lamar's Forum Posts

  • Thank you both. I intend to ceate my own sprites but its just not easy and time consuming.

    No shame in using prebuilt sprites while developing a game and you can always replace them later if you want.

    I do it all the time and some of us are programmers and some are artists. My sprite art skills suck lol!

  • > I am not sure I am following you.

    >

    > You say you have several characters in your game. Is that a C2 project and are those C2 sprites?

    >

    > If they are C2 sprites you created in one game and you want to transfer them to a different game then you need to import them to a new sprite in the new game because sprites have a distinct UID in each game and behaviors associated with that UID.

    >

    maybe i didnt express myself. i got those characters on png files...

    OK then you can import them directly to a new sprite in your game. Click on a new sprite and right click on the animation frames and click on import from file.

    You will have to create a new sprite for each different character because each sprite has a unique UID.

  • That's great to know, Lamar!

    I understand that, as with web design or other areas of programming, there will be many different theories about best practices. My question was motivated by the desire to understand more about the *rationale* behind some of these practices. That's why I asked folks to point me toward resources (books, videos, etc.) that touch on the larger principles related to game design while providing additional context. I'm not looking for someone to say "you should do 'x' and not 'y'. It's much more helpful to hear people explain the rationale and context behind these practices -- *why* should we do certain things.

    One thing I've taken away from all of this is the recognition that, as you mentioned, there are no longer cookie cutter holes that we have to fit our games into. This is very cool indeed.

    Best advice I can give you is to maybe get a few CAPX files from games in the arcade that get good reviews and study them and I look for 4 things:

    1) Playability- do all the controls work smoothly, is it easy enough for a kid and adult to play without a huge learning curve.

    2) Graphics- do they create a mood and fit the theme intended.

    3) Effects- this can be visual or aural effects and are they timed right to make the player sit on the edge of their seat when they happen or create intensity and raise expectations.

    4) Story line- not all games require a story but kids will be telling themselves a story when they play regardless because of their imaginations.

    Playability is a matter of understanding mechanics of the characters and also designing a game from the perspective of someone that has never seen the game before and wants to play.

    Graphics and effects are that artistic quality I was talking about and many games I see are great as an artistic venture but lack playability.

    Story is also artistic or creative and it takes trying to capture something that will resonate with your audience to get them feeling something about the game and that is the hardest part for most game creators to get into their games and is usually the failing of many games. That is a talent in itself that there is no book you can read to develop but reading books that require imagination and studying how to write stories does help.

    Hope that helps!

  • Question was

    "How do I determine my game is good enough to sell or is it only good for showcase?"

    Question was not

    "What do YOU think is a good game".

    Sales figures. I stay with my opinion.

    When then sales are good, the game is good enough to sell.

    When not, so what, try to improve or move on to better. At least you got some experience with selling and publishing. Very needed experience.

    Trust your friends to tell you if its good ? They have feelings.

    Trust a forum to ask if it is any good? Well personal i dont react to such a question when i think the game is shitty. It might not seem that way, but i hate to carry out a negative message to someone who's face i dont see, who's sweat i dont smell, who's handshake i never weighted.

    You can't tell a game is good enough to sell from sales figures if you have not tried selling the game yet.

    Sales figures are only seen after a game is being sold so it tells you nothing about whether it is good enough to sell.

    OP question "What determines my game is good or not?"

  • I am not sure I am following you.

    You say you have several characters in your game. Is that a C2 project and are those C2 sprites?

    If they are C2 sprites you created in one game and you want to transfer them to a different game then you need to import them to a new sprite in the new game because sprites have a distinct UID in each game and behaviors associated with that UID.

  • Think I got it. Found some more files on my old PC that I did not think needed to be copied for this exact project to work...but walaa...no errors now!

    Good- yup you had some missing files.

  • How do I make my game scale by adapting to each screen and resolution? The problem is that in my game there are objects that when they touch a barrier that is hidden beyond the layout, are destroyed, and a life is lost. But I have the barrier outside the layout so it takes about 3 seconds from leaving the screen until it collides and the life is discounted. Is there any way to make it as soon as it leaves the frame of the screen you lose a life and destroy the object?

    I also have problems with the loss of lives, I have brought the barrier in the window of sight to see when it crashed and destroyed the object but not lose a life. My event sheet is: sprite / on collision with "green" / subtract 1 from "life". And also I have a global variable "life: 3" assigned to a text box represented on the screen but what I say, no life is discounted ...

    In the behaviors you can set any sprite to be destroyed off the layout.Then you don't need your boundaries.

    You can also do that in an event by checking if a sprite is outside the layout and destroying it.

    You need to set your life text to the variable you use for life without quotation marks to see the lives number.

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  • Yes you can click and drag a box around multiple sprites on the layout to select them all or hold CTRL and click each sprite to select multiple sprites.

    If you mean can you import many images to a sprite you do that in the sprite editor and right click on the animation frame box and click import images.

  • Well, the easiest way is to probably change your user ID on the new computer long enough to open the project and resave it to a different file and then you can change back your user ID.

    You could try copying the old file into a new file using the new computer user ID and see if that works.

    If it opens on your old computer try exporting it directly to a USB file instead of saving and see if that works.

  • >

    > Either because they want to do better at playing the game or because there was something they missed that they wanted to explore for a different outcome.

    >

    >

    Or because their friends and/or Youtube Idol play it too.

    Oh sure there are some people that get a game because it is the "in" thing to do but I don't think those games have real lasting power.

    Those are the same people I said buy games like candy and then toss them in the used game bin the next day looking for their next fix.

    You never know what attracts those kinds of people to a game and as soon as you think you have it figured out they are on to the next shiny flashy object lol!

  • Come to think of it the only real measure of success for a game in my opinion is if it leaves the player wanting to play it again.

    Either because they want to do better at playing the game or because there was something they missed that they wanted to explore for a different outcome.

    It is the reason games like the Mario series have lasted so long.

  • I like search and escape games with a good jump scare thrown in and a story to follow.

    Not much scares me- except- clowns!!!

  • Looking good!

    Only suggestion I have is to not use the red blood at all in your game and stick with the green blood or some other effect besides blood.

    Since this is going to attract younger kids and parents have a real problem with blood in their kids games and it can cause it to get a rating on some arcades that would limit who can play it.

    Best of luck on getting it on Steam!

  • When you start asking for best design principles in a forum like this you will get a thousand different answers and the truth is game designers all have their own style and game design today is a lot more about artistic use of mechanics and graphics to achieve the effect you want and graphics and effects have surpassed solid game play in my opinion.

    There are core behaviors you should understand and physics is an advanced technique worth learning and using effects to make your games sparkle but there are no rules for game design any more and no cookie cutter holes we have to fit our games in to thankfully!

  • Hi Everyone,

    I apologized a head but this may be a lame question.

    I know I can search all kinds of sprites on internet for creating games but when publishing my game all my assets have to be created by me using licensed software or buying assets made by others..correct?

    Thank You.

    There are all kinds of free to use assets out there you can use in your games.

    Go check out Kenney's free and low cost assets:

    http://kenney.nl/

    There are lots of other sources for free sprites here:

    http://opengameart.org/

    Just read the copyright notice and don't use assets that are copyrighted without permission in any commercial game. For your own games use whatever you want.