deadeye's Forum Posts

  • I to think of all games as being art, but most people don't think that.

    Keep in mind that the US government officially declared that games are art just recently:

    http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/08/natio ... for-games/

  • Finally got the sample game to load, took the page about four minutes. I've spent the last forty-five minutes playing the Blinding Force demo game. And... it was really good! A very solid platformer with good controls. I had a couple framerate issues here and there that messed up my jumps, but then again I get framerate issues on other games in Firefox as well.

    Really though I'm pretty impressed. Good job, Stencyl

  • Yeah I've been trying lo load a sample game page for about two minutes now

    I want to see what it can doooooo

    Strange that they just up and decided to use Flixel though. I wonder what brought that on. Oh, and the puzzle-blocks event system thing has been common knowledge for a while now

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  • Set your hud counter text to round(distance(player.x, player.y, goal.x, player.y))

    Assuming you only want to measure straight along the X axis and not a vector along XY.

  • THAT'S what it was. I knew it reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it.

    Kind of like Grim Fandango meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Anyway it's good. You're a talented fellow

  • Personally I think all video games are a type of art. It's art with a function (to entertain), rather than fine art. Much in the way that film is. Well, most film. But since we're talking about the unfortunately named sub-genre of "art games" then I guess I'll throw my opinion into the mix:

    Some are better than others but in general I'm not a fan. I tend to think of games as "fun" and "challenging." Fun technically isn't a necessary component for games, but it's widely accepted that interaction, challenge, and goals are. Many art games are lacking in one or more, and so don't really meet my own personal criteria for what makes a game a game.

    But that doesn't mean they're bad. I just personally don't like the actual playing of them because they tend to be boring as hell, as far as interactivity goes. I agree with your assessment that art games are more art than game. Most art games that I've played have no real gameplay to speak of. They may have rich emotional messages (or not) but in my opinion there are better mediums in which to express your ideas that don't involve attempting to tack on a bare minimum of interactivity that ultimately has no bearing on the message or experience.

    I have yet to see any art game that I thought wouldn't be better suited as a short film, or a piece of music, or a written poem or story. But then again it's not for me to say what medium the artist should be using to create his work, now is it?

    I would say that when you're making a game, it's already art. It's born of your creative process. And if you're making an "art game," then be sure to include the game part of that. Just my own personal manifesto, I guess... keep the game in your game.

    And before this thread runs headlong into another argument about art games I'd like to remind people to remain civil, that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and no I don't expect everyone to subscribe to mine

  • This might not be a bad idea.

    Just keep in mind that the first time you make your combat system it will very likely be flawed. You will get to about 50% complete and realize that there is an easier or more efficient way to do what you're doing. That's just part of learning. You may even stop and go back to change it, but don't spend too much time trying to fix it until it's "perfect" or you'll be fixing it forever. Just keep some notes on how you would do things differently for when it comes time to work on your major project.

  • I *think* the whole thing is a joke but I'm not sure!

    What are you talking about? This group of attractive people which just so happens to be comprised of exactly 50% women and contains not one single awkward, geeky, or fat person is an accurate representation of the gamer demographic in America and this is totally not just a viral ad for whatever that stupid controller attachment is

  • Well I had a choice of either that or Rick Roll, but Rick falls more into the torture category.

    If it makes you feel any better it did startle me a little, even though I was expecting it. It's one of those tricks that always works.

    You're absolutely right about the story needing to be made before the game, but I assumed he had already planned what he wanted in that respect before he started any work on actually making the game. I was just saying that a good game gameplay-wise can not (usually) be made in a day.

    Ah, I see. Carry on, then

  • I know you probably don't want to hear my advice, but I'll give it anyway because it's good.

    I've seen you start and stop a couple different projects in a very short amount of time. You seem to be suffering from an advanced case of what is known as Big Game Fever. This happens to a lot of people just starting out making games. It happened to me. Hell, it still happens to me.

    This is always the result:

    Subscribe to Construct videos now

    There is only one cure for Big Game Fever. Don't make a big game. It's that simple. Put those ideas on hold for a while.

    What you want to do is make a small game that you can actually complete, just so that you have the experience of knowing what it takes to finish a game. Make Asteroids, or Pac Man, or Space Invaders, or a small arena shooter. Something like that. Nothing more complex than, say, Super Mario Bros. In fact, Super Mario Bros might even be too complex to start with considering the number of enemies that you would have to create.

    I am being totally serious here. This is good advice. Literally THOUSANDS of developers have struggled through trying to make their Big Game when they're just starting out, and they have all fallen flat on their faces. They will all say the same thing... start small.

    Make a small, complete game with everything in it. Title screen, a couple of levels, game over, scoring, music, sound effects, etc. Put a little polish on it. Completing the thing will do wonders for your experience, even if it's a small, stupid game. And it's a HUGE moral booster. Your Big Ideas will still be there when you're done with the small game, and you will have a MUCH better idea of what it takes to turn your Big Idea into a reality.

    If you keep starting and quitting Big Game after Big Game, you won't learn anything.

    The only problem is that nobody ever listens to this advice. Big Game Fever apparently affects their hearing as well. Perhaps this time it will be different...

  • Heh, can I call it or what. Even uses the same image from the video I posted.

    Sorry newt, I saw that one approaching from orbit

  • To play wait for the tiles to auto arrange, and then drag the corresponding tiles together.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/666516/Matchgamestart.exe

    Calling that it's some kind of jump-scare thing a-la that maze game:

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    Downloading now, will report back...

  • Scary isn't about gameplay. Most other types of games have enemies that you kill and want to kill you, etc. Scary games are no different than any other games in that regard.

    What makes a scary game different is the story, and character development. And psychologically messing with your player's emotions. You can't make something scary in a day.

    So, Jayjay, I absolutely disagree with you. Scary games do not start with the engine and controls first. They start with a story. And lots, and lots, and lots of pre-planning before you ever even start coding.

    Once the story is down, you can make whatever game mechanics and control scheme you need to fit the story.

  • First off, don't use your character sprite to detect collisions. You should use your Pbox object.

    Secondly, your worm animation is changing size much too dramatically to use Bounding Box collisions. You need to either use Per Pixel, or redesign your worm so it's more consistently uniform, and then give it a collision box similar to your player's Pbox.

    Thirdly, you have some really odd conditions here, and I don't understand why you would need them:

    <img src="http://i55.tinypic.com/123pbw9.png">

    Why is the worm's attack animation important in figuring out whether or not there is a collision? Why is the player sprite's angle important? You're trying to do too much at once in one event, and you're getting your order of events all wonky.

    You need to think a bit more logically about how the attacks take place. As a general rule of thumb, when making your conditions you need to filter them from the very basic (two sprites colliding) at the top, and work your way down towards the more specific things (is an animation playing?) towards the bottom, or in your sub-events.

    So, what is the very first thing that happens when checking for an attack? Two sprites collide, that's what. What next? Well, you need to know if the player is falling, or if he's just standing there. Etc. This other stuff either isn't important, or it's out of order, and that is the reason your combat is behaving so randomly.