Hey all
I'm currently working on Voxatron 0.2.10 which will serve as a kind of beta for v0.3, introducing custom players and various supporting functionality. This will bring the engine quite close to being feature-complete minus lua scripting. I've been mainly occupied by engine / voxde stuff for around 2 years now, so this is a very exciting prospect!
I was hoping to do a more intermediate update, but it looks like this is going to be an all or nothing situation and I've decided to make the jump and cram everything needed in there. So while I get this together, let me give you a quick preview in case it changes your approach to any work-in-progress levels.
Custom Players and Weapons
Apart from finally being able to define custom-sized players, you'll also be able to add emitters, animations and modifier control similar to monster definitions. Modifiers can be activated by legacy conditions (shooting-left) or by buttons (host.button.shoot). To support this, there will also be some provisional way to collect pickups in an inventory that can activate modifiers that express the pickup. For example, collecting a 'blobgun' pickup might auto-wield and replace a 'fireaxe' because they are in the same wield-group, making it an arcade-style pickup. (Later it will be possible to collect multiple weapons and choose between then rpg-style).
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日本語 fullpowersideattack.com ブログ投稿!
If you're at the Tokyo Game Show this weekend, please swing by the Indie Games Area (Booth 9-C7) and pay us a visit! Lexaloffle is teaming up with FullPowerSideAttack.com to run a booth on Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd of September. I'll be there on the Sunday to show Voxatron (of course) if you want to say hi, and nanmo-san from FPSA will be there both days demoing the adorable physics platformer, TorqueL.
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Hey All
Voxatron 0.2.9 builds are now up, and will shortly be up on Humble Store (check the version number in the filename). If you don't have a lexaloffle account (Games > My Games) and would like one, see this thread. To update from a Humble Store account, search your email for the download page link, or request a new one here.
v0.2.9 is an incremental updates that includes fixes to keep the BBS levels (mostly) functioning in the wake of underlying engine changes, some improvements to activations controllers, and a couple of new base types for fun (jelly, mud).
I've removed the experimental player editor for now, but it will come back in 0.2.10 in its completed form, at which time we can finally ditch the "_char" hack (Woo!)
This is also the last build that the existing doors and save game system will appear -- I'm aiming to have proper custom doors and full world state saving finished in 0.2.10 to go with the new player editor.
Some quick notes about activation control:
- you can now optionally type a 5 character (or less) string in the group field instead of a number.
- you can choose if the component is reset each time it is activated, or continues -- e.g. if you want an animation or emitter to continue from the same state it was last at.
- shift-P to play in debug mode, you can use '
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Hey All
Voxatron 0.2.8 builds are now up, and will shortly be up on Humble Store (check the version number in the filename). If you don't have a lexaloffle account (Games > My Games) and would like one, see this thread. To update from a Humble Store account, search your email for the download page link, or request a new one here.
0.2.8 is mostly another bug fixing update. If you've been away for a while, check the 0.2.6 update post to learn more about recent features.
This update includes water displacement, and a bunch of fixes for monster editing functionality. Here's the water in action:
I've updated the monster editing tutorial to reflect changes in 0.2.8. The only tricky difference is that instead of using labels to group animations (e.g. 'body'), they now follow exactly the same rules as modifiers. That is, each item has a standard activation controller. This can be useful for doing things like starting an emitter shortly after its containing modifier has been activated (e.g. trigger: parent, t == 240). You can also use it to daisy chain animations together without needing to wrap them in modifiers, using the activation controller's NEXT attribute.
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..that doesn't sound right.
Polygon.com came to visit earlier this year to talk about Voxatron and Lexaloffle's newly evolved cafe-form. It's more of a personal story than about development (it was originally for their "Human Angle" series) but I think does a nice job of introducing the direction of the project that I haven't really talked about much yet outside of BBS comments. That is, treating Voxatron not just as a game but also as a platform for creating programs that can run on Voxatron's display.
