| --- Log opened Tue Feb 24 00:00:29 2009 |
| 00:33 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[T-2] |
| 00:38 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[zZzZ] |
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| 02:32 | <@Derakon> | I should've logged onto the TASVideos IRC chat earlier. Got a bunch of good ideas for improving Fusillade. |
| 02:32 | <@Derakon> | Scoring is going to change completely in beta 7... |
| 02:33 | <@Derakon> | And the whole "inflector for shields" mechanic's going away too, in favor of an "inflector for deflector" mechanic. |
| 02:38 | <@Derakon> | So here's what I'm thinking now. |
| 02:38 | <@Derakon> | Your multiplier does not increas steadily with time. Neither does your score. |
| 02:38 | <@Derakon> | Your score instead gets tallied at the end of the loop. |
| 02:39 | <@Derakon> | When you inflect bullets, they drop little glowing crumbs, which fly over to your multiplier and increase it. |
| 02:39 | <@Derakon> | (Repeatedly inflecting a bullet makes a little spark trail) |
| 02:39 | <@Derakon> | Additionally, as you leave the inflector on (regardless of whether it affects bullets), it gradually changes color and brightens. After 10s it peaks out, and the deflector becomes available on a different button |
| 02:40 | <@Derakon> | Turn the deflector on, and for a brief period bullets are repelled -- then the deflector drains and you're back where you started. |
| 02:40 | <@Derakon> | Getting hit, or killed, has no effect on your multiplier, but it resets at the end of the loop. |
| 02:41 | <@Derakon> | (Maybe you should have to collect the sparks?) |
| 02:41 | <@Derakon> | How's this all sound? |
| 02:41 | <@Serah> | Pretty good. |
| 02:42 | <@Serah> | But I have no clue how it works now. |
| 02:42 | <@Derakon> | Right now, every frame your score is increased by your current multiplier. |
| 02:42 | <@Derakon> | Using the inflector increases your multiplier; getting hit or killed decreases it. |
| 02:43 | <@Derakon> | The point made was that this lacks a certain amount of feedback, and could stand to be flashier. |
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| 02:58 | <@MyCatVerbs> | Derakon: so you're scoring points for staying alive and for exciting near-misses? |
| 02:59 | <@Derakon> | At the moment, yes. |
| 02:59 | <@MyCatVerbs> | That sounds like a really, really cool game. |
| 03:00 | <@Derakon> | Well, you could download it and try it out. |
| 03:00 | <@Derakon> | http://www.aegis-soft.com/games/fusillade |
| 03:01 | <@MyCatVerbs> | I could. Probably will, but tomorrow. No Windows box right now. |
| 03:02 | <@Derakon> | Ahh, well. |
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| 04:03 | <@Derakon> | Okay, this is feeling pretty promising now. |
| 04:04 | <@Reiver> | Interesting. Why do you reduce the multiplier rather than resetting it? I thought the reset was kind of the point. |
| 04:04 | <@Derakon> | Inflected bullets drop sparks. You have to grab the sparks to increase your multiplier. Inflecting through a storm of bullets is now all very well and good, but you have to go back to get the sparks. |
| 04:04 | <@Derakon> | Reiver: because then as soon as you die once, you may as well start over. |
| 04:05 | <@Reiver> | Really? Harder patterns earn points faster, and the high score still adds. |
| 04:05 | <@Reiver> | And why are you ditching the shields? I liked that mechanic. >_> |
| 04:05 | <@Derakon> | Optimal play in version 5 involved staying alive for as long as possible with no risk-taking, since the risk (getting hit) was in no way worth the benefit (slightly increased multiplier). |
| 04:05 | <@Derakon> | You'll still be able to gain leeway by using the inflector. |
| 04:05 | <@Derakon> | Just not the same way as before. |
| 04:06 | <@Reiver> | I do admit the multiplier should have been less 'time alive' and more 'dodging stuff'. |
| 04:07 | <@Reiver> | I think having a timer on the inflector becoming a deflector is... interesting, but it's a pretty fundamental game change. I preferred having extra chances, myself~ |
| 04:08 | <@Derakon> | It's not that the inflector becomes a deflector. Another button gets enabled which triggers the deflection. |
| 04:08 | | * Reiver eyes beta6. Invincibility time? I suppose this was for patterns that moved too fast for the cleared path to be useful? |
| 04:08 | <@Reiver> | And you discard the bomb mechanic? |
| 04:08 | <@Derakon> | Part of the reasoning behind this is that I can make a deflector look more interesting than another hit chance. |
| 04:08 | <@Derakon> | (Re: beta6, yes) |
| 04:09 | <@Derakon> | You'll still have shields/bombs/whatever they're called. |
| 04:09 | <@Derakon> | Just a fixed number per life. |
| 04:09 | <@Derakon> | Maybe if you manage to grab N bonus sparks, you get an extra shield. |
| 04:09 | <@Derakon> | I haven't thought that far ahead yet. |
| 04:10 | | * Reiver mumbles. Suspects the TAS folks have a point in that what you'll do will improve the high-end gameplay, but the lowend newbies will have a tougher time. |
| 04:10 | <@Reiver> | You could almost actually rig it so... hm. |
