Poke Island (SE)

[Waudby]

Originally Posted by Kine

Nope, I gotta have the pixel movement. I kinda figured that even if this was coded to work 100%, everything else from here would have to be redesigned.

Hmmm. I wonder what other programs exist... short of using C++. Well, not only will I ask for some extra help should I get it at Starmen.net, but I think I'll ALSO ask what engine makes RPGs play closest to EarthBound, in that perhaps they know something I don't.

I may just use RMXP, despite my reservations against it (sigh, it'd be all good if I could take the darn sprite limiter off, and every code was compatible with the rest). It would be that or Game Maker, considering those are the only two engine programs I have (barring BYOND, which I haven't made much prior use of, considering). I know sprites are "do as you please" in GM, but I dunno about it's capability to create RPGs so much, especially considering a lot of that stuff would have to be added in while at least RM has most of the silly functions standard.

I bet maps are also "do as you please" as far as placement goes in GM. Eh, I'm not to worried about tiles, I'm going to have each map made with a grid in Photoshop/Illustrator to align everything correctly, then chop it into pieces. From there I'll just stick everything together like a huge puzzle.

I suppose the single advantage to RM is that it's commonly used, so more people might be able to help. Of course, I dunno how that'll work. It is a Pokemon game (I say this with the idea that the brand carries a negative connotation), and considering I think you're the only person to offer any real assistance at a POKEMON forum (and a large one at that)... =\

Weelll, that's that. That list of things the game needs, I will need to copy it, so that way I can see what needs to be done.

The sphere engine using a pixel movement system straight out of the box, and is flexible and you can do pretty much whatever you like in it.

The learning curve is slightly steeper than the RM series or Game Maker series though.

[Kine]

Uh oh. Well, I looked through the documentation for Sphere.

The good news is that it does seem rather flexible, and it claims to be stronger than RM. Also good is that I took classes in Javascript.

The bad news is that last point means nothing. I think I barely passed both classes. All it really means is that I have an idea of what some stuff means (functions, etc). Doesn't mean I know how to use them correctly.

The obvious news is that, and the documentation even states, that to use something like that, I would seriously need a team of people. It also states that it could be done alone, but considering me being in graphic design and not programming, that's... going to take a decade.

So if I did go that route, I would need to find some people who honestly have nothing better to do (than post at the thousands of forums they have bookmarked, and I'm sure that's a lot of people =P), and are willing to do whatever they can. There's never too many of any position, afterall, but I would still say programmers are the most important, in that I can't do much without them.

Musicians are still what I'm least concerned about... it's not even necessary yet.

I still wish I could hire some guys, but from what I've seen, they won't do fan games. With good reason, they need to have work done for portfolios and getting work experience, I seriously doubt that a fan game is going to look good on a resume. Still, there's gotta be a group of 16 year olds or something, where resumes are not a large concern yet, wants to make some easy money from some guy with money to spend [on and on]...

[Perpetr8r]

Hey, I think fan games would look great on a resume, provided it was professionally done :P
Personally, I'm not afraid of getting my feet wet with javascript. I'm already a moderately advanced programmer, and many of the core concepts of programming are shared between languages, which will make it easier. There's two difficulties though. Firstly, I know about as much javascript as you, probably less. Secondly, until we play with the engine a little bit we won't know if it suits your tastes. I'd hate to get midway and then discover X or Y can't be done. *cough* BYOND *cough*

Still, I'll definitely back you up with whatever option you pick, and having at least one coder will surely help. I know what it's like to be a coder without decent graphics and I'm sure it's similar the other way around. I've already downloaded sphere, and I might play with it a bit today or tomorrow to see if I can spot any potholes or if it seems like it'll work.

I have an aunt's wedding to go to tomorrow, so you probably won't hear from me until Saturday (for me).

[Kine]

Well, before I download anything else, I gotta clean some files off my laptop. Then I should get monday's assignment completed. After that, provided I made a little room, I'll download whatever this program's called again and see just how it'll work.

[Kine]

That cleaning isn't quite coming along fast enough, and I still have a lot of design projects to do. Well, that's what happens when you go to a year round school, no time for... anything but homework.

Well, I'll at least try to get a hold of it for the weekend, but I'm already planning on an AB update so I can't make too much time for it. If you've downloaded it, how does it look so far? Or a better question, how much interface is already there without me having to basically code everything into existance, including the screen itself? I gotta have a little interfacing in there, kinda like VB.

[Perpetr8r]

Well, I had a look. From what I can see, pixel-by-pixel movement is indeed in the game. The interface is well.... go back 13 years to 1995 and that's pretty much the level of graphics you get. It seems to run very large, pixel..ly sprites (which possibly is only because nobody could be bothered making finerr ones). Overall, it's looking to be a game quite similar to RPG maker, only you don't get events - you program everything by hand.

Really, you'll need to mess with it yourself to see if it's what you want or not. I can't honestly tell.

[Kine]

Well, despite the fact that I'm gonna wipe my harddrive anyway, with a bit of clean up I tried Sphere out. Well, it definately does what I want it to do sprite wise, and doesn't appear limited to palette. Now, while I couldn't import sprites (I checked the wiki and forums, but they don't tell me why I keep getting error messages), I made really crappy Kirby sprites in the editor, each with different speeds and different amounts of frames. Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. No limits!

