating and trying to keep this project alive but I may have to break promises for some very logical reasons.

The good thing is that this project aint dead! And it wont ever be dead unless for some silly reason I get a cease and desist letter from Hasbro or The Hub or the whole fanbase suddenly tells me to stfu and gtfo (which I just cant see happening)

I guess the purpose of this update is to just notify everypony interested in this project that there may be days that you wont see any actual updates and all because I really just dont have anything to say.

I almost missed a day. No biggie. Life still goes on and we can all rejoice to see another lovely day in this crazy world. :)

Tomorrow and Friday I'll be doing actual vacation stuff. A lovely trip to Dauphin Island where I'll get to explore a large old Civil War fort (Fort Gaines, rumored to be haunted) and go fishing on the beach with my ma and step pa and on Friday I'll be going to Boone Town where I'll get to waste my money on the slot machines and eat an expensive buffet. If any pony is interested I may actually post pictures of my little adventure in my next few updates to fill the void of production-less time. ;)

If anything, these fun little trips are always inspiring me with my projects so maybe I'll get a proper boast of confidence and inspiration for Spike's Quest

Oh, and to keep things interesting, I'll post Fluttershy :3

Good. I was starting to get worried there, This project is AWESOME! I CAN'T WAIT!

So yesterday was a day filled with fun, sand, fish and civil war history. I even brought back some nice little trinkets to remember the trip by (see crappy 3DS pic) and I took plenty of pictures which I'll be posting up later on!

Today is casino day and I may go blow the rest of my month's budget on the slot machines (wish me luck, bronies!)

Tonight when I get back home I plan to go full speed ahead on the project and get stuff done for once! Stay tuned, tomorrow may have a nice update! :D

In the meantime here's a question to my fellow bronies: After the casino trip, What should I do with my winnings? Should I go blow it all on Ponies? Or should I go blow it on Ponies? chose my actions wisely for I take this question very srsly... liek teh internetz.

>>16237
It should be spent wisely. Much deliberation, intense meditation....nah, just buy pony merch. I wish Celestia were white. She looks so good in this picture.

typing this from my nintendo 3ds. already spent my entire budget on the slot machines and now i'm just relaxing on the third floor of the casino while my family continue their gamble downstairs. the wifi here is a pretty nice feature...

...

scratch that, i've just been moved back downstairs by the nice security guard cause aparently i was in a vip only zone. these blokes really need to put up signs [where they can be seen...] warning about these things...

oh well... i explored the gift shop and they had baseball caps with horse ears... fascinating... if only i had $12.00 to get one.

did i mention i'm kinda drunk? yea, they serve free drinks here... had three white russians over the past few hours... damn theyre delicious!

Alright, so I've had my fun and now its time to get back to work. today I'll be adding new entity functions such as springs, that health system I promised a few days ago, a counter function that would enable me to create a counter with an image font and use it to display item quantities, a new jump and gravity system, a hazard system, a door system that would link maps together and possibly a brand new tile-map specifically for the game and an entirely reworked config system since the BMax settings are almost entirely different from the B3D settings...

I have my work cut out for me and I have a deadline to have a working demo by the 7th of next month.

Wish me luck! I'll need all I can get of it!

>>16293
:D It's the best MLP FiM toy representing the character's look I've ever seen!

> puts in some code for crouching
> crouching code successful. adds additional code for crawling
> crawling code half done, hits a snag where player cant seem to shoot fire while crawling
> spends several hours trying to solve problem
> head desk after figuring that the program may actually have a keyhit limitation ('down' key[crouch] + 'left'' or 'right' key[crawl] + 'shoot' key may be too much to detect all at once)
> hopes my figuring is wrong. consults help from Blitz Basic community

oh the joys of programing... :P

See Spike crawl!

okay, it aint perfect yet but it'll do for the time being. thr animation is kinda smooth though and I'm 'somewhat' proud of it :)

Yesterday was a day for much work and progress :)

You can now crouch and crawl under narrow spaces in the game. Unfortunately you still cant shoot flame while you crawl and I'm still not sure how I'm going to fix that. Fact is, the keyboard is a very limiting device and only so many key presses can be detected at once. The problem wont exist with a gamepad however.

Once after I finished the crouch and crawl functions I then advanced the flame breathing function. What was once just a static red oval is now a flaming projectile with a neat-o looking particle tail (still needs work, but it looks effective for now )

Also while enhancing Spike's flame breathing ability I started to get the idea of acquiring different types of flame breathing techniques. With Spike being a young dragon and all flame breathing will be his primary weapon throughout the game. One of the flame upgrades he'll pick up in the game is Ice Breath which would enable him to shoot cold fire that would freeze his enemies. This would function like the weapon upgrade system in Metroid pretty much. :P

I'll post a log about the many fire breathing upgrades later on. But for today I have other plans for production time. I'll keep you all posted as things begin to progress! :)

the game's sound folder is currently junked up with random bleeps and bloops and the code could probably also use a little sprucing up as well but its all good, really :)

Added a hazard system so now Spike can get hurt. Currently the only existing hazards are spikes (on ceilings walls and floors) but despite the ability to lose health, Spike still cant die yet. That would only require just a few additional lines of code, a death sequence and a restart prompt screen.

