Tomo2000

Practically xD You have your default brands, and then some special brands, which differ from weapon categories to just exclusive to weapons themselves. The "Gangsta" brand turns pistols to dual-wield, and, yes, it is named after you. All the exclusive brands plan to be named after people on GDU.

Thanks :grin: The menu took several hours of crying and screaming to get working, but it turned out really well. Sadly, I could probably get the game out faster if I gave 1/10th of a shit about mapping itself. I find that I boot up RPG Maker XP, open the project up, decide I'm going to do some work, realise there's mapping to do, and then close it again. And it's good to hear the tutorial has helped :thumbsup: It really helps to build atmosphere and some cool lighting effects.

I made that whole system from scratched, based off of that "check" function in the shooting system. I've revamped the engine so much it's crazy.. All the weapons with the new system are dynamic, and, rather than having a separate pistol for different settings or attachments, there's one weapon with ever-changing data. I have a few maps from Hope Afloat Remastered, although they're a bit old. I'm sure I've posted them before, somewhere, sometime, but I'll post them again. Just remember that the screenshots are a bit old, and, some areas have been tweaked, others haven't, but, for the tweaked ones, I haven't gotten around to taking new screenshots yet. Just really busy. I'll get around to it soon enough :exhausted: The room you start in. Has been revamped a little since, but not much. Really old image of the first area you enter immediately after the first room. I was thinking of doing some panorama mapping on this one, or maybe just re-spriting huge sections of it. I assure you, this looks way better in-game. You just can't make decent quality gifs using more than 256 colours, which makes your cosmetic fog layers look terrible, and which is why I favour .pngs. But this is an example of a cosmetic fog layer that changes. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't make the game go all choppy. The map has been hugely revamped since. And here's a Legacy screenshot; a project I should really work on more. This was pretty much the last mapping I've gone in quite a while. I'll probably end up re-doing a lot of the Remastered maps with this style of mapping. Everything blends together much better.

Doom, Duke Nuke'Em and the original Command & Conquer were probably my favourites, and was probably what got me into game making. It's basically what I've wanted to do since pre-school.

I second Marked's vote.

My parents were pretty well off, and my dad was really technical because of his job, so I have fond memories of Windows 98 and the original Doom. So I've been using computers for at least 3/4 of my life, so I think it's safe to say I'm addicted to computers, in the sense that I'd rather spend my time on the computer than outside. In saying that, though, I don't get angry or sad when I have to spend prolonged amounts of time away from my computer. The only time I ever had a reaction like that was when I had my accident and was in hospital for four days, but I think that was both a mix of finishing my book and hospital being really boring, and worrying about my online friends worrying about my absence.

I've been meaning to, just that uni is sapping all of my time and motivation lately. Hopefully I'll have some more time before next term starts.

A sidescroller in RPG Maker? Interesting. I wish I had a bit more to show on my current projects. I'll upload some screenshots from Hope Afloat Remastered when I get around to it, but here's a customization system I was working on earlier this month. I posted it in the status area, but here is probably more fitting:

I still remember one of the scariest parts of Dementium II was a huge, empty room that bugged out and didn't have any assigned music. It was designed as a big room with lots of columns with some resources here and there, the lack of being able to see too far in any direction and the sheer lack of music was terrifying. And, in what Pol said, jumpscares are getting pretty old, pretty quickly. Jumpscares and sudden screaming (even though I had a section like that in an old Hope Afloat area) is a pretty cheap scare, and, in general, makes up for a lack of atmosphere, music, etc. So, if you can, avoid jumpscares, and work primarily on atmosphere; music, lighting, and so on. Good luck :D

I don't think it's stupid, I just don't think we have sufficient artists. I could be wrong, though.

I posted something similar about this quite a while ago. Tom is my actual name, and so I just added an o to the end, and the '2000' bit just comes from the alliteration of saying 'two-thousand'.

