Messages

Haha yeah, luckily I found someone ( kokocipher) who is willing to work on some of the music with me. He'll probably compose original pieces while I might throw a few rearranges in there for some of the non-boss stages. The rearranges will still use a SNES soundfont, but I'll try to add a bit of flare to it. Looks like I won't need to focus on music so much, but here's how a typical arrange would/might sound.

MMX2 - overdrive ostrich rearrange
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24888465/player2.swf
http://kiwi6.com/file/5w9xp09328

I'll go more into detail about non-boss stages when I have a more clear stage select up.

Where do you get the MMX instruments for FL Studios?

Here's a zip of the instruments im using. It's a combination of sound fonts and individual .wav samples from MMX.
<a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24888465/MMX%20Instruments.zip">MMX Instruments.zip</a>


Soundfonts are just a collection of samples.(Easier to manage). I put the SNES soundfont and MMX soundfonts inside which should have pretty much every instrument used for the sNES.

You'll probably be using these alot:
-Overdriven Guitar (From Snes soundfont)
-Synth Bass 2 (From Snes soundfont)

And for mixing options just
-Fruity Parametric EQ 2
-Fruity Reeverb (Lowcut 191Hz, Decay 0.5 sec.)
(These just make the sample not sound so dry)

If you have not composed music before (like me), then it's probably a good idea to use an midi song as a reference, then  mix & mash parts with each other using MMX instruments until things sound good. For example, you may like the bass line from a particular midi, so you just copy it, make adjustments, and replace with MMX instruments. You don't have to do the entire midi like this, just parts you like. Maybe there's a guitar riff you like from another midi that'll sound good in combination with the bass line, or you can just alter it to sound better. You definitely don't have to do everything from scratch, atleast until you feel more comfortable working with music.

Very catchy tune. Reminds me of Kirby, sort of. But nice job with it anyway. Can't wait to hear more

Yeah I figured it sounded a bit happy. I'll probably do more with the overdrive guitar once I figure out how to make it sound nice.

Yeah, it does sound more classic. Really good though.

thanks, it looks like i'll be spending some time in fruity loops to make music then.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just stick with difficulty settings.

I've been messing around in fruity loops hopefully so I can create some original soundtracks. It's pretty fun using MMX instruments. I made this one recently. It doesn't sound fitting of MMX(Maybe MegaMan), but hey it's a start. Cheers for my first song, they'll get better. maybe :p.

MMX - some ice stage
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/player.swf?w=20e08150
http://kiwi6.com/file/53hj5gl088
(Edit, hotlinking issue. should work now)

Honestly, that reminds me of X6 with the special areas or Vile's stages in X3. Not to mention alternate paths are nothing new (see X-Hunter Stage 2 in X2). As long as they all connect back to the boss room.

I liked the alt. paths in X3, though it wasn't really pushed much. I'm thinking I'll stick with my original where there will be different stage segments. Afterall, there's no point in having created a level editor for only 8 stages :p

That's what i'm thinking. Or possibly I could drop difficulty settings completely, and just make stages gradually harder.

Here's a diagram of dynamic difficulty(note this is all in 1 stage)

s = starting point
1 = section 1
2 = section 2
3 = section 3 (all the same regardless of path, leads to boss)
! = optional stage



Here's a diagram of how I originally planned things to be. (note these are different stages connected to 1 boss)

s = intro stage
1 = stage1
1a = stage 1 part a
1b = stage 1 part b
! = optional stages
c = stage 1 part c, leads to boss room.

difficulty would go from 1, 1ab, 1c.


(More stages)

[[Dynamic Difficulty]]

Thanks for the feedback.


I've been pretty busy with this project lately actually. Most of it is internal work so I can't really show anything, but I'll post one of the ideas I have that I'd like feedback on.

This will be the file select screen. A snapshot is taken randomly during levels and used as the background image. Just a little fun thing i added.


[Dynamic Difficulty]
I'm going to use this method instead of just having "easy", "medium", or "hard" settings. So what is this dynamic difficulty?

Basically the difficulty in the level changes depending on how good you are. There will be maybe 3-4 "Grade Points" in each level. This is how it'll be constructed:

Hard path : You reach the grade point while taking little to no damage + quick time.
Normal path: You reach the grade point while taking some damage + average time.
Easy path: You reach the grade point while taking lots of damage + slow time.