Aside from the hazard system, there really isnt much else to report on. I've tweaked the code here and there, added a few new tiles to the beta tileset and edited my todo list.

Maybe I'll get enough done today to have something worth showing off tomorrow, but no promises...

In other news, I only have 9 to 10 more days before I get to go home [/flutteryay]. And I'm really excited about the most recent Pony updates for season 2. I'll be stocking up on M&Ms, Popcorn and cream soda for each new episode :) Who else is excited?

Added a simple explosion animation for the item blocks for after Spike destroys them and then tinkered around with the sound effects again.

will be adding a health bar today.

This is really making huge strides in progress.

Keep it up!

For this morning's little showcase I have for display is the heart system located at the top left of the screenshot there.

So what's so nifty about it? well, they function just like the hearts in Zelda for one, meaning 11 of those heart pieces have to be collected. you originally start with 3 heart pieces in the game and you gradually level up with additional ones throughout the game.

I believe that I'll actually make that a challenge in the 4th test demo. y'all will get to go on a little scavenger hunt trying to locate all additional 11 heart containers whilst exploring an extensive map and avoiding obstacles (and other things)

Did I mention that the each heart piece also consist of 4 halves and the current heart flashes (making it visually easier to see)?

:)

4 halves, eh? =P

Strange math aside, looking awesome! =D

>>17093
yeah, sorry.. I'm not sure where I got that from.. I meant 4 pieces :P

I've posted up a new log concerning the mane six ponies and their function to the game. You can read about it here: http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/main-six-pony-log.html

Its not even the 27th yet but I wanted to post this early anyway to get it off my shoulders , so here we go :P

I've been doing some thinking and I cant help but feel that the code is a complete and redundant mess. Yes, it works, and it feels so much more advanced than what it did over a month ago. But its still a huge mess and filled with many redundancies and unused variables.

That's why I've decided that after the 4th test demo, I'm going to be rewriting huge chunks of it to make it look more cleaner and readable. Most of the planned rewrite is for the map system entirely, the player controls and tile collision system are both perfect as they are but I may could touch them up as well.

That being said, I predict that that project may be a few days hard work, but since I'll be home by then I wont have any distractions from family to slow me down. You might not see a 5th test demo until a month after the 4th release...

But Once this project is complete I am strongly considering making it completely open source for the coding curious so I'd like to at least make it easy to understand :) It'll be well worth the extra time!

Also I plan to translate it to Lua script so that I can port it to the PSP as a homebrew project. So a nice clean code here would be very helpful when it comes to that project :)

Opinions?

And a final note before I go to bed...

This is possibly some potential bad news for Linux users... I may or may not be able to get tdemo #4 ported to Linux in time before the official release date. I've been doing a bit of reading up and aparently its not easy to port the game without some additional coding.

But dont take my word for it just yet. I dont currently have a Linux OS on hand to attempt anything and I wont have one until I get back home in just a few days so there may still be some hope.

I'm really hoping that the Mac port wont be such a bother as well. :P

This is probably one of the greatest updates I've made in a long while. Some major accomplishments have been made on the game and I need to brag about it. :3

First up, I've finally got a descent screen resolution system working. I had it working just fine before the BMax transfer but after that (and the grand majority of this month) I've been working with a tiny little game window. Now you can resize it or even go full screen with it! So far the new system has been tested on two computers and works on both w/ no problems.

Second major update, the game is now compatible with a PC game pad (see crappy pic)! :D that and I'm just a few steps closer to piecing together a custom keyboard scheme so y'all wont be stuck with one setup. In Demo #4 you will be able to pick what keys to use for jumping, shooting and moving around.

So, with those two major things in working order I need to start working on the new config system so y'all can set this stuff up to your liking ;)

More to come soon!

(and sorry for the crappy picture... the Nintendo 3DS camera really has been disappointing me lately...)

This is looking great. Keep up the good work!
(I wish I could actually contribute in some way...)

I have successfully put together an in game text system that allows me to use a custom font from a PNG file. this of course would be used for dialog, reading signs and in game prompts. I stayed up til 3 this morning working on it. Now all that's left for this function is to creat a border and a few other little things.

That's all I have for now.

cheers!

>>17890
I'll have to brag a bit. I designed the font myself :3 while to some that may seem a small achievement, but to me its not everyday that I get to put my font designing abilities to the test.

font is in pic though it may not show up very well on brightly colored backgrounds

So, when can we expect the next demo? I can't wait to try all this new stuff

>>17893
the 4th demo is scheduled on the 7th of next month (8 more days)

I'm literally pressed to get things ready before then but I'm positives that I'll have it ready :)

Stayed up late again tweaking the dialog system. I now have a working yes/no prompt and a few other simple goodies that improve the flow of the dialog. Also done dome heavy graphics work that makes this system all the more visually pleasing ;)

Next few days will be crunch time meaning I'll be trying to work more harder and faster on the game in order to get things ready for the 4th demo which is due out in 7 days. That deadline alone is what's got my nerves in a huge knot... I hope I'll have everything ready by then. If I dont I may have to delay. but let's pray it'll never have to come down to that. :P

On a positive note, I've got just a few more days before I get to go home! :D I'm a happy brony.

er... I hope my apartment hasnt burned down or got robbed while I was away this past whole month D: that would suck!

