GenjiPig.com

From now on I will be doing all my blogging on my new blog, GenjiPig.com.

And it wont just be Daisuke related stuff .. pretty much anything I'm working on .. or just whatever comes to mind.

See you there!

iPad. DaisukeMobile.

My iPad finally arrived in the mail. I totally love it! It's really fun, fast, powerful and has an amazing display.

I've also set up my iPad for development and loaded up "DaisukeMobile".

The iPad has significantly better graphics processing than my old junkey iPhone3G and Daisuke runs WAY better on it than it does on my Phone. Realizing the game should run similarly as well on the 3GS and the upcoming 4th Generation iPhone, I decided to push the limits a bit further.

I set the FPS back up to 25 and de-nerf'd some of the graphics, and the game still ran PERFECTLY smooth. It might even run better than the flash version on my computer! It's probably because the resolution is so small that there is significantly less processing power needed in comparison to my computer, but also, the iPad is just really great for gaming in general!

So .. in it's current form, Daisuke will run like crap on the iPhone3G (and presumably even worse on the 1st Generation iPhone). But it works wonderfully on the iPad, and should work just as well on the 3GS and the 4th Generation iPhone.

Since it will be a while till Daisuke is ready, and the next iPhone should be here in a few weeks, I think it shouldn't be THAT big of a deal to make Daisuke's minimum requirement a 3GS iPhone.

Sorry to anyone who still has a 3G (or god forbit a 1st Generation iPhone) when DaisukeMobile finally comes out, but the game just wont run properly for you, you'd might want to upgrade your hardware!

As for the iPad .. Daisuke is still being developed as an iPhone app, so it isn't to iPad spec. I plan on making "Daisuke HD" later, but for the time being I am constrained to iPhone resolution due to CS5 lacking the ability to export to iPad specifications.

So look forward to Daisuke on your 3GS, 4th Gen iPhone or on your iPad (in double pixel, somewhat blocky mode) in the near future! And Daisuke HD soon after that (hopefully) !!

Daisuke for iPhone Test Version v0.1

Got the very first test version of Daisuke for the iPhone to function on my phone!

Exciting !!

Here is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9kcsC_Apio

Daisuke for iPhone.

I recently joined the Apple Developer Program. This means I can make and publish iPhone apps for the app store. I got the SDK which contains all the tools needed to make iPhone apps and I even got to test out the new iPhone OS4 beta!

Also, I am trying out the new Adobe Flash CS5 demo, which will allow me to publish my FLASH files as iPhone apps.

I am VERY excited about this.

There is one catch though. Apparently iPhone exporting only works with flash files coded in AS3 and I coded Daisuke using AS2, which means I will have to recode the entire game.

I will continue with Daisuke as planned, as it is nearly finished in it's current form. I will simultaneously start building an AS3 verison of Daisuke so that I can get Daisuke for the iPhone up ASAP.

I'll also start making some other fun apps for the iPhone as well.

Exciting !!

Level Boss Behavior.

I was having a hard time determining how I wanted the boss for this level to behave. It had been bothering me for quite a while actually, even before I put him into the game. I knew how I wanted him to take damage, but I didn't know how I would implement it in a way that made sense and would be a challenge without being impossible. This is a fine line that I have been walking on throughout the whole process of making this game.

SO .. This morning I think I finally figured out how the boss fight will go. I immediately made a detailed sketch, which I think, speaks for itself ..

WARNING !! SPOILER ALERT !!

Here it is:

Click on the image to see the full thing if you can't already.

Sorry if it's a bit fuzzy, I took the picture with my cell phone.

So, I think it's pretty obvious from the picture how this battle will go. And I hope you will enjoy this epic battle!

The next step is to actually PROGRAM this guy, to behave in such a way. Shouldn't be too hard, but still I'm sure it be a quite a headache. Also have several sprites to animate for this as well.

Epic Battle! Also bats.

In addition to the crabs, I have also added bats! There are a few of them flying around. They are very quick but don't do TOO much damage. They're more of an annoyance than a genuine threat.

