[Event] JHB Community Night - 13 August 2013

edited in Events
This event happens monthly, is free to attend and anyone may speak at the meetup - just comment in the thread below to let us know!

Test games! Talk games! Make games!

When: 18:30 until around 21:30, Tuesday 13 August

Where: Microsoft Campus Bryanston, 3012 William Nicol Drive, Bryanston, Johannesburg

Content:
- Community News ~ 5 Mins
- Combat Detection in Clash- @Rigormortis ~20 mins
- Super Skydrops Arena (formerly Battle Blocks) Demo - by @Tuism ~20 mins
- Gamelogic and Unity Grids Plugin - by @hermantulleken and Jonathan ~10 Mins
- Vietnam 65 Game Demo - @JohanNagel ~ 20 mins
- Game design talk - @Bensonance ~15 mins
- Stasis Demo/Presentation - @Chris_Bischoff ~20 mins
- Open floor (Anyone may step up and present their games or talk - this is usually time contingent.)
- Blind leading the blind play test - @aodendaal

- Your presentation/talk/game here.

Calling for content!

Comments

  • We have been hinting at a new game #10MD if there is still time would be keen to show off what we doing.
  • Super Skydrops Arena (formerly Battle Blocks) reporting for duty! I'll be sure to get the controllers working beforehand... This weekend, in fact :)
  • Ok guys-I will be there!
    Thanked by 2Bensonance Nitrogen
  • @tbulford You're first to post so there's plenty of time :P.

    @Tusim Controllers! >3
  • Cool we will need about 40min I am guessing.
  • @Chris_Bischoff, Any chance of a Stasis demo? :D Even art pieces or a basic level would leave us salivating :D
  • edited
    @Bensonance
    >3
    ... that looks like some kind of fetish torture practice :P
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • Im sure I can pull something together... ;)
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • Sounds awesome! Would be my first time attending. Any links to all these games you mention (10MD, Super Skydrops Arena and Stasis)?
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • edited
    Oops - just realised this is JHB. Won't be there after all :p
  • No links to 10MD just yet.
  • I have a game I would like to demonstrate. Currently in development but have a full working prototype. Turn based strategy game Vietnam war, is this the type of game for this forum?

    Www.vietnam65.com
  • @JohanNagel If it's a game, we're excited to see it :).
  • Cool, how do I showcase it, live demo or static pres ?
  • @JohanNagel

    You could do either - we're more inclined to live demos, though - because then we can play while you speak, if we're allowed to :).
  • Ok I will be there , is there a screen and projector there or gonna load it onto individual pc's
  • There is a projector, but no computer - you can use my laptop if required :).
  • Clash y u no appear :(
  • @Stray_Train...we are building suspense...is it working? :P
  • Hehe, we will (unfortunately) not be showing off stuff this month. We were planning to but most of the team were tied up in survival activities. Take not however that our lead artist has shaken of the need for trivial things like food and sleep and has been hard at work on awesome stuff.

    But don't fret...the game isn't just developing on the art front. There are some major advancements in the gameplay/coding areas as well. I'm still deciding whether I am going to talk about some of it at the meet.
  • edited
    @Chris_Bischoff Wooo! We want exclusive demo footage please! K thanks bye.
  • Im sure I can wrangle something together... :D
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Would anyone be interested in hearing how the combat detection is currently done for Clash?
  • @Rigormotis, and whatever you doing about frame data
  • By frame data are we talking about like tekken level this attack is two frames, that stun is 3 frames, so this attack whiffing will be unpunishable while getting a stun means you can follow with a 3 frame move which will be unblockable... Etc? <3
  • @Tuism, currently everything is time based. So a stun isn't 3 frames long...it's 0.35 seconds long. Stuff like that.
  • Well generally, same diff, unless the delta buggers up when lag comes in, but that's just technical stuff that I don't understand anyway :) <3 in-depth fighting game mechanics :D
  • In general yes...in code not so much. I originally started out doing it time based just because that's what I'm used to, but recently started looking at possible making it frame based. I'm not sure if I want to do that though. For me keeping it time based is more accurate.

    I have to study up on my Fighting game mechanics...do you have any good places I find some stuff?
  • Well again I have no idea what's right or not, I just don't think time is the best base because of the possibility of lag which could throw time out the window, but that could be an absolute noob way of thinking about it. I dunno, to be honest.

    Oooh fighting game mechanics... TBH I don't follow it all tha closely, despite knowing the lingo :P

    http://shoryuken.com/ <--- that's the global temple/shrine/hub of all fighting games. There was just recently a global fighting game tournament called Evo:

    http://evo.shoryuken.com/ <--- Lots of coverage... Though I'm not sure how much mechanical info you'll find there.

    Otherwise all I know about frames and fighting games lingo come from experience googling tekken combos... Most of which ends up at gamefaq strategy guides.
  • Cool, I'll check that out...thanks. :)

    It's possible that I could be wrong about using time rather than frames, but I don't think lag would be an issue. If the game lags it's going to throw of the players timing anyways. It won't matter if it's based on time or frames in the background.
  • For me it's not about whether the player's timing can keep up or not, but rather the consistency in a sequence of events - like these moves should combo into each other because of these frames, and if it lags, they should still combo into each other - and not have a different outcome because of lag changing the timing..... If that makes sense.

