My new FB game Dragon Dancer is now released!!

Adigun A. Polack

I wanna let you know that my current demo of my newest FB game Dragon Dancer is NOW freely available on the AAP Official Projects Squad!! You see, I just gotten my webpages for this game ready today, and I want you to know that it is not only the very first official FreeBASIC game ever to include a special TATE mode, but it is also the *official* entry of the “Dragon Shmup” competition presented by Shmup-dev!!! (^-^)v !

In the meantime, take a look at a couple of screenshots to warm you up:

....and be seeing you for this amazing new journey from me!! Chao!!! ;-)

(By the way, the access of this new game and its official pages begins with http://dhost.hopto.org/aapproj/.)

Nodtveidt · Sr. Member

Not a bad demo. Hard to tell what's an enemy and what isn't though, that'd be my only gripe with it...it's a bit too "busy" and the interface isn't very intuitive. On the plus side, the graphics are quite nicely done and the gameplay seems smooth with very responsive controls. Decent sound effects but the music's kinda blah, also the sound could use some balancing. All in all, a nice start with a lot of potential.

1000101 · Hero

hrm, I didn't die. Even when the game didn't respond to my controls for the first 30 seconds as the green dragon.

Neat demo overall though.

Voltage · Posted: Jul 19, 2006 0:18 Post subject:

I like it. :-) Very nice graphics, cept it's nearly impossible to identify what you should dodge.

I love the old school arcarde title screen :-)
Nice work.

Adigun A. Polack

Thanks for your input, guys. ;-)

As I speak, I am working right now on making some adjustments to make the game better, like toning down the bullets of the enemies, for instance. Here is what I mean: I am gonna have players start the game with the approaching enemies firing as *fewer* bullets than was presented in my current demo, with the bullet patterns very simple and easier for the player to dodge. Then later on, I’d gradually turn up the bullet patterns by making them slowly more complex and challenging for the later areas! You know, with this potentially fair tactic (and a slow-to-medium enemy bullet speed to start with!), this game could get better. And here now are some before-and-after screenshots to remind you of where I stand on the fixes so far:

_______________________________________
B E F O R E :

A F T E R :

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And how about the part where the starting enemies got a bit *too* busy with the enemy bullets:

_______________________________________
B E F O R E :

A F T E R :

_______________________________________

So as you can see, I have toned down the enemy fire and made the shots more slower and thereby giving you even more time to dodge them!! ^-^

You know, since this is only an early compo demo of Dragon Dancer that I uploaded most recently, there are a lot of stuff that need to be done, like:

overall

....and that is what I am REALLY aiming to do for at least the next version of Dragon Dancer that I am gonna do, while making it in the style of the pure manic bullet intensity of the Cave arcade shmups such as Mushihimesama and even the recent Espgaluda II. Not easy, but can be mastered successfully if done right, you know that? \(^-^)/

So with that, I would just simply say that Nodtveidt is right about this game having plenty of potential. No kidding! ^^

voodooattack · Sr. Member

wow, looks blzaing :D

too bad i can't download it atm :(

SJ Zero · Posted: Jul 28, 2006 15:37 Post subject:

Where are the big breasted $#@$&?

Adigun A. Polack

Here is a piece of development news for Dragon Dancer that I forgot to tell you FreeBASIC people from last week in these forums ( :( ), so my apologies up front for that.

From just last week, I made the small miniscule hitbox on the dragon a lot more easier to see. Here is what I mean: to begin with, I already made the hitbox like this:

...and, when you press and hold a button to slow your dragon down, your hitbox lights up, like this:

...and it does not affect the size of your hitbox in any way. It just stays small and miniscule, no matter what!! Perfect for helping you avoid the MANY bullets storms successfully!!! :D

You know, I am planning on elevating this to the intensified manic level of both Mushihimesama and Espgaluda II indeed, but with fresh and original high fantasy overtones. ;-)

To show you what I am talking about, just take a look at the gameplay pieces of Mushihimesama on YouTube right here:

Stage 1 (PS2 Arrange Mode)

Stage 2 (PS2 Arrange Mode)

Stage 3 (PS2 Arrange Mode)

Stage 4 (PS2 Arrange Mode)

Stage 5 (PS2 Arrange Mode)

And also, this AWESOMELY AMAZING play against the true final boss of Cave’s 2002 shmup DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou is found right here, so check ‘em all out and I am sure that you will get my drift. ^-^=b !

With all of that, Dragon Dancer potentially has the many makings of the *very first* true bona-fide vertical scrolling manic shmup ever created in FreeBASIC! Count on it!!! ;-)

D.J.Peters · Guru

Looks realy cool is it made with your 256 color lib?
Do you have tested fbsound it is fast and good for games like yours?

Joshy

Adigun A. Polack · Posted: Jul 29, 2006 2:10 Post subject: Let us answer some questions, shall we?

D.J.Peters, as part of your interesting little reply, you wrote:

Robert Claypool · Posted: Jul 30, 2006 7:05 Post subject: Source code release?

Will the source code be released?

Adigun A. Polack · Posted: Aug 01, 2006 3:43 Post subject: And my answer here is....

At the moment, Robert, no. The source code will not be released here.

As for the Linux version of Dragon Dancer, that can be arranged on a later version (when more areas of the game are complete). If I can, I will let you know more about it, ok? ;)

Robert Claypool · Posted: Aug 01, 2006 4:02 Post subject: Why

I hate it when people come into a board for an open source project and drum up enthusiasm for their non-open source project just because it's made with that open source tool. Then there's the whole if the source hasn't been released nobody can offer suggestions on the code thing. It's frustrating. It was even frustrating when people posted their closed source projects on boards for fans of the closed-source QB.

relsoft · Master

Adigun A. Polack · Posted: Aug 01, 2006 16:40 Post subject: At this point, here are my words.

I am in a serious bind right now, so here is what I am thinking.

At first, I originally did not intend on making the game Dragon Dancer an open-sourced project at all, nor did I want to give the source code away here, and it was all because I first thought that it will be against my will for me to do that. But, I do not want to be pressured into this, so I want to make sure I get this situation straightened properly.

So my question is this: on my next release (or from now on, rather), should I really make this game an open-source project?

Your thoughts, guys. ^-^

(And by the way, as hard as it is for me today, I am *pretty much* in agreement with Rel and Robert here. I did not want to face that at first, but my agreement here with the pair of them stands. End of story. :) ! )

P.S. And another thing, now that I have written this post, I am just now thinking along the lines of making this project open-source, on the purpose of porting this game to Linux and other OSes, which is a good thing actually. And I am not even upset over it, either. Just cheerful. ;-)