Hi, I thought I'd put up a short video of my first AppGameKit project. It is a side scrolling shooter, very loosely based on Fantasy Zone, or will be when completed. It looks a little blurry but that is down to the screen capture software.

That's looking really good DVader! I look forward to a demo! You have done a very nice job with the scrolling.

Thanks Hodgey, I am having fun with AppGameKit at least. The fish type enemies you see are just place holders as they are meant to be bases, that you need to destroy to get to the next. They will be replaced when I have the graphics to put in. I also have to put in the actual nasties flying about etc, but one step at a time.

That looks really good.
I like how you scroll the various background layers at different speeds.
That gives it a nice feeling of real motion.
I'll be checking back here in the thread for your progress.

Thanks Conjured, I hope to have some more progress soon. My netbook is having a few issues with it though. So I have been playing about to see how I can improve it on that device. Unfortunately nothing has massively improved it so far.

Looking good! Keep us updated on this game.

Rick

Looking really great!

Very nice! I'll keep checking back here.

Looks good, I like the scrolling.

When do we get a playable demo?

Thanks everyone, I am pretty pleased with it myself so far. Uploading a video as I type, but it will take a fair while before I can add it here.
As for a playable demo, I would not even consider it until it at least resembles a game, at the min it is very much still a WIP. But when it is more complete, I will more than likely post a playable demo too.
I have added a few tweaks to the scroll, got some enemies in, although not complete yet. I have also worked on the end boss a little, but not enough yet to show anything. Oh also the graphics have undergone many changed since the first video as well. Although you probably noticed that in the screen shot.
I'll post the new video as soon as I am able!

I am now at the point where I am waiting on more graphics before I can do much more. I have added explosions to the nasties, improved the end boss (as much as I can (awaiting graphics).

I will add that the music is not mine, I got it off Matt McFarland's web site, http://www.mattmcfarland.com/audio.php
I had a good gander ( and listen) on there a few nights ago, and chose a few I thought would suit the game. I think it works well, nice and Thunderforce'y lol. I did mention this on my youtube post, but thought it best to mention here also.

Here is a new video of the game so far. I have most of the first level complete now. Not much left to tweak now. A playable demo could be released soon!

Looks really cool

Maybe ad some more action before the boss fight ?

Some obstacles to avoid when flying around ?

That the player cant destroy like parts of destroyed star destroyers or battle ships ?

Would you consider open sourcing this as learning material? It would be great for the community, as well as myself personally! Good work so far.

There will be more variations as you progress through the levels, but I plan on adding a little more to the first level. I'm just ironing out bugs and adding touches mainly now. I have since updated the ships animations and added extra explosion effects in since uploading the new video.
It can get a lot more frantic than the video suggests but I am trying to keep the game fairly incremental in difficulty, and am still working on the difficulty(I have differing opinions so far, some say it's too easy some too hard lol).

I understand wath you mean

My project is mostly an tech demo ! and not so much an game as iam ironing alot of buggs and other aspects.

@dotty, I'm not planning to release the code as I will probably be trying to sell the finished game. However, I can probably put together a tutorial about some aspects of it at some point. I would have thought with the scrolling shooter example, there was a starter for peeps to study, but as I haven't done any more than load it up and give it a quick play, I couldn't say if it uses the same methods as my game.

On an aside, I had a rather alarming issue with the code last night. I added in a new enemy type and, when trying to compile I got an odd error. It simply said "-1073741819 (0 minutes, 10 seconds)". It didn't compile, it just sat for a while and then brought up that message. A most unhelpful message too

So, I remmed out the new code and tried again. It worked. So, now I remmed out another part of my code, remmed the new part back in and it worked. I put it all back and same error.

It seems to be an issue with the program length. It has just recently gone above 2000+ lines. I am very concerned with this, as 2000 lines is hardly huge. By the time I add in collision and such for my new enemies I will be out of space again!

So a playable demo may be longer off than I thought ... Has anyone else found any problems when their program gets above a certain size I wonder? I remember mobbius saying something, but it wasn't this error as far as I know.

Has anyone else found any problems when their program gets above a certain size I wonder?

I've seen a couple of mentions of this. I would post something in the Bug thread.

D vader.......

Why dont you simply split up your code?

Like with java ?

I have one file for the player,alien,background etc

And then simply include them and you can call the functions there as if they where on the same file.

I got a bit damaged from some experiments in java before agk and its really simple to clean out buggs this way.

If i would have all the code in the same file so would it be over 2000 lines.


Cheers.

Baxslash, I wasn't 100% sure it was a bug until now. I have seen another post with the exactly the same problem. It definitely seems like 2000 lines of code is close to some unknown limit of AppGameKit for one source file. I will post to the bugs thread if someone hasn't already.
Cliff, I was thinking that last night when I first got the problem. However until I have more info as to whether this will make any difference, prefer to wait a little. I would be rather peeved, if I split it all up and it still had the same problem. I must say thought, I have wished a few times I had structured it like that from the start, as the lack of list of labels on the left (in DB), means finding each one is more and more of a pain as the program grows. Still if no solution is found, I will have to try it, as I have practically no room to add in any more code at the moment, and I am still only on level 1!