dracflamloc on 28/11/2004 at 10:00
This will be more of an isometric view since it will be switching to more of an adventure-style engine.
Low Moral Fiber on 28/11/2004 at 10:34
Wait, I'm probably mistaken. It's NOT a side-scroller anymore?
dracflamloc on 29/11/2004 at 06:23
No the team has decided that for a better story-oriented game it will be adventure-style in the style of the old king's quest and lucasarts adventure games, with some stealth-action thrown in. For an example I recommend playing any kings quest game except 8 or any lucasarts adventure.
The old engine (sidescroller mario-style) is available to anyone who requests it.
Domarius on 29/11/2004 at 06:31
Quote Posted by dracflamloc
This will be more of an isometric view since it will be switching to more of an adventure-style engine.
Cool then. I would have thought it would be better suited to a Thief game than sticking with 2D.
One 2D game with "stealth" in it that comes to mind was BlackThorn (also called BlackHawk), and it was limited to pressing up when a shadow was on the wall, so that you pressed yourself against the wall and entered the shadow. Stealth is kind of limited in a 2D game, from what I've seen. Although I see that they've ported Splinter Cell to mobile phones, and I'm sure curious to see what that's like :)
Wired on 29/11/2004 at 06:40
Isometric view, aaaw I'm sad... :(
sunjammer on 2/12/2004 at 17:49
I mean no disrespect to you as a game designer, and a 2d stealth game can work no doubt, but i'm ever so slightly astonished by your lack of respect and apparent ignorance when it comes to game programming. I'd like to hear the objective reasoning about your arguments against tile based engines. Tiles aren't a limitation if the coder knows his craft. A tile is merely a subjective format for a graphical segment, allowing for simpler faster colission detection and pathfinding algos. The size of the graphics is up to the game designer. I dare venture that 9 out of 10 2d games use tile systems with objects made from multiple tiles or variable tile sizes. This includes platformers; tiles are in no way limited to the top down format. It is merely a way to save on file size and allow programmatic graphics in a lightweight format. In fact, i dare venture that forcing level designers to be artists or vice versa is among the worst choices a game programmer can make.
In fact, your arguments for and against programming techniques remind me of the retards on a certain mailing list i'm on claiming octree culling is a viable solution for a flash game. What a crock of shit. I have severe doubts about the quality of your product or even its future if you're not even able to see a piece of wood for a piece of wood.
Of course, feel free to prove me wrong. I'm sure basing your colission detection on superimposed vectors or sprites is going to be a lot faster than any tile system would be. For sure.
- Andreas R
3D/2D illustrator / Senior Flash developer / C++ programmer
Rayon Visual Concepts
Domarius on 3/12/2004 at 07:13
sunjammer, who were you replying to? I became interested in what you were saying, and was agreeing with it all, so I wanted to see what fool you were replying to, so I could back you up. But I can't work it out.
sunjammer's right with what he's saying. But (and this is a fairly general statement) you can go pretty far with Flash before you start making a game that is too complex to run decently on the average modern computer. And if you're relying too heavily on the built in collisions, and they're slowing you down, you can move to a grid based collision system and get huge amounts of speed back, while still using vector graphics and not tiles.
In my mind, only special projects would warrant making full use of tile based graphics, like mobile phone games, or maybe a 2D massivley multiplayer online game, or some amazingly complex RPG with lots of dynamic objects everywhere. Or some super-smooth scrolling shoot-em-up with huge amounts of sprites and explosions and bullets and enemies happeing over multiple layers of scrolling backgrounds.
sunjammer on 3/12/2004 at 11:48
Was replying to the first post of this thread :)
Fallen+Keeper on 3/12/2004 at 12:34
Yeah, but the guy is not mentioning the tile system in that post and it has been edited before you replied. I'm just curious.
sunjammer on 3/12/2004 at 13:20
" As far as Crusader style gameplay goes, no, I won't make it top-down. Too many games are tile-based and top-down now because people think they are better. They aren't, they are just easier to program, and take no skill to get right. A 2D side-view style gameplay can be much better than any top-down view game provided the programmer knows how to handle such an engine. If you want an example of a great 2D side-view game, check out Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the Playstation 1."
Incidentally i happen to know for a fact that Symphony of the night was tile based ;)
"The idea for backgrounds is that they can be very cinematic, and thats why I wrote the engine/editor the way I did. This won't be some lame tile-based gameplay."
lol
