MARDEK 3 Final Fixes Progress Percentage

Yet More Raider! Posted by Pseudolonewolf on Fri 5th Mar 2010, 8:27pm

I've been focusing on Raider for the last two or three days because I really WANT to work on it, whereas if I try to finish off the tedious things left on MARDEK 3, I just end up getting stressed and anxious. I'll do those when I'm with my girlfriend, in, uh... two days... o_O And until then, I'll focus on this because otherwise I'd just be procrastinating, surely. I might as well get SOMETHING done. I feel I keep needing to explain that because I know that people are waiting for MARDEK 3 but don't really care about Raider. Anyway, I have made significant progress since the last version I uploaded yesterday. I've uploaded a new version now, which shows you what I meant by 'world maps', and how there are many levels per world. I've always loved this sort of thing and drew these 'zones' all the time as a young child, wanting to make games but lacking the technical ability, and being influenced by games like Super Mario World, WarioLand, etc. It's a nice feeling to FINALLY have them in a game! I find it... satisfying, to walk around the nodes on the map. There are five levels in this 'zone' or world or whatever, but only three (four if you count the first 'level') have been done so far. I would very much like to know how these others compare to the first level. Are they too easy? Too hard? If there are specific BITS that you think I should change, please tell me the room code... Also though, I've been wondering about what gimmicks Raider could have to differentiate it between any other platformer, and I have had ideas that I've already started implementing! I was playing some NES and SNES roms recently for inspiration, to see what other platformers play like (not that I haven't played loads of them before, but I was looking at specific technical details), and I came across a game I've not played before, but have heard of, called 'ActRaiser'... I looked it up on Wikipedia and it said that it was a combination of a platformer and a 'god game', a sim, and I found that fascinating and ended up playing it through to the end, unlike with most games I start playing these days. Neither the platformer or sim sections were very good; they were rather mediocre and both had rather limited features and abilities and things. However, the mere presence of the sim bit AT ALL seemed very appealing to me and made me want to get through the platformer bits all the more. After finishing ActRaiser, I found ActRaiser 2, and only played one level before quitting, because the sim aspect was REMOVED entirely. "WHY?! D:" I thought, since it was the only think that made the game stand out at all. The platformer aspects were improved upon in the sequel, but it meant nothing because the sim bit was missing... So anyway, getting to my idea... It's something I've thought about in various forms before but I never decided on anything for definite. I was trying to decide on how you'd move between the different zones, and I've been wanting to make it so that you fly around in your ship between them. I wasn't sure whether to do this as a simple sort of world map where the ship is basically just the 'cursor' that you control with arrows, or whether to have side-scrolling shooter-type segments between worlds like the Gummi Ship bits of Kingdom Hearts (or rather, more like SMECOF); that was my original idea but I didn't really want to DO it... But then I came up with the idea of having a sort of... space exploration game thing between zones, where you fly around in your ship in a tile-based abstraction of space - a grid - rather than something more action-oriented. What I decided on was splitting space into 'sectors', each one being the size of the screen, made up of tiles, and each sector could have different things in it, like zones for one, but also things like shipwrecks or asteroids which you could find items on or even land on to play short bonus levels. I could also have 'trader posts' and things where you can buy and sell items. I'd also want to have combat against the ships of other pirates or the 'police' who are after pirates like Arkus, which would work in a Roguelike fashion (since the AI for action-based battling with spaceships would be too difficult), or sort of like FHO, in a way; for every move you make, all enemies move too, but otherwise they do nothing. I could have all the basic sci-fi spaceship stuff like different types of weapons, shields, sensors, etc, etc... It all seems rather easy, and you can see from the file I've uploaded that I've already got the basics sorted out in the space of like an hour or two. Also, it'd give me a chance to actually USE the tactical-like battle system that was in FHO but which I'll likely remove in FHO's AS3 redesign... It could open up a lot of appeal, PERHAPS, with a small 'cost' to me in terms of time and effort... But would something like this make the game more interesting to you people?! Anyway, uh, here: [A LINK] 56 Comments

