A run-n-gun platformer made in Construct 2.

STORY:
Well, my morning's off to a great start.

Well, first, it isn't morning.
It's always night here for some reason, and I don't know why.
It never turns to day, or at least, not yet. But I'm pretty sure I've been here for at least...

Well, I haven't even been able to keep track.
It's probably because the world's breaking down into black and white.



GENERAL INFO:
In general terms, this game is a run n' gun platformer.

I'm currently making only one level, but it's expansive.
I plan on doing a boss if I have time (and the programming knowledge to do so)

But if I don't, I'm going to have multiple endings.
A bad, normal, and good ending, to be precise.

I'll reveal more info as I develop more and more of the game.

So, currently: Designing the one and only level, Snowfield!

EVENT LOG:










DEMO:
What, are you looking for a demo?
Well, I'll keep them here for you guys.

SOLAR POWER V0.5:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64495006/Solar% ... index.html

ARROW KEYS - Move
SHIFT - Jump
SPACEBAR - Shoot

SOLAR POWER USERBAR:
Like userbars? Like Solar Power? Then support my project by placing this into your signature! If you make one, I'll be sure to place yours into my sig as well!


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Me for, well, making the game. =P
BlueScope and rosareven of HBGames for helping me on stuff when I need it.
NemesisTheory of Newgrounds for making AWESOME music.
Eventing_Guy and regi of HBGames for helping me start the project (kind of but I might as well mention them anyway).
Jason of HBGames for being inspiring. =D

I believe it was said that using sprites from elsewhere isn't BAD... but it will
reduce your overall score...

or something to that extent.

And this is a great summarization of why I don't want to use sprites from other places. Because like you said, it will reduce my overall score, which is something that I, or anybody else for that matter, clearly do not want to do.

But thanks for the clarification. Sprites seem to be my hardest task so far, surprisingly.
Recently, I've actually become pretty jealous of your ability to make a decent sprite, after I played your ninja demo.

WHY AM I NOT GRAPHICALLY TALENTED

Pardon? I don't think we said anything about reducing scores just because you use another person's resources. It's understandable, especially for the non-artists out there, given that you have a limited amount of time to make a game in the first place. So long as it's visually bearable, go for other areas, such as gameplay, story, or music. You just won't get any EXTRA points for super aesthetics, unless you put effort into pulling together really nice rips.

That said, looking forward to hearing more about your game, Aero!

I think I will just not say anything anymore... I'm usually wrong.

Hey, nothing wrong with being wrong on the Internet, despite what you might hear

Wow, really? Thanks for the (real) clarification! I guess I don't have to worry about sprites as much now!

If I understood your post correctly, then I will be able to use sprites from any other source. Of course, they need to be of good quality, and definitely need to be credited in the, er, credits.

Of course, I was always planning on having engaging gameplay and great music as well, but now that I have more time due to the sprite clarification, I'll make sure to come out with a great plot when I start on it!


Definitely.
I'll most likely update every other day or so; whenever I get to work on it. School's terrible, especially considering I have two projects due sometime soon. But I'll try my best now, considering I'm more encouraged with sprites (almost) out of the way!

Thanks again, regi!

(Man, that was the most thankful post I've written yet. But hey, that's just the way I am sometimes.)

@AeroLove lol you're funny. I'm in the same boat so its lucky we can use other people's graphics! I also wish I could draw - im more of a programming guy.

Poor Eventing_Guy xD

Let me tell you, being able to do graphics always makes you want to do graphics yourself. If you think further down this road, you will realize why not being a graphic person has it's benefits ;)

I dunno who you're talking to, but I'm definitely sure he/she wouldn't have "love" in his/her name.

But aside from that, I totally feel your sympathy. It's awful not being able to draw nicely, but at least we can program, right? That's gotta count for something.

Though, I wouldn't treat graphics as "disposable" now, in a sense. I'm not going to use well-known graphics, just ones that fit my game yet don't clash with people's respect of where the sprites are from.

It's like using Mario in a RPG game that has original human characters as the main characters. If he joins my party, I'm going to hate the creator of the game forever.

Also, fangames don't seem to be the best option for this contest, but unlike the whole spriting commotion, this is my personal opinion. It'll evidently lack in creativity of the characters and the gameplay as well.

tl;dr I like programming better than drawing, but I like to use other people's sprites appropriately when I do end up using them.


