Pineappler
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Ultrasound Graphics Synthesis
The Little Dowser General
Posts: 2,286
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 10, 2008 6:50:44 GMT -5
Hyper Bomb in your game behaves pretty much exactly as it does in the original, with the exception that the explosion in yours behaves as a hazard (from my observation, that's what it looks like) while the original just did a meaty number on the enemy. Treating it as a hazard is pretty much the best way to go, so I think that it's a very good work of it. It's always been a "Toss and land it right" weapon, and from a traditionalist viewpoint, I like it that way.
Gravity Hold is the only full-screen attack during which Megaman can remain moving, that's an amusing quirk I always thought of. It was extremely helpful to speedrunners, as it allowed them to get past some areas full of minor enemies without losing a beat. Naturally, Centaur Flash doesn't actually have THAT much of a delay, but Speedrunners talk in fractions of a second. Sometimes it's scary talking with them. In the originals, Thunderbolt hits 4 times while Astro Crush deceptively hits only once. Somehow, between mysterious flashes of light, acidic rain, bolts of lightning, and _dropping meteors on the enemy_, the lattermost is far from the most powerful.
Charge Kick is much more useful than Top Spin, for at least one reason: Megaman is invulnerable to collision damage while using it. This actually made it useful even on some bosses that were not weak against it, the third Dark Man especially coming to mind with his suicidal tendencies. The only problem is that Charge Kick always cost ammo, while Top Spin only spent it when hitting the enemy. That, naturally, has been mitigated because Top Spin costs ammo to use. It's easier this way. Another quirk of Top Spin is that Megaman was invulnerable to knockback when using it. Damage is still taken, but you freeze in midair and then can continue horizontally after you exit your damage frames. I'm not sure anyone would notice that quirk missing, but this is specifically one of those "Nitpicking" things I mentioned that are not crucial to look at. Like the Fire Storm's infinity shield. Somethings are just a hassle to add into the code, and as I work on my newest project, I'm understanding more what's feasible and what isn't.
Dive Missile reminds me that it's actually kinda like Homing Sniper. The difference was Homing Sniper had more ammo, damage, and could fire up to 6 at once, compared to Dive Missile's 2. They have practically the same homing algorithms, and similar sprites albeit in different bit depth, with Homing Sniper having that additional targetting reticle that I imagine will be a pain to program so I'm sure everyone can forgive its absence.
Glad to hear about the difficulty, but that does bring up, will there be separate difficulty modes in the game again?
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Post by brickman on Aug 10, 2008 13:39:19 GMT -5
Wade, that sounds rather cruel with the difficulty. You should probably at least, like, have a level or two or possibly even three that the player "suggested" to play first, them being actual levels rather than just a boss like dramatic introduction but still easier than the others. I mean, no matter which way you cut it, there's gonna have to be at least one robot master who an average player can beat without any master weapons (or at the very least, your average player).
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 10, 2008 18:09:43 GMT -5
On normal difficulty the average player should be able to take down any of the bosses after they fully grasp the controls. I'm only playtesting with normal attacks like I did in the other games so beating a boss shouldn't require having a particular special weapon, but it'll help greatly if one does have it.
Then for the ones who are a glutton for punishment there will be the usual absurd difficulties putting the player at a healthy disadvantage, but to reward them they'll unlock Slashman and any other goody I toss in.
For weapon behaviors as long as I get close to the originals I'm definitely not goin to be nitpicking lol. Like the overhead ball in Pharaoh Shot, I worked on getting that process for like an hour and was about 10 minutes away from saying F*** it when it suddenly all clicked into place reasonably close. Dang Charge Kick was the same way (which btw just places Mega in a guard state to avoid lil baddy/shots damage similar to some of the shields).
Given all the help you've done in playtesting B-Man, would you want your namesake in here as one of the bosses? Either Photon or Plasma Man is going to be ditched since they're both roughly fire type bosses so I need a replacement.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 11, 2008 5:05:54 GMT -5
Update =========================== - Weapons from Mega Man 1 to Mega Man 7 should be running. They're starting to get trickier to emulate, but I think I'm pulling off reasonably close results. - The 3 weapon presets as mentioned before are assigned to #1, #2 and #3 respectively. Can be pressed during game or pause to hotkey to them. - Helper Menu is open to, like, stare at the 3 of them and stuff. - Filesize so far is sitting at a pretty 174k. - Since I feel oddly compelled, I must make fun of Centaur Man. I altered his weapon to suit that purpose. It is now full of win... and fairies.
