OHR Multicart Compilation

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Willy Elektrix
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

Foxley wrote:This might sound crazy, but I could just.... leave it broken. I'm going to implement that idea I had where it'd check to see if the hero remains in a walled tile for a certain amount of seconds, then something weird happens and the game 'crashes'. Much easier (and more interesting) than fixing the scripts.
I'm a little wary of this concept. Players are going to HATE having the game crash (even if it seems intentional). Especially they might lose data (or even have to backtrack a couple screens).

I'll withhold judgement until I see what you had in mind though.
Last edited by Willy Elektrix on Thu Mar 09, 2017 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

It autosaves their money/quest/inventory progress before quitting the game, don't worry.
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Post by Foxley »

Also thank you Willy and Morpheus for your feedback and input, I'm taking a lot of it into account and already fixed some stuff. In addition to having a different set of eyes on the game, it's a lot easier for me to get motivated to fix broken/undesirable things when someone else points them out to me. Self motivation is the sucky part.
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kylekrack
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Post by kylekrack »

I think the company title should be Hamster related, if that's agreeable. Although it's not super popular, the one thing all these games have in common is the OHR. I think it's meaningful to pay homage, especially considering how niche our platform is. We should do what we can to build a name for ourselves. Consistency tends to be good, no?

EDIT: Foxley, if you follow through on that, I'd not only add a glitchy crash when the walls break, but reward the player when the reopen the game. Have you played Pony Island? You could go for that kind of weirdness, where glitching the game unlocks some weird goings ons in various places. Maybe they don't affect gameplay, but they only show up randomly, if the glitch has happened. Sort of like Golden Freddy or something in FNAF.
Last edited by kylekrack on Thu Mar 09, 2017 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Hahah, glitching out and killing the player is a workaround for a game bug, and giving the player a reward is a workaround for killing the player being annoying and unfair; next you'll need a workaround in case the player figures out how to exploit the glitch consistently!

(Providing a "reward" (or compensation) does sound neat though. But I'll look into that bug whenever I find the time.)

Is it at all possible merge some elements of James' and MorpheusKitami's backstories?

Also, to be clear, I'm not working on Star Dartle.
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

@Foxley:
I'd go ahead and do that idea, but only if you can't fix it. It works since you're just eliminating a step on the players end, since they'll have to save and exit anyway.

@Kyle:
I agree that it should have Hamster in it. If not HamsterVision then, I dunno, Hamstermute? WinterHamster? NeuroHamster? Hamstermancer?

@TMC:
You guys have my permission to merge any parts of the backstory I thought up into James' story, assuming he agrees, and either way, if you or anyone can think up a better one using parts of my story it's still cool with me.
I am working on Star Dartle so it is nice to know we're not going to have two slightly different versions of the same game, I'm actually almost finished with the gameplay part, but it needs a few little tweaks before I'll release it.

@Willy:
I assume for step 2 you intend on shooting it yourself? But if we were to use that idea, we'd have it start off soundless (or does the grey screen have sound? IDK) with step 2's sound cutting in, before starting off with whatever music we plan on using beginning with step 3. What do we want for music, just NES music like the games themselves, or something else?
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Whatever you pick for a company title, make sure it doesn't bring up any google search results for real companies (Besides being a reference to Neuromancer, "Wintermute" is the name of like five different real pieces of software)

HamsterMute returns almost nothing

MorpheusKitami, Your backstory is pretty dang sinister :)

I can't decided which is scarier, the organized crime/hit man thread , or the Birth of A Nation KKK connections.

My favorite bits are the lightning strike, and the line "the game was finally found in an unmarked box by her niece, who has asked that me to stop calling her"

As for box art, a good source of inspiration might be the "Gallery of Trash" over at the Game Jolt Bad Box Art Jam 2017 http://jams.gamejolt.io/badboxart2017
Last edited by Bob the Hamster on Thu Mar 09, 2017 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Incredible. This box art is far worse than I would have imagined to exist.

<a href="http://i.imgur.com/zM94QeJ.jpg"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/zM94QeJ.jpg" height="420"></a>

Here are a couple box arts reminiscent of multicarts:

<a href="http://i.imgur.com/KYzwOTQ.jpg"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/KYzwOTQ.jpg" height="420"></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/4dcK3FK.jpg"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/4dcK3FK.jpg" height="420"></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/OIQdf07.jpg"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/OIQdf07.jpg" height="320"></a>
Last edited by TMC on Fri Mar 10, 2017 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Taco Bot »

Oh my goodness, I didn't know they were doing that again this year. I'm gonna have to think about entering.
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

