Poke Island (SE)

[Waudby]

Since there's now an experienced coder on board, perhaps I should take a back seat and help out with the little things he doesn't have time for. It would save me a lot of time if I could work off of his code instead of trying to write my own from scratch. Of course, I'll still put in a good amount of work on it, it'll just be more focussed on what we need and less on trying to decipher javascript.

How does that sound to you two?

Well as I said to Kine in a pm, I don't want to be the "lead" scripter/programmer, I'd really prefer to be more of an aid, then a full team member as alot of my time scripting goes on Odyssey and I don't wanna slow things down for you guys.

Instead of me doing the scripting for you, how about you ask me about what you need help with and I can provide aid in that way as well as scripting things you may not know how to do?

 

[Perpetr8r]

Well as I said to Kine in a pm, I don't want to be the "lead" scripter/programmer, I'd really prefer to be more of an aid, then a full team member as alot of my time scripting goes on Odyssey and I don't wanna slow things down for you guys.

Instead of me doing the scripting for you, how about you ask me about what you need help with and I can provide aid in that way as well as scripting things you may not know how to do?

Ah, well... I guess I'm stuck with that position then (at least for now)! I would really appreciate your help though, since you'd be able to tell me what methods to call to do X or what I need to use to do Y, which I'd otherwise have to search for. It would make things 10x easier for me if I could just bug you about the basics of all the systems I'll be having to implement.

For example, I don't know what method to override when I want to know when a key is held down or released. To elaborate, running in this game requires shift to be held down. I know the in C++ there are methods to tell when a key is pressed down or released, but I have no clue in Javascript. Do you have any ideas?

Since I'm on the topic, I don't know how to force an icon state change (eg from walking to running and back again). I'm sure there's an inbuilt method for this, again I just need to be pointed in the right direction. I'll PM you my email address now too, and you can reply via that if you want.

Does that suit you better?

EDIT: Update for Kine!

Waudby and I had a chat over MSN and so now things are worked out on that end. I'll continue to produce stuff for you to use, and I'm about halfway done with making a stable test bed for you to mess with. I just have to add and test a few more functions. Also, it appears that you need separate sprites for each type of movement. That is to say, walking, running, and idling will all need their own spritesets.

It's a pain, I know, but that's how it seems to work, from what I've been told.

 

[Kine]

Well that sucks (separate spritesheet thing). =F
Or does it? It've been the same amount of work anyhow... Actually, it's the fact that this'll really increase the amount of spritesheets that's the bad thing (at least two per character).

If I could outsource just the sprite importing to some country where I could pay mere dollars...

 

[Perpetr8r]

Yeah, I've tried to do it myself, but I can't figure out these sprite sheets. It was getting annoying so I just linked the running sprite to the Raticate sprite. It's the incredible morphing Pikachu!

Heh... at least it works now. I'm going to see if I can tweak the running function so that it only shows the running animation while you are moving. Fingers crossed.

Oh and if you felt like splitting the Pikachu sprite up and sending it to me, I'd be able to make the running fully.

 

[Kine]

See, to me it doesn't make sense because, using this tutorial as example, you should be able to change sprites within the same set.

http://www.spheredev.org/wiki/Sphere/Guide_to_Sphere

Also, I looked up one about treasure chests and, it looks like to change the chest to look opened, they had the sprite set in the south direction. The code would look like:

if(chest_is_open == false) {
	// the chest is open
	SetPersonDirection("chest", "south");
	chest_is_open = true;
}
else {
	// the chest is closed
}

Maybe that's only well and good if the character is stationary.
Eh, well. I suppose I can go and ask for various opinions on the SphereDev forums, and see if it's possible/simple.

Otherwise, we got to have a file naming convention so that all you have to do is change the character's name, and the same code is usable for every character in the game.

 

[Perpetr8r]

Well let me explain it how I see it, and while I MAY be wrong about this, I'm 90% sure that I have it spot-on. From reading the API, I have been given the following two functions for changing a person's icon without changing the spriteset. They are as follows:

SetPersonDirection(name, direction)
and
SetPersonFrame(name, frame)

Allow me to explain what I have gleaned of their use. The first method will take a person (or object such as that chest) and change the direction that they are facing. The second one will choose which frame of the animation (of their current direction) that they are on. I will be using this one in the test bed to make the characters revert to the standing pose when they stop moving.