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Ariga
CITIZEN
cluck
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Post by Ariga on Aug 11, 2008 22:41:29 GMT -5
A quick thought; any possibilities of making the game controller-compatible? Let's say that, for the sake of discussion, I had a USB adapter for a PSX controller, and the controller itself. Is it possible to code a Flash game to work with something else besides the keyboard? (MMXN was a pain with it.)
Otherwise, it looks veddy, veddy tantalizing.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 11, 2008 23:09:28 GMT -5
To play flash games with a controller you would need to use a keyboard emulator so that the controller inputs commands as if a key was pressed.
To the best of my current knowledge, Flash itself has no direct controller interface so emulation is the way to go.
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Post by brickman on Aug 11, 2008 23:50:09 GMT -5
I'd be honored, as long as he doesn't look like a knockoff version of Stone Man. Is it too much to ask to make him one of those requisite "really really nasty bosses" you need a few of every game, like Terra Drake or KZ10?
/me sticks his tongue out at everyone who didn't have the sense to pick a username which ends in "man".
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 12, 2008 0:01:53 GMT -5
All bosses will be like 80% at least handmade so no worries. Intend to hand draw them, import to photoshop, rescale, then gonna draw on top of the image to make them 8bit'ish. Should give much better results than the original MMN ones.
The mechanics of the boss fight won't come for quite some time so no worries about that. If you can email me a rough sketch of what you'd want to look like and I'll take it from there. Then also need a stage theme.
On another note, curse lack of MM8 sprites out there lol. Had to bust out the game (with no memory card to save my progress on ;_;) to see how the weapons work.
The weapons are less impressive than the ones from MM7. Like they were only designed to trigger events in a stage rather than fight with with the exception of like 1 or 2.
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Post by brickman on Aug 12, 2008 1:21:41 GMT -5
I have no idea what Brick Man should look at, because usually my mental image of what my avatar ought to look like looks more or less like Stone Man. A guy made out of bricks; it's the obvious option for a silly avatar, but as a robot master it's already taken. I guess instead it ought to be someone who throws bricks, which opens several possibilities--perhaps he should look like a human construction worker, or maybe a mobster, or alternately a total wimp. Regardless, if he's throwing bricks as his weapon, he should look 100% human to make the whole fight that much funnier, and should be throwing them with all his weight.
Or. . . there's always the possibility of making Brick Man a single brick, who in some way or another tries to squash the player (whether bouncing or "rolling" aka falling on its side repeatedly).
Now that I think of it, though, neither idea sounds like "nasty boss" material--they both sound like they'd be lucky to avoid "warm up boss material". Hmm, you could make me boss of the intro stage, unless Bass or Dramatic Introduction Man or someone story-related already has that bit lined up. Then it'd be perfectly justified to have a boss whose main attack is to hurl a single brick straight at you with all his might. If so, I'd go with the "total wimp" option for maximum silliness.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 12, 2008 6:52:03 GMT -5
If they can make a stone man and a concrete man, I'm sure brick man will be a perfectly acceptable normal boss. Using the construction bit from what came to your mind I could easily work something up for him and his stage since it wouldn't conflict with any of the existing bosses themes. So taking the bricks+construction theme. You can add chains, hard hats, girders, drills, welding torches, and of course the bricks themselves. Then as a reward I guess get a brick buster or to be more silly call it The Brick. The intro stage is still gonna have the rhino tank as the boss. >>> Update -------------------------------- Weapons from MM8 (except Super/Mega Ball thing, not sure if it's going in there since it's corny). Even though the weapon patterns themselves are kinda bland, the interactions needed some minor changing to fit into the engine. Had to make about 1/2 the graphics by hand since it seems not to many out in the wide world have ripped MM8's images. Also added more SFX to attacks to make'm puuurtier. Fire Storm, Thunder Beam, Ice Slasher, Spark Shock, Flame Blast, Freeze Cracker, and Thunder Strike are the first ones to receive a touch up from this. Lastly, made it so that it remembers what weapon page you were on instead of defaulting to the one I was playtesting. - Astro Crush: Launches 4 meteor things. When each one explodes everything on the screen takes damage. - Flame Sword: I'm not making custom swing frames so this is kinda tacked on like Slash Claws. - Homing Sniper: When you first press the special button this is linked to it places a target-lock on the closest enemy to Mega, then fires out 3 missiles at that target. Pressing the special button again will retarget the nearest enemy and fires another 3 missiles. Also touched up the homing AI this and Dive Missile use. - Ice Wave: Like many other weapons this has been given a timer so it'll eventually fade after going so far. - Thunder Claw: Like Flame Sword and Slash Claw. I'm not making custom frames/poles to go Bionic Commando on, instead this picks up power up items for you now. And on the note of thunder, why do so many attacks that involve electricty have thunder in their name when thunder is a sound attack not an electrical lightning one >.>- Tornado Hold: The wind effect now makes you slow fall in the area of effect instead of pushing you up. Didn't want this to steal Rush, Tango and Beats thunder. Having no balanced shot timers is teh best: And here be the pause menu icons all clumped together ala' my sloppy programming techniques:
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Post by brickman on Aug 12, 2008 11:59:37 GMT -5
Alright. I just didn't want him to end up being derivitave of an existing robot master, but then again, lets be honest here: there's an awful lot of variants on "fire/heat/flame/synonym Man". Oh, and I thought of a silly attack for Brick Man: Grabs three bricks out of his chest, throws them at different angles (you know--0, 15 and 30 degrees, standard stuff) then jumps across the room and catches them before they hit the wall so he can put them back.