Heh, that's pretty much how I feel whenever I leave the dorm for the weekend.

'Did I leave it unlocked?'
'Did I unplug the lava lamp?'
'Did I store all my pony drawings in the iron safe underneath my desk, where no one can ever find them?'

I've started a blog post concerning the mini games that you'll be able to play in the game.

Check it out here: http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/08/pinkie-pies-mini-game-booth.html

And if you have any cool ideas for a mini game then feel free to post it in the comments section there on the blog ;)

Its 3 in the morning and its also the first day of September. I have six days to have that demo ready and I still have a ton of work that needs to be done...

aside from that headache I can happily report that things have been as productive on the game as usual. I spent all of yesterday (and up to now) reorganizing code, cleaning the code up and adding a few little new things here and there.

Check the picture for an animated take on the heart container. Yea, I spent 3 hours working on that image :P

And now I'm going to bed... ;;c_c

Today is payday! [/flutteryay] and that means that today I can purchase my official license for BlitzMax. That makes things for this project all the more official and I can feel more at ease about it when posting up the test demos :)

On to other news!

My late night coding is slowly starting to pay off! slowly and surely I'm getting closer and closer to my goal for demo #4. But indeed it is very slow going which brings me to the sour part of today's post...

I SRSLY NEED YOUR OPINIONS ON THE FOLLOWING!!!

Would it disappoint any of you if I said that I may delay the test demo for one more week? I could probably get it out on time, but I cant help but feel that it'll be far from perfect. Crunch time here is making me miserable with worry. One more week would probably be more than enough time to get everything perfect for this release.

If I do delay it, that would move the release date from the 7th of this month to the 14th.

Opinions?

Hey, you're the expert on this. I'll leave it up to your judgement. If you think it's worth it to wait, then go ahead, but you better make the demo AMAZING!

>>18255
I'd be more than okay with a demo delay.
this game has me very intrigued, and I can't wait to see what you come up with and how it plays so if the demo is delayed I'm okay with that.

>>18255
I'm fine with it being delayed. Just do whatever suits you the best.

I haven't forgot about you guys. I just really haven't had anything to report on.

Progress is still progress and I've been getting things done but nothing really noteworthy :P

As far as news goes:

Due to popular opinion I will be delaying the 4th demo until the 14th. this will be the official release and the last ever delay. I promise. :P

And tomorrow I'm going home! If only this horrid weather from Tropical Storm Lee doesn't mess things up and we dont end up on the side of the road from hydroplaning (however the heck you spell it). :P any of y'all good christian bronies out there set me out a good prayer, k? thx

>>18586
Great, I'm going to eagerly wait for it so I can playtest it on the show.

>>18759
on the show? o.0?

>>18759
Ah, The Brony Show

sorry about that, since I've been busy working on this thing I seldom ever get around the community :3

anyway, it would be an honor!

Made it home yesterday. was a bit tired from the long drive so I took the day off.

today I'm spending a few hours trying to get Blitz Max to work on my mac and I'm trying to install Ubuntu to work on an old laptop so that I can have the demo ready for those platforms come next Wednesday :)

So far I do have the mac version up and running though the code seems to be having problems with the player x and y position at start-up. I'll have to tinker with it when the demo is ready for porting

Ubuntu is honestly being a pain when it comes to installing it on an old laptop but I hope to have it working within the next few hours

once those tasks are done I can then finally get back to working on the game full time!

Its great to be home again. n_n

I'm feeling a tab bit grumpy... and for good reason.

I'm still stuck trying to get BMax to function correctly on Ubuntu. I've worked with it for hours installing packages through a terminal and I finally had it working only to find out that because I was forced to use a dated none-Intel version of BMax that it wasn't going to build the game for testing for some very complicated reasons...

That's when I glanced over and saw that my little Eee Pc Netbook has Intel Atom. So now I'm working on installing Ubuntu to that laptop and then I'll try my hands at the more up to date BMax on that partition.

I'm grumpy because I've spent all that time trying to get the dratted software to run while I could had been coding the game... -.-

I really just want to have the demo ready for Mac and Linux when its launched next Wednesday... why does it have to be so gosh darn complicated?!?

well hopefully I'll get some code in tonight when all this nightmare is done and over with. :P

Have a sad Pinkie Pie for my suffering.

BEHOLD! my crappy attempt to combine two images together...

from left to right:
1. EeePC Netbook running BlitzMax in Ubuntu
2. behind the netbook:
- two gamepads
- empty Lipton Green Tea bottles
- a fake PSP that runs emulators (hidden)
3. My 12th cup of coffee and three boxes of mint gum
4. Acer 5000 Laptop running Blitz Max on Windows XP
5. A wireless keyboard sitting on top of the Acer
6. Wireless mouse and behind it a real PSP and Nintendo 3DS
7. a 3rd generation PowerPC running BlitzMax on Mac 10.3.9 "Panther"
8. sitting on top of PowerPC is a Wacom Bamboo tablet (best tablet at a cheap price! :D )

you are looking at the new and complete work station being used to work on Spike's Quest.

All three major platforms just now got 20% cooler in 10 hours flat.

