Still Working on the Game

Published March 01, 2011
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I haven't updated in a while. That's largely because what work I've been able to get done has been in tightening up the code, so it isn't really sexy or showcase-able. Also, I had decided it was past time to get Pac-Hedron coming through the speakers as well as the monitor. I tried to use XACT, and was having trouble loading the wave bank and sound bank. After several days of ignoring it, I took a fresh look and realized I was passing the address of the data buffers rather than the buffers themselves. The DirectX API uses pointer parameters so much I had added the '&' out of habit without realizing it.

Now comes the fun bit: figuring out how I'm going to get the synaesthetic feel I want. After playing with beat tracks from freesound.org, I hit upon 140 bpm. My idea is that a triggered sound effect will not play immediately, but will be held until the next beat. Or maybe half-beat, if it works--I don't want there to be too much of a delay between the trigger and the actual sound.

Looking ahead, I'm going to need someone to do all the music and sounds in the game. Ideally, I want three to five loopable background music pieces (although I really only need one), with drum track, bass track and melody track in separate files; a two-measure intro; and two endings: a win ending and a lose ending. Plus sound effects: eating a power pellet, eating a ghost, eating fruit. Maybe a couple sounds for menu navigation and selection, although some of the game sounds may work there. I'm not looking forward to the prospect of having to pay fro that.

Ah, what else is there to do? I still need to:

  • Implement ghosts, and their behavior
  • Implement model animation, so the player model can chomp
  • Implement a working HUD
  • Implement power pellet functionality
  • Implement a win condition
  • Fix the camera jerk when crossing edges vertically

And then I'd have a game I'd be willing to release. Current wish list is:

  • Multiplayer
  • Non-cubic maps (I really want to have the other regular polyhedra)
  • Some slick graphics (shaders, particle system)

Wow. That looks almost manageable.

Oh, yeah. even though the player model isn't comping, pellets are now being eaten as the player moves through the maze.
0 likes 3 comments

Comments

Aardvajk
[quote name="yckx"]
...so it isn't really sexy or showcase-able...
[/quote]

I post loads of entries like this and nobody ever comments. Honestly, people round here are such screenshot-whores :)

Like the idea of triggering sounds on the beat. Not really come across that in a game before, could make a really interesting result.
March 01, 2011 05:17 PM
yckx
I'm taking some inspiration from games like [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-UKCFT4tn4&feature=related"]rez[/url] and the [url="http://www.bittripgame.com/"]bit.trip[/url] series: I want the game sounds to also be (really short) pieces of music, intended to integrate with the background music, so synchronizing them will be essential to them sounding good. The reason I wan the background music in three separate tracks is also for synaesthetic purposes. I intend the melody to play continually; the drum track to play only while the player is actually eating pellets; and the bass track to play continually, but vary in volume depending on how close the nearest ghost is.
March 01, 2011 05:55 PM
Aardvajk
Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing how it works out.
March 01, 2011 06:19 PM
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