Virus Effect (2D Platformer RPG Shooter)

[h3ckboy]

Java works perfectly well in chrome. But you need update 10+ for it to work.

that is my problem. my It wont update I am stuck at 1.6.0_05!

[markmistry]

Have you tried removing java completely and reinstalling again?
I encountered this problem before on a windows pc i had to ctrl alt delete and stop some process that was stopping me from removing java installation.Once you remove java and update you can play my game without crashing yeahh 

[h3ckboy]

Have you tried removing java completely and reinstalling again?
I encountered this problem before on a windows pc i had to ctrl alt delete and stop some process that was stopping me from removing java installation.Once you remove java and update you can play my game without crashing yeahh 

I can only imagine my conversation with my IT department:

"hey I removed java to update it, can you fix it?"

"??" *smaks face*

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[markmistry]

Dam they should be fixing it asap.how can you live without the new version.well must wait till you get home 

[h3ckboy]

Dam they should be fixing it asap.how can you live without the new version.well must wait till you get home 

I cannot fix it at home!!!! Which is frankly pissing me off. I don't have admin privelages!

I wonder what they would do if I deleted java? hmm.. the begging of an idea!

[Corvinex]

Hey guys, I thought I should put up an update. We have implemented the new character into the game finally, its got arms! lol



We also changed the secondary gun to be strapped to the player. And we released some new weapons, the coolest by far is the Spike Ball gun. It shoots spiky balls that bounce and explode then spikes shoot out everywhere.

This week I'll be working on equipment like armor and stuff, I want to hear what you guys think of the new character.

[Eli Delventhal]

Is that a walking explodey can? 

[Corvinex]

Sure is, its like a suicide bomber. Heh check out what I'm working on now.



Wooo helmet! 

[Corvinex]

Hey guys, I just finished finally with Inventory and Equipment. Although right now there isn't much to equip. I now have to work on enemy drops and getting more images of stuff the artists have given me in game.

So far we have helmets, eye wear, chest pieces(shirts/armor), pants, shoes, belts, and hair styles code done.

A preview of what we have so far.

I might be working on hack proofing the game first before I do anything else.

[h3ckboy]

umm the chat is not working right now, I am on google chrome. maybe my school has just tightened down security but we will see.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[Corvinex]

I fixed that, thanks for the info h3ckboy.

I also added a few more things to the chat. It changes your username color when your typing, so people will get some feedback when they're waiting for responses. And you can also type /afk to show your away from keyboard. I also optimized it so it doesn't update the chat when its the same.

Right now I'm adding in some more clothes one of the artists has given me.

[h3ckboy]

when were you going the mention the whole multiplayer thing???

btw, where is this tutorial you mentioned  .

EDIT: nvm found it

[Corvinex]

Ah yes, thanks to my team pushing me and the success of Minecraft I have started to work on multiplayer code. Once I got started its surprising how simple it was, so I made a tutorial on how to get started with Multiplayer coding. You can check it out on the company site www.CorvStudios.com.

All I have to do is split up the current code in between the Server and the Client, which is just tedious.

[h3ckboy]

Ah yes, thanks to my team pushing me and the success of Minecraft I have started to work on multiplayer code. Once I got started its surprising how simple it was, so I made a tutorial on how to get started with Multiplayer coding. You can check it out on the company site www.CorvStudios.com.

All I have to do is split up the current code in between the Server and the Client, which is just tedious.

is you server fast? cause it must be if it is basically going to run multiple versions of VE

[Eli Delventhal]

Ah yes, thanks to my team pushing me and the success of Minecraft I have started to work on multiplayer code. Once I got started its surprising how simple it was, so I made a tutorial on how to get started with Multiplayer coding. You can check it out on the company site www.CorvStudios.com.

All I have to do is split up the current code in between the Server and the Client, which is just tedious.

I only glanced at it so this may already be answered, but how do you manage to get UDP working when only sending key presses? Then any lost packets translate into a missing key press, so you will get big sync issues. Do you send fake presses to account for these or something similar? I've never been a fan of just sending key presses because it seems laden with potential de-sync problems.