/)^ɛ^(\

>>19108

NEEDS MORE BOTTLES OF TEA

>>19108
Damn that is an awesome setup. Your demo's coming out in a week, new season is coming out soon, Listening to awesome fan music... Life is good this month.

I wanted to play the new Star Fox 3D today but it seems my local Wal Mart wont have it til Monday... :(

oh well, On to the news!!!111one

Progress progress progress and MOAR progress :3

Yesterday was a very eventful day. Moving platforms, and the such.

If I keep going at this rate then the demo should totally be ready to meet its deadline.

I'd tell y'all more but I dont want to spoil much.

Let me just say that Demo #4 might be huge when its ready.

Oh, and the game looks awesome on Linux :3

Something wicked this way comes ;)

>>19256
And all of a sudden I hear a ringing of choir Angels.

I've actually been working almost nonestop on this demo. Its already pretty dang huge and I'm not even half done with it yet... :P

Is it normal for a game's test demo to become an actual game itself? 'cause that seems to be the actual case here... I actually have high hopes that somepony might even do a LP of the darn thing. Yeah, its that big. Or I'm just over exaggerating my hard work here :P

But indeed... working nonestop here with the occasional hourly break where I sit down to my Netflix to watch Kevin Sorbo beat the living stew out of mythological creatures.

I wont be updating much between now and release day. Let me point out that even though it is scheduled to be released on the 14th I actually aim to have it finished and ready the day before (the 13th for those who cant count) I want to see this thing released early in the day and hopefully get an early spot on EqD with it.

There's also rumor that it might get played on the Brony Show. not sure about the specifics on that (one of the nice chaps posted in this thread earlier a few days back about it. but that's all I know...)

Anyway, it's 2:36 in the morning and I've been up since 7 yesterday morning coding and putting together graphics.

yeah. my brain hurts.

dag nabbit I STILL have a good ways to go!

>>19482
Oh there's still plans to do it. We'll probably play it next episode and show it off, since this episode is only hours away. However I'm still looking heavily forward to it with eager giddiness.

>>19673
hey, awesome! I'll be tuning in :D just let me know when the show is. I'll be at my computer pretty much that whole day so shoot me a line!

Oh, RockStar Sugar Free Energy Drink™ dont fail me now! Your my only hope against the ongoing wearyness that beckons me to stop working! The project must go forward! Coffee is losing its touch and green tea has become like normal water to me... Push me onward RockStar Sugar Free Energy Drink™ and help me to finish the task at hand!

Curse you Star Fox 3D with your fantastic 3D graphics on my 3DS for being so tempting. You tempt me to stop my work so I can play with you for hours no end. But I have defeated your cunning! I MUST ENDURE!

...

Oh great. Now I'm talking to inanimate objects. Have I become Pinkamina? God forbid.

The demo is coming along just fine though :) I have two days to get everything functioning, get the packages built for all three of the os's and set up promotional stuff to e-mail EqD and post on random forums

this is going to be one hell of a week... at least until the 14th which then I hope to just be sitting at my computer repeatedly hitting the f5 button to read comments.

Onwards I must go!

>>19681
Well the show today is at 6PM PST - 9PM EST. We run the show every Monday and the link to the livestream can be found at http://thebronyshow.net

>>19693

If a demo is ever released the same day as season 2 premiere, it would be the BEST DAY EVER

>>19727
are you actually suggesting I delay the demo for 2 more days? o_O

'cause its actually tempting...

>>19729
You know what? Do it. Don't think just do it, and don't bring Spongebob to sing that song.

>>19779
I came on to ponychan to find this thread and beg you to release a preview video of your work so far.

But I like the idea of delaying it another 2 days if you need a day or so to wind down. From your home pics I can see you've been hitting the energy drinks pretty hard. xD

Take a day off. Watch some Ponies.

So a nice brony here on Ponychan suggested that it would be awesome for me to release the demo on the day MLP Season 2 airs... it would in a sense... make that day 20% more cooler

and so I've decided that it was a good idea.

I now have two extra days to cram as much into this demo that I possibly can.

For those of you who might be a bit disappointing by this little delay be of good cheer! I'll be releasing a video shortly with a short preview of what's to be expected :) and the extra time means a great deal.. trust me!

anyway, its 4:03 in the morning... I'm only going to allow myself just a few hours of sleep before starting back up work again

if anypony is worried about my well being here.. worry not. I'm only pushing myself this hard just for this demo release. I want it to be exceptionally good to everypony here since y'all had to wait so long.

>>19790

This is a good idea for a lot of reasons, the biggest one is you having more time to work at your own pace without feeling so stressed for having to rush to reach a deadline.

Get your rest, get your sleep and after you release the demo, get your free internets.
Lots and lots of them.

>>19790
Why am I reminded when a game I really wants to play gets pushed back...

...well I guess only one pic can express my feelings on this

>>19810
I could always reconsider the option :P

>>19810
it seems your not the only pony here who's not happy with the delay. also somepony kindly pointed out that by releasing it on S2 day would risk having everypony forget about Spike's Quest...

...

