I officially HATE Stenclyworks

So another few weeks of stress and once again progress has stopped due to the inadequacies and limitations of this software. Right now so many bugs and strange behaviours are appearing that my attempt to have a simple 5 level demo for user testing is now getting further out of reach with each day. Bugs appearing include one level that will simply not open anymore for no apparent reason. The lava not killing the player instantly no matter how I tweak it, allowing Mendel a few seconds where he can run across the surface before randomly disappearing. The game slows to a complete crawl if I add a certain number of behaviours to a level, completely ruining my dreams of having additional hazards and enemies other than the lava as well as meaning that's its looking like it will be impossible to have even the simplest of HUDs. The game crashes if you collide with the lava in a certain way. The list goes on. So much time is being lost trying to get the simplest of behaviours to work properly or correct problems that have no obvious cause that I'm beginning to get a little hopeless, especially as the final deadline inexorably approaches.

Iv made some headway with the menus and screens and overall I'm happy with how they look. The menu screens link up properly and flow properly (Stencylworks seems to be good at making menus at least).

I'm desperately trying to get this demo up and running so i can begin my user testing, but its proving increasingly difficult to get the games most basic functions to work properly. Fingers crossed either an act of god removes DIT from the face of the Earth, or else a stroke of genius overcomes me and I laugh at my previous struggles..

New screens

Well iv been busy building some levels with the newly created tilesets and iv managed to crack some problems I was having with getting some things to work. Still much work to be done but the basic framework is coming into place. Anyway, check out the new screens from the game. These were taken from the game editor but hopefully you will get an idea of how it will look.

Iv also made a new background for the main menu. I thought the original, while good, was too realistic and serious for the overall look and style of the game. So here is the new one.

Producer now on board for Magma Surge soundtrack!

I am now very happy to announce I have a very talented musician agree to help me with making some music for Magma Surge. For the games music, I wanted it to represent the frentic escape from a rising plum of burning magma. I had several different ideas about what the best type of music would be best but after some thought, its gotta be drum and bass.

Hoek35, aka Jamie Page is a Dublin based drum and bass producer and DJ. He has been on the scene for over 16 years and has produced several popular tracks. His experience and insight will be more than up to the task of putting some appropriate music to the game. Hope to get this section worked out quickly andhave some samples up soon.

For more info on Hoek35, check out his facebook and website.

Some tenative progress

So its been a while and the first college meeting regarding the project is rapidly approaching. Having been pretty gloomy over the last while at my lack of progress, the last few days I have been finally been getting somewhere. Iv been busy putting the necessary behaviours into the game and slowly things are moving forward. Iv still got a rather large and annoying problem with the lava not working yet, but I hope to figure it out soon.

I also made some headway getting the character sprite looking a bit better. I will have to return to this again but right now it will do for making the rest of the game. Mendel Strone moves more or less as I want him to and he can also wall slide with should add a new dimension into the levels.

The major change has been me deciding to return to using a tileset rather than actor platforms to build the level with. I had made several tilesets already but found they didn't blend together properly and I couldn't work out how to fix it. So, stumped, I decided to go with the platforms. But I really didn't like how they looked and I had to create an detailed foreground to hide the construction platforms I was using to make the level. This was obviously a cumbersome way to do things. But then  I found a very good online tutorial in how to create tilesets and make them blend properly. Armed with this new knowledge I went and painted a nice rocky tileset. This looked much better and allowed me to make more interesting levels much quicker. It was also relatively easy to create details in the tiles to add some variety to the tiles. There is lots of scope for adding some interesting things to the rocks, so this could be a fun way to liven up the game a bit.

Anyway, while my demo of sorts will be most likely ready for Thursdays meeting, there is still lots of work to be done. Stencylworks still has many limitations and I'm still concerned it will fail me before the project finishes. Right now my working knowledge of it is improving and I'm able to move through it much more efficiently. So while the last few days have been very stressful, important progress has been made and the tentative seed of motivation implanted by my solving of the previous memory problem remains rooted and is gathering strength.

Stencylworks is a frustrating bastard but much more tolerable than its retarded cousin Gamemaker. It is currently the only real option I have if I'm to have an actual game by the end of this project.

So lets pray to the gods of digital code that she'll hold out for me until Magma Surge is finished. Namaste