10-20-2007(3) - Post Mortem i feel that i used a down and dirty approach to creating this game and i know that there are several areas in which i will need to improve on for further games. the only experience that i have had in flash so far is reading through a beginning flash game programming book. this book taught me enough to quickly get up and running, but it did not go into more advanced topics such as classes and oop. if i had used classes and moved much of the code into the objects themselves, i am sure that the game would have been much more efficient and probably smaller in size. (this game is about 4000 lines of code; the bulk of which is in 3 files). i think that the game itself is visually too large. i have been looking at many other flash games and i have realized that i could have consolodated the play screen and the upgrade screen into 1 frame. i also could have reduced the size of the enemies, weapons, and bunker so that the game area is under 600x400 (instead of 900x400). the upgrading mechanism could have also been reduced in size and scope to be able to fit it into a small pane within the play area. as far as game play is concerned, i think there should have been some sort of interface that showed what the next set of enemies would be and their qualtities. i probably should have added a way to quit back to the intro screen as well. for being my first game, i think i aimed pretty (too?) high. i ended up with sooo many tuning variables to tweek that i felt a bit overwelmed and ended up taking a long break from working on this. half of the variables came from the enemies because they could target and fire at the bunker. so, for my next game, i think i will revert back to a more traditional tower defense style of game with enemies that just path towards an objective. all in all, i had a fantasic time designing and building this game. throughout the process, i became more and more enthusiastic as small parts of the game came together (such as working player weapons and enemies). it really is rewarding to develop your ideas into a working and playable game. i have learned a great deal from this exercise and i am now ready to more on to my other flash books. i also have another game in mind... an rts/tower defense style of game :) 10-20-2007(2) added player score to gameover screen (i had totally forgot that). fixed a couple more bugs. did several play throughs and tweeked a couple of things here and there. through playing, i discovered that it is best to focus on and upgrade 3 weapons rather than trying to build up all 6. otherwise, you wont have enough fire power to destroy the UFO's (they start out at 50000 hit points :) ) i also discovered that the flame thrower is pretty useless. it looks really cool though, so i will leave it in. i did, however, drastically reduce all its upgrade costs. from here on, i think i need additional feedback on the game. all the bugs should be gone now and i think i have tuned it pretty well, but i need to get feedback on the difficulty and the ramping. i will post this on some web sites and see if i can get some responses. if i get overwelming feedback about specific areas, i will probably change it. otherwise, i think i would like to call this game done :) 10-20-2007(1) fixed the bugs with the nuke purchases. uncovered a couple more bugs and fixed them. changed the weapon keys to Q, W, E, A, S, and D. this makes it easier to select the weapons during play. lowered supply line to 20. made more tuning passes and play throughs. i must be getting close to finishing the tuning. every time i play through the game i tweek fewer and fewer variables :) 10-17-2007 completed the in-game ui - added player weapon stats and adjusted border spacing. made a pass at the final weapon stat purchases. made another pass at enemy stats and gold rewards. made a full play through of the game (yay :) ). the pulse lazer is too powerful. the pulse lazer and nuke stats purchases are too cheap. added additional bunker armor quantity purchases (x100, x1000, and x10000). uncovered stat tracking bug with the nuke. will fix next time. (i am getting closer to finishing the game :) ). 10-10-2007 created the intro screen. decided to only do 50 levels instead of 100 levels. set up all the levels of the game (enemy quantities). tuned the game up to level 19. tuned the machine gun and the cannon. 8-20-2007 started the tuning.... set the base stats for the player weapons. set the base stats for the enemies. setup structure for the enemies difficulty (stats) to increase for each level. set the first 15 levels of the game (enemy quantities). set level stat increases for the enemy soldiers, tanks, and walking bombs. set the upgrade bonuses and costs for the player mmg, cannon, and bunker repair. 7-8-2007 fixed a refueling bug with the nuke cause by the addition of upgrades. added win/loss conditions to the game and reflected it on endgame screen. created the levels. now the game is actually playable from start to finish. however, now i have the daunting task of tuning this whole thing... 1092 different variables/stats to tweek and tune to make this thing fun .... /ugh in addition to the tuning, i also have to create the intro and instruction screens. /yay ... i am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel :) 7-7-2007 created the Supply Line. got the Supply Line and the pulse laser upgrades fully working. updated the upgrade screen for alignment and visibility. did a bunch of testing and found some text (display) bugs due to the upgrade incresaes... fixed 'em. 7-6-2007 got the cannon, missile launcher, and nuke upgrades fully working. 7-5-2007 got the bunker and mmg upgrades fully working. 6-30-2007 flushed out more of the upgrades screen. got the flame thrower upgrades fully working. 6-29-2007 created pulsing (enabled) and disabled navagation buttons. created mock up of upgrades screen. 6-27-2007 created the Game Over screen. included shots fired, enemies killed, damage done, and average weapon damage. upped bunker armor to 100000. 