Anyway, maybe we should talk about how the scoring works!  

Every time you hit someone, the combo meter fills up.  You don’t want the combo meter to run out, if you do, the combo ends.  Arsenal is great for linking combos together–shooting down-but-not-executed enemy is great for keeping that meter full.

Every time you hit someone who has some health left, you get damage * 100 points.

Every time you kill someone, for clean and messy kills you get their max health * 50 points, for other kills you get their max health * 150 points.  Why the discrepancy?  Well, let’s talk about multipliers.

As you rack up hits and kills, you’re racking up multipliers; when your combo meter runs out, you get points * multiplier score.

Here’s the breakdown on multipliers:

• Hit = 0.25x
• Normal Kill = 2x
• Messy Kill = 5x
• Clean Kill = 5x

So, if we kill a bad guy with 40 HP, we get:

• 40hp * 100 = 4000 from damage
• 40hp * 150 = 6000 from death
• 8 hits * 0.25x = 2x from hits
• +2x from death = 4x multiplier
• 10000 * 4x multiplier = 40000

But, kill the same guy with a mesy or clean kill, and we get:

• 40hp * 100 = 4000 from damage
• 40hp * 50 = 2000 from death
• 8 hits * 0.25x = 2x from hits
• +5x from death = 7x multiplier
• 6000 * 7x multiplier = 42000

Of course, if you try to do all this math in your head while playing Dish Challenge, you’ll probably die.  Not in real life, I mean.

Back to The Dishwasher–a lot of people ask if it’s just me working on it, how I make games, etc., and I figured posting the changelog would provide some insight into the mayhem that goes on here. I hop between sound, art, netcode, core code, level design, and more art sporadically, fixing things as regularly as I break things. There are a lot of features in the changelog that I’ve since gotten rid of, especially with magic use (and fyi, I took out the green skull collect button–all pickups now use the classic DMC/NG/GoW absorb style), and there are a lot of features that won’t make much sense.

Anyway, here’s several months of Dishwasher history. Make sure you start at the bottom for proper chronology!

4 – 18 – 08

0.3.7

Big graphics overhaul–spirals, stars and sprite blood–no more threshold shader for blood
Game invites work
All tutorials, messages + controller updated for new control scheme–right trigger modifier magic
Guitar minigame now does just that
Tweaked phantom guitar, fixed follow bug
Added arcade game variations–vampire, instakill, bullet time, aerials
Multiple profiles handled correctly (using press start screen)
Upsell works
Fixed St. Crux Achievement
Fixed wall Slam achievement
Leaderboard scrolling in place
Bosses now don’t fade out after death
Main Menu slightly colorified
Can replay guitar game
TODO: need to make sure upsell screen -> buy screen -/-> upsell screen
TODO: fix end level screen + guide = flickering pause bug
TODO: have leaderboard open to right gamertag, not just #1
TODO: polish guitar (w/ guitar peripheral) minigame
TODO: test game invites

4 – 5 – 08

0.3.6

Further framerate improvement (got rid of haze + uberfade, bloomed the heck out of everything)
Needs theme brightness check
XLast online
Leaderboards work, need great tweaking (new scoring metric?)
Need leaderboard page scrolling
Decide how to handle multiplayer leaderboards
Need to finish up multiple profile handling
Magic is now all done with RT modifier, need to update all tutorials + arcade messages

3 – 27 – 08

0.3.5

Solution now works w/ VS 2005, has XDK project (dishXbla)
No longer using dlls (was causing trouble)–using original character loading now
Achievements work, achievements main menu option works

3 – 18 – 08

0.3.4

Big framerate improvement! Did this by reducing wall blood texture size
New sounds–swords, feet patter, guns, chainsaw, brass + shells, launches, explosions
Multiplayer host can’t start map until Client has loaded
Hopefully fixed multiplayer packet barrage bug where recipient would end up stuck in 10 second long GC messes
Multiplayer grab issues are all server side now
Pickup drawing is now consistent–LT for hearts, spirals and skulls
TODO: Clean up chainsaw sounds, redo more sounds

3 – 13 – 08

0.3.3

Added Phantom Guitar
Added brass and shells
Secondary switching is *all good* now–cleavers selectable
Combo list correct
Bugfixes: shop anywhere bug, midair messy walker kill

2 – 27 – 08

0.3.2

Added “thwarting” bosses: sinthesis, ubertank, skeletank, viking, vulcan, death
Bugfixes: coop stage selection bug, empty inventory bug

2 – 17 – 08

0.3.1

Fixed storage selection failed issue
Polished playthrough
Warp effect
Zombie + Kamikaze (unfinished?) + Vulcan sounds

2 – 13 – 08

0.3.0

Tut overlap
Storage failure issues
Smoothed guitar input
Revised samurai levels
Psycho pick placement good

2 – 8 – 08

0.2.9

New fonts
Jump on ledge handled differently
Moved tutorials around–CAT boxes

2 – 1 – 08

0.2.8

Revisions for trial–moved loading screen
fixed aspect ratio detection
fixed title safe issue
changed thug zap sounds (“tase” now)
added menu titles
Fixed skull collection issue
Reworked tutorials in level 1
Created design doc
Created achievements (in temp)
Added background rain to cafe

