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So basically I just finished a 7 week stretch where 3 awesome people and myself worked together and made a video game from scratch. No premade engines, no art assets, no sound banks.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3I79d.png)
Our team logo
It was an exhausting but deeply rewarding experience.
Our game is basically a topdown multiplayer version of bioshock, or maybe like a underwater themed Left4Dead. However you look at it, it's fun to play now.
Our class makes us spin the "Wheel of Misfortune" and we had to write a devblog for a while so you can read it here:
http://bottlerocketsgp.blogspot.com/
There are some in development screenshots of the game here:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iLcnx.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zQLH3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/31wBf.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NxHGH.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/18fDw.png)
And if you'd like to play the game go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1dnpmxcvph2cmpq
The multiplayer is wonky so don't try to create a server or join a game, you can only play solo.
Feel free to leave comments if you decide to play!
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This is a heavy game. Can you break it down?
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On December 15 2011 11:08 Keyboard Warrior wrote:
This is a heavy game. Can you break it down?
What do you mean?
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Was it 7 week or 7 months?
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On December 15 2011 11:14 Hithran wrote:
Was it 7 week or 7 months?
Weeks, not months
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did you make a trailer for it?
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7 weeks? holy shit
It looks pretty good  gj!
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On December 15 2011 11:16 Phrost wrote: Weeks, not months
Then I think Hithran's inherent suggestion is that you edit the first post to reflect this. ;D
EDIT: Love you Trozz, keep it up! ^_^
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Looks good, what language did you write it in? Most of my game creation experience is with C#/XNA only.
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Is it much like Alien Swarm? That was almost exactly a topdown version of L4D or Bioshock.
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I might try this later. Any inspiration from infantry online (basically the only game that did "top down shooter" correctly)?
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I'm curious as to how you created the sounds if you didn't have sound banks. I'm making a casual platformer game in my free time, and I've been worrying about how I'm going to put sound in, because I have no idea.
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On December 15 2011 11:19 Assault_1 wrote:
did you make a trailer for it?
Nope we just finished it yesterday lol. It doesn't have a lot of content but the 4 levels it does have shows off what our engine can do.
On December 15 2011 11:38 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:Then I think Hithran's inherent suggestion is that you edit the first post to reflect this. ;D
Fixed it, thanks!
On December 15 2011 11:56 gosuMalicE wrote:
Looks good, what language did you write it in? Most of my game creation experience is with C#/XNA only.
The particle editor, map editor, and animation editor are written in c#. The game itself is written in c++.
On December 15 2011 12:12 zakmaa wrote:
Is it much like Alien Swarm? That was almost exactly a topdown version of L4D or Bioshock.
Very similar, but its true topdown view not 3/4
On December 15 2011 12:21 acrimoneyius wrote:
I might try this later. Any inspiration from infantry online (basically the only game that did "top down shooter" correctly)?
I have never played that game so unless my group members did then probably not. I did most of the design work while they did all the cool tech stuff. I'm not as knowledgeable of a programmer as they are.
On December 15 2011 12:31 ClysmiC wrote:
I'm curious as to how you created the sounds if you didn't have sound banks. I'm making a casual platformer game in my free time, and I've been worrying about how I'm going to put sound in, because I have no idea.
Since the game isn't going to be sold I took existing sounds. Most of the sound effects are from worms, starcraft, and bioshock. The voiceovers were done by one of the group member's girlfriends and the music is royalty free from : http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
It's come to my attention that that installer might not include all of the necessary DLLs if you dont have Visual C++ and .Net framework updated and what not. If it is the case, check back in a day or two for a new installer, I'm going to recompile the project tomorrow.
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I love indie games.
I've downloaded and played this.
Here's the good and bad:
Good:
- I love that menu music.
- Best menu cursor I've ever seen -- flare sparks!
- Nice textures.
- Character looks funny when you spin fast.
- I like how deadly those ambushes of masses are.
- Nice darkness/spotlight areas.
- Multiplayer sounds like awesome.
- Responsive controls.
- A resource folder, filled with slick goodies (like that soundtrack)!
Bad:
- JIMAA and Rob have 2 of 3 save slots taken initially on this version lol what is this I don't even-
- At first I was wondering where my cursor was (then I realized it was enter and arrows ftw).
- When I was naming a new save state, I hit backspace furiously and got a myDumpFile.mdmp error that crashed the game.
- Why is the launcher file called Swarm Game.exe?
- It's awkward transitioning from arrow key only menu to wasd/mouse. I'd suggest you make the menu wasd controllable like Skyrim.
