The Field of Kings Journal

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Postby reneuend » Sat May 12, 2012 12:39 am

when people ask how large of a game can be made with AM, I'll point them to you! :wink:
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Postby Hguols » Tue May 22, 2012 2:00 am

FINALLY! I got the dungeon temple area DONE, as in put in the game and playable. Its tested as well, and only a few minor corrections I had to fix.

My apologies as I had a few delays with hampered game progress. My excuses?

For one, bought a house. Moved into that house. (I have plenty of room as its a 5 bedroom. My wife and I have to look for each other sometimes. That takes time.) For two, my wife just had surgery. Her gall bladder had to go. I neglected my computer to wait on her but she's recovered enough now to be pretty independent. I rekindled my passion for Dark Souls on the PS3. I got to admit - I devoted some time there rather than building this game....
A full time job and life on life's terms, 15 minutes here, 1 hour there, none here... time on the game has been sparse...

However, things should start picking up again.

Including this area the total PSP game size is 77.5mb,
3,312 .a files... 7 areas COMPLETE. 2 to go!

91 different enemies to encounter in the game so far. This counts bosses but does not count NPC or immortal enemies. Every non-boss enemy is encountered twice.

I have a FAQs section up on thefieldofkings.com website. If anyone has any questions about the game, please e-mail me or ask me here! If its not already featured, I'll mention it on the site! (though some of the questions, I won't know the answer to until the game is completed... like how long did it take to make the game and how many images are there.)
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Postby reneuend » Tue May 22, 2012 2:36 am

Best wishes to your wife. I wish her full recovery. After all, wives need to be at their best to put up with us developer junkies! LOL.

I'm glad you're back on track. Your ambition is inspiring.
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Postby Hguols » Sun May 27, 2012 3:48 am

Well, I have the scenic images done for the blood palace. There's a lot of them. (246) ....by the time I add the 3 images per enemy encounter (the fight, the win, the death) animated area gifs, etc. it will probably be pretty close to 400.

I think I might have to improvise just a little from my original plan, but I'm not really sure. I'm running out of enemy sprites so I'm trying to ration them without it appearing like I am.

I think I'll be ok. I've got a few ideas to spark things up a bit.
________________

My wife works this holiday Monday, but I have it off. Apart from doing some chores, I should be able to put in some quality work on the game.

Naturally, when my wife gets home, not so much. I want to try to spend time with her.
:P
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Postby reneuend » Sun May 27, 2012 4:26 am

You're a good husband...sounds like you've been married a few years! :)
You're project is an epic PSP adventure maker undertaking! It deserves a spotlight when you are done.
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Postby Morsy » Sun May 27, 2012 12:55 pm

reneuend wrote:You're a good husband...sounds like you've been married a few years! :)
You're project is an epic PSP adventure maker undertaking! It deserves a spotlight when you are done.

Eeyup ^^ Can't wait to play it.
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Postby Hguols » Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:36 pm

Well, I'm taking a tiny step back from game development to try to address a port situation. I tried to show the game to a friend, and it no longer worked on my phone.

I guess whatever update Opera did to their mobile web browser, its no longer compatible with the hotspots. I figured this was bound to happen sooner or later.

....so, I'm looking into making apps. That way, mobile browser updates in the future won't make or break me.

I'm really REALLY R-E-A-L-L-Y trying to understand phonegap.com. I'm struggling and just running in circles there.

Appsgeyser.com is a very nice idea. It almost works. Almost. Music is out, and for some reason, after about 4 hotspots linked, it gets confused or something and you can't move any more.

If anyone has any input or ideas... I'd love to hear it.
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Postby reneuend » Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:35 am

I don't understand why it wouldn't be backwards compatible. Isn't AM code converted to html and javascript? It just doesn't make sense that it wouldn't work.
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Postby Hguols » Sun Jun 03, 2012 12:25 am

That's what I don't get as well. The game is broken down to HTML and A files. The coding is simple enough, that even a simple browser, something that hasn't had its programming changed since 2004 (the PSP browser) can read it with no problem.

...and the version before of Opera worked the game just fine, but the update in May 2012 update screwed everything up.

Its probably for the best. Once again, I don't like the idea of having to rely on another application for it to work. The PSP browser is different. I don't see Sony overhauling that anytime soon, but the fact that the game was working on my android through Opera, and is now not....

App is the way to go.
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Postby Hguols » Sun Jun 03, 2012 11:49 pm

Well, I've got some great news! I figured out that the problem with the android version of the game wasn't the Opera browser. For some strange reason, the game played perfectly fine online.... I just tested it.

...the culprit appears to be the file explorer I'm using, and playing the game from my SD card. It worked before, I wonder why not now?

I do remember an update from my file explorer. Time to "explore" different options. ...but not too much!

