System:
1 GHz P3
256 MB
GeForce 2

Fun game at first. Needs more *bang*, whatever that is.

Problems:
* The gui click detection is off. The clickable region is like 16 pixels higher than the graphics.
* The pre-level screens are offset from the top of the screen, and I feel like the graphic is much larger than my screen so I'm missing all the important information. For example, on the first one, with the keyboard controls, the key I see in the bottom right of my screen is the 'X'. I feel like I'm missing over half the screen.
* In the first two levels I got about 100 FPS, but in the third (with the rain and the cars) I got only 25.
* I was able to shoot downward at an enemy below me but it seemed like it didn't take any damage.
* There is no way to tell how close you are to the objective while playing.
* After I enabled anti-aliasing the game wouldn't run. Perhaps my card doesn't support it? Heres the top of the log file:

Toy Robo

Author: Raymond Kallmeyer
Built: Oct 24 2005 22:49:59
Ran: Wed Oct 26 08:31:18 2005

08:31:19:0070: DXGraphics:: Setting Device Mode : 800x600 : 16 bpp : 2 samp : 0 hz : Fullscreen : SVP
[E] 08:31:19:0120: DX_TEST (pD3D_->CreateDevice (adapter, devType, hWnd, flags, &d3dpp, &pD3DDevice_)) Failed!
hr: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
desc: Invalid call
File: DXGraphics.cpp
Line: 234
[E] 08:31:19:0120: Unexpected Error
File: WinMain.cpp
Line: 35

No problems installing.

Performance for just the tutorial:
(hicolor, antialias, fullscreen)
800x600 and 1024x768: 250 to 420 FPS, mostly around 330.
1280x1024: 170 to 260 FPS, mostly around 220.

VERY MINOR detail: the 'new game' string doesn't fit in the button when playing at 1280x1024.

Specs:
Windows XP sp2
1024 Mb RAM
Athlon64 3200
Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT 128Mb

No need to have credits for this.

Quote: Original post by nts
doesn't work, running latest DX but getting the following error

This application has failed to start because d3dx9_25.dll was not found.
Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

I didn't realize that the directx install files were mucked up. In the next
version I'll package the dll along with the executable.

Quote: Original post by jakem3s90
Nicely done! I only played the first couple of levels, but the game ran
flawlessly at a steady 70-100 FPS. I didn't run into any problems playing it.

Thank you, good to hear it was running for you.

Quote: Original post by auLucifer
Was a pretty good game

The camera does seem a little ungainly but overall it was good. Locking onto
an opponent would be awesome although shooting them isn't too hard.
I didn't play right through. Just the first few levels.

Thanks again. It looks like some other people were having problems with the
controls as well. I'm trying to think of a solution that will work for
everybody (me included ;)

Quote: Original post by Gaenor
I must tell you that i had a little trouble. I installed it fine, run it for

the first time and it booted up nicely.
So i thought "hey, very nice gui, let´s see the options". Then i changed the
resolution to 1024x768, set high color and antialias. The message saying i
had to reboot popped up. And i did, but when i tried to run it again it
didnt. The process just dies after 1 second.
So then I tried the debug version. Funnily enough, the debug version
complained about the directx version (the d3dx9_25.dll error) while the
release one had run fine. Then I reinstalled it and everything was fine again, so i didn´t change the options and well, everything was fine from there.

You certanly shouldn't have to reinstall to get everything to work right.
I'll explain the debug version further down once I finish replying. But
your situation brings up a good point - If the game doesn't load correctly,
the settings should automatically revert to default. In a perfect world,
the game would never not load correctly, but just in case, I've got to plan
for that occurance.

Quote: Original post by nes8bit
Disclaimer: This is my evaluation based on being extremely critical.

Critical is exactly what I need right now ;)

Quote: My first impression of the game goes something like this... Once I
installed the game I saw the menu. I already had my first complaint and that
was the lack of a game icon. While this may be a demo, the sight of seeing a
debug executable and log file was pretty unappealing and if I were an
average gamer I would already be confused.

The game icon will be in for the Final build, so no worries there. I forgot
to mention the debug version last night because I was pretty sleepy, but
basically the point of including it was to allow you to send me trace logs
if you found any errors. The shortcut to the log, and the entire debug
executable will be removed for the final build.

Quote: Once I opened up the game I was immediately launched into the menu
screen. Pleased by this I ran the game. The first thing I encountered was a
very busy (cluttered) intro screen. I saw instructions on how to play, but
since I was very uninterested I smashed the keyboard/mouse to get into the
game. Luckily, there was no steep learning curve getting into the game at
first. I quickly discovered what clicking the mouse did and how to move the
robot around. Eventually I found out how to double jump and so on and so
on.

