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Games Thread

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by Steven M, Jun 25, 2011.

  1. Steven M

    Steven M

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    [​IMG]

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/lobster01.exe

    Use the arrow keys to move, the Shift key to single/double jump and the A/S keys to use the left/right claws.

    Hints and Tips:
    • The crab arms won't last forever (they generally berk out after the counter at the bottom hits 450) and you can't move while using them.
    • You can either walk into keys to pick them up or grab them with your claws. The same applies for opening doors - either walk into them or unlock them from a distance.
    • You can also use the crab arms or claws to protect yourself from enemies. Wrap the arms around yourself like a shield.
    • Try bashing either crab key and yelling 'ORA ORA ORA' while you do it.
    DONE
    Guide Claw demo

    TO DO
    Quick Claw demo
    Throwing
    Swinging/climbing/possibly wallbouncing
    Hostage situations
    A fully working level for SAGE

    Test graphics aside this isn't really a fangame, much less Sonic-related, so I'm making the thread here. Feel free to prove me wrong though.
     
  2. Lobotomy

    Lobotomy

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    I only have half an understanding as to what I'm doing. Can you explain it better?
     
  3. Steven M

    Steven M

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    1) Take key you find on the ground
    2) Put key in giant question block that substitutes as a door, or alternatively an actual door
    3) Repeat

    Really you're just meant to dick around and see if everything works properly (and let me know if stupid shit pops up like you getting stuck in the walls for some glitchy reason)
     
  4. Lobotomy

    Lobotomy

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    Traverse City
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    Oh, that's what I've been doing. I thought there was a goal.
     
  5. Steven M

    Steven M

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    Other than the final door blocked by the two bullet cannons, not really.
     
  6. Steven M

    Steven M

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    [​IMG]

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/quickclawbetav027.exe

    Not pictured: player swinging around at a rate of approximately eight full-circles per second.

    Use the arrow keys to move, the Shift key to single/double jump and the Q/W keys to use the left/right claws. You can connect to platforms and walls, zip up the line and through the platforms, or even swing around a bit. While you're connected to a platform you can swing around through backdrops but you can't jump-disconnect through them. Yet. If that could be implemented without breaking the game, I'd like to try it.

    I am by no means an expert when it comes to physics or game design/programming, so I'm working in Multimedia Fusion 2 as usual. So if there's something technical about the demo that gets your goat (or you end up glitching out) then do let me know! And if you're interested in helping me fix the problems let me know also.

    DONE
    Guide Claw demo
    Quick Claw demo

    TO DO
    • Quick Claw movement - allow player to use the Claws while moving horizontally/vertically (bug seems to send the chain link objects completely out of whack when trying this); allow player to use moving platforms again (see chain links, out of, whack, etc)
    • Quick Claw camera - adjust the camera somehow so it doesn't 'snap' when the player enters the swinging phase
    • Throw Claw demo - collecting, dropping and throwing Objects
    • Hostage situations and at least one boss fight
    • A fully working level for SAGE
    • Nightmare Redcoat mode
     
  7. Steven M

    Steven M

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    Bump. Still working on the Lobster engine - ironing out the bugs due to new graphics is a bit more of a bitch than I'd anticipated and I'm not sure how much I'm going to get done in time for SAGE. That said, in the meantime I need to ask you guys a favour.

    [​IMG]

    If you guys remember the bonus stage from Be The Bullet (or more specifically the old Sonic Puzzle Attack demo because lolcopypaste) then you should understand the idea behind this mockup - it's basically a jazzed-up version of that gameplay but with different modes. I'd like a decent name for this game if you guys can come up with one.

    Edit: before I forget, credit goes to Damizean, ParadoxX and Clwe for the basic 360 engine.
     
  8. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
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  9. Steven M

    Steven M

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    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ok4nnS9uY8[/youtube]
     
  10. Azookara

    Azookara

    yup Member
    Yes, this game seriously looks like something that'd kill hours off my day. Probably because you had me at Pac-man graphics. Can't wait to try this out!
     
  11. Steven M

    Steven M

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  12. Steven M

    Steven M

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    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    So I've got some portrait sprites for the playable characters in this game, and I'd like for you guys to critique and fix them - where have I gone wrong in terms of colour combination, hues, values, etc? Colours per sprite are limited to 16, but most of the sprites don't have nearly that many.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. Steven M

    Steven M

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    Music for Ghost Police, mimicking the Game Boy's audiovisual palette.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx4Ol1ly-Ys

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gferdg6eJ6Q

    I actually have three tunes to link and apparently the forums don't like you putting more than two links in one post. And you can't even make another post to remedy that because then the two posts get merged and the extra link is rejected anyway, apparently because fuck you that's why.

    If you want you can also listen to the songs on SoundCloud.
     
