[T-Bone]

RyanThunder, on 25 August 2010 - 01:45 PM, said:

If you don't flake out and disappear for another 3-5 years, I'll volunteer to help you out with your Mega Man game.

We'll I've actually never really stopped MZX'ing. Always doing something even small.. per month at the least. If you want to help out with the stage designs of Mega Man (1x1 version) that would be fucken awesome. Because Its the only thing I really have left and there are lots of stages I need. I could give you some of the board bots and enemies etc with the controls and the music thats for each stage. Set out some guidelines. since there's certain heights that shouldn't be crossed and lengths... etc

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 26 August 2010 - 06:26 AM

[T-Bone]

Ryan, if your serious about this I can send you the templates and let you do the level designs with lots of freedom.

[RyanThunder]

T-Bone, on 26 August 2010 - 02:43 PM, said:

Ryan, if your serious about this I can send you the templates and let you do the level designs with lots of freedom.

Alright, I'll give it a shot. What I'll probably do is design some basic, bare-bone levels, then send them back to you so that you can touch them up with your graphical style and coding prowess.

[T-Bone]

RyanThunder, on 27 August 2010 - 01:58 AM, said:

Alright, I'll give it a shot. What I'll probably do is design some basic, bare-bone levels, then send them back to you so that you can touch them up with your graphical style and coding prowess.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Feel free to review past megaman games to see if there are certain ways you'd like the level designed too. Ill be working on the bosses for each stage but would love to hear any suggestions about their powers and moves etc.

currently the stages I'd love some help with would be:

Steel Man

Maybe like a construction site type of setting with metal beams.

Dirt Man

Anything that has to do with dirt basically.

Chain Man

This is completely up to you. Basically the boss will use a chain whip at the end.

Dazed Man

Im not sure what to do about this stage. But it basically has to reflect confusion and a sense of being dazed?

Teleport Man

This level will have teleporters through-out the level and enemies that also teleport (dont worry about the coding, unless your comfortable with it).


Theres actually quite a lot more stages because this is a possible 3 part series. But for now we dont have to worry about them. Ill try to upload the template soon with some example stages i have already done.

[Seventh Shade]

Alternate boss ideas:

Instead of dirt man - Shatter Man. Based around crystals and geodes. Level is a mine with lots of crystals and glass.

Instead of dazed man and teleport man - Warp Man. Based around confusing distortions of space. The level involves a maze made of teleporters.

Combine steel man into chain man.

Phantom Man - Based around homing projectiles that can pass through walls. Level has lots of enemies that can move through walls or appear out of nowhere.

Force Man - Based around gravity and motion. Weapon is a chargeable wave of energy. Level has lots of moving platforms, anti gravity, that kind of thing.

[Lachesis]

Alternate boss ideas: Make an original game concept

[CJA]

Lachesis, on 27 August 2010 - 09:40 PM, said:

Alternate boss ideas: Make an original game concept

you're actually telling him to begin working on another project?

[T-Bone]

Seventh Shade, on 27 August 2010 - 01:04 PM, said:

Alternate boss ideas:

Instead of dirt man - Shatter Man. Based around crystals and geodes. Level is a mine with lots of crystals and glass.

Instead of dazed man and teleport man - Warp Man. Based around confusing distortions of space. The level involves a maze made of teleporters.

Combine steel man into chain man.

Phantom Man - Based around homing projectiles that can pass through walls. Level has lots of enemies that can move through walls or appear out of nowhere.

Force Man - Based around gravity and motion. Weapon is a chargeable wave of energy. Level has lots of moving platforms, anti gravity, that kind of thing.

Those actually sound like good concepts. Love the ideas for Shatter Man. That has actually given me a few design ideas already that I'm just playing with here at work on paper.

@ Lachesis, rather than make, I think complete would the more appropriate word. I don't have the time to begin anything new... (entirely new). I have a few original projects but they are nowhere near complete. I'd rather just finish whats easier to get done. But then again, if your asking me to focus more on my projects of originality, I could do that. Hopefully in the meantime, others can help me with the unoriginal projects, in that case.

