Topics

1

Paid Work / Anyone willing to create a small project with me?

« on: September 07, 2012, 07:00:07 am »

I think it is about time I work with another person, so I can get a feel what it is like in a team. Mostly it would motivate me to finish a project, as I wouldn't want to let the other person down.

It is basically a side project type of thing, since I am studying and all. A very small project would be preferred.

I am looking for someone almost in the same 'boat' as me, someone who has small to decent time to work on something, and it wouldn't be a rush to finish it. We can basically take our time on this, and work on it when we have the free time. This is mainly why I choose we do a very small game. But on weekends I am completely free, and can get a lot done.

I can do graphics and programming and If you look at my current projects, you can see what I am capable of:

The first one shows off my art (There isnt much done as it is new), the second shows off my programming skills (This is an A.I. Demo)

Hopeless (Scroll down to the second post)
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,13009.0.html

Shadow Space
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,10073.0.html

The main reason I want to do this, is because I need a small project to work on along side my big/main project so I don't get burnt out. And also in the real world i need to know what it is like to work with others on a project.

If you are serious about this, and won't drop out half way though, drop a comment!
Also post some work you have done to give me an idea what you can do.

2

Chit-Chat / Trouble coming up with small game ideas

« on: September 06, 2012, 05:43:34 am »

Ok so, in my head I have about 10 different ideas for big elaborate thought out ideas for games with huge story lines and hours of game play... but when it comes to small and simple ideas, for example most iPhone games, with about 2 mins of content that for some reason are so addictive and people play them for hours, and it is just this simple repetitive game play.

Someone suggested to me that I should work on really small projects while working on my big project so I don't burn out. But I can't for the life of me think of any ideas that are as small as this. Every time I think of something, it ends up expanding and going in the direction of my other ideas.

Does this happen with you guys? How do you counter this?

Any ideas for what small games I should create just as an example?

3

Chit-Chat / Thoughts on swearing in video games

« on: September 05, 2012, 02:37:49 am »

Hey all, I am wondering what your thoughts are on swearing in video games, and I don't just mean random blindly placed swearing, I mean swearing where it fits, or it suits the character's personally etc. etc.

Why I am asking is because my current game I am creating, some swearing would fit the tone of the game, and otherwise would not make sense if it wasn't there.

What about using !@#$ to sensor the swearing? Does that break immersion?

Does having a warning at the beginning of the game justify the swearing?

What are your thoughts on this?

4

Game Art / Trouble with creating 'Dark and gritty' or 'city-like' Pixel Art

« on: August 07, 2012, 05:25:21 am »

Well my problem is, I can create bright and colourful pixel art, most suited to bright games like the old final fantasy series, but when it comes down to the dark and gritty, run down city, slums kind of Pixel art, (which I badly need for my game) i can't just seem to do it. It all comes out bright and happy no matter what i try. Or it just looks horrible.

An example of my work can be seen here, in the game im currently in progress of making:

Scroll Down to the second post
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,13009.0.html


Or i could just post it here:

And this:

I end up forgetting im meant to be making it dark, and then it turns up like that.....
any tips to help me along this 'dark' path

and don't just say "UsE Derka Colars hurr durr"
 

5

Archives / 'Persistent' Scenes

« on: August 06, 2012, 03:50:54 am »

Having 'Persistent' Scenes would help a lot in many many games; what I mean by Persistent is the ability to have an option in scenes to save all local/scene Attributes, so on returning back to that scene in game, everything would be as it was when you left it, instead of coding the saving by yourself, because it can get pretty hectic if you have many many scenes, and it gets hard to manage.

"Game Maker" has this exact option implemented.

6

Game Ideas / Hopeless

« on: August 05, 2012, 09:13:30 am »

Wanna jump straight to some screenshots and art? Scroll down to the second post!

Name: Hopeless

Story/setting:

The year is 2048, a cure for cancer has been found and widely distributed. Technology has advanced to the point where planes no longer fall from the sky, cars no longer crash, and life expectancy has reached 135 years of age. New drugs to instantly heal all your alignments, problems, and diseases have been created, further pushing life expectancy.

Due to these new advances, there are no longer need for many doctors, nurses, surgens and the like. Plane crash investigators and radio control personell are no longer needed.

