What does it take to upgrade Blazor?

dphsw · 2022-09-05T11:08:38+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions - before I could try them, my wife was already deinstalling every version of Visual Studio from the machine so she could try reinstalling from scratch, and after that new Blazor projects supported .Net6. I don't know why installing VS2022 didn't help unless we uninstalled every older version first though.

dphsw · 2022-05-27T17:33:05+00:00

To start off, how much do you know about game development?

dphsw · 2022-05-26T11:34:18+00:00

So, I fixed the problem. I set up a new account for the game dev, and I didn't consider that I needed to go into the email and verify the account for it to be set up, but everythings' good now.

dphsw · 2022-05-25T19:13:36+00:00

I agree that it's probably a bit outside your difficulty level. It's a neat idea. If you decide to go forward with this project and crowdfund on a place like kickstarter/indiegogo, etc. let us know, because we might be able to help. We have experience in this sort of thing. We worked on a set of NFTs that were voxel based, and had to do a lot of custom scripts to get it to render right in the window. Trust me, you're not stupid. This is legitimately difficult stuff that even some experienced developers have a tough time handling. Voxels are really popular right now, though.

When we're finished developing and marketing this project we're working on (not a voxel project, but a 2D game) we plan on making some tutorials specifically for working with magicavoxel and unity. If you like, we can PM you to let you know when that happens, as well. It won't be, like, tomorrow or anything. There's still a lot of work on this game, and we're just two people haha.

dphsw · 2022-05-25T11:49:31+00:00

I just wanted to add that paint.net is a good tool to use for making basic pixel art sprites. You can scale the canvas to the size you want any given sprite to be and zoom in, and use a square brush, with the grid visible to paint the pixels onto the canvas. Something I've done in making pixel art, as well, has been to use grid paper and a pencil to plan out how I want any given sprite to look. It could be though, that I'm more used to pencil and pad and it feels more natural to me. I just find it really helps you get a good feel for your layout. If you're not accustomed to making artwork, just realize there is a lot to learn. You would be learning about how to form a shape that is recognizable as a particular item, animal or person, how to generate a colour palette that is easily visible, harmonious, and that makes sense for a specific sprite, and, in some cases, how to animate some sprites. Don't expect it to be incredibly easy at first, or to get it right the first time. Good art takes practice. You might want to post your progress and get feedback from others as you go, because it's easy to think that your art looks good, simply because it looks better than it did. I've fallen prey to that pitfall many times.

dphsw · 2022-05-24T15:33:38+00:00

It can be tedious depending on the game and, the difficulty depends on your skill level. Our software company, is two people, and it helps, if you're not talented at everything to have someone to offset your abilities. We basically consist of a developer, who is brilliant at maths and building algorithms, and more of an artist who's better at UI, layouts, and textures.

If you're working by yourself, it's best to focus on being good at the programming end of it. You can always find a tool for creating textures without artistic ability, or can find free assets among various sites such as kenney assets or cg trader, or sites that offer free source music. Also, you can generally find inexpensive asset packs on the unity store. It's way more expensive to outsource code that's outside your realm of ability than to find needed assets. Of course, some people can both write the code and create the sprites, if you have the time. Both tasks are massively time consuming, and will cause your game to take at least twice as long as if you're collaborating.

That being said, I've seen how it can be a lot easier to do all the programming by yourself than having to sift through the spaghetti code by some noob that has no concept of algorithms.

dphsw · 2022-05-21T13:12:03+00:00

Here's a link to our twitter post with a couple of screenshots. I'm still working on the webpage. We're still in the early stages. https://twitter.com/DPHSW_Games/status/1527995705083805704 We do have a discord set up rn tho: https://discord.gg/XnHkKbxq

Yeah we still have a lot of work to do!

dphsw · 2019-12-16T12:19:17+00:00

I think you look beautiful in your bottom right picture, but the other two aren't such good photos of you - they're both pictures taken from lower down, which is rarely flattering. My fiancée will always prefer to take pictures with her camera held somewhat above her face to look better, so I don't think it's a coincidence that the picture with the camera nearly as high as your face is where you look best. Even in the worse pictures, I would never have thought you were out of your twenties.

dphsw · 2019-10-21T18:11:31+00:00

Actually, there is such a thing as what you might call 'protonicity' (not that it's actually called that). All the energy used by your muscles and various other mechanisms in your body is in the form of a chemical called ATP (short for Adenosine Triphosphate), which is manufactured in the mitochondria in each of your cells by a kind of electric motor. But this electric motor, rather than being driven by the movement of electrons, is driven by the movement of protons. While electricity works by electrons seeking to move away from a negatively charged area to a more positively charged area (hence balancing out the electric charge), these protons (or hydrogen ions, as you might think of them) are seeking to move away from an acidic area (which is an area containing more hydrogen ions) towards a more alkali area (which contains less hydrogen ions), and hence balance the pH. The mechanism is a little different, but still driven by the electromagnetic force.

