The Coop

It might stop a few people at first, but it won't stop those same people from tracking you down, and bludgeoning you into a bloody mound of mangled flesh with their busted equipment.

Guys, keep in mind it wasn't the final version. It was just something whipped together for demonstrative purposes. Wingless would never allow software that had such visual bugs to be released like it was the finished product... ... or at least, the real one wouldn't. **cues up X-Files theme**

I'm thinking I'm going to be waiting for a lot of reviews on this. It seems much more "DC Fighters featuring Mortal Kombat", than an actual Mortal Kombat game. I understand DC's reluctance to have Wonder Woman's head torn off (how about her top then?), and maybe they'll come up with a good fighting engine. Who knows. But I can't help but feel that playing it, would be like playing the first arcade game with the fatalities turned off... it would feel incomplete. As for the series itself, I'm pretty mixed about it. It's been a serious roller coaster ride over the years... 1- Simple, but pretty good overall. 2- Quite good, with more moves, better fighting depth, and better fatalities. 3- A let down with the cheesy looking 'mannequin' fatalities, horrifically cheap AI, and that damned 'Run' button. The 'dial-a-combo' stuff was a so-so addition too. Ultimate 3- Not much better than 3, plus it reused the endings from 3. Trilogy- Interesting, thanks to its massive and mixed roster, but it still clung to the same AI and whatnot of the previous two games. It also reused the endings from 3 and U3. 4- It played more like a 3D MK2, but the visuals could have really used some work (especially with the stiff animation), even for its time. The DC 'Gold' version didn't help it too much, especially when it got put next to Soul Calibur (which stomped MK4G's head into the ground in most aspects). 'Deadly Alliance'- Was a return to form. It was pretty good in the gameplay area, had a better story, it looked a lot nicer, and came off as noticeably more playable than the previous three games. The extra modes were a little iffy, but even they still played better than 3, U3 and 4. 'Deception'- Pretty much identical to the previous game in graphics and overall gameplay, but it added a few new twists to gameplay. The story was still pretty good, and the extra modes were certainly a lot better. I'd rate this one as the best 3D one thus far overall, as it felt the most complete (DA takes second). 'Armageddon'- This was a partial let down. All those characters, a great opening, and some cool ideas (undead Liu Kang? Nice...). There was so much potential overall, as they added lots of new stages, made new characters so that basically everyone was available to fight with, and made a new Konquest mode that played better than the previous ones. The work was obviously there. But the lack of graphical updates after 4 years, the 'create a fatality' stuff, the lazy endings, and the lessened extra game modes, all helped to give the game a nasty set of bruises. It's still far more enjoyable than 3-4G, but it's not all it could/should have been. By the way Midway, I'm still waiting for a good 3D version of Scorpion's exploding flaming skeleton fatality.

I had to re-upload the charge shot animation. Seems Image Ready, in its infinite coded wisdom, decided to make the final frame use a "Do not dispose" setting, instead of a "Restore to background" one. The result is a "double image" effect on the outline of the character when the gif is imported into Flash, which you can see on the final frame of the charge animation. I ran into this problem when I was making the background. It affected the last frame of all the vehicles as they animated, making the black line along their tops get twice as thick on the final frame of their loop. Took me a bit figure out what was wrong back then. Anyway, here's the fixed one... Wingless- I sent you a new version of the background via PM. That little biker that goes zipping across near the end had the same problem as the charge animation, so I fixed it. Also, what do you mean by "noise"?

A cleaned up charge shot with some extra touches... And here's my (slightly clearer) idea for using the charge shot... -On the Ground- When you release the button, she comes to a stop to shoot. If you fire when she's running, she stops in place to fire. -In the Air- When you release the button, she stops in place in mid-air and fires. Afterwards, she drops straight down to the ground and lands in a normal standing pose. This usage would eliminate the problems with her firing it while running, and it would simplify the mid-air usage of the shot. With the current ground shot done basically, all that would be needed, are sprites with her legs replaced by the legs used in one of her jumping/mid-air sprites (something I could do with no problem once spuzz gets those particular sprites done). Her upper body and guitar could stay virtually the same as the upper body and guitar in the ground shot. How does that sound?

Then go buy some grape drink. Purple's one of the main ingredients in it.

Don't. Some ideas work, some don't. My charge idea fell into the latter category. And so, we move on. Haven't started anything. I was working on the background and getting it wrapped up before I moved on to anything else. I'll try coming up something either later today or tomorrow. Edit: Final take with my guitar shot idea... It takes roughly two-thirds of a second for the entire thing to animate at the 30fps this mini game is being programmed to run at (for the moment). The charging is represented by the same kind of "orbs coming inward" thing like in the MMX game. This stuff would then only need an airborne set of sprites for the firing (which the landing sprites could cut off if needed without looking odd), and a standing set of sprites (which is basically done with the above). The penalty for using the charged shot could be two things... - You'd have to be in the air to fire it while moving forwards or backwards (and Tan4 could stop briefly in the air when she fires). - When you fire it while running on the ground, your character stops in place to shoot it. This would eliminate any possible animation issues with firing while running, and add a little strategy to its usage. Thoughts? If it still seems to be too much, I'll shut up and drop all aspects of the idea altogether.

If it has to be thrown out, then so be it. Don't give yourself an aneurysm or something trying to figure out how to include it if it's proving to be too much to work in. Just pretend I didn't submit anything, and something a lot simpler can be figured out once you get the remaining Tan4 sprites done... something that doesn't involve editing any sprites. In the mean time, I'll start tinkering with the turtle boss sprite.

