Topics

16

Creativity / Game Design Megathread

« on: November 07, 2013, 02:39:54 AM »

BLF Game Design Megathread

discuss game design, game design theory, game design advanced theory, and the concept art you've been dying to share with the rest of the world! (and also help spare the pixel art and drawing threads of design docs and mockups)

got an idea you're dying to share? go wild! we (and 'we' includes at least one professional (... artist)) will painstakingly pick it apart and give you fair-handed, even criticism. and then probably insult you. we don't care about size or scale, 2d or 3d, feasibility or practicality, or even if it's cool or not. we will probably insult you either way.

(remember, it's the blockland forums we're talking about)

the above series of gifs were made using LICEcap. use it to post low-intensity videos to this thread, instead of using youtube


tips and tricks from the community:

programmers, artists, and devs alike are all people like everyone else. don't put them up on a pedestal, because eventually you'll have to deal with them as peers

don't get ahead of yourself. before you get started be sure to ask yourself if you can realistically complete a project. great ideas get left on the cutting room floor because people abandon them midway through, because they feel they can't do them justice

expand your horizons! play indie games, play triple-a, play sports. you can garner information and inspiration from just about anywhere

if you second guess something, second guess it right: do the rubber ducky test. explain, in the most clear and concise possible way, your idea or concept to an inanimate object (like, say, a rubber duck) and listen to yourself. if you see any holes in your explanation, double back and patch them up yourself. the ducky won't mind, so neither should you

learn to mod blockland. it's an amazing sandbox for testing out game theory and observing player tendencies. it'll also teach you to persevere through projects, because lord knows you're gonna be enduring something when you start up a server.

Where should I start?

That depends on what you want to do? 3D or 2D? Once you've decided on which route you'd like to go find a game engine that supports that feature. Some engines support both while others are catered to one or the other. I personally believe that if you want to design a 2D game then you do not need the giant over head a 3D engine provides. There are many quirks to a 3D engine that make them vastly more complicated and because of this you should avoid them when designing a 2D game. On the other hand you may become quite experienced with the 3D engine after developing your game and in this case you might see the benefit of sticking to what you know and adding features that 2D engines cannot support.

I would also like to say don't go in with any preconceived prejudices gained from others. When designing games it's very important to keep an open mind. Don't knock it before you try it, you might find you like it and that it is really efficient at what it does. You may not enjoy programming so certain engines might not be desirable to you. However engines like Unity provide visual programming rather than typing out the code and math behind it which makes it easier for those who can't stare at a sheet of code without their eyes crossing into the next universe.

So you've picked your engine and you know the kind of game you want to make but what now?

Learn the engine. Look up some tutorials. After you've finished a couple tutorials you won't feel so lost in the program and you can finally focus on what you really want to do. Now go do it. You will hit snags. I follow the 24 hour bang your head against the wall rule before asking for help. I've been stumped before and I will be stumped again but I usually figure it out within the first couple of hours of testing and researching. If you hit a snag and nothing seems to be working then take a break, come back with a clear head and try again.

Prototyping.

When developing a game you want to focus less on how the game looks and more on how it plays. Use primitives that represent the idea of what they are suppose to do. Using this approach you can rapidly prototype your games and figure out what feature might be too complicated for your game thus saving you from having to throw out some animation you worked tirelessly on.

Create a couple levels that represent the different features you'd like your game to have and before you decide to start importing your art make sure those levels and features were fun to play. If you don't find yourself itching to play again then don't expect the people who end up playing your game to pick up your game more than once.

While you are prototyping you may find better ways to implement features you've already made. Go back and redo it. It will save you a lot of head ache in the long run if the implementation is elegant rather than stuck together with glue and duct tape.

You should design game mechanics that can be used in more than one way and is something worth striving for. I mean this in both game play and in structure.

Art.

Are you an artist? No? You can become one. Don't want to? Find someone who already is and is just as eager as yourself to make games.
For those who are but don't know of any programs that they can utilize here's a small list:

FREE
MSPAINT
Paint.net
Inkscape
Gimp
Graphics Gale (Free version)

BUY
Adobe products
Corel products
Graphics Gale
PyxelEdit
Pro-Motion

Some of these are great for retro art while others are great for art that requires great detail. Conceptualize and conceptualize again. Eventually you'll find a design you enjoy enough to want to base a game off of.

