One-Month All-Mouse Left-Click OHRRPGCE Game Contest (2015)

Make games! Discuss those games here.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

As long as it is a substantial update, I see no problem with releasing Graffiti Goose for this... In fact, I would be very happy to see it! :)


Voters can decide for themselves if their votes will be affected by a game having a previous release.


As for myself I have already made two attempts to start my own game for this contest, and both times I have choked on a plan that was *WAY* too big for a single month's work.

I have to scale back and find a plan I can actually finish. :)
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Post by kylekrack »

Spoonweaver wrote:May enter.
Working title: Kort
This layout looks similar to a board game I made bout a year ago, except it had a bigger board and four teams, with an objective in the center. You've caught my interest.

Anyway, I might make a point and click adventure for this because that sounds perfect for this kind of contest. And regarding other game styles, I assume this contest is looking particularly for creativity using the one button controls? And do we get bonus points for being creative in such a way? This will weigh into my decisions heavily.
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BMR
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Post by BMR »

Point and click adventure within the span of a month? Very ambitious. I look forward to seeing it.
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Post by kylekrack »

Don't expect Grim Fandango or anything. This'll be short if it exists at all. Because of that I might be silent in regards to said project until anything substantial happens as to not come up short as many things seem to.
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

I was thinking of doing something sorta similar in style to Shadowgate or Tombs & Treasures, except with much simpler commands (more along the lines of the first person dungeons in Goonies II for NES)

Whether I could even pull off a working prototype in a month... yeah, probably not. If I did decide to go for it I'd probably get a better handle on writing scripts though. Could be worth it.
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Post by TMC »

Did someone say first person dungeons? I wonder whether there's enough overlap... wouldn't want to encourage everyone to focus on first person dungeon crawlers though.
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Post by Gizmog »

Mouse systems are simple enough, and first person dungeons are fun. It's worth a try! Plus, a Shadowgate kind of one dodges the problems of a Wizardry clone: You don't need to nicely animate the transition from one square of dungeon to another. Every screen is more or less a puzzle and you can do a much simpler transition (I think they did animated arrows in the NES version and sound effects).

And quit being wishy-washy, Foxley! You're not gonna get anything done with that sliming attitude. Mouse commands are probably the easiest kind of plotscripting 'cause slices make it all very direct "Was the mouse over this thing? Good, then do something!". Don't start wondering whether or not it's worth it: Pretty soon that attitude seeps into everything you do, and you find yourself wondering "Do I really want to play some Mega Man? Is it worth it?" and inevitably you realize NOTHING is "worth it".

A month is a fantastic amount of time. You could pull off a working prototype in 72 hours if you quit wondering whether or not it's worth it, wonder whether or not you can pull it off. Unless you're a total sliming moron you can do anything in a month! If it's something you want to do, do it!
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

I did a quick little layout concept thing in SAI.

Image

Also, I'm going to be doing faux CGA graphics. 320x200 with 4 colors.

EDIT:
Actually decided to go with EGA graphics, so 16 colors.
Last edited by Foxley on Sat May 23, 2015 5:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Hey, cool. Indeed there's a number of different kinds of first-person perspective game. It would be great to have a Sidescroller 101-style tutorial & set of scripts for people to build on for Shadow-gate style or point-and-click games (which I guess is just "tap games" on a touchscreen). Seems like there can be a lot of variation in the user interfaces though, and these games are all about interface, so maybe it's a bit daft.
Gizmog wrote: you find yourself wondering "Do I really want to play some Mega Man? Is it worth it?" and inevitably you realize NOTHING is "worth it".
Probably why I never gave Mega Man a serious attempt.
Last edited by TMC on Sat May 23, 2015 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by kylekrack »

Anything can be worth it if you want it enough. I discovered the 3rd installment of Golden Sun at GameStop a few months ago, so I got my copies of Golden Suns I and II and played through all three consecutively. I spent about 100 hours of my life playing those games in a relatively short span of time. Was it worth it? Hell yeah, those games rock. They end on a massive cliff hanger (still not over it) but hey, it was fun.
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Post by kylekrack »

You know, you really don't realize how useful buttons can be until you're forced not to use them. There is always a way though, I am convinced.

I'm making some headway, though, and after hours of pacing and playing with children's toys, I finally found the inspiration for what game I want to make. Here's a little bit of what I have drawn up so far. I've never made a point and click adventure, so this may go horribly, but I'm going for it. I'm officially entering.

Also, I'd like to ask for what might be the best way to go about registering interactive clicks with the mouse. Right now, I'm going to just check what the mouse cursor is colliding with each time the player clicks and carrying out actions from there. Does anyone have any better ideas?

EDIT: damn, I didn't realize how ugly this guy was.
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Post by TMC »

Great, you're off the starting block.

You could either check individually for each clickable object (buttons, objects in the scene) whether the player clicked on it, or first figure out what slice they clicked on (e.g. using "find colliding slice"), and then run the right script depending on what it is. It doesn't really matter which you do.

You could also mix the two approaches. For example if you're dealing with fixed buttons it's easy to create your UI out of slices in the slice collection editor, give every button a unique lookup code, and in your on-keypress script (those are actually triggered when you click; alternatively use a while loop) you can have a simple chain of ifs like:

Code: Select all

if (clicked on slice (sli: use item button)) then (
   ...
) else if (clicked on slice (sli: menu button)) then (
  ...
)  # etc
The "clicked on slice" script would look something like

Code: Select all

script, clicked on slice, lookup code, begin
  variable(sl)
  if (mouse click (left button)) then (
    sl := lookup slice(lookup code)
    return (slice collide point(sl, mouse pixel x, mouse pixel y))  # returns true or false
  ) else (
    return (false)
  )
end
And then use the other approach for clicking on stuff in the scene/in the graphical inventory.

The most basic rule of programming is to make things easier by writing functions which let you express what you want in a simple way (like "if clicked on slice ... then ...".
Last edited by TMC on Mon May 25, 2015 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Urkelbot666 »

As it happens, I randomly returned to this forum to see about getting help making a first person dungeon crawl and this contest is occurring. Perhaps it is a sign! I have this game called WARLOCKE that I've been diddling around with on and off, so maybe I'll try to actually get something playable done with help from this thread and this contest. So far I have... very little ._. but I have a few screens in the style of an old fashioned HUD that I may be able to work with, and a little mouse cursor that I can move around. No it's time to make it so I can click things and make things happen!
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

Boop. Here's an actual in-game HUD layout so far.

Image

I tried to keep the interface buttons somewhat large so touchscreen controls will be feasible later on.
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

On the subject of detecting slices, I had a question.

When a slice collision lookup is done, does it look at the entire rectangular 'hitbox' of a slice or does it bypass transparent (color 0)?

For example, let's say I used this walkabout NPC as a slice. Would the transparent magenta area be ignored, or would the 'hitbox' be the full 20x20?

Image
Last edited by Foxley on Wed May 27, 2015 12:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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