Monday 8 June 2015

Difficulties, Delays & Dirty Bombs

I've been having a weird week, and unfortunately it's been a real uphill struggle to get anything productive done. For those that don't know I have problems with depression and anxiety. Now I'm fortunate enough that these aren't severe enough to greatly impact my life but they are significant enough that certain aspects of a "normal" life are quite difficult for me, enough so that I'm seeking medical help. In this case I started taking SSRI's last Monday (01/06/2015) and for anyone who knows about this form of anti-depressant it's common that the first couple of weeks on them are generally not a fun couple of weeks. The body has to adjust to the new balance of chemicals in the brain. That said all in all I'm honestly feeling pretty fine in and of myself it's just that I'm very tired, not feeling motivated and not very creative. As I mentioned this is usually just a short adjustment period, I just wanted to say things are going slow now, but hopefully, as I've had positive results from SSRI's before I should be feeling better than ever soon enough and at that point I should start making leaps and bounds with everything from my uni placements, referral work and of course Revolver developments. Speaking of which:

31/05/2015:
-Created a crate tile.
-Began work on rSkyEntrance.
-Changed up the trait selection so that the same traits appear after each level. i.e After rWarehouse the player always has a choice of: Cyborg Eye, Bullet Ritual, Bionic Legs.
-Added a HP+ Speed- trait and a trait that deals damage to zombies attacking the player. The second doesn't seem to work though and I don't know why.

01/06/2015:
-Created a conveyor belt tile.
-Fixed the Shocking Touch trait.
-Added Blood Pact trait. Doubles HP but HP slowly drains during the level.
-Added Vampiric Embrace trait. Kills against zombies heal the player slightly. Good in conjunction with Blood Pact.
-Added Double Barrel trait. If the revolver has an even number of bullets loaded it fires two at once.

02/06/2015:
-Added Nano-repair trait. Gives a small health regen to the player. Half speed of blood pacts degeneration.
-Added Mysterious Journal trait. Gives the player a bonus 2 exp on everything that grants exp. Allows a player to get stronger in levels quicker.

03/06/2015:
-Worked on rLivingQuarters.

04/06/2015:
-Created a randomly chosen hint system for the trait selection screen.

05/06/2015:
-Added several hints.

06/06/2015:
-Added a script that should allow me to add text to the bottom of the screen at the start of levels. This will be used for the character who talks to you via walkie talkie.
-Added Bullet Proof Vest trait. Halves turret bullet damage from 16 to 8.
-Added Full Metal Jacket trait. Gives shots a 50% to pierce on each hit.

So after that heavy beginning I want to talk about a game I've recently been enjoying quite a bit. It's called Dirty Bomb and it's filled a little hole I've had since I got bored of TF2. Dirty Bomb is a neat little class based multi-player FPS. Basically it's two teams of highly characterised mercenaries shooting, blowing up and smacking the shit out of each other with the goal of completing their objectives, usually either attacking or defending. It's a pretty generic format but Dirty Bomb does a few things really well.

First is the fast fire game-play. Most classes can't take much of a hit but re-spawning in waves (whole teams may re-spawn at once) rather than with individual timers and with some character being able to revive players quick, allows for a constant flow of combat. The characters that can't take much of a hit are also pretty fast movers and with all characters you can do a little parkour, which is often really useful for dodging if used right. It's fun anyway so I do it all the time.

Secondly characters all have their own personalities, fun quotes and most importantly awesome tactical abilities. Every character has a unique cool ability like sky lasers, air-strikes or healing stations and some also have a common ones too like defibrillators. It's this mix that makes all classes have their own feel, but most mixes of classes will still have enough coverage of skills that it's still practical to use. This gives a nice balanced feel to the characters I think.

Lastly I really like the load-out system that gives a specific set of weapons and augmentations (1 - 3 little perks) meaning specifically balanced characters to use and neat augmentations that vary how the character plays. Just changing from a shotgun to smg or having a melee damage bonus can change how that class plays, or having a perk that reduces ability delay can be really useful for defending or attacking quicker. It adds more personality and character to the loadout and getting good with a loadout can really benefit in many situations.

All in all I've had a lot of fun with Dirty Bomb and will continue to do so. I don't think I will be spending any or at least much money on the game however. It is free to play with the ability to purchase everything form characters, to loadouts and even special money granting items. Here is a link to their website so you can get more info, and with that I'm getting on with something else now. Sorry for the delay.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

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