CDN Speedgame 2018

Since my Christiandevs username: Bugala was already taken, I decided to take a name that I have been many times thinking would be excellent for making commercial games: GamesForFun. Not only would it give you an instant positive feel, but it also has nice soundbite in gamesforfun.com, but unfortunately that ones already taken, hence i have half abandoned the name already, but figured I could at least use it once for this Speedgame to see how it feels.

This year I decided to take a bit different approach to game design. In previous years I was usually waiting for the verses and trying to figure out something based upon the verses, but this year I had specifically two different game mechanics I wanted to give a try, and I was basically waiting for the verses to find out which mechanism I would be using and building the game around that.

After seeing the verses, it seems quite clear which mechanism I should try, hence my game is basically to be classified as Educational game.

I have had several Educational game idea for several years already with the approach that they wouldnt be your typical educational games where some of the fun is traded for education, but instead, these educational games would be aimed at gamers. Now I am not saying that there isnt any tradeoff in fun to education, for there is, but just that I am aiming at much less of an tradeoff than what i have seen in other educational games.

This particular educational game that I am planning to do to this speedgame, is perhaps one that has the least tradeoff, hence it will be interesting to see what other think when they play it.

Idea is to teach bit of AI and programming to the player.

To this speedgame, I am going to take the easiest and less imaginative road and story will revolve around robot fights.

You will be controlling a robot (or robots, if i get far enough), and you are fighting in robot fight arenas. Thing is, the battles are going to be automated, during the battle there is nothing you can do. But before the battle, you will be programming the AI for your Robot.

This will be done in very simple steps, both to make it accessible to player, but also since it might be easier for me to make it that way too.

Basically my current plan is that the first fight be where there is robot right in front of your robot, and what you have to do, is to tell your robot by default to move forward, if not able to move forward, then shoot.

Next level you will get small step further, this time there be robot not directly in front of you, but there be L shaped corridor, where on one end of L is you, other end the other robot. Hence you now take your program, and add one more option, basically something like:

10 Move forward

20 If blocked go to 30 else Go to 10

30 Shoot

40 turn right

50 Go to 10.

This basically the idea.

During the game you will get chips, chips which let you control your gun separately, make it possible you to identify what is in front of you and stuff like that. I do have plans for much further like more than one robot under your control, and you would have this "state" option to control your robots, and robots could even send messages to each other. For example Robot 1 sees enemy in front, then he send to closest ally robot a message "enemy at x,y" at which point robot 2s "state" changes into "Help Ally hunt enemy" and this "Help Ally hunt enemy" code would be used until this state is cancelled.

However, I dont expect to get very far in just two weeks, hence I am just taking one step at a time, and hope to get this one robot system at least somewhere reasonable and at least currently I am not going to think the 2 or more robots system at all, since I might not get there.

Graphicswise I am thinking either to keep it very simple to concentrate on getting the game more complete in sense of concept game, or perhaps ask someone else to make graphics for me.

Christian Storywise I am thinking that Robots would be running the city by themselves with no humans around and most robots would be sceptical upon existence of such things at all and thinking they are just myths, and there could be arguments between robots about how they have not been created but have originally evolved from simple metal forms like pans for example. But the main character either believes right from beginning, or is convinced that he needs to get connected with his creator and one way or other goes towards him. I havent decided if he finds him or not, but basically I am thinking there could allegorically be Holy Ghost in this game, in that each robot has inbuilt communication system which is either sending automatic messages set by people, or perhaps their actual creator is sending this message through this inbuilt radio system, but most robots would be ignoring it, but this players robot could spent some time tuning hes radio systems to get better reseption (tuning = praying).

So this is the current plan of mine. Basically trying out one of my commercial game ideas which i havent quite got complete in my head, but since speedgame is a good platform to just try out and see what comes out from some half done plan, I think this is perfect test ground for this idea to see if it is viable to be a commercial educational game or not, and perhaps along the way i can figure out those missing pieces how they should work in the final release, which i at this point havent figured out yet.

Burnerknight StudiosSubmitted6 years ago (1 edit)

Big idea here Bugala/GamesForFun (we've chatted a bit before on the CDN forums). Hope you can get some if not all done within the timeframe of the challenge! I really love the idea of tuning as praying. That could be a game mechanic in of itself!

Thats a great idea, i didnt even think of it being a game part itself, i was thinking it as part of story or a choice that player can make in "tune for one hour", but it would be great idea to actually have some tuning system there that player can himself be rsponsible for the tuning, have to think of that.

I have been giving some thoughts to the design of this game throughout the day while doing other things, and following things I have thought now.

1. I have now figured out how the story should work out from.. how would i say? mechanic point of view? Idea is that you are going to be doing those robot fights to get some money. That money is needed, so you can buy better radio equipment to hear that voice (remember the first post mentioning about tuning your radio transmitter as parable to prayer). That way there is clear way how the game goes forward. Your goal will be to buy better radio equipment, and naturally those equipment will be much more expensive than rest of the AI chips, so that you need to get to bigger league robot fights to get more money.

2. One of the problems that can come at game is, that neither side wins. Computers AI especially at beginning can be just to stand still, and player on the other hand might not be understanding the AI programming well enough, and it ends in situation where neither robot is able to destroy other, that both get stuck somewhere. I was wondering how to handle this. To have certain amount of turns in each battle or something, and determine winner based upon that, but i was wondering if that would create new kind of problems, say someone is able to figure out a way to make one damage at beginning of battle, and then stay hidden in some corner from computer robots and winning every time. Hence I figured that there will be surrender button that player can push. That way you have to every time actually win, but you can also surrender in case game gets stuck.

3. When losing/surrendering you will get some money too, this makes sure player does not get stuck because he cant afford to buy better/right chips. Of course there is the risk of someone abusing surrender system by starting fight, surrendering, starting fight, surrendering... to get little money fast. Hence I thought there either needs to be slow forced start animation, like robots entering the arena to make it too slow and painful to abuse the system to get little money fast, or, then i just let player do so. I guess i just let the player do it, after all, he is ruining the fun just fot himself if he does that.

4. There will basically be two kinds of levels: A. Destroy other robots, B. Get to some certain location. I was thinking of things like carry items, protect something, survive X turns, but I think I better keep it simple for the Speedgame, so maybe just these two.

