Neuro Sama Survivors-like

[tired haven]

Tested with max level cookies and level 1 gregg's

[hard moth]

  var cookie_num = randf()
  if cookie_num <= ai.cookie_drop_chance:
      var cookie = cookie_template.instantiate()
      cookie.global_position = global_position
      get_parent().call_deferred("add_child", cookie)
      already_dropped_item = true 
      
  var creggs_num = randf()
  if creggs_num <= collab_partner.creggs_drop_chance:
      var creggs = creggs_template.instantiate()
      creggs.global_position = global_position
      get_parent().call_deferred("add_child", creggs)
      already_dropped_item = true 
      

Well, here is the code

cookie drop chance shouldn't interfere with creggs drop chance though... unless im missing something

[tired haven]

There also still seems to be inconsistencies with the HP displayed vs the actual HP. I just lost while Vedal's HP bar was showing around half and Neuro wasn't colliding (at least visually) with any enemies, trying to go trough an enemy gap with Vedal. I think either Neuro hit something that has a way too large hitbox and the HP bar didn't update to show this (it had HP on the game over screen) or Vedal had way less HP than was shown and hit something

[hard moth]

I might add intentional lagg before the game shuts down because it may be that things aren't fully updated before the game is paused.

[tired haven]

Could it be that the chicken bakes were being overwritten by cookies, since the enemies only seem to drop one thing?

[hard moth]

they're seperate if statements... so not really

[tired haven]

Does it run one first? That could make it bias that one

[hard moth]

There should be no bias, I use different randf() for each

cookie_num for cookies and creggs_num for creggs

it could just be that cookies are higher level, so they spawn more, and you got unlucky and never saw creggs.

[tired haven]

I killed like hundreds of enemies over like 5 minutes, not a high chance

[hard moth]

ill try to replicate

[tired haven]

The game is single threaded, so one of the random checks MUST happen before the other according to single threading's most basic rule of everything happens sequentially

Does it still try the other one if one succeeds?

[hard moth]

They are separate if statements, so yes.

[tired haven]

What happens if both succeed?

[hard moth]

both the cookie and creggs should spawn

[tired haven]

I've never seen 2 items from one enemy

[hard moth]

creggs spawn afterwards, so I think if both spawns it should appear on top of the cookie?

[tired haven]

I don't think I've seen a chicken bake spawn on a cookie

[hard moth]

Ok welp I think the ordering which uses z-as relative may be always having the cookie appear on top of the chicken bake

causing it to never "appear" but still exist

Ill test with the z-index and have the creggs be a layer higher

[tired haven]

The chicken bake is smaller, so it makes sense for it to appear on top

[hard moth]

yah made a small update that should have creggs always appear on top if both spawns at once

[tired haven]

You should add something to bias the upgrade choices to give you things like cookie or greggs upgrades when your HP for the corresponding character is low. That way a situation like that would be rarer.

Since it's often the case that you need the upgrade, but you might not get it for like 10 levels in a row and die

Those upgrades are almost required to get far in the game

[hard moth]

Ill be adding "Training Material" (or some better name) that will allow you to upgrade any upgrade of your choice, as long as you have at least lv1

Like Holocure's Anvils

[tired haven]

I really don't know much about this genre of games. I know what Holocure is, but don't know much about the mechanics

[hard moth]

I think allowing upgrades of choice should (theoretically) give you more strategy and allow for you to choose the upgrade you specifcally need in the situation

[tired haven]

It just makes the chance of getting the upgrade you need slightly higher

Since there's basically two chances to get it

It doesn't fully fix the issue with a really low level of healing items being catastrophic if you can't get the upgrade

[hard moth]

If we have the "Training Material (AKA Holocure Anvils)" the chance of getting the exact upgrade you need, given that there is a traning material unused somewhere,

You will have a 100% chance of upgrading the upgrade you need.

[tired haven]

Is it a thing the enemies drop?

[hard moth]

yes

[tired haven]

That makes more sense

[hard moth]

I can prob make it guranteed after a while though

[hard moth]

why?

Anvils aren't auto-pick ups, they lie around until you use them

so you can save them up for when you truly need them

and upgrade whatever specific upgrade you want

[tired haven]

Well, just having another upgrade to randomly get that's basically a wildcard really just adds two chances to get an upgrade

If you need to get it from levels

[hard moth]

No no, if you use an Anvil, you can upgrade whatever upgrade of your choice, that you already own.

[tired haven]

I understood how it works

I was saying having it be another upgrade from leveling up wouldn't make sense

The enemy drop thing works well

[hard moth]

Its not really an upgrade, but a drop, like a lootbox of sorts

though, in holocure there are upgrades to increase the drop rate of anvils, idk if I will implement that

[tired haven]

You can do whatever you want, it's your game

[hard moth]

I kinda found it pretty useless when I played holocure

Ill prob have anvils be a random drop, and if its not dropped after an amount of time, it is a forced drop (for less randomness)

[tired haven]

Will it be able to drop multiple times?

[hard moth]

ofc

[tired haven]

Sounds like a cool feature. If you wan't to make sure it drops by some amount of time, you could make it's drop chance increase by multiplication until it drops

That way it has a higher chance of dropping the longer it hasn't dropped for.

For example, if the chance is 1/1000 at one point and the multiplier is 1.1, the chance would become 1.1/1000, then 1.1*1.1/1000, then 1.1*1.1*1.1./1000 and so on

The chance increasing like that makes sense (to me at least)

Then when it drops, reset the chance to the original value and start again

You can make the trigger for the multiplication basically anything, time, enemies killed, levelups or a combination of things

By the way, which version of Windows does the game target?

[hard moth]

Im on 10

cpu too old for 11

[tired haven]

Well, I'm on 10 because 11 is trash anyway, can't recommend

But do you think the game would run on anything earlier than 10?

Actually, didn't we see it running on 7 earlier?

[hard moth]

don't see why it won't

[tired haven]

Yeah, it's been tried on 7 already

But I could try XP, I think it has some differences quite low-level in the OS

How much RAM does this need?

[hard moth]

Haven't tested specifically for RAM, so rn unsure.

[tired haven]

I have 2 XP machines, one with 256MB, and one that might be broken with 1GB

[hard moth]

done with developing my nuke (in my game. if any federal agency is reading this I am not in possesion of an actual nuke). Testing now.

[tired haven]

Interesting. I might try this on XP if I have time at some point.

But I don't think 256MB would be enough

Well, maybe to get to the titlescreen, but probably not the game itself

The titlescreen uses 75-100MB according to task manager

What graphics API does this use?

[hard moth]

unsure if this is what you are refering to or not

[tired haven]

It is

The hardware in the XP computers is probably too old

[hard moth]

Full lv5 nuke

Progress I guess

[tired haven]

That seems like a decent list of features. I guess you'll at least make those before an endless mode

[hard moth]

Progress for today. Uploaded what I had to itch so you can playtest if you want.

Yellow is for tomarrow green is for the day after

[tired haven]

So did you make a new exe?

Cool, I'll check it out soon

[cold egret]

is it random or does it drop where your mouse is?

also does it hurt the player?

[tired haven]

It seems highly likely the music doesn't work well with either very unstable or very high framerates

Seems like other sound effects are also effected

The iNuke6000 upgrade descriptions have inconsistent wording

lv3 iNuke says 1.5s in the upgrade and lv4 says 2s

iNuke drop interval seems inconsistent

There is an unreasonably long pause in enemy spawning

iNuke sound effect continues to play while paused

This makes the sound desynced from the animation

Level bar movements can be extremely delayed

The knights spin (seems like pathfind conflicts)

The say it back upgrade feels way better to use now

It's no longer instant death

The slimes also spin

I think Neuro also spins

Might be that all the things that use pathfinding can spin

Giving exact damage numbers seems pointless, since you have no reference for them (iNuke lv1 description)

The enemies from formations should have a disappear animation

The DM allegations upgrade seems to be very overpowered for Vedal, as Vedal doesn't usually take that many hits, while Neuro is the one that does, basically making Vedal invulnerable to the few hits he does take

Random black lines appearing on the screen (vertical) could be connefcted to very high or unstable FPS

[cold egret]

this could be fixed by having visible hp bars with numbers for the enemies

[tired haven]

Yeah, that would work

[cold egret]

also, exact numbers on the player hp bars could be good as well

[tired haven]

That would also be cool. Just make a toggle for it in case someone doesn't like the clutter that could bring

[cold egret]

yeah for sure

[tired haven]

There is reoccurring black lines appearing on the screen

They can be very distracting dependent on the situation

The big knights spinning is really funny

[cold egret]

they just like dancing

[tired haven]

Overall I think the game feels better to play now, but there's some weird bugs, especially (probably) framerate related bugs. The bars are basically never giving accurate info, especially with the level bar, which just goes all over the place. There are some issues with the upgrade descriptions for the new iNuke upgrade, like inconsistent wording and values. The audio doesn't like high or unstable FPS, becoming noticeably stuttery.