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 30 August 2010 - 08:38 PM

[KKairos]

You might just have to make hard decisions and ditch some projects. Maybe even almost all of them. I know you've already thinned the herd as it were; thin it some more.

[T-Bone]

KKairos, on 30 August 2010 - 06:54 PM, said:

You might just have to make hard decisions and ditch some projects. Maybe even almost all of them. I know you've already thinned the herd as it were; thin it some more.

I've ditched a lot... but ya might have to do the same to a lot more if I want to get anything done.

[T-Bone]

I've improved the Mega-Man engine a lot more. Originally I had a robot that would lock the player e/w (left and right) and unlock him so that he would move slower. This created poor accuracy with jumps and movements. So I created a separate bot to control the player's left and right movements and kept the player locked at all times. The game plays much smoother now and is more responsive. I'll be doing more work on the weapons soon. Right now if you hold space you will shoot constantly with a bit of a cool down in between. I believe the original mega-man games require you to tap the fire button to shoot; correct me if I'm wrong?

I'm hoping to make this a 3 part series. Once the engine for the player is done and enemies and bosses it will be very easy to create new stages for future sequels. The Rush Coil seems to work great so far. I haven't finished the Rush Jet yet. I'm thinking of adding a rush attack, where as the rush dog will come down beside you and attack enemies in front of you (depending on where you are looking) for a period of time that is determined by how much energy you have for that ability/weapon/item. But of course the most important part of all Mega-Man games is the ability to use weapons and abilities acquired from the bosses you destroy. I'm thinking this would need a lot of sprite work so I haven't started on this yet. So as of right now, you have to play each stage as regular.

At the moment I'm using a MZM file which works much like a template of robots for controlling the player and enemies. This is a MZM file that is loaded into every stage upon entry. I decided to use this template so i can update it at anytime without going through dozens of boards and hitting copy and paste each time.

I started doing some more graphics for the stages. Graphics that could be used for any stage really. Pretty genereic, like water surfaces, spiked balls, rocks and metallic flooring.

[KKairos]

T-Bone, on 03 September 2010 - 11:13 AM, said:

At the moment I'm using a MZM file which works much like a template of robots for controlling the player and enemies. This is a MZM file that is loaded into every stage upon entry. I decided to use this template so i can update it at anytime without going through dozens of boards and hitting copy and paste each time.

KKairos approves

[T-Bone]

Hey all its been a while. Just wanted to say I may not be around for a while this year. My college work is much more demanding and so is my work. finding little to time to really do anything extra curricular. Not sure when I'll ever get a chance to open on MZX again, but hopefully when that time comes it won't be too far from now. See you all in 2011, hopefully!

[T-Bone]

I'm hoping to do a bit of work on some projects on wed. Bout the only free time I have for the rest of 2010. What projects to work on is the question lol

[T-Bone]

This may seem like a repeat from year to year, to say...

Since I'm on reading week from school,

I've gone through my most promising projects and looked at the barriers that have prevented me from completing them. Mostly bug fixing... quite a lot really. Rather then adding anything or creating new features I'm focusing mostly on just getting things fixed so they can be completed. I've had to completely rewrite and test dozens of robots. Ironically, some of the bugs that I just couldn't wrap my head around to fix for Super Mario, I was able to fix within only a few days. I guess all that time away from MZX has made me think a lot more clearly when I returned.

[RyanThunder]

Sounds like you could use a little motivation.

[T-Bone]

Awesome post, Ryan. I actually had to cut out quite a lot of features to get these games moving. I would generally post a Change log for each game but it would be pointless since none of it would make sense to anyone since I don't even have demos out for each game. I've decided to actually not focus on making demos and just focus completely the damn games as so well put in that blog, Ryan lol

[T-Bone]

Just some news on the latest developments!

Side Draft

Currently recoding the player controls completely from scratch since the previous ones were far to jittery.

Super Mario (for MZX)

There are quite a lot of changes and improvements made to this game. Far too many to really list here. The good news is most bugs have been fixed and I'm currently working on some new stages which I'll be packaging with the latest demo soon. This will be more of a tech demo to test out how the game plays in various conditions with various sprites on screen at once.

