[hob nado]

The Chrono Trigger style battle system I had invented defeated my shortened attention span for making MegaZeux games. Thus, I got the idea to make Zoe Awesome a shooter, and I've managed to renew my interest in the game =)

Zoe will have an RPG engine of sorts built on top of regular MegaZeux shooting action. The main idea is to make MZX primitives do the dirty work for me; this has the additional benefit of bolstering the "retro" MZX feeling I've been loosely aiming for. So I've been having fun making and testing enemies tonight - and in the interest of having a lot of them, would you guys be willing to make a few if I posted a template for Zoe enemies?

[ShloobeR]

I will be only 2 pleased to help Es

[Pyro1588]

i'll give it a shot.

[asiekierka]

Add me, (or wait, i wasn't birth in 80s)

[Dr Lancer-X]

Can't say no to a COP now can we?

[CJA]

That's one of the problems I had with Tuxedo Ted (which was also a sort of classic MZX shooer with RPG qualities) -- not enough creativity to make more enemies. This is a good approach.

[hob nado]

Lancer-X, on Feb 6 2007, 07:33 AM, said:

Can't say no to a COP now can we?

It was a rhetorical question. You cannot.

[Goshi]

It gives me a good excuse to procrastinate on my other projects >_>

It's recommended to give out the template so that way you can get the desired results

This post has been edited by Goshi: 06 February 2007 - 11:51 PM

[hob nado]

I made the menu system for Zoe yesterday. It uses the [ menu, which makes it twice as awesome (because it works and I can do it about 10 times faster!)

[CJA]

In my opinion you should start everything with the [ boxes. Graphical interfaces can wait, and the actual system's functioning provides you with more inspiration to keep working than an empty GUI.

[hob nado]

Actually, that's an interesting idea. I never thought to do any sort of prototyping for an MZX game, because, well, it's MZX. I guess the times they are a changin' though.

Anyways, it's not so much meant as a prototype here, it's the actual system. I've written textboxes a billion times, and frankly, I'm kinda tired of it...plus, I think there's still some neat things to be done with MZX built-in functionality. There's so much of MZX that we don't really use anymore, but it's in there, and I want to exploit some of that stuff in new ways.

Lancer, Trev, and Terryn and I had a long, drawn-out discussion about exploiting built-ins for Zoe's battle system (actually I just rambled and they put up with it) and the point was raised that past a certain point, what you're doing just becomes a cumbersome hack which is fighting the system, and not using it. So I've found that I've got to tread a bit lightly in this territory, and I've ended up retooling a few ideas to jive a bit more with MZX's rules. However, the doing-so has given me a few new ideas as well.

For example, bullets in MZX are bullets, and it turns out there's really no way to assign different "strength" values to enemies for damage algorithms as I had planned, if they attack by shooting at you (this problem is the primary one we were discussing.) This turns out, though, to be easily mitigated by simply giving a tougher enemy a tougher attack pattern, by raising the general enemy strength in generally tougher areas, and, as inmate pointed out later, by good enemy placement along the terrain. You can make some of them pretty vicious =)

[commodorejohn]

Whatever the system winds up being, I still look forward to seeing this.

[Dr Lancer-X]

CJA, on Feb 11 2007, 04:53 AM, said:

In my opinion you should start everything with the [ boxes. Graphical interfaces can wait, and the actual system's functioning provides you with more inspiration to keep working than an empty GUI.

Plus, if you're clever with your use of the [ boxes, you'll be able to turn the system into a vlayer/sprite textbox system with some subroutines and the robotic editor's search+replace.

[CJA]

Ahh, yeah, by like replacing

[ "

with

inc "$textbox" "\n

At first, I thought you were being sarcastic :<

[hob nado]

Here's a screenshot of Zoe's place so far. It's pretty much like the other screens I've uploaded, since they've all been from WORLD 2.



Also added:
* A menu system
* An options submenu ('cause it's good for the user to be able to configure things)
* A little status bar showing party health and (optionally) ammo reserves.

[Chaos Theorist]

O_O woah, nice pic...

[hob nado]

Zoe, endowed with many AMMOS, does battle with a shapeshifting Glitch.

[asgromo]

01:26:47 < asgromo> oh HECK YES es posts new zoe awesome screenshots
01:26:53 < asgromo> what next, a million dollars?

[RoSS]

Honestly, this is exactly what I've been looking for in a MZX game recently. I for serial hope you are able to finish this (which should be a lot easier to finish than SMZX3 pixel-perfect side-scrolling action-rpg epic quest game #183).

Go-go-gadget Es!

[KKairos]

Should be fun stuff...Screenshots are good things.

I'm really looking forward to this release.

[djtiesto]

Really great art direction, my only complaint is that its a little hard to make out all the details in the Zoe char. due to the low-contrasting foreground/background colors.

[CJA]

RoSS, on Jun 19 2007, 05:10 AM, said:

SMZX3 pixel-perfect side-scrolling action-rpg epic quest game #183

i made a game that had none of those except "quest" maybe

where were you ross

[hob nado]

djtiesto, on Jun 19 2007, 04:10 PM, said:

Really great art direction, my only complaint is that its a little hard to make out all the details in the Zoe char. due to the low-contrasting foreground/background colors.

Thanks - yeah, I don't think I like the blue on purple either. She's usually blue on dark blue a la Lyle Powers; I guess I was just editing the wrong palette colors to put that underground area together. I'll probably change it around to be consistent.

[Risu2112]

But es I don't LIKE bullets

[Pyro1588]

nice to know it's still alive! where is she besides just underground?

[commodorejohn]

This is =D

A new Kuddy game and progress on a new old Es game in the same day *contented sigh*

[hob nado]

Pyro1588, on Jun 22 2007, 08:18 PM, said:

nice to know it's still alive! where is she besides just underground?

This is a first stab at an underground area called the Subworld that Zoe can use to get from one World to the next. It's a bit like Zelda dungeons, a bit like subway tunnels, and a bit like the Megaman Legends underground.

[Terryn]

I hope the bit like MML is that the entire system is (eventually) fully interconnected.

Damn, now I want to play those again. =/

[hob nado]

First stab at restaurants, where Zoe and the party can get food to boost their stats, much like in River City Ransom if you've played that.

[Koji]

MEGAMAN LEGEND'S UNDERGROUND! I LOVE that whole part of the game, the WHOLE game should have been the underground!