Amos

Is there no one interested in helping with this project at all? D:

http://mugenzeroonline.blogspot.com/ Above is the link to the game project I'm working on. I am currently looking to find someone to define and tie the musical style into the visual style together with the theme. This project will eventually go live and (hopefully) develop a strong community following. I won't be able to at first, but, if we work together, I will eventually compensate you for audio expertise. Currently, I am a starving artist, but I think I've got the selling points to make this game go gold. The game will feature the following: -A dynamic side-scrolling online PvP platform fighting engine -Character selection based on abilities rather than classes -Real-time skill-focused gameplay -Expansive interactive environments with obstacles, enemies, and traps -Strategy-focused combat (NOT based on stats and levels) -Near infinite variety of characters can be created via unique ability system -Completely Custom Avatars (down to the pixel-level) and Game Sprites -Send others flying and ricocheting off walls & ceilings, into obstacles -Every new opponent offers a brand new visual and gameplay experience -A tiered, tournament-based, ranking system -Free Play, Team battles, Battle Royales, and even Team Boss Battle modes -Sandbox Roleplaying in the "Create-an-RPG" game mode -All characters have custom intros and profiles that can be viewed -Customize how your character feels by tweaking its physics and soundfx -Emote with custom sprite animations and taunt opponent via word balloons -Play as any character you can imagine I need someone who can do fast-paced (hard dance / power metal) music, with style and edge. Being able to work with small vocal samples, beats, and catchy melodies is a plus. If you're any good at fast celtic style tunes something akin to the Chrono Chross opening or even some Chrono Trigger stuff, I could use your help as well. I want to establish a darker undertone to this game, but I want enough upbeat music to counterbalance it. This might be a fighting game, but it's going to have an epic story tie-in as well.

Haha! That inspires me very much. Thanks for your feedback everyone. Three people in a matter of a few hours commenting that they would play this game gives me a pretty good idea that it's not just me who likes this concept. I very much appreciate that. I've been hard at work for the past week developing the backbone of the gameplay. Any ideas for character abilities you might have, I will consider them now if you speak up. If your character idea needs a particular way of moving or attacking, let me know so I can consider if it's possible with the ability format I have now and tweak it if necessary. Once this step is done, no more abilities will be added until long after the final build. Let me know what sort of characters you'd want to make.

Not a problem, thanks. You're right. I edited it for clarity so I hope it's easier to understand now. If it's not a bother, do you mind telling me why it's not your kind of game? I think you misinterpreted it as a MUGEN mod when, in reality, it's a completely new game more like smash bros or megaman x than MUGEN. The only aspect it shares with MUGEN proper is the name and the ability to create your own game content (in the form of characters)... Maybe I should have clarified that too... sorry... :S

So, I was wondering... In this topic, I made a post where I explained the game in question and attempted to ask for help on completing it... However, I didn't receive any and am determined to complete it with or without anyone's help. But, first, I want to know for sure whether there is actually demand for the game because, due to the nature of the game, it relies on a great deal of others to want to play too, and I can't play it alone, so I must know what others think of the idea if I am to pour the extra work into learning the rest of the skills I need to finish developing it. I don't have a clue as to whether or not it is likely to actually catch on with any of you so I would like some input. To give you an overview of the game in question, it's a little like this: It is an original online fighting game that plays a little bit like Super Smash Bros for the N64 and Megaman X combined. It focuses on strategy and balance while allowing your creative tendencies to run free by allowing you to, in essence, make your own character from scratch -- minus the tedious task of programming it yourself. You get to create your own sprites from scratch (within reasonable limits of course) with the graphics editor of your choice or a character editor where you can put parts together and build the graphics that way (for the artistically challenged). These avatars can then be given abilities that describe their movement and attack/defense capabilities. You can view these abilities as little blocks of logic that describe how your character can behave. A Kirby-like character, for example, can use a multi-jump ability which gives the illusion of a smash bros style Kirby. A Mario character can be given a stomp ability that allows him to actually attack people by landing on their heads and a jump-punch ability that is reminiscent of mario hitting a ? block with his fist (where the ? block is instead replaced by another player's character) if desired. Any character can fly proper too if desired, and even dash (while flying) in a Megaman X style way if a 'dash' ability is chosen alongside the flying ability. These abilities are stackable and many different character possibilities await. The goal is to allow you to create any platforming character you wish as well as a few actual fighting game styled characters too. There will be shoryukens, smash-styled attacks that send other players flying (akin to smash bros), full body moving attacks for all directions, aerial attacks in all directions (all are optional), teleporting, blocking, and dodging, and even power up type abilities that allow one to charge their weapon or body or increase their attack power, defense, or health. These are only a small few abilities. As you can tell, with these two simple concepts, characters can have quite a ton of variety, both in appearance and gameplay, which is very much not the case in most online games. Not only this, but the levels themselves will be large enough to move around in, and small (and varied) enough not to get lost in. They will feature hazards, props, and other things to make each feel like their own little world as well as to add elements of strategy that can only be found in particular locations with a particular set of abilities between characters. Every location will be balanced while considering all possible combinations of abilities so as to give a fair playing experience despite the variety in terms of both environment and character possibilities as well as strategies. Outside of those elements, there will be many modes to play. The main modes are the fighting mode, collection mode, and create-an-rpg mode. 1 vs 1, 1 vs 3, 4 vs 4, and all things between will be for the fighting mode. The collection mode is a mode where you are able to take your opponent's character as a trophy (to use as you see fit) if you are able to defeat them. And the create an rpg mode is a sort of visual representation of the old school freeform verbal RPG's where you can fight or talk (and emote) in any level without rules or limits other than those set by the person hosting the game. This mode alone is a lot of fun with friends or strangers alike. The objective is to create your own narrative with others' (usually unique) characters, or simply bullshit around and fight. I'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas on this game. There's a lot I didn't cover yet, but I'd like to know how you feel about the game and whether there is or isn't a demand for it.