I'm glad the first part of the game went relatively pain free for you. I
agree that the loading for the first room is very cluttered. I'll see if I
can't clean it up a bit.

Quote: For the first few minutes I thought it was kind of neat. However I
expecting a little more. Soon after I got bored, but I did play til the next
level expecting more to happen. Once I realized the second level was the
same as the first I shut it down.

Hmm, I think I might have to change the order of the levels in the begining
or make them quicker in order to save people such as yourself from getting
board and quitting so soon. I have things layed out the way they are now
because I wanted the player to have an easy introduction into the different
gameplay mechanics, and well as the controls.

Quote:
Issues you should look into:
The zombies are far too easy. They also popup out of nowhere and you don't
know where the next one is. There's a lot of space in between killing the
zombies so it becomes frustrating and boring at the same time. So after I
killed a zombie I spent a bit trying to find the next one and once I got
there I got bored killing the thing. If there were either more zombies or
harder zombies then this might solve your problem.

The zombies are supposed to be the easy enemies, the cars, the bombs and the
aliens make it harder. I am going to leave the zombies spaced out in the
first level, but I think I'm going to the the second one a little bit more
dense. So you don't have to run around so much with nothing to kill.

Quote: As for sound, I wasn't very impressed. In fact the music was so
awkward that I wanted to take my headphones off. There weren't enough sound
effects for the robots movement. He should be making sounds for every
movement he does because he's a robot. The only sounds I got were the
grumble from the zombie, the laser thing and the double jump. Give or take a
few sounds. Also, the directional audio was very misleading. One time a
zombie was slightly on the right side of the screen and yet I heard the
sound come ONly from the right speaker. This was rather distracting. The
solution to that would be to center the audio UNLESS the zombie is off
screen. Only then should you use it to identify where the zombie is coming

from.

I think the music is awesome, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their
own opinion. I have more sound effects for the robot moving that I have not
had time to implement. I will look in to playing with the 3D audio as you
suggested, I didn't realize it was so bad using head phones. Thanks for the
good find.

Quote: Some minor bugs:
* Tall pillars get clipped into the camera
* You can't get to the menu or options screen from in game
* The fire sound effect is way too loud and distracting - and it has

crackling from a low sample rate in it

*I'll try to fix this one... some how...
*A limitation of my own home brew engine(this is my second 3d game, so I'm
still learning alot)
*Do you mean the sound of the red projectile?, or the red gun shooting? The
fires themselves in the second level actually don't have a sound.

Quote: Outside of being extremely judgemental and critical your game is
pretty good. Its pretty solid also. I actually tried to break your game and
I could only find C class bugs. I bet I could crash your game if I spent
enough energy, but thats besides the point. ;)

The A bugs are in there... they are just hiding really good;)
A question for you Sir nes, using your checklist, what score would you give my game if you were a judge?

Quote: Original post by BeastX
GRAPHICS:
The game looks pretty good.

-I actually liked the old tiled look and block robot. Maybe consider the
other robot as an option?
-Add a background image or skybox if there's time.
-Was this a 3DGS game or an original code base? It has a 3DGS look but
that's not a bad thing.

CONTROL:
My only real issues were with the control scheme. It took a while to
understand but then felt unnatural because of the ASDF control scheme at
that camera angle for an action/platformer/dungeon-crawler.
If you have time to resubmit, and can't add joystick input, I'd make these
changes:

LEFT-CLICK - Move the player in the direction of the cursor.
RIGHT-CLICK - Jump.
TWO OTHER CLOSE PROXIMITY KEYS: Fire/Melee

Otherwise, it was great. I was reminded of a simpler Maximo and Gauntlet.

-the old robot didn't have sword...but I'll see what I can do.
-Since you are looking down all the time, I'm having trouble imaging what
kind of skybox wouldn't look ackward? What would you suggest?
-Completely original code base, but completely fixed-function pipeline so

that might be why they look simular.

CONTROL:
This is actually the 2nd iteration of control for this game. I've noticed
that many people think it's ackward at first, but after playing it for about
15 minutes most people are already experts. I think this happens because
I'm really using a mix of FPS controls and Diablo-like top-down
action-adventure controls ~ so the confusion is just comming from mixing
these already familar control schemes. Once you get over the (hopefully
relatively short) hump, you should be able to start running, jumping,
blasting, and swinging at relatively high speeds.

