Were you oh so afraid that I wouldn't give you a Halloween event this year?
How many of these games will it take to lull us into complacency so you can steal our Steam accounts and/or bitcoins?
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It's all part of my evil plan. BWWWWUUUUUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(I'm all up in your Steam account, stealin' all your cards and TF2 swag ๐๐คฃ๐คช)
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Had doubles and removed the wrong one. Whoops.
Thanks, fixed. ๐๐
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First Gameplay Hint: once you level up your shooting power, you only lose a life when it goes all the way back down to level 1. So, if you're at level 7 (the top level), but your power bar is low, if you see a powerup floating down, damage yourself on purpose to drop back to level 6, then grab the powerup. You'll be back at level 7, but now with a full power bar. ๐
This also means that you need to be careful at the beginning and power up as fast as possible. Once you do, you'll be largely unstoppable, especially if you figure out how to manage your shields well (more on that later). Since you get your powerup drops based upon score (and it gets tougher each time), you need to shoot as much as possible. If you just dodge stuff, you're delaying when you get your next powerup.
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So every time you take damage (power bar going to 0?) makes you lose one knife-level? all knife-levels? I still haven't figured this out. :(
Or does every single hit remove a knife level?
Are the levels score- or time-based?
Thanks!
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When the power bar goes to 0, you lose one power (knife) level. If you're already a level 1, then you lose a life.
The level # at the bottom of the screen is the current level (think: mission) you're playing. Once you beat the first Megaskull, then you move to level 2, etc. If you beat level 20, then you finish the entire game. :)
The bosses come out based upon time spent in the level. Your power-up drops are based upon score (so if you want a power-up, you can't just dodge everything -- you have to kill baddies).
Hope that helps!
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I was wondering if you planned something. Nice to see it rolling :)
Not sure if I will participate due to low time at the moment.
Q& : How much time do I need to play your game?
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I ran it front-to-back in about 15-20 minutes. ๐
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At high levels (17) game starts to cheat - all weapon upgrades are gone, damage goes through the shield...
... or it's supposed to be so เฒ _เฒ ?
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It shouldn't be doing anything of the kind. I mean, there's a lot more stuff on the screen then. But the shield never makes you invulnerable. It only lowers the damage done. Important note: the green energy that the ghosts shoot in the higher levels does a lot more damage than the orange energy in the lower levels too.
Weapon upgrades are given based upon score. There's a base amount plus a multiplier based upon your current level. So it keeps getting harder to get weapon upgrades. But if you're shooting everything (and since there's always more to shoot as you go forward), you should keep getting them. I had the game drop one on level 20 during the final boss battle.
I know that I managed to get to level 7, and then basically stay there through the end of the game. Also, if you're really good at picking up the little purple rings, you can extend your shield beyond the current level onto a level where it may not normally drop one. That really helps you survive.
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In my case I stopped getting powerups since level 9, adn had to sit in a corner of a screen and died on 20th level with 1,6 kk points. Later managed to finish tha game completely anyways.
Bumps and thanks to you!
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If your monitor has more than 60 hz the game runs faster depending on your refresh rate (2.4x with 144 hz). To prevent this just limit your fps to 60 or if you want to have it really easy 30 fps or fewer.
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Yeah, that's probably from the crappy AGK engine. Sorry. ๐
Yet another thing that GameMaker does better...you can set the timing rate and lock it in.
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It's fine for me just wanted to post this to help others. Thanks for the work and effort you put into such events/games.
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Always glad to do it! This was just yet another experiment to try out another engine. I may use it again some time, I may not. It's fine for stuff like this, but there are a lot of limitations unless you want to write a ton of extra code to handle stuff that should be (IMO) administrative functions that you can just set in an engine like this.
