Deeper Blue

The concept of "Deep Blue" began as an underwater submarine game in fact the folder on my drive still bears the original name "Sub Attack". Blue waters with light rays dancing through the scenes. But after seeing a few videos on YouTube about the deep sea creatures I though it would be more interesting for it to take place much deeper in the ocean. And that's when things really started to develop from a creature/vehicle concept.

The only problem, and one that's been really getting to me recently, is the fact that 30,000 feet underwater looks much different than 500 feet underwater. Visibility becomes a major game play element. Even with some of the story elements of Deep Blue that would add a little more light to the scene, the environment would be much different at that depth.

I've decided to shoot for something inbetween reality and game...which seems to be a common approach so far...and go for a much darker environment the deeper you go.

To pull this off, I hope, I'll use a pixel shader to darken the value of the entire screen then use glow textures with an additive value to 'light up' the lights on the MANTA or the bioluminecent creatures of the deep. At least that's the theory.

So far the darkening part seems to be working pretty well, now I've just got add glowing light sources back in. The shader started out as a game component, much like the bloom shader I'm using. But I needed more control over the draw order so the UI and messaging wouldn't be effected by the darkening so I switched it to a class.

Some Days

Is it just me, or does it just seem impossible to program anything that works on some days. Other days things go smoothly, but days like today I can't seem to get my mind to kick into "program" mode.

Multiple Updates

Although I have to admit, Star Trek Online has kept a little distracted from Deep Blue, it hasn't been all photons and phasers.

HLSL Pixel Shaders
Thanks to an XNA video session by Shawn Hargreaves I've started playing around with some simple pixel shaders in Deep Blue. Earlier I used a pixel shader to add a subtle underwater "glow" effect to the game. It looks a little like you've been swimming in a pool that's been a tad over chlorinated, but I like it.

I used a glow shader from the XNA library on the site so getting it in the game was the big accomplishment, however at the time it didn't mean that I had a good understanding...or any understanding of the HLSL programming.

Now, thanks in part to Shawn's tutorial, I've successfully implimented a slight water distortion effect to the game. One unexpected side effect has been the loss of my nice smooth 'fade from black' fade-ins and I'm still trying to track that one down.

The last shader I really want to work in would be a circular ripple distortion effect for ship explosions and the bubble burst weapon.

Weapons System Update
The new weapons system is about 90% in place. There's a couple of final things to work out but it's a much more flexible system than the way I originally approached it. There are now three types of ammo and three types of firing patterns. Each ammotype has it's own O2 cost, trajectory and damage with easy to modify numbers for game balancing.

Pixel Perfect Collisions
AH! And in another "big win" moment, initial tests are positive that I finally got the per pixel collision detection working, both on animated and non-animated sprites. Further testing is needed, but things are looking pretty promising right now.

I probably need to make an updated game video soon to show off all this progress. Possibly after I get in the treasure system.

Weapons Upgrade

Rewriting the weapons system tonight to be more versatile, compact, and modular. Bubble sprites were being loaded in the level class, while the player and enemy classes had code for input, firing and updating...which worked, but was scattered at best.

Weapons are now built with a number of variables (rate of fire, ammo, and barrel location) which makes it easier to mix and match weapon types and projectiles.

The plan is to totally rework the 'weapon' class which had been stripped pretty bare from the last rework. Also the creation of a new 'ammo' class and a couple of new enums to handle the rate of fire and ammo type possibilities.

I still have some wonkiness going on with the per pixel collision detection on animated sprites but that's not surprising since it originated from a tutorial on static sprites. The collision fix comes at a later date.

Inspired By vs. Educational

Last night I did a bit more research on creatures of the deep (thank you interweb, wikipedia and especially the magic of youTube). The good news is there is a LOT of REALLY cool stuff in the deep ocean...I mean the "Blow your mind, you've got to be making this up kinda stuff". For instance, did you know that at 3,000 feet deep, even though it is too deep for sunlight to reach, it is not a pitch black void. It's more a twinkling lightshow similar to the densest lightening bug swarm you've ever seen. Also, the tiny hatchet fish has photocells on it's underside that has the ability to change color to perfectly match the color of the light above him rendering him invisible from below. It's a built in cloaking device.

The bad news is, at the depths I was planning for the game anything not flashing would be pitch black. Which wouldn't make for a very fun game. I really wanted to game to be covertly educational, showing the diverse wildlife of the deep and some of the cool features about those creatures, but it's hard to be educational and blow the creatures away at the same time. Something seems to get lost there.

Result: I'm going to have to take some pretty big creative liberties with the environment and the enemies, and find some way to work in the factoid elements (possibly on each loading screen).

I think I'm also going to assign Katie to factoid research and copyrighting, cause some of these things are too cool and something she needs to discover for herself.

Happy 2010!

So here we are at the beginning of a new year. Development is still moving along, slowly but moving none-the-less. And I continue to feel more familiar with C# and XNA as things progress. Recently in the XBox indie game library a company called Arkedo Studio has been releasing very well produced, high polish, yet relatively simple games. And I mean "simple" in the best way. The games are incredibly easy to pick up and play. Each has it's own cleverness and/or cuteness. And each has it's own look and feel, yet they all manage to maintain a 'family' style about them.

They are, in my opinion, some of the best, most professional games in the indie marketplace. They also are very limited in what they offer. There is no multiplayer, no save, no achievements or awards, and I have yet to see any kind of customization or personalization in the games. They are, in a way, a nod back to the 25 cent arcade days. Drop in a quarter, play till you die then start the thing all over again.

Of course, the down side to that approach (at least for the player) is they get very familiar with the beginning levels which they can grow tired of early. The up side is almost purely on the development side. It's a lot easier to develop a game when you don't have to worry about multiplayer, signing in, save points, etc.

Yet there are games, current games, that live almost entirely in the replayable world. The first that comes to mind is "Left 4 Dead". Sure, there's an initial exploration and discovery phase to the game the first couple of times through, but after that thanks to the dynamic in-game "director" the game retains a very high replay experience.

So, is there a way to combine the developmental efficiency of Arkedo Studio's "simple" approach with the dynamic replay value of Left 4 Dead? It might be a variation in weapons, ammo, level layout, depth (water), or a variety of other levers and switches

Over a Year

Well, it's been a little over a year since I started development of "Deep Blue". And yes, it's true I sorta figured I'd be well on with my second game by now but I can't say it hasn't been worthwhile.

In the past year I've taken big steps in learning C#, the XNA development platform, as well as the basics of object oriented programming. I've read through 2 books on C# programming, 2 additional books that deal with C# programming specifically in XNA. I've done my fair share of tutorials, studied code from over a dozen other games. I've built a working version of "Deep Blue", then torn it down again to make a much more efficient version. All this in my 'free time'.

All in all, it's been a productive year, even if the game isn't launched yet. We'll see what 2010 holds. And yes, I'm crossing my fingers once again that the launch of Deep Blue is in there somewhere.