1 – 30 – 08

0.2.7

Big net progress, almost solid!
Fixed jittery motion bug, face wrong way bug
Handle grabs correctly (almost!)
Handle death, revive hearts correctly
Correctly handles host/client dropping
Moved particle spawning for special cases–explode, muzzle flash, blood, etc.
TODO: Grabs need smoothing
TODO: Test at poor latency

1 – 25 – 08

0.2.6

Netplay introduced, arcade mode [slightly] passable, can host, join, leave, play, etc.
Candidate for XNA trial complete (may need revisions if necessary)
TODO: Jittery motion bug
TODO: Face wrong way bug
TODO: Handle grabs correctly
TODO: Handle death correctly
TODO: Handle revive hearts

1 – 20 – 08

0.2.5

50 Arcade levels
Guide-friendly
Tied up guitar solo loose ends
Cleaned up, prettied up menu
Icon and Description in good form
Controls view updated
Removed coop story (may use as easter egg)
Nearing candidate for XNA Trial
TODO: Networking!
TODO: Review Arcade; polish

1 – 14 – 08

0.2.4

Added arcade mode
Added moves (lots and lots)
Added more persistant items
Finished comics–revamped story!
TODO: More arcade levels (lots and lots)
TODO: Finish arcade mode

12 – 23 – 07

0.2.3

Converted to be compatible with 2.0–many redundant versions now; correction version is in projectDish2/projectDish2/TheDishwasher_Win
Made content processor for character types (for 2.0 compatibility)
Added gray fortress level
Added uberflags for persistant items
Put inventory items on all levels except lobby and core
TODO: move comics around again, add some more
TODO: fix guitar stuff, add one more pick
TODO: add more persistant items, samurai level crazy branches

12 – 12 – 07

0.2.2

Added catacombs level, kamikaze enemy
Added Halper Bot Shop, Inventory, Pause menu transitions
Reworked render chain to assemble scene on texture, not primary, for better blast effects
Guitar solo now awards you a pick, not an upgrade (buy the upgrade at the shop)
Put exp globs back in, they’re now spirals that bounce on the floor
Put trails back in
Final boss now has grab death, still needs final comic

11 – 30 – 07

0.2.1

2 Comics for inprocessing
Replaced splatters with guitar, added more guitar!
Removed chainsaw blocking
Added feedback effect
Loading is on a separate thread now
Can cancel guitar solo, still needs cheering

11 – 20 – 07

0.2

Added InProcessing Stage, Electrobarriers
Thermoptic Camo for enemies
Changed gravity
Revamped continues
Changed health + magic globs
Posterize effect
TODO: Many comics still–final fight, inprocessing

11 – 05 – 07

0.1.9

Guitar minigame in good shape, lights, upgrades
Added throw; needs name (debugging may be in order)
Messy kills are big on electricity now
Chef + revamped final fight
TODO: Allow player to cancel upgrade, add cheering to guitar
TODO: Concluding final fight comic

10 – 29 – 07

0.1.8

Added guitar minigame–syncs well on Win and 360, but would be nice if XNA 2.0 had a getCurrentPosition
Added lights
Started Engineer form 2
TODO: Reduce blood still?
TODO: Need chef + revamped final fight, including comic
TODO: Comic to set the stage
TODO: Finish guitar minigame–lights, cheering, upgrade tie-in

10 – 20 – 07

0.1.7

Upgrade system in effect – new combos, new graphics
Begun revamping comics
Lengthened Nord Trainyard + CAM Rooftops
Added Engineer on horse

10 – 08 – 07

0.1.6

Electric blood for cyborgs!
Cleaned up wall blood behavior
Aux combos added–arsenal (slice + shoot, knee + uppercut), chainsaw (x slash), kama (air shredder, rising shredder)
Glowy death
Updated business card in \temp\shirts
Maps can have now have two entrances/exits per side (used only in Ivy Trail)
TODO: Finish Ivy trail
TODO: Add board room to CAM Rooftops
TODO: Add In Processing to CAM Lobby (or create new level)
TODO: Have Restaurant burn down before/during Engineer battle
TODO: Still fix magic issue

10 – 01 – 07

0.1.5

Added Wall blood
Auxilliary Weapon support
Added strong slash stun move
TODO: Fix magic utilization so weird things don’t happen, add sword combos to secondary weapons

9 – 22 – 07

0.1.4

New blood look
New moves for Goons, Swats, Ninja
Terrible Catastrophe?

9 – 17 – 07

0.1.3

Added placeholder achievements (see achievements.txt in temp)
Improved arena coloring/visibility
Fleshed out church level
SVG format logos in temp
Chainsaw sound is now “safe”
New ninja execution move
Magic collection is now limited range
TODO: Flesh out more levels

9 – 10 – 07

0.1.2

New preprocessed character file format, should improve Xbox360 GC issues at load time
New logos, etc, design doc in temp folder

In the meantime, I have another guest column up up bit-tech; I wanted to name it “The One Where I Wax Philosophical” or something but those wacky British editors change the title.

Read: Halo 3 and the Art of Repetition

Update: Looks like I’m in the news again, for all the wrong reasons!

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/snowstorm.nearly.foot.2.646975.html