Day 62: More Parts

     Today, I did mostly as planned; I got a second flute part into the mix, and it sounds great. I actually made it a bit more complex than I thought I would but it is still somewhat simple. I also added in a second trumpet part to follow in the lead of the first part. The first part plays 2 eighth notes leading into a half note, whereas the second part does the opposite, playing a half note into two eighth notes. It makes for a full arpeggio while having a bit of harmony in between. I haven't really added any new instruments into the mix, as I think it sounds fine for now as it is. I may end up adding something later however, depending on whether or not I want to add another sound into a later part of the song. Other than that, I put in a tuba part that adds a bit of a bass tone, which gives a cool, almost epic sound. I might need to reduce the volume on the tuba part a little bit, as I don't want it to be too overpowering.

     I haven't added a percussion part yet, as I don't know how I am going to make it work. What I want is a roll on a crash symbol that gets louder as it goes towards the end. I can't seem to figure it out just with the plugins that I have for FL right now, so I might need to look for some VST plugins that could work. Overall, the piece is currently sounding awesome, just that a few things are to be played with a little bit. Next day I work on this, I will be looking for a plugin to use for percussion, and I will probably be able to add some more instruments into the mix as well. Other than that, there's not much else. See you in the new year!

Day 61: Catching Up

     I hope you had some fantastic holidays, and here's to an awesome new year! Now, my vacation away from school isn't quite over, but I have a little bit of work to do. It turns out that I had missed a couple of blog posts for December, so I've got to get these in. Plus, I was bored and needed something to do tonight , and thought that I may as well blog about it as it relates to our progress on the game.

     Late last night on December the 30th, I began working on yet another song to incorporate into the game. It will be the second ambience tune, or an ending theme (Not sure yet). Currently, it consists of a 4 part string section, playing chords in the background through the entire piece, a 3 part clarinet section, one, but soon to be more trumpets, and the melody played by a flute. I have also left space for a 4th type of instrument, as well as a bass part and percussion.

      The strings add a nice feeling to the piece, and they help to fill any empty spaces in the tune that would otherwise seem weak. It also adds another layer to the entire ensemble that help it sound more "full." The clarinet part is interesting; I have arranged it into 3 parts as mentioned before, and with that I have added a bit of a cool touch. Only one of the clarinet parts is moving at a time, with the others just playing dotted half notes (the piece is in 3/4 time). However, I set it up so that the same part doesn't move two bars in a row. This makes a really cool sound with the way  I have it set up. There is always movement, which sounds nice, but also keeps the piece moving instead of just dragging on slowly. Currently as for the trumpet part, I just have it playing a bit of an arpeggio, as I wasn't too sure to put for it. I might just leave it, seeing as it sounds nice, and gives another element of movement in the piece; and of course I will add more, I just haven't gotten to that. As for the flute part, I only have the initial melody part that plays along with the strings for the first 16 bars. I haven't made up a second part for it yet to cover the rest of the piece, but it shouldn't be too difficult. This part of it wont be too complex, seeing as there is a lot of action going on throughout the piece already, and I don't want things to get too chaotic. Sometimes a simple melody is nice once in a while; it's easy to follow and relaxing, which is kind of the aim for this.

     That's all I have for right now. It's getting late at this point, and I'm pretty tired as well. Tomorrow, (or rather later today... It's 1:30AM) I will make another post with any more progress I make before the new year. I will get the flute part incorporated, and I will add one or two more trumpets into the mix. I would like to play around with the bass instruments as well to see how they fit into the song.

All that, and maybe I'll try to figure out what other instruments to add and how to use them. 

Day 60: Recoil Failures

I worked on the recoil system again today. As per usual, I couldn't get it to work properly. I decided to do a bit of a different post today, just to see how it goes. Here are the things I tried today, and how they failed miserably.

mouse_y is sadly read only, so you can't edit it to move the position of the mouse.
window_mouse_set(obj_Mouse.x,obj_Mouse.y+1) doesn't work well at all.
window_mouse_set(x,y) works exactly the same as the above.
window_mouse_set(-obj_Mouse.x,-obj_Mouse.y+1) teleports the mouse off the screen, and even off the window into the corner of the monitor.
point_direction(x,y,mouse_x,mouse_y+5); this doesn't work either. I can't figure it out.

I found a few complex recoil systems, that I might need to try to implement. Tomorrow, I will try one out, and if I cant get it to work I wont worry too much about it. Ill try to find something online tonight.

