riedlerod/dodgetodrums

Bullet hell shooter with rhythm elements

Dodge to Drums

What is this?

This is a game in development. It's planned to become something between "Just Shapes and Beats" and "Cuphead". That means it'll become a bullet hell with focus on music and rhythm and with an open Level selection menu.

Who made this?

You will also be able to see this in the ingame credits once they're implemented, but here's the crew so far:

Programming

• Riedler
• Philip Damianik

Sketches & Art:

• Dark Rosemary

Playtesting:

• Andreas S. (Windows)
• Philip Damianik (dual-screen Windows)

Compiling:

• Riedler (Linux)
• Andreas S. (Windows)
• Philip Damianik (build pipeline)

Music:

• Riedler
• Dark Rosemary

Levels:

• Riedler

Compatibility

You don't need any special libraries to run it on Windows or Linux. MacOS is currently unsupported, so please refer to compiling and figure it out with the guides for Linux and/or Windows. This may improve in the future. It should run on all major Linux distributions, but only Ubuntu and Arch Linux are supported. It should also run on everything above including Windows XP, but only Windows 10 is supported. Feel free to file an issue for any incompatibilities.

Screenshots

No screenshots are yet available, because it's so early in development right now, but Dark Rosemary drew an amazing sketch of what it's going to look like:

Usage

Download the matching executable for your OS and save it somewhere where you'll easily find it again, e.g. in a new folder on your Desktop. Then download the level archive (base_levels.zip or base_levels.tar.xz) and the data archive (base_data.zip or base_data.tar.xz) and extract them into the executable folder as levels/ and data/. Make sure that your extraction program of choice doesn't pack those folders into new ones (base_levels and base_data). When you first start the program, all settings are assumed to be the defaults. A config file conf.json will be created after changing the settings and saving them. The menu is controllable with the mouse and a few keys. ESC is usually for going back and Enter for confirming stuff. In the main game, the character is controllable with WASD. You can pause with ESC. All of those controls can be changed in the settings, as well as various other stuff.

Adding resources

All resources are in the data/ subfolder. All textures are specified in data/sprites.json, in the format "sprite_name":["file_name",true], where "file_name" is the relative file path without file extension (only png is allowed) and true is a boolean that determines if the upscaling method is set as Nearest-Neighbour or Linear. Animations are also supported, and can be specified in the format "animation_name":[["file1","file2",…],[18,true]], where as many files as necessary can be specified and 18 is the number of frames one picture should last. Animations aren't supported in all objects, but in most. If they're not supported, the animation will stay at frame 0. All sound effects are specified in data/sfx.json, in the format "sfx_name":["file_name",false], where "file_name" is the relative file path without file extension in the opus format, and false is a boolean that determines if the file is streamed to playback or loaded on program startup. false is heavily recommended here, and true can lead to crashes in some circumstances. All levels are in seperate folders in levels/. A tutorial on how to create new levels will be made soon.

Compiling

on windows

You'll need python for this. Make sure to download the newest version. In the cmd: First run pip3 install -r requirements.txt Then run python3 setup.py. If this doesn't produce any output, try pyinstaller \args\, where \args\ is all the options that aren't commented out in setup.py. I haven't figured out why this happens in windows yet, if you know, please file an issue. After the command finished successfully, there should be a build/ and a dist/ directory. You can delete the build/ directory, and move the executable from the dist/ directory wherever you want. If you encounter any error that's not explained in this guide, please file an issue in the repo.

on Linux

In bash (or zsh probably too): First run pip3 install -r requirements.txt --user. Then run python3 setup.py, which, after a short wait, produces a build/ and a dist/ directory. You can delete the build/ directory, and move the executable from the dist/ directory wherever you want. If you encounter any error that's not explained in this guide, please file an issue in the repo.

dodgetodrums's Issues

make the hearts bop to the beat

because that'd be cool.

