oddwarg

@Jwiwo I have updated the files. The links are the same.

It's a Descent clone so you guys are absoutely right about that part. I made it during the past few days for a minigame compilation collaboration project I'm doing with a friend. It only has 1 level since it's more of a tech demo than anything else. Half of the point of making it was to test my skill. It is made with Game Maker though, so I had to do some... interesting things to get good performance.

Good day, The project has remained largely unchanged for a number of days now, and I have attended to the issues pointed out by the very few people who have tested the latest version. I have no further plans for it. Thus, I have decided to release it to you. http://folk.ntnu.no/oddvahu/Permanent/EHF.zip I have fixed a large number of bugs, performed numerous lesser enhancements, and reconstructed the first level with two additional boss battles. This could very well be the final version. Personally I am happy with it the way it is, and it is time for me to move on to new projects. I will still fix bugs if they arise, but I will need a particularly good reason to make other changes. I have tried to give at least a little bit of consideration and/or effort to all the problems you have described, while not straying from my own desideratums and avoiding too much work for results that, in my eyes, would be of little significance. Some of you may have hoped for more changes, but I do hope that I have not caused unrealistically high expectations in any areas. Unless something unexpected happens, I will present this game at a few other internet sites soon. Here is the source gmk: http://folk.ntnu.no/oddvahu/Permanent/saanik.zip It is not useful and it would be very difficult to study it, but I do not have any reason to place restrictions on my work. I can, however, not grant permission to reuse the resources which I have not produced myself, so read and understand the credits if you intend to create any kind of derivative work. I thank you for your time, attention, and good will. I will still read any suggestions and I will do my best to fix any bugs if they are found and reported.

My latest physics engines(regardless of being 2D or 3D) have been largely based on gravity(which generally does not change) and normal forces. The standard case is where the terrain exerts a normal force on an object to prevent it from going through the terrain. If I want to allow unrealistic things like what DW has described, then I allow negative normal forces. The negative normal force is limited to some function of the speed, so you can't stand still in the ceiling. That would just feel stupid. A "negative normal force" forces an object towards the ground just enough to keep it from falling off. Apart from the limiting mentioned, it always has the exact same formula as as regular normal force, which is why I don't give it some other name. As for acceleration, I've been trying a number of different approaches. In reality, acceleration would be related to friction, which is proportional to the normal force, but since I like running on walls and ceilings(where the normal force is generally not positive), I've usually ended up using some function which allows a certain positive amount of acceleration based on the angle of the ground. And, in case it wasn't clear, the direction of acceleration would be parallel to the direction of the ground, while a jump would always be directed away from the ground. My terrain modelling for these physics engines has been based on line segments and points(possibly triangles), while most other objects are modelled as circles(or spheres). The result is that the engine must do a lot of vector arithmetic for the collision detection and handling(and as a programmer I have to program it), but it also means I can rotate any shape however I want and it will still work as expected. The main thing I like with my approach to things is that there is no need for "modes". The general case covers all cases. I believe this is not the way "everyone else" makes physics for sonic games(I haven't really looked into it but it seems that way), and it is not a good way to mimic the classics or anything. But I thought you might be interested anyway. And it's just a very rough description but hopefully you get the general idea.