17

Modification Help / [BETA RELEASE] Quake-Type Weapons & Energy Shields

« on: October 19, 2013, 08:12:27 PM »

here are some mods i would release in the add-ons section if it werent for the fact that they are technically unfinished

hint hint

hint someone should help me finish them

hint


Quake-Type Weapons
a (HUGE) pack of weapons designed for crazypants quake type tdms.

blow up your friends with the Missile Storm, riddle them with the Super Shotgun or run them through with the Railgun; or, go a little less traditional with the Saw Tomahawk, Warhead Launcher, or the crowd favorite Rocket Punch. the possibilities are basically endless, and even endlessier because none of them use ammo

the weapons are split into two functional tiers, but the only one that's worth noting is that the Shotgun, Machine Gun and Twin Bayonets are all secondary weapons. everything else you can throw wherever cause they're all primaries it should be fine

also, note that these weapons are super unbalanced for normal gameplay; i use them with energy shields. specifically the 50-HP shield, because it regenerates quickly and gives you a nice big buffer against anything that isn't a point-blank shotgun blast and afterburn

requires tf2 crits (i think)

credit to Aloshi (for the tracer script) and possibly a bunch of other people whose names escape me at the moment

needs item icons, cis. (and a screenshot.)

Download Quake-Type Weapons


Energy Shields
passive shields that protect you from damage (for use in crazypants quake-type dms)

electrical 50-point and 400-point shields that protect you from damage and prevent spill-over as long as you have charge left. as long as you have one in your inventory, you'll use it automatically whenever you get hit; the item is just there for you to know that you have it. in addition, you'll always use the first shield you picked up. they're somewhat similar to borderlands shields or halo shields

the item itself is useless by the way so don't try to use it manually, it's a passive thing. seriously as long as you have it in your inventory you should be fine

very easy to fine-tune. Rkynick did the coding, i just did all the artsy fartsy stuff like sounds and... art. check the scripts for more details.

needs item icons, (screenshots?)

Download Energy Shields


Valve-Like Player
slightly faster then normal playertype who excels at dodging and also not failing to jump over chest high walls

a playertype i made because i got frustrated with the quake-like player's speed and inability to surmount low obstacles. he's slightly faster then the normal player- not enough to throw you off but enough for you to notice. i use him all the time on my server

needs... nothing, really. i just don't wanna release this because it's such a simple modification, but its also fairly integral to the quake-type playstyle. it's sort of a morton's fork.

Download Valve-Like Player

18

Suggestions & Requests / [GAMEMODE] Super Murder Mystery

« on: October 10, 2013, 02:04:05 AM »

here is a theoretical gamemode that is functionally an improved version of normal murder mystery

mostly by having murderers have way more ways to deceive people and giving them way more options to attack, but also making it slightly easier for the victims to pick up the trail and defend themselves. the entire thing is set to a backdrop of a fancy dinner party among people involved in espionage.


all players spawn with some form of sidearm and a melee weapon. the sidearms are pretty honorable weapons in their own right. it's either an automatic pistol (which kills in 2 headshots) or a revolver (which kills in 1, but fires slower). they also spawn with a melee weapon, which instantly kills from the back.

all players also spawn 'in-costume' and are given a random james bond type suit (or dress, depending on what gender you spawn as) and very rarely spawn with hats. some people also appear as security guards,


when a player is 'killed', they become 'UNCONCIOUS' and will become unable to move for some time. continuing to shoot the 'dead' player will deal more damage to them- after hitting -200 health, they're dead for good. killing an unconcious player who was not on the other team will ban you for 2 hours, but you can usually just leave them be or throw them off an edge. however UNCONSCIOUS PLAYERS CAN BE REVIVED, and sometimes revive themselves if you just don't do anything. this makes it really important for the murderer to dispose of bodies by throwing them off things or throwing them into environmental hazards. the game still ends when all the mafiosos are unconcious at once or the innocents are unconcious at once

another interesting point of note: clicking an unconscious player will cause you to first take their ammo, and then start dropping their inventory on the ground with subsequent clicks. this is basically looting.

this also serves to reduce freekilling because people who were freekilled can just be revived and then shoot the guy who freekilled them

(bodies are not physics objects by the way just so that's clear)
(they can still be picked up and have the same collision box as a crouching player)

when players are knocked unconcious, they produce blood (items? decals?) that gets all over the place. firearm deaths produce less blood then melee weapon deaths.


around the map however are SUITCASES with objects inside them. picking one up gives you a random object. when you click open a suitcase item, you take out the item that was inside it. you can put the item back inside the suitcase by right clicking the item

suitcases are HELLA SUSPICIOUS though. it's basically like a holster and its a sign of goodwill if you have an item from a suitcase out. some suitcases also come locked, and must be unlocked by a key (which does not use up the key)

clicking players will reveal what item they are actually holding in the centerprint. this is useful for looking at people who are only holding out a suitcase

certain items, however, continue to look like suitcases even when you have them out. which makes them even more suspicious.

   objects that can be taken out of suitcases
   ([LOCKED] items are items that have to be opened with a key)

   • [LOCKED] ASSAULT RIFLE: does lots of damage very fast and doesn't even need to headshot to kill in two hits
   • [LOCKED] MEDICINE: revives dead players. dead players who were just revived will have a bandage around their head, signifying that if they are shot again they will die. can be used multiple times
   • SUBMACHINE GUN: a submachine gun. serves the same purpose as the assault rifle but leans toward doing higher damage
   • [LOCKED] SNIPER RIFLE: a sniper rifle. serves to kill enemies at extreme ranges
   • SUITCASE KEY: opens locked suitcases to powerful weapons and items
   • TASER: knocks players unconscious instantly. extremely potent melee weapon. makes a specific sound
   • TRANQUILIZER: a pistol that fires a bullet that briefly slows players, makes them unable to yell and then knocks them out after some time. uses normal bullets, making it very good at conserving ammo
   • PAPERS: a note that tells you specifically who is /not/ in the mafia
   • PAINT: just red paint. allows you to paint blood all over the place. the tell, however, is that compared to normal blood paint blood is slightly lighter colored
   • STEALTH PISTOL: a pistol that does not appear to other players. you can only fire it once before it has to be reloaded but it knocks out players with a single headshot
   • GOLDEN GUN: instantly kills any player if you hit them at any point, but has a lengthy reload time and has it's own ammo pool. comes with 6 shots.
   • PISTOL: kills players in 3 headshots and has a generous magazine and fast cycle time
   • REVOLVER: instantly kills players it headshots but has a smaller magazine then the pistol

   objects that can not be taken out of suitcases

   • DISGUISE: disguises you as another player at random. however it will not change your skin color
   • [LOCKED] FALSE CORPSE: 'kills' you and drops a corpse at your location. generates much less blood then a normal death, which is the loose thread in the disguise. the corpse can also not be revived
   • TIME BOMB: a bomb that is disguised as a suitcase. if a player picks it up, it will seem locked and cannot open. if they unlock the bomb, however, it will be defused. detonates automatically after a time (that you can set by holding down the button as you drop it), but only makes a ticking noise 3 seconds before it explodes
   • [LOCKED] CLOAK: causes you to disappear!! but only while you're not moving. you can tell a cloaked person is in the room by the faint buzzing they emit, and only if you get close to them
   • [LOCKED] RECOVERY DEVICE: allows you to get up in a fifth of the time it would normally take to stand back up again after being knocked unconscious. one-use only
   • [LOCKED] JET BOOTS: gives you jets. the fuel is constrictive but regenerates over time. it's usually not a good idea to use it with an item because that will cause you to put the item back in your suitcase.
   • AMMO SUPPLY: it's just an ammo supply. fills up all of your ammo pools and serves as an unlimited supply

   objects you can spawn with

   primary item
   • PISTOL: kills in 3 headshots. big magazine and slow reload time.
   • REVOLVER: kills in 1 headshot. small magazine and slow cycle time.
   • SMG: kills in 3 headshots but 4 bodyshots. eats through ammo very quickly but is the best spawn weapon
   • STEALTH PISTOL: kills in 1 headshot. smallest magazine but is invisible
   secondary item
   • MELEE WEAPONS: all do what i said they did earlier in the document
   • CANE
   • CHEF KNIFE
   • UMBRELLA
   • MONKEY WRENCH
   • FRYING PAN
   • TASER
   tertiary item
   • PAPERS
   • MEDICINE
   • DISGUISE
   • PAINT
   • SUITCASE KEY
   • LIGHTER: essentially a joke item. when you click it, it makes a ticking sound. if you click and hold, it makes constant ticking sounds (that could feasibly be mistaken for a time bomb). clicking it repeatedly makes very fast clicking sounds. does not set people on fire

19

Gallery / [WIP?] King of Ghosts

« on: September 23, 2013, 01:50:48 AM »

here i come, king of ghosts!

do you have enough spook?!

20

Suggestions & Requests / Slide-Jets?

« on: September 18, 2013, 06:24:06 PM »

is it possible to make a type of jet that specifically keeps you low to the ground and doesn't add enough upward momentum for you to be at a height that could be considered 'jetting' at all, but allows you to slide over terrain and move faster?

if so, can someone put that together for me?

21

Help / what causes buffer overruns?