Day 59: Recoil

[Yesterday] I tried to fix my recoil system. I had a pretty hard time getting it to work so I might just try to redo it completely. All I need to do is move the mouse upwards when you click the left button on the mouse. Should be easy, right?

Answer: Apparently not.

I might be approaching this all wrong though, there could be some other easy way to do it that I havent thought of yet. I haven't seen anything online that I can reference to, and every single thing I try turns out the same way. I need to try something else. In class, I also worked as a security guard, protecting Rhea and Justin's world in minecraft. They were busy building their project for the day and needed some help, so I decided to assist. Using command blocks I was able to teleport and kill anyone who joined nearly instantly. Next class I will continue working on the recoil system, but I can't guarantee results. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Day 58: Not the plan

Today I worked on a few different things. I was going to make the hot bar today, and I got a little bit done on that (but not much that is noticeable). I instead got some of the new sprites from Jake for the guns that are being redone, as well as the new character sprites. I haven't implemented the character sprites yet, but I did get the guns in the game and working. I also worked on getting so other features in the game, for example: I made it so that the player looks in the direction of the mouse/cursor. It looks much better that way, rather than having the player throw his arm behind his head and shoot like that. I am currently working on getting a recoil system to work from the weapons, but it isn't quite working. The cursor, instead of moving vertically, goes up and to the left, stopping at the top left corner. Next class I will work on perfecting this. I have tried a few ways of getting this to work but I am just getting the same problem each time. I think I might just need to take a different approach at this, using some different timings or something. All work for tomorrow.

Day 57: GUI work

On this day, the 57th of working on Game Maker Studio, I worked more on my GUI. I added a hotbar today, which will help visualize the fact that each weapon is assigned a key from 1 to 5. (It is actually in the center of the game's window, the screenshot just doesn't show it all that well.) I have finished the sprite for the most part, but I don't entirely like it. I am going to try to style it similarly to the health bar so that it kind of fits the theme better, and flows nicer. I have a few ideas in mind to fix the look of it... and speaking of the health bar, I noticed today that it is actually broken; in moving all of the code to a different object, I forgot to copy the code that draws the health bar itself, so I am going to have to draw a new one. It's okay, because I'd still have the same amount of work to do if I hadn't deleted it. I would still need to replace all of the values so I can move where it is being drawn, and change the size of it to fit the new size of the health bar. It should be pretty simple to figure out. That will be something I could work on next class if I have the time. Tomorrow I will continue working on the hotbar that I started today. Once I get a sprite that I am happy with, I am going to try making it work, based on which weapon I have equipped. All I need to do is make another sprite that shows which one is being used, and figure out exactly where to draw that sprite. 

Day 56: Problem Solver

Today I worked a little bit on my own game, getting the clock to show up on the screen in the right spot. I also added it to say "Time" right beside that. I wasn't able  to do to much on my own stuff, because for alot of the class I was working with Nick to get the dodging to work, and a bit with Justin to get the player to face the direction of the mouse. I got that to work, by making the game check if the mouse was on the left or right of the player, and then changing his sprites accordingly. With Nick, we were able to make the dodge work by pressing shift and a second key in sequence, based on the direction you want to go. It is a little weird and it doesn't work completely well, but I thought of a way to fix that while writing this post; there are variables in the game that  I made that define which way the player is facing, so all I need to do is check which way the player is facing, so when you press shift, he jumps in that direction. It should work alot more smoothly that the key press sequence, and should be alot easier to code. Next class I will add a little bit to the gui, so that it looks better. From there, I will ask the guys what needs doing, and if we cant think of what to do for right now, I will add some more of Jake's artwork into my game so it looks nice.    

Day 55: GUI

     As you can see in the above gif, I managed to get the sprites and text to show consistently through both rooms. However, they are quite small in comparison to the original, but I might just leave that. It looks fine as it is now. Also for some reason at the beginning of the gif, the player's moving sprite wasn't working, but it corrected itself. I thin k the was some lag that caused that or something, I don't know exactly. Today Nick (our newest member) and I talked about the idea of a dodging motion to get away from the zombies. I helped him to learn how to make an enemy as well, and I changed a little bit of his movement code so it could work better when colliding with the enemies.Once he is done with the dodge motion, we will be able to hit shit to get away from or past an enemy when we want to. There should be a cooldown on that as well. Also, there may be stamina, along with two separate speeds for the player, as if they are walking/running. Next class, I will work on perfecting the GUI that is being drawn. Then I will fix the bullets missing the zombies. It is a cool feature, but it seems like they are doing it too often. If I can get them to hit 100% of the time, then I can easily make a randomizer to make it randomly miss and go past the zombies. 

