Steven M

So I have this WIP puzzle game created in Multimedia Fusion 2 and I don't know the first step to setting it up so that I can play a versus game against someone else over the internet. I understand it can be done, since there was a SAGE demo of Sonic Fusion a few years back that managed multiplayer races - I just don't know where to start or how to sort it out.

Is there a date announced yet?

No takers, but I managed to pull through with the basics anyway. Here's a demonstration video of my puzzle-fighter game, complete with barebones AI.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/102567447/puzzlebeatemupdemo.exe Anyone want to help me make an online-multiplayer game in MMF2? Or at the very least, give me pointers on how to create compelling puzzle-game AI?

How would I go about doing this, exactly? You see it in the videogame where the player can spin up a straight wall from a straight floor, from a straight floor down a sheer cliff, etc. You also see it in Blaster Master when you get the final upgrade to scale sheer terrain.Basically I'm trying to get the player to climb non-sloped terrain without having the mask or the sensors bugging out because of it. The player also needs to have total control of the mask when they're moving around, so they can stop on the edge of the side of a platform before transferring to the adjacent side. There's a 360-degree engine on the website that's almost useful for this, except that engine bugs out with straight walls and corners.

Is there a way to test the position of an object by pixel? Theoretically if you could call a routine where the pixel of a test object is overlapping the background object, then you could use Transparency>Alpha channel>Set pixel and change that pixel to transparent or opaque. There doesn't seem to be a way to do that though. Even when the background is broken up into chunks because of the spots of Alpha=0 everywhere, it will only call a collision when the test object is overlapping an opaque part of that background - but you can't seem to glean any information from that to put into 'Set pixel'. Setting the test and background objects in order doesn't help either. It seems that there's always one object in front of everything else, rather than cycling the objects so that they're appropriately over/under other each other. The closest I got was a fastloop that sent each object to the back when their alterable value was called by the fastloop's ID, but that just resulted in flickering sprites.

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Every 00"00 - [Layer Object] Swap BlackSurface and WhiteSurface WhiteItem is overlapping WhiteSurface - WhiteItem move behind WhiteSurface - BlackSurface move behind WhiteItem Every 00"00 - [Layer Object] Swap BlackSurface and WhiteSurface BlackItem is overlapping BlackSurface - BlackItem move behind BlackSurface - WhiteSurface move behind BlackItem RESULT: Both Item objects are overlayed on the WhiteSurface, the furthest back in the order of objects, and they slide under the BlackSurface. Reversing the events list just changes the Surface order. Every 00"00 - BlackSurface move behind WhiteSurface WhiteItem is overlapping WhiteSurface - WhiteItem move behind WhiteSurface - BlackSurface move behind WhiteItem Every 00"00 - WhiteSurface move behind BlackSurface BlackItem is overlapping BlackSurface - BlackItem move behind BlackSurface - WhiteSurface move behind BlackItem RESULT: BlackItem overlayed on WhiteSurface, slides under BlackSurface. WhiteItem overlayed across all objects. Reversing the events list just changes the Surface order.

So I think I have a half-fix for this situation. I need someone to look at this and tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it because it's making me tear my hair out. The situation: there is a layer with a black background surface object, a white background surface object, a black test object that moves horizontally on the screen, and a white test object with the same behavior. What I want is for the black test object to appear above the white background but to smoothly disappear behind the black background, vice versa for the white test object. The picture above is a little deceiving - the backgrounds in that example are flat, whereas the surface objects in my game are dynamic and change according to the player expanding one surface while erasing the other. So here's the 'code' I have running at the moment. Every 00"00 - BlackSurface move in front of WhiteSurface BlackItem is overlapping WhiteSurface AND BlackItem is overlapping BlackSurface - BlackItem move behind BlackSurface - WhiteSurface move behind BlackItem BlackItem is overlapping WhiteSurface AND BlackItem is NOT overlapping BlackSurface - BlackItem move in front of WhiteSurface Every 00"00 - BlackSurface move behind WhiteSurface WhiteItem is overlapping BlackSurface AND WhiteItem is overlapping WhiteSurface - WhiteItem move behind WhiteSurface - BlackSurface move behind WhiteItem WhiteItem is overlapping BlackSurface AND WhiteItem is NOT overlapping WhiteSurface - WhiteItem move in front of BlackSurface RESULT: the WhiteItem smoothly disappears behind the WhiteSurface and stays above the BlackSurface, but the BlackItem is overlayed above all other objects and refuses to change order (e.g. move behind a background when called for). RESULT #2: the events in MMF2 read from top to bottom. Switching the second series of events ("Every 00"00 - BlackSurface move behind WhiteSurface etc etc") from second to first on the list, results in the WhiteItem disappearing completely and the BlackItem sporadically appearing and disappearing.