Not a problem. The graphics are only there because I plan to use Zero as one of my own personal avatars when the game is finished. He definitely will not be sold as content. The level graphics are for a test level, which, also, will not be sold as content for the game. Thanks for your concern though. I'm well aware of weird copyright issues when money is involved (and sometimes even when it isn't), but I definitely appreciate your feedback nonetheless. As for the requirements for the online side of things, they have been reduced and the original post has been edited to reflect this. I recently found a way to take care of the paid content side of things so the "online guy" I need will only need basic skills that I can pretty much teach them if they're willing to learn. The only iffy thing to this is the PHP/mySQL thing since I'm not very good at it. So it is very useful if the person is familiar enough to write programs that can communicate with the game client and possibly a mySQL database. All of the ins and outs of this aspect will be discussed with any interested in this position. I believe this knowledge will be very important to providing users with the content they desire. This will definitely be a paid position if we both take our work seriously. I can't wait to get this game done. I just want to play it.

I will definitely remember you! I plan to get to that point sometime and definitely need a composer or two. In the meantime, though, I need to find someone with some serious know-how in the online / PHP / server department. I've got the know how and the basic stuff already in place for the game and am a very good pixel artist / animator. All I need is someone to help make this online server stuff possible. The rest of the programming / artwork is simple for me.

This is a game for true gamers. The kind of gamer who loves strategy and challenge, or to simply bullshit around and have fun. First off, this game is a unique combination of the best features of many games (plus some very unique features of its own) with a retro 2D Platforming (Fighting and/or RPG) focus. This is, in essence, meant to be a strategic fighting game, but it goes beyond that in the fact that it includes levels that are not only huge and varied, but have many obstacles that can ultimately be used for an element of intense strategy in normal game modes or simply freeform story elements in the Create-an-RPG mode where people are able to fight and chat freely using their own (fully user created) avatars. What separates this game from the rest is not only the fact that you can create your own fighter (very easily) using your own sprite graphics from scratch (akin to something like MUGEN) using a graphics program of your choice or the built-in character editor that allows you to use "parts" to build your character (for the artistically challenged), but the fact that you can make your character move and fight in the way you want it to by giving it many abilities that can range from flying, dashing, and multi-jumping to smash bros styled smash attacks, hadokens, and shoryukens. Some of these abilities are also stackable. That means, for example, you can dash-jump and shoot at the same time or shoryuken into the sky and then air-dash in a very Megaman X style way. One can even stomp or jump-punch their enemies in an unnamed platforming-plumber sort of way. The possible strategies that arise from these combinations are endless, so each character can have his or her own playing style that's as unique to each and every character (and player) as his or her sprite graphics and animations. The fact that this game is online means that it is also possible to have bragging rights. One of these such rights is found in the 'collection' mode. In a very Pokemon-esque way, you can collect the avatar of those you defeat... and even play as them. This is a game based on skill and strategy (a component sorely missing from games in this day and age, especially online games). It uses the power of the internet (a feature retro games rarely had the luxury of) to allow small numbers of players to connect to one another and do battle. Hosted games are located using a central server list that is sorted based on the skill and rank of the players themselves to ensure that skilled players can play against other skilled players. The ability to purchase new content (and also to update old content) is a key element as well since level design is central to developing fighting strategies. Since the game client itself would be free, content creation is where we will be making our money. We will allow users to purchase new content (and tools/content to aid in character creation if desired). A system is needed for this, which means that I need at least one person who is semi-familiar with GML (or at least willing to learn), UDP data transfer techniques is a plus, and PHP/mySQL to help organize and maintain online aspects as well as design and implement a content update system for both paid content (which isn't as complicated as it may sound) and free content (such as game updates). I can already do most of this online stuff myself if need be, but I prefer to have a partner in this for many reasons. If we can work out a good online engine and content updater process, then we'll be in business. Since online will be the backbone of what's involved, depending on if you are willing to take the reins maintaining the online side of things while I deal with gameplay and graphical aspects (such as content creation and all that jazz), we'll work out something fair financially depending on your skills and responsibilities and how far you want to take your role in this. I want to keep our team as small as possible, but we need high quality (secure) work and an efficient rate at which it is done (and that depends on us both being hard working and responsible). I'm a very experienced pixel artist/animator and game designer and have been doing this as a hobby since 2001. I am finally ready to make the plunge into the full fledged business aspect of game design and all the headaches that follow. As getting a game published is a rough business, I need to have a small team of people dedicated to their functionality as well as the game itself. If you're on my team, you're a friend too. Your opinions and ideas count just as much, if not more, than my own. Whether they're actually implemented depends on whether you put into the game what you want to receive from it. I've been working on this thing alone for about 5 years now, mostly designing and prototyping its core physics/state/fighting/online/roleplay engines to understand if this project was both technically and practically even possible! But, thanks to the completion of the Zero Engine (which you can check out below), the physics and RPG elements are complete and I've already started the online system myself and am close to completing at least the barebones of it. This is a project I cannot complete alone and a game I cannot simply let die. I need to focus on the areas that I am most skilled in. If you need evidence of my abilities, look at the Zero Engine below or a prototype of the MUGEN ZERO engine (very old): http://www.yoyogames.com/games/116906-zero-engine---super-mario-bros-example http://www.yoyogames.com/games/34171-mugen-zero---v31 Let's make something out of this game and not let it just fade away! If you think you can fulfill these two key roles (hammering out a content system with me and eventually handling online maintenance while I work on new game content) and have the abilities I need (or happen to be willing to learn them), then, please, drop me a line! I can't wait to get this damn thing finished! - Ace