So here's my semi-finished version of Star Dartle:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/fe892fb01 ... kitami.zip
Bugs I know about:
*The bosses move around like drunks. Right now, it was either that or they cry in a corner you can't shoot in.
*Whenever a text box opens whatever's happening on screen just stops. This will eventually be "fixed" by using backdrops.
Could probably be longer though, right now it seems to be about 10-20 minutes start to finish.
Bob the Hamster wrote:Whatever you pick for a company title, make sure it doesn't bring up any google search results for real companies (Besides being a reference to Neuromancer, "Wintermute" is the name of like five different real pieces of software)
Huh, that's not tempting fate at all. D:
On that note, NeuroHamster's out too.
I can't decided which is scarier, the organized crime/hit man thread , or the Birth of A Nation KKK connections.
Oh, probably should change the film then. That was the first one that came to mind that wasn't already a game and I didn't need to look up to type it. I think maybe the best choice would be one off an early silent religious film, like say, INRI or The Ten Commandments. That way, it's still going to be infamous because, it's a religious film adaptation on the NES, that hits like two stereotypical bad NES game statements at once.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I played your update of Star Dartle today, and I loved it.

I got to the first boss after about 10 tries but died fighting it.

The difficulty seemed just about right. It felt hard, but not so frustrating as to stop me from trying again

How many bosses are there?
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Willy Elektrix
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

The beginning of this week I will be finishing up Ultra Frontier (and doing my taxes).

I'm going to start working on implementing the menu later this week or next weekend. I think it shouldn't be too hard since Giz mostly did all the work. I'll dig into it soon.

One thing I was thinking about it: It seems like these games should probably all have a main menu with an option to quit back to the game select screen. Do you guys agree? It should be easy to implement. I can even do it for people if they don't want to mess with it.
MorpheusKitami wrote:@Willy:
I assume for step 2 you intend on shooting it yourself? But if we were to use that idea, we'd have it start off soundless (or does the grey screen have sound? IDK) with step 2's sound cutting in, before starting off with whatever music we plan on using beginning with step 3. What do we want for music, just NES music like the games themselves, or something else?
I'll probably use a montage of music from the games themselves. For the explanation of the multicart concept, I'll just use text. I won't record my voice or anything.
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Willy Elektrix
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

Star Dartle 2000 is fun. Keep working on this please!

First of all, that title screen is AWESOME!

I'm not sure I understand the power-up system. The "+" power up upgrades your weapons. What do the others do? Do the power ups stack? The "O" actually downgraded my weapons, I think. In any case, I learn that it is best to wait until the power up cycles to "+" and pick it up. This is easy too because the "+" power up stays indefinitely.

Right now, the game is quite easy because you are told your escapes. When this goes away. It will be very difficult since the player will have fewer power ups.

How is score going to be tracked? Will there just be a certain number of points per ship or will there be more to it?

You said "*The bosses move around like drunks." Are there more than 1? After I beat the first boss (who looks like one of the small blue ships), the game ended.

With the randomize ship patterns, sometimes it is impossible to get all the ships. This doesn't really bug me, but some might feel differently.

I realize the game is in alpha state right now, but here are a couple things I hope you will include:

*Scoring (and saving of your highest score)
*Sound effects
*A graphic to represent the Overlord character after each level.
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

Willy Elektrix wrote:I'm not sure I understand the power-up system. The "+" power up upgrades your weapons. What do the others do? Do the power ups stack? The "O" actually downgraded my weapons, I think. In any case, I learn that it is best to wait until the power up cycles to "+" and pick it up. This is easy too because the "+" power up stays indefinitely.
It makes no difference, I think you just got hit by something whenever you picked it up.
Right now, the game is quite easy because you are told your escapes. When this goes away. It will be very difficult since the player will have fewer power ups.
Try getting a wrong answer, first one very close, then one very far away. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
How is score going to be tracked? Will there just be a certain number of points per ship or will there be more to it?
Might implement 100% kill rate bonus but other than that it'll just be achieved by killing ships/projectiles and getting powerups.
You said "*The bosses move around like drunks." Are there more than 1? After I beat the first boss (who looks like one of the small blue ships), the game ended.
Yeah, just get the number of escapes wrong at the end. Right now they're the final bosses as opposed to the boss that will be for this stage.
I realize the game is in alpha state right now, but here are a couple things I hope you will include:

*Scoring (and saving of your highest score)
*Sound effects
*A graphic to represent the Overlord character after each level.
But there's no sound in space!
Joking aside, most of those are on the agenda for it, and I do think I already covered showing Lord Shiptaur in the whole "going to add backdrops to hide the sudden stop in on-screen movement". Not sure if I'm going to add the saving of the high score though, may be too much trouble than its worth.
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Post by SwordPlay »

I just tried to script an action game in CUSTOM based on slices, and I got up to collision detection before I hit a wall.. I have a lot of respect for you peeps.