However, there is no method to change the default names of the directions. So you can't change your north to be "nrun", for example. It doesn't work that way. In fact, what you've done with the icons you've sent me is basically make a bunch of icons with a LOT of extra directions, directions that we can't access like you would want. If you tried, the best you would get is a temporary change to one of your other "directions" until you moved, in which case it would revert back to what it was before.

In other words, you can only store extra states for your characters when they don't require movement. As soon as movement comes into the equation, you'll need to split the icons up. Annoying, I know, but I really don't want to be coding 1500 lines of code to try and get around the limitation. It's easier just to separate the icons.

Also, I can't really do much more until I get a few more bits and pieces from you. Currently I'm working with my crappy maps and with two sprites, neither of which have running animations (can't figure out how to widen a sprite enough to copy your sprites across to new sprites). Running works well, and I'm fixing up the text thing Waudby gave us so that it suits your intentions better. But that's all I can do. I don't have any maps from you, so I can't go coding doors and stuff, and AI will be a little frustrating to work with, so I'm going to hold off on that until you are well into working on your own stuff with my code.

Yeah so the ball is kinda in your end of the court for now. Once you've gotten stuff like menus, maps and characters all sorted, I can start paving the way for the actual game development to begin. No rush though, I have plenty to do as is.

 

[Kine]

Ah, now that's what I thought. I figured it had something to do with "as long as the character doesn't move".

Okay, now that it makes sense, I can live with it. *chuckle*

Alright, well, I'm going to think up a naming system for all spritesets. Because of the amount of characters, and generic names, I'm thinking it would go something like:

character_control_action

where character is the Pokemon (or anything else), control determines whether it's a playable character or extra, NPC, or enemy, and action would be whatever they happen to be doing.

So then it would look like:

pikachu_player_tired

or

pidgey_npc_talk

I haven't given you the tired sprites for Pikachu, or a lot of them, actually.
So does that look like it could work? It seems like it would because as long as we could do a control + f in the code for the last two lines, we could easily change "pidgey" to "rattata" or even "childpidgey" (or chpidgey or something).

Cutscenes are tricky. I'm thinking I'm going to label the action on those as "cutscene[#]", the # meaning whichever set it might be. So it could be cutscene set 2 or 5 (I doubt one character will ever have that many). Considering you shouldn't be able to move during those, having the animation play wouldn't be bad. However, it's possible there may have to be forced movement. I would think you could code an event where you could make a character move w/o the player's control, though. I mean, that just has to be some kind of given.

I can definately see where breaking cutscene animations into directions helps, so in a way, this new method might make things less cramped (or rather, not the full action in one line).

Alright, this all sounds good now, so I shall get on top of it.

Just one other thing, could you explain what you mean by widening sprites? I may know what you're talking about, but the way in which you put it I can't understand.


Edit: Oh, one more thing. I'm going to see if I can animate objects on the map before I pass it along. I want to get a river flowing, but to test I'll probably make flowers "dance" or something pointless like that. Whatever it is it won't be in the final.

 

[Perpetr8r]

Eh, don't worry about the widening sprites thing. Just after I said that, I read that tutorial you linked and it explained everything. Even so though, I'd have to pretty much redo the sprites to make the running animation so I think I'll just wait for you to do it. As is, Pikachu morphs into a Raticate (which, being a rat also, looks very similar in a way) when you run, and there IS one issue that I have come across that you aren't going to like. I'm going to contact Waudby about it though, to see if it can be solved before I go crisis mode on you. (It's not a HUGE deal anyway, just one of those niggly aesthetic issues...)

Anyway, as far as the sprite things go, there are a lot of things we can do to prevent having to code in each and every sprite for every single character. If you use that naming scheme we should be able to implement a variable-based system that will handle most of the sprite transformations. Also, this wasn't part of anything you asked of me, but I designed a very basic saving system with three separate slots. Really, we can have lots of slots if you want, but I just figured 3 was a decent amount. Not that anything gets saved right now...

Now with the cut-scene animations, are these specific animations that only happen once in the whole game? I mean, if that's the case then you're giving yourself one hell of a job but then there won't be a very easy way of handling them. I don't think you can really take shortcuts in that case. However, making cut-scenes will be fairly easy. All of the controls for moving characters and stuff are simple, it's just a matter of timing and order, really.

