Axe Cop

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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... troom1.gif">

Learned the limitations of using too many timers at once. This might be a little too much sharing, but James had helped me with a script to check the entire map for a maptile/zone, and I believe he told me it'd work great if the map was small enough. Well, this map is massive, so I reworked his script a smidge and it got rid of all (or at least noticable) of the lag.

Checks Full Map:
for(y, 0, mapheight-- livelayer) do(
for(x, 0, mapwidth-- livelayer) do(

Checks Specific Region:
for(y, starty, endy -- livelayer) do(
for(x, startx, endx -- livelayer) do(

If anybody wants to do anything similar and you have a giant map, I recommend you do something similar to what I did to drastically kill the lag. Start values are the top left corner, and the end values are the bottom right values.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

That is a great way to optimize a zone checking loop :)
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... _light.png">

Big week again. Got a ton done, so I think the majority of the road ahead for this level is just building the dungeon itself since all the major obstacles are either finished, or set up to be added to later on. Each floor of the lab will have it's own challenges, and on one of them the evil scientist is researching the effects of light on the chemicals in the lab and so the entire floor will be in darkness. But using the fire ninja, he'll spread the view out. This is my tribute to Pitch Black. I'm sure this mechanic was a lot harder to do before slices were a thing, I crudely attempted it before, but using slices seems like the best way to do it.
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... movers.gif">

Pepsi Ranger was right, totally using some Mr. Triangle's Maze ideas.

If anybody's interested... when I first did this mechanic in 2008 I wasn't too good at scripting so each arrow was a different NPC calling a different script. That sucked cause eventually it made us have to change the level design on a couple stages because we ran out of NPCs, even after Worthy redid it to be in 1 script versus 4. Well, in Axe Cop, the movers are all maptiles and the checks are for what tile you're on, no NPCs at all.
Last edited by RMZ on Wed Mar 21, 2018 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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guo
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Post by guo »

I'd love to see the scripts you use sometime! (I think I've asked this before)
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... _drips.gif">
Getting near the end of the lab's dungeon portion and it's enormous, but I always want to try to make the most of the image space I can with variety. I know if I get too much crazier it'll blantantly break the NES/GBC rules I set out to loosely follow. I think I can walk away from tile variation for the lab with these drips from the big overhead tubes.

Fun fact I guess... I might be one of the few that played Fenrir's FFH-2 and still remember it. I remembered how he had those animated puddles and I actually downloaded the game to look at them again. These puddles don't animate, but the memory of those is what inspired these. The drip animation is actually two animations stacked together since I couldn't achieve it in one animation set. It's cumbersome, but it worked.


@guo
I can share some of the scripts possibly, what did you want to look at specifically?
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Funny, last night I did the exact same thing with drips and two sets of animation to simulate it. In a pseudo-8-bit game no less. The difference is that mine doesn't end up in a puddle. The double animation for me simply extends the drip (from air-conditioner window units) an extra tile before evaporating into nothing. I can safely say yours looks much cooler. In fact, I may have to steal--adapt your style a bit to make these units look better.

Oh, and the Mr. Triangle's Maze floor is a nice touch. I approve.

I still have to get a playtest video put together for your more recent update. I'm behind on everything these days.
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guo
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Post by guo »

Hi RMZ,
Just interested how you did the arrow tiles that move you in set directions. Cheers!
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

So Soda Piggy and I are going to meet for the 1st time in May and we're going to shoot some footage for promo purposes.

One thing I think I want to do is do a Feature video about the engine we're using to build the game, because I think the OHR is pretty special to all of us. The video will be very pro-Axe Cop, but I'd like to show off some of the major titles from the engine since the goal of this video will be to draw in new users. I can't really achieve what I want with just my own games, so for anybody reading this, if you can think of really strong titles you'd like to see represent the OHR let me know. I'm sure I will be messaging a few of you to get permission soon but just wanted to start a conversation about it.
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Post by guo »

My 2 cents :

*Vikings
*Any of Harlock's games
*The Megallennium 6in1
*Kaiju
*Anything by Pheonix, really
*Fedora Spade
*Obligatory Wandering Hamster!
*Snowshoe Forest
*Walthros
*Sword of Jade
*and of course Mr Triangle or Surfasaurus

Throw in a terrible game like Magnus for a laugh too.
Last edited by guo on Sun Apr 15, 2018 10:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I think it would make sense to feature your own major titles to show a production consistency between each game. That way, potential users could get in the mindset of creating brands, or at least multiple titles, through the use of the engine. Basically, it would get people to think in the long-term, rather than creating a string of experimental one-shots that they (and everyone else) would soon forget.