| 04:11 | <@Reiver> | Inflector charges up as it does now. Deflector drains as it does now (ableit at a faster multiplier, or whatever). If it fully charges, it earns you an extra bomb. But you can use it as a deflector too, which eats your bombs. I dunno. |
| 04:11 | <@Reiver> | Definately keep the inflector-charge mechanic rather than making it a set timer. |
| 04:11 | <@Derakon> | That becomes basically impossible to balance well. |
| 04:11 | <@Derakon> | Since deflectors are miles more powerful, survival-wise, than inflectors. |
| 04:12 | <@Reiver> | And you want to hand them out anyway, yes. |
| 04:12 | | * Reiver suspects a lot of patterns like the turret ones will be vastly easier, too, 'cuz you won't have to inflect to get rid of the turrets. |
| 04:12 | <@Derakon> | Whyso? |
| 04:12 | <@Derakon> | The charged deflector is meant to be a one-shot "oh shit I'm in trouble" button that you saved up for ahead of time. |
| 04:13 | <@Derakon> | You hit the button, for a few seconds you deflect bullets (you don't control the duration), and then it's business as usual. |
| 04:13 | <@Reiver> | Oh, I see. |
| 04:13 | <@Reiver> | This is preferable to a bomb that fires automatically? Or does it just sound cooler, hence it being done? |
| 04:14 | <@Reiver> | Is there an advantage to continue inflecting once it's charged? |
| 04:14 | <@Derakon> | It's in addition to the bomb. |
| 04:14 | <@Derakon> | Yes, you can get a better multiplier. |
| 04:14 | <@Derakon> | The advantage over the bomb is that it's replaceable. |
| 04:14 | <@Reiver> | But no advantage in terms of improving survival? |
| 04:14 | <@Derakon> | The advantage the bomb has over it is that it's used automatically if you get hit. |
| 04:14 | <@Reiver> | Hmh. |
| 04:14 | <@Derakon> | They'll probably have different radiuses. *shrug* |
| 04:15 | <@Reiver> | I more meant, you used to use the inflector as much as you possibly could to boost your shield count. |
| 04:15 | <@Derakon> | Well, that depends entirely on how good you were with the inflector. :) |
| 04:15 | <@Reiver> | It now sounds like once it's charged, if you don't care about the score you can happily just leave it off. |
| 04:16 | <@Reiver> | When I say "As much as you could", I mean "And get away without dying". :P |
| 04:16 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 04:16 | <@McMartin> | "It's like going to work every day with your hair on fire and having nothing to put it out with but a hammer." |
| 04:16 | <@Derakon> | Having the inflector charge shields was a very spur-of-the-moment idea. |
| 04:16 | | * Reiver thought it was rather genius, but will accept it's destined to change. |
| 04:16 | <@Derakon> | One that, I'm beginning to think, is too difficult to balance as it is. |
| 04:17 | | * Reiver never really saw a problem with it; suspects the deflector will be even worse; but okay. |
| 04:17 | <@Derakon> | At the very least it shouldn't be a direct inflect => shields thing. The "grab N multiplier sparks to get a new shield" idea might work. |
| 04:17 | <@Derakon> | Well, we'll see how it works out. |
| 04:17 | <@Reiver> | (The only problem it really had a problem was by exploiting Snake.) |
| 04:17 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 04:18 | <@Reiver> | I also sorta enjoyed the way you were largely forced to use an inflector to disrupt patterns. |
| 04:18 | <@Reiver> | "So wait, my path to survival is to *drag bullets closer?*" |
| 04:18 | <@Derakon> | Yes, and I don't expect that to change. |
| 04:19 | <@Derakon> | The deflector should not be readily available. |
| 04:19 | <@Derakon> | And it will be tweaked until it is not. |
| 04:19 | <@Reiver> | Suggestion: Leave it charging in the same way the bombs do now. You may need to slow it down or somethin', mind. |
| 04:20 | <@Reiver> | Had it still be able to be charge-able past the oneshot, I would have suggested each successive charge took 2x the previous one, but I don't think that's possible... |
| 04:20 | <@Derakon> | That could work...runs into display issues, though. |
| 04:20 | <@Derakon> | Since I want to have the charge ring be visually discharged as you use the deflector. |
| 04:20 | <@Reiver> | Nah, doesn't work unless you can stockpile 'em. |
| 04:21 | <@Reiver> | ... minor FX suggestion: Have it drain in width rather than unwind like a clock. |
| 04:21 | <@Derakon> | That would be very tricky to implement. |
| 04:21 | | * Reiver had suspected as much. Ah, well. |
| 04:21 | <@Reiver> | It would have looked cool, though. >_> |
| 04:21 | <@Derakon> | I have some ideas for the deflector, though. We'll see when the time comes. |
| 04:22 | <@Reiver> | How hard would it to make the thing pulsate blue or the like? |
| 04:22 | | * Reiver likes to throw ideas out like confetti and let the brush & shovel pick up the useful ones~ |
| 04:23 | <@Derakon> | The charged deflector meter will do something shiny. |
| 04:23 | <@Reiver> | Jolly good~ |
| 04:23 | <@Reiver> | As for custom bullets: Two ideas strike me as usable, though I don't know what they'd do to processor consumption. |
| 04:24 | <@Derakon> | Pixel alpha comparisons don't work with the grace zone, FYI. |
