mum's the word

ID:111305
 
Mar 28 2011, 4:26 pm (Edited on Mar 28 2011, 5:15 pm)
Keywords: tinyheroes
Inspired by EmpirezTeam's suggestion I figured I'd try making a video for Tiny Heroes, the sidescrolling action RPG I'm working on. Everything went fine except for one thing, I can't find my microphone. So enjoy the silent preview I added synthesized speech to the video, which is better than nothing. Mum's not the word anymore! =)

The video shows some gameplay as the necromancer, assassin, and wizard. Your starting area depends on your class, and the maps shown are what the starting areas will be like for those three classes. I don't have much work done for the knight and druid classes, so they don't get maps yet.



Here are some screenshots showing some feature that are either new or just not shown in the previous batch of screenshots:





The second screenshot shows the quest page in the bottom left. The interface is still pretty rough, but will probably use browser controls much like A Miner Adventure. It'll probably use screen objects for a more conventional looking HUD too (now that that's possible).

I also added quarter-sized tiles. The tiles are still 32x32, the smaller blocks are just objs placed on the map. The black lines around the walls and the drop shadows are generated at run time, so that needed a bit of updating to make this work but it's worth it.

Without the quarter-sized tiles I couldn't put enough detail in the maps. Access to areas will often be limited by how high you can jump and these smaller blocks give me more precise control over that.
Mar 28 2011, 4:58 pm
DAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN!
Mar 28 2011, 5:00 pm
Bah! Fetch quest. Just no.

Looking nifty though!
Mar 28 2011, 5:13 pm (Edited on Mar 28 2011, 5:29 pm)
I'm not sure how many RPG elements I want to include in the game. I'm leaning towards not having experience points at all. Instead you'll level up by completing dungeons. The quests will probably be silly things similar to what's shown in the video and screenshot, but the purpose of doing quests isn't to grind for experience points. The quests exist primarily to give the player direction - tell them where to go and what to do, what abilities to use, how they work, etc. Quests can also be done to get items.

I'm working on uploading a video with audio. It's synthesized speech, but it's better than nothing. Should be ready in a minute.

Edit:
The video in the blog post is now the one with audio.

I don't like games that require a lot of grinding. Instead of requiring that the player experience the same bits of content over and over, I'd rather give the game replay value by having a variety of classes. Instead of having to beat the same dungeon 10 times to get enough experience to level up, you'll beat the dungeon 10 times because you'll play through the game using 10 different class combinations.
Mar 28 2011, 5:32 pm
That is awesome. Now I REALLY can't wait to try this. :D

Also "neecrah-mansurr"
Mar 28 2011, 5:35 pm
This looks really fun. I might even do a little video review on it! (:
Mar 28 2011, 6:22 pm
I'm not sure how many RPG elements I want to include in the game. I'm leaning towards not having experience points at all. Instead you'll level up by completing dungeons. The quests will probably be silly things similar to what's shown in the video and screenshot, but the purpose of doing quests isn't to grind for experience points. The quests exist primarily to give the player direction - tell them where to go and what to do, what abilities to use, how they work, etc. Quests can also be done to get items.

Sounds great!

I'm working on uploading a video with audio. It's synthesized speech, but it's better than nothing. Should be ready in a minute.

It's just a liiittle bit creepy... ;)
Mar 29 2011, 12:21 am
This doesn't even look like a BYOND game.

Are you planning to promote this and make money?
Mar 29 2011, 1:37 am
Wow, looks so sweeet. I can't wait to give it a try once it's done :D You are for sure BYOND God of sidescrollers xD
Mar 29 2011, 2:28 am
It's just a liiittle bit creepy... ;)

Maybe my voice is even creepier :-)

This doesn't even look like a BYOND game.

I'm trying to do my part to break that stigma. The most disappointing part of NEStalgia's promotion was the people saying "wow, that looks awesome. oh, its a BYOND game :-/" I imagine that the majority of internet users haven't formed an opinion of BYOND, but it would still be nice to know that developers don't have to fight against BYOND's less-than-stellar reputation when promoting games.

Are you planning to promote this and make money?