5. To keep things simple for the speedgame, levels will contain only two kinds of squares: A. open squares, B. Walls. Basically I would like to have even more types, teleports and stuff, but better keep things simple for the Speedgame, I wont be having much time to spent on this one anyway, so better keep it pretty much to the minimum, and focus on what is important, which in this case is to develop the AI programming as far as possible, since that is the salt of the game.

6. Regarding Tuning, as BurnerKnight Studios suggested to have tuning as its own minigame, I was thinking what would be simple to make and fun enough system, i have come to conclusion at least for now. I will be using this mastermind minigame for the tuning part. It isnt much, but I think it will be fun break from all the fighting, especially since fighting might become bit monotonous because of a lack variety due to keeping it simple. Hence even it is not anything that exciting or creative, it will anyway give a nice break from the usual for the player, and, it should be easy enough to program it in only a little of time.

7. One thing I have been wondering is how to get the player to figure out the necessity to use GO TO as an option instead of for example manually executing each command in a row. For that I have now been thinking of an option, which i might use in some other levels too to force the player to use new systems. For I have been thinking that the first two levels are basically same. They be so that Robot can move only forward, and robot needs to reach a certain spot couple of squares front of him. Now in first level (which i think will be called tutorial actually), player will be clicking several "move forward" commands in a row to reach it. But next level I will introduce the player "GO TO" command, and to prevent him from using the multiple "Move forward" clicks, I will this time prevent him from using more than 3 lines of code. Which means he has to use "10 Move Forward", and "20 Go to 10" to get there.

8. I have also given some thought to the user interface and what it should look like. I think I will be using 50 x 50 squares in game, or left side of screen or somewhere, it will be showing the command lines and will be highlighting always which command is currently being executed. Similarly I have been thinking the programming interface that when you are on edit phase, when you click on one of the lines, it will make empty line between that and the next one, to show it clearly for the player where that next piece of code is going. I have also been thinking that as there are these "IF" condition kind of things, I will be using "On Error" command, which will always be attached to same line as the one going to go to "On Error" situation. Hence for example if you are trying to move forward, and you attach "On Error" to that one, then it means that by default the command tries to go forward, but if it is not able to execute the "go forward" command, then the "On Error" will happen. This is for two reasons: 1. Since game goes in turns, I dont think robot should need to stay still for one turn to figure out theres been an error, but instead, it can already do that on error part. 2. I also think it will be easier for non programmer players to understand how this works this way.

Day 3

Not that much progress today, more of sharpening my ideas.

I was originally thinking you would drag those AI chips to robots space, which would be limited, making you need to make decisions in way of deciding which is more important, possiblity to communicate with others, separate gun control, or better movement etc. which could have brought some interesting variety to game, but I now came to conclusion that 2 weeks just isnt enough for that much complexity, hence I decided it will simply be that you are buying upgrades to your robots AIs, and there is no space restrictions, that if you buy them all, then you have them all.

Also, I once again remembered John Bunyans holy war book, and it came to my mind that those radio parts you are aiming to buy, should be named the holy war way, that they will be something like Grace receptor, patience tuner...

I was also thinking there should some way be about robots building each other, so that the verse building each other would come included to the game. Finishing race is quite easy, basically those arenas are finishing the race, and following my steps comes from receiving radio message and following it etc.

Also was thinking about save game option. Due to game is planned to be short, basically I am aiming at 30 - 60 minute game time, since cant quite get this to go to less than 15 minutes due to this being educational one and the way it is, I figured there is no point in wasting time making any better save game system, but I will simply make autosave feature which saves the current level (however that is defined) and amount of money and acquired chip parts. Then if you quit the game, you can choose to either "Start new game" or "Continue". So only one save game. This could be problem if there are several wanting to play the game at same time, but I dont think that will happen, at most someone might take a quick look and not finish it on first run, but i dont think there really needs to be multiple saves, since it is quick enough to complete anyway.

Sounds interesting. I think combining robots and the Bible is a great combination.

Day 4:

First day when actual making is allowed. I didnt expect to make anything today yet actually, but then i thought i do some little and got bit carried away. In the end I got actually very far and I am now feeling quite positive that I will get something showable done in the time.

I already have title screen, intros, and started making the main play screen where you buy stuff and make your code etc.

Was able to get quite much done since i was reusing my code from my previous Speedgame. I am also using lots of hacks i notice to save some time.

So although everything is just text and white boxes, it is all there anyway coding wise. No need to worry if i have time to code the intro, as i already have the intro system in place, now I only need to figure out the intro. I am also feeling positive enough that in couple of days time i might be asking if some graphics artist wishes to join me.

Day 5:

Not much to write. Got forward okay amount, almost have the part there where player can code the AI. I hope to get that done tomorrow.

Day 6:

Got almost where I aimed to get today. Got almost the coding buying etc. systems working. Otherwise only very little work left, but I am finishing today at point i encountered a bug that I at this point dont yet know very well what is causing it, but its too late, so i go for bughunt rather tomorrow.

Designwise I have at least for now decided to set my bar very low on everything and mainly concentrate on getting this entry as a concept design try to find out if that game mechanic idea itself is fun or not. That will be my first goal, when that goal is satisfyingly reached (if i ever reach it satisfyingly during this time at all), then I will perhaps improve the play experience itself. Right now I have took lot of short cuts etc. which will affect the gameplay experience making it not so user friendly or fun as it could be.

Basically I would like to add a map where you could pick levels which to play,for i believe that would really make the game double the fun, but i doubt i will get that far, that will be one of the last things on my list to do, if there is time enough. Right now even stuff to be bought is just a list and if you buy one of them, there might come another thing to buy. It would very much improve the gameplay experience if player could see this tech chart kind of thing, that if i buy this, then that thing there would become available. Or even if not actual tech chart, just to get it so that next level stuff would appear more to right or something, or even give stuff on sale at random between levels or anything would make it more fun to play, but right now they are just there as a list, and unless there happens to be time, they will stay that way.

Lots of short cuts like that which will affect the gameplay experience negatively, but my main goal is to get the coding and AI part working, and even if interface isnt best possible, it should anyway show if the game idea itself is fun enough to perhaps consider of making a commercial game based upon the system.

DAY 7:

Today I used only quite little time for my speedgame. This naturally resulted in not as much happening as i had hoped. I had hoped to get arenalevel in place and some rudimentary robot movement as well, neither which happened yet.

