next »

[William Broom]

Michael, are you going to use Game Maker for this? Because I have heard it doesn't handle multiplayer very well...

[isaac]

Michael, are you going to use Game Maker for this? Because I have heard it doesn't handle multiplayer very well...

Since he opened with the declaration that it would be cross-platform, I'm guessing not.

[michael]

prototyping will probably be done in gm or mmf so that people can tinker with them, but the real game will be in allegro or sdl, depending one who we can get to code it. those are the only two cross platform codes with multiplayer capabilities that i know of.

[michael]

Makes me wonder... has anyone made a game where you go on a vision quest?

This game looks like it could be pretty awesome. Have you done any concrete programming work on it yet?

maybe the tutorial could be in the form of vision quest

[nihilocrat]

maybe the tutorial could be in the form of vision quest

That would be pretty cool and actually amazingly fitting for the setting.

I would be interested in coding, but I am only tentatively putting my offer out because I'm sort of fishing around for projects and will have to withdraw my offer if one of them actually gets some momentum.

Also I'd need to learn a good deal of stuff that I should really be learning anyways. I haven't written a network-enabled game in my life, but I know some of the high-level ideas about the implementation.

[JasonPickering]

another thing you could check out is Brave its a ps2 game that was jsut recently ported to the wii and 360.

[jwaap]

t = smoke signals
y = team smoke signals

 

[Super-Dot]

First off, I'm super excited by this game! The art is delicious and I like the ideas so far.

You said the game should encourage tribes to stick together, and I think one way of doing that would be to have the camera dictated not only by your location, but by your tribemates'. For instance, all the members of one tribe could share one camera, whose location is the tribe's mean/median/mode. That way, if the buffalo rider runs off to the left without everyone else, he ends up running off-camera and can't see anything. Or he ends up running to the edge of the camera and he can't see in front of him, but he's always visible onscreen, even though his tribemates aren't. Or maybe the camera is moved only a small amount in the direction of the mean/median/mode of the tribe, so that he always knows where to go to find everyone else. The scouts, of course, might have their cameras work differently--maybe they could move their cameras freely (with the limit being that they have to be onscreen). And the chief could have a better camera somehow, but I'm not sure how.

Actually, I'm not sure that a mean/median/mode camera would be the best idea if implemented to the extreme, but cameras should emphasize characters' strengths. The buffalo rider should be able to see far ahead of him while he's riding, the better to avert obstacles and aim for enemies. The war drummer and shaman should have good views of their friends. Stuff like that.

Maybe animals could factor in to the war drummer's drumming. For instance, a bird could circle overhead and it would be beneficial to beat the drum every time a bird matches his x-position. Or the plants could react to and grow with his drumming, and he needs to beat the drum at the end of every flower bloom animation or something. He can't beat drums based on the music alone; he needs visual cues. What else could those visual cues be?

Maybe buffalo riders could be the only ones who can get buffalo to jump to higher ground? Then riders aren't inhibited by the weight of the animal, but other people are.

As a trackpad user, I think mouse motion should be avoided in a game such as this. Players with gaming mice have an advantage over regular mouse users and trackpad users. But that might be my ideology speaking; I don't consider multiplayer games where timing and accuracy of input make a difference to be fair unless all players have the same kind of input, AEBE. The keyboard allows for this.

I look forward to being a war drummer!

[Loren Schmidt]

Actually I would be for keyboard-only controls as well. I like how responsive button-only control schemes are. Mice are incredible for some things, though.

Good luck with Yoyo Games, Michael!

[Super-Dot]

Oh, mice are great! They're just suboptimal in competitive environments. I made a mouse-only avoid-the-enemies game and I found that the high scores were based more on mouse quality than on player skill. The worst players on the best hardware outperformed the best players on the worst hardware.

It was much more fun than keyboard controls would have allowed, though!

Edit: necropologies

[michael]

ohhhh lawdy its the first prototype!   

braveprototype.gmk

braveprototype.exe

andy0_0black's been fucking shit crunk as usual. anyway, theres not much yet. we're gonna put in a couple more moves and maybe a second player in a bit. but as this genre is definitely not my forte id love to get feedback and any edits youd be kind enough to give. its still going to be hard to tell exactly how the game will play. my goal is for a medium pace with a preference of strategy over button mashing.

 

[Valter]

 

 

...What are the controls? 

I can offer some immediate feedback, though. I think you should be allowed to strafe while throwing 'hawks. That way, you wouldn't have to turn your back on the enemies while you run away, and you can keep firing.

I like that you first prep the tomahawk before throwing it. The delay prevents you from just button mashing to victory, but the prep phase allows you to do some precise aiming if you want to. And reducing the jump height while you have a 'hawk prepped was also a cool idea. This is just really well designed so far! 

Actually, my only gripe has to do with the scenery. The lighter tree platforms could conceivably be mistaken for background.

[The-Imp]

OH MY GOD YES. DOWNLOADING AT THE SPEED OF INDIE!
 

The movement is great... That's about all I can describe. And the axe throwing's cool.

[pen]

This is awesome, I can't wait for buffalo multiplayer carnage 

[michael]

controls are arrows for movement, z for jump and x for attack. we could have shift lock the direction that you face to allow for 'strafing'. andy made it so that if you throw while pressing up, you throw at a higher angle, and if you hold down you you throw at a slower speed.

also, medo42, of gang garrison said that he and a friend had started working on a 2d mulitplayer engine with very possible crossplatformness  this is great news. so if you see him around, tell him youre excited for it.

concerning the platforms. as it is now, all the platforms have that bright sea green topping which wont be used anywhere else, so i hope that that makes it clear what are solid tiles. but the art still needs a lot of work.

thanks for the feedback!

[KniteBlargh]

*downloads*

*plays*

I won! (Actually, I fell off the edge of the game screen 'cause I was having too much fun throwing the axe...)

[andy wolff]

 

...What are the controls? 

I can offer some immediate feedback, though. I think you should be allowed to strafe while throwing 'hawks. That way, you wouldn't have to turn your back on the enemies while you run away, and you can keep firing.

actually the way I coded it you can moonwalk to your heart's content. hold right and tap left once to turn around and keep holding right to moonwalk, and vice versa. I first did this in my cave story dup by accident and have been doing it since

[michael]

oh wow, thats really neat, i think that works rather well

[Valter]

actually the way I coded it you can moonwalk to your heart's content. hold right and tap left once to turn around and keep holding right to moonwalk, and vice versa. I first did this in my cave story dup by accident and have been doing it since

having tried a few more times, I've now noticed that you can strafe while firing. However, I've never gotten it more than once in a row, and I still never figured out what you have to do to do it. I honestly would prefer Michael's idea for it, since the current way is inconsistent/hard to pull off. I like the idea of having moves that are hard to master, but strafing is a bit too important to strategy to be one of the hardest maneuvers to pull off.

[Lord Tim]

I think that he moves a little too fast. It seems like it would be difficult to hit anything that is moving that fast.