Now, the map appeared much bigger than I thought, but considering there were no custom tiles, it was gonna look weird anyway. I'm pretty sure I can have it zoomed to a degree where it's not too zoomed in, that or the tileset'll look fine anyway, whichever.

Hey, and you can import maps, which might save me the trouble of the whole "jigsaw a full map" idea I was gonna use. Unless I'm mistaken and I have to do that anyway.

Well, design wise it seems to be in my favor.

Now, functionwise, however... eh. I didn't go beyond the scope of the tutorial that comes with it, but considering you said events need to be coded, that might include collisions, battles, etc. Which... I won't be so good at. I'm guessing, though, it can do battle backgrounds MOTHER style, plus I probably won't be at RPGMaker's limitation.

By that, I mean whatever is the amount of pics you set in the code is the total amount you can show, and if battle bgs have less, thats a problem. If more, they get truncated. Now, I'm not using each and every frame, that's hundreds of pics just for a BG, but still some will flow fine with just 12 images, while others may need 20 for example.

But judging by the flexability given already, this seems like the best for all the things I want to do in theory. It just comes down to getting it to work. Again, we'll have to do testbeds first before we get in too deep. I need to learn how to import stuff at all, first.

Since this is javascript, I think this'll open a few more doors w/ programmers since it's a widely known language, but... it may also close a few who only know game program languages. Well, at least NOW I can specify, that's better than "I don't know, yet".

[Perpetr8r]

Well tell you what, if you give me something to work with, I'll try and program a bit of a base to begin working off of. It'll be faster that way, rather than me programming something then handing it to you to add icons to, then you handing it back etc. Also, I'll be out of town for about the next week, just so you know. (Family trip)

[Kine]

Sounds good. Well, I'll send you some NPC and main character sprites through email, a tileset, and perhaps enemy sprites.

The way I see it, is work with the enemy last, since we'd have to do that anyway, I'm sort of sending it ahead of time. I'll also send the battle sprite, and perhaps the BG sequence (which I'd do that even later than getting the enemy to work at all).

The enemies are overworld, meaning no random battles, but there's a probability that they will respawn (when you go a little further than off screen where you fought them). That was something I couldn't get RMXP to do, even though it probably could've been done.

As of now, I'd say talking to NPCs and minimal collision detection is all that's necessary.

[Perpetr8r]

Ok, I'm back from my trip and I got the files you sent. Now all that's left is for me to put it together and practice javascript so I know what I'm programming. I'll add more as soon as I have some progress to talk about.

EDIT: Ok, I've had a look at it and the programming language itself seems moderately easy since it's VERY similar to C in the way it works. However, it would make things MUCH easier for me if you went ahead and imported everything into sphere sprites (.rss) for me so that I could just put them into place rather than messing with the graphics utility, because I can't see an easy way of doing it. That means that it might take a long time and if I do that then everything will take even longer lol

Seems to me that the thing is even more low-level than BYOND, so we're going to have to write our own graphics routines for some of it too. I can assist with the programming part of that, but that will mean you'll also have to design what the menus look like and stuff like that. More info as I have it.

[Kine]

Updated page one of the topic just to note about progressive information on CW. Some of what's said you can find here, but what isn't I'm not going to repost because if only one person's helping from here so far, I'm not going to waste the time to repost.

Perp: For some reason that didn't occur to me. Okay, well, considering I have to work on finals and other things this week, it may not be an instant process, but I'll try to fit some time in during the week to get that to you. If the way I did it was correct, you could actually just make a full color solid block as a sprite (like a pink rectangle), and just use that as a place holder for the time being. I think once you do one, it will fill it in for all directions.

What about the tileset, though? Is that easier than the spriteset?

[Perpetr8r]

Sorry for the lack of response. Recently after getting back from my big trip I've thrown all of my energy into finishing my current game project so that I'm free to work on things like Poke Island. As such, it might take me a week or two to be free enough to really make good progress, but it sounds like you're busy too so that works out.

Anyway, tilesheets and spritesheets work in very similar ways, so that's not a huge issue. The biggest thing for me is that I'll need time to get my head around the new system etc and it's so much easier to work with pre-made sprites and backgrounds etc than with nothing. (It's hard to do it all in my head.)
So yeah, if you get those like ready for me it'll make my work 10x easier, and I can program stuff faster. I'll comment everything I do so hopefully you'll be able to understand most of it.

[Kine]

The good news is that I learned how to import sprites now. The better news is that I'm on my one week school vacation starting next week. =) Now's my best chance to get stuff done. I'll make the rss ASAP, after Sunday, though. Site update n' all.

[Perpetr8r]

I need to apologize again, because even more stuff has come up. Just under a week ago, my uncle was killed in a motorbike accident and my whole family on my mother's side has been totally devastated by it. I've had my hands full dealing with everything and just haven't been able to focus on anything other than one foot after the other lately. The funeral will be in about 4 days and my birthday is in 2 so yeah... Hopefully things will calm down after that. Fingers crossed.

