[Super Smash Land] - Final Build 1.1 Online

[Tinnitus]

This game is looking nice, good job on Mario.

Can't wait for a demo.

What stages do you plan to add?

 

[Doval]

If there's going to be projectiles I really think there should be either shielding or dodging. Either that or slow down the rate of fire on Mario I guess.

 

[4nace]

Hey thanks for the responses

@Tinnitus
I am thinking of taking inspirations from N64 for the stages, so I will make my own version of Saffron City and Mario's 64 level, but I also might make my own. I plan on having 2 levels for each character so 8 total (possibly 10 if I had a 5th later)

@Doval
Thats an interesting point as I don't want projectiles to be too ridiculous. I might just lower the damage and knockback time so they are more of a nuisance than a game changer. Also adding more ending lag on Mario's fireball is easily possible in my engine.

I am currently working on getting the menu to work. I just finished getting it into Photoshop with Character Icons based off the selections in Brawl

Here is the mockup

Oh that 1 and 2 are for team (which is off now haha, but it was to make sure I had room for it) I'll just make a floating number over players in a team match.

And I am also posting my major updates to my Smash Land page on my website which can be found here
http://www.danfornace.com/?page_id=99

-4nace

 

[Jaklub]

If you're going to have 4 characters, I don't think the icons are needed.
Mario and Link look creepy on this mockup.

Looks nice so far. Keep it up.

 

[Smash0holic]

Holy Crap......AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[GP&B]

Very nice mockup. I do agree that the dotted eyes look rather... creepy. Pikachu and Kirby look perfect though.

 

[Segtendo]

Man, that screen looks awesome. Definitely gonna try it once it's out.

 

[4nace]

Thanks everyone for the kind words about the menu! I hope to have it implemented later this week! I will probably make a title screen too, but I haven't really picked a theme yet.

And yeah eyes are tough with so few of pixels. The screen is blown up 4x so that's why the pixels are so large.


Also, I managed to actually work on the engine this weekend. I got players to hit each other and got all 4 players to work, so I went ahead to try to tackle AI. I have gotten it fairly close to where I would like with the exception of near the edges. Man these marios are dumb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMNsJSHD_I


Also for those of you interested in code, here is my 2d array that populates the moves. I am still tweaking it a bit



Going to bed,
-4nace

 

[Kei_Takaro]

Props to you 4nace
b

 

[ryuu seika]

EDIT: Not the GBA, nevermind this then.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Assuming you do up the roster to 6, make the last two characters unlockable (if possible). Samus and Donkey Kong should be good, no? :3

 

[Dark_Ermac]

Those two would be perfect for the other two.

Two characters who are heavy, compared to the light Kirby & Pikachu.

Anyway, I think the dotted eyes look a bit too weird for me. Let me see something...

EDIT: Sorry for defacing your work, but I just thought I'd get your opinion on this:

 

[4nace]

@soldiviner
I've been talking with friends about who to do if I did a 5th, (or 6th but not gonna think about that now) and talks of a character not in the smash series are at the forefront. Currently an idea is to bump Pikachu out and put DK in, then to develop a new pokemon from red/blue.

@Dark Ermac
It's not defacing haha. It's tough to work at such a scale. But I don't mind the skinny eyes. I might play around with adding some other colors into the square eyes. I agree its an improvement but I don't think its quite there yet =P. Mario looks closer than Link IMO too. Maybe other people could chime in what they prefer.

But thanks for helping out. Its really cool when others contribute =).

-4nace

 

[Dark_Ermac]

Link has no eyebrows in his portrait. Perhaps I should've added them in.

 

[4nace]

Yeah. I'll play around with it and post something. I also found a chiptune artist who is on board for the project. So I will be posting more information on that soon too, and possibly a mario demo in the very near future!

Also ideas for a fifth that is not in a smash game right now?! Whattt? You'll find out later, but probably not til you play as him/her.

 

[GP&B]

inb4NarutoCloudSoraIchigo

I'd say someone Nintendo-exclusive, obviously.

For the edited CSS, I do like the change to Mario and Link's eyes. Link does indeed need eyebrows, but I think they're looking a bit better either way.

Also, good to hear about the chiptune artist.