- Laser sight doesn't actually come from the weapon.
- Sometimes the weapon firing noise keeps going after you stop firing. Shooting again fixes that sound loop.
- Not much tactics needed to dispatch enemies beyond strafe/flee n shoot. Add special enemies/bosses!
- You can't change save slots without relaunching the game.
- 5 grenades max, but then you can walk over grenades to make them vanish/wasted? I wasted more grenades than I used.
- I really want those jellies to give off light instead of random sections of featureless hallway.
- I lost track of what level I was on -- there was nothing distinguishing between them.
- I played for a while until I ran into a "mission objective completed -- game over -- you win!" message. I guess that's the end of my playthrough. Got booted to the main menu and the level and menu soundtracks are now playing at the same time.
This is impressive!
I'd like to see more choices.
I'll watch for you guys.
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"The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."
Tried reinstalling twice, same error. Is there a fix for this? I'd like to try the game out 
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On December 15 2011 16:48 Azerbaijan wrote:"The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." Tried reinstalling twice, same error. Is there a fix for this? I'd like to try the game out
What version of Windows are you using? Is your DirectX up to date? The new installer might have that DLL included but D3DX9 is a DirectX dll so you should already have it.
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On December 15 2011 16:09 Trozz wrote:
I love indie games.
I've downloaded and played this.
Here's the good and bad:
Good:
- I love that menu music.
- Best menu cursor I've ever seen -- flare sparks!
- Nice textures.
- Character looks funny when you spin fast.
- I like how deadly those ambushes of masses are.
- Nice darkness/spotlight areas.
- Multiplayer sounds like awesome.
- Responsive controls.
- A resource folder, filled with slick goodies (like that soundtrack)!
Bad:
- JIMAA and Rob have 2 of 3 save slots taken initially on this version lol what is this I don't even-
- At first I was wondering where my cursor was (then I realized it was enter and arrows ftw).
- When I was naming a new save state, I hit backspace furiously and got a myDumpFile.mdmp error that crashed the game.
- Why is the launcher file called Swarm Game.exe?
- It's awkward transitioning from arrow key only menu to wasd/mouse. I'd suggest you make the menu wasd controllable like Skyrim.
- Laser sight doesn't actually come from the weapon.
- Sometimes the weapon firing noise keeps going after you stop firing. Shooting again fixes that sound loop.
- Not much tactics needed to dispatch enemies beyond strafe/flee n shoot. Add special enemies/bosses!
- You can't change save slots without relaunching the game.
- 5 grenades max, but then you can walk over grenades to make them vanish/wasted? I wasted more grenades than I used.
- I really want those jellies to give off light instead of random sections of featureless hallway.
- I lost track of what level I was on -- there was nothing distinguishing between them.
- I played for a while until I ran into a "mission objective completed -- game over -- you win!" message. I guess that's the end of my playthrough. Got booted to the main menu and the level and menu soundtracks are now playing at the same time.
This is impressive!
I'd like to see more choices.
I'll watch for you guys.
The save slots was an oversight, we should have deleted them before packaging the exe.
The exe is called swarm game because.... thats like the original name we came up for it. Never got changed (another oversight)
Some of the bad things you noted were known bugs, and others were stipulations made necessary by the producer (ie menus must navigate with keyboard arrows, enter and escape)
The jellyfish can't emit light because of the shader we're using and the technology limitations of our one post process pass (that introduces the lighting). Our tech can only render a scene with 7 sources in it, the ambient light is 1 of those.
Some features you won't see in the single player:
On death you have the ability to enter observer mode and move freely or follow allies.
The dedicated server is always in observer mode and does not play so there is no latency advantage to them.
We may continue development on this and improve it/add more content but probably not for some time. We did a 9 week project in 7 and 1 of those weeks was thanks giving (which nobody really wanted to do any work) so for as long as we had I think it came out well =]
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On December 15 2011 17:47 Phrost wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2011 16:48 Azerbaijan wrote:"The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." Tried reinstalling twice, same error. Is there a fix for this? I'd like to try the game out What version of Windows are you using? Is your DirectX up to date? The new installer might have that DLL included but D3DX9 is a DirectX dll so you should already have it.
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and DirectX 11
Tried reinstalling a few more times and downloaded the installer again just to be thorough. Tried all the run as administrator stuff that usually makes it difficult to make some games work. Still no luck; I'm not sure why I'm missing a directx file or where I might get it, I'm not so familiar with directx.
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EPT
