My lame attempt at making a DBZ game...

[caejones]

Story time!

So many months ago on a board far far away, a discussion somehow got around to "We need a DBZ RPG that's better than sagas". And... Super Saiya Densetsu doesn't count! (And for this, I shall perform my traditional burning of Las Vegas. Please don't hate me.).

So, after pacing and thinking for many hours that I could have used to do physics, I decided I might actually try to create such a game using Javascript. (Mistake number1? Ur... I _can't_ use flash!).

So half a dozen notes files and a few months later, I've got boxes floating around the screen beating on each other with crappy alerts that somehow pass as cutscenes... but that aside, I'm liking where it is going.

So, it's time to ... ur... explain what I'm talking about!

This game is supposed to play like an RPG, with party support and all of that good stuff. So I think I'll just make a list of specs, since making it into a coherent paragraph would just annoy people. (My way-too-long posts tend to do that on their own... )

• The Intro screen... Ah! Probably the single best game thing I've made. Ever. And it's very lacking in pictures... I guess I could scrape up a background to use or something.
  
• So we have options for controls, sound, stereo, and language setting (which... only does a few things right now, but it's still awesome. .).
  
• Several starting characters to choose from! Sadly most of them don't have very many differences in the beginning (other than a few. .)
  
• Although I'm sure Vegeto EX would never dream of touching it, it's designed with a lot of his podcast comments in mind. So I'm hoping the depth and range of events and storylines can be coolish.
  
• Up to 8 characters on the team? Well, actually it's designed for 20, but for some reason it's been catching an infinite loop at 9 lately (I have no idea why, because I'm pretty sure I had up to slot 10 before... but who wants a team that big anyway?).
  
• Yay! The dragonballs and the dragon radar work now! I know this because the dragon radar led me to the dragonballs multiple times...
  
• The vast majority of the main DBZ storyline is in place with a few glitches and missing bits here and there (I haven't put in the Namek dbs yet). Most of the movies are in too, along with about half of GT (which is rediculously easy to put in if we want to avoid the blackstar business). I also plan on putting in a lot of Dragonball in flashback form. Because Piccolo Daimao and his minions are the baddest dudes ever. Ok, maybe not, but that's the last saga I've watched.
  
• 41 available techniques. Doesn't sound like a lot... but each character can only equip 9 at a time. There aren't a bunch of random ki attacks unless they can have noticeable differences... but eh, I haven't put in most of the code for handling these skills, so... .
  
• Recently added the buying/selling engine! And... there's already a cheat that I need to figure out how to fix. .
  
• The fighting engine is only half there. The regular ki blast engine seems to work fine, and the standard attacks, motion and powering up are good. Several skills need to be completed and a lot of details need to be fleshed out, and hey, voices would be nice... because those sfx get old after fighting the Ginyu force...
  
• Sparring-ness! That's all I'll say.
  
• Random battles. They annoy me, but it's an RPG, so I can't complain.
  

Well, that's not very helpful.

I do have one major problem that I'll have to fix soon though... and that's with the save file. But... I'll get to that after posting.

... Holycrap, I don't like how this post turned out. "Oh, look at me! I'm an amateur programmer trying to make a dbz game! Somehow that makes me cool!". *thwacks self*.

Yeah. I'm bad at being coherent aren't I? I guess I should also point out that I'm really shaky on some things with the graphics engine (which is primative in and of itself...).

Nowhere near good enough to put a demo up yet...

[godo]

Wow. The wole idea sounds cool. Just be kind and add Mr. Popo as a playable character and I would like him to know kamehameha and to be the strongest!!!111 requestrequestrequest 010101011 j/k

No, seriously, it looks like a cool concept.

[caejones]

Yay! *Thanks with... cookies?*

[desirecampbell]

I'm looking forward to it, and offer my help (if I can give any )

[martianoddity]

Looks pretty awesome. Make your best and try to surpass Legendary Super Saiyajin in all areas!
Great concept .

[caejones]

I'm concerned that I came back and didn't notice these replies.

If there's one place where I need help, it's with graphics. I'm thinking about putting up a demo of what I already have (which is both lame and somewhat interesting, I guess... but the characters are still empty images with names floating around the screen...).

