lamar's Forum Posts

  • There used to be a time when a sprite had to be a certain size but those days are over. Any multiple of 8 will usually look good so 8x8 16x16, 32x32 etc.

    I use 32x32 for most of my games.

    What does matter is how big the image is that you are loading into a sprite. Very large images will lose pixels and quality when reduced and vice versa so I try to stick with images around the same size as the sprite they will be used for.

  • So if there is already a "set playback rate" for the song reproduction speed, why timescale also affects the song reproduction speed ?.

    A negative value in timescale can cause the music to be heard at a slower rate.

    Just a guess but the playback rate is probably tied to game timescale which makes sense. If the game slowed or sped up but music did not change it would not seem right.

    You can over ride the game time scale with the music playback rate I think but I did not try it.

  • If we expect our path to be 100% clear before moving forward we will be holding ourselves back for infinity. I suggest we just get started and then learn to adapt to the surprises life will generously be throwing at us.

    Very true and well said!

  • You can set the music or sound playback rate in the sound effects controls.

    I don't think it is a bug because using a negative number would be reversing the music and stop point is zero and set point is 1. So any positive number from 0 to 1 would slow the music down and over 1 would speed it up.

  • You are right, this thread is going way off topic. I wanted to say that the future is not dark, because game development is becoming more and more accessible - to OP. More choice of engines, better engines and ways to publish your game.

    lamar then jumped on the opportunity to start plugging his tool by making the point that what he is doing with it is the general direction of where things are going in gamedev.

    The truth is that OP is concerned about the licensing model of the potential that one day he will not be able to open his construct3 projects, because construct3 is a tool that exists in the cloud - and it periodically checks with scirra if the subscription is paid. Thus is one day the servers go down, his offline copy will stop working and his projects will be dead

    I beg your pardon?

    I used my sandbox design that is built on the C2 engine to explain where I think game design engines are going which is on topic. In fact if you look at C3 as described in the blog it is already heading that direction to a visual design platform.

    The only one advertising anything to sell here and arguing about which engine came first appears to be you.

    Have a good day!

  • >

    > > lamar setting sprites and how it looks like is not really game design.

    > > The design of the game is where you establish the rules of its world, the conditions of things to happen.

    > >

    > > A level editor will lock you to a genre, because the game loop can't be changed. For example you can't make a top down game with your platformer level editor. You can't add new mechanics to it - such as shooting or new types of enemy behavior.

    > > As a result a game made in it - is not a new game. It's just a level

    > >

    >

    > You seem to be missing the big picture sorry. I can expand that same model of visual design to any game genre including RPG, shooting or something you create yourself. and that can all be packaged with one game engine like C2 running in the background.

    >

    > Because of the memory limits of the arcade my sandbox is limited to platform design but the final product will include RPG design and other genre's and all can be modified very specifically to your design desires.

    >

    > The basics of all game designs revolve around setting sprite effects and behaviors and setting the mood of the game through music, sound effects and graphics and engines are all just there to process the routine events you selected.

    >

    > ADDED: Unlike a level editor the sandbox designer will allow you to incorporate any game genre into the same game and you can start as a platformer that evolves into an RPG with side missions using first person shooting or some other genre and it will all be in the same game with smoothe transitions from one genre to another.

    >

    > It is a visual based toolbox for game designers with room to add new behaviors and effects when ever they are created for the game engine.

    >

    Wait there for a second. Are you by any chance talking about something you made/making?

    Is the sandbox some tool that you are building?

    I thought I made that clear in an earlier post that I am working on a visual based game sandbox now in Beta testing and that is where I see game design engines headed.

    The OP topic was the future of game design engines and I used my visual based design sandbox for an example of where I see the future of Game design headed.

    If you want to see it in action the link is in my signature and it is in the arcade and uses C2 as the background engine.

  • lamar setting sprites and how it looks like is not really game design.

    The design of the game is where you establish the rules of its world, the conditions of things to happen.

    A level editor will lock you to a genre, because the game loop can't be changed. For example you can't make a top down game with your platformer level editor. You can't add new mechanics to it - such as shooting or new types of enemy behavior.