<-- Download V3.1! <-- No split screen version I'm working on a platform fighting game that allows one to make custom fighters with a battle engine akin to Megaman X with a slight Super Smash Bros / Street Fighter take on it. This game will be online multiplayer with up to probably eight opponents at a time, in HUGE levels. This game is very fast paced. Like wicked fast. Think Zone of the Enders for PS2 and you might be close, even Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but without all the fancy effects filling up the screen where you can't see what is happening or even react. This is a fighting game / platformer hybrid, but nothing like a Super Smash bros clone. Although you can knock your opponents across the screen, this is a standard move and built into the balance mechanics of the gameplay. The special moves will be very simple to pull off, akin to Super Smash bros, but with a little bit more depth. This is a very ambitious project, and it's a game I've wanted to make for many years. As you can tell, I've had many inspirations, but MMX is my biggest due to the battle engine. It's lightning fast and addictive. Remember the old Megaman Boss battles? I loved trying to beat them with just the Mega Buster. So, in that same spirit, I am creating this game with a simple mechanism for fighting that will allow for lots of challenge and vast strategy that can be developed only in the heat of combat. I'm also allowing the personalization of your characters as a means for you to form a bond with them. The more you care about your character the more exciting it is for you to put him on the line in a battle for his access code. What does that mean? Well, the custom character support is unique, and so, most of the characters you'll have, you will have to earn through battles with other players. This game features custom character support akin to MUGEN. Custom characters will be balanced and easy to make, unlike MUGEN, so anyone could be able to play as or create a character. Though system specs might be more limited for online matches, (taking into account CPU and RAM speed issues on slower computers) I plan to leave in the split screen functionality for those of you who enjoy the battle engine for what it is and might like to play against your friends in person, which is excellent fun. So, either way you want to play it, winning characters or making characters, you can still have fun. Here are some other screens of the game in action: http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12788&d=1209574951 http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12773&d=1209519718 http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12776&d=1209519857 http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12789&d=1209574962 http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12772&d=1209519672 http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12792&d=1209613912 So, that about sums it up. I would definitely appreciate some feedback on the engine and the features. Also, if you would like to help, start creating some characters! After this next version where I finalize the battle engine, I will need some testers who are willing to help me test the online part of the battle engine. At the moment you can only play with a buddy on your own computer in split screen, but given two joysticks and the custom controls (right click on your player to set these up), it can be a hell of a fun thing to play even offline! Please! Tell me what you think! - Ace

Awesome stuff! Gotta say, I'm big on all your original work. Do you have any more available to listen to? I particularly loved your "Summer Sadness" album, but I loved the style more toward the end of it the most. It's got a lot of heart. That's hard to find in music these days, especially in the electronic genre, so I felt the need to tell you to keep it up! Great stuff indeed!