And a few other things made me think that a lot more not-flying-around-and-talking-and-fighting (I.E, not an rpg version of budokai3 with) would be nice, so I think I'm going to rebuild the navigation engine in part (at least rebuild the maps), and I also want to add some new features. I've started watching DB over again to take some notes for this project... and I'm definitely going to need someone who can see better to help with the art (I can probably get the graphics engine running, but I can't make accurate content to go with it.). And I want to use character models instead of the images setup I've currently got, but that'd be a lot harder since we'd need to do some polygon stuff for character images... that would make the animation a lot less taxing on memory though!


And I think I'm going to make a couple changes to the interface(I think I spelled that wrong... ) that will allow for some more complicated controls, particularly for the fighting engine, so I thought I'd throw in fighting styles. Which means that I probably should take easy and relatively useless classes next semester just to get this demo-able 2.0 at a reasonable time.


Anyone still around and interested in looking at a very large amount of scenes from the series and/or Daizenshuu? I can get enough information from the series to make the world map, but when it comes to localized maps, help will be necessary... and of course we have character models and maybe multiple costume-ness to play with... the chaos...

The only problem is with this 2.0 overhaul, I'll need to restructure all of the data to be saved, meaning that it'll probably have to use a real save file rather than cookies, which is ok if the user's security settings don't freak out (which they've been known to do with other not-as-huge projects).


And now I think I'm going to look at the Redribbon Army saga...

[caejones]

~Update?~

Bleh. Making big complicated games is haaard! .

So basically I figured out how I actually complete stuff. That is, actually intend it to be a small project, and then just add crap as more ideas appear... (Maybe an example will be forthcoming).
That's hard to do with this project though because... it's not supposed to be anything resembling small. Granted, it's kind of good that I haven't done much on it as of late, since I continually develop new and better methods of creating stuff.

So I tried starting another system yesterday. So far I've managed to.. . ... just make a random field and go around gathering the dragonballs (which took a while even when I cheated and had it give me the positions beforehand .). And I tried playing the old might-even-be-considered-demoable version too... and... it felt like it was slower (probably because a lot of crap has been put on my computer since I last worked on it), and... I completed the Saiyan saga and got bored.

I think the demo of version 1.0 is on my downloads page, but I could be wrong... so I guess I'll check (bleh, I'm doubting anyone will try it anyway... ).

Did I go over this before? Meh, basically I got sick of the lameness of it and its lack of portability (so far the computer I made it on is the only one that works at a reasonable speed... it's very annoying. And Even then, the only other person to try it only managed to get the intro screen to work). And of course all of the graphics are broken, so you get alt text in broken image boxes killing eachother. Though I did take the liberty of marking the locations of enemies that don't have layers...

Lezee, I think it covers dbz and bits of GT, all of the movies other than movie13... none of the special storylines and such are really in existance (so don't try using the cool starting characters of the last three in the menu), and... there aren't any special techniques for fighting, so you might as well spam an attack sequence and go get a drink... . Unless you're fighting a somewhat good opponent (Tullece has this tendency to lead me all across the map... v.v).
And... there is a way to skip the Bebi saga that should be rather easy to spot if one takes hte time (or cheats) to get there.

Now, updated version that might not suck.

I don't have a clue as to how I'm going to continue this at the moment. My first revised version... Bleh, it's not that great, I guess. The current one looks like it has more promise, but still .. I don't like it all that much, and I have to restructure a lot of things, and in light of this semester being a pain, I question the likelyhood of such an effort.
I don't think javascript is the right way to go with this kind of project, really. I can't do flash, so if I get around to making it as invisioned, it'll probably use java... I don't see this ending well no matter what I do. I find Java3d kind of overwhelming in light of what I've got going now, so this would probably wind up taking aaaages to complete and no one will care. .

But I do plan on expanding the storyline if I get around to filling in a final version so that it includes Dragonball and some more possibilities and... freedom... and... stuff.

If I go with the one I started yesterday... I'll probably just leave out graphics entirely and let someone else add them if it actually sees a release. .

Actually... I don't like the idea of switching modes for fighting/traveling... but I think it's necessary with the way I've set up the fighting styles engine. And... I don't like dealing with the direction you're facing, either. In fact... I don't feel like doing anything today. So instead I make a post about it.