| 04:24 | <@Reiver> | Sure they do. |
| 04:24 | <@Reiver> | Require >X collisions to trigger. |
| 04:24 | <@Derakon> | That doesn't work with high-speed bullets. |
| 04:25 | <@Derakon> | (Or a high-speed player, for that matter) |
| 04:25 | <@Reiver> | It's not checked per-frame? |
| 04:25 | | * Reiver understood the circles were checked per-frame anyway. |
| 04:25 | <@Derakon> | It is. |
| 04:25 | <@Derakon> | But bullets moving faster than, oh, 25px/frame appear to teleport. |
| 04:29 | <@Reiver> | This hasn't changed from previous though, has it? |
| 04:29 | <@Derakon> | No. |
| 04:29 | <@Derakon> | So maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by ">X collisions to trigger". |
| 04:30 | <@Reiver> | I mean when doing the pixel alpha, more than X pixels have to come up as a collision. |
| 04:31 | <@McMartin> | Derakon: You have a separate sprite that is a solid mask. This sprite is the comparator instead of the image itself. |
| 04:31 | <@Reiver> | ... And what McM said, though I'd been assuming such a thing inherently (which may have been an error on my part; I didn't specify). |
| 04:31 | <@Derakon> | Collisions are currently purely based on distance. |
| 04:32 | <@Derakon> | There's no masks involved. |
| 04:32 | <@Derakon> | I have a certain amount of concern that masks would be too slow in any case. |
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| 04:32 | <@Reiver> | I can't help there, enquire with McM who knows how this stuff works better~ |
| 04:32 | | * Reiver fixes the servers instead. >_> |
| 04:32 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
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| 04:41 | <@McMartin> | I was just discussion how you'd deal with both pixel-checks + sparse images |
| 04:41 | <@McMartin> | To solve the Teleport Problem. |
| 04:41 | <@Reiver> | McM: Is there any way to make such a check low in computation demands? |
| 04:42 | <@McMartin> | Not at bullet hell densities |
| 04:42 | <@Vornicus> | I am under the impression that Der Uses the teleports. |
| 04:42 | <@Derakon> | I do, for a couple of the patterns. |
| 04:42 | <@McMartin> | You can use quadtrees and coarse bounding-box checks to minimize the number of pixel-level tests you need to do. |
| 04:42 | <@Derakon> | Windmill and Sieve both abuse the fact that bullets don't occupy the space between them as they move. |
| 04:43 | <@Derakon> | I'm not particularly worried about teleportation. |
| 04:43 | <@Reiver> | McM: Well, he could keep the circle-detection code to rule out anything not right over the ship. |
| 04:46 | <@McMartin> | same deal |
| 04:47 | <@Reiver> | Still a big computation hog, I guess? |
| 04:54 | <@Derakon> | Blah, trying to come up with a sound effect for picking up a multiplier is hard. :( |
| 04:54 | | * Reiver envisons a powerup sound. Tries to find an example. |
| 04:55 | <@Reiver> | BdoowEEP. |
| 05:07 | <@Derakon> | Thing is, the player may be picking up many of these in one second, so the sound needs to be inoffensive. |
| 05:08 | <@Reiver> | Mostly why I was thinking a quick ... man, now I gotta find it. ;_; |
| 05:09 | <@Reiver> | A chirp. Sorta like you get on pinball machines when you get something cool. |
| 05:09 | <@Derakon> | That could work. |
| 05:09 | <@Reiver> | You know, that default blip sound that quickly rises the octave over part of a second? |
| 05:10 | | * Reiver knows the sound, but fail utterly at sound theory to /describe/ ;_; |
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| 05:11 | | * Derakon finds a two-minute-long track of birds chirping. |
| 05:11 | <@Derakon> | I should be able to find something useful in this... |
| 05:11 | <@Reiver> | Nnot quite what I had in mind, but it could work anyway~ |
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| 05:15 | <@Reiver> | Minor critique: Snake is no longer recognisable. Your patterns are becoming more difficult, but some of them are also losing the aesthetic effect in the process. |
| 05:15 | <@Reiver> | Would almost suggest reverting it and making it an easier pattern, 'cuz I was rather fond of its look. >_> |
| 05:15 | | * Derakon nods. |
| 05:15 | <@Derakon> | Not a bad idea. |
| 05:19 | <@Reiver> | Can the non-circle bullets be colored? |
| 05:19 | <@Derakon> | I haven't made colored variants yet. |
| 05:19 | <@Derakon> | Doesn't mean it can't be done. |
| 05:21 | <@Reiver> | I'd suggest it. And then suggest fandance having one of the two shapes colored; it's a little hard on the eyes right now. |
| 05:21 | | * Reiver plugs a minor dig for the channels by suggesting the special thanks to #code include the server. Is uncertain whether it should include #fleet if you did that though, given it's a +s channel. |
| 05:21 | <@Reiver> | As it stands, those who know about it know what it means, but it doesn't help anyone who doesn't... if this was intentional, carry on~ |
| 05:21 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 05:22 | | * Reiver is mostly throwing out thoughts as they come to him, but you probably know that by now. >_> |
| 05:22 | <@Derakon> | Okay, I'm willing to tentatively call that functional. |
| 05:22 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 05:23 | <@Reiver> | Hm. |
| 05:23 | <@Derakon> | You inflect, bullets move, move them enough and they drop sparks, move onto sparks, sparks play a sound then move to your multiplier, multiplier advances. |
| 05:23 | <@Reiver> | Suggestion: "Lock inflector" goes from an on/off button to on/off/capslock. |
| 05:23 | <@Reiver> | Hrm. How hard to do you have to hit the sparks? |
| 05:23 | <@Reiver> | Ship as a whole, or Red Dot? |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | Ship as a whole, kinda. |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | They, like everything else, have a pickup radius. |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | So it's a bit vague. |
| 05:24 | <@Reiver> | Ah. Okay. |
| 05:24 | <@Reiver> | Also: Props on the ship design. |
| 05:24 | <@Reiver> | /Vastly/ easier to know what has to dodge, now. |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | Thanks. |
| 05:24 | <@Reiver> | It also looks rather more badass~ |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 05:24 | <@Derakon> | All I really did was take away from the old ship. |
| 05:26 | <@Reiver> | You've trimmed the fat, then. |
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| 06:07 | <@Reiver> | I make the very minor note, idly, that the larger bullets mean that beginner is no longer so good for training inflector tactics. |
| 06:08 | <@Derakon> | Yeah. |
| 06:08 | <@Reiver> | You could perhaps shrink them so they're a little bigger instead of Huge? |
| 06:08 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 06:08 | <@Derakon> | Which pattern are you thinking of? |
| 06:09 | <@Reiver> | Crossfire and Machinegun, mostly. |
| 06:09 | <@Reiver> | Also, homebullet doesn't make much sense. |
| 06:09 | <@Reiver> | Not to be rude, but I think you may have gotten a little carried away with the shiny toys instead of leaving the beginner courses for, y'know, beginners~ |
| 06:09 | <@Derakon> | Heh. Entirely possible. |
| 06:10 | <@Derakon> | I spent a lot of time remaking courses over the last weekend, and not all of them are gems. |
| 06:11 | <@Reiver> | Mostly you've tried to overcomplicate them, I think |
| 06:11 | <@Derakon> | Homebullet in particular was too easy to cheese. Fly in circles. |
| 06:11 | <@Derakon> | It wasn't a perfect strategy, just very nearly so. |
| 06:12 | <@Derakon> | My solution to that problem leaves a lot to be desired, I'll grant. |
| 06:12 | <@Reiver> | The solution is a little random, yeah. |
| 06:12 | <@Reiver> | Hm. |
| 06:12 | | * Reiver ponders it. |
| 06:12 | <@Derakon> | I'm much more fond of the new Crossfire, where the problem only manifests itself at higher ranks (when the bullets stick around a lot longer). |
| 06:12 | <@Reiver> | The new crossfire is nice; my only complaint is the bullet size was a bit big |
| 06:13 | <@Reiver> | You can't really inflect them at all, and I'd suggest that beginner, at least, actively /encourage/ inflector use |
| 06:13 | <@Reiver> | It's the one a newbie will click on first, afterall. |
| 06:13 | <@Derakon> | So why should newbies be encouraged to use a feature that's intended for high-level play? |
| 06:13 | <@Derakon> | The inflector's going to get them into a lot of trouble on the other courses. |
| 06:13 | <@Reiver> | Because it's where I first got the hang of the inflector. |
| 06:14 | <@Reiver> | And went "Aha, so /that's/ how you do it" (Especially on machinegun). |
| 06:14 | <@Reiver> | If you don't want it, that's fine - leave beginner inflector-hostile; make /intermediate/ inflector-friendly. |
| 06:15 | <@Derakon> | Making a specific course inflector-friendly largely amounts to making that course too easy to be interesting. It means giving you enough room to easily dodge bullets even as you pull them in. |
| 06:15 | <@Derakon> | Certain patterns are made with the inflector in mind -- firecircle, machinegun, and (in Extra) tracker, for example. |
| 06:16 | <@Reiver> | Made in order to make it hard to use, you mean? |
| 06:16 | <@Derakon> | No, those patterns become easier if you disrupt them. |
| 06:16 | <@Derakon> | Pull the machinegun turrets off-screen, that type of thing. |
| 06:16 | <@Reiver> | Well, it's now very hard to disrupt Machinegun. |
| 06:16 | <@Derakon> | Right, and that was a mistake. |
| 06:16 | <@Reiver> | And that's exactly what I'm suggesting you fix. :) |
| 06:17 | <@Reiver> | Also, you may wish to be careful about 'inflectors are for advanced play, so I don't need to worry about newbies using it' - the perception is that it's there, so it needs to be used. |
| 06:17 | <@Reiver> | Especially if it charges a deflector. |
| 06:18 | <@Reiver> | Newbies will tend to try and charge it as quickly as possible. While I'm not sayin' you need to encourage this, making the beginner tracks deliberately /difficult/ to charge it on is possibly unwise? |
| 06:18 | <@Derakon> | It's not that I'm not worried about newbies using it; it's that I can't make a pattern be simultaneously interesting both with and without the inflector for a given skill level. |
| 06:18 | <@Derakon> | And a nontrivial number of players don't even realize it's there, even though I'm showing the help screen on startup. |
| 06:19 | <@Reiver> | True. Still. |
| 06:19 | <@Derakon> | So if they try to play without the inflector and the course is designed to be interesting only with it, then they'll be bored and quit. |
| 06:19 | <@Derakon> | The game has maybe five minutes to grab someone's attention. |
| 06:19 | <@Reiver> | Machinegun manages; I suspect Crossfire could do similar (at least until the loop scales up and inflecting becomes dodgy). Neither would /require/ it, but a smaller bullet would make it more effective to use at all. |
| 06:19 | <@Derakon> | It's a balancing act. There's no right answer. |
| 06:20 | | * Reiver nods. Isn't disagreeing; was just suggesting the beginner courses be made slightly more inflector-friendly without changing their gameplay without it. |
| 06:20 | <@Derakon> | Given that reducing the bullet size makes them easier to dodge, that's a bit tricky~ |
| 06:21 | <@Derakon> | Crossfire with smaller bullets isn't very interesting, BTW, since you can make certain that newly-created bullets get pulled offscreen before the next set become a problem. |
| 06:21 | <@Derakon> | (Hey, you're registered, you can change them and see how it plays!) |
| 06:22 | <@Reiver> | (Also, seriously consider allowing both shifts to function, if you can. Leftshift + z/x is just as intuitive as rightshift + ?/> is. Possibly more, I dunno.) |
| 06:22 | <@Derakon> | Annoyingly, Pygame differentiates. |
| 06:22 | <@Reiver> | Bummer. |
| 06:22 | <@Derakon> | I could dedupe them, but that requires special coding. I haven't gotten around to it yet. |
| 06:22 | <@Reiver> | Fair enough; was just a thought. |
| 06:22 | <@Derakon> | It'd seriously muck up my controls configuration code. |
| 06:23 | <@Reiver> | Can you grant two rows of keys? |
| 06:23 | <@Derakon> | That could probably be done, yes. |
| 06:23 | <@Reiver> | So game is inherently controllable with arrows /and/ WASD, leftshift/z/x /and/ rightshift/?/> |
| 06:24 | <@Reiver> | Which may well suit a lot of gamers anyway. I know I tried WASD before the arrow keys, and even if they don't realise the right hand commands work, I can see people hitting leftshift from that position out of experimental habit too~ |
| 06:26 | <@Reiver> | I dunno. Just a thought, and potentially easier than hardcoding something you probably don't want to hardcode anyway. |
| 06:26 | <@Derakon> | Yeah. |
| 06:26 | <@Derakon> | It's going to be a low priority, though. |
| 06:26 | <@Derakon> | Since you can already choose the controls you want. |
| 06:26 | <@Reiver> | Fair. Mostly mentioned to aid in the 'you have five minutes' thing. |
| 06:26 | | * Derakon nods. |
| 06:27 | <@Reiver> | And poeple tend not to bother with configuring things as part of that five, and if they do you're losing them anyway~ |
| 06:27 | <@Reiver> | ... hm. |
| 06:30 | <@Reiver> | I had a suggestion for hardcoding something that I instantly realised would be really handy soft-coded, too. |
| 06:30 | <@Reiver> | I realise the UI is a bitch to fiddle, but allowing a second row of text under a pattern name could be really good. |
| 06:31 | <@Derakon> | What for? |
| 06:31 | <@Reiver> | My first thought was that 'machinegun' could have the helpful tip on loop 0 of "Machinegun: [CONTROL_KEY_INFLECTOR] activates the inflector to move bullets." |
| 06:31 | <@Reiver> | "Serpentbreath: Yellow bullets earn points!" |
| 06:32 | <@Reiver> | Etc, etc. I dunno. |
| 06:32 | <@Reiver> | Basically a quick one-line hint column. |
| 06:33 | | * Derakon nods. |
| 06:33 | <@Derakon> | I'll give it some thoughts. |
| 06:33 | <@Reiver> | (Which may well be used by modders to give credits, too.) |
| 06:33 | <@Derakon> | I have two major concerns though: |
| 06:33 | <@Derakon> | 1) The control key for the inflector will change, so I can't have text referring to it without coding some kind of text replacement thing, which would only ever be used in this one situation. |
| 06:34 | <@Derakon> | 2) Text that gives hints for the pattern would either be pithy to the point of worthlessness or verbose to the point of distraction. Remember that bullets stick around during the waiting period between patterns. |
| 06:34 | <@Derakon> | (And 3) for the specific case of "these bullets are good", I've a feeling one line wouldn't be enough) |
| 06:35 | <@Reiver> | Not every pattern would use it. |
| 06:36 | <@Reiver> | Mostly... hm. I suspect it'd be used by modders as a quick credits thing, and you could rig it on Beginner to act as a very-quick-tutorial. |
| 06:36 | <@Derakon> | It's on my rapidly-growing to-do list. |
| 06:37 | <@Reiver> | It would trigger only on loop 0. |
| 06:37 | <@Reiver> | When you fiddlie with the Options window /anyway/, have a button to turn it off. |
| 06:37 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 06:37 | <@Derakon> | The Options page has very little room. ¬.¬ |
| 06:37 | | * Reiver is aware this is probably the wrong beta to be suggesting this stuff, because you're doing Major Changes to gameplay, not aesthetics. |
| 06:38 | <@Derakon> | They all end up everywhere. |
