Another technical demo, sorry still 10.5 or greater

August 29, 2009 at 7:00 PM PST - California

Hi everybody, I'm very proud to announce the release of the second technical demo of Xsera. You can download it here. There's too many improvements (and hidden features) to list here, so I won't bother trying. Here are the key controls:

WASD - movement
IJKL - navigate panel menu
Space - Fire PKBeam
Z - Fire Cmissile
Tab - Warp
+ and - - Zooming
Esc - menu

Here's the deal: a Gaitori Carrier protects a planet that you have to capture. You first must destroy the Carrier before landing a transport on the planet.

Please note that the transport landing sound "SpaceWoosh" as well as "Teletype", the typing noise are both placeholders taken from EV Nova for this demo.

New Graphics:
Shlimazel and I were in the process of updating his new graphics when the demo was finished, so the new graphics are not on display in the game, unfortunately. When Shlimazel and I get that done, I will post on how to add those graphics into the demo.

Enjoy!

adam_0

This post has been edited by adam_0 : 30 September 2009 - 09:52 AM

w00t

Where the hell were you during all this, prophile? I want 10.4 support!

10.4 support means changing three options in the project settings. Three! How could you overwork me like that

EDIT: that being said, this zip here might contain a 10.4 compatible version of Xsera. Perhaps. >.>

It might also require an Intel Mac or a high-end PPC Mac (ie a G5) using 10.4.11 or greater to run properly.

This post has been edited by prophile : 29 August 2009 - 10:17 PM

Uh, oh. Boy. Three, then? I thought it'd be harder than that, sorry for being dense.

404 error! dies

...I'll go to bed, and wait till I wake up to sort this all out.

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 29 August 2009 - 10:32 PM

Yay, a release! My Radeon 9000 is still incompatible, though. also dies I'll be sure to test this the next time I have access to the G5 I normally test Xsera on.

Prophile's link works again.

QUOTE (prophile @ Aug 29 2009, 08:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

EDIT: that being said, this zip here might contain a 10.4 compatible version of Xsera. Perhaps. >.>

prophile, you are a good man. Except I didn't commit the final changes for the demo yet

EDIT: I had trouble pushing my commit because of your changes. I'm going to try to figure that out ASAP

EDITx2: Haha, your demo doesn't have one of my Lua flags set, so it has access to the underpinnings of Xsera. Not that I'm going to tell anyone how to work those underpinnings, but still.

This post has been edited by adam_0 : 30 August 2009 - 01:26 AM

Not that I doubted you guys, but.... never in a million years did I expect this project to make it to this level.

Bravo, bravo.

Very nice work. No performance issues like I had with the first demo. I do have some suggestions/criticisms, though:

- I noticed some odd behavior with the braking. Sometimes instead of coming to a stop, my ship starts vibrating back and forth. It stops if I keep holding brake for a couple seconds, but if I let go it starts moving slowly either in the same direction as before or the opposite direction.

- Sometimes the direction indicator triangle turns one position but the ship graphic does not.

- Long range icons should be fixed size.

- When dropping out of hyper, ships should decelerate smoothly from hyper speed to max normal speed (or less if you brake between when you release the hyper key and when you warp out).

- Acceleration (but not braking) is disabled while entering hyper in Ares.

- Energy regeneration is way too slow (it should almost keep up with firing the rap PK continuously).

- Some of the sidebar colors are a bit off. It would also look better if all the bars and gaps in the resource meters were the same number of pixels. I'll include a screenshot comparing Xsera with a recording of Ares.

This post has been edited by NMS : 31 August 2009 - 10:41 PM

QUOTE (redsteven @ Aug 31 2009, 11:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not that I doubted you guys, but.... never in a million years did I expect this project to make it to this level.

Bravo, bravo.

I don't blame you (two links). I am very impressed with Xsera is doing. It's truly incredible how Ares has now at least partially survived the Intel transition, OS X and something nearing ten years of no development. Now, it can be (partially) run on Leopard, complete with an AI. All since November, barely ten months. I honestly didn't expect my original Ares X post to gain this much momentum.

Forgot one:
- Left channel audio is much louder than right.

