Concept Help me pick a gameplay style for this mod!

Idea or proposal that does not yet have substantial progress.
NickyP

NickyP

Active member
Hey guys.

So I really like the Megaman Battle Network series. I want to make a BOR mod about it. I came up with a few different gameplay styles that I like, both equally. And that's why YOU (yes, you!) will help me pick which one to use!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbpi3ro9bexuxk0/Megaman%20demos.rar

Included in the rar are MBN.pak and MMBN.pak.

In MBN.pak:
-Gameplay is based on a variation of my Time Crisis demo. It's a shooter.
-Playable characters are the different net navis in the Battle Network Series
-Attack1 button shoots. Attack2 button is a melee weapon. Attack3 is a dodge.
-Before enemies attack, their shadows blink white to signal to you that they are attacking. Bosses do not do this.

In MMBN.pak:
-Gameplay is much more faithful to actual Megaman Battle Network games. The players are on the left side of the grid, the enemies are on the right side.
-Playable characters are the different forms that Megaman.EXE acquires in the Battle Network games.
-Attack1 button shoots. Holding Attack1 down for about 1-2 seconds launches a charge shot. All characters have a unique charge shot. Special button can also perform the charge shot at the cost of some MP.

Note that the gameplay style is just in basic form for both projects; more attacks and such will be made once I pick one to go with. I just don't know which one I like best.

Vote in the poll!  ;D
 
So far the winner is MMBN.pak; I guess the more faithful Battle Network gameplay style is the better one?

For MMBN.pak, I would probably make it so that Attack2-4 buttons are other chip-attacks, with each character having a unique set. It could be a very fun mod if done right.

I'll wait and let more people try it before I decide, though.  :)
 
Tough call man, but I really liked the first one MBN.PAK  which gets my vote.

There is something real cool about controlling these battle network sprites.  I like the idea of controlling the navi, Gutsman was my fav to use because he could punch :)  If you added more melee and attacks it would be even more fun to play.

The gameplay was instantly fun, I could of kept shooting robots forever if the stages kept coming.  I like the stage style and how you made it look. It's cool how the enemies appear from the floor, once they have more effects for this and sfx will look perfect.  (that digital spawning thing they do)

One thing thou, maybe you did these quick just to test, but there is lots of colour loss in the sprites.  Everything looks a little washed out.  You should be able to easily preserve the colours without having this problem.  Same with backgrounds etc.  It's making a bright game look kinda dull.

Was only a few sprites, so I redid Gutsman man quick to compare, and the difference is noticeable (in game).
(hmm, it's actually hard to notice here at this scale on dark grey background :P ) 

From the MOD -
image.png


From the SHEET -
image.png


I know they lack walking frames, but some reason it never bothered me.  I think you could easily just add some effects when they move so it looks like jet pack/thrusters.

I checked out the spritesheet (this one HERE ), I was just curious how many moves for these chars you could potentially add. 

I noticed there was walking sprites, but only small and outlined.  So I did a test of them re-sized by 150%, obviously they would need some editing still.  But if you really hate not having walking frames, maybe someone might help edit these to make them look good.
guts.gif

Here's Gutsman if you wanna test the walking and see the the colour difference.  (sorry I forgot to add the portrait to the palette, so that will look wrong) Probably still needs walk delay and speed adjustments, was just a test.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w3hca8vlfl5uykx/guts.rar

------------------

For the MMBN.PAK one - It was really good too, another good concept.  I think it was not as fun to play thou after playing the first one, but it felt more like the original games.  Still as fun to play, but I think you would get tired of it sooner with the small area.

I think you could do MBN.PAK but add the stage style from MMBN.PAK as a secondary game mode, like time trial/survival etc.  Or for extra mini-game battle scenarios, like maybe squares that light up on the ground and if you land on them it takes you to virus or boss battle (kinda like the orig games) Or something of this nature.

Great job with everything, another Triumph!
I just think the colours should be fixed before you keep going.

Whatever you decide is going to make a cool game, there's so much you could do with these sprites and the megaman theme.
 
I feel like if MBN.pak was 2-d like Rockman WS and MNT it would be perfect. But that would require alot of extra sprites. As for the chips I think you should make them into weapons instead of giving them their own button. I would love to see netnavi's playable in the MMBN.pak. I also think you should really increase the health of the viruses(in MBN.pak) and possibly add weaknesses. There's alot you could do with this mod. I hope you do well with the project though
 
Long post warning! :P

Thanks for the feedback guys! I really appreciate it :)

MMBN.pak was the original project. I started it probably around 2011 (hence why it has my old logo), and MBN.pak is sort of a re-purposed version I put together recently. The reason I don't use the other navis in MMBN.pak is because it's based on a kind of fantasy of mine. I always wished the Battle Network games had co-op of some sort, and I used to dream of how cool it would be if everyone used their own version of Megaman; after all, he has so many different forms, it could easily work. As for MBN.pak, I wanted it to be more like a traditional arcade sidescroller. An alternative idea for MBN.pak is to utilize the melee chip-attacks and make the game a normal beat em up; but I thought the lack of a jump and jumpattacks would make the gameplay stale.

