Canceled [ORIGINAL] Shinobi Densetsu (HELP NEEDED!)

[kzr]

Here's a small bump post, also with a request to the admins:

can someone please move this over to where WIP games belong?

and with this, on to the news:

since my last time posting here, I've been studying how to approach level design. Remember, I am going for a River city Ransom thing here, where all the screens are connected to some other(s) through exits on the edges or doorways.

For the terrain part, it is decided: large painted textures, as seen in the video. This allows me total freedom in every way, while reinforcing the "cartoony realistic" style, and helping the crisp and lively sprites to pop out.

This is still pretty much open. I did some experiments with 3D rendered props/prefabs, to which I then overlay textures manually (not only, but mostly because I suck at mapping UVs), not seen in this example, but something like this allows me to set up locations pretty easily.

details like grass, trees and such will be done through entities. this brings a few advantages:
*animated foliage simulating wind
*some elements being used by the players and enemies as cover or platform
*some of them being breakable. possibly staying forever broken

lastly, I'm creating a new playable character. most likely a dagger wielder.

people on Facebook groups have been receiving the updates quite well and providing some good feedback. As it seems, openBOR was the right choice  8)

 

[msmalik681]

looks like a action RPG I love it !

 

[NED]

Nice to see some original concept!
But I think the background is not really consistent.

some elements in BG looks sprited (pixel) and some looks painted (blurry)
Otherwise it's nice!!

 

[Bloodbane]

Kzr, instead of waiting for admin to move this thread to WIP section, why not create a new thread there instead? You can describe your mod better with new thread

As for this, you can use it to ask help

BTW I've watched the video and it looks good . I hope you have also made alternate hit flashes, one for slash attacks and other for strike attacks

Remember, I am going for a River city Ransom thing here, where all the screens are connected to some other(s) through exits on the edges or doorways.

I've shown how to make that system in Rise of Warduke mod.

 

[showmaker]

looks cool but the walking sound mate...no way :-[ i like action rpg's if they have a great story and many peoples forget that the music and sounds in such type of game plays an important role! any way...kepp on roll'n and make us happy with a great openbor action rpg cant wait to test it out!

 

[kzr]

@msmalik681

thanks I'm a long time fan of Kunio-Kun, having played his games when I was 6 or 7 and of course through the years. but I never knew such things like River City Ransom or Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari until I was like 14 and got into emulators. but until and after Guardian Heroes there was not much done in this style. River city Ransom Underground was a present from the gods to me Nice to see that fans of the genre are still around

@nedflandeurse

those are only tests/mockups, using stuff I already had so yes, they don't fit. a lot of work needs to be done on backgrounds. which is not really my thing tbh...

@Bloodbane

I have done sword slashes with blood, but for some strange reason they never appear, even when I use hitflash. I did this as the manual explained. do I have to use it on the right frames, or does it affect the whole animation?
also my openBOR stats bugs when showing hitboxes in previews. works fine in the editor and in-game too.

I have switched over from openBOR stats to the ChronoCrash Modders Tool, and updated my openBOR to the latest available here and the blood works now. turns out stats takes too many steps to get things to work properly and always replaces models.txt with one of its own, which strips out all of my custom entities

@showmaker

yet another placeholder. I wanted to try footstep sounds and used the closest thing I have. too loud for my taste, can indeed use work. I want that sound plays a part in stealth so the footstep sounds for running are a must, as a sound cue for the player. walking is silent, so you can always try to grab an unsuspecting enemy and perform an assassination. I still have to figure out how to do this though.

I have been busy the last days so no updates for now. I'll try to get something done before the weekend. once again, thank you for the motivation and constructive criticism  8)

 

[kzr]

so, another bump post, this time with eye candy

the last two weeks have been crazy at work now that Christmas is coming, add a few sick days to that and you have a recipe for disaster. Not quite the case, actually.

a few years back, I was working on a game which was mostly intended to learn and hone my skills with Construct 2. Shoot 'em Down was born, but never really saw much development after this:

https://gamejolt.com/games/shoot-em-down/123902

You can still play the first two levels which are complete, and a bunch of other levels that never came to be complete.

So this was the concept for Ike. He is my avatar, by the way.

This was the first attempt at an upscaled version, but I soon realized the proportions were wrong compared to other characters.

So now I'm redoing him to look more like this.

Since he does not in any way (except maybe one) fit in the universe of supernatural ninjas, he will be a secret unlockable character. oh crap, I spoiled it, didn't I?  :

following this spirit, I contacted another developer about redoing his character and adding him as yet another unlockablablabla you know what's coming so read on at your own risk

First, please take a look at this: http://store.steampowered.com/app/506700/Levantera_Tale_of_The_Winds/

I am absolutely in love with it since the first news of its development, and it is both an honor and a pleasure to be able to feature its main character as a fully playable one.

this one's a bit more lore friendly and I want the two stories to cross over at one point.

Last but not least, this is the minimum character set I plan to deliver. This does not include creatures like the rat and the hedgehog since they are secondary to the story. Characters like grunts may seem secondary, but they form the enemy ranks so they have more importance than some random rat coming out of a bush.

WARNING: BIG IMAGE
open separately for better viewing

 

[O Ilusionista]

Nice Work

 

[kzr]

Happy new year!

the last weeks, between the holiday craze and my typical routine i managed to squeeze in some time to learn level design. I had a lot of things to sort out in regards to graphics so that I could have a base to work with.

after a lot of headaches I managed to understand how basemaps work and implemented them properly. Walls were much easier.

A lot of eye candy for a bit of functionality, which means in gameplay there were not many improvements, only the level floors and boundaries got laid out,

 

[msmalik681]

This game is shaping up nicely.

 

[O Ilusionista]

I like what I am seeing, congrats.
But don't you think the characters are too small on the screen?

 

[NED]

I like it.
Hope you will continue.
And other characters will be very different gameplay. (fast rush character, grappler...)

 

[kzr]

@msmalik681 thank you glad you like it

@O Ilusionista

I'm using resolution 3. 1 is way too big 2 is perfect in character scale, as I was originally working in 640x480 since way back in 2012 but is not wide enough. I'd like players to be able to plan ahead and see what's coming. maybe I'll do both versions and let players decide.

@ nedflandeurse I have this planned for the main playable characters:
(open in a new tab if not all 6 characters show)

Michio is the default all around guy. in a scale of 5 his stats would be:

HP:3
MP:3
Str:3
Def:3
Agl:3
Lck:3

. his signature move is the double jump which connects to aerial combos. I'm still unsure how to do this though.

Akihiko is a Samurai. Slower paced, but more powerful and precise. he can charge his slash, has a longer range and does a lot of critical hits which may cause dismemberments. again I'm still looking into the execution of this.

HP:3
MP:1
Str:5
Def:3
Agl:1
Crt:5

Hanzo is an old timer, so he can't move as fast but makes up in smarts and opportunist attacks. not seen in the sprite, he uses a fan along with his dagger and fights at a close-medium range. he can sweep his fan to create wind and  *spoiler* later in the game time-space anomalies which summon creatures and things from other time periods. or maybe you can use it to capture enemies and summon them as your minions... ideas?

HP:3
MP:5
Str:2
Def:3
Agl:2
Crt:3

Hitomi lives up to the tagline "blonde but not dumb" she is the weakest but lightning fast and can use her Sai as both short-range weapons, and grapple instruments, making her very versatile at close range. all she has to do is get close, which with her speed shouldn't be a problem.

HP:2
MP:3
Str:1
Def:2
Agl:5
Crt:5

Ike is a special guest from another game I was making in '14 called Shoot 'em Down. He is a retired military badass brought to this universe through one of many time-space anomalies explained in the course of the game. he has an army knife, hard fists, powerful grapples and might have a pistol hidden somewhere. his cigarettes really did some damage to his health, though.

HP:3
MP:1
Str:4
Def:4
Agl:2
Crt:4

Finally the Captain, a crossover character from Levantera:Tale of the Winds.
He wields a long saber and fights like a swordman of the seas, having a good balance between targeted strikes and flowing attacks.