Thanks for your input, and thanks for the complement. I've given this quite a bit of honest thought and critical speculation on my own, which is why I'm bringing it to this community before I went full-force on it. I'll admit, it is a niche audience, but if the idea of SSB works so well, and it has a devoted following, obviously its mechanics are fun to the general masses. The battle mode I found the most fun in Melee was the HP battles, which seemed to require skill more than its normal gameplay counterpart, and in which I found too easy to beat even on the hardest levels. I found that it is only fun when one plays against a real flesh-and-blood opponent in order for the game to shine in that area. Then this idea came to mind. An intense battle game of this sort. I wonder if a 3D environment would be better than a tiled or drawn one? I'm personally not very skilled with 3D, so I'd need to find someone else who was willing to do some background artwork for this project. I want the game to appear as professional as it could possibly be, so that requires quality backgrounds and menus, of which I'm still in the process of studying the dynamics of that type of CG artwork. I am an animator more than I am a draftsman. Any idea of where I'd be able to find help of this nature? Also, thanks for your input on price. I was looking to make this a very professional game but I might lower it a bit. However, it will require much work to create, so it's really not feasable, 2D or not, to lower the price of the game too much. However, I agree with you as far as the subscription mechanism goes. I wasn't that interested with doing that anyway. I'd hate to have to manage a server to play on, but if this game takes off, most likely users will make their own public servers and solve that problem, as people should be able to find a place to play. I plan to make a sort of tournament mode for server admins to set up games for people to compete with one another. However, details are unclear at the moment as to exactly how this would work on an per game basis. Haha, I guess it's not really a fighting game either, as you can shoot just as much as you can punch and kick, and it would be just as important. So, it's a bit of a hybrid of a sort. Too bad it's hard to pin down exactly what it is until I get it all together. Once I do, though, maybe I'll make a good combo-genre in the end. ;D Either way, I don't intend to compete with SSBB, but as far as a 2D console fighter or MUGEN goes, I want to make people think of fighting games in a new way. Instead of learning an endless number of moves in order to be considered "skilled", I want to be the one to encourage the application of a large vareity of moves. In order to allow that large vareity and still keep the game balanced between players, the moves would need to be extremely simple to pull off, but also have a specific strength and weakness in each of those moves in relation to another counter-move. For example, a shooting attack would be great against a sword attack, unless that sword attack could block or deflect the bullets with ease. This would make the shot attack ineffective against a sword wielding opponent. So in this case, it would need some form of a tradeoff. For example, when you block an attack, you lose energy, but less than being hit. If you deflect, you will require some well-placed timing, and it may only be used when the attack is very close to your body, so it will also require some risk to deflect the attack. Even then, the deflect may not succeed, but will just kill the bullet instead. So, there's always a downfall to any attack or movement, as well as an advantage. Hopefully I will get and maintain a perfect balance between them, in order for the game to work well for everyone. I'm actually going to start programming this thing tomorrow. As offered before, anyone who wants to playtest is able to do so. I will post a link to the download of the file in case someone would like to test it out when I get a small part of it done. There's only limited network functionality in the prototype, but it will show the basic concept well.

Have you ever played Super Smash Bros Melee? It only used two buttons, but made one hell of a fun fighting game. It was also a platformer, similar to MMX, but without the crazy-long level to beat before you get to fight the enemy at the end of the level. Its attacks were combined with directional inputs to create unique and interesting attacks. I agree with your notion that a one-button fighting game would suck hard. NOTE: My battle engine will not copy MMX's on a 1:1 scale. It will take some liberties on adjusting to the nuances of a fighting-based engine that works in a similar fashion to Super Smash Bros with some of the effects of Marvel vs Capcom, and has a fast pace like Zone of the Enders, but with a MMX feel to it, with online capabilities, with the ability to customize. There will be two attack buttons, and a special move button. One will be an attack that should be a power move, aka Hard Attack, and the other a normal move, or the Medium Attack in street fighter terms. A typical move would rely on a simple combo of an arrow key and a direction to perform an intuitive move based on the direction of the keypress and the button. For example, pressing up and P (power) would shoot a heavy blast into the air, while pressing up and N (normal) would simply punch into the air and knock the enemy up and away from you via a sort of SFII Ryu uppercut style. A down + N move might sweep an opponent, while a down + P would slam a fist into the ground performing a move similar to Zero's MMX5 special move, but probably not at the scale of damage that the projectiles do, while still allowing the amount of them. When doing a special move, you'd need to have a filled-up special meter to do them. This means that you'd need to take enough attacks to be able to perform your move. Toward the end of your energy, you should have enough special meter to strike hard. Really? What is it? I'd like to check it out, if possible.