The way the enemies behave isn't going to change. Only more tricky placement and how the path is made. This way there's no need for difficulty setting or worrying that you're missing out. Taking the hard path will give access to optional stages that have..secrets. The Normal and Easy path do not offer access to those stages.

Or

I can simply make paths that are more difficult, and if you can get past it, then you'll be granted access to those optional stages. However since the stages will not be long, it leaves the risk of the player just abusing the invincibility hit-delay without really being a good player. (hit-delay meant I could dash through a bunch of tough enemies. I used to do this in MMX1-3 all the time :p)

so why use this instead of difficulty settings? Well think about it. When you start a game on whichever difficulty, what are the chances of you going back and playing the game on another setting? Probably unlikely unless there were incentives such as unlockable content. There's always the option to let difficulty be changed during the stage, but it doesn't give a real sense of challenge when the player can just switch to easy mode during tough parts, then switch back to normal. I think this will also add more replay value to levels aswell.

What are your thoughts?

Nice! The crusher effect's timing seems a bit off though, it looks like the big flash is meant to disguise the tile underneath being removed, but it flashes too early/removes the tile too late. Though perhaps just making a few shards of rock fly out from the tile would make the tile being removed less obvious?

Good eye, the explosions are disguises.  I don't know why I forgot to make debris fly from broken ground, thanks for the suggestion. I'll definitely add it.

It looks like the sensor beam itself does the damage rather than the shots it fires after, IIRC it was possible to dash through the beam at some angles without being hit by the shots.

Yea the beam + shots do the damage. At first only the shots damaged, but for some reason I thought dashing through the beam was an unintended effect so I revised it. However I'll just change it so it can be dashed through at certain angles.

[Crusher]

More enemies.. (Because you can never have too many enemies!)

Crusher
From X1 Intro stage



Sensor
From X3 Volt Catfish stage.



Bomb Been
From X1 Intro stage. This time his bombs send you flying up.



Jamminger
From X1 Intro stage. (Yes, it laughs when it hits X.)



The Hive
From X4 Web spider stage, except using different sprites.



Just a normal day testing enemy ai.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I'm just about at the 50 enemies mark. Maybe it's time to start making an actual level.

Yeah MMF2 is excellent for creating any snes-era game in general, especially if combined with Lua scripting. It's really easy to understand  once you play around with things for a bit.

As for the game,  progress isn't as fast as I'd like due to university classes/major classes being time consuming.(And a part-time job on my weekends) Also most of the progress is technical changes, so I'm not too fond of updating the thread for those types of things. It's mostly trying to have a more efficient level editor.

Example: Spread function

[Can create mass-tiles at once]



[and there they all go]

and then of course copy/paste and moving sections of tiles is next. Should have been done first but I'm going back & forth between making engine changes and the editor.

[Dec 25th, 2011]

MMf2 all the way man.

Dec 25th, 2011

INFO
Quick boss battle of a placeholder boss, perhaps..Either I'll use a combination of new/old moves on old bosses or new sprites.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Just wanted to point out that I believe I finally have a solution for making animated tiles. Decided to have the level editor import "animation tile sheets", which are pretty much sprite sheets, except they are tiles. The editor will automatically arrange the animations in order based on a 32x32 grid.

Marked

This is an animation tile sheet that I marked. Each 32x32 slot is a frame. Each tile can have a total of 5 animation frames. (Frames 0-4, Looped)

Unmarked


How it'll appear in the level editor:

[[Tasks that need to be completed]]

There was a demo but it's extremely outdated(From November I believe).

Anyway, progress has been slow but steady.(Mainly because I have work and classes to attend, so I don't have much time like I used to) Unfortunately I do not have screenshots, since I have been working mostly on internal things that will be mentioned below. Since I do not have any play testers, a public engine test will most likely be released in the near future once these tasks are complete. Once the mentioned tasks are complete, updates should become more frequent.

[Level Editor] (New things)
-Supports multiple background images for each stage.
(You can specify when you want the background to transition to the next)

-Supports any amount of animations per background image.
(MMX games have 3 frames per background, so that'd be the ideal amount)

[X:rise]
-Improved physics engine for enemies.
-Additional 8 enemies added. Few previews below.

Laser Bot

General aerial enemy. (Don't worry, they won't be clustered in actual stages)

Flame Chaser

Possible placeholder sprite, based off X1's rider.

Laser Ant

Remains hidden until in range.

Security Bot

Targets the player using bézier curves.