AGK has a concept of "tier 2" where you actually use C++ instead of their BASIC-like scripting language. It's, of course, much more performant for big projects, and I'm sure that it allows for more granular control of everything. But man, it's been a hot minute since I even looked at C++, and I certainly wasn't looking to do that level of coding for something like this. I used to be a pretty good coder when I was younger, but I'm gettin' old, man. I've been setting strategic direction for younger, smarter people for a long time now...not sure I want to dust off that level of chops. LOL
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You can normally do that within your gpu driver or use a thrid party software for that (e.g. riva tuner statistics server). As an alternative it should also be possible to just limit your monitor refresh rate to 60 hz. Since the game uses vsync this should also give you 60 fps.
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Yep, what at46 said! If you're running nVidia, you can easily change this in the nVidia control panel. It's just a drop down on your resolution options. Should be equivalent for AMD as well.
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I have a problem with this game also.. i've lost few of my life because my mouse goes out of the window, and then the pumpkin stalls and i lose it :(
Is there a possibility to lock the cursor to window?
Also, i've won more than 250.000 points but link for the train doesn't show up.
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I can't lock the cursor to the window without rewriting all of the movement code (I described this in the original post...yeah, I know you probably skipped it 'cause it's kinda long :D).
If you're actually getting a qualifying score, but it's not displaying the train code, please post a screen shot (similar to the sample screen shot in the event post) so that I can see it. I tested it dozens of times with different scores to ensure this was working properly for each train score bracket, so please grab a screen shot if there is some bug I need to run down. Thanks!
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same problem, didn't show any code or link.
https://youtu.be/KPEieU8twOE 1:10
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You, uh, stopped the game. You told it to exit by hitting the stop button (instead of unpausing by just hitting the pause button again or clicking elsewhere on the screen). If you'd either finished level 20 (and thus gotten the winner screen) or died, you'd have gotten the game over screen, which is where the train codes are displayed.
Also: how did you get so far staying at power level 1? Were you not grabbing the power-ups to give you better knife power? Trust me, it's waaaaaayyyyy easier if you are diligent about killing everything possible and grabbing all of the power-ups. :)
Hope that helps!
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Yeah, that's just unfortunately how it works since this was based off of a template game that was intended for touch screens (see my section in the original post called "Things that I know kinda suck/Game dev background"). ๐๐๐
So yeah, I had to play it this way, too. It requires you to be kind of careful near the edges of the screen and readjust things once in a while. I tried it on a touch screen (I have a couple of old Surface Pro tablets laying around) and it, of course, works great. :D
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Wow, that stinks about your truck! I do hope you can get it back! Thanks for the review of AGK! Also, I'm not good with words the way you are, but I really enjoyed reading that, especially your comments at complainers :D i'll have to check this out on Monday (no time rn).
As always, thanks for these events! (And I still have 1954 installed, so yeah.) At some point, would you please list the games you have made and rank them by your favorite?
I'd say I preferred 1954 to last year's runner but both are difficult! :D
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1954 is definitely my favorite because that was a from-scratch game, so I had a little more control over the quality, etc. I may go back and just enhance that one for a future event (put in some big boss enemies to fight, maybe some other levels, I dunno). :)
If we want to count the Halloween Dungeon that I did a couple of years ago as a game, that one ranks up there as well. I just built it in the 3D dungeon engine, so no real programming, but it was a TON of work.
So, I did a couple of dungeons plus the three "real" games now. I'm hoping that some time in the future, I get more time to do another game from scratch. It's actually a lot of fun seeing it come together. I'm overdue for another dungeon adventure, too, but again that takes tons of time. Maybe another Trash Tornadoโข or similar event? I still want to do a puzzle event as well as a HOG of HOGs event. We'll see how much time life grants me in the next few months. :)
I'm really glad that you're having fun with this stuff! That's the entire reason that I do these things. Thanks for all of the love in here.
As for the truck, it's gone baby gone. Already got an agreed settlement with my insurance company. I'm sure that it was parted out in 24-48 hours. It was a pro job. :(
So, given the current market and with used trucks being so expensive, I'm just biting the bullet and buying a new one. My settlement was fair (still waiting for the payment, but it should be soon), so I'm just paying the delta between that and the cost of a new one. It's still a lot of money, but then I'll own a more valuable vehicle too since it's newer, so it comes close to breaking even in terms of total worth. At least I'm trying to look at the bright side of things and just make some lemonade here, dang it. ๐คฃ
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I don't definitively recall that particular dungeon off the top of my head, but I know some of the dungeons you've done (on that one site) looked incredibly complicated.