From Sage (Dark Rosemary)'s Dad

Dear @RiedleroD and others,

Hello. My name is Soichi Hayashi I am the father of Sage Hayashi (Dark Rosemary) who passed away last Tuesday. I've been looking through Sage's computer and I've found some conversations that you were having with Sage. I believe you were the last friend that Sage has communicated on that regretful evening.

I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, for letting Sage work with your project and your friendship. Sage showed me the game you are working on scratch, and let me play it a few days before Sage died. I've commented on how great this game was, and he was able to play it so well even though I could only survive for a very short time. You have not idea how much this game meant to Sage, how proud they were to be part of it, and how much they appreciated your friendship.

If you are willing, please contact me at [email protected] (me) or my wife [email protected] (sage's mom) so that we could send you more through message. Please let your parents/guardians know about this message, and if they are willing to allow us to thank you and your parents, and everyone who involved our personal tragedy, it means so much to our family and helps us with our grieving process.

If I don't hear from you, I totally understand, and please know that we will always remember you as Sage's precious last friends they had on earth, and if you could remember Sage, there is nothing more that I could wish for.

Thank you,

Sage's Dad
Soichi Hayashi

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/bloomington-in/sage-hayashi-9318448

add 'warn' to level commands

it'll add a transparent red overlay to a region where danger is coming

add control settings

remove "stop" action from level actions

because those only prevent getting 100% and nothing else.
this is planned for 1.0, earlier releases can leave it in for debugging purposes.

Window opens with incorrect size on dual screen setups

confirmed in win10 by PythonCode

write Readme.md

what has to be in there:

• what is it (from a perspective where it's finished)
• compatibility stuff (what OSs are supported, what libraries are needed: planned is Linux & Windows & no special libraries)
• who made it (who made what & thanks to testers)
• screenshots (when finished)
• how to install (portable executable for now)
• how to add custom textures & audio (if implemented)
• how to compile (nuitka is planned, but cython may be an alternative if nuitka doesn't work)
  should be progressively edited & finished before pre-testing release.

exit level when music ends

lose a life on collision with projectile

then wait 1.5sec until you can get hit again
depends on #17

add update checker

add life system

collision detection with projectiles is separate from this issue.

• show life with a heart somewhere at the bottom of the screen (will get cleaned up later)
• exit level when all lifes are used up (you have 4 lifes, when you hit 0 lifes, you're dead without having to get hit another time)
• mute and fade in music when 'hit' (again, no collision detection, just do it on right click rn)

add 'reset progress' button in settings

replace current upscaling method

with
pyglet.image.Texture.default_min_filer=pyglet.image.Texture.default_min_filer=pyglet.gl.GL_NEARESt/pyglet.gl.GL_LINEAR

implement death animation

game crashes when exiting settings after turning fps from off to on

bc it tries to set the fps/ups labels' text when there aren't any.

add volume settings

should be fairly easy implementing a slider widget and updating the volume on slider change.
I'll need volume sliders for:

• global (master) volume
• music
• sound effects (sfx)

add texture/sprite support

This issue is ONLY for support of those things, the sprites needed for that will not be provided in the repo except for compressed graphics packs when releasing a new version. All of those features should be optional & a primitive should show up in place of the graphics if it isn't found

- [ ] the ground should support a repeating pattern Ground will be removed before 0.2

the player character should support

• walking floating animation

- [ ] falling animation

• idle animation
• crouched walking (or crawling) floating animation

- [ ] crouched falling animation

• crouched idle animation

• with mirroring when facing the opposite direction

• the buttons should support a pressed and unpressed sprite

• the start menu should support a start menu banner (maybe even animated)

add version label in the lower left corner of the settings

add a level progress bar in the level selection screen

add audio playback system for level music

replace life label with heart sprite

improve setup.py

• add profiles (dev for --nowindowed option, nothing or dist for --windowed, etc.)
• delete build/ and dist/ folders and spec file after moving the executable into the current folder
• maybe a --verbose option?
• disable upx with --noupx (enabled by default when found)
• automatically search & add icon
• maybe some other options too

add ingame credits

Something like this:

code: Riedler
graphics: Dark Rosemary
music: Riedler & Dark Rosemary (at least that's what's planned)
testing: ? (only include after testing phase)

should be implemented shortly before testing phase

I wanna see some cool glow and particle effects to make the main character's awsome sprites justice

