Blog for Chris Haigler at GarageGames.com

Bit Battles: March in Review

Chris Haigler — 2008-04-02T19:27:21+00:00

["What's Bit Battles?" you say? Visit Fanatical Games for the answer!]

A bit late on this one. Unfortunately it's been a busy month filled with quite a long list of non-game development "stuff." Nevertheless, March was an important milestone for Bit Battles as the closed beta officially began! Armed with a modest group of testers, I set out on a mission to slay bugs, fix problems and generally get the game done. Here's the up-and-down story of my month-long adventure...

At the beginning of the month I talked about how the beta would be conducted. This largely meant structuring the test using a series of phases, each lasting approximately one week. The phases would act as guidelines for the testers to focus their attention on certain aspects of the game. While they could certainly test any part of the game they wanted, the goal was to encourage all of them to test specific portions of particular interest to me. As each phase concluded, I asked them to do a small write up summarizing their thoughts.

Sounded like a great idea that seemed to work well right off the beta; within the week I pushed out the second beta build of the game which contained quite a few fixes, many of which were found by the testers. For more info about the way I structured the beta, click here.

By week two, things were really going well. The team had found a slew of minor issues which I had taken care of. And then we hit a snag. One of the testers found a way to exploit the vehicle collision system and "warp" through the walls in the training levels. Not good! After a ton of hair pulling, I managed to get the exploit sorted. Luckily all it took was a bit of tinkering with the vehicle datablocks and the collision hull. More about my near death experience can be found here.

Week three was all about maintaining motivation, both for myself and the testers. After a week of dead silence on the forums and setting up the first "official" multiplayer test of the game only to have no participation, things were looking grim. All of the folks who had so eagerly offered feedback the week before had mysteriously vanished. Some had taken the time to sign up and get accepted to the beta only to never return to actually test the game! By week's end I was both frustrated and more than a little discouraged. More about this here.

As the month came to a close and with still no word from any of the testers, I offered more thoughts on the disappointing participation and look ahead to April, a crucial month for Bit Battles and the MyDreamRPG contest. I briefly talk about focusing on the slew of non-development "stuff" required to get the game done as well as a potential solution to the beta testing problem. For more, click here.

[Miscellaneous Links of Interest]
Fanatical Games
Bit Battles Development Blog
Bit Battles GGE Page

Bit Battles: February in Review (Beta!)

Chris Haigler — 2008-03-01T17:58:03+00:00

[Don't know what Bit Battles is? Visit Fanatical Games to find out more!]

February's gone but the fun is just starting. Bit Battles has now reached beta status and I've put out a call to arms for any able (and willing) body to help me test it. If you're interested, hop on over to the sign up thread.

In the meantime, here's what's been happening over the past month:

At the beginning of the month I was hard at work getting Bit Battles ready for the InstantAction contest. This meant tons of testing, miscellaneous cleanups and bug fixes. I also implemented motion trails for the hovertanks which I'd been wanting to do for a while. They not only look nice but aid players in leading their targets. Graphics AND gameplay!

Looking back, the first week of February was all about setting up for the weeks ahead. While development had certainly slowed, things were only getting more chaotic. As it turns out, there's a lot of "stuff" to do in order to get a public release of a game ready. Who knew? To read more, click here.The second week was more of the same. As the IA deadline loomed just around the corner, I began focusing on actually getting a release candidate ready. This meant writing a simple manual, doing some housekeeping on the data directory to make sure only the required assets were shipped, getting the dedicated server working and, as always, testing and bug fixes.

In midst of all of this, I had to come to the painful realization that I'm a one-man team and didn't have the motivation or the time to get the final map ready for either the IA or the MyDreamRPG contest. So, I decided to cut it. With Access Denied off of my todo list, I suddenly found myself with a feature-complete game. To top it off, I had more time to advertise, polish, test and fix. It was a good trade-off in the end.

Apart of the advertising effort was setting up a GGE page for Bit Battles. You can find that by clicking here. Also, Phil Jones of Tank Universal fame stumbled upon the game and liked it enough to setup a link trade. TRON-ish games unite! You can find a link to Phil's website by visiting the Fanatical Games Links section. For more info about this week, click here.

The third week saw the IA contest come and go. No finalist spot for Bit Battles which was a fairly demoralizing turn of events. Nevertheless, the game was better for being entered as it helped push it to beta. Development was halted long enough to start accepting beta testers. Once the logistics of that were taken care of, it was back to the grind. For more info about this week, click here.

