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[Fniff]

How is this going right now? Might be a bit early, but patience... smaytience?

I think it's coming along well, but the later stages involve a lot of polishing and revising, so it's hard to say what the timeline will look like. I'll post when we have some stuff we're ready to show off.

What do you think of my idea for stealthing around the undead?

[nenjin]

Did I miss something some pages back, or did you pick up some helpers to get you through your Zombie Coding Apocalypse?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

How is this going right now? Might be a bit early, but patience... smaytience?

I think it's coming along well, but the later stages involve a lot of polishing and revising, so it's hard to say what the timeline will look like. I'll post when we have some stuff we're ready to show off.

What do you think of my idea for stealthing around the undead?

Emphasizing that this isn't related to the side project I'm currently working on (which is what I was writing about a moment ago), I agree entirely that your suggestion makes sense. In fact, it was previously working in the zombie game, and broke at some point in more recent versions. Zombies are supposed to track by scent, not just sight, and stealth felt pretty good for awhile, not absurdly perfect like it is now.

Did I miss something some pages back, or did you pick up some helpers to get you through your Zombie Coding Apocalypse?

I should have been more clear -- I was talking about a side project space shooter I'm working on with another independent developer; the zombie apocalypse is still on hold for a bit while we get this project done and out the door, since it represents more short-term income. People who make games as a hobby get sidetracked by "life" and "work" getting in the way; since this is my day job, I got sidetracked by working on a smaller project to keep the money flowing instead. The zombie apocalypse should come back into focus afterward, and is still a solo project, at least right now. I'll post updates here when I start working on the zombie game again.

I'll post some cool stuff about the space shooter here too, for those interested, once the game is near release, but we're keeping the development details a little more under wraps while we build the game. It has procedural boss fights and an unusual mechanic for how your attacks work; gameplay is more challenging than just "dodge bullets and fly below the enemy".

[Ehndras]

I'd be quite interested in hearing more about this space combat game once you've made some tangible progress.

[fred1248]

I'm terribly sorry for necro-ing an old post, but is this still under development?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Well, the side project space game turned into a major endeavor that is only now nearing completion, so I can't say I've made any progress on bringing about the zombocalypse here, but it is something I still intend to do. I still intend to make weekly updates once I'm back on the job.

[Fniff]

That's awesome! I hope your space game is fun developing! Remember to post a link.

[MaximumZero]

Indeed. I'd love to see your work, Fox.

[Ehndras]

Do it! The community supports you :-)

[Rexfelum]

And I'll just toss in a "wow, yeah, I love seeing this stuff happen" for the pile.  Either the zombie or space pile.

--Rexfelum

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Spoiler: Star Grazer Screen Shots (click to show/hide)

The game I'm working on is a boss rush shmup (space shooter), where your attacks are powered by absorbing the boss's attacks and then releasing the very same weapons back on them. See a crazy cool weapon unleashed on you? Fly near to it with your absorb field up, charge up your batteries, then fire -- and the exact same weapon will be returned on the enemy. There are no small enemies, just boss fight after boss fight. We'll have a bunch of pre-made enemies, plus a fully featured editor (the same one we used) that lets you construct bosses out of ship parts, repaint them, rename them, change the weapons armed on it, the order they fire, how quickly they fire in sequence, and so on. We have many weapons to pick from and fight against, and some of them are very impressive, both in deadliness and beauty.

I'm working on it with Nathan McCoy, who made the original game that this one is based on. We're both designing, programming, and arting; in these screens, I made the ship art, while he made the bullets, UI, and special effects. We're contracting out the music to John Axon, a musician Nathan has worked with before.

[Rexfelum]

Well that's cool.  There've been various "absorb enemy shots" implementations before, so how exactly do your mechanics work?  Are you invulnerable while charging, then vulnerable when you fire back?  Can you "overcharge"?  Can you get conflicting charges of different weapons?

--Rexfelum

[Jonathan S. Fox]

(Star Grazer questions answered)

Well that's cool.  There've been various "absorb enemy shots" implementations before, so how exactly do your mechanics work?  Are you invulnerable while charging, then vulnerable when you fire back?

You are always vulnerable, even when absorbing enemy shots. You extend a field around your ship to capture enemy attacks, but the individual bullets aren't absorbed when they enter the field -- they're absorbed when they leave it. Shots that enter the field and hit you will kill you. The field doesn't protect you at all, it rewards you for playing dangerously. And we keep the penalty for dying pretty light.

Can you get conflicting charges of different weapons?

Some weapons are compatible with one another, others aren't. It depends on the type of bullet they use. Two guns that act different but both shoot spinning purple footballs are compatible, while a giant laser cannon and a rocket launcher are not. We make it very obvious in game what is compatible with what -- it's color coded, sound coded, shape coded, the bullets even move differently depending on their type. When you're absorbing different attacks that are compatible, you'll fire the entire batch as the last type you absorbed. If you absorb incompatible bullet types, your old charge will be flushed out instantly, and you'll be back to square one.

You can't just ignore incompatible bullets and have them not be absorbed, and you can't drop the absorb field without using the charge you've built up so far to fire. We do this intentionally to force you to be careful and choose between firing prematurely, or risk trying to navigate through an incompatible attack pattern without absorbing anything.

Can you "overcharge"?

Yes. Each bullet type has a unique overcharge attack, more powerful than anything the bosses can throw at you, usable only if you max out your charge with that type.

[Rexfelum]

You are always vulnerable, even when absorbing enemy shots. You extend a field around your ship to capture enemy attacks, but the individual bullets aren't absorbed when they enter the field -- they're absorbed when they leave it. Shots that enter the field and hit you will kill you. The field doesn't protect you at all, it rewards you for playing dangerously. And we keep the penalty for dying pretty light.

. . . And now we know why you call it "Grazer."

Some weapons are compatible with one another, others aren't. It depends on the type of bullet they use. Two guns that act different but both shoot spinning purple footballs are compatible, while a giant laser cannon and a rocket launcher are not.

So let me see if I have this.  Say you're in the third screen shot, slurping up one side of the cyan double helix.  However much you get, even if it's just "one helix," can then be launched straight back as a double helix.  Yes?  So the player might hang out to the side of the attack pattern for, say, three boss attacks, then smash the boss with more gunpower than the boss has in the first place.

In other words, how long until us gamers can do that?

--Rexfelum

[Jonathan S. Fox]

So let me see if I have this.  Say you're in the third screen shot, slurping up one side of the cyan double helix.  However much you get, even if it's just "one helix," can then be launched straight back as a double helix.  Yes?  So the player might hang out to the side of the attack pattern for, say, three boss attacks, then smash the boss with more gunpower than the boss has in the first place.

In other words, how long until us gamers can do that?

That's exactly right.

The time until release is probably still a couple of months -- although Star Grazer is nearly finished, we have some additional beta testing to do, then a fairly lengthy publication process. Once it's released, it will be free.

You can see a bit of the game in action in this instructional video on how to use the in-game editor:
http://youtu.be/xzWE9RUIFS8