Ouch about the truck, that stinks. At least you get a new truck out of it! Do you have one of those back-bumper steps that lowers itself when you lower the tailgate? I saw one once, and it looked cool. Please tell me you have those LED lights across the back bumper that act as parking, turn, and brake lights! ๐คค
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You are always disassembling things. :D
I'm sure that this one was likely easier than normal. I could round up this stuff with just a Hex editor given the way AGK constructs things. lolz
You have to play if you want to enter the trains, though. Although I think that you like cracking the games more than you like entering raffles. ๐
EDIT: it's even easier than that. I could get it with Notepad. Plain text string storage. <facepalm>
I could cobble it together with functions, but that's too much work. :D
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I'm not even disassembling anything this time.
Well, I have more fun finding the code rather than playing the game to get the code. ๐
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Managed to make it to lvl 19. Probably wouldn't have made it further but it became impossible to pause with everything on screen so I just kept sliding right down. I was gonna just die on the 18th boss as I had 1 life and 1 sword left but it refuses to hit me!
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It was boringly easy up to the final double boss where I was just fuc*ed :|
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Yeah, that last one is a lot harder. I've found that if I float toward the right side of the screen in the middle, there's a spot where I can dodge the top boss' shots with small adjustments, and it gives me time to miss the bottom boss' shots more regularly.
Most importantly, you need to show up to that level with your power at full. If you have that, you should be able to cruise right through it, even if you take a few hits. You don't have to kill the bottom boss (but you can)...so long as you take down the Megaskull at the top, you still win. So playing defensively and staying alive to grind away at that dude is the key. :)
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Well norton 365 really hates your executable.
He forcefully deletes it and makes me restart :(
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Sounds like you should add it to your exception list in Norton. I'm not sure why it would flag it...it's not even an installer or anything.
Whenever I get something like this happening with an antivirus where I know that the executable is fine, I create a folder, add the entire folder to my exception list, and then put the app I want to use in there. Problem solved. :)
I had that issue with an app I use to pull my Windows key when I want to rebuild a PC. That way, I can unregister it and re-register it with the new build. Antivirus thought it was something nefarious because it's inspecting the OS. It's not, so I had to specifically define it as an exception.
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I see an AGK window and like another user below said, it is a game creating software. I had similar problems with the GMS.
I should do that. OR RUN IT INSIDE A VIRTUAL MACHINE TO BE SURE.
Nah, I am kidding Self extracting exes are a usual red flag for AVs.
I just have to find out how to add something to the exception list. Freaking GUI is packed with things and is annoying.
Thank you for the trains and the game!
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You're welcome!
But it's not even a self-extracting exe. It's literally just a regular exe that is the base game engine, and then it's reading all of the rest of the resource files (graphics, basic code, sound) from the media folder...that's it. It's freakishly basic, which is why I'm confused as to Norton flagging the thing. But we'll save my Norton rant for another time. :D
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xD
Well sometimes being paranoic is good. We are grown ups with access to money!
Small amounts are still amounts!
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It's an unsigned executable, that's probably why Norton's flagging it (most simple malicious apps come unsigned)
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Sounds about right. Norton is incredibly picky-pants. Back when game discs were a thing, I used to create these cool interactive menu systems that would launch of the installers (and I'd write better ones if the default for the game was crap). Norton would FREAK OUT that all of these things were trojans, even though none of them were. Hilarious.
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What is the user Level requirements for each train ?
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Everything is just level 1. That eliminates a lot (but certainly not all) of leechers and at least some bots.