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I found this interesting voxatron thing, while I was trying to make a cube that could destroy walls when close enough
but my logic is diferent than the game's, I actually made some transparent voxels with the negative ones.
no crashes happen when playing with this, I searched for bugs but nothing that I could see but I did not found any use for it either.
you can see it in action in this little level
to finish it, just find all the keyblocks
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so, I need to know the players group and, if it's 0, how to change that, cause I want to do a mob wich can only be killed by its own bullets
also, when will voxatron add variable to the game, ones wich we can change so we could make something like a two sided story, without using an enormous number of rooms, thanks.
looking foward to everything, bye!
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[edit: updated to reflect fixes in 0.2.8]
This tutorial will show you how to make a zoib from scratch -- a simple monster that chases the player and occasionally shoots out some bullet patterns.
You can see some slightly more complex versions in action here:
Introduction
Monsters in Voxatron are represented as special folders that contain the monster's parts, along with a set of attributes given to the monster. Other objects are represented in a similar way -- for example, an animation is essentially a folder of frames. The monster's folder can include any combination of animations, modifiers, emitters, and anything the monster might emit: bullets, pickups, and even other monsters.
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Voxatron 0.2.7 builds are now up, and will shortly be up on Humble Store (check the version number in the filename). If you don't have a lexaloffle account (Games > My Games) and would like one, see this thread. To update from a Humble Store account, search your email for the download page link, or request a new one here.
This is a quick bug-fixing update. For more information about recent features, see the 0.2.6 update post.
This version should allow all of the existing BBS levels to playable roughly as they were. Please let me know if you see something that looks broken that didn't used to be.
Changes in v0.2.7
Added: Object counts shown in debug mode (shift-P to play)
Added: Clamp camera to room edges button
Fixed: Facing control not shown in monster properties
Fixed: Lava cold-start
Fixed: Emitted bullets not inheriting team value
Fixed: Size field shown for non-props
Fixed: Multi-spawned monsters stuck outside of room
Fixed: 2-way door not colliding
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Hey All!
Voxatron 0.2.6 builds are now up, and will shortly be up on Humble Store (check the version number in the filename). If you don't have a lexaloffle account (Games > My Games) and would like one, see this thread.
To update from a Humble Store account, search your email for the download page link, or request a new one here
0.2.6 contains a lot of new tools for creating custom monsters, bullets, emitters and players. The custom player editing is half finished, but I left it in there in case anyone wants to play around. I'll post a tutorial on how to use the new features tomorrow, but for now, here's a demo level that includes some example monsters:
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ok ... I'm halfway through my game (for voxatron)
Do you prefer the deshn ... escape and save marria ... release it and go to the end (combat with boss)?
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Well .. I'm leaving the voxatron ...
because I was hired to design a game ...
Sorry to my fans (if I have any)
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Hey All
So, I'm finding the prospect of free-form monster design pretty exciting, and managed to feature-creep 0.2.6 all the way to what was going to be the 0.2.7 feature set. Sorry about that, level designers! (And people hitting the BBS levels room-zero bug). Here's a quick preview of what's coming in the form of some silly test monsters showing examples of modifiers, emitters, custom bullets, particles and new triggers.
These octopi are made by emitting particle animations from the head so that they look like solid tentacles.
Using periodicly triggered modifiers to implement regular jumping.
Disco blocks -- collision events trigger the blocks to change their animation, with a separate warm-down animation when they are no longer touching another actor.
Circling the player.
A monster that contains a randomly triggered modifier that causes him to be physically taller, walk slower, and emit bullets from a hat.