I was curious as to what people thought of these type of gameplay mechanics. I figued I would bump before this topic fell off the page, as I'm still looking for people's opinions on pretty much everything such as price, or feature requests. Also, if you would be interested in playtesting, feel free to shoot me a PM. I am going to begin a prototype version that will showcase some of the features I'm looking to do.

Praise is awesome! It encourages me to want to work on this more! Ditto. This is why I am so passionate about making this game, to be honest. I don't have many friends that like megaman type games, so I was never very sure that it'd be a mutual thing for many others besides myself. I don't play much multiplayer myself mainly because of the monthly fees on top of having to buy the games. I don't have much money to support my family right now, which is part of the reason in which I'm looking to make a game in the first place. However, if I can make a game that is unique and as awesome as this that is online, and have people actually want to play it too, then that's what I'm looking to do. I would not want to charge much for it, but I would want to be able to make it possible to get some form of profit from it, although not corporate business kinda profit. More or less like trying to survive on a single household income kind of profit. I've got a daughter to feed, you know? ;D So basically, I'm not quite sure of the price range yet. However, I do know that a free copy of the game will go to my playtesters for their time and patience when I decide to begin working on it hard. Right now, I'm just working out all of the variables that might play an important role in the game's success or failure. Once they're all ironed out, as well as establishing an interest in the type of game, and gathering up any features that one might request later on, all will be well, and I can begin playtesting it. However, right now I've got little to no graphics for the game itself - luckily I'm an artist and animator (...just not a great background artist/designer) as well as a programmer - so it will most likely just use Megaman X sprites as the prototype's graphics in the mean time until I can start fleshing out a real solid look for the game. I want an anime look that is reminicent of the SNES games. However, I'm not certain of how much I'd want to rip-off of megaman. It's definetly inspired from it, but I guess it doesn't matter as people will be able to customize their graphics anyway. What do you think? Also, I am curious as to how much people would be willing to pay for a game like this, and if a subscription service would be better than peer-to-peer or vice versa. I've been looking around at multiplayer games and noticing that all of them are going toward the subscription thing, which I personally find annoying when you have little money in my case. I prefer the p2p approach as far as playing games with your friends, but some like the challenge of taking on others who they've never met to test their skills. I'd enjoy this aspect of a subscription-based game with a dedicated server of some sort. I might make a sort of hybrid to this, but this is not certain just yet. I'd just like to know whether you'd rather pay a low cost for the game and have a service, or pay a higher cost for the game and do what you like with it. Any opinions of this? Whatever your choice, I'd like to know how much you'd be willing to pay for either the game itself or the game and a subscription service as a total. I was thinking of some range between $29.99 - $39.99 for the game itself with a hybrid mode, or with service the game might be $19.99 and the monthly service might be anywhere from $4.99 - $10.99 or something. I would like to think this is fair game, since it would be retail quality by the time I got done with it, and if it looks promising, I would most likely hire an artist or two to help out with the overall workload of concept and game art. So, I'd need back whatever I invested in the first place as I don't have anything to spare. Would these be reasonable prices? If not, what would you pay for a retail quality game such as this? I'm doing it both as a hobby, but also as a way to earn some extra income as my current income is very very tight, and the only one we've got. I'm open for any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas you've got so feel free to comment on anything, or just say what you think about the idea in general, good or bad. If it's bad, try to give me some sort of reason for your comment so I can improve on it somehow. The main thing I'm looking for right now is your ideas on price, graphics, and praise or hate for any parts of the game. Also any features you'd like to see for me to consider. PS: I wanted to give you guys an update on some features I'm going to implement into the gameplay before one must request it. Here goes nothing: Block, Deflect, Dash and Dodge. These features are some of the things you see only very rarely in a MMX game, and if you do see them, they are very muted and don't work as one would expect them to. However, the way it will work in this game is that it will give one the ability to block if they are being attacked fiercely, but this method of defense would allow one to take minimal damage, but still take some damage and nullify the attack. It would also be able to charge your special attack gauge if it blocks enough attacks as you absorb the energy from its nullification. Deflect, would not allow you to take any damage, but it would be harder to perform at a moment's notice. The other drawback would be that the attack is not nullified, but is instead knocked away in a random direction. If it is an explosive attack, it might harm you if it hits the ground, or hit a teammate if you are on a team. However, it could be used to your advantage by hitting enemies alike. It also would refill your life gauge as a result, and it encourages you to try using it more often. Dash and Dodge are just what they sound like. Dashing is a feature we veterans all know well in MMX, but dodging is a feature that would allow you to cancel a dash. It was a feature that would have been very useful in the original games as you'd need to stop and run the other direction manually if a projectile was heading your way, but not be able to shoot in the direction of your enemy and still move away simultaneously. However, with the dodge feature, you'd simply need to double-tap your dash button to hop backwards off the ground in the opposite direction of the dash while still facing the direction of the dash while allowing one to continue to shoot in the original direction. If someone is advancing toward you, there is little time to shoot another shot and run the other direction, but with dodge, you can blast once more to anniahlate the nearest shot to you and still have time to turn the tables on your opponent and give chase to them instead! Finally, speedy type characters will have the added ability to teleport in any direction (up,down,left or right) to maintain a moment of invincibility in order to dodge an attack or even move behind an opponent to attack from behind. For a slower type of character, teleport and dodge wouldn't be available, but instead block and deflect would be more potent and even allow one to have an overall higher defense and offense. When a heavier player blocks, it takes little to no damage, but deflect is minimalized as it is harder to pull off. What do you think of this style of gameplay? Does it add anything to the classic MMX style of battling? Does it take something away from it? Let me know what you think!

