BYOND + Flash

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Dec 13 2010, 8:47 am (Edited on Dec 13 2010, 8:52 am)
In response to CauTi0N
CauTi0N wrote:
I think you are forgetting a prime example of good single player on BYOND, aka Regressia.

And? How would that game not benefit from having simple multiplayer? With a few simple systems (chat, player list, players walking through each other, maybe a scoreboard, it already has medals), that game would maintain its current state, while building a community, advertising itself better, and allowing people to enjoy it together, somewhat. If they wanted to take it to the next level, they could make it so players could party together and interact in other ways. Lazy.

As well, to provide another example of when single-player is not as lazy than multi-player would be an example of when AI is involved

Just because your game is multiplayer doesn't mean it shouldn't have AI. In fact, I'd say the best multiplayer games are the ones that are AI driven with multiplayer co-op. WoW, L4D, Army of 2, Red Dead Redemption, even the newest CoD games have multiplayer modes that you can play against AI - though they are primarily PvP. A game being multiplayer only/not having AI is just about as lazy as one being single player only, sometimes more-so.
Dec 13 2010, 9:17 am
In response to Falacy
Falacy wrote:
And? How would that game not benefit from having simple multiplayer? With a few simple systems (chat, player list, players walking through each other, maybe a scoreboard, it already has medals), that game would maintain its current state, while building a community, advertising itself better, and allowing people to enjoy it together, somewhat. If they wanted to take it to the next level, they could make it so players could party together and interact in other ways. Lazy.

NEStalgia? In any case, I feel this argument could go on for ages - and I think you realized that there are two sides to this with my AI argument.

I think it's safe to say we can both agree that at least when it comes to BYOND (though for most online-supported consoles as well), a safe mixture of both single and multi-player should be in order. Again, I think Minecraft is one of the best examples of it (give the player the choice), but games such as Starcraft, Halo, Call of Duty, etc. at least implement a campaign. Probably one of the finest examples of seamless integration was as you said, Left 4 Dead, or for BYOND, Casual Quest.

But yes, I agree, the best games should have seamless integration of both single and multi-player so the client gets to choose how they interact with the game.
Dec 13 2010, 9:50 am
In response to Falacy
Falacy wrote:
KetchupKid wrote:
Just because its possible doesn't mean it has to be used(Ex:I could make all my icons 256x256 because its built-in, but no game I'm working on would benefit from it.

If BYOND handled large icons competently, then that would be the case. But considering anything larger than 32x32 is just a poorly laid out graphical overlay, I would barely even consider that built-in. Plus, 256x256 is a bit of a stretch, but in general you could get much better graphical results with icons bigger than 32x32. That's a pretty poor analogy for networking though.

If a game is meant to be single player, it should be single player. Not made multi-player to make it look like I worked harder.

Making it look like you worked harder is the least of the reasons why a BYOND game shouldn't be single player only. Though, it seems like the one that offended you the most, so you must find some merit in it.

If I made a single player game who said the main goal would be to bring players to BYOND or that it would even have a HUB? I could make my own website, distribute and advertise the game myself if I wanted. Building My Own Net Dream has nothing to do with bringing players to BYOND or making it easy to find on the BYOND website.

If that's your goal then I wouldn't even recommend using BYOND in the first place. There are much better engines for making single player games, especially if you intend to advertise them on your own. Hell, even RPG Maker would probably yield better results under those circumstances.


It wasn't an analogy for networking. It was to show that just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you should do it, which in that way relates to multi-player.

I was never offended, sorry if you took it that way.
I just disagreed with your point and said something about it.

BYOND is the engine I'm comfortable with at the moment and I don't have the time to learn to use another(current projects, job, and college although its almost out for winter), one day I will take your advice and make my single player games with an engine more suitable.

Either way its just our opinions so this argument is useless now that we've both expressed them.
Dec 16 2010, 9:34 am
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
CauTi0N wrote:
Hiro the Dragon King wrote:
That's only a tad disappointing. But, that's not to say that I dislike the idea. I can't wait to see it.

I agree - on one side, I'd much prefer single-player capability without porting. However, a plus is that you can make your game much more exclusive (if there is no dedicated host, of course).

I'd love it if we could port games, but the server is an order of magnitude more complicated than the client. Also, there are a zillion single-player Flash games, but, somewhat surprisingly, multiplayer is relatively ripe for a platform at this time. We'd better strike while the iron's hot!

Can't Flash already support multiplayer games? I think you may be a little late on that bro. Not saying I wouldn't love a Byond port for another OS, hell I been requesting it for years, but just thought I'd point that out. Of course, it will definitely make the games easier to access without scaring people off by downloading a whole suite.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/search/title/multiplayer
Dec 16 2010, 9:41 am
In response to Neblim
Neblim wrote:
Can't Flash already support multiplayer games?

Yes, obviously, or else we couldn't port BYOND to Flash :)

I just find it weird that there aren't more Flash multiplayer games. You've got all of these people online at Facebook at the same time and they are all playing Farmville by themselves. Seems like there's an opportunity there.
Dec 16 2010, 9:45 am
In response to Tom
Do you think this might be due to App development for mobile devices, and multiplayer games sprouting there, rather than trying to advertise on the internet?
Dec 16 2010, 9:50 am
In response to CauTi0N
CauTi0N wrote:
Do you think this might be due to App development for mobile devices, and multiplayer games sprouting there, rather than trying to advertise on the internet?