And with the month winding down, I found myself back to doing all the other, non-development "stuff" needed before releasing the game. On my todo list: a new manual, a dedicated Bit Battles website and actually conducting a useful beta! To read more about my rush to the finish line, click here.

Well, that's all for me. Remember to sign up for the beta if you haven't already done so. Fanatical Games wants you!

Bit Battles: January in Review

Chris Haigler — 2008-01-31T19:50:09+00:00

[Bit Battles is a multiplayer-only vehicular combat game currently in development by Fanatical Games. Visit Fanatical Games for more information.]

Anyone else hear that? That'd be the sound of time flying by. We're now at roughly two months and counting until the MyDreamRPG contest deadline and a mere week away from the end of the InstantAction contest. With time dwindling down, things are getting hectic here at Fanatical Games so let's not waste any time. Here's the rundown of what's been happening this month.

At the start of January I kicked into "polishing mode" and went through a few rounds of revision on various GUI and HUD interfaces. Despite the ultimately boring but necessary nature of the work, by the time I was through, the GUI had seen a complete graphical overhaul and some much-needed usability features (server favorites and a demo/recording playback HUD) were added. In addition, a proper end-map summary screen was added that shows which team won along with player scores, kills and deaths. For more info on my polishing frenzy, click here.

By the second week I started to realize just how little time was left and committed myself to getting the fifth map, SegFault, to a playable state. In reality this meant making a map from scratch (a process which usually takes around a month) in only a week. Easier said than done. Thankfully, by taking full advantage of the weekend and some clever task shuffling I managed to pull it off. Although not polished, SegFault was up and running. To read more about frantic week of development, click here.

[Screenshot of SegFault. Click to enlarge (1280 x 1024 version!)]

As January started to wind down, the final map, Access Denied, was on deck. Unfortunately, I fell into a bit of a mapping rut and hit a few speedbumps (bugs!) that made me realize, among other things, just how invaluable outside/external testers are. With work on Access Denied stalling and a rather serious bug still needing a fix the week was nearly lost. To hear more about how I ran face-first into a brickwall and then looked for ways around, through or over it, click here.

With the end of January in sight and some very real deadlines coming up, I decided to refocus my efforts and press on. This meant putting Access Denied on the backburner which freed up some time to work on some nifty special effects, along with the usual testing and bufixing routine. I also talk about the increasing importance of advertising the game and what short-term changes will occur as a result. To hear more about how I finished the month by getting back on track, click here.

Bit Battles: December in Review (Screenshots!)

Chris Haigler — 2007-12-30T07:06:15+00:00

[Bit Battles is a multiplayer-only vehicular combat game currently in development by Fanatical Games. Visit Fanatical Games for more information.]

The countdown to beta stage has begun and boy, time is getting scarce. With so much left to do before the tentative February beta it's time to kick things into overdrive and get this game done. But first, here's a rundown of what's been happening at Fanatical Games.

In my last .plan I discussed working on the offline/singleplayer training campaign for Bit Battles. At the start of the month I had managed to make the AI drones just smart enough to allow me to move forward with creating the actual training levels. In my blog post titled You Put Your Left Foot In..., I talk setting a few specific guidelines for myself to follow while creating the training campaign. These guidelines were aimed at helping me make the tutorial levels fun enough to hold a player's attention while simultaneously teaching them how to play.

Things got a bit more interesting as progress on the first two training maps progressed. In Unintential Conditionals I talk about some of the pitfalls involved in tacking a singleplayer component on to a multiplayer-only game. In my case, it meant changing some fairly fundamental code to deal with unexpected (and unintentional) situations. On the bright side, the first two training maps were nearly completed and the AI drones, which had given me some trouble back in November, were finally capable of putting up a decent fight (and by decent I mean entirely capable of kicking my butt!).

Then the month took a turn for the chaotic. My nice, neat todo list was thrown out the window and instead I focused my efforts on doing as much "stuff" as possible in the shortest amount of time. In Multitasking I discuss how I updated the Fanatical Games website with new Bit Battles screenshots, got the third training mission to the design phase, fixed more bugs than you can shake a stick at, played artist and updated some aging art assets and roughed out the terrain for the fifth multiplayer map called SegFault. Phew!

Finally, with the holidays freeing up some time to work on the game, the end of the month saw me being cautiously (nervously!) optimistic about reaching beta status by February. In a post titled Betanoia - Possessing a Fear of Reaching Beta I discuss my todo list for January, talk about finishing the last three of the training levels (woohoo!), mention adding in some easy engine optimizations, reworking a few more art and sound assets, and preparing to work on the last two multiplayer maps.