It's a good idea. The only issues with it would be that I am looking to make this a sort of fighter-based kind of game, so there really wouldn't be an 'end' to the level, in terms of actual area, but the game would end depending upon the game mode's rules (beat all the opponents, or die the least amount of times before the time runs out, etc.) As far as invisible floor tiles, I'm not certain as to what I can do to prevent this because there is only so much I can measure, and when it comes down to deciding what pixels must be inside a tileset, it would be a bit hard to measure in this case... Any ideas? I'd either need to make preset levels, or just trust in people not to be idiots and ruin a fun game... I'd hate to have to limit what people can and can't put or not put in a tile. As I said, I'm open for suggestions on that aspect. Haha. That's pretty nice. I didn't think anyone else played time-attack modes. ;D Either way, I know that if I did make custom levels, I would have to decide as to how I would limit unfair obsticals (i.e. invisible bombs) and misleading tiles (fake floors) on a multiplayer side, but I get your point that it really wouldn't matter if the host knew the level or not, as long as it remained fair to play. However, even if the person had to survive in the level in order to upload it to others, it would not prevent the misleading tiles or hidden bomb problem. Maybe a way to deal with that would be to have an approval rating for a level. If people don't like the level, it would be possible for others to lower the ratings for that level, if it is unfair or whatnot. Although if this is the case, people might lower the rating of levels that they just don't like for aesthetic reasons and not for the playability of the level. This would be hard to ensure success. Maybe a high skill level must be required to host your level or smth. Maybe the host-user himself would have to have a high approval rating in order to use a custom level when he hosts a game to more than two people. This might be a good way to ensure that if a user's approval rating is bad, the user can't host custom levels to many people. Thus, the default levels would have to be used. I'm open for ideas here, too. So have at it! I want to make this game fun! ;D I would definetly limit the use of obsticals and many high damaging traps. Bottomless pits would be something that I would definetly limit in some way. Most likely have a tile that would be specially set for this, and only so many could be set side by side in order to allow a person to jump over them. Although this would also be hard to limit. Either way, I think that some form of status prohibition would be in order for those who wish to play against many people at once in order to encourage people to make fair levels and even gain something, such as awarding more creation points for doing so. This would allow the player to add more to their levels, and encourage them to keep em balanced, as they could lose these points as well if others don't like thier levels! What do you think? Any ideas on this? Once I get a few more replies like this one, I will know for sure that others might be interested in a game like this, and I'll begin building it. I'll need people to test it out as I am building it to ensure proper network functionality, but this won't happen until I've decided whether or not the time and effort are worth it to move forward. Once I do, it will be my full-time job (after work, of course) to stay on top of it. I want to see this thing through if it has a chance to actually work itself out, and there will be others that I can count on to battle with as well! What's the point if noone wants to play it with you? That's my biggest dilemma in this game's development. So far, so good. I hope people continue to reply and let me know their brutally honest opinion (constructively, that is) so I can continue to check myself and my ideas. This game would be my passion, so I want it to play and look amazing. Thank you to all who have helped out so far with your opinions and ideas. They're very important to me in order to keep my goals and ideas set straight.

I agree with you, KatanaEagle. The level creator in Powered-Up is supposed to be pretty awesome, unfortunately I'm not familiar with the mechanics of it. Although I have looked into it, I haven't found much on its interface and limitations. It should definetly be somehow limited in terms of balance. I would potentially make out a pretty strict limit upon how many obsticals and enemies one could lay out, in a similar way as I'm looking to do with the customizable attacks (only so many of a certain class of size / damage level can be created in any given level, etc.) and also those enemies / obsticals would be secondary, mainly to inflict status ailments upon some of the players and minimal damage. Of course that would still require more planning. DeathBySpoon: I definetly understand about latency issues. Frankly though, I doubt I would have too much trouble keeping it pretty lag-free, although I will definetly be careful with this as it is a highly action-intensive game. Therefore, I'll need to figure out ways to only need to synchronize when it's absolutely necessary. I'll use a lot of dead-reckoning with the projectiles and whatnot. That shouldn't be much of a problem, though. Drack: I intend to allow lots of close-range fighting, and even encourage it, as damage would be greater if done by an attack that is close to the player, a la Zero's beam sabre, so I don't think that'd be a problem. I was actually inspired by Zero to do this in the first place - check out my avatar. Zero rocks! ;D

