Topic: New Game (Early Look)

[Corpsecrank]

I don't like to say I am doing this or doing that. We have all seen plenty of games that show potential just vanish into thin air for whatever reason. Right now I am dedicating all my time to working on this game but that doesn't mean I will actually finish it. I may hit a point where I just lack the skill it takes to make this happen so I want to make that clear before anyone gets to excited. I am however pretty into making this and having fun doing it rather than it being work. So on that note as long as I don't hit some kind of snag this will eventually see the light of day.

Even if I do hit a snag what you see today will become readily available to the community so that someone else can use the materials I have created for their own projects be it a game or animation or whatever.

Even if I do make it through this project I will probably release some of my materials for others to use as well.

I want to apologize in advance for the $10 mic I am stuck using for this  but without further delay check out the vid.

http://youtu.be/bk2g9skEZZk (yeah I have no idea how to embed none of the embed code I tried worked)

I'm not looking for any help on this one but if you happen to know MMF2 and you feel like being generous hit me up because that is the area I have the most limitation in at the moment. I know graphics as you can see but MMF2 I am learning as I go 

I will probably do a couple of videos here and there as I make progress just so you can check out what I have. I still have to come up with a snappy name for this one and eventually when I have a name and have made real progress I will start up a blog for the project.

When I get something playable I will make that available as well but I am still a ways off from having anything yet. Believe me I am dying to get in the game and moving around with a character though lol.

Let me know what you think.

[AISTODIAOLO]

I wish you luck. it seems promising.
and yeah that's something you heard like 1000 times.
so good luck with that.
I am looking forward for an update.

[VladCT]

From what I've seen, the HUD needs to be a lot bigger if you're going to keep that big-ass resolution.
Also, seeing as you plan to put Richter in as an unlockable character, are you going to try and edit your own SotN Richter? If not, you could always use Serio's Richter as that's the only one that I think is readily available to this day. Or if you're planning to use RoB Richter anyway, how about using the portrait from HD instead? Unless you're planning to do your own character portraits or recruit someone else for that.
...Yeah, I kinda didn't catch a lot of your explanations, what with the cheap mic not recording it loud enough and all, plus the fact that I was watching it on my smartphone certainly didn't help things.

[X]

Looks interesting I noticed that you imputed Nathans' shoulder attack on Richter. I did the same too with my Cristy Morris sprites (I based her off Richter too). And even if this game never sees the light of day, don't lose heart. Just do what you can and show us how far you've gotten. That about all anyone can ever ask of you 

PS: I'm also not a fan of the off-colors in Richter's outfit as they do scream 'limited palette'. I had mad a Richter sprite sheet where I went over it and fixed it up a bit. Richter now has his brown hair. He now has the red outline on his outfit rather then the grey-white look. And i also gave his whip-hand the brown leather glove while his other hand (that is to say wrist) is sporting the white bandage wrap. I also mirrored the sprite to keep certain things consistent in that regard.

[Corpsecrank]

Just to answer a few things quickly yes I am going to edit the sotn richter which is the page you saw in progress.

The HUD size to me is great because I want that huge screen and to keep it un cluttered so as long as you can easily see the HUD without struggling to read it then that should work. Though I have considered extending the bars out a little but currently 1% health loss would result in a 2 pixel decrease in the bar which is easy enough to see.

And also yes I did use the nathan shoulder tackle it was to cool so it got added

What I figured was that I would first create a small area where you would normally start the game and then add richter so I can make a functioning character and start working on movement etc. That would give me enough things in the game to start making the game actually playable and a platform for testing materials as they get finished. Then I could start moving the project forward in the proper order. Create the next area some monsters for that area etc and still have a playable character to test which as I build the main character sprites which will for the most part be completely original.

Once I do have enough things in and functioning I will also have an idea how well MMF2 is going to work for this. I keep having my doubts as to how capable MMF2 is mostly with how tight and accurate I will be able to make the character movement. It has to be sotn quality controls or better for me to be ok with it.

