Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

[JJ Naas]

It may be that the photo is a bit blurry as well, but I can't really find a point to focus my eyes on on the canvas. The highlights, the centre, the shadows.. my eye wanders aimlessly. I think the red rose would need at least one part on it that'd be more detailed and sharper than the rest of it. It looks good if I look at it on my screen from really far away, but I don't think that's the idea.

[Ryumaru]

JJ Naas: I agree with you, the center of the rose was supposed to be the focal point but I didn't prioritize it enough. But the panel is only 5x7 so I think that is the reason it works well at a distance. Thanks :]

[Zach]

[tehwexxl0rz]

Flash Game Update!

http://www.freewebs.com/subrosian/demo.htm
SPACE: Equip/Unequip knives
SHIFT: Attack (only south so far)

UPDATES:
- Spider Enemies, AI
- Dungeon floor
- Increased walk speed

THE NEXT STEPS:
- Animating attacks
- Programming combo attack
- Health/damage
- Doorways (?)

COMMENTS, CONCERNS:
- How is the walk speed? Still too slow?
- Does the frame rate drop any on your computer?
- What do you think of the AI? (The spiders will chase you down if you're close, but jump randomly if you're far away.)
- Enemies! I need to come up with creative ideas for monsters! Please help!
- How can I differentiate my game from Zelda?! Creative gameplay mechanics are mostly what I'm looking for!
- Health display! Of course it can't be hearts but something more interesting than a simple bar would be preferable....

I think I will retool the control setup such that equip and attack are the same key, whilst unequip is another key. Sound better? I think so.

[Atnas]

It would be nice if the enemies and player were all impassible to each other.

Don't try to be original if it's going to hurt productivity, you can always go back later and change from hearts. Honestly I don't know what's wrong with hearts, they're universally accepted as life already.

The enemies are extremely aggressive. They have no sense of self preservation. Add things like standing still to the AI, backing away after they attack, etc.

[JJ Naas]

Flash Game Update!

The walking speed is still too slow to allow any kind of manouvering in a fight, leaving only two options: flee or stand in one place and slash the enemies until someone wins. Also,  I had trouble seeing whether I was vielding the knives or not, epecially in side and back views. I had to keep on hitting Space in order to spot the few pixels indicating the knife flicker on and off, which was a bit troublesome while trying to keep an eye on the spiders at the same time.

[huZba]

Flash Game Update!

Allrighty. Is there rational function for being unequipped? If not, scrap it. In zelda it's automatic. When you do something that doesn't require the sword, Link puts it away. If a sword is required the attack button works straight away and Link slashes with the sword. Equipping would become useful if there was a combat mode that had different movement compared to non-combat.
The guy moves too slow and the attack range seems really short. I suggest you increase the speed and the range of his weapons. Check out seiken densetsu 3 for reference on knife combat.  It can be hard to make short range weapons work in an action game, so you might want to start with something easier. OR if you feel like you want a challenge, go for the knives of course
The most important thing to make the knives work is to have the character movement compensate for the lack of range. He lunges forward as he attacks in swift continuous attacks keeping the enemy in the ropes.
Study the first zelda game on nes. Try and figure out to the finest detail why it works. When you unravel what's behind the game, you can use the principles to design a game that's completely different.

Then some technical things
Most computers have stick-key shortcut on the shift key. If you press it 5 times you'll activate the shortcut and get some pc speaker beepybeep.
The flash seemed a bit sluggish. Do you have runtime bitmap caching on? Enabling it speeds up apps that have changing elements only in small parts of the screen, like you have.

[tehwexxl0rz]

Busy weekend out in the really world made for less productivity than I would have hoped....

Still, some updates:

http://www.freewebs.com/subrosian/demo.htm

-Reconfigured controls; X: Attack/Equip, A: Unequip
-Animated an east/west-facing slash with the frontmost arm
-Attacks with alternating arms in immediate succession (only south so far)
-Added an "attack que" of sorts, so you don't have to mash the key to slash twice
-Increased walk speed
-Added a lighting effect over the whole game screen. Good or lame?


huZba: Thanks SO MUCH for the tip about bitmap caching! It's running much faster now. I think the new control setup I've implemented alleviates the issues you mentioned about equipping/unequipping. My reasoning for keeping the unequip function is that, in the full game, I plan to include other equipable items/weapons that the player can map to keys S, D, and C. I sped up the walk even more and increased the range of the attack. I should note, the player will not take damage if, for example, an enemy's head just barely overlaps his feet. However, an enemy will take damage if any part of it comes in contact with the attack, disregarding depth. So that will the player a bit more range.

JJ Naas: Do you think the walk speed is okay now? The issue with the lack of knives visibility was actually due to an oversight I made while editing a bit of code since the last update. It actually was only playing the first frame of the equipping animation. Is it clear enough now?

Atnas: The player and enemies will effectively be impassible because the player will bounce back when he takes damage and the enemies will bounce back when they are hit. I think with the player's increased walk speed, the agressiveness of the spiders is okay now. What do you think? Also, keep in mind this is just one type of enemy.

[Atnas]

That's pretty sweet. I like the lighting. Attack queue is timed just right, you walk fast enough for enemies to keep their distance, and the south animation looks fine.

I think a longer attack would help. Like maybe the third attack is a lunge?

Can't wait to see more. 

[huZba]

Good progress tehwexo. The equip thing does make sense and might become a great tool for gameplay. Depending on how you make the equippable items work in the game you could just make them work just by pressing S D or C, without any extra work. Unless it's sort of a scrollable menu thing where you can choose things to equip from more than 3 things.

Now the walk speed might be okay. What we need to think about next is the interaction frequency. Depending on how much things to do you have in the players path, you'll also have to adjust the speed. The current speed is good if you have quite tight spaces, like bomberman for example. It's a complicated thing that needs a load of things thought out, but for your demo i guess it would be best to just build a working room and then adjust accordingly on gut feel.
If your game spends a lot of time in single rooms and a little time going across many rooms, then the speed works. If you have to traverse through many rooms like you do in zelda, then you definitely need more speed. Just going across the room takes quite a while now.

The lighting effect thing looks good.
The enemies movement pattern is... too smooth i think. You need some sharp moves there. More creepy and more crawly! If they feel as if they have a small working spiderbrain, it's going to be so much more fun to kill them.