Posted on 17 Sep 2011

Play it Now!!
Full List of Changes

Last night I uploaded a new version of Polygon Pummeller which added a few new features. I found one thing annoying about the game for a while, but I couldn't figure out what...eventually it hit me: when you destroy enemies near the edge of the screen, they can drop power-ups. The player then risks hitting an enemy while trying to retrieve this power-up. The player might then be, unfairly, punished for trying to get the power-up. A simple fix for this was to give the player a small warning when approaching the edges, if an enemy was spawning nearby. So in this update if you approach the edge of the screen at least you know when you are taking a risk and when you are not.

Also new to this version is a pause system which I may upgrade further at a later stage. In order to implement the this I had to re-program a few power ups due to having too many alarms to keep track of and things not pausing while others did etc. But thankfully it seems to have paid off!

I also added a new power-up called "X-Plode" which basically acts like the shield when finished but happens instantly. This power up is very handy for clearing crowds of squares ot when things get tight.

Finally I beat my highscore in this game, sad I know, but I actually got really into it xD I forget the exact number, but it was in the 9,000's somewhere so let me know if you beat that :)

Posted on 12 Sep 2011

Play Now!

Polygon Pummeller ( previously known as pixel pulverisation or pigment pulversiation) is now available to download on the site, using the above link! Polygon Pummeller (PP) is an arcade-action-shooter where the aim is to shoot down enemy squares. It may not sound very interesting, but I promise you the gameplay is much more compelling!

When you shoot an enemy, it has a one in ten chance of dropping a random power-up.  Each power-up is instantly activated once you hit it. There are currently 7 power-ups of with different effects:

1. Shield


2. Rapid-Fire


3. Armageddon


4. Homing Bullets


5. Freeze


6. Slow-Motion


7. Triple Shot

With these power ups, you can string large combos together to take out multiple enemies and score big!

I am currently looking for some background music for the game, so if you play it and think of or create a suitable track, please contact me.

Please leave your feedback and comments here, I'd love to hear them :)

Posted on 8 Sep 2011

When creating a random enemy generation engine for an arena shooter, the problem is - it's too random! Let's say every step, you want a 1 in 60 chance of an enemy being spawned, ie, if your game runs at 30 fps you should get about 1 enemy every 1 and half seconds. This is all very fine, but random is what it is - random ...

Technically most of the time your game should have the right amount of enemies, but unfortunately you can't be certain. Using this method could mean that you have 'blackouts' where no enemies are spawned for a brief moment. If you're trying to create the illusion of fast paced action, then you'll need to 'tweak' your random engine a little.

Firstly, you probably won't want the same amount of enemies being created throughout your game - for example, to increase the difficulty, you might increase the odds of spawning an enemy ... however no matter how high the odds are, you may still get 'blackouts'.

In Pixel Pulveriser,the method I used was as follows:
The chance increases as you destroy more enemies
Enemies are created at random
If there are no enemies present, create one or two
If there are too many enemies for the desired time/difficulty, destroy ones that have not yet appeared as visible.

This is actually quite simple to achieve:

var enemyOdds;
enemyOdds = floor( random( spawnChance));
if ( enemyOdds == 1) {
instance_create( random( room_width), random( room_height), oEnemy);
}
var enemyNum;

enemyNum = instance_number( oEnemy);

if ( enemyNum<= 0) {
instance_create( random( room_width), random( room_height), oEnemy);
}

if ( enemyNum >= maxEnemies) {
with ( lastEnemy) {
instance_destroy();
}
}


This allows you to have random enemy creation, but still ensure that it's not so random as to dampen the gameplay ...

Posted on 3 Sep 2011

I love shapes, and I love shooters, hence two of my recent games fell under the title Shape Shooter ('Cos I'm just that original!). Well I'm happy to say that I'm working on a new game similar in style, but with a new, slightly more creative title - Pigment Pulverisation (PP).

The game is an arena shooter, similar to Pixel Shooter, but in a smaller arena and the pace is much faster and more frantic. Every time you play PP, it looks different. Using a simple colour algorithm, all graphics are drawn using a variation of the background color, which is randomly changed every time you play. Also, I used no graphics in the game, just Game Maker's built-in draw functions, don't ask me why, I just did!



Watch this space to see more info about the game, and I will be posting a few dev logs about it in the coming days :)

Posted on 27 Jul 2011

Welcome to the new site design! Isn't it great?! ...sure the graphics look like a three year old drew them but at least they're unique right!?

I changed the layout from two columns to one to make it look a little more like a portfolio --it looked too mainstream before, at least now it's unique!

Currently you cannot download any games on the site - the reason being that I'm too lazy to finish that bit just yet, might look into it tomorrow or next week so bear with me on that.

If you see anything that looks wrong or broken, please do let me know so I can fix it...or at least try :D