Candescence

Well, the engine I'm working with for Heroic Battle Spirit is sorta based on Worlds except with the regular platformer behavior instead of all the Sonic stuff, with all the variables centralized into one object. I think what would simply be needed would be to put in the needed sensors into a container with that one platformer object, and and make sure their collision routines have the collisions used first before any other picking takes place and only called when required (so you're not calling them for every single fucking thing, which is just overkill), and make sure the movement routines don't run so many times that it goes overboard and eats into the CPU. Because that's pretty much what happened with Streak's engine.

Not really. Construct 2 passed the 'early phases' quite a while ago, and is overall better than its predecessor, missing a couple of minor features but more than making up for it in others. The only reason Classic could be considered a viable option is its status as being free, but support for it has been dead for ages, now. It was a neat program, but I'll be the first to admit that it could be a buggy mess, and its successor is a much better program overall. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with the first part (you could be more specific), but making a collision-heavy platformer like Sonic is certainly possible with events alone - the foremost problem is mainly making it work efficiently, the trick being making it work so it utilizes collision cells as much as possible - in other words, using collision/overlapping conditions as top-level picking conditions. Collision cells are a fairly recent addition to Construct 2, but the performance gains are titantic. I'd rather leave the engine-making to someone who actually knows their shit rather than doing it myself, though, personally. HTML5 has matured quite considerably, there's still ways to go, but the stuff you can achieve with WebGL is bloody impressive. Even Microsoft has capitulated and added WebGL to IE, which is kind of a surprise, considering they've been trying to bury OpenGL for decades. Node-Webkit also works brilliantly as a desktop executable export. Google and other browser vendors have been working like mad to make javascript as efficient as damn well possible for an interpreted language, you could certainly do worse (I've heard GM isn't very efficient). As for collaborative stuff... Actually, speaking of which, I forgot to add this to the features list, but C2 projects are pretty much built for enabling collaborative projects - the standalone .capx files are basically zip files, and the project folder alternative basically enables stuff like version control.

