1.4 is a pain. (ToT 2/29/12)

Well, Square Trail 1.4 is huge if I want to fulfill as many of my expectations as possible. So I plan on breaking it up into two updates, 1.4 and 1.5 so I can divide the work up a bit. There's a lot of new graphics and programming work going into this, but it'll be worth it!

Today I put in a death screen, Coin collection system... 

score+(kills*2)

And a frame of the new main menu. A lot has to be done, ohhhh boy. In the coming days I'll be working on UI stuff. A lot of UI stuff.

Square trail 1.4, balance issues, and a Prologue hiatus (ToT 2/14/12)

Okay, so 1.31 of Square Trail is out, with it some performance tweaks and balancing... however it didn't end up well, and is worse off than before! Shield is now really weak, and Ghost is too strong... so 1.32 will be out tonight fixing those issues.

BUT ONTO 1.4 WOO!
This introduces too 2 main new things: Coins, and Skins. You earn coins from your Score + Square Kills, then you can buy new Square Skins with these coins. It might also have a Hardcore mode... but that might come even earlier... or later, I don't know yet. Hardcore mode will bring faster Red Square spawns, and faster movement.

Prologue? Development is on break due to the success of Square Trail. One at a time, one at a time. I'm really happy with PR2 so it can stay this way for a while.

Mission accomplished!

Alright, awesome news!

• ProShop is IN! So far you can buy the Turret, Rifle, or Quick Heals.
• Inventory is IN! From MyPro you can see all the Gear, Equiptment, or Weapons you've purchased.
• New interface is IN! It looks and works great, too.

Also...

• Improved saving - you have to do it manually by opening up the "In-Game Menu", but it works much better.
• A new gadget like the Turret might be added before Saturday/Sunday.
• ProShop Gift Codes will be added. I'll post some on my blog and in physical cases, giving you some free PP. Eventually, Code purchasing will be added - for a PP price you can get a code to transfer PP to someone else.
• Earn more points in Survival mode, making it on par with Legacy.

Big changes with PR2.

ProShop is implemented. Potential purchases are sorted by "Badges" "Equipment" and "Items".

Badges all part of the ProShop series, just expensive things you can buy to collect and finish your Wall.
 
Equipment: There are two classes to this, gadgets like the Turret, used with X and Z - one can only be equipped at any time, your Inventory in MyPro is used for selecting your Equipment. There's also Gear like your main weapons - Pistol, SMG, Rifle.

Items like equipment, re used in-game, with the V key. They're one-time use, sometimes stackable items with a specific use, like the Quick Heal that fully restores your health, but you can only have 5 at any given time.


Oh, and uh... Equipment in PR2

• Turret will become the first piece of equipment you can buy, for 100,000 ProPoints.
• The Rifle might be the first purchasable piece of Gear. Meaning you start with just the Pistol and SMG, but have to buy the Rifle for 250,000 PP

Items... only the Quick Heal.

Baadges... might not be in PR2.

Where's the points.ini file?

Right here.
Open up My Computer, make sure you have Show Hidden Files on...

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\MMFApplications

Look for points.ini.

Tuesday Progress Update (1/31)

So far, the new Interface is functional. Just need to re-size and move some boxes, and it's done.
Which means today, I'm starting on putting the store in. Here's what it'll feature!

Badge Series: Plenty of Points

• [Back to Square One]: 1,000,000 points.
• [That's it?] 1,500,000 points.
• [You win?] 2,000,000 points.

The cost is so huge for these just to be long term goals, versus the just "collect points" series (Over 9000-My Little Million) since you're spending the points and have to collect it all over again. My goal is for at least a few hours of playtime to get 100% in the game -- all badges, all briefcases.

Items 

• [Quick Heal]: 250,000 points. 1 time use, can hold 5 at once. Press F to fully restore your health.

Equipment / Upgrades

• [Gun Turret]: 500,000 points. Unlocks the Turret ability (same as before, tap X.) permanently.
  I wanted at least one ability unlock... so this is it. You can get this many points in like 2 runs of the East Gate chain.

Now for some stuff about Story Mode:
Scene 2 is awesome. It's very cinematic, compared to all of my previous games. First few seconds are calm, but then you're sent running away, and you have to run fast. You don't have any of your guns here either, but you can pull off Stealth Kills. You'll be running away trying to escape a huge house, and taking down the enemies in your way. There'll also be a badge you can earn in this level from SK'ing enough of the enemies, as well as a hidden briefcase.

Awesome news in 3, 2, 1...

In my last post, the new iteration of the Main Menu was shown off. Well it's evolving forward a bit more, you see...

I got ideas for the Shop!


First of all, the "Badges" tab you see in the picture will be renamed to something more universal, currently I'm thinking "MyLog", "MyPro" or something along those lines. In that tab, you'll be able to go to the Badge Wall, see some stats, and access the ProShop.