[Kine]

Well, on one hand, sorry about the circumstances. I hope you and your family will make it through. On the other, happy birthday to you. Perhaps that'll bring in a little excitement!

As I always say, take care of business, first. I can hold on to the files and such (and add more to them if necessary) until you give me the okay. Just let me know when.

[Perpetr8r]

Quick update: The funeral is tomorrow and my brother's birthday is the day after, then the day after that I have to meet my dad for something and FINALLY after that things should return to normal. Fingers crossed.

[Mar876]

I dont get this game, is there a plot?

[Kine]

Yes, but like any game developer, I can't give any major plot elements away (and considering I wanted a career in game dev. before animation, I pretty much work more in the mindset of someone in the business).

I think I wrote something on the first page or on my production info page that you could get a plot element from, but don't worry, it all ties together. Only people in the major production will know anything ahead of time, but even then it's only if you're in it for the long haul. I don't just say "Here's the plot =D" when I have no guarantee one will give anything beyond their "word".

Considering it holds the starting point of the comic sequels, it'd have to have some sort of significance, as well.

Perp: I'm currently making the final map of Green Town, so I may hold off on giving you the stuff until then. Also, there's fewer sprites than given turned into NPCs because that's a long labourious process. That could be someone's job right there! @_@

But hey, I wanted to go the whole nine yards. That's what'll make the end result stand out iMO. Like Sonic XG or something.

[Perpetr8r]

That's ok. Drama keeps piling on at my end, though I think things have just about finally returned to normal, though university is starting again soon for me. Even so, I'm sure I can deal with programming stuff for you in between dealing with my own jobs, so no issue there. It's good to have no more stuff going bad for me, too >_>

[Kine]

Okay, this is going to take too long, Green Town's pretty big. I mean, it looks good so far, but there's a lot of stuff like rivers and such I have to still account for. On that note, we'll have to look into BG objects that actually move, I forget what those are called. That way the water looks like it's moving on the coast. If those are tile based animations, I can make those when I get there, it won't be hard.

Anyway, just go with the original plan. I'll send you some converted files via email. And if using given props isn't instantly easy, just use a fill bucket and color the BG green or something.

[Perpetr8r]

Well I'm still kind of waiting in the wings, as I haven't received anything yet. I don't mind the wait, but I just want to make sure it's indeed a wait and not you waiting for me to reply before you send them...

[Kine]

Sorry about that. I've been pretty busy last week, as well as attending a funeral and a weekend vacation, so I couldn't find the time. Anyway, when I'm off of work, I may be able to send them to you.

[Perpetr8r]

No prob. Life seems to be giving us both the shaft at the moment, though I'm sure things will calm down soon enough.

[Kine]

Continuing from the email...

Well, I did the map thing anyway. Plus, I think you can fill a whole area. I mean, I know I did once. It should be the paint bucket at the top right.

Unless you're using a different version?

Back to the map, it seems to scale it up to a large but still appropriate size, in that it doesn't over pixelate everything like the tutorial the program comes with did. However, I'd still want it to be windowed by default. Also, I gotta do something about the frame rate or... whatever. It doesn't seem to move in the same sense that a console game would. It's almost WAY too smooth, and I'm going for SNES scrolling, here. Not obvious fan game scrolling.

On the plus side, I can use the obstruction tool for collision detection. Not bad! The only thing, though, is that I better choose a good tile size to start with. The default is 16 by 16, which is fine, but I may need to change that when it comes to entering doors, which I'm sure is a coded event.

So far, the only problem with importing maps is that I don't think there's a way to make certain tiles a higher priority, so that you appear behind them. However, there probably IS a way, I just saw some option with "insert code" and left it alone. Plus, when you import maps, it breaks everything up into a 16 by 16 tile, so I could probably just create a new layer and reinsert higher priority tiles in the exact same spot.

Seriously, this import map feature will definately save us time. All I have to do is make all the maps like I'm doing now. =) Glad I figured this out, and glad Sphere has the feature.

I attached a screenshot of what it looks like. I know ya'll like my bad Kirby sprite. You want it on a graphic tee-shirt.

[Perpetr8r]

Um... wth? It looks like the forum is eating my posts. Maybe I'm just hallucinating...

EDIT: Nope, not hallucinating. It ate my post -_-

Here's what I had:
Well that's good. I don't know what you did that made it work, but so long as it works, who cares? Here are those screenshots I promised, with the really shoddy map I threw together in 2 minutes. Note how the ice reflects your character (also as a note, you can't see this but the frame rate drops a bit when you run over the ice. I think it's a bit CPU intensive...). Also, in the shadow one, you can see how the shadow covers Pikachu. The problem is that when he leaves the shadow it uncovers the wrong way, so instead of his head breaking into the light first, his feet do. You'd have to use those shadows for things floating directly overhead methinks....

Still no movement on the uh... movement. Mainly, this is because I had other work to do and didn't get around to working on it, but we'll see how I go.

EDIT AGAIN: Oh, and that's what the current menu looks like. It's the sample they gave me, so I'm working with it. Once I know what I'm doing I can experiment...