New weapons seem ok. It's hard to test in this stage, but does the meteor attack hurt everyone, or just the visible blast radius?
edit: Also, we could probably test these weapons a lot easier and a LOT more thoroughly if you stuck an enemy spawner into your example level. Those round flying guys who open up to shoot in any of 8 directions (forget the name) seem like a good choice, since we can test guard, no guard, bullets (vs sheild), and any effects which might be triggering, say, when something hits the ground when it should also trigger when it hits an enemy. A second spawner for ground based enemies might be nice too, since many weapons are ground based--mets make sense, for the same reason (plus one's already coded in).
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Pineappler
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Ultrasound Graphics Synthesis
The Little Dowser General
Posts: 2,286
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 12, 2008 13:15:23 GMT -5
Firstly, I wish I came earlier, but... www.sprites-inc.co.uk/files/Classic/There's pretty much the best Megaman sprite repository I know of. Including MM8. Now, onto weapon notes, either for fun or for drastic errors. Star Crash has become incredibly fun with Autofire. Hehehe... Knight Crush should be able to be aimed at angles. It's a 30 degree or so incline in either up or down, and would boomerang down if aimed up, and up if aimed down. Kinda was what made those stupid robot apes manageable was to aim up at them. I like how Silver Tomahawk... is actually silver now. That was always a mystery to me. I love Centaur Flash. MM7 weapons are all fine and dandy, for the most part. They were the ones Capcom decided to put the most quirks in, and you emulated them all pretty much. Tornado Hold is not like Hyper Bomb, it should impact with the target and fall straight down. Otherwise, it'd be pretty horrible as a weapon. Makes a nice smack, traditionally, but since you were playing the game to observe behavior I'm not sure if you just decided to make an artistic liberty. That's all to comment on, at the moment.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 12, 2008 17:22:20 GMT -5
I scoured Sprites-Inc, they only had like 4-5 and still required pretty good editing to make'm 8bit'ish. Astro Crush's meteors hurt everyone on screen that isn't guarding when they explode. I just reset it by hitting delete then re-mauling the hard hat and stomper since they cover guarding and shots. After the weapons and pets have 1 form in there, next is building up the baddy count/stages so it'll begin to balloon from there. Thought Knight Crush rolled up when standing on the ground and rolled down when jumping. Didn't remember the directional input, haveta double check again Truthfully the tornado hold was always fired so low to the ground, couldn't tell if it was pressing against the enemy or just passing them.
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Pineappler
CITIZEN
Ultrasound Graphics Synthesis
The Little Dowser General
Posts: 2,286
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 12, 2008 23:51:32 GMT -5
Huh, so they do. Somehow I thought they had more sprites than that. Guess not.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 13, 2008 7:09:17 GMT -5
Fixed most of the lil quirks for whenever the next time I update is. Tornado hold will drop straight down, Knight crusher can be tossed in 6 directions. Also figured out a way to link Homing Sniper to your charge level so without charge you fire 2, mid charge is 4 and max does 6.
Since I've never played the other games (MM&B, Gameboy ones) gonna take some work to get those things in there in some fashion. Only like 15 left to make though before I need to finalize the bosses and weapons for my part of the game.