Thousands and thousands of people dedicated to these professions (and many more), are now jobless. Homelessness is on the rise, and at an all time high of 28%. Crime is at record levels, while the police force shrink in numbers.

A brand new drug in its testing phase has been created to combat crime; this drug is being added to food produced around the country, which stimulates the aggressive part of the brain, and forces a calm-like nature in subjects.

Unforseen problems quickly arose, with an unbelieveable amount of side affects, including "Auto-suicide" and "Reflectation syndrome" which causes victim's bodies to turn inside out, while still keeping them alive for days at a time and causing excruciating pain.

On top of all of this, a unknown supernatural force is slowly sweeping over the city, consuming victims, and gaining control over their bodys. Swiftly named "The Shadow".

This is where your story begins; hell bent on fixing the world, and restoring order to your city. Little do you know, your life is about to change. All your hopes and dreams are about to take a turn for the worse.

Welcome to the City of Hopeless. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Characters

Playable: 2 Playable characters are available to control at fixed times during the story;

Robert Vana
37 Years of age, and father of 2 kids. Was laid off from work as a Plane Crash Investigator 4 years ago, which left him Jobless, homeless and alone. His wife and family left without a trace, and he now 'lives' under the Sector T-35 bridge with 9 other homeless; which is the only place far from any city, and far from other people, but very dangerous to live and 'clean' food is scarce.
Over the years he has taught himself to survive in the 'wild', but still struggles to cope in the new world; he experiences mild delusions and hallucinations from time to time, which can almost prove fatal in the 'wild'. His biggest enemy is himself.

John Peler
21 Years of age. Adapted to the changes of the world very quickly. Sharp, focused, and an eager to learn. Has trained over the years in many forms of combat, including his strongest feat: Samurai Swords. His quick, agile, and fast movements overwhelm enemies, and can turn the tides of battles in the blink of an eye.
Not much in personally and has trouble holding conversations, which has him nicknamed "The Machine"

Gameplay:

Survival of your character is a big part of the game, where eating and drinking is necessary to keep your character alive. This can done either through; hunting, scavenging, and/or consuming 'clean' food.
Food needs to be 'clean' before consumption, as it could potentially kill you, or leave you with fatal symptoms. The same goes with liquids.

When you are controlling 'Robert Vana', keeping your character sane will also be a top priority, the world will change (all in his head though, not real) depending how sane you are, eventually having the world turn on him and eventually killing him if sanity drops low enough.

(May be subject to change. More gameplay features still need to be decided.)

Combat System:

The combat system is action paced in real time, being able to move around freely within the battle, and use skills and abilities on the fly. A.I. behaves the same, being able to move freely and act on their own. You will be able to control one character during the battle (Which is most of the time the main character) most Melee skills and attacks will require you to be near an enemy to hit, otherwise you will miss (You can't swing your sword at air and expect to hit the enemy from far away)

Outside of battle, when colliding with an enemy or at fixed points, you will transition in 'battle mode' (Much like the Final Fantasy transition) Where you will be 'transported' to an arena like area (Which is themed to which location you are in) Which has restrictions on how far you can move (Areas will be reasonably sized) and will incorporate the system mentioned above.

Battles will be somewhat RPG focused meaning Stats like 'Strength', 'Speed' etc will play a part.

-----------------------------------------

So what do you guys think?

The game itself is going to be a top town RPG, with an action paced combat system. Much like in the Star Ocean games for the PSP.

Let me know your thoughts and ideas, or anything to add and make this better =)
Maybe you feel like working together on this project? I do prefer to work alone, as I can do everything myself, except for music. We will see what I feel like doing when i start on this.

7

Ask a Question / Transferring Attributes between scenes

« on: August 05, 2012, 03:34:19 am »

Hi all, I am wondering what the best way would be to Transfer Attributes between scenes, for example:

Lets say I have 100 scenes in the game, and when I change something in one scene, and leave the scene, then go back to the previous scene I want everything to be like it was when I left. Creating game attributes for each scene and every attribute in the scene, is going to be pretty hectic and messy.

My first thought was to create a game attribute List for each scene, but that still brings me to the same problem; it is going to be hectic and way too much lists and things.

There has to be a much better way to manage this.

