[FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

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Shpuld
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:48 pm

[FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by Shpuld »

Downloads, QC source (MIT), and more info can be found here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-3 ... &uid=46227

Premise of the game itself is quite simple:
Go down the dungeon, floor by floor, beat up enemies using four different abilities, steal the demon treasure from the bottom floor.

As some people who read "What are you working on?" know, I took part in http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/04/15/w ... m-dare-32/.
Ludum Dare TL;DR: You make a game in 48 hours, all by yourself, using engines/libraries/tools of your choice. All gameplay related code, art, sound, music, you have to make yourself.
There's also a theme revealed at the start of the event which all participants should follow, this time it was An Unconventional Weapon, a massive step up from previous one...

I was no stranger to the LD concept and how to work with it, I took part in the LD31 last December with my FTEQW based entry Mobster Massacre, which taught me a lot about using FTEQW for more things than an average quake mod would require, it was afterall a total conversion using no quake assets at all. It also taught me a lot about time management in a time span like that, 48 hours is pretty damn tight, especially if you want to catch some sleep.

This time I felt much better prepared going into it, before starting I had an idea of a kinda diablo-like game that you play completely without a mouse. This is what I started with, just had to modify it a bit to fit the theme, obviously by making the weapons unconventional! I originally thought I'm gonna make a rudimentary inventory system, and a dozen different equippable unconventional weapons for your HJKL slots. Of course I didn't have time to implement that completely but more about that later.
As the very base I used an ultra stripped version of my own CleanQC4FTE template (haven't put this version up anywhere yet, sorry). I started actual development with basic camera, movement, very basic AI stuff, and also reading text files for map information, I knew I wanted tile based maps read from text files since that allows me to quickly design levels after levels.
Here's what things looked like early on, barebones code was done and a few models as well:

Image

At that point I could move around, I had super basic enemy AI in, it actually loaded from a file, I had also started work on the 4 weapon slot system. I started by making it so that player has .entity slots[4]; defined for him, 4 different weapons he can use, but since there was not enough time to program interface for the player to actually switch weapons around between slots let alone actually creating those extra weapons, I ended up with the current system of just spawning the weapons and putting them into the slots at the start, essentially making the player have 4 different attacks they can always use rather than a variety of weapons they can switch. This was fine though, it still gave enough variety for the combat for the duration of the game.

Then there's the art, I created A TON of animations for the player and various monsters (in total ~300 frames, for a 48 hour game). This is something I haven't been too fond of previously, but I feel like I'm really getting the hang of it, and I don't feel like I wasted too much time on it. The 3D modeling itself was quite simple, flat shaded textureless vertex colored stuff mostly, a very wise choice for quick stuff, I also use it for my own prototype stuff outside of Ludum Dares. It can still look relatively good, not sure if I quite nailed it the way I'd like to but I'm happy enough with it.
The map itself uses only 1 model for the walls, just using .colormod to make it different color for various levels, and the floor itself is a large quad drawn with R_DrawPolygon stuff in CSQC, not the most elegant option. Lighting for the map was completely flat but I used clever tricks like drawing a vignette style .tga overlay that makes the edges of the screen darker, and also a very subtle additive blob on the center of the screen, kinda simulating player being a light source.
A screenshot of the final look:

Image

Sound stuff came out quite naturally, all sounds are some recordings I did with my relatively good quality desk mic and edited afterwards with Audacity. The important thing is how well the sounds work in game, and I can quite safely say they work just like they should, providing satisfying feedback when using any of the weapons.
Music I had more trouble with, I still haven't gotten a good hang of actually composing. I still managed to make something with SunVox that serves the purpose of background music well enough. (I think I had like 2-3 hours to the deadline when I made the track...)

That was basically my semi-random ramblings about the development process itself on each field, but what matters most is the end result right?
I got a very playable game with no game breaker bugs in, only some very minor ones that don't affect much anything. There's 11 (0 to 10) different floors to play, the game is somewhat pleasing to the eyes, it doesn't kill your ears either. Overall I was really happy with what I could achieve in the 48 hours, and there aren't much things I would've done otherwise with the development. Another good learning experience.
frag.machine
Posts: 2126
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:49 pm

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by frag.machine »

Really nice work, shpuld. I found the overlay trick specially clever, I will try to use it on my currently in-stasis project.
I know FrikaC made a cgi-bin version of the quakec interpreter once and wrote part of his website in QuakeC :) (LordHavoc)
toneddu2000
Posts: 1395
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:39 pm
Location: Italy

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by toneddu2000 »

I always learn from you, Shpuld! Great idea, compliments! I love transitions and color changing for levels! Thanks a lot for releasing source as MIT. Just a question: in my fteskel project, sounds are all "distorted". I tried to play them both from ssqc and then csqc but it's always the same. I thougth it was a FTE problem but in your both Ludum Dare projects are fine. Can you please explain how to play sounds in FTE?
Meadow Fun!! - my first commercial game, made with FTEQW game engine
Shpuld
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:48 pm

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by Shpuld »

First I'd make sure the source sound of yours is good quality as in it doesn't clip at all, has a reasonable sampling rate & not 8-bit audio, and that it's mono, no idea how FTE handles stereo .wav but I suppose there's no elegant way other than forcing it to be mono before putting it into a 3d world.

Then I'd look at the sound call itself, next snippet is from FTE generated defs file:

Code: Select all

void(entity e, float chan, string samp, float vol, float atten, optional float speedpct, optional float flags) sound = #8; /*
		Starts a sound centered upon the given entity.
		chan is the entity sound channel to use, channel 0 will allow you to mix many samples at once, others will replace the old sample
		'samp' must have been precached first
		if specified, 'speedpct' should normally be around 100 (or =0), 200 for double speed or 50 for half speed.
		flags&1 means the sound should be sent reliably. */
I suppose distortion could come from speedpct not being ~100, can't really think of other reasons :S
toneddu2000
Posts: 1395
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:39 pm
Location: Italy

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by toneddu2000 »

yeah, I think it was a mix of volume, that shouldn't be set above 1 (and my sounds were set to 2.0) and the fact I convert (don't know why I did it) them to stereo in Audacity (creating a new stereo track and splitting in 2 left/right tracks)

Thanks Shpuld!
Meadow Fun!! - my first commercial game, made with FTEQW game engine
Shpuld
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:48 pm

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by Shpuld »

Small update:

Voting results came in some days ago, and I'm pretty proud of some the results. I have the placings below, keep in mind they're all out of 1350 or something like that.
- #38 Fun
- #101 Overall
- #116 Graphics
- #126 Mood
- #248 Audio
- #310 Humor
- #352 Theme
- #721 Innovation

I also made this timelapse video out of my stream VODs, check it out: https://youtu.be/h7G420B9G1c
toneddu2000
Posts: 1395
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:39 pm
Location: Italy

Re: [FTEQW][LD32 Release] Treasure of the Hellbeast

Post by toneddu2000 »

So happy of the voting results! Great work, Shpuld, keep it up!!
The timelapse video is awesome!
Meadow Fun!! - my first commercial game, made with FTEQW game engine
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