![]() Head over to FlatheadGames.com for more info. |
Well, it's been over two years since my last post but I'm finally done with a version of Explosive Gas for Xbox Indie Games.
It's currently in the peer review process, which I've heard can take some time.
If any XNA devs are out there reading this, you can take a look.
I'm going to put up a bunch of info about the game on FlatheadGames.com as soon as I'm back from a short Easter vacation. For now, you can click the image on the right to get three "screenshots". |
Something changed on the web server which broke the old chat room, so instead of fixing it, I replaced it with a new one! Check it out, it seems quite a bit better than what I had before. |
I have to give a big thank you to Specs, not only has he started up a dedicated server for Explosive Gas, he's also just set up an irc channel to help organize games. So, if you've been wanting to play and have been having trouble getting people together or are been having trouble running your own servers, head on over to irc and get in on the action! server: irc.esper.net channel: #atouchofwar Link:irc://irc.esper.net/atouchofwar |
Well, it's been over a year since the last Explosive Gas update, so here you go. The only thing noticeably different in this version is a second map layout. This new map has some holes on the upper level that are useful for surprise dive bombs on people below. Just watch that you don't fall into a dead end. Enjoy. |
Turns out there was a fairly obvious bug that prevented workers from being trained in the latest version. There's a new version that fixes this on the download page now. Thanks to albertwhite, Irokmar and slippy12 reporting it in the forums. |
Here's a new version of the game with some of the new stuff I've been working on. It's not quite done and not as user friendly as I'd like, but it's been so long since the last release, I figured it's time to update. I updated the game to use the latest devkitpro. This should fix network connection problems for new ds's. There's also a new single player menu with the following options:
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![]() Your goal in this game is to program your player to pick up the gift and deliver it to any of the sleighs. You'll be competing against up to three other players, so watch that they don't push you into the water to slam into you to steal the gift you might be carrying. Up to four players can play over Wifi, and a single player game with three AI's is included for practice. I've fixed a few bugs since submitting this to the contest, and changed the game slightly, so there are now four sleighs to deliver the gift to, since having only one made the game a random shoving contest to land of the winning square with the gift in hand. |
Who would have thought having a kid could eat up so much free time? And when it comes to the choice between playing games and making them with what time is left... turns our playing them is easier. :) That said, I've finally gotten around to updating this game a bit, just fixing up a few more glaring issues. Here's the list of what's updated.
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![]() Here's another update. I've added teamplay and some stat tracking. The server can choose whether or not to enable team mode on the main menu with the 'X' button, and players can switch teams between rounds with 'Y'. You can check out a work in progress of the stats page here. Enjoy. |
Here's yet another version of Explosive Gas. I've done a bunch of updating and much needed bug fixing. Here's the list.
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Linux version is now up. That should make at least one person happy... |
Hey everyone, I added the very first powerup to Explosive Gas, a can of beans! Now with the 'Y' button('S' on Linux/Windows) you can release fast spreading flammable gas around the playfield in the hopes of trapping someone in a cloud of fire. I have the ds and windows versions ready, and only noticed recently that the windows version wasn't compatible with the ds or linux version, that seems to be fixed now that I compiled it with gcc on windows, no clue why. I'll get a linux version compiled soon. Enjoy. |
I just got a request in the forums to update the game to the newer wifilib with the fix for newer ds lites, so this is a quick update mainly for that reason. I also added a shuffle button for all 3 card games, a simple feature but enough to make the game no longer backwards compatible, so if you plan on playing online, make sure you update your copy. |
Hey everyone, after being recently impressed by Media Molecule's newly announced game, I decided to look into 2d physics and I came across this video of an MIT physics software demo and was blown away, so I spent a few hours trying to get some 2d physics running on the ds. I know, I'm way behind the times, apparently you can download something from MS that does all this if you have windows and a tablet pc. Anyway, I started with Erin Catto's Box2D engine, mixed it in with one of the 3d demos from libnds and basically got it up and running. I hadn't done much with opengl in the past, so that part took time, while the box2d code just compiled right in and worked with only a couple of changes to the rendering part of the code. It actually runs somewhat well in some of the simpler demos, but slows down a bit too much when it comes to larger groups of boxes intersecting(like the box pyramid). I don't know when I'll get more time to look into this stuff, but in the meantime you can download the app and code here, I'll post it to my tools page as well. The code is in a state where I'm butchering the physics world timesteps in order to make it run at a real time pace at the expense of physics accuracy, but I included a couple of alternative timestep loops in there if you want to see how it runs while maintaining integrity. Not much to have fun with, but have fun anyway. |
Here's another update with some much needed features, mostly small things to make the game a little more comprehensible.
