The A-Engine: A new Beat 'em Up game engine

[A-Man]

Ah, here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5em74a...n+V0.1.exe

[Shiya]

@LABEEB
Register and log in first.

[Som1Lse]

I'll be the one to ask:
Why, when I choose exit in the menu, does the window close, but the program continues to run?
Why, when I press the close button of the window, does the program crash?
Mouse control in menus?
I'm not a big fan of One Piece, so I can't say much about the game itself, but I would ask why can't I press defend, forward and attack together. Why do I have to press them in order?
Also the character selection screen is hard and unintuitive to navigate. (hexagons may look cool, but they don't work nicely with four-directional movement)
Also glBegin() and glEnd() are evil!

I understand this is early in development, so I would expect that some if not all of what I mentioned above is known already.
Edit: If you have code related questions you can shoot me a PM, and I'll try to answer them.

[A-Man]

I'll be the one to ask:
Why, when I choose exit in the menu, does the window close, but the program continues to run?

Has been reported and will be fixed.

Why, when I press the close button of the window, does the program crash?

Err, I had it close the SDL GUI stuff, but I just realized it does not exit the application itself. Consider it fixed.

Mouse control in menus?

Should be supported in the engine itself. For the game, however, I wanted to have it all keyboard/controller related. I understand this being an issue for the player, since they might face trouble getting their controls in the first time they play, but I already have a plan for that; the first time a player runs the game, "pop-ups" asking for inputs will appear before the main menu.
In fact, we're planning to get rid of the main menu all together, and go with a "playable interface" inspired by this article.

I'm not a big fan of One Piece, so I can't say much about the game itself, but I would ask why can't I press defend, forward and attack together. Why do I have to press them in order?

Because defend is not involved at all :P. That combination is probably just Forward + Attack; I tried an approach similar to smash bros' smash attacks. Although has not been done with all the moves just yet.

tip: F1 brings an inaccurate move list. And I know it causes the screen to behave weirdly in the Fullscreen exe.

Also the character selection screen is hard and unintuitive to navigate. (hexagons may look cool, but they don't work nicely with four-directional movement)

You're right. I shall discuss the matter with the team's GFX guy.

Also glBegin() and glEnd() are evil!

I know . How did you know I used those though lol? They're veeery slow. Anyway, the plan is to switch over to VBOs soonish. I've tried switching over earlier, but stumbled upon linker errors caused by misconceptions with #including. Only later did I learn using include guards properly, so I think it should work now.

Edit: If you have code related questions you can shoot me a PM, and I'll try to answer them.

Thanks a lot! Especially for the feedback!

[Som1Lse]

Should be supported in the engine itself. For the game, however, I wanted to have it all keyboard/controller related. I understand this being an issue for the player, since they might face trouble getting their controls in the first time they play, but I already have a plan for that; the first time a player runs the game, "pop-ups" asking for inputs will appear before the main menu.
In fact, we're planning to get rid of the main menu all together, and go with a "playable interface" inspired by this article.

I would be very wary of adopting something, from an article, without serious consideration beforehand (I don't know how much consideration that went into that).
Consider the game in the article, they were showing it off at a convention where it matters that people get how the game works quickly, but concluding that that sort of interface is strictly better than a menu is fallacious due to a lack of data. Consider wanting to play a 1v1 against a friend and having to walk up to a wall, jump and punch it just in order to start the match. It may work for teaching the mechanics to a new player but once you are mildly experienced at the game, it will simply be annoying.

I also see no reason why you'd want to make the game strictly work with keyboard/controller and not allow the mouse to be used, for menus. If people find it easier to use then why disallow it?

I know . How did you know I used those though lol?

https://code.google.com/p/glintercept/

[A-Man]

I would be very wary of adopting something, from an article, without serious consideration beforehand (I don't know how much consideration that went into that).
Consider the game in the article, they were showing it off at a convention where it matters that people get how the game works quickly, but concluding that that sort of interface is strictly better than a menu is fallacious due to a lack of data. Consider wanting to play a 1v1 against a friend and having to walk up to a wall, jump and punch it just in order to start the match. It may work for teaching the mechanics to a new player but once you are mildly experienced at the game, it will simply be annoying.

We've given enough thought into that actually. Taking inspiration from that article doesn't necessarily mean we're just going to mimic what they did. The plan is to have the player start aboard a ship. Different rooms are different modes. The steering wheel is the adventure mode..etc. It shouldn't be annoying as long as we keep the important "rooms" nearby.

I also see no reason why you'd want to make the game strictly work with keyboard/controller and not allow the mouse to be used, for menus. If people find it easier to use then why disallow it?

i do find the keyboard faster and more comfortable, but you made a point. I could just allow both. But I am still convinced about getting rid of the main menu altogether to be honest.

https://code.google.com/p/glintercept/

Nice! That should prove useful for debugging.

[Som1Lse]

We've given enough thought into that actually. Taking inspiration from that article doesn't necessarily mean we're just going to mimic what they did. The plan is to have the player start aboard a ship. Different rooms are different modes. The steering wheel is the adventure mode..etc. It shouldn't be annoying as long as we keep the important "rooms" nearby.

I'm someone who gets annoyed by having to wait 1 second for transitions in Hearthstone. Anything (and I do mean ANYTHING), that takes more time than necessary can and will annoy me, but then again I'm probably no the main demographic of the game.

i do find the keyboard faster and more comfortable, but you made a point. I could just allow both. But I am still convinced about getting rid of the main menu altogether to be honest.

As someone who plays osu! a lot (example, not me playing, but I can pass the song), that is obviously not the case for me (it wasn't even the case before I began playing osu!).
In the case of the ship allow it should be relatively easy to allow me to click on the steering wheel, in order to achieve the same result.

[A-Man]

But these aesthetics would compensate, don't you think? Plus, I find it rather innovative to have as little UI as possible.
There has been a lot of drama in the anime about the ship being the natural home of pirates, and a symbol of freedom in general. The author has provided the ship with great detail, to the extent that he drew "blue prints" for it, and it would be a loss to not have the ship in somehow in the game as well. I myself really like the idea of having the game start with you controlling a player on board of the ship, allowing exploration of all the different rooms in it with animated NPCs and all. It also allows for a great deal of easter eggs, minigames, and these small details people are fond of.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/2...7shrpn.jpg

[Som1Lse]

But these aesthetics would compensate, don't you think?

For what? A feature I could just as easily have had with the same aesthetic? Not likely.

Plus, I find it rather innovative to have as little UI as possible.

I'd find a spacecraft made out of marsbars innovative, but I'd still prefer a regular spacecraft if I ever were to use one. I find innovative in this sense to be no more than a buzzword.

There has been a lot of drama in the anime about the ship being the natural home of pirates, and a symbol of freedom in general. The author has provided the ship with great detail, to the extent that he drew "blue prints" for it, and it would be a loss to not have the ship in somehow in the game as well.

In that case I'd put it in the actual game rather than the main menu, if it is used in the main menu then great, if you can walk around it at the same time then great. But don't compromise something which works flawlessly already.

I myself really like the idea of having the game start with you controlling a player on board of the ship, allowing exploration of all the different rooms in it with animated NPCs and all.

I don't have much else to say except for: I don't. If the ship used for the main "menu" is small enough to fit on the screen without any scrolling, then there is no reason that I can see why you can't just click on the elements. If it is larger than the screen, then seriously consider why I would have to walk that large a distance to change the options and choose between modes.

It also allows for a great deal of easter eggs, minigames, and these small details people are fond of.

If you were to allow walking around the ship as part of the main menu while still having things to click on, then it wouldn't be an issue. If it is too large for this, then reconsider whether or not it is worth the time it takes to walk around the ship in the first place, if it was included as part of adventure mode, then the easter eggs could still be hidden in the ship.
Lastly, if you want to sacrifice functionality for the sake of a few easter eggs, then it's probably not worth it.

[Rashar]

looks very promising.
If you can recreate LF2 using your engine, and the game will feel like LF2, it will open up a lot of new possibilities for the game.

I would like to recreate my mod, LF2 Strategy using your engine, it will make things easier, but first the engine needs to be able to make the game feel like LF2, and probably also have the 10 basic characters in it.

Hoping to see more updates!