Turning into water or taking greater advantage of the element could be interesting. Sliding across the ground like a puddle/wave, bouncing off walls with bubbles following you. The spin-attack could turn into a whirlpool. Tubes that separate and lead to different areas, with a tiny Lilac emerging into a new route to find the rest of herself (a bit like Sonic CD's Metal Madness zone). Allows you greater maneuverability in water itself, to swim like a dolphin. Maybe allow the player to absorb the occasional puddle and gain Mega Mushroom-esque grow-and-stomp abilities? Influence the environment and restore flora to its natural (and helpful, platform-wise) state. Turn from soluble into solid ice and back. Water can sweep enemies off their feet and knock them around, or a solid Lilac of ice can act as a more traditional butt-stomp attack.

Only platform in mind is the PC, to be honest. iPhone porting would require hundreds of thousands to fund.

Engine demo

I gave it a bash and set up a fastloop to make the string of Display [[Display+" "]] until the length of Display equals SizeLimit. This also removes the need for [[Display+NewLine$]] since the spaces wrap the position of the next word to type, at the start of the next row. There doesn't seem to be any problems with this setup at the moment, but if I find something I'll let you know. EDIT: I've further customised the engine so that it no longer relies on String Objects using paragraphs. If you insert the entire text into one paragraph the engine will relay it all on-screen as usual, including pressing the button to advance text, but the engine will also allow for page breaks; when you need a critical pause during a line of dialog you can separate the text with a custom character (in my case "£").

One minor flaw in the detail. Suppose the limited number of characters on a row is 22, and the sentence we parse as an example is "There are a good number of people working on Let's Plays of the Sonic series." There are a good (17 characters including the spaces between words - the next word, "number", would make the number of characters 23, exceeding the limit - we add another 22 to the limit, making it now 44) number of people (16 characters included - the next word, "working", should make the number of characters 24, exceeding the limit - but that only works if we're adding 24 to 23, and we never got 23 because the next row began with 17 characters - 17+24=41, which means "working" will continue to type out until it wraps around the string object, messily creating a new row - then the system recognises that the next word will breach the limit of 44 characters and creates another row to prepare for this) There are a good number of people working on Let's Plays of the Sonic series. Instead of changing the Size Limit by a multiple of itself, resulting in an ever widening gap between Size Limit and Display that causes multiple wraparounds, I created another counter to record the length of the string the instant it creates a line break. This counter begins the frame with a value of 0 and is removed from (Length(Display)+Length(Token)) to compare that value to Size Limit*. I haven't been able to find an adequate way to say "separate this row of text from the previous row, count the number of characters in this row alone and compare that to the Size Limit", so this will do for now. *EDIT: Alternatively you can simply make this counter increase in increments of 22 and remove that from (Length(Display)+Length(Token)).

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/texttest.mfa I have a custom typewriter engine. I want the text to type out in the way that games like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem etc manage - e.g. they don't print out a word if it's going to overrun the line, they don't start printing out the word if some of the letters will fit on the line but the rest won't, they just skip to the next line and print it there. The effect is explained here but in Game Maker and I have no idea how to transfer that 'don't print out the word halfway through and then transfer it to the next line' programming to Multimedia Fusion 2.

Pseudo-SHMUP/top down shooter in progress. The first level's more like a classic Zelda dungeon than a traditional SHMUP, but the rest will be autoscrolling. And have different characters.

