itch.io

I found there are some projects that just make themselves - it's hard to describe it 🤔
for certain settings or themes it's just easy to come up with new things
and the project doesn't feel that big anymore - even though it is 🤔

technically Zortch 1 was Lab 2 as in a spiritual sequel
so I guess you could see the upcoming Zortch 2 as Lab 3 🤔

but as a true sequel for Lab there was not even a Lab 2 yet 🤔
(I just don't have enough ideas for it)

once again I forgot to update this devlog
of course this time I have a good excuse
I tried to rest at xmas time
and then comes january and I immediately got sick 🤒

now I'm doing my best to get up to speed

there is some good news - the scrut was going to be cut
but as I was not feeling well and I could only model things
ended up with a good version

these are ravenous little creatures

of course a sand shark thing is kind of a cliche
but one of those cliches that you don't see much lately
you know like aliens out to eat brains 🤔

there are also some other wildlife in the progress
I thought there should be a replacement for buffaloes
as it's a western setting and the locals must eat something
and recently I had the idea for the perfect creature for that:
a gigantic snail 🐌

looks mouth watering isn't it?

now fitting it into a stove might be tricky

especially this one - in the spirit of the lowpoly the front is only a texture
and ended up looking like someone put them on with a sticker 😓

and the same criticism could be valid for these new slot machines

this is actually my first time using a trim sheet
I ended up reinventing them by accident
and yet to master this ancient technique 🤔

the casino also comes with a croupie

I'm happy with the design but couldn't think up any wacky dialog yet
sometimes my brain just doesn't work as it should 🤔


there might be an obvious reason 🤔


I wonder what these birds want? 🤔


and if anyone will ever see them up close? 🤔

overall there are very few models are left

occasionally I do a redesign - like for this dice headed gal

and sometime I just get a good idea

like for this absolute monstrosity 🤔

but to tell you the truth I'm just buying time
trying to find things to do so I don't have to work on the levels 😓
but I'm afraid it's getting inevitable - they are the last pieces of this puzzle
and asset wise nearly everything else is done

does this mean the project is on track?
or that I'm just sweeping things under the rug and the worst is yet to come? 🤔
I guess we will find out soon enough ..

see you next time!

I'm not sure what you mean - I mean it's already available for everyone .. at least it should be 🤔
until I'm finished with Zortch 2 I won't be starting any new projects so alas any new part is unlikely 🤔

how so? I mean it's already free and drm free
what extra steam could add?🤔

that is nice of you and I'm glad you liked it 👍

you know that was the beauty of these flash games 🤔
I would have made them anyway
the sponsors paid people to put in some ads
and people still could enjoy them for free ..
I miss flash😔

that is amazing  (another game I didn't expect anyone played) 😀
to be honest the game is finished and I'm not sure what second part you are talking about
I guess I could revisit the character one day - but I can only work on so many games at once 🤔

why thank you! - also hush hush I'm in incognito 🤫 ( just slowly going through my backlog 😉)

this seems to be the closest game we got for what Sensible Software's "Have a Nice Day!" (aka. Office Chair Massacre) could have been 🤔

so far I managed to get the first level finished (sort of)
there are some train and metro based levels in the works
and what I realised is that one of the problems is that there is not much to place on these levels
so there are few weak enemies to fight

I keep forgetting that the goal of the game is to be entertainment in the end
so the challenge part doesn't really matter (and that should be left for the difficulty selection)

now the plan was just to add a weak version of the transformed enemies that still resort to generic weapons

then I figured I will need stronger versions - like ones that still have simple movement just stronger weapons

then things got out of hand  🤔
because I like making characters and hate making levels 😓

now the challenge is for me - for putting it all together
there are now all guns finished
enough enemies finished
all bosses have their models ready (and some of their animations)
ironically enough the hard part starts now
trying to make some  good levels
and somehow making the story fit to them - or the other way🤔

why thank you ☺️

I'm glad you liked it 👍
the sprites and textures are pubdom if you want to use them for a wad
https://opengameart.org/content/lab-sprites
https://opengameart.org/content/lab-textures

of course with the sprites only having one direction it might be a bit tricky 🤔
i'm afraid a native mac port would be tricky as well (as I don't wish to touch xcode ever again 😓)
so far all my ideas for Lab 2 ended up in Zortch - I guess you could call it the spiritual sequel 🤔