  14. Namo

    Namo

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    My audio's down right now, but I have to say, the titles for Ghost Police and Bullet Carnival are wonderful. Simple but stylish.
     
  15. Steven M

    Steven M

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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGTjmw8G4nc

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRbxuQ7hswc
     
  16. Steven M

    Steven M

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    [​IMG]

    Here's that work-of-concept file. It's basically three barebones boss fights asking the question, "What kind of offense can you use for a SHMUP if you restrict yourself from programming in conventional firearms?". You all know good games like Gradius, Dodonpachi, Battle Garegga, Jamestown, Ikaruga - each with their own different subweapons and systems of scoring but all still mainly relying on "shoot up/right, stupid" to tear down the opposition. I wanted to see if I could pull off something different and still make it fun and easy to learn within the game itself. So, featured in the demo are:

    • Repel the Bullet, where you can only use the enemy's fire against them - bullets caught in the radius of your effect are projected away from you and your health bar is replaced with the boost gauge
    • Punch the Bullet, where you have two giant robot claws to punch projectiles away or just smack enemies around directly and your health drains automatically, necessitating refills
    • Be the Bullet, where you warp across the stage to tear down enemies, neatly bypassing obstacles such as walls, pits and bullets to pick up items for health

    I'd like feedback on possible bugs, glitches, etc as well as the learning curve of each game mode - in other words, are you able to adapt to the chosen style of play given the sparse control notes and boss attacks. I'm not concerned about the placeholder graphics and sound for the time being, I just want to get the control down Ok before moving onto refining scoring systems.
     
  17. Ritz

    Ritz

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    Repel the Bullet: I had to play this one three times before I felt I really understood how the system worked. Wasted a lot of time thinking I had to click on bullets directly to reflect them and wondered why nothing I did seemed to reflect anything. Took me about 5 minutes to realize that there was a green meter at left. Wasn't anywhere near as intuitive as Ray-Hound, where you have a visible influence on bullets and you can see exactly how many projectiles you have in tow. Kept putting myself in danger thinking I'd shoot more bullets by having more bullets in my field when I really only needed one! Also managed to crash the game once when I had way too many bullets on-screen. Still had more fun with this mode than any of the others at this stage, I really like the later patterns.

    Punch the Bullet: You really succeeded in easing me into the mechanics with this one, punching shit just sort of comes naturally. I felt a bit claustrophobic with the two claws annexing my hitbox and mostly spammed both fists to keep me safe- not a lot of thought or fun in that, but I think there's potential for a great boxing dynamic here if you can coax the player into pulling their punches. Maybe you could punish us for hitting certain objects, like electrified surfaces? Or encourage blocking by having the inert fists rotate to face the cursor's location and putting the player into positions where such a thing would even be useful.

    I'd definitely recommend having the fists fly until they hit a solid object or level boundary instead of sending them to the cursor's position. I can't see much use for a ranged punch, and having to move my cursor around all over the place threw off my coordination and led to me clicking outside the game window and fucking myself about four times. Actually, I think this would work best with dual analog sticks, where I could just indicate the direction of a punch with the right stick. Oh, and I figured out I could totally cheese the boss by letting him have it with both fists the second time around. Might not want to compound damage like that!

    Be the Bullet: Now, this is the concept I love most on paper, but you can cheese this game so hard just by alternating mouse clicks to keep yourself invincible and centered on the enemy. Simple solution, keep the player from changing direction mid-warp. Also, I highly suggest taking Radiant Silvergun's macro approach to things with this- use big, big projectiles that amble around the screen instead of tiny little bullets the player is never going to land on. I've got some great ideas for this game.


    Overall, pretty novel stuff. You're subverting some major SHMUP conventions here and they're not adding much to the formula as it is, but there's potential here if you can get everything balanced. I question whether or not you really need the mouse for any of these games!

    EDIT: RtB had me so confused, I went back and figured more shit out even after posting this. Also, four mockups, three game modes- what's the first picture supposed to be?
     
  18. Steven M

    Steven M

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    WALL OF TEXT
    Repel basically lets you charge and deflect enemy bullets away from yourself. The green circle is the base grazing radius, the black circle being the avatar stand-in, the white dot being the hitbox. Grazing builds up your boost gauge (black circle gives faster boost), getting hit depletes it. Charging boosts the repel multiplier, indicated by the number over your head. When you stop charging, any enemy bullets in your range (green circle) are blown outward and bounce around the screen, lethal to enemy targets. If your cursor was dragged onto empty space while the repel kicked in then the bullets just bounce around - if you highlighted an enemy object the cursor sticks and the bullets home in on it.

    And just summarising the playing style makes me realise why it seems so confusing and convoluted.