Still working on the game.

Haven't had as much time as I'd like to sort the game out but I've managed to make a minor update before the Christmas demo. Changes made: Reflect mode: HUD and control change (yellow meter on left), bullets in range of player are highlighted, charged bullets automatically home in on target. I tried a counter underneath the player that counted the boost as you collected it, but the counter obscured on-screen bullet display and actually made it harder to play. Punch mode: punches can be charged up (yellow meter on left), punches extend automatically in/beyond direction of mouse (no more accidentally clicking outside the window). Be mode: mid-warp direction change removed since it made the boss too easy. Ghost mode: a sneak peak of a new mode being implemented for the Christmas demo Changes to make: Reflect mode: multi-target reflect, melee attacks, bosses [s. Undertaker/Magician]. Punch mode: parrying and blocking, bosses [shield Robo/Bubbleghost]. Be mode: sprite implementation/collision detection, dicking around with level/environment hazards, bosses [imitation Crab Robo/Hazel]. Ghost mode: implement health system, bosses [G. Roger/D. Master]. Question for potential playtesters: would you prefer the game to have a conventional level layout (2-or-so minutes of fighting through waves of enemies and the level design, followed by a boss), to be a boss rush game, or to be a mixed-type (e.g. basically go nuts with the presentation/format of each style, something like Live-a-Live)?

Here's that work-of-concept file. It's basically three barebones boss fights asking the question, "What kind of offense can you use for a SHMUP if you restrict yourself from programming in conventional firearms?". You all know good games like Gradius, Dodonpachi, Battle Garegga, Jamestown, Ikaruga - each with their own different subweapons and systems of scoring but all still mainly relying on "shoot up/right, stupid" to tear down the opposition. I wanted to see if I could pull off something different and still make it fun and easy to learn within the game itself. So, featured in the demo are: Repel the Bullet, where you can only use the enemy's fire against them - bullets caught in the radius of your effect are projected away from you and your health bar is replaced with the boost gauge Punch the Bullet, where you have two giant robot claws to punch projectiles away or just smack enemies around directly and your health drains automatically, necessitating refills Be the Bullet, where you warp across the stage to tear down enemies, neatly bypassing obstacles such as walls, pits and bullets to pick up items for health I'd like feedback on possible bugs, glitches, etc as well as the learning curve of each game mode - in other words, are you able to adapt to the chosen style of play given the sparse control notes and boss attacks. I'm not concerned about the placeholder graphics and sound for the time being, I just want to get the control down Ok before moving onto refining scoring systems.

Yup. They're for a SHMUP that currently allows four styles of play, with the ultimate intent of having eight unlockable characters. When I get around to finishing the demo I'll upload it in my thread.

Naming the technique "orange shadow clone" gets the idea across better if you've played NG2. I should have emphasised that Espio probably wouldn't use such a warm colour in-game. As for Cream she's basically Tails with a homing attack, which is pretty much the closest you get to Cathartic/Easy Mode - hence the possibility of letting the player use her if they've died on the same stage multiple times.

Crosspost from Sonic Retro. A game with the classic Megaman style of level progression (that is, a level select and obtaining power-ups/alt characters through boss fights) would be a decent way to make use of the multiple characters. The first big problem would be designing each level so that they're fun to play as with Sonic, but also branch off into alternate paths and use hazards that make use of other characters. The second would be to make the friends tolerable and even enjoyable to play as. So, brainstorming time? Sonic [default]: run, jump, spindash, jump-into-run on ceilings/walls Tails: flies, can control machinery/Badniks Knuckles: glides, climbs, punches, burrows (Drill mode from Sonic Colors) Blaze: effectively a fire shield (mid-air dash, fire immunity, nullifies ice, useless underwater) Shadow: time pause/unpause Vector: effectively a bubble shield (bounce, swim/infinite air underwater, useless near fire) Espio: orange shadow clone (Ninja Gaiden 2) Silver: telekinesis Cream: Super Guide

Weird. It's just a stand-alone application built from MMF2. I'll have another look at it though.