Chaos!

[MSUK]

Hello everyone. Ive been working on a fangame for some time now caled chaos. The game's main character is chaos. (from sonic adventure on the good old dreamcast).

So how did i get inspired to do a chaos fangame? well, i was surfing the internet one night and noticing that all the sonic fangames were same old same old zones, everything. Nobody tried something new. Then a idea came up in my head, like a light bulb. How about making a fangame with chaos in it? it hasnt been done before.(to my knowledge) so i started working on it. I'm not the best at making games(in fact im a novice game maker according to the quiz) so i would have to play it safe. Not to overstep my bounds. In the end i was quite happy with the first mission and decided to keep it going. Now for the status at the moment.

graphics: at the moment, its sonic robots and i got a few mutants in there in mission 2!

Sound: you know what? I AM FED UP WITH USING MIDIS they sound terrible. They sound like a person plaayed an instrument badly or ect. I use mp3s now. However...They are becoming a problem and are clogging up my loading time, making it slow and a big file size =( (doh!)

Gameplay: hmmm.....well..its not bad, but i need to improve i think personally.

Difficulty: it depends how good you are at running and jumping. It is a 1 hit kill game so be careful.

I will be releasing the game on christmas which seems like a suitable goal for me to do, as i have 4 missions left to do.

The demo contains mission 1 part 1 and 2 and mission 2 part 1. Obviously ive completed mission 2, but it seems right just to put that in a demo hmm?

The link is below:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1CHTVS8W (big file size version)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N752XN5N (smaller file size version)

I apologize for the large file size. Again, the mp3s are making it very big.

Im happy for any of you to make any comments about the game.

Thankyou!

P.S i always make my files on mega upload, i hate rapidshare.

[LarkSS]

First of all, I'm not sure what midis you listen to, but the way they sound is all dependant on who made it. I've heard some very great midis that sound good even in General Midi.

Anyway, I'm first to review.

Cons

-Load time is horrible. You should have had the mp3s externally.

-The screensize is too big. Seeing how small chaos is the screensize should only be 320x200.

-Forced fullscreen + resolution change? I was in the middle of something when that happened. That should definately be up to the user if that happens.

-Chaos doesn't always jump in a ball. When he does, it's the spindash animation, which doesn't look right at all.

-Jumping on enemies don't seem to kill them. You have to fall on them instead which makes it rather annoying.

-The screen scrolling is horrible. You gotta get right on the edge to move it so you can't see anything in front of you. Center it on chaos.

-It would have been nice had you stated what the controls were. I started pressing shift and skipped past a few levels.

Pros

-Music was alright. Doesn't seem like something taken off of ocremix.

-Original idea

That's all I got for now. I'd learn Game Maker a little more and consider some of those cons I stated before continuing on with your game. Good attempt so far.

Btw, I'm sure people would love screenshots.

[Gradient]

Couldn't even make it past the big crab thing, and I only finished it because I stumbled upon the shift key level skip.

global.snd_drowning=sound_add(working_directory+"\soundfiles\other_bgm\snd_drowning.mp3",3,0);[/CODE]

This is an example of the external loading system I use. Place your mp3s in a folder inside the same folder as the game. Load them into the game at the appropriate moment with this code. Then refer to all your sound files as global.whatever to play, loop and stop them. This will decimate the loading times, and avoid the danger of the game file corrupting due to an oversized mp3 (this has happened to me - be sure to make at least one periodic backup as well as any that GM6 creates).

[MSUK]

hmmmm.. i get your point. Everybody i know has said chaos is too small in the game. I get what you mean, with the scrolling, when there is a gap and you cant see it so if you think it is a jumping platform it happens to be a moving blockk and you fall. Well, back to work for me, im gonna tweak it up a little.

Gradient, thats cheating! i only had a level skip so i could skip levels i already made ad test the ones i just designed. Everybody else who plays this game, please dont use it. I want people to play the whole demo, not skip the levels.

[TRD]

Wow! That's a big file for a demo. XD

Likes:

*The music is great!

*I like the loading bar, although it is a little bit long.

*Nice backgrounds

Dislikes:

*The scrolling isn't good, I have a hard seeing what's up ahead.

*The moving platforms slide under chaos, not good.

*The animation for jumping is........off, like that's the spindash animation.

*That crab is way too big! But eventually I got past him.

*The jumping gravity is a little off because he falls too slow.

*One hit die, hate it.

*I don't know if you know this but when I pressed the shift button on the first stage, it skipped the stage.

Overall Score:

You know, I haven't seen alot of chaos fangames, this is very original, which is good! For some advice, maybe some additional attacks and how about a health bar, you know to keep the game going alittle more, oh and how about some pick-ups or collectables?

O.K.! 55%

[Spike]

Oh wow, this needs alot of work. Alot.

Negative points:

Chaos is rediculously tiny

He has a shadow when not on the ground. Whats up with that?

When his shadow is on the ground, it goes up off the ground.

No jumping sprite unless standing perfectly still and holding the button

No bounce when landing on an enemy. He must weight 2 tons to drive

straight though one!

Enemies are mindless. They walk back and forth.

Fix that god-aweful scrolling. You can't even play the game like that.

Moving platforms barely work.

No health.

Terrible font on the MISSION 1 START! screen. It looks like it says TRISSION

1 STABT E.

The jumping sprite is the spindash.

The jumping sprite faces right no matter what.

Positive points:

I like Chaos.

You had your ideas in the right place.

I don't think this is any more than the Game Maker platform engine (Found on the GM website) with terrible scrolling. But please, don't take offense. I am merely trying to point out the faults so you will know what to change.