Thanks for the feedback, NMS. A few comments...

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- I noticed some odd behavior with the braking. Sometimes instead of coming to a stop, my ship starts vibrating back and forth. It stops if I keep holding brake for a couple seconds, but if I let go it starts moving slowly either in the same direction as before or the opposite direction.

This is a known bug.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- Sometimes the direction indicator triangle turns one position but the ship graphic does not.

This is due to the fact that there's a limited number of graphics that the computer can use, so it only switches when the angle is sufficient. This is easier to see on a higher resolution display.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- Long range icons should be fixed size.

Known bug, although I haven't logged it.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- When dropping out of hyper, ships should decelerate smoothly from hyper speed to max normal speed (or less if you brake between when you release the hyper key and when you warp out).

- Acceleration (but not braking) is disabled while entering hyper in Ares.

Acceleration is working as a temporary mechanic right now, we're working on making this more accurate with Ares.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- Energy regeneration is way too slow (it should almost keep up with firing the rap PK continuously).

Unknown bug, although energy regeneration was experimental and just a placeholder right now.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- Some of the sidebar colors are a bit off.

Colors are not final, I plan on importing the Ares CLUT sometime in the near future.

QUOTE (NMS @ Aug 31 2009, 08:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- Left channel audio is much louder than right.

Known bug. I believe we're going to be replacing our current audio system with something else, but I'm not exactly sure on that.

Will Xsera be OS 9 compatible?

No. Neeeeeext!

Also: the left volume channel problem maaaay possibly be my fault. More on that later!

This post has been edited by prophile : 01 September 2009 - 03:01 PM

QUOTE (Two Jacks @ Sep 1 2009, 01:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Will Xsera be OS 9 compatible?

Just play Ares, you palooka.

Ah, Demo 2. It's getting bigger too.
Nicely done. will test and report any bugs
.
.

QUOTE (Rickton @ Sep 1 2009, 09:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just play Ares, you palooka.

Lol

Ok. not sure if it is working right for me. Have I missed any controls?
Testing on a MBP 2.6 GHz 4GM RAM.

1. I have no mouse control: ie cannot select anything with mouse. Is this as it should be?
2. Can't build the transport. What is the "Do" key after I have selected the transport in the build menu?
3. My processor runs very hot when I run the game. Is this normal behavoiur.
4. Ship behaves fine, carrier destroyed. Carrier doesn't react to me.

I won't mention issues previously raised above.

Nice work guys. Finally I feel I might be able to retire my OS9 machine soon

QUOTE (Lord Commander Anic @ Sep 13 2009, 10:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. I have no mouse control: ie cannot select anything with mouse. Is this as it should be?

We haven't done mouse control yet.

QUOTE

2. Can't build the transport. What is the "Do" key after I have selected the transport in the build menu?

Right, I believe.

QUOTE

3. My processor runs very hot when I run the game. Is this normal behavoiur.

This happens when you run something CPU-intensive.

QUOTE

4. Ship behaves fine, carrier destroyed. Carrier doesn't react to me.

Carrier hasn't had its AI written yet.

QUOTE (Lord Commander Anic @ Sep 13 2009, 02:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

2. Can't build the transport. What is the "Do" key after I have selected the transport in the build menu?

QUOTE (prophile @ Sep 13 2009, 04:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right, I believe.

Actually, it's not "right", it's "l", which is the sit-in for the "right" key. Having just discovered how to use arrow keys instead of IJKL, computer control will be the arrow keys in the next build.

Ok, time for my review.

• No music during level. I assume this will be fixed/put in eventually.
• Controls are poor. The player will be able to choose what does what later, right? I'm fairly certain if the Carrier had AI, I'd be dead.
• Nice touch with the Main Menu. Looks great.
• Love the DBZ reference.
• Zoom to Hostile, Closest, and Friendly are missing. I also assume that will be added later.
• A 'Command Q' option for quitting doesn't exist. Is it complicated to do that? In fact, the entire menu for Xsera is empty. There's nothing in it.

That's about it. It looks fantastic for v0.0.2. This is the kinda quality I'd expect from maybe v0.1 with most things. Wonderful job, guys, keep it up!