i maed won.
fourbitfriday.muxtape.com

am i kewl naow??/

You should do whatever the hell you think makes the character look awesomer. Comparisons be damned.

Yeah. I wasn't saying it was a bad thing. It was badawessome.

alright back on topic.



for tiny survival horror

1: That dudes costume reminds me of the style of the twilight realm. A damn lot.

2: That girl has a very nice knee. And leg.


...I mean it's well drawn.

3: Hug me.

I think that NES tiles are 8*8, 4 colors per tile but games usually clumped them together into 16*16 blocks.

Here's something interesting on leveling: http://jice.nospam.googlepages.com/levelingsystem
Although it's pertaining to a (cool looking) RL being developed, I think the system could apply to normal RPGs.

As for weapons, I think it would be more balanced and "customizable"y if all the equipment had maybe a points system to be distributed throughout all the stats, sort of like how in some games you can put points towards certain skills and stuff by taking them away from others. Similarly, let's say all weapons would have like 30 points to distribute among 5 stats. Evenly distributed the stats would all be 6. This would be the baseline for stats, being +0. but say one sword took a point away from attack and put it towards defense, or vice versa. The sword takes a point away from speed and adds it, to attack also, so the weapon now has an attack of +2, def of -1 and speed of -1. The farther you get into the game, the more disparate the weapons' points are distributed, so at beginning areas/low levels, you could have weapons be fairly neutral, but then as you advance, weapons' potential +attack will rise, but if you choose a weapon with a really high attack it will invariably be crippled in one, if not all, other aspects.

All this talk of stats reminds me of another thing:

JRPGs have too many. Luck, integrity, charisma, charm, wtf? I never found out what that stuff does. The only stats I ever pay any attention to are attack, defense, speed, and whatever-it's-called-that-determines-spell-strength. The other stuff just gets in the way on the inventory screen and takes up precious time when I level, what with all the bubbles that tell me what stat's've gone up and such. (in the games that do that, of course.)

I think Tales of Phantasia deserves a mention for its battle system, as well. I've never played any others in the tales of series, though, were they similar? Sidescrolling realtime combat as opposed to the turnbased drivel, ftw. Far from perfect, but it was fresh.

Without defending the method, it is true that displaying numbers during battles change the way the player feels toward the game but it does allow a quick understanding of the current game situation. How, on a designer point of view, can we allow the player to have as much information without using popping numbers? How can we show the information with this much ease without favoring statistic play?

Well, really, I don't see much point in displaying numbers in the first place - they're much too precise and technical, and I doubt the majority of gamers will honestly take note of the difference between a hit for 525 and 521 damage. This may not be the case for lower levels when the player can only do 6-10 damage and the foes only have around 15 hp, but once you get so far, I don't need to know the exact number of hitpoints I've taken off of an enemy, especially when the total is in the thousands. And often you can't even see the enemy's hp and stuff without using a special ability. It's pointless displaying the numbers before you have a point of reference. 60 damage might be a good hit for a character of your level but it won't matter much when the opponent's health is much, much, much higher. (though admittedly, you usually get how strong something is when it hits back!)
I propose a system of visual cues: for instance, say, when hitting a foe sparks fly. A few blue sparks means not much damage was done. More blue sparks means a decent amount of damage was done, let's say the norm for the player. When tons of blue sparks fly it means you got in a critical hit. When a significant chunk of the enemy's health has been knocked off by a hit, (say, 10%?) white sparks will intermingle with the blue. The more white sparks among the blue, the more significant the damage caused. So, let's say a powerful character one-shots a low-level enemy: Only a few sparks would fly because they didn't do much damage relative to the player's potential strength, but all the sparks are white because alot of damage was done relative to the victim's total health.
So yeah, that might take up a bit more memory or whatever if working on a system with lots of limits, but it doesn't have to be sparks - it could be the color and duration of the enemy's flashingness after being hit, or two sprites (one for low damage, one for high) hue shifted and displayed when an enemy is hit, or something along those lines. But really, I get that early on they were probably trying not to use too many sprites and settled for a font, numbers, suchandsuch, but we've moved beyond those technical limitations so there's really no need to keep on that track.
[/imho]

I dunno. It's just an idea. I'm just certain there's got to be a better way than obscure numbers that don't even exist in the game-world (I'm sure the character being role-played doesn't see the numbers, and besides the intro tutorial fight, or some fourth-wall-breaking monologue, they're never mentioned.)

Also, unlike Rinkuhero, I actually would like more control over the characters. This is why I like the Mario RPGs so much - they leave less to chance and the fights rely more on skill and reflex. Just me but I hate games of chance. "Attack whom? You attack the Generic Slime. miss!" What? Why did I miss? At least show the enemy evading in some form!

[Critical Hit!]