The new say it back upgrade feels good and like a mobility upgrade for Neuro. The balancing might need some work though, especially the DM allegations upgrade, which seems way too powerful, since Vedal usually doesn't take many hits during a game, since he's very easy to control, being able to be controlled directly, with Neuro's follow Vedal style controls being hard to control in their default distance, becoming better with the say it back upgrade (the say it back upgrade does feel great to use now)

That's my thoughts on the latest version summarized for now

[hard moth]

Unsure still what causes this. I haven't encountered it myself. WIll test.

[hard moth]

Seems like sfx doesn't get paused when the game is paused... ill look into it. Though if the sfx is already played I doubt I can do much about it.

[hard moth]

Can you share a screen shot? Doesn't seem apparent to me, but I never looked into it. will test.

[hard moth]

ill prob switch them out for something abstract. For nukes there are two things that are upgraded. One, the frequency of fire. Two, the amount of time between the red warning circle appears and the nuke actually goes off.

[hard moth]

Im thinking of dividing up the "DM Allegations" so it becomes like

lv1: ignore 50% damage (and accumulate with chance)
lv2: ignore 75% damage
lv3: ignore 100% damage

[tired haven]

Well, I have 500-1000FPS

[tired haven]

Just play a fev levels and pause the game

[hard moth]

Level bar does not instantly update, if that is what you are encountering

there is slight latency for an animation, so if you pause the game it won't be exact.

[tired haven]

But I think sometimes it keeps moving minutes after the pause

[hard moth]

huh

[tired haven]

And sometimes it seems to go backwards

It really seems like there's something extremely wrong witht the level bar

[hard moth]

It seems to work fine for me rn

can you maybe send a clip or image??

[tired haven]

I can try to get a capture of it

Oh by the way, the menu music doesn't loop

It's a 7 part archive, can you decompress those?

The video where I test the level bar

It might also have the audio bug, assuming it gets recorded, maybe even the black lines

Well, I guess I'll send the archive, just don't touch it until all 7 parts appear

You will need all 7 parts to be able to decompress it, it only has one file inside

[hard moth]

Erm

Is it possible to send like the mp4 so I can watch in within discord

[tired haven]

It's almost 700MB

[hard moth]

Whh

Why

Also I have checked the level up code and there doesnt seem to be anything wrong surface wise

[tired haven]

The 700 MB is probably because it's 1440p 60, I can try to reduce the quality, but I don't know if some of the other bugs will become more difficult to notice

Especially the black lines bug

[hard moth]

So wait the exp bar suddenly moves sometimes even when you arent picking up exp?

[tired haven]

Sometimes it does that, it feeks like it's taking forever to move sometimes. In that recording there is a part where I pause for like 30 seconds and the bar keeps moving for most of that

I can send just that part

Also the FPS drops a lot for some reason there during the pause

[ashen narwhal]

How fix?

[tired haven]

Are you using the browser version? if so, try the exe version

[ashen narwhal]

I was gonna test on browser, yea

[tired haven]

Might not work for every browser

I exclusively use the exe version anyway

[ashen narwhal]

Couldn't run, laptop too old I guess

Sad

[tired haven]

What OS?

[ashen narwhal]

Windows

10

Laptop video drive is too old it said

[tired haven]

The exe should work

What GPU does it have?

[ashen narwhal]

Just the one that came with the laptop

And it has no updates

I've tried before

[tired haven]

Can you check what it is in task manager?

[ashen narwhal]

@tired haven

[tired haven]

That's the CPU, I need the GPU

[ashen narwhal]

Couldn't find

[cold egret]

I think that would be a lot more balanced, good idea

[tired haven]

Then there is no driver (probably)

[ashen narwhal]

Huh

[tired haven]

Go to device manager and look for display adapters

[ashen narwhal]

But I can run videos

@tired haven

[tired haven]

I think it's CPU rendering everything, or using a chipset basic GPU

[ashen narwhal]

Probably the latter

But oof

[tired haven]

Could you get me the laptop's model

[ashen narwhal]

Not sure how

[tired haven]

Search for system information from the start menu

Please note that some of that information should not be shared

[ashen narwhal]

I assume this is the information you wanted

[tired haven]

Looks like it

It is likely it's using a chipset integrated GPU

Or media accelerator might have been what it was referred to as in the documentation

[ashen narwhal]

I see

[tired haven]

I think the documentation also mentioned a PCI port, you should see if you have one

Or PCIe, not sure

[ashen narwhal]

What's that?

[tired haven]

It's an expansion slot used ususally in desktops, but sometimes in laptops and embedded systems to connect high-bandwidth expansion cards, like GPUs, network cards, SSDs and more

[ashen narwhal]

I see, then I do have that but do not have the money to get a new GPU

[tired haven]

I think there are really affordable new GPUs in existance, and there's also used ones, which basically cost as much as a box of screws

It really only needs to support OpenGL 3

For this game at least

[ashen narwhal]

I might get one, one day but not in the near future

[tired haven]

I'd recommend checking the laptop for an expansion slot first though, to make sure you have it

[ashen narwhal]

Is it the big plug in on the front?

[tired haven]

What does it look like?

[ashen narwhal]

Very wide

Bigger than a USB plug in

[tired haven]

Is it anything like this (this is x16 PCIe desktop)

[ashen narwhal]

Uhhhhhhh

It's maybe as wide as that?

[tired haven]

This is x1

[ashen narwhal]

Looks like that one

I think

Minus the green motherboard stuff

[tired haven]

If the port looks like that, it's likely a PCIe x1 slot. You'll need a riser for it to adapt it to a x16 for a GPU

[ashen narwhal]

So something I can't afford I assume

Pain

[tired haven]

Something like this thing

I don't think they cost much either, but you probably need to find a way to power it

[ashen narwhal]

Can you recommend me any other fangames I can likely run?

[tired haven]

I don't know of fangmes you'd likely be able to run, this is probably the one with the simplest graphics

[ashen narwhal]

Pain

[tired haven]

I think your laptop just might not be cabable of much more than web browsing, at least without additional hardware

[ashen narwhal]

I mean

I can play Omori

I can play lots of RPGMaker stuff in general

[tired haven]

Is that the old name for Gamemaker? I've had experiences with Gamemaker games running on really old hardware, but this game is Godot

[ashen narwhal]

I can also run that one Neuro rhythm fangame

[tired haven]

Which one is that?

I would like to take a look

[ashen narwhal]

Gamemaker is completely different from RPGMaker lmao

Different companies

And different engines

[tired haven]

I guess it is. Maybe it's as compatible though

[ashen narwhal]

Rhythmic Recovery

[tired haven]

Where is that?

[ashen narwhal]

Itch.io

[tired haven]

Can you give me the link?

[ashen narwhal]

One sec

https://noob04ever.itch.io/rhythmicrecovery

[tired haven]

How does that work? Does it have a browser version too?

[ashen narwhal]

I downloaded

Plays like Muse Dash

[tired haven]

It's Unity based, which is often pretty hard to run. Let me just look around and see if I can figure out what graphics API it's using

It might just be using some very basic renderer from 20 years ago or something (which is lucky for your laptop)

Well, if it's a graphics API thing, the only way to fix it would be to make the game not need the API, or upgrade your hardware

Can you get a screenshot of the exact error Neuro adventures gives when you try to run it?

[ashen narwhal]

Sure

Sorry, was doing other stuff

[tired haven]

I've had to wait longer before

[tired haven]

The API is form 2010, what year is the laptop from?

[ashen narwhal]

No idea

[tired haven]

This is when the graphics adapter it says your laptop has was released. It's 3 years too early

[ashen narwhal]

Oof

[tired haven]

The only existing fix would be to upgrade the hardware

[ashen narwhal]

Well, not like I can afford to upgrade anyway so not worth complaining, can at least do what I want for the most part

[tired haven]

Unless there's some hacky way

Well, check this game if you ever upgrade

[ashen narwhal]

Alright

[tired haven]

Actually, there might be another way

[ashen narwhal]

?

[tired haven]

I just found out software rendering these things exists

[ashen narwhal]

What does that mean?

[tired haven]

Installing a program to basically use the CPU to render the Graphics instead of the GPU, which should get around a GPU support limitation like this

Reading into it now

[ashen narwhal]

That sounds dangerous for my laptop

[tired haven]

Well, it's better than no API support. I'll make sure it's not any random malware though

https://fdossena.com/?p=mesa/index.frag Try this one I guess. It seems to have fixed it for others too

Get the 64 bit version, and put the DLL next to the exe

[tired haven]

In this case it's actually a DLL that replaces the one that comes with Windows with another one that uses the CPU to render graphics instead of the GPU.

