Nasty Game Progress Update 3
This is the month I intended to finish Nasty. The more I look at the game though, the more I feel that there is too much left
to do. Yes, I think I could get it done this month, but it would involve cutting some features I'd really like to have (like Battle Mode), cutting down on the number
of levels (I have 31 done, I would like at least 60), and eliminating a couple new enemy/item ideas. I'd rather have a good game that comes out in April or May than a
lesser game released in March, so if I have to delay the release, I will.
I started (and halfway finished) work last night on, of all things, a level editor. That probably sounds surprising given that I'm five months into development and am
just initially creating a level editor. Well, the game is tile-based and I found it easy enough to create the levels by hand as a text document and opted to spend the
development time required to create an editor on improving the game instead. This decision hasn't been too bad up until recently when I added a second layer of tiles
and many new blocks to the game. While it was still easy enough to create the layout, getting the level to look good with all the different tiles/blocks proved to be
way too difficult without being able to see the changes as they were made.
In some ways, it worked out better this way. I can already tell I'm a much improved XNA programmer than I was a few months ago. I was really amazed how far along I
progressed on the level editor in just a matter of a few hours, which definitely would not have been the case a few months ago.
I also learned a little something about SpriteBatch this past week. I had read on a forum that it was ideal to call SpriteBatch.Begin() and SpriteBatch.End() around
your many calls to draw objects. With all the different tiles, blocks, and enemies I had in my game, this number would easily be over 600 objects and upwards of
1,000. After reading in one of my XNA books that this was a bad idea, I removed the excess calls. Wow, what a difference. Prior to this change, a few of my block
heavy levels often dipped to under 15 frames per second. After this (very easy to make) change, Nasty is rocking a solid 60 fps at all times, it doesn't even dip down
when the action gets really crazy. I wish I would have known this sooner as it would not have required me to so massively optimize other areas of the code. It just
goes to show you, you can't always believe what you read online (but if it's printer word, it must be true).
I got into working with particle effects this week too. It's some very cool stuff that really boils down to being lots of small objects moving from a central point
outwards in a sort of randomish fashion. That may not sound impressive, but it sure looks cool (screen shots don't do this effect justice). I've just added some basic
effects to the game when players/enemies die but I will continue to tweak those and add new effects as I go along.
This coming week I will be concentrating hard on finishing the level editor. Once that is complete, I'd like to add an additional 10-20 levels to the game, add in a
few new enemies, and perhaps a boss or two (there are two bosses now and I would like one more final boss and then possible one more). Once I get these items set, the
majority of the remaining development will be play testing and tweaking game play to make it more fun / challenging / awesome.
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