So, Overbound basically asked me to make this thread, and I decided, eh, sure, why not. I suppose a comparison thread between 2D game maker programs would be good. I haven't used Game Maker or MMF2 in ages, so I think this'll first post will mostly be me talking about how awesome Construct 2 is (it does need the attention, since it's somewhat more obscure than the other two due to not being around nearly as long), but I'll try and give my thoughts on GM and MMF2 from what I remember. Construct 2 The original Construct was created by a very small team of people (under the name 'Scirra') who used to work on MMF2 addons, who became dissatisfied with MMF2's limitations and decided to make their own program. Incidentally, I hear this was more or less treated as a 'betrayal' by Clickteam, who apparently still hate Scirra's guts. Anyhow, the original Construct was an awesome and promising program, but its foundations were rather unstable. So, Scirra started over with a much more solid foundation, and took something of a gamble - the original Construct used DirectX, but Construct 2's initial export option was HTML5. Yeah, that got a lot of WTF reactions back then. But Construct 2 has greatly matured as a program, much like HTML5 itself (especially with the adoption of WebGL), which is rapidly catching up to Flash (and Javascript interpreters today are much, much faster than Actionscript), and C2 is capable of exporting to a whole bunch of platforms with no additional cost. And C2 is rapidly updating, usually at on a weekly schedule. Let's get this out of the way, first - there is a desktop executable export option. It's multiplatform, in fact, using Node-Webkit, and it supports all the latest features of Google Chrome (in other words, usually pretty much ahead of everything else or equal with Firefox), and usually faster than a browser. The layout editor is very much MMF2 in style, but easier to understand and more flexible, with an in-built parallax system. And it has long aped GM's sole advantage over other game makers by implementing a tilemap feature that's compatible with Tiled. Oh, and C2 can import layouts from GM, too. You can zoom in and out, show parallax settings in the editor, use a custom-sized grid (which can snap objects to it), change the Z-order of various objects, and so on. You can basically have any number of layers, each with their own settings, including parallax, opacity, effects, scale, background colour, and so on. C2 has dozens of 'objects', from regular sprites, to tiled backgrounds (an extremely efficiently-rendered object that tiles a single texture along its size), tilemaps (they act like any other object), particles, 9-patch, sprite-font, etc. There's also more global objects, such as input objects (mouse, keyboard, touch, gamepad, etc), AJAX, audio, arrays, XML, and so on. Like MMF2, C2 has in-built behaviors, ranging from movement types (platform, 8-direction, car, custom movement, rotate, sine, etc), physics, turret behavior, pathfinding, line-of-sight, wrap, fade, flashing, solids, jump-thru, and other cool stuff. With WebGL, you can apply any number of different types of effects to an object, and there's a lot of built-in effects. And, in javascript, people can make their own plugins - objects, behaviors and effects, such as the Spriter and Magicam plugins. The event-based system is inspired by MMF2, but it's built more like the logic of actual code. C2's event system has sub-events, loops, FOR loops, ELSE, OR, functions, object picking, groups and comments, among other things, while staying fairly readable, and individual events, conditions, actions and groups can be disabled. Construct 2 uses event sheets independent of layouts - layouts can have their own event sheets, but any event sheet can be used with any number of layouts, using an 'include' system, like actual coding. Basically, with your core gameplay events, for example, you can modify some events, and the changes will affect all the layouts that the event sheet is included in. Objects can have any number of variables. Seriously, no variable limits. They can be numbers, text, or boolean. Construct 2 uses 'families', which are basically the equivalent of object-oriented programming. Families share stuff like variables, behaviors and effects, and families can be referenced as a whole in events (for example, shooting an object in the 'enemy' family merely requires an event for just enemies, not individual events for every enemy). Objects can also have 'containers', which can be used to spawn multiple objects simultaneously - when an object with a container is spawned, everything in that container is spawned along with it, and the same goes for when that object is destroyed. Containers also can enable picking instances in an instance of a container group. Performance-wise, javascript does have its limits, but it's a rather optimized engine. I've heard GM and MMF2 aren't terribly optimized either, so, yeah. Not everyone will get great performance due to certain GPU drivers being a bitch, but as long as you have the latest graphics card drivers, it's fine, more often than not. Positional audio is supported. Yeah, that's a thing, not all browsers support it, but it's there. Unfortunately, as for audio formats, if you want to support Internet Explorer and Safari, you'll need to also have sound files in AAC format as well as OGG, which is rather dumb. Collisions are polygon-based, which is something of a necessary limit, but per-pixel collisions aren't exactly that much better anyway. On the bright side, you can display collision polygons in the layout editor, which is cool. There are also 'collision cells', which massively optimize collision checks (so only objects within an object's collision cell are checked), though you have to have collision events as top-level events in order to use collision cells. There is a full set of debugging features, including a debugger, break-points, and so on. The price for the standard edition is about the same as MMF2. But unlike GM or MMF2, you don't need to pay anything for additional export options - you can export everywhere right out of the box. Did I mention online multiplayer is going to be implemented over the next set of updates? Yeah. that's gonna be a thing. Construct 2 isn't perfect, but aside from some minor plugins and maybe performance, it's pretty much better than its predecessor in every way, and much, much more stable. I loved Construct Classic, but holy shit it could be a buggy piece of shit. Construct 2 is well worth the asking price, not bad for a program whose development team basically consists of one dude and his brother from Britain. Construct 2 doesn't have a Sonic engine yet, though (not for a lack of trying, it's just that the main attempt at doing so turned out to be incredibly inefficient, event-wise, and the way it's built makes it unable to take advantage of features such as collision cells), but hopefully that will change in the future, I've pretty much given up on trying, hence why I'm focusing on non-Sonic stuff for now, myself. Game Maker Okay, my thoughts on game maker (don't really need to elaborate on features, since it and MMF2 have been around for ages and widely-used) - it's not very good. The various design decisions are frankly, incredibly strange, the level editor is rather limited in what it can do last I checked, the built-in event system is garbage, and you need scripting to get anything done, which is not necessarily a bad thing for people who actually want to learn to code, but for people who don't want to deal with programming, that's kinda bullshit. Multimedia Fusion 2 I consider MMF2 to be Construct 2's older cousin for multiple reasons, but what turned me off from MMF2 was its event system. Holy shit, compared to Construct's, it's almost incomprehensible for anyone who hasn't looked at it before. Granted, that might be slight hyperbole, but trying to study Sonic Worlds' events and figure out what exactly everything did and how the logic worked was just painful. Oh, and there's no 'include' feature for large groups of events, as far as I know, which a huge deal. I imagine other people will have different tastes, however, so, yeah. What do you guys think?