I really like Pol's suggestion of being able to turn some form of censorship on and off with a pin or password. I have no real arguments against Pol's statements about the internet and video. I grew up in a pretty shitty town, though, so any kind of speech or audio censorship ended with people around my age. The amount of kids in primary school swearing like sailors is ridiculous, but I think it's more of a family thing rather than anything to do with television, music or radio. I still remember getting a kick out of using words I wasn't supposed to, but there's not even any kind of sculding for that sort of thing any more. So, when one kid starts swearing, it spreads pretty quickly. Just my two cents, though.

I had a very similar issue when working on a project. http://textdump.net/read/3236/ Here is the script to use for that. I apologise for uploading it to textdump.net, but I usually find issies with copy-paste-ing from code boxes and such on occasion, and it's a big script, so I wouldn't want you to have that issue. So, put this script below everything else but above main in your scripts, and then, either in your script or in your event (I assume you're using an event), go to Condition Branch, select script, and use Keyboard.trigger(Keys::?) - where the ? is whatever key you'd like. Hope that helps.

I could sense a zombie apocalypse thread. How strange. Anyway, yeah, genetics man. We learnt from Ancient Egypt that generations of inbreeding basically kills you anyway, so there's no real point. I wish I had more points to make, but genetics sums it all up rather well.

Lately, I've been trying to work on, I guess, a formula, for what would make a good game? Of course, you'd think the most obvious would be gameplay, replayability, graphics, game mechanics, etc.. However, this isn't always the case. There's plenty of games out there that are still really fun and really interesting, but that completely ignore any pre-set formula and, that said, completely dodge some aspects of said formula. Weird, right? I'm going to just point out a few games like this. The main purpose of this thread is to show off a few cool games that go against most of the game design metas while still being very enjoyable to play through, and to show the reader that they don't have to invest lots of time and money into having their own custom scripts, graphics or music to still have a good game. "Knock-knock" is an Indie horror game made by a Russian group called Ice Pick Lodge. Knock-knock centralizes around the paranoid delusion of the main, nameless character, as he fights to keep his sanity in a world in which reality and nightmares seem to have merged together. Knock-knock has beautiful graphics, and an absolutely amazing atmosphere, however, its most interesting point comes from its storyline and gameplay mechanics. Of course, the main mechanics of this game is moving around, turning on lights, and hiding from monsters. This is all good and well, but there are so many unexplained things about the more advanced gameplay mechanics that are never explained throughout the entire game. Sooner or later, you'll come across eyes in rooms, and which, turning on lights will make them disappear, however, if you press up in front of an eye, or better known as breaches, you enter one of these breaches, and enter a strange system of never ending hallways and doors. The doors have a random chance of taking you to another hallway, or restarting the entire mission. Some doors show you glimpses of strange, surreal art, and others take you to the next level. The levels function in pairs, of which it is unknown which of these pairs is reality and which is a dream. In one pair, time moves slowly, and you must wait until 'dawn' before the monsters go away. In the other, time doesn't move at all, and the only seeming purpose to this part is to venture out into the forest and find a little girl, who shows you glimpses of 'reality'. With each passing pair, the house gets bigger, and a new type of creature will appear in the house. After a while, it becomes present that a 'doppelganger' is in the house. You find notes, which your character tells you 'looks like my handwriting, but something's off', and that 'Whatever it is - it is flesh and blood. Someone else is inside my house'. These notes are strange, at best, and are either just a scrawl, telling the player that these dreams are killing him, and that has to wake up, or are instructions for strange games, which centre around these beings known as 'guests'. In general, none of these notes seem to make any sense. However, back onto lack of explained mechanics and storyline. The storyline is very fractured, at best. You come across a diary and pages, which explains that the kids are going missing, but the story itself is very cryptic, and most likely doesn't relate to your character at all. New monsters appear every cycle, but there's no area in which these monsters are explained; their origins, their mechanics, so on. Some move through walls, some don't. Some have to climb ladders to get to other floors, whereas others can just appear through an inaccessible wall. Some of the monsters are completely invisible, or can spawn more monsters. Some monsters stand still, which blocks off your access to other areas, and could sandwich you between two of them. Some can bust lights when they enter a lit room, some mightn't, and can't enter the room. On top of this, there's a system with the lights and time that is never really explained in its entirety, either. Leaving lights on in rooms with windows could potentially increase the chance of monsters moving to that position. The more lights you have on, the more likely monsters may spawn, but the quicker time goes. If you're hiding, time will go backwards, and, if a monster catches you or sees you, if you have too little time, it'll restart the level, however, if you have over half, it'll remove approximately half of your time, and force you to start over. So, after all that, what really makes the game so enjoyable to play? Not only does it lack a fathomable storyline, and strange mechanics with little-to-no attemps to explain them. Most triple-A games are full of explainations, and tutorials that covers every method in which the game mechanics work. Is it the self-exploration that makes Knock-knock so enjoyable? Maybe it's because the player can make theories about the monsters and the mechanics themselves that completely seperates it from other such games. Triple-A games do have a tendancy of feeding the player mostly useless and assumed