Comments - DavidCollins

Try this out! Gamejolt.com

New update! This should be the definitive version for a while. Next update will be larger, but I wanted to address some immediate concerns with the game to give it just enough polish that I can confidently show it off in this state without it being too embarrassingly bad.

New update is out! Like always, be sure to leave feedback if you try it.

I appreciate the watch for Foxhole!

Thanks for the track on Foxhole!

Thanks! I'll be back to work tomorrow. First task is to add some new enemies. I'm sure just having one thing to shoot was a bit disappointing.

Foxhole: Scrapshoot is now on IndieDB!

It took me a few weeks to understand what you meant by that comment.

No, my sideproject is not based on building vehicles out of parts. But there is a good bit of building to be had.

Actually, I cheated and started a side-project. Something a tad less ambitious than HZO, but I'll return to HZO before too long.

Sometime soon, you may see this side-project on indieDB as well.

Just checking in to say I'm alive. Life gets in the way of these kinds of projects, but I plan to get back to this soon.

I do want there to be some sort of local multiplayer.

I'd make online multiplayer, but I don't have the resources to upkeep such a system. Oh well.

I also plan some modding stuff down the line. It will be relatively simple to add new content.

If I ever need any more people on the HZO team I'll post about it here.

Just got back from a four day trip. Should be back in working condition tomorrow.

No. The editor let's you place parts of the aircraft in whatever configuration you like. There are frames, wings, cockpits, weapons, and more to come later on. Each part you place, however, affects the aircraft's stats. You have to consider weight capacity, heat, armor, etc.

In-game, parts can be shot off individually (this goes for enemies as well). When a part is destroyed, so are all the parts attached to it. And if for instance, your propeller/jet/whatever is shot off (they reduce weight) and that causes your plane to go over its weight capacity, then you'll crash.

I plan to take advantage of this system to make larger enemies and bosses that have weakpoints. Although I also want to make most bosses use a separate system than the actual planes, to make things interesting here and there.

Thank you, stranger! And by the way, you CAN make your own enemies. Simply overwrite the enemy files. Save backups of the old ones if want to keep them of course. Or just download the game again.

Huh... making a shop menu is going to be easier than I thought.
Half the UI elements I programmed for the editor menu will work nicely as-is for the Shop menues.

Neat.

As a side-effect of parts being stored in memory differently to get ready for the license system, they are now all in alphabetical order. Exciting!

This will make large lists of parts easier to look through in-game. Before, parts were shown in the order that I added them to the project resources.

Okay, did some weapon balance, increased ship speed cap, and added the ability to change what layer a part is placed or have it placed in a layer automatically (as was done before).

I think what I'll do next is implement the part license system. The plan is: to gain access to a part in Hangar Zero-One's shop, you must buy its license first. License shops will be littered around the game world. I already have some names for the franchises you'll encounter.

-Prof. Preston's Propulsories

-Bon Chassis

-A.R.M.S. (Aeronautic Retaliatory Merchandise Services)

-Wingworld

-The Pits

-CheapCo Discount Emporium

Bet you'll never guess which shop carries which kinds of parts...

Alright, I'll put in a temporary hotkey for using the old loading code. But on the next next version I'd deactivate it.

1. Then I may adjust those weapons accordingly.

2. I can do this pretty easily, but it would require me to break previous aircraft files to make room for that piece of data. Better sooner than later I suppose. I'll consider adding this.

3. It won't be like that later. It's like that now so that I could test the movement of the world map when NOT encountering an enemy. It's just set to a random chance for now. When the adventure mode is closer to completion, I imagine there will be more measurable reasons for encountering a random mission like that. Perhaps something like GTA's wanted level...

4. I thought it might be. Will raise it.

Your suggestions are invaluable!

Got some work done today.

-Slightly better crashing. (I will never be satisfied with these effects)
-Map Editor now works
-Terrain in missions is now offset in the heightmap based on where you're traveling across on the world map.
-Music fading function added
-Added the ability to undo changes in the aircraft editor, the undo states are kept on a stack. This allows for infinite undos. However, computers don't have infinite memory, so that could be a problem if you try to do WAY too much in the editor.

And that's what I can remember that I did today...

Thanks, man! It helps to have someone give their 2 cents on balance and stuff.
You've been like my "other brain" for this whole thing so far.

Woah. 2k visits.

I promised myself I'd take a break after each release to keep myself from burning out. But screw that.

I messed with the enemy A.I. They no longer bunch up together (which caused exponential amounts of unnecessary collision detection lag), they swing around a little less, and will move faster if fired upon.

What OS are you using? Do you have a wired Xbox 360 controller hooked into it? There's an unfortunately unfixable issue related to Vista and 360 controller drivers that slows the game down considerably. I know because I have this problem.

If you do happen to have that setup, switch to a fresh new/unused user account and your framerate should be back to normal.

If anyone else has fps issues, please let me know and give details about when or how it slows down.

Oh wow. Didn't know individual shots could get comments.

Anyway yeah, I painted this up in PaintTool Sai.

HZO v0.6a is now on its way to indieDB.

In the meantime, you can download it here: Multiupload.com

Added some new weapons and effects.

After tweaking a few more things I think I'll release v0.6a. It won't have adventure mode stuff or saving yet, but I'm hoping you'll find the new visual enhancements to die for.

After that I'll add in some adventurin' stuff, pinky promise.

Added shadows. Nice ones too. The shadows are all painted to a single surface in video memory, so no transparency overlap. And the shadows are offset based on the position and height of the object, to make things look more 3D.

Next I'll add some nicer explosion and smoke effects.

BAM! POW!
TAKE THAT, PERFORMANCE BUGS!

I removed some slow and mostly-unnecessary joystick state-checking functions that were done each frame as well as loading files needed before-hand instead of right when they needed to be used each time (for instance enemy aircraft files).

Only downside is that if you unplug your joypad in the middle of playing, terrible, terrible things may happen.

As a result, potential framerate has been doubled, although still capped at 60fps, because HZO does not implement framerate independence. And I don't have a CRT monitor anyway. What is this, the 90's?

...I miss the 90's...

I just now fixed that control bug.
It had nothing to do with the keymapping code, but rather the config file, when loaded under certain conditions, skipped a piece of data in the queue, and that caused the control mapping to be offset.