Similar to the concept art

notice & prevent game start if textures are missing

if textures are missing, the game should just display a notice at startup that says which textures are missing and tells the user to download the base texture pack

when pausing, the spawn timer still runs & spawns the enemies too soon when unpaused

implement level-driven background selection

add antialiasing option

for all the nvidia titan users out there ;)

see this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2747784/pyglet-opengl-drawing-anti-aliasing

add sfx

• sfx for losing a life (depends on #17)
• sfx for clicking a button

optimize the label/button render function

it currently sets the label position and anchors every render cycle even though it is only required when the position is changed (the anchor only has to be set once afaik). Optimal would also be a label.update function to reduce the number of calls on the label update function.

better music/actions syncronisation

every cycle,

• read the current time from the music player
• send the timestamp to any physical object that needs cycling
• everything should move and react according to time, not amount of cycles.
  currently, low framerates slow down the game & desync projectiles from the music after they're spawned. My pentium machine likes to stay in sync, even with low framerates.

add no levels notice

when no levels are found, add a notice in the level selector instead of just exiting on startup & printing an error to the console.
and replace the ValueErrors in the Level loading function with just warnings, followed by not loading the specified level.

get screen size through invisible borderless maximized window

bc Windows really really wacks all other methods.

redefine the game area with the new background/UI art by Rosemary

…and also integrate the art into the game obviously.
The art is in the #art channel in our discord server, so the goal should be clear.

add a LICENSE

either a GNU general license or CC BY-SA would be fine, though I have to discuss this with Dark Rosemary first.

definitely add asap bc who knows what legally happens with the pre-licensed code.

add moar bullet types

• Standard Projectile
• Projectile with rotating hitbox
• aiming missile
• Homing Missile
• rotating Projectile
• bomb

seperate window & game class

for better expandability, readability and so I can use the window that gets created in CONSTANTS.py

setting that enables button press indicators

just like the hitbox indicators, a nice addition for debugging purposes (and for showing off hehe)

upscaling method is unstable

it's still very much weighted random what upscaling method is used per sprite. Right now, the middle walking animation is still linear, and I have no idea why. The buttons might also be nearest-neighbour but I'm not sure as the testing sprite is ugly either way.

force 16:9 aspect ratio for main game

to further solidify that the game is equally hard on all hardware

opening menu bgm in streaming mode causes decoding issues

this is a bug in pyglet, but I'll add it anyway so I can fix it if a workaround is found

code sample to reproduce:

import pyglet
from pyglet.media.codecs.ffmpeg import FFmpegDecoder
dec=FFmpegDecoder()
mus=pyglet.media.load("./mus.wav",streaming=True,decoder=dec)
pl=mus.play()
pl.loop=True
pyglet.app.run()

This only happens when FFmpegDecoder is selected in streaming mode and the player loops. Incredibly specific, but all of those are necessary, since:

• only ffmpeg supports opus, Gstreamer is not compatible.
• it's the menu bgm, ofc it should loop.
• not streaming music causes long loading startup
  Since I don't have a choice here, I disabled streaming in the default datapack anyway.

integrate Dark Rosemarys new amazing character animations

that includes:

• going sideways
• going down
• going up
  I don't have a system for differentiating between going up,down,left,right or any diagonal direction. Should be fairly easy to implement though. It should just be another change of (animated) sprites depending on the horizontal and vertical speed.

Windows defender screams

see here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44377666/pyinstaller-exe-throws-windows-defender-no-publisher

limit out-of-bounds despawning to certain bullet types

bc currently, if a bomb is spawned outside the playing field, it won't come, even if it's directed into the playing field.

fps/ups label doesn't feel quite right

it says 20fps on my machine, but that aint 20fps my friend. Also it doesn't make sense that when I increased the fps limit from 60 to 120 that I suddenly had 30fps. like wtf.
anyway, investigation time just before release. yay.