[tentril]

Pretty much what everyone else said. Also, what is that crab thing doing in there anyway? It doesn't fit in with the other enemies at all.

[Gradient]

If you put in an easy-to-use cheat system, I will use it. In another fan game (can't remember off the top of my head), the level skip remained in the final game, so any reminder to remove it shouldn't be ignored! The main problem is that you need to add in a lot more attack and movement techniques. Chaos has loads in the Sonic Battle system - play around, get used to GM6's code system, and put in a load of attack patterns, flips and evasion techniques. He doesn't jump in the same style as the main Sonic characters, so I recommend not using it at all - make Chaos a unique character, and you could have a great fan game.

[MSUK]

Thankyou very much everybody for your comments, i am taking them into mind. I saw that there were lots of negative comments on the posts, i am doing my best to fix them.

TRD thankyou for your overall score. 55% isnt that bad eh? im trying to make the game smaller so i can get more people to download. Im going to zip it up. Stayy tuned for the next post!

Spike,

you have a bundle of negative points! and you are right. i'm a very new game maker and i took the platform game tutorial because i was interested in sonic games. I want to tweak it up a little, so i need to learn GML. Everyone, if yu know a good GML tutorial please post the link. I wil appreciate it.

Tentrill, you could have posted your own comments. and that crab thing, thats part of the storyline(see booklet in next demo).

Gradient. Don't get too excited! im not going to add level skip in the final version.(haha!) and i think the fan game your talking about is sonic zone, the one on the game maker website. That game kinda inspired me.

Thankyou everyone! if you download, dont be afraid to post your comments!

[TRD]

Well in that case: Welcome to the Fangaming world!

And yes 55% is not bad in my book, avoid 25%, which is the lowest. I wouldn't give anyone a 0% because I don't want to discourage them in their fan-gaming, (Unless the game was really no good at all).

Anyways, our comments is not to discourage you, but give you a heads up on what can be fixed or worked on.

At any rate, try your best! I look forward to see this game in action.

P.S. Yeah thats a huge file for a demo version, imagine what the full is going to be like. XD But I have DSL so it won't be a problem.

Keep up the good work.

[MSUK]

Well, if you would like to know how big the full version is at the moment................wait for it.......its 46 megs. quite big. i'm going to try and reduce the quality of the mp3s(not too much!) so it reduces the size. Ive showed my demo on game maker community and nobody has downloaded it because of the size. No worries though.

[TRD]

That's too bad, but file size won't be a problem for me.

Welcome to SFGHQ and to the Fangaming world!

[Rael0505]

You should make two versions of the game. One with MP3, one with MIDI.

[MSUK]

i am making a midi and mp3 version! ive probaly said that 10 times now =)

Below is a double post that has been automagically merged into the original.

I'm not very happy with the comments im recieving off the forum. my next door neighbour said it was crap and he had seen better games made by 2 year olds. =( this is getting to me and it's not very nice. I'm not blaming you people though. I'm quite happy with the comments im recieving on the forum so dont worry. Besides, my next door neighbour could'nt see a good game if it hit him in the face. I just wanted to jabber on,thats all =)

Rael0505, what is with that avatar? its realy strange. quite disturbing......

[TRD]

I find his avatar hilarious everytime I see it, I need to find out how to make animated GIF's like his, anyways those comments are not negative, we are just telling what could be worked on in the game, if we thought the game was crap, I'm pretty sure someone would of said something, just keep trying and you'll get better with time and practice.

[Rael0505]

Hard Gay, a Japanese comedian.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WIFa0DIawJ4

[Xoram]

Just keep trying to improve Metalsluguk. I know it hurts to receive criticism about something you're proud of. Keep in mind though, that you can only get better at this.

Keep up the good work mate.

[TRD]

Hard Gay, a Japanese comedian.

(Why does it do that every time I quote someone?)

LOL! LAWL! ROFL! Oh god! That is @#$%ing funny!

And I'm not even finish watching it!

But how did you make an avatar out of it?

[Rael0505]

I didn't make it, someone else did.

I hear GIMP can be used to make animated pictures if you're interested.

[TRD]

I didn't make it, someone else did.

I hear GIMP can be used to make animated pictures if you're interested.

Finished watching it and Bookmark'd! I got to show my cousin this, and yes I'm interested in GIMP, thanks Rael.

Oh, and I apologize for de-railing your topic Metalsluguk.

[LarkSS]

Yep, you'll get a lot of negative comments on your journey to fangamism, but as you go on you'll learn more and more and eventually not only be proud of your game, but others will enjoy it as well. When I first started, my brothers whenever they had the chance loved to say how much the stuff I made sucked. I'm glad I ignored them though, for now they don't say anything since I've gotten to a point where they'd be making a fool of themselves if they did. Just keep trying and you'll get there.

[MSUK]

Thanks everyone! i'm going to fix the terrible scrolling on the game and compress the mp3s to a smaller rate so others can download. By the way, if any of you use game maker and GML and ae pretty experienced, could yo give a hand? maybe e-mail or something so i can broaden my horizons with this game(you can only go tooo far with drag and drop =))

[LarkSS]

True, but the distance you can go is very great. *points to my basic sonic engine for gm5*

I know the drag and drop system in gm5 well enough to say I know what I'm doing. I could lend you a hand if you ever need it. Lark is just a nice guy like that. =D

[MSUK]

Thanks. =D

[MSUK]

i have a question people! is multimedia fusion2(MMF2) better than game maker well...actually the question is is MMF2 easier than game maker, because i think chaos might be better off on MMF2 as i think its a more powerful engine. However i have never used it so i dont know. What do you all think?