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Time to start with a new version number since I'm actually adding features and not just fixing bugs. This new version just contains one new feature, namely unit groups. I added 9 slots for remembering/setting active groups. To use them, have a group of units or a building selected, tap an empty slot at the top left you want to assign it to and you're done. Tap the number again to reselect those units, tap it with the group already selected to center the screen to their location, and hold the number for a half second to erase the grouping. |
Just a couple more bug fixes. Some people have mentioned in the past that the top minimap screen was covered with a layer of random pixels on certain flashcards, I think I've tracked that down, so if anyone sees this still happening, let me know. I've also updated all the network code to the (no longer) latest version(0.3c) of Stephen Stair's dswifi lib which fixed some issues with going online with newer ds lites. |
No new features, just a near-complete reskinning of the game by Chris Hildenbrand. I'd been sitting on these new graphics for far too long, so I've finally taken the time this weekend to put most of them into the game. As always, if anyone wants me to add in any of their favorite game sets, just leave a message in the forums. |
And finally, here's a Windows version. I've only tested it quickly after adding sound support through SDL, and there seems to be a problem with a delay before each sound gets played, at least on Windows XP. I'll post another version if I ever figure out what the problem is, but since I don't run Windows, I don't know when I'll get the chance to test it. Otherwise it works great. |
Here's a version of the game for Linux, or at least for Ubuntu running on an intel chip, I don't know enough about Linux to say what other distros it'll run on. This is a direct port of the DS version, and they are network compatible. I used GLFW to create a window and access the keyboard, OpenGL for the graphics, and SDL for the music/sound effects. Also, because I'm lazy, I didn't change any of the DS interfaces, so it shares the same buttons(mainly use 'A' for everything and 'X' to show player names) and it doesn't have name entry since the ds version reads your name from the firmware. So, to change your name you'll need to rename the application itself. Replace the "PlayerName" with anything up to 10 characters. Here's hoping this works, I should also have a Windows version soon... I just need access to a Windows machine for about an hour to get the SDL stuff compiled. |
I finally got around to cleaning up a bunch of the bugs and to adding some of the features that had been planned for the initial release but didn't make it in because of the deadline for the contest. So now get ready for a version of Explosive Gas with almost completely destructable environments and with bombs that can ride elevators! Unlike before, This version isn't backwards compatible with the older versions, so I recommend everyone upgrade to increase the odds of two or more people finding each other online... You can grab it here. |
Here's an update to the game, I still haven't tested with more than two players, but I did add scribble chat, a crossword style game ;) and a game selection screen. |
Time for another update. I made the switch to Ubuntu about a month ago, and it took me a while, but I've finally settled in and found all the apps I need to code with a bit of ease(it's hard to move away from msvc as an ide). But I don't want to turn this into a blog, so here's some game update news... This is yet another bug fix release, a couple of people on the forums have now mentioned that the minimap "selected area" box wasn't showing up, something I don't quite understand was causing the box to be drawn offscreen, but I managed to get it working regardless. I also fixed another problem that creeped in when I updated libs, the random number generator I was using for setting up the world stopped working, causing all the grass tiles to look the same. So, changing to plain old rand fixed the problem. I also played a wifi game with this version and it works great, so I've taken down the previous versions. |
I've decided to release the source code to Explosive Gas. I've been meaning to do this since the ndshb contest ended in early July, but always figured I'd wait until I had it more bug free and stable, but since it seems I'll never find the time to fix it up, I may as well release it as it was. Hopefully, some homebrew ds coders out there will benefit from some of the code in the package. You can download it from the Explosive Gas page. |
I finally found some time to fix the crash that Meleeboy0 mentioned on the forums
two weeks ago. In the process I also made a slight change to the way the build menus work,
it will now choose the icon initially picked when you drag it out to the side,
rather than the last one the pen was on when the dragging started. As a side note, I updated to the latest libnds and wifilib, but I don't have 2 ds's around to double check if the online game still works, the game still connects to my webserver and post that a server was started, so that's a good sign that everything should be ok. |
Another small update with two requested features put in.