It's certainly been a busy month and January is set to be more of the same. With all of that said, let's get to the real reason anyone reads these things: screenshots! [Click the thumbnails to view hi-res versions]

A little battle on second training level. Of course, I missed but that pesky bot hit me dead-on. Lucky shot, I say...

Bit Battler defending a Capture Pylon for the Red team on the map Gateway. Reinforcements for both teams are just around the corner...

After losing control of the Pylon, Bit Battler decides to join the Green team. If you can't beat em', join em'.

Bit Battler capturing and defending the Central Capture Pylon for the Green team. Traitor!

Bit Battles: November in Review

Chris Haigler — 2007-12-01T18:55:07+00:00

[Bit Battles is a multiplayer-only game currently in development by Fanatical Games. Visit FanaticalGames.com for more information.]

Another busy month gone, four more to go. Here's what's been going on this month:

At the beginning of the month the Fanatical Games website got an update. The 'In Development' section was replaced by a cleaner, simpler 'Games' page and a new 'Community' area linking players to the Fanatical Games' forums was added. On the development side of things, progress got a boost as a result of switching to a weekly todo list system. The multiplayer map 'Gateway' was taken from rough draft to semi-final state and slew of related tasks and bugfixes took place. Read more about the week's activities, as well as my spiel about the motivational effects of being able to measure weekly progress via a tasklist system here.

Week two saw me finishing up the odds and ends of Gateway. The terrain layout and design was done, objectives, powerups and team bases were added in. In addition to mapping, a change in game design took place: hazard zones were removed. Hazard zones were intended to be areas on a map that negatively impacted players that entered them. Unfortunately, the implementation of them wasn't much fun and so a decision had to be made to either keep them (and take time from other tasks to redesign them) or simply cut my losses and move on. And lastly, to top it off, more bugfixes (partially a result of making such a far-reaching design change this late in the cycle). To read more about the fun I had this week, go here.

Despite Thanksgiving and moving taking up most of my time, Bit Battles still moved a few more steps toward completion. The goal for this week was to finish a backlog of GUI work ranging from a new options dialog to a player profile section. In addition to that, I wanted to switch gears and delve into working on the offline training/tutorial campaign. Little did I know that my first attempt at AI programming would produce some of the dumbest bots ever to grace a videogame. To read my mammoth update and learn all about the successes and pitfalls of the week, click here.

Finally, as the end of the month approached, I was determined to get the AI (or lack thereof) working. This meant coming up with a good solution to pathfinding, teaching the bots to aim properly and defining exactly what they should be capable of doing. You can find out more about my battle with computer-controlled players in the ongoing section now (lovingly) titled "Offline Woes and Foes" by clicking here.

Bit Battles: October in Review

Chris Haigler — 2007-10-31T21:56:57+00:00

[Learn more about Bit Battles at Fanatical Games]

Has another month come and gone already? Time flies when you're kneck-deep in development with deadlines and scheduling conflicts looming overhead. Bit Battles has reached the dreaded 'slogging' stage; with the major engine features done what's left are the time-consuming tasks of taking bug fixing, balancing and... making actual game content. Progress at this stage is almost always measured in baby steps which takes a toll of motivation and makes the task of writing about progress (in a blog-style format, of course!) especially difficult. On the bright side, baby steps are better than none at all so with that said, let's review what took place in the world of Bit Battles this month.

The month started off to an unusually slow start. Where September ended, October began. Fragmentation was still not finished despite being two weeks past the deadline. The map had a completed terrain and geometry layout but still lacked objectives, powerups, hazard zones and team bases/spawnpoints (read as: everything that actually makes a level a level!).

As the first week droned on, Fragmentation found its legs. Team bases were setup so players could finally spawn in and Capture & Hold Capture Pylons were placed. Powerup and hazard zones were still to be done. In the meantime, I began some preliminary "roughing-out" work on Gateway, the next map. I talked about this in more detail here.

A look at Fragmentation, the latest completed map for Bit Battles.

With the second week gone, Fragmentation was finally, at long last, completed! Powerups were placed and hazard zones were thrown in.

The third week saw my focus shift to Gateway. I spent most of the week fleshing out the backstory and further developing the overall map theme. Gateway represents a sector of the network where a sudden hardware failure has caused routing failure and packet collisions. As a result, much of the sector is being destroyed by 'rogue' packets crashing into the landscape. Early concepts for the map fit well with the theme by being decidedly 'post-apocalyptic' in nature; the terrain is dotted with craters, structures have been reduced to rubble, etc. I discuss this further at the Bit Battles development blog located here.

