The Magic Man's site

Demo time

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:21:28 +0000

So, it's time for a small demo of the project I am working on.

There is not much to say honestly. It's not very big yet, not even close to finished, most likely buggy as hell, lots of issues with lots of things and needs lots and lots of testing. Hell, the game doesn't even have a name yet.

You can either download it here...
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/Pet.zip

Or connect to byond://82.12.83.91:5500
Ideally, the game should be played multiplayer, but can be played single player (though more boring).

There isn't much else to say apart from read the help section before asking dumb questions (movement is WASD not arrow keys) and if you find a bug at least say something about it.

I'll probably keep the game hosted for the weekend but the download will be up for a lot longer.

Time to reveal stuff

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:13:03 +0000

So, I told people I was working on a secret project a week or two ago and would give them level 97,331,283 GM if they guessed what it was based off of clues.

No one guessed, but one person came close. I guess he can have level 68,993 GM.

So, what exactly is this game? To put it simply, it is a mixture of a online RPG, Digimon World 1, and one of those cyber pets (tamagochis?). You pick a little monster, and raise it then make it fight in brutal (and highly illegal) games similar to dog fighting or cockfighting.

When I say raise pet, I mean you have to raise it. You do not make it fight like in Pokemon where it gains exp and levels up. You raise it like you would one of those cyber pets. You need to feed it, care for it, make sure it doesn't poop everywhere and so on. If you don't it can, and will die forever.
If you look after it good, then it can get big and strong and kill stuff easier.
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/baberts.png This picture is an example of what you can expect your little pet to become if you treat it well. If not it'll probably turn into a giant, talking pile of poo just to humiliate you for being a bad person.

Naturally, since this game has fighting, it also has training, and since this is BYOND I know my target demographic. This means the BYOND classics such as "pbag training" and "gravity training" exist in the game. (Not joking) But the game also includes several innovative methods of training never seen before on BYOND (all copyrighted pls no steal). Things like blocking hammers, and even studying (brain is a muscle too).
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/pbagtraining.png This picture shows how pbag training works. It is the highly original "on screen popup super delux system" (also copyright).
(Realistically, training takes up very little time, for every hour you spend playing, you might spend 1-2 minutes training)

Combat in this game is also innovashion. When have you ever assumed direct control of your dog during a brutal dog fight? Never is when. But you can train it to fight better.
Combat in this game works the same. You do not control your little pet, you just train it good and hope it gets smarter at fighting. You can shout at it, but if it doesn't like you it wont listen to you (have to treat it well again!).
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/babertwaves.png Here is my pet bear mauling to death to pink babies (very brutal!).

So now your pet is looked after, big and strong and smart and can killing babies. So now what? Why does it all matter?
Because you have a mission, a goal! You see, everyone in your little village got kidnapped by big strong monsters. You must raise the biggest and strongest monster to kill these other monsters and rescue people. As you do these people will reward you, as well as return to your village and fix things up. Maybe they will open a shop and sell new items, or maybe they'll have jobs for you to do.

So. Now you know you have monsters and training and fighting and saving the day, you're probably wondering when you can play this right?
Well, probably this Friday. I should have a demo released by then, although it'll probably only contain an hour or so of stuff to do, if that.

So keep your eyes open guys. Maybe you can be the very best like no one else ever was.

Things are not going to badly!

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:40:00 +0000

So, in the secret project I am working on, things are not going too badly! In the week or so I've been working on it I have almost all of the basic game engine made. After this is done which should be by the end of today, all I need to do is the horribly boring task of adding content.
I already have a general idea of what is going to be added, it's just going to take a long time to add it all. Provided I can spend 1-3 days working on a single map, it's going to take me a solid month just to add the maps and nothing else. Which is not cool.

At the rate I am going, I expect a small playable game within 1-2 weeks.

Although I'm not revealing what the game is about just yet, you can all take guesses if you want (winner gets level 978 GM when game is released). The clues are...

1. As far as I am aware, there is no game like this on BYOND yet. There are similar games, but most of them are half assed attempts that cut out key mechanics infavor of simplicity (or lack of skill on the developers part).

2. The game is inspired by another game, which most of BYOND are probably too young to have even played and the ones old enough to have played it probably never did because it was the best game ever that no one played.
This game was inspired by something kids who grew up in the 90s would have known a lot about as it was a fad around that time.

