Captain Kaon
Update #10
I've spent a few days focusing on bugs fixing and balancing.
- Some of the achievements are now working. I'm not quite sure why they started working or why the other ones don't. The game is saying the stats the achievements are tied to don’t exist, but they are there on the Steamworks page. Unfortunately the documentation on how stats and achievements work is a little sparse. I’ll keep working on the problem and try and sort it soon, along with adding some more achievements in.
- Added sprites so that each Pod has its own body.
- Fixed the in-game menu. You can now access the options during a mission. Currently you can’t switch to full screen from the in-game menu as this super-breaks the UI in ways I don’t know how to fix at the moment.
- I’ve given the Ai back its power shot. When I re-wrote the Ai over Christmas it fell by the way side and I’ve finally got around to putting it back.
I’m now going to keep looking at the achievements and then start polishing the Mars levels.
Update #9
It's been something of a stressful day trying to get this latest build up, I found a performance issue in the Steam versions of the game and had no idea what was causing it or how it happened. Checking older version confirmed it had been there for a while. When the game was run straight through Gamemaker it ran great :-/, uploading a version with Steam functionality disabled worked and confirmed the issue. Then when Steam was re-enable it suddenly worked and the bug was gone. So…the game runs better now….¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Along with this ‘fix’ I have also added:
- I’ve started to improve the art for the Hanger, hopefully it’s a little less hideous. The luanch button isn't pink for a start.
- I’ve made further changes to the balancing of the available resource for mission rewards and exploiting. I'm still not entirely happy with it and will fiddle a bit further.
- I’ve added more resource crates, there are now some silver ones which are easier to find.
- The mission report text for when you fail has been rewritten.
- When you kill an enemy Pod they drop a broken body on the battlefield
- The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed I’ve added the first batch of achievements, which you can see on the Steam page. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be triggering and I’ve not been able to figure out why not yet. Gamemaker doesn’t let you debug the Steam version. Ho hum.
- Completion of the Ceres campaign will now unlock Mars. Only the first 6 missions are currently playable, they are set on Phobos.
Have fun!
Update #8
It's been a busy couple of weeks, I've got the core levels for Mars/Phobos done. They still need to be playtested, balanced, tweaked, fixed and so on. I'm hoping to roll out some of the levels in an update over the next couple of weeks.
I've also been making a few changes and improvements to Ceres, the key changes in this update are.
- The defend missions have been better balanced and their difficult is now adjusted based on how many regions you own.
- Resource reward for missions has been increased. With the high challenge of the levels it's easy to run out of resources, which prevents you from replaying the levels as many times as you need. An increase in the resources doesn;t affect the challenge, but allows you more tries.
- Your ship setup now gets saved.
- I've fixed the hunters invisiblity.
- The 60mm cannon has been improved, the bullet is now wider, faster, and more satisfying.
- I've re-written the after action reports for mission success to add more depth to the story.
Update #7
It's taken a little while longer to get this update out than intended, sorry about that. I've been working on new features and levels for the Mars campaign, and had the added problem of my bug fixes creating new bugs. Stuff that's in the update.
- As part of a re-write of the story text that is ongoing I've updated the Ceres cutscene. It has new dialogue and an extra shot at the end. I'm currently re-writting the mission descriptions and after action reports for the next update.
- I've changes the Marine APC's behaviour to improve its landing when you drop it off. Previously it was a little too tricky to flip it and get it stuck. It nows has little landing rockets that give a puff and help it land ok.
- The gravity on the levels was uneven. In the early design the gravity would be different depending on the world you were on. Early levels on Ceres would have light gravity which made the game easier. As you went on it got heavier. But all this changed when I switched to a camapgin mode. I've gone through and corrected the gravity levels.
- The small bomb you get at the beginning has changed. It was behaving too much like a missile and could be thrown up too far. I'm going to mak further changes to ensure their is a distinct gameplay difference between the two.
- The keen eyed observes amongst you will notice that the success/failed message at the end of the level has slightly changed. It currently acts in almost the same way as before, it is radiaclly different under the hood. I'm hoping to add some kind of score/review to teh end of a mission and the new system will allow this.
Update #6
Sorry it's been a little while since I've updated the game, this was partly due to christmas shenanigans, but also because the art for the trading cards took longer than expected. I'm now back up to speed with game development and I have a frsh new update. They key new bits are:
- As requested, the mouse position can now be restricted to prevent it from slipping of the side of teh screen. Currently there is 100 pixel buffer around the edge of the screen that the mouse can't leave. I'm going to look at mking this adjustable.
- There are now toggleable options for Camera Shake, Gamepad Rumble, and Restricting the Mouse. This is currently only in the frontend. I made some undser the hood chages to how the menu system works, these need to be migrated across to the in-mission menu.
