Grinder - A post-amiga, silkworm-ish co-op game

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7

Thanks, lot of things to look at there!

You are certainly right about the menu system. I guess I wanted to see if there was any intrest before I worried about that stuff… If I ever decide to go further than this one demo level, I’ll definately do it over…

And as for the units, you are right there too… I have been improving my drawing skills for each sprite… Thats how much of a non-artist I am :slightly_smiling:

The jeep -or armored vehicle - is also a testament to my non artistry. I didnt think I could draw a dude operating a machine gun, so I went for armored vehicle w. turret instead.

You are very welcome to recomend an upload site, and I’ll get right on sending out a copy.

8

a thing you can do if you have some skills in 3D program is using free 3D models, making rendering from left and right, and you’ve got your sprite :slightly_smiling:
(there is great free model on turbosquid for example)

mediafire, 1fichier, uptobox, dropbox, uploaded, …

9

Thats a cool idea for the pivot guy… Perhaps I COULD find a way to do it so it can aim fluidly at any angle.
While I can use 3d programs, posing a human is still alot harder than posing a tank :slightly_smiling:

I’ll check out your site recomendations and post something.

10

Theres mega (https://mega.nz/)

11

Ok folks, here is a link to a .rar download. Unzip, and run Grinder.exe to play… Arrows and mouse for jeep, WASD and space for helo. P is pause, where the exit menu is :slightly_smiling:

UPDATED Download :
HERE

I guess the share site is a little slow. If anyone knows a free option that is definately faster, please let me know, and I’ll switch em up.

12

I’m having problems with the game. First off, its super laggy. Like 3 frames. Second I can’t open any of the menus. If i single click, nothing happens but if I double click it just crashes.

13

Contrary to Nullz, I don’t suffer from any kind of lag (Asus ROG G750 T4024JH with i7, Geforce GTX 780M, win 7 64b and 32 GB ram), this may be hardware related I guess (various DX/openGL features supported or something like that), Nullz didn’t give any hint on which hardware was used for the test.

  • Controls of “characters” are tied to their type, not to player (I mean, heli only, I should have arrow key for movements, maybe mouse for fire, no WASD SPACE)
  • Escape key no managed (weird !) it would be good to have a way to quit
  • scope is quite unusual and confusing, a simple cross hair would have been better IMHO
  • also, use of word ‘bail’ is very unusual, quit/exit is a lot more common
  • the most important: WHERE ARE the crazy explosions ???
    a shoot’em-up without that is like a vampire without fengs !
  • (linked to previous point) it’s hard to notice when the jeep “dies” (in the heat of action of course) as sprite is just removed then put back to the left of the screen

some comments:

  • replace the armoured vehicle by a jeep with a (suicidal) guy on a machine gun may be fun (for a few minutes only) but may need a lot of work for a low added value, look at Silkwork/SWIV, those kind of shoot’em up are everything but accurate (UN Squadron planes which can move up and down or even backward :smiley: ), or maybe made like Thanatos (Amstrad) or Walker (Amiga) style
  • jeep jump may be a bit reviewed, adjusted: it doesn’t “feel” nice, hard to explain, you have to compare with similar game, probably on Amiga I guess, or also Metal Slug on Neo Geo.

Except that, it’s a good start with a good potential, this level is a bit short, lack of soldiers on foot to crush (to get a new paint job for free :stuck_out_tongue:), more holes to jump over, especially on water, it may be like Army Moves second part (small “islands” like platform across a water area), good luck.

14

Wow that sounds absolutely shitty, and I am sorry to hear that… Obviously menu crashes is something I dont encounter at all…

I’m thinking maybe you didnt extract the rar file, which leaves the game unable to work with the save-file…

If you try this, and it still doesnt work, I’ll troubleshoot more.

15

Thanks for your time!

I’m having guests in a bit, but I’ll give a more in depth response later today.

Real quick mention for now:

press P to pause, this brings up the option to quit…

16

I didn’t extract the first time but this time I did, same result but now it crashes even if I single click. I’m using a i5 4690k Windows 8.1, 16 gb on board graphics(which are actually pretty decent, it’s no 780 but I’m able to play csgo 70+ fps). I’ll send the file to my friend and see if it works for him.

