Box Party [Demo v1.5]

[catoidi]

Been working on behind the scenes stuff for Box Party, so haven't had much new to show off.

But here's a rundown of the bigger stuff I've gotten done recently:
-Finished level 3, for the most part.
-Working on the boss for level 1. All the sprites are drawn, just need to finish ironing out the code.
-Added in a bunch of new sounds for enemies and whatnot.
-Fixed the same really really annoying loot drop bug multiple times related to health drops giving the incorrect name to the loot drop handler.
-Reworked the ZScript HUD to allow for (partial) support for custom characters and full support for custom weapons. (But also more importantly to fix a nasty bug causing some crashing.)
-Added some easter eggs to the 3 levels (good luck finding them).

Right now I am currently working on writing up a tutorial on how to add custom stuff to Box Party, like hats, weapons, enemies, player classes, loot drops, etc.
This should (hopefully) make it easier for anyone to make their own custom stuff for the game, because modding is cool and epic.
When the Box Party Demo is released, I'll make a public Github repo for it, since the demo itself will be completely open source. I'll also be adding a wiki page to it containing all of this tutorial stuff.

[catoidi]

Haven't posted many images this month, so lemme remedy that real quick:

Here's 3 random screenshots I took:

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Also the library I was using for fancy hat unlocks got updated to support icons, so now all the hat notifications have icons.

[catoidi]

I've made good progress on the boss for level 1, and by "good progress", I actually mean they're finished.

Here is a (spoiler-free!) screenshot of the boss in action:

(here's a hint: the boss is a fruit)

with this boss done, 2/3 of the bosses for the demo are complete. the only boss left is the one for level 2.
once boss 2 is complete, there's just a buncha smaller side stuff to finish, and then the demo is ready.

(the demo currently doesn't have any music whatsoever, but i dont think i want to delay the demo because of a lack of music. i might release the demo first and then add music to it as an update later down the line.)

[catoidi]

here is today's newest feature in Box Party: Side Objectives!

These are 3 optional side tasks you can do in each level. They will range from collecting a specific item, to doing something for an NPC, or doing an extra enemy encounter.
Each objective will net you 1500 points, so you're gonna need to complete them if you want a high score. Objectives can also be failed.

Here is the UI for the side objectives. You can toggle it on and off with a keybind.
(I'll probably move it at some point)

[catoidi]

Sorry for the radio silence! I've been caught up on other things recently, so I haven't had as much time to work on Box Party as I would've liked.

Box Party's Demo will be releasing onto Steam and Itch.io this DECEMBER. Don't have an exact date yet. Could be December 1st, or December 31st. Only time will tell.

Unfortunately, in order to reach the 2021 deadline I arbitrarily set upon myself, I'm going to have to cut a couple features for the initial Demo release, namely the "Side Objectives" which I just shown off previously, and some minor quality-of-life stuff. The initial release will also not have any music. Since this is just a demo, I'm okay with delaying these things until a little bit later.

I am currently working on the boss for Level 2 and adding some more NPC interactions. I'll release the demo once these are done.

For Steam specifically, I will be releasing the game as an "Early Access" title instead of a "demo". The demo will be in Early Access until both all the cut features are added back and the full version releases. The "full version" on steam will be featured as a DLC for the demo version.
(in hindsight, this was not the best idea. the demo on Steam will just be a regular demo.)

With that giant wall of text out of the way, here's an image of a character: (Can you guess what they'll be used for?)

[catoidi]

The Demo Trailer is live now! Go check it out!

[catoidi]

Box Party Demo is very, very close to being ready. I've just a few tiny things to add, and if nothing goes wrong, I'll send the demo to Steam for review and then announce a release date once it's approved.

I recently did more work on the game's built-in Guide Book, so here's one of the pages from that:


The Guide Book will take the place of the "Read This!" page from ultimate doom.

[catoidi]

Steam has reviewed and approved the demo build for Box Party!!!

Which means that the Box Party Demo will be released on...


DECEMBER 6th!!!!!!!
(or 4 days from now)

[MakuZdoom]

This looks cool! I really like the artwork nice work!

[catoidi]

Box Party Demo is out now on Steam and Itch!!!!!!!!!!!
Go check it out!!!!!!!!!!!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1727350/Box_Party/
Itch: https://idiotbitz.itch.io/box-party

also:

This looks cool! I really like the artwork nice work!

Thank you! Hope you enjoy Box Party

[KynikossDragonn]

I suppose if you're offering this on itch.io as well, I could buy this when fully finished and just run the WAD against my own self-compiled gzdoom? I'm a Linux user, heh.

[catoidi]

I suppose if you're offering this on itch.io as well, I could buy this when fully finished and just run the WAD against my own self-compiled gzdoom? I'm a Linux user, heh.

Yea, I see no reason why that wouldn't work. The game data itself is all contained in the "boxparty.ipk3", so you can just plop that into any gzdoom folder and it'll work fine.

I want to get linux and mac versions up on the store pages, but I've no idea how to set those up right now.

[KynikossDragonn]

I want to get linux and mac versions up on the store pages, but I've no idea how to set those up right now.

For Linux you need some way of self-containing GZDoom with the game, going by how most native Linux games appear to be packaged on Steam, this usually involves collecting all the dependencies together into it's own "lib" and "lib64" directories alongside the main game, and a shell script that Steam for Linux calls will launch the game with the appropriate LD_LIBRARY_PATH set for the given architecture.

It's a bit of a mess, not sure who you could reach out to to assist with packaging the Linux version of everything.

As long as it's still okay for you to sell your game on itch.io people can always just buy it there and beable to run your ipk3 with their own system installed GZDoom.

[catoidi]

As long as it's still okay for you to sell your game on itch.io people can always just buy it there and beable to run your ipk3 with their own system installed GZDoom.

Oh don't worry, I'll get it sorted out sometime before the full version is done. For now, though, Linux/Mac users will have to do a few extra steps to play Box Party.

But also, Box Party Demo v1.0.4 has been released.
Any save you have currently in Level 3 will be incompatible.
This is a minor update that fixes a few bugs that a playtester found for me that could cause a softlock.

[catoidi]

oops, I forgot to mention this like 3 days ago, but Box Party Demo v1.0.5 is out.

This update adds a new speedrun clock you can toggle on in the HUD options.
This clock should be especially helpful if you're trying to unlock the 3 speedrunning hats currently in the game.

Here's what the clock looks like. It shows up above the score bar.


This is the last small update I do before I work on v1.1, which will be focused on adding the side quests.