I'm so confuzzled right now :/

well, I'll do what I must do. the delay is cancelled the demo will be released tomorrow

the video bit was being a problem anyway. I cant get camstudio to record at a decent speed. I should be spending that time working instead of fixing recording speed issues :P

now to double the effort in getting the demo ready!

>>19812
Personally I was just kidding about that, I'd deal with the delay. But yeah, I think you might have a hard time being heard when everypony would be going nuts over the new episode that day. Sorry to burst your bubble man, but think of it this way. Gives bronies something to do to pass time quicker and funner before Saturday

>>19812
I'm the one which posted that thing just to make you even more unsure xD

Hahahaha sooooo TROLLED

I know your kind, and jesus, you people(creators) get waaayyy too easily confused and unsure on what to decide xD, stick with your first option, make it as good as possible for showing it to the fans(omg i'm giving orders luulllz)

>>19817
OhU. 9_9

I'll get you back... in the demo! >:D

You know a developer is desperate when he/she installs the coffee pot at his/her work station..

lol

well poo.. I'm stalling!

I just about need a hawt mistress with a whip to keep me in line. Anypony got one in hand?

I'll just say it flat out... I really, truly dont know when this thing will be ready. believe me when I say I've been awake since 9:00am yesterday morning working on it (and before that I only had an hour or two of sleep)

I'm groggy as heck... I've got plenty done no doubt but I still cant shake the feeling that it wont be ready before this evening. ... one thing... there's a problem with it slowing down gradually while playing it and I don't know if its a memory leak in the code or what...

I'm just asking y'all to bear with me on this... you will get this demo one way or another, even if I have to publish it unfinished...

I'm gonna go get some sleep now. I'll start working on it again whenever the heck I wake up. :P

How much time do you have on your hands o_O?!

>>19944
More than enough. I work a weekend shift at a factory as a data collector (where I sit at a computer all night for 12 hours straight inputting numbers) so I have the whole week to do what I like

Ever read up on how much of a pain it was for the developers of Sonic X-treme to develop the game? They pretty much worked themselves to the point of exhaustion.

This kind of reminds me of that. I'm looking forward to this game big time because Metroidvania style games are my favorite. But I wish maybe you'd give yourself some more time and take a break. I would much rather you get the rest you need and release a good demo then rush one out and drive yourself insane in the process.

That is just my 2 anonymous cents.

I need one more day, guys. Just one more...

I'll be pulling another all nighter (plus the rest of this day) to get it done and I hope to have it ready in the very early morning hours. like around 1 in the morning... yeah.

Have mercy! D:

>>19952
I should actually take your advise. but I've delayed this thing like 4 times already.. plus the one delay I just pulled just now..

augh!

I just dont want you guys to lose faith in this thing

Okay, guys, you may hate me for this or you may respect me for it.

I've decided this whole deadline thing is really just killing me

how about I just release the darn thing when I feel its good and ready?

it may take a day or two but at least it will relieve the pressure off me and I can work in total freedom

now this wont mean that I'll be getting lazy on you guys. I'll be working hard at it. but these all nighters are just stressful and I'm sick of worrying about it.

opinions?

>>19960
I'm okay with that. I know it's a pain to try and meet a deadline and if it ends up affecting the quality of the work I'd rather not have a deadline at all. Besides I can be patient.

Whenever you're ready is great with me. Besides, I'll be occupied with "other stuff" this weekend.

>>19953
Respect.

Do what you think you need to do so this game is exactly what you want.
We're only here to enjoy Spike's Quest when it reaches the point you want to share it.

Y'all at least deserve a nice little screenshot ;)

so much has been accomplished. I almost regret to think that its not even done yet!

I'll just leave this right here and hope to god that it actually works for everypony...

http://www.bullockarts.com/miscjunk/S.Q%20Test%20Demo%20%234/

>>20230
Working good on my windows machine. Now to test the demo...

You, sir, are awesome.
You also need a homepage for this game so people could post feedback and donate internets to you.

>>20230
Beat it! The windows version worked fine for me.

It was fun. I found most of the containers pretty easily, but the two that require you to go through the same hidden place took me a while. Also, I see you like Link's Awakening. Wasn't expecting to see that puzzle there.

There didn't seem to be a full screen mode. That or a stretchable window would be nice, the game is pretty tiny on my monitor.

That aside, I didn't find anything worth criticizing about. Good job on the game so far.

Awesome game. I really enjoyed it. I felt that metroidvania vibe while looking for the harder containers.

Also that one parasprite room is pretty great. When I got the secret item and attempted to travel back to the flag, I'm not sure if it was intended that I fell in there again somehow. I was spamming the up key in front of the door (because the sound effect will repeat if you keep doing that) and it looked like I glitched through a wall and fell into the room.

It could have been intended though..I just looked away for a second and I was in there!

Over all, I think its great.

Obvious meme is obvious

But it was awesome. I can't wait for more and more of this!

>>20270
Hey, are you still gonna do a playthrough on the show? if you are let me know when!

also have you got any messengers?

here my handles if you do:

skype: avesthefox
msn: avesthefox@hotmail.com
yahoo: avesthefox
aim: avesthefox

thanks!

>>20230

In the follow the signs room, I encountered a very minor problem (for me). If you hit up again while you are reading a sign, it will still do the interaction. So I would be reading one of the signs, and since I'm used to hitting the interaction button to continue text, I would hit up again instead of z, and I would have to start over.