Raider AGAIN: Test Level 1 Posted by Pseudolonewolf on Thu 4th Mar 2010, 6:05pm

Well, I've been working on MARDEK 3 for weeks now for many hours a day without any real breaks and, uh, it's getting stressful and tiresome, especially so close to the trip with my girlfriend. I've been thinking of Raider recently largely because I wanted something other than MARDEK to think about, and I've been feeling a strong desire to work on Raider because of it. So, I started actually working on it... I am NOT going to be postponing MARDEK; consider Raider something I'm doing in my 'free time' whereas MARDEK 3 is work. I'll probably get more done on that when I'm with my girlfriend and I feel less stress in general because of that, but Raider is much more fun and much less stress to work on. So anyway. Now that I've explained that to hopefully prevent loads of comments about how it's totally wrong for me to focus on some rubbish like Raider when MARDEK 3 is so close to being done, uh, I have been thinking about level designs! I said in the last news article (which was written like a day or two ago...) that I intend to have several short, easier levels per 'world' instead of just the one; I've decided to do five per world. I've made one of them... Or rather, I've made some maps which give an idea of how big and difficult I intend the levels to be (I may or may not use this for the first level), and I want to show it to people to know whether they think the length and difficulty is okay. Remember, there'll be five of these per world, and this is the first level. I want to know if anyone has any particular trouble with it... Also, please play on Intermediate... I may actually REMOVE difficulty as an option later on, having 'Intermediate' being the ONLY difficulty (since it seems the difficulty option will cause a lot of problems if I make all the various changes that I intend to). Please note that I only spent a few minutes working on this, and all I did was open the old file and make new maps. I HAVE NOT added or changed any features yet because I've not spent long enough working on the game, but I'll do that over the course of time. One thing I'll add is treasure chests, containing items or powerups, and there are several places in this level which will eventually have those but which now look empty and pointless. So if you see what seems like a waste of space, imagine a chest there or something. Anyway, here's a link: [A LINK] Too easy? Too hard? Too short? Too long? Too dull? TOO EXCITING FOR MERE HUMAN WORDS??!1/ Oh, and don't bother mentioning any 'bugs' in the menus or that there's no music; as I said, I just opened the file and made some new maps rather than fixing up all that sort of stuff properly. 53 Comments