3. The game is heavily related to... Food.
Here is an example of some eggs I drew for the game.
Here is... Chocolate ice cream I also drew.
And here is some food I did not draw, because I am too lazy to draw lots of food and it looks better than anything I can draw anyway.

Remember, the first person to guess correctly gets level 78,944 GM in the game!

I greet you

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:12:27 +0000

So, it turns out I've been gone for a few months now. Last time I did this I came back to an entirely new website, but I guess I'm not so lucky this time. Although BYOND seems to have gotten some new features, so I'll have to play around with them.

I haven't really done anything while I've been away, just chilling out, maxing, relaxing and shooting some b-ball. Maybe I'm lying about the last bit, but replace it with playing lots of video games. But I've ran out of stuff to play for now (more specifically I've ran out of money to buy stuff to play). So I figured I'd some back and see what's up.

Actually, I'm even lying about that last bit (deal with it). I've secretly been working on something and come back to BYOND because of that. I can't and wont say what it is because the chances of me finishing it are so low I probably just have just not bothered starting.

All I can say is... It has a lot to do with... Food... Yeah, that's right food.
Like eggs, meat and even chocolate icecream... Yeah, chocolate icecream! Copious amounts of chocolate icecream. So much chocolate icecream you'll be tripping all over it!

Anyway, I'll maybe post some more delicious food adventures when I have more to talk about.

Small test

Sat, 07 May 2011 00:37:47 +0000

So, I said a few days ago that I'd whip up a small test for the jRPG I am working on, so I did.

http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/jRPG.zip

This is a TEST only. It is likely to have bugs, there is no documentation, not much content, and what little there is just exists for the purpose of showing what the final product may be like.

Controls are WASD to move, E opens menu, everything else is done with mouse clicks.
The game also has a debug window, it only has 2 commands. The first is to change your name, the second is to level you character up (the game has no levels, stats randomly increase after fights, this verb simulates as many fights as you enter).
Also, ignore all of the garbage the debug window puts out, it's just something I use for testing (but if it spits out error messages, posting them would be helpful as well as how it occurred).

You will start with a few weapons and pieces of armor. One low level version, one higher level version. You'll also be given a few healing items.
There is also 6 characters you can use (you can use up to 2 of them + yourself), most have 1-2 skills. Click them to make them join you (the knight and cleric have dialog, if they are in your party you can click them again to kick them out of the party).
There is only 4 types of enemies, 3 normal and one boss, but without using the level up verb and using high level equipment beating the boss probably wont be possible.

You will probably need a graphics card capable of 32 bit color support, and hardware acceleration enabled in BYOND. If you don't have these, you may experience issues and errors with the game.

I am also aware that a lot of the text is not properly centered yet, it is just annoying to go through all of the text with a magnifying glass and make sure it's positioning is pixel perfect.

Oh yeah, this is a SINGLE PLAYER game only. Don't even bother with trying to host it or expect anyone to host it or anything like that (there is currently no checks to stop people from joining if hosted, but if they do, it will cause errors).

More RPGs

Mon, 02 May 2011 16:02:20 +0000

So, on the JRPG I've been working on, I have more or less finished the battle system.

http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/jrpgfinal.png

Pic related.

It is a fairly complex system, with a lot of factors to take into account, allowing for lots of strategy (and the game will be very hard, so you will need to be smart).

And, even though I am tooting my own horn, I'd say that is is technically the most impressive system of it's kind made with BYOND (which I'd say previously belonged to another, similar system I made in W-BAT).
The downside to this is, the system makes use of things like alpha transparency for interfaces, image blending and color mapping. These aren't downsides in their own right, since they make things look pretty cool (my mind still gets blown at the effect that plays when you kill an enemy. I've tried like 50 times to screenshot it, but some sort of optical illusion takes place as well, which makes taking a screenshot hard as hell). But from previous testing, a lot of BYOND users have bad computers, that struggle with these kinds of things or simply cannot do them. If you are one of these people, you probably wont be able to play the game. And there will be a lot of other aspects of the game which do make use of these features as well.

Although I say the system is finished, it is still lacking content.
There is no enemies other than ones I use for testing.
There is no animations at all yet, since they're a pain to make.
And though there is some abilities to use, the majority of them have not been added yet.