The Demo was Great! I love what I see and I want more (but don't rush yourself on my part).

>>20243
I should remind y'all that there is a Dev Blog :3
http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/
your internetz are greatly apreciated :D

Since the release of Demo #4 I've taken the time off to try and just enjoy myself. Yesterday I spent the free time treating myself to the China buffet across the street from my apartments (my fortune cookie said I looked 'pretty'... lolwat?!?) and then I went for a short little nature walk and then the rest of the day I continued marathoning the complete series of Kevin Sorbo's Hercules while periodically checking every website that I submitted the demo to (so far the most comments on it have come from here and Ponychan, elsewhere it hasn't been very popular) :P

There have been quiet a few bug reports. thankfully not as many as Demo#3 last month. (one person reported that he thinks the file is infected and he cant seem to delete it... but there's only been one report of that... rest assured!)

And the feedback so far has been 100% positive from bronies and none-bronies alike ;) Many people have played it and got the best ending too which pleases me! (I was worried that I might had made the heart piece search a bit too tough in some areas)

The demo will have a spot in Equestria Daily's 'Nightly Roundup' and there will be a Let's Play of it on in Monday's Brony Show (http://bronyshow.com/) so I still have hope that it'll attract some kind of attention. :)

but the demo being popular or not... the game will continue to progress! I swear to all my fellow bronies that I will continue to work hard on this game and I will make sure it meets completion!

So... for today?

More time off! It is Pony day after all! :D Season 2 is here y'all!

I'll begin work again come Tuesday. I've already got quiet a todo list developed for test demo #5.

Hahahaha i see what you did there ;D

>>20361
And what was that my paraspritific friend? ;3

  A VERY special thanks and shoutout to SWFlash here for this wonderful playthrough! A warning though, if nopony has played the demo yet, this thing will spoil the heart locations. just a slight warning if you'd rather find them yourself!

Enjoy the demo either way! All playthroughs I know of will get special mentions here! :D

>>20357
Wrong site! That's the website for the Bronyville podcast!

Our site is http://thebronyshow.net. Sorry about the confusion.

  Another nice little play-through with funny ramblings! Check t out!

I've been enjoying my time off. Spent much of that time frequently checking forums, websites and youtube for anything related to the project. so far not much aside from the couple of simple LP's of the demo (which I've documented here)

I'll have to admit, I'm a tad disappointing about the response. true I did enjoy the attention that it did get (and I am very thankful to all of you for sticking with me through the making of it) but I guess I got my hopes up way too high.

For one thing my biggest dissapointment was the EqD post. Dont get me wrong, I love and respect Seth and Cerial for posting my stuff (when I request it).. the disappointment really comes from the timing of the post. the 100th Nightly Roundup of EqDaily got flooded with comments about the latest episode of My Little Pony and the excitement about episode 2 as a whole. All the projects (including Spike's Quest) in the roundup were simply ignored. Overshadowed by our beloved Ponies. I would had gladly joined in with the celebrations if not for my utter disappointment...

But it made me thankful that I didnt wait to release the demo right at that time. or else the demo would had probably been left in the pit of forgetfulness where nopony would had cared to touch it as much as they'd prefer to celebrate the second coming of Ponies.

Despite my disappointments I still feel the urge to keep moving forward with the project. The fandom is still strong and so the purpose of this project is equally just as strong! The few comments I did get about it were all positive comments with good critiques and bug reports. And its that type of attention that urges me on. That and how far the project has come!

When I first posted about the project in Ponychan it was nothing more than a concept. a Metroidvania style game involving our beloved baby dragon, Spike who sets out on a quest to rescue his pony friends. And in the duration of a whole three months that concept evolved into an actual reality! The 4th test demo so far was one of my most greatest accomplishments in game design! And I guess I can say that its one of my first successful games ever created (yes, I'm counting this demo as a completed game ... in a way)

And now my attention has shifted to the sequel of that 'game'. Test Demo #5 I imagine will take the engine several steps further to the actual real game! I see in the future of my hard work: wall sliding and jumping, monkeybars, Donkey Kong style barrel canons, bending bridges, Zelda type items, keys and locked doors, more brilliant puzzles and so much more!

We may even be seeing the end of the old beta tileset (the sci-fi dungeon scenery used in these past four demos) as I plan to begin working on the actual in game tilesets, setting sceneries for the caverns, Ponyville, the forests and other things to be named. And when those tilesets are good and ready I'll launch a sub project that other people can contribute to. And that would be the in game music.

Anyway, that's all the ramblings I have here. As always, stick around and I'll keep updating as I have always been doing! :) These next few weeks are going to be exciting ones!

PS. if you make a play through of any of the demos I ask that you please send me a link so I can add them to the LP list here in the blog! Much thanks! :D

Oh, so you're Avesthefox on the bb.com forums that spotted Applejack in my 2D illumination thread!

That explains a lot. You're game looks fantastic by the way. I haven't gotten around to play it yet, but the video looks really good.