information, and treat players like idiots, and that they can't notice simple patterns in their heads like normal people can. Maybe the lack of storyline puts the player in the same place as the character; alone, scared and confused in a strange world, and this confused nature adds to the atmosphere of the game. Overall, Knock-knock is a very fun game and is very interesting to play, especially since it goes against certain metas of game design, and still makes the game enjoyable. I'll most likely also write a proper review on the game, and link it here at a later date. Now, let's hit somewhere a little closer to home. Pretty much the moment I got home, I was told that I should play this game. I've only just started, but it's made quite an impressive first impression on me. The game is called "Off", it was made by Mortis Ghost using RPGmaker 2003. In Off, you take control of an entity known only as 'The Batter', on a sacred mission to purify the these strange zones from phantoms and other ectoplasmic entities alike. As you can see from the very first screenshot, the art style of the game is very simplist, but don't let that fool you; the game itself has a very interesting storyline, and a plethora of strange characters to meet along the way. Now, the battle system is very basic, as is the menu system. It's all pretty standard RPGmaker 2003, with a few exceptions here and there. The art style is all black and white, in terms of battlers, with the exception of the battleback changing based on the zone you are in, and whether it's a boss fight or not. The zones, and areas in the zones, also have their own colours. It's a rather interesting style, almost similar to the colour focus seen in the Deus Ex games. Overall, the graphics style is very basic, at best, but this adds a nice sense of order to the mix. The black and white graphics allows for the battlebacks to be bright and vibrant without taking focus off the battlers themselves and without straining the eyes. On top of this, imagine how much easier it would be to make purely greyscale sprites, without the need to colour them. I remember, for one Game Maker project a while back, the sprites were mostly greyscale, with their highlights here and there, and it made the job of spriting them much easier and faster. So, with a basic graphic style, mostly default RPG Maker menus and scripts, and few unique gameplay features, what makes this game enjoyable to play? Again, it's set in a very mysterious universe. Everybody acts strangely, and the existance of strange creatures and ghosts isn't really questioned. It appears to be in a post-apocalyptic world, as shown later in the game, and that beings can easily become corrupted. This new world, and its zones, born from the ashes of a dead and dying world, seems to be centralized around four elements; plastic, metal, smoke and sugar. This adds a very strange system to battling, as some creatures may be weak against metal, or resistant plastic, and so on. The game also has a lot of puzzles, and lots of mystery around the basic storyline; such as where you came from, what happened to the world, and why you're on a mission to purify it. So, let's look back and make a quick comparison between Knock-knock and off. Firstly, let's look at the characters. Both of the characters are very mysterious, and hardly ever, if at all, reveal anything about themselves. They will reveal traits about themselves, such as the character of Knock-knock says that he is the third generation of "world-ologists" to stay in the lodge he is cursed in. However, the characters lack a proper name, and stick with a simple title, such as 'the Batter'. We know the characters objectives and goals, but we do not know anything else about them, personally; we don't know their favourite colour, favourite meal, their opinion on politics, and so on. Why is this? Maybe it's so that there is nothing to disagree with over the characters personality, and that it lets you bond more with the character you are playing. Another thing to note is the mystery that revolves around the two games. The curiosity of the player is what really drives the game along, more-so than its gameplay and its puzzles. The player will always strive to solve mysteries that the game has specifically tried to hide from their prying eyes. It should also be noted how a powerful the atmosphere can really engross a player. In Knock-knock, for example, the gameplay is very repetative, but the atmosphere, along with its horror aspects and mystery, is what keeps a player not only playing, but enjoying themselves. Off has a lot of exploration, in terms of the world you find yourself in, and, again, its the strange atmosphere and mystery which keeps the game enjoyable. So, what did we learn from comparing these two games? Quite a lot, actually. We can learn that the main aspect of a game is a mysterious and strange storyline, as well as an atmosphere that will mesh with this storyline and add flavour to it. That alone can help make up for a lack of a custom scrips and really eye-popping graphics. Players like mystery, whether in the form of a storyline, or in the raw gameplay mechanics themselves, and they feel rewarded when they achieve something, or find something rare or hidden, when they aren't instructed to do so. We've also learnt that players can connect with characters or entities on a good level without having to make characters overly complicated, or without writing and providing a whole character bio. Having these rather neutral characters with very few opinions of their own naturally makes the player have no real reason to hate them, which only leaves room for the character to grow on them as the game progresses. With Off, specifically, and I would really like to hammer this point in, it's nice to know that you can make a very enjoyable game without spending money and time on custom scripts and graphics. This is a fantastic point that, I believe, people new to RPG Maker should be aware of. Lots of the community has some rather impressive games, but maybe this scares new users away, as they may not be able to compete with the quality of other games being made by older and wiser members. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little comparison, and look into some of the more popular and quirky games out there, and how their intention to go against game making metas make them interesting and enjoyable in some very different ways. I hope you all take away something to think about, and maybe something to add to your own games from this. Take it easy everyone.

