These two features where part of the canceled adventure mode. This mode was cut due to the pressure of making a living from Nordenfelt. During the last two years just bullet hell shooters were released. At least that’s what my news channels reported. It seemed the market was reduced to this type of shmup. So I tried to adapt Nordenfelt accordingly.

Now that I have a steady income again the need for entering this crowded market is gone. Now I can go on experimenting and do things differently. That’s what I like most about making games. Participating in the rat race of faster-higher-stronger sounds like long-term suicide anyway.

Level Generator

Level design follows rules which should make levels interesting, challenging and fair. An example would be: difficulty has to rise over time. Players get better so the challenges have to get tougher as well.

Another criteria to meet is the learning curve:

Courtesy of lorehound.com

Ideally games should present new mechanics or features to learn after the last one has been mastered. The level designer’s job here is to find out how long it takes the average player to master each skill.

Third example: dramatic structures in their usual sequence of intro, crisis development, climax and resolution.

Further, simpler rules would be scalar factors like level length, boss strength, bullets per second, powerup density, risk/reward amplification, etc.

Finally many tasks in level design, at least formal ones, can be automated. There’s no need to sit down and plan each level from scratch. Nordenfelt’s level generator will serve at least as boilerplate for creating level skeletons. The rest is filling out details by “design intuition”. Time will tell how much level design can be formalized and converted into code. The optimum would be a full-blown, no-intervention generator. That would be cool!

World Map

Nordenfelt has random-accessible levels now. There’s no longer the need for going through level A and B just to play C. Therefore there has to be some kind of level selection. This will be done here:

The big dots are test markers for the available levels. I’ll draw proper graphics for them tomorrow.

Cheers,
Thomas

P.S.: Get real-time updates via Twitter feed @nordenfeltgame.

Whatever. Let’s have a look what happened since begin of February.

Finished Music

The game’s soundtrack is finished so far. Because there’s just one level yet there will be more work to do. Nevertheless, finding appropriate tracks isn’t that easy. 99% of stock site tracks simply don’t fit the dynamics of the game. So it took quite some time to find the current compilation.

Time System

Nordenfelt got a time distorting system which can scale the effective time flow. There’s a factor for scaling frame times which is usually set to 1. If the game should run faster, e.g. for testing purpose to reach a specific point in the game immediately, this factor can be set to any value >1. Slowdowns can be caused with values <1. Logically pausing can be done with a factor equal to zero. The only thing I’m not sure about is if negative factors work as well …

Released Nordenfelt 0.5.3, Silently

Version 0.5.3 was published in the preorder forum. I did not shout it from the rooftops because there were no real gameplay changes since 0.5.2. I’ve just finished details like explosions and audio, nothing game-changing.

Now I’m busy working on new level content and fresh equipment, the game’s essence so to speak. An equipment type already available but far from ripe is the Tesla weapon:

For future level work I’ve decided to cut back graphical complexity and go for reusable tiles and segments. This idea is quite old as the left of the following two screenshots from 2010 illustrates:

I’m not sure what exactly distracted me from following the tile concept. Most likely the urge for boundless creativity was the reason. Nearly two years later I know that boundaries are your friends. They coerce you to not expand artistically ad infinitum.

Time to meet finitude.

Cheers,
Thomas

PS: Just to remind you about the @nordenfeltgame Twitter feed. Feel free to follow and get dedicated info about what’s going on at the the Nordenfelt development front.

More illustrative work is the improvement of the gauge graphics. Here you can see a pre-post comparison:

I’m quite happy with the result. An essential part of designing the new version was to get inspiration from other gauge designs on the internet. Just a few examples:

The longer I’m into game development the more I see how important copying given design is. There is no applause for wheel reinventers.

Cheers,
Thomas

PS: Just to remind you about the @nordenfeltgame Twitter feed. Feel free to follow and get dedicated info about what’s going on at the the Nordenfelt development front.

Finally the boss’ cannons became separately destructible:

There’s a new twitter feed dedicated to Nordenfelt. Just info about the game will pop up there. Feel free to follow @nordenfeltgame if you’re interested in fat-free, just-the-game news:

Cheers,
Thomas

You can help getting Nordenfelt done, test the game’s latest versions and discuss it in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem. For the very nosy among you I’m running an issue tracker as well.

Let’s have a look what happened (speak continued) since last time.

Nordenfelt’s Soundtrack – Cont’d

I was pondering if Nordenfelt should get canned tracks or a dedicated soundtrack. Right now the game has a very cool intro theme from a stock site. I caught myself firing up Nordenfelt over and over again just to hear this track. That should be a good sign, ain’t it?

Nonetheless, original tunes would be awesome. So I decided to go part canned, part newly composed stuff. The upcoming version 0.5.3 – which is advancing at the rate of a snail – will have just canned tracks. Following versions should receive specially composed works.

Game Intro – Cont’d

Instinct is a funny thing. In our world full of information and education shoved down our throats we forgot to listen to our gut feeling. This is why I’ve tweaked the game intro for several hours just to realize that the first idea was the best. Often initial intentions are right. This happens to me again and again. So I’m tempted to leave out my mind more often and just listen to my guts.

Due to this I’ve updated the start screen to challenge my instincts with art. I’ve added lightning bolts from the Tesla weapon and improved the grunge look:

That’s it for this time. See you in 2012.

Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Thomas

You can help getting Nordenfelt done, test the game’s latest versions and discuss it in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem. For the very nosy among you I’m running an issue tracker as well.

Explosion Sounds

As a followup to the new explosion graphics I’ve added some spicy blast effects. Some people complained about the old explosion sounds. No surprise, they were placeholders. The problem with placeholders is that when they are not ugly enough people will see (or hear) them as final. Therefore – as I wrote here – there won’t be any new stuff which is not meant to be final. Make a real job of it and come to an end.

Nordenfelt’s Soundtrack

Nordenfelt will get an epic, orchestral soundtrack. At the moment I have a couple of dozen tracks which may find their way into the game. They come from audio stock sites like www.premiumbeat.com or www.shockwave-sound.com. It’s easy to get preview tracks from these sites and test them right in the game. You may undervalue the interaction between background music and the game itself when you judge them separately. Music heavily influences the game’s atmosphere. So always test the music tracks while playing the game. If they don’t boost the feeling they are worthless.

Game Intro

While I was listening to some intro music candidates my mind already painted (or does a game dev brain render?) a sketch of the game intro itself. It was all about comic-like, steam-powered Star Wars scenes with much ado and whatnot. The usual flight of fancy when your brain skips all limits.

After all this simple screen is what reality dictated:

Reality is cruel, isn’t it?

What the heck, KISS!

Turrets

Last but not least: turrets now leave their pedestals when their heads explode.

In the near future I’ll contact some composers for an offer regarding the soundtrack. I’m wondering how much the whole audio stuff will cost. It’s good to have canned music as fail-safety. A dedicated soundtrack would be better though. It depends on the $$$, as usual.

Cheers,
Thomas

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

Nordenfelt got  its small and medium unit explosions done. Furthermore the GUI shakes now when multiple strong explosions happen at once. Simple gimmickry but easy to code.

Currently I’m working on the end boss its implosion-explosion-fireball ending. Hope it comes off as it promises to be.

When all this eye candy work is done I’m looking forward to improve the gameplay mechanics. More equipment is overdue, mouse cursor aiming may be interesting to try and procedural grinding (money-making) levels sound interesting. Just to name a few.

Cheers,
Thomas