Inside the ProShop you'll be able to buy stuff like...

• Buy a new set of Badges (Meant to be earned after My Little Million)
• Buy a new medkit to be placed in Survival Mode.
• My favorite so far... Purchase a Quick Heal, for 500,000 ProPoints you can tap "F" to use it and instantly fill your health, it's a one time use thing, so you should buy one in preparation for a hard level or long Survival run.

With the introduction of the new Quick Heal item, I'm adding tougher death penalties for Legacy Mode (when you tagged a checkpoint), you'll lose 10,000 of your points in that current stage each time you die.

You'll be able to carry multiple Quick Heals. You can track your inventory in "MyLog", and with this new feature introduction, I might go for more Items in the future - I'm even thinking about making it so you have to buy Ammo, or at least ammo boosts.

Another idea I'm thinking of is a "Extended Mag" upgrade. You'll be able to use it to boost your current clip by 15.

With all these upgrades and items though - I'm starting to think about adding an in-game Inventory screen, but this is looking a bit too far ahead.

CSIP: New Menu Interface

Here's a concept of the new interface I'll try to put into Prerelease 2.

Quick note: The right area will be vertically aligned and not low like it is here!

Clicking "Badges" might bring up  new tab, with stats such as how many briefcases you found - and later on, possibly your highest score achieved in any stage - and of course access to the Badge Wall.

It'll work like the current one, just better.

With this, badges are a bit more obvious thanks to the glow, and there's a lot more room for text, stats, and future game modes. Plus, with the black borders it's consistent with the Badge Wall, I'm going to shoot for putting this in-game today so it's ready for PR2.

Progress - and my first deadline.

Okay, deadline for Prerelease 2 is superbowl sunday, Feb 5th. I gotta have a good build ready to show my cousins.

Here's a bit of a checklist of what's been done so far, keep in mind I've had a lot of schoolwork since Thursday! If it's not on the list, it's not in this build.

• Story Mode Scenes 1 and 2 complete (2 is in progress)
• Legacy tweaks.
• More badges, working Legacy Badges
• Fixes from PR1
• Foundations of a storefront for spending points.
• Hubs for Story, Survival, and an improved Legacy hub.
• ProPoint income toned down.

Pre Release 2 and CSI:P Menu UI

First thing: The Live Hub concept I wanted to put in PR2 will not be in that version, the ActiveX Microsoft Web Browser extension is a glitchy P.O.S. so maybe later on.

Now to the real article... I'm not happy with the UI design for CSI:P, it's not at all consistent from menu to the Badge Wall - so I'll be toying around with a redesign to make it fit in with the Badge Wall. I'm not a fan of overzealous hand-holding in games ("You can move with WSAD!") But this game is designed with my younger cousins in mind, so I'll see if I can put a guide similar to Revelations travel guide.

Now, small side projects:
While I don't want to work on lone (too big a project and distraction from CSIP) I do want to toy around with some side projects as a refreshing activity. Both I want to work on are revamps/sequels of old games from my past. Quarantine 2 and Minisports 3.

Points,General CSIP devtalk, and lots of stuff about Nations!

If you're plying the CSI:P Prerelease you probably noticed that... you get a huge mount of points. It's intended, thats for sure. I wanted stuff to feel rewarding, although like this a single point or even 100 points means nothing. Rather than cut point gain (I still like this!) the economy in-game will be inflated, stuff will be priced in the 250k+ range, and into the millions.

The thing is though, in some Legacy maps you can break your points counter by earning more than 100,000 points in a single scene.

Prerelease 2 might see some changes related to the point-conomy, you'll probably earn a bit less.

Now for some bug problems with PR1:
If you click in the middle of the screen on some stages the stage resets, this is due to the "you died bro" dialogue still being there, just invisible, should be easy to fix.

And a bit about Story:
Scene 1 is just about done, Scene 2 will be my first outing into 'cinematics' with taeHD, and it has a lot of them.
I'll probably plug in a way to skip the level, because I know cinematics really can take you out of the game, or stop the pace - but it is Story mode and I want to get my cousins' story into the game.

Lone Outskirts pt2:
LATER. CSI:P is my main priority right now and likely will be for at least a week.

Why I started Prologue instead of went straight to Nations:
I want these two games to be my first real high-quality creations. Revelations didn't feel like enough for me so I revitalized it with Prologue rather than dump the entire project, now it's something I'm proud of already. All of the stuff I'm putting into the game here is stuff I want to use in Nations - plus I have more time to experiment with open world thanks to lone. Nations will pretty much be an open world Prologue, and a way to get me to try something really unique.

And stuff I want to be in Nations - Up to date.

