Hyper Mode #screenshotsaturday

Terry Jul 21, 2012 9 Comments

This week, I mostly spent my time tuning the higher difficulty levels of Super Hexagon, and I added super hard Hyper Modes to each level! Basically, it’s like a “New Game+” that unlocks for people who get a Hexagon rank in each of the game’s three levels.

While I worry that the hyper mode tracks are probably going to be way too hard for most people, I’m really glad they’re in there – attaining the level of mastery needed to do well at that skill level is pretty much what this game is all about.

I’m almost done now.

A Super Hexagon Approaches

Terry Jul 12, 2012 16 Comments

Check out what I got working! 🙂

Getting Stage3D to work on iPhone, with AIR 3.2 and Flashdevelop

Terry Jul 8, 2012 10 Comments

That screenshot above is an important test project – I finally got stage3D working on iPhone! Which means, hopefully, I’m one step closer to getting Super Hexagon working on iPhone. Which is not necessarily where I want the game to end up, but I figured (since it’s supposed to be technically possible with flash now), it would be fun to at least try it and find out how it feels.

Anyway, getting Stage3D to work on an iPhone took a LOT of messing around, more than these sorta things usually take, and I had a lot of trouble finding recent information online on how to do it – so, I’m going to be a good interneter, and write a short tutorial, for future googlers who might have to go through this horrible process. Here goes:

I’m using FlashDevelop 4.0.4 RTM on windows, and I’m compiling with AIR version 3.2. All of the following assumes that you’ve already got a basic flash project working on an iPhone. If you haven’t, this isn’t the right tutorial for you. (try this one!).

Stage 3D doesn’t work with AIR 3.1, and I wasn’t able to get it to work with 3.3. If you don’t have AIR 3.2, you should be able to get it by just reinstalling the latest version of FlashDevelop. So, set your projec to target AIR Movile 3.2 under Project -> Properties -> Platform.

Next: this is the bit that tripped me up for a while: there’s an application.xml file in the root directory of your project. At the top of this there’s anoter line to select your version of AIR. Make sure that’s also set to 3.2, like this:

<application xmlns=”https://ns.adobe.com/air/application/3.2″>

Next, for Stage3D to work, you need to pass an additional compiler option. Under Project -> Properties -> Compiler Options, add the following under “Advanced Compiler Options”: “-swf-version=13”.

Under Project -> AIR App Properties -> Initial Window -> Non-Windowed Platforms, set the Render Mode to “Direct” (NOT GPU, like you might assume).

Once you’ve done that, the final bit is to edit application.xml again. There are a bunch of settings under “initial window” here – add the following to this:

<depthAndStencil>true</depthAndStencil>

That should be everything! Good luck!

Warning: Super Hexagon

Terry Jul 3, 2012 3 Comments

Yesterday, Simon Parkin from Hookshot got in touch to ask me a few questions about the new version of Hexagon (which I’ve recently titled Super Hexagon)! This is probably the most I’ve actually said about the game since I started posting about it.

Check it out here!

Unspeakable horrors #screenshotsaturday

Terry Jul 1, 2012 8 Comments

My time is up, and my game isn’t finished. It’s been a fun, challenging project, and at times, a very, very exciting one – but it is not something I can just throw together in a week, or, as it turns out, in three weeks. In fact, at this point, I could see it taking another month to finish properly. It’s time to move on. This is not a jam game.

I don’t know if anything will ever come out of this project, but I know I’d rather not feel like I have to rush it to completion. Right now, I’m happy to put it to one side and mull it over; maybe think about revisiting it in a couple of months when I don’t have so many other big unfinished projects hanging over my head.

So, what’s next? Well, Super Hexagon, finally! I sent the beta of the game to a few friends weeks ago now, and I’ve got some really great feedback on it that I’ve been mentally processing. Can’t wait to get back to it!

Many more days to go

Terry Jun 27, 2012 3 Comments

Well, it’s a screenshot, sorta. It’s what I’m working on right now.

I’m in a weird place with this game at the moment. Gonna keep working on it for the next couple of days, and hopefully get it to a point where I’d be happy to leave it, if nothing else. Right now I’m feeling like a break to work on something else would be more beneficial to the game than continuing to crunch on it like this.

Anyway, it’s after 12, so I’m going to stop working for the night. I think that’s, like, a reasonable thing to do.

5 days to go

Terry Jun 27, 2012 2 Comments

Did a reasonable amount of work on the game today, but nothing I can really show in a screenshot without spoiling some of the game’s secrets…

6 days to go

Terry Jun 26, 2012 6 Comments

Today was sorta rubbish. I spoke too soon about having enemies finished before last night – instead, I ran into some bizarre collision issues and ended up scrapping a bunch of work in the process. At least NOW I’m finished the enemies, though.

7 days to go

Terry Jun 24, 2012 7 Comments

Today, I’ve been working on the monsters. The manshooter stuff isn’t actually central to what I’m trying to do with this game, but it’s at least important enough to it that I want it to be good. So, I mostly spent today making that better.

A lot of the changes are just little things – the monsters visibly recoil when they’re shot, they do some basic pathfinding so that they can follow you down corridors without getting stuck, and they have lots of little tweaks to movement behaviour depending on how close you are. It makes a huge difference – the enemies used to be fairly dull – just mindlessly moving towards you and attacking when they get close – but now they have a bit more of a presence.

Hoping to have all the enemy behaviours finalised tonight, so that tomorrow I can move onto proper level design.

Round Two #screenshotsaturday

Terry Jun 23, 2012 7 Comments

I’ve been a bit crap this week. Doing better now, though, and I’m getting some work done again.

Earlier this week, I said on twitter that I was going to try another 7 day crunch to get this game finished. That didn’t happen, but it’s a good idea – if I’m going to finish this thing, I need a deadline. So, let’s start now instead. By Sunday week, I’m intend to have this game finished enough to start playtesting it. Expect daily updates!