[tired haven]

Did you try it, or do you not want to for some reason?

[ashen narwhal]

I just don't feel comfortable running things I don't trust on my PC

[tired haven]

You don't really need to run anything other than the game exe, the exe just uses the dll to determine what it should do. Also, I already checked it and trust it.

I just checked, it doesn't run 3.3 for some reason, I'll try to find a different solution

[tired haven]

I found one on Github that seems to actually work (I ran it in a VM to make sure) You could try that https://github.com/pal1000/mesa-dist-win/releases/tag/23.3.5

You'll need 24.0.0 release msvc

Inside there there's a x64 folder, inside which is the needed "opengl32.dll" file

[ashen narwhal]

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't really wanna, I might upgrade someday though so I'll try out the fangame then

[tired haven]

I think you should really try. I tested it to make sure it's safe

Virustotal also says it's good

[tired haven]

With this you wouldn't need to upgrade

[tired haven]

Maybe there should be a CPU only version of this to fix OpenGL issues like that

Basically just the software renderer but built-in

[hard moth]

Ok welp ill double check that part of the code. Especially on what happens when the game is paused.

Seems very wierd.

No clue what may be causing it

[hard moth]

was sick so got not progress done

Once Halo & Training Material is done I think ill go into refractoring

so no new updates but just a lot of bugfixing and optimization

like the exp bar thing

[tired haven]

That stuff is still important, so definitely try to get it done

[hard moth]

I think ill make the "Anvil / training material" thing to upgrade stuff the 4090

[tired haven]

Sound like a pretty good idea

[hard moth]

Ok so I also found the spinning enemies bug. Maybe a result of switching directions too fast.

Might add some kind of delay to that

[tired haven]

Well, that's interesting. It's mainly a visual bug, but the more bugs fixed, the better

[hard moth]

Did a full game play. Fixed the too long pause, and here is the data during

I prob should do a no fps cap gameplay

[tired haven]

That would be a good idea

I've had a bunch of oddities running the game at uncapped framerates

[hard moth]

yah... I'm encountering much higher stuttering without the cap. The exp lvl bar thing may be a result of the uncap

Like the 50fps feels way smoother to play

[tired haven]

The high stutter also seems to cause audio stutter

[vernal hollow]

yeah add a small delay of a few frames before committing to switch directions. i added the same and the visual clutter when lots of enemies were on screen became a lot more bearable

[hard moth]

The no fps cap also caused my laptop fan to go crazy

I feel like it might be good idea to just not have that (Vsync disabled) as an option

[vernal hollow]

here is how i added my flip delay. probably not the best solution but it works

[tired haven]

I don't think making Vsync always be on is a proper fix, just add an option to set a manual max framerate and keep the option to have an uncapped framerate

I think I might have recommended that as a setting earlier already

[vernal hollow]

tbh for a survivor-like i don't think its such a terrible thing to cap fps. some even cap it at 60 regardless of monitor refreshrate

[tired haven]

I like having a high framerate, just because I can run it

[hard moth]

Welp I mean ill leave the option to disable it for now, too much work to remove it (also will make settings for future versions not compatible)

[vernal hollow]

i just want to be above or at 60fps anything above is just nicer but not necessary especially for a survivor like

[hard moth]

I think ill look into ways to encrease the cap, insteade of disabling Vsync all together. (but later feature)

[hard moth]

what is offset.x ?

Nvm I think I figured it out

[tired haven]

By the way, there were issues with someone not being able to run this due to lack of OpenGL 3.3, which also tells me this game uses OpenGL 3.3. Apparently there's a dll that can be used to software render OpenGL graphics, so maybe you could make a version with that dll or something, so even more systems could run the game, including ones befor 2010 (the year OpenGL 3.3 was released)

Do you want that dll?

I tested it myself, it's at least not malware, and the game just ran with it

[hard moth]

is there github

[tired haven]

Yes, the link is here

It's in the release, in path x64\opengl32.dll

[hard moth]

This works pretty well

[hard moth]

Ill go check it out, but idk how to implement it within the game

[tired haven]

It's actually pretty simple, just put it next to the exe

Then just have a software rendered version

[hard moth]

Though the question is, do computers that don't have opengl 3.3 have good enough specs to run the game in the first place?

[tired haven]

Not sure, will check that maybe on the old Win7 machine, which might not have OpenGL 3.3 support

Alright, that machine is booting, I'll tell you what happens with the game

Missing another dll, will go find it now

[hard moth]

Welp I guess list expanded

[tired haven]

Did not work on win7, might be the dlls, trying on a win10 machine next

[tired haven]

It runs there, but not sure if it's software rendered. I actually had to remove some of the dlls, so it might run on the Win7 system like that, I'll try it again on there

[vernal hollow]

(btw you can ping reply on me.. otherwise i might miss stuff)

[tired haven]

Apparently getting it to run OpenGL 3.3 might require some tweaking of environment variables for some reason, I'm pretty much stuck at this point, but at least it might be possible with enough reading to get it to work. I can send the package with the application and the required dlls that should run if used correctly, I couldn't get it to run, but it's definitely trying to use the dlls.

You can then read more into the documentation

[hard moth]

Made functionality for the choose whatever upgrade thing just gotta draw the actual 4090

[tired haven]

Cool, the functionality is usually harder than the graphics anyway (usually)

[hard moth]

Welp I just used the same function for level up upgrades but instead of sending 3 random upgrades I send all existing. Hurray for encapsulation

[tired haven]

Well, reusing systems is quite convenient in programming

[hard moth]

I need a good name

NTX 4090
Neuro Tracing Xtreme 4090

Idk

RTX 987

VTX 987

[tired haven]

NGFX 987? (Neuro Graphical FX)

That's the best I can think of

Or maybe Gymbag Graphics

Well, I don't have many ideas

[hard moth]

Neuro Training Xtreme 4090 maybe since its for upgrades

[tired haven]

That could work

[cold egret]

maybe like LLM training data 4090 in that case

although shortened that would be LLMTD which is a bit of a mouthful

I feel like instead of a 4090 it should be a USB drive or something, since a graphics card doesn't really make sense for giving combat upgrades

[hard moth]

was thinking like graphics card since they train the AI models

[cold egret]

??

I don't know much about ai but I'm pretty sure they're not trained with graphics cards?

[tired haven]

Yes, AIs are trained using compute power most commonly on board a GPU

[cold egret]

oh, really? I assumed they would just use the cpu

why do they use the gpu instead?

[tired haven]

The CPU can be used, but the GPU is better for the kind of compute tasks required for this, especially since they started including dedicated tensor cores

[cold egret]

huh, interesting

[tired haven]

The GPU is just better optimized for this kinda task

[cold egret]

well, then the 4090 makes sense

sorry for my lack of knowledge

[tired haven]

Well, I guess that would probably be a common mistake in thinking

[cold egret]

I finally got a chance to play the new version btw, and it's improved a ton! I really like the new main menu, and I didn't have any performance issues so I really think that it's mostly the unlimited fps that causes issues. I like the programming socks change as well, although I do kind of miss the hilarity of Vedal running around at mach 10

[hard moth]

yah uhhh I had a programming error that caused Vedal's speed to increase based on the percentage of the previous speed (upgraded) rather then the base speed.

basically instead of
100 +10% of 100 -> 110
100 +20% of 100 -> 120

It was like
100 +10% of 100 -> 110
110 +20% of 110 -> 132

leading to superspeed Vedal

[cold egret]

lmao, I see

it was just a glimpse of Vedal's true power

[hard moth]

Shaders

I hope nividia doesnt sue me for this, its a NTX (Neuro Training Xtreme) 4090 not an RTX 4090

[tired haven]

I don't think they'd care about a small game like this.

[hard moth]

I know, I wish the game was big enough for em to care

[tired haven]

Well, even big games get away with it if the slightly change the name.

[hard moth]

Function for NTX4090 drop chance. There is like a 98% chance it will drop at killing 600 enemies so unless you're really unlucky you're going to see at least 2 in a game. Though, you probably will se a whole lot more usually.

Unless I somehow skrewed up my math

[tired haven]

Seems good enough for me

[hard moth]

Even more shader effects

Also patched nukes & dm allegations

[hard moth]

The next update will be a Release Candiate and once im done with bug fixing that version ill do a full release (with trailer).

Have no clue how video game releases are usually named

[tired haven]

They just call it v1.0

[hard moth]

I guess thats simple enough

[tired haven]

That is pretty simple indeed

[hard moth]

ima just call the version that currently exists 0.9

[tired haven]

Sounds logical, although I've many times seen versions like 0.17 and things like that

The main part is just that the first number or the major version is 0, indicating an unfinished product

[hard moth]

I changed the nuke warning from red to pink, because Neuro is actually safe from the nuke.