| 06:38 | <@Derakon> | But yes, my main focus is on gameplay at the moment. |
| 06:38 | <@Derakon> | That's why I'm writing these down instead of just remembering them. |
| 06:38 | <@Reiver> | Then I suggest beta6 tips the gameplay on its head. |
| 06:38 | <@Derakon> | Workin' on it~ |
| 06:38 | <@Reiver> | If you want I can scribble out UI/Beginner Enhancements that you can leave for beta7, as they're really for the finished product anyway. |
| 06:39 | <@Derakon> | (Beta6 is out, by the way) |
| 06:39 | <@Reiver> | Er. Beta... youknowwhatImean |
| 06:39 | <@Reiver> | 8~ |
| 06:39 | <@Reiver> | How hard is it to code a new UI screen, btw? |
| 06:40 | <@Derakon> | It's mostly just fiddly. |
| 06:40 | <@Derakon> | What did you have in mind? |
| 06:40 | <@Reiver> | If not too bad, I'd suggest having the current one as controls, and then having a button at the bottom for 'advanced' - turbo, inflector lock, hints on/off, Classic Mode, &etc |
| 06:41 | <@Reiver> | Seperating controls/fullscreen from gameplay options. |
| 06:41 | | * Derakon nods. |
| 06:41 | <@Derakon> | Not a bad idea, though I hate hate hate hiding "you probably won't need this" settings behind an "Advanced" tab. Different string. |
| 06:42 | <@Derakon> | I swear Windows has Advanced tabs behind other Advanced tabs. |
| 06:42 | <@Reiver> | "Gameplay", then? |
| 06:42 | <@Derakon> | As I said, some other string. |
| 06:42 | <@Reiver> | And of course when you click to that, the button at the bottom in the same place just happens to call itself "Controls" |
| 06:42 | <@Reiver> | Er. Do I misunderstand the idea of 'string'? |
| 06:43 | | * Reiver thought you meant you wanted to call it something else. |
| 06:43 | <@Derakon> | "String" is a bit of text. |
| 06:44 | <@Reiver> | Right. |
| 06:44 | <@Derakon> | So when I said "Different string." I meant "good idea, call it something else." |
| 06:44 | <@Reiver> | And I did, didn't I? >_> |
| 06:44 | <@Derakon> | Yep. |
| 06:44 | <@Reiver> | Oh, wait. You weren't objecting. Nevermind~ |
| 06:45 | <@Reiver> | Still, methinks that could be doable. "Gameplay" button on the controls page in the same spot as "Controls" button on the gamplay page. Two screens, more space. :) |
| 07:06 | | RooWeazel [Roogle@Nightstar-25590.hsd1.co.comcast.net] has quit [Quit: Write error; closing link.] |
| 07:34 | | Derakon is now known as Derakon[AFK] |
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| 08:49 | | mode/#code [+o Serah] by ChanServ |
| 09:34 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 09:37 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-1382.A163.priv.bahnhof.se] has joined #Code |
| 09:37 | | mode/#code [+o gnolam] by ChanServ |
| 10:36 | | * gnolam pokes Gmail. |
| 10:36 | <@TheWatcher> | It has teh deadzors, I think |
| 10:37 | <@TheWatcher> | I'm getting a mix of 502s and outright lack of connection |
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| 12:44 | | NSGuest-561 is now known as EvilDarkLord |
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| 14:46 | <@gnolam> | It's back up now. |
| 14:54 | <@gnolam> | Ah: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7907583.stm |
| 14:58 | | * TheWatcher does wonder exactly what went wrong in there |
| 15:01 | <@gnolam> | I'm going with the classic "someone tripped over the wrong cable". |
| 15:10 | <@TheWatcher> | Or "cleaner unplugged the wrong plug" >.> |
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| 16:02 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[afk] |
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| 16:58 | <@gnolam> | DO NOT WANT |
| 17:03 | <@MyCatVerbs> | gnolam: Bjarne? |
| 17:13 | <@gnolam> | Actually, not this time. |
| 17:13 | <@gnolam> | It's OpenUP this time. :P |
| 17:15 | <@gnolam> | (Although Bjarne has a lot to answer for.) |
| 17:15 | <@gnolam> | Hmm. |
| 17:15 | | * gnolam eyes Serah. |
| 17:15 | <@gnolam> | You speak the language. You should be able to get close to him... ;-) |
| 17:15 | | * MyCatVerbs preemptively thwaps gnolam with a newspaper. |
| 17:15 | <@MyCatVerbs> | Don't bite! |
| 17:15 | | Derakon[AFK] is now known as Derakon |
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| 18:06 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
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| 18:33 | | * TheWatcher eyes sorceforge |
| 18:33 | <@TheWatcher> | sourceforge too |
| 18:33 | <@TheWatcher> | Is it just me, or is that place slowly coming apart at the seams? |
| 19:01 | <@gnolam> | Howso? |
| 19:04 | <@TheWatcher> | Like just now, I was pulling down the new phpmyadmin release and it didn't assign me a mirror or anything. Yesterday I was looking for something, can't remember what ATM, and it was only sending half the page before closing the connection... quite aside from the unusability they've made of late |
| 19:05 | <@TheWatcher> | *unusability changes |
| 19:43 | | Rhamphoryncus [~rhamph@Nightstar-7184.ed.shawcable.net] has joined #code |
| 19:43 | | * TheWatcher eyes this html, can choose between doing it using a table, or using css |