I'd love for the game to be popular and make some money from it, but I'd be getting ahead of myself if I worried about that now. The video shows almost everything I have done - all maps, all abilities, and almost all of the icons. Progress has been slow, but hopefully making these videos will motivate me to work on it and get meaningful work done. I still don't expect to have a playable demo for a couple of months at least.
Mar 29 2011, 2:37 am
Kisioj wrote:
Wow, looks so sweeet. I can't wait to give it a try once it's done :D You are for sure BYOND God of sidescrollers xD

Thanks! This game and A Miner Adventure use my Sidescroller library with very little modification. The things I do change almost always get included in the next version of the library. In fact, you could trace almost all changes to the library back to something that was done for a game. I added the pathfinding function to the library after developing it for Tiny Heroes.

If I'm the god of sidescrollers I'm trying my best to make it a polytheistic religion, I just don't have any company yet :-)
Mar 29 2011, 2:53 am
If you're ever at a loss in terms of ideas/content or looking for inspiration, I'd check out Wario Land 3 for the Gameboy Color. It's what I've seen called "the platformer firing on all cylinders".
Mar 29 2011, 3:22 am
Thanks, I'll be sure to check that out. I had played the first Wario game, but in reading about the games right now it looks like the second and third games in the series are quite different and more interesting. I plan for this game to be a platformer first and RPG second, so a little research on platformers could help a lot.
Mar 29 2011, 9:34 am
I was just asking because this looks amazing. You would be crazy not to promote this - casual as well as hardcore gamers would love it. It's like Super Mario Bros meets Diablo. You would EASILY be able to rake in some dough with this.

I wanted to make something similar to this, but I can't comprehend all that programming in the side-scroller library. Either that or I'm just not trying hard enough to. I.E. I just like check-marked it and ran my game and then my map was gone and things were black or whatever. I couldn't deal with isometric either.
Mar 29 2011, 10:25 am
ExPixel and I spend hours trying to make our projects lose the BYOND mortality. I constantly bug him with "No, take that out, it looks way too ugly" when I see anything I don't like no matter how trivial the change may be xD

Yeah, I think there are a lot of quirks that people have come to tolerate in BYOND games that wouldn't be tolerated in other games. One of the best examples is the default tick_lag setting. Even if the game has no action at all, animations run at 10 frames per second just don't look nice. BYOND developers are used to the way it looks but the rest of the world isn't. BYOND games also tend to get away with having crappy interfaces.

You would be crazy not to promote this - casual as well as hardcore gamers would love it

This is exactly why I put Exordium & Terminus on the back burner. I think it was a neat idea, but it was small. It's the kind of game people would take an hour or two to play through then never play again. It's hard for a game to gather a following if everyone stops playing it for good within two hours of starting.

Including more conventional action-platform gameplay and some RPG elements will broaden it's appeal and keep people playing for longer. I would like to make something that would be worthy of promoting, there's just a lot of work to do before I'm at that point.

It's like Super Mario Bros meets Diablo.

Heh, now I'm tempted to make it be *exactly* like Super Mario Bros meets Diablo =). Pick up the dark gray mushroom you turn into a necromancer. Get a purple one and you turn into a wizard.

I just like check-marked it and ran my game and then my map was gone and things were black or whatever.

The library gets regular updates (I've been averaging an update or two a month for a while now) and most of the changes are to improve ease of use. If you tried it a while ago, maybe try it again. There's still a learning curve too it. My hope is that seeing what the library can make will convince people to try it (or try it again).
Mar 29 2011, 10:31 am
I like how the quest-giver necromancer guy's talking to a rat in the video. It's pretty cool looking. :D
Mar 29 2011, 2:44 pm
You need someone to do voiceovers?
Mar 29 2011, 2:45 pm
SuperAntx wrote:
You need someone to do voiceovers?

Like you have a good voice. =P
Mar 30 2011, 3:00 am
I'll be fine doing voice-overs once I find my microphone. I think it's in a box in a closet that's blocked by a couch. It wasn't worth the trouble for a three minute video :-)
Mar 30 2011, 8:57 am
Haha, this looks awesome. I loved the Hogwarts comment. A robot trying to be funny actually was funny.