Pink: Safe for Neuro, not for Vedal
Red: Unsafe for either.

[tired haven]

Makes sense

[cold egret]

ooo, I can probably help with the trailer depending on what you're planning

[cold egret]

Oh wow, you're so skilled that you won in 2 seconds!

[hard moth]

Probably something similar to the Abondoned Archive trailer, like several gameplay clips + the game music

[cold egret]

ok, well I'm ok at editing and can record gameplay so if you need help let me know :D

[cold egret]

made a sound, I was thinking it could be good for when the player hovers over menu buttons but you can use it for anything :D

[hard moth]

As long as you're OK with the trailer being published on my channel & other platforms like itch (with proper crediting to you ofc.) you can make the video if you want! (When the release ver. is ready, I can share the details then)

I did edit & make videos as a hobby before but rn more interested in game development so would be great if I can not have to worry about the trailer.

[cold egret]

oh ok, cool! In that case I will make it once the release version is ready :D

I will make it either way, but are you ok with me uploading it to my channel as well once it's made?

[hard moth]

Sure! I don't see why not, feel free to make any kind of video of the game (Its open-source anyways)

[cold egret]

ok, awesome :D

[hard moth]

Ill prob be uploading ver0.9 (pre-release) in ~ hour or so

[hard moth]

https://kotgedev.itch.io/neuro-adventures

Updates uploaded!

[tired haven]

Cool, I'll look at it once I can

By the way, for the release version, you should get an icon

For the exe itself

[grim wind]

nice, second try i won, the gaslight plus greggs and filtered combo is very good, also some cookies

i really liked it

[tired haven]

The menu music still doesn't loop

[cold egret]

I just played the new update as well, and won for the 3rd time ever! I had max nuke and max angel wings because I wanted to try out the new upgrades, and both of them are really fun :D

Also, DM allegations is still pretty op imo, I had it and gaslight and cookies and was pretty much invincible

I did end up having some lag near the end in the browser version btw, I think it's just because of all the things going on in lategame like nukes and a bunch of enemies, also it sometimes lags a bit when a 4090 appears

Also, a boss hp bar would be really good to add

[tired haven]

Either I got extremely lucky or there's something wring, but I had 3 4090s spawn in really quick succession. They were completely useless though, since I didn't see the cookies upgrade once that run

And Neuro's HP ran out since there wasnt's enough cookies

And on this next run there's 5

All in pretty quick succession

And it's now 7

I feel like the spawn chance is only reset when you use the 4090, so if you don't just immediately use the first one that spawns, you can gather up a ton of them and get way too many upgrades

The game can become extremely laggy on this underpowered laptop, but that might be the lack of a proper GPU. It runs fine most of the time

But the lategame especially is still super laggy.

[hard moth]

Will check, that is pretty unusual

Ok so the chance resets every time a 4090 spawns, so I think you may just have been incredibly lucky

Were you killing a lot of enemies at that time?

Can you try replicating?

[tired haven]

I have replicated it like 4 times

[hard moth]

Hmm, may increase the chances of being hit with accumulated damage for the dm allegations, but honestly don't know how to balance it well. May end up replacing it with something like a turtle shield maybe

[hard moth]

Did the boxes drop consecutively? Or after killing some enemies? Because the cahnces they drop consecutively should be next to zero

[tired haven]

There were a few enemies in between, some of the fastest drops were almost immediately after just a couple enemies

[hard moth]

huh

[tired haven]

Either I'm stupidly lucky, or you messed up something somehow

[hard moth]

I seem getting normal rates...

will try printing out the actual probabilities

[tired haven]

Do you usually pick it up immediately after or let it sit for a while?

[hard moth]

I let it sit

I only use it when there is an upgrade I need quickly, which happens to be the cookies or creggs most of the time obv

[tired haven]

Well, could it be something to do with the specific hardware I used? It's the underpowered laptop that I use for remoteing to my PC

[hard moth]

its random... so not really

[tired haven]

Then I have no idea what could have caused it

Unless it's lag

[hard moth]

welp simulating and printing out the probabilities

Seems normal to me

I think maybe just very lucky

[tired haven]

I guess somehow I just got very extremely lucky 4 times consistently. Did you test with or without Vsync? Vsync seems to cause many of the bugs in the game for me

[hard moth]

with the vsync enabled

[tired haven]

Or the lack of it I mean

[hard moth]

I think I will be removing the ability to disable vsync for the release build

causes too much issues

and a lot of lag for me

I may return it only when I have the solution

[tired haven]

I like being able to run higher FPS than my monitor. Maybe make it just that you can increase the FPS cap, but not completely remove it

At least until it's fixed properly

I usually run games at higher framerates like 240 when the game allows for setting a custom FPS cap.

Even though my monitor is only 165Hz

Maybe just add a slider when Vsync is disabled that lets you go up to something like 500 FPS, but not higher for now

Then if you figure out how to fix the FPS bug, just add an unlimited to the end of the slider

[hard moth]

What I mean is a solution like that, currently no clue how to cap it, or if it is possible

[tired haven]

It might just be to calculate how long a frame took, and if it took less than the time of the FPS cap max framerate frametime, just wait until the rest of the frame has passed. That's pretty much how Vsync works too, it just takes the cap from the monitors refresh rate

You just have to make sure frames last at least the minimum time

[hard moth]

I just work within Godot's process and physics_process

so really if Godot allows for it I can increase the FPS cap if not then idk how.

[tired haven]

You should look into that then. I think most engines should allow for at least some low-level control over their functions

[hard moth]

will try, either release or a patch after that

but currently focusing on making the game as a whole not lag

[tired haven]

Ok. By the way, do you think it would be possible to make the game detect when a new update is released?

[hard moth]

Unless I make a launcher for the game, probably not

[tired haven]

Well, maybe if you make an endless mode and add a leaderboard, since that would already need a server, why not add a feature to the server where the server knows if there's a new update, and if it finds a client with a lower version, it notifies them of the update

Does that sound like a possibility?

[hard moth]

if there is a leaderboard, prob yes

[tired haven]

Well, that would be a cool feature. As I said, I can host the server for it on my PC/server. It has so much CPU, storage and soon-to-be RAM that I'm not utilizing all of it on my own

By the way, the Neuro rants website I'm also gonna be hosting is running now, only waiting for the domain stuff to be sorted out

So I can definitely host stuff on here

[hard moth]

Ok so I may have found the problem

for the fps thing

disabling vsync does not work for compatibility, which is what im currently using

[tired haven]

What is "compatibility" in this case?

[hard moth]

renderer

[tired haven]

Ok, kinda what I expected

[hard moth]

I may try using Forward + for PC builds

See if that fixes the issue

[tired haven]

Well, you should try that then

[hard moth]

doesn't work.. sems like the game just breaks if Vsync is disabled

[tired haven]

Apparently the renderer that uses is lower-level than the one in the other mode

Or the rendering backend

That could be why

[hard moth]

Both renderers doesn't work if I disable Vsync

I think the process and physics process gets messed up if I do

won't bother it for now, going to focus on makign the game less laggy when there are lots of enemies

[hard moth]

capping FPS doesn't help either.

[tired haven]

Well, maybe you need to look into that at some point

[hard moth]

Possibly, but I think game works fine with Vsync enabled

[tired haven]

But if you disable the Vsync setting for now, just keep it in the settings file and ignore what it has there

So you don't have to make the settings file different for that

[hard moth]

settings should be compatible

I still have the files

[tired haven]

So will you just make it always keep Vsync until you figure out what's broken?

[hard moth]

yes

[tired haven]

Ok, I guess you should just make sure to come up with a better fix later, but for a temporary fix that's good enough

It's just a bit inconvenient that it means I can't run a smoother framerate

By the way, do you think it breaks with Vsync if the FPS goes above 60 or just when the FPS is above the monitor refresh rate? My main PC monitor is 165Hz, and above 60Hz monitors are really common

And Vsync isn't a 60 FPS cap, it caps the framerate at the monitor refresh rate

[hard moth]

Unsure, I tested with disabled vysnc 300 fps cap and didn't work.

[tired haven]

Is your monitor 60Hz?