Me, I hate the numbers and the leveling. It seems so counterintuitive to a genre of game which has come to rely so much on story for progress. In Lord of the Rings there was no "Balrog strikes Gandalf for 3052 damage Critical Hit!" It all becomes less of an actual experience and more of a numbers game, with no skill involved but just a guess of what attack will make more numbers appear above the baddies' heads, etc, and if you guess wrong you lose. I would love it so much if these number-dependent games became more of a cinematic experience, where instead of Swords having + 44 attack they would instead be described simply as "strong" and the only feedback you get from your enemies or allies' as to their state of health was appearance, behavior, and such.

Dese all goin' at da same time?
Ya cannot be in iScribble an' Trackmanya at once, ya know?

I'm 56

Your foot has no mouth with which to verbally greet the face. It tries its best to give the face a handshake though, but then it realizes it doesn't have hands either. Your foot, thoroughly frustrated by now, desperately hugs the face in an attempt to greet it. Unfortunately, being so frustrated, your foot hugs the face too hard and breaks its nose. The face is pissed 'cause it was really good looking and now it ain't, and sees this as a sign of aggression so it bites your foot.

The face poisons you!

You are poisoned.

>

Can you mix voxels and polygons?

Yep.

So why isn't it done more often? Get the best of both worlds, you know?

You leap onto the padlock. The padlock becomes enraged and begins to buck wildly. In its fit of buckery it kicks up the pile of dust, spreading the microscopic nasties into the air along with their tiny grain-dust worlds and uncovering a face carved into the floor.
You are no closer to the hospital.

Can you mix voxels and polygons?

I could never get into Myst.

> Write letter with blood from eviscerated entrails.

Another extra 'sense' I discovered while watching "The Triplets of Belville" was that I could tell the difference between the flat animation and the cel-shaded 3D whereas my dad couldn't.

Great movie. But wow, I didn't know mixing 3d and 2d animation ever actually fooled anyone into thinking that they were the same. Though there is that one short in the Animatrix, with the sprinter, where the dude throws the key and I thought it was 3d but it was just insanely well-ly drawn 2d. But I think that's no fault on my part, just crazy skill of the artist.

I thought of procedural to mean given a starting point and then developing on its own to a usable finish, be it an item, a level, a player, what-have-you, each factor dependent on the last. Like:
a = ?
b = ?
c = ?
would be random but
a = ?
b = a/|?|
c = b*2
would be procedural wherein c results in a finished product with little distinction between a handcrafted one*.

*or the distinction could be obvious, but as long as it's usable and does not break the game.

Also,

What Mewse said.

Also,

what joshg said.

Me and my bro have about the same game-sense, though he's better with sounds. There was this one time when we were playing Smash Bros (melee) and he KO'd me and I was flying super-fast off the screen but right before I died he a starman appeared right on my trajectory and I hit it and was invincible for maybe a fraction of a fraction of a second, like, a single sparkle appeared, a tiny part of the invincible song played, and then I died. We both couldn't stop laughing for like ten minutes and everyone else was like "what's so funny?" They didn't see or hear anything.

And,
Both my dad and sister love the 3d Zeldas (zeldii?) but they're not so hot on figuring out how to beat the bosses or when to block given the tiny preemptives given off by the enemies and such. I rocked at Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. The enemy's hints were like a big flashing sign. Whenever we played Sonic everyone was like how can you see that when everything's going so fast? and we were like how can you not?

However,
While my ability to perceive the subtleties is okay, I think. My ability to act on them is not so great. I have terrible reflexes. It's like my body doesn't act according to my minds accord.  I often strafe into the line of fire or dodge the wrong way or after the fact.

uh.
yeah?

Hrm, how much further can we go? I think if its still a 3d projection on a 2d plane that it won't look much better then the current pic.

Beyond graphics I think the next logical step would be interaction - more destructable and realistically breakable environments and cars. Maybe one day they'll move from just simulating the driving of a car, they'll simulate the actual systems. Like, instead of "Push R to drive forward" It'll be "Push R to press your foot on the gas, which will blah blah piston, blah blah gas, blah blah propulsion, blah blah make the wheels go round which will roll the car in the desired direction" So the actual program will go through all the interactions and physics of an actual vehicle. And humans will have pumping hearts and flowing blood. Realize that things have only gotten more detailed on a finer scale; it went from just barely passably recognizable from the first game, to having visual details only available to the keenest of eyes on the last. Next there will be individual bricks making up a building so that it can crumble realistically, then molecules and atoms making up the structure of the brick making up the walls of the house on the side of a street lined with houses with equal detail. The cars will speed along the road more than just simulating the driving of a car, but simulating the car itself: its engine, its wheels, its instruments - all realistically and with the finest precision. The atmospheric effects will not just be "light here, light here, light here, fog drawdistance = this" but actual dust and water particles drifting through the air.

So yeah. I think that's where things are going. May seem impossible now, but hell, what we've got seemed impossible to the people of the "Speed Freaks" era.

[Procedural]

Procedural + Bootleg