The up side of all of this commotion is that it looks like we're finally getting this project off of the ground. I've been rapidly getting the hang of Sphere, and since you're making good progress with icons and sprites, we're probably almost ready to begin work for real. I really want to see this project through, so I'm looking forward to getting a good start on this thing. It does however, bring up a few potential problems (which you're most likely already on board with, but I wanted to bring them up anyway).

Two issues come to mind here. The first issue is that once we get started with the real production of this game, we'll need some structure for it. At the moment I'm just playing with coding and you're just making and testing icons, but once we start putting the real thing together, things will get messy fast unless we iron the process out a bit. I have lots of suggestions for this area, but I'll hold off from posting them here (see my second issue for the why). You probably already know this anyway, so I won't go into huge detail. The point is, it will be harder to make progress unless we have a good, solid foundation to work on.

The second issue is that I just realized that most of the posts on this forum topic are from you and me posting messages back and forth about development details that most people aren't going to be interested in. Rather than spam up this forum area (which is for the game progress and recruiting new helpers), I'm going to try and keep my contact with you in email form, especially since once we start I'll have to talk about the actual game and I don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone. These forums have been a lot easier for me to use, but it's getting crowded now and the crowding will only increase as the project takes off, which is a good reason to switch over.

Long post short, keep me updated about what you want, and I'll settle the small details with you over email from now on (if that's ok).

 

[SL1MSHADY]

This is really good! keep it up, i kno it will be a success!!!

 

[Kine]

Aight, then in that case I'll be using the forum to respond to other things, if other things come up, or for updates, which usually happens 4 times a year, moreso if something actually occurs.

I'm gonna probably ask Waudby for his email address so I can just send documents there instead of a PM.

Don't respond to this here, Perp, but since I'm already posting here I'll close up some of the points made.

Three slots seems good enough. I mean, when a game has, say, 15, who really uses all of them? Except to copy a file over, and use them as "save states" per se. Plus, it's better than Mother 3 which only has 2, which is still better than Pokemon games that only have one. =\

And yes, there are a lot of unrepeated sprites that only happen in certain areas of the game. They aren't all big, they might just be an alternate talking sprite, but as far as I can tell, it's actually quite interesting to see the level of small details that go into a game that's style is otherwise really simplistic. Little funny actions that really add an effect to something.

I was well aware I'd have my work cut out for me on that, but come on, I think everyone knew that. The fact that all sprites are built ground up instead taking the PMD shortcut, and even then making tens of variations for just one species, yeah, I knew what I was doing. Granted I didn't know importing was going to be a such-and-such but I knew it wouldn't be easy. But I'll do it anyway, because that's the presentation I want! =)

Besides, if nothing else, it's an incentive to actually do stuff in the game than just go straight forward. And possibly to play it more than only once. Repeating old stuff takes away uniqueness. Just ask anyone who's played Mother 3 about the "Wes Dance". It only happens once (in full) and pretty early in the game, and yet it's so intricately animated. =D


Beyond that, frankly I wouldn't want to build the game UNLESS we had a solid foundation. Hence the reason why I don't even want to put the game together until every possible thing this game can do has been figured out, and that includes flags and branching. That way, it's pretty much cut and paste from there (it'll still need testing and will have bugs I'm sure, but ideally it won't be as hard as going into it blind).


Finally, I think I may have found a way to get some extra help, but it'll cost money. In fact, it could possibly really speed things along but it'll cost a lot of money, I'm sure. Well, I'll worry about that later. But granted, I'm sure everyone knows just by things I've said here or on my website before that I'm not above throwing around money where necessary.


Seven pages? Holy geez, Batman!

 

[Perpetr8r]

Just an interesting side note that's unrelated to the programming of the game:
I decided to play Earthbound to get an idea of what PISE is going to be like. Hopefully though, PISE will be a little more exciting to play than Earthbound...

I'm only about 3/5 of the way through right now, but I basically get the gist of what you were talking about in terms of the one-time animations, the battle system, and various other game mechanics. I'm even more curious now to see how your game is going to reflect these things.

 

[Kine]

Although battles will probably be the same*, everything else should be more like the next game.

It's a good thing, though, once you play it, you'll pretty much know everything about whatever I would like. Sort of. It's that or I have to point out YouTube videos. One time animations are moreso in the next game. In EB, there aren't many, except Ness sleeping, and the animations seen in the name your characters part. Of course, this in part is what made the first PI easier.

