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Author Topic: Something like a sequel mod  (Read 198894 times)

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Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2012, 04:04:30 pm »
Time for another work-in-progress screendump:


^ Pointy things near Lucien's starting area.


^ New town map WIP.


^ One place in this town; backgrounds are still missing.


^ Mithalas is not as dead as expected. Major cleanup work ahead.


^ Some new entities. Thought leaches were annoying? (these black things that stick to you and slow you down) . On the other hand, huggys were nice.
   These here come in a variety of types, some have beneficial effects, others are outright dangerous. Those in the picture spend light in dark areas,
   but are slightly poisonous. But if there's no other way...


Some things I can't take screenshots of are progressing as well:

- Story. Story, story, story (also thx to Daxar/MOM4Evr on IRC <3)

- A behavior-tree component-based AI system. Not sure how good it will get, but in the end should be times better than Li's script in terms of combat usefulness and overall behavior. We will see, first time I'm doing something like this. If everything goes well I'll also use this for some bosses and people.

- Allow reloading scripts on the fly, without reloading the map. I bet most of you aren't familiar with the modding tools provided, but this is a major enhancement and greatly speeds up my script hacking rate. As this is a pure Lua based solution, it wasn't even necessary to change the game's code. It's ugly and horrific and abuses a few oversights features in achurch's single Lua state implementation, but it works. Good times.

Before: Test boss -> [1] get boss into desired state -> "Oh crap still doesn't work" -> *HACK*POUND* -> Reload map -> go to [1].
Now: Test boss -> get boss into desired state -> "Doesn't work" ->  [2] *HACK* -> Reload script -> go to [2]. :P

- I plan to start work on a character-switching system today. (I.e. if you have Naija and Lucien playable, you can, at any time, select which one to play and the AI will take over the other one.)
One major challenge here is to make the AI neither overpowered so there is nothing to do for the actual player, and also not too stupid to annoy. AIs that constantly mess up, get stuck in corners, or run into shots and enemies and need to taken care of like a confused child are annoying and I want to avoid that.

- Frances has started work on graphics for a "mayan"-themed temple full of snakes and other nasty stuff. We all like Indiana Jones, right?

I also decided that we continue development in private. I'll post updates, but the git repo is no longer publicly accessible, and the mod won't be available before it's completely done.

That's it for now, stay tuned.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2012, 01:36:51 am by False.Genesis »

Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2013, 05:41:48 pm »
After a loooong time of silence, here's another update. We've all had a busy time, but even though progress is rather slow, it's steady.

Have some mildly spoilerish pictures:


^ Mangrove area WIP. This image is a bit older, but haven't shown it yet.
The trident will play an important role for Lucien.
(Some might recognize it, it comes from this fanart and is used with permission.)


^ Bedroom :3


^ Near to the entrance to the new city. Notice that the multiple characters system is functional,
and Naija and Lucien are AI controlled at the moment.


^ The world map for the prev. picture. This is how it is currently, but it will get bigger.
Many more areas/maps to be done.


^ Not everything that seems obvious is happening...
Can we know what is reallity, and what is imagination?


^ With the multiple characters comes enhanced forms and costumes support.
Question is, is this really a costume?


^ Something has gone terribly wrong here.


^ On which side are they? And who is the player?


^ With enhanced forms support comes also a little energy form upgrade.
I had posted another image like this way earlier, but that was a totally different system
and everything that had to do with it was rewritten from scratch.
The other forms will also receive their share of updates and new features.


^ Causing mayhem on the debug map.


^ Latest addition as of yesterday: Technically, it's now possible to walk on the ground.
This is still a work in progress but works quite decently so far.
The AI cannot walk yet, but I'll add support for this as well.
Learning to walk may play in important role in the story, not sure yet...