And finally, with the end of the month fast approaching, it was time for even more fun. I spent much of this week revamping, reworking and generally redoing two of the five powerups in the game. The Quick Stop and Super Jump powerups were replaced with Energy Boost and Shockwave, respectively. Unlike their predecessors, these new powerups serve a purpose, offer a unique advantage to the player adventurous enough to grab them and they're just fun to use. Read more about this here.

Bit Battler using a Shockwave powerup. Luckily, no one was nearby...

Bit Battles: September in Review

Chris Haigler — 2007-10-01T19:47:15+00:00

[Bit Battles? Huh? Learn more at: www.fanaticalgames.com]

With September now gone, it's time to review the progress made on Bit Battles.

I talked in my previous .plan about finishing up Power Failure, one of the maps in Bit Battles. As September began, my focus was on starting the next map, aptly named Fragmentation. First up: fleshing out the backstory. This involved expanding the two or three sentence description offered in the design doc into something more concrete. As always, the goal of creating a backstory is to, in a paragraph or so, answer two questions: where the map is/what sector of the network it represents and why the two teams are attacking it. Answering those two questions is usually a fairly simple matter and the resulting paragraph makes a nice intro for the load screen. I talk more about getting the backstory fleshed out here.

With the map description now complete, it was time to start working on the required art content. All of the level geometry needed to fill the map needed to be modeled and textured before things could really begin to take shape. To fit with the map theme of fragmented files/broken pieces of data, several models such as towering cracked obelisks, fractured cubes, etc. were made. I talk more about this here and here.

As the month progressed, art content was slowly finished and a series of revisions took place on Fragmentation. The map went from a simple concept in the design doc to a simple level with terrain (rough draft version) to a more complete map with terrain (first revision) and, finally, a completed level terrain and detail geometry (second revision). I go into much more detail about each step of the revision process here and here and here.

So that's the rundown of the past month's progress. Where September leaves off, October starts so until next time!

Bit Battles: August in Review

Chris Haigler — 2007-08-31T20:39:28+00:00

[Asking yourself, "What's Bit Battles?" Find out more at: Fanatical Games]

Another busy month gone with many more on the horizon. Here's a quick summary of what's been happening at Fanatical Games:
-player feedback implemented to solidfy the gameplay experience and generally make things easier to play (and harder to master, hopefully!)
-substantial game design changes leading Bit Battles further into the "vehicular combat" genre and away from "bumpercars... in TRON!" genre (does that even exist?)
-revision of art content; everything from geometry textures to HUD images were tweaked/cleaned up
-level design went into full swing; Power Failure, the next map, went from an initial design in the design doc to a completed (first version) map

At the beginning of the month, I continued the process of reviewing player feedback and implementing important suggestions. During this, I realized that player vs. player combat in Bit Battles wasn't quite living up to expectations. Previously, the game had a "bumpercar" feel in that there was no concept of health/lives and, as such, there was no way to destroy or kill an enemy hovertank. The game was more about staying in position and not being "punted" out of the way by an opponent. Such a system worked fine back in the early prototype days when Bit Battles was meant to be a futuristic bumpercar game but the game had progressed since then and no longer fit that description. In short, not being able to destroy enemy hovertanks was just going against the grain of what players expected.

The remedy was to remove the punting and "no health/no death" systems. This ultimately moved Bit Battles closer to the what it was already becoming: a vehicular combat game. Early playtests are showing this was definitely the right decision; the game meets player expectations. I talked about this in detail here and here.

In conjunction with the design changes, some much-needed quality of life changes were added. Namely, capture "auras" for powerups denoting which team has access to them and a revamping of the waypoint HUD to allow for dynamically creating waypoints to specific players, objects, etc. This was discussed in detail here.

As the month continued, things were progressing on the art revision and level design fronts. The tweaking of interface/HUD graphics resulted in a much neater, cleaner look that fit better with the digital theme of the game. The next map, Power Failure, went through a rough draft and two revisions before finally reaching the (tentative) "complete" status. I go into much more detail about this here and here and here.

And finally, a couple screenshots from the Capture & Hold version of Power Failure. [Click images for high-res versions.]

Assaulting a failing Power Supply Unit.

Trying to recapture the middle Capture Pylon. Reinforcements... please?!

Bit Battles: The Month in Review

Chris Haigler — 2007-07-25T20:04:37+00:00

[Don't know what Bit Battles is? Find out more at: Fanatical Games]

Phew! It's been a busy month and much has happened with Bit Battles since the last update.