This demo only shows the first set of rooms, so the enemy combinations are
by-design fairly easy, and require very little dodging or battery
micromanement. The later levels get much harder as I introduce different
battery types, and enemy combinations. So it was very important to the
design of the control scheme that the user be able to jump and switch
equipment relatively easy.

As a side note- the original control scheme was designed two work with a PS2
controller, but since this is a contest, and I doubt all the judges have all
the equipment neccessary, I decided to go with one control scheme and polish
the hell out of it.

Quote: Original post by Demonews
Played it with everything on getting around 250 fps average. Dell XPS, dual
core 3.2 Ghz, 1 gig of ram, Sound Blaster Audigy 2, GeForce 6800.
Graphics were good. Nothing really great, but at this level, pretty good.
Music was fair, sounds were good. Really, for what I am used to seeing, your
in good shape at this level.

Thank you, I appreciate your praise.

Quote:
Rant time: My number 1 complaint is camera views and controls. Typically, in
a 3rd person game, you slide your mouse (sometimes right click, hold, and
slide to change) to change camera angles. I could not get camera angles to
move easily, got frustrated and lost interest in the first room. I had to
exit, then restart to read the camera controls. Once I got there, and used
the E key, it only seemed to do 360 degree turns, no camera angles for up
and down. I think that you should have more control via the mouse for the
character. In other words, moving, firing, camera views, all character
controls, should be via the mouse. Keyboard is better suited for switching
guns, etc. This is pretty typical and the one thing that will frustrate
people playing the game for the first time. Since people are finicky, they
might abandon before giving it a fair shot. A concern is that a judge wont
get the camera controls and not be able to give your game a fair review. I
got frustrated really quickly and I actually beta test commercial games
regulalry.

Hope it helps.

I am afraid I will not have time to implement camera control via mouse-move
in time for the demo, but it is a great suggestion none the less. I really
didn't anticipate people wanting to play with the camera this much. Is there
a particular reason? Or is it just because you can move it so you want to move it?


Thanks again everybody, I appreciate all your responces and your time. I'm going to update
the original post with the debug build information, if you want to give it a spin. If you
wern't having any problems before then It's probably pretty pointless, but it'll give you
a chance to see my trace system work its magic... and the frame-rate cut in half ;)


As for credits. I'm just going to assume all of you who haved responded and will respond to
the thread want you name in there.

If you DO NOT want your name in the credits and you have responded to the thread,
let me know, and I will leave you out.

~Ray

Quote: Original post by WanMaster
I changed the settings to 800x600 windowed, anti-aliased. After that it failed to start.
I found the settings.txt, deleted it in the hope that would force the application to create a new file with the default settings, but then it just crashes.

Brilliant idea!... if the developer was smart enough to think of it too. I'll make it use default settings if the settings.txt doesn't exist.

Quote: After a fresh install I tried to only adjust the anti-aliasing (to "on"), restarted and it crashed again. So maybe I turned on a feature that is not available on my video card. If this is true, I should not be able to select it.

It also looks like many people are having problems with the anti aliasing. I think I might have missed a hook between by gui and graphics code that checks for anti-aliasing support, I'll try to have a fix for that by the next build.

Quote: Third install, no changes in the settings (I'm scared now), it seems to run fine at a 170 frame rate (default 600x800 fullscreen display). :)
Alt-tabbing works fine.

The only gameplay releated issue: some monsters where moving in mid air (see image).

Freaking floating zombies! These guys have been doing this on and off for quite a while now... and I though I fixed the issue. I'll have to track it down again.

Is anyone else seeing floating zombies?

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote: Original post by nes8bit
Disclaimer: This is my evaluation based on being extremely critical.

Critical is exactly what I need right now ;)

WIth that said I'm glad you and your team didn't take offense to my overly blunt comments. You guys are true sports. ;)

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555
I'm glad the first part of the game went relatively pain free for you. I
agree that the loading for the first room is very cluttered. I'll see if I
can't clean it up a bit.

Look at the movement area of the keyboard. It looks like everything is pointing to one big highlight. I actually almost went with this design scheme for the user manual, but decided it would be too cluttered just like that. One suggestion is to go with a non-keyboard looking interface. Another suggestion would be to highlight each "function" as a different color to help out with identifying what does what. Movement as green, weapons as red, etc etc. It should literally take me no more than 15 seconds to memorize the basic controls. Also, the "press key to continue" text was hard to notice. You should have that blink or something.