Day 54: IT FINALLY WORKS

Everything is fixable now, as I have figured out the problem. While working, I decided to fix my player sprites, as the were a little messed up for when the player was standing still with a gun. Once I finished that I went back to the problems I was trying to fix, and it hit me; the views. I noticed that the views were different, because I decided a while back to change the size of the view inside of the house, so that it would fit the screen better. I made it 512x384 instead of the previous 640x480. Because my text is being drawn relative to the view, it was being put just outside of the visible area. I have managed to get the Ammo text back into the view, and everything else should be pretty easy as well. Although, I may need to do some extra work here, because everything is quite zoomed in, due to the change of view. If it is possible, I want to try to change the way I draw everything so that it is always in the same spot. Maybe using another view, or something like that. (I have no idea, really...) The main thing is that I at least found out where things are, just outside of my view. That way I know they are at least being drawn, and they do indeed exist. Next class I will work on music, or I will be figuring out a new way to draw these things. I have no idea really. We'll just see what the day brings.

Day 53: A Mess of Things (And late posting... woops.)

Yesterday I worked on a very wide variety of things. From helping Justin fix his broken game, to working on my own game, and even a little bit of an attempt at music. Justin was having some real troubles with getting his views to look right, so I game him the dimensions of my views and did a little bit of simple math to get them too look right, just a little zoomed in/out, based on the size of the room. I tried to get some of my own problems fixed, but the only thing that I could manage was getting the ammo text to show up... sort of. It was white as I wanted it to be, (I was having trouble with coloring of the text.) but I had more problems than just that. It was in the top center of the screen, and appeared to be very small. I couldn't get anything else to work, and even then I ended up breaking that small fix. I tried to work on music at the beginning of class, but I couldn't come up with anything so I just went back to trying to fix some of my issues. Today, I will be working on my game, trying to get everything fixed. Hopefully I can come up with a solution, but I can't guarantee results.

Day 52: Change of Plans

So I had some ideas that I was going to be working on, including some visual stuff for an inventory almost, at least like a hotbar for the weapons indicating which number to press to equip each weapon. I also wanted to do a few cinematic type things just to see how the guys like them. One being if you get close enough to a zombie, it goes into a sort of widescreen view, as the battle intensifies. Instead, today Jake gave me his backgrounds for inside of the house and I implemented those into the game. I had to edit a few of the sprites to fit the screen properly, but other than that it went pretty well. I am having some troubles now with sprites not being drawn for certain objects, and all of my text is either black, or just missing entirely... I cant tell. Next class, if not working on the music, I will try fixing those problems. I may have just accidentally deleted some objects so it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Day 51: Battle Music

I have been working a little bit on the battle music, as well as my second ambience track over the weekend. The battle track is going well, although the other is not. I am having trouble finding melodies that I really like and want to keep in. I think I am just going to redo the original ambience track in the pc version so it has a similar sound to the rest of the music  I am making, for I am using a different set of instruments, I got a vst pack free from the internet that gave me a bunch of orchestral instruments, which I am really loving right now. I am just lacking a sense of creativity in the sense of music right now, so I am having troubles writing everything at the moment. However, I do have a few cool ideas that I want to put into the game that I can do solely in gamemaker. Next class I will work on those. I will keep them a surprise until my next post, for I want to keep the suspense (and I don't know which thing to start on first... heheh).

Day 50: Computer Musics

I have started to learn FL Studio on the computer. I am making my second ambience track on it, and so far it is coming along well. I have started with a piano track, adding a bit of a bass line, a melody, and an attempt at harmonizing with the melody. It doesn't sound the greatest so I think I will be getting rid of it. The track currently loops nicely which is a bonus. It is only 12 measures long at the moment, so I haven't gone too far with it. I have just spent most of my time learning how to use the program in general. Next class I will be able to do alot more work, considering I now at least know the basics, as well as  I have google to help me with any problems I have. Next class I will be continuing on this track, potentially adding some more instruments like strings and wind instruments.

Day 49: Music

I FINISHED THE MUSICS. DONE.

