I never said that
Is there anything for me to finish or do?
Woops, my bad
ok so i think theres a problem with the development of this game.
so remember when we did this the first time, and we had like 25 people who all wanted to participate? we narrowed it down a lot, but then the code was so messy we decided to completely reset.
at that point, we still had maybe 10 people (?) who were “active” on the project. as we got to the middle, most people left. while the code and UI is much better now than it was the first time through, the code is still really hard to go through. our method of “categorization” is just plopping functions into scripts where they “belong.”
and just look at the sheer amount of code we have in ONE SCRIPT. this is SIZE 1 FONT and look at that scrollbar on the right of the code editor.
one of our bugs is that the game lags more and more if you keep pressing the “play again” button. and i can basically guarantee that no one wants to debug it. this is probably part of why we’ve made minimal progress over the whole summer, even though we claimed we would do so before then (i will admit, i wasn’t really helping on that thing.)
well now summer’s basically over, school is starting in a bit for me and some people here have likely started school already. there’s no way we’re going to make progress during the schoolyear.
so now i need to ask: do we reset again?
- we have about 4-5 active people and that’s a pretty good amount.
- it will be a lot easier to solve the awful framerate issue.
- we probably need to code with OOP to make it less painful to debug.
- if we reset, we need a more robust platformer engine than mine. maybe pkhead’s or jovanny’s.
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Non trivial games have at least a thousand lines of code. The problem here is just that there isn’t a good clear solution for the categorization of code (like a lack of folders). That’s why I suggested we work with code on a GitHub repo earlier. But I do have an idea for code organization for the game engine within the file itself. We can put different pieces of code in different clips/frames instead of the way we are currently doing it.
I don’t think a full reset is necessary. All we need is a rewrite.
3 Likes
Well I’m pretty much still here.
Well Im not well versed enough to express any opinion properly, so @KringlePrinkles @Hamzah_Alani and @Jovanny. You 3 have more knowledge In this area, may you express your opinion?
Reseting is definitely an option to consider, but until we run out of other options I think we should try something else. The first time we reset this project we did have some improvements, but I think if we reset now we might not make much progress.
I agree, cleaning up the code a bit would be helpful. I always struggle to find where something is done in the code that it feels impossible to find bugs.
Another solution that could simplify things is dividing the project into many different files.
Ex: The intro and start menu could be one project file, and every button on the start menu leads to a whole other project file.
I had recently learned how to use indexedDB while working on another project. We can use indexedDB to “download” all necessary game files on the users actual device, and after the files are downloaded once, the user will be able to open them offline.
IndexDB is like using “localStorage” (not really). Unlike the local storage, IndexDB has no limit (the only limit is the user’s disk space), so if we choose to divide the game into multiple files, we can use indexDB to save these files on the users device.
Yes, we might have so many files to update, but as long as we have all the files connected, we can better focus on one part of this project at a time, which will make it easier to deal with bugs that “happen in frame 8 and are caused by something in frame 2.”
This is just an idea.
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So we could use this to cut down on the initial download size? As in, we could make an html file that acts as an “launcher/installer” that gets the necessary files and lets you play.
But how would we do game saves with this?
We would have to transfer LS/IDB data between files.
LS/IDB data is owned by a website/domain, not individual files, so the end user shouldn’t have to worry about this.
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Quick Notes about Locations here
- Info Tech City: “[…] the famous city known for managing the most important matters, the best entertainment in the whole world wide web yadayadayada… It’s a cool town/city.”
- Town “Park”: Inside of Info Tech City, where you first meet Baron (page 1).
- Baron brings the main character to pumpkinhead, I’m guessing this is inside of the editor (Swiftstyle Animator, right?)
- After pumpkinhead kicks them out they leave to Baron’s project, I’m guessing it’s inside of another “tab”
- Baron’s project is a fighting arena. We’ll need to sketch this out. I’m guessing it’s just squares with text like “click ‘up’ to jump” or something that simple.
- Post Office (outside): “It’s a somewhat small sized building with an icon above its front 2 doors depicting an envelope with a large italic ‘I’ on it” (page 3).
