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[medieval]

I think online play is not something we want.

[Soulliard]

I don't know much about online play. If it can done well without doubling our workload, it's something we should add. If it turns out not to be feasible... well, hotseat multiplayer is more fun anyway.

[medieval]

I've seen a little bit of the use of 39dll (the most common online library for game maker) and will definitely increase work by loads.

[Soulliard]

This is probably a good place to talk about menus.

Here's what I'm thinking:
-First, the TIGSource logo is displayed while the game loads its assets.
-The main title/menu screen, with the following options: standard battle, adventure mode (maybe), online (maybe), options, museum (maybe), quit.

-The Options Menu: here you can adjust controls, toggle full screen mode, toggle sounds and music, go back.

-The Museum Menu: character bios, item descriptions, music test, go back.

-The Battle Menu: first you go to the battle options screen: choose mode, select between stamina/standard/smash, set limits relevant to the mode (lives, time limit, etc.), set number of cpu players, toggle certain items (or all items), go back
-Then you go to the Character Select Screen: choose your character! After you've chosen, you can set a handicap. You can also go back to the battle menu.
-Then you go to the Stage Select Screen: choose your stage! Or go back to the character select screen
-When a battle is over, you go back to the Character Select screen

-Adventure Mode: select difficulty, then select character -or- load a previous game. Or go back to the main menu.

-Online Multiplayer: we'll see...

[Rostiger]

Oh wow thanks - I was trying to punch up a post liek that all afternoon, but just couldn't get to a point. Now you beat me to it,n which I'm frankly quite glad about.

Admittedly, it's two o'clock in the morning here, so I'm gonan get myself some sleep, before I get into depth with an answer...

I'll be bäck... 

[mokesmoe]

I agree to the taking damage when falling, and the 'when the match ends' should be an option like "Match over at X deaths" or "Match over at X people left"

Hmm, I don't know. "Match over at X deaths" is more or less Frag Mode and using more than one player left and the match ends would seem kind of odd to me.

I meant "Match over at X people eliminated" and I suggested this because you asked:

Should it be like last man standing or should the game end as soon as the first player dies?

and some people might want the second option. We could still have default to last man standing

[Rostiger]

So, as promised, here're my thoughts about the main menu as well as some mockup artwork.
Let's start with the eye candy:

Absolutely most important part of the whole main menu: the intro screen! :D
*image removed*

Here's a variation of the current main menu screen, just a little more fancy and with actual menu items:

*image removed*

I was thinking it would be neat if the lines in the background would be scrolling or something like that, to make it less static. Also depends on if GM supports full alpha transparency...

And finally first shot at the character selection screen:
*image removed*

I'm not 100% about all that gradient slickness stylo things, but they're quick and cheap effects, so I just went for it.

Also I probably have to adjust some font issues, so not too many different font styles are used throughout the game. I guess we'll be using font maps, so I'll try to come up with as few different font styles/sizes that can be used throughout the game.

Concerning the options screen, can things like screen size be adjusted at runtime or would it be easier to make a sepparate menu that appears before actually launching the game (e.g. Spelunky)?

Also I think the Museum is a must-have part of the menu, since it could additionally act as a sort of help section. So besides showing the bio, original author and website of each character, also the movelist, explanation of each move and maybe even the corresponding sprite animation could be shown. I think it could help faltten the learning curve a lot, since the game only really becomes enjoyable, once you know the strengths and weaknesses of each character.

Also what about Credits? Should we make an extra menu entry, or will we have the credits in the readme only?


[EDIT]
Oh, and before I forget, here's how the interface elements of tug of war could look like:



[/EDIT]

[Soulliard]

I hate to do this, but the screen is 512x384, not 640x480. 

Otherwise, those look great.

GM can support alpha.

You're right about the credits. I completely forgot about that.

[Rostiger]

I hate to do this, but the screen is 512x384, not 640x480. 

Shouldn't be a problem at all, just some adjustment to do, but that's no big deal.

I'll update it soonish then.

[Cheater‽]

TIGSource presents: TIGSource's Indie Brawl, by TIGSource.

Also, instead of scrolling lines, how about sunburst?

[Rostiger]

TIGSource presents: TIGSource's Indie Brawl, by TIGSource.

Reminds me of Polytron:

THE POLYTRON CORPORATION INCORPORATED INC. Co.
Makers of fine Computer Entertainment Computers and Computer Entertainment.

And you mean a spinning sunburst? I don't know, It would get such a japanese flavor methinks.
Also I made a fancy tiling background already:


But I still could give it a try...


Also: Update!







As you can see one row of characters was dropped out. Our first goal is to finish 12 characters and add new ones later. If we really get that far (which I truly hope), we can always take out the continue, move down the selected characters a bit and add another row. To get to the next screen every player has to approve his selection. Maybe that's a better solution in general,s o we could also take out the 'Continue' completely...

[Inanimate]

PRETTY PICTURES

Wow, that looks amazing!

[Rostiger]

Thanks Inanimate, glad you like it. Unfortunately through the process of ripping the TIGSource logo from the main page and rescaling and everything, the quality suffered a bit. It would be great to use the original data, but we'll have to ask Derek about it.

[kyn]

Why not center the panel instead of being slightly to the left?
I mean, not everything needs to be symmetric, we're not in ancient Greece here, but at least balanced asymmetry is a good compromise. I don't know, it just looks unnecessarily out of place.

Despite that, it looks kickass (as usual)

[godsavant]

Being in the center isn't indie enough.

[Rostiger]

Being in the center isn't indie enough.

[Soulliard]

Those are great. I'll try to get a working menu for the next update, if time permits.

By the way, anyone have any ideas about how to select the CPU characters?

[medieval]

Every character absolutely needs a classification of "Beginner","Intermediate" or "Expert"

[Inanimate]

As you can see one row of characters was dropped out. Our first goal is to finish 12 characters and add new ones later. If we really get that far (which I truly hope), we can always take out the continue, move down the selected characters a bit and add another row. To get to the next screen every player has to approve his selection. Maybe that's a better solution in general,s o we could also take out the 'Continue' completely...

Why not make it that when everyone has selected, a bar appears, translucent of course, running along the bottom, saying to confirm selection?

[kyn]

Being in the center isn't indie enough.

Fair enough

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