If your monitor is 60Hz, you really can't test if it breaks above 60 FPS or above the monitor refresh rate

If I knew how to tell if it breaks, I could test on my system, but I have no idea how to tell if it's broken

[hard moth]

Have two, unsure what is each

Cleaned up and made the credits scene

May add loading screen cause in the web build it takes some time for map to load

[tired haven]

The map load takes a while on this laptop too

[tired haven]

This can be checked in windows' advanced display settings (or whatever it's called)

[hard moth]

so according to the Godot profiler which I found out exists, the physics 2d is the resutl of the drop in fps when there are too many enemies

more specifically the hitbox

[tired haven]

Well, why not disable the hitbox when it's not needed (although I don't know when that would be)

[hard moth]

Thought of disabling the hitbox when the AI or Collab Partner is not close by... but then I need to create another Area2D for that which would defeat the purpose.

[tired haven]

Is it caused by area covered by the hitbox or the number of hitboxes?

[hard moth]

testing rn

seems to be because I used collisionpolygon2ds, with collsionshape2ds not much lag

will attempt some fixes

[tired haven]

Well, would be cool if you managed to fix the lag, it's really annoying on this underpowered laptop

[hard moth]

welp I think the simplest fix is switching all my enemy collisionpolygon2ds with collisionshape2ds

tested by disabling collision polygon2ds and switching to collisionshape2ds, and the game only dropped hard in fps when the collisionshape2ds were activated

[tired haven]

I guess you need to do that then

Better take longer and release a functional game than be faster with a more laggy game

[hard moth]

Its pretty easy to change just means slightly less accurate collision detection

Or slightly easier for the players since edge parts of enemies wont cause a "hit"

[hard moth]

200 Kobolds no lag

[tired haven]

That's a pretty good result.

Will you release a de-lagged build or just leave it until the release build?

[hard moth]

~ 300 kobolds + marches also no lag

1000 kobolds still causes a lag but I dont think there will be a scenario where there are that many enemies in the game. If that happens you screwed up really badly.

[hard moth]

I might release a de-lagged build like soon

cause ill be busy for another 3 days and wont be able to make the release build for about that time

its LNY

[tired haven]

I think changes to core parts like collision will require testing anyway. Let me know once that is out, I want to try it on this underpowered laptop

This laptop is the ultimate performance test

[hard moth]

im gonna see whats the max # before it starts lagging and then publish

[tired haven]

Ok

[hard moth]

At 200 kobolds, even if they are all in one place, it works fine.
At 345 kobolds (Current number of enemies per wave, though, obviously, since you're killing them as they spawn, there will never be this much at once.), there is no lag unless they all happen to pile on one spot. Seems like calculations are being done for each overalaping enemy even if they're only supposed to search for the player. They are in separate layers though so idk why they are doing that. May research into this further later down the line. Not a huge issue though since if they did pile on one spot they would be all killed very easily.
At 500 kobolds there is lag even without them all being in one spot.

[tired haven]

Those are still pretty good resluts, since before it would lag even on my extremely powerful PC in the late game

[hard moth]

Physics 2D "Run on seperate Thread" setting off. (Found this option so will test)

[tired haven]

Sounds like you might have found a multithreading button

[hard moth]

With "Run on seperate Thread" on. I think I may have

Welp seems better so ill keep it on

[tired haven]

That's a pretty stable framerate

I wonder what it'll be like on this underpowered laptop

Once you're done with optimizations, you could call that v0.9.1, since it's not a major version, mainly focusing on optimizations and fixing stuff

[hard moth]

welp called it 0 95 already

0.9.1 makes more sense though

[tired haven]

Yeah, 0 95 doesn't really make sense

I've never seen anyone use 0 95 as a version number

[hard moth]

uploaded

[tired haven]

Cool, I'll download it and check it out shortly

[hard moth]

Apparently I can change display names so changed to 091

[tired haven]

I downloaded it on my main PC now (remotely), but I'll still have to send it to the laptop, which is gonna take a bit of time

The menu music still doesn't loop

[hard moth]

huh, unsure why, considering im using the exact same code as the farm

will check

[tired haven]

And once again just a small pile of 5 4090s

At least 2 were almost back-to-back

[hard moth]

pretty confused, cause that never happens to me

[tired haven]

Do you always test inside Godot? If so, this could be a standalone build thing

[hard moth]

will test with exe

[tired haven]

The level bar at least seems to work now

Was that the thing effected by high FPS?

[hard moth]

yes

well more like vsync off

[tired haven]

I'll test it later on my main system to see if it happens above 60 FPS, since that has a 165 Hz monitor

If it still happens on high refresh rate monitors, it might need to be actually fixed, since high refresh rate monitors are common, and forcing someone with a high refresh rate monitor to play at the usual 60 FPS could annoy them (I would be annoyed at least, since I'm used to 165Hz)

I picked up all the 4090s from the first batch, and there was a while of none spawning, then I got 2 back-to-back

Having that many 4090s just makes the game extremely easy

[hard moth]

Welp tried my exe ver and worked fine

Normal chances

I may just make it so that you can't get it back-to-back

So at least 50 enemies need to be killed before another 4090 drops or something.

[tired haven]

Sounds reasonable. The framerate is perfectly stable on this thing now, even though this is so stupidly underpowered

So the game has now passed the performance benchmark

It's also much more playable on this thing due to the high framerate

There is still a bit of stutter when the magnet is pulling in a lot of items, but it also might be better than before

So basically preformance improvements everywhere

Actually it seems like having the maximum magnet radius causes consistent stutter for some reason. That might be something you want to look at

[hard moth]

ill prob just remove that, maximum radius is too big I think

[tired haven]

The stutter from the magnet is actually really bad

Removing that really high radius might be a good idea. I too think covering basically the entire screenspace is too much

Having DM allegations 3 makes Vedal basically immune to all damage

It might be too powerful

[hard moth]

pretty much imune

though last time I used it

I died shortly after

I raised probability to 0.5 %

so 1 in 200 hits

[tired haven]

Vedal doesn't take that many hits though, Neuro does

[hard moth]

I might completely re-form that upgrade in the future, its really hard to balance properly

[hard moth]

Unless you have max level gaslight

[tired haven]

I haven't played with that upgrade that much, it really doesn't seem good enough compared to the other upgrades most of the time

[hard moth]

If you have it max level Neuro should be able to avoid 90% of all attacks

Basically DM allegations but makes Neuro immune instead of Vedal

at the cost of directing most attacks to Vedal

[tired haven]

Interesting. By the way, I think the game's menu system could work with only keyboard inputs if you added support for navigating menus with the movement keys

You don't have to remove mouse support, but supporting keyboard in the menus would be a convenient feature for some

That would be especially useful on laptops without an external mouse attached, since it would allow for the game to be more playable. Maybe even add an option to change aiming attacks from the mouse pointer to a cursor controlled with the cursor keys or something, that would also help laptop standalone users

You should start adding qol features like that nearing the release, to have the game be as playable as possible

I feel like this part might be a bit outdated, isn't there a boss in the game now?

[hard moth]

Ill need to completely re writr that yah

[vernal hollow]

if you want even more performance you could use the physics server. Shouldn't be the hardest switch tho it does make it a bit more complicated

[hard moth]

cooked new function for the 4090. <50 kills no chance at all, and then till 300 kills a stable 0.2 percent chance, and after 300 kills the percent increases by 0.2 per kill which makes the 4090 pretty much guaranteed by around 400 kills.

Basically I stole a typical gacha game pity system But should allow some randomness while guranteeing that you don't get them too often, but also even if you have terrible luck you still get ~3 per game.

[tired haven]

That should fix my weird luck bug (hopefully)

[hard moth]

Back from LNY hopefully either today or tomarrow I can get a v1.0 candidate out

[tired haven]

Cool. I hope it doesn't have too many bugs, but if it does, I can help in finding them (probably)

By the way, 1.0 candidates are often referred to as "release candidates"

[tired haven]

For the first release candidate it's usually called "release candidate 1" or something similar

[terse plank]

rc-1

[hard moth]

v1 rc1 is out!

I am hoping most of the bugs are fixed

Also added character selection page (though only one choice for each obv) and a custom cursor.

[tired haven]

Cool, I'll check it out at some point

[hard moth]

Would you mind playtesting the game again? I've implemented a lot of the suggestions you listed, more specifically more offensive upgrades.

[fading fractal]

i love that

[tired haven]

Seems like you didn't add an icon for the exe yet

[fading fractal]

in case you need help spriting, i'm available

[hard moth]

Not yet, thinking of either the dual swords or Neuro running

[fading fractal]

what is the general resolution (for single tiles) of your graphics

[hard moth]

The window is 640 x 360, tiles are 32x32

[tired haven]

The window can be resized though

[hard moth]

The game files & assets can be found at : https://github.com/KotgeDev/Neuro-Adventures

if you want to know the resolution of the different pixel art

[fading fractal]

i love this

you have some talent

[hard moth]

Thanks!

You're working on the icons for the cookie clicker mod, right?

[fading fractal]

yes

just finished the valentines release

[hard moth]

Would you then mind remaking / editing the icons for the upgrades? Currently they're just a mess of copy-pasted existing art from all over the place so they're not really consistent.

