Little Fighter 3. Hopes and expectations

[A-Man]

I am sorry for gravedigging, but it's a relevant now that we really should get to do this.

but still keeping simplicity of DCing and sprites because that is what brought huge success to LF2 in first place.

I feel similar too. LF2 has allowed me to create what I couldn't when I was younger. I probably wouldn't have gotten into LF2 at all if it wasn't for that.

More moddable? what else do you want? You have already option to change .exe, sprites, DC, AI... only thing you may ask is to remove limitations in terms of quantity of characters you can put into game and in terms of frames capacity in .dat file. Other than that you can do whatever you want with game.

@Marko (Click to View)

In fact, LF2 as a game creation engine, naturally since it wasn't meant to be that, is pretty limiting. That's why some of us has gone lengths in creating their own versions and engines. @empirefantasy has stated some of the things you can't do with LF2.

3D game, more playing modes, different unlocking chars, improved online fighting (i.e. by entering on fighting rooms), HQ sprites of course, maybe any new button included to perform more things during the game, split windows while multyplaying etc

There are way even more important things, like getting it to work on as many platforms, other than windows, as possible; at least for mac and linux.

Data changing is simplier than basic Python stuffs in my opinion. It's really that simple.

, but unless its Modding System is quite Simple and not like Advanced Coding like C++ Or something, I can help with the Character Data, if its a little bit advanced, like straight up Coding, I don't think I can help.

@Marko @AmadisLFE (Click to View)

Using a simple mark-up language like LF2's datachanging works for simple stuff like what LF2 has, but if you want to get innovative, then you will have to resort to some sort of logic syntax that can aid you with that. Or you can keep writing new tags and adding new states until you have a whole dictionary of them. Or use some ugly wwwxxxxyyyyzzzz format (with each set of alphabets setting a different parameter) for tags like the hex add-ons for LF2 have done.
Or, get some actual programming logic into the whole thing (which should be way easier for everyone). Imagine, for example, having your character use different basic attacks when their HP is less than half. What if you could use if conditions to do something like this with LF2:

DC-Code: <frame> 0 Standing pic: 0 wait: 2 state: 0 centerx: 35 centery: 79 hit_a: IF (@current_hp < 250) THEN 60 ELSE 300; <frame_end>

Programming is logic. The syntax can differ from language to language, but in essence, programming is really the reasoning you had already developed by the age of 3. The programming language's syntax? You can always do with a reference book or something. If you've done any "advanced datachanging" before, then know that what you did is more difficult than programming; hacking (no, not as in blackhat activities, but as in using a limited toolset to accomplish what it wasn't designed to do).

more on what LF2 datachanging could've done better (Click to View)

The 'state:' tag and states, itr types, objects types, all of those are other preset simplifications which has made LF2 a more limiting experience. Say you wanted no gravity and no shadows for your character. You can set your object to type 3 in LF2. But sucks, you're an energy ball now :\ Your character doesn't respond to hits properly now.. Solution? resort to some datachanging tricks and use a hodgepodge of itr kind 8s and arbitrarily high bdys and itrs (special bdy/itr pair)..etc to mimic what you want.
Or just get rid of all of these random types in your new engine and let the developer assign these properties individually himself:

Code:

<frame> 0 frame_name
  |IGNOREGRAVITY|NOSHADOWS|
  pic: 0 wait: 2 centerx: 35 centery: 79
<frame_end>

I've been working on the A-Engine for almost 2 years now, and getting closest to LF2 with coding have always been a goal. But these are things I realized I needed to change to achieve a more important goal, to get the most of flexibility.

I will quote @NightmareX1337 post on this:

Be aware that there is a simplicity and power tradeoff and I'm not sure if they both can be provided at the same time...

For things to be more complex is inevitable. What I do is try to keep this complexity to a minimum. Nevertheless, like I mentioned before, you probably won't have to do anything more complex than the advanced datachanging techniques you've done in the past.

I really wish we can all get this started soon. We've discussed this for a bit in @Sänger 's personal sprites thread, and these are some important posts that has been made there:

I can give you some reasons why making such dream would be impossible. More from the spriter view.
*Need a team which will concentrate on the game;
*Real life gets in the way;
*Lack of motivation;
*Spriters should be equal in terms of keeping sprites in the same style unless we get someone to do templates, coloring, palette for color, shading pixel by pixel;
*A dozen of sprites should be made by a little spriter team;
*Good flow of animations which will be extra hard for the pixel art;
*Very small amount of copy paste in pixel unless you want to get weird outcome;
*How not to lose your team members?

Those are the biggest problems ( I think) if you would about making such thing.

Like I said, the sprite style can be simplified until one with reasonable balance of quality/effort is achieved. The thing about motivation and life's surprising turns of events will be best addressed if such a project becomes a community project instead of one of a team. What I mean is, progress and actual files of the project can lay publicly in a forum thread or/and in an open repository and everyone can participate. Decisions of the game can be discussed and are made by all of us (polls). Spriters can do work, whether they work on a grunt or an item or even inbetweens of keyframes made by the other. Artists can work on concept art and backgrounds. Composers and sound makers can work on sound effects and remixes/brand new music (perhaps themes for our heroes!)

As for the code, LF2 modifying isn't really sufficient, so a new game would be in order. I propose using the A-Engine for it, and I can promise magic in terms of mod-ability and flexibility using it. A-Engine can do pure 2D if you guys want, here is footage of a buggy demo of a game using the A-Engine I released last year, but it has also recently got 3D supported as well, in case you guys want to have such stuff. A-Engine coding is very very similar to LF2's, so data changers should be able to contribute as soon as they look at a frame example (@Rhino.Freak did one of the characters in the video footage, and I barely had to explain anything about the basics). If that's the case, then I can get a prototype up as soon as the A-Engine makes its first release.

If you guys want a custom thing, then sure, though it seems everyone has started working on their own LF2-like game and might prefer working on theirs than working on a new one.

But yes, you can go ahead and start a thread! I'd sure love to contribute my best to a project with this community.

So yes, what do you guys think of using the A-Engine for this? @klodasmone if you may kindly start an anon poll for this?