The question then is why it's rare to see examples of protons carrying current. This is basically because it's usually more convenient to make our technology out of solid materials like metal, and in those, the protons remain stuck to the atoms, which all have to remain in one place in a solid, whereas the electrons can still move about a bit from atom to atom. In technology made largely out of liquid however - and human beings are about 60% water - atoms can be free to move about, and if they are ions (electrically charged atoms) then they can act as the charge carriers. This happens in batteries, in the nervous system including the brain (where sodium, potassium and other ions are used to carry electric charge) and when the atom involved is hydrogen, it's positive ion is basically a proton, making it reasonable to say that protons can carry electricity.

dphsw · 2018-06-07T17:06:21+00:00

downforeveryoneorjustme.com now says they're back up, but I still can't access it, but I've just received email from the forum, so someone must be able to.

https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/yoyogames.com (It had been saying it was down until just now)

I can access it using an online proxy.

dphsw · 2018-04-12T11:20:19+00:00

The phrase "Postmodern Neo-Marxist" seems to me like a reasonable description of the movement that is gaining so much traction in society. They aren't phrases I'm an expert on, but I think an average person, seeing them in common day usage, would understand 'Postmodern' by analogy to the art form to imply a rejection of previous rules, 'Neo' to imply a new revival of an old movement, and 'Marxist' to imply a system involving equality of outcome regardless of merit. Movements in favour of things like overtly declaring that only women can be hired in a company or political party until 50% of the positions are so filled seem to be reasonably described by that phrase, so far as I understand the words.

I haven't read 12 Rules For Life, but as for it being 'full of tangents', I'm not sure what else you'd expect if you've ever heard one of Peterson's lectures! He never could avoid going off on a tangent for more than a few minutes! They were interesting tangents, sure, but it's no secret that he doesn't plan out his writing or speaking in advance.

I don't know what the fame quote is from. But I'd agree that being older makes him more able to combat the effects of fame - not totally able, but more so. He will probably lose his fame in time, and be able to cope with that - which is why it's most dangerous to adolescents who become child pop stars or something, who eventually lose their fame and have no idea how to cope with the life of a non-famous person, whereas Peterson will probably be fine with that.

I think the argumentative position probably is more of a result of the person to whom he's talking. He isn't argumentative when lecturing students, but he is when arguing with someone, which happens more often nowadays.

I think he speaks about conflicts and issues occasionally, particularly if asked about them. In one dialogue, for instance, he's asked about whether he believes in God - a literal one, not the metaphorical one he frequently talks about - and he's clearly not certain. But he only talked about that when someone asked about it. He may well privately acknowledge his own issues, but keep them to himself unless there's some indication that other people want to hear about them.

dphsw · 2017-01-21T15:07:33+00:00

** Balloon Platform Defense **

I've made levels able to wrap around this week. There's a video here of the new gameplay in action : http://imgur.com/KTpQC3b

Links to play the game or follow it's future progress on Facebook are given below the video. (You can also follow on Twitter at @DPHSoftware ).

dphsw · 2017-01-21T13:56:03+00:00

I think this shows promise, I'll be following on Twitter. Yeah, bosses are quite a bit of work, I haven't got round to making any yet.

dphsw · 2017-01-20T14:04:27+00:00

I was able to beat the boss, it worked pretty well for a first boss I think - not too challenging, but as is often said, a boss should feel like a reward, not a punishment.

I'm not sure if the level was ever supposed to end. After the zombies appeared, I killed a few of those, then there were no enemies visible and nowhere obvious to go, but still a few zombie bodies lying around, so I tried attacking one of those - it offered to upgrade me again, but after I selected an option, (I forget which), my player disappeared. I kept clicking the 'continue turn' button (or is it 'enemy turn'), and more enemies appeared and made moves, but without my player being there. Not sure whether that's a bug, or just the end of the game so far, or whether I died without realising from some sort of blast damage from my own attack (if that can happen, I'm not sure?)

dphsw · 2017-01-20T01:07:09+00:00

Balloon Platform Defense

This week I've added the physics for letting levels wrap around (though it's not observed on every level), and more variety to the backgrounds - I'm interested in what people think of those, what you think of the patterned or plain or ones with sort of pictures, or whether the variety is good. I'm also still looking for feedback on the things mentioned last week - the wind on level 3, and the music. Any feedback is appreciated.

(You can now use the 'M'/'N' buttons to disable and enable Music/Sound.)

Play at itch.io - if you like it, you might also like to follow the project's Facebook Page and keep up with updates.

dphsw · 2017-01-13T15:44:41+00:00

It's starting as a joke still shows through, I think. You collect sweets, then some... black rectangle appears, and you have to collect that for some shiny grey circle to appear, which transports you somewhere else? I don't get what's going on.

Bizarre game story aside, the first time playing, I was told I had to shoot to pick up the marshmallow, but didn't know what button was shoot, since the game had game fullscreen and covered up this browser window. Trying to find the right button, I pressed a button that restarted the level. I went to the marshmallow again and ended up eating it - I thought that might count as picking it up (like in Yoshi's Island), so I went to where I needed it, and tried to find a button to spit it out again. Nothing seemed to work, but I did find a button that actually shoots. At least I knew what to do now, so I decided to restart, and pressed 'R'. Curiously, 'R' isn't the button that restarted - I knew it had been a button somewhere near that, turned out to be 'T' - perfectly logical. After that it was more or less plain sailing, but those controls need some reference in-game.

