…this is gonna take quite a while to finish though, so I’ll continue working on improving things alongside developing this. Along with a few training mode improvements, hoping to have a basic Survival mode (along with more AI opponents) added next week.
Should also take a look at other games and see what other kind of fun extras I can add in…
Mostly a lack of original assets. Don’t really know anyone who can help me on that front (nor can I currently afford it).
That and I’m still really inexperienced when it comes to design, or just building fighters in general, so I figured that this could help me learn a lot before jumping in with a full original game. Granted it’s a bit difficult to see what can be improved with limited feedback…
[list]
[] Added a pause menu to training mode with options for enabling/disabling hurtboxes and running the game in slow-mo. Also added a few options for the training dummy.
[] Changed the character select in training to be completely controlled by player 1.
[] When you go into training mode, you can move the characters as soon as it starts rather than waiting for character entrances to finish.
[] Added UI options to the victory screen in both Arcade mode and Versus, for continuing/rematching or quitting/returning to character select.
[] Versus screen and the credits screen will automatically proceed to the next part after a certain period of time.
[] Added a basic Survival mode. Infinite rounds, you get a small health boost at the end of each round. Every 10 rounds you fight a boss and the difficulty increases slightly (though the boss characters won’t have the powered up moves like they do in Arcade mode). The game also saves your records for each character in a new .ini file (this is created by the game if the file doesn’t exist).
[] Fixed trades to cause hit-freeze equal to whichever move that connected has the higher amount, rather than defaulting to whatever amount of hit-freeze player 1’s attack had.
[] Fixed an issue where you wouldn’t guard in the right direction on the first frame of wake-up if the opponent was crossing over you.
[] Fixed an issue where if you tech rolled, or rolled on wake-up, your stun/guard wouldn’t decrease properly.
[] Made it so that if you X-Counter or just defend, your guard and stun meter start decreasing immediately, similar to when you parry.
[] Fixed an issue where if you trade with projectiles, and only one of the players is KO’d as a result, there would be an error message after the KO screen.
[] Fixed an issue with Ryo’s AI that would cause an error message when doing a corner combo.
[] Adjusted Dudley’s, Sakura’s, and Blaziken’s AI so they’ll do certain combos more consistently.
[] Adjusted Dan’s AI so he won’t cancel out of a standing heavy punch before it connects.
[] Adjusted Jin’s AI so he will properly use far light kick when counter-poking instead of close light kick.
[] AI will now quickstand if they can when they’re knocked down. The higher the difficulty the more likely they will quickstand.
[] Adjusted the frequency the AI blocks based on difficulty.
[] AI will now sometimes neutral jump at a certain range if you try to grab them.
[*] Added Yun as an AI opponent.
[/list]
Character Fixes/Changes:
Sakura:
[list]
[*] Fixed her Dodge Attack/X-Counter not working properly.
[/list]
Athena:
[list]
[*] Fixed the grab effect not mirroring properly when performing a back throw.
[/list]
Zangief:
[list]
[*] Spinning Piledriver: Reduced the range on the light and heavy versions.
[/list]
Plans for next week: Not sure what I’ll have ready by then or what to do exactly. Right now just thinking of other stuff to put in, like unlockable extras (not characters, just extra stuff like maybe artwork or something)
Just to eliminate other possible issues, you downloaded the full VGFC - Worlds Collide zip file and extracted everything, right? That same error message you mentioned pops up if you’re trying to run the game in the .zip file or if you try to run the game with the .dlls not in the same directory as the .exe file (like if you only downloaded the 107 folder and tried to run the game from there).
Oh my mistake. I didn’t notice that the latest version zip only includes the .exe, and none of the resources. Should probably make that more clear when you make update posts. x_x
In addition to that, due to what this new update adds, you can also download this new “Extras” file:
Place the contents of this file into the directory where you have VGFC stored (so that the .ini files are in the same directory as the .exe where you have the game) and you should be good to go. A new “extras” option will appear in the main menu when you boot up the game in 1.08 if you did it correctly.
Patch notes:
[details=Spoiler]Global Fixes/Changes:
[list]
[] Changed Squall’s portrait.
[] Fixed Survival Mode overwriting your best score with a character even if that score is lower than your best.
[] Fixed drawing the stage in Survival mode over the background during certain cinematic supers/ultras.
[] Added unlockable artwork; unlock over 400 different pieces for playing Arcade or Survival.
[] Added Rugal, Applejack, Iori, and Akuma as CPU opponents, as well as their boss versions. Mario was also added as a CPU opponent.
[] Adjusted the frequency that the AI blocks based on difficulty.
[*] Adjusted how the AI reacts to certain projectiles.
[/list]
Character Fixes/Changes:
Athena:
[list]
[*] First hit of lift kicks causes a knockdown vs airborne.
[/list]
Applejack:
[list]
[*] Fixed Applequake/Hyperquake on block.
[/list]
[/details]
I think things are pretty nice so far. You seem to have the basic stuff all down – but I think it’ll be hard to attract people past this point because it’s basically a custom version of a MUGEN mash-up with more/cooler features. I think it’s good though. =)
Is there a way to mitigate the massive load at the beginning of the game? Even on a beefy system with SSD and 16GB of RAM it still loads quite slowly.
I think maybe you might benefit from a nicer UI too. Making your menus and stuff look slick would really take things to the next level.
Side note – I notice when people get hit by tatsu they just fall down, unlike in real SF games they get sent flying in a certain direction first. It’s a little weird looking.
Unfortunately, no. I’ve done my best to cut down on that but right now that’s the best I can do.
Only way I’d be able to cut down on the load times would be if there was some way for me to save timelines and scripts outside of the game and load them in when needed, but I don’t think there’s any way to do that and any tools I’ve found related to that appear way outdated/don’t exist anymore.
I’d like to but I’m no good with UI design (or anything graphics related really), I’d need someone else’s help on that front…
Mmm this worries me a bit. I’m using a newer version of Gamemaker than you but I’m beginning to wonder if scaling is going to be an issue with load times like that…
Hmm…I’ve implemented hitboxes and hurtboxes recently. I’ll get back to you if I come up with a good way around this without using timelines. Might be able to make your life a little easier.
So looks like I’ll be able to implement some form of netplay after all. The bad news is that I can’t get around requiring people to port forward when hosting and entering in IP addresses when joining (on top of the netcode probably being input delay based, far too late for rollback at this point). But it’s better than no online play at all, I suppose.
I’ll be focusing on seeing about getting that working for the forseeable future. I’ll have a smaller update this weekend (focused mostly on a couple of training mode additions and bug fixes) with the next major update after this being the addition of the online. Any updates after that will probably be focused on balance and netcode improvements.