Not sure if this nomination is allowed, due to the circumstances of Polraudio and Marked being absent, but I'd like to nominate Dolarmak for being really active and helpful :thumbsup:

All hail overlord Polraudio.

Thanks for the reply guys :grin: The character in the demo is part of a para-military group, funded by the government, and also available for mercenary jobs, which is pretty heavily involved in weapon research and development. Their role in the game, as well as connection with other companies and corporations, isn't revealed for the time being. And of course the AK-47 is required :thumbsup: The significance of weapons is to let the player collect them and find their favourite amongst them. There's lots of customization and upgrade options available, and, although, for example, an M4A1 and an M16A3 may be rather equal in damage, there are lots of different contributing factors, including accuracy (range), attachments, rate-of-fire, etc.. For example, the M16A3 is more accurate, and the variety of attachments is different. The way a huge collection of guns is evened out is by the limitation in space in your inventory (you can hold 8 objects in your inventory at any time, but there's also a storage section back at the raft), and ammunition variants and types. For example, taking an M4A1 and M16A3 at the same time would be rather redundant, as both use the same type of ammo (5.56x45mm NATO). I don't want a system, like in Resident Evil, for example, where you can carry a hundred millions guns on your back at any given time, and every one has a different ammo type.. However, in saying that, I do want there to be a nice collection of guns that you can obtain. In terms of button mashing, there won't be much much button mashing in cutscenes, but if you ever pick up a single-shot weapon, there'll be a great deal of button mashing. Because of Stargate, right? :grin: But, regardless of where it's from, the P90 is a beautiful weapon; compact, accurate, and incredibly reliable. I'm surprised we haven't seen more weapons which use the clip-style it uses, since it's incredibly reliable and rarely jams. I'll see what I can do :thumbsup:

