Site scrolling beat 'm up in QB can it be done!!!

[Mech1031]

Has anybody here played metal slug, I like games like that. Will this be anything like that?

[na_th_an]

Metal Slug is a 2D sideview shooting/platform game, I think Crono means something like Final Fight.

[rezo]

note: I'm going off of memory and haven't seen the code I'm remembering for much longer than a year, so I'm hoping that I'm clear~

A couple of things. I haven't messed with this sort of engine for a while, but I had some pretty decent things going on in my last failure, so hopefully they can be useful. Though I'm not familiar with how other people approach things so it could all very well be entirely conventional. In any case- I put Kunio Kun together in about a months time, with two weeks off, and one week just screwing around with constructing the levels and story sequences, so its not a difficult sort of game to make. The only problem is building up the sprite set, which is why I used pallete swaps in the manner of Technos's old games. Changing the heads and the costume colors can give a diferent enough appearance to be acceptable for the character's provided that the costumes are kept simple. In my case, they were all uniforms for various gangs, and were supposed to all look the same, so no worries there. In any case


1. Collision types. All punches aren't the same for everything, and all enemy reactions/positions aren't the same in each circumstance. So what I did was attach a certain collision state to each animation. There was the normal state, for when you were walking,running or attacking. So getting jabbed in that situation would give a generic "hit" animation. There was a seperate state for being in the air, where everything simply caused you to get knocked down in Kunio Kun. Simple, but in a later unfinished game, I used that same state for a variety of attacks. When in that state you could be caught and piledrived from the sky, juggled etc. There was the "ground" state, where all attacks except for stomping and punting would whiff. While punted, or in the other hit animations, the character is in an "off" state. Nothing can effect them.

However, each animation, besides accepting collision a certain way, delivers in a certain way as well, and I attached this sort of collision to each from of the animations. So the cyclone kick delivers a different type of blow to enemy's based on whether they are in the front of or behind the character. Riki's stomp kick attack delivers "pepper"(as I called it) hits and finishes off with a "punt". Walking has a constant "grab" type of collision attached to it that allows you to walk into enemies that are only susceptable to being grabbed when stunned, etc. I suppose its easy enough to understand. I think its a fine way to manage the various sort of attack types and reactions you may have in a game.

[relsoft]

Use Rellib and your probs with P*P collision is solved.

[adosorken]

These kind of games are relatively simple if you know what a state machine is. Once I got into coding characters for Mugen, I quickly learned about state machines and how utterly useful they are. Now, virtually every game I write features some kind of state machine. My entry for Lachie's compo uses the concept, and the results are splendid.

Once I have a few things out of the way, I might take on something like this. I've always wanted to do a side-scrolling Final Fight-like game, and I think a lot of other people have too...just a matter of knowing how to go about it, I guess...

So that's my suggestion to you all...learn state machines. They are wonderful when implemented properly.

[SCM]

adosorken,
That sounds like it could be a good article for QBOA. Tell us something about state machines and how to use them.

[adosorken]

adosorken,
That sounds like it could be a good article for QBOA. Tell us something about state machines and how to use them.

OK. Since eQuuskia isn't going to be able to do the magazine after all, I reckon I'll pick it up again. She sent me all the templates she had for issue #11 so I'll get it out soon. I'll write up an article on state machines in the next issue. Good idea