Alright, going through that video right now, and it's a good opportunity to tweak some things for the newest build I'm uploading... - You broke the VS menu. How did you do that? I'm actually impressed XD Also, there wasn't actually a 'back' button before, which was a slight oversight, it's now the escape key. - The readme is in the zip files and has an online link in the game page. It's amazing how so many people don't bother to read it before they do anything xD A copy is now in each game folder just in case. Oh, and you can rebind the keys in the options menu. - You actually came across a couple of bugs, including the 0 MP bug that didn't reset the regeneration if blocking is used when MP is 0, and a bug that basically renders you invincible in certain circumstances. I've fixed the ones I could replicate in the newest upload. So, yeah, don't be so reckless when engaging the enemy, anymore, because that'll just get you killed VERY quickly XD - I've also thinned the hitboxes on some of the characters somewhat. - You can actually drop down through the platforms by pressing down+jump. Which is in the readme as well XD Speaking of which, I've changed the platforms, the new setup looks nicer and easier to traverse, I think. - Yeah, a few of the names/terms might be a bit confusing to those who don't know much about Digimon, but I tried to write things so it was fairly easy to infer what they were (Chrome Digizoid obviously being some kind of tough metal, etc). - Oh, and you should probably check the dialogue menu regularly, because you can converse with Devimon while you're exploring and during his boss fight. - The axe can be thrown, it's 'F' by default, if I recall correctly, it drains the blue meter, which doesn't regenerate. - I know the placement of the 'fog' isn't exactly optimal. I'll probably tweak it considerably over time. - I have been thinking of modifying the way the moment works, the way things work now is actually very much like how the original Battle Spirit worked. Probably should remove the slight delay on landing, at least. Oh, and there's a run button, by the way, it's shift by default. So, yeah. I'm not sure if the Windows and Mac executables are properly updated, but they should have the bugfixes, at least.

So, as detailed on the SAGE page for Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit, I'm looking for someone who can help me with art and animation for the game: I'm not sure if any of you fellas would be remotely interested in working on a non-Sonic title, but it's worth a shot. With only existing game assets and open-source stuff to work with, and with me not being very good at art stuff, this is pretty much my only avenue for being able to have the game's art in a unified and consistent form. Plus, it would enable me to modify the gameplay and characters, and make new ones. Right now, I'm looking at Spriter for doing character animations, mainly for practical reasons, including easy iteration of animations and less RAM usage, and a whole bunch of other cool features (hitboxes, character customization/skinning, animation blending, among others), and it has a native Construct 2 plugin (which is due for an update to bring it up to date with Spriter overall). Traditional animation is nice, but I do want to make it easier on myself and whoever's doing the animation work. Spriter also works well for effects and, say, menu animations, depending on how you use it. Oh, and it's cheap as hell right now. Also, I would like someone to help out with music and sound effects, since I'd like some more original tunes and some Digimon remixes. But, yeah. If anyone's interested in helping out, just drop me a line via PM or something.

Well, someone had to make a topic sooner or later, I guess I'll be the first. Compared to some of the other titles at this year's show, this one is somewhat modest, and it's one of the few non-Sonic games, but I did what I could to make up for that. I hope you guys enjoy it. Hopefully there won't be too many issues... It's also an opportunity for me to basically signpost a request for assistance on making assets (art, etc.) for this game, since I don't have much to work with. I'm not sweating it since I'm not getting my hopes up, but we'll see, I suppose.

So, a status update... I uploaded a couple of videos a few days ago, for starters, which I posted in the screenshots thread. Also, Kazemon is now playable, and I've replaced the dialogue font with something more readable. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/919275/MultiPurposePlat/Screenshots/Kazemon.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/919275/MultiPurposePlat/Screenshots/NewSpritefont.png So, like I said in the text of the revised opening post, I will very likely need an artist to work with, not only for aesthetic reasons (establishing a consistent and higher-quality art style) but also for gameplay reasons. Hopefully SAGE will provide this project enough exposure for someone to be interested. I'm not getting my hopes up, but we'll see. And I'd probably like a more original soundtrack, too. Maybe a mixture, there are amazing tracks out there I wouldn't mind slipping in here and there, though. But remixed versions of certain music from the various Digimon anime series past Tamers would be fantastic, too.

Firstly: Yes, I am perfectly aware of the graphical inconsistency with the art and the effects. That's what happens when game assets and open-source assets are the only stuff you have to work with, sadly! I want to try and advertise to get an artist to work with so I can overhaul pretty much everything anyway, for both art and gameplay reasons. I'm not a good pixel artist, myself. Though I did try and work with the inconsistencies, by establishing the enemies as weird and unfamiliar to the player character, for starters. As for the font... Looking at the link you found, Overbound, I did manage to find a small font that was actually very much readable - the Balthasar font. The problem with 'pixel' fonts on the net is that they tend to not be very readable, especially in small sizes. Apply a small outline, and... ... Yeah, that actually looks pretty good, and it scales very well, too. Thanks!

I... I don't want to know. Anyhow... Moar screenshots. Say hello to Kazemon, who is now the fifth playable fighter! Just a note, she has an additional Down+Attack move, like in Battle Spirit 2, which sorta makes up for the fact that her projectile has limited range. Her inability to carry and throw objects/other fighters has, thankfully, vindicated my decision to not implement that for this demo (well, aside from the fact that the throw move is broken right now). And, in addition, I've made some cosmetic changes to the speech bubbles and how the bubbles that aren't specific to any on-screen character are displayed. The font in particular is no longer a sprite font, it looks comparatively boring, but I won't lie, it's infinitely more readable, and I'd rather have dialogue as readable as possible over looking fancy. Also, the dialogue wheel also looks a bit boring, but it's way less shittier than the original placeholder. Still a placeholder, but it has 24 slots, now rather than the typical eight.