[darkmanx_429]

Well, you are at the right start. My suggestion is to try to be original as possible or putting new spins on existing gameplay mechanics. I already hear people suggesting using "Serio's Richter" and things like that which is fine, but in my opinion kinda played out. I sometimes get alot of "fan boys" that are just all about other people's fan-games but don't take the time to let you come up with some originality of your own. I am liking your design choices so far when it comes to the HUD. I would suggest you start to making your sprites in MMF2 and using photoshop secondary. (It'll save you from having to import everything from photoshop into MMF2 later.) Are you ripping all the sprites yourself, just wondering because there are ALOT of sprites already available on the net. (Save yourself some work) Now if you are trying to add onto some existing Richter sprites then that's one thing. Don't be discourage if people don't jump at the opportunity to help you out with your project at first (or at all). Sometime's that thing is kinda tricky even if it's an awesome project. I've had people come and go (which is cool) and I am appreciated to everyone that's contributed to my project in someway rather it be spriting or otherwise. You also got to remember that it's your vision and you have to share that when working with other people and sometimes everyone wants to push their vision's on to yours. For my project it's just me and one other person who's been with me ever since and we met online about my project when it was in it's infancy. He was also the one to finally get me to change over to MMF2 even though he was a novice with MMF2 himself. Now I am happy to say we have got a grasp on things, we don't know everything but we are getting the results we are looking for. Just some things to think about. Definetely check those tutorials I sent you in that PM link. As you know the MFA provided in them help you ALOT in figuring things out! As for MMF2, not too many people use it on this forum, ClickTeam Forums is the way to go. It's seems to be more GameMaker orientated here, but that's not to say people can't help here. I've gotten some cool things accomplished from the members of the Dungeon Forums as well! Oh yeah, open your youtube vids to comments dude, good or bad... no news is not good news..

[Corpsecrank]

Well, you are at the right start. My suggestion is to try to be original as possible or putting new spins on existing gameplay mechanics. I already hear people suggesting using "Serio's Richter" and things like that which is fine, but in my opinion kinda played out. I sometimes get alot of "fan boys" that are just all about other people's fan-games but don't take the time to let you come up with some originality of your own. I am liking your design choices so far when it comes to the HUD. I would suggest you start to making your sprites in MMF2 and using photoshop secondary. (It'll save you from having to import everything from photoshop into MMF2 later.) Are you ripping all the sprites yourself, just wondering because there are ALOT of sprites already available on the net. (Save yourself some work) Now if you are trying to add onto some existing Richter sprites then that's one thing. Don't be discourage if people don't jump at the opportunity to help you out with your project at first (or at all). Sometime's that thing is kinda tricky even if it's an awesome project. I've had people come and go (which is cool) and I am appreciated to everyone that's contributed to my project in someway rather it be spriting or otherwise. You also got to remember that it's your vision and you have to share that when working with other people and sometimes everyone wants to push their vision's on to yours. For my project it's just me and one other person who's been with me ever since and we met online about my project when it was in it's infancy. He was also the one to finally get me to change over to MMF2 even though he was a novice with MMF2 himself. Now I am happy to say we have got a grasp on things, we don't know everything but we are getting the results we are looking for. Just some things to think about. Definetely check those tutorials I sent you in that PM link. As you know the MFA provided in them help you ALOT in figuring things out! As for MMF2, not too many people use it on this forum, ClickTeam Forums is the way to go. It's seems to be more GameMaker orientated here, but that's not to say people can't help here. I've gotten some cool things accomplished from the members of the Dungeon Forums as well! Oh yeah, open your youtube vids to comments dude, good or bad... no news is not good news..

Yeah those tutorials have been a great help. I got a copy of extension view also which is totally sweet for grabbing any extensions you need for MMF2 really fast and easy from your desktop. I found it a necessity for this project really.

Still deciding how to handle steps though. I don't want the classic style stair movement I want that to be a smooth experience so I find myself going back and playing parts of the DS games to get a handle on how things should feel. I will be going back and fourth as I get movement added. It's a challenge just keeping different aspects of this inline. I have to keep checking and comparing the art to make sure the style doesn't start to stray on me. I also want to really perfect the controls that is one of the highest priority items on my list.

