The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Fan Stuff => Topic started by: KaZudra on October 25, 2015, 06:53:24 PM
Title: Any good engines?
Post by: KaZudra on October 25, 2015, 06:53:24 PM
Looking for something efficient without a steep learning curve.
Concepts on the table suggest a Castlevania-like game; Stage based, but metroidvania like; essentially like HoD or more accurately System Shock. This will make stage development much easier since mass backtracking will be cut out and essential upgrades can be directly implemented into the next stage to challenge the player. Castlevania like gameplay with Megaman X elements, Whiping with wall climbing, but no level up system and boss fights can have a form of intensity. I want to draw inspiration mainly from Super Castlevania and Bloodlines, where the innovations in stages were really unique and makes each stage memorable, and as well as some cool spectacles.
Now I'll be using the hell out of my One-Drive for this project; so no real bad luck incidients that wipe all assets away (again).
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: ProjectDread on October 26, 2015, 02:23:03 AM
Two powerful tools I would suggest looking into are both Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and Game Maker: Studio. These software development tools are both relatively easy to use to use and immensely powerful when in the right hands. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is what I'm most familiar with, and it's certainly more than capable for building a Castlevania-inspired project. The software is also entirely GUI based so no real programming knowledge is needed to start building something right off the bat. GM:S is, from my perspective, more powerful than CF2.5 but you'll have to rely heavily on scripts as the GUI / Drag-and-drop interface functions are lacking. So essentially, if you're more of a visual person I'd recommend checking out CF2.5. If you enjoy programming and are fine with a higher learning curve, GM8 is probably the way to go.
Other tools worth checking out would be Stencyl and Construct. I don't have a lot of experience with these though, unfortunately.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: theplottwist on October 26, 2015, 03:31:39 AM
Two powerful tools I would suggest looking into are both Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and Game Maker: Studio. These software development tools are both relatively easy to use to use and immensely powerful when in the right hands. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is what I'm most familiar with, and it's certainly more than capable for building a Castlevania-inspired project. The software is also entirely GUI based so no real programming knowledge is needed to start building something right off the bat. GM:S is, from my perspective, more powerful than CF2.5 but you'll have to rely heavily on scripts as the GUI / Drag-and-drop interface functions are lacking. So essentially, if you're more of a visual person I'd recommend checking out CF2.5. If you enjoy programming and are fine with a higher learning curve, GM8 is probably the way to go.
Other tools worth checking out would be Stencyl and Construct. I don't have a lot of experience with these though, unfortunately.
Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: darkmanx_429 on October 26, 2015, 03:46:50 AM
Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?
If they have a good grasp of MMF2 virtually immediately. Here is a good video. Basically with Fusion you have everything from MMF2 and then some.
Also I would suggest looking at Unreal Engine 4. This can open up alot of possibilities to do effects that just wouldn't be possible to do using a 2D engine even though it may be easier. Remember Bloodstained, is using Unreal Engine 4.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: theplottwist on October 26, 2015, 04:21:25 AM
If they have a good grasp of MMF2 virtually immediately. Here is a good video. Basically with Fusion you have everything from MMF2 and then some.
Also I would suggest looking at Unreal Engine 4. This can open up alot of possibilities to do effects that just wouldn't be possible to do using a 2D engine even though it may be easier. Remember Bloodstained, is using Unreal Engine 4.
I have virtually no potential for programming, man. I need something really visual to help me. And even in MMF I took epic beatings from the program because I couldn't fully grasp the logic behind it .
But I'll give Fusion a shot. Unreal is out of question xD
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: ProjectDread on October 26, 2015, 10:35:14 AM
Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?
I see jumping from MMF to CF2.5 as purely an upgrade, so I don't think you'll have any difficulty figuring things out. It's funny you should mention it though, because I actually started off using The Games Factory :P. It didn't take long for me to realize that TGF simply had far too many limitations for the games I wanted to build, and so after doing a lot of research online I finally made that big first step and moved immediately to MMF2. It took a little bit of getting used to, but all Clickteam products have a similar interface so if you've used one it's safe to say you can easily get the hang of all the others.
Anyways, take a look at CF2.5 if you get the chance. There are plenty of tutorials and resources online that can help you get an idea on some of the tricks and quirks of using the program. As a word of advise, I'd highly encourage you to become familiar with Clickteam's "fastloops" as they are arguably one of the most powerful and useful features provided on the software. It might come as a surprise to everyone but Dominus Engine is actually the first engine I've ever really made that takes advantage of fastloops, arrays, and numerous other features I intentionally avoided in my older projects. Let me know if you have any questions regarding CF2.5. I'm certainly by no means the best at using it but I've had a decent amount of experience with programming platform engines and can give you some thoughts on how I usually tackle certain problems that many people end up running into.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: theplottwist on October 26, 2015, 11:12:33 AM
That's preciselly how it was with me. I started on The Games Factory, doing some small time projects and learning. Then, many years later, I jumped to MMF2. I noticed the great improvement over TGF, but then I hit the snag: I don't understand how to do fastloops and custom collisions.
BUT this next year I'll start Fusion. I have to learn this, because the lack of a programmer for my projects is screwing me over royally.
Thanks for the heads-up dude!
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on October 26, 2015, 05:27:27 PM
The great thing about Fusion is the community is very helpful should you have questions. I've never used GM Studio so I can't compare communities there, but Fusion has a fantastic one.
Fusion 2.5 is simply an upgrade over MMF2 so it is a smooth transition. There are many new features and refinements, most recently is better RAM handling. That said, Fusion DOES run on a 32 bit architecture and you have some limitations that come with that. However, for a game like Castlevania this poses no problem as long as you're not going HD with large sprites, but modular animation would work just fine, especially with the new Spriter plugin. I imagine you would be operating a 256x224 resolution or somewhere around that, and Fusion can handle this well even without hardware acceleration.
Lastly, there are several Fusion users here too so I feel confident you would be able to find answers to your questions wherever you ask them. I highly recommend it and usually Clickteam does some pretty great sales on Steam. I saw Fusion for $20 over the summer. I have the developer version but you most likely wouldn't need this, as it's mostly an extended license and has a few extras not in the standard version.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: darkmanx_429 on October 26, 2015, 08:29:21 PM
Be sure to register on the Clickteam Forums too. I learned alot by posting questions and the forum is really good about responding back.
As for Unreal 4. I was mainly talking about using the Blueprint system there. It's a visual GUI. You don't have to program a lick of code if you don't want too.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: AuraTeam on November 04, 2015, 12:36:16 AM
hmm.. so am i the only one who uses GameMaker:Studio here :o kinda funny xD GM:S is better i gather , its much easier than i expect when i start using it you have both the option Drag and drop and programming scripts it gives its own language to program which is pretty good and easy, it will help you to know how language works . many great games were developed with it and the reason why its famous and have a lot of tutorials and example, may be i consider it better just because i used it from the beginning, may be i should also move to Clickteam Fusion 2.5
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: ProjectDread on November 05, 2015, 09:01:04 AM
Game Maker: Studio and Clickteam Fusion 2.5 each have their pros and cons. CF2.5 works for me, and I've been using Clickteam products for quite some time so I'm familiar with the development environment. If you enjoy using GM:S and it works well for you, there is no real good reason to make the switch.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: KaZudra on December 12, 2015, 09:10:57 PM
I'll hold off for Fusion until next sale, now I'm going for a crash course on Gamemaker, If I could get a tech demo of sorts for a castlevania engine I can learn it much easier, but rest assured something new is being in the works, I have a few drafts and they aren't remakes (sorry, my ambitious Cv2 remake has to wait until I get the tech down). I'm currently working on an Original title burrowing elements from La-Mulana for a deeper metroidvania experience.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on December 12, 2015, 09:29:47 PM
There was just a good sale on Fusion a couple weeks ago, it was $15 on Steam and their website. They usually do sales around Christmas and the Steam Summer Sale.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: BLOOD MONKEY on December 12, 2015, 10:58:58 PM
I use Unity with C#. It works really nice, and it's free, but the learning curve is a little steep.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: KaZudra on December 15, 2015, 03:17:41 PM
The Idea is to make a Classic/metroidvania hybrid, using something like CV2 as a blueprint, all Main Areas like mansions are Non-linear as all intermission stages will be Linear. I also want to incorperate upgrades but in more simplistic fashion, basically, Stage 1, Mansion (get upgrade), Stage 2 (incorperates upgrade in design). Aesthetic choice will be a mix between the 16-bit era and 32-bit era, hopefully I can incorporate plenty of cool SNES/Genesis gimmicks and some Neo Geo. Upgrades will center around fortifying your abilities, Knives will be able to be platforms, Axes can be thrown into the ceiling to be a ring for whip swinging.
Of course this all sounds good on paper, but the real work into polish has to be done, I just need an engine that the learning curve isn't too steep yet capabilities don't suck, because I work and want to make progress at reasonable pace.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: Rudolph LagnaGaisaer on December 17, 2015, 08:12:53 PM
Try this one --> http://www.godotengine.org/projects/godot-engine (http://www.godotengine.org/projects/godot-engine)
I make all my game projects in it. Simple, easy to use(uses a node system) and have an easy-to-learn language similar to Python. Also, there are many built-in features that are easy to use such as shaders and hardpoints.
