Loading stats in our game

In many games, there are different stats, that need a lot of tinkering and balancing before its in a good state. Weapons can easily be over powered or can be under powered and end up not being used.
Therefor it needs to be easy to change and it needs to be easy to understand what everything is. To contain data, there are a few different methods. You can use a database or save to a file(using a data type). Pro and cons of them both comes here.
Database
Pros
- Its easy to withdraw data and search for data.
- There is an existing GUI for it.
- Has good support for many entries, without it getting messy.
Cons
- Have to use a GUI, can't edit the file directly.
- Most existing GUI's don't deliver a good enough editing and reading experience.
- Its a hassle to work with(we think).
File
Pros
- Its easy to edit directly from the file.
- We can develop a GUI easier.
Cons
- Have no existing GUI's. We have to write our own, or edit directly in the files.
- Can quickly get messy, if you edit directly in the file, and there are lots of entries.

We wanted to make a custom GUI, that was a breeze to use. Saving via a file, was the best way to do that.
There are also multiple options for how you can save. We considered xml and json. We went with xml, since we liked its syntax better, which is the main difference between all the different data types. There are small other differences, but what really matters is the syntax.

We were a little lost as how you should import the values from the xml into the game. We had no experience with importing xml. Because of this we chose a sub optimal solution. We had to rewrite it, when we started designing our custom GUI. Its was not flexible enough and there was duplication all over it.

The way it worked was that we had a class(XmlSearcher), that did all the work(too much) and then every time, we needed something from the xml file, we called it and it usually returned a XmlNode. Then you called it again with the XmlNode and asked it for something in regarding that XmlNode.

With our previous experience with importing xml, we took to designing a new and better design.
The new design is much simpler and works much better.

Our current system

When you want something in the xml file, you call the class XmlPath's constructor with parameters describing your path to your desired node. Then you can get all the data you want via the XmlPathData, which XmlPath returns. The previous XmlSeacher class, still exists but does far less and is used by XmlPathData and XmlPath.

Its now much easier too work with system and we can design our GUI easier. We hope some of this was useful and makes it easier for you to work with importing xml.

That was all for this weeks blog post! Return next Tuesday for another.

Something is happening at the studio.

It's two years ago since last time we updated the blog? Quite a while, uh? Well, we are still here and something is happening at the studio.

Click the link below to watch the timelaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXO6-ElYgFU&feature=youtu.be

Keep an eye on the blog as we will update with more stuff and information on our new project.

A year of game jamming

It's about a year ago we started making video games and so we felt it was time to celebrate it with a video that would show you guys what Headless hobo had managed to make. Now, that's just the birth of headless hobo and we will Participate in many more Game Jams to come. 

So yes, it has obviously been a while since we updated the blog and we are truly sorry, especially because so much has happened since the last update.

We've participated in two Ludum dare games. You can find a link to both games here.

Blub

Try it here
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=27420

Total Viking Power

Here's a little video that follows the making of the graphics through out the development.


Try the game here.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/comment-page-1/?action=preview&uid=20524


We will be talking more about the development of the games through this month.

We've also participated in two other Game jams here in Denmark and both of them won a price.

USU Minijam copenhagen.

Here we had an experienced Sound  designer join the team and to be honest which was quite a releaf since one of our Team members got sick and would have left the team to only consist of the Graphic Artist and the Programmer.

Luckily, that wasn't the case and the game turned out to win the price for the Best Game.

Common Sense

Try it here.https://www.dropbox.com/s/gyxj3d9c3vqi6mh/Backup_--_Full.zip

The next one were at Indie9000 in Aalborg.

Here we won a price too: jury's favorite... and an Xbox Sponsored by Microsoft

Try it here.
http://www.unicorn7.org/games/game/167/

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Last but not least, here's our latest game from Bacon Game Jam 6#

The Robo Rainbow Initiative

While this was supposed to be a 48 hour project, it was changed to 24 hours instead. This was because we had to go to Netherland that day after the start of the Game Jam. More the development of the game in a later post.

If you want to play it you can go to this link:
http://bacongamejam.org/jams/bacongamejam-06/170/

Lair of the squirrel hell - DEMO

This is NOT the game, that we are making for ludum dare.

Now you can play the awesome game "Lair of the squirrel hell" as a demo.
We hope you'll play it and have fun.

If you feel in a good mode, you could give us some feedback via the document, that you can get on our blog or on facebook. We'll appreciate any feedback we can get, good or bad. We deeply want to make this game, truly awesome and that can only be done with YOUR help.

You can download the game to your browser here :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9frj7dtd7db6c1/TheLairOfTheSqurrielHellWebplayer.zip
And the pc version here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ulqxlfqt1tvzt2y/TheLairOfTheSqurrielHellPc.zip

The document link, if you want to give us some feedback.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ae2wfdclq6muei5/Feedback.docx

If you have any problems download or installing, send us a mail at headlesshoboentertainment@gmail.com or write a comment.

- Headless Hobo

Pathfinding - Performance, a tough one!

When I first got pathfinding to work, like you saw in the prototype and had made somemore work on it, I though well now there can't be much more work, but there were and is still much more work, cause I underestimated how hard pathfinding is!

The performance issue

Pathfinding is very cpu needing, becuase of that you need to write your algorith, very good. There can't be anywere it will take too much time on something or else it will lag and it will lag more the more you get into the game!

That was something i found out, when I tried my pathfinding more. It lagged, so I had to fix it, because if it could lag, with a little testlevel as that, then it was going to be a nightmare, when we started making real levels.

Performance is hard!

A taste of what's coming. (Music)

Just a short, but very awesome update.

Today, our music composer Mikkel Laynes gave us a few demo versions of the music he is currently working on.

Enjoy. :)