17

at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio.SoundEffectInstance.set_Volume(Single value)
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio.SoundEffect.Play(Single volume, Single pitch, Single pan)
at TerrainGame.SoundClass.PlaySound(Int32 soundIndex, Single pitch, Single passed_vol) in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\SoundClass.cs:line 290
at TerrainGame.SoundClass.PLAY_Menu_snap(Single desiredVol) in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\SoundClass.cs:line 136
at TerrainGame.MainMenu.Main_Menu_Input(GraphicsDeviceManager graphics, ContentManager Content, MouseState currentMouse, MouseState pastMouse, KeyboardState currentKey, KeyboardState pastKey) in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\MainMenu.cs:line 583
at TerrainGame.MainMenu.Update(ContentManager Content, GraphicsDeviceManager graphics, MouseState currentMouse, MouseState pastMouse, KeyboardState currentKey, KeyboardState pastKey) in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\MainMenu.cs:line 178
at TerrainGame.Game1.Update(GameTime gameTime) in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\Game1.cs:line 333
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.DoUpdate(GameTime gameTime)
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Tick()
at MonoGame.Framework.WinFormsGameWindow.RunLoop()
at MonoGame.Framework.WinFormsGamePlatform.RunLoop()
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run(GameRunBehavior runBehavior)
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run()
at TerrainGame.Program.Main() in C:\Users\Niels\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\TerrainGame\TerrainGame\Program.cs:line 22

18

So my friend with basically the same exact specs as me tried it, he got atleast 30FPS in the main menu, (however he does have a 7770, and his windows isn’t pirated unlike mine). However he also couldn’t get pass the main screen without crashing.

19

hi monopalle - tried your game here also and can confirm it does crash whenever I click on the main menu.

20

Hello again, and to anyone else having scimilar issues:

I have myself just done a clean install of windows, including a fresh upgrade to visualStudio 2015 and mongame 3.5

after this, I get the same problems.

I have solved the first part, so it launches now => old MonoGame reads values from TXT files expecting a COMMA as decimal marker for floats, new MonoGame expects a PERIOD it seems…

The next issue I am just beginning to work on is the sounds themselves. The files LOAD fine, and are given play instructions, but arent audible… I don’t expect this to take long to fix, its a common issue, and I still have the source files if all else fails.

mp3 files are played just fine, so besides lack if SFX, the game loads, and runs, just fine.
-At least I discovered some unused sound files, so the NEXT download will be noticeably smaller. So some good has come from this.

With these issues in mind, I expect to have a fixed upload shortly.

In the mean time, those of you who haven’t upgraded yet may still be able to run the currently linked version, as some here could…

For everyone else I hope to see you here SOON for a fixed download, couple of days MAX, and sorry for the hassle to anyone who got a bad download…! :frowning:

21

OK, everyone! Thanks for your patience…! I fixed the issues introduced with my recent monogame3.5 / visualstudio2015 upgrades!

If you have had trouble with my download in the past, I expect those issues to be resolved with THIS VERSION

-I have edited the old download links, so only the newest version is available. The Newer download is SMALLER in size, about 42megs. No confusion here…

So the download is up, and I hope some of you will try or retry the demo.
-And of those who do, please share your thoughts.

If you missed it, here it is: DOWNLOAD GRINDER

22

Hi! I did some ‘fixing’, as indicated in my longer post above. The new download is available HERE.

I’d be happy to know how it works out for you.

23

I sincerely appreciate that you used a different download site, last site I had like 100kb’s second.

Downloading now, will post back afterwards.

24

I still have uncontrollable lag, BUT, no crashes! PROGRESS!

25

It still work for me, I really don’t understand why it has working before considering what you wrote about your issues ! Sounds looks like to be ok. But I hope for you such an easy on resource game doesn’t need a high-end computer to run.

26

Thanks for testing again, its cool that someone cares.
Glad at least it didn’t crash, +1, but still sorry about the lag you have…

There are 2 quick things to try here, without getting technical:

  1. Have you tried playing the helicopter to see if that has the same lag? That would be nice for me to know. (-its less intensive in the surface-collision detection, we could see if that’s the issue.)
  2. I have actually experienced some lag on my FIRST run-through, I don’t know if some kind of anti-virus thing, or CPU-throttling or what…
    But perhaps quitting to menu, and simply restarting, or simply re-launching the game could improve performance. Worth a shot.

Otherwise, it’s hard for me to be sure about much, without getting into some very specific diagnostics and dialogue about system specs and what not… I’ll assume you have other things to do than troubleshoot some lag-issue in a demo game…
-But I will of-coarse monitor any responses from other users, and definitely try to refine the code if this is a wider issue than just one machine out of a bunch. I have a lot of code-knobs to tweak when if comes to collision detection. - Maybe I could refine some code or even cut some corners…