I admit it's not really the final boss - I just kind of stopped making the game halfway (ran out of ideas) 😓

I'm glad you liked it 👍
it's so strange to hear from people who played these old ones
I was under the impression all along that i'm just making this flash stuff for the void 🤔

it's crazy that people played this as a kid
my impression was that it was fallen into obscurity like a week after release
like how most flash games at the time did 🤔

once again I forgot about this devlog
the good news is because I work so much on the game it makes me exhausted
the bad news is of course the game is far from ready
I was hoping to have a demo this year
but it looks I won't make it 😔

still plenty was done - here are some highlights:


added some new textures - the trains are still bad looking but not that bad

in the first game many maps were built around little gags - here is one of the new ones



modelled some everyday objects like a fridge
these are more like little feelies that make the world more believable


as the game takes place in the desert it seemed appropriate to make a parody of vegas
of course it's an scifi game and in the future you can do even crazier things with neons


I somehow improved in modelling skills - this toilet is a clear step up from the ones in the first game

but when it comes to furniture I'm still hopeless 😔

I guess we can call it a hybrid - at first I made a real raycaster but it turned out drawing pixel by pixel in flash was very slow
but it had a drawtriangle function which was reasonably fast
so the visibility check is still done with raycasting (the rays mark visible zones) but the walls were drawn with triangles 🤔

thank you! 🙂
Zortch is pretty much the spiritual sequel of LAB - it uses many of the same elements
so you would probably enjoy it - and where Zortch 2 is going .. not even I know  🤔

I'm glad you liked it 🙂

funnily enough the flash versions engine actually supported heights (and even 3d models)
I just never ended up using them  🤔

so once again I realised that I need to change my methods.. and worrying about the maps will get me nowhere
as you can see what I have no trouble with is making more characters - there are about a truckload of npcs now
(only about 5-6 were planned but I couldn't help myself)

also there are tricks used to make it look like there are more of them

so right now I will be focusing what I'm good at and just keep adding characters..
until I feel there is enough
and the maps themselves will be kept simple (not going beyond the first games quality)

as far as the NPCs concerned there is enough of them now
there are about 15 unique ones
which is quite a high number from the previous games 0  🤔
there are two more planned
but they are optional to the story

and as far as the enemies go things are getting out of hand   🤔

even though the game is slowly shaping up there are still things that giving me trouble
most of all the mapping

silly ideas and characters seem to work well - but the main problem is still the same
what to do on the level?

now people stated they hate keyhunting
they also hate maps that are too short
and also maps that are too big and there is nothing to do

this is giving me some trouble
I'm toying with the idea of at least bringing the blue key back
after all you have an automap now that shows you where it is

still after much iteration the ruins map is more or less finished

in the end I settled with a much smaller map
even back on Zortch1 the comfortable size of a map was identified (based on old fps maps)
and the central area pretty much takes all space for that
in the end the fact I can now make bigger and more convoluted maps
doesn't mean much as they tend to not  work that well

in my disappointment with these events I added 3 new soda flavours and machines
also now all soda brands give different amount of hp

things are not getting easier
for now one thing is sure

why thank you! ☺️

finally some good development news
the office level is shaping up well

originally the plan was an ancient underground city
where the office was an anomaly
but then the question emerged - how an office got there
and on this thread the whole level was built
it's aspiring to be a shameless ripoff of the hl1 office complex

here you can meet a famous game designer who moved underground

you also get to play the game that made her famous - which is a silly arcade game
that involves characters from Zortch 1
of course we are in a kind of low tech future - there is space travel but people yet to invent HD monitors
so it's a low res monochrome pea soup ordeal