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In the spirit of Voxatron, I created ANSITron for Petitcom on Nintendo DSi. Here's a short video of me trying to play it through an iPod screen and keep from dying and keep the game in center frame. Hint: The results are me playing extremely bad! Basically, it's Robotron done in ANSI characters available stock in Petitcom, thus really 'blocky' movement of everything. There's only 4 kinds of enemies and 10 specific level designs before it generates random levels until you get a game over. 3 of the enemies (Green, Yellow and Red) are destructible. The Grey enemies are not. They wander around seeking to destroy diamonds, which are your bonus points (and each one you collect doubles in points, so grabbing as many as you can without dying will net you some extra men!). The 3 destructible enemies just move towards you faster and faster. Depending on their color, they take up to 3 hits to destroy. If you touch anything other than a diamond, you lose a life. My highest score was around 500k and I got to the 13th level. There is a bug that causes it to crash randomly and I could not find it because it doesn't show up until after about 30 games...very hard to track!
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Hey All
So, it looks like 0.2.6 will be ready next week. It features the first appearance of modifiers -- a general purpose tool at the core of Voxatron's scripting engine. I've been using them recently to create conditional monster behaviours and attacks using custom bullets and emitter patterns (these will also be available in 0.2.6). I'm really happy with the way modifiers have turned out, and I'm sure level-designing people will learn to love and hate them in equal measure. There's also another dev diary on the way which has the gory technical details.
In the meantime, here's some papercraft Voxatron by @jitterworld that is currently staring at me. Check out some of his other papery stuff here.
(Those drawers are around 25cm across -- it's not a giant life-sized thing)
Finally - if you're in Tokyo this weekend, drop by the Lexaloffle office on Saturday, because I'll be testing out some experimental 4-player Voxatron code on the unsuspecting public, along with a preview build of Towerfall and the newly released and splendid Monaco. For more information, see Pico Pico Cafe's Indie Games Night page.
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I like the way PC88 coloring forces creative dithering...
I took an outline someone else did and attempted the same sort of coloring style...this doesn't have 'tall pixels' but does follow the 8 colors only scheme of PC-88.
I used D-Pixed and layers using it's built in dithering patterns, alternating color/transparent spots in the two colors available.
This one was started from scratch. No intention of finishing it but uses tall pixels and was done using GRAFX2.
It's fun playing around with these methods of coloring...feels almost like weird printing press with CYMK style coloring methods...
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Until the 18th of May, Show Me The Games is orchestrating a collective sale of 32 indie games. Show Me The Sales games include Voxatron (50% Off), Scoregasm, Darwinia, Gratuitous Tank Battles, and Offspring Fling. If you haven't grabbed a copy of Voxatron, you can get it this week for just $7.50 (along with a bonus copy of Swarm Racer 3000 Prototype).
The interesting thing about SMTS is that it is not run by any particular portal or distributor; all of the discounted games can be purchased directly from the developers. It has become usual and expected to buy games through some kind of store (e.g. Steam / App Store), and it's easy to forget that there was a time not so long ago when most indie developers didn't need to rely on such middlemen. Apart from allowing players to support devs without losing a big chunk of each sale to the reseller, being able to sell direct has a great influence on diversity and reduces the need to design games around potential sales channels. In other words, allowing indie developers to really be independent.
The current state of the market is not terrible -- it's still possible to sell indie games via channels that treat developers moderately well, and for niche games to find their audience. However, this could turn to custard very quickly and without warning! SMTG is just a way to fight back a little and keep the most indie-friendly channel alive and in the collective consciousness of indie game supporters. That channel is ... The Internet!
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its worth it, the corners are the hardest part. It compresses flat along two different axis . go on, why dont you fold-a-hyperbolic-paraboloid
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A preview of local multiplayer. The co-op mode follows typical arcade rules: player bullets don't hurt and when one player dies the other is left to play out the game solo. Bullets push the players around quite a lot, so it pays to coordinate your efforts to some degree to avoid inadvertently pushing your comrade into hurty things.
Competitive modes are still on the cards but will probably deviate from the obvious approach of transplanting existing characters into a death-math scenario. Pitting the default robot characters against each other results in quite chaotic play where the best strategy is often to spam bullets and leap around randomly. It might turn out better to have quite a separate set of characters and rules for this purpose. In any case, it will also be possible to invent silly 4-player party games using the editor.
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