Rotaty platforms?! Ohgoshohgosh this is getting so awesome, way to go =D

>>20517
Yeah, your 'Nopony' on the bb community, right? I recognized you there because you've posted here before about it. That illumination demo looked fantastic btw! :D

I have been soooo tempted to cut my little break time short and get back to coding! There's so many new things I want to add to the engine, that and newer graphics and some other really awesome things :3

For one, I anticipate working out the working mechanics of a simple bending bridge! I almost had it figured out once upon a time but I never really applied it to a platformer. This is my big chance!

I'm only continuing my break because later this evening The Brony Show will be hosting a live LP of Demo 4 (http://thebronyshow.net./) and I decided I'd wait until after that moment to resume work on the game.

So indeed, yeah. Production will resume tomorrow!

PS. It seems they did something on Demo #3 a couple months back too.. I've been meaning to check it out.

Don't be afraid to hide containers and items in "difficult" places.

Part of the fun in these type of games is searching every nook and cranny for items and secrets.

I played the demo and I really enjoyed it. I haven't really ran into any major glitches or design flaws yet.

>>20639
Depends on how your bendy bridge should look, but a very simple verlet integration algorithm will usually give good results. It's easy to implement and very cheap calculation time wise

I'm posting this update rather early (before bed) so I wont be so forgetful about things if I were to post it sometimes tomorrow.

First up, The Brony Show!

Test Demo 4 had a nice little short segment of the show last night. Short and sweet, Circuit Mane had some nice words to say about it and I rather enjoyed the humor of the stream's chat while he played it :3 I sorta wish there was more of it on the show but they had plenty of other news and a stream of this weeks MLP. Still, I give them my greatest of gratitude by promoting them on my blog and the Ponychan thread. Thanks guys!

If somepony has never seen their show then I highly recommend you go check it out! http://thebronyshow.net./ they host their shows every Monday at 6pm pacific, 9pm eastern. and if you've missed out you can always watch the recorded streams whenever they're released.

Now on to the maine news.

Me being the CRAZY pony that I am (according to Circuit Mane himself) shall resume work on the project tomorrow! First order of business: to piece together the config file for the game. It wasn't included with Demo 4 because after the switch from Blitz 3D to Blitz Max I had to completely redo it and I honestly have not given myself the time to even do that yet. The config system will allow you to set the control buttons (via keyboard or gamepad) set the screen size and maybe even adjust music and sound volumes. Once I have that working then I shall begin working on the bendie bridge mechanics.

So much to do! And I can hardly wait to do it!

Stay tuned!

Several years ago, back before the internet was popular and I was still in middle school I remember playing a game for the SNES. The Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Rings Part 1 was its label and I both hated and loved it. I loved it only for its brilliant music, its beautiful yet nostalgic graphics and the overall atmosphere of the first couple of areas.One of the major settings was the caves, and it was this setting that intrigued me the most! They were dark, dank and the sounds were distant and echeoy with the occasional distant thud and dripity drops of water. They actually made me feel like I was exploring a mysterious cave system. I especially loved how the lighting system worked in these caves. the closer you got to the big central torches the brighter your player's sprite became! It looked as if you truly were stepping out of the shadows! Oh, if only the game were so graceful in every other element of its existence. But the massive flaws of this game is not why I'm writting this post.

I've always wanted to recreate that feeling of mystery and brilliant nature in my own game, and here comes along Spike's Quest, a game I've come a long way in developing, and thus comes my chance to do work some magic!

I imagine the game starting out with Spike falling through a large hole in the cavern roof and landing with a splash in a small lake. In this one large room there are several pathways but only one you can access as the others would require special items or upgrades to advance through. There would be a couple of large stone lanterns to light certain portions of the cave (and an outside light from the hole in the roof) Also in this particular room there is no music, just the distant creepy echoes of drip drops and the occasional thud. There'd also be a couple of pesky bats waiting to swoop and attack our hapless baby dragon their annoyed squeeks actually echoe along with Spike's movement. Oh, and Pinkie Pie is caged here too which she'll clue you in on some things, but that's getting off topic... anyway, once you leave this area and head into the next, the music actually starts to fade in with a nice brilliant haunting theme.

Yes, I want this game to have an actual atmosphere in music, sound and visuals.

Doesnt that just sound glorious?

I've quickly thrown together a simple YouTube channel for the purpose of showing off development work and an occasional trailer! Now to install cam studio and tinker with that for a few hours :P

http://www.youtube.com/user/spikesquest

Be sure to subscribe if you dont mind the occasional boring development videos :P

Nothing much new on production as I've been kinda side tracked by some personal things. Expect something cool soon though!

  Progress so far includes a smoother jump/fall engine and an almost functioning bendy bridge (coded entirely from scratch). The jump bit may not seem evident in the video but now when the jump variable reaches 0, instead of the abrupt fall speed the fall variable now increases from 0 to the max fall speed which makes a perfect jumping arc. also Spike's in the air longer. As for the animation, it may not also seem evident in the video but its there, smoothing the transition from jump to fall :)

the bendy bridge as you could probably tell is still a work in progress and has been so far the biggest headache in development. I hope to get it smoothed out soon and applied to the main engine.
Wish me luck!

>>21076

I played the demo and it was quite fun. However, the style and "feeling" it gave to me was quite familiar and it wasn't until today that I could put my finger on it.