I got the first track finished. I repeated a bit of it, as well as adding the second violin part, and it should loop just fine. If it doesn't, I can always throw it into fl studio on here and fix it up. Now that that is done with, I can make a second track. I have a few plans for that, but I am still unsure. It was tough to figure out how to properly export the file from my phone, but I finally figured it out. Tomorrow I will continue work on it, but other than that there isn't really much to say.

Check out the Musics here: https://soundcloud.com/user219276592/track-01-ambience1

Day 48: Finishing Thoughts

Today I continued work on the music I was making on Friday.  I nearly finished the track, I just need to repeat a few measures and add another solo with the vibrato violin, but other than that it is basically done. After consultation with the other guys, I decided to remove my drum and timpani parts, as they seemed too powerful for the style I was aiming for. I am also going to add a crescendo where the tuba and French horn come in so that it isn't as harsh, and they build up to their full volume. Tonight, I am going to work on making a second background track,  and in the future I may make more. Of course we could use all of them, but I want to make a few to see which would fit best with what we want. Tomorrow I will continue that in class, and pitch the idea to the rest of the team. That way once I am finished with all of the tracks, we can vote on which one we like the best.

Day 47: Ambience

Today I worked on the ambience music for the game. (The background music for when the player is travelling.) Currently it consists of about 6 or 7 parts, including timpani, drum kit, full strings, a violin, a French horn and a tuba. I may add a bit more to it later. I am about half way done the track, I just need to add a little bit more to it, and continue with the violin part.After this is complete I will work on the battle music for whenever enemies are nearby. Next class however, I will be getting the ambient music finished. It should be pretty easy, and it surely is enjoyable to be working on.

Day 46: Tunes and Troubles

Today I was able to make some scrolling work in game, by extending the outside room, and messing with the view stuff. I wasn't able to get the bullets to work entirely, and  I don't want to cause any more problems, so instead I started working a bit on the music for the game. It is certainly a lot more interesting that just making sprites and code and such, especially considering I am running out of ideas as for what to do. I am going to be making a background track with some eerie piano with wind overlapping that. When danger is imminent, the music will change to something more exciting and upbeat. I am really excited to work on sound effects soon as well. I am going to put in some effects for fire, so if you pass something that is burning, you will hear the crackle of the flame as you go by. I want to add some cool zombie sounds as well as gunshots, which should be fun to make. I am really excited to be working on sound. Tomorrow I will work on writing the piano track for the background music, and maybe integrating a bit of Jake's new artwork into the game. <y game looks really plain right now, so it would be nice to get that going.

Day 45: Trail Mix

I got the bullet trails done today, after taking to the internet and finding some code. It was pretty easy to do. The explanation given yesterday is basically how it works, except this sets a limit as to how long of a trail you have, and you can edit that to your own discretion. I also doubled the bullet speed, and it looks a lot nicer. Here's a look at that:

I made the spread on the shotgun bullets quite a bit smaller, and it is more realistic, and looks a lot nicer now. I also used the same idea to give each gun a little bit of inaccuracy. Not too much though, otherwise it wouldn't be very fun. Tomorrow I need to work on the position where the bullets are created. Currently they are coming from the player's shoulder, which isn't too good. It is probably going to take  a bit of work and problem solving, as I don't exactly know how to make it work. 

Day 44: Random Occurance

So somehow the mouse is fixed now.

I have no idea how that happened, but I'm not complaining. I tweaked a little bit of stuff in the player and the arms and stuff in terms of sprites and their placement relative to each other, but it needs a little more work. I am trying now to work on getting a trail behind the bullets, and I want to make them faster; right now they are just way too slow. I found a few pieces of code to do that, but nothing seems to work right now. Tomorrow I think I will work on getting that completed. It should be relatively simple, all that needs to be done is drawing sprites behind the bullet at varying opacity, so that it looks a bit like it is fading. I am either going to spend some time figuring out how to do it on my own, or just take to the internet and implement it into my game. Not sure which yet.

Day 43: Back in Business

Now that Game Maker has started up again, I have begun working on the player's animations again. I worked a bit on the running animation today, but I think I want to change it again. I'll wait until later to do that however, because I just redid it and I don't feel like wasting a bunch of time on that again. So I started work on getting the running animation while holding a gun to work, and I managed to get it working. However, I have managed to break the arms, so that when you transfer into a different room the pointing direction de-synchronizes with the mouse, and acts all weird. I think it has something to do with the mouse's position in the last room, and the persistence stuff. Next class I will work on fixing that. It should be an easy fix, but you never know.