    As a result a game made in it - is not a new game. It's just a level

    You seem to be missing the big picture sorry. I can expand that same model of visual design to any game genre including RPG, shooting or something you create yourself. and that can all be packaged with one game engine like C2 running in the background.

    Because of the memory limits of the arcade my sandbox is limited to platform design but the final product will include RPG design and other genre's and all can be modified very specifically to your design desires.

    The basics of all game designs revolve around setting sprite effects and behaviors and setting the mood of the game through music, sound effects and graphics and engines are all just there to process the routine events you selected.

    ADDED: Unlike a level editor the sandbox designer will allow you to incorporate any game genre into the same game and you can start as a platformer that evolves into an RPG with side missions using first person shooting or some other genre and it will all be in the same game with smoothe transitions from one genre to another.

    It is a visual based toolbox for game designers with room to add new behaviors and effects when ever they are created for the game engine.

  • lamar

    The problem with relying too much on out of the box type engines is that all the games using them are cookie cutter stuff. If you are a fan of that stuff - perhaps you might like rpg maker. It still supports plugins - very similarly to construct2 - written in javascript.

    But all games made with it - look like they are made with it.

    With the case of a level editor type engines - it is obviously a level editor. That is a huge difference from a game engine.

    Construct is a game engine, because you can set the design of your game and be specific.

    A level editor only allows you to set the layout of levels, not the design.

    In Construct you have reusable out of the box logic in the toolbox - game objects with builtin functions.

    But such is the case with most other game engines out there.

    Fusion 3, godot 3 and construct3 all have premade game logic that the programmer can use to build custom games design. Out of the three Godot has the largest number of objects - called nodes there.

    Maybe you missed the part where I said users can upload their own sprites and tiles and tweak settings of those using a simple settings box..

    A game engine like C2 and all others do the same thing using settings for all sprites and tiles now but still requires a level of scripting events and all the code is hidden from the user while I have removed the scripting events and use C2 in the background to make it all visual design which is desired by creative people and artists.

    I believe that is the next logical progression in game design engines.

  • > I foresee the future to be drag and drop 2D and 3D game creation.

    >

    > You will choose from a plethora of of 2D or 3D characters and objects with pre-programmed but modifiable behaviors and effects and you will choose your layout, effects and scenery and type of game and just drop them in place and the engine does the rest.

    >

    > No event scripting and just modify object settings for how you want them to behave.

    > ...

    > ...

    > That would open up game design to many more artists that have no interest in programming or writing events.

    >

    Next thing you know is we'll have a game engine app that only requires you to push a button to make an awesome game and it'll do it. No other effort needed.

    If you are as old as I am and designed games using programming languages like BASIC then today's engines are an example of your button to create a great game scenario.

    The engines took all the hard work out of creating coding routines and hides them in the background so people can concentrate on the artistic factors without even understanding the codes that make the game work.

    As we move forward more artistic people with no programming experience and no desire to learn event scripting will become involved in game design and the engines will accommodate by integrating all event scripting into simple settings sheets. C2 is an example and all sprite behaviors and effects are set through a settings selection list.

    That will be enhanced in future game engines with lots of new effects and behaviors and event scripting will be simplified to the point any creative person can create great games.

    Amazon released Lumberyard it's own game engine with that in mind.

    ADDED: Tooting my own horn here to provide an example of visual game design. In my signature is a link to my platform sandbox. Still early Beta but with that anyone can create a very playable platform game by just dragging and dropping components and effect change boxes on to the playfield.

    No event scripting and it is all visual game design. I will be adding more effects and behaviors as I progress but you can add day and night, rain and snow and set enemies to move where you want. The plan is to have a simple settings box so more advanced designers can tweak sprite settings to do just what they want. I will also add the ability to upload your own sprites and tiles so artists can go crazy.

    That is where I see game design engines going.

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  • > A little history of game design software:

    >

    > Early game creation systems such as Broderbund's The Arcade Machine (1982), Pinball Construction Set (1983), ASCII's War Game Construction

    > ...

    >

    > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_creation_system

    >

    Clickteam created the event sheet - visual programming via an event sheet.