 

[Metal B]

I think it would fit better to use the Smash Bros. 64 Artwork look as the character portrai then the Brawl Version. It even has even the simple eye-look of Link adn fits better with the GameBoy Style =)

 

[John12346]

One thing I want to point out

You need to include some kind of hitlag(the time between your attack connecting and the opponent actually being launched) in this. It looks kind of odd when you land an attack and they immediately go flying away...

 

[4nace]

@GameDominator Yeah. Its a nintendo exclusive for sure. No anime bullcrap haha. Its just an idea I have for a unique mechanic in smash that would work on this character. Not gonna give it away but feel free to guess. Maybe I'll reveal it at some point.

@MetalB The thing with going by the N64 is that other than the cover and the manual they didn't really keep that comic book style.The character select screen used oddly gradiented faces and in-game models for the lower portrait. I could try to get a style similar to that box art but its hard to get pixels to look like vector at such a small size. I do agree that going more cartoony in the select potraits might be the best bet.

EDIT:

@John12346
I don't have hitlag, but I was wondering exactly what it is for and how it scales with damage. Also what type of animation would play during it? I don't see a problem with flying right away, but if you could explain how it is critical to a smash engine please let me know because I want this engine to be as good as I can possibly make it.

 

[Segtendo]

Phoenix Wright
*shot*
Nah, it's a dumb idea

 

[Dantarion]

No animation plays during hitlag. Both the attacker and the victim freeze in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHBGExAlcuQ
SF community calls it hitstop.

 

[4nace]

Hmm gotcha. So its more like a freeze frame for effect? Any ideas on the best way to go about programming this? And would strong attacks have more hitlag?

 

[John12346]

Basically, hitlag is the period of time between your attack hitting an opponent and the opponent actually flying away. The more powerful an attack, the more there tends to be.

It's not important to the game, but it makes it look better.

 

[4nace]

Yeah I just added it actually. It works pretty well I think. It helps make tornado last longer (can keep people in at higher percentages) by upping the hit lag. I also used hitlag to make Mario's third jump where during the hitlag you both rise and coins come out. I'll post a video soon with a working select screen I hope.
=)

 

[GP&B]

Yeah, there are multi-hitting attacks where having slight hitlag is helpful for both effect and for stick DI purposes. Mario's Up B also benefits from the effects of hitlag as it slows down the move and allows you to see each coin come out.

But please don't try and emulate Brawl's electric hitlag; that's simply way too much. Actually, if you do add any hitlag, please use it in moderation period.

 

[4nace]

Some major updates for you guys!

First of all, I've been playing alot with the colors in my head and thinking it may be too green on the majority of screens. I decided that if I ever want to change the colors I want to do it sooner rather than later for sure so I made some tests and put them in one image and I'd like you guys to let me know what you think. The current game is at #1 and I am leaning towards #2 or even #7

Also, I have been working with inversephase to get some sound effects in the game. I have also added hitlag as I said and even got alot of the menu system done.

Here is a video for sounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31V6QitDpe4

There are still some major glitches that I am working out and some sounds that need to be added, but please let me know what you think so far.

Kirby is up next.

Thanks,
4nace

 

[Segtendo]

Oh, decisions, decisions.
I think 6 looks good as well.

 

[n64billy]

What about different colour schemes depending on the level? Will help with the mood of each stage..

I like 6 the most though

 

[4nace]

Hmm... I never thought about that. I'm not sure GameMaker is capable of palette swaps, but it would be interesting to try thats for sure. I don't want to do too much color though as I was going for Gameboy original, but just doing palette swaps depending upon stage would be cool. I'll look into a way, but if it ends up being too difficult then i will probably choose one of the green tinted ones.

-4nace

 

[n64billy]

Glad my suggestion was helpful then
I've been watching this topic since you started it. I'm really keen to see it all done! I used to use a little bit of Game-Maker before, so I know the kind of stuff you're doing...

Great work! Can't wait to see more. Good luck..!

 

[Jaklub]

Hmm... I never thought about that. I'm not sure GameMaker is capable of palette swaps, but it would be interesting to try thats for sure.

I have thought of palette swapping in GM. I believe it's possible, but it would be slow as hell.

