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Hey, 🙂 I’m in crunch-time now and work a bit more than it is healthy. 😀

But the game is almost finished!

Last changes:

  1. Four play-tests with Boris, Norman, Martin and Gaby. Thank you!
  2. Made the code Java 1.5 compatible.
  3. Tested Grappling Hook successful on a MacBook Pro!
  4. Polished all levels.
  5. Re-recorded all voice comments. ( They are easy to understand but sound like Schwarzenegger. 😀 )
  6. Improved space and skybox and added sparkling stars. ( Perhaps wasted time because no one will notice … but I like them! )
  7. Created 3 levels. ( There are 18 now. )
  8. Reduced loadingtimes to less than 50 %. Thanks for your advice, Marc!
  9. Added a loading screen.
  10. Extended and improved the game launcher.
  11. Added the functionality to display ingame-news from an online database.
  12. Recreated the level-end screen with statistics.
  13. Placed some confusing sayings as textures in the levels. 😉
  14. Gathered information about online distributors and started to think about marketing.
  15. A lot of small stuff …

I’ll be back! 😀

Hi, 🙂 I created more levels and even explored a new way to use the Grappling Hook. This is awesome, because I neved planed the feature and it works perfectly and is very cool. MacGyverism, yeayyy!! 😀

There are 15 levels right now. 20 are planned, but when I have more ideas for cool puzzels, then there will be more levels! I always try to make every level unique and the puzzels a bit harder then in the last level.

To prove that not all levels have claustrophobic proportions I recorded this video today: 😉

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWuhGsuIkmQ

Hi, 🙂 I recorded a short gameplay video of the labyrinth-level I created yesterday.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAG66KweVl8

Hi, 🙂

I passed the exam on Tuesday and wasn´t lazy since then.

Last Changes:

  • Created 3 new levels. ( There are 11 right now. Around 20 levels are planned. )
  • Added some options to the luncher. ( VSync, Antialiasing )
  • Added a list of hotkeys to the construction-mode-hud
  • Fixed some visual glitches
  • Changed/improved the menus a bit

One of the new levels is a space-level. I think it is a good variation, because all other levels are indoor. There are plans to make the space a bit more lively than it is right now.

Here is a current screenshot:

Grappling Hook - Space Level

Hey, 🙂

I have worked hard on Grappling Hook in the last week, because I will have no time to work on it in the next 7 days. I have to learn for my exam. But I can hardly wait to build new levels and work on the final tasks. 🙂

Last Changes:

  • I use Geometry Instancing for the rendering of most parts of the level now. This improved the game performance alot, because the number of draw-calls is heavly reduced. This had many small side effects I had to fix. But it `s done now. 🙂
  • Height shading is now implemented with a shader. Height shading means, that everything that is below your position will be darker and everything that is above will be brigher. This supports orientation. You can see the effect on the screenshot.
  • Heiko, a game developer and good friend, played the game and gave me a lot feedback. Based on his feedback I made many small changes to improve the game and interface. Thank you Heiko. 🙂
  • I worked again on the sound and textures of the electric trap.

Grappling Hook - Height Shading

Hey, 🙂

today I tried out a Metrics-Tool for Eclipse to get some statistics of the Grappling Hook source code.

In the last 4 months I wrote 12433 lines of code and 112 classes for Grappling Hook.

I’m proud, because I never created such a big project on my own before. 🙂

Cya, 🙂

Christian

Hey, 🙂
the end of development comes closer. There is still work to do, but I think it will take less than four weeks. In the next month I will have my last exam and have to learn for it at least seven days. I hope, that I can release a public demo of Grappling Hook at the end of July. 🙂

Latest Changes:

  • many small improvements and fixes based on the last play-test
  • controls for left-handed players
  • fixed the last major issues in the physics system
  • recreated the electricity trap
  • added a space-skybox
  • new options menu to change mouse sensitivity, sound volume and graphics settings

Screenshot of the new electricity trap:

Electricity Trap

Hi, 🙂 I have created some voice feedback/comments, inspired by many mods/games like DotA, Counter-Strike or Q3A.

Audacity is a great free tool for audio-editing.

Here are three voice examples:

[audio: 2009/06/grapplinghook_voicesample.mp3]

And yes, that is my real voice. 😉 😀

Edit: After the feedback of two play-testers I will rework the voice-comments, because they are hard to understand, especially in combination with other sounds.

Hey, 🙂

I finished the turrets and added a full-screen damage indicator.

It took me quite a long time to create model, textures, sounds and laser-effect for the turret. Coding the AI and animation was done in a few hours.

The turret rotates independently on two axes and fires every 2-3 seconds a railgun-lasershot. Before every shot you can hear the laser charging. This gives you a chance to dodge or hide. You can not destroy the turrets, because Grappling Hook is a non-violent game. 😉 So you have to hide or keep moving. I think that supports the agile gameplay.

Turrent

Should the turret have a real voice or beep like R2D2?

Hey, 🙂

some time has passed since my last update, because I worked on stuff, that is not visible on screenshots. But I don´t want you to think, that I’m lazy. 😉

Latest Changes:

  1. There are now two difficulty modes: normal and hard. ( Hard is really hard and quite different to play. )
  2. Implemented a UI-system and the most important menu-screens.
  3. Many optimizations for ray-checks, bloom-shader and other stuff.
  4. Some minor changes to the HUD.

Cya 🙂