« on: September 14, 2013, 05:19:55 PM »

what causes buffer overruns?

usually my server'll crash after a few hours of runtime, and i'll get a popup that says something along those lines.

22

Gallery / [VIDEO] bushido attempts to solo his own server

« on: September 05, 2013, 09:26:16 PM »

bushido attempts to solo his own server

it doesn't go well.

sorry for the astoundingly stuff quality, by the way. i don't know how to video you see

23

Suggestions & Requests / give me ideas for ridiculous enemy types

« on: September 05, 2013, 01:55:25 AM »

so if you've been to my server recently you'd know that i am making what is basically a total conversion mod for gravity cat's endless zombie gamemode that is ridiculous and amazing and also in an act of goodwill (!!!) i have cleared my banlist so there is really no reason for you not to come down

besides i guess load times

anyway, the point is, i'm making a ridiculous over-the-top and as-of-yet unnamed mod for grav's zombies that involves new zombie types out the richardhole, unique animations and ridiculous fast-paced not-at-all-like-national socialist-zombies shootin fun, and i need more enemy types

but not ZOMBIE types, because they're ghosts. refrain from assuming.

so we're all on the same page, here is what they are.

they're NOT zombies.

to get a feel for how ridiculous i intend on this pack being, here are a list of enemy types that are already present and what niche they fill in gameplay

there's the Ghost Pistolero and the Ghost Speedster, who harass you and are generally easy to kill and nonthreatening
there's the Ghost Boxer, who is fast and somewhat durable but dies in droves and serves to be the annoying melee enemy
there's the Ghost Swordsman, who is the dangerous melee enemy
there's the Ghost Halberdier, who is even more dangerous but somewhat rare and can take a bunch of hits
there's the Ghost Machinegunner and Shotgunner, who both exist to harass players at long range and cause you to actively try to dodge shots
there's the Ghost Heavy, who is the biggest forgetin threat on the planet and soaks up damage like there's no tommorow
there's the Ghost Grenadier, who shoots rockets at you from long range and is generally annoying and not-at-all pleasant to be around
there's the Ghost Aircraft Bomb, who is the ghost of an aircraft bomb on legs and attempts to Self Delete bomb you
and finally there's the Ghost Magician who jets around and pesters you with magic from above

he's a forgetin starfish.

if you have any ideas or scripts you'd like to contribute, please feel free. bosses? throw em my way. normal enemies? shoot. guns? sure, why not. i wanna make this as crazy and awesome as humanly possible

forget you know what especially bosses. i'd rather tend toward things i can reuse (or just modify) models for but hey whatever it's all just practice so more work is probably better for me

24

Gallery / Viridian Court (for Greenlight)

« on: August 28, 2013, 06:59:13 PM »

the sacred home of the Missile Monks, Viridian Court is the prayer ground of rocketeers and missilemen. they believe in enlightenment through superior firepower, and also don't seem to believe in plumbing. the enormous pool of water surrounding the internal ring is, somehow, crystal-clear and pristine, despite the rain, gunpowder and blood that is inevitably shed during the more (and even the less) intense meditation sessions.

made with all default bricks! but not a default colorset. i started on it as soon as i heard blockland was greenlit, and finished about 5 hours later

well, all default bricks except for the print water. which you can swap out for normal water, if you want.

25

General Discussion / PSA: Understanding "Spool-Up"

« on: August 28, 2013, 08:09:59 AM »

BUSHIDO PRESENTS



Understanding "Spool-Up"
or, 'why are stuff servers so consistently popular?'

when selecting a server, players have a tendency to choose servers that already have other players present. even the most misanthropic, lonely-type players will choose popular servers over unpopular servers, because in that case at the very least they will have other players to pour their misanthropy and loneliness all over. this is a simple fact of life, and probably stems somehow to basic human nature.

and also the fact that they're higher on the server list.

in situations where servers do not have enough players present to attract players faster then players leave, they are in a state which is referred to as the spool-up period. servers in this state are often noted to fluctuate in player count, but it should be noted that this count usually hangs around the 4 or 5 player mark, and will drop randomly. in order to break spool up, usually all you need to do is break the 6-player threshold, and stay there long enough to attract more players. the comparison i usually make is to an engine- in order to get any power, the engine must have enough energy from an outside source (in this case, a starter motor) to suck in enough gas to get in rolling; after which point it will use the energy from the present gasoline to suck in more gasoline.

as such, there is a way to essentially skip the spool-up phase- simply have enough players on the server 'artificially' to attract players from the server list. drag them in from external sources, like your RTB friends list or steam- they can usually return to what they were doing before soon enough, after enough players have joined to make sure the server is self-sufficient even after they've left. you could, alternately, build a fanbase for your server- a naturalized solution that also makes use of the RTB friends list's feature to alert people to when you are hosting. in this instance, players are simply alerted to when you first start hosting your server, and are prompted to join by an RTB dialogue, allowing your server broad coverage and allowing it to attract players despite spool-up.

so in other words, yes- spool-up is a real pain in the ass, but you can in fact kill it with the power of friendship

or with high-quality server content

or slave labor

whatever floats your boat, really.