[Corvinex]

The client sends a packet every frame, so if some packets are lost its pretty much unnoticeable by the players. This Server/Client method is best for games that don't require every packet arriving.

Its working great for VE so far

[h3ckboy]

The client sends a packet every frame, so if some packets are lost its pretty much unnoticeable by the players. This Server/Client method is best for games that don't require every packet arriving.

Its working great for VE so far

It just occured to me, this could be why bullets sometimes dont register.

[Corvinex]

No that's not why, packets arriving is the least of my problems. Bullets registering hits is done on the server, so it just means my physics code is not compensating for the speed of the bullet. So the classic jumping the entity is occurring, but I'm working on some new physics code, that will give me a lot more to work with.

[zammbi]

Just signed up, and tried the full version out. Very nice. I enjoyed saving up for the guns and the upgrading them and then kicking ass 

[Corvinex]

Nice, I'm glad you liked it. Yeah once you upgrade you definitely feel like Rambo 

[teletubo]

Corvinex, Im trying to confirm my account to earn 100  Credx™ , but keep getting a

Account Confirmation Failed!

Please try again later.

..?

[Corvinex]

That's odd, are you sure you didn't receive the 100 credx although it said it failed?
The confirmation only works once, so if you click the link again, it will say it failed. I fixed it now, so it will say if its confirmed already or not.

I added 100 credx to your account anyway.

[teletubo]

Hey Corvinex,
first of all, thanks for the 100 Credx™ . But  I'm not sure if I had received it before .

Well I've been playing V.E. for this weekend, and I think I can now give you a decent feedback .

The character animations and the arms/head rotations are pretty neat, and the framerate is very good. Are you pre-buffering the rotations or you do it realtime?

I like the way guns can be changed using the mouse wheel, but it would be really nicer if you could reload it using the mouse (right mouse button, for example). The 'R' key is a bit out of reach when you're controlling you character.

Something that I think you should urgently address is the "jumping" shot. I was very frustrated when I had my last shotgun shot, and shot it in the alien's face, but the bullets simply went thru him and he killed me . I can't tell if it happens with other guns since I mainly used the shotgun.

Another thing that you probably already figured it you is when you try to jump while going down a hill. It's impossible since when you're going down the "falling" flag is set to true, preventing the character to jump . Talking about hills, once when an "eyeball" item  felt into a hill, it kept flickering (though it was not moving).

Now something that REALLY annoyed me when playing, I was really frustrated with the screen scrolling. The problem is that when you change the directions, the screen always put the character in the 1/4 half of the screen . This is a nice effect, but it makes really difficult and frustrating to aim an enemy which is close to the character , since the screen keeps dancing left to right as you place the mouse in the left or right side of the character.
I know that you've probably put some effort doing this neat effect, but I think the gameplay would be highly improved if you just centered the screen in the character ALWAYS . I also found myself doing calculations when entering a room full of enemies . The problem is that you enter a door in the extreme right side of the screen, and appear in the extreme left . that is, I have to calculate where I will appear to start shooting enemies immediatly.  It would be very much straightforward if the character was just always centered and I could always have my mouse in the region around him, instead of having the mouse everywhere in the applet, dependeing on where the guy was placed . By the way, when fighting an enemy near a door, is also very frustrating because you have a litte room to click the right place, without clicking outside the applet, or clicking the wrong direction .  (Furthermore, not scrolling when reaching a door causes a funny effect, that you always enter a room "moonwalking". R.I.P. MJ)
I hope I made myself clear - if not I can give you more details.

