Forum

Well, here it is, the link to my token "free crappy forum" dedicated to all things HC?KZ!

Please excuse the current color scheme.


http://havecarkillzombies.boards.net/index.cgi


-Cody

Whoops!

Forgot to post the screenshot yesterday.

Frame for the game, with some (animated in game) static

I spent most of yesterday reworking some stuff from the aforementioned crash. Spending today working on a menu system and optimization.

-Cody

Crash and Burn!

Hurray for random crashes and losing data you thought you had saved! I now have to go back and redo some of the Object Pool coding I worked on over the weekend. I'm not really sure how a crash can just randomly wipe out chunks of my project, but here's hoping it doesn't happen again!

Anyways, feeling frustrated and not wanting to go back and re-code those sections again, I spent most of today on artwork. I'll have some new screenshots tomorrow that really showcase the new artistic direction the game is taking (still 8-bit). I'm really liking it, and I hope you all do too!


-Cody

Pooling: Part Deux, the Sequel

Admittedly, looking back, my previous post wasn't that clear. With the new Pooling system the game runs fine. The memory issues are only occurring on the 1st Gen iPad that I use for testing. The 1st Gen iPad only has 256Mb of Memory. HC?KZ! uses, on average, around 100Mb (iOS likes to crash once you start using half the available memory). Since memory has since doubled with each release of a new generation of iPads, the game, in it's current state will run flawlessly (I'm assuming) on both of those devices.

Because of this, I spent just about all of today building a function that will check which generation of iPad is being used (1 or greater than 1) and then modifying the number of Zombies and other things that will be appear in the game.

So, to surmise: the game is now "playable" on all iPad generations. We''ll see if that's still the case once I start getting rid of the placeholder art and adding music and sounds to the game.

Pooling: Part Deux

Well, after a ton of work, I finally have the "pooling" system incorporated into the game. It runs much, much, better. Except for the fact that my RAM usage is now through the roof and it keeps crashing after about a minute of gameplay.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Pooling

So, I currently have just about all of the game's major systems programmed in and "working". All that's left is to build all the menus, GUIs, art, and music. Oh yeah, and optimization.

Currently, the game creates and destroys objects in a very free manner. The problem, however, is that creating and destroying objects requires a huge (comparatively) amount of device resources (memory, processor, etc). So there is a bit of a problem where, due to this additional performance hit, if you are trying to swipe to control the car, the gesture will not be recognized, nothing will happen, and you will crash into a wall or house or whatever.

So as it stands, the game is coming along pretty well, but it is looking like I will most likely need to rework one of the main systems to use Object Pooling. Whatever that is...

Work in Progress

Well, work on Have Car? Kill Zombies! is going pretty darn well. In the time since the last update I have:

• Updated to a gesture (swipe) based control scheme for the car
• Programmed new zombies that wander around until they are close enough to a human, at which point they begin to chase the human
• Path-finding AI for both humans and zombies to navigate through cluttered terrain
• A few other gameplay functions and features that are of little worth mentioning

I am very happy with this progress. Programming the controls and the path-finding and other behaviors is arguably the most difficult/time consuming part of the process for me. Now, I can focus down the rest of the gameplay systems and dive into the art and sound. 

Oh, and here is some first-draft art for one of the levels:

First draft of the "Suburban" level.
The game is currently treading the line between 8 and 16-bit at the moment.

That's about all the news I have for now.

-Cody