LN2 tech demo

[TCD]

Okay played it for some time (mainly running around and doing stupid things ). Found no bug. I like that you let the guy talk gimbal Adds to the atmosphere (I guess since there isn't much yet ). With a fullscreen option and joystick support this one will be a cool remake of LN2 (don't get me wrong it will be cool even without these two things, but not as cool as with them ).

[Dizzy]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Okay played it for some time (mainly running around and doing stupid things ).

sounds like you playing "the sims"

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Dizzy

sounds like you playing "the sims"

Never played it, but I guess you're right

[gimbal]

I like that you let the guy talk gimbal Adds to the atmosphere (I guess since there isn't much yet )

I thought I would add a little story to it and the comic book style fitted with it. But I need to code a way to have larger text balloons because now the dialog is a little limited. Will be cool when there are enemies that can also talk (the game allows for characters to have a balloon without blocking the game when it is showing, but I didn't need it yet).

The dialogue was a little icky because our hero, according to the manual story, is transported to the future (yay for old game plots!), so for example in the second screen I cannot make him say "button", he shouldn't know what it is

With a fullscreen option and joystick support

I don't care for fullscreen actually, the game, even with the pixels doubled, uses a screen smaller than 800*600, on modern monitors it only looks terrible. Joystick support I can steal, rip, abuse or simply "borrow" from Gods Deluxe, so probably no prob

[Dizzy]

well the games title be "The Last CyberDruid"

think that sounds kind of cool

[gimbal]

well, I have been working on more screens and in the screen just outside the storage house (with the gate you can open with the key), I ran into a big issue with depth sorting; Basically it didn't work properly in this situation:

GATE - touched by the head of the ninja
NINJA
BENCH - touched by the feet of the ninja

The sorting went bad and the head of the ninja appeared behind the gate whenever he was also behind the bench. The same problem could also put him partly behind a wall.

I can rant on about the many things I tried, but that is boring technical crap. The point is I managed to fix the problem by ordering the foreground items on screen more logically (from top to bottom, I don't know why I figured this out from the beginning. It is so fucking simple!) and... by then dumping a large chunk of my current sorting algorithm! To many rules lead to anarchy, it is even true in code

The result: I have managed to minimize the situations where the ninja is (partly) appearing on top of objects when he shouldn't and the logic to do so has only become more streamlined in stead of more complex. Too good to be true I would almost say.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

The result: I have managed to minimize the situations where the ninja is (partly) appearing on top of objects when he shouldn't and the logic to do so has only become more streamlined in stead of more complex. Too good to be true I would almost say.

Hehe, I know that situation very good You build a method up and at a certain point you look at it and realise 'Damn that could be so easy'. Then you rewrite the code and it's much clearer and more logical then. Good thing to hear you're progressing and hope to see the next demo soon

[gimbal]

I thought I would go into a little more detail on my latest development, just to show how things work under the hood. Of course there are many ways to implement a game and my way may not be the best way, but it is clean and it works so it is good enough for me.

See this screenshot:




The editor again with a familiar screen. Now in the tech demo you could already pickup the key. Of course now you have to be able to use it to open the gate on this screen. How does that work?

The purple/pink collision box you see wedged in between all the 'invisible wall' red ones, is a trigger box. Basically what it means is that this box can trigger a game event if you operate it. To illustrate that, see this screenshot:




These are the options that can be bound to a trigger box specifically. The options are:

blocking = you cannot walk through the collision box
required item = you need to have this item active in your inventory to operate this box
punchable = you can punch to activate (the button to open the trapdoor). Otherwise you have to crouch.
trigger class = the java class that will execute when triggered


That takes care of causing an event to be fired, but what happens inside the event?

step 1: the foreground item representing the closed door is made invisible
step 2: the event inserts the animation that represents the door opening
step 3: the game has a built in feature that allows another event to be fired when the animation finishes playing. In this case it will fire L1OpenDoorFinishTrigger
step 4: this new trigger removes the door animation
step 5: makes the opened door foreground item visible
step 6: removes the trigger collision box so that you can now pass through it
step 7: removes the key from the inventory of the ninja


See the trick built in there; in the screen the graphics for the closed door and the opened door are both already in place at the same time, only one of them is invisible. All I have to do in the events is to flip a flag to toggle their visibility and I'm done!