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Pineappler
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Ultrasound Graphics Synthesis
The Little Dowser General
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 13, 2008 7:22:59 GMT -5
I could tell you the exact mechanics of every weapon from those games to save you the trouble, if you'd like. I'd have to fetch my Gameboy out of the abyss, but it's no problem for me.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 13, 2008 7:30:45 GMT -5
I appreciate the thought, but I gotta be able to get hands on experience to get the idea of how the code should flow, ya know (<- Terribad Rhyme). Thinks it's the result of my Y-chromosome and playing with legos to much as a kid lol. Then the fine tuning I can turn it loose to all of ya out in internet land.
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Post by WatcherCCG on Aug 13, 2008 8:15:07 GMT -5
I'm willing to playtest again, though I won't have the same vast amount of time to devote to this project.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 20, 2008 6:44:01 GMT -5
Still a ways to go before playtesting kicks in, it's gonna use the same playtest code as Roll Next though once it's there.
Edit ----------------------- Just as a forewarning, since Mega's pets are gonna play a much bigger role there's gonna be vehicle scenes. Similar to the hoverbike/tank parts in MMXN, I'm gonna have Mega hop on Rush and go 2D sidescrolling shooter at times. Like in Jet Man's stage to have a airborne shooter akin to Tengu Man's in MM8. Hopefully I can work in the Rush bike and Rush Marine too. Beat and Tango will override your special weapons though (to much coding to do all of them with alternate formats).
Edit #2 --------------------- Instead of dividing the story between 2 characters (Mega & slashman) only gonna be one story, and after Slashman is unlocked he'll be a selectable 2nd character to use like how Zero was in MMX3. Couldn't think up a decent way to work him into the game completely without making a bunch of oddities so he'll just tag along helping Mega do things and then riding the bench while the smurf takes on the story fights. Saves me work that way and opens doors to tack on any others without needing to write up a massive plot.
The rough draft for Slashy gonna be that Brain bot (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_23:Brain_Bots keeping in mind the cartoon ep's also happened in this parody world) has since been moved to assist in military defenses given the increasing attacks by Wily. He modified one of Slashman's bodies that Mega had defeated into a new robot to help against the threat. Slashman Next will be much more feral than the MM7 version. He'll be sporting a tail, finger claws in addition to wrist/forearms blades, red cat-like eyes and some kind of pet to help him get around.
Since Mega's theme could be said to be musical stuff, Slash's is going to be food of my favorite types. His pets will be Nacho the Hedgehog and Taco the Toucan.
Edit #3 ------------------------- Update: Weapons from Mega Man V are live (Under pause Menu's SD for Stardroids). A good few changes to some of these weapons given the different engine and my level of skillzzzzz.
Black Hole: Freezes enemies near center of it. Spawns debris that spirals towards center dealing damage to those caught up.
Break Dash: This ability is strongly linked to your charge level, going farther and doing more damage based on your charge. Since there's no blocks to break, it instead damages guarding enemies. Unlike Charge Kick though you stop when you hit a few you can't kill outright.
Deep Digger: Since there's no blocks to interact with, this ability works like Strong Arm and just tosses out a block.
Grab Buster: When it successfully hits a non-guarding enemy, it returns to you and gives you a small bit of life. You gotta touch the returning shot though for it to work (don't want it to be to easy to heal up).
Spark Chaser: I didn't want to code in like 16 directions to chase baddies in, so it sticks to the good ol' 8 way aiming. Does like 7 hops or so dealing damage when in moving form.
Previously mentioned fixes are in as well as a few tweaks to other weapons like Junk Shield (had to make it freeze Mega's firing during summon phase to prevent multiple copies of it).
You go to the crude stage select screen after pressing the begin game button now. Just click the intro in the top left corner to hop into the playtest intro stage.
Edit #4 ------------------------------------- Finalized Master/Weapons for the MMN part of this: - Punchman: Punch Dash - Nunchakuman: Smoke Screen (Renamed from original) - Jetman: Spread Missile - Arsenalman: Arsenal Storm - Circuitryman: Circuitry Shield - Mirrorman: Mirror Flash - Tornadoman: Tornado Shot - Dramatic Introductionman: Cameo Cannon * Sharkman: Jaws Wave * Balloonman: Pyro Balloon * Shamanman: ROFL Totem * Stealthman: Metal Gear * Plasmaman: Plasmic Burst * Striderman: Cypher Edge * Psychoman: Nightmare Bloodbath * Celsiusman: Frost Fire Shot * Warlockman: Skillcoil Siphon * Brickman: The Brick * Pro Action Footballman: Illegal Blitz * Otakuman: Power Moon
Edit #5 -------------------------------------------------- Update: Weapons from Megaman & Bass are in it.