26

Drama / "/support"

« on: July 15, 2013, 02:13:12 PM »

what is the point of doing this

yes, i understand you 'support' the topic, but what does that really mean? you would back up the poster in a court of law?

i guess i understand the sentiment but holy stuff you're not actually getting anything done; you've probably got a whole mess of reasons as why you do or don't agree with what is being said and directly stating those reasons would give infinitely more insight on why you don't like something and whether other people should follow suit (or not, if that doesn't fly with their own opinions) then just stating that you 'support'. you're not contributing at all.

like if you really supported what the original poster was saying then you would probably be digging up background information on the matter or something- you know, align yourself with one side, put forth an effort to have something happen. otherwise, your 'support' doesn't mean stuff because you aren't doing stuff to support

it's infuriating! what're you trying to get done?

27

Games / RPGs and RPG tropes

« on: July 14, 2013, 12:11:26 PM »

so i'm working on an RPG, right? sort of bethesda-styled, skyrim (and elona) inspired open world adventurefest

half as an actual game i plan to do things with and half as a neat little thought experiment. it's very much for fun.

a good amount of the game is taking apart old, boring fantasy tropes and then rebuilding them from the ground up with feasible reasons as to why they exist, usually subverting or at least playing with expectation a long the way

for instance, there aren't any tolkien-style races (dwarves, elves, orcs) but there are brown townogues that are close enough to be recognizable in spirit but aren't the same for a variety of reasons in practice and due to whatever strange societal rules they function completely differently; sort of like mass effect's handling of a lot of race tropes, they're close enough to be in the same general ballpark but different enough to be maybe a species or two apart from the original idea

to be absolutely honest it's sort of like decon-recon: the adventure game


anyway, the reason i bring this up is because the genre is pretty all-encompassing- everyone's played an RPG.

do you guys have any neat ideas that you wish could be implemented into the genre? lore-wise? gameplay-wise? weird-human-tricks-wise?

i'm still trying to flesh out the world and could use some help.

28

Games / what are your weird gaming habits?

« on: July 04, 2013, 02:29:10 AM »

this is the thread where you talk about weird habits you have that pertain to games.

... obviously.

whenever I'm alone in an fps i will shoot once, then reload my gun periodically just to make background noise: otherwise I pay too much attention to the world and flip the forget out when something shows up (and usually IMMEDIATELY shoot it regardless of affiliation)

29

Games / Super Myario Land : (another game by Bushido)

« on: June 29, 2013, 11:31:18 PM »

> Download Super Myario Land (complete up to level 1)
> Walkthrough for Level 1? (it's here if you need it, but avoid it at all costs! you'll ruin the fun for yourself.)

heavily inspired by Super Mario 3d World, Super Myario Land is an experimental platformer that is basically a testing ground for a new sound design philosophy (and also i've always wanted to make a classic platformer). run through inviting, cheery levels, solve tricky and troublesome puzzles, and break through whatever stands in your way, and die trying

all relevant controls are in game except for the debug keys- press K (or middle click) to Self Delete, and press f1 to restart the game from square one. also important are the fullscreen toggle key (which is f4) and the filter-change key (which is f2) but personally i think the gameboy filter looks best

did i mention? it's platform hell!

(if anyone wants to know how Momentum is doing- literally every major level is done, and all i need now is a kick-ass musician who can pull off original sonic-style music on the cheap. and by 'cheap', i mean 'free.' also there's a little bit of touching-up to do and the menus need a little editing but THAT'S FINE cause i'll get that out of the way a-somehow)

get it? it's a cat mario game!



endorsements!

masochists only: this game's hard as richards

Ragequit games makes me go bananas

how many cat puns did you put into the game?23

30

Off Topic / i just graduated!

« on: June 09, 2013, 04:22:10 PM »

class of 2013, baby!

literally guessed my way into graduating this year, too. math is a pain in the ass, but at least it's a predictable pain in the ass.

now onto bigger and better things, like living alone and self-sufficiency



(no seriously i think those things will be extremely fun)