Planetbase: All Good Things Must Come to an End

The week has ended, which means that the Planetbase review is going with it, and this will sadly be the final post. Work on our game will commence next class once again. Here's the rest of what I did, and my opinion on the game:

I took a really aggressive approach at my final run towards success. I wanted to try and break past all of the issues I was having in my last attempts, and I managed to find success. I was able to recover from the struggles I was having and I finally can move on and try to reach 100 colonists.

One of the first things I had to set up was a massive bio-dome. Food production became a real problem really fast and  I needed to fix that ASAP. It was a bit costly to get it going, but it wasn't too bad. I also started to set up a bar, because everyone was getting sad, as well as a nearby airlock because the others were getting a bit far away.

I had to increase production alot of the time, so raising priorities was key to getting stuff done. At one point I had nearly 30 ore, and only a little bit of metal so I needed to make them work on production.

I also made sure to keep my spare manufacturing even with how much I have queued to construct, because they prioritize resources for construction over spares, even when you need spares more than buildings.

That way I was able to repair broken turbines and solar panels when they needed it...

Uhh... woops?

I was having a really bad time towards the beginning keeping up with my power supply, and I nearly killed the entire colony one night because I started it with no power... I was really lucky to have survived that night. From there my power was fixed and everything was brought back to normal. 

With a growing colony, I was running out of beds for everyone and people were getting really tired. I set up a cabin for a few workers and then built another really large dorm to house a bunch more workers and fix my sleep problem.

With the population booming, I also had to create another canteen, to help produce meals quicker and help solve my increasing hunger issue. People were starving even when there was plenty of food available.

I also had to boost the bigger bio-dome in order to get the biologists to focus on making the food I needed. I caught a glimpse of two workers passing through, one sad and one tired. This was before I had set up the other things. 

I also built another lab, and changed a bunch of the synthesizers to different types of meat for a bit of variety. I increased priority, and from this point food was becoming much less of a problem with each minute.

Cap it all off with a work-in-progress multi-dome, and the base is finally reaching a prestige of over 100! That's one more milestone checked off the list, meaning I am one away from unlocking the medium level planet.

Sadly I was unable to complete my goal of reaching the next planet, but I put in alot of work and had a ton of fun doing it so that's what matters. I loved the challenge that this game proposed alot of the time, where it was almost random what happened each day. Instead of just building something and letting it work, it had to be constantly tended to or it would all fall apart. I like that there is alot to build as well, and I especially love how you can change the size of each component to be bigger or smaller depending on your needs. My only complaint is that you are unable to tell people specifically what to do; they just kind of do what they want. It would be nice to be able to prioritize what construction needs to be done first, or if they should work on it at all. It would be nice to be able to force someone to go produce something if you needed it like some spares or something else, but I guess that's just one of the added challenges to the game... and who knows, maybe they'll change that later on. Overall I really enjoyed the game, and I don't plan to stop playing. Whenever I find the time, I am going to get back on track to getting to the harder levels of the game. For now however, it is back on to Game Maker. There's a ton of work to do on there, and I'm excited to get back into it. 

Planetbase: Goal Setting & Future Plans

----- Planned for today -----

Today I want to reach a population of 100. In order to do that I want to get a starport set up, as well as some more food production, more canteens, more dorms, oxygen, water, etc. It is going to take a lot of expansion to be able to sustain the massive amount of workers I seek to acquire, but it will be fun. I also want to get some storage set up for once. I don't have any storage yet in the base, so everything is just sprawled out across the floor, which isn't the best for the quality of the resources. I don't really want them to deteriorate. I have some big plans for today, and it will require a lot of resources, so I'm going to increase production as well... lots to do.

----- What Happened... -----

ABORT MISSION. I REPEAT, ABORT MISSION. ALL UNITS TO THE LANDING PAD FOR IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION.

Ahem... Where was I going with this? Oh, right...

I received many warnings throughout my various attempts at building a colony today. The most common, starting from most to least, being "Food storage is low," "[This Person] died of starvation," "Power storage is critical," "[This Person] has died of asphyxiation." However, the game did not warn me that my plans would be ruined because workers are idiots and biologists are typically the first to die if there is no food available... which is kind of dumb, considering they are the ones making all of the food. Anyway today was tough. I had to deal with seeing the death message pop up a lot. I tried multiple fixes, such as adding more resource production, adding much more food production, power storage, all sorts of things. The problem however, was that I did not realize just how many guards I had let into my base. I wanted a bunch, but I kind of got carried away, and I now have 52 colonists in my base, which is way too much for me to handle at this point. Thankfully, I have a slightly earlier save that I should be able to go back to. It will also give me a chance to rearrange a few things that will help me to keep the base organised and running well. 

Tomorrow I should have everything in order. I am going to work on increasing all of the resources and such that I have encountered today, before they become problems. I should have enough time to build a starport as well, and if I am lucky I may be able to reach 5 milestones and make it to the next planet. Other than that, my plans for tomorrow are the same as they were today. Hopefully they'll go a little better next time. 

Planetbase: First (Official) Playthrough

Today we did the first attempt at starting our colonies on planetbase. Yesterday however, I did a few practice runs in which I may or may not have failed miserably... anywho, so far I am having an excellent experience with this base. I have gotten farther than before in any of my previous attempts. I took all of the knowledge I gained from the tutorial as well as some knowledge earned from multiple failures I made yesterday. Here's how the base is coming along so far: 

I started out pretty simple, making my power generators, each turbine and solar panel using 4 metal each. I like to use this size just because it feels like it gives a nice amount of power for the cost, rather than having to waste the space to build 4 smaller solar panels and whatnot. This way it is more compact; plus it saves on space as mentioned, which is something I do not have a lot of in this area quite yet.

I used the power collector that costs 2 metal, because it is easy to manage your power storage. It stores a good amount of power for the cost, and is easy to fill up, and has a good range that it can power over the night. I just build a few of these over time and they keep the base running perfectly when power isn't being made otherwise.

I also built the larger water extractor, because it produces a huge amount of water, and lasts for a long time on just one extractor. I used a normal sized oxygen generator, only because I don't really need anything more than that, and just simply to get something down right away so that my colonists can breathe. 

Add an airlock on to that and you've got a semi-functional base, in which your people can at least breathe, and get more oxygen before returning to work. From here, I started work on building a canteen so that they can eat, and a bio-dome next to that so that I can start producing food right away before I use it all up. 

Inside of the bio-dome, I placed a few starchy vegetable pads right away to begin production on bio-plastic, as well as some food of course. I also placed a pair of trees to bring up the morale of the colonists, for they were becoming sad. Plus, I can add a bit of oxygen to the place during the day.

I branched off from the bio-dome, adding a dorm so that they could sleep, a processing plant to begin processing some materials, as well as an oxygen generator, as I was beginning to expand over quite a distance; the area in which I had started was very narrow, and surrounded by mountains.

I added a mine and set the priority high at this point, because production of ore had become really important as I was running out of metal, which is needed to craft nearly everything. I also began construction on a landing pad, because by this point things were really slowing down, and I really needed to increase productivity. 

Now that I had the mine set up, I had a worker get injured; and of course, I didn't have a sick bay. So in order to get that worker back on his feet and well... working, I had to get a sick bay built. Once that was done, productivity came right back up, and any time someone needed medical attention, they were able to get it.

Then I started to add a bit more to the processing plant, as I needed to get the resources a bit faster. Then I'd be able to build more of course. This point was a bit of a grind, changing priorities constantly over the mine and the processing plant so that I could get exactly what I wanted to be done. The next thing I built from here was a lab. I wanted to get some vitromeat produced so that  I could construct better meals, as well as beginning a bit of work on making some medical supplies. I also filled up the bio-dome, adding a medicine plant to the mix, just for some supplies.

And here's me getting messed up by a sandstorm, without having a control center to put the base on yellow alert. Thankfully, the workers are smart enough to track inside of the base before they die, so I didn't lose anything important. In this shot you can also see that I have added some extra power collectors over time. This is because one just wasn't going to do for overnight, so I had to build a couple extra to last through it.

I built a factory afterwards, because  I wanted to start production on spares as soon as I could. That way I can keep up with the repairing of my turbines, solar panels and my robots. If you lose the power generators to damage, you're screwed if you don't have the spares to repair it. There goes your power, water, oxygen, everything. Unless you have an entire colony of robots, you're basically done for.

Next on the list, I had started to build a second bio-dome, as food supplies were running low. The lab from earlier and my other bio-dome were't producing enough food for the ever-growing colony. That along with the much needed control center. By this point I had actually endured 3 sandstorms without a control center, so I really wanted to get one down, just to get it out of the way. 

