next »

[NightPatrol]

Scroll down for updates, screenshots and videos

-first words-
Well, I know this is kind of stupid, but I started on a new project. I guess I should've brainstormed a bit more before jumping in the previous one (that being "Avalanche Weekend", that's on the last page of the compo now), but it just felt like a good idea at the time. I've been thinking on it the past week and the more it settled, the less I could feel the fire for it. I might finish it for the compo or after that, but it's on the back burner for now. This kind of stuff happens now and then, so please bear with me.

-the project-
I've been talking to a friend of mine, who's into martial arts stuff and since I wanted something with a twist, I came up with the idea of making a 1 on 1 fighting game based on Kendo. The game will by no means be a simulator. The fighters would have to sneeze as loud as possible, instead of the traditional strong shout, in order to intimidate the opponent. The player will be able to move back and forward in order to avoid attacks or get closer in real time, but the player attacks will be a mixture of rpg-type selection and the aiming/power widgets of bowling or golf games for instance. Not sure if it'll be for points or with a health bar, and maybe I'll add a two player mode. Anyway here's some concept drawings to get things started.

[NightPatrol]

Alright, I've got the basic character sprite done. I might go back and make the character a bit prettier later, but since it's split into parts, it'll be easier to go in and change minor details. The agenda for today is to make the animations for it and hopefully have a playable character until the end of the day. If I manage to make things work, I'll try to post a video of it 

[TNERB]

That art is really crisp! I like this idea, can't wait to see those characters in motion!

[eigenbom]

bewdiful

[NightPatrol]

Well after spending the entire day yesterday, trying to make some sort of physics based animations, I failed miserably at it, and decided to go back to keyframed animations. I do like the aesthetics of keyframed animations, but I think the gameplay would've had a different feel with physics based animations. Oh well... here's a video of a moving, sneezing kendo practitioner.





I'm currently contemplating on how exactly will the game play. I'm thinking of making it so that you can't attack by yourself, but your opponent has to provoke you (by spraying pepper on top of your head to make you sneeze), then you can either hold your sneeze for a while and try to provoke the opponent or move out of the way and sneeze. You can hit while you sneeze, but if you miss, your head is exposed, which makes it vulnerable to attacks... I think I can make some relatively responsive actions, timed to the animations, but next on the agenda is some placeholder background and an opponent to practice with.

[Ben H]

Sounds really cool! It's a little different but I was reminded of this

I saw on TV.

I like the idea of trying to provoke an opponent and you then trying to "charge up" the sneeze.

[NightPatrol]

Thanks, Ben! That advert looks quite like what I have in mind for the game here.

Ok, so I got really frustrated that there are no good physics engines or skeletal animation tools for Game Maker 8.1 (what I'm using, since I bought a license for it a couple of days ago), I decided to do something about it. And after a day of troubles, including the power supply of my laptop burning out, I ended up hard coding some animations in the game. Just to see how it would look like and if I would like it. Even tho the collisions are pretty precise now (albeit a bit buggy on some spots), I still think I'll go with keyframed animations. There's just something really cool about how they look. I also realized I can do a per-frame collision checking, which makes triggering precise collision events somewhat easier... but I wanted to hear some opinions from you guys, so here's a vid to compare to the previous one:





Let me know what you think.

[arcsin]

I really like it.

Is difficult to say which way is best. Surely the result you got with keyframed animations is excellent.

[NightPatrol]

Thank you for the input, Sebastian, I appreciate it

Ok, update time:

- Settled for the keyframed animations. All animations for the characters are done.

- Scaled everything down to about 50 percent of it's original size to shrink filesize. It looks cuter/cooler now too

- Added a second player (human controlled for now), collisions working and everything. So basically the vs mode is working (without the rules). Have to make some sort of AI for the normal mode.

- Started working on the backgrounds. There will be three arenas - a restaurant, a public bathroom and uhh.. something else <- if you have any cool ideas for a third background, please share.

- Just for giggles I added a camera that now keeps both players in screen, classic fighting games style. It's based off a dummy object, so I'm going to use it as a handle to do whatever I want with the camera.

- Here's a final (for now) shaping of the rules. The game will be for points - 3 point rule as in Kendo - therefore whoever scores 2 points wins the match. The match might be timed as it is in Kendo, but not sure about it yet. You score a point by hitting your opponent's head. A chance to hit an opponent's head is only when they are sneezing. Swinging at them while they are not sneezing will miss them. The characters will have "pepper magic" that can be used to trigger the other opponent's sneezing. This magic must be recharged tho and this is done when the player sneezes - let's call that a sneeze-attack. When the player sneeze-attacks, the sneeze is immediate; when the sneeze is triggered by an opponent the player has a chance to hold it as long as he/she can and evade the attack and wait for a sneeze-attack from the opponent and release the held sneeze to counter attack. At this point I need to implement the pepper magic, sneeze holding and the point counting and the gameplay is basically done.

Here are two screens to level out the amount of text I wrote:




Gotta go to bed now... Waking up early is a really tough thing for me, and I have to do it more often and more often.  

[tipp]

dang looks sexy smooth so far :>

[Inanimate]

I laughed at the title, and though it remains funny, the game sounds surprisingly deep and solid. Some of my favorite games have ridiculous premises, but beautiful gameplay -- and I'm sure this will be added to the list.