Death Zone Zero: Minor Update: Rifleman 3d Model Test

I'm working on the graphics right now, after having coding in 5 different units for the game.

Death Zone Zero: Minor Update: Doc's Support Ability "Steroids"

The Doc now has his support ability, Steroids, which, I've said before, raises the attack damage of a friendly organic unit, but damages that unit as a side-effect. The effect lasts for 2 turns and you can stack it.



As usual, the work-in-progress, playable demo is available at http://anomalousunderdog.herobo.com/Unity/DZZPrototype.html

Weird thing is he can raise damage of a unit even though the guy uses a gun to attack. Then again, the Marine of Starcraft also uses a similar idea with their Stimpack ability, and they use guns too.

Victis: Female Character 1 Concept Sketches

Here I show an old piece of work I did for a different planned game, "Victis", a dark fantasy-themed RPG where guns and gunpowder technology are the norm for warfare instead of swords. My influences for the theme is from fantasy games with a somber mood like Quest For Glory 4, Castlevania, Disciples 2, and the like.

This character has no name yet, but she's some sort of gypsy traveler who wields dual pistols. Her unique ability is that she can see the potential future for a brief period of time.

Since she's of gypsy descent I searched the Internet for various Romanian names. I saw "Liliana" but that's similar to the name of a character in Dragon Age: Origins, then I saw "Tatiana", which the Internet tells me is "Feminine form of the Roman name Tatianus, a derivative of the Roman name TATIUS". What do you guys think?

Death Zone Zero: Update: New Unit "Doc"

The Doc is your post-apocalyptic healing unit. He can heal a large amount of health to one organic ally unit. The problem is he has no combat training so he can't attack.

Still to come: The Doc's support ability, Steroids, which enhances an organic ally unit's attack damage but damages that unit itself as a side-effect.

Death Zone Zero: Update: New Unit "Gunslinger"

The Gunslinger is like your standard ranged-attack unit, except that he really shines in indoor maps where there are lots of walls, because his shots ricochet off them. This also means you can attack units hiding behind cover, while being behind cover, provided you can find an angle that allows you to do so.

Again, I'm still using the placeholder 3d model, so they all look alike right now.



As usual, the work-in-progress, playable demo is available at http://anomalousunderdog.herobo.com/Unity/DZZPrototype.html

I made some dummy walls in order to demonstrate the Gunslinger's ricochet ability.

Death Zone Zero: Minor Update: Bullet Ricochet Test

In this post I show a work-in-progress of the Gunslinger unit's special ability to make his shots ricochet off walls. Its kinda like in billiards games where you see the potential trajectory your ball will make before you make a shot.



I got my inspiration for this from Metal Gear Solid 1 where you fight Revolver Ocelot and his bullet shots would ricochet off the walls.

Retrieving player's ranking in MySQL

Here's a neat little trick I figured out for myself when I was coding in MySQL. How to retrieve a player's current rank in a Leaderboards sort-of table.

-- this will calculate our current rank
SELECT count(DISTINCT exp) AS rank FROM player WHERE (exp > $exp);

-- this will retrieve 3 players that are of greater rank than us
SELECT * FROM player WHERE (exp > $exp) ORDER BY exp, username ASC LIMIT 3

-- this will retrieve 3 players that are of lower rank than us (or equal rank)
SELECT * FROM player WHERE (exp <= $exp) && (username != '$username') ORDER BY exp DESC LIMIT 3

-- top ten players
SELECT * FROM player ORDER BY exp DESC LIMIT 10

My example code comes from a PHP environment so $exp is a variable storing the selected player's current experience points, which in this example determines his rank. The greater one's experience points, the greater his rank. $username is a variable storing the selected player's unique username.