My main goal here is game balance. If the characters are imbalanced, then the entire game will be unbalanced, as the game relies on players to have fun with one another. A system I am trying to looking to attempt is having a very similar global personality point system similar to that of the Sims 2. However, it would be a tad more complex taking into consideration the sprite sizes used to determine the amount of damage an attack would deal to an opponent, as well as the overall speed/defense/offense, and whether or not the character would be a long-range focused fighter, or a close-ranged. A question I have that I mainly would like some feedback on would be what style of graphics would most people prefer in a game of this type? Would you prefer to have alpha-blended sprites (think Flash games with antialiasing around the edges, but not as crappily made) or pixel-perfect sprites (old-school style graphics akin to a MMX style sprite from the SNES)? Whatever the choice, it will have a great effect upon the sprite sizes I deem to be large or small. I'll show a mockup using both and let people decide from those as to what types of sprites would be good to use. I'd appreciate some feedback on this, too. If a street-fighter sized sprite went up against a megaman sized sprite, things would get complicated. So some standard on sprite size would be necessary in order to develop the original graphics for the level packs and whatnot. Also, how many people would you consider to be overkill as for the number of opponents within a given stage? (A stage would need to be pretty large, as I look to at least have eight players at a time to keep things interesting. So larger chars may need a larger stage as the amount of characters increase.)

I thought about stocking stages, and maybe adding addons in that form. I guess the wrong word was used, though. By traps, I meant obsticals. Either way, it might not be a good idea. The stages would be better if I were to make them I guess. I might set a few paremeters that the host could modify, such as the graphics or placement of the items, but I'm not sure about that. I'll have to give this feature a lot more thought. Thanks for your input on this, though. I appreciate it. I should have clarified on this. It is indeed a problem with people trying to take use it to unbalance the game, however I look to make it a specific point to keep that from being an issue. I mentioned that the attacks would be easy to perform. However, I should have told you that there would be a limited number of attacks that the player could customize and in each type of attack, there would be only a limited number of points that would go into the attack for damage. So, the number of projectiles or the strength of each will not be determined by the user in order for me to keep the game balanced enough. The three large attacks would allow the flexibility to visualize your own attack, but it also would only allow a specific number of times to use it, and a limited amount of damage that it could cause. This was the problem with MUGEN and its flexibility. If a person only used one of the three special attacks, the attack would most likely only take up 3/4 of an entire energy bar, but it would not allow the player to use it again during that battle. That means that the attack would be the only one the char could use. So, it would have a good amount of damage that it could be allocated to. A player would have a set type and amount of attack types that they could perform. Therefore, if a player only had one powerful special attack, the player could use the points remaining from the final two to create more small special attacks with lesser damage per attack. Overall, however, the amount of damage per attack, and the amount of attacks on the screen at once cannot exceed a certain percentage. Also, a player will be invincible after being attacked once by a high-damaging attack, or by a percentage of attacks that recently hit. So, even if a player shoots thirty small fireballs at once (which wouldn't happen due to limits) only the first five might hit, and the player would be invincible long enough to move out of the way of them, or to fire an attack right back to anniahlate them, or to knock the opponent off of their feet. So, there would be serious limits to the customization, but the graphics wouldn't be that limited when an attack type permits. For example, a small projectile sprite must be less than 64x64 in size, otherwise it cannot be used as a small projectile, but must become a medium projectile, etc., etc. The damage of a small projectile would not be greater than 1/16 of the total energy bar, and could not be in excess of three onscreen at any one time from that player. A medium may only allow two projectiles at once. Hopefully this clarifies a bit that I intend for limits to be placed upon the customization. I don't, sorry... I've never played Halo online. Lag was definetly factored into this. I would simply put a cap upon the number of the players that was allowed on any one connection, enough to prevent unnecessary any unnecessary burden on the flow of the gameplay. This means that it wouldn't have a real issue, as it would be primarily broadband system specs, considering I'm targeting people who are veterans in old-school action style games, as well as new online-savy players that are tired of the same old same old. It's a niche, but it should be alright. I'll check out Soldat. As far as the super-customize stuff, I might have to tone it down a bit, but if it works through playtesting, I might be able to keep some of it at least. It might be more profitable if I didn't allow that much freedom, and instead made those addons myself. The Sims uses that method, so I can't knock a good idea. Thanks for your feedback, though. It really helped me to clarify some stuff.