I think the Mother 3 Fan Translation is near complete, I just saw a note for it on starmen.net. That game is a lot more interesting in all aspects, except maybe it's not AS silly just to be silly.

*Unless somebody REALLY wants to code in a combo to the beat system Mother 3 has, and I don't think anyone does. @_@

MEGA EDIT: The fan translation IS out! Hey you lurkers, since you aren't helping anyway, go download the patch for the M3 translation!

 

[Perpetr8r]

Wow... I have pretty good timing. I've almost finished Earthbound (while still coding my AI project may I add), and now this comes out. Also, while the gameplay of Earthbound used a lot of tricks that I find very annoying to have to play through, they had several real gems in there too. Stuff like the teleportation system is very clever and makes the game more fun and interesting, as well as several of the plot developments and dungeons (*cough * Moonside *cough*). Phone system was pretty cool too.

I hope PISE will incorporate elements similar to this in its gameplay, though naturally there may be a few compatibility issues between the games. Do Pokemon even have phones? Regardless, if this is done right, I think you have a very interesting and playable game on your hands. Just PLEASE avoid making dungeons where players have to repetitively run back and forth through hordes of enemies just to hit switches or whatever that open another area on the other side of the dungeon... Granted, it makes dungeon making easier, but it's annoying as heck to play through.

Anyway, I have about 3 more dungeons to crawl through until I've completed Earthbound. I'm cheating and using a walkthrough, but I don't have time to actually try and figure everything out myself. That game clocks up 80+ hours of gameplay easily, if you play it normally, and even with the walkthrough and my magic "move faster" button, it's still taken me more than 10 hours to get to this point.

On a side note, I have a weird translation version. "PSI Rockin" is known as "PSI Friend" in my version, for example, and Porky is called Pokey? Eh, whatever. Also, I couldn't help but mess with the names for a laugh. I got some great results too, which I saved in picture format because I have no life (I thought it would be funny to have a little scrapbook of the funny bits of my game's progress at the end).

Here's a few samples just in case you have an immature sense of humor like myself. Since I was playing this game 'cause of you, I couldn't help but include your name, and it worked so well!
Hehe... "You will save the world! Let me go call MOMMY!"

Anyway, now I can go read all those Earthbound comics you made and they'll make sense to me. In fact, I might go do that now...

 

[Kine]

Porky was always Pokey in EB. It's the name most of us are accustomed to, although in the end it just turned out to be a minor translation error. Much like Giegue in EB0 going to Giygas, despite the fact that Giegue sounds closer to the Japanese Geeg/Gyiyg. I dunno where Giygas came from. They should've been consistant... (although if you remove the "as"... er, well anywho)

Do Pokemon have phones? They do here! But, eh, they aren't used to save the game. There is no dad or some figure to call. It's either to store things or otherwise just for amusement text, I think. I'll have to recheck that. Oh, and you can call for hints on where to go, since again I don't plan on having everything spelled out for you in this game (and having a fortune teller type (or a hint man, hah) in one area is an inconvience as large as this island is). You're given a cell phone item, so you don't have to find a phone, but that's later in the game.

Saving's done at inns (or other rest areas), much like I'm sure some other games are, so that answers that.

What dungeons are like that in EB? The last time I played that game had to be several years, so I can't remember how everything was exactly. And yet I DO remember a lot of rock pushing to cover switches in Pokemon games (and the Cinnabar mansion). Which I suppose is more annoying considering random battles. At least you can see them in EB. I can't tell you there won't be any, but I can assure you there probably won't be many. Because as far as switch pushing goes, I kind of think that's how it would go in a ruined temple or some such. Tangela's Hedge has dungeons like that, but they're mostly harmless puzzles for fun and prizes, much like that one guy's fun house in Ruby/Sapphire. So it's not even an obligation, but rare items in this game are definately that, possibly unique, so it would be a good idea to get stuff where you can.

Oh yeah, now that I remember it, if there was one thing I liked about EB, it's that it had a good length. Granted back then I could play things that long, these days, unless it's portable, I can't really find the time. It's ironic then that I'm making this game larger than EB is. But I have a laptop so I don't care. That's still portable in my book. The goal in mapping the old PI was to have an expanded EB, so to speak, covering more areas with different tricks than this game did, but making sure I had some rhyme or reason for doing so.