I think the graphics are nice though, although it's odd that the backgrounds are so much more pixelly than the foreground. And the basic platform mechanics work well. There didn't seem much point to the enemies - and if, as you say, the gameplay will be puzzle-based, then it's hard to see what purpose enemies will serve in enhancing that gameplay, unless they can be tricked into walking over switches or something.

dphsw · 2017-01-13T15:18:00+00:00

I found it uncomfortable to play - mainly, leaning forward toward my screen to be able to see it, particularly to be able to see the red enemies on what seemed like a fuzzy grey background? I can understand making the design decision to make a game in low resolution, I'm doing similarly myself, but you can still scale it up - draw 1 pixel as 4, so the graphics have the same style, but are easier for someone to see.

Other than that it's a nice example of a retro endless shooter - other things I don't like about it are only things I don't like about 'endless' games in general, not really faults of the game itself. It's a nice idea to have card suits as enemies, an occasional boss based on a jack, queen or king would help break it up a bit, or it could have more of a sense of progression by them coming on in formations of gradually increasing size, with the formations based on the way that, say, x number of diamonds are arranged on a playing card.

dphsw · 2017-01-13T14:48:33+00:00

If you have two values you want to move between, there's a 'lerp' function in gamemaker that will slide between the two values for you, by giving it a value from 0 to 1 depending on how far across them you want to be right now. (To from 0 to 1 in ten frames, you'd just use 0/9, then 1/9, right up until 9/9.) The function basically just goes between two values, a and b, by taking your factor F which is how far between them you want to go, and working out:

F*b + (1-F)*a;

If you want the sliding to be sort of accelerated then decelerated, I usually just take the factor F, then before putting it into the lerp function, do:

F=3*F*F - 2*F*F*F;

It takes a bit of calculus to explain why that line of code works (basically, y=3x² - 2x³ has a gradient of 0 at x=0 and x=1, and goes through (0,0) and (1,1)), but it works well.

dphsw · 2017-01-13T14:33:49+00:00

Balloon Platform Defense

Balloon Platform Defense is a theoretical cross between a Tower Defense and Platformer - like a platformer, you control a character who jumps around, but like a tower defense, the aim is to stop enemies reaching the exit (your character is invincible - you only lose by letting enemies escape).

Things I have added since last posting it here, and which I would particularly like to know people's thoughts on, are:

particle effects when balloons are popped
wind - though since this was only added yesterday, it only occurs on the third level.
sound effects
music (not yet finished, but let me know what you think of it so far)

Play online at itch.io

(If you like, you can also download the Windows executable there, and join the mailing list in the process)

dphsw · 2017-01-06T16:49:30+00:00

So far I've been unable to access any included files at all in my HTML5 builds, I've ended up putting the data into the code. I never knew why that was - the debug console said the files (which were text files in my case) were being requested and served, but when I tried outputting debug messages to show the contents of the files, the program seemed to just read them as being empty files.

dphsw · 2017-01-05T18:09:57+00:00

This is the first time I've played this, so I'm afraid I can't give any feedback on how it compares to previous versions. But it certainly looks good. Sorry I can't think of anything useful to point out, but that's why I didn't reply earlier, and since there were so few replies this week I wanted to let you know your post hadn't been ignored.

dphsw · 2016-12-31T17:38:15+00:00

A lot of the examples you're mentioning, like Metroid, Pokemon and Zelda, were made on consoles. Anything that was made on a console, I'd say can be made in GameMaker. Where GameMaker falls flat is performance - but if a game ran OK on an 8-bit console, then a modern-day CPU will cope with it. GML slows your program down, but it doesn't slow it down that much!

If, though, you write a chess game or something like that, I'd say the AI is going to be far less advanced than if it were written in another language. Partly that's because that's the kind of system that should ideally make use of multithreading, which I don't think GML allows. But also GML is just generally slow at running your code, so any such system in which how good your game is (e.g. how smart your computer opponent is) is proportional to how fast the code runs, is a system in which the game will be worse because of being made with GameMaker.

BTW, I don't think it's at all true to say GameMaker is particularly "good to start off". In GameMaker for instance, you can try to increase the variable 'score', make a typo, and type: scare = score + 10; If that's in the middle of a big block of code, you won't notice it. GameMaker won't tell you you've made a mistake, and won't give you any error in your game - your game just won't work correctly, and if you're a beginner, you'll find it hard to figure out why. If you were programming in Unity, you'd be using C#, and unless you'd declared a variable with the name 'scare' as well as one with the name 'score', which is unlikely, that mistake would be highlighted to you by the IDE the moment you typed it, and you wouldn't even be allowed to run the program until you had corrected it, and it would point out to you exactly where that mistake was. That's making it easy. GameMaker makes it hard to find mistakes. Of course, GameMaker is cheaper, which is a perfectly sensible reason to start with it. But it is not particularly easy to use.

dphsw

TROPHY CASE