I like space shooters, but I like dem fancy ones, with the helpers, and multi-directional shooting, and animated backgrounds and huge bosses that fill the screen :p
Actually isn't that hard if you're lazy at programming, just put a huge sprite and designate a weakspot to fire at.

So far I really like the colourful stars in the back, but I think meteoric space rocks aren't quite as round and smooth as that. Also, I believe that space rocks have considerable momentum, and are flying around haphazardly in space. They rarely form orderly lines. Unless it's for the loo, and they really need to slime. maybe.
Here are some ideas about the "goal" of the game:
Is Shiptauir evil (wew, one slip of the tongue away from a bunch of slime)?
Is Shiptaur the ruler of planets, civilisations, or has an evil base, plans, soldiers etc.?
Are there rebels, governements or renegades who are against Shiptaur and want to bring his forces down? Could be some cool characters flying through space. Never know after all :p (it wuz an alien in a biker jacket that helped you. you promised to buy him(it?) a drink of synthchemicocktail. Aaah. How many off-duty pilots

Maybe the game can be focused on rescuing civilians and fellow pilots from the atrocities of space-faring combat?
I like the idea that by shooting a cage or prison, it means that people get to be free (somehow. They'd probably die in space.) and this might make a good focus for the goal of the game. Providing reinforcements to civlisation against the cruel, brutal, tyrannical onslaught of Shiptaur. Something like that?
DISCLAIMER: I barely played Star Dartle 2000. Not yet methinks. Maybe when it gets a more properly official release?

POWERUPS
I imagine that getting the powerups should be the main source of points, and that's what the game should be focused towards. That, or there should be some special target that flies on screen and is elusive, like a meteor, satellite, alien, capsule, drone, or something like that which could feasibly spill goodies. It would be nice to have extra life as a powerup.
It'd be good if you incentivised the player to pick up power ups, for example, offering bonuses for successive pickups, perhaps in a short time span, or possibly get more points for collecting one of each kind of power up. Something like that.
Maybe having some flying meteors to avoid would spice it up too! And if you could destroy them that'd be a nice touch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayj3-LpLlII
4:00 - 4:30 is particularly interesting
GRAPHICS
Have you folks considered different backdrops for star dartle?
things like planets afar and up close, a fleet of spaceships in the distance or passing through the mids of some kind of mothership would make good level settings. Heck, why not an underwater level? Starfox had it all, and then some.
Why not have some levels flying near the ground, with the possiblity of crashing into it?
And maybe it's quite a lot, but you could have branching paths, secret routes, and some story giving narrative structure to what's going on, even if it is a very simple game.
It takes very little to spruce/spice up the gameplay, even if it just an aesthetic choice, or a few text boxes between waves. Ship pilots chattering nervously about war and politics, reminiscing about their sweethearts, whilst being threatened by Lord Shiptaur or coming up against skilled and 1337 enemy pilots, with possible rivalvry and implications.
I think a good idea might be to have to face off against an anti-Dartle, a fast ship that harries the play as they make their way across the level.


Never forget! A simple recolour, reskin, kerjiggering 1 or 2 stats can be enough to present a totally new and different gameplay element.
Palette swaps are a time honoured tradition, harking back to the days where they were limited about what they could produce and deploy.
Btw the idea of using rocket thrusters to forward faster seems totally erroneous.
Most of the momentum is already travelling forward. going backwards would require much more thrust because you have to cancel your forward momentum.
Flying backwards and forwards would probably exhaust the ships fuel supplies (now there's a thought! maybe in the next incarnation of Star Dartle. Star Dartle 4000? It would be cool if there was a bar that got depleted as you shot, and it would encourage players to be cautious about shooting. How about a shop, or upgrade menu, and stuff like that? Not sure, but I don't think I noticed any graphical changes to the ship when different weapons were picked up. I think it's kinda naff that weapons just turn into points. You should be able to trade them in, salvage them, and store them for an emergency, like an extra life or something.

And why is it that no enemies shoot at you?

Possibly the easiest way to spice up the game is to make it more akin to a bullet hell and throw things at the player, like a randomised barrage.
Actually that's the other thing. How about some randomisation?
Procedural generation can make more content than anyone can do by hand.
I think there are many elements of star dartle suited to more chaotic and hectic battle.
The small ship size allows the player to stay focused on avoiding and dodging.
Lots of empty space can easily be filled with bullets, meteors, lasers, cosmic radiation, psychic slimes or fluffy wamblers. I like parodius :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbEYxcNICtc

Anyways that's just a few ideas. I really like it so far. Keep up the great work!
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