I have quite a few original ideas going into this and the characters I don't feel like changing very much They will change but they will look about the same just with a lot more frames. Though there will be at least one original character in the game I feel there should be anyways so I plan to do the primary character myself. I have an enormous collection of castlevania sprites and other sprites also some are edits made by me some are customs created by other people and most are ripped directly some by me. I have a lot of other material to pull from also I do a lot of stuff and most recently I was making animations so I been building a decent resource library over the last couple years.

[darkmanx_429]

Yeah those tutorials have been a great help. I got a copy of extension view also which is totally sweet for grabbing any extensions you need for MMF2 really fast and easy from your desktop. I found it a necessity for this project really.

Still deciding how to handle steps though. I don't want the classic style stair movement I want that to be a smooth experience so I find myself going back and playing parts of the DS games to get a handle on how things should feel. I will be going back and fourth as I get movement added. It's a challenge just keeping different aspects of this inline. I have to keep checking and comparing the art to make sure the style doesn't start to stray on me. I also want to really perfect the controls that is one of the highest priority items on my list.

I have quite a few original ideas going into this and the characters I don't feel like changing very much They will change but they will look about the same just with a lot more frames. Though there will be at least one original character in the game I feel there should be anyways so I plan to do the primary character myself. I have an enormous collection of castlevania sprites and other sprites also some are edits made by me some are customs created by other people and most are ripped directly some by me. I have a lot of other material to pull from also I do a lot of stuff and most recently I was making animations so I been building a decent resource library over the last couple years.

Cool man! Make a dropbox account or something equal to as well and throw copies of everything you do in there, you never know when you will have a hdd crash and lose everything! (you can only recover so much) Did you get me when I mentioned, make everything in MMF2? That way you can start moving stuff in real time and trying things out in real-time. Use photoshop to fine tune your sprites.  You already have enough sprites of Richter to cut for basic walking and such to try out in MMF2 with your stage even though you mentioned he won't be the main character. I use extension view as well man! Good find there! Also, just a suggestion you should look outside Castlevania to find some cool sprites as well. I've found plenty of sprites from other games that fit right in my fan-game and you couldn't tell the difference that it was not from a CV title! Can you provide plot details? As for the steps, we threw the classic CV steps out in my fangame when we went with the somersault. When was the last time you remembered actually walking up and down steps when playing SOTN. You have so many abilities with Alucard and Richter it makes actual walking up/down steps kinda old school. You opened your CV youtube vids to comments....? For embedding video for the dungeon forum just copy the actual youtube link on the thread not the embedded code. For everything else that you want to actually upload you can use tinypic.com (video option) as well as any other options like that.

[X]

Still deciding how to handle steps though. I don't want the classic style stair movement I want that to be a smooth experience so I find myself going back and playing parts of the DS games to get a handle on how things should feel.

The DS games don't treat steps as steps, but like ramps.

[Corpsecrank]

Yeah I just want to figure out a good way to handle how feet are placed while on them. I don't want one foot to float.

Cool man! Make a dropbox account or something equal to as well and throw copies of everything you do in there, you never know when you will have a hdd crash and lose everything! (you can only recover so much) Did you get me when I mentioned, make everything in MMF2? That way you can start moving stuff in real time and trying things out in real-time. Use photoshop to fine tune your sprites.  You already have enough sprites of Richter to cut for basic walking and such to try out in MMF2 with your stage even though you mentioned he won't be the main character. I use extension view as well man! Good find there! Also, just a suggestion you should look outside Castlevania to find some cool sprites as well. I've found plenty of sprites from other games that fit right in my fan-game and you couldn't tell the difference that it was not from a CV title! Can you provide plot details? As for the steps, we threw the classic CV steps out in my fangame when we went with the somersault. When was the last time you remembered actually walking up and down steps when playing SOTN. You have so many abilities with Alucard and Richter it makes actual walking up/down steps kinda old school. You opened your CV youtube vids to comments....? For embedding video for the dungeon forum just copy the actual youtube link on the thread not the embedded code. For everything else that you want to actually upload you can use tinypic.com (video option) as well as any other options like that.

Yeah I do have enough richter stuff to start I had planned on doing just that actually. I was simply trying to build an initial background for testing so I could drop it in and add some of the richter frames that are ready. I was looking for other games with similar graphics to castlevania but so far not much other than some of those HUD materials. I think one of the games I used stuff from was even for mobile phone but it looked just like the other stuff I had. Also no there shouldn't be any comments on my youtube I turn them off.

[Mega Man Model T 101]

Hey, Corpsecrank. Just an idea, but you have my full permission to add Sophia Belmont as an unlockabkle character if you so wish.

After all, why not share characters when the sheets are complete and technically public use, no?

[darkmanx_429]

Yeah I just want to figure out a good way to handle how feet are placed while on them. I don't want one foot to float.

Yeah I do have enough richter stuff to start I had planned on doing just that actually. I was simply trying to build an initial background for testing so I could drop it in and add some of the richter frames that are ready. I was looking for other games with similar graphics to castlevania but so far not much other than some of those HUD materials. I think one of the games I used stuff from was even for mobile phone but it looked just like the other stuff I had. Also no there shouldn't be any comments on my youtube I turn them off.

Well, you can also post on the spriting/ripping thread here about other games that are similar to Castlevania and people can provide you with some choices. Let me know when you do your initial testing and make a vid. I make vids pretty much for everything in Alpha and Beta phases for my game. They are especially helpful for when I am stuck on something and I can ask for help and show exactly what the problem is. I'll usually just do a voiceover or something and explain my problem.

[Corpsecrank]

Well, you can also post on the spriting/ripping thread here about other games that are similar to Castlevania and people can provide you with some choices. Let me know when you do your initial testing and make a vid. I make vids pretty much for everything in Alpha and Beta phases for my game. They are especially helpful for when I am stuck on something and I can ask for help and show exactly what the problem is. I'll usually just do a voiceover or something and explain my problem.

Yeah I am making solid progress no doubt. I mean sure it took this long just to make a single screen with music and a button that advances to another screen with music but it sure does do that much well lol.

I had to fight with transparency issues today or I would have probably made it to adding in character frames or something. For some reason no matter how you add transparency to a bitmap button in MMF2 it just doesn't work properly. You always get at least some boxing behind the button no matter what. And I also noticed no matter what layer you add a button to it always stays on top of everything else. I tried cheating and adding a solid black object as an active over top of everything else on it's own layer and then adding a fade out and destroy to it with a timer which would cause the black to fade out after the game launched but the button showed right through it! I was like seriously WTF MAN! lol.

So I ended up using a bouton CS or whatever its called which is just another button someone tweaked. It did handle transparency better but not perfect. I had issues while fading the frame in and out and resolved that by simply destroying the buttons on the menu if any are pushed so they appear after the frame fade in and are destroyed then the frame fades out immediately. It resulted in what I was wanting anyhow. So my menu is in and working and my second screen which is also my test bed is in an working. I need to add a couple of animations one for each screen to be exact. Then after that I can finally add some character frames! Been waiting this whole time just for that LOL.

Anyhow I am almost ready to post another video soon so you will get to see what I have done so far. I also got the new mic in so it won't be so harsh on your ears

[VladCT]

I also got the new mic in so it won't be so harsh on your ears

Harsh on our ears? If anything, it was too fragging muffled and quiet to me.

[Corpsecrank]

Harsh on our ears? If anything, it was too fragging muffled and quiet to me.

Yeah but the quality was horrid either way and was enough to make ears bleed lol. If you turned it up it was nasty. This mic is also quiet not sure whats up with that because I have the options all cranked up to 100 with the boost on. I will have to play with this mic and see what I can do to amp it up some since the quality is nice on it.

This video is not the greatest I just tossed it together so you could actually see what I have. Not much but hey I just started this lol. As you can see the music cannot be turned off with the menu for whatever reason just one more thing to look at when I go back to work in a minute here. So the music drowns out my voice but I had nothing important to say other than just that so your not missing much.

Project Update 2-26-2012

Once I get a character in I will post another video. I spent a couple hours adding some of the materials I had in the first video to my library in MMF2 tonight so I can now simply snatch them from there and drop them right into the app I still have more stuff that has to make it's way into the library though. I want to chop up some background for the rooms those doors lead to also so I can move about the area a little while I test the character. And like I said both screens lack one animation each yet. So I have a lot of work ahead of me before I am ready to do another video.