[fading fractal]

sure

i'm done with neuro clicker for today

[hard moth]

They should be under assets/upgrades

[fading fractal]

is there a way to simply download the entire folder?

[hard moth]

I can post all the pngs here if you want

[fading fractal]

that's not the issue

[hard moth]

I also have the aseprite file but unsure what program you use

[fading fractal]

i just use mspaint

[hard moth]

Wait so how should I send the files?

[fading fractal]

i'm currently trying to figure out github (haven't used it a whole lot)

there it is

[hard moth]

Yah that should download everything

[fading fractal]

do i have to do anything with the import files?

[hard moth]

no they're just for Godot

[fading fractal]

ah, thanks

in the future i suggest using the atlas method

[hard moth]

Atlast method?

[fading fractal]

basically putting all icons in one picture like this

[tired haven]

A texture atlas is a file that contains multiple images in one image

[fading fractal]

and then telling the game where to look

[hard moth]

Ah got it

If you want to create an image like that I can work with that

[fading fractal]

you'd have to figure out how to make the game know where to pull icons from

it should be well documented

[hard moth]

Shouldn't be too hard

[fading fractal]

it's a widespread and common method, because it has a lot of pros and pretty much no cons

[hard moth]

And I can store each icon's frame # instead of each icon path

[fading fractal]

exactly

it could be in form of an array for example

and in the array the frame numbers are linked to pixel locations

that's how cookie clicker seems to do it

[hard moth]

Btw, if you want the icons without their background (red/green boarder) I can post them here if it will help.

[fading fractal]

that's not a problem

it's essentially a spritesheet for icons

[hard moth]

And I plan on adding the red/green boarder with transparent gray background seperately so you can make / edit the icons without them if you want (Doesn't matter either way)

[fading fractal]

since you have already made spritesheets, an atlas shouldn't be too difficult

btw the icons already look pretty uniform in style

in fact i don't see any problems with them

[hard moth]

Thats good to hear, though I did make most of them by pulling existing art from the game, hence why I was worried they weren't that uniform.

[fading fractal]

existing art from what game?

[hard moth]

The game itself

like this game

[fading fractal]

now you've got me confused
you took the art for this game from this game? that's a paradox

[hard moth]

well for the icons, yes, I re-used art from the game

[fading fractal]

i don't see any problem with that

since the icons are supposed to represent the things in the game anyways

[hard moth]

I guess

Aside from the icons, (which I still do plan on touching up a little more since they were a bit rushed) sprites I need are probably environmental sprites (i.e. rocks, trees, and bushes)

so if you want to make some sprites there is also that

I'll have to go now but will answer any questions in the morning or bug reports

[drowsy siren]

nero gam
(Personal preference) Character stat values aligned right for readability?
Name: Neuro sama
HP: 45
Speed 75
Character weapon information?

iNuke multiple explosion sounds gets a little dank. Feels like the most consistent and powerful weapon despite feeling slightly controlled random.
Dual strike feels weak compared to other upgrades since it’s harder to aim and more risky to use.
Say it Back feels much more useful now that with other weapons aiming isn’t as necessary. The closer following though dangerous makes movement feel better as there is less delay to moving Neuro.
Gaslight hard to tell when it’s activating.
Rum feels much harder to use than wings & iNuke while having seemingly less payoff. Felt like a chore compared to other quicker weapons to aim when I had to wait to see if I missed or defeat my target.

Difficulty scaling a bit too high at the start. As I was trying to learn the movement I felt I couldn’t with the stress of enemies surrounding me.
The enemy spawning feels completely random so I was in constant fear I would get randomly trapped. Enemies can spawn in directly front of you on the screen if near a wall.
The weapons you directly control felt like they took a long time to defeat priority targets (nearest/in the way). As a result I felt like I was constantly running and dodging the priority group of enemies while simultaneously looking out for random new enemies, aiming rum/dual strike, dodging/timing my own attacks, and moving exaggerated turns to compensate for the relative delay in Neuro movement. At times it there was too many things to keep track of with little room for error since healing was rare and running into enemies most often led to taking repeated damage.
I made it to the boss once out of 3 tries but due to the above difficulty points, I felt I couldn’t deal with them while constantly surrounded by enemies.

Overall the game is much more fun with the addition of wings/iNuke. Dodging them was interesting and they made me feel more powerful even if it got overwhelming.

[cold egret]

not sure what you mean about the iNuke explosion sounds, do you mean it needs to be sharper or something?

dual strike and rum used to be a lot more useful since they used to be pretty much the only offensive upgrades, I do agree that they need a buff now

I will probably make a sound effect for when gaslight and/or allegations activate, which would fix the problem of it being hard to tell when they activate if Kotge does use it

[cold egret]

also it might just be me but the github version of the game seems to be broken and only spawns kobolds right from the start

the itch version is fine tho

[drowsy siren]

I was referring to when the iNuke has a multi fire upgrade there is overlapping explosion sounds making the total sound louder.

[cold egret]

oh, I see

[hard moth]

Erm probably my test version when I was testing how many enemies I can spawn before I lag the game

Sfx for gaslight & allegations seem like a good idea

And buffs for rum & slice makes sense

[cold egret]

MAKES SENSE LOL, i WAS VERY CONFUSED

oops sorry

I had caps lock on

[tired haven]

The menu music loops mostly correctly now. It just clicks a little when it does

How did this happen again. (I did not see what kind of delay there was between them, so this might be actual luck)

The game does feel a bit more balanced interms of 4090 chance. DM allegations is still broken. There should be something to display the boss' HP

Seems like feathers can be shot while paused, if a feather was started before the pause (the pink line is there but not the feather)

lv3 -> lv4 gaslight is a really big jump comared to the other levels

gaslight 4 + DM allegations 3 = no damage

The weird black lines bug is still there

[hard moth]

Nice catch, will fix that thanks.

[hard moth]

When is this happening?

[hard moth]

Will also look into that, though some of it is on purpose to have the last upgrade be more stronger then the rest

[tired haven]

Randomly

[hard moth]

Can you try taking a screenshot when it happens?

[tired haven]

It's literally one frame

[hard moth]

Sad, I cant seem to re create it.

[tired haven]

I think it might happen when the game lags, so try to get it to lag somehow

It's not that noticeable, but it's a thin vertical black line

[hard moth]

Ok so I can't seem to figure out why that is happening and I can't recreate the issue... did a feather ever move when the game was paused?

[tired haven]

A feather can spawn while the game is paused, even if it's not yet spawned, as long as the pink line appeared before the pause

[hard moth]

but does it move?

if it spawns but doesn't move it may just be lag

[tired haven]

I don't think it's lag, it's fully consistent

It doesn't move, but I can get the feather to start moving faster than it would without a pause by pausing when the pink line appears and letting it spawn

[hard moth]

Oh got it

I think I fixed it

[hard moth]

I made the rum splash stun all enemies stepping in. Hopefully makes it more viable.

1s at lv2 and 3s at lv5

For DM allegations, another fix im thinking of is making it a upgrade that allows users to withold x number of damages (and press a button to take them). Essentially allows players to ignore damage now and take it later when they want to (like if there are more creggs available.)

[tired haven]

That could work, but could also be confusing

[hard moth]

True, would have to make it very clear how to use it

[tired haven]

Confusing mechanics are one of the most common issues in games

[obtuse condor]

Is this on Itch? There aren't any pins; if there is a link, I'd pin it.

[tired haven]

A pinned link would probably be a good idea, but only mods can pin things

[obtuse condor]

Oh seriously? The creator of a forum post can't make pins in the forum post?

I guess they can ask a mod to do it but dang

[tired haven]

That's basically what they have to do

[hard moth]

Ill prob ask once ive released the game

https://kotgedev.itch.io/neuro-adventures

Link for now though

[obtuse condor]

TY, I'd managed to scroll up enough to find it myself
The drones don't seem very good in comparison to, say, the starting attacks
I had 4 of them and 2 upgrades and I feel like those 6 levels would have done a lot more in terms of dps if I'd put them into anything else

Also a lot of survivors-likes forget that as they add more upgrades, the pool gets diluted and it might be a good idea to add rerolls/removal options like VS has

20 minutes till dawn suffers a lot for that IMO

Overall it's pretty awesome so far! Great music, cute art, and a great core idea executed well with the attack patterns Neuro gets

Took me a while to realize that Neuro's sword aims toward the cursor too lmao

[tired haven]

I didn't figure that out until Kotge told me

[obtuse condor]

Once you revise the page, I'd make a point of noting explicitly the whole "your ally that follows you around has friendly fire on" since to me that is one of the coolest things about this that sets it apart

[cold egret]

oh, good idea, I think that will work

[cold egret]

if you do choose to do this you have to force the player to take the damage at some point, maybe once the damage would normally kill it forcefully brings the player to 1 hp instead?

