Darkex - A Pokemon game with the Smash Bros. combat system. (A Game Maker W.I.P.)

Download link and source code below.

Disclaimer: It's somewhat buggy right now. Please read this post before downloading it.

"Darkex" is a game concept of mine. In the game, you play as a youth who travels the world in search of Darkex to capture them, train them, and command them in battle. If it sounds familiar, that's because it's based off the Pokemon template. What makes it unique? The combat is entirely different from Pokemon - instead of being turn-based, the combat is completely real-time and allows the two fighting Darkex to move freely around the combat area, like in Smash Brothers. When controlling a Darkex, you can run, jump, use physical or elemental attacks, block attacks, and generally just move around the area to get the upper hand and launch attacks from the best positions, while outmanuvering and outsmarting your opponent. To summarize, it's a Pokemon game with the Smash Bros. combat system.

The reason I didn't title it "POKEMON: SMASH BROS. VERSION" is because I don't want to create a game for a pre-existing franchise; I want to begin my own, original, unique series. Of course, 'original' is a funny word to use when I'm copying the elements of two series simultaneously, but I intend to make Darkex unique enough from Pokemon and Smash Bros. that it can stand on its own as a distinctive game, regardless of what inspired it.

Before you download and play the demo, there are a couple things I should point out:

Right now, it's just a title screen, three maps, one fight, and one variety of Darkex. It's just a basic prototype that demonstrates the concept. The engine is complete for the most part, but there are still a few kinks to be worked out. After the engine is finished, then I'll be ready to start adding in new Darkex, characters, events, maps, and so on.

KNOWN BUGS:

After you win a battle, the game teleports you back to the map that you were previously fighting on - but the camera centers on the upper-left hand corner instead of centering back on where you were standing when you entered combat. If anyone would like to take a look at the code and see what's wrong, the raw Game Maker file is included below.

You can't take damage. Game Maker only allows one "Health Bar" variable, so as of right now, only the enemy can take damage. I actually included a damage variable for the player Darkex and a rectangle that automatically resized depending on his level of damage, but it looked crappy, so I removed it. If anyone wants to help tackle this problem, I'd be grateful.

Edit: Also, the main character can apparently run on water. Like Jesus. Or a ninja. Badass, but not intentional...

CONTROLS:

When walking around, you control the character with the arrow keys. As a Darkex, you move with the WASD keys. I've been trying to change this so that both characters are controlled with the arrow keys, but I keep getting errors everytime I try it. Check out the .gmk if you wanna help with that.

As a Darkex, the attack buttons are J to punch, K to fire a projectile, and L to shield.

LIMITATIONS:

No music, no sound effects (audio makes Game Maker files HUGE, and adds nearly a minute to the loading time). The doors and exits of the town are sealed off so that you don't go off and crash the game by entering a map that's not bug-free yet. There's only one Darkex, and he's just a placeholder sprite until I get something better.

There's also only one patch of grass - just walk into the middle of it to initiate battle.

CREDITS:

Although I'm semi-proficient with Game Maker, most of the coding in this game is not mine. Because I wanted to make a quick proof-of-concept prototype to demonstrate my game idea, I grabbed some open source templates and merged them together. It took a lot of work to get the game playable and where it is now, but the bulk of the credit goes to the two kind folks who put their code up for people to download and use. I downloaded a large number of Pokemon and Smash Brothers templates before I found the ones that I wanted to use, so I've lost track of the names of the creators. I'll find out who they are and give them credit if I do continue to use their code - but for now, I'm just re-purposing the templates they gave away to demonstrate my concept.

DOWNLOAD LINK:

http://www.evaxephon.com/DarkexProtoype.exe

SOURCE CODE:

If you have any proficiency in Game Maker or coding, please open up the .gmk, take a look, and see if you can figure out what's causing the bugs. I'm using Game Maker 7, by the way.

http://www.evaxephon.com/DarkexEngine.gmk

P.S. - Should this thread go in Game Development or Games Showcase? Even though I'm showing it, it's still in development, so I'll put the topic here for now...

Good initiative. But a few things to consider:

1. Why do humans, instead of Pokemon, battle each other in a Pokemon game?
2. You describe it as "a Pokemon game with the Smash Bros. combat system", but the combat is very different from the SSB combat concept ("smashing" foes off of the screen is the main idea behind SSB, whereas your game uses simple health bars and no such smashing).

EvaXephon said:

Although I'm semi-proficient with Game Maker, most of the coding in this game is not mine.

Click to expand...

:(

Overall though, you have an idea which could eventually turn out to be a fun game. If you have Pokemon battling each other (instead of humans), and you make good use of their abilities and allow the player to switch between them mid-battle (perhaps with a small penalty, such as a second or two of "freeze" time once the new Pokemon switches in), this could turn out to be very fun. I could see a few RPG elements adding fun to it as well (forming a custom team, leveling them up to deal more damage in battle, etc.) rather than going the easy way and just having every battle start equally as in SSB. Good luck.

Josh1billion said:

1. Why do humans, instead of Pokemon, battle each other in a Pokemon game?

Click to expand...

That ninja sprite is just a placeholder until I get a creature sprite in.

It's also not meant to be a Pokemon fan game, but an entirely new concept that stands alone as a seperate, original franchise. It just uses the "catch, train, battle" concept from Pokemon.

Josh1billion said:

2. You describe it as "a Pokemon game with the Smash Bros. combat system", but the combat is very different from the SSB combat concept ("smashing" foes off of the screen is the main idea behind SSB, whereas your game uses simple health bars and no such smashing).

Click to expand...

The health bars are just there to represent the concept of attacking the enemy to get closer to his defeat. The final battle system, while it will have the same controls as Smash Brothers, could potentially use a health bar, percentages, or any other system. In fact, I'd like to give the player the option to choose which system he'd like to use, so that players accustomed to one system over another could pick the style they prefer. The knock-off-stage element is the only thing I'd prefer to keep out, though.

"The knock-off-stage element is the only thing I'd prefer to keep out, though."

Well then it's not Smash Bros.

At all.

I, actually, really love this idea. Awesome.

Me and my friends always talk about how awesome this would be. Amazing.

I will tell all my friends about this, I am sure they will like it.

Sounds cool i will download it now. check my game out Pokemon blue chill Please i need HELP!