However, After long hunt, i finally found the bug, fixed it, and noticed another bug. Finally got that one beaten too, and now the coding/buying screen is fully working, so that is good, a clear step done.

Tomorrow to the levelmaps and some movement based upon code i hope.

Day 8:

Once again I didnt get as far as i hoped, but it was partially since i made youtube videos and uploaded them in hopes of getting some graphics artist to make me some graphics. Posted a message to christian game developers artist forum to ask for them. Lets see if that yields any result, if not, then I will post a message to the general christian developers group.

However, I did get the level maps done anyway, although not completely. For most important part they are there, but i would have liked the robots to be placed still in there, as well target location to reach, but those didnt happen yet, but basically they are quite small tasks to do, just that youtube thing took so much time since my internet connection uploads real slow and keeps disconnecting all the time for short periods of time to make it even worse.

Tomorrow i hopefully get map fully in place for now, and robot moving based upon AI code.

Yeah, always hard to make the progress we want. Would be great to see screenshots of the maps!

DAY 9:

Robot is moving now according to AI code, although only one command implemented yet.

I also put speed controls in place so player can decide wether he wishes to see the fight in slow, normal, fast or fastest speed. There is also pause.

Fastest will do the fight as fast as your machine can do it.

Although I didnt use that much time today for actual coding, I am anyway quite satisfied to what i got done. Robot moves and got those speed controls in place too. So while was planning more commands implemented, on the other hand, I didnt expect to get those speed controls in place until later. Hence quite good progress.

Tomorrow I am going to be adding just more commands.

I am also realising that this is getting quite shaped up already from technical point of view. That more commands and that is most there is to be put anymore. I might use say next three days for more commands and then stop coding and make graphics, story etc. unless i can find someone else to make the graphics. So far no luck on that.

DAY10:

Very good progress today. Got all the commands done that i had hoped I would get, and got even more stuff done on top of that. I am also extra happy in achieving my days goal in sense that some of the things were bit difficult to get done, and yet I still got them all done.

Yesterday I was still planning in adding more commands vaguely for tomorrow and day after too, but now i see there is no sense in continuing adding commands at this point yet, since they are not that clear to see how they should be done. Rather, I will tomorrow concentrate on making levels technically forward which also means making some levels.

So basically I am hoping tomorrow to have the win condition and after happenings in place, and level changing and getting enough levels done that current commands would be in use, and favorably end to the point where i still need to make decisions and figure things out. Like one of the things is that while at beginning levels are simply complete level 1, move to level2, complete 2, move to 3, that however is not how i intend this game to be, since one of the points is that you need to get enough money from these fights to upgrade your robot with more commands and parts, hence it cant be that levels go in concecutive order, since what if you get stuck on one of them because you didnt buy the right parts? Hence there needs to be some sort of randomizing system in place, I am just not sure what kind it should be. But hopefully I will get to that point so I can figure out how it should be done in practice.

DAY 11:

I worked on my speedgame only somewhat small amount of time today, since i felt i had to take a break from it.

Despite that, I got quite nicely forward. Got the first level done so you can both quit and win it, and next level gets loaded etc.

I am quite satisfied what i got done today despite taking some break. Basically got everything else what i planned but more levels, but once again, i took a break, so im not disappointed, quite the contrary.

Yeah, sometimes stepping away is the best thing to do. Helps you get refreshed. But sounds like good progress. Any screenshots?

DAY 12:

Today I got okayish amount forward again, not what i planned basically, but that was since i sidetracked myself to otherthings and also used lot of time to make the coding part be much better and be able to handle much more complex code, but in the end I came to conclusion that oh yeah, i forgot to take that thing in to consideration...

Hence the end result is that I implemented partial complexity, some things might or might not work, but basically it clearly would take too much time to perfect it, and I am going to leave it as it is, and will insyruct players to not do some things. It is far from perfect solution, on some might consider that as a bug, but I would consider it as lack of time to make it any better, you can anyway do anything you want, you just have to do it certain way instead of the more elegant way.

My plan is also coming quite clear. Unless some graphician/musicians suddenly pops up, my plan is to code features for 2 more days, then from friday on it will be all about polish, which in this case means quite large thing, as it means things like graphics, music, sounds, font, and some that are actually even features.

So while i basically stop coding two days later, that is not quite true, i just stop coding actual features and technical things and concentrate on making things that i would describe belonging more to the polish department. Like I have came to conclusion that there should be a map or something, where there are always several levels available from which you can pick which one you wish to choose. That map doesnt exist currently, so i have to code it, but that goes to polish section, especially since it is somewhat simple system anyway.

This is also why i havent so far posted screenshots despite Kris requesting them, since i dont see much point in that in current state, when all the graphics are very much concept graphics, for example wall is a red rectangle while open space is a gray rectangle, and robots are badly drawn triangles.

But you can see little video i made couple of days ago in hopes of getting a graphics artist:

Jump to about 1 minute for it to start.

DAY 13:

This morning i re-evaluated my current plan and came to conclusion that instead of using next two days still for coding technical aspects, it would be more beneficial to start polishing already and then based upon this polishing (word polishing in unusually wide sense) I could along the way use some time for technical coding as it seems fit.

And this sure seemed to be the right choice, not because of figuring out what to do on technical side yet, but because I have clearly underestimated the time it takes to get graphics etc. in place. I started at morning to look for free graphics to use, and to my surprise, it was very difficult. I thought all i had to do was find one website with free gfx and write a "Robot" and i would get everything i need, just to pick which one i choose, but alas, this was not the case. I had spent whole day looking for robots and not with very good success. There are robots from sideview available quite good amount to choose from, but no one seems to be making them from directly up as i would need. I think I should have instead of looking for graphics to simply make them myself, might have saved time that way.

Needless to say, progress was not as good as i was expecting today due to this surprising difficulty in finding usable graphics.

However, I did find some that were fine enough. Not perfect, but does their job okay, and at least the game looks much better now that just with gray rectangle as open space, red rectangle, a wall.

Maybe I tomorrow even get to take some screenshot for Kris finally.

Which reminds me, any tips for graphic assets websites? Today I was mainly looking from opengameart.org, but there was surprisingly little content there in the end.

Ah I was going to suggest opengameart.org too, but I see you already tried it. I don't really know where else except maybe the GameMaker Studio marketplace. You might find assets there for free or for a small fee.

And you can use them regardless if you have gamemaker studio since they'll probably provide jpegs, pngs or actual Photoshop files. Give it a check.