Well, the video thread decided to drop off the map, so... Video previews of Heroic Battle Spirit! Unfortunately, Camtasia decided to degrade the quality just a bit for no real reason, but oh well. Enjoy!

Guess what I cooked up in about six hours. Working boss fight with Devimon! He'll teleport around the arena (which exposes his digicore, giving you an idea of where to aim your attacks), while launching Death Claw attacks at you. I implemented a nice pixelation transition effect for him and his projectiles. Now, to properly fill up the rest of the castle. I have a couple of enemies working, I just need to have them in the right places.

Alright, time for a WIP shot of the adventure mode area I'm working on. It's a small level, but due to time constraints, it'll have to do. What you can notice here is the lower portions of the map are either blacked out or covered by a weird monochrome effect. This is intentional. The blacked-out parts are unexplored portions of the map that you need to tread into in order to reveal, and they will never return. However, larger portions of the map will be covered by the latter effect as you leave them, and will conceal the positions of enemies and such from your view - this slightly emulates how many metroidvania games restrict the camera to a player's view, so rooms beyond the one the player's in can't be seen before they can enter them, but this time with an unrestricted camera. Unexplored rooms have to be entered in order to be seen, while rooms you have entered but are not in will show their layout but not their contents. Still, the blank rectangles seem a bit bland. I'm thinking of replacing it with an object with a 'blurred' outline and a warp effect to slightly hint at their contents while also adding to a sense of mystery. We'll see, I guess. And yes, you can zoom in the camera, there's a little widget on the HUD that lets you zoom in as much as you want. Beyond 3x is not recommended, though.

Alright, time for a status report! Screenshots: 4-player multiplayer is now entirely playable, along with multiple players with the same character - turns out I was doing it wrong from the start by not condensing the player, input and character objects into a single object, so now there's just the one player object and the separate skins, which makes simplifies object picking greatly and causes a lot less problems. Not entirely perfect, and certainly not remotely balanced, but very much playable, and MUCH less janky than the silly test thing above. I should probably figure out how to make two characters push out of each other, but that's far from a priority. Also, Mega Evolution is certainly something I'd like to implement... If I had the sprites for the Mega-level forms of each character, because, unfortunately, whoever was ripping the sprites for the Battle Spirit games neglected to rip most of those. Basically? I'm certain that I'm gonna make SAGE. How much content for HBS is going to be in the SAGE demo, that's not certain, but as of tomorrow, I'm gonna be focusing heavily on the 'adventure mode'. Basically, a relatively small 'Metroidvania' area with a boss fight. Hopefully I'll meet the deadline. ... Shit, I'll be needing sound effects and music, won't I. Crap. That's gonna eat up a bit of time...

4-Player multiplayer is working near-perfectly. Including mirror matches, which are very much playable. Just a keyboard is obviously impractical, but using controllers works fine. Oh, and the water in the stage has a sine effect, now - I figured static water just looked a tad wrong. The new water isn't perfect, but it's serviceable.

Well, I decided to test out an auto-zoom feature, using the wonderful Magi-Cam plugin, and much to my surprise, despite some fiddling to make everything work correctly and look fine, there wasn't any seams appearing in the tilemaps, and the pixelation from the zooming was actually rather not too bad, it's noticeable, but reasonable. I did have to unbound the scrolling to make it work right, though (meaning, the scrolling moves outside the layout) but I implemented a masking effect of sorts which blacks out everything outside the layout, and a simple border around the layout, which basically establishes the arena's boundaries, and should hopefully make the players focus on what's in the layout and ignore everything else. The automatic zooming takes into account every player that's active at any time.

Keep on truckn', Overbound! My project isn't gonna be nearly as polished, but I'm gonna try my best anyway. Speaking of which... I've got a fully-working test arena for Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit, with working tiles and platforms and whatnot. I think I chose a good open source tileset, nice and colourful, but the palette is just right to also enable the Digimon sprites to stand out properly. Might have to fill some of the upper bits of the tileset, though, though I guess the horizontal space makes up for that. Oh, and yes, the fighters can hurt each other (no damage yet), and the character selection screen works perfectly. No mirror matches, though, until I sort out what's going on with the character event conflicts, and that won't be finished until after SAGE, too much else to work on.

Might as well toss over a couple of quickies for my project... Firstly, a cheap logo I wacked together in about five minutes. Secondly, I recreated Battle Spirit's original fighter select screen, except modified for two-player selection. Trying to get rid of some weird issues, but it's otherwise entirely functional.