    Yeah, I'm probably more used to the mechanic since I've been debugging the demo over and over to test the boss patterns - basically I really need to optimise the playstyle. I believe the first step should be to disable manual targeting (at the moment clicking on the screen lets the bullets just bounce around, whereas clicking on a target while successfully repelling directs the payload to lock onto that target), which seems rather counter-intuitive at the moment. Maybe just allow the missiles to home in on all on-screen targets. After that I need to either remove the radius graphic (since it seems to confuse people) or make it clearer that close contact/grazing bullets builds up more energy to use up. Make it more clear (without being patronising) that bullets can be useful and how to game the system - flashing/color-changing when close to the player? Ray Hound I haven't played - I have played Bangai-O - so I'll take a good look at that.

    Sounds like a plan. The current course of action is that the player very gradually loses health, more so when using attacks (particularly dragging the claws around the screen rather than just aiming). Unpunchable obstacles are a valid idea, as are obstacles with a punching penalty (like the shield in the boss fight) and maybe being able to parry stronger enemy attacks instead of punching them away. Charged attacks also. As for the claw clutter - they're meant to be large, heavy objects that the player has to drag around. The mockup makes better sense of the idea. I'll mix it up more for the Christmas demo, maybe take inspiration from Punch Out.

    The fist-aiming sounds like a good idea, though it would require some pretty complicated mathematics to arrange it. I'll see what I can sort out. As for the joypad idea, no dice I'm afraid - don't have any controllers to spare or the appropriate USB dongles, so I couldn't test it properly.

    That's actually the point for Punch bosses. They're going to be like fights from a comic - lull the player into a false sense of security, figure out the boss' strategy, eventually find their weak point, spam punches for a cathartic finish. "Goddamn finally I figured it out ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA"

    I assumed the mid-warp warp would be useful in situations like spike-lined tunnels (like switching gravity in VVVVVV or Metal Storm)... probably much too useful in boss fights. If there are certain obstacles that penalise the player for warping towards them, not being able to backtrack could be frustrating, but I can see how a player could make boss fights quick and boring with that tactic. Variety in projectiles/obstacles (like the claws) is a good idea also. It depends on giving the player more obstacles and more freedom to overcome them.

    Some of the later playstyles planned have use of the mouse and the Punch mode really wouldn't work as well without it in my opinion. I guess the use of the mouse seems superfluous for some modes but I'd rather have a universal control scheme than 'Ok, four of these modes use the keyboard, the other four use the keyboard and mouse' - I don't want to underestimate potential player confusion. We'll see how it goes.

    • Punch - self-explanatory
    • Repel - needs to be more self-explanatory
    • Be - self-explanatory
    • Bomb - lay down mines with left mouse, detonate with right mouse - autobomb on enemy impact but your max bomb count decreases (min. 1, max.8), impact on 1 results in death
    • Shunt - nudge or slam enemies into enemies/background/oncoming traffic, sort of like Burnout - left click to shunt in one direction, right click to throw area-of-effect paralysis items
    • Command - capture enemies with the left mouse, make them attack with the right mouse, drag characters to swap them around or throw them out the party - use mooks to protect the player
    • Conserve - one bullet per fire, multiplier and bullet size/power builds up on chaining enemies shot down - left mouse fires, right mouse throws flashbang
    • Write - targets have letters/words/phrases/sentences over their heads, type the right letters in to take them down

    In order: Repel, Punch, Bomb [not featured yet], Be
     
  19. Steven M

    Steven M

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    Haven't had as much time as I'd like to sort the game out but I've managed to make a minor update before the Christmas demo.

    Changes made:
    • Reflect mode: HUD and control change (yellow meter on left), bullets in range of player are highlighted, charged bullets automatically home in on target. I tried a counter underneath the player that counted the boost as you collected it, but the counter obscured on-screen bullet display and actually made it harder to play.
    • Punch mode: punches can be charged up (yellow meter on left), punches extend automatically in/beyond direction of mouse (no more accidentally clicking outside the window).
    • Be mode: mid-warp direction change removed since it made the boss too easy.
    • Ghost mode: a sneak peak of a new mode being implemented for the Christmas demo

    Changes to make:
    • Reflect mode: multi-target reflect, melee attacks, bosses [S. Undertaker/Magician].
    • Punch mode: parrying and blocking, bosses [Shield Robo/Bubbleghost].
    • Be mode: sprite implementation/collision detection, dicking around with level/environment hazards, bosses [Imitation Crab Robo/Hazel].
    • Ghost mode: implement health system, bosses [G. Roger/D. Master].

    Question for potential playtesters: would you prefer the game to have a conventional level layout (2-or-so minutes of fighting through waves of enemies and the level design, followed by a boss), to be a boss rush game, or to be a mixed-type (e.g. basically go nuts with the presentation/format of each style, something like Live-a-Live)?
     
  20. Endgame

    Endgame

    Formerly The Growler Member
    I think the tune to this game would've gone better with Sandopolis Zone 2 - what with the ghosts and everything :v:

    Still looks like a fun twist to the Pac-Man game