Gunslinger action rpg

WIP games, tools & toy projects Archived Projects
#1

Hey!

I have created an action rpg. Basicly, you walk around with two guns (hence the name Gunslinger) in a sci-fi world and blast things (bugs, aliens or other humans). There are dialogs, inventory etc etc making it more an rpg than the average action game. The graphics are pretty simple 2D sprites (rotated on the fly). I prefer to have many many objects, guns and enemies in 2D than only five different of each in 3D. The music is kick-ass!

So far I have reached 0.3.2. This is not a release candidate but it is very close. People have told me that the game crashes sometimes and I am trying to get som decent error reports. You can play the game from start to end in about 3 hours (2 if you take the easy level and a few shortcuts). But then you have to know what you are doing and stay on top in the action.
http://gunslinger-game.mine.nu/

The download is 115 Mb and it is from my own server, so the bandwidth is not that good. Be patient. :slight_smile:
Under media, there is a gameplay video, watch it to see if this game is for you!

#2

I only looked at the screenshots and the gameplay-movie.

The ‘frustrum-culling’ is quite neat, but it makes the game a little claustrofobic.

80% of the screen is black. Maybe you could implement a fog-of-war, instead of complete darkness?

#3

I did play for a while, an hour or so, before it crashed-to-desktop on


Jan 21, 2007 8:46:04 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer run
INFO: Thread completed
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer open
INFO: open(java.io.BufferedInputStream@b9a97c8)
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer closeStream
INFO: Stream closed
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer createLine
INFO: Create Line
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer createLine
INFO: Create Line : Source format : VORBISENC 44100.0 Hz, unknown bits per sample, stereo, unknown frame size, unknown frame rate, 
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer createLine
INFO: Create Line : Target format: PCM_SIGNED 44100.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, little-endian
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer startPlayback
INFO: startPlayback called
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer initLine
INFO: initLine()
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer openLine
INFO: Open Line : BufferSize=88200
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer openLine
INFO: Master Gain Control : [-80.0,6.0206] 0.625
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer openLine
INFO: Pan Control : [-1.0,1.0] 0.0078125
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:53 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer startPlayback
INFO: Creating new thread
Jan 21, 2007 8:46:54 PM javazoom.jlgui.basicplayer.BasicPlayer run
INFO: Thread Running
Runtime error #3(trap) in JET
Please, contact Excelsior Support Dept. at support@excelsior-usa.com

Initial impressions are it’s fun but a little confusing and it feels as if you’re getting weapons too fast without growing used to using the ones you’ve had, or, more importantly, earning them. In an rpg I like to get an awesome weapon because I bought it or fought a huge battle to get it, not just find it in some random crate laying around. Also left mouse button should be left gun, right button be right gun. And can stats actually hurt attributes by leveling them? Current descriptions seem like by leveling main hand weapon I’ll hurt my offhand skill, or I’ll hurt my basic weapon skill by leveling theory. I don’t like the idea of leveling stats hurting me… could you clarify how the system works?

More detailed impressions later.

#4

Looks nice, though have not played it yet.
Riven is correct, add fog of war. If this were any other forum, I would not look at the game simply because of the black areas.

#5

The point of the frustrum culling is to make the player feel like in an alien movie. You never know what is behind you (or on the other side of the door). I have experimented a little with fog of war (I think you mean that I should paint the map in grayscale, without enemies and objects) but my initial attempts had disastrous performance. I’m not sure how visible they are in the screenshots or demo movie but there are outlines of the rooms in grey. So you have a basic knowledge of the geometry where you have been before, but not more. I may have an idea about how to do it.

I add two votes for “Fog of war” to my todo-list. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your comments!

#6

Thanks for playing! :slight_smile:

I hope you are not getting any awesome weapons early. Pistols, sawed of shotguns and crappy submachineguns are not of much use other than early in the game. You have enough to survive, but not much more. At least it’s the way that I designed it. Pretty early you will have an assortment of crappy weapons to choose from, they all have their uses. There are about 25 different weapons, with four different levels of availability. All found on the first level are common (and weak) or rarely you can find an uncommon gun. Later you will find more uncommon and rare guns. This is not like a first person shooter with a “ladder” of guns, where you will find and use all of them more or less in order. Instead there are many paths for you to choose from. Your combination of skills will limit you to a subset of weapons. The other may or may not be usefull but not as good as your first choice. If you focus on energy weapons there is a “mini-ladder” that goes from “Teardrop zero” to “Enforce ADPP” to “Vad Bistro no 9” (and then the “Alien blaster” but I have never found it since it’s very rare, but it should be possible, theoretically). If you focus on simple weapons there is the “Cult flayer” and the “Cult shotgun” that is basic but very usefull with lots of practice. What do you think, is it sill bad?

