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Topic: SuperMelee Clone (Beta II In-Progress) (Read 54319 times)
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xenoclone
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alephresh:
- If you plug in that camera patch, the camera at least won't go crazy when that stupid ship goes to the corner.
- The big circle trail just helps you see your ship when you wrap. Won't be necessary with new camera
- Ship spinning: ugh, I know! I don't know what causes it. But I think I can force fix it.
- Level down bonus: It also fully heals you and regenerates power. So is sort of a "lesser of two evils" choice bonus... maybe I should make it look more ominous?
BioSlayer:
Thanks for checking it out. I'll see if I can't further tune the speed/controls. Is there something specific about the controls that sucks? Turning, changing speeds, etc? You're one of many saying the controls feel sluggish. I'm looking into improvements on the AI that should help aiming... BUT, I don't know if it will go into the missiles. Most people think they're too powerful and this is one way that they lose their effectiveness.
Valaggar:
Thank you as well for checking it out. You are correct... velocity. You make an interesting point with the camera. Not really possible with that algorithm I've been using, but is possible with the new SC-style camera.
This is great feedback from everyone! 
UPDATE: Well, obviously Beta-I ended on October 6. I do have a Beta-II in progress at the moment. It will have a brand new camera algorithm, a larger chunk of the content done, and a number of bug fixes. A big thanks to everyone who tried it out and gave me some feedback! Most all suggestions are being taken into account as I continue the revision.
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« Last Edit: October 11, 2007, 11:40:22 pm by xenoclone »
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xenoclone
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The paradigm shift... sure, I'll explain. Basically, I'd imagined the level that the ships float around in as a box... when a ship hits the edge of the box, it wraps around ala asteroids.
Star Control doesn't do this. It's more like a Hanna Barbara cartoon. The background cycles over and over. So once this struck me, I was able to write a camera algorithm that matches it. There are some issues still left to fix. But it's looking good.
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RTyp06
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Why do ships have to wrap around in your game? Why not just bounce off the edges when in 4 player mode because that seems a big issue with your camera. Also I noticed that the scaling from larger image to smaller, or vice versa, the scaling seems to jump at times..?
I'll admit I had lost interest in this early beta due mainly to the slow game speed. The player control loss when being hit by enemy ordinace and lopsided weapon balance was the nail in the coffin for me. The game becomes tediuos to me. I look forward to trying your beta II if you decide to make it public.
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xenoclone
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RTyp06:
I've heard that argument before. I guess wrapping makes the gameplay area effectively boundless, whereas if you bounce off the level edges, you can be cornered... which is unfair to certain ships. Right now I've got a pretty solid SC-clone camera going. It only works for two players.
The debate right now is whether or not to allow 4-players in the game at the same time. I'm considering, for example, making it more like a winner-stays-in scenario. As long as player B keeps winning, the game cycles through player A, C, D... until someone takes out B. This basically makes the game more like SC 2-player game, while still supporting 4 players. I'm not sure if it's a perfect solution, but I know that when a lot of guys are together playing a fighting game, for example, we tend to pass the controllers around to the losers until someone takes out the winner.
I'm playing with an increased game speed right now. Early results are good... maybe even too fast. It needs more testing. Balancing is going to be a major issue. If you know which ships feel unbalanced, I'd love to hear it! I'll definitely be doing at least one more round of public beta testing when it's ready.
On a separate note, I'm going to try and occasionally blog on xenoclone.com just so I don't SPAM this thread with the littles details. I hope to just use this thread to talk with what people here are interested in.
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« Last Edit: November 01, 2007, 08:55:42 pm by xenoclone »
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xenoclone
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Here's a peek at the progress of split screen. The idea is that each human player on the same machine gets one section of the screen. Next I need to update it such that each 2-way pane takes up the full half of the screen, and a three-way split means one player gets half the screen.
It seems to work pretty well.
  
The key feature that makes it work, I think, is that each player can control his own zoom level. I think the next
iteration will have a mini-map (radar) and health bars. I will probably also ditch the energy/health rings around the ships. I don't think those are working!
I've also implemented ship selection via mouse. So you'll be able to select your fleet and your opponents' with the mouse.
Update: Okay, now I've got a fixed split screen.
 
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« Last Edit: November 08, 2007, 07:45:50 am by xenoclone »
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guesst
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Personally I LOVE the dynamics of the SC2 type camera so much more than a fixed camera, espcecally when it factors into powers like finding a cloked illwrath (or navigating one). While that may not specifically factor in this case, I still love the look. So what I would suggest is that you keep the split screen and factor in the SC2 type camera (optional?) so that it's you and the closest enemy ship in your window. Yes it'll keep switching and woulnd't work as well for long distance abilities, but if it's optional who can complain.
But I'm know to have unpopular opinions.
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xenoclone
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Oh, I definitely love the SC2-style camera dynamic as well. But the problems / challenges have just mounted on that one. SC2 kept it simple, which made it easier to implement and easier to play. Unfortunately, I added some extra elements to the game which make the camera problem fairly complex. The split-screen, I think, works fairly well. It will probably be what's used in "Beta Mark II." I need to do some play tests with it though.
The list of things that have been put on hold thanks to the camera:
- Completing all the ships
- Completing all the levels
- Better game-play balancing
- Experiments with network support
- Experiments with a ship / level designer
The last two, of course, would be ideally suited for as second programmer. But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much interest. Every time I talk to a potential programmer about some help, the response is always, "Ooh, hey, cool! Can I design all the ships?" 
Did players like the centered-ship when playing SC:Timewarp?
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RTyp06
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The list of things that have been put on hold thanks to the camera:
Completing all the ships
Completing all the levels
Better game-play balancing
Experiments with network support
Experiments with a ship / level designer
The last two, of course, would be ideally suited for as second programmer. But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much interest. Every time I talk to a potential programmer about some help, the response is always, "Ooh, hey, cool! Can I design all the ships?"
Of course, everyone wants to do the "cool" stuff. What sort of plans do you have for level design? walls, bases? It doesn't seem you have much need for an editor, at least not yet.
Did players like the centered-ship when playing SC:Timewarp?
TW 's approach is ok, definately playable, although it seems like a radar would have been better than the colored arrows pointing toward the enemy. At least imo.
btw the split screen idea seems pretty good. The seperate views just eat up alot of screen real estate.
Also, what do you think about somthing similar to SC melee ship selection where you have an up/down scoll bar where you select a ship, (similarity ends here) then just drag and drop it to any team square? Right now, perhaps it's just me, but the ship selection could be so much simpler and intuitive. It's not a show stopper, but just a thought..
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xenoclone
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We've had some talks about different levels.... some are more complex than others. The first three are the gaseous level that was in the first beta, a level where you fight in the rings of a gas planet, and one where you fight around a planet that sucks in rocks from the outside of the planet with its gravity. We've talked about inside a giant ship yard, inside the belly of an asteroid, etc, etc... but to be honest level design has been ground to a halt for a while now. 
As far as ship selection goes, I did add mouse control, which I think helps. But it's possible that it's not the right way to do it. It really was designed with the idea that four players would all have a gamepad and selecting simultaneously. I don't know why I assumed that usage model!
Right now I've had to take a little breather as I finish up some school work. I'll keep people posted if I make another big advancement.
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I too write games but I use gamemaker 
