Puppy!

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:53 am

Puppy! is a simple platform puzzle game, similar to kula world/ gem hunter. It features its own level editor, original score and 20 playable levels

OpenGL doesn't work 100% on some cards (due to a bug in irrlicht), but when the next version comes out I'll update it.

Tell me what you think!

Download Puppy v.9 Here (7.35MB) / win XP/ NT installer

Update from .87 to .89

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:47 am

*Clap clap clap*

Ok, I loved kula world back on the PSOne demo disk, that thing rocked, and so does this. Let me give you a whole lotta feedback:

Pros:
- Very awesome in general, very well polished, sounds, menus, etc, and even an edit mode for kicks!
- All axis rotating camera, it must of been a mish to figure out all the upVector (Or view matrix, depending on what method you used there) stuff.
- Really cool spinning level thing when you win.
- Once again theres not much that I don't like in this.

Ok now I would really love it if you would take some of these ideas into consideration:
- Dynamic lighting on the dog, just a simple single directional light coming from a single direction can do WONDERS. (EDIT: Ok I just noticed there is lighting but its a little borked, It only kinda shows up when I'm at weird angles, might wanna look into that.)
- Use EMT_REFLECTIVE_2_LAYER or similar on the "shiny" gem type things, it'll make them look a million times better, usually just applying the top texture of the current skybox as the second texture layer is more than enough for this sort of things.
- When you win the level and it does a fly around view, the dog is intersecting with the "winning cross", I think you should make the cross invisible when you do this view so it doesn't look weird, and just kinda looks like the dog is chillaxing after beating the level without it's vital organs getting skewered. Also for the actual metal skewer things a better kill animation etc would be great but that's probably on your todo list already.
- Last and most importantly, the level, the boxes etc, are just way too dark, this is the biggest thing I would like to get changed. If you look at the levels in kula world the boxes are bright yellow/oranges. I mean it's good that you have lighting but it really should be alot brighter, because it makes an otherwise lively cute puppy jumping game rather depressing.

Funny random stuff:
- When you jump off when you're upside down he falls *up*. Heh.
- The metal skewer things look a bit deadly/graphic for this type of game.

It's fantastic to see this kind of stuff coming out of NZ

You can even pull this off as shareware if you change those few things I pointed out I reckon.

Cheers

JP · Post by JP » Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:33 pm

One question i have is why do you ask what driver to use during installation? Does it install DX stuff if that's chosen?

The menu screen really starts to chug on my pc when the lens flare effect comes on... that might be something to look into...

In fact it just chugs in general... what on earth are you doing to make it so slow? Looks like there's nothing that should slow it down effects wise... Very unplayable on my PC which is actually quite powerful.

fmx · Post by **fmx** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:26 pm

really cool!
Works perfectly on my system (OpenGL).
The only thing I'd suggest you try to fix ASAP is the lighting, not only on the pup but also the levels.

keep up the great work!

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:27 pm

yes, realy good !!!

but I have a problem with the items you'll have to collect (diamonds and keys):

is it correct that the items are placed under the ground (boxes you're walking on) or in free space ???

I have no clue how to reach them !?!?!

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:09 am

HAHAHA Try walking forward dude, the map will tilt and you will be walking sideways, that is the whole point of the game

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:21 am

Blindside: thanks for all your help, it's made the game a lot better

Download v.85 here (7.33MB) / XP installer

I've played around with the lighting properties of the puppy and so far nothing has made it better. I'm hoping when irrlicht 1.5 comes out Xeffects wont return streams of errors so I can add shadows (just one orographic shadow from the sun)

Sadly it wouldn't help people with no pixel shaders or using software, so I might have to rethink this option.

JP: During installation, if you select DX/OG/Software during setup it will store it in the settings.conf file (in the puppy install folder). It works for me, but your box might be different, so make sure the driver = 3. If it's not please tell me

Please tell me if you find any more bugs, I'd like to get rid of them

JP · Post by JP » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:00 am

I wouldn't make the user choose their driver during installation, or at least document a way of changing it later. A lot of gamers won't know what the different drivers entail and so should be advised to try other ones if the game doesn't work well with their choice and reinstalling isn't the best way of changing the driver really.

When in the menu i clicked Edit Mode by mistake and found no way of getting back to the main menu, that might be something to consider, you shouldn't get stuck down an avenue in a menu.

Ok now i'm in the options menu i see that you can change the driver there too, good work but i would suggest leaving the driver choice out of the installation and just have OGL as default or something.

Changing to DX9 improved the performance to a playable level to me. SO it looks pretty good!

I think the camera orbits for too long after finishing the level and it's not necessarily clear what's happening, do i have to do something then? The keys still moved the puppy, maybe they shouldn't at that point?

How do i quit a level? Can i get back to the main menu? Esc did nothing, could be nice to have a pause menu pop up there or something.

So yes, good job torleif, a nice project!

sudi · Post by **sudi** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:03 pm

really nice game.

but one thing. in a later level there is the box with a exit floating in space. and i don't get how to reach it.

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:04 pm

BlindSide wrote:HAHAHA Try walking forward dude, the map will tilt and you will be walking sideways, that is the whole point of the game

ROFL, I see, I tried to jump to them !!!

I must admit I don't know the game(s) (kula world/ gem hunter)...

YEAH, great game !!!

But another thing: when you're in game there is no "quit"/"back to menu" function, like pressing escape, or am I again missing something ???

ehenkes · Post by **ehenkes** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:49 pm

*Clap clap clap*

The only thing I do not understand is how to jump to a box more than one space distanced. There should be a hint how to achieve this target.

ESC does not operate. There should definitely be an option to stop the music, because it could be boring to listen to the same sound all the time.

Great game! I would like to see the source code.

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:33 pm

also a nice feature would be a save function, so you don't have to start at the beginning every time...

sudi · Post by **sudi** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:43 pm

ahh now i got it. really cool. i played through it in like 15 minutes.

ehenkes · Post by **ehenkes** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:07 am

The only thing I do not understand is how to jump to a box more than one space distanced. There should be a hint how to achieve this target.

I have got it, really nice feature.

I think, the 90° rotation is to fast for the brain. Think of people beaming the picture to a wall. You should really smooth it a little bit.

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:18 am

In version .87 I made the things most people wanted: a save function and an escape button. Pressing escape gives you a menu where you can save/ resume/ exit

If people play through it in 15 minutes, thats a bit short. my target for v1 is 50 levels. Which seems a bit modest, but people would probably get sick of it before then.

I'll remake levels, and add a hint on how to jump to boxes more that one jump away also an option to turn off music