Thanks for tip. I checked the free ones, but they didnt help. There was one Robot almost usable that actually looks more like a human than a robot in my opinion, I might even use it, if i cant figure out any other possibility. I think I will give it a try to draw myself, I was thinking if I use different coloring style than I usually use, I could make them quick enough, especially if i dont use any animation, which is a shame basically, since it would look much better having animation, but have to save time and skip that.

Didnt check the ones costing something since Speedgame rules forbid using payed content, although I do plan to break that rule a bit, since I have for example this Font collection which has 10 000 fonts and have cost me 19 USD when i bought it originally. But basically those are available for free too, it was just that they had collected these free fonts in handy collection to save time looking them online by paying.

Also, similarly i have bought soundfx collections before and plan to use sounds from those collections (havent put any yet). I think they might be available for free from somewhere basically too, but once again, takes too much time starting to look through online, rather stick to my own collection of sounds where i already have at least some idea what it consists of to save time.

So basically I am restricting myself to not buy anything during speedgame, but stuff that i have already bought before speedgame i am using.

I think you should be good if it's stuff you've bought before.

DAY14:

Did what I should have done already yesterday, took pen in my hand and drew the robots myself. I had forgot how much time it actually takes coloring those stuff. Also, took me a long time to figure out how to do thins the way i wanted in gimp. First robot basically failed a bit since i didnt know how to get the antialiasing off when scaling down, even worse, i had already colored that thing when i scaled it down, hence the effect is even more. However, i doubt players will notice much, perhaps they even think it looks better than the ones i made the way i wanted afterwards.

I now have two enemy robots done, one more to go, and that third one is drawn already, just not colored yet.

Then there is the players own robot, which i did some sketches but wasnt happy enough with any of them to actually use them. Tomorrow I hopefully get own robot right and all these regular graphics done so i can continue forward, this have already took me more time than i anticipated. Good thing i didnt continue writing features, or I would be in panic already from time running out. Now I dont need to panic, as I can simply scale my expectations down and try to make enjoyable game from what i already have.

Right now it looks like I wont be getting far enough that player would get to do actual AI vs AI fights, but instead, this will become more of a puzzle game.

Also, I was planning threre to be several of this tuners to be bought during game, but might be that i have to scale things down so that there might be only one tuner to be bought, but if things go smooth, perhaps i can still get to 2 tuners at least, that would be much more satisfying.

Basically progress is anyway good. It looks like this will become a game regardless, just might be smaller and having less than i was hoping. But most important is there anyway, which was to be able to test my educational game idea. Even it doesnt get to the full power at any point, it should be enough to see if people enjoy it or not.

On top of that, for long time i wasnt sure if this was going to be getting to be much of a game at all, but right now it looks like i should be able to scrap something out of this already that makes sense as a game, instead of something that was only half way done.

DAY 15:

Got all the graphics for characters done. I now have 3 enemies and main character + one animated explosion.

I am not very happy for the main character, it became too small on screen and didnt look good any more, it looks okay from sideviews (moving right or left) but doesnt look even okay when going up or down. Unfortunately I dont think i have time to start redoing it anymore, so i guess i keep it that way, which is a real shame since all the enemy robots got out better than i thought, but this, the most important one failed. Makes me even think of a possibility of switching one of the enemy bots with main character.

Tomorrow I plan to fix lots of small thing and get map in place, i have decided to take the map way for the game.

Hope I can get lot done tomorrow, since otherwise time is starting to be giving pressure.

Here is also finally a screenshot for Kris to show something: (Notice I still havent fixed fonts, maybe tomorrow that too)

Great to see some visuals on this! I like the graphics!

DAY 16

Some good progress was done today, although i basically hoped for more, but couldnt dedicate enough time today to get all the things done i had hoped.

Regardless, story graphics are about half way done, and font is selected and some more polishing have been done, as you can see from the new screenshot, which makes things look quite much different than yesterday.

It is hard to say at this point if I am able to make this a worthwhile game or not, or if this will be clearly showing that it isnt quite finished. Tomorrow I will know much better as I will do more polish and hopefully get maybe some sound and music in place too, unless i leave them until last day by purpose, since they are basically stuff that wont crash the game usually even when added in last minute.

Looking forward to trying this out, it looks likes it's coming together!

DAY 17

The second last day.

I got very good progress today. Although there was one thing in which i didnt get as far as i meant, which was on mapscreen, on every other front i got further than i expected and game looks much better than i anticipated it would.

Basically only one critical thing that i wish i have time to do tomorrow, more levels, right now there are barely the tutorials in place.

Also, what I really wish I will have time tomorrow to do, would be to add more commands. Right now this game is pretty much a puzzle game because i havent been able to implement enough commands for player to be able to make actual AI for robot that player would associate as AI. In reality just getting through those puzzle levels will be coding an AI, just a very simple AI.

My current guess is, that I am able to finish this game properly that it doesnt feel more incomplete than it obviously will feel, since right from beginning my thought was to give a try to one idea of mine and just see how far i can show that idea in this competition time, hence i never expected this to be actually complete feeling game, but i did hope i had got further with the AI part. Hence my guess is that while I am going to put those fight levels in place, they dont really make much sense, they are more of letting player imagine what this game could be, had it went further. Hence my focus on those levels will be on those puzzle levels instead of fight levels, since fight levels dont make much sense, as in practice they be pretty much puzzle levels in current state.

Save game feature would be nice to have too in this, but I guess i wont make it. It is pretty much on bottom of my list. After all, there arent that many levels, and you can anyway save and load your code, so it doesnt take too much effort to get back to where you were since you dont need to code from beginning alone, just annoyingly keep loading and executing them.

Music and Sound are also completely missing still, but I trust I will be able to put something in place tomorrow. After all, there dont need to be much sounds in this one anyway, might even skip the soundfx department completely.

One thing that I am very much wishing to have time to make tomorrow, would be to show during fights five lines of code being executed, that would really help the player to see where hes code fails, but I am bit afraid, that might get cut due to time, since it isnt absolutely critical, just a thing that would really make a big difference to players play experience.

And did one graphics switch, so heres for Kris to see what the Arena background looks like now:

Your previous graphic seemed so much more upbeat and bright, this really makes it bland visually.