[cold egret]

btw, what kind of sfx would be good for this?

should I interpret it as like some sort of armour, or a dodge, or the attack just phasing through the player, or something else?

[hard moth]

Phase through maybe? Dodge may sound too similar to the swish sounds

[cold egret]

ok, that's what I was thinking as well :D

do you think this would be good for when gaslight damages vedal? I made it be a higher pitch and slightly different version of the regular damage sound since you're still taking damage

[hard moth]

Sounds like a good idea, will try

Implementing it

[cold egret]

so the sfx is good?

[hard moth]

Yes, cant implement it rn as im outside but it will prob work

[cold egret]

ok :D

btw is this good for when allegations and gaslight ignore damage?

it's pretty difficult to convey something phasing through something through sound lol

[hard moth]

Hmm maybe for those instead of sfx it may be more clear to have the characters briefly become translucent or something

[tired haven]

That sounds like it could work

[cold egret]

I think sfx + graphics is best

so there's some sort of animation of them being translucent but there's also a sound effect

[hard moth]

ok welp after trying out a lot of ideas, I've just decided to scrap DM-Allegations

Instead i'm making the upgrade "Raise the Timer"

[tired haven]

What will that do?

[hard moth]

I've just thought of it now. Basically, it will cause Neuro to loose health every x seconds, but exps will now give HP to Neuro.

[tired haven]

Interesting

[hard moth]

https://kotgedev.itch.io/neuro-adventures
v1.0 rc2 is out!

[tired haven]

Cool, I'll try to check it out soon

[tired haven]

I think the framerate related bugs, including audio stutter happen when running anything above 60FPS

So even with Vsync, they happen on my system which has a 165Hz monitor

The new raise the timer upgrade feels like it makes cookies useless

The game really doesn't feel like it likes to run at 165FPS. The audio sounds stuttery, I'm seeing a lot of black lines and might have seen the xp bar moving on it's own again

[hard moth]

Maybe ill force cap it at 50 fps

Unsure of a better solution

[tired haven]

That is not a good idea. If your game runs below 60FPS, it's gonna seem unoptimized

[hard moth]

How hard is it to survive though? Easy? Too hard? Just right?

[hard moth]

Wdym

Oh I meant cap at 60 not 50

[tired haven]

That might be a short-term solution, but you should really figure out a proper fix, since running below the monitor refresh rate can cause a lot of issues on non-Gsync displays

Especially screen tearing

[hard moth]

Notsure what is causing the issue... idk anything low level Godot

[tired haven]

I know low-level stuff, but I'm not familiar with Godot specifically. The one thing I could see causing the issue is incorrect use of delta time

[hard moth]

Exps dont use that variable

Its increased on demand

[tired haven]

It feels kinda easy on it's own, but combined with gaslight it adds a really heavy reliance on greggs

Wouldn't the xp bar animation use some kind of delta time calculation though?

[hard moth]

The script does not, no

Its supposed to immediately update

There is no update animation

[tired haven]

So it's supposed to update during 1 frame?

[hard moth]

Pretty much

[tired haven]

Could it be assuming 60FPS somewhere?

[hard moth]

But I have no clue whats going under the hood

For now ill force 60 fps but ill look into it

[tired haven]

You definitely have to. It's fine for me since my display supports Gsync, but for high refresh rate users without Gsync support, they either have to force their display to run 60Hz or they're gonna get screen tearing of some kind due to misaligned frames

Since they'd have a refresh rate that's not 60

That would be an issue for everyone without Gsync on above 60Hz displays.

And high refresh rate displays are decently common

I think the high framerate seems to also cause the hp bars to desync similarly

A combination of gaslight and raise the timer does not feel viable

[hard moth]

True seems like suicide

[tired haven]

That should not be the case though, games like these should make all combinations viable based on what I know about these kinds of games

[hard moth]

Nahhh holocure has some combinations that you should avoid, some are fine

Forces you to not randomly grab whatever award I guess

Im more concerned about raise the timer itself being too broken / too hard

[tired haven]

Raise the timer on it's own feels pretty easy to survive with, as long as enemies keep spawning

Raise the timer does become more difficult in the endgame, since not that many enemies spawn, but it is completely viable. It kinda makes gaslight useless though, since it feels way better than gaslight, and is not viable to be used with gaslight

It's way better than gaslight, because it doesn't make Vedal take damage from Neuro taking damage, but basically provides an easy way for Neuro to heal trough damage

Or something like that anyway

[hard moth]

A higher risk, higher reword version I guess?

[tired haven]

Which one?

[hard moth]

Gaslight

[tired haven]

I can't tell if you're referencing gaslight or raise the timer with that

[hard moth]

Oh no

The opposite

Gaslight is less risky, as long as coupled with creggs. Raise the timer is much more risky but stronger

[tired haven]

I guess it has some risks during the couple long enemy breaks, but otherwise it feels quite powerful

I guess raise the timer is pretty well balanced. It's just that it makes gaslight useless for players that can use raise the timer effectively

Sometimes with raise the timer it makes sense to run trough a cluster of enemies, if there's a lot of gears under the enemies

[vernal hollow]

i think i know the issue.. in browser the game has to run in single threaded mode. so audio stutters happen from time to time since there is no dedicated audio thread like on normal desktop.
those bugs are likely not from too high of a framerate and rather from missing frametime to do other things. And higher framerates eat that up.

there should be a option to enable multithreading on browser in the project settings or export settings. Tho that only works on supported browsers otherwise it will fallback to singlethreaded mode again

[tired haven]

I always use the exe

[vernal hollow]

odd then..

the reason i mentioned this is because i saw this: https://godotengine.org/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-3-dev-3/#single-threaded-web-exports

[tired haven]

And none of the issues happen on a massively less powerful laptop running at 60FPS, only when I run it above 60FPS

Except the black lines

But isn't the game single-threaded in the exe too?

[vernal hollow]

shouldn't be

[tired haven]

I don't know how to test it, since I can't disable Vsync

If I could, I could just look in task manager if it uses more than 10% CPU

[hard moth]

Physics should now run on separate thread I think? I did turn that option on

[tired haven]

I think it's possible, but I can't verify it, since can't get it to use up all the resources it's allowed to

How many threads does your CPU have? I could calculate the single-core percentage for it

[hard moth]

wait

[tired haven]

If it uses 25% of your CPU, it's running on 1 core's worth

[hard moth]

wait im not running my game on that one

Here it is with the game running

exe version

[tired haven]

Can you change the graph to the threaded one?

[vernal hollow]

(it should look something like this. the combined graph isn't really useful. rightclick -> change graph to -> logical processors)

[tired haven]

Is the game running there?

[hard moth]

yup

[tired haven]

To me that looks like idle

In the earlier screenshot you sent where the game wasn't running, it was also 18% CPU

[hard moth]

also @cold egret I am not planning on adding any more features beyond rc-2, so I think you can start working on the trailer now if you want.

I was originally planning something like Abondoned Archive trailer or the Holocure trailers.

"The Farm" by CreepyCat can be the music in the background, with a lot of clips over it. It can start slow (like the first part of the game) and as the music changes there are more and more enemies, and maybe showcase the upgrades & 4090.

Holocure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuuJQath6A
AA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSRgeWcO_sQ

[hard moth]

I had godot running though maybe thats why

rn its 5-20 % fluctuating

[tired haven]

Did you run with or without Vsync?

[hard moth]

its always with vsync now

[tired haven]

To confirm if it's single- or multi-threaded, I need the info from when it's not limited in resource consumption artificially, aka without Vsync

[hard moth]

Ill have to sleep now, but found some documents on this monitor issue, will hopefully figure out a solution soon.

[tired haven]

Can you look how much CPU it's using from the processes tab?

[hard moth]

The process tab?

[tired haven]

Yeah, in task manager

On win10 it's the first tab in task manager

[hard moth]

apparently like 1 % or something

or even lower

[tired haven]

Is that with Vsync?

[hard moth]

No vsync

[tired haven]

What does the GPU use look like?

Is that near 100%?

[hard moth]

nope like 0 %

[tired haven]

Is the game even running then, or has it paused processing mostly or something?

[hard moth]

ok well its prob because Im running game from within godot

if I run outside, its like 5% and thats without vsync

I really need to go sleep rn, so I think ill try reading the forums for a solution later, but thanks for the help.

[tired haven]

Ok, based on what I saw in the graphs, it might have 2 cores in use

[cold egret]

ok, cool! I'll start on it later today :D

[hard moth]

Drawing cover image

[tired haven]

Will that be part of the game or just the website thing or something?