Aside from the obvious differences, the damage and health stats of all entities in MMBN.pak are accurate to the Battle Network games. This is why it takes many buster shots to kill enemies, but only one or two charge shots to get the job done. If I can ever make the game to my vision, MMBN.pak will essentially be a "lite version" of Battle Network's gameplay system.

BeasTie said:
One thing thou, maybe you did these quick just to test, but there is lots of colour loss in the sprites.  Everything looks a little washed out.  You should be able to easily preserve the colours without having this problem.  Same with backgrounds etc.  It's making a bright game look kinda dull.
Click to expand...
I know. "Old habits die hard," as I still tend to make sprites using one of two default palettes. Typically I go in afterwards and edit the palette to make it more accurate, but sometimes the damage is done. In these demos I updated the palettes for the playable characters and the boss, but not the enemies. That's why if you notice, each character has a pal.gif/png in their folder. Regardless of which game I go with, I guarantee it'll look brighter and better.  ;)

BeasTie said:
I noticed there was walking sprites, but only small and outlined.  So I did a test of them re-sized by 150%, obviously they would need some editing still.  But if you really hate not having walking frames, maybe someone might help edit these to make them look good.
Here's Gutsman if you wanna test the walking and see the the colour difference.  (sorry I forgot to add the portrait to the palette, so that will look wrong) Probably still needs walk delay and speed adjustments, was just a test.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w3hca8vlfl5uykx/guts.rar
Click to expand...
I tried it, and I appreciate the extra steps you took to make it work, but I'm not really liking it... I'm sure there's a couple other tricks I could use to make the walking better. Perhaps I could reuse the "dodge" frame as the walking frame, and put a booster behind the characters? That way, they aren't just sliding in place on a conveyor belt.

BeasTie said:
I think you could do MBN.PAK but add the stage style from MMBN.PAK as a secondary game mode, like time trial/survival etc.  Or for extra mini-game battle scenarios, like maybe squares that light up on the ground and if you land on them it takes you to virus or boss battle (kinda like the orig games) Or something of this nature.
Click to expand...
I haven't thought of that at all... that's a really good idea! It could break the monotony of either gameplay style and work well a sort of bonus stage. I'm writing that one down, Beastie. Thanks!  ;D

BeasTie said:
For the MMBN.PAK one - It was really good too, another good concept.  I think it was not as fun to play thou after playing the first one, but it felt more like the original games.  Still as fun to play, but I think you would get tired of it sooner with the small area.
Click to expand...
That's my biggest fear with MMBN.pak. I truly think that if I did it right, it could be a very well-made mod with a lot of depth and strategy. But if the player gets bored after three or four rounds of enemies, then it was almost for nothing.  :-X it's a tough choice to make.

Traweezie said:
I feel like if MBN.pak was 2-d like Rockman WS and MNT it would be perfect.
Click to expand...
I could easily make a game based on the Battle Network game for Wonderswan... the problem is, I'm terrible at making platformer games. It's a possibility, though.

Traweezie said:
As for the chips I think you should make them into weapons instead of giving them their own button.
Click to expand...
I agree with this idea, but the problem lies with how to go about doing it. In MBN.pak it's easy; I'll make the chip-attack items as an enemy drop, or put them in a container. But what about MMBN.pak, where the idea is most relevant? Maybe I could put a random item spawner on each panel of the players side, and make it so that there's a timed interval for when it spawns the items. This could add to the "think fast" element that both mods create; but I feel like creating a unique set of chip-attacks for each individual player would be the easier route to go with for now. The more I think about it, the more I like the other idea, though.
 
(another long one from me too sorry!)

- I started thinking after I posted this was the case. Noticed the old logo etc. 


- I thought you might like that idea if you hadn't already thought of it.  But maybe the reverse would be have more of an impact on gameplay.

So you would normally fight on the 'SQUARE' MMBN.PAK stages... but could land on flashing tiles when they appear, and enter into a 'Danger Zone' with the MBN.PAK style stages.  Fight your way though turrets, traps etc. to fight a boss or some tougher Viruses. 

This way you won't get bored.  You gotta beat waves of viruses to get to the bigger fights.  Or farm them to get the 'special' zones to drop.  (maybe like random encounters) Or they could just be like dungeons, for a little extra loot and weapons etc. A way to get rare chips maybe? 

Just throwing ideas, I did play the first battle network game and I did like the gameplay.  But I always wished you could control megaman and co. more in combat


- Yeah old habits do die hard, I kept making the same mistakes with my own stuff.  Having to redo Day of the Tentacle sprites after corrupting them a few times.  Also somehow ended up with 20 shades of white etc. in the palette :P Was going to release a demo but then I noticed it, been redoing sprites for 2 years now lol

you live and you learn.

I put the next bit in quotes just so it reads better...

You probably know this... But if you want to save time with palettes, while you're offsetting the sprites.