I must say, that game is way to hard for all the wrong reasons >.> Like one giant game of trial & error & memory with death being the cost of not knowing... and Bass seems to have it a fair bit easier than the smurf in most cases.
Anyhow, that bit of whining aside onto the changes/functions. Tengu Blade and Copy Vision were added for the heck of it...
- Copy Vision: Uses MM8's graphic albeit with only 3 colors to 8 bit'ish it. - Ice Wall: Gave it a good shot, but so much had to change and got tired of wasting time on it. Couldn't have the smurf standing on it for same reason Tornado Hold can't push you up, so I just made it push based. But couldn't have it shoving Mega around because that was just lame and crazy annoying in MM&B. So of you touch it while doing anything but standing still it goes flying. It'll ricochet off walls, but stop when it touches you or a baddy. Each baddy it hits or wall it bounces from reduces it's lifespan. Does some weird stuff if you spawn it in a wall/ceiling, but blah. I'll worry bout that later. - Lightning Bolt: Similar to Astro Crush that it deals damage when the bolts flash the screen. - Magic Card: Has a timer on the return so it can fade if Mega evades to long. Made this, Grab Buster and Thunder Claw make powerups float to Mega instead of just teleport to him so you'll need to catch them. - Remote Mine: Similar to Drill Bomb now. You can have multiple mines on the screen at once and by pressing the buster key it will detonate all fastened ones on the screen. However, like most other things there's a timer on how long they'll sit now. - Spread Drill: Just hold down to the special key to make it spread all the way out to 4 or tap it depending on how you want it or when you want it to split. - Tengu Blade: Press Down+Special to do the little dash thing, otherwise you'll throw the lil spinny thing out after the wind blade part. The spinny thing only bounces off left/right walls. While dashing, continue holding down to go farther. To differ it a bit from Break Dash/Charge Kick you stop on impact with guarding foes. - Wave Burner: Pretty much the same.
Few more tweaks and edits to existing weapons too, like making Top Spin put Mega in a guard state.
So that leaves about 25'ish weapons to be made and Mega will be completely loaded with all the firepower he's gonna get outside of the level-based attacks.
More lil differences I'm pondering is to make Dr Light's lab accessible to stop in at when you wanna level up, listen to BGM's, buy any items that make it in or chat with the character's there. Serve as the hub of sorts you see in so many other games where you can just loaf around without worrying about any goon running up and melting your face. Maybe even enter a X-men style Danger room to play around with weapons in safety with infinite energy. Nice idea that would be fun to pull off if possible.
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Pineappler
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 20, 2008 17:51:11 GMT -5
Well, you mention the majority of differences between weapons in the post, so no need to comment, sans a suggestion or so.
To look at the Ice Wall issue, I was looking at wall spawn behavior in general of your weapons. I stumbled across some intriguing things in the process, but I'll cover those afterwards.
I'm assuming that the way it looks is, if the item destructs against a wall, it is spawned inside the wall (and thus destructs), whereas if it performs some interaction such as climb or bounce, then it'll be spawned at a displacement so that it basically originates in the wall interaction. That keeps some uniformity in the game engine, which is good. If this is implemented as both parameters identical (that is, spawned-in-wall behavior is directly determined by its wall-interaction behavior), then it'd be complex to fix, but if those are two separate parameters, then might I suggest making the wall self-destruct when spawned in a wall, but bounce otherwise? Aside from matching the game, it also prevents the unusual behavior. I don't know how complex and annoying that'd be to work with, though, if they are directly related.
Crash Bomb spawns from Megaman's head, inexplicably.
Search Snake has some unusual pathing features. Sometimes when it hits a wall (or the floor, if descending a wall), it will spin in place a few rotations. This usually occurs quick enough that it wouldn't hurt its performance, but it's highly amusing. Additionally, if it is fired in such a fashion that it hits the corner of a wall and floor, it will self-terminate instantly.
Since it's part of the early weapons and thus was done from memory, Bubble Lead's behavior is somewhat different than tradition. I can't blame you much here, as I decided to pull out MM2 to doublecheck one behavior (conveniently, I had a copy in order to play Rockman no Constancy, an incredibly awesome hack of the game), and figured out that Bubble Lead is completely bonkers as a weapon. At least, until I dissected its program. In your version, Bubble Lead is thrown out, and travels along the floor. It keeps its horizontal momentum when it travels off an edge, and if it ever hits a ceiling or wall at any time, it destructs. The original one has different behavior based on whether it is 'clinging' or not. Bubble Lead destructs if it is absorbed by an enemy. It will float straight upwards harmlessly if it hits a guarding enemy (as this behavior is just a variation on how the Megabuster bounces at an angle, this is useless to duplicate, but is included here for completion). The enemy interaction behavior supercedes all other forms of behavior, so I'm not going to add the interaction at every branch described below for the sake of my poor fingers. If it is not clinging, which is the state you fire it in, it will travel in a parabolic arc until it enters the clinging state. When it is in the clinging state, it travels along the ground until it reaches an edge, in which it moves straight downwards until it hits another ground, then travels along that. If it is clinging, then it will destruct if it hits a wall. Now, what makes some pretty unusual behavior, is that the Bubble Lead only enters the 'clinging' state when it hits a floor or ceiling. Notedly, in hitting a ceiling, it immediately detects that there is no ground beneath it, so it descends straight downwards as expected. But the fact is, it does not enter clinging when it hits a wall. Thus, when the Bubble Lead is fired at a wall, it will try to continue its parabolic motion. Since there's a wall, though, it loses its horizontal velocity. What happens next is one of two things. Either the Bubble Lead hits a floor or ceiling and enters clinging state, or the wall ends before that happens. In the former, it'll basically destruct upon hitting the floor since the wall is already there, while it'll descend first if it hits a ceiling. In the latter, however, once it clears the wall, it will regain its horizontal velocity. So, if fired at a wall that doesn't touch the floor, it will appear to hug the wall until it clears the wall, then it'll start moving forwards in a new arc, and this continues until it enters clinging state so that it may destruct. The most important thing to note is that only the horizontal component of the velocity changes from hitting a wall when not clinging, not the vertical component. So, if you fire at (or inside) a solid wall, the bubble will appear to climb it, if it still has the upwards part of its arc to travel. And, in fact, if you fire it at a platform just right, it will basically climb up the wall enough so that its arc lands it on top of the wall, and then it'll enter clinging state there, and travel on top of that platform. As a result, good use of its climb could allow Megaman to hit some out-of-place targets by scaling walls. Since the arc is not that high, it's not that advantageous a move, but it can do when Megaman is just shy of being able to reach a platform. In reading that your Tengu Blade operates differently with left/right walls compared to floor/ceiling, to me it sounds feasible to include its unusual behavior with walls. The final call is up to you, though.
The return algorithm for Magic Card and Thunder Claw, in being the same as Grab Buster, result in unusual appearances, but that's an aesthetics issue mostly. You can fix the Magic Card problem, however, by making it destruct upon touching a powerup, and subsequently affix a graphic of the card to the floating powerup until it hits you. This, among other things, prevents the card from damaging enemies when picking up items. Another suggestion for accuracy is that since you do have two separate behaviors for the card (going forward, then the return trip), might I suggest affixing the item pickup only on the return trip behavior?
The last suggestion, for playtesting purposes, is a request of if you could include a floating platform in the stage. It can just be as simple as a block, as long as it touches no ceiling, ground, or wall, and is just a free floating block.
Part of the difficulty in MM&B is probably the result of the GBA version. You get a much larger screen in the SNES version, and that actually helps a lot on some of the stages, I noticed. When I played the SNES version years back, I stomped it into the ground, even the aggravatingly long final dungeon, with the exception of Dynamo Man. When I played the GBA version just now, every stage threw me to the curb, and Dynamo Man was the ONE boss who didn't destroy me. It could be some handling issues also, but that's just what I assume. And, well, the traditional saying is, "Megaman was designed to collect CDs while Bass was designed to actually fight the bosses in the game". That, and the double-jump is an ability that is beyond useful in any game. Besides, for all the difficulty in MM&B, at least it's not X6.
I like the idea of having Dr. Light's lab added to the game. BGM test is always nice and a feature I always hate to have missing. When I can't pick up a soundtrack for a game, I'm always happy enough to just sit in front of the console while it serenades me with, say, Fiona Mayfield's theme. I'm easy enough to please, but when a game has very good music, but no BGM Test, it makes me cry. Also, having people to chat with certainly can add some interesting things, so I'm for it.
Final note, if you're sticking with the name Smoke Screen, don't use a graphic of six faint smoke clouds sorta hovering around Megaman. Given that the behavior of the original Stealth Body, and the Smoke Screen from Hardhat 2, are identical, I'm going to warn you so you don't accidentally use the same graphic. I don't suspect webgame authors of being extremely vindictive on accidental slights, but better safe than sorry, neh?
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 22, 2008 5:53:33 GMT -5
Search Snake draw problem thing sounds like it's caused by setting the shot animation frame before resolving what it's actually doing making it a bit behind. Same probably with that occasionaly odd block Frost Wave makes since it's basically a glorified version of Search Snake. As for throwing the snakes in the corner, I'll just count that as cruelty to animals.
The main problem with Ice Wall spawning is that the block is bigger than Mega so places he fits in doesn't always work well with where the hit detect is for the ceilings since it only measures like 20 units in. Probably gonna end up making the wall a bit smaller to match the smurfs size. I made it so the cloud that appears before the wall itself spawns starts at Mega and does a hit detect as it moves into position so it really shouldn't be able to spawn in a wall left/right wise, but weird things abound with the ceilings.
The Bubble Lead should be a easy fix after I dust off the game and visualize it to see what changes go into play. Sounds like it should be a bit more like Water Wave.
The return math used for power ups is nothing more than just increasing the x/y momentum depending on where the character is in relation. Mainly did it since there'll be around 4-5 things which can fetch powerups and each behaves differently. I didn't like how Thunder Claw just insta made the item goto Mega's x/y so tried to pretty it up some. Making Magic Card fade when hitting a powerup is doable.
My bit of experience with Tengu Blade was that it only detected Left/Right hits and drifted through ceilings.
Thing that makes some of the shots appear around Mega's head is that objects that use block interactions are drawn completely above the y axis' 0 point, whereas non-block attacks are drawn centered on the y axis' 0 point. So while spamming copy'n'paste I sometimes forget to tack on the shot y +8 or so to make it look to come from the same Y as normal shots. More odd programming habits of mine.
Since the Dr Light base idea seems pretty nice and I can make the "Danger Room" have all the block types I would need to test out as well as the new exit/interaction stuff. I'll probably start work on that after the weapons.
The Smoke Screen thing is gonna place Mega in a guard state while in it and damage enemies that enter it.
Fiona Mayfield... hrmmm reminds me I haven't beaten Arcana Heart with all characters yet. More to add to the to-do list.
Edit #1 ---------------------------------------------------- Spent last night getting examples of the gameboy mega killers weapons. Must say that I appreciate high resolution screens 100x's more now >.> Apparently Ballade Cracker beats out Metal Blade in the 8 way weapon award since it does the same thing but blasts the daylights out of things.
Did more tweaks to the weapons per notes/suggestions above. Bubble Lead now has a fall straight direction and only resets when hitting a wall when in roll-on-the-ground mode and won't reset unless enemy survives it's damage or is guarding. Magic Card resets when it makes a powerup go into homing mode (making the item match it's path was a pain). Fire Storm behaves as a hazard. Ice Wall is now a mini-Ice Wall and travels a bit slower when pushed. Behaves much better now. Etc etc...
Next update should have the last of the non-MMN weapons in it.
While playing the other games, I've redeveloped a big hatred for in is insta-death-trial-and-error in professional games. Makes no sense to put a player in a situation where not knowing if jumping left vs right down into the next screen results in life vs unavoidable instant death (aka: spikey pit of doom). Games like Lolo (NES) where it's a puzzle and you can at least see the insta death waiting are one thing, but not the leap and pray stuff. (Non-professional game designers can be forgiven since we ain't gettin nuthin fo' doing these things... at least to a point)
Edit #2 --------------------------------------------------- Update: The 4 Mega Killers weapons are bouncing around now. Renamed the Mega Killers menu to Extras in case I feel like adding any other weapons from the miscellanous games out there or that piddly Mega Soccer Ball thing.