Plus, it reduces my potential for having to chase down winners across 101 GAs. :)
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Huh, didn't know much about AGK and I was curious, I guess it's ok-ish, but GameMaker does better. I might try it later, want to see its limit :D But will stick to GameMaker until I move to some other engine. Thanks for including a postmortem of your game as well! It was pretty interesting, and hopefully helpful! :D
Also sorry for your truck, that sucks D: I hope you have fun in the show and afterparty at least ๐งก
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Thank you for all of those thoughts...and yes, we always have a good time at that party. A lot of the musicians from this show are classical musicians, and I had no idea that they knew how to party like this! The party usually goes until around 3 in the morning. I always warn (and invite) my neighbors! :D
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Does the Forcefield do anything? I still take damage when its active.
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Wow great event and game! I beat it on my 2nd try (in 1st I didn't got any knife bonus so... Impossible)
I have been checking the discussions and participating more in the last couple or months and wow you guys have a cool community with a lot of events and trains and stuff going on! Glad to be (a tiny tiny) part of it.
Thank you for the game, the event and the GAs grez1, I hope you have fun with your party, and that you have some rest after Halloween.
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Thank you! And I've very glad to hear that you had a good time!
It's cool that you're starting to jump into the discussions...honestly, those and some of the groups are where all of the "real" action is around Steamgifts. Once I started doing that, SG became one of my most frequent hobbies. :D
Also, you should look at your current number of GAs entered: you're currently "l33t" - 1337 ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃ
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Bump for beaten :)
Thank you for the fun game and even!
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You're welcome, and congrats on beating the game so fast! Good luck with the GAs. :)
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I think i did something wrong...
I stopped a game to take a screenshot. Then i decided that its enough to get all the links for trains. I clicked a button on the right up corner and everything restarted without failing screen. I didnt get any links, i messed up(
Can i get them by showing you a screenshot to you?
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Sounds like you hit the stop/exit button. :(
You can hit me up on Steam chat to talk about it (although I'm going to be gone most of the day), although it might be faster to just play through things again...only takes me around 15-20 minutes to beat the whole thing. :) Up to you.
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im pretty busy and gone most of the day so its fine, i'll send u a friend request on steam. Also, i'll put a link to imgur with a screenshot here
https://imgur.com/a/KF9m3pi
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Cool event. Really enjoyed it. Though I died at the final boss. I was so confused on where to focus that I died in like less than a minute. Still it was great. Going to try again tomorrow.
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Glad you liked it! Yes, the secret on level 20 is to come in with full power and find a spot where it's easier to dodge the two sets of projectiles (I like the righthand center of the screen).
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can i play the game withoit holdind left mouse button ? nice event
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You can create a script with a program like AutoHotkey to make your mouse click toggle up and down. Just remember that everything you click on your computer, you need to click twice to be considered a normal click (button down, button up).
Here is the script I use. I think I originally made it for the game ABZU because you have to hold the button down to swim and I wanted a toggle. The \ key (below backspace) will close the script if you don't want to close it from the taskbar. You can delete that part if you don't want it.
\::ExitApp
LButton::
KeyDown := !KeyDown
If Keydown
SendInput {LButton down}
Else
SendInput {LButton up}
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Well, someone clearly didn't read all of my original post. ๐ (I know, I know, it's really wordy and a lot of people just go TLDR...lol)
But nope. With KB/M, you have to hold the button. Works great with a touch screen, though.
Glad you are having fun...good luck with the GAs. :)
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i like how you frendly about people not reading all the text ) bold text - here we go
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Ha ha ha...sure thing. Hey, we're not all the same, and I know that. Some people are readers, and some aren't. I type quickly, so I end up getting to a lot of text before I know it. And, I like to provide all of the info and context that I can. But I also understand that, for some people, seeing all of that text is overwhelming.
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Missed oppurtunity to put some bonus GAs in the game over preview. ;)
I missed some previous events, but here is my "hot nude" for this thread and it's thematic.(I heard some have nightmares about it)
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I guess I should have read everything here before playing, lol. The first time I played, I thought the spinning knife would hurt me, so I never collected them. Then on my next try I got to level 14 before accidentally getting hit by the purple thing and realized I shouldn't be avoiding it :)
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I don't write all of this stuff for my health, you know. ๐๐คฃ
Seriously, though, glad you got it figured out and are blasting through the game with your well-deserved power-ups now. :)
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3rd time is a charm. Now that I know what I am doing and had some practice, I was able to beat it. I was not expecting the level 20 boss to be like that. I got to the boss with lives, weapons, and health maxed and I think I lost 2 weapon levels before I even realized what was happening. It was hard to dodge, but since I was maxed I was able to beat it with my weapon dropping back to 1 and losing 1 life.
Something I noticed is that the boss and probably enemy generation is tied to your frame rate. I use a CRT and usually run 85hz. At that frame rate the first few bosses always fire from the same spot. It moves very slightly from shot to shot, but not enough to matter. You can just center yourself and not move for the entire fight. Then the later bosses shots vary more, but not as much as other frame rates. I tried 100hz and it it noticeably more varied where the bosses fire from. I'm not sure if or how much it affects enemy spawning.
I know this was not meant to be a serious game with a lot of development, but a good idea would be if you are already at the highest weapon rank and you get a power up, it should refill your health. I think I got to max weapons around level 3 or 4 and then if I noticed my health was less than half and it has been a while since I got a weapon power up, I would just take some hits on purpose until I dropped a weapon level. Then when the next weapon upgrade drops, I will have full health and be back up to the top weapon.
Thanks for the fun event and the giveaways :)
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Those are all good ideas. If I was going to do more with this game, I would 100% implement them. I thought about the health top-up thing myself, but then I thought that the game was too easy, so I figured it would be an extra challenge to realize that I'm top-level, but low on health, so I'll injure myself on purpose as the next power-up is dropping, so that when I grab it, I'll be top-level again, but with full health. :)
And yeah, the frame rate thing appears to be an issue with AGK. There's probably a way to code around it, but with my current level of experience in that environment (this is the first thing that I ever did with it), I don't know how to go about forcing the frame rate.
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Thanks for the game and GA!
You sure put a lot of effort into this event :)
Bump for finishing the game.
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Congrats on making it to the end! Sounds like a lot of people are having trouble with level 20. :D
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I beat the lvl 20 boss mostly through brute force :P
Got hit a lot of times but good thing I have full stock of power up and life.
So still doable in one run.
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And with that, another Halloween event is over! I hope that everyone (or almost everyone, at least ๐) had a good time with the game.
As described in the original post, I am checking screen shots for the grand prize and some of the more premium games, as well as spot-checking some other random ones. And so, I need to see screen shots from the following players:
ILux (our Grand Prize winner!)AgentQQTomyDrackcybernet343OuoklelGeorgioMileworgThac0Katr4nSpanxAcierateant123read0nlyKornKagesunmithreeupyouyaPestarztYou can put them on imgur, dropbox, whatever. Just leave a link in the thread here, and as I check them I will cross your name off of the list. Once everyone has been checked (and I know that I don't need to do any re-rolls), then I'll send out all of the keys! So, please confirm your valid entry ASAP so that everyone can get their games!
Congrats to the winners, and Happy Halloween!
Grez
I'm baaaaaaaaaccccccckkkkk!!!!
Sorry that I couldn't jump in here sooner, but I've been a busy boy. Lots going on at work, my awesome custom pickup truck was stolen (in broad daylight no less) and I've had to deal with insurance and stuff, and I'm preparing for a friend's big show (annual event) in which I'm actually performing this year...oh, and the afterparty for all of the musicians, sponsors, and crew is at my house on the 29th. So yeah, phew.
But I couldn't let Halloween sneak up on us without handing out some Steamgifts love. So, I spent a few hours here and there the past couple of weeks compiling games (101 of them) and coding a new SG Gameflipโข game to give them away. ๐ค๐๐ค
Ok, Ok, enough about you -- what's the event?