If you’re looking for a simple idea for my character, well since fire is used to symbolize anger/ rage, and my character appears to be calm in the story, you could perhaps show him “meditating” or spending time in the “library.” Another option is, and this one is connected with the idea of a “firewall,” he could probably be “guarding/ shielding” the city or a location inside from outside cyber attackers. This would make him a target of Philliment and one of the first to sense the attack. Since Baron is “a guardian and peace-keeper of the area,” he should be able to introduce Flambe.
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Maybe baron could climb out of frame using a bunch of web objects like text and images and the content switches. He comes back down and says something like “Tabs. What a neat thin- oh right. Tabs are what we internet users use to organize what we’re looking at and quickly switch between them. Cool, right?”
2 Likes
Not a bad idea!
major additions and changes have been made to the chap 1 and 0 doc, please go and read and see if its good! or needs changes
Looks pretty good! I might try writing later.
Ok… It’s been a week, looks like this has been ignored - which is really a non-issue at this point, don’t feel bad -
But so what do you guys think we should do now,? I’m stil scripting the first and second chapters of story mode so we can wait before working on story mode…
What about the file splitting ideas, the optimations and others?
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One of the other questions I have are actually how and when the cutscenes are going to be put into action.
When the story mode starts getting created.
I have a question, how do you envision the scenes in “story mode” to appear?
What I mean is: are the characters going to talk through text bubbles or words with captions or in some type of “comic book style” or any other way in scenes?
I can help get started with that.
First of all, here’s how I think files should be split
-
Main File (10+ frames), including:
- Intro
- Main Menu
- Settings
- Credits
- Arena Select
- Character Select
-
Quick Play File (7+ frames), including:
- Arenas 1 to 5+ (with character frames & etc.)
- Win Screen
-
Library File (3+ frames), including:
- Books
- Badges & Achievements
- Quests (new, completed, & in-progress)
-
Story Mode Files:
- Tutorial (only ch1, unless player learns a “new move”)
- Chapter # Cutscenes
- Chapter # Simple Levels
- Chapter # Boss Level(s)
(In story mode, all chapters will have their own set of files for cutscenes & levels)
To get started, I created the first file, the “Main File,” which is the first file the user opens
(after the “installer”).
FFR 1.5.2 (Main File).wick (1.4 MB)
(File has been updated Aug 18th, 10:09 AM)
I split the project from the main one with some changes including:
-
VariablesSettings saved on local storage (see last frame).
When you adjust the settings, you can pause the project, play it again from the start, and re-open the settings only to find that they’re the same as you had set them before. - Disabled the VCam from zooming bc it wasn’t needed, and caused issues in html version
- Removed unnecessary audio files (removed 66 audio files in the audio frame)
- Any variables not on the local storage are connected with the “window” (see last frame).
Important:
The name for this file type, “Main File,” is put in parenthesis in the file’s actual name.
This is important to avoid confusion, always name files in this format using the first list I created above.
Splitting projects isn't just about copying a bunch of frames from the main project and putting them into a new project.
- Make sure to only include the audio files that are used in the project. I can take care of removing any unused audio files if you need help with that.
- Make sure to remove unnecessary lines of codes or objects when splitting the project.
-
Include a frame at the end where you list the variables that
the project you are working on adjusts in the local storagecan be taken to other files (see file in this post as an example).
Also, now that the files are split team work can be easier since multiple people can work on separate files at a time without needing to worry about affecting updates made in other parts of the project.
@mlgcoolguys_1 I decided to make the “Library” it’s own file separate from the Main File bc we’ll probably include a lot of different info there. I’ll start working on that. I have some work this week, so I should be done with the library in a couple of days, 3 max.
Also,
I feel like if we want to use a different engine now is the best time to decide before starting the “Quick Play File.”
- Stick to Baron’s Engine
- Switch to pkhead’s Engine
- Switch to Jovanny’s Engine
- Other (explain)
0 voters
(I’m currently working on the Library file, anyone interested in separating other parts from the main file and has read this full post can do so)
3 Likes
H.A. just to note, some people who are completely uninvolved in the project have been voting in our polls, i recommend you turn on the feature allowing us to see WHO voted, to make sure only project members are voting
About the speech thing i have a few ideas…
ive been doing some searching and i believe one of these four could do us well!
so let us choose:
- First one (text box above, name in corner, translucent)
- second one (white and clear, name in under speech box?)
- third one (speech box on the bottom, solid color, name above)
- Forth one (icon sitting on speech box to the right, bottom of the screen, solid colour, name included?)
0 voters
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