Right now, I'm working on a short demo for Hope Afloat, but, since the demo is from a soldiers point of view on a military base at the time of the outbreak, I'd like to know what kind of weapons you guys would like to see in Hope Afloat. There's no poll, since it isn't a pick and choose, and there'll be amble opportunity to have a nice collection of weapons in the game. So, any and all replies would be great. Right now the current weapons include: Beretta 92F [Pistol] Vektor CP1 [Pistol] Taurus Judge [Revolver] Street Sweeper [shotgun] KRISS Vector [sub-Machine Gun] Steyr AUG [Assault Rifle] H&K XM8 [Assault Rifle] Remington 700 [Rifle - Bolt Action] Hunting Crossbow [special] And there's much more to come, but I'd really like to know what you guys would like to see in the way of weapons in Hope Afloat.

This blog entry is long overdue, but I thought I might just get some things out there. I haven't really had the opportunity to do a lot of work in terms of projects, lately. Real life tends to seriously get in the way of things. Anyway, so, this is going to be a lot of wall text, so I thought I might make a little table of contents so that you guys know what's happening in this huge wall of text. So, in this blog, I'll be talking about: 1. The Hope Afloat Engine - Customization System 2. Pathogen - Progress & Updates 3. Legacy - Future Plans 4. Hope Afloat & Demons - Progress Halt 5. Future Projects & Plans Hope Afloat Engine - Customization System This part of the blog will probably be the largest, so prepare for a wall of text. Mostly this talks about the Hope Afloat Engine I use in most of my games, including Hope Afloat, Legacy and Pathogen. However, Legacy and Pathogen run off a more primitive version of the engine, which doesn't feature a lot of the things that the new one does. Although any bug fixes that are done in the newest version of the Hope Afloat Engine will be carried over to the other projects, but, most of what the new version of the Hope Afloat engine contains is a lot of customization for your guns. Legacy and Pathogen don't really need this level of customization, purely because they're meant to be short and re-playable. Although a small degree of customization or weapon modification might help, Hope Afloat is the game that really benefits from the level of customization possible. It means that you can get a feel for your guns, and customize them according to your means. In Legacy, you're given your start-out gear, and, in Pathogen, you won't really have much time to try out different combinations as you go along. There'll be some screenshots momentarily but, when you select a weapon, and move the option down to the "Check" function, ordinarily, it would just show you a larger image of the weapon and display it's description. However, with the new Check system for Hope Afloat, you'll get the options of Overview, Weapon, Brand, Ammo, and Att/Mod. • Overview: This just gives you a brief overview of your weapon, including clip size, damage, range, etc. • Weapon: This option shows you the specs of the base weapon. This is the weapon without any bonuses from brand, ammo, or modifications. • Brand: If you've followed some of the past blogs, each weapon, upon finding it, can randomly be given a brand. This is a random and rare chance, so, most of the time, you'll receive a plain weapon. However, you can always buy Brand Kits, which will apply a Brand onto a weapon. Each brand gives the weapon a unique attribute. For example, the Overkill brand gives the weapon extra damage, while the Turmoil brand lessens the rate that a weapons condition deteriorates at. Each weapon also has a unique brand, which will give it a unique effect, depending on the weapon. The Beretta 92F, for example, when applied its unique brand, becomes dual wield, effectively doubling its ammo capacity, while giving minor bonuses from the other brands. This section here will display the brand name and its effect on the weapon. • Ammo: The ammunition type of the weapon can give the weapon different effects. For example, High Powered rounds will give a small amount of damage bonus, and Hollow Point ammo will do extra damage to unarmoured targets, but less damage to armoured targets. • Att/Mod: Which stands for Attachments/Modifications. This is a pretty cool section, where you can view modifications or attachments you give your weapon. This can be anything from sights, to grips, to even aesthetic looks for your weapons. Don't mind the icons in the menu to the right, specifically the one I'm hovering over. Couldn't be bothered making a seperate icon for the menu