That looks really cool. I always thought that carrying things in the original, especially the bridge, made no sense. The animation almost makes it work.
wow, I really like the Classic Bridge thingie. At first I thought it was a silly thing to worry about and that your original solution was just fine, but after seeing it in action I like it alot and think it should be the default.
also just wanted to say good job! keep up the good work. I wanna play this sooo bad. Are you going to have a webpage for this where it can be downloaded and we can leave donations?
Options! The best way to please everyone. Good show.
Yeah, I'm just glad I managed to make it work properly. I was afraid that having 2 separate bridge carrying codes would conflict with one another and cause serious bugs/glitches. It turns out it caused several, but I was able to correct them. So now the Classic Bridge option works properly.
That looks really cool. I always thought that carrying things in the original, especially the bridge, made no sense. The animation almost makes it work.
It gets the point across, and it makes it clear to the player when they have the bridge held and not-held, thanks to the glowing perimeter.
Are all of the items normally handled like the bridge? If you wanted to, you could have that option affect everything.
The other items are carried above the Hero's head, except the sword, which is held in one hand. This Classic Bridge option, I think, is going to be the only option of this nature, for the same reason that Halkun alluded to earlier.
wow, I really like the Classic Bridge thingie. At first I thought it was a silly thing to worry about and that your original solution was just fine, but after seeing it in action I like it alot and think it should be the default.
also just wanted to say good job! keep up the good work. I wanna play this sooo bad. Are you going to have a webpage for this where it can be downloaded and we can leave donations?
Thanks for the support
I don't yet have a website. Once I get closer to completion I'll look back over the good suggestions made in this thread. The reason I don't have a website yet is because this thread is so useful for this purpose, for now, and I don't have to do much work to 'update' progress; I must just make post!
When I create a website I'll host the files there too and I'll post the link and all the info here so that everyone can download it.
This week I have almost off entirely. I'm going to buckle down and beat up this music.
Keep up the good work, Khavall
Remember not to bust your balls doing this, though. It doesn't have to be the best music ever, just some nice little background tunes to go along with the game.
In other news, having looked over the code Halkun reposted on the other page, I have now completed making Quest 3.
So what's left? Generating the Medium and Expert difficulties. And of course the never ending process of bug fixing. And cleaning up the HUD. And adding other niceties.
I figured out a quick and easy to way to implement all of the difficulty settings.
So status:
Quests 1, 2, and 3: Complete
Difficulties Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert: Complete
To do:
Hud and menu work, Custom difficulty, intro/ending/credits, and Options.
Implement music (once received)
Implement Ambient Sound effects (once received)
Implement any bonuses/goodies that I can think of without taking too much time.
Also, I added to the game a Restart button. In the original, if you got stuck somehow, you could hit Reset in order to respawn at the Yellow Castle. Your items and the Dragons would remain where they are, and in fact, the dead dragons would come back alive.
I have implemented this feature as-is, and bound the Restart function to the 'R' key. Dragons come back alive as they do in the original.
So everything in the "game" portion of this thing is done (except adding in Music and Ambience, which I do not yet have from Khavall and Delphinus).
However, everything is there for every quest and every difficulty, it's all done. I still need to do a little testing and a little bug fixing, but even most of that is done.
Almost all the HUDs / menus are done. Including the Main Menu and Options Menu and the Custom difficulty Menu.
So right now I'm working on the in-game Manual / Instructions. After that I'll put together some kind of simple Intro and simple Ending; nothing big or amazing but I think it'll be a neat way to end the Quests. (you'll be able to turn these on/off). Then I'll do credits.
Hopefully somewhere along the way Khav & Delph will have something for me to put in for music/ambience.
So here's a question. I'm going to add some neat bonus/additional features and gameplay modes as Unlockables. Nothing really weird or huge or anything, but some nice little things to increase replay value. I have some ideas of my own that I'll add, but I wanted to ask people in this thread if they had any ideas, simple stuff to add as Unlockables or Gameplay modes that are easy to implement. If you have any ideas or suggestions, PM me the idea or post it here and I'll consider it and/or add it if feasible.
The only idea I have is that you make it so the game pulls the text from a .txt file so I can edit it and translate it to show it off to my friends :P
If you'd like, I can send you a transcript of all of the text in the game in English, and if you translate it into your language, I can create a version of this game in your language. It wouldn't be too much trouble as there is not a huge, huge amount of text.
I'll get in touch with you when all the text of the game is finalized and I'll send it to you for translation. That way, I can create a version for you and your friends in your language very shortly after I release the English version.
Since it was bumped off the last page, I want to reiterate this:
I'll be adding new unlockable modes and bonuses. If you have any suggestions or ideas for unlockables or simple new modes, suggest them here or PM me and I'll consider and/or add them to the game to increase Replay value
Vampire mode -
You can transform into the bat by pressing the button with nothing in your arms and no items within reach. As the bat, the dragons don't chase you and you can fly over all the walls. You can grab dragons. To change back, drop everything in your arms and press the button out of range of all items. If you change back on a wall, the player might be stuck, but that's ok, just change back.
Thanks for some ideas, guys. I'll see what I can do. I'm just trying to add some little interesting things for replay purposes on top of the 3 main quests and the multiple difficulties.
At this point, how hard would it be to build a second quest, with all of the same objects and tiles but completely new layouts?
Hm.. I'm not sure. If I had started this project knowing what I know now, I probably could have coded it in a way to make it easier to expand and/or change the overworld. Right now it's kind of difficult to do I think. Maybe not. I'm not really sure actually. I bet if I spent a few hours messing with the code for a "single room" and adding variables in certain places that could be easily changed, it miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be possible to make it easier to do a new overworld layout or expand it.
But I'm thinking that's a little beyond the scope of this project for now. It's something I'd look at right before or right after I release it. The main thing is to make the first release the regular game plus some little bonuses that don't take too super long to add. Something substantial like a brand new overworld or modified or expanded one might potentially have to come in some kind of second release or something, unless I just come up with some easy way of doing it and doing a new quest and adding it in with the first release.. seems unlikely though
edit: I will say that it's super duper easy to take the existing layout of the overworld, where each room is, and change the collision maps and overlaid art maps. That's easy. So you could easily change the layout of each singular room no problem. A monkey could do it. But what would become difficult is changing how each room connects to one another.
edit: I will say that it's super duper easy to take the existing layout of the overworld, where each room is, and change the collision maps and overlaid art maps. That's easy. So you could easily change the layout of each singular room no problem. A monkey could do it. But what would become difficult is changing how each room connects to one another.
Now that makes me wonder if you could make a fourth difficultly level that randomizes some of the connections between areas. It might not even be that difficult to prevent loops, lemme take a look at the map again.
Edit: Hmm, looks like the forest and the wharf wouldn't play nicely together. I was hoping that the positions of the mazes before the castles, the castles themselves, and the mazes behind the castles could be freely swapped.
Dragon Mode, Bat Mode, Time Attack Mode, Survival Mode...
It can't be too overly complex to implement.
However, what would "Dragon Mode" and "Bat Mode" be like? Assuming I made such a mode, like Dragon Mode, what would the player do? Just fly around? I could add that, but it would be boring. Fly around eating little Heroes? Make it a eat-as-many-fleeing-heroes-as-you-can minigame?
And for bat mode, assuming you played as a Bat, what would be the object?
I could possibly add a Time Attack or Survival Mode without too much trouble so I'll look into that.
Also, slash, do you want me to PM you my email so you can send me the files when they're done? ;-)
Sure if you like; I'll be updating the OP and Title when this whole thing is done as well so that, well, everyone else knows when it's ready for public download.
Vampire mode -
You can transform into the bat by pressing the button with nothing in your arms and no items within reach. As the bat, the dragons don't chase you and you can fly over all the walls. You can grab dragons. To change back, drop everything in your arms and press the button out of range of all items. If you change back on a wall, the player might be stuck, but that's ok, just change back.
The system is themeable (at least the last time I checked) so you should be able to make your own backgrounds, sprites and such. I would love to see an atari "classic" mode.
I await with bated breath... Am I in the credits? :P I know I didn't help much other than the sprites and the initial... Well, I guess idea, but it's really you who ran with it.
I'm happy to be Wallace to your Darwin.
Wallace actually came up with the theory of evolution first.
So I got ahold of Delphinus the other day, and he's produced some really, really good ambience FX. This past few days I've been implementing and tweaking them into the game, and I like it so far. So that's coming along.
Still waiting on hearing back from Khavall. Haven't heard from him in weeks. Hope everything's going okay with him though..
Anyway, just updating, since this game is so very, very close to completion.
Sorry about the delay. I had a show actually go up as MD so I was like... barely alive. I've got the catacombs done.
Assuming you approve that just leaves touching up the ice music, redoing the wharves, doing the gold castle, and the dark forest. Plus maybe something for the easter egg rooms.
Either way, now that I'm done MDing I'll get to it much faster. For once when I think I have a break I actually do have a break for two weeks before my next big gig starts, other than weekends when of course I have gigs.
Anyways, there's a hint of what I've been working on, I'll have the rest within the month at the latest.
And if not I'll drop off the face of the earth for another 3 months and be back for two weeks, so I really will work to finish it. Once I have time set aside to work though it goes pretty fast. The catacomb music took about an hour
I have almost all of the Ambience Audio from Delphinus now. Just waiting on a couple more.
I have 3 of the overworld tunes from Khavall. Says he'll hopefully get a lot done this week.
I contacted Impersonator who was interested in a Portuguese (EU) version of the game. I emailed him a text dump of all the game's text, which he translated and sent back to me. As of now, I have recreated all of the text and text-art-assets into Portuguese (EU) according to his translation.
So basically I should be able to concurrently release the English and Portuguese (EU) versions of this game at the same time.
Here's a couple of example shots
just as soon as the rest of the ambience and music comes in.... <wink wink @ khav and delph>
Strange, I wrote "bonus" as "bónus", yet it shows up as "bònus". :P
I'll fix it. Most of the 'text' in the game is actually just image data. So I drew in some of the accents by hand. I must have had a dislexic moment there or something.
Strange, I wrote "bonus" as "bónus", yet it shows up as "bònus". :P
I'll fix it. Most of the 'text' in the game is actually just image data. So I drew in some of the accents by hand. I must have had a dislexic moment there or something.
Strange, I wrote "bonus" as "bónus", yet it shows up as "bònus". :P
I'll fix it. Most of the 'text' in the game is actually just image data. So I drew in some of the accents by hand. I must have had a dislexic moment there or something.
I'm working on Ice next, and tackling Wharves finally. As I just told Slash, Wharves I'm working less on the typical Caribbean theme as is traditional for "Beach" or "Water" or "Island" sort of themes and more going for sort of a Link's Awakening/maybe Chrono Cross styled Water leitmotivic play... major, lots of warm sounds, more like... well to use hippie talk that I use when I can't really put it in other words, peaceful, but with a constant underlying motion.
I'm working on Ice next, and tackling Wharves finally. As I just told Slash, Wharves I'm working less on the typical Caribbean theme as is traditional for "Beach" or "Water" or "Island" sort of themes and more going for sort of a Link's Awakening/maybe Chrono Cross styled Water leitmotivic play... major, lots of warm sounds, more like... well to use hippie talk that I use when I can't really put it in other words, peaceful, but with a constant underlying motion.
Thanks. Chrono Trigger was actually what really inspired me to be a musician. I started taking piano lessons mostly because I wanted to be like my older sister, but around when I was 12 or 13 I heard the CT score and couldn't get enough of it, so I started writing music.
Anyways fast forwards to when I was 18 and I started off College at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in music composition and though I've since transferred back to Penn State to work with Dr. Paul Barsom and shifted my focus to performance mostly even though it kind of ignores my lineage, I still remember the little kid who couldn't tell Ferneyhough from Palestrina but who loved him some Chrono Trigger music, so it's really quite fun to get to compose in this mindframe and include a few winks towards my older inspiration.
Posts
also just wanted to say good job! keep up the good work. I wanna play this sooo bad. Are you going to have a webpage for this where it can be downloaded and we can leave donations?
Yeah, I'm just glad I managed to make it work properly. I was afraid that having 2 separate bridge carrying codes would conflict with one another and cause serious bugs/glitches. It turns out it caused several, but I was able to correct them. So now the Classic Bridge option works properly.
It gets the point across, and it makes it clear to the player when they have the bridge held and not-held, thanks to the glowing perimeter.
The other items are carried above the Hero's head, except the sword, which is held in one hand. This Classic Bridge option, I think, is going to be the only option of this nature, for the same reason that Halkun alluded to earlier.
Thanks for the support
I don't yet have a website. Once I get closer to completion I'll look back over the good suggestions made in this thread. The reason I don't have a website yet is because this thread is so useful for this purpose, for now, and I don't have to do much work to 'update' progress; I must just make post!
When I create a website I'll host the files there too and I'll post the link and all the info here so that everyone can download it.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Exhausted as all fuck.
This week I have almost off entirely. I'm going to buckle down and beat up this music.
Keep up the good work, Khavall
Remember not to bust your balls doing this, though. It doesn't have to be the best music ever, just some nice little background tunes to go along with the game.
In other news, having looked over the code Halkun reposted on the other page, I have now completed making Quest 3.
So what's left? Generating the Medium and Expert difficulties. And of course the never ending process of bug fixing. And cleaning up the HUD. And adding other niceties.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
So status:
Quests 1, 2, and 3: Complete
Difficulties Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert: Complete
To do:
Hud and menu work, Custom difficulty, intro/ending/credits, and Options.
Implement music (once received)
Implement Ambient Sound effects (once received)
Implement any bonuses/goodies that I can think of without taking too much time.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
video if you're interested in seeing how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQCCn6Gsm2c
Also, I added to the game a Restart button. In the original, if you got stuck somehow, you could hit Reset in order to respawn at the Yellow Castle. Your items and the Dragons would remain where they are, and in fact, the dead dragons would come back alive.
I have implemented this feature as-is, and bound the Restart function to the 'R' key. Dragons come back alive as they do in the original.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
However, everything is there for every quest and every difficulty, it's all done. I still need to do a little testing and a little bug fixing, but even most of that is done.
Almost all the HUDs / menus are done. Including the Main Menu and Options Menu and the Custom difficulty Menu.
So right now I'm working on the in-game Manual / Instructions. After that I'll put together some kind of simple Intro and simple Ending; nothing big or amazing but I think it'll be a neat way to end the Quests. (you'll be able to turn these on/off). Then I'll do credits.
Hopefully somewhere along the way Khav & Delph will have something for me to put in for music/ambience.
So here's a question. I'm going to add some neat bonus/additional features and gameplay modes as Unlockables. Nothing really weird or huge or anything, but some nice little things to increase replay value. I have some ideas of my own that I'll add, but I wanted to ask people in this thread if they had any ideas, simple stuff to add as Unlockables or Gameplay modes that are easy to implement. If you have any ideas or suggestions, PM me the idea or post it here and I'll consider it and/or add it if feasible.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
If you'd like, I can send you a transcript of all of the text in the game in English, and if you translate it into your language, I can create a version of this game in your language. It wouldn't be too much trouble as there is not a huge, huge amount of text.
I'll get in touch with you when all the text of the game is finalized and I'll send it to you for translation. That way, I can create a version for you and your friends in your language very shortly after I release the English version.
Since it was bumped off the last page, I want to reiterate this:
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Vampire mode -
You can transform into the bat by pressing the button with nothing in your arms and no items within reach. As the bat, the dragons don't chase you and you can fly over all the walls. You can grab dragons. To change back, drop everything in your arms and press the button out of range of all items. If you change back on a wall, the player might be stuck, but that's ok, just change back.
Yeah, that's too huge. A man can dream.
Hm.. I'm not sure. If I had started this project knowing what I know now, I probably could have coded it in a way to make it easier to expand and/or change the overworld. Right now it's kind of difficult to do I think. Maybe not. I'm not really sure actually. I bet if I spent a few hours messing with the code for a "single room" and adding variables in certain places that could be easily changed, it miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be possible to make it easier to do a new overworld layout or expand it.
But I'm thinking that's a little beyond the scope of this project for now. It's something I'd look at right before or right after I release it. The main thing is to make the first release the regular game plus some little bonuses that don't take too super long to add. Something substantial like a brand new overworld or modified or expanded one might potentially have to come in some kind of second release or something, unless I just come up with some easy way of doing it and doing a new quest and adding it in with the first release.. seems unlikely though
edit: I will say that it's super duper easy to take the existing layout of the overworld, where each room is, and change the collision maps and overlaid art maps. That's easy. So you could easily change the layout of each singular room no problem. A monkey could do it. But what would become difficult is changing how each room connects to one another.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Now that makes me wonder if you could make a fourth difficultly level that randomizes some of the connections between areas. It might not even be that difficult to prevent loops, lemme take a look at the map again.
Edit: Hmm, looks like the forest and the wharf wouldn't play nicely together. I was hoping that the positions of the mazes before the castles, the castles themselves, and the mazes behind the castles could be freely swapped.
Anyway, that's done!
And so are the Ending Credits; finished that too.
Now I'm going to try to add at least a couple of Bonus modes, and some extra neato stuff to unlock to hopefully extend the replay.
This game is getting pretty close to completion.. Still need the Music and Ambient effects though.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Also, slash, do you want me to PM you my email so you can send me the files when they're done? ;-)
It can't be too overly complex to implement.
However, what would "Dragon Mode" and "Bat Mode" be like? Assuming I made such a mode, like Dragon Mode, what would the player do? Just fly around? I could add that, but it would be boring. Fly around eating little Heroes? Make it a eat-as-many-fleeing-heroes-as-you-can minigame?
And for bat mode, assuming you played as a Bat, what would be the object?
I could possibly add a Time Attack or Survival Mode without too much trouble so I'll look into that.
Sure if you like; I'll be updating the OP and Title when this whole thing is done as well so that, well, everyone else knows when it's ready for public download.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Hahaha, this and call it Classic Mode!
Also, concerning the Dragon Mode, you're spot on. :P
Thanks again for suggestions. :^:
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Soon as I get those I can implement them and release the game!
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I'm happy to be Wallace to your Darwin.
You gonna release the source too?
Still waiting on hearing back from Khavall. Haven't heard from him in weeks. Hope everything's going okay with him though..
Anyway, just updating, since this game is so very, very close to completion.
Maybe, haven't decided.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Assuming you approve that just leaves touching up the ice music, redoing the wharves, doing the gold castle, and the dark forest. Plus maybe something for the easter egg rooms.
Either way, now that I'm done MDing I'll get to it much faster. For once when I think I have a break I actually do have a break for two weeks before my next big gig starts, other than weekends when of course I have gigs.
Anyways, there's a hint of what I've been working on, I'll have the rest within the month at the latest.
And if not I'll drop off the face of the earth for another 3 months and be back for two weeks, so I really will work to finish it. Once I have time set aside to work though it goes pretty fast. The catacomb music took about an hour
Also, I very much like the Catacombs music. Keep up the great work.
The music is the last thing this game needs before I can release it.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I have almost all of the Ambience Audio from Delphinus now. Just waiting on a couple more.
I have 3 of the overworld tunes from Khavall. Says he'll hopefully get a lot done this week.
I contacted Impersonator who was interested in a Portuguese (EU) version of the game. I emailed him a text dump of all the game's text, which he translated and sent back to me. As of now, I have recreated all of the text and text-art-assets into Portuguese (EU) according to his translation.
So basically I should be able to concurrently release the English and Portuguese (EU) versions of this game at the same time.
just as soon as the rest of the ambience and music comes in.... <wink wink @ khav and delph>
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I'll fix it. Most of the 'text' in the game is actually just image data. So I drew in some of the accents by hand. I must have had a dislexic moment there or something.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Go easy on the moon language.
Oh, I was starting to get worried. :P
Say what? I can't understand you over all that moon language.
Sorry, let me translate.
:P
Castle
Catacombs
Forest
I'm working on Ice next, and tackling Wharves finally. As I just told Slash, Wharves I'm working less on the typical Caribbean theme as is traditional for "Beach" or "Water" or "Island" sort of themes and more going for sort of a Link's Awakening/maybe Chrono Cross styled Water leitmotivic play... major, lots of warm sounds, more like... well to use hippie talk that I use when I can't really put it in other words, peaceful, but with a constant underlying motion.
God damnit Khavall
Anyways fast forwards to when I was 18 and I started off College at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in music composition and though I've since transferred back to Penn State to work with Dr. Paul Barsom and shifted my focus to performance mostly even though it kind of ignores my lineage, I still remember the little kid who couldn't tell Ferneyhough from Palestrina but who loved him some Chrono Trigger music, so it's really quite fun to get to compose in this mindframe and include a few winks towards my older inspiration.