For those interested in the coding part, everything is done in Lua, on the existing API provided by the game (although slightly enhanced and more added functionality), but nothing in the game's code is changed to support all this. I made a little abstraction layer made of duct tape spaghetti popcorn sauce that sits between the game's Lua API and the actual entity/node scripts, intercepting and redirecting calls made on the fly in both directions. It's a bit weird to explain, but it works so well it's scary :)


Finally, a friend has also joined in development, so we're 3 now. He's not registered on this forum (yet), but have some concept art from him:

(Also see the description on dA, click the image...)
(EDIT: Progress stages)


When there's some more things to show I'll make a video showing things in motion. But it's still too early for that, so stay tuned.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2013, 09:03:48 pm by False.Genesis »

Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #17 on: March 28, 2013, 01:14:33 am »
Little update: I have improved the on-land movement behavior a lot today. Just a little video in advance :)

---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUM244Yzk1o

Offline bstrey

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #18 on: March 28, 2013, 03:00:31 am »
It's exciting to see someone working on a sequel mod. :) Looks beautiful, keep up the great work!
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Offline Widget

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #19 on: March 29, 2013, 08:14:01 am »
This is looking incredible. I particularly like the mangrove scene but all the screenshots in that last batch are very good. Best of luck with the mod. I look forward to playing it whenever it might be ready, though I know that's a long way down the road yet  ;)

Offline archy

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2013, 12:24:47 am »
@False.Genesis
The walking animation is cool, but why can she jump so high/far now on land? It looks kinda unrealistic...
check out my graphical overview of Aquaria recipes:

Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2013, 12:34:55 am »
The jump is roughly as far/high as it used to be, imho. But don't worry, it'll be finetuned -- feel free to suggest any improvements you can think of :)
For this one I was just hacking away and as soon it looked reasonably cool and worked well enough, I made the video and went on with something else -> improving an existing map (brain asked for sleep, body asked for coffee, you know... it's hard to write good code in this state :P)

Offline Young Mak

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2013, 03:07:50 am »
Man just the idea of a sequel is great. Plus all the stuff you guys show makes the idea look even greater, I'm really looking forward to the Aquaria 2 :)

I can't hold myself... What do Alec and Derek think about this project?

Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2013, 03:32:22 am »
Didn't get an "official" statement yet, but...
Guessing from Alec's twitter stream, he seems to like it.
Derek, no idea. Might have missed something though.

As long as we manage to get the word out once we're done i'll be happy. It would suck if noone notices this after we've been working on it for >2 years.
... But, this is something to worry about once we're 90% done or so :)

Offline asdfasdf

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #24 on: May 31, 2013, 03:52:17 pm »
I'll still check back here to see if its done :P

Offline FrancesF

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #25 on: May 31, 2013, 10:51:27 pm »
We're working along on it, albeit sporadically as time and crowded schedules permit.  False.genesis has assembled a pretty good team, I think.  There's a newcomer working on the narrative who has promising ideas about the story, and feels strongly that themes of new levels, puzzles, and bosses all work together and follow logically from the story and themes of the original Aquaria.  There are two of us now working on the graphics.  And, of course, False.genesis continues to mastermind the coding, cut scenes, and animations.

Here are three possible new forms/costumes for Naija:  bird, snake, and corrupted.   Naija's flight ability is already coded and so enjoyable to play around with.  Abilities of the other two forms are progressing in several interesting directions...





Offline Xiagan

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #26 on: June 01, 2013, 06:48:06 pm »
This looks incredibly awesome. :)
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Offline IcyEyeG

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #27 on: June 01, 2013, 07:41:24 pm »
Indeed it does! I have a question, out of mere curiosity. How are you guys going to licence the mod? Is it going to be FOSS and the art CC-something?

Offline Gringamuyloca

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #28 on: June 03, 2013, 06:02:19 am »
I admit I had given up hope.  :P

Such great news!  ;D

After your previous contributions... I'm wanting MOAR! :D

Can't wait to explore your next diabolical maze (s) and get lost in the continuing underwater story.
t

Offline False.Genesis

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Re: Something like a sequel mod
« Reply #29 on: June 03, 2013, 11:22:34 pm »
@ IcyEyeG: I had intended something like CC-BY-SA-NC, but we haven't decided yet.
@ Gringamuyloca: Don't give up hope. No-one of us is going to disappear without saying a word. Plus, if you were on IRC you'd see progress almost daily. Even though we're slooow, i know. But you know, life and stuff... :)

EDIT: I just don't like posting updates when there's nothing "cool" to see. Didn't make maps in the last few weeks, rather background stuff that's just not so nice to screenshot. Glad frances helped out with that :)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2013, 11:26:14 pm by False.Genesis »