Tech demo 1.5 with more screens (but no enemies yet) coming soon

[cosmicfrog]

I like the speach bubbles but how about a cut the crap button for when you dont want to read them ie press fire to quickly go through them.

[TCD]

You can turn the speechbubbles off in the config cosmicfrog
Open the 'gameconf.xml' with a text editor and change 'true' to 'false' in this line :
<showdialogs>true</showdialogs>

@gimbal
I really enjoy reading your project blog mate Keep writing I don't know why, but reading the woes of other programmers is always entertaining Best part of course is the solution they came up with

[gimbal]

I like the speach bubbles but how about a cut the crap button for when you dont want to read them ie press fire to quickly go through them.

Nice idea though, I will add that. And thanks for testing cosmicfrog!

And of course eventually the game will have a proper config utility in stead of having to manually edit the XML file.

[cosmicfrog]

your welcome

wow 1 of my ideas in a game will have to keep an eye on this now

keep up the long posts

[gimbal]

Tech demo 1.5 is up!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gimbal/projects/ln2.htm

Changes:

* Improved depth sorting a lot
* You can skip through speech bubbles by pressing the jump key (thanks cosmicfrog )
* added 8 new screens
* Implemented opening of gate with key
* Implemented juggler enemy (but he doesn't attack yet)
* Fixed picking up items, it is now easier to do so.
* Fixed item icons in inventory; was using the graphics as found in the game area but they have different higher resolution icons for displaying in the inventory area
* First implementation of climbing. It is not right yet.
* Implemented hamburger = extra life
* Fixed item combining; two toilet flushers will create the nunchucks

There are some things not implemented yet, such as the juggler enemy not attacking (because projectiles are not implemented yet), you cannot attack with weapons yet and there are still some screens off-limits. If you cannot walk into a screen, it is not implemented yet.

Tech Demo 2 will focus on the fighting system, so weapons will be implemented, there will be some early enemy AI and you will be able to die. This version is going to take a little longer because I have to think how to improve the combat to make it more interesting / less mindnumbing. Ideas are very welcome.

[TCD]

Just a thought : What about blocking to make the fight system more interesting? Maybe that would make the game too much Beat 'em Up'ish, but it would surely change the 'kick/use weapon as fast as you can' system. Uhm and maybe some combo style attacks Like pressing left + kick then up + kick with some special animation and if that isn't blocked does some extra damage. Ah well that are just my two cents

[gimbal]

I appreciate your input, but please keep in mind I am not a gfx artist, so creating new animations is basically not an option Although blocking I could probably manage by modifying some existing animation.

[TCD]

I almost guessed that new animations was a bit too much to ask for Maybe a kind soul (marco?) can help you with that part. Then again just the ability to block would enhance the fighting system a lot.
The new tech demo is quite cool btw

[gimbal]

I have been thinking about it a bit more, and I think the best thing to do is to make the damage model as well as the enemy AI as close to the C64 (remix) version as possible. That seems to give the best playing experience judging by laffer's longplay. The combat system is simply too limiting to make anything more out of it, might as well copy the best version of the game then.

I made some progress in other areas, the energy bar for the ninja is working as it should and the ninja can die. I test that by having the 'k' key kill him instantly And then the curtain drops and rises, you see how many lives are left, etc.

[Marcuz]

"kind soul" and "marco" in the same sentence? HAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHa...

i still have to complete Shoonay translation! and that said i'm crap at animation graphics or just pixel graphics. not to mention the fact i really don't like the Last Ninja game ...

not that this should hinder in any way this project, to which i wish best of luck.

now... where do it is that "delete thread" button??

[TCD]

Originally Posted by marco pedrana

"kind soul" and "marco" in the same sentence? HAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHa...

Sorry, my fault

Originally Posted by marco pedrana

now... where do it is that "delete thread" button??

Ohoh, bad marco is roaming free... RUN!

[gimbal]

deleting this thread will only leave me with behaving like a faggot. Decide what you want most