Hmm... I was considering the Protectors more "borg", like Faw said. A collective mind with one specific goal: to protect Mechaius and it's history at all costs. For the most part they'd be considered unstoppable, since if they're losing a battle they can just call "perfect" mechs from the future to help (I'm picturing future mechs a lot like the cybernetic aliens at the end of the movie "AI"). However, their main weapon would be destroying someone before they were made, and the main character is immune to that since nobody knows where he came from.

Then there's also the fact that if he destroys Mechaius, he'll be erased from history. Maybe there could even be an alternate (and extremely difficult) ending where you take on a stronger, fortified Mechaius in the distant future, just to keep yourself alive...

Page claim

I'll try and expand on the said ideas and come up with an actual intro and stuff. From this point on, I suggest we keep plot discussion in PM as to not spoil it for others.

Pm to WHOM?

Onag, other people who are working on the project, anyone that decides to pester you. What, it was only a suggestion.

I searched on google for free message boards, and clicked on the first link that showed up.

So, we now have a temporary mechaius message board.

Linkageness

Eh. I never really liked that kind. Why don't we nicely ask the JCF admins for a private Mechaius forum only the members of the project can access? It is a community project, so it makes sense it should be located at the community.

Is this game going to be top-down, or side view?

Side scoller

Yes, a forum here (like Possum) would probably be best for now. If they're super generous, they'd give us a public and private forum.

Eventually, we'll need to have a seperate site complete with forum.

Who is the nicest admin around here?

-Nag

If we have a private forum, who do you consider would be on the "team" and be able to browse it?

I'd have to say Captain Spam or the Tea of Wisdom.

Probably everyone who is actively giving useful input in this thread would be given access to the private forum at first.

-Nag

We're getting ahead of ourselves. We have admins to beg.

Nagging is the best way not to get what you want.

Yay for passive agression.

Why, ALL the admins here are super nice. /suckup :p


Hm. Maybe ask Disguise, Spam or Shadow?

... anyone asked yet? We know nobody reads the future of Jazz forum.

Why is this in The Future of Jazz, anyway?

Future of jazz is a slow forum in which nobody goes to. Better than Misc for game discussion.

I saw monolith talking about 4096 32x32 tiles. I strongly disagree. If we start drawing like that we'll get the same effect JJ2 has. People disliked the game more because the character was too small, the area of view too big. And so, the game got less difficult.

If you start looking at another game of Jazz's age. "Captain Claw", the area of view was smaller, which made the game harder, and more fun to play! This is why I say 64x64 tiles or maybe even better 96x96 tiles (if you'd go for a 1024x768 resolution) all the way!

This is a lot to ask, but I think the graphics should be made for very large resolutions and anti-aliased down to sizes like 1024x768. It could potentially slow the game quite a bit, but if not the game wouldn't look blocky and cheap for years.

Blocky doesn't have to be something bad.
There's something JJ1 had I always missed while playing JJ2...
Maybe we should find something inbetween.

Newspaz: If the tile sizes are too big, it makes it harder to work with tilesets and to design them. I think it would be better to make the resolution smaller. I agree, though, that JJ2 shows too much on the screen.

Does anyone know Onag's email address? I need to know that before I can give him the sample tileset.

Newspaz, I was working with those numbers as an example to figure out how much memory will be taken up by the tileset. If you want bigger tiles and sprites, then that can become even more of a problem.

Onag Email: bgano@inocompany.com

I don't have a problem with revealing more on the screen. The problem lies in the level design. JJ2 levels were designed more for a 320x240 game. If the levels are designed with the resolution in mind, there shouldn't be a problem.

I'd still like to play around with 64x64 tiles, though. It would be nice to use larger tiles for forground and be able to scale them down for background. We'll play around with different things when the time comes and decide the best resolution. For now, let's assume we're going to use the standard 32x32 tiles.

Memory shouldn't be too much of an issue. There will be no need to make huge tilesets (4096 tiles), because you will be allowed to use more than one tileset for a single level. That way, you won't have to cram every possible tile type into a single tileset (whether used or not). Tilesets can be much more specialized, and included only when needed.

Also, tile flipping/rotation/alpha will be allowed, which will further decrease tileset sizes.

I'm also considering vector maskes instead of bitmap. This would allow for more realistic physics and smoother motion. It would also significantly decrease the memory required to store mask information. I can explain more about the vector mask idea if anyone is interested.

Again, we're just going to have to wait and see what works in practice. The standard hardware will likely change quite a bit between now and the release date anyway.

-Nag

How about this:

The game would support something called a sprite pack. This is a custom set of sprites that could be distributed as a seperate file (we would provide an editor). Each world can include whatever sprite packs it wants, and use those sprites for objects in its levels.

For example, with JJ2, there are several polls, platforms, and signs included as sprites (via events) in the game, but they don't work for all tilesets. With Mechaius, level designers would be able to create their own sprites and include them into their levels. The benefit of using sprites over tiles would be the ability to treat them as objects, applying physics, collecting, using, etc.

-Nag

Oh yes, I'm absolutely for that suggestion!
Making own events could make this level program better than the JCS.

I'm for it.

The "sprite packs" sound like a great idea - I'm all for it!

Sent the tileset, by the way.

Ok, I can see how we can get away with needing fewer tiles. And yea, better video cards will become more standard within the timeframe of this project. Just trying to make sure the graphics don't go too crazy. ;)

By vector masks, are you referring to those as being the collision data? Using polygons for collision sounds like a good idea for this game, although (like just about any other collision methods) it won't be easy. Do you want objects to rotate if they collide unevenly, such as a box on a slope? Do you also want stuff to slide or even roll down slopes? I think these things should be reasonable things to happen, but I'm just checking to see if they fit with your plan.

Yes, with vector masks as the collision data, a round object would roll down a hill, but an odd-shaped object would kind of bounce its way down.

Anyway, Monolith, your earlier post was welcome. That's what got me thinking of ways to reduce the required memory, which led to multiple tilesets/sprite packs.

-Nag

Wow. Great minds think alike. My own platform game engine supports large tilesets, multiple tilesets, sprite packs (not yet loadable, but the framework is there). I was also considering vector masks (assuming you mean what I think you mean), but only for the events, not the tiles.

If you're doing your drawing with a 3D accelerator, it doesn't matter what the dimensions of the tiles are. The graphics card will scale everything as needed. It can be left up to the level designer to decide how big the tiles should appear on screen.

As I said before, I'd love to get involved. Back then I was in my final year of school, but now I'm in my first year of Uni and have all the time in the world ;)

This is sounding great. I will attempt to do my own part in getting a forum, if possible. I'm sure admins would be apprehensive - look at Possum.

Perhaps Toxic Bunny's engine could be used and/or improved upon? It would probably reduce a ton of the overall work. For myself, I am interested in level design and web site design...but clearly this has not gotten that far. As for combining parts of the story, I don't see a real need to...Radium's sounds the best, and it can change gradually over time. That's my two cents. Yay.

Making a public Mechaius forum would be as simple as renaming Possum Forest.

When you start to need level designers in the future, remember me. Game level design is something I consider to be my strong point. Other than that I can also give a lot of advice in terms of gameplay balancing and all that.

I'm going off to randomly make background music. Yay.

About leveldesign, I might be able to help too, since I made a lot of progression in hte past months. That's very far away tho I think.

Will you use events? They are easy to use, but it would be interesting to have two events in the same spots. I often needed to do this with JJ2 and it isn't possible, bah.

If you still wish to lower the amount of memory used, you could also do hakpacks similar to what Neverwinter Nights did for custom data. That way, things such as custom music, sprites, scripts, etc. could be read from the single file. That would also make it easier to distribute said packs.