just yet. This screenshot here demonstrates the new Check system. The weapon we have in question there is the following: Base Weapon: Beretta 92F Brand: Overkill Ammo Type: Hollow Point Att/Mod: Wooden Grips Although you can have, for example, an extended magazine, or a barrel extension for the attachment, I decided to show off one of the aesthetic features you can have. The background of the weapon, in this case, the blood splat, represents the Brand of the weapon. The ammo it uses is displayed on the left of the graphic, and the Attachment or Modification is shown on the weapon itself. This is just one of the things being added to Hope Afloat. Pathogen - Progress & Updates Although Pathogen was supposed to be released at the unveiling of RMU 2.0, there's been a lot of snags in the way of personal life that have got in the way of it's development. However, progress is still being made on the front of Pathogen, including lots of new weapons, game modes, and so on. There isn't a lot to report at the moment, but there should be a Pathogen specific blog entry in a few weeks time. Legacy - Future Plans Although it isn't exactly a lot to report, I've begun planning a new Legacy map. I think that the complexity of the map idea I proposed a while ago was too difficult, especially when used with voice acting, panorama mapping, and the general dynamic nature of the map. Instead, I'll be doing a few other heists, with varying length, before returning to that map. I'll have more information for you guys later. There is a poll being done on my Deadlocked topic page, which, if you guys have time, would mean a lot to me if you voted. You can get to my Deadlocked topic page by clicking here. Hope Afloat & Demons - Progress Halt With these two games, development is going to halt while I work on other projects. The main reason that Demons is being halted is because I've been looking into VX Ace, and it looks like a much more suitable engine to make the project. So, rather than making it in VX, I might convert to VX Ace before I put too much effort into it. Hope Afloat, on the other hand, is coming to a development halt, temporarily, while I work on upgrading the Hope Afloat engine, both adding new content and fixing bugs. This shouldn't take too long, and Hope Afloat development will be back up and running in no time at all. Future Plans & Projects In terms of future projects, there are a few projects I talked only briefly about to a few friends that I wouldn't mind rebooting again. One of these was a project called "The Garden of Eden", which, sadly, I can't remember who I discussed this with, but I think it may have been Rated-RKOFranklin. This project was a survival horror game, in which you were stranded on a strange, law-defying island in which strange beings first created life. The most successful form of life, the Humans, went on to populate beyond the island, and the other creations lived off the island, making small villages, shrines, and even small monuments around the island. However, these creator beings, with nothing left to do, were slowly driven mad, and began making nightmarish horrors on the island, which butchered and destroyed the inhabitants of the island. But now, after thousands of years, the island has re-appeared, and was stumbled upon by your character and a crew of archaeologists, initially on their way to Antarctica. Through a series of events, you are stranded on the island, and, in order to survive, must use the land around you to make shelter and weapons. The fate of the island is entirely up to you. Will you cleanse it of the dark creatures and learn more about these creator gods in an attempt to sanctify the island, or will you simply escape, saving the lives of your crew? There were a few other project concepts which were thrown about between friends, including Project REDSIN, by me, Omar and RGangsta, which I hope we will resume work on when there's time, as well as another survival game me and Kiriashi spoke about shortly before he went his own way. There's a lot of projects I'd like to work on and not enough time. But anyway, that's all there really is to this blog entry. I know it's a huge wall of text, but I hope you guys learned some cool things about upcoming projects. Take it easy. ~Tomo2000.

Too bad I missed this... I'll definitely compete in the next one, though. :grin:

Well damn... I've been gone for a few weeks with personal issues and all this happens. All the issues and everything I would have said has already been said, so.. Yeah. We'll see what happens.

Shoot me a PM, Calvinchun. We can discuss this there.