A example of what you can do with it --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZuQIbMEjLw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZuQIbMEjLw)
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on December 22, 2015, 10:13:21 PM
Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is on sale 85% off for $14.99 on Steam through 1/4/16.
Try this one --> http://www.godotengine.org/projects/godot-engine (http://www.godotengine.org/projects/godot-engine)
I make all my game projects in it. Simple, easy to use(uses a node system) and have an easy-to-learn language similar to Python. Also, there are many built-in features that are easy to use such as shaders and hardpoints.
A example of what you can do with it --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZuQIbMEjLw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZuQIbMEjLw)
That's a damn nice engine, but my coding skills beyond ruby (thx RPGmaker XP) are fairly okay, I'll give it a shot but clickteam seems to be the easiest I can use for this game.
aaaaand bought. Now for the hard part to begin, so many design choices... Should I stick to tile based mapping? or should I use more artistic aesthetic to make maps seem not tile-like (kinda like Aladdin on the Genesis) There are a TON of music choices but I really want to stick to a synthesized feel, maybe something along the lines of SNES or Genesis or even the Rebirth kits sound good, the DS sounds too general Midi and 8-bit chiptune is an easy cop-out at this point. Graphics are also a thing, on one hand I can keep the good-ol' Castlevania look, but the Lecarde chronicles proves that hi-res isn't a bad thing, I wish I could just draw a what-if NEO-GEO made castlevania out of my ass, that would look sweet.
Level design is already locked in, the Game will use Simon's quest as a guideline, only that there are going to be Linear sections as well as metroid sections, this is going to keep things fresh as Backtracking can be somewhat minimal and Stage design can directly challenge the player's ability to master that new power-up as well.
That's just the castlevania game I'm looking at.
I do have another project that is non-linear and features a Zombie killing mechanic, but Halloween will have to wait.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on December 23, 2015, 12:32:02 AM
If you will be using Castlevania assets then tilebased is the way to go. But if you are creating your own assets, as long as they "tile" together then you can get away with a lot more.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: darkmanx_429 on December 23, 2015, 12:33:05 AM
That's a damn nice engine, but my coding skills beyond ruby (thx RPGmaker XP) are fairly okay, I'll give it a shot but clickteam seems to be the easiest I can use for this game. aaaaand bought. Now for the hard part to begin, so many design choices... Should I stick to tile based mapping? or should I use more artistic aesthetic to make maps seem not tile-like (kinda like Aladdin on the Genesis) There are a TON of music choices but I really want to stick to a synthesized feel, maybe something along the lines of SNES or Genesis or even the Rebirth kits sound good, the DS sounds too general Midi and 8-bit chiptune is an easy cop-out at this point. Graphics are also a thing, on one hand I can keep the good-ol' Castlevania look, but the Lecarde chronicles proves that hi-res isn't a bad thing, I wish I could just draw a what-if NEO-GEO made castlevania out of my ass, that would look sweet.
Level design is already locked in, the Game will use Simon's quest as a guideline, only that there are going to be Linear sections as well as metroid sections, this is going to keep things fresh as Backtracking can be somewhat minimal and Stage design can directly challenge the player's ability to master that new power-up as well.
That's just the castlevania game I'm looking at.
I do have another project that is non-linear and features a Zombie killing mechanic, but Halloween will have to wait.
Good for you man. I remember when I first joined the forum and there was barely any MMF2/2.5 users. Be sure you also link up with the Clickteam Forums if you haven't already. They are good chaps over there and good about answering questions you have.
Keep everyone abreast of your progress.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on December 23, 2015, 12:38:42 AM
Btw, if you are building a low res game for windows this isn't as important now, but be sure to respect the "power of 2" rule. This is the number one reason people have low frame rates.
Keep image (sprites, counters, background tiles, etc) resolutions in powers of 2. 8,16,32,64,128,256, etc. You can mix like 32x64 or 8x128. But if you make an image of say, 129x129, your system will round up and use the memory equivalent of 256x256 for a 129x129 image.
Not a big deal when learning, but when optimizing this is a very important rule. That's the main reason old games all operate on tiles.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: ProjectDread on December 24, 2015, 12:15:00 PM
That's a damn nice engine, but my coding skills beyond ruby (thx RPGmaker XP) are fairly okay, I'll give it a shot but clickteam seems to be the easiest I can use for this game. aaaaand bought. Now for the hard part to begin, so many design choices... Should I stick to tile based mapping? or should I use more artistic aesthetic to make maps seem not tile-like (kinda like Aladdin on the Genesis)
The level editor in Clickteam Fusion leaves much to be desired, especially in terms of creating games from tiles. It doesn't properly support tilemaps like almost every other engine out there, so building a Castlevania-like stage from dozens of different 16x16 tiles will prove very frustrating. I'd recommend using a program like Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/) to build your stages in. It's free, easy to use, and very robust. Best of all it allows you to export the maps you create so they can be imported into Clickteam Fusion, which is how I build all of the levels in my game.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: KaZudra on January 27, 2016, 11:41:59 PM
a new source of inspiration. Time is a crunchy thing, most of my hours are spent working and sleeping, BUT goes without saying there is a bit of researching done here and there. Ambitions goal statement.