Not exactly a co-op w/ a level editor. It is more like a fighting game with a shooter influence. It's not really all that complex either. Mainly, it is just a matter of making an online engine mixed with a little bit of a platformer/action engine. The final part would include making the character and stage editors. It doesn't require a lot of the graphic work which is the issue with what I was working on before. I've been without a computer for a long time, but I've been working on this idea for a lot longer before that. It might be complex in the programming terms, but as far as art development goes, it shouldn't require much in that aspect. Art is more of a hobby for me, so this works as a good mediator for it. I wouldn't look at doing this as a job, but as a personal hobby. Honestly, I've already got the engines developed and working separately, I just need to tie them together and make the editors. Maybe I'll make a prototype soon, and see if it looks like something people would actually enjoy. I'm sure it's hard to conceptualize without one. Basically, I'm bringing together all of the things I've enjoyed from the old school games into a single fighting game. It might be a niche market, but I thought it would be interesting if many people would like to play it. It's not MMX, though - it will just play like it, kinda like a 2D shooter and hybrid fighter. It's just not fleshed out with specifics yet.

Wow, that was fast. I hadn't even had the chance to edit this. I'd like to hear the opinions of others first before I abandon this topic, however. I'd like to ask though, why exactly would it not be worth it? Could you give a reason for your short but negative reply? It's kind of thoughtless otherwise. Brutal honesty is only useful when it's constructive.

What would you think of an online multiplayer game that played like Megaman X on the SNES, but with many players (or one-on-one) that had ultra-tight and responsive controls with graphics that were flashy like marvel vs. capcom 2, but allowed one to customize their entire player and its projectiles or attacks, and also one's domain. A domain would consist of a stage that would be customized and/or programmed by the user that would be the stage where your opponent(s) would fight against you if you were to host a game. One could program traps and other things that would harm and delay your opponent in order for you to exact victory. In addition, the stage is yours. It would probably look something like a street fighter / megaman level hybrid of a sort. Therefore, the possibility of stages and levels to fight on would, in effect, be endless. Also, the player itself could be customized with a small set of rules determining just what damage a customized attack could cause overall. The player would be able to create effects that would be easily performed on command with no real learning curve. The attacks would be simple to perform (aka Super Smash Bros) but would allow for a large vareity of those attacks, creating a lot of vareity - period. The player would have about three really large special attacks that could fill the whole screen that would be easily programmable by the user, and thus it would allow one to customize their own attacks. The graphics would allow the use of alpha-channels to make crisp and precise sprites for use in chars or projectiles and would also be possible to colorize them on the fly. The music could also be customized on a per-character/per-stage basis if you host. Also, the game would feature joystick support, and customizable controls. I was even toying with the idea of allowing voice transmission during fights so players would be able to talk with one another and insult one another while battling. If that is not feasable data-wise, I would at least introduce a sort of chat feature where players would go when a battle has been lost or where each would wait for a battle to begin. Although that feature is still preliminary, I just thought I would throw it out there. On the whole, the game would feature tight-responsive controls and graphical effects that would resemble that of some flash movies, but could also be customized on the level of a user. A game would consist of dashing, shooting, flying, blocking, stunning, and attacking the hell out of your opponents in a struggle to become the winner. It will feature modes such as a one-on-one that others could even connect to and watch, or a battle royal mode where many people would join, and a player would fight until they came out on top, or finally a team mode in which players could gang up on others. This is a game I've been wanting to see for my entire life, so it's a real passion of mine but I've always wondered if it was worth it to make and if others would enjoy it like me. So, what would you think if this was actually programmed? Would you play it? Please, I respect brutal honesty, so let me know any opinion you have on making this. Is there a feature you don't like? Is there a feature that you would like to see? I would appreciate any feedback you give me. I want to make an online game like this, but all I need now is the support to do so from a community of fellow veteran game players. I grew up playing games like Zelda, Mario, Streetfighter, Chrono Trigger, and MMX. Out of all of them, games that offer a combination of these genres (Star Ocean, etc.) like MMX which offers a story along with the action and flashy anime style fighting, but never offered a two-player mode that really just allowed two people to test thier skills. Smash Brothers or MUGEN was as close to this kind of character-inclusion and battle style that I had ever known, but in the end, my favorite chars were either never created or played how I thought they should. So there was a hole that was almost, but just not, fulfilled by the game industry. Therefore, I wanted to create a game that could. This would require a LOT of work, but I would have no qualms in creating it if there was a real following. I would want it to gain maximum exposure so I could play it as I hope it to be. It wouldn't be free, as it would cost me time and money to create, so I would like to know if you would play it, and if you would even be willing to pay money for it. It would be a labor of love, but it also would be something that I'd like to constantly develop things for, such as updates, additional characters/stages, and things like that. FYI - I will also put up a mockup of what it would probably look like. So, what's your honest opinion of the idea? Would it be worth it? :confused: