[AS3] Looking for suggestions

[EightySeven]

http://www.hardcircle.com/Games/Temp/Re-Align.html

I was bored at work today so I started to re organize one of our engines

Organization rules... Anywho I've only been working on it a day but I believe that keeping up on bugs is important. Break it!

[kkbbcute]

Okay, so what kind of suggestions do you want? Gameplay, graphics? I've got tons, and telling them all would make my hands ache typing them. ;)

[EightySeven]

not graphics..I'm not the graphics guy. I'm the programming guy so those are as good of graphics as I can muster.

Things like other forms of pick ups. ways you think i could improve movement and such. Later today I'm adding throwing objects and tomorrow pushing objects.

Other things you'd like to see in a platformer

[kkbbcute]

Oh, okay, seeing that this is WIP, I'll not rant too much about the non-existent gameplay here (what, no win screen or anything?).
And in that case, most my ranting is now reserved for the guy who did the graphics, which to be frank, really isn't good.

However, I must say that there are a few issues that you have to be aware of.
Firstly, although I would say that I don't usually play platformers, a "A" and "D" key combo combined with the spacbar to jump feels weird, make full use of the WSAD keys, not the spacebar. I know that some platformers use the arrow keys and spacebar combo, but a AD key and spacebar combo just felt wrong, sorry.

Apart from that, keep up the work on your pushing ojects and such, I'll keep a lookout for updates!;)

[EightySeven]

yea I did these graphics..they are place holder stuff.

Keep in mind this is a sandbox level for the engine I'm working on.

I've updated with some level design..basic jump tricks we might incorporate into the final game

[kkbbcute]

You might want to include some hints on what to do when faced with those puzzles, as not all players are extremely smart and can figure these sort of stuff out. Do it like Portal of World of Goo does, with in game hints!

[EightySeven]

I will but some things, like collecting all tokens) are part of achievements and aren't going to receive hint. However the next few things I add will have hints, but thats when I have pushing objects done.

I just updated with throwable objs. They have no targets yet..its a sunday and I got laundry to do :)

keys updated to j for jump and l for lob (k will be used later)

These keys aren't my choice but the designers pick..may be changed later

[kkbbcute]

Change the keys to make use of the mouse buttons insttead, they feel more natural. ;)

[jsimpson]

Your engine looks pretty nice, are the lobbed balls suppose to go through clouds? What are they for?

Anyway good start. Controls j/l feels weird.

[kkbbcute]

Yay, another person agrees with me, but seriously, do change the controls to something like the mouse buttons, they are more accessible.:)

[EightySeven]

My mouse has 2 buttons the game will require 3..and doesn't flash only have MOUSE_DOWN...meaning just the left click? :)

The posted engine is a little out of date i started on one target fr the ball yesterday and its only half working so i didn't want to update it. Today however you should be able to do the next series of obstacles I have planned

Do you think the following controls would feel better? Because I personally hate the j,k,l myself

[Q] -Throw
[A] - Left
[D] - Right
[E] - 'Attack'
[Spacebar] - Jump

Kind of a 1 hand thing

[kkbbcute]

Hmmm... Much better, though I still think that Q may be a little hard to reach when pressing "A" at the same time, and use the mouse button for "attack" or something.;)

[Kimchee]

Like it, however, don't like the up sword attack. Wish you could have just a normal in the air attack that wouldn't send you upwards, then if you want to do an up air attack you could hit w in the air with the k. So like up attack in the air is an air attack.

Just a thought.

[EightySeven]

The upward attack will be necessary for certain puzzles we will be making..It'll make sense once the animations are done

[kkbbcute]

Personally though, change the placeholder graphics very soon if you ask me because they still don't hit the mark...

[EightySeven]

Graphics aren't even on my list of priorities :) They will get put in when the artists give me a flash key with the art on it. The only reason those graphics are in is because our lead artist wanted to see the colour contrast between the tiles and the character so he could adjust the tiles for a better match.

Otherwise my colourful blocks would still be there :D

[kkbbcute]

Shouldn't the lead artist be the one in charge of creating the color contrast?

Why would he want to see a color contrast if he were the one to change everything later in the first place? :confused:

[EightySeven]

more than 1 artist

[kkbbcute]

Oh, so the art is just reference material, I see...

[Kimchee]

I like the feel thus far; however, I hate the automatic thrust up if you attack in the air, feels un-natural. Would prefer to be able to do a normal attack in the air, and a thrust move with an up attack combination in the air.

Just my 2 cents.

[runawayprisoner]

Seems there are a couple of "click" handlers left around doing something illegal so whenever I click on something, it'd pop up a message saying something is not found.

Bear in mind, though, only the debugger player would catch that. I think you'd better check in the engine. Or if it's a place holder for a mouse implementation, then at least disable the codes so it doesn't make debugging any difficult.

[kkbbcute]

Since most people won't get the error, I think it's just more of a niggling issue now.

[EightySeven]

yea its just the menu is just up for giggles atm. its just a generic stage.addlistener instead of button.addlistener

[kkbbcute]

You put in a few listeners to perform something ilegal just for giggles? You're weird. :p

[EightySeven]

no the level select is in for giggles the illegal listener is just there to make it work.. i wasn't going to spend an amount of time on something thats going to be deleted soon

if your building a house thats going to be ready in a week are you going to buy a house to live in for a few days? naw you rent a motel room :) the level select atm is the cheap motel, I'm waiting for the house to be finished

[kkbbcute]

What's the house gonna be like? ;) (Your final project)

[runawayprisoner]

no the level select is in for giggles the illegal listener is just there to make it work.. i wasn't going to spend an amount of time on something thats going to be deleted soon

Mmm... I 'on'no' about that... Depending on the implementation, it could just take like a few minutes.

if your building a house thats going to be ready in a week are you going to buy a house to live in for a few days? naw you rent a motel room :) the level select atm is the cheap motel, I'm waiting for the house to be finished

I'd build the base first, then the floor, then the walls of the bed room, then put a sheet over that room to make a shelter, and then I can move the bed room stuffs in. All of that should take less than a day in most cases, and well, maybe over a day in the worst case scenario, but... I make steady progress, and I don't have to bother with the motel.

I think you should always know what the heck it is you're building... and at least be able to see specific spots in details.

[kkbbcute]

Don't worry, if he likes what he's doing and he is aware of the issues and that this is WIP, we shouldn't force him to change something he doesn't want changed.

[EightySeven]

What's the house gonna be like? ;) (Your final project)

This project is really just stage 1, the paper the blueprint of the house is drawn on :)

When its done, it get put on Mochi for some ad dollas then i work on stage 2, making the blueprints

[kkbbcute]

Oh, what I really meant was like, what's the setting of the game, some sci-fi side scroller, a fantasy one, etc?

[EightySeven]

This one..roman fantasy. The final one is steampunk

[kkbbcute]

Cool, steampunk work is one of the hardest to draw in vectors though, as you'll need textures to get the right feel, so prepare for large file sizes. That said, good luck with your game ;)

[EightySeven]

All my game art is done in photoshop, and then prepared for Flash =) we drain alot of the colour your eye doesn't pick up on which cuts down file size alot
default photoshop saves as 256 colour..sometimes all you need is 16 =) and your eye can't even tell the difference. We use trickery such as this to keep file sizes down..however Audio is our major issue as I prefer to use raw source instead of compressed files

[kkbbcute]

All my game art is done in photoshop, and then prepared for Flash =) we drain alot of the colour your eye doesn't pick up on which cuts down file size alot
default photoshop saves as 256 colour..sometimes all you need is 16 =) and your eye can't even tell the difference. We use trickery such as this to keep file sizes down..however Audio is our major issue as I prefer to use raw source instead of compressed files

You'll be suprised at how well designers pick out color differences. For me, a stereo mp3 track at 48kbps sounds good enough, while audiophiles demand some great uncompressed audio. The same way, some people like me nitpick at the slightest differences in color, but others just don't care. So I think you would have to strike a nice balance between both. Always note that although the compressed versions of the sounds may sound bad to you, that's only because you have heard both the uncompressed and the compressed. For the normal people who have only heard the compressed sounds, it might not sound too bad to them as they don't have a hi fidelity sound to compare it with.

[EightySeven]

I totally get what your saying. to me the gfx look fine but u might think they're saturated. I'm just a lowly programmer but 23 Hours of my day i listen to some form of audio so im' pretty nit picky about my sounds :) As for graphics.. Action script limits itself to Black, White, Grey and blue and sometimes green i also have a very hi-res monitor so i don't see things upload on a lower res monitor i pick up on the subtle differences but thats on like..1024x768

[kkbbcute]

But hey, doesn't all that art and sound mean a huge file size, what's it like now? Any larger than 3MB+ means a potentially bad loading time (I'm quite a patient guy when it omes to loading:p)

[EightySeven]

I used to work for a cellphone game studio and i've transferred their policy on game size. Must be under 32MB. I figure if its good enough for cellphones its good enough for flash

[kkbbcute]

No insult, but 32MB is a little huge for web deployment, most average in at a few MB.

[EightySeven]

its not like we fill the games untill they are 32mb, most of our stuff is less than 10. but i was saying if it looks to be going towards 32mb we have to rethink some things

[kkbbcute]

To be frank, the max I'd wait for, for an online game of doubtable quality (aka not famous or anything) is about 3 mins, afterthat, I just get bored and open up another game instead. So see if your game exceeds that 3+min threshold. ;)

[EightySeven]

Never had anything close to a 3min wait...unless your on dialup or 56k in which case more flash game aren't for you. Which is why almost every flash portal has the "recommend broadband connection" Dial-up users aren't included in our target audience.

20mb on this machine takes about 30 seconds to load. and Our games are less than 10mb on average so load times aren't long

[kkbbcute]

It's not the broadband speed that's the issue, for some strange reason, websites always load slow for me, but downloads from Nvidia.com for example can hit up to 1.5Mbps. So most of the time, Flash games for me take about a minute or more to load.

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah. Your location is important as well, not just what kind of connection you have. Try to load a 2MBytes Flash clip from China in New York, and you'll see that it takes approximately... many minutes. Sometimes it even freezes.

But anyway, in my opinions, up to 10MBytes for a Flash game is a little bit excessive. I think for a large-scale project, about 5MBytes is as tolerable as it can get. If all else fails, include other files along with the flash clip and load them in progressively. You want the main Flash movie clip to be as close to a few hundred K's as possible.

[kkbbcute]

But anyway, in my opinions, up to 10MBytes for a Flash game is a little bit excessive. I think for a large-scale project, about 5MBytes is as tolerable as it can get. If all else fails, include other files along with the flash clip and load them in progressively. You want the main Flash movie clip to be as close to a few hundred K's as possible.

Told you so EightySeven, don't go beyond that range, 32MB is really very big.