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote: For the first few minutes I thought it was kind of neat. However I
expecting a little more. Soon after I got bored, but I did play til the next
level expecting more to happen. Once I realized the second level was the
same as the first I shut it down.

Hmm, I think I might have to change the order of the levels in the begining
or make them quicker in order to save people such as yourself from getting
board and quitting so soon. I have things layed out the way they are now
because I wanted the player to have an easy introduction into the different
gameplay mechanics, and well as the controls.

The best way to do this would be to take out some zombies in the first level along with making them closer together. Because your level has a lot of open space, you should also consider keeping them more in the center to take attention away from the edges of the void.

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote:
Issues you should look into:
The zombies are far too easy. They also popup out of nowhere and you don't
know where the next one is. There's a lot of space in between killing the
zombies so it becomes frustrating and boring at the same time. So after I
killed a zombie I spent a bit trying to find the next one and once I got
there I got bored killing the thing. If there were either more zombies or
harder zombies then this might solve your problem.

The zombies are supposed to be the easy enemies, the cars, the bombs and the
aliens make it harder. I am going to leave the zombies spaced out in the
first level, but I think I'm going to the the second one a little bit more
dense. So you don't have to run around so much with nothing to kill.

got it. Since I was overly critical I shut the game off as soon as I was remotely uninterested. So I didn't get to see the other NPCs. ;)

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote: As for sound, I wasn't very impressed. In fact the music was so
awkward that I wanted to take my headphones off. There weren't enough sound
effects for the robots movement. He should be making sounds for every
movement he does because he's a robot. The only sounds I got were the
grumble from the zombie, the laser thing and the double jump. Give or take a
few sounds. Also, the directional audio was very misleading. One time a
zombie was slightly on the right side of the screen and yet I heard the
sound come ONly from the right speaker. This was rather distracting. The
solution to that would be to center the audio UNLESS the zombie is off
screen. Only then should you use it to identify where the zombie is coming from.

I think the music is awesome, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their
own opinion. I have more sound effects for the robot moving that I have not
had time to implement. I will look in to playing with the 3D audio as you
suggested, I didn't realize it was so bad using head phones. Thanks for the
good find.

When it comes to mastering audio, I listen to it in 3 or more setups.

#1 - Headphones. I always master audio on my headphones because they produce a more consistent signal than my logitech z680s. I can also hear errors and stuff like that.
#2 - The Surround Setup - I didn't test on this, but this is the setup most gamers will use: Huge sub and small speakers.
#3 - The Car - You can't do this obviously, but if it sounds good in my car's awful sound setup then it'll sound good anywhere.

Then I test at friends houses and what not.

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote: Some minor bugs:
* Tall pillars get clipped into the camera
* You can't get to the menu or options screen from in game
* The fire sound effect is way too loud and distracting - and it has

crackling from a low sample rate in it

*I'll try to fix this one... some how...
*A limitation of my own home brew engine(this is my second 3d game, so I'm
still learning alot)
*Do you mean the sound of the red projectile?, or the red gun shooting? The
fires themselves in the second level actually don't have a sound.

The first bug might not be fixable. So you can probably just waive it. If you have the time then you should do what they did in tomb raider... make it go semitransparent once its close enough to the camera. That might reveal a hole in the ground though.

The second bug I guess isn't fixable. Its no biggie then.

The #2 gun on the first level. Try shortening the duration of the sound. It might be too distracting to gameplay. I haven't really messed with it enough.

Quote: Original post by Nuget5555

Quote: Outside of being extremely judgemental and critical your game is
pretty good. Its pretty solid also. I actually tried to break your game and
I could only find C class bugs. I bet I could crash your game if I spent
enough energy, but thats besides the point. ;)

The A bugs are in there... they are just hiding really good;)
A question for you Sir nes, using your checklist, what score would you give my game if you were a judge?

Its hard to say, but you should certainly put together a checklist based on that. I would say you have a good chance of placing pretty high though.

Also, if you're interested I'd like to work with you on a project in the near future. ;)

The game freezes up at the main menu each time I tried.

AMD 2000+
GeForce FX 5200 ( yea yea ... )
1GB Ram
Dx 9.0c
Aug 2, 2005 nVidia Drivers

Log:

Toy RoboAuthor: Raymond KallmeyerBuilt: Oct 24 2005 22:49:59Ran: Wed Oct 26 18:18:26 2005 18:18:26:0995: DXGraphics:: Setting Device Mode : 800x600 : 16 bpp : 0 samp : 0 hz : Fullscreen : SVP

seems a bit.. short. Then again, it did freeze at the main menu. My settings are "800 600 16" "0" "0" "0" "0" -- I guess those are the defaults. Anyway, have any guess to what I need to make this puppy run?

