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!
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
@Tusim Controllers! >3
Www.vietnam65.com
@emilesilvis
Forum links for Super Skydrops Arena are:
http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/745/prototype-battle-blocks#Item_41
and for Stasis:
http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/comment/9935#Comment_9935
:).
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 :).
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.
I have to study up on my Fighting game mechanics...do you have any good places I find some stuff?
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.
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.
But again I'm no pro at this so I'm gonna keep quiet now XD
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
But anyhoo it's not something I have any real insights in besides my experience playing them :) Whatever works works!
Sure you can! :).
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).
It's really not a problem - now the suspense can build more :D.
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.
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.
I'll have Skydrops Arena and Magess available to play for my prototypes :)