Sea Serpent

Plan on adding this enemy as a sub-boss with a new moveset. Physics are complete though. (No, it does not actually move this fast)

[Tasks that need to be completed]
-Animated tiles
(I am still deciding on how to approach making each individual tile to have animations in the most efficient way possible, via the level editor of course. There will probably be a limit of 3 frames, which MMX games seem to have. The problem is mainly trying to find a way so users can easily add animated tiles in. The best approach I can think of is having the editor import animation sheets. When complete, tiles will be able to have small animations like lights flickering, electricity and what not.)

-Several more enemies -There's a total of around 40 enemies at the moment, some new, some old with new physics. The only thing stopping my enemy creation process is ideas. :p

Again, it's not much. Creating sprites will most likely be the most time consuming task.(Backgrounds, enemies, weapons, perhaps bosses) Gimmicks(devices that make stages unique) and tilesets/BGs aren't really important until I begin working on the actual levels. I'm trying to put it off as much as I can until the mentioned tasks are complete.

Gotta say, this is looking mighty fine. I like the feel... it's innovative, while still keeping the good traditions. It makes X actually look fun to play for a change too. It... looks like fun. Genuine fun, not just "hey, I used to play this when I was a kid" fun.

Two thumbs up. Keep up the good work, comrade.

I'm happy to hear you feel that way. Motivation +10  

Been working on some minor things in spare time, mainly charged shots and the stage select screen.


The max charge shot is pretty much X1's and X3's combined.(frame count reduced in gif for faster loading)


Not 100% sure on how much damage it'll do. Right now, the initial blast does about +2 more damage more than a regular charged shot to an enemy. The  blast leaves behind a damaging after shot that deals 0.5 damage until it's duration is up.(about 3 second duration)


Decided to add a feature where you can slide/dash under narrow passages. (Basically like in mario where you could run + crouch under small passages, but instead you can dash + crouch or simply dash. The level needs to have ice tiles to dash + crouch slide though)


Realllly basic stage select screen that's only functional at the moment. the red block will be the boss display image, and the yellow block is for the stage background image. The middle panel is for stage information, such as rank and level completion. 100% means you've obtained all secrets in the stage(Etank, Wtank, Heart, etc) The other colored blocks shown below are for the boss sprites.

[December 12th, 2010]

Every idea sounds awesome, also the graphic part is looking good, but trust me, you need to fix the gameplay, otherway, it gonna sucks.

Just my opinion.

Thanks for your opinion, but which specific parts of the gameplay are you referring to? (Unless you mean he was walking too fast due to the temp.boost item?)

Dude, you're freaking mixing sprite styles, also it looks like you want to fuse MMX with Sonic.

Actually I haven't used a single sprite that wasn't ripped MMX1-MMX3.(Unless you meant the airbot placeholder enemy or special effects. There's also a few custom sprites I did, mainly because there was no rip available.) I agree with sonic part, I wanted it a bit more fast paced. However there's currently only 1 status effect that increases walking speed.

=============================================================================
December 12th, 2010

INFO
[spoiler]I took some time to work on the level editor more, for faster creation. An updated level properties editor and dialog editor have been included. The level properties editor lets you change more content such as parallax options and BGM for stages. The parallaxing x/y scroll speeds can be seen in real time as shown in the Screenshot section.

The dialog editor is still fairly new, so you can only change box options.Basically, this lets you create dialog scripts that are activated by events. When you pass an event, a dialog script will be triggered for that object.

Planned for future:
-DIALOGUE EDITOR - Let's you easily modify dialogue scripts in the editor. In the future, you will be able to create dialog scripts directly in the dialog editor, so no need to open up notepad and manually creating them. You can currently change the following:
===========================================
BOUNDING BOX PROPERTIES
===========================================

\\ParaLen = Paragrah length of dialog before it ends.

\\TotalChars = Total amount of characters talking in the script. In this example, Light, X, and Zero are talking, so it's 3.

\\BoxSpd = How quickly the bounding black box expands.

\\AutoTxt = Checks if Auto text is enabled or disabled. Auto text automatically jumps to the next paragraph based off the "AutoSpd" with no influnence on pressing Enter.

\\AutoSpd = How quickly the auto text scrolls.

\\Face = Displays a portrait. (Development only, Leave this 0)

\\BoxSize = How large the box expands vertically.

\\BoxColor = The color of the box.

