MVG's Forum Posts

  • Honestly, the idea is pretty exciting. A persistent world is one of the only moderately reliable ways to both monetize and avoid piracy issues (sure, there are advertisements, and there's always the possibility of pirate servers, but those are both pretty minor in both regards).

    Doing it with C2 would be a game changer. Particularly if somebody made it really convenient and accessible...

    rexrainbow you're amazing!

  • Congratulations!

    It's always a great feeling when you start seeing a little bit of return from something you've put your heart into.

    How are you liking the ads Admob serves up? Have you found them appropriate to the game?

  • rexrainbow

    Seems to work well, although I can't tell much without obstacles in the way to trip it up.

    However, I am seeing some aesthetically odd results.

    For example:

    [attachment=0:3scttim7][/attachment:3scttim7]

    Nine steps, yes, it's technically an acceptable path, and one of the shortest paths, but visually it's not the shortest path (just one of the shortest options given the tiles).

    Maybe you can add in a distance check, such that it will choose the shortest path that also *looks like* the shortest path, in that it's also the shortest linear distance?

    Just an idea.

  • tunepunk

    Yes, something like that. However, as in your example, you wouldn't necessarily be limited to full tile collision only, if you rendered it out as an alternate map and did away with the array based pathing.

    You can use arbitrary collision bodies.

    [attachment=0:34o2jhrb][/attachment:34o2jhrb]

    Make sense?

    It's basically like this:

    All the AI is really playing the game on map A, but their movements are copied by the sprites on map B (after applying the isometric translation to the coordinates).

    You can hide map A if you want, off screen, or just don't render it if that's easy. Or even use it as a mini-map in the corner.

    So you can use arbitrary collision shapes, and as small or large a cell size for pathing as you want.

    However, if you want to force your sprites to stop in the center of tiles for tile-based movement (maybe you're making chess, or a rogue-like), and you only have those limited collision cases, then your way is actually pretty good.

    rexrainbow

    Thanks! I'll check that out.

  • You mean you're writing your own pathfinding to use the array? It looks like it could work.

    All of these tiles are quads in an even grid, why not redraw the map as squares (rotated) in a normal grid and do the pathfinding there with the out of the box solution, and then copy the results by translating the coordinates to the isometric display?

    Can you set one sprite so its movement is dependent on another sprite's movement?

    e.g. Sprite 1 moves down, and Sprite 2 moves at an isometric angle the same distance as sprite 1 moved down?

  • "Is a platformer still the best idea for this?"

    Yes. A thousand times yes! Side-view platformer is hands down the best perspective for indies due to the ease of art asset creation.

    Top view is also easy, but for having anything like jumping it becomes much more difficult for the player to resolve what's going on, since heights in that perspective are tricky to convey.

    "If you want the background to just repeat and play on a mobile phone or tablet, would 2k by 2k save much space?"

    If you're worried about space, use tiles. Don't use a huge background image.

    "Check out my first hand drawn and scanned tank. I have not colorized the wheels yet.

    I will scale this tank down more, this is just start. What do you think?"

    It looks good so far! The wheels are the trickiest part, though. Make sure you use some photo references to get the details and colors right.

  • The biggest challenge is a random level generation that works and doesn't get the player stuck somewhere (which would happen if it's just perlin, for instance).

    One way to overcome this is to allow the player to destroy the environment, so if they do get stuck, they can get out of the situation.

    Big guns which blow up the rock, or whatever your platforms are made of, or bombs, could help to this end. It will make implementation of the random terrain much less painful. So, if you include a mechanic like that, just make sure it works well with your theme.

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  • Sounds cool,

    Sorry I don't have any more ideas beyond usual stuff (springs, teleporters, traps, etc.)

    Good luck!

  • The massive benefit of HTML5 is pretty much that you can achieve vast web distribution without installation or physical copies. Most people don't even use CDs anymore.

    You could, sure. Opening it would open in a web browser, and there's your game. All somebody would have to do to put it online would be to drop it in a web accessible directory somewhere, though.

    If you wanted to make it secure in any way, that would be much more difficult.

  • Just a note: There could be some trademark issues with the word "RISK", if you don't have permission to use it. Brand identity is a big thing.

    That was an issue with Lowly Blocks, not being able to use "Tetris" anywhere in the title.

    Better to change it sooner than later, so you don't have to start over with promotion (if you don't have permission that is. If you have permission, ignore me).

    Anyway, about the game:

    Risk is a long game. I remember it taking hours sometimes. How long do you imagine these games to take in real time? Do you have any ideas to speed up game play to a faster resolution to make it more casual friendly?

    This seems really cool. I miss playing Risk!

  • Funny article. Although it strikes me more of an outlining of tropes sometimes. Tropes aren't always bad, sometimes they serve a good use.

    Of course, definitely good tips for immersion!

  • Thanks for the direction,

    I found the link, although for some reason the game isn't starting. I see the theme you're after though!

    Maybe you could make small planets (that just partially fill the screen: think the little prince) that the alien can roll on? And the rolling itself affects the angular momentum of the whole planet. That would be pretty fun.

  • Hi from China!

    I'm coming from the art side of things.

    Construct is pretty new to me, but I love HTML5 and it seems like a great promising tool for development as games are moving more to web.

    I look forward to playing some games. Anybody who needs advice on art, hit me up!

  • For learning, not much can compare with working with a team first.

    Even if the team project falls apart due to life issues, you'll have learned quite a bit in the process, and the impetus from other team members to fulfill your obligations will be stronger than the motivation you'd have to learn alone.

    Of course, your mileage may vary, but that's how a lot of people finally get that push to get over the beginner's hump. Then once you have the skill set, creating and executing your own vision will be much more achievable.

  • Can you not compute the pathfinding from an overhead perspective grid, and then convert it into isometric coordinates?

    It's a bit hacky, but that's what I'd try first.

    Edit: Let me know if you need help with isometric to square position translation math. Sometimes it's hard to visualize.

    Based on what I have read in the manual on pathfinding, this kind of thing wouldn't be an easy fix for them (arbitrary shaped grids), and it would still leave issues with other tile types, like hex.

    Aside from making an overhead view clone to do pathfinding on, all you can probably do is decrease cell size, which would hurt performance a lot.