I like to explore questions like these thoroughly, but I'll try to be brief. I honestly don't think this will be very helpful, but I probably won't cause any harm by posting it. ----------------------------------------- Know your capabilities, but do experiment. Personally I've strayed a bit too much on the experimental side, so my projects tend to look as such. But if you always stay in familliar territories, your projects will become monotone and you won't learn much. --------------------------------- Experience art, and keep it varied. Play games, listen to music, etc. And do not restrict yourself to nor denounce any specific genres. This may very well be the most important thing I have to say in this discussion. ------------------------------------------------- Have a plan, but allow changes to it along the way. Personally I start out with a general idea, and flesh it out along the way. There's the big picture of how your game will be, and within it there are many smaller elements. I need to experiment, on all levels of development, with what works and what does not. No matter how well things seem in my head, there will be unforeseen problems of various kinds; Gameplay-mechanical, programming errors, insufficient visuals, etc. --------------------------------- Do not postpone difficult problems. Doing so will, in my best case, lead to long periods of shunning the project. If I decide to continue working on it, I will have to delve into the project, and in the process I will be reminded of the bad thoughts I had when I stopped working. This is actually a real project killer for me. I also tend to write elaborate plans in text files, but then I am reluctant to begin realising them. Let's say you intend to install a chimney in your house. If you make the hole in your roof, then you simply can't stop there. When I am reluctant to begin working on a case I try to drill a hole in my project's roof which will only be sealed by reaching some level of completeness regarding said case. ...But one should have a backup in case the hole wasn't right. Okay, no more weird metaphors that don't make sense. My creative process these days is largely based on brainstorming and doodling. If I can throw my thoughts at someone through a chat program then that's helpful. This is often followed by experimenting with possible gameplay features; Programming stuff and seeing if it works or if it gives me new ideas. Then I repeat the process until I have something that works, and I expand on that and polish it. This could take a lot of time, but it works when trying new things. Sometimes things are discarded along the way, but I'm quite stubborn when it comes to working with things until they either work or are utterly broken. I rarely run out of ideas these days. Quite the contrary, in fact. And I haven't lost my inspiration in a long time, and I think this is a good thing. I intend to keep making games forever, but I really do not want to enter the industry. I have no ambitions of ever making a living out of making games. Many people don't understand this at all, but I'm sure you guys see what I mean. I'd like to stress the point that I'm not perfect when it comes to any of this "advice", and what I'm saying comes out of personal experience. So you may disagree or it may not apply to your case, and there is always a possibility that I will change my mind at a later time or that I've said something downright stupid.

This time I played through the demo without getting stuck. This is weird, but I'm sure you know: Also, the water beam from the boss was a bit(2 pixels) off, depending on the boss movement. For some reason I found that very noticeable. I'd also suggest some charging animation(flashing lights or something) to accompany the charging sound. Otherwise the boss felt solid. The level felt large, was good-looking and kept me entertained. Played through as Sonic and Tails. Also, beautiful sprites for them. Listened to all the songs in the sound test. I assume they're all original. Not only do they give the retro nostalgia feel, some of them are actually quite catchy, so good job on that. I don't have much to contribute with when it comes to building your team though, as I'm quite the lone wolf and I'm not even that involved in the fangaming scene. I imagine recruiting good people must be very difficult.

It would go against the very premise to explain it thoroughly, but I consider the scene to be of outmost importance, and it only serves it's purpose if the player does not suspect that it comes. If you want an in-depth explanation of my goals with it(or any other part of the game) then you'll have to contact me privately(PM). I've watched a few videos of Limbo, it looks very nice, but as I said, I do not have a 360. I might get one in the future but I don't have much space for such things as I live in a sailboat.

Maybe it's time for some proof of life. This is probably my greatest concern, but I do not feel that it would be appropriate to lower the difficulty by any significant amount, for the reason that this could detract from the experience for certain other players. However, if this sort of thing happens to many people then I must obviously make changes. @Pro ShadowBlaze Your post was very elucidating and it has received special attention as I have evaluated how to take action. I believe you must have touched the shift key during the chopper battle, I forgot to remove a debug thingy there. I can't seem to reproduce the other bugs but I'll probably figure it out sooner or later if it is a problem. @Jwiwo I'll say welcome to the forums even though I don't really have a strong presence here. It is reassuring that someone thinks the game is worth playing through even though they think it is difficult. I also thank you for the lengthy review. I do consider everything which is spoken here, but at this stage I will be reluctant with major changes. I've never heard of Limbo until now and I do not own an Xbox so I can't say I'm inspired by it. At this time I'm fairly certain I'll stick with the control scheme. Without further elaboration I will say that I have my reasons. I will consider slightly increasing the initial acceleration if I can pull it off without breaking the game, but otherwise it is unlikely that I will change the physics unless bugs are found. Because of what has been said, I am in the process of restructuring the first level in order to give a better initial impression and to give the player some more time to familliarize him/herself with the mechanics. I have introduced a new boss at the beginning of the level. I tried to make it as easy as possible without being too boring. I have built a short traditional platforming sequence after this boss, and then I felt that I needed something to keep the pace up. This last one is not finished, and I've had serious trouble with it. I cannot promise that it makes it to the final version. There are also some minor graphical changes in the level but please do not expect a very high level of static detail. Other than this I have only been fixing a large number of bugs and making other minor changes.

But no, it hasn't come out yet.