You really need to work on your menu sound effects. In-game ones are ok. Scrolling (at least horizontal) would be nice too.
Generally, this gets better.

 

[Dark_Ermac]

Go with #2.

 

[4nace]

Actually I might have an idea to fake palette swapping that could work. Now I just have to decide whether to put the palette options in the menu or have them change level per level. Hmmm....

The only problem I see is that something as saturated as 2 would probably not be possible but 3,4 and 6 would be pretty easy to get with my idea.

Also yeah, not all the sounds are in and the menus are still pretty glitchy currently so I haven't been able to add all the sound to them yet. I am working on it soon though, will probably just recode what I have since it's pretty glitchy.

-4nace

 

[Smash0holic]

add music on the stages

 

[Shadic]

I prefer #1 or #2, actually.

 

[Segtendo]

add music on the stages

He's got a chiptune artist working with him.

 

[4nace]

Thanks Segtendo. Funny that you mention it because here is a post he made over at TIGsource not very long ago explaining his role and his goals -

Hi, I'm Inverse Phase, and I'm really just getting started on the music and SFX for Dan, I have some experience in creating music and sfx for games but I haven't done anything terribly recent, so this is going to be a fun adventure for me. I thought I might outline a few of my own goals with the project for anyone that's curious and answer questions that pop up.

This post got awfully long, I hope at least someone finds it interesting.

Since I'm a unix user I won't be able to answer any questions regarding code/Game Maker, but the way I understand things, with Game Maker we don't have explicit channel control. I'm aware of the hardware limitations of the gameboy, but I can't reproduce EXACT gameboy science such as a music driver that will cut off a less important part of the music to play a sound effect.

To that end, we're just going to have separate audio files for music and sound. My basic approach is to use mostly whitenoise for most sound effects and attempt to use them more sparingly in the music. Plus I intend to limit sound effects to a single channel of audio during creation.

I've accepted the reality of things; there will be a bit of overlap. Some sounds might get played on top of eachother, or we'll have one or two places where there is both whitenoise in SFX and music. But Dan is primarily going for an aesthetic. We aren't limited by the hardware even if we're pretending we are. I'd venture to say we want to make the project fun rather than getting extremely nitty gritty and making things hard on ourselves for what amounts to reasonably little gain. It's not commercial and there are no (real) deadlines.

Anyway, on that note, I don't have a whole lot of time to donate to the project so my updates will probably be in bursts where Dan may have more of a consistent ability to work on his project. It's his game, after all. =] Because of that, we're probably going to reuse a few gameboy resources.

I took the liberty of creating the sound effects (even the "familiar" ones) you saw in the video by hand. There's more to come, and probably a little tweaking to be done also. I'm doing the sfx the hard way because I haven't fooled around with it much and I wanted more experience in that department.

The music will initially consist of 8 stage musics that will be kind of longish. We'll also have 6 other ones (intro, menu, character select, game set, ending/credits, and game over) that will probably be, for the most part, short and loop where necessary. In the interests of time and actually helping Dan achieve his goal, if a gameboy version exists of a stage song used in smash, we'll probably just bring that over instead of me doing a cover from scratch.

Since there are smash-lookalike and then smash-inspired stages, we decided on direct covers of the stage music for the smash-lookalike stages. I'll write an original tune inspired by each character for the "inspired" ones. The latter will be an interesting exercise. I feel like I've gotten pretty good at covers (see bandcamp for examples). I'm not too worried about those.

Anyway, this is getting long so I'm going to just say I hope you enjoy the project, my music, my effects, and I welcome any constructive criticism!

When he is talking about the inspired stages, he means that I plan to base 4 stages off n64 ones and then make up 4 of my own stages inspired by the series in general. So there will be new songs for those stages.


-4nace

 

[GP&B]

Very cool.

I don't think it's such a big deal that you won't be able to replicate the 4-channel limitations. Just having chiptunes true (or mostly true) to the original sound hardware of the GB (NES being essentially the same) is quite satisfactory.

 

[TommoPuppy]

I like schemes 3 and 4 personally, but if only it were possible to make them entirely customisable with all those options as presets.

 

[AMKalmar]

I like #6.

Edit, 6 would probably get boring after awhile. I'll go with 3.