| 19:44 | | * TheWatcher decides to just screw it an use a table, lest he just end up being driven bugfuck insane trying to make it work |
| 19:48 | <@Derakon> | Current status of the between-loops score screen: http://derakon.dyndns.org/~chriswei/temp/bulletmlscreen35.png |
| 19:49 | <@TheWatcher> | wate, 'sparks'? |
| 19:49 | <@Derakon> | Oh, yeah, I added those while you were asleep. |
| 19:49 | <@Derakon> | Things have...changed. >.> |
| 19:49 | <@TheWatcher> | Heh |
| 19:49 | <@TheWatcher> | I see |
| 19:50 | <@Derakon> | Inflecting bullets makes them drop sparks, which you pick up for points and a boosted multiplier. Your score otherwise does not increase except at the end of the loop. |
| 19:50 | <@TheWatcher> | What, are they little invetors who run around the screen improvi... aaaah |
| 19:51 | <@TheWatcher> | Interesting, I look forward to seeing how that plays :) |
| 19:51 | <@Derakon> | It's very different. |
| 20:06 | | UndeadAnno is now known as James |
| 20:11 | <@Derakon> | Man, Fusillade has 3317 lines of code. |
| 20:13 | <@TheWatcher> | Heh, that surprises me; I thought it would be more |
| 20:16 | <@McMartin> | Yay Python~ |
| 20:16 | <@Derakon> | Indeed. |
| 20:16 | <@Derakon> | And I'm not counting the BulletML files here. |
| 20:17 | <@Derakon> | Which are 2336 lines. |
| 20:20 | <@TheWatcher> | Blegh, I wish there was a way to make browsers add glow to text >.> |
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| 21:42 | <@Derakon> | It was just pointed out to me that making a reliably-synching input file format for Fusillade would require, among other things, reliable floating-point calculations. |
| 21:42 | <@Derakon> | Like, on the very low bits. |
| 21:49 | <@McMartin> | Urgh. |
| 21:49 | <@McMartin> | Yeah, fixed-point or GTFO when it comes to replication |
| 21:57 | <@Derakon> | I'm not much up on cryptography...how secure is "concatenate the score data together, encrypt with public key, post to official server, official server decrypts with private key"? |
| 21:57 | <@Derakon> | Like, how vulnerable am I to people figuring out what the private key is? |
| 21:59 | <@Derakon> | ...actually, that's not the problem. The problem is them figuring out the public key and the submission format. |
| 22:09 | <@McMartin> | The public key is very easy for them to get. |
| 22:09 | <@McMartin> | That's why it's called "public". |
| 22:09 | <@Derakon> | Right. |
| 22:10 | <@McMartin> | If they can get your private key from all that they'll have far more profitable things to do than hack a high score page |
| 22:10 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 22:10 | <@Derakon> | They don't really care about the private key, though, they care about getting their name in lights. |
| 22:10 | <@Derakon> | Which requires the public key and some knowledge of networks. |
| 22:10 | <@McMartin> | Right. |
| 22:11 | <@McMartin> | So, PKE is probably not an advantage over symmetric-key here. |
| 22:12 | <@McMartin> | (What I meant was, "If they could get your private key from that, they'd be able to defraud every business on the Internet with that technique") |
| 22:12 | <@Derakon> | (Right, I realize that now~) |
| 22:15 | < EvilDarkLord> | Derakon: How current is the version currently uploaded? |
| 22:16 | <@Derakon> | I uploaded it yesterday in the afternoon. |
| 22:20 | | James [~farkoff@Nightstar-29148.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Quit: Out of the night and into the fight it's BIXBY!!] |
| 22:21 | < EvilDarkLord> | I see chargelaser has gone from trivial to ohshit. |
| 22:21 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 22:21 | <@McMartin> | At least you get invuln now. |
| 22:22 | <@McMartin> | Before it was "blink and lose all your defenses" |
| 22:24 | < EvilDarkLord> | You mean a small time after being hit? |
| 22:24 | <@McMartin> | Yeah. |
| 22:24 | <@McMartin> | Before the laser was so fast the "spatial" aspect of Fusillade's defenses was negated |
| 22:24 | < EvilDarkLord> | Also, you have removed all the extra courses I see. |
| 22:24 | <@McMartin> | So being in the beam path was basically "die now, regardless of bomb count" |
| 22:24 | <@Derakon> | The extra courses are still there...just they haven't been updated yet. |
| 22:25 | < EvilDarkLord> | Err, bad choice of words. I meant the extraneous courses like 'test'. |
| 22:25 | <@Derakon> | Oh. |
| 22:25 | <@Derakon> | Yeah, well. |
| 22:25 | < EvilDarkLord> | But yeah. This is starting to look like the good old design school of game difficulty. |
| 22:31 | < EvilDarkLord> | I say 'starting to' because I can still get through a fair amount of these. |
| 22:32 | <@Derakon> | How many loops are you lasting? |
| 22:32 | < EvilDarkLord> | Not many. Something like 4-5 on Beginner, but I'm getting better slowly. |
| 22:34 | <@Derakon> | Cool. :) |
| 22:34 | | * EvilDarkLord leaves one difficulty on for a while to see if it'll crash. |
| 22:36 | < EvilDarkLord> | And I see the Tracker isn't buggy on Turbo any more. |
| 22:36 | <@Derakon> | Yep, fixed that |
| 22:44 | | * EvilDarkLord zooms around with Turbo and superspeed, isn't certain whether he's clipping through bullets or not. |