This background looks better on big screen. But mainly I did the switch since I am using that previous background on code making place. So I didnt abandon the picture, just changed it to other place. Didnt really have any other suitable looking background picture for that coding place, so had to put it there for that reason. For this arena place I at least had alternatives, and this one seemed to work best from them.
If I have time, I am also ooking for more background graphics still. Basically I am hoping of having three different backgrounds for arena places, but currently there is only one, and I am afraid, time is tight enough that it might stay that way too.

Ah I see. If I am able to, I'd like to take a stab at maybe providing some background image options in between working on my own speedgame. Where did you get those two backgrounds you are using?

https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/tehcnology-background-with-dots-and-lines_24...

and

http://soundimage.org/txr-sci-fi/

Yeah, I like the micro-chip layout kind of background. Good to see the screenshots. Very interesting.

DAY 18

It is done. I am off to sleep.

After submission thoughts:

I am quite glad it is over and I am quite happy what I got done. Main things that I was hoping to get that are not there are following:

There are no sounds, simply didnt have time to add them anymore, and even when I was thinking of adding one or two sounds at least, i was afraid they could cause some issues, so already feeling beat to work anymore, i just, left sounds out and figured the music is enough.

Although what comes to music I am actually bit unhappy about the music in that coding part. It sounded better working when i picked it, but when it is being actually played, it doesnt really work that well. But i was short on time, so didnt want to start replacing it. I think i used about half an hour in total for picking those musics, so considering the time used, not bad result at all, could have gone much worse.

Thing I perhaps miss most is that I didnt have time to implement the idea that BurnerKnight gave me. For he mentioned that there could have been subgame for the actual tuning part. I had very simple and quickly doable idea for that subgame, but not quick enough to make in this short time, and that is a real shame. Not only had it been nice break from usual, but I think it was such a good idea it had been worth implementing.

Save game / load game feature had been one thing i really wanted there to be too, but didnt have time. This might be quite a convenience for someone who cant complete the game at once. But at least it is very quick to jump through the menus and all. Basically I think the game is completeable in maybe just 5 minutes if you use presaved codes etc. so someone really wanting to continue, it is not that hard to get back to where you were, but it is still a big inconvenience.

Another thing that had really benefited player, was that I was planning to have on those arenas a small window showing the current codeline being executed, maybe showing five lines of code at a time. This had both been helping player to figure out where the problem in his code is, as well as helped him understand how code works as he had seen it being executed line by line. This is a big loss from games and educational point of view, as now players make the code and then they just have to see how it works, without actually knowing what line is actually causing the problem.

Naturally there are lots of small things i would have liked to fix, but time not permitting, at least i got the major issues fixed so all in all i think the result is somewhat good, that mainly small issues are left only, except for the ones that were too big to handle anyway. Like one of the things i would have liked is that you could have coded more complex code., like put several random in a raw, meaning that you randomly pick one of other random commands. But anyway, you can get around this problem by using GO TO commands, and it had been such a big thing to do, that i decided not to use my time on it, but instead focus on other things, trusting players dont try to make the execution fail by purpose, but use it properly.

Another thing I was thinking was that when entering arena code had been checked if there are errors. This could have been even done, but would have took too much time at this point.

What comes to Commands, I am happy i was able to add at least two type of commands more yesterday still, although what i bit of miss is not having IF implemented yet, or VARIABLES implemented.

I was considering adding IF yesterday still, but came to conclusion that IF alone wouldnt have done any good, that I would have also needed to add some things that IF could have been used at, like IF there is something in front of robot, and those would have took too much time to do, hence IF had been pretty useless, although that had been a real step towards much more sophisticated AI. On top of that, I was afraid IF command could have caused some other problems too, because of the way I had implemented my coding.

What I was very happy was that I actually got there 11 map level, 8 puzzles and 3 fight levels, although those fight levels are basically quite useless since i didnt get far enough that player could actually get useful AI done for fights, hence they are more of demonstrating the idea I had, and also, because I made those three enemy robots, i wanted to show those other two as well, although other one you will actually see only from one side, since I didnt have time to fix one issue that caused 4th fight level, where you would have seen him in other angles too, not to work properly and hence decided to hide it from the final build.

Although I intended this game to be more of a AI building thing, it ended up more of a puzzle game as commands didnt advance far enough. But even like this, I think this is pretty fun. When I yesterday tested all those levels, most which i did in 2 hours time, I actually had quite much fun figuring them out myself how to complete them.

Had I got someone to do me graphics, I would have got this game further, perhaps been able to implement all those things I most wanted, but on the other hand, I think not having anyone to do graphics also benefited this project, as I was able to realise my idea to good extent, and I also think that while i did graphics quite fast, as you can see especially from the ones done on last day, I am happy that it looks very much like my own creation because of that.

All in all, except for the level of AI, I think I got this game better and further than i expected.

edit: almost forgot to comment the FONT issue.

Today when i woke up, I almost instantly realised I might have made a mistake with FONT. Hollywood (the language I am using for coding) has three relevant FONT commands regarding this: OpenFont(), UseFont() and SetFont()

Now OpenFont is clear, that is the one that loads the font, and that is not to be used when Font is already linked to the program.

However, when Font is linked to a program, or opened, then the proper way to use it, is to use UseFont(). However, I forgot there was this UseFont() and remembered only SetFont() and thought this SetFont was same as UseFont(), which it is not.

Right way to use had been to use USeFont() command, but in my original on time submitted entry I am using that SetFont(). I am not sure how this command works, wether it is setting already loaded FONT, in which case the original submitted entry works just fine, or if it tries to load the font. My guess is that it is setting already loaded font, in which case original submitted entry works just fine, but in case it doesnt, there is now new Win32 and Win64 exes that you can replace the original ones with. Or, you can install to your computer the required font named: "Edit Undo Line BRK", in which case it will work with original exes. I am not able to test if there is problem or not, because I have that font installed in my computer. So if there is an issue in loading it, then I wouldnt have it.

Ha, just realised I wrote the conclusion of the game wrong. I forgot what i meant to do with it when i was making it in hurry yesterday. There was supposed to be sort of revelation about the christian message part on last message, but perhaps people figure it out even without it. Maybe after voting ends, I will tell you what it was really supposed to read that i completely forgot when i was writing it yesterday. Sort of a shame, but not that critical.

Been playing and enjoying your game until I got a stack overflow error that keeps crashing the game. Any ideas on that? It first happened when I got to the level where you have to turn right. After that, it just keeps happening now around the first or second level.