I think it's mainly that single-player games are a lot easier to make and much less a stress on the host program (1M Farmville users in 1M Farmville games!= 1M Farmville users in 1 game). But certainly there should be a niche for relatively small (2-100 players) multiplayer games on the web & mobile devices. And hopefully with our toolkit you can make those kinds of games without having to worry about all of the design considerations you'd have with MMORPGs.
Dec 16 2010, 9:58 am
In response to Tom
Apps on mobile devices seem to be a hot topic. I even had to buy an iTouch to see what its about. There's something about it that makes it feel essential when you can do almost anything portabeble with it. With this Byond to Flash port, maybe we can snag some traffic from those users if it's successful enough to play on. I know I'd use it.
Dec 16 2010, 10:31 am
In response to Neblim
Neblim wrote:
maybe we can snag some traffic from those users if it's successful enough to play on. I know I'd use it.

Android users, anyway.
Dec 16 2010, 11:11 am
In response to Neblim
Neblim wrote:
Can't Flash already support multiplayer games?

As far as I know, from my limited use of Flash, it is capable of it. However, it requires the use of an outside language (like PHP) to pass parameters back and forth between a server app and the flash client.
Dec 16 2010, 2:18 pm
In response to Falacy
A chat system and scoreboard is not multiplayer. By your logic, Pacman is multiplayer. It is not. A scoreboard can add an element of competition that otherwise wouldn't be their, granted, but it's not multiplayer. It's simply multiple people competing against each other in singleplayer games. If your argument is that people who don't add scoreboards and medals are lazy, fine. But if your argument is that singleplayer games are lazy, then you're obviously missing the point that not every concept can be as fun in multiplayer as it is in singleplayer and not every concept can be as fun in singleplayer as it is in multiplayer. Some games are tailor made for singleplayer, while others are designed for multiplayer. How would NetHack, Deja Vu, or Zork work in multiplayer? How would World of Warcraft work in singleplayer? Not every darn choice is about laziness, and even then, some choices that have made games more fun have stemmed from laziness. The morph ball from Metroid was designed because they animators didn't want to spend an excessive amount of time making a crawling animation look decent, so they changed it into a ball.

Seriously, there [i]is[/i] such as thing as game design. Just because someone wanted to make a singleplayer game doesn't mean their lazy. If you want online elements in more singleplayer games, then you should say [i]that[/i] rather than trying to redefine the term "multiplayer".
Dec 16 2010, 2:44 pm (Edited on Dec 16 2010, 3:52 pm)
In response to SereneBluestone
SereneBluestone wrote:
A chat system and scoreboard is not multiplayer. [...] It's simply multiple people competing against each other in singleplayer games.

Competing against other people, yes. A scoreboard and medals are by far the weakest multiplayer features. Chat is a much better enhancement. Look at RuneScape, there's almost nothing you can actually do with other people. It should also go without saying, but every multiplayer game should have in-game chat, even though some of them are too lazy to implement it.

How would NetHack, Deja Vu, or Zork work in multiplayer?

I've never really played any of those games, but from the short gameplay videos I watched:
NetHack: Drop in/out co-op seems like it would work great.
Deja Vu: Looks more like reading a book than playing a game. I suppose you could let players take turns picking the actions for the character, forcing them to work in unison to make progress. Though, reading a book isn't exactly a multiplayer experience =P
Zork: There are plenty of multiplayer games like Zork, they're called MUDs. You could probably even put Deja Vu into that category.

How would World of Warcraft work in singleplayer?

Almost exactly like it does now...
Dec 17 2010, 5:45 am
In response to Tom
Work quickly, AdventureQuest Worlds is already advertising on television.
Dec 17 2010, 6:33 am
In response to Warlord Fred
Warlord Fred wrote:
Work quickly, AdventureQuest Worlds is already advertising on television.

BattleOn/AdventureQuest has already been pretty popular for a while. And again, that's hardly multi-player either - it takes Falacy's loosely defined version and provides a score system, though I can't even recall it ever allowing chat.
Dec 17 2010, 9:22 am
In response to CauTi0N
That's the original AdventureQuest. AdventureQuest Worlds has a chat system, and you can see the other players on the screen, battling monsters and each other.
Dec 17 2010, 9:26 am
In response to CauTi0N
Adobe is working on a feature that will allow people to compile their Flash programs as HTML5 (or something like that, at least). I've already seen one game that used this, and it played OK, despite not having sound and being a little slower.
Dec 17 2010, 9:39 am
In response to Jeff8500
Jeff8500 wrote:
Adobe is working on a feature that will allow people to compile their Flash programs as HTML5 (or something like that, at least). I've already seen one game that used this, and it played OK, despite not having sound and being a little slower.

Which is wonderful in 20 billion ways for Apple. Though I'm not a huge fan of Apple (even though I worked there for a bit).
Dec 17 2010, 4:58 pm
In response to CauTi0N
I think rewriting the BYOND Flash client in HTML 5 would be a good idea, but only after we get the Flash client out to the public and use it for a while.
Dec 17 2010, 5:01 pm
In response to Flame Sage
So you're saying to spend marginally large amounts of time to do something, just to scratch it off later and go "nah, jk bro"?
Dec 17 2010, 5:03 pm
In response to DivineTraveller
DivineTraveller wrote:
So you're saying to spend marginally large amounts of time to do something, just to scratch it off later and go "nah, jk bro"?

Well, perhaps using the converter. I think using the Flash client is fine. But iPhone users will start to scream and yell.
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