Just start with your pink/blue background in RGB layered mode. 

- Copy/Paste the sprites from the spritesheet with transparent background, get them in the right place. 

- Then convert to indexed mode, choose forced palette and add your background colour as first entry. 

- Save the image

Each image will only have the colours it's using in the sprite, and the background colour as index 0

Until your ready to do the master palette, just use 'palette none' in the char header if you want to test things. 

When all the sprites are ready, just go back to the spritesheet.  Remove anything from the sheet that's not needed in the palette like effects etc. 

- Then just convert the spritesheet to indexed mode, replace transparency for the background colour you're using,

- Save this palette as .ACT file

-  run all the sprites thought Plombo's PalApply. using the .ACT file (make a backup of the sprites just in case)


Job is done, all sprites will share same palette now.


More lazy

- use a Alferd spritesheet unpacker to unpack the sprites, set options so you don't get transparent channel.

- use a batch mode/macro in photoshop to increase canvas size, keeping the sprite in the center. 
Sprites will be roughly aligned automatically, depending on the sprites it might be all you need.


- create palette (.ACT file) from the spritesheet.  If you have loose images not a spritesheet, then use spritesheet packer to make one first.

- Apply palette to images with PalApply.

- Job Done.

Adjust offsets if necessary, you should hopefully only have to nudge them slightly to match the standing sprite.  If you use fighter factory you can import all the sprites, onion skin easily and export again as aligned sprites along with the correct offsets in a text file.

Not claiming these are the best ways, but it's lazy, fast and less chance of human error.  No chance of having colours missing from the palette and messing things up.
Click to expand...

 
Lack of walking animation is my main reason for choosing MMBN.pak. In regular sidescroller (MBN), I find that not good to see however in MMBN.pak, it's hardly bad thing, it's more like moving to different panel/spot for RPG games.

Of course, the real problem of limited space is that we can't hit enemies in back row with close range attack but that's the point of these fields.

My suggestion is to have various fields area. If you have 3x3, add another with say 4x3, 4x4, 3x4 and so on.

But if the player gets bored after three or four rounds of enemies, then it was almost for nothing.  :-X it's a tough choice to make.
Click to expand...

IMO it depends on how you 'serve' the enemies. In RPG games, one thing that bores me quick is when I have to enter and exit battle mode over n over just for killing weaklings  :P. MMBN.pak would be the same if you do like that too so my suggestion is to make waves of enemies. Give something like: "WAVE 1", "WAVE 2" and so on before a group of enemies appear without changing the level.
You can restore players HP between each wave if you like.

I haven't played original game so I can't say much about enemies.

Anyways, in case you want to restore HP and MP in level, here's the script:
spawn empty
@script
void main()
{
    int P1 = getplayerproperty(0, "entity");
    int P2 = getplayerproperty(1, "entity");

    if(P1){
      int HP1 = getentityproperty(P1,"maxhealth");
      int MP1 = getentityproperty(P1,"maxmp");

      changeentityproperty(P1, "health", HP1);
      changeentityproperty(P1, "mp", MP1);
    }
    if(P2){
      int HP2 = getentityproperty(P2,"maxhealth");
      int MP2 = getentityproperty(P2,"maxmp");

      changeentityproperty(P2, "health", HP2);
      changeentityproperty(P2, "mp", MP2);
    }
}
@end_script
coords 160 200
at 0
Click to expand...

It's only for player 1 and player 2 though (can be expanded for 3rd and 4th player).
And you can set this script in anything you spawned, doesn't have to be empty entity like this.
 
@Bloodbane - Sorry off topic, but do you know a way to make player's health stay the same between levels.  So they don't go back to full health? (Nick might need this too)
 
I set script to attain all active player's current HP and MP in endlevel.c, store these in globalvariable then apply these in player's SPAWN animation.

Since globalvariables aren't resetted by default, I set a script in update.c to reset these variables.
 
I think I like the idea of enemy waves in MMBN.pak's style. Make it like a tower defense type game, where there's a 2-5 second break for the player. It could work.

Also, Bloodbane I highly recommend you try one of the Battle Network games. Specifically, start with Megaman Battle Network 2; it's a sequel, but it's a great place to start the series. Especially since the battle system is much improved over the original game.

You know what? That goes for all of you guys, really. Grab your favorite GBA emulator, and play a Megaman Battle Network game. Seriously. You won't be disappointed. They are immensely fun and addicting.
 
So I updated the archive, but only for MBN.pak.

The changes to MBN.pak are as follows:
-Character and enemy palettes have been corrected for the most part
-Loading screen palettes have been corrected/replaced
-Melee attacks now do half the damage they used to, so they aren't overpowered
-Characters sort of have a walking animation now... or rather, they're sliding, but with style  ;)
-Characters have a spawn animation that's akin to classic Megaman
-Aquaman removed. So now there's only 4 characters.

Here's the download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbpi3ro9bexuxk0/Megaman%20demos.rar

The first post will also be edited with the new link.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom