2 Souls' Tale (An 8-bit Metroidvania Adventure!)[[HELP WANTED]]

[SmithyGCN]

He will eventually, but it needs some touching up a little bit.

[DragonDePlatino]

And now another boss. This time from Wizards&Warriors II. The Earth Elemental!
Earth Elemental Sheet

Anyway, I had some time to think about what to do with Mr. Gimmick. I think he would be a unique npc attending a mining excursion in Weyard - trying to strike it rich to pay off some debt. Tell me what you think, DragonDePlatino.

Hey, that Earth Elemental looks pretty good! You've always had a knack for things like fire effects. As for the Mr. Gimmick idea, I'm not really sure if that would fit his character. In his game, Mr. Gimmick was an animated toy like Geno. A small cameo of him sitting on a shelf somewhere would be cool enough.

[SmithyGCN]

Sounds good. I should have looked up some information about him before I came up with that scenario, though. ^^;

[SmithyGCN]

These guys are pretty much finished. Only thing missing is their attack effects as... frankly, I can't find an attack list for them anywhere. Final Fantasy wiki keeps crashing on me for no reason, so that's not an option.

[SmithyGCN]

Was able to get one video as a reference for this guy. Sadly, the reference video doesn't include the giant white monstrosity that comes out of its arm.

[SmithyGCN]

Hey, guys, I've been at this for years now. If this game is ever going to get off of the ground, I'm going to need some major help here. Otherwise, I don't know if I can go on much longer like this. I don't know how to make this a community project and my style isn't that hard to emulate (it's just a modified Wai Wai World 2 style). I've been doing this by myself and no one has offered to help with this besides ShyGuy Gray and Jelleye - neither of whom I know about whom has disappeared to. I don't want to sound as though I'm whining, but people seem to have taken to rarely say anything unless I ask a question. If you want to see this game finished: I need help! I enjoy making these sprites for you guys to use, but it's getting me nowhere. <=/

If it makes things easier: I have made several lists about what's needed for some of the worlds.

[TheShyGuy]

I've thought about programing this in Unity before, while you to design the game. I would've offered to help too but I don't think it would be a good idea since I'm working on tFR and school.

But out of curiosity, what are the game mechanics? What kind of game would it be? What kind of AI are you aiming for? What other features are important for the programmer to know about before deciding whether they can even help?

[SmithyGCN]

That's all right. You have your reasons.

The game mechanics are such:
The game is a 2D side scroller and borrows elements from games like Metroid, Legacy of the Wizard, and modern Castlevanias. Unlike most Metroidvanias, there are bottomless pits marked by floating skulls like in Shantae in order for the player to distinguish them from doors in the floor that lead to lower rooms. All enemies have bestiary entries - even the invincible ones like Thwomp - as you can only get their entries by other means outside of destroying them (like taking a photo or buying the entry from a merchant for instance). The game is to be difficult, but not impossible and the less damage you receive during boss fights, the better a reward you get. There are hidden rooms and fake walls/floors/ceilings that can lead to either traps or treasures. There is a day/night system in which there will be different people and enemies about during those times. In some rooms filled with enemies, the doors will close to prevent you from leaving until all enemies are destroyed. There is a class system that enables different abilities for both characters. Some enemies react strangely to certain elemental attacks, like striking an Ax Armor with a lightning bolt cause its own attacks to be lightning charged. Is there anything else you need?

[TheShyGuy]

What kind of attacks would the AI have? How do you imagine boss fights to work? Is it mostly going to be projectile based or something more in depth and complicated, possibly requiring syncing animations with sound and other graphical effects? What do you mean both characters? Are there more than one playable character? Is the class system customization or upgrade-able? Experience points? Can the character level up, etc? Can they wield different weapons or powerups? What about the photo mechanics? Is it like Midas Machine (MFGG)? Is it ever used for something like in the game SnapShot (http://store.steampowered.com/app/204220/)? Is it a tile-based game? Or are the environments more natural or arbitrary? (this is pretty important. Most programmers over at MFGG have trouble with supporting sloped tile collision masks....)

I'd say to just describe all the significant systems of the game, how you expect AI to work,bosses, enemies, status effects, dialogues, quests, class systems, menus, customizables, story, cutscenes (animations, sound, music, sync-ed?), scripted scenes, playable characters and their moveset or possible actions, etc. Note, I've never done what I'm advising mostly because I haven't really worked with anyone else for a significant amount of time. I develop things as I go and already know what I'll be adding later. ~I don't know how effective this advice will be. However, you're looking for help so I'd say to post all the relevant info needed for someone to determine whether they can help and how difficult it may be for them.

[SmithyGCN]

The attacks of the AI are melee and projectile. Some of their attacks are magical and some monsters even summon other monsters. Boss fights vary from simple and straight-forward to unique like the boss fight with Czar Gerald in Faxanadu who hides in the top corner of the room while you try to avoid his rock formations he controls with a computer console. Both characters. Rachel and Reign. They are siblings trying to find their way home and they start at one end of the multiverse while the other is at the other end. Some things you do in one world will affect another, enabling the other character to proceed further in their quest. The classes are upgraded when you find items that relate to that class which unlock new abilities for that class. There are experience points and they do level up. They can weild different weapons, but the weapons depend on which class they have currently. Like whips for the Vampire Hunter class and hammers for the Plumber class. I gave thought to the photo system that you could take photos of anything and you'd get to see that photo. However, that would be too much as is, so I chopped it down to: you can photograph anything, but you can't view the photo up close. The environments are a bit more arbitrary, but some environments are simpler. It all depends on where you are. In addition to experience points: enemies can drop money and items. The enemy stats are as follows: HP, TP, STR, DEF, WEAK (takes twice as much damage), RESIST (takes half as much), ABSORB (heals the enemy), FAMILY (this is important due to certain weapons affecting only certain families of monsters like the DragonSlayer which, obviously does a lot