Raider Ideas Posted by Pseudolonewolf on Wed 3rd Mar 2010, 10:47am

I mentioned in the Weekly Update that I've been sort of planning on changing Raider to make it appealing if I'm going to finish it at all, because to try the same not-very-successful formula three more times to finish off the series might be very foolish indeed. I don't want to lose the old fans, but I do want to bring more people into it. I wouldn't expect the frustrating difficulty to be the only appealing factor, surely... But then again, the game is so basic that it could well be. Hmm. I originally planned for the game to be more, uh, complex than it is, but went with what was a simpler route just so then I could get the game finished at all. Now that all the hard parts are done, though, I can perhaps return to something more complex and interesting? Firstly, I would get rid of the one-huge-level-per-world format and replace it with something more like... two or three or four smaller levels per world. Perhaps I wouldn't even make the difficulty that different, but it'd come across as less daunting if you weren't expected to finish one huge level all in one go. Since I'll be including all five episodes in the one game, I'll have a sort of 'planet map' thing like in SMECOF, for those of you that remember that, where you can see all the planets (or the first level's prison ship thing) available and travel to them once they're unlocked. This would mean that you could travel BACK to earlier levels, and I'll get to that later. When travelling to a specific world, you'd find yourself on a sort of tile-based top-down world map thing... For those of you who've played Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES or SNES, it'd be like that; very, uh, boxy, with clear paths and levels on those paths. Maybe. Or something like that, anyway. Each world would generally have two or three compulsory levels then a boss level, but some levels might have two exits or something, or there might be secret off-the-path levels with relics or items or something. I MAY consider doing segments when flying between worlds where you control your ship and play a section like SMECOF, but those sorts of games are not something I'm competent at making (due to inexperience with them; I'd have to figure stuff out as I went along), and it might lengthen development more than I want (I just want this game to be finished and done with). Something I would definitely want to do is to sort of... merge the current HP systems and stuff with the 'RPG mechanics' of Raider Zero... Or rather, it'd have mechanics more like the Zelda games or something, where you have an inventory and so on, but your 'stats' are determined by your 'heart containers', your weapon and your armour. Your HP would be in the same form as the pixelated Raider rather than Raider Zero's numerical value, and you'd start with 3 HP or something and get an additional one after each boss, though there could be some (or even the equivalent of 'heart pieces') scattered throughout the levels (particularly secret levels). Each single HP may be 4 HP like Zelda though, with average attacks doing '1 HP', but some weaker ones doing only 0.25 HP or something... Hmm. You'd also be able to pick up and store life-restoring items, like the Adrenaline Shots in R0, maybe... I'm unsure how weapon and armour upgrades would be handled, actually... I'd also like to give the player special attacks for beating bosses, like the ability to shoot electricity for beating the Wraith, and the ability to shoot fire for beating level 2... I'm unsure whether to just make these new weapons, or something else like 'magic'. I want to add SPECIAL ACQUIRED ABILITIES which seem to be the norm for platform games, with things like Double Jump, etc. You'd acquire these on special levels rather than after beating bosses, usually. I'd have to work out which abilities I'd make available. With these, you could return to earlier levels to unlock new paths or find treasure. There'd generally only be one Artefact (or were they called Relics? I forget!) per level, and they would generally be difficult to find, with many of them requiring later abilities to get to. Powerups may also be lying around, granting you increased or special powers temporarily. There'd obviously be features like the ability to save your progress with this 'more complex' system... Anyway, for you few Raider fans, would changing it like this RUIN the appeal of the game for you? For the rest of you, is there anything else I should add, change, remove, etc, if you care about Raider at all? (And just to be clear, whatever I decide to do, I won't do it until I've finished MARDEK 3. That's my priority right now. I just thought I should start preparing for Raider because I'll be trying to finish it after MARDEK 3 is done, as it's the only AS2 project I intend to finish before switching over to AS3 and redoing various other games... and if I'm prepared, I can get started as soon as I release MARDEK 3.) 37 Comments

Show all news posts.

• Yet More Raider!
• Raider AGAIN: Test Level 1
• Raider Ideas
• Weekly Update
• Happy Birthday To Me...
• Weekly Update
• MARDEK 2 OST
• MARDEK 1 OST
• Music Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• MARDEK 3 BETA TESTERS WANTED
• Weekly Update (24/Jan/2010)
• Weekly Update (17/Jan/2010)
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• HAPPY TEN MINUTES PAST EIGHT PM.
• Weekly Update
• GLEESOME SHROVE TUESDAY!!!
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Coloured Orbs
• Alone again...
• Agh.
• I'm watching you...
• Bye bye!
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Money Solves Everything!
• MY PET CHAT DIED
• Raider 2! Hooray!
• Weekly Update
• On Merchandise...
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• OH!
• Weekly Update
• Save bug fixed?!
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• Weekly Update
• A Card Game?
• Weekly Update?
• Minor Site Changes
• $$$
• SOMBRE SIGH
• Re the Dreamrealm
• It is, uh, Sunday, right?
• For the Beta Testers
• Raider Episode 2 Beta
• Weekly Update
• Raider: Episode 2 Suggestions
• Raider: Episode 2... When?
• Weekly Update
• MyBrute
• Weekly Update
• On Raider: Episode 1...
• HELLO THEIR.
• Raider: Episode 1
• Weekly Update Again
• A Weekly Update
• Weekly Update!
• 7 Heavens 9 Hells
• Sigh...
• September
• 5 Raider Episodes...
• Verification
• My decision was...
• MARDEK 3 Battle GUI
• Raider: Level 1: COMING SOON
• Raider 2 Release Ideas...
• Raider 2 Level 3
• I AM A SPINE!
• SOJOURN
• Virtual Pets? o_O
• Raider 2 update
• Raider 2!
• Work Schedule
• BE READY FOR DISAPPOINTMENT!
• Happy 1999!
• XMAS
• 11th of the 12th, 2008
• Back on Schedule
• I'm not dead!
• MARDEK 2 Save Problem
• Revised Release Date
• MARDEK 3 Release Date!
• Update
• Browsers
• Gasp!
• New Site Layout
• A post

Assorted Curios and Gizmometries