Time for a quick update on Space Farmers 2.

Some Good stuff that’s happened

While, as usual, we’ve not had the time to work on things as much as we’d like some progress has been made. We’ve moved to a new library to help with the networking and have been performing some tests on how that performs. Also we want to make sure it’s a viable alternative to us writing our own integrated networking. This library supports the idea of *gulp* servers so we’re also looking at procuring some test servers and uploading the server software and trying all that out.

Something I can show is some basic pathing I’ve been working on for enemies! It’s nothing special but I can have a multitude of enemies following this path and all being tracked on everyone’s client. And when I say everyone’s I mean more than 2 people (woop!)

Next is getting basic weapons and enemy attacking sorted. This is leading to a game mode we’ve been calling “The Fridge” since 2012 (yep, that’s how long we’ve been talking about Space Farmers games for now!) It’s the same as a dungeon defenders mission or a Team Fortress 2 MvM mission.

I’ve got no idea on a specific timescale for this yet (this month I’ve got far too much personal stuff going on, hence a blog post instead of a video or anything) But I should have some further news next month on how some of this went. But here’s a picture of some prototyping for the enemy pathing I had going on:

(ooh, animated giff thanks to my new mobile phone!)

What else is going on…

In other news it’s no secret I’m fresh out of the release of Tribloos 3 which has slowed me down somewhat. The “What do I do next?” question every developer asks themselves after a release always leaves a feeling of uncertainty and unease. However I’ve thrown myself back into this as much as possible (around my full time work and family time) which Rich is fighting to simply get some desk space to work from (it’s a long story).

I’ve got a few ideas for what to do next. One of which is some DLC for The Tribloos 3 which I’ve made a tentative start on. The other is a top down RPG shooter game which I made a prototype for a few weeks ago. My plan is to incrementally work on these for a few weeks and see what excites me the most and then focus on that for the rest of the year. I’ll show some more details on the blog presently.

So that’s about it for today!

Hey Tribloos fans, time for an update on the latest version of the game. 1.3 Brings some stability updates, a change to the default gfx driver (for windows users) and various improvements to the game itself.

These version are live on BFG right now! So check your client for an update.

Fixes:

Achievements

There were a number of achievements which were not…achievable! Oops, apologies for that. I changed the counting code later on in development and when the building ones seemed to work I wrongly assumed that “everything was fine”. I’ve now made the appropriate changes here and achievements are working as expected.

Boom Leaf Hover Text

You were all treated to my internal code system of the game here, if you noticed! It’s a bit of an obscure fix but details count right?

Changed GFX driver

So some people were experiencing weird issues with display with some gfx cards. I’ve changed the default display driver from dx7 to opengl. This can be overriden with a configuration setting. If you run into trouble either contact BFG or email me for help.

The Improvements

Static Backgrounds Option

From your user screen on the main menu you can tick a box which specifies if you want static backgrounds or not. This will pause movement in the following areas:

  • Flying Fortress (clouds/leaves when outside)
  • Pirate Ship (waves will be totally still)
  • Train (the train will not move)
  • Spotlights in circus

Vine Bush visibility

These now have lovely blue flowers which make them easier to notice on the tree backgrounds at the end of the first set of levels.

More story explanation

At the end of the first cutscene I have added some text which explains why the Tribloos split up and how that effects what level you can play next

End Of Level Arpeggio sound

Some users were describing that the end of level sounds were a bit naff – this turned out to be that my “clever” method of creating an arpeggio using a single sample failed. So I’ve created a full arpeggio recording now and stop it when the score bar finishes.

Things not yet done

Work on the Steam release have faltered over the last couple of weeks. I’m having to relearn some C++ to get the latest API stuff into a Blitzmax project for the achievements and I also want to put something more awesome in there that wasn’t in Tribloos 2. Look forward to more details!

But the Itch.IO version will be released soon. So for those that prefer a DRM Free experience, we’ve got you covered!

Let me know if you have any comments about the above

You can now get the first release of The Tribloos 3 from BigFishGames!

It’s available on PC and Mac and you get a 1 hour free session.

https://www.bigfishgames.com/games/14203/the-tribloos-3/?pc

We’re working on the Steam release but we have a mixture of technical and administrative challenges ahead of us before that happens. However an Itch.io release will be happening asap so you’ll be able to get the game DRM free very soon.

We’ll keep you posted!

It’s been a good week! Here’s where I am:

Yes we’re on steam for the Beta finally!

This resulted in about 10 new bugs added to my development log in the space of 5 minutes. You people and your weird resolutions. Yes I’m talking to you DangerGerbil!

I’ve squashed most of the bugs already and made some cosmetic changes to the game but we’re only in the early days of testing now so I expect tons more very soon.

Otherwise the feedback has been pretty good. Soon we should be widening the net in terms of testing once these initial bugs have been sorted.

I’m not going to go into huge detail today, but I’ll give another update next week with how we’re getting on with testing. See you then!

Morning everyone.

We just wanted to quickly wish you a happy new year.

2017 Is shaping up to be very exciting for us. While some deadlines have been missed (by myself) we’re definitely on track for at least one new release this year. Also hopefully we’ll be letting you all in on a Space Farmers 2 engine test and news on future projects we want to announce later in the year.

Thanks for keeping up with our new blog last year. We hope you keep in touch in the coming months!

-The Bumpkin Bros