Okay, I uploaded new version in hopes it would fix that stack overflow problem. It is this AIBOTWinowsAlternative.zip package. It might have now new bugs thanks to changing that system, but perhaps at least the stack overflow gets fixed.

Will be downloading and trying it out!

I dont seem to get that myself. I am not sure what is the actual reason for that, but I did have at one point a problem with stack overflow and had to find a way around it. I was trying to make copy of one table and it strangely gave me stackoverflow, then i made it so that it saves the table to harddisk and loads it from there instead and problem was solved. I am bit suspecting there might be a bug in that language, since Hollywoods tables can have all kinds of items, inclduing functions, so i am bit suspecting that it could be for example that when having function it stackoverflows it when trying to copy that table. That stackoverflow might have to do with computer memory. But then again, i have only 1-2 Gb of memory, so i suppose most will have more and since i dont have it on final build, that seems bit unlikely.

I could optimise the code to go to much smaller memory space, but at this point it is too late for the competition. I might do that anyway so you get to test it, since it is not that big change to the code, it is more of a didint have time to make code better, hence everything is hacks and taking space.

But do you mean it is failing already at Tutorial level 3?

edit:

To put it in otherwors, I suspect the problem is that i have made these maps as one big table, but i can cut it into pieces so that each level is its own map, and make them as mapfiles to harddisk which are loaded as levels start, if those are the root reason for stackoverflow, as is my guess, then that should help fixing it.

Another thing is that are you playing this game on 1920 x 1080 screen? Playing it on different sized screen could also affect things as then all the graphics are being resized, and that takes up power and memory, playing on 1920x1080 is the optimal playsize, since then nothing needs to be resized. Even 1 pixel difference, and i noticed a big slowdown on those arena places.

Yeah, I am playing at that resolution.

So here's the stackoverflow bug I keep getting. It came up again twice with the new build you uploaded.

That was very good you gave me the error, it shows exactly where in code the error happened.

It is very strange it does that for you. I found out about that stackoverflow and it is based basically upon recursive calls. This could easily happen in my tables, because Hollywood is very flexible when it comes to tables, so i could for example have:

T_Table = { savedtable = CopyTable(T_Table)}

This would result in T_Tables item called "savedtable" to be having a copy of itself, which would in practice result in endless recursive calls i suppose, as the copy of that table would be having the copy of that table and that copy would once again have copy of itself till it crashes due to some sort of memory running out (stackoverflow).

However, in this specific place, I dont understand how it could happen, since that table doesnt have any tables inside it, only clear things like text="sometext", or amount=number.

Hence I am suspecting it is the ListItems() command that for some reason bugs in your computer, unless it does it on others computers too.

This ListItems command is very simple as well. It is simply listing how many items there are:

Table = {"item1", "item2", "item3}

number = Listitems(table)

print number

and i should get 3 printed on screen. Hence it is very strange it woudl result in stack overflow in this case.

I have now uploaded you another exe there, burnerknight.exe, replace it with the current exe and see if that fixes it. I am suspecting this fix might not fix anything, but I am hoping it does, since the next fix which actually should fix that problem, is something that is easy to cause a bug at some point.

This fix is another command doing almost same. This is called TableItems(), it does same as ListItems, except with ListItems, items need to be in order, for example:

Table = {[0]="a", [1]="b", [3]="c", [4]="d"}

with listitems, this table would result in 2, as it would stop counting at [1], since there is no [2], while TableItems would correctly see there are 4 items.

In my code the T_Table is bit like this:

T_Code = {Currentline = 1, [0] = "a", [1] = "b", [2] = "c"}

therefore the listitems was better, as it ignores all those "Currentline" items and only calculates the [n]s to the result, with TableItems I have to take into consideration that if i add any other variables than those [n]s, like this "Currentline", i need to remember they will show up in the result too.

So lets see if this works, if it doesnt, then I will next make manual account of how many lines there are, in which case i can use FOR-NEXT statement:

For n = 0 to T_Code.Totalnumberofcodelines

do stuff

This should be a sure fix, but what worries me is if I am able to catch every case when that totalnumberoflines should be increased or decreased.

One Joyful DAySubmitted6 years ago (2 edits)

I actually figured out other wway to do it manually:

quitloop=false

Repeat

n=n+1 if haveitem(Table, n) then...

until quitloop=true

I have uploaded another exes for you which use this system. So if listitems() command is the cause of problem, then that is there no more.

Those exes are burnerknightwin32-2 and win64-2

however, if you dont mind, you could first try the other version just so that in case the other version with tableitems instead of listitems works fine, then it is a sure thing there is some bug in that ListItems() command in hollywood language itself that gets triggered in your computer for some reason. although basically i suppose if there is a bug, then that same bug will happen in both those commands, since they are anyway quite similar.

Okay GamesForFun, I finally was able to play your game to completion! Probably my favorite so far and the one I spent the most time with. I had only one stack overflow error this time, but I tried playing again and was able to play it completely. You've made quite a great game! I'll be posting my thoughts later on!

My only question right now is which verse did you choose for this challenge? It wasn't clear from any of your posts. Thinking through your project, I don't really see 1 Peter 2:21 or 1 Thessalonians 5:11 in this, the one I think fits the bill is 2 Timothy 4:7. Is this correct?

If I can send you a private message, i will tell you what was supposed to read in the very last picture, that i completely forgot to do when i was in hurry getting everything done in last day. It would have revealed everything much better, but now i completely forgot to put that.

But basically all those parables are in there, although some more and some less, but main was actually 1 peter, but as i mentioned, i forgot what i meant to write to last picture.

I was too much in hurry to get focused on those things coming out clearer anymore. But building each other I actually meant that both those robots had offered to build the tuner and amplifier to each other, that way it coming out literally, and basically you could say that the main characters friend was pushing the other guy forward (hence building him up and encouraging) although partially selfish reasons.

What comes to finishing the race, well, that was obviously arenas etc. but it doesnt come that well out either since i ddint get the ai coding far enough that you would actually get to ai fight against other bots, and for that reason too the finishing race part gets quite slim.

But when you think of the leaving us an example that we should follow. Then comes the coding, you are giving your robot example to follow. Also the robot rules. What comes to robot rules i had one idea that i cut out quite quick simply because it seemed too difficult to get it done. But idea was that there had been some very expensive and good chip, that you could have choose to steal, but if you did, then from that point on, your robot would have decided every now on then not to follow the code that you put in the arena, but do something else instead, since he got out of the road, now he decides to step out even more. But as said, never did do that, since it had been too difficult to put there in this time.