You can skip the intro after playing through the intro once. And it is made very clear once you open it the second time, so don't worry about that. I am certain that your problem is that you do not use the push-switch. There is a fancy-looking square block on the platform and you need to push it leftwards towards the triangle to make the wheel turn. I will add a tutorial message to that area, explaining how to use it. I should have thought of that earlier, but this is why I need beta testers anyway. Your other points are not being ignored, I am just awaiting further response before I decide what to prioritize next(I need to catch up with my studies before I can make larger edits). All suggestions are very much appreciated, and I allow myself to emphasize again that I would like people to tell me whether they agree with what has already been said. I am very pleased with the reactions so far, even though it does not suit everybody's tastes(if you do not like it and do not leave any suggestions then I will assume that this game is simply not for you).

Sorry, double post. But this time I actually have some content. I've come to the point where the game is in a sense completed and I don't know what I need to do to improve it. This is why I need you to test it and tell me what must be changed. In other words, beta testing: [Links removed due to new version.] In order to play the game, you need to download both files, extract EHF_FILES.zip to a directory of your choice, and extract the executable into the "Eggman Hates Furries" folder. The total download is approximately 17MB. If you decide to play through it(or as far as you can get) and give me some form of feedback, I will be grateful for your effort. I have some sort of idea of what will be said, but I will deal with everything as it comes. If you agree(or disagree) with something which has already been said by another person, it will be very helpful if you indicate this in your post. The reason is that I need to know wether many people experience it in the same way and/or have the same problems. I also created a .

This has brought me from a state of indifference to knowing that I need the 3DS.

Yes, in the same sense are saying that you are not the same person as you were when you woke up this morning; You and the world are in constant change. And the further back you go, the bigger impact a small change in history will have, effectively rendering "what ifs" incomprehensible when interpreted strictly. If it seems strange, look up the butterfly effect. However, by making simplifying assumptions you can ignore this effect, so you should normally not let this hinder the discussion. Nevertheless, it is useful to keep it in mind. My apologies for leading this off topic.

I see a surge of topics related to this coming up in a speedy fashion. That review is rather funny in it's context, and it is true that some of us complain about everything. But while this review only presents ridiculous complaints, there are usually valid points among the complaints of the community. Some people would indeed complain if Sonic 3 was released today(because it does not utilize modern technology), but the majority of these would not be the same people who complain about the modern Sonic games. You may believe me or not believe me, but I know myself well enough to say that I would not complain. Of course, if Sonic 3 was never released, the time-space continuum would have been different and I could very well have developed into a completely different person, but hopefully my point is still valid. I have not tried Sonic 4 yet, because on top of how I do not like the graphics at all, there's an undescribable and subjective quality(soul and weight) that I do not recognise in the videos of it. But do not think that I am the kind of person who rejects progress or something like that; Numerous developers, new and old, never cease to impress me. And, they had hired some good programmers(or 1, at least) and given them some time to make a proper and bug-free engine for Sonic 06, I would have loved it to death, but now it's unplayable(yes I've played through all of it).

I will probably ask you guys to beta test within a couple of weeks. I will be very grateful if you decide to participate. The news this time is that I have finished the real final battle. It took about a week to produce, and I am pleased with the result. This means that the game is virtually finished, and that I can wrap it up at any time. But it does not mean that I am done with it. The next thing on the schedule is a mandatory tutorial. This might at first glance seem unnecessary for a simple Sonic game like this, but I know that many people will initially be confused by the sequences where you have to play upside down or running on walls. But sadly, I will most likely not be able to work on the game until next week. About the stages, I'll have to say that they're not the main focus of the game. On top of that, the game does not follow the Sonic formula; It is not clearly divided into stages and acts. Rather, it is a (for the most part) seamless linear world, sort of like Half-Life. At this time I have only 2 "stages", but about 6 boss battles(and numerous cutscenes). I do not have plans for more levels at this time, but there is a slight possibility that I will make one more. No screens for you this time, because I am pretentious and have illusions of grandeur. Instead, you can listen to this completely unrelated piece: Again, I thank you for your support and encouragement.