Now about the levels. I played till episode 6 , and it was very challenging and fun till episode 4 . But when I beat it (which was veeery difficult) and reach episode 5 only to find another level with the same enemies and background I was very disappointed . Same when I reached episode 6  .
I know that you probably depend on your pixel artists to include new enemies, but I would definetly prioritize that instead of fancy looks for the main character (I didnt bother spending my money with wigs or so when I could power up my shotgun).
I haven't reached the level with the tileset you show in the screenshot here, but I suggest you reward the player with it a little sooner (to be more precise, I would do it after episode 4), and if it's possible add one different enemy per episode . I honestly tell you that I felt like "aaaw, come on !" when I reached episode 5 with the same looks as the 4 after I put so much effort beating it . I believe you'll lose a few players who feel the same as I felt (and remember that players are far more merciless than "programmer-players" . )

Well that's it for now . I hope this helps you improving the game. It does look very good and fun, but it can be better .

cheers

[zoto]

Once you have a lot of trouble killing everything with just the shotgun, you should look into the double shot. Once you get to episode 8 you will want to carry an anti gravity gun in inventory.
The scrolling works going down if you duck while aiming down.

[h3ckboy]

Once you get to episode 8 you will want to carry an anti gravity gun in inventory.

why? I have beaten most of the level, and I havent needed it yet...

[Corvinex]

Thanks a lot for the well thought feed back. I agree with you on pretty much everything, and here is what I'm doing:

Are you pre-buffering the rotations or you do it realtime?

The rotations are done in real time.

I like the way guns can be changed using the mouse wheel, but it would be really nicer if you could reload it using the mouse (right mouse button, for example). The 'R' key is a bit out of reach when you're controlling you character.

I was planning on using the right click as the weapon's special later on. And I chose the 'R' key as the reload button because a lot of first person shooters have it. I hope to do a key mapping option later on as well, so this might help.

Something that I think you should urgently address is the "jumping" shot. I was very frustrated when I had my last shotgun shot, and shot it in the alien's face, but the bullets simply went thru him and he killed me . I can't tell if it happens with other guns since I mainly used the shotgun.

Another thing that you probably already figured it you is when you try to jump while going down a hill. It's impossible since when you're going down the "falling" flag is set to true, preventing the character to jump . Talking about hills, once when an "eyeball" item  felt into a hill, it kept flickering (though it was not moving).

These have been the longest standing issues with the game. Sometimes bullets will not hit objects due to the physics logic, and I have gotten a lot of gripe for the can't jump while walking down a slope. So this past week/weekend I have been working on a new physics engine. Its almost done and will fix all of these issues

We will also be able to do a lot more stuff, for instance we have all kinds of tiles like curved slopes concave and convex, all angled triangles, and circles. The bouncing of bullets with Dual Shot will be able to be utilized on all tiles.  And bullets will not go through anything anymore

Now something that REALLY annoyed me when playing, I was really frustrated with the screen scrolling. The problem is that when you change the directions, the screen always put the character in the 1/4 half of the screen . This is a nice effect, but it makes really difficult and frustrating to aim an enemy which is close to the character , since the screen keeps dancing left to right as you place the mouse in the left or right side of the character.
I know that you've probably put some effort doing this neat effect, but I think the gameplay would be highly improved if you just centered the screen in the character ALWAYS . I also found myself doing calculations when entering a room full of enemies . The problem is that you enter a door in the extreme right side of the screen, and appear in the extreme left . that is, I have to calculate where I will appear to start shooting enemies immediatly.  It would be very much straightforward if the character was just always centered and I could always have my mouse in the region around him, instead of having the mouse everywhere in the applet, dependeing on where the guy was placed . By the way, when fighting an enemy near a door, is also very frustrating because you have a litte room to click the right place, without clicking outside the applet, or clicking the wrong direction .  (Furthermore, not scrolling when reaching a door causes a funny effect, that you always enter a room "moonwalking". R.I.P. MJ)
I hope I made myself clear - if not I can give you more details.

I agree that the scrolling can get annoying at times. I plan on creating a box around the player in which if your mouse is inside it, the screen will not scroll, so that will fix the dancing part. I started out with the centered player back in the day, and it gave you less room to see ahead of where you are walking. So for the rest, i'll be sure to make maps that when you enter will give you some room before you reach enemies. We might also have door entrances not always along the map edges.