Most of this can be added with minimal effort as the game is made however.

Once I polish things up, and add a few of the above, I may make a small demo so people can test things out.

RPGs

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:57:11 +0000

So, the JRPG I am working on is coming along pretty well.
I've more or less finished the entire menu system. Including an inventory, status screen (which lists equipment, stats and skills), a journal that keeps a log of almost everything (quests, items, monsters and so on) and one or two other screens associated with some of the games systems.
I've also half finished the battle system. Battles work, and the foundation for them exists, there is just nothing to fight with or against (no real enemies, skills/abilities and so on).

Pic related. It's me and my party wandering around in the forest.
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/jrpg1.png

When suddenly the screen flashes (you can't see if, but if you could, it'd look awesome)...
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/JRPG2.png

And my butt already feels sore.
Guess I should have equipped some weapons and armor.
http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/jrpg3.png

Before you ask, yeah. All of the menus in the game are done through interfaces. I'm too lazy to make some sort of system to add all this stuff on screen, which would inevitably feel choppy and awkward.
So I am using interfaces (and lets face it, no one would have ever known I was using interfaces if not for the single scroll bar, which I can probably remove anyway).

The menus still need some polishing off though, mostly some of the text is off center and needs positioning better.

Depending on how lazy I am feeling, give or take 2-3 weeks, I may have something that is barely playable.

Mysterious

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:46:28 +0000

So, I did originally want to make a side view PVP game. After lots of playing around, and a quarter finished game, I decided to can it.
What I wanted to do just was not possible (or at least not possible for me to do). I wanted the game to be fast paced, constant action, explosions and death everywhere. Which was simply not possible on the scale I was looking for (5-10 players).
I could have made severe cut backs and possibly made the game playable in some form, but I did not wish to make those sort of sacrifices.

Buuut, I did say I was probably going to make a single player RPG a while back, and I indeed have been.
I'm not in any rush to get this game finished, but I did manage to shave about 70 years off of the development time. I was originally going to draw the graphics myself, but decided to use some freeware graphics instead. They look better, and are quicker to use. So I decided to use them.

http://files.byondhome.com/TheMagicMan/stupid.png

Picture related. That is what the game will most likely look like if/when finished. (That's not an actual area in game, just testing out things)

I've still got tons to do, but have most of the basic systems in the game finished (excluding battle system).

Updaten and decidan

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:37:12 +0000

So, I've updated War of Heroes a bit. Lots of bug fixes and balancing changes.
I've also added some forums which you can find here http://www.byond.com/members/TheMagicMan/forum which I will use to post more detailed info on updates.

I have also decided on the next project I will be working on. It is another PVP game, because they are the only worth while games to make/play. It will be a side view game, probably using Forum Accounts library.
The main feature of the game though will be creation and destruction.
You will pick a team and class, then depending on the game type have an objective, whether that is simply killing each other, or capturing the enemies flag.

Each class will be defined in two ways.
The first is what their role is, offensive or defensive. Pretty common sense, offensive are better at killing, defensive are better at defending and supporting.
The second way is whether they are a creator, or destroyer. Creators are good at creating things, they can build walls and so on. Destroyers are the opposite of this, they are good at destroying the scenery, usually with big, flashing explosions.

An example of a creator would be something like a Builder. He can build a strong wall/roof, and an automated turret to attack enemies.
An example of a destroyer would be a sapper. He can plant TNT to deal major damage, or fire a mortar to bombard enemies from above.

I'm not planning on this game taking long to make. I estimate no longer than a week or two before it is playable.

Just some small stuff

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:29:36 +0000

Mostly minor stuff to post about for now.

I added a minor update for Block Miners. There is now a single player practice mode. This mode has no real goals or objectives (nor any AI to compete against). It is just to allow players to get use to the controls of the game, and how to play.
It is only 2 maps, one is a blank map that is hard to mess up in, the other is more like the sort of maps included in the game, dangers and all.

Secondly, I uploaded WBAT. Since I'm not hosting it anymore. If anyone wants to download and play it, they can do so on the hub.

Finally, I uploaded the latest version of War of Heroes. No major changes, just some bug fixes. I will also host the game for a few days as well.

That is all for now. Been busy with stuff and have not had much time to do anything.