You can now hit 'X' at any time to display names over the players.
And as a server, between rounds, you can turn the 5 second
auto round start on or off using the 'B' button.
I also tighened up some of the network stuff,
so servers should now appear in the list instantly. You can grab it here. |
Just a small update to fix yet another crash bug. You can grab it here. |
Wow, It's been a while since I've done an update.
As you may know, we won the ndshb WiFi Game Competition
with our entry 'Explosive Gas' earlier this month.
If you haven't seen it already, you can check it out here,
and if you have, I've posted an update that fixes a couple of network issues and
a client side crash bug.
I also fixed a bug in my ima2raw tool that melw, over on the gbadev forums, noticed. Files that were converted were coming out up to 1k larger than the originals. So if you're using this tool(which I doubt you are :)), go grab the update, your games will be slightly smaller. |
Yet another build with some memory bugs fixed, this should make the game more stable for
both online and offline play. Also, different versions aren't compatible with each
other online, so try to use the latest version otherwise people won't see the servers you
are running. And same note as earlier, in order to play an online game your ds needs to be preconfigured to connect to your router using an official Nintendo game (mario kart, animal crossing, metroid, etc.) and if you want to host games you need to forward UPD port 9999 to your ds. |
![]() Another sync bug squashed... Just a note since it's falling off the bottom of the page, in order to play an online game your ds needs to be preconfigured to connect to your router using an official Nintendo game (mario kart, animal crossing, metroid, etc.) and if you want to host games you need to forward UPD port 9999 to your ds. I'll try to include a readme of sorts in future builds. |
Not much new in this build, just a few bug fixes for people playing online.
I made the wifi menus more robust, so you should be able to back out of
any operation you started without the need to reboot.
I also fixed a couple of bugs that caused online games to sometimes lose sync.
Hopefully I caught them all this time. The only non-wifi changes have been a couple of optimizations to help improve the frame rate when you have a lot of units. |
Time for another update, this time with online play! I've spent some time the last few
days fixing various sync bugs in my code, and this is the first version with which I've managed to
play a complete network game without any noticable problems, so I figured I'd take my chances
and release it before I did find something. I included a fairly bare bones lobby, you can host
and join games, but you won't know who you're playing against unless you recognise
the other persons ip address. The game's currently limited to 1 on 1. Taking a cue from blubb, you'll need to forward port 9999(UDP only) if you want to be a server, otherwise you'll get listed in the server list but no one will be able to join. You'll also need your ds firmware configured to connect to your router using Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, or some other wifi enabled game. |
Here's the latest, with excellent new graphics, courtesy of Chris Hildenbrand,
a great piece of music, courtesy of Mike Keogh, and a bunch of buggy features, by me.
The music is being sampled at 11khz because of memory issues, and is full of static because of it.
There are a few new features including:
Cavalry defense upgrades will be available for a small fee once https is supported on the ds :). I also added an ima-adpcm to raw conversion tool(with source) to the tools page. Enjoy |