----- I missed a few screenshots by this point -----

That is essentially what the base looks so far. I added an airlock over by the control center as well, because if I was going to have my workers building over there on the far end, I didn't want them taking up most of their time in travel to their destination. I realized later, that having the control center so far away from the landing pad was pretty bad, because if the colony were to be attacked, the armory would be quite far away. So I recycled the landing pad, and move it closer to there, for better security. By now I had also added a robot construction facility thing, and started work on that. However, it isn't really being used. I added a few more machines to the factory so that I could get some more spares, as well as some semi-conductors that I needed for the future. I added another power collector, another few water extractors, and I was set for the future. 

Once the landing pad was done, I got a hint shortly after about invaders that could possibly attack the base. So, in a panicked state, I rushed to the base management panel and set the landing permissions to colonist ships only, with only guards able to enter the base. I started on producing some guns, as well as building a few armories... just to be safe.

Once I got here, there wasn't too much to get to building without adding a bunch of repeats of things. So because I had the resources readily available, I added a telescope. Once that was constructed, I was able to build a missile defense system, which works excellently. I am able to predict incoming threats, and I am thankfully able to take out meteors. Because the base is growing ever larger, it is nice to have this defense before a meteor takes out something critical to the colony's survival.

And that's where the base stands now, waiting to be played again tomorrow. I plan to make a large dorm, canteen and bio-dome tomorrow, as well as drastically increase the power generation, water storage and oxygen levels, as I seek to hit a population milestone of one hundred. This shouldn't take too long to reach. I think I will make the much larger landing pad tomorrow that costs 10 metal. That way I can get about 5 colonists per arrival, allowing for a faster population growth. I may want to add another, larger mine as well just to keep up with my construction needs, along with another processing plant to keep up with the mine. I'll have to keep a close eye on the base's population while all of this happens. I don't want to find myself running out of resources faster than I produce them, so I'll just have to be a bit cautious. 

Over all, I am loving this game, and cannot wait to continue playing. I think the base I have set up right now is doing excellently, which is really exciting(considering my last few have gone down horribly). This game can be frustrating to learn at first, but after a few tries I fell in love with this game. I would love to reach at least the second level planet by Friday, as I would love to try the next level, and to see how much more of a challenge it is in comparison. Once this week is over, I don't think I'm going to stop playing it... on my free time, that is. I'll return to game maker of course, but this will be something I feel I will continue playing for a while now.

Planetbase: Tutorial Experience

Today, we played the planetbase tutorial. Our task is to get a general idea for how the game works, passing off the information and giving a general review of the game. Here is how my experience went, beginning with some things you should consider early on.

It is very important at the beginning of the game to get three main things set up. Oxygen generation, power generation, and water production. Once that is set up it is probably a good idea to set up an airlock and connect it to the oxygen generator so that the workers can get inside and breathe. Once you have that, sleep is a good thing to consider, so a dorm would be a good thing to set up. Then food production, etc. It is very important to consider the needs of the colonists at all times, or it may be devastating for your base. 

Here is just a shot of everything being built. The solar panel was erected, and the water generation shortly after. The next thing being built was the airlock, which has a connection with the oxygen generator.

Here are four basic things you need to take care of initially. A water source, a power supply(solar panel), an oxygen generator and an airlock. 

Here is an image of a sort of power array that I have set up, with a wind turbine and solar panel each generating power, a power collector for storage, as well as the water generator in the middle. 

Some of the next base setup includes building a bio-dome for food production, and a dorm so that the workers can eat and sleep; necessary to their survival. If the workers are going to eat, they are also going to need a canteen, or basically a cafeteria as we may otherwise know it. There is a button in the top left corner of the information box for each building that looks like a camera. You can click that to get a cool view inside of each structure, and look around the room.

Here is a finished bio-dome, with some plants queued for being built. 

A more finished product, now that the crops are growing inside of the bio-dome. 

Here is the canteen. There is a meal processor that gives the colonists food. There is a table so they can sit and eat rather than just sitting on the floor, as well as a water fountain to let them drink. There is a television on the wall as well, but it is placed right where the camera is, so it can't be seen in this shot. If you look closely as well, there is a worker glitching inside of a robot. 