Now about the levels. I played till episode 6 , and it was very challenging and fun till episode 4 . But when I beat it (which was veeery difficult) and reach episode 5 only to find another level with the same enemies and background I was very disappointed . Same when I reached episode 6  .
I know that you probably depend on your pixel artists to include new enemies, but I would definitely prioritize that instead of fancy looks for the main character (I didnt bother spending my money with wigs or so when I could power up my shotgun).
I haven't reached the level with the tileset you show in the screenshot here, but I suggest you reward the player with it a little sooner (to be more precise, I would do it after episode 4), and if it's possible add one different enemy per episode . I honestly tell you that I felt like "aaaw, come on !" when I reached episode 5 with the same looks as the 4 after I put so much effort beating it . I believe you'll lose a few players who feel the same as I felt (and remember that players are far more merciless than "programmer-players" . )

Yes I agree that the episodes are unbalanced and unrewarding, I never meant for the levels to be this hard and this bland. My map maker likes hard maps... and so many undecided decisions about what should or shouldn't be saved for story mode. We have other environments but I had so many other things to add and fix that most of the game isn't where I want it to be. Which is pretty much why we have not officially launched the game. Luckily we are reaching the point of less and less things to add, so I can focus on the gameplay.

And don't worry, I have a lot of things that I'm going to add and change that will turn this into a great game. Left to do: Enemy drops items, Achievements, NPCs/Missions, no more episodes/new linked environments, replace all placeholder art, tons more items/weapons, new enemies/varying levels(Lvl 1 Jelly), multiplayer, and more after that is all done.

Thanks again for the feedback.

P.S. This should probably be moved into Works In Progress. I didn't care about staying, but it'll probably be best for the sanity of players

[TheAnalogKid]

Sorry for resurecting this thread but I'm just curious to know the status of this game? Last post was in June. Is this game complete?

[Corvinex]

Well I was waiting to get further on the next gen version of VE before I posted anything, but this is probably a good a time as any. Since then I haven't stopped working on VE in one way or another. Last time I posted was about working on a new physics engine for VE. Well that rendition of physics fell through and soon after I started working on another version using purely my own train of thought. And so far it has been turning out to be the most stable version I have made to date. You can check it out Here.

That Demo also contains an early version of our new base character and the skeleton system with a test animation going. The animation is not a walking animation, just something I scripted up quickly to test the system. The most significant change we have made so far is increasing the size of the game screen to 800x600. The other thing you'll notice is that "enemies" (black boxes) shoot at you. It's one of the things I wanted to implement early on, and is no where near done.

We have a big list in mind and I'm now coding everything once again from the ground up to incorporate all our crazy ideas. Before, everything was not designed for all of the stuff that arose, and that is pretty much why I started over. Once I get done with my finals I'll be posting up an update to that Demo daily.

Keep in mind the Demo is just a way to test everything I have implemented to date on the new engine, it is not in any way a game yet. I would love to hear how it runs on everyone's computers.

P.S. Rearranged the site a lot... coded my own forums... chat has sound effects finally... and there is also a great video of the original VE on the Home page.

[Eli Delventhal]

It's fun. Took me a while to figure out how to do everything in this demo, but I like the changes you made. Looks good.

Also, just checked out the video. Bravo. Has a hint of Metroid with something else too. You've really done a spectacular job here.

[Corvinex]

Cool, thats definitely great to hear. Yeah there are a lot of things you can do that aren't necessarily intuitive. Things to try:

• First gun you spawn with is a chainsaw, basically hold down shoot and stick in walls/items/enemies.
• There is now a fall damage.
• Scroll or Q to switch between two equipped guns. Z to drop current one. S (crouch) to pick up a gun.
• Use the grappling hook to fling the "enemies" around.
• Grenade Launcher and Flamethrower are fun to play around with.

Once we get the built in map editor and animation editor done we can fully create a proper demo to mess around with.

The video wasn't done by me, it was done by the Level Designer's online buddies. He is going to make another one once we get done with the next gen version. I'll pass on the kudos.