So, this year, you get Halloween Blaster, a completely mindless, fairly grindy shoot-em-up. Here's your two-line background story: The evil creatures of darkness are descending upon your town, filling the sky with their terrifying presence! So you jump on board your trusty knife-flinging Pumpkinshipยฎ and prepare to send those interlopers back to whence they came! PEW PEW PEW!
Based upon your performance in the game, it will reveal the codes for trains. The way this works is very simple:
Train 1: 250,000 points
Train 2: 500,000 points
Train 3: 1,000,000 points
Train 4: 2,000,000 points
Each train has 25 carts, and all of the games have some thematic relationship to Halloween. The quality of the games in each train gets better as you move toward the higher scores. The 4th train has a few premium bundle games, plus a couple of non-bundled games at the end. No, it's not that hard to get 2M points, and you'll easily achieve this before the last level.
There is also a GRAND PRIZE. This is a non-bundled, released-this-year, scary-ass, overwhelmingly positive game. To be able to enter for this game, you must beat all 20 levels of the game. If you do this, you'll get a special winner screen that will give you the entry code for the grand prize.
How do I use these codes to enter for the games?
Wait...what? Really? Ok, n00b. ๐
When you see the 5-digit code for a train or the Grand Prize, you just add it to a URL that looks like this:
steamgifts.com/giveaway/XXXXX/Where you replace the XXXXX with the 5-digit code. Yes, case matters, so get that right. The final slash matters, too.
How do you know that I got the code by playing the game and didn't just get it from a friend?
Hey, that's a great question. You're going to need to take a screen shot of your winner/game over screen. Samples of these can be found at the bottom of this post. You should take the screen shot of the game (the window is pretty small) in front of your browser with Steamgifts in the background and your SG profile or something else clearly displayed that identifies you.
I'm obviously not going to check all 101 of these, but I will definitely check the Grand Prize and all of the premium giveaways. I will randomly pick 10 other GAs to spot-check. If you cheated, you will be one of the very few people that get added to my blacklist, and you're never, ever coming off. I took the time to write the game, so you can take the time to play it. No. Cheating. ๐
Don't forget to save your screen shots! You don't need to post them anywhere...just have them available in case you win and I ask. I'll post a list in this thread of the players that need to give me a screen shot. Also, the game doesn't save any score data (more explanation of that toward the bottom of all of this text), so don't forget or you'll have to play it again.
How do I play the game?
It's really, really simple. If it moves, shoot it. Don't get hit by stuff. Things start slowly and get perpetually more hectic as you progress.
Your Pumpkinship fires automatically. All you have to do is move. With a mouse, you need to click on the Pumpkinship and drag it around. If you're on a touch screen, just use your finger.
When you earn enough points, a power-up for your knife-flinger will float down the screen (it looks like a pair of crossed knives). Grab it, and you'll increase your knife power (there are seven levels in all). Eventually, you'll add sideways and even backwards-firing knives! Whoo-hoo!
After spending enough time killing baddies, you'll face a Skullboss at the end of each level. The firing pattern will change a little bit over time. If you make it to level 20, the Skullboss will bring a demon buddy who will shoot at you from behind. Survive this, and you win the game!
On some levels, a glowing purple ring of energy will appear. Grab it -- it's a shield upgrade! It won't make you invincible, but it will greatly reduce your damage when you are hit. While it's active, you'll see a countdown timer, and smaller purple rings will continue to drop from the top of the screen. Each time you grab one of these, it adds a bit of time back to your shield countdown.
Things that I know kind of suck/game dev background
Yes, yes, I don't like the movement control, either. Having to hold down your mouse button is not convenient. And, if you hit the sides, you can move your pointer off center of your Pumpkinship, and then you have to release and re-click on it. But the template that I based this game off of (more on that below) was intended for touch screens, so it's unavoidable unless I wanted to re-code the entirety of the movement logic in the game, and I honestly didn't have that kind of time this year. So seriously, don't be a big baby about it. I played through the entire game and beat it multiple times holding down the mouse button, and it really wasn't a big deal on this one (because the movement is fairly easy).