"that genius Kine...", heh, I love it. Not speaking for myself, I'm no genius, but speaking for the portrayal of the character Kine, I can imagine him being smug about that. I also like the caught the scent of girls one, it didn't take me long to figure out what that was in the place for. And to think your mother encourages that in game... Whoa, but the use of strawberry always makes it look like someone's dead. I wanna have custom colors, too, but it's not a necessity. If anything I always choose plain anyway, it's more for everyone else who cares.

 

[Perpetr8r]

Ok actually, I shouldn't have said dungeon. Really, the dungeons in Earthbound are more about fighting your way through a horde of enemies, or making you navigate a maze full of enemies (I'm seeing a trend here), which can be annoying in their own right, but then again that's what dungeons are for. More annoying are the non-dungeon places where in order to advance the storyline, you have to explore the entire town, talk to one guy, then explore the entire town again to find out what changed, then explore the entire town a third time just because the game likes watching you cry.

That happened in pretty much every town or main area in the game. A really good example is in the Dusty Dunes Desert, where you have to run all over the same 12 rooms like 30 times, shipping items back and forth between very demanding monkeys, all to get to visit Talah Rama or whatever his name is. Don't get me wrong - solving puzzles can be a rewarding experience, but Earthbound didn't even point you in the right direction half the time, and when it did, it usually meant trekking to the opposite end of the town or area just to chat with someone before running all the way back. Exploring is fun - the first time. Basically my point is that puzzles should be just that - puzzles. Anything that requires huge amounts of time to beat, with little skill involved, tends to get boring and annoying very fast.

Anyway, it's not that big a deal. We're not even up to that stuff yet, and if I tell you to make complex puzzles then I'm going to get stuck coding them, so I need to watch my mouth... As for Earthbound's length, I agree. Games that actually progress a lot are more interesting, because then you look back on it and go "Whoa, I've come a long way!". RPGs that try and cram gameplay down people's throats and are over in a few hours tend to feel rushed and less interesting than those that focus on actually building on the characters that you control. Granted, sometimes I want to get on with killing the badguys as opposed to listening to characters expound on their personal flaws, but there's enough room in an RPG for some non-storyline stuff, don't you agree?

I have to say though, if you're thinking of making your game bigger than Earthbound, it's going to take FOREVER. I mean, it's two people at the moment, and Earthbound had a full development team working on it and it still took them... uh actually I don't know how long it took them, but I'd say at least a year. Not that it worries me, just gotta be realistic here. Big games take time, especially if you have to draw ALL the graphics yourself (or code the entire thing from scratch). I've been working on my mini Pokemon MMO for like 4 years now and it's still not finished, though I attribute that partially to laziness on my part, and partially to the fact that nobody wants to help.

Anyway, custom colors should be a breeze to implement (at least, once I work out the Javascript commands for 'em). It took me a moment to figure out what you were saying about strawberry until I remembered the flavor thing right at the start of the game. Speaking of that, one of the things I really like about Earthbound is the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously (except at the epic boss battles or major plot points). Non-essential characters move in and out of character on a whim, enemies range from ridiculously dangerous to downright laughable with no apparent trend to it, and the game continually introduces random new mini quests that you have to go on to move the storyline along which keeps things interesting. Happy Happy village is a great example of that (blue, blue!).

On top of this, I just finished Earthbound a few hours ago and I have to say, they did a really good job with the final boss battle.

Spoiler:

Granted, the way Pokey taunted me made me NOT want to do what he was telling me to, but

I thought the mood was great, albeit epilepsy-inducing. I got a few more pics for my little scrapbook of amusing scenarios too. I'll upload one more, since it's relevant to the comment you made about your mother encouraging you.

I thought you'd like the Kine one. It fit so perfectly to the character you have that I couldn't resist snapshotting it. Plus, it was a lot more flattering than later on when Dr. Andonuts brings up "Kine"'s bed-wetting habits. I have that one too, though now I've ruined the surprise by telling you about it.

Lastly, I downloaded Mother 3, but I'm scared to play it. If it's anywhere near as big as Earthbound, it's going to eat all my time as I can imagine it eating yours as we speak. This time I'll use their real names though... I think I'm all out of corny name jokes for the time being. I will add though that Prince Poo probably prefers the name I gave him...

I still have to work on my AI project, which is going decently, despite hitting several very annoying snags. Hopefully I'll be able to put all of that behind me soon and get my free time back for doing the fun stuff!

Oh yeah. When we finally put the finishing touches on your game, we should totally take this pic's suggestion!