- I've been making improvements to the later levels with some tweaks to the design and I've added in some of the radar warning systems to alert the ai to your position.
- I've been make changes to the hidden resource crates. This needed revisiting as the original design for these areas was to find a hidden object, not collect and return with one. In some cases you couldn't get the crate back out. I've been working to fix these so it is now possible. I also fixed a bug were you were awarded the resource if the crate was destroyed, oops.
- I rebalanced the recently added shield for the ai. It was far too strong and made the later levels almost impossible.
Power generators now have a health bar under them. It is my intention to have one under everything that you should actively be looking to destroy, as an indicator that you need to kill it.
For the next update I'm looking at:
- Setting a variable difficulty for the Exploit/Defend missions. Also, giving each level a pass for furhter balancing and design issues.
- Changing the messages you recieve at the end of a mission. When you fail I'd like to give a reason for you failure, 'bullet through the cockpit' or 'dropped the fuel canister'. For victory I'd like to have some kind of score board or mission stats.
-I'm also going to begin adding the last features required for the Mars campaign.
If you're interested in how games are made, you can check out these changes as I make them through my live streamed game development on twitch, or you can watch the highlights on my YouTube channel.
Trading Cards now available
There are 8 in total, each one features a different gunship. There's the little Wasp that you start with. The four gunships you unlock during the Ceres campaign, and the 3 that will be part of the forthcoming Mars campaign. The large image for each trading card is a blueprint with the technical specs of each gunship.
There are 5 normal badges to get and one foil badge. Each on is a trophy of one of the gunships, who many can you collect?
If you'd like to see how game's are made, I've started live streaming the final stages of development for Captain Kaon. You can check out twitch channel or view the highlights on YouTube.
While you playing through Captain Kaon to earn your trading cards I'd love to get some feedback on what you think of the game and anywhere you think needs improvement.
Many thanks and have fun.
Update #5
The key things in this update.
-Steam screenshots have now been enabled, snap away.
-I've changed how the impact damage works. Previously it did a small amount of fixed damage. This meant that impacts did little damage, but scraping along did lots. I've changed it so that it does high initial dmage, but then teh dmage decreases while your in contact. I've also added a velocity based limit so that you won't take any damage from a low velocity collision.
-I've begun adding gamepad rumble. At the moment it occurs when you collide with teh environemtn or fire a weapon. I'm going to add an option to disable this once I've made some changes to teh menu system.
-Screenshake can now be turned of in the front end options.
Update #4
I've been tweaking and polishing the later levels and geting them closer to their final versions, there's not much left for me to do with the Ceres campaign and I'll be moving on to the Mars campaign.
Some of the recent additions.
- Objective text has been added to the Pause Menu to help guide you through missions.
- The Vertical Drill Spawner has been sprinkled across a few of the levels to take you by surprise.
- I fixed problems with the camera pointing the wrong way. It should point in the direction your turret is facing. In a later updated I will change it so that when you aren't firing it points in the direction of travel.
- You can now select which controls you want to use from the options in the frontend. By default it is set to mouse/keyboard. It will remember your selection next time you start the game. If you unplug the gamepad at anytime it will switch to mouse controls, if you then plug the gamepad back in it will revert to the gamepad.
- The colour balance and contrast on the text boxes has been adjust to make the text easier to read. I don't think it's quite optinal yet so I'm going to be making further adjustments when I have time.
- The Ai now has a Radar building that alerrts the enemy pods when it spots you, destroy it before it can get its signal out.
That's all for now. I'm aiming to have another update out next week with some bug fixes. I'm also hoping to makes some additions and tweaks to the ai behaviour.
Twitch - Live streamed game development
I'm now live streaming the development of Captain Kaon on Twitch. You can look on as I create the art, animate it, add the code, and design the rest of Captain Kaon. You can find teh stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/engagepixel
Would you like to see me get it wrong over and again?
I'm far from perfect and this stream is a warts and all look at my development life. Join me on my journey as I try to make Captain Kaon the best game it can be.
Would you like to get some insight into how games are made?
I try to explain everything I do and why I do it, often rambling off on tangents. It's might hope that this stream will give people insight into how games are made, the thought processes that I go through, and why I do the things I do.
If this sounds interesting, come and join me.
Update #3
-A vertical version of the drill spawner has been added, this one comes up through the ground from below.
-The player can now strafe their ship from side to side to dodge enemy bullets.
-The first mission, where you have to race a drone through some gates has been removed. It wasn't a very good mission and it slowed down the start of the game.
-The Ai now has a Radar Base Station, if it spots the player it will signal the Ai to come towards it and attack teh player.