I've got a game to finish building!
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Postby reneuend » Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:44 am

I agree. Finish the game and then lets figure out how to make this work.
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Postby Hguols » Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:58 pm

I figured out exactly why this game stopped working (while at my 2nd job of all places). It had to do with my error, not Opera, not my File Explorer, not my phone.

Included with the iPhone export of the game, there are 4 images. At some point in time, I deleted them from my gallery, not thinking anything of it. Deleting them from my gallery also deleted them off my phone. The game would not work without those files. Whenever I put them back in my thefieldofkings directory, the game worked perfectly fine on my phone, through Opera and my File Explorer program.

reneuend wrote:I agree. Finish the game and then lets figure out how to make this work.


Heh, looking forward to the game are we? :lol: The images for the Blood Palace are DONE and I've coded all the deaths and wins for that area.

After that, enemy hit boxes, then hotspots to move around the area.

I'm not sure if I'll have this done this week, but after that, just one area to go. The really good news is that the last area is pretty small, but I do have to make end-game images/scenes.
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Postby reneuend » Wed Jun 06, 2012 11:37 pm

Actually, the good news is that you found the problem! Congrats!!

Looking forward to the finished product! :)
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Postby Hguols » Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:13 am

Well I got some bad news and good news. The good far outweighs the bad, at least as far as this game.

First, the bad. I woke up 2am calling dinosaurs until about 4am. (calling dinosaurs meaning throwing up) I blame the sausage burger I got from the local "Prairie Days" event as my wife ate the same things as me except that. I called off work today. That's bad because my next check will be one day short.
:(

The good, while I'm "recovering" at home, I plopped myself in front of my computer and got a lot of work done. In between nursing food and bathroom breaks, it was building The Field of Kings all day. My wife was at work so, might as well!

~ I completed The Blood Palace, tested it. Its good to go.
~ I re-sized some of the hotspots that I did very early in the game to match the more symmetrical ones I did later. I'm having to quench some form of OCD that's welling up in me to make all hotspots all over the game the same sizes each frame. That's just not realistic, so I'm letting that one go.
~ I've started the last area left to complete, The King's Castle and am 45 images into it. I'm still guessing it will be approximately 100 images. It really isn't a very big area.

I think if I play my cards right, I could have the game done by this time next week.

As always, I'll keep everyone here posted!
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Postby reneuend » Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:44 am

Wow! Not fun!!! Sausage burger sounds so good too!
At least you can some productivity out of all this. Looking forward to the finished product!
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Postby Hguols » Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:22 am

Well, I miscalculated a little bit. I'm at 152 images and counting... of course, some of that was some improvisation on my part.

No doubt, you will all hate the last boss. There are 24 images associated to dying from him. He's rather nasty.

I should finish the rest of the images for the final area, credits and ending tomorrow...
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Postby reneuend » Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:19 am

Awesome! This will definitely go in the next BBB magazine....which I need to get another issue out there soon!
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Postby Hguols » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:54 am

Well, as much as I'd like to say I have an update for this thread, I don't.

The update I have, I had to make a new thread for it.

:P
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Postby Hguols » Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:51 pm

Well, the game has been released for a few days now.

I've been trying to advertise it in some of my spare time. Because of this, the youtube video previewing the gameplay went from 40 to 700+ views overnight. Its now over 900.

The Opera Mobile community is pleased. They published a news article on how the game works in Opera Mobile. I would also like to mention that out of all the other browsers available for the Android 2.2, Opera Mobile (not the mini version, the full one)

Here's the article!
http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/blog/20 ... era-mobile

Feedback overall has been positive, but I haven't heard much feedback about how enjoyable the game actually is.

I'll post more appropriate news later.
:)
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Postby Hguols » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:19 am

I have an update. There's good news and bad news.

First, the bad. There was a mistake in my coding toward the end of the game. Long story short, it was impossible to get to the last boss the legitimate "beat all the bosses" way. (I tested more the "non-legitimate" way to beating the game. Yes, there's a secret to getting to the last boss very quickly.) The good of the bad news is that it was only accessing the last boss which was flawed. Everything else was fine.

The good news is, I fixed the problem completely. All the files/links/online-game on thefieldofkings.com website are fixed and updated. None of the file sizes changed because it was a simple line of coding that got overlooked. Its all good now.

The bad of the good news is there's no patch so to speak. It requires a re-download, and re-install. My sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Some more good news, I've had multiple people ask me... how long does it take to beat the game? Well, I decided to find out... and document it.

Here's a video of a The Field of Kings speedrun so to speak. How long it takes from the start of the game, to unlock the seal to The Ineffable King Edward (last boss). Surprisingly, it was just a little over 12 minutes. I'm guessing with beating the boss, assuming you knew exactly what you were doing (much like in this video) it would barely be more than 13-14 minutes to completely beat the game. Be wary of spoilers. This video reveals boss locations and quite a few enemy weak spots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlpJ4m5edw8
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