The Find & Retrieve gametype was implemented. The goal of this gametype is for players to scour the map searching for objects known as Nanites. Once one is found, a player can pick it up and return it to a Nanite Reclaimer at their team's base. Capturing a Nanite awards the team a point bonus and brings them one step closer to winning the map. The team that captures all of the Nanites or reaches a set number of points first wins. F&R is a strategic affair as captured Nanites can be stolen by enemy players. Both offense and defense plays an important role. I talk about this in more detail here: Bit Battles Blog: June 27 (Profiling Performance, Please!)

Fanatical Games finally got a home: www.fanaticalgames.com The Bit Battles development blog was also updated to coincide with the new Fanatical Games site layout: bitbattles.blogspot.com

A second round of closed testing was done earlier in the month. A select few got to try out the game for the first time and offer (much appreciated!) feedback. Seeing people play the game for the first time, easily pick it up and then continue playing for hours is a really great feeling.

As a result of player feedback, a waypoint system was implemented to make navigating around the map easier. This was a bit of a "d'oh!" moment for me as the issue of getting lost in the world was something I had made note of back in the prototyping phase. I attempted to address it by adding a radar HUD but that did little to solve the issue. The new waypoint system draws icons on the screen that point to specific areas in the world (as defined by map creators). I talk about this further here: Bit Battles Blog: July 4 (Kickin' Butt, Chewin' Gum) and here: Bit Battles Blog: July 19 (Waypoints and Power Failure)

And most recently, work on the second map, named Power Failure, has begun. Power Failure is a sector of the network where one of the Power Supply Units has awry. The powered down state has left a whole in the network defenses and both teams move in to try and stake a foothold before the Network Admins can restore power. Track my progress here: July 25 (It's All in the Look)

Bit Battles, Screenshots and Prototyping Early

Chris Haigler — 2007-06-13T15:59:51+00:00

[For more information regarding Bit Battles, visit the game blog here]

Two months into development on Bit Battles and things are progressing nicely. What started out as nothing more than a test of a multiplayer bumpercars concept has turned into a full-fledged vehicular combat game set in a TRON-esque world. That's a fairly big leap in just two months! So how did I get from there to here? Prototyping.

The real story behind the game so far has been the design methodology. This is the first project where I'm using a top-down or iterative approach to development. It means getting core functionality in place early and prototyping often. Thus far, it's really payed off!

As mentioned, the concept behind the game at first was simply multiplayer bumpercars; teams of players crashing into each other while trying to complete gametype objectives (capture a point, grab a flag, etc.). The first prototype was nothing more than a hovervehicle skimming across the starter.fps terrain. Each iteration grew increasingly complex; sort of like building a house starting with the foundation. Later versions added teams, objectives, powerups and hazard zones.

The true advantage of taking an iterative approach is that you're able to find design flaws early, avoiding serious (potentially devastating) problems down the road. As an example, the initial design was based on the idea of players ramming into each other and the fun physics that occurred afterward but early testing showed this wasn't much fun. Ramming resulted in some nasty camera jitters, unexpected collision reactions, etc. Later designs replaced the concept of ramming by giving players a weapon (known as a forcebolter which fires, unsurprisingly, forcebolts). These "forcebolts" would punt players out of the way. The idea was the same -- forcefully moving enemies out of the way -- but the implementation changed from ramming to shooting and was much more fun overall. Had such a core gameplay piece been found to be "unfun" later on, the game would most likely have been scrapped altogether.

Another advantage is that early prototyping and the fluid design that goes along with it allows for some interesting gameplay options. Adding the forcebolter and forcebolts opened the door for hazard zones; sections of the map that negatively impact players that enter them (i.e. draining energy, slowing speed and so on). Hazard zones inadvertently created a "subgame" or "mini-game" whereby players would attempt to push each other into the hazards, potentially allowing a powerup to be grabbed or an objective to be captured. Early testing revealed some fun gameplay additions that would not have been discovered otherwise.

But enough of that, it's screenshot time! These are showing off a map known as The Breach which depicts a section in the network infected by a virus. With the network defenses down, the Red and Green teams move in to try and stake a foothold in the area...

First-person view from a Red player's perspective. You can see the Red hovertank firing a forcebolt at a Green enemy. In the distance, a Capture Pylon objective ready to be captured!

Third-person view from a Red player's perspective. Lining up a shot on the Green Meanie!

Observer view of The Breach. In the distance, the remnants of the mighty firewalls and two Capture Pylons.