Wow, I think this year killed my ability to live effectively. . Move along! There's nothing to see here!

[caejones]

~update~

I'm not good at finishing things, apparently. For this project, I've decided to ... linearize the components a bit so that I stand a chance of not getting lost. Because when trying to keep massive character objects organized, one can be easily overwhelmed...

At present I'm just working with super basic things so that the gameplay elements have something to go on. If and when I get all of the physics crap built, I'll probably start a thread somewhere concerning maps.

I'll stress though that I'm focusing on getting a game that works and doesn't suck in testable form with minimal delays. Meaning that graphics in javascript with this type of system make my head explode and so far as I can tell are highly limited in what can be practically done. So yeah... This is something I want to get figured out so I don't have to edit a million confusing functions later on.
For reference, I can probably do instantaneous rendering--just... draw what's visible at any given moment. The problem with that is that my vector graphics stuff for JS aren't made for full-screen animation like that. Even if I find a way to use moveable layers... speed and detail and shading and all of that fun stuff come into question.


And once again: Sound might be awesome. ... in IE6. T.T.



So, yeah. I'll probably update if I finish physics-ness, so if anyone interested readeth this before that and can offer some kind of assistance, feel free (And yeah... someone tell me how water works in a digital environment? ).


I ramble, therefore, I push alt+s...

[godo]

Sounds nice that there is some progress with the game.
I visit this forum too seldom...

[caejones]

Meeah, at the rate it's going, the world will probably turn into a fish before it's finished. T.T.

I tried making a linky tree type thing to help outline story paths, but that turns out to be more tedious than actually finishing the game would be.

*wonders if people would complain if an epic DBZ RPG of doom turned out to be text-based*
*decides that a better compromise would be a manga-style presentation with a Peasant's Quest style interface*
*decides that's overcomplicating things*

Ah, yes. My flaw is that I don't have a solid engine for physics; all I really have is objects that can be carved out of cubes and moved around, but detecting collisions requires checking every single object in an area, and let's not get started on character models.
This is all only because I'm working from scratch with stuff I've made; there are plenty of premade engines out there that would probably save loads of trouble for everyone.

I think I have nothing else to contribute, so I'll go work on it right now.

[caejones]

(... what? Double posting can be useful when (a) the new post contributes to the topic differently from its predicessor, and (b) the place in question is half dead. Ok, maybe I lose. Though I have been known to quadruple-post in RPGs before.).


Restart'd again? What is this, version 3? No wait, I have a "dbzrpg3" file in my games folder. Dangit, I don't want this to be version 4! 3 is much prettier!

Well, my last post got me thinking, and I decided that the less insane objects going every which-way to complete before the game can bet tested, the better. So here's the version I started again like... umm... yesterday?
Basically, I've decided to make this one turn-based (though I might throw in some realtime elements here and there... turn-based with timelimits can be... umm... exciting?). I've also thrown the menus in with the file, so the menu I had with the original version (maybe the prettiest thing I made in 2006, if you ignore the fact that all of the images are broken...^^) gets dropped.
I think I can get this to work without being too... hmm... clunky? But only time (and lots and lots of trial and error) will tell.

So we come back to that age-old problem: graphics! In my desire to avoid making my head explode, I only put one layer for drawing things. That's all fine, except that if anything changes the entire image must be redrawn--and I dare say things will be changing often! Not too big a problem with my non-animated menus and such, but when we get into actual gameplay, problems are likely. For reference, the original version (lacking pictures, and available for download somewhere) had lots and lots of layers to deal with things that could be animated separately... but I handled their positioning really really poorly (moved all of them every time you push a button, even if only one of them actually moves), so on any computer other than the one it was made on, it runs unbearably slowly.
I don't particularly want the same problem to happen here--though I think I'm going to set things up to keep the pace faster than the original, it's still pretty long (I'm trying to go from DB episode 1 to GT episode 64, if not beyond in both directions (Doing that without going all ouchy speculative fanfic-y? Ouch. Well, optional sidestories~!)).
Yeah, so what was I saying? Oh right. Lag. Well, in the original (as one may notice if anyone can actually get it to play), if your computer isn't going really quickly, you can just push a few buttons, go and get something to eat, maybe watch an episode of the series, and maybe by then the game will catch up. Most noticeable in fights when you have low chances of beating your opponent quickly (like fighting Raditz without finding a way to level up first. Oh, the pain.).
So once again, I'm using javascript (By far the platform least friendly to good graphics and cross-platform compatibility available), and though I've found a decent vector graphics system (and throwing in random sprites for things that need to not suck is an option), that says nothing about the performance of this graphics setup with a game like this. Especially if, you know, you want to do something that actually fits the series with its pacing.
So, yeah, I have no idea what I'm posting this about. ^^. I will also say though that figuring out how to deal with savefiles here will be a major pain, since the better the game gets, the more that needs to be ssaved, and there's only one method I know of in JS that is efficient for that kind of storage... and it's far from reliable. *shrug*.

Meh. Well, main menu, character select and options for the new version are done. And the help system. Now if I'd just write the help pages.

Actually, I'm starting to think of things that could be done more efficiently if multiple people were involved. but I get ahead of myself!
(Actually, the more people involved, the more likely I'll stay focused, and thus the more likely that something of interest will be created. it works out for almost everyone! ... That meaning, everyone with IE6 and several megabytes of RAM.)

Yeah, my posts are too long. Umm, ok, I'll throw a question out there: should it be possible to utterly confound canon pairings and have like, Goku live in Jingle village? ... *shakes head* why did I ask that?

[caejones]

Heya!
No progress. Nope. But I decided yesterday ... or maybe this morning... I forget when. I decided I should probably get to posting, though, since most of the stuff that would have been slowing it down are now ... not so pressing.
I still don't think I'll be getting this done any time in the next several years without a whole team. . I am of the opinion that java3d is the best way to go--sure, it'd be building from scratch, but in doing so limitations are out the window. The problem is that java3d is a pain in the face to get control of, and I have in many cases ttempted to set up the system for my other projects to be simpler than java3d. I haven't done this with any true 3d projects, though--some of the sidescrolling-+-mild-z-room variety, but that's about it.
But eventually... if this keeps going... someone will have to deal with character models. :sneak:. And odds are that if that's me, this project isn't worth wasting a thread on. Then again, I have a tendency to ramble without consequence... so it may already be a waste!
Yeah, what am I doing here? XD

[godo]

Just so that you know, I'm always trying to get updated and I follow your work progress. I may have not posted, but I'll start with it now.

I still think that the project seems interesting.

What do you exactly mean with character models?

[caejones]

Yay! ^_^


Character models... depends entirel on how the programming winds up being done.
For example, my current 2d/3d engine (which I don't think is anywhere near good enough for this project) is based on polygons and stuff... which wold basically mean building models of the characters with a bunch of shapes and such. Which could bedone... but isn't something I have a good track record of completing.

I'm a bit shaky on j3d at presnt, but from the looks of it it'd involve similarly building models of characters and such with 3d objects and giving them the ability to move (which is extremely convoluted and complex in j3d, but I suppose we'll make due). But... yeah, building chracters, whether from scratch or from images, isn't something I'm good at anymore.
I suppose I should get a better grasp on the API before getting a bunch of sprites made...

[SaiyaWoman ParAq]

This sounds pretty cool.

I'm not really one for creating animations...but i'd love for the Saiyan language to be included in it.

[caejones]

Hee, somehow that completely slipped my mind (probably because I don't work on this enough. .).

My cs project from last semester and all of my attempts at completing various related things recently leads me to conclude that I suck at finishing this sort of thing.
Nevertheless new random restarts keep happening. The problem is thatthey don't really go anywhere, hence I try not to post on everything that happens.

... And I think the saiyan language will definitely have somewhere to fit... :sneak:

[SaiyaWoman ParAq]

Perhaps someone may continue where you leave off.. i'm a lazy ass and have the same problem with my own project,, but i always return to it. ;D

[caejones]

Heh. Yeah, it seems the thing I'm best at is taking a ridiculous amount of notes... and then only bearly doing anything with them.
... Which reminds me that I completely forgot how far behind schedule I am on something...

... Life is like GT and Shin Budokai II: an abundance of ideas, though execution is in the meh zone.