| 22:44 | <@Derakon> | Yeah, you can teleport through bullets on Turbo. |
| 22:45 | <@Derakon> | I'm not particularly worried about it because it's so hard to control anyway. |
| 22:45 | < EvilDarkLord> | Yeah, I do get hit a bunch. :) |
| 22:55 | < EvilDarkLord> | Have you considered making the playing field open-ended as an option, so hitting the right edge makes you appear on the left? Or is being cornered too much a part of the game? |
| 22:55 | <@Derakon> | The latter. |
| 22:56 | <@Derakon> | Much of the strategy for playing involves not letting your ship get boxed in. |
| 23:20 | <@simontwo> | I've been wondering about something |
| 23:20 | <@simontwo> | what's a good way to go from one complex state in a game (say game of life, or a simple 2d physics engine) to another? |
| 23:20 | <@Derakon> | Define "complex state"? |
| 23:22 | <@simontwo> | well, each cell or object needs to update in relation to the others, but working with only one copy of the game state, at least one object has to move relative to the almost-new state |
| 23:23 | <@Derakon> | Ahh. |
| 23:23 | <@simontwo> | duplicating the game state constantly so that each object has something to reflect back upon, sounds to me like a very expensive way to do it |
| 23:23 | <@Derakon> | Enh. It depends. |
| 23:23 | <@Derakon> | Duplicating a Game of Life array is not particularly expensive. |
| 23:24 | <@Derakon> | Duplicating complex AI states in a 3D game would be more difficult. |
| 23:24 | <@Derakon> | For Fusillade I just update things in-place and don't really worry about order of operations. |
| 23:24 | <@simontwo> | right |
| 23:25 | <@simontwo> | which algorithms and datatypes are normally used to achieve the desired effect of all objects behaving as if they were in the same time-line? |
| 23:25 | <@Derakon> | I'm not aware of any standardized methods for doing doing synchronized updates like you suggest. |
| 23:26 | <@Derakon> | Best I can think of is that you do two passes: in the first, each object determines what its next state will be, and stores that as a delta against its current state. In the second, those deltas are applied. |
| 23:26 | <@simontwo> | yup |
| 23:26 | <@simontwo> | that's what I'm going with. |
| 23:26 | <@Derakon> | What's your problem space? |
| 23:27 | <@simontwo> | currently just 2D physics, so it's doable that way. |
| 23:27 | <@Derakon> | Like, space combat, or platformer, or what? |
| 23:28 | <@simontwo> | space combat. :) or at least space flight. |
| 23:28 | <@simontwo> | I was inspired by a physics simulation a guy at school made. |
| 23:28 | <@Derakon> | Cool. |
| 23:28 | <@simontwo> | basically he had implemented a little space ship with accelleration and planetary objects with mass pulling the ship in |
| 23:29 | <@simontwo> | I thought I'd do the same and see what kind of gameplay will evolve from defining objects with variable mass attraction.. maybe some capture the flag using gravity guns? |
| 23:30 | <@Derakon> | Heh. |
| 23:31 | <@Derakon> | So like, you have a cannon that flings attractors about the screen, your opponent does too, and you each try to pull a flag towards your goal? |
| 23:31 | <@Derakon> | Throw some other gravity wells and ricochets in for good measure. |
| 23:32 | <@simontwo> | something like that, yes |
| 23:45 | <@ToxicFrog> | XPilot had a gameplay mode like that, IIRC |
| 23:45 | <@ToxicFrog> | Capture the Pointmass |
| 23:48 | <@simontwo> | cool. |
| 23:51 | <@Derakon> | Aghlbfalxedria. |
| 23:51 | <@Derakon> | I need to remove a directory over FTP. |
| 23:51 | <@Derakon> | rm -r fails. |
| 23:51 | <@Derakon> | WTF. |
| 23:52 | <@ToxicFrog> | rmdir? site rm -rf? |
| 23:52 | <@ToxicFrog> | If all else fails, help? |
| 23:52 | <@ToxicFrog> | (or, you know, use ssh like everyone else~) |
| 23:52 | <@Derakon> | server said: Can't remove directory: Directory not empty |
| 23:52 | <@Derakon> | I don't have SSH access. |
| 23:52 | <@Derakon> | It costs $10 to set up. |
| 23:52 | <@simontwo> | Derakon, FTP sucks. if I *have* to use it, I make sure to use a fancy, graphical client that will compensate for the protocol's general lack of expected features. =) |
| 23:53 | <@Derakon> | And at the moment I'm being stingy. |
| 23:53 | <@Derakon> | Also, "SITE rm is an unknown extension" |
| 23:53 | <@simontwo> | Derakon, if you use a more automated FTP client and delete a directory, it will recursively ensure that stuff inside it is deleted first. I keep nautilus handy for stuff like that. |
| 23:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yeah. Deploy Filezilla or a similar graphical client. |
| 23:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | (what server charges an extra $10 for SSH access?) |
| 23:55 | <@Derakon> | My webhosting, which costs $7/month. |
| 23:55 | <@simontwo> | (nautilus is neat because it supports both SSH and FTP. as a regular file browser I prefer thunar.) |
| 23:55 | <@Derakon> | I'm using ncftp at the moment. |
| 23:58 | | * Derakon sighs. |
| 23:59 | <@Derakon> | I appreciate that Gwalla's interested in making Fusillade mods, but...eegh, some of the assumptions he makes. :( |
| --- Log closed Wed Feb 25 00:00:41 2009 |