- Ballade Cracker: Pretty Much the same. - Mirror Buster: Fires a short wave in front of Mega that will negate some enemy shots and turn them into buster shots traveling in the direction the wave is. Gonna be annoying having to constantly update this one with new baddy shot types it'll effect like it was with Kz10's shield -_- - Sakugarne: Get to see how this meets Piney's expectations... 1) Press whichever assigned special button to summon it down. 2) You haveta jump onto it while not doing anything else (aka: no jumping on while melting faces). 3) Once you are on it, you'll be constantly pogo'ing and when you hit the ground if you are holding down jump, Mega will take a nice big pogo bounce dealing decent damage to any enemy under him. 4) One change from the game to make it more useful is that when you hit a enemy (even if guarding), you'll do a little bounce again so you'll stay above them ala' super mario. As long as the enemy doesn't do any sudden upward movements you'll be good and drill their brains out, any that make sudden upward movements if you're above them you'll get toppled off (aka: hit). 5) Once you're riding on this fella, you slowly lose weapon energy and won't be able to charge. Tapping whichever special key it is assigned to while not in the big jump motion will have Mega dismount. Also the small powerups are to low for you to reach when they're on the ground. 6) If you get hit you'll be knocked off this. Think that's everything for it. - Screw Crusher: About the same, perhaps a smidge quicker. Made it so if you press Up it'll get a bit more height.
Then did more tweaks to old weapons: Smoothed out Rolling Cutters return, the previously mentioned attempt to smooth out Search Snake/Ice Wave's animation, Ice Wall edits, Magic Card reset, blah blah blah...
Also the stage select screen is beginning to shape up into what will be it's normal appearance. The stages, Dr Lights Lab and Save/Load will be the only things there. The other goodies will all be in the house.
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 26, 2008 6:18:14 GMT -5
Update 8/26 ================================== - More of the usual lil tweaks to existing weapons. - Added in Dr Light's stage now. Like mentioned earlier, the Up key can enter doors/interact with objects. Tried to model it roughly after the lab in the early comics, not to much eye candy in it yet and nobody to talk to. Course not to much gonna be in there for Roll given what happens in the game >.> - Added in the first 4 of MMN's weapons. Since I'm somewhat above a programming n00b now, the original's will be changed to be more effective and to make them a tad bit different than the existing bajillion weapons. >> Arsenal Storm: Explodes entire screen. Duration increased based on your charge level. >> Cameo Cannon: Randomly fires out 1 of 4 different hologram characters. Each one behaves different in the ground speed, jumping speed, jumping height and damage rates. They will run forward and attempt to jump over pits/obstacles to ram things. >> Circuitry Shield: Places Mega in a guard state as long as the bubble encases him. Generates circuit patterns that spiral from Mega's position if standing still or stick in place if he's moving. Duration and circuits are increased based on charge level. >> Cypher Edge: Borrowing from Strider Hiryu's MvC attacks... Mega will whip out a ridiculously oversized blade attack dealing damage to all in the area. For each additional charge level, Mega will make an additional attack dealing increased damage for each one.
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Pineappler
CITIZEN
Ultrasound Graphics Synthesis
The Little Dowser General
Posts: 2,286
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Post by Pineappler on Aug 26, 2008 9:59:00 GMT -5
Bubble Lead tweak works fine. If you tweaked the Search Snake, I don't see any difference. Sakugarne very makes me happy. Just cruising on the stage alone is enjoyable, and I guess it wasn't nearly a programming hassle as I expected. At the very least, it produced a lot less trouble of effort than, say, Ice Wall. Congratulations on taking down Sakugarne with excellent work. Skull Barrier is absolute broken balancewise at this current point in time. I think it's the only attack that outright kills the big enemy pretty much instantly, and it does so while providing a guard state for Megaman. It's making me think of MegaMari's Rolling Slash, which was pretty much the Metal Blade of that game. Mirror Buster is highly nerfed in this version, in costing energy simply to use. Energy regain lessens the impact of this, though. It otherwise is fine in operation, but yeah, probably forces a lot of programming lunacy. Arsenal Storm's animation is not only an improvement on the original, but I really like how it looks now. It is incredibly awkward for Mario to be the WORST at Jumping when it comes to the Cameo Cannon <.<
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Post by Wade Monroe / MaelstormM on Aug 26, 2008 19:24:03 GMT -5
Curse those snakes on a plane.
Skull Barrier apparently isn't reseting when it hits something making it like a god-like chainsaw.
Depending on the type of enemy shot, Mirror Buster will also do mid buster shots. Gonna try to make all the ones that can be reflected be the flashing black/white so they can be identified easier rather than a trial and error like Kz10's shield is.
I went with the fat plumber approach to Mario cause I wanted him to be the heavy hitter, can rearrange them.
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Post by WatcherCCG on Aug 27, 2008 8:39:30 GMT -5
Well, technically, Luigi always was the better jumper. Still, Mario's got some height of his own. Better rearrange it, Wade.
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