This is what they look like:

I still intend on adding a few more hazards, I just have not yet decided what they should be yet.

Now, the main event! Mini Boss battle !!

The mini boss is ALMOST done, I just need to make a few more sprites for him.

His attacks on the other hand are finished and they are quite spectacular.

He is based on a spear bandit. The differences are that he is faster, stronger and has significantly more health. Also, his attacks behave very differently.

This character is a hired mercenary with a mysterious past!

If you remember, I actually started making him quite a while back. I have since totally redesigned his behavior and changed his attacks.

When he gets within attack range, he will begin to spin his Naginata in the air, creating a vortex that will not only deal damage, but it will suck you towards it. Running will allow you to escape to a safe distance.

When he gets to low health, he will unleash an even more devastating attack! But I'll let that one be a surprise ..

This battle will also take place on a platform with no walls, so you will have to be careful not to fall off while fighting him!

CRAB BATTLE !!

So, I have been adding some new "obstacles" in the levels, including some angry animals who live in the cave.

The first of these obstacles is the deadly orange cave crab !!

Here is what he looks like:

The orange crab will shuffle back and forth, snipping his claws. He will deal some damage if he runs into you but he is very easy to kill. One quick strike of the sword will finish him.

I did however add .. a special type of crab ..

This crab is known as the legendary, "Kenyan Mangrove Crab":

I've added this crab as an homage to the legendary "crab battle" internet meme.

These special crabs do significantly more damage and are totally impervious to pain. Daisuke's sword will simply bounce off his hard shell!

Look forward to more creature additions in future updates!

Buffed up Bandits.

I've moved on to making the 2nd half of the demo level. It will include buffed up versions of the baddies from the 1st half.

The buff versions of the enemies will have double health and wear purple shirts. They'll also have gold accented weapons. I might make them deal more damage also .. but well see.

I plan on also adding a few perils like falling rocks, attacking bats and killer jumping fish or something. Maybe some spiders and/or crabs.

Anywho, here is a pic of the buffed up spear bandit:

More Little Things & Daisuke's Face.

So, I really REALLY love making my game. I love the little things especially, they're the most entertaining to create.

My latest additions are some "just-for-fun" animations I added to the UI/HUD.

Now, when Daisuke picks up an Onigiri, his status face next to his life bar can seen consuming it. This means he exposes his face !! GASP !!

So, I guess I wont really keep Daisuke's face a secret .. but it still isn't very revealing, because in my cartoony style of animation, everyone's face looks pretty much the same anyways.

His HAIR on the other hand, remains hidden .. and well .. don't count on seeing that quite yet.

Anywho .. I decided that ONE eating animation wasn't enough, so I added a SECOND food item with it's own eating animation as well.

The new food item is ..

鰻丼 ！！

(Unagi-Donburi !!)

Unagi-don is basically worth ５x points as onigiri, and will fill up your health, energy and defense all the way up to 100%!

Look for a hidden or hard to get Unagi-don in every stage!

Anywho .. I decided also that I will make a "training" stage with easier/less enemies to get players used to the game before jumping into the main story.

Also, I am going to stretch out the demo level to 4 stages, plus the mini boss and boss battle. SO, including the training stages, that will be a total of 7 stages !! WOAHHHHHH .. thats kindof a lot .. but so far I have 2 done .. and the mini boss is under construction. And considering the next 2 stages will be more fun-time in the cave, they should be considerably easy to make (wont need to do a lot of new drawing, basically just rearrange stuff and make a couple new baddies).

ANYWHOO .. training stage will be in the ninja village, and since I've already made ninja badguys, all I need to do is rearrange some stuff and make some new backgrounds (or recycle some old ones).

So the things I need to worry about MOST .. are the mini boss .. who's a real pain in the ass to make, and the FINAL boss, who I have not yet even begun to program .. BUT I HAVE DRAWN HIM (her?)

.. so ..

It doesn't seem like there is TOO much stuff left, after all, I've written almost all of the code I need (thousands of lines .. should be considerably less, but I'm a very sloppy/inefficient programmer(but hey, "if it ain't broke", am I right?)) so there isn't too much brain-racking to do .. just a bit of drawing, arranging and creative thinking.

Anywho, here are some still shots of Daisuke eating.

Onigiri:

Unagi Don:

The Little Things.

I somehow managed to totally finish parts 1 and 2 of the level I am building for my game. I just kept on fixing bugs and adding the things I wanted to add, and then I realized that I ran out of things I needed to do!

So I am now done with those sections of the game, and now I need to move on and finish building the mini boss and final elements of the level.

Yesterday however, I decided that it was a good time to deal with an issue that I had put off for quite some time

THE DREADED PAUSE BUTTON.

Since flash has no pause function, and I coded this game so incredibly sloppily, I had to get creative with how I was going to tackle this issue.

Long story short, I made kindof a half-assed, ugly, slop of code that happened to work perfectly.

So now I have a fully functional pause button!

And here is what the pause screen CURRENTLY looks like:

(subject to change)

If you look closely you can see I put in a little speech bubble next to Daisuke's head with the kanji "Retsu" in it. This is a simple stereotypical pop culture ninja reference. I just wanted to make the pause function to be an extension of Daisuke's talents, so when you hit "p" he will shout out "Retsu" (I plan on adding a sound effect) which is the Kuji-in for "control of time and space" and he does the matching hand gesture. I thought it seemed appropriate.

I also added a speech bubble for when he preformed is "Rin" healing technique, which is another of his Kuji-in talents. So now the kanji for "Rin" appears when he uses that skill:

I plan on adding a sound effect/voice clip for that one too.

Finally, fat guys will now sweat when they run:

経過計時機構.

OK !! I have been in this mood, where I want to make Daisuke a fast paced hack-and-slash game.

So, my latest additions are ..

Adding LOTS more baddies.

.. and ..

Adding a 経過計時機構 !!

What is a 経過計時機構 ?? You ask.

It's an elapsed timer.

So now the time elapsed (in seconds) will be displayed in the top right corner above the BGM on/off button.

Here is what it looks like:

I could have just labeled it as "timer" or "stopwatch" or something, but the big huge kanji looked so much more awesome. I'm pretty sure I'm using it properly.

Anywho, the elapsed time will be SUBTRACTED from your score at the end of the level !!

This means that if you want to get a good score you'd better hurry your ass up!

Hopefully this will make the game more competitive when I add a leaderboard.

I guess I could have just made it so that your score is subtracted by 1 every second, instead of making them two separate entities .. but I like my way better. Besides, it might come in handy for future levels where you have a time limit or something.

Parry Expanded.

So I've significantly changed several factors in the game, which made it very difficult to fight enemies without retaining SOME damage. So, I decided that Daisuke should be able to parry sword bandits as well as spear bandits.

The parry itself does minimal damage, but it is immediately followed up by "chain slash 2" which does significant damage and will prove to be a killing blow in most cases.

Parrying CAN be done without taking any damage, however this takes good timing.

I'm pleased with the outcome, but there are still bugs to be fixed.

I also think I might add some hit-sparks and slashes soon.

Introducing: Fat Bandit.

So I want the game to have more of a hack-and-slash feel to it, so I decided recently to add more enemies. I ran into a slight problem though, because I started running out of space to put particular types of enemies. I couldn't put spear bandits in certain areas because they take up a lot of space and can be overwhelming if they're too close to one another. And I didn't want to put too many regular sword bandits near each other, because they all run at the same speed and would start overlapping one another.

SO I CAME UP WITH A SOLUTION.

All I had to do was make a new type of enemy!

And that enemy is: FAT BANDIT !!

"Fat Bandit" is basically a regular sword bandit, except he's fat. As a result of his being so fat, he will be significantly slower than a regular sword bandit. He will also sweat when he runs. Other than that he will remain pretty much the same. I might make him wave his arms higher in the air, resulting in moved hitboxes, but he won't be any tougher than a regular bandit.

So here is the first image of Fat Bandit

Complete with double-chins, beer-belly, man-boobs, fat-ass, love-handles and arm-flab.

Notice how his gut almost completely hides his belt.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone.

Happy April Fools day !! (But this isn't a joke, I'm dead serious, this guy is going in the game.)

Ninja vs. Ninja Kumite.

I think the obvious final training task to learn to play the game is a practice fight against a skilled opponent.

In this case, Daisuke's opponent is one of his fellow ninja. Using wooden swords, Daisuke and his classmate are equally powerful (although Daisuke seems to be a bit quicker on the draw).

This is a simple 5 point match. So first to land 5 hits on the other wins.

Of course this is not a serious match. The whole point of this test is to prepare the player for enemy attacks and give them a sense of how the game works. It will prepare the player by teaching them how to fight before jumping into the first level.

Compared to this ninja opponent, regular enemies will not be much of a threat but Daisuke may run into some even more challenging opponents down the line.

This opponent is not completed yet. I still need to figure out how to work parring in, both for him, as well as Daisuke. Also, I may give him the ability to jump and use super attacks like Daisuke as well. I have not yet decided for sure. I may actually just keep him simple. We'll see.

Here are some pics:

Training Mode.

So I started working on a training mode. This mode will probably be the "learn to play" stage that will teach players the commands before starting the actual game. I'll probably also add a training stage for people just to mess around or practice or something. I may base the survival mode on this mode as well.

ALSOOoooo .. Once the training mode is done, I think I will release it publicly as sort of a "tech-demo" or a "pre-demo", just so that people can try out my game engine.

So far there are two types of training exercises, "Wooden Dummy" and "Tameshigiri". They're not complete but they kindof work so far. I'm hoping to add more types of training and improve the existing ones.

Here are some pics:

Tameshigiri:

Wooden Dummy:

Hitbox Removal. Lots of fixes.

So, I removed the hitboxes, and the game looks much better, but I realized later that certain things didn't look right, or didn't make sense.

One in particular, was that the snow on the ground was all white all over and looked really boring.

So I added a gradient to it, made it darker the further back it went on the screen, and also a bit darker at the front of the screen. So basically it's lightest where Daisuke walks. It instantly made the game look significantly better! Added a sense of depth to the forest as you walk through it.

I also noticed that the distance between Daisuke and the enemies was all wrong. I guess I just didn't notice it with the hitboxes in the way, but it really doesn't make sense for the enemies to run into Daisuke then stand on top of him.

So what I did instead was make it so that when they get right in front of him, they stop and attack. Right when they're at striking distance with their weapon. And if Daisuke gets too close, they run backwards. They're much smarter now, and I am rather pleased with them.

One other problem that I realized I missed (probably because of hitboxes) was that Daisuke could basically just run through enemies with minimal damage. Keeping in mind though, that the enemies themselves do not cause damage, rather, it is their weapons that do damage to Daisuke. Even still, it just didn't seem right that Daisuke could simply run past them.

So I decided to give enemies a bit of "mass" I couldn't ACTUALLY give them mass obviously, so instead I simply added a little script to their AI that would push Daisuke back slightly (at about his walking speed) in the opposite direction. This would make it easier for the enemies to attack Daisuke, meaning the player would actually have to stop and fight more of them.

I am pleased with this, because now if someone wants to power through everything and run past enemies, they will be forced to take significant damage.

I also dramatically changed the way the Bow Bandit works. Instead of firing straight at you, he shoots arrows into the air (like a mortar) and they rain down on you depending on your position. I like this way much better because it is cleaner, easier to manage and I can reuse it over and over again!

So here is a cool action shot that I happened to take while testing:

I also made a couple of videos. One really crappy one, and one decent one. Both videos were made after hitbox removal, but before corrections. They're both on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbSooFn8EUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_UQ4WWDNGk

Daisuke Testing.

So I realized that I couldn't get a good grasp of how difficult I was making Daisuke, so I decided to start the very first round of testing!

I hooked up my computer to my 46" HD TV so that everyone in the room could clearly see what was going on while I had my roommate test what I have made so far.

After a little bit of instruction on the controls, I began recording video (with my iPhone) of the gameplay, as played by my roommate.