Steel Cell

Not sure if I mentioned this in the forums before, but I have decided to, at this point, discontinue the Steel Cell Project. There are a lot of animations to work with based on actions and its taking a while to get everything moving smoothly.

A Hero's Utopia

I'm currently working on fixing the window/menu controls so that they properly open and close.

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 19 May 2011 - 09:18 PM

[Padz]

looking forward to super mario MZX! And heros utopia also! Keep up the good work old chap

[T-Bone]

MegaZeux World

I've done a lot more work with the RPG game, "MZX World". Fixing up the buying, selling and trading system mainly right now. I have however touched up on the The battle systems, which are working a lot more smoothly now. I've had to adjust a lot of the enemies strengths, for some were far to difficult to fight too soon in to the game without enough weaker monsters to level up on.

The main part about this game that's taking a while is actually designing out all the boards. I hope to have well over 50 come summer.

Mega-Man MZX

I'm struggling with trying to find my newest version of this game since I've worked on over 5 different computers with it. So many backups that I'm getting lost as to which was the newest. Found some newer ones on USB sticks lol still have to search within an external drive as well and compare. I can't just compare the dates though, because I did make the mistake of adding to older versions without realizing they were old. So Once I have all the versions together I'll have to combined the changes. Has anyone had this issue? Or is everyone nice and tidy?

A Hero's Utopia

Fixing up the movements controller for the overworld. With all the changes I've been making I'm trying to keep the option open to a possibility of up to 4 multiplayer option for it. Currently you can only face NPC's. I'm thinking of creating A.I. for them rather than random paths or set paths this way I can also add the ability for the player to create worlds and fight NPC players in them, that can think and navigate through your world you have created.

The next big stage for me to work on would be the system in which you can build structures and recruit an army. At the moment your stuck with what your assigned with at the beginning of the game.

Right now the battle system is completely broken since it was constructed entirely of overlays at the time. I have yet to introduce sprites to it. But once I get that started this game is really going to start taking shape. The overworld system is close to being complete -- if not already, I'm mostly doing tweaks to it at this point.

[T-Bone]

A Hero's Utopia

Originally when your movements for the day are up your character is left just standing there while your movement count rests at zero. You are then required to hit E to end your turn in order to allow for other players to then make their moves. In the state of exhaustion you can still open various windows to check your stats and status. What I've decided to do is make the movements counter something more relative to the horse your on. So I can add new types of horses you can purchase that may be faster than other ones. Also when your horse is exhausted (movement counter reaches zero) a window will prompt you asking if you would like to end your turn because your horse is unable to move for the day. Rather than before when new users may be left confused as to why they cant move and wondering what they are suppose to do when they cant move.

Adding new options and windows so you can check on the state of your army, castle and see how well your doing compared to the other players. Also, there were some windows that in the past would not exit when the player hit X. This has been fixed as of last night. I will soon be adding the ability for the player to use the mouse to close windows as well as open them. This is a very mouse orientated video game. While on map and in battles the mouse will be required. A few short keys will be present but in general, you will need the mouse.

In my previous post I mentioned make it possible to build structures. I may still do this but I don't think I will actually graphically represent these structures. May just have it show your castle and below a list in words of the structures you have constructed. Would rather spend the time drawing the armies and monsters rather than structures you'd only see once in a window. The structures that you can build, will depend on what type of race you are. All races can build a stable however, and a stable is where you can purchase new types of horses to move your men farther within a turn.

When you construct a structure, over a period of time, certain men will be available for you to recruit to your army. I haven't considered what will happen yet when an enemy has made his way to your castle entrance. Thinking maybe the player could designate certain units to protect the castle or have your basic militia defend it. Haven't worked that situation out yet.

Hopefully when I get home tonight I will start working on:

• The popularization of rogue enemies on the map. Perhaps every week, enemies will replenish all over the map in their native areas.
  
• The list of structures you can build with a list of units you can recruit within them and when you can.
  
• Make it so enemy armies will have to return to their castle to recruit more men if low
  
• Make it so enemies engage battles with rogue enemies and based on the difference of strength loses or wins; gaining experience if won or returning to castle if lost. I'll introduce a bit of AI here so that they can determine if they should fight certain enemies based on the size and strength of their current army.
  
• Reduce luck of a player if he decides to recruit men not of his race (sounds racist, I know)
  
• Have some weaker rogue enemies request to join your army if they feel defeated
  
• Dice Roll for all players at start of game.
  
• Hard, Medium and Easy difficulties added to main menu. In Easy difficulty the enemies' odds of creating a high strength hero are very low. Game default will be set to Medium. In the Hard difficulty, the odds are against you and you can only win by strategy not by numbers.

An early screenshot of A Hero's Utopia

I've since removed the view controls being that of a hawk - All players will have the same view size. However, like classic roll playing games I'm thinking about having it so the players at the beginning of the game (including CPU's) "roll a dice" and get a total of points that you can then distribute to various stats for your hero: Strength, Luck, Movement, Speed and Intelligence.

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 25 May 2011 - 09:25 PM

[Padz]

I think that screenshot looks fantastic! Although you spelt resources wrong It really looks like a mzx version of might & magic which excites me a lot! I also think it's a good idea to only list the buildings rather than having each one represented.

What theme of races do you have planned?

[KKairos]

Quote

Reduce luck of a player if he decides to recruit men not of his race (sounds racist, I know)

Are the deities of the world racist?

[Lachesis]

You should upload some gameplay demos to YouTube.

[KKairos]

Lachesis, on 26 May 2011 - 11:00 AM, said:

You should upload some gameplay demos to YouTube.

qft

[T-Bone]

Padz, on 26 May 2011 - 10:32 AM, said:

I think that screenshot looks fantastic! Although you spelt resources wrong It really looks like a mzx version of might & magic which excites me a lot! I also think it's a good idea to only list the buildings rather than having each one represented.

What theme of races do you have planned?

Most spelling mistakes were corrected in the later versions. But nice looking out! I'm horrible at spelling... I'll post some new screenshots soon and of the battle sequences as well. I may actually do a video test as requested to show all animations and functions in action.

Any recommendations on good quality video capture software that doesn't miss a pixel?

For the races, I have your basic human race, a fairytale type race which is composed of elves, unicorns, sprites and dragons. There is a 3rd race which is entirely volcanic themed; which all have fire traits. The graphics for these were made many years ago, so I may or may not revamp them. Not all of their animations are complete yet, though static graphics however are and their overworld graphics and animations are complete.

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 26 May 2011 - 11:45 PM

[T-Bone]

A Hero's Utopia

I've started evening out the strengths and weaknesses of all creatures for each race so that each race is more somewhat equal. I've added and removed some creatures from the game to achieve this. I've also Given all races at least one creature that can shoot long range.
The items/artifacts you find laying on the group actually give you an increase in attributes now. Before hand they actually did nothing but store in an inventory and look pretty.

Sword Artifact +1 Attack
Horseshoe Artifact +1 Luck
Shield Artifact +1 Defense

I am working on a few more, 1 for spells and another to increase your horse's movement in a turn.

Although each member of your army has its own attributes, when your hero levels up each of them gain attributes. Also, if you collect artifacts this will boost each member of your army's attributes. Keep in mind CPU hero's can also collect artifacts making their army very strong. Killing them will give you the artifacts they have collected.

I've started working on the main menu and more work on the map editor. In the main menu you will be able to select how many players are in a game (at least two), and you can assign which ones are CPU or actual players. If you choose to make all players in the game CPU, the game will play on its own like a DEMO. I'm thinking of possibly integrating this into the title screen over a period of time it would start.

Its coming along! Just the battle engine is going to be tricky with all those sprites!

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 03 June 2011 - 04:29 PM

[Lachesis]

T-Bone, on 26 May 2011 - 05:30 PM, said:

Any recommendations on good quality video capture software that doesn't miss a pixel?

I use Camstudio

[T-Bone]

Lachesis, on 03 June 2011 - 02:49 PM, said:

I use Camstudio

Okay awesome! I think I have that one (with the green icon) on my desktop xp machine. I'll do some recordings for a couple of my games.

[T-Bone]

Hopefully I get some free time this week to update my website. Its long over due. Going to add more in depth information on the games I've been working on. Provided will be demos and betas and screenshots - maybe videos as well.