As for the skills, here is how they work: Skills are coupled in pairs. When you raise acrobat, this will hinder your development as an body builder. So body builder gets more expensive (the same rate as the next step in acrobat). Both skills in the pairs hinder the other one, but they will not hurt any stat, merely limit your development. A real life example: If you train to be a good swimmer, you can also be a good programmer. But if you are an olympic class swimmer, it’s very unlikely that you have any energy to put in on those programming lessons. You will not be a worse programmer, but you will not develop at all. Sounds good? Maybe I should clarify the skill descriptions.

Thanks for you comment and the error message. Can you tell me what hardware and os you are on?

As for

#7

The 0.3.2 version had an issue with the sound crashing the game on start. I used the standard mixer built into windows (I think it’s named “Primary sound driver” or some such) thinking that everyone must have it, but they did not. So I changed back to “Java sound engine”.

#8

I tried it at work, and really liked it. The dialog was a bit frustrating at first, as I just wanted to play around with the guns, though.

I would definitely pay for this game if you developed it into something bigger/longer. If you do, perhaps you could throw the player into some quick action almost immediately (“help kill five bugs”, or whatever), to make the start feel a bit snappier.

I loved the view clipping, and the fact that already seen walls were outlines so you knew where you’d been (although fog of war would be good to prevent most of the screen from being black). Great stuff!

#9

Thank you, I’m glad you liked it! :wink:

I had a writer/level designer in my team until a little while ago. The plan was to take the engine and build a longer game with a more serious attitude.

The game you are playing is referred to as the “demo”. It’s demonstrating the possibilities of the engine. There is a wysiwig editor and you don’t need any java-skills to make “dungeons”. Of course, to make a more serious game, you have to know a little java and learn the architecture of the engine if you want to script things. The demo wasn’t meant to be “The Game” until I realised my writer was quitting. The dialog and the events and the setting are very far from serious.
I’m thinking about how to construct a bigger more complex campaign with better story. It’s a little like learning how to do good software design in a completely new language. At first, you make all the mistakes.

If you just want to play with the guns and explore different tactics I recomend you try “Action”. It’s no dialogs, only you, the crates with guns and lot’s of enemies. Much like diablo. But not that long. I’m building more and more levels when I have time, right now there are three.

#10

I loved this game!
I myself used to play Diablo 2 all the time and this reminds me a bit of it.
The whole system of the game flows very nicely (experience,weapons,enimies)
I cant wait for the new levels and items!
The only thing I suggest is to make the the left mouse button make the left gun shoot and vise -virsa.
Also make it easier to equip items, I don’t know if you left click a weapon if it goes to the left hand or the right hand( it sometimes switches).
Other than that this game is perfect and I am a big fan.

Roninator

#11

Thats music to my ears! :slight_smile:

I will very soon release version 0.3.4. This will include

  • an instant action mode with randomly generated missions.
  • a more alive player character
  • grayscale drawing of visited areas. Though the method to determine what to show is less than perfect, but I think this will be it. Especially since this is a much asked for feature.
  • close combat weapons for the players (they are implemented in the code for testing, but I’m not sure the gameplay will benefit so they might not be used after all).
  • a couple of new weapons

My original idea was to have an area and add the visible area to this every frame. That way you will see exactly what you have previously seen. But that was way to heavy.
Now I use the recatngles that make up the map. When you enter a new rectangle, it is added to the visited area. It’s not perfect and you sometimes find yourself walking odd paths to “light up” an area but I think it is good enough.
Now that I have played my own random mission I have noticed how easy it is to get lost. It’s very hard to get lost when you designed the mission yourself. :slight_smile:

I will probably make a switch in the settings, allowing to select what mousebutton fires what gun. I’m rather surprised this is an issue, but am willing to change. :slight_smile:

#12

Well I finally got around to trying this game and how to put it… COOL!
Honestly it is a very fine game that kept me playing for 3 hrs straight.

Though I did notice some exploits (see pm)

#13

Hello!

I thank you all! I’ve had some really good feedback here (I fixed a couple of the issues I got from OverKill).

I’m releasing 0.3.4 now. Visited areas now drawn in grayscale and a random mission generator is the biggets news. Try it and tell me what you think!

#14

I have updated the site with new screenshots. Check them out to see what the grayscale visited areas looks like. Mostly cool I would say :slight_smile:

#15

Pretty cool, I like the music too :slight_smile: And the genre is definitely my kind of thing. I’m playing on Windows XP, Centrino 1.7GHz, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB graphics, and it does slow down a bit when there are quite a few enemies. I like the graphics. I notice you mention “Killer Game Programming in Java” on your site - I’m beginning that book now, seems to be pretty good so far, very in depth.