I'm not exactly sure of what you mean here. Are you saying that being able to do programming is better than being able to do graphics because of...well, what, exactly?

Lol my bad AeroLowe! xD im on the phone atm so all the writings really tiny.

Actually i think what BlueScope is trying to say is that you might end up using heaps of time making your graphics instead of working on the core game so it can be a good thing if you cant draw. Actually i get the same with programming - sometimes i get too bogged down with it that i forget to make the game fun xP

i agree with only using suitable graphics too though!

Yeah, I was going towards what valkyrie said. Personally, I'm more of a programmer than an artist, so it's a double-burden anyway But yeah... there's nothing wrong with using graphics from others IMO, I'm just too much of a self-loving person not to insist on using my own
To take this further: If you can program, you can astonish people with your game's mechanics. That can work very nicely, or it can't work at all. You're more likely to impress someone with graphics, however if you can only do graphics, your game will most likely suck gameplay-wise. Which is why I still say judge games by their whole, not by their announcements in the screenshot thread ^^
If you can only program, you're not likely to get eye candy, but you're likely to still get a good game out of it - think Paschitnow.

EVENT LOG UPDATE:


So I will be logging my experiences throughout this project, to put it simply.

I'm still looking for sprites, and this seems to be the most challenging part of the contest so far, surprisingly.
Or at least for me. =P

I don't think anyone has any suggested places for looking for graphics, do they?

I'm going to enter the contest with RPG Maker's sprites, including years worth of collections made by HBGames community in the resource section of this website, charas-project sprite generator, sithjester's resource, you name it. I'm going to use them and I'm going to credit the original creators of what I have used that aren't mine.

Sure it's not going to look original, but you have to consider what amount of time you're going to spend on what activity. Depending on how talented and dedicated an individual is, drawing graphics for the game from scratch is *as much work* as developing the mechanics of the game from scratch. That's double the amount of work load you need to spend into. Drawing is my hobby so I've done a casual bit of it in my spare time, and I know how much time it's going to take me to really start my own game sprites (I'm not even a professional artist so I won't be able to do it anywhere near fast).

Even if non-original graphics lower our score, what is going to be the trade-off of making your own sprites? Time. You can make your own sprites, but the time you used on making sprites are taken from the game development. You could spend the whole duration on game development, but you need someone else to make sprites for you.

Have original graphics or have a more interesting game play, you decide.

Or use dead-simple graphics, circles, lines, blocks etc. The motto "good games don't have to have good graphics" is true.

Uh

Title

Simple

Still

Need

Sprites

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64495006/Solar% ... index.html

And on a more serious note, the first post has been updated! Check it out?

It seems that real life has prevented me from working on much of my project.

Therefore, it shall only be one level.
But because it's one level, I can add more features and such without worrying about an event limit.

It WILL be a long level, too.
More info to come as the level is developed.

also i found sprites so now programming is flying pretty fast surprisingly

That's great to hear AeroLowe. I'm going to have to pause mine to deal with this week's real life stuff as well before I can continue.

I'm also sticking to one level (or rather, it'll feel like one single level) myself just so I can focus on mechanical features instead of loaded content.

Hey areolowe, love the title screen music. What is it?

The title screen music is "Welcome, Let's Begin" from the album Pixel Vision made by Ray/Raybob Industries Inc., who is more noticeably known for his work in the (now defunct) webcomic of considerable fame, 2P START!

However though, my game's concept has gone through quite a bit of change. The style of the game along with the planned music for it will and is currently changing, so that song will not be in the final version.

So, right now, I'm perfecting the movement to make it feel as smooth as possible.
I'm also working on camera and shooting at the same time.

Updated Event Log up there somewhere.

I'll probably make a demo by this weekend just to demonstrate the mechanics if done, but don't count on it.

I've whipped up a quick userbar just to see what I could do.

This is the result:


It looks pretty good, surprisingly. I'll most likely change it later on, but it would be nice if people could support my project.
Or at least believe it will turn out good, at least. =P

There we go, added it to my signature, it's only fair

Now you just need to show us some actual gameplay, or a demo would be nicer, lol

Hey, thanks!

And yeah, I know I should show at least some of the gameplay (it's just vaporware without it), but if I do, it would just look unpolished and amateur, and I'd rather show off a more better version overall of my gameplay than something that would just make the game have a bad opinion before any real work is done.

Did you ever play the first version of my demo? It was nothing like it is today, lol, I mean sure it ran smooth, but some of the mechanics were just awful, lol, but people still appreciated it for what it could become, and so far I think I'm on track to having something that will impress people in terms of gameplay and presentation. You could easily do the same, it's not like we're all going to avoid it like the plague if it has a few bugs and it's unpolished, since it's a demo, things will change in the final release presumably...

Hey, maybe I will make a demo then. It's probably best to not worry about initial criticism and instead build off it, right?
Thanks, Jason. You've been a big inspiration to my project so far, surprisingly. Heh.

Well, on the other (and more brighter) side of news, I've added a camera, but in order to do this, I had to change the layout size to 480p instead of 720p. But that's okay, as it was WAY too big before, or at least on my computer.

I've also started the shooting mechanics and will hopefully finish them later tonight, as I need to implement up and down as well, something that I haven't seen before in the Construct community. I've also found music within a 10-minute search. On Newgrounds, no less!

Speaking of time-saving, I edited my sprites to include a gun and bullet effects within the course of about 15 minutes. I've taken rosareven's advice on saving time and using it productively, and I'm doing just that, especially considering there's only 10 days left before the deadline! Thanks to you there.

I'll hopefully get some screenshots in and maybe even a nice demo showcasing the engine in a few days, at least by the 23rd. When I finish the shooting mechanics (which should take an hour or so at the most, considering I already know how to do left and right), I'll post some screenshots straightaway! Then it's on to enemies, and then maybe the demo!

EDIT: Also, here is the forum code to the more revised userbar, with a special guest appearance by the link to this thread itself!

Looking forward to screenshots and the demo!

Oh, by the way, I took a knack on fixing up the HTML5 page.
It's a NEW version (thanks to Jason), but this time, with new music and also worth noticing, a little blurb about the game.

Check it out, and hey, comment on the little blurb, and while you're doing that, is the new title music good? I especially want to know that, since I'm pretty sure that will be the style of all the music in the game as of right now.

If you press SPACE on New Game, you'll be teleported to a test room I made for my engine that was just left in because I thought I should get some criticism.
This version doesn't have shooting though, but the sprites that include Vectis with a gun are there. At least tell me what you think of the jumping and gravity and basically the feel of the game so far. Is it floaty? Too high of a jump? Is he too slow? Tell me. I want to hear your criticism, however bad it may be. XD

Also, as the only thing I'm really proud of so far, I can say that the jumping is NOT fixed.
If you want to know if there's anything else unique in this mini-tech-demo-showcase-type thing, I'm sorry to break it to you, but there's nothing else.

That's because nothing else is ready for me to add into a public demo, at least right now.

And now that I succeeded in boring you all, here is something that you probably weren't waiting for and/or really care as much about either, Solar Power, version 0.3 (NOT the aforementioned demo I was talking about releasing in the previous post)!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64495006/Solar% ... index.html

You might want to change your signature to the following code. I say this because yours currently links to Jason's Project GRID.


[url=http://www.hbgames.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=293&t=76288][img]http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2443/ubda6352n.gif[/img][/url]

The jump seems ok, but the deacceleration is too low, and in my opinion, you
slide a little bit more than you should, so what you can doo is increase a little the
deacceleration so it is according to the speed you set.

Okay, another demo! This is going to be the last one before the real demo comes out!

It features HTML5 editing, better movement, animations, and more importantly, shooting!
That's right, shooting! It has left, right, up, AND down shooting! What a phenomenon!

Well, that's enough jabbing for now, what I really need is criticism!

So get going, and play Solar Power v0.4!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64495006/Solar% ... index.html

I think I'll change the music to something less...energetic.
By the way, I'm always open to suggestions for music!

And the gameplay...well, there are a few glitches in animations, and I'll try to fix them if I can, but on the other hand, are there any glitches in the actual gameplay? Tell me!

I WANT MY CRITICISMS

EDIT: I've changed the music into placeholder music until I can find better ones. So you'll just have to deal with those songs for a while.

Unless you like them. Then maybe I'll keep them. =P

EDIT #2: By the way, I've also changed the controls.

ARROW KEYS - Move
SHIFT - Jump
SPACEBAR - Shoot