===========================================
-CUTSCENE EDITOR - Easily create cutscenes to-be used in the cutscene section.(will probably be Dev use only)
-HELP EDITOR - Pulls up a help guide for every action.[/spoiler]

SCREENS
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

[Nov 12th, 2010]

I'm pretty fond of the camera position you used while on the Chaser. Looking great

Yeah I figured since it moves faster than X2's bike, it'd be hard to see what's ahead while shooting. (Though I'm still debating if I should just make it work like in X4 where dashing automatically destroys enemies + shot changes on slopes.)

Thanks for all the recent replies. I'll probably keep things under the hood for awhile after this.(Until enemy update is finished, so it may some months.)

Nov 12th, 2010
Info - All ride armor types are finally finished. There's two new ones and two from the original. Two screenies below.


One of the old ride armors.


New addition ride armor. Charges a laser that continuously damages. Also travels past enemies for multiple kills.

Thanks, I was trying to mix X3's tria armor with X5's falcon.

Recently finished the ride bike, so here's how it works.

[Nov 6, 2010]

Nov 6, 2010
-Engine is basically complete. Now it's just adding content.

[Temporary Status Effects]

-You'll find items that give you short status effects.(enemies also can drop them, though they aren't random) The picture above shows the speed boost effect, which increases your walking speed for around 10 seconds. (Basically think of how you equipped abilities in X5, except these aren't permanent.)All Temp effects complete.

[Options menu]

-Instead of having the config being in an external app, it can now be changed when you pause the game. There's also other options such as double tap, camera types, difficulty and quality setting.

System Menu functional

-System menu(Pause menu) is now fully functional. Wtanks work differently though. You can select which weapon gauge you want to fill. (The icons and weapon names are unfinished at the moment). Other than that, Pause Menu complete.

Armor ability


-Hovering is one of the various abilities of the leg upgrade. Hovering backwards allows you to shoot forward still, and the action camera shifts ahead as if you were facing forward. (Fixed weapon meter positon in 1st image) There's more, but I do not want to spoil it since there is only one armor. MMX Rise Armor complete.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Ah sweet, you posted your game here too.

I see you're after the MMX9 offer as well. Good luck with that.

Nah, passing on that. I believe the creator of lunar magic is creating one, so the MMX editor is in good hands now.(Looking forward to messing around with the original game though!)

Edit: My mistake, I'm not sure why I said lunar's creator xD. It's a guy named Xeeynamo:  http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=8573.0

Oh hey I remember seeing this (I think) some time back on youtube and thinking it was kickass.
I like the extra effects and stuff. Looks cool.

The Light capsule dialogue seems spot on, (although, is there missing parts to it or is that odd skipping of certain words just because you were skipping through the dialogue?)

Also, yay! you used the X4 capsule music. ^_^

Thanks, and yeah I was manually skipping parts in the beginning then randomly decided to slow down. (usually I plan what I'm going to show but I did this on recording on a whim)

[Dec 12th, 2010]

Dec 12th, 2010

Dec 25th, 2011

=============================================================================
December 12th, 2010

INFO
[spoiler]I took some time to work on the level editor more, for faster creation. An updated level properties editor and dialog editor have been included. The level properties editor lets you change more content such as parallax options and BGM for stages. The parallaxing x/y scroll speeds can be seen in real time as shown in the Screenshot section.

The dialog editor is still fairly new, so you can only change box options.Basically, this lets you create dialog scripts that are activated by events. When you pass an event, a dialog script will be triggered for that object.

Planned for future:
-DIALOGUE EDITOR - Let's you easily modify dialogue scripts in the editor. In the future, you will be able to create dialog scripts directly in the dialog editor, so no need to open up notepad and manually creating them. You can currently change the following:
===========================================
BOUNDING BOX PROPERTIES
===========================================

\\ParaLen = Paragrah length of dialog before it ends.

\\TotalChars = Total amount of characters talking in the script. In this example, Light, X, and Zero are talking, so it's 3.

\\BoxSpd = How quickly the bounding black box expands.

\\AutoTxt = Checks if Auto text is enabled or disabled. Auto text automatically jumps to the next paragraph based off the "AutoSpd" with no influnence on pressing Enter.

\\AutoSpd = How quickly the auto text scrolls.

\\Face = Displays a portrait. (Development only, Leave this 0)

\\BoxSize = How large the box expands vertically.

\\BoxColor = The color of the box.

===========================================
-CUTSCENE EDITOR - Easily create cutscenes to-be used in the cutscene section.(will probably be Dev use only)
-HELP EDITOR - Pulls up a help guide for every action.[/spoiler]

SCREENS
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]