I like the shooting animation, spuzz. Makes it feel less like a MMX sprite with the palm shot. Here's the shortened charge animation...

PM sent.

And so it shall be done. I'll fix it to be 30fps, and send the swf to you via PM later this evening. If you ever decide to up the fps, let me know and I'll adjust it again.

30fps? Okily dokily. I'll fix it to be that. And yeah, I have Image Ready. That's what I use to make all my animated gifs. But, it doesn't like trying to open Flash files. If I need to, I can recreate it in IR if you want it as an animated gif (at a .03 frame delay so it works at 30fps). Is that how you want this BG Wingless? Just let me know which format you'd like (finished fla file, finished swf, or finished gif), and I'll get it made up for you.

Nope. Everyone's either working, broke, or both (I fall into the last category), so the likelyhood of anything being done in terms of parties or get togethers is pretty small. There's always next year though, so I'm not sweating it.

Aw hell. I knew I forgot something in my previous post. Thanks for reminding me bgc. Loved the personalized edit, Polo. Gave me a good chuckle And it was a laid back B-Day. Woke up late after deciding to put off my work for a day, watched a movie, kicked Sonic 3D Blast's ass like never before, and had homemade hamburger gravy for the first time in years (it's like dried beef gravy, but with hamburger instead). All in all, a relaxed, lazy day. Thanks again folks

Just wanted to say thanks once more before the merging happens shortly(ish)

On the offhand chance this thread gets axed or locked due to the current gathering of complaints over B-Day threads, I just wanted to say thanks to you guys

Oh sure, NOW it gets to be too much, now that someone made one for EdgeCrusher and I in the main forum for the first time. Y'ALL JUST UNMODDER HATIN'!

Well, here's the swf file... http://www.geocities.com/arforfaborb/TanGame_BG1.swf Wingless- It's currently running at 20fps. If you intend to go higher with this, let me know and I'll adjust it to that fps (fix up the duration of the cars passing through, sign timing, etc.).

I have a question for those more familiar with Flash than I. How the hell do you export a gif from Flash, with the proper colors being displayed? I've tried basically every single setting in Flash MX 2004, and every one of them comes out with the grays looking green, and the lighter blues getting pink... and that's the best one. The rest of the settings look horrid. The colors are fine as a Flash file, but as a gif? Ugh. Am I missing something, or if this just a quirk in this version of Flash? I ask because I wanted to post a preview of the (possibly) finished background, but this color issue is driving me up a wall.

What the...? It was there. Must have accidentally hit something during one of my sig changes. Or else it's sabotage. But yes, tax and my b-day are one and the same. Thanks amarriedmegaphone, and Mr. Raptor

Because people would burn Nintendo to the ground if they had to pay $500 for a VC game at $1 per Wii point Anyway it makes sense, by US currency standards anyway... 1 Wii point = 1 penny 1 dollar = 100 pennies 100 VC points = 100 pennies/1 dollar. Fits together pretty well. And be glad that currency exchange rates don't factor into it. If it did, US kids would be paying $2 for 100 points, or $20 for 1,000. The VC would probably die off here if that happened.

Now you're just arguing semantics. You know as well as I that both terms can easily refer to the same types of games I honestly don't see why it mystifies you, considering what I've said thus far. The way things were in the 8bit and 16bit era got just as old at times as the current crop of stuff, since the mature and more realistic worlds were few and far between in relation to everything else being put out at the time. Having that become the norm again, with realism and such being put into the current "odd" and "oddball" games' role, isn't what I would wish for. As I said, I'd rather have a balance of the two. Oldschool zaniness in story, graphics and sound, and modern day realism in the same things... both getting an equal share on the shelves. I did read your post. Here's your post that I responded to... You have to cut me some slack since the above quote I was going off of doesn't say some of the things you said you were talking about in it. If it had, I wouldn't have been discussing those points since we seem to have similar views on them (more plausible to make games in the past single handedly, consoles being tougher to program for today over back then, modern consoles usually needing bigger dev teams for their games). However, where we seem to differ, is on the "widely distributed" thing. With the Internet as it is today, those small indie companies can distribute their games worldwide without the need of a big publishing giant (and its criteria). This is thanks to downloadable purchases, and on-line shops that deal regularly with the homebrew scene (here and abroad). And with XBox Live, Sony's and Nintendo's online dealies, and others getting into the whole homebrew thing with their original on-line offerings, those indie companies have about as good a chance at getting their work into the public eye as before. Sure, it doesn't get the exposure in stuff like mainstream magazines/websites and such, but it's not exactly hidden either. Also, I quoted that final sentence earlier, and brought up the games I did, for this simple reason... I don't see a game being made by a single person (or small dev team), and having it become popular with modern gamers, as unlikely. I see it as still quite possible. It doesn't take a big budget with a big publisher to make a great game and get it noticed. It takes a good dev team, and the means to get it easily into peoples' hands. And these days, there are more ways to do that. I know some of that's idealistic, and people are likely going to pick it apart with "pie in the sky" and "wishful thinking" commentary. But considering all the homebrew games I've heard about just from people talking about them on-line in and real life over the years, I feel there's truth in it Yeah, the homebrew scene was comparatively bigger and more influential back then. That's something else we agree on. I think that's because of the size of the gaming market at that time. The gaming world has exploded both as a hobby, and as a business, since then. However, I also feel that the homebrew world is still churning away at roughly the same level it was then (perhaps more so in some ways). It just looks lessened because everything around it got so big.