Hey, it's only been 2 days! :D And I haven't posted because a) there hasn't been a heck of a lot to post about and b) my post was the last one.

My progress during weekdays will be somewhat slower than on weekends, due to the fact that I'm working full-time (8:30 to 5:00) Monday to Friday, plus I have part-time study and then there's my personal interests, but don't worry, the game is being worked on.

And just so you know I haven't been doing absolutely nothing, here's a run-down of what features you can expect from the demo now that I have it all set-out:

Sprites will be taken from the Megaman Zero series. Mainly because sprites for it are readily available and mostly contain what I want for the demo (of course, when we start work on the real project it will have custom sprites, but as I said; I'm no spriter so I need something to work with :p).
I'll be setting it up so you have movement like the Abe games, however, so that will mean walking and running, jumping, and running jumps, rolling, and running rolls (except that "rolling" will probably just use Zero's dashing sprite - or I may just spin a certain sprite around, which would you people prefer? :p). I'll also be setting up ledges to hoist up to (there are sprites that will suit this perfectly) and I intend to put in shadows too, though if they take too long I may take them out for this demo.

Sounds will probably just be from wherever I can get them, and the music will be a custom track to show off what the dynamic music will be like :p The track is already nearly done, so that's some progress that's not simply planning (though planning is important too! :D). I'm also intending to put in doors which will take you between background and foreground, and I'll put in switches to open and close these too.

And I think that leaves me with enemies and mines as the last things I'm planning to put in this demo.

So yeah, if you guys are patient, there's no reason I can't show you all of this when I give you the demo, but if you'd rather it be done sooner I can trim off certain features - it's really up to you.
I'll be leaving applications open until the demo is released.

Gretin out.

(:p)

It sounds like you've been pretty busy. :D Megaman sprites are great for a demo version, really easy to use. :) I like the feature of the background and foreground doors! So, will this whole game be set in OWFs?

Souns like you've already made progress, which is great considering how we've been planning this less than a week. looking forward to the demo.
Question- are you still going to do the rescuing Mudokons/Members and Oddworld 'spells', or does Game Maker not have those capabilities?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, but if you mean will everything take place inside the fictional OWF building or whatever we decide to make it be (it could even be a city! XD), that depends on how the story goes really. I'd like to have a variety of places so it's true to the Abe games, but we'll see.

Game Maker actually has a lot more capability than what it is given credit for, if you know how :p But to answer your question, yes, I'm hoping that the rescuing (or killing XD) of mudokons/members will be a core part of it (again, true to the original Abe games). The spells shouldn't be too tricky either, so there's not really any reason I can think of not to have them. But I'll see what you story writers come up with story-wise (once we decide on who the team will be) before we decide on the main game play features.

Oh, and...
Well, it is only for the demo :p And it's mainly just planning... Though, I wonder, do any of you happen to have a gif animating program? Because I want to import the sprites into Game Maker as animated gifs, so I don't have to cut out each sprite from the sheet and align it and make sure it's the right size and everything, it's so much easier if the sprites are already put into animated gifs which are pre-aligned and have all the sprites in the right order and everything. I can do it myself, but if anyone has such software, it'll make the demo somewhat quicker if someone else could prepare the sprites for me :D [/bribe]

Anyway, as I was going to type before I sidetracked myself, this is only really a demo to show what I can do, but I'm hoping to make the engine flexible enough that once we start on the real thing I can just trade sprites and alter a few constant values (such as the speed you move at and such, just because our sprites might be different sizes and whatnot) and we'll have our engine. I'm hoping. :D

You could always use Photoshop for animations. ;)

I have software for animating it, I was just asking if anyone wants to help with it :p Unless of course that was an offer to help :D
If anyone does want to help, the main thing I'll need to start with is animations of the following actions from this page:

Idle animation
Running animation
Jumping animation
Entering a door animation
Dashing (there are four frames that actually have the dash, and those are the only ones I want animated :p)
Walking animation

And that's probably about it. There's a couple of others, but I'm just gonna get them myself ;) So if anyone wants to help get this demo going sooner, those are the animations, in the order you'll see them scrolling down the sheets. You'll have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the first one, though, because the first animations are all attacking ones and I won't be using them :p Thanks!

I'll work on that, unless someone else wants to... I found out a week ago that Flash Pro 8 saves in .GIF's :D

But uhhhh... That's a BIG sprite-sheet, and i can't find what you want animated... D'you think you could outline the sprites for me please?

Heh, I thought that might be a problem. I'll have to save the sprite sheet and then host it somewhere with the sprites I need :p

EDIT:

Ok, here it is. It looks extremely messy and unprofessional, but it should do the trick :p The sprites that are crossed out aren't required. When there's a blue line in the middle of a row of sprites it means I don't want that whole row as a single animation, I want each division as a seperate file :p I'm so demanding, aren't I? XD

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5...heetht7.th.gif

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6...walkingge4.gif


The main thing is just to get them aligned right (I'd probably try to get the waist of each sprite in the same place to get it), but if you leave a bit of room around the edges even that shouldn't be too big of a pain, as I can jiggle the individual sprites around until they're aligned perfectly without too much trouble ;)

It's not really a big job, but it does take up time, so the more spare time I have the quicker I can get this demo up and running :D

Those sprites look awesome! I can't wait for this! :)

Ok. I'm working on it as you're reading this. i should have it done by tomorrow, or if i'm fast enough i'll have it done tonight.

EDIT: so far i've got idle(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178963836), jump(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178963836) , fall(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178963836), door thingy (http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178964446), dash(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178964446) and run(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178964979).

EDIT2: E'l fin :D walk(http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1178965716)

I hope they're aligned to your liking.

El' Scrabino, they're awesome! :D What program do you use to animate?

Will there be cutscenes? I might be able to do a few drawings for them or something.

That's a good idea, but I expect cutscenes will be done on computer along with backgrounds.

Nice work, El' Scrabino, that will make importing the sprites much easier :D I'll need to add extra frames to some of them (which isn't your fault, it's just that, obviously, when frames are repeated there's no point in putting two frames that are exactly the same on the sheet), but that's ridiculously easy.

Zerox, can you show me a sample of your work? Because I might just take you up on that offer :p Cutscenes will probably be mixture of in-game movies (using the sprites) and still frames, which could well be hand-drawn if it looks good.

Oh, and a little progress report; level design is 100% complete, so now I can get down to putting it together. Once I have the backgrounds and collision masks sorted, it will just be a matter of importing the sprites El' Scrabino so kindly animated, and I'll be all set to get the movement engine set up.

Music is also coming along nicely :D

This all looks amazing, you must be so clever. I wish I could do stuff like this.

:D Truely fantastic.

- Rexy

Well, seeing as my recent computer Fre*king crashed, and I haven't had internet for the past few days (seems like a few weeks,) I won't be able to help much for a while.

Granted, I got a new computer (an awesome one I might add) I still won't be able to do much with it as of yet...

Again, I am so sorry I can't help... My sprites were looking awesome too... :nonono:...

Well, I guess that's how the computer crashes...

Better than the quote "that's how the cookie crumbles" ^.^

Jordan, i used Flash Pro 8 to animate those sprites :D

And Gretin, i accidently left a bit of white in one of the walking sprites... So you'll hafta remove that :p

Do you use the paid version?

Gretin, if you want any buttons making, just request them. ;)

Will my deviantart do? I really need to get into an artistic mood again, and need more practice with photoshop and all:
http://zerox-the-psychic.deviantart.com/

This sounds like a marvellous idea, and I can’t wait to see it executed. Your progress so far looks neato.

This sounds like a creative project I’d like to be a park of. I think the only contributions I could possibly make would be to story and story/gameplay interaction, and other abstract ideas. But I know I’ve never contributed anything to Fan Corner that I could use in my application. Maybe, Chief Coordinator Gretin, you could suggest something for me to submit to you.

Hahaha, that is so going to be my title on the development forum :D Now that's a title I haven't heard before. Let's see... it would probably be good to have another level designer... you know, like setting up the layout of the level and how the puzzles work and everything. Especially if you're likely to put some thought into them (the level design I'm using for the demo is somewhat random :p).
But that doesn't seem like much to do... what do you think? :p

Oh well, that's computers for you :p There's no big rush, though, the sprites aren't really necessary for a while yet. And even if they're not ready when we start working on the real thing, I can use the Zero sprites as placeholders until we get the real ones in.

But that reminds me, is anyone interested in doing any sort of concept art?
I don't suppose you're interested in doing that, Zerox? :p I just mean drawing up ideas of what the members will look like, what the enemies will look like, etc. I think it would be a lot easier for the spriters if they have concept art to work on. I could probably even do some myself, but I don't know how good it would be and I don't have a scanner.

Jordon_boi, I probably won't bother making a menu or anything for the demo, and I'm not really sure what sort of theme the menu for the real thing will have, so I can't really ask for that just yet :p Thanks anyway, though.

"Cheif Coordinator" (:lol:) Gretin out.

That's fine by me Gretin. Would I be able to do some concept art with Zerox please? I'm just bored at home and I wanna do something. :D

Two words:

Feel free.


:p

And to avoid a pointlessly small post like that, just a small update; the dynamic music is probably about 60% done. The idle music (i.e. when nothing's really happening) is completely done, except for a few touch-ups I need to do, and the event music (i.e. when you get chased by something) for the demo is well on it's way.
Apart from that, I have to admit I haven't made a lot of progress, but it will have to wait because I really need to get some study done sometime :p
Perhaps my next update might sound more productive...

Is there anything I can do....?

Don't ask for anything anytime during the next week please Gretin. PC problems mean I doubt I'll be able to get on for a while.

I can also help with doing concept art if it's any help. I will get to it straightaway and post some kind of sample tomorrow. But how exactly the characters supposed to look like? Same style as the sprites E'l Scrabino posted on the previous page (battle armor and stuff)? To be honest, I can't imagine the n00bs in armor and high-power weaponry. More like in custom T-shirts with 1337-speak insanity on them, and armed with wooden swords and other junk.

Haha, no, of course not :D You can use your imagination; what you just described sounds fantastic :D So yeah, that's why I wanted to see if anyone wanted to do concept art, just to get ideas of what to make them look like in the first place. The sprites on the last page are from Megaman Zero, and they're simply being used as placeholder sprites in the demo engine I'm making up (because I can't sprite to save myself).

By the way, the development forum is nearly up and running, so I might be inviting some people to it soon :D

OK then, here are some of my ideas I drew yesterday. These n00bs could work as the basic troops of the n00b army. They are armed with extemporary weapons, like the Wooden Dagger, the Rubber Band Gun or the Nailswatter. I tried to draw them to look a bit sinister and creepy, like Sligs in the OW games.
I don't know much about the gameplay part of it, so I got to ask: what kind of enemies are we going to have? I mean, those big bosses they usually put in at the end of levels have some influence on the gameplay. Are you planning to include them in the game? If yes, I can draw some concept of them if needed.

Ha ha! They rock Dripik! :D

Um... Dripik? Those designs...



...are DEFINATELY going to be used :D Awesome work there.

And yes, I had actually thought of putting in boss type things, though with a twist. They'd be more of a cross between the "challenge" type stages of Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus (such as the paramite and scrab nests in AO and the ends of the paramite and scrab tombs in AE - can't remember the tribe names :p) and regular bosses. Meaning it wouldn't be a matter of dodging and attacking as with most things, it'd be more of a matter of using the skills you have from previous levels to thwart the boss, without actually having any weapons of your own :p If that makes sense (it's hard to put the idea into words!)

Me too. I'm pretty skilled at mapping, and could help you out.

I would love to be in this if I can be also if you need to tell me why or why not also if you need help PM me

This game sounds cool. I can draw some designs fore this if you want.

To those who have asked "Can I help with something?" I must refer you to this post and the second part of this post.

Ziggy, if you'd like to do some concept art you're welcome to. Although production on the real game hasn't started yet, it'll be good to have some concept art done by the time I finish this demo so we can immediately start replacing the sprites. And I've seen your artwork, so I know it's of acceptable quality ;)
Same goes for anyone who wants to draw concept art, actually, if you have an idea of what something should look like and you can show us, go ahead! :D Of course, it may or may not be accepted, but the more designs we have to choose from the better.

To the story writers (who I sent a PM a couple of days ago), check out the forum again, I've made a start :p

Got some new concepts here. The middle one could be used with a twist in the game. He could hypnotise the forumers in the respective area and turn them against you... until you defeat him, of course. This would make you decide to avoid the hypnotised forumers and kill the psycho guy first, or beat the forumers and then finish him off lastly. The usual Good or Bad question used in OW games...

you'll need some with a flamethrower that will try to flame you... :p

Good idea, Xav. And if we have Flamers, we shouldn't forget about Trolls.

Maybe flamers can be distracted by throwing flamebait (à la Paramites and meat). If we have flamers and trolls, we need flooding. A level in which the character must rapidly ascend a vertical series of screens to avoid the rising water level? Also we need spammers (as well as the upgraded version, spambots). I can’t get the image out of my head of them spewing meat slurry all over the place.

Max, those ideas made me laugh. :lol:
But maybe with the flooding idea, instead of water, it could be strings of text that the player has to jump on to stay away from a deadly pit or spikes or something.

the text has to be avoided, not helpfull, unless it comes from a good member of cource

I remember playing such a level (water rising) in rayman 1, it was fun.