FPS 87ish to start
p4 1.5 640mbram nvidia ti4200
I liked the animation/graphics/music/ambiant sounds(except the "you cannot kill this critter with this ammo" sound, but I think that was because it was also my death bell :) )
I did not like zombies spawning on walls and not dropping down, and the massive difficulty curve between stage one and stage two.
3 red zombies constantly spawning around me and no matter where I jumped more kept spawning til I died several times as I couldn't get more than a few steps without dieing I gave up. No red batteries in sight, but I like the idea of specialized weapons.
Having 5-10 zombies spawn at the same time knocks my fps down to about 30.
If I were to give you advice I would suggest ramping up your zombies to that type of load, don't expect your player to be able to dive right in after they kill 10. Or if you insist on loading in zombies give me a bomb to clear the area :) Oh and it took me a really long time to figure out that I could click on an enemy to fire at him rather than fire the direction I was facing, I don't know why but it wasn't obvious to me, even though I play rgp.
Just as a note I don't play your type of game much so my coordination likely has something to be desired. I play mostly rpg/strat when I do play action it's on console. I like joysticks :)
Oh one more thing make sure the dll is packaged (I think this was said before) I don't like getting files just to play a game, it would turn me off if I were a judge.
It's still seriously cute, I like your style.

Signed, one of 3 chicks on Gamedev :D

~310fps on title screen.
~150fps in-game.

AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Leadtek WinFast A400GT THD w/ nVIDIA 6800GT NV40 GPU, 256MB DDR3 RAM, 4X AGP Mode
2GB SDRAM

I accidentally replied AP in the post directly above.

The game's graphics and animation are really well done. Could use 1600x1200 resolution.

I also noticed that the left and right directional keys turned in the direction opposite of what I was expecting. How about a directional mode toggle in the options, saved to build\bin\settings.txt?

Is it not possible to include D3DX9_25.DLL with the package?

Great job, runs nice! :)

[Edited by - taby on October 26, 2005 8:19:55 PM]

Well, I'd like to congradulate you on a very professional looking game! It's a fun idea and looks great, but there were some gameplay issues I found.

First: I too, had the floating zombie problem. It seemed to me that they got there by trying to follow me off of a ledge and got stuck. A quick suggestion might be to have the zombies fall off of the ledge rather than simply stand there (they're supposed to be stupid, yes?) I had a screenshot, but my FTP server seems borked >_< sorry.

Another little thing: I like the idea that you can jump on everything, but in certain cases it doesn't make much sense. For instance: It looked a little od for my big bulky robot to be standing on a skinny little lamp-post. Another instance is when I jumped onto a torch. Sure, it was big enough that I could stand on it, but it may be a cool little addition to make it slightly damage you.

Let's see, what else... Well, I was a little dissapointed that the zombies didn't react much to my attacks. They just keep walking without flinching till they die, then "Poof!" gone! Same for damage delt to the robot, though at least we have sounds for that. This is disorienting for the blaster (Am I hititng him or not? No idea) but I'd almost consider it a fatal flaw for the sword. If I whack someone with a lightsaber, undead or not, I expect them to react ^_^ One thing that occured to me while playing is that it would be cool if the sword was able to knock down an enemy, especially some of the stronger ones. It would lend some variety to the gameplay and give me more of a tactical reason to use the sword (as it was, I found very few times where it wasn't simply easier to use the blaster)

One other minor complaint that comes to mind is in the second level (the one with the four big columns in the center) I frequently would jump up onto one of the columns (which barely has enough room for the robot guy anyways) and suddenly have 2-3 zombies spawn right next to me. In a way it made the game more challenging, but also quickly became a frustration. May be a good idea to make sure that zombies must be a certain distance from the robot before they can spawn.

Other than that.. I loved it! I know the above stuff sounds whiney, but I really did enjoy playing with your little demo (I've been watching your progress closely on the 4e4 screenshot thread) The game is fun, and feels very "solid", and I LOVE the effects that you've worked in. (Especially the level opening/ending "blur". That's just awesome!)

Hope I've been helpful, and keep up the awesome work!

EDIT: Ooh! Oooh! One more thing! It would be really cool if the robot faced the direction you were firing while running. For example: spinning around and running backwards while faring oppisite the direction that you're running. (I just think it would look a lot better than bullets coming out of his back.) Also, it may be nice to be able to use the sword in mid-air, but that's not critical.