 There are plenty of other structures that can be built as well, such as a mine for harvesting ore, laser defense systems that can prevent meteor damage, labs that can be used to produce medicine, sick bays for unhealthy workers and so much more. Even within some of these places like the sick bay and the lab, you can place mini structures within them. For example you can place beds in the sick bay, and a crafting table in the lab. I like that you can customize the interior of the structures, rather than just placing them and having them work automatically. It adds a little extra detail.

There are some key bindings that I learned along the way as well that will definitely come in handy. For one, you can press Alt and you will be able to see in the top right had corner of the screen at how many resources you have left, and even how much you are losing by rate.

You can also press tab to remove the glass over the structure for a better look inside. Another quite useful tool is the plus button. That allows you to speed up the time in game, while minus slows it down of course. Another I found to be nice for screenshots is the spacebar. It removes all of the interface stuff from the screen, so you just get a clear shot, which I used in a few instances as you may notice.

Hopefully from here you are ready to take on a solo mission. Once you are done the tutorial you can dive straight into the action, starting on the first, mars-like plant. Hopefully you don't get hit by any meteors early on, for that could easily wipe out your entire colony. Personally, I am very excited to get to playing this game. I can't wait to see what the next few days bring. 

Planetbase: First Impressions

For the next week, we are planning on reviewing a game called planetbase. Starting tomorrow we will be taking a first crack at the game for ourselves. For we are just watching some videos, looking up other people's reviews on the game, and trying to build an opinion on it solely from that. The tutorial is apparently pretty quick, so I may just skip it. I feel like I have taken in enough general information already, and the true gamer in me is telling me to skip it as per usual. But anyways, here are the details:

It is a game set in space on a distant planet that you land on and are set out to colonize and build your base on. You start off with 7 colonists all having different jobs, whether they are builders or whatnot, as well as two worker robots(or somewhere around those numbers, might depend on where you start). Over time you are to build different structures, constantly expanding your base. You start out with a limited amount of resources, so it is important to get things set up to be able to generate those. However, the first things you are going to want to build are essential to your survival. You will need to start producing air and power first of all, as well as some housing so that your colonists can collect air and such. Next, it is important to get water and food generation started so that you can keep your workers alive. Dormitories are important as well, so you can give your people sleep. From there, it is a good idea to get resource production started. Mines are good to start collecting ore which can be turned into metal, and the production of bioplastic will be important as well.

There are alot of things you need to consider in the creation of your base as well. Location is important, because that can help determine how much sunlight you get per day, which is helpful for generating power (solar panels are a good way of collecting energy). You also need to consider the idea of the natural risks that occur, such as solar flares, sandstorms, and meteor showers. There is technology in the game that can be built to help prevent some of the harmful effects that these can have, but those look like later game items. It looks like your base can grow pretty quickly as well, and to quite the large size at that, so the risk of meteors hitting your base could become an increasing risk, that could have some devastating effects, so it might be smart to get some defense set up, or even just to simply collect extra resources in case you need to rebuild.

The farther you get in the game, you will achieve some milestones. I don't know the requirements to unlock each of them, but I'd assume that they are just getting certain amounts of items or colonists and such. Once you unlock 5 milestones, you unlock a second level of planet, of which there are three. One basic easy planet, which seems quite comparable to mars, he second being a medium level planet with a nitrogen atmosphere, and the third being much more challenging, with what I'd assume to be high risk of every natural disaster known in the game. However, I have not seen the details on it yet.




From what I have seen, the game looks like quite a bit of fun. There is alot to do and it is key to keeping up with all of your resources and needs. As the colony expands, it may become more challenging to keep your colonists alive, and to keep up with resource consumption, but that is what makes it fun. I have seen other games such as banished, which share the same type of genre so to speak,  where the goal of the game over the long term is generally the same(just set in a different time.) I really look forward to playing this game over the next week, and I am sure I will enjoy it. My hope is to be able to get to at least the second planet by the end of the week, but we'll see how that goes.

Screenshots were taken from a youtube video from a user named Idiotech, whose channel is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0YagOInbZxj10gaWwb1Nag

His review of the game is really nice, and also shows more of the late game concepts, rather than just the basics that I have seen a lot of by now. Here is a link to that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_XYaPgJZF4

Day 42: Proper Movement

The movement sprites are nearly done now. I got the feet put in, and I just have a few things to edit in the arm movement. I also have been doing work on another picture for in the game, although I am doing it in real life. I am going to pixelate it later, and put it in the game, maybe in a few different places.

Next class I plan on finishing the sprites if I don't do so over the weekend, and starting on something else. I'll ask the guys what to do next.