Candles with light source
Frames of animation, usually a good consistant amount for everything, I want to average 24 frames for every animation with exceptions.
Scaling and rotations, Skeletons jumping from the foreground and some effects as such
Blade of Thunder like backgrounds, instead of a 3D object, let's try to push 2D to fake 3D in inventive ways.
Weather effects.
Goal Stage will be a Mansion, Large and mazelike with both Metroidvania and Linear sections.
Overall Lighting effects, NO IDEA on how to do this, maybe some gradient overlays with light sources? In SOTN the effects are faked as the backgrounds are pre-shaded.
Shiftable perspective in 2D, as in if the hallway makes a 90° turn, the camera will shift like Fez, but will probably make for some good technical difficulties.
Devil May Cry style progression in a metroidvania style area, To get to the basement, you gonna smash the chandelier into the floor.
Balanced yet challenging Bosses, lately Bosses seem to be sequential or just plain ol hit-sponges, how about bosses who change up tactics based on health and maybe some environmental elements, example: you can get a cheap shot on ____ by hitting him with the bell before he destroys it when he's half down.
Trying to make shops not so Grind-like, and make shops useful, This'll probably be score for currency, lets up on grinding and maybe a few good items in the shop that won't be easily replaced by finding something better in maybe 15 minutes.
Puzzles!, but old school kind, so that means things aren't halted to a complete stop for a meaningless puzzle, but you solve it within progression of playing.
Unintrusive Lore, Story can buckle you down, but if it's done right. you can solve a mystery and be entertained at the same time.
Stages with compitent layout without seeming tile-based, this is a true challenge in the art department, but if Aladdin Genesis can do it, so can I.
The Mansion was the biggest undertaking I was working on with the misfortunate Castlevania2 project, but I want to revisit it and finish it, so that will be the current goal, just the mansion, once that is done we'll see if things can go forward from there, if successful the fate of the project then lies with the success/failure.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on January 28, 2016, 12:46:10 AM
Overall Lighting effects, NO IDEA on how to do this, maybe some gradient overlays with light sources? In SOTN the effects are faked as the backgrounds are pre-shaded.
Gradient maps in combination with shaders (add, subtract, overlay, etc) is going to be the best route if you aren't baking light maps directly into your sprites and tiles. The ADD shader will quickly become your best friend.
I made a rudimentary god ray demo in the attached image several months ago for an idea that I had for Anathema. I didn't really tweak much of my settings to distribute the transparency better, but it basically makes the god ray more visible as it centers the screen. Point is, you can do all kinds of things to fake lighting but you will unfortunately not be able to create dynamic lighting in Fusion. However, depending on your dedication, there is a pretty neat program called Sprite Lamp and this can create some great lighting effects for your sprites, but it would still be baked in.
Gradient maps in combination with shaders (add, subtract, overlay, etc) is going to be the best route if you aren't baking light maps directly into your sprites and tiles. The ADD shader will quickly become your best friend.
I made a rudimentary god ray demo in the attached image several months ago for an idea that I had for Anathema. I didn't really tweak much of my settings to distribute the transparency better, but it basically makes the god ray more visible as it centers the screen. Point is, you can do all kinds of things to fake lighting but you will unfortunately not be able to create dynamic lighting in Fusion. However, depending on your dedication, there is a pretty neat program called Sprite Lamp and this can create some great lighting effects for your sprites, but it would still be baked in.
Hmmm, I could use pre-baked in curtain areas with a static light source with minimal shadows. Still, the effort in lighting will be great since it's very essential in fleshing out an stage and building sweet atmosphere
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: piscesdreams on January 28, 2016, 01:06:56 AM
It will definitely be a lot of effort, but it goes a long way. I've been working on one block alone (section of a stage, not a tile) for the last 2-3ish weeks finetuning lighting and just about any other environment related work you can think of but it is definitely paying off.
Title: Re: Any good engines?
Post by: Donvermicelli on January 28, 2016, 02:16:35 PM
I use Unity with C#. It works really nice, and it's free, but the learning curve is a little steep.
I second this. If you are familiar with object oriented programming languages however it should be pretty straightforward once you get past the initial engine specific quirks.
A plus is that there's awesome documentation available though.