• Open world in the San Andreas fashion - massive countryside, medium cities. Nations will probably have 1 city, but lots of villages.
• Instanced missions and/or "Hideouts" (dungeons): Seperated from the overworld but fitting to the area around it, hopefully repeatable, too.
• Return of the Badge Wall.
• Even more weapons, at least an explosive.
• Destruction opportunities: Ability to destroy buildings with weapons or vehicles.
• Lotsa vehicles, cars with different stats, helicopters, planes, and boats: I'm probably going to have to use premade vehicles that came bundled with Multimedia Fusion 2, my dev program. I can't draw.
• High resolution display, like Lone, but maybe even higher res.
• Better handling of the overworld than lone (better performance)
• "PDA" system - I wanted to do this with Revelations and it's Map but I couldn't, menus would be accessible with it, like a map, or game info, and the Badge Wall. Similar to lone, but with more apps.
• RPG-like feel: Hinted by the Instances/Hideouts I want in the game.

ProPoints, patches, and prerelease 2 stuff

Alright, so we have a primitive save system in place, we have a 'currency' system, and we have some bugfixes from Prerelease 1 prepped for PR2, besides the Maximize/resize crash and graphics bug.

First I want to talk about  use for PP. There will be a shop, but I don't have many ideas for what to put in it.
Idea time!

• [Unlikely] Lock content off so you need to unlock story missions/legacy phases with PP
• [Highly Likely] A badge series that can only be bought through the shop, pretty much harder to get than the pure PP series (Over 9000, ML Million)
• [Maybe] Minor player improvements, like faster running speed. I want to be able to keep the game balanced so this is an issue.
• [Likely] Minor changes to the game itself, like Menu screen backgrounds.

I'm still thinking of ideas and I'm not happy with what's here, expect some more ideas later on.

Next topic: Patching the game.
Big thing I'm going to be working on before I release Prerelease 2 is a patching system, now that the game has save files I don't want people to lose them every update, you can, however - backup your points.ini and it will still read in future versions.

So here's my current set of goals before I release PR2:

• Patch system, game updater.
• Story mode scenes 1 and 2 complete.
• Legacy tweaks.
• More badges, working Legacy badges.
• Fixes from PR1 (no progress on the mximize/resize crash sadly)
• Foundation of a storefront at least, probably no content.
• Hubs for Story and Survival, improved Legacy hub.
• A skip-able opening tutorial.
• "Live Hub", more on it later today.

This is Prologue.

This is the Prologue menu as of today. Here's what I just spent hours over two days working on.

First of all, here's a walkthrough the menu.

1. In-Game Menu - This is accessible at all times and lets you leave a scene/level and head back to this menu, go to Full Screen, or just turn off sound.

2. PP (ProPoints) count. Shows you your total combined Score across your entire campaign, on the right you can Load your last game saved, or wipe it and start a new one.

3. You'll get notifications for Badge unlocks when you head back to the Main Menu from whatever you were doing. Check your Badge Wall and the notification disappears.

• "ProPoints" consistent data. Every level you complete, every attempt at Horde mode. All of your progress of earning points is saved, and can be accessed the next time you start up. It's going to be usable to unlock some gameplay related things, so I'm going to keep it saved in an open, accessible through notepad ".ini". You can change the score to your liking since it isn't really meant for serious competition.

• The next thing? I call it Badge Wall. Badges you earn will be viewable here, as well as ones you haven't achieved yet, and how to get them. Grey background like the ones you see here mean locked, you haven't gotten them yet. If they're golden, you got it.

On save files in future games (Well, CSI P) and badges!

So I tried a bit of file saving yesterday, didn't work out too well. But here's something I'll probably be able to do before a complete version releases: The most recent score.

This  should definitely be possible and doable, but saving Story Mode states is a bit different. I don't want the story to drag on. I want it to be content worth revisiting to explore  level or try for a better score, so saving might not even be necessary for that.

Anyways, each mode in CSI:P will have  "Hub". You choose the mode in the main menu and it brings you to the hub. You'll get information on what is you'll be doing, go back to the main menu, or start the mode.This gives space for at least the most recent score to be displayed.

Remember taeConnect Badges in the attempted Revelations revamp? Well those went away... for now at least. I think I can get them back in to an extent. It should be something I can get done, even with a full badge viewer interface in the menus, imagine stuff like:

[Over 9000]- Get over 9000 points for your first time.
[Treasure Hunter 1] - Find your first hidden case of money.
[Treasure Hunter 2] - Find five hidden cases.
[Treasure Hunter 3] - Find all 10 hidden cases.
[Crazy Points] - Get over 50,000 points.

[Addicted] - Get over 100,000 points in one level.
[Destroyer of Hordes] - Survive wave 10 in Survival
[East Gate Champion] - Complete East Gates in Legacy.
[Back Room Wrecker] - Complete Back Rooms in Legacy.

Of course it all would be persistent, something meta to work on even after beating the main story.