Please excuse the poor video quality .. and also please excuse all the hitboxes.

But enjoy our commentary during this first round of testing!

Part 1/4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LQ6ZB057R0

Part 2/4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0OYpvwCws

Part 3/4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Zo_6K_t14

Part 4/4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiwEhazPy4w

Attack Redesign Continued.

So, I implemented Daisuke's new attacks. They're a lot more fun than the old ones. His regular attack is a 1-2 chain combo. He'll automatically do the follow up attack after preforming the primary as long as you're holding down the button. He also takes a half step back on the follow up attack which is good for approaching enemies.

The primary attack is 100% as strong as the original regular slash that it replaces, while the follow up attack is at 150% strength. This makes Daisuke much more powerful at close range, so as a trade off, I gave all the enemies a bit more health .. but even still, Daisuke can seriously kick their asses now.

Primary Attack:

Follow Up:

I also changed the look of the parry attack and decreased it's power down to 50%.

Parry:

The Parry attack can be injected in between the two slashes or immediately after they're preformed, acting as a 3 hit combo. The follow up attack can also be used immediately after the Parry as well. Good timing between enemy strikes can allow for some pretty awesome effective combos as well. You can also jump in with Daisuke's mid air slash. And for a cool finish, you can use a super strike! So Daisuke is now significantly more versatile than he was before.

I am however thinking about either limiting the supers to only 1 of the 3, or possibly taking them all out, however I am undecided upon this.

Attack Redesign.

So, I have not worked on Daisuke in about a month, but I'm trying to get back into it. I could really use a bit of help, mostly just someone to toss ideas around with. So if anyone wants to lend a hand, I would appreciate it.

In other news, I realized that Daisuke's main attack looks too stiff and boring, so I decided that I might try and improve it, not only visually, but also make it a bit more interesting.

I thought up the motions the other night and spent this evening animating it.

I've decided to change is main attack from a single attack to a chain attack based on timing. So if you hit the button once, you do one type of attack, and if you hit the button a second time at the right frames, you'll trigger a follow up attack. This could be upgraded later on in the game to be a multi-stage chain attack dealing out multi hit combos and special techniques.

I might actually use this system to change the entire way that Daisuke fights .. but first I have to develop it.

Anywho, here are the motions:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Improvements, boss battles, more difficult.

So, I've put in a lot of work, but I haven't made any update posts in a while.

To summarize, I've added/changed a lot of stuff, but nothing particularly amazing, although I did give Daisuke a new jumping slash. I've mostly done a lot of tweaking to the gameplay and fixed a lot of bugs. For instance I've adjusted the gravity, added music and more sound effects, fixed a LOT of glitches and bugs, given the bad guys a slightly more sophisticated AI, as well as rules and boundaries.

I have however finished building both the 1st and 2nd parts of the level, and am working on making the mini boss fight against the Naginata bandit. I'm trying not to make him too easy, without making him impossible to beat .. it really is a fine line.

What will be cool about this battle, is that it will be similar to a MegaMan boss, in that once you enter the boss battle, the background will no longer scroll and you will be able to freely explore a given area. What is also going to be cool, is that the camera will be zoomed out a bit to make Daisuke and his Opponent appear a bit smaller, in order to give more space for maneuverability.

I have also made the regular enemies significantly quicker, and thus much more difficult than before.

Here are some pics of what I've been working on, please excuse the hitboxes.

Jumping Slash:


Jumping Super:


Level 1 Area 2:


Naginata Bandit:


Fight !!


These images do not represent the final product. I have since changed many of the hitboxes, which will not be visiblae in the final version of the game, and I have and will continue to change several other elements as time goes on.

Senban Shuriken.

I haven't been able to put in too much major work on Daisuke lately, BUT I did fix some bugs, figure some things out AND I gave Daisuke a new skill.



Ah yes, would Daisuke really be a ninja if he COULDN'T throw shuriken ??

Figuring out how to get them to work properly was a bit of a pain, but now Daisuke can throw Senban Shuriken fast and furiously! They will be especially helpful since I'm beefing up the number of enemies per level!