6-26-2007 added enemy stats to the UI. 6-25-2007 created the enemy walking bomb. fixed all the sorting (z-depth) issues. 6-24-2007 created the enemy ufo. now the game is impossible :) i can only get to level 3 :) 6-21-2007 created the enemy jet fighter. haha... now the game is hard and is in need of tuning :) 6-20-2007 created the enemy tank. enemies are easy to add now since all the enemy related functions are very generic. did a bunch of little improvements such as aoe animations, enemy bullets, firing sounds, and death sounds. after adding the tank, i found that i have a bunch of sorting (z-depth) issues that i will need to address. 6-19-2007 sheesh!! i finally fixed a bug that had me stumped for days. previously, going from the ugrade screen to the play screen caused the reload counter to reset even if it had expired before going to the upgrade screen. added rocket soldier enemy. changed the way i was keeping track of live enemies. now, i am adding them to an array as i create them. this makes doing the hit tests easier and faster. added FPS counter that i got from ImprisonedPride at www.flashkit.com. 6-17-2007 added nuke player weapon. 6-16-2007 (2) decided on all weapon/bunker upgrades and setup the global variables to pass the upgrade values. updated play screen UI. added player Score to UI. grouped information into separate areas. 6-16-2007 (1) added the energy beam weapon. added recharge rate for weapons (mainly for the energy beam). added the recharge percentage for the energy beam to the reload percentage bar. re-worked the reloading code so that all weapons can reload without being selected. added percentage bars in the UI for bunker armor, weapon ammo, and weapon reload rates. 6-14-2007 added missile launcher weapon with aeo damage. extended the game screen from 750 wide to 900 wide. After i got the cannon in and started testing, i realised that the other enemies that i am going to add will be in such a close range in contrast to the larger, higher powered weapons. i also need room for range upgrades on weapons. enemy projectiles now target and track to the bunker from any location on the screen. this is needed for any enemy not exactly on the bunkers horizontal axis. (especially for flying enemies). moved all hard coded strings and values from enemy bullet, soldier, movement, and firing functions to object specific variables. this makes the functions generic and will allow me to easily add new enemy types and reuse the functions. also went through the rest of the code and moved all the hard coded strings and values to object variables. added a self destruct parameter to all enemy object event handlers so i can easily delete everything at the end of the game. 6-13-2007 added splash (aoe) functionality for weapons. the cannon can now damage an area around the target that was hit. 6-12-2007 added the cannon weapon!! (weapons are so easy to add because all my weapon, bullet, and targeting funcitons were made very generic :) ) added in a weapon reload timer so you cant fire a weapon until it has "reloaded". (weapons like a cannon, for example, take some time to reload.) 6-11-2007 sweet !! i built the flame thrower and got it working :) in order to get the flame thrower working, i had to add bullet ranges to all the weapons as well as code support. also had to add support for bullets going through(past) the enemies for the flames. 6-10-2007 (2) bunker can be destroyed and plays death animation. added transition to gameover screen after bunkner is destroyed. added transition to play again from gameover screen. fixed the screen transition probelms. i needed to delete the bunker and weapons before transitioning. not doing so resulted in multiple instances of the same objects when going back into the play screen. the symptoms were inconsistant variable behaviors/values. 6-10-2007 (1) enemies are now able to fire at the bunker. the bunker can take damage. the enemy bullets play an impact animation to show that the bunker was hit. 6-9-2007 not a whole lot visually added. but there was some code clean up, functions made more generic so they can be reused, and alot of behind-the-scenes changes and improvements that allows for expandability and soon to come features. added a pre-loader so that the flash file fully loads before running. before doing this, the flash file would have to cache in the browser before running properly. you would have to reload (F5) the file many times for everything to work right. enemies now have a death animation. enemies now have a death sound. setup and defined global variables to save the game state when transitioning between the play and upgrade screens. added upgrade screen (blank) and the transition between it and the play screen. added the Level label in the play screen. 6-7-2007 wow... got some major work done this time... enemies are now dynamically created and move towards the bunker enemies have a functioning health bar above their heads!!! re-did the player mmg. it now used dynamically created bullets and each bullet can react to an enemy in the scene added some more interface and exposed some game variables. 6-4-2007 created the first enemy with a basic walking animation and placed in game. 6-3-2007 created the game space, the bunker, and the player machine gun. got the machine gun to track with the mouse and able to fire. created ammo counter and weapon label 5-28-2007 to 5-31-2007 My first start into a game of my own design. Did most of the planning and designing of the game on paper. Designed game mechanics. (screen flows, player controls, events, upgrades, etc...). Designed and drew the screen layout. Designed and drew the bunker/weapons and where player weapons will attach. Decided on weapons for the bunker. Decided on what kind of enemies. Figured out stats for the player, bunker, weapons, and enemies (ie. gold, kills, ammo, armor, range, attachpoints, sound events, etc..).