    But again I'm no pro at this so I'm gonna keep quiet now XD
  • No need to keep quite...I'm no pro either. :D
  • If possible, Jonathan and I would like to do a 10-minute presentation about Gamelogic and our Unity Grids plugin.
    Thanked by 1Rigormortis
  • @Rigormortis & @Tuism:

    Glad to hear you're going through the combat stuff for this month's meet! I don't know the first thing about coding but just wanted to mention keeping in mind that Clash isn't a fighting game like Tekken or Street Fighter where you have to have exact frames so it's a fair fight (like you mentioned with this attack having x frames so it counters that attack with y frames etc.) so those types of games wouldn't be good for comparison.

    Would think in the case of a side-scrolling brawler (where you can be wading through scores of enemies at any one time) the time-based approach would be a bit more fluid?

    Again, since I don't understand the coding behind it I might be wrong, but in my head it doesn't work comparing the mechanics of a one-on-one fighter versus a multiple-enemy brawler
  • well, whether it's a one-on-one or a brawler, the principle I was talking about was if I execute this string of moves, I expect the same string of outcome - like in Mark of the Ninja and Shank 2, they both have the same sort of "feel" - that if I know I'm going to do a light and a light followed by a heavy, I can expect them to all hit if the enemy is in an expected range - now whether they do that from frames or by time I have NO idea, I just have the notion that if things are timed by time, if the delta time doesn't work out right (and I guess there's no reason it wouldn't, but I've heaard people have trouble with delta time), then the moves can go out of sync with the action.......

    But anyhoo it's not something I have any real insights in besides my experience playing them :) Whatever works works!
  • After reading @Gazza_N's comments on D: Mechero, I think we may be talking about the same thing, but across different word choices and understandings :)
  • Hello JHB community night people.

    I have to withdraw showing your 10MD because we have fallen behind with what we needed in place. Sorry will hopefully be ready next month (assuming there is space).
  • @tbulford, Hey Travis,

    It's really not a problem - now the suspense can build more :D.

  • Oh and also - is anyone up for doing the design talk this month?

    Otherwise I'll do one on Badlands:



    It's one of the most excellently designed games I've ever played - plus, it's damn pretty.
  • @Bensonance, I want to book next month's one in advance...unless someone else wants a go.
  • Re: fighting game game logic. I'm not sure if I understand the debate, @Rigormortis was pondering whether the logic of the game should be tied to frames or tied to time values?

    If your animations are frame based (a series of images making up an animation) then, as I understand it, you ALWAYS want any logic that interacts with the rest of the world to be tied to particular frames. Non-interactive logic (like the time it takes a stun to wears off) isn't so important, and so I generally have a mixture of time-based and frame-based logic, but anything that is meant to affect the world really should be triggered by a frame change.

    e.g.... there will be an attack frame where the character's arm has reached passed a certain point. You want for the enemies to react at that frame to the attack... Or your character kicks up some dust when he/she runs, that's going to be based on a particular frame of the run cycle. A single camera render later (or worse, a camera render before) can look awful in a fighting game.

    A game like Shank has more complicated animations... but most of the interactions with the world are at the start of some graphic switch... A few might be carefully placed in the middle of tweens, but it's not likely to be many.

    In 3D games I tend to split up animations into windup and release... and place the logic at the moment the release animation triggers (I think they do this in the 3D Street Fights as well... there is a big pop at that moment)

    Plus, if your animations drive your interactions in a fighting game, it gives your animators more power to make the world feel right.

    There's no hard reason why all your logic can't be based on time values instead... but if your animations and your interactions get out of sync it'll feel very ugly... and the easiest way to guarantee perfect sync is to tie your interaction events to frames.

    Though for something like a stun time it is more humanly readable to make it 3.5 seconds long... it might be beneficial to tie it to the end of a stun animation loop because that'll give the player a better visual cue as to when the stun wears off, but that's not a big deal unless it's a Street Fighter style fighting game.
  • edited
    @Tuism: Didnt we see Battle Blocks last time? ;) It better have more self-recorded sound effects this time!
  • Yeah but I didn't get the two-player controls working... So tomorrow we gonna actually PLAY IT. With real people and stuff :P
  • Damn ! Tomorrow I might need to have a band practice as we are seriously out of practice and have two gigs this weekend... :O ... I'll try pull through though! :D
  • Is there a gap to demo my physical game, Blind Leading the Blind? I haven't drawn up the rules yet but it would be cool to test with 10 or more people.
  • Wow we've got a super packed schedule! I'll be there ahead of time to make sure my demo runs without a hitch (and play a few games if anyone's around :) )

    I'll have Skydrops Arena and Magess available to play for my prototypes :)
  • Anyone from Pretoria heading through tonight that I can grab a lift from... Burst a tyre and I figure it's a bit risky taking that journey, at night, without a spare tyre.
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