Just a little update on how Minerbot 2 is going. I’ve been working on the asteroid generation system, trying to add a little variety. In an earlier post, I linked an image of the basic asteroid… basically just three hardness levels of rock in a circular asteroid shape. Now I’ve put veins of ore in that rock, so there’s actually a point!

There are four types of ore vein so far:

• Radial — A vein oriented along the radius of the asteroid.
• Stratum — Aligned along the circumference of the asteroid, as if it was a layer as the asteroid formed.
• Crystalline — I’ll probably be going back to fix this one up, but it’s supposed to look like the ores were in a crystal sort of formation.
• Deposits — Sort of fill in the gap between rock strength layers, as if when a certain layer of the asteroid was completely formed the ore in question settled into place on the outside.

Examples of all the vein types can be seen here if you look closely.

A few people I’ve shown this to were confused about what this image represents. This is a debug map of a 2d asteroid, which represents ores and rocks as different colors. Note that in-game, the asteroid will NOT look like this, rather, a tilemap is assembled using these colors as a sort of key.

Looking forward to starting gameplay!

So far I haven’t really said much about what Minerbot 2 is about. Hopefully this will clear things up a little bit.

The most important thing to note is that Minerbot 2 is not an incremental update on the original. This is a completely new game, the only obvious similarities being the mining probes and tile size relative to the player.

With that out of the way, here’s what I have in mind:
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It has been a very, very long time since I’ve talked about this, but I have some things to say.

After making Minerbot, I started thinking of improvements for Minerbot as it was, but those never got anywhere.

Then I made Secretnet for another Mini Ludum Dare compo. Did great (by my standards), also deserving a sequel. But I started my summer internship and didn’t get much done.

Now, much later, I’m in college. Right now Minerbot 2 is slightly ahead, and I’m focusing what little effort I have on it. It took me a while to decide on this–my few fans on Kongregate push for both sequels just about equally, it seems. Finally I decided on Minerbot 2 because it would (hopefully) not require as much polished content as Secretnet 2.

A screenshot of the current version, just for kicks.

Heading into finals week soon, so I don’t expect to get any work done in the immediate future. However, I do think I’ll get some stuff done during winter break.

I also might post a little feature addition list for Minerbot 2 before then.

I’ve been really busy lately, but it looks like I’ll have a lot of free time soon to work on stuff. First, I decided I’d post a little about Minerbot’s sequel.

First off, Minerbot was a bigger success than I thought it would be. It’s a shame nobody took the chance to sponsor it–too bad. Thanks to this game, I was able to earn enough money on Kongregate to finally receive it a month after the end of this month.

After the break, information about the sequel. Read the rest of this entry »

I decided to put the current version of Minerbot up on Kongregate and work on improvements in a sequel.

Have fun!

*: It will be updated, improved, etc., but it’s functionally complete.

It’s finally back up on FlashGameLicense, up for bidding. Unless you have a game on FGL yourself, you won’t be able to use this link, but here it is just in case: Minerbot.

It has been a long time in development, but it’s finally finished. I can’t think of anything I didn’t improve since the last time I posted a link to the game publicly.
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I’m sure nobody’s asking this question, but I think it deserves answering.

First of all, I renamed it Minerbot. After someone on the #ludumdare IRC channel pointed out that “A Greedy Profession” was unwieldy, I had to agree. I’ve been shortening it to AGP forever, and in my opinion, my game isn’t cool enough to be called by an acronym. WoW, CoD, etc. are able to get away with it because they’re really well-known. If I say “AGP” to anyone, it either means nothing or (to the technologically-inclined) a type of motherboard expansion slot. Therefore, Minerbot.

Secondly, I gave up on the big graphics overhaul, but I still made some neat additions in this area. A little more glow, a lot more font, and an overlaid pattern to give it some texture. I think it helps.

What I was first trying to do was add graphics everywhere–on the tiles, on the miner, on everything. It didn’t work, for technical and gameplay reasons. (I had to zoom in to make the textures possible, yet this made the game difficult for those who were used to it as a full-view game.) This brief foray caused frustration and anger, and delayed the game until recently. Next time, I’m adding graphical capability first.

I also started to use Kongregate’s API for high scores and statistics. Obviously, this means I plan on putting it there. And hopefully soon.

I just put A Greedy Profession on FlashGameLicense.com, after a little trouble with their preloader/encrypter. Turns out they weren’t joking about removing references to the stage object, so I just put in my own preloader I had been using earlier so I could grant my game stage permission.

As soon as AGP gets sponsored, expect to see a link to it! Hopefully it won’t take too long, but really, I’m just happy that a site like FlashGameLicense exists, just so I can enter the market.

EDIT:
It’s up for sponsorship! Let’s see if anyone bids.

Nine months and 22 days later, I’ve picked up work for A Greedy Profession again. I’ve been very busy with academics, and through my short bursts I’ve been able to get the game nearly complete.

One of the first things I did was try to make it less easy to misinterpret the game. This meant making the “fog of war” black instead of static-y, and the cave floor semi-textured. I also made it so you can shoot while staying still–this was also a major complaint.

This is a screenshot from the game, showing a few of the features. I added some effects for when the collectors collides with a surface (interior glow the color of the ore, exterior the color of the player) and a reticle so you can easily see where collectors will be shot.

I started to make some AI (and I got pretty far along) but I discontinued that because I didn’t really think it was adding much to the fun.

I’ve got a few game ideas I’ve been thinking about making after this game’s done. I wonder how much free time I’m going to have in the near future, though.

(Also, notice the new Games page! About Me is going to get a revamp sometime soon too.)