she seems to have bit of an ego about her - success went in her head

she is not so happy about having to live underground and is having a bad day in general
overall she has a message for all her critics out there

the weird looking cybernetic human things have attacked the office and all workers fled to the meeting  room

these folks don't have problem inviting themselves inside

things get a bit hectic out there

this level is a bit experimental by itself
I built the interesting elements and scenes seperately

now I just need to figure out how to connect it all up together.. oh dear 😓

and now it's time for more isometric goodness

one of the maps is a giant dam - and it's the biggest level pushing the engine to it's limits
so I decided to make it larger for some reason

also hit a huge milestone: the mines are the first level finished
as far as geometry and player route goes
still need to place items, enemies and test the thing

some of the maps got so big they break the editor view
originally I wanted a lot of small levels
but it seems like there will be a few but gargantuan levels instead

ironically I have the most trouble with the warehouse level
this is about its fifth redesign

the first map is planned to be a little western town
one of the only maps  where I' m not sure if I should make it bigger

and here we have the badlands that are indeed looking bad so far
there is a single gas station - and the map design philosophy was
that when in doubt just keep adding trucks

I'm getting doozy from all this mapping work
at least I'm not being watched..

so do I - google killed flash for nothing 😔

things are getting a bit hectic - so much I tend to forget to update this devlog 😓

even though the stakes are pretty high

there are many areas under development - I make the mistake of trying to work on all of them


I cannot help it - I got the game all in my head - it's just difficult to get it onto the PC 😓


but when I can I go too far - some maps are getting way bigger than they should be
it's hard to get in the zone but once you are in it's even harder to stop 🤔


the problem goes double for the mines - but before we continue remember



here is a screenshot of the mine level in the editor


now you see that little yellow truck on the bottom? here is it for scale

of course this might not tell the full story .. here it is again


as you can see it's a cute little thing
so there are plenty of ideas for areas
but connecting them together and figuring out where it all should go is tricky
so far the only way I have to fix this is to iteratively play through the map again and again
and eventually reach at something comfortable
I had the same problem with the first game - I felt the maps are a mess
in the end people didn't mind the mess
they hated the maps that were too complex and liked the more linear ones 🤔
one thing I know for sure that mapping is still my weakest point
and I'm not sure what to do to improve 😓
I got more confident modelling them but cannot tell you what would make
an enjoyable map  - for me I can tell - but for players I have no clue 🤔

oh I see - I guess we indeed agree then 🤔
sounds like this thread kind of got finished then and just got resurrected 🤔

yes I'd say that horror and adult content is flooding everything 🤔 (sign of the times I guess)
listen do you have some sort agenda or simply obsessed about this thing? (I mean no offense you just seem to have a lot of long replies)

I mean I'm not sure anymore what are we even arguing about at this point or if we even do
like we both seem to agree that there is an influx of adult games
and your point seem to be that the measures for hiding them are already more than adequate? 🤔

yea I'm just seeing it wrong, the numbers show something else
I'm probably some sort of pervert  and searching them out  🙄
yet I only need  to take a glance into the developer logs or browse by top sellers 🤔

just outright banning everything dirty is indeed a bit too extreme
but no one can deny that there is a flood of nsfw and pretty much taken over
itch lately 🤔
it would be nice to have some sort of strict SFW option for the site
like a special safe version with a different url or something
but I understand that there is not much of a chance of that happening 🤔
(I have a friend who got disturbed by the fact that dirty stuff
was shown next to his content and ended up leaving itch a while ago )

edit: nevermind - I misunderstood and didn't catch it was about marketing  sorry 😓

technically multiplayer is very easy as you just send packets with UDP and hope it arrives
and it's possible to set up some peer to peer thing very quickly

but one very large problem nowadays is the security - players sharing their IP is asking for trouble 🤔
so for security reasons it's better to have a server inbetween - to at least hide the IPs
but even a small server costs a fortune
(even nintendo is using some amazon cloud service thing for splatoon - and that is only matchmaking)

so I kind of given up on it myself  😓

there are some strange options:
one interesting feature steam has that it lets local multiplayer games streamed to other players as a video stream 🤔
(but I don't know the details just heard of it)

and there is the option to write the whole thing in roblox - and possibly in other popular netgames
where they already have the whole server thing set up 🤔