[hard moth]

Itch-io cover image, making since it requires specific dimensions

[tired haven]

Ok. Will you add the icon for the exe at some point?

[hard moth]

For the release, yes

[tired haven]

Cool. An icon should add a bit more polish to the release exe

[cold egret]

woah, it looks awesome already!

[hard moth]

Just have to color now

[tired haven]

I think it looks really cool

[tired haven]

It seems slightly odd that it's possible to bring up the pause menu while on the upgrade selection menu

That causes the screen to be double-dimmed

[hard moth]

I specifically made it so that it can do that maybe ill remove the double dim but I still want a visible difference when paused during upgrade selection

[tired haven]

It's just a slightly weird feature. Usually you shouldn't be able to pause on a menu like that

[hard moth]

I think ill keep it for now spent way too much time making it sunken cost fallacy I guess

[vernal hollow]

some games do allow it.. like the new game Deep Rock Galactic Survivors. you can pause in the upgrade screen and it will send you to the pausemenu

[vernal hollow]

maybe hide the upgrade menu and show the pause. and switch between them

[hard moth]

I may do something like this, or at least make only one of the panels show so there is no double opacity

[cold egret]

yeah I think it's fine to be able to pause in the upgrade screen

it doesn't do any harm

[hard moth]

Btw any progress on the video?

[cold egret]

yep, I've recorded all the gameplay I should need and I'll be editing it soon

[hard moth]

Cover image almost done

Also thinking of some achievements

[tired haven]

The cover image looks great

Some of those achievements are really hard though, like damageless, since Neuro is so hard to control

[hard moth]

I dont even know its possible to be honest

Threw that in there to see if some perfectionist could somehow achieve it

Maybe more doable will be, "Win a game without the collab partner taking any damage"

You know what ill change it to that

I don't think any damage is possible

[tired haven]

I think it'd require basically end-game levels of power in the early game, and unreachable power levels in the endgame. Damageless with only Vedal sounds more doable

[hard moth]

I patched Gymbag Drones to go near the AI every once in a while (since they so often just wonder off never to be seen again) and the Nuke & Angel wings now have a chance to target the collab partner (But I increased their base damage to balance things out.) as even in the highest levels it seemed too easy to avoid them.

So I might have one last rc before release. (Shouldn't affect trailer. Almost nothing changed visually)

[tired haven]

Seems like some decent balance changes. And another rc could be good to make sure the game is well balanced

After you get 1.0 released, what do you plan on adding after that? Will you add more characters, more maps or the endless mode?

[hard moth]

For now:

• Even more optimization (Like figuring out the vsync problem once and for all)
• Evil Neuro (AI)
• Anny (Collab Partner)
• Endless Mode
• Outfits (Catgirl, Pirate, Angel, etc.)
• Gacha mechanic for the new characters & outfits (Same as Holocure)

[tired haven]

Ok, seems like a decent set of releases for some of the first major updates.

By the way, once you add the endless mode, I think you could probably add achievements for survival time.

Also, you could add some system to connect to a server (which I can host) to at least fetch if there is a later version than the one currently being used, since that would make it easier for players to figure out if there's a new version. You could even add update functionality in-game, by making it able to download the new version from itch.io, which would make updating even easier. If you add that before endless mode and the leaderboard system, you could then integrate that in later

[tired haven]

I assume you reused the upgrade menu for that menu. I think you could fit more on-screen at once though, maybe do 2 columns and 5 rows

[hard moth]

Pretty much, I think ill stick to this for now since I don't have to make anything new and this is how Holocure also does it

[tired haven]

Well, just keep in mind it would look better to have more achievements on-screen at once

By the way, do you have any plan for how (and possibly when) to do server connectivity of some kind

[hard moth]

How it looks if you don't have anything

[tired haven]

I think that works

[hard moth]

Godot websockets I guess?

[tired haven]

I would assume it is the same thing or something similar to the thing often referred to as ports

[hard moth]

Godot Client -websockets-> Server (Also Godot or Python but I don't really want to touch Async functiosn again)

[tired haven]

Seems functional, as long as it can be done on ports other than the ones that are already used

[hard moth]

I normally just use 9999

[tired haven]

I don't think that one should be in use currently

So you could probably use that one

[hard moth]

Unless somehow you also happen to be playing my spaceship game that I threw in the trash, yah I don't think its used by anything.

[tired haven]

Yeah, I didn't even know about the existence of that, so it should be fine

Will you do all the server stuff with the leaderboard system or will you add an update fetching system before that?

[hard moth]

I dont think ill ever make an update fetching system

Considering ill prob have like 2-3 major updates

If this game somehow becomes popular enough for me to upload it on Steam then people can prob use Steam's system

[tired haven]

Well, it would still be good to have a system where the server can declare a minimum version, to make sure any possible issues can be patched without confusing users on why they can't connect to the servers

So that the client can display a version error instead of some random general error

That way there could also be some good interface to display that error and make sure the game doesn't crash while handling it

Does that make any sense?

[hard moth]

Wait, wont versions that are not compatibel with the leaderboard, simply not have a leaderboard?

[tired haven]

I mean if we change something serverside like patch a major issue of some kind, which causes the clients before the changes to become incompatible, even if they had the leaderboard system

[hard moth]

make sense

ill keep that in mind when I make the server

[tired haven]

It is always a possibility some way to send invalid data to the server exists and could cause some security issue, so those need to be able to be fixed. You should definitly keep that in mind while you make the server

By the way, when you make the server, you should also make it able to create automatic backups. since I have additional drives for redunduncy

That's what the Neuro rants server does too

[opal terrace]

Hey you two! I have been lurking for a while and wanted to say that I would be open to making a server for you. I have already made one for Toasted! (another community game) including a leaderboard.

[tired haven]

Oh, sounds good

As long as you can figure it out, I'm fine with it

[hard moth]

Sounds great
The leaderboard will prob be needed in the next major update (After release) so maybe a month or two from now. Ill contact you when I start working on it.

[tired haven]

Also let me know when that is started in case you need data for the serverside or clientside

Things like the server address and backup paths

[hard moth]

Btw my progress on this game will probably decrease a while after release as ill be busy with Uni stuff. Ill still be working on it though, just at a reduced capacity.

[tired haven]

Ok

[hard moth]

https://kotgedev.itch.io/neuro-adventures

rc3 is out!

basically minor balancing and achievements

[tired haven]

Ok, I'll try to check it out

You should make sure to remember the exe icon for the 1.0 version by the way, it's still using the default icon

[hard moth]

its the next thing im working on

final release ver should have it (hopefully)

[tired haven]

Ok cool

[tired haven]

Where are the archievements stored by the way? Are they in the same place as the settings?

The game is still running at (a very stuttery) 165FPS, so you definitely still are using Vsync and not manually capping the FPS, which you said you would do

Well, the stutter was just the Neurolings, but it's still at 165FPS

The level bar moving randomly is still definitely there

And the audio stutter

Black lines bug is still there

The game just crashed

It did it again

[hard moth]

Decided not to since Ive read that it could cause even more problems..

[tired haven]

Yeah, screen tearing being the most noticeable one

By the way, once you make an endless mode, you'll probably need more unlimited upgrades, unless you want to only offer a choice between 3 gymbag drones

Since it is entirely possible for all non-unlimited upgrades to run out

Also, any idea why the game crashed twice in a row (pretty much)?

Vedal's HP just dropped to like 0 pixels twice, both times with no effect. Are you sure the game is actually checking vedal's HP?

Nevermind, it is. Just somehow had so little HP that the bar coudn't show it

The game somehow feels more difficult now, which could be the balance changes you made

[hard moth]

Not sure... ill test. But I havent changed much except adding the achievement system. Maybe that? But it works fine for me on web & pc

[tired haven]

It just randomly crashed twice. Both times it was a bit after coming out of the upgrade menu, the second time when I went to check task manager (which I didnt do the first time) the game was using like 7Mbps disk for some reason. Could be either the game using the pagefile without being able to handle it, or incorrect drive error handling. It could also be something completely different, but those are the ones I came up with

[hard moth]

Does it still crash / can you recreate it?

[tired haven]

It hasn't crashed after that. I think it might be random, since the first time happened after a while of playing and the second time quite quicly after starting to play it. I don't think I can reliably recreate this one

I'll keep monitoring it

[tired haven]

The game feels way too hard now, you might have overcorrected the balance

And softlocked

I think you didn't code the 4090 to handle a situation where you have no upgrades to improve

Which means that this can happen

It's stuck like that

Also, I just can't get trough the game with this version

[obtuse condor]

Is pressing space supposed to end the game like this? It doesn't grant achievements but it did interrupt a good run of mine earlier

[hard moth]

Oops

Ill fix both