8

Ask a Question / An easier way to store 'stats' of 'items/weapons'?

« on: May 09, 2012, 06:00:03 am »

Currently what i am doing is storing 'stats' of items or weapons in separate lists.
for example:
Weapon Names - List 1
0 - dagger
1 - sword
Weapon Damage - List 2
0 - 3
1 - 6
Weapon Equip Slot - list 3
0 - hand
1 - hand

Etc. etc. etc.

I just want to know if there is a better way of doing this before I go too far ahead with this.

9

Ask a Question / Drawing Text Help

« on: May 01, 2012, 05:40:21 am »

Hi all, this time I am wondering what exactly i am doing wrong... well actually I know what I am doing wrong, but I just have no idea how to fix it, or what the work around is.

Basically my problem is I am trying to draw text at different places at the same time, with only one Draw Text block... I thought id try it out and see if it works, and it doesn't.

(I will post what I tried to do in the attachment at the bottom)

Im sure there is a much better way to do this then what I've done... what happens currently, is the "when map is pressed" block works perfectly, but the "when drawing" doesn't work at all.

10

Game Ideas / Shadow Space

« on: April 27, 2012, 10:36:44 pm »

Scroll down to my last post to see my current progress

Hi all, i am in the current process of developing my game, and i would like to post here my progress by progress, and upload as i make big changes.

I am mainly going for feedback for my A.I. at the moment (Which is all ive done really) and i would like to know what you think of it, what should be changed etc. etc.

The final product will be a top down sandbox space game (With a story of course)
The link is here:

ALL OF THE SPRITES AND EVERYTHING IS MY OWN. SO PLEASE DO NOT RE USE OR STEAL. THANK YOU.

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/12412

I would like you to stay still and not move around the ship at first, to get a good idea what the enemy space ships will do when you dont move at all. Then fly around and see what they do.
Press 2 to change scene to A.I. VS A.I. Try to follow them around with your ship when they go off screen, to get an idea what will happen if it is just AI vs AI
You can not die at the moment, and you can not shoot at the moment

------------------
CONTROLS:
W key = thrust in the direction you are facing
A key - turn left
D key = turn right
S key = go back wards

C Key = Brake, to stop your ship in place. Hold this down.
---------------

Press the 1 key will change the scene to A.I. VS you.
Press the 2 key will change the scene to A.I. VS A.I. test
Press the 3 key will chance the scene to a stress test.

11

Ask a Question / Zooming Out

« on: April 25, 2012, 03:33:46 am »

Hey all, this time i'm wondering if there is a sort of zoom out function. And what i mean is zooming out the scene, to get a bigger view of the area/room. Ive seen the zooming on StencylForge, but all they seem to do is zoom out the entire game, and make it smaller.

Im going to take a guess here and say this isnt supported by Stencyl, but i guess i could be wrong. I had an idea by making my sprites/actors half the size, then start the game zoomed in, but it makes everything look completely terrible....

12

Ask a Question / Question About Events

« on: April 24, 2012, 05:42:56 am »

Hey there, just wondering a bit about events.
Currently i am doing something like this:

[Always]
Trigger event 'something'
trigger event 'somethingElse'

[Something]
bla bla bla

[SomethingElse]
bla bla bla


I am just wondering if this is the correct way to use them, instead of putting everything into the [Always]. Does this slow anything down at all? is there a better way to do this? There will be multiple actors using this at the same time, and having the code/blocks that do different things in separate events, could it slow anything down? (even just a fraction)

[these are custom events by the way]

13

Ask a Question / Turning Towards Actor/Actor Type

« on: April 22, 2012, 04:08:27 am »

Hey there all, I've basically been having trouble with trying to create a behaviour that makes an Actor Type, slowly turn towards another actor type.

For example: An actor is behind another actor, facing the opposite direction, i want the other actor to slowly turn towards the other Actor, and then face/look at the actor.

Ive been trying forever to get this to work, but another problem is, it has to be an actor TYPE, to turn towards to, since that actor wont be on the screen/game in runtime (Actor gets created later, and is not in the scene at the start, so can not select it.)

and no, doing last created actor, doesnt work, since multiple actors will be created at the same time, and i only want it to face towards that certain actor Type.