Also, I originally i meant that the main character is hearing that message, and every time he gets better tuner he hears the message clearer and clearer, and it would have started giving a way to follow, and eventually it would have ended to the end, making it more like that, and then i meant there to be some sort of suffering thing that the coder had gone through in the story, but i actually forgot that long ago already so when i started making those cut scenes, i was only doing what ever i could quickly get done and didnt really think of them parables anymore any deeper, hence that is pretty much missing too.

Oh okay! Now that you explain it, I can see all three verses in there. Nice job!

VOTES RESULTS ARE IN, THE AFTERMATH:

well, for me personally, this years Speedgame was complete failure and I am feeling very discouraged about it, which is funny when considering that one of the verses was about encouraging others.

I am so disappointed in my position, that if i could go three weeks back, i would rather not even participate in this at all.

But, I do want to give special thanks to "Apostolic Game Designers" for making that video about all speedgames, for if he hadnt made that video, i would feel completely beaten. That he ranked me number 2, that is really something i was needing right now in this great feeling of disappointment about how my own entry did against others.

However, not all is lost and right now most important is to find out, why did this happen?

I am first telling what my own thoughts were during the competition

At beginning i was just trying my game idea, not knowing if i had time to make it properly etc. At later point when things started forming and i noticed i actually had time to concentrate on it, I started aiming high, i was aiming at win.

When I submitted the game, i thought i had a very strong entry, and when i had played through all other games, i thought fight was between AIBOT and Typer Hero, I would have actually added Encourager to the list too, but i thought people wouldnt value it as much as it should, however, I am glad to say i was wrong, people did get it, for in my personal opinion Encourager was even better entry than Typer Hero, for Typer Hero failed in some areas bit too much to stand against Encourager which was very solid entry.

Especially when "Apostolic Game Designer" made his video, that proved i was right with my initial thoughts and being on fight for first spots. However, hes video also opened my eye on something. Originally I thought i had somewhat passable graphics, that I thought that there were weaknesses here and there, and that the comic cutscenes would split people to those who like and those who dont, anyway, i was basically waiting for some to give 4 some give 2 stars. But when video commented about them looking like MS paint, thats when i realised that darn, that guys right, its not going to split peoples opinion, i wont get a single 4!

Anyway, basically already before, and now even more, i thought the fight was going to basically be about how much people punish me from graphics vs how much people punish Typer Hero from its shortcomings, plus by that time there had came the problem of crash bug to my game by BurnerKnight (only one who reported about it). But then again, there was crash bug on Typer Hero too. so perhaps it wouldnt throw the balance off too much.

Anyway, encouraged by that Video, i dared to start thinking of a bigger plan that i had basically only dreamed at beginning. For I was thinking that as long as i win on one category, or become seond and third on at least two of them, I would use that as marketing tool and make a commercial game based upon this. Idea being that for example had i won the "most fun" category, i could have used "They say educational games are boring, well, prepare to meet the educational game that was voted against non educational games as most fun in speedgame competition!"

That had really been a good marketing line to separate it from list of hundreds of games seen on same page.

And that was naturally more part of the reason why my lousy position was so devastating, since it basically crushed my plan that i was thinking i would get to do.

But all in all, this was my own personal thinking before votes came in. After votes came in, I have been very worried about what is the reason, and have only theories of it, and here are my 4 theories why it might have failed:

1. Due to too few votes, individuals opinion mattered too much.

2. People think those voting categories very different to how i think of them.

3. Crash bug caused people to reflect my game badly.

4. Game was simply crap and i understand nothing about games.

I dont think number 1 is the case, after all, BurnerKnight was commenting about the game favorably, and so did Apostolic Game Designers video, hence if individual mattered, it would have mattered other way around as well, although i dont know if "Apostolic Game Designers" actually voted.

Unless case is number 4, I am sure number 2 had to do with this a lot. I am actually going to write another message regarding voting to general topics, since I think there is some improvement to be done there that we havent took into consideration. I was even thinking of writing already during the voting phase about this since when i watched Apostolic Game Designers video and thought about it a bit after that too, i really started thinking that we need some guide for voters, but more about that in completely another topic.

what comes to graphics, that result is no surprise as i already explained earlier. Stability same. I originally thought after submitting the game that i would have a shot for stability, since I had only 2 bugs in game, but considering how stable all the other games were, i never had a shot at stability, even without that crash bug.

Best presentation of christian teaching i didnt give too much hope either, since i never implemented it clearly in place the way i was planning to, but did expect bit better position anyway, and was also thinking that if people are merciful to the failures, maybe there would be even hope for very high position.

However, all in all, it seems to me that christian message voting part really needs some guide lining, since to me, the end results dont really make too much sense in many cases.

In "funnest" i thought i had a strong shot at number one, especially after discussing with BurnerKnight, as i realised that there is even replayability value in my game, i never thought there had been such until i discussed with him about the game. Also, I had full completeable story, levels that to my own opinion had sense in that when you completed one level (in map screen), the next levels opening had directly to do with the one you just completed. as example, first there being a level that needed you to turn one direction, completing that opening a level that needed you to turn two different directions, etc.

And you had multiple ways to complete the level, buy new commands etc. It was quite full package compared to rest. That basically only thing i was worried in that all was that would it be too difficult for some to play, which is possible, that perhaps some people didnt like it since it was too difficult for them not being used to coding? Also, another possibility is that some simply didnt like the programming aspect in the end. But that remains a mystery to me, why only number 5?

Most strange part is the originality part. I thought I was pretty sure winner of that one. That only threats i saw were "encourager" and "follower", that especially when it came to follower, the game was very minimal, and when it comes to minimal game, you need only one unique idea, since you cant really fit more inside it, and because it did have that one (very fun) idea, i was thinking that some people might rate it to max based upon cant fit much more in there, hence the game in all its minimalism being perfectly original, but never in my mind did I think Typer Hero would be a threat to my place in originality, and yet, Typer Hero was voted as most original game?

I can understand voting "Typer Hero" over "Encourager" or "Follower", or "Encourager" and "Follower" above "Typer Hero", since they are different enough to each other, and hence it depends how you look at it, but I cant see how Typer Hero was thought as being more original than AIBOT? For let me compare it to you.