It greatly reminded me of these Fantastic Dizzy games I used to play on my first computer, so congrats: if this is the kind of level you could achieve on your hoof demo, then I can't wait to see what else will you achieve on future projects.

  Today's update is a short and simple showcase of a functioning bending bridge system. Not only do the bridges bend but you can also manually fall through them like you can the blue platforms. It may not seem like much but I've spent several hours trying to figure this darn thing out! So enjoy this short video of me bouncing around on the things as if they were trampolines!

In other news, I've decided that once Spike's Quest is finished I plan on taking the engine and using it to make something entirely original! So all yee naysayers out there who criticize me for not being original with this game go boil yer heads! :D (this could also mean I could somehow profit with this engine if used properly.(and by original, I mean not a fan game based off a certain franchise... My OWN ideas dawgs!))

>>21175
I should add, that last bit about profiting?

I was kidding! I totally like to make freeware stuff :3

honestly!

There's a new Boss Battle Log added at the Blog!

you can check it here:
http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/09/game-boss-log-phantom-discord.html

New blog post contains multiple images not particularly related to the game, so I'll just throw in a link to it instead of copy/pasting it today

http://spikeqdev.blogspot.com/2011/09/9-24-11-procrastination-can-be.html

Oh, and this weeks episode was fricken EPIC!

I love Metroidvania type games and Spike is my favorite character, so obviously I am loving this project so far! It's so interesting to get a peek into a games development from pretty much the ground up.

And since you started talking about the bosses, mind if I throw an obvious idea your way? Basically, a Hydra fight, you fight a few individual heads in separate rooms as mini bosses and then later on the whole thing.

> Web service used to store test demos exceeds bandwidth limits
> Contacts the guy who hosts service requesting bandwidth upgrade
> He obliges and then finds out the cause of Bandwidth limit break
> Asks me about the license of the content and feels it could put his service at risk
> I explain to him that the franchise and the company it belongs to doesn't mind
> feels somewhat embarrassed about the game's content and feels obligated to explain the fandom
> writes a huge block of text explaining the fandom and why I'm in the 'herd'
> still waiting for a response with huge knot in stomach
> also hopes he doesn't go blab to my sister or outside friends about it

Is it wrong for me to feel so... ashamed to be a brony right now? :(

In other news I've got more work done on the game and was going to put up a video but the current circumstances has me questioning my bronydom... I hope this feeling fades before morning!

>>21506
I would be really sad if this project died for such a silly reason. It seems you're on your way to making something genuinely awesome. If you got sick of making it or real-life stuff came up that would be understandable, but to stop because you're worried what people might think of you?

>Is it wrong for me to feel so... ashamed to be a brony right now? :(
Eff anypony who makes you feel ashamed for something you love. Seriously. There's only one person whose opinion of you is important: You.

Anyways, I'm loving what I've seen so far of the project and I hope you don't get discouraged!

>>21506
Yeah its always tough admitting to somepony you don't think will understand. Just think about do you enjoy participating in the fandom? I know I do and I appreciate the love you're putting into it as well. Remember there's nothing wrong with liking a cartoon show. So keep your chin up and keep doing what you enjoy.

>>21511
>>21514

Thanks, guys! Those are some really encouraging words. :)

I love this fandom simply because of good people like yourselves.

I'll have that video up early in the morning, mark my words!

But I may need someplace else to host the test demos...

>>21516

You always could store your demos on a mediafire account (you can create folders and browse through them at will) if your current host is being an plot.

>>21527
Well he's not being a plot, really. I'm just respecting his concerns about copyrights and stuff like that.

I think I've tried Mediafire before and it gave me problems, but I may give it a second chance. :P

  Today's video showcases the bomb and the bomb blocks which I think looks totally cool while in action!
I may even make a few little Zelda style secret doorways that you have to bomb to gain access to. Just putting that thought out there for opinions, of course. :)

And in other (good) news, I've recovered from my little shame spell yesterday. The guy who hosts my web storage thought my brony explanation was pretty dang funny (in a good kind of way) and told me to think nothing of it. And with that bit of news I can feel rest assured about continuing to host the test demo downloads at that domain!

I is a happy brony! :D

Can't wait for a volcano run scene, where you run from the exploding bombs to reach the exit.

Btw, will the environment ever change, per levels?

>>21620
yeah, this environment was really just created for test runs, but the original game will have different locals :)

Posting a late blog post tonight as there's not much to update on (but I should try to keep y'all updated regardless) At the moment I'm trying to figure out a way that I can apply a shademap to each of the in game maps. If I somehow succeed in doing this I could add a whole new layer of atmosphere to the game. But right now I'm stumped on how to get this thing to work how I want it to...

For it to function properly, I need to somehow mask out the background so that the shademap would only affect over the foreground objects. BlitzMax does have some pretty advanced masking commands but I'm just not sure how to apply them properly. So currently I'm seeking help with this from the Blitz Community. Its all very slow going atm :P

I hope to get more things done tomorrow! So stay tuned.

THIS BETTER NOT END UP AS ANOTHER LUNA GAME REMAKE!

>>21801

Did you even read the thread?

>>21801
what is this Luna Game that you speak of? o.o I've never even heard of it