 

[Kine]

Oh Lord, the monkey cave. See, THAT'S how one can tell I haven't played this game in forever. I forgot all about that dread. Oh heck no, that was never in the plan. But to me, it seems like most of EB's dungeons are less maze and more "fight mean arse enemies!", like the Pyramid which is laughably straight forward but hard as heck. That's probably what you mean.

Eh, there's a bit of everything in PI. The repeating maze where if you don't pick the right path, you just go in circles (although it's still easy for reasons I won't say here), the long winding maze where it's just easy to get lost (it's one of the final areas, and because of the name of the area afterwards it just makes sense), maybe a few slaughter fests that EB has in rather straight forward dungeons (usually when it technically makes no sense to develop a maze, much like the Dept. Store dungeon and its mean coffee cups), and some where it's mostly just up to how you navigate through it (which is why we need to figure out ice tiles and shifting strong wind attributes).

Mother 3 is nowhere near as long, it can be beaten in about 30 hours average. Of course, it's not like any of us can read what was being said, even with a guide, which only covered the main spoken points, and a bit of NPC dialogue. Now it might take longer with extra exploration, but that's still optional. In some regards, I think it was a slight disappointment to fans that the game wasn't as long (nor did you have to be nearly as high leveled), but what's there is good enough.

When you play Mother 3, you tell me which one has a better interface, and we'll just go with that. Again, I don't care. It's display vs. simplicity, really.

What I can tell you is the instances of talking to an individual to force things along does happen in this game. It's in that case I'll have to be more direct. When it's so unclear that you don't know what to do without a guide (like going back to Threed to find out they fixed the Sky Runner), that's what I'm avoiding. I don't wanna tell people what order things should be done, but I'm not going to be vague and hand them a controller saying "here, play this". Itoi is a writer, so the Mother games are more like an interactive story, as opposed to just a game. Same can be said here, so that's why I'd LIKE for people to speak with some individuals. The non-linearity comes to play when it comes to "doing stuff for some cause". I think even Mother three forces this, but fortunately came the introduction of cutscene and one time animations, which make speaking to individuals more interesting just to see what they'll do next.

One thing you'd notice, is that each Mother game has a concert that you have to see. Mother 3's is obviously the most interesting, and it's a good thing I'm doing the art work in that regard, because that much is also true about this game. Except you're only forced to see one of them, not like 4 or something. Even then, all the shows I have planned even optionally should be fun if you like watching stuff. It'd be like an animation I'd normally do, but inside a game, a lot of the flowing animation work will probably be in those (hence the large amount of cutscene sprites I keep mentioning). However, I can't even START these without a musician. The animations need to go along to music, so it'd suck if no musicians came along and the only thing holding us back is the theatrical pieces.

But again, it's mostly story oriented. It has to be. I couldn't make sequels otherwise, so not everything is closed ended by the end of the game, either. Well, more on the individual basis. The game's self contained story is, though. Each of the three series' self contained main themes are wrapped up at the end of the its series, but character development continues up until the trilogy's finale, as well as little nuances that don't get fully explained until then. Thankfully, the last two parts are just comics. Actually, I couldn't even make Poke Tales into a game, that or it'd be like a 10 minute game (just following the main story). Conversely, it would be an 1000 hour game (following all individual stories).

I do know, though, that the game just can't be flashy. The game parts have to be good too, which I'm hoping I have just the right balance of (which we can always check later). Nonetheless, everyone should go in with the mindset of it being more about the characters and situation, less about just being a video game.

*PS: Character development and getting to know Pokemon is a big theme! Mainly because that's the only way to fill up the picture book (or whatever I called it), this game's Pokedex. It's not required to beat the game and some of them are added automatically through normal means, but completionists would probably enjoy the thoughts of 157 Pokemon.

 

[Perpetr8r]

Well clearly you already have a well-defined idea of how things are going to go, which is good. I mainly bring this stuff up because I know you are remaking a game you made previously and so you could change things you didn't like if you wanted.

In terms of interface, Mother 3 has a much more intuitive interface (in my opinion), though the battle system could do without faces popping up. I think window flashing works fine. Also, the beat system is just confusing and kind of pointless, really. After two hits you do bugger all damage so it's not really worth the combos, despite the fact that they are kind of fun to pull off and you get applause for 16 hits. So yeah. I'd say combine Earthbound (Mother 2?)'s mechanics with Mother 3's interface, minus the faces.