Report time. Please note that not everything I will mention is objective truth, and that I am better at pointing out flaws than I am at giving praise. I consistently get this error when trying to go to the character select: ___________________________________________ ERROR in action number 1 of Key Release Event for <Enter> Key for object objDemoEnd: Trying to execute non-existing file. ___________________________________________ Jumping in up-/downhills does not work as expected. (the vertical speed is set to a fixed value rather than adding to the current value. On top of my subjective feeling of it not being right, it gives downright wrong results in steep uphill slopes with high speed.) A similar thing applies to jumping in loops. Standing on the edge of a rectangular/square block yields various ugly results, depending on which block it is. Sometimes you will stand still with the walking animation, sometimes the image angle will oscillate like crazy. These particular bugs are probably the toughest ones to deal with. Music does not loop properly. This is a traditional low-priority issue so you don't have to worry too much about it at this time. It's an easy fix though. Personally I think the bilinear interpolation is extremely ugly. There is no way to get out of this place when playing as sonic(overall, it is unproportionally difficult to play as sonic since you can skip everything as Tails/Knuckles): http://img695.imageshack.us/i/impossiblea.png/ When standing on the moving platform, you will not get crushed when it hits the roof. Instead, you will teleport up through the ground. It's just a matter of making the platform not go that far up. http://img241.imageshack.us/i/platform.png/ Sometimes, when using spindash and jumping right afterwards, the spindash charge sonud will keep playing. It appears as if sonic is resting his elbow on Tails' face in the menu. Was this intentional? This loop does not work: http://img684.imageshack.us/i/failq.png/ I can stand inside this bouncer: http://img40.imageshack.us/i/bouncer.png/ I can do this as tails and knuckles: http://img257.imageshack.us/i/tails.png/ This happened at the end of act 1: http://img824.imageshack.us/i/endo.png/ Some of the animations are not properly converted from sprite sheet to sprite. This is important. Knuckles has so many issues you should consider removing him. He is a very difficult character to implement and it appears your levels would have to be redesigned in order to make him work. The falling rings are deactivated when they're outside the view. This might not be such a good idea for obvious reasons. The boss music randomly stops playing, and he takes more hits than what is fun for a boss which only moves back and forth(I beat him though). There's no way this will be finished in late 2010. If it does and it isn't rushed, I am impressed. Even though DimensionWarp can be quite blunt, there is much truth to what he says. If there's one thing my years as a game designer have taught me, it is that you WILL lose your motivation. Progress will slow down and eventually it will come to a halt unless you're diciplined or you keep it small. Consider making a finished game with only a few levels and one or two characters, and then flesh it out with more levels etc.. The level looks pretty though, I'd stick with it. However, as I have pointed out, the layout needs work, not because the concept is bad, but because it does not work properly. And hey, this is still better than the fangames I used to make all those years ago.

How about this http://i56.tinypic.com/vrvf5k.jpg

Did you ever fix your fog problems? I'm here to tell you that you can change the fog at any time, including during the draw events. So you can basically do this: -turn off fog -draw skybox -turn on fog -profit A tip though: Make scripts for turning the fog on and off, so you won't have to go through a million different events if you decide to change the parameters of the fog. I really like the multiple layers in your level design, it looks much better than I would have imagined.

I fixed the bug with the path names containing the character: ' It was, in fact, a lot easier than I expected. I also optimized the text drawing. It should no longer cause such a slowdown. The new version is uploaded, and the link is the same. There's no new content there but you can check if it performs any better if it is of any interest. I've also been working rather steadily on the ending cutscene and credits sequence, executing various experiments, neglection of my studies, and brainstorming with other dudes. I think I have a... worthy... conclusion. But it remains to see people's reactions. By the way, here's a peek into one of those "experiments". I was shameless enough to post another one over at the screenshot thread, where Strife was kind enough to give me the universe. The real final boss is still not done though. I'm a bit afraid of going at it but I'll get there. The graphics and engine for it are all in place. Again, thanks for all the support and do expect irregular updates.

For great justice

That is the one, if my memory serves me correctly. Should maybe have been that specific.

Mickey Mania was indeed a nice game. Sometimes when you slide down a steep slope and onto a less steep one, the animation goes crazy until you start walking or jump away. This shouldn't be much of a problem though since there won't be much need for those steep slopes anyway. I also assume there is no way to get past the big hole in your level. Apart from this, it seems to replicate the original very well. The pencil intro has the exact same feel as it had in the original, which is nice. By the way, I just went from being a "true game programmer" to a fan game programmer. I'm probably going to make something original again after this though.

I fell through the ground in the current V3 in your first post. http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/8735/noes.png And I can't find a way back up.

Arr, a special demonstration edition! The level is looking good apart from the obvious placeholders. A 2- or 3-frame animation for the waterfall in the background would have made a difference for my eyes though. And about Nack, apart from what has been mentioned, his roll/jump sprite seems a bit odd(and static) to me.