For your top library picks, I'd recommend Surfasaurus, Mr. Triangle's Adventure, and Mr. Triangle's Maze, and do so showing off some of their best features, like surfing, puzzle-solving, music-making, dashing across the screen, etc. This would help cast some vision on future developers.

For other people's games, I'd nominate:

Kaiju Big Battel (due in part for the licensing, which shows the OHR is no longer an engine strictly for hobbyists, but also because it's a great game with a lot to show off)
C.Kane (also because it's a Super Walrus Game, piggybacking off of my earlier comment about brands)
Ghost's Towns (ditto)
Macabre (because it does some cool things, looks nice, and can be found on Steam)
Tim-Tim: The Mighty Gnome (because it's a competent side-scroller that will soon have an even more competent sequel, which will also be on Steam)
Don't Eat Soap (because it's a classic that works really well, even though it's a bit short)
Baconthulhu (because it's a rogue-like, and because rogue-likes are popular, and because it's got Bob in it, and we really should be showing off as many Bob the Hamster games as possible)
Wandering Hamster (see above)
Void Pyramid (a great puzzle game with great lore and is a freebie on Steam)
Slimeomancy (because it's awesome and shouldn't be forgotten, and because it would show off the engine's versatility when compared to these other titles)
Spellshard: Black Crown of Horgoth (because it's an 8-bit classic, and the best representation of an NES RPG that we have)
DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons (because it's from the same people who gave us Spellshard)

There are others that should be on this list, like Motrya, Bale, and Phantom Tactics, but because they're unfinished, maybe not. Depends on whether you'd want to show off the works-in-progress.

I guess this list can expand or contract depending on whether you want to show off new titles only, or finished titles, or commercial titles, or gimmick-heavy titles. I also wonder if you would show off the engine's interior. If so, then Vikings of Midgard would seem almost obligatory.
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Post by woahpotato »

*megaman sprite game

please
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Everyone has my permission to feature any footage of any of my games in any video forever.â„¢
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

We'll likely be drafting some type of a script to go on in the coming weeks since I'll be there in about a month. I'm sure we'll reach out to people too. In the meantime, we're still chugging away at the game.

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... nsform.gif">

I have to sort out some of the limitations of Ghost Cop, but we figured out how he will work at least. Ghost Cop is the final form for Flute Cop in the game. In the comics he has maybe 8 forms and some of them are tough to pull off in the game since I set out to balance all forms with each other. Ghost Cop will actually be more of a support character, whereas the other three forms are offensive. Anyways, if you ever played Guacamelee, one thing you can do in that game is switch between the land of the living or the dead. For Ghost Cop, you won't switch on the fly like that, but instead, you can access pockets of the Ghost World through the song statues. The statues act like an anchor so you can play your song and go back and forth. There will be some things that are Ghost World specific, like bridges, switches, etc. that can help you out along the way.

My favorite part of it all is the fact that we're using the Game Boy palette for the Ghost World! If we didn't use it this way, it'd be an awesome joke to make the mobile version of the game use this palette.
Last edited by RMZ on Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... colors.gif">

Been a while since I did an update. For the last couple weeks I've been working on the balance of the enemies in the dungeon and I'm almost at a place where I'm happy with it. It's a time consuming task to try to make the level both consistent to the previous one, but also marginally tougher. It's got it's own surprises to account for with balancing too, but I think I'm close to being happy with it.

Next couple weeks Soda is getting me all the art for the two new characters, the Moon Warriors, who are vampire ninja wizards from the moon. These dudes were a ton of fun to design. I basically made Vampire Wolfer a tank and he has a lot of HP recovery moves and also moves where he can share his own HP with his team since he has a large amount. I took the opportunity to make Fire Slicer essentially an RPG Zero from Megaman X.

Major thanks to James for his newest addition of attack colors! I requested it earlier this week so my absorb attack wouldn't show up as black outline with black text, he took it a step further and made it so we could do it for statuses, healing attacks, poison, regen, etc. It's an awesome feature. Thanks man! Screenshot shows some of that in action.
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