I've only played the first few hours of Mother 3 so far though, and I have to say that it's nothing like what I was expecting. Earthbound was nowhere near that serious and it really threw me for a loop when all that stuff happened right at the beginning. I have a sneaking suspicion about how everything is going to end, given the way Earthbound ended, but I'll keep that to myself for now. I'm not going to have any more time to play it for a while, because if I do play it I'll get distracted too much to do my real work which is due in just 5 days now.

I'm glad I didn't make the names silly, though now I do regret not setting my favorite food to "babies". That would really have lightened the mood... Also, Lucas and Claus are anagrams of each other. It took me about 3 hours to realize that.

Spoiler:

And if I ever play through the game again, I'm naming the mother "Aeris".

 

[Lucar10]

So is poke island an RPG or what other than it sounds good

 

[Kine]

Nyeh heheh, so I see that you're experienced the different feel of the third game (by which I mean the mood). Oh yeah, it'll do that. But it gets lighthearted later...

It's kind of genius the way Itoi intentionally hits you at the beginning. I was quite enlightened by his methodology after reading the long interview the just posted up (which is only recommended to those who fully complete the game, spoilers and all). Of course, I think some magic is taken out of it when you really understand why he does things, but hey, it's like with everything, once you get solid information, the fun of speculation goes away.

Anyway, looks like we finally have something to go off of as far as interface goes. Now that you know what both look like, you've pretty much answered any questions about how it should look and feel in this game.

But yeah, I have the entire game's event sequence and everything planned out, it's the same as it was before, so it's not hard. I say where the changes will be made, beyond making a professional version of the same, may be in the layout of things, and possibly new dungeon layouts to accomodate the new stylistic direction. I'll tell you this, to cut corners, I pretty much made everything a cave back then. Some places will actually look more like they should, now, which will introduce some things I didn't consider back then. Also, important dialogue should have better diction, but that comes with getting older and better at writing. I'm sure NPC dialogue will be all over from new to old, as it's mostly throwaway lines.



Lucar10 - Poke Island is an RPG in the way the the Mother/EarthBound series is. It'll have a bit of similarities to EarthBound, even. I make this pretty clear and obvious, because again I was going to make it a PK Hack game to begin with long ago. If you don't mind seeing street punks (in Pokemon form) again then you should be good going into this game. Fortunately the sequencing and approach is different, and there's enough uniqueness to counter the EB similarities.

*laughs* All things considered, I don't think Pokemon fans can complain about seeing some similarities. Even I knew I've been dealt the same hand over and over with the official trainer Pokemon games.

 

[Perpetr8r]

Oh god, those Pokemon games. So much room for awesome, so little attempts to make it work. But hey, no use crying over spilled milk when you can create your own! ...or something.

Mother 3 spoilers below!

Spoiler:

Since we're on the subject of Mother 3, I have some complaints about the game so far.

For starters, it kind of left me confused as to the fate of Claus. Is he dead or what? It shows him lying there, but it never tells you whether he's ok or what (at that point, at least). It's all like "Some families, LIKE FLINT'S, were torn apart." That is not an explanation... Oh yeah, and Flint kind of just goes back to his old life like nothing happened after that little exposition. It doesn't even say what happened to Lucas!

Also, Mother 3 uses even worse time-wasting tactics than Earthbound. I mean... the whole broom thing in the castle? They are just lucky I can save game states on top of the save system, or I would have been very very angry. I mean really, "Caution, brooms". What kind of a warning is that? Maybe half the sign was missing or something and it was supposed to say "Caution, brooms are invincible and will make you squeal like a piggy if you touch them." I was like "Time to beat down some household objects!" and the next thing I know I'm crawling out of a trash can 3 floors down. Hulk smash.

At least there are amusing bits, like that Wess dance you mentioned on the first page of this thread. That almost made all the bs worthwhile. Almost. The game seems to be trying to make me invent stupid names as I go along, too. "Oh hey look, here's Kumatora! Try not to name her something masculine!" and "Now name this monkey!"

I mean really... a monkey. It's half a joke right there! I really hope it doesn't give me any more names to play with because I can feel some bad jokes coming on and I won't be held responsible for what happens...

Hey, I've discovered a neat shortcut for my AI project that may just make everything a LOT easier for me! Of course, it won't be nearly as cool, but at least I'll be able to have it finished in time...