Typer Hero has somewhat original mechanism of typing, however, typing games do exist before, as example typing of the dead.

Programming Games however, exist much less, only one I am aware of that to my understanding is about programming in similar sense than mine, (i have never tried it) is "Human Resource Machine", hence, on that one either I am not aware that there are more of those, or I win.

Then I completely admit that Robots are not unique at all, i even mentioned that in my Blog, but neither is RPG. Therefore, a draw on that one.

Where Typer hero could get an edge is in sending encouraging messages to other players, which was excellent and also original idea from existing idea (MiiWorld messages in games especially used in WII U). But then we get on to that i had original story, original characters, original levels. Typer hero didnt quite much have a story, even levels were random generated and right from beginning all the same, no character personality, except for the looks, but then again, i had looks too, several looks even on those different robots and i would even argue that while typer hero had minecraft look in it, it is still easily identifiable as minecraft look, mine had even some characteristics that will be harder to find another example, except for the main character which i by purpose made to be something somewhat familiar and one female computer that was a nod to Eric Schwartz. Hence, I feel i should be winning him hands down on originality, yet, that is not the case, I am only number 4 while he is number 1.

Therefore I be interested in how did you review the category "originality"? Since I cant really see how i would lose comparison against Typer Hero, regardless how you look at it, and yet I did, completely.

Best overall was my ultimate goal, and i thought i had a shot, since while graphics were my weakness, i still thought as overall, i had a whole sort of big game compared to rest with all the whistles and bells,even tutorial, which no one else had, and except for the sounds which i had none but music, but seems many others were lacking in that department too, and hence i wasnt too worried of that after having tried other entries.

The third option is basically having to do with number 2 option, but is more specific. The crash bug.

This seems quite likely based upon that my stability was rated at 2 in total, which probably means that from 4 voters that i had in total, one gave maybe 4, two gave 1 and one 2, but it also makes me very unhappy on two different levels.

First of all is that the bug wasnt relly reasonably my fault. After BurnerKnight helped me track down the bug and test it out (thanks for that), I came to conclusion that bug wasnt actually on my code, but on the language itself. It seems that for some reason one very simple command bugged on about everyone elses computer but on mine. This makes me feel that I shouldnt have been punished from something that was not reasonably in my own control so harsh, and I think there needs to be put some system in place to prevent this from happening in future, for right now i feel that if this is the case, then i dont feel like wanting to participate in speedgames anymore, as you can make a winning (or close to winner) game, and then end up to the bottom upon something that is not really in your control. It is so discouraging as can be, that even you do your best and you get things done right, you still fail because lightning decides to strike in head. Rather stay in bed to avoid that lightning striking than do something useful, since whats the point, you will anyway fail since thats how it goes, regardless what you do.

Next question is how did people reflect on that crash the whole game. For I am suspecting that people punished me all around about it. They might have decided that because game kept crashing, it was no fun, they might also punish on overall based upon the crash. But basically I think it should only affect the stability and and overall to some extent, i think people might be thinking that crash should affect everything, and that could be one reason why it didnt do so well.

I am taking how i rated Typer Hero as example here, since this is how i think things should affect things.

First of all, Typer Hero crashed twice on me. However, I think the bug was same both times. But since I couldnt find any other stability issues in that game, I decided it was still worth 4 stars on stability, since it was only one problem, although it was a crash.

Then when coming to funness, because of the endless nature of game and too slow speed, i felt it was actually bit boring in the end (it had been great had there been big boss on floor number 5 for example and game ended there), and hence i rated funness to 3 stars only, and i didnt let the crash affect the decision on funness, since that was separate issue which shouldnt affect the funness when there was separate category for stability.

At first I was thinking of giving overall rating at 3 stars too, until i realised that actually I was thinking funness rather than overall, since if you look the game in all, basically it had only two problems, one crash bug, but it is still only one bug, and that it was bit boring. Hence I decided overall product would be 4 stars.

This how i felt. but it makes me think that were others letting the crash issue affect the star ratings on things like funness and whole rating in major role, or how did it do so bad on those all?

It is also possible that since game kept crashing on tutorial level 2 already on BurnerKnight, that perhaps some people made their votes based upon seeing only those 2 levels, that would make sense based upon ratings i received, so it might well be that.

But all in all, based upon stability rating being only 2, this is most likely the cause of AIBOTs bad rating, and I feel it very unfair being punished so harsh from something that was not reasonably under my control. Although I cant blame the voters for that, since how could they know? Which is exactly why there would need to be some system to prevent something like this happening, for i really havent felt this down for a long time.

Now the last option is that the game is actually crap and I dont understand anything about making games. If this is the case, then I better start thinking wether I should be making any games anymore, but perhaps rather focus my energy on something else. And that is why it is important for me to try and find out where the fault lies in getting so lousy position in this.

from all these possibilities, number 4 is worse option and means i perhaps should stop making games anymore. Wether number 2 or 3 is worse is hard to say. On one hand, crash bug means it wasnt necessarily my fault, but it does make me think if i want to participate in future speedgames anymore, at least in more serious sense as i did this time. The first option would otherwise be best, except it does make basically bit of the same problem as crash bug, that it makes you wonder that if individual opinion can matter that much, then is there really any point in participating in something like this when the end result is based upon luck, but I think it is unlikely that my fail was based upon individual opinion, but rather on one of those other three possiblities.

To help me out in finding out what my fail was, I am hoping you would give some comments about for example, was it so that you didnt get to see past tutorial level 2 for example, or that you maybe punished all around due to that crash bug, that you felt it was no fun because of the crash bug or something similar. Or what was your take on originality of the game, that how did you come to conclusion that typer hero was more original than AIBOT.

Those comments could really help me figure out what went wrong with my entry.

I thought your game was very fun, original, and overall excellent. It did really feel like a complete game for the game jam. I really appreciated the humor and the hand drawn graphics. Because of this, I was actually surprised your game didn't make it into the top 5. On stability issues, I was curious to know if I was the only one because I never saw anyone else post or make comments on it here.

I think you are being too harsh on yourself. You certainly know how to make games because AIBOT is an interesting, fun and creative game. On your reasons, any combination of 1, 2 or 3 could be a reason. I'd keep participating in Speedgame challenges and maybe work on improving your game a little and giving it some polish. Share your work on the CGD and CDN FB pages and get some input.