I got sidetracked a little trying to make the car work..
now the engine still has no physics engine whatsoever
(I tried out bullet was so disapointed I don't even plan on adding one anymore)

long story short I had this idea of making the car the old way
from simple distance springs
there is no verlet, it's simple euler stuff
running at 750 fps

it's made out of 6 spheres and about 18 springs
literally a car held together by glue and prayer

adding a mesh kind of hides the jank - but not by much

the prototype was really promising

ingame there were troubles 😓

turns out getting the basics to work is just start of the journey
one thing I was worried about is how to flip the car back
(you don't have a gravity gun after all)
but then just kicking it and it magically flips
not only worked but it was the easiest part

overall I'm not sure what to do about it now
it's good enough to keep it in the game
but not good enough to build serious gameplay on it 🤔

and of course I still only have the test interior 😓

finally someone noticed the extra arms 🤭

took a break from working on bosses..
to work on enemies  😓

this four armed gal is out to resurrect enemies
and fire homing missiles at you

her legs are jetpacks - kind of like those water based ones
only this one works using an acid of sort

she is also supposed to cast various spells later - once I think of some 🤔

many of the existing enemies got rebaked again

I probably mentioned it before: this tech doesn't work well with vertex colors
in fact vertex colors ruin the lighting making them look flat

before realising this I baked them as lightly and with as little shadows as possible
so now I had to redo it again   🤔

some boring stats, so far there are
22 unique enemies (7 neutral 15 mite worshippers)
7 bosses  (1 almost finished - 6 wip )

there are many more enemies planned

but there is more than enough for the opposition and they will be added as extras later
at least that is the plan 🤔

I'm afraid the heyday of itch.io is long gone - and that is for most online game markets no matter how big - today if a game is not on steam it might as well not exist 🤔

if you are looking for exposure on itch I suggest entering one of them game jams
(but don't expect hundreds or thousands - just to be at least seen by someone)

still as it was suggested before me: screenshots, description, good thumbnail
at least give people some idea what they are in for 😓

I upgraded from making models all day to working on boss code all day
I'm making the clear mistake of trying to work on all bosses at once

so far the stargazer boss is turning out well

then we have the bandit behemot who somehow got himself a military grade gatling
and proudly strutting around with it

his aim could be improved though 🤔

turns out that making a convincing tornado effect is not easy
I either should drop the 3D model or the particles
both turned out well but have a disagreement about how this effect should work
on the other hand I thought making the player fly up and swim around in the air
will be the hard task but it was working in like 5 minutes  🤔

overall things seem to be going well but slowly
so far only one boss idea was cut
it was seemed to be easy but .. well it wasn't
no need to panic yet

american politics are  important  for the entertainment industry  
every 4 years people eagerly await the results..  to see  what crops to plant this year 🤔
democrats win: time to make zombie games 🧟
republicans win: time to make vampire games  🧛

go for it 👍
(also feel free to post a link to it here)

one advice I can give you is to make the game easier to market 🤔
give people who make streams, trailers or just screenshots for the game an easier job:
put some landmarks on the tracks (instead of just generic tracks)
maybe some portraits for the drivers (something humorous perhaps)
and in a racing game cars are everything
make them as flashy and robust as possible

you seem to have a concept that has the potential to stand out
but you need to drive it home (pardon the expression 🤭)
right now it feels a bit too basic
(I learned this lesson the hard way myself making one of the most generic RTS games ever 😓 )

handsome fella isn't he? 🤭

it's all about that winning smile:


(and perhaps a firm handshake? 🤔)