HP:4
MP:2
Str:3
Def:3
Agl:4
Crt:2

Over the next weeks I'll be importing graphics for entities other than players to populate the levels and try different interactions other that straight-up combat. Again the offer for a partnership is still open to anyone with the will and the skill.

 

[NED]

Good! Beside of this black haired Kenshin rip off, they all looked OK to me !!

I particularly like Michio, Hanzo and Hitomi!

I hope this project will continue, and you will keep your motivation.
It can be great!

 

[kzr]

here's a small update.  this actually led me to discover that shadows display incorrectly when I'm walking on top of a wall. they still display at the basemap's height. ideas?
another thing I can't seem to work around, is the fact that you can only jump on walls from the sides, but not from the fore- or background. Is there any solution for this?
also obstacle entities don't seem to care how big their bbox is, as the only solid bit is a small square around the hotspot. why is this?

 

[DCurrent]

here's a small update.  this actually led me to discover that shadows display incorrectly when I'm walking on top of a wall. they still display at the basemap's height. ideas?

Shadows are calculated by coordinates, which have nothing to do with the visual scenery. Remember the engine doesn't "see" the pictures, and doesn't care what's in them. This is just a limitation of 2D sprite shadows, and you'll find it even in professional games to this day. The solution would be a light engine, but that's not feasible with user driven content. The OTHER solution is using script to manually alter shadows when you are in certain locations. Tedious, but doable.

another thing I can't seem to work around, is the fact that you can only jump on walls from the sides, but not from the fore- or background. Is there any solution for this?

You most certainly can jump on walls from the side, but, logically, you have to be moving along the Z axis to do it. Enable Z axis jumping or insert a specific Z jumping move in.

also obstacle entities don't seem to care how big their bbox is, as the only solid bit is a small square around the hotspot. why is this?

Look into platform coordinates. They can be used to control how much space on object occupies.

HTH
DC

 

[Bloodbane]

you can only jump on walls from the sides, but not from the fore- or background. Is there any solution for this?

Yes as Damon Caskey pointed, you need to set jumpmove in your character's header

jumpmove {fx} {fz}

    ~This allows Player to modify player's jump movement.
    ~{fx} determines effect in x axis:
        0 = (default) No effect.
        1 = Left/Right changes facing direction during jump.
        2 = Left/Right changes jumping speed during jump (doesn't work with static jump).
        3 = Combination of 1 and 2.
    ~{fz} determines effect in z axis:
        0 = (default) No effect.
        1 = Walking/running momentum is carried during jump.
        2 = Up/Down changes jumping speed during jump (doesn't work with static jump).
        3 = Combination of 1 and 2.

obstacle entities don't seem to care how big their bbox is, as the only solid bit is a small square around the hotspot. why is this?

Obstacles have default solidness, you need to modify it with platform command declared just before frame

 

[kzr]

thank you all for your tips. Implementation of platform was painless thanks to Chronocrash Modders Tool, which is GREAT for basemaps and platform entities. other than that is pretty average at best and I wish it would be updated soon, focusing on what it does best.
That said, I finally got the workflow straight and I hope to update the project a lot more often thanks to that. OpenBOR Stats is my character editor of choice, OBeditor my level editor, and CCMT is used strictly for platforms and basemaps. To have them all in one tool would be a modder's dream

so, another question: Since many of the characters have embedded weapons, it would be nice that when weapons clash they would send sparks flying off , and you could have a moment to try and subdue your enemy like in Bushido Blade.

weapons clash ->player and enemy stay in clash position->player mashes attack button to fill a gauge->gauge full->opponent is knocked down or thrown off-balance

same in reverse, i.e. enemy subdues player. how could I do this?

 

[O Ilusionista]

To have them all in one tool would be a modder's dream

soon, my friend...

 

[kzr]

just a quick heads up, shadows do work on platforms if you put a basemap under it with the same exact size. if your wall/platform has slanted edges you might need to lay out a few basemap strips covering the platform area as well as possible, but it will never be perfect since basemaps don't skew.