/arcade/ - vidya gaems and other gaems too

Until I can think of a better name, this is Martial Grinder.
I'm working on the combat first, then everything else once that's decent.

In this gif you see the player in the upper right walk over to an enemy and kill them by touching them. The stamina bars on the left are per limb, you walk by alternating left and right legs.

Hopefully this thread keeps me motivated!

I've been working on a project in gamemaker (GML), mostly just frame work so far. I'm sure there are lots of ready-made isometric toolboxes but I've been having a lot of fun figuring things out and learning from scratch!

Here is an old video that shows keyboard controls, interacting with entities, and mouse controls/pathfinding.
And a new video showing the map editing tool.

>>2404
I look foward to more updates!
Is the individual leg control to allow for some sort of technique or is it more as a handicap?

I want to do a TRPG that decides your ending based on how well you do battle…maybe this thread will help with that

Added punches and knockback
I'm going to rethink this and disable knockback on normal punches, it's unsatisfying to be unable to chain punches because of it. I'll leave knockback for a special move.

>>2406
I want movement to be deliberate, and the other half of the game that I haven't made yet (training) will work nice with this control scheme and be consistent. It's also because I have no idea what I'm doing, I've never made an action game before. The player is going to get much faster as the game progresses and hopefully the somewhat clunky feeling disappears, otherwise I may have to rework movement.

>>2405
Looks nice, the map editor looks super useful. Is this going to be a turn-based tactics game?

>>2407
Branching stories get complicated fast. I love them though.

>>2408
I scrapped the need to alternate legs to move. Too clunky no matter how I worked it.

Today I added a sprint button (with a short cooldown when you run out completely) and a counter button (player flashes when countering).

Your "health" is your core fatigue, the middle bar on the right. Getting hit and countering consumes core fatigue, but you can hold the counter as long as you want and be invulnerable to damage the whole time. This creates a natural incentive to get the timing right.

>>2404
>>2409
meant left not right, can't keep it straight

Added a ki gun ability with target-snapping. It picks the target that is closest to the aim angle that's input with the right stick.

Also rewrote some movement code to play nice with map collisions

Dialogue system! I execute my dialogue script with the lines provided as inputs, and the script scans for certain characters, decodes "/?" into questions, with "+whatever" as options, ">whatever" as the follow to that option, and "/#" as triggers for other events within the entity that you're talking to. In this case, "/1" links to the event of it dying.
This makes it easy to add interactives besides dialogue as well, like
>There is some sushi, would you like to eat it? /?", "+yes Yes", "+no No", ">yes /1"

>>2408
>I want movement to be deliberate
I've never seen a game with footwork as a core mechanic (actual footwork, not just spacing), so I'm interested in how stepping could work.

>Is this going to be a turn-based tactics game
Something like that!
Though my ideas for the game might be a little too big for what I'm realistically capable of, so it may be downscaled significantly into something really basic. Definitely turn based, but I'm not sure how tactical it'll really end up…

>>2409
I like that parry idea.

>>2412
Digging the martial arts theme.
In the case of there being for instance, a close enemy at 10° and a distant enemy at 0°, if you aim roughly at the close enemy (say, 4°) will it end up snapping to the distant enemy?
Or what if an enemy is moving fast so you appropriately aim ahead of him, but it locks onto his center and misses?
Might be some things to consider with any aim-assist.

>>2414
>I've never seen a game with footwork as a core mechanic (actual footwork, not just spacing), so I'm interested in how stepping could work.

Never played QWOP?
https://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

Made some improvements to the ki gun.

I'm going to make a couple new enemy types, get enemy pathing working, then tweak the combat until it feels nice.


>>2414
I like how flexible that is, it sounds comfy to use as a developer.
>In the case of there being for instance, a close enemy at 10° and a distant enemy at 0°, if you aim roughly at the close enemy (say, 4°) will it end up snapping to the distant enemy?
Yes, but there's a limit on the snapping range that's roughly near the edge of the screen, so it won't snap to off-screen enemies
>Or what if an enemy is moving fast so you appropriately aim ahead of him, but it locks onto his center and misses?
It now homes on the target, still subject to collisions with obstacles or other enemies though.
>>2415
This was definitely an "inspiration" for that movement system, if you can call it that - I don't want to be deliberately painful.

Depth issues (rendering entities behind the appropriate blocks, even as they move) have been solved! I'm pretty proud of my solution to this, the entity modifies it's draw-order and the draw-order of the blocks it's moving between just enough to make it nice and simple to manage.
Also added a way to save/load the map data.

>>2416
The curve is very satisfying, especially as it transitions between enemies.
It costs the same resource as health? I dont think I'd ever press such a button…
Yeah those things I pointed out seem well taken care of, looks fun to use.

The QWOP sequel we deserve…

Made the editing and debug tools I've been working with more proper and easy to use and implemented save/load-able spawn points for entities.

I made a lot of improvements since the last post.
Combat is feeling somewhat better, still a ways to go. Maintaining safe range while landing punches is too hard, and the ki gun is hard to aim in narrow areas, it hits the walls.
It's almost good enough for now. I kind of want to get on to the training already.

>>2417
>It costs the same resource as health? I dont think I'd ever press such a button…
You will be able to regenerate fatigue somewhat. It's not really optional since it reliably stuns enemies at range.

>>2420
I like the look so far. I hope saving/loading levels is easy with Godot but I've never done it, maybe I should tackle that before things become too complicated.

Not the most exciting update, but important!
The black rectangle represents the normal camera view, I zoomed out for testing. Now the blocks disappear and reappear as they enter/leave the view, pathfinding and other functions wont extend outside that same area, and entities deactivate. This is handled regardless of the player, so it'll work even if I decide to pan the camera in a weird direction during a cutscene or something.
Some other overworld framework tweeks as well.

>>2425
It's already looking fun!
Right now the save/load is just for my own editor so I'm just saving the 2d arrays of block data straight to a text file.

Switching between battle mode and exploration. The basic framework for combat is starting to appear!

Not directly gamedev per se, but more of a meta-gamedev. I want to make an Interactive Fiction engine that compiles to the Z-machine and glulx formats.
It's something that I've wanted to do for a long time already, and recently it's been on my mind a lot, along with a refreshed interest in programming.
But I do have a specific game project in mind, also in Interactive Fiction, I won't give details right now but it's about troubleshooting and fixing a ship in deep space that's gone all wrong.
>>2427
I love this, keep it up sushi, I look forward to seeing the finished product!

first minigame WIP, a treadmill. needs art.
also made some more improvements to fighting, specifically a snap mechanic when punching that brings you to the proper range automatically

Small update, added a new enemy type and added damage on hitting walls and objects at speed

>>2437
i love how proud he looks after that amazing streak

In combat you can now select a movement and/or an action, select targets, and then execute your turn along with the actions the opponents select.
The framework is in place, I can create proper actions easily now and start to work on the more specific combat mechanics that will make or break this project.
Also the camera has been tweeked to be smooth, and the menu was redone to be more flexible and dynamic and work with actual graphics… which have not been made yet. With that and these placeholder attacks, the game isnt looking so good right now.
I wanted to wait to give an update until I had done some graphics, but something came up and development will likely be on hiatus until July, so I'm sharing where it's at now!

>>2428
Thank you roll!

>>2437
>>2470
Doing great work!
The death effect on the flamingo is so satisfying! Dont make me feel good for killing something so cute!

is it true that turn based games are harder to do (at least with unity)?
i haven't really made game before except fooling around in game maker. but I've written lots of little programs and apps and stuff before for work and college. my plan was to make tic tac toe and then checkers and then chess and then finally the old SNES game i wanted to clone/build on.

will everything be okay??

>>2496
I dont know about unity, but I dont see why it'd be harder. I'm sure you can make tic tac toe without much trouble! Then checkers and chess should just be more checks and restrictions, you should go for it!
What SNES game are you interested in?

>>2405
I love the clouds, it looks like marshmallows and chocolate