    Reusable objects that populate the event sheet

    Well you are welcome to your opinion but before Clickteam was even around there were game engines packing coding into easily called routines that are events.

    Trying to claim one is the grandfather is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. They are all extensions of BASIC and MS-DOS and other languages.

    BUT then I am probably quite bit older than most of you and designed games using those languages and observed the progression of game design engines up close and personal.

  • A little history of game design software:

    Early game creation systems such as Broderbund's The Arcade Machine (1982), Pinball Construction Set (1983), ASCII's War Game Construction Kit (1983),[4] Thunder Force Construction (1984),[5] Adventure Construction Set (1984), Garry Kitchen's GameMaker (1985), Wargame Construction Set (1986), Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit (1987), Mamirin / Dungeon Manjirou (1988), and Arcade Game Construction Kit (1988) appeared in the 1980s on home computers. 3D Construction Kit was released on the ZX Spectrum in 1991, and contained a full polygon-based world creation tool. Most of these early design frameworks are specific to one or another genre.

    In 1990s, game creation systems for the IBM PC shifted both to the more general and the more specific. Whereas frameworks like RSD Game-Maker and Klik & Play attempted to accommodate any genre, communities grew around games like ZZT (later, MegaZeux[6]) that permitted such extensive user modification that they essentially became de facto game creation systems. Pie in the Sky Software created a full on 2.5D first-person shooter creator out of an engine they previously used internally, which sold in three total versions until 2003.

    Later in the mid-2000s, with the growth of the World Wide Web and social networking, programs like BlitzBasic and Multimedia Fusion headlined an explosion of interest both in indie games and in canned game design software.[citation needed] Whereas earlier game creation systems tend to err on the side of user friendly interfaces,[7] 21st-century systems are often distinguished by extensive scripting languages that attempt to account for every possible user variable.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_creation_system

  • Grandfather? For me it is Klik&Play, I used it so much back in mid 90s something. It is same company as the Fusion now and you can see similarity still.

    And as for drag&drop game maker, it is too limiting in my humble opinion and would just make cookie cutter games. Again, in my opinion. Of course if you are going to make pretty graphics and have basic game idea that is same as existing then it will work.

    But if you have novel idea (of new game style/engine) it will be very limiting quickly.

    What do you think you do with C2 but use built in effects and behaviors that they designed in?

    You just set the effect and behaviors and the engine does the rest. You don't create new effects or behaviors in C2 just use them through the settings.

    That is just a natural progression to where game design is headed.

  • The line you see is probably actually blank space surrounding the sprite.

    Look at the sprite in zoom and if it does not fill the sprite box that is your problem.

    The way to solve it is to select and cut the sprite and set the sprite box to a smaller dimension and then paste the sprite back and select expand sprite box to fit.

    That will remove the blank spaces so tiles align with no lines.

  • I foresee the future to be drag and drop 2D and 3D game creation.

    You will choose from a plethora of of 2D or 3D characters and objects with pre-programmed but modifiable behaviors and effects and you will choose your layout, effects and scenery and type of game and just drop them in place and the engine does the rest.

    No event scripting and just modify object settings for how you want them to behave.

    We are to the point that is very possible now and I purchased a game engine a few years back that was doing that and had great potential but they lied about being able to share our games with other people and sell games so I stopped using the engine and I don't think it is even available any more.

    Once we reach the point a good commercial 3D and 2D game can be created with just drag and drop then it will be a mad rush to create the best 2D and 3D objects.

    I have been designing a sandbox type platform creator that is drag and drop using the C2 engine running in the background and you can create very playable platform games with no event or programming at all using that system.

    That would open up game design to many more artists that have no interest in programming or writing events.

  • First I would study games like the Tycoon series for ideas.

    Then you will need to start collecting sprites and tilesets and ready made houses and building sprites are available just google them.

    The rest is a matter of setting up a layout with controls for purchasing property, choosing a house and setting the house on the land. Pretty basic stuff.

    This is a very basic CAPX that lets you click on properties to buy and places a house on the property to get you started:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/u23aq8rxexfh2do/House%20Builder.capx?dl=0