No, the game doesn't save high scores or anything. There's a longer story here, but the short one is that I made this with AppGameKit Studio, and its file handling is freaking atrocious. I'm brand new to this development environment, but wanted to try it out since I just got it in one of those Fanatical bundles. After fiddling with some things, it just wasn't worth spending the time on messing with this code if I wanted to crank this out on time for Halloween. So, you're gonna have to go old school and play through the whole thing at once. Hey, I grew up doing that, so I don't want to hear about it. At least you can pause this thing, unlike my Atari. ๐
There's not specific resolution control. That seems to be kind of challenging in AGK too. If you're on a 4K screen, this thing is probably pretty small. I get it. But just change your resolution for 20 minutes to 1080p. It's like three mouse clicks. I promise that you can change it right back when you're done. ๐
We've also found out through discussion that AGK doesn't automatically adjust for screen refresh rates, so this will directly affect your play speed. If you're over 60Hz, I strongly suggest you tweak your display refresh rate temporarily so that you're not playing in super-fast mode.
The game is kind of grindy, and by the end, yep, you're kind of ready for it to be done. I get it. If I were trying to make a Steam-ready game, there would be a lot more variety in baddies, specific attack patterns, different wave types, a lot more bosses and firing patterns, etc. But even doing a template-flip game takes a lot of time if you do it right. These reviewers on Steam that say that some asset-flip house threw together a game in an hour are almost always wrong (I mean, there are cases where that's likely true, but it's really rare). In any case, I really don't need to hear anyone complain about it. It's a fun little one-time-use, throwaway game. Just love it for what it is, enter for your free games, and get on with your bad self. :)
If you're wondering how AppGameKit Studio compares to GameMaker, well, it's not nearly as robust. It's purely a code-based studio (other than being able to drag in some game assets, but there's not any editing capability in the software). GameMaker handles editing, allows you to custom-parse spritesheets to get animation frames, allows you to handle some events with config instead of code, etc. AGK won't even let you pick an icon for the exe. I had to use ResourceHacker to replace the runtime icon, but the file icon is still the generic one (it can be changed, but it required jumping through a lot of hoops). In any case, if you're going to invest in one IDE or the other, I'd pick GameMaker in a heartbeat. AGK isn't bad (and is definitely faster than writing purely from scratch), but it's definitely not on the same level.
In the "credits" section, I said all of the sound was from bundles, which is pretty much true. That doesn't mean that I didn't do a ton of sound editing (I did). I mixed things together, re-leveled sound files to keep anything from being too ridiculously loud in comparison to the other sounds, shortened or looped things, etc.
The graphics are either free, fair-use graphics or ones that I made from scratch (like the title logo). Many of them were modified as well, and this was mostly done in Powerpoint (which does a gazillion things that most people don't realize it can do) and MS Paint 3D (which is way better than you think it is).
I also tweaked a lot of logic and added a lot more variety to things like the backdrop and soundscape. For instance, the original template used two random noises for background sounds, and hoo boy did that ever get old. I have an array of eleven, which I spent some time trying to get properly sound-balanced as well. You get the idea. There are just lots and lots of little things that were done to make this more of a playable game than what came out of the box in the template.
As for the template: yes, it's totally ok that I used it. That's literally what it's there for (it's packaged with AGK in the community pack).
Ok, ok, enough already. How do I get started?
First, Download Halloween Blaster from my Dropbox.
It's just a zip file. Just create a new folder wherever you want and unzip the game into it. Double-click the exe to get started. No installation necessary.
When does this event end?
The whole thing is over as of midnight that borders Halloween/All Hallow's Day...specifically, 12:00 am November 1st, Pacific time (which, other than Alaska and Hawaii, should be the "last" midnight for everyone on SG).
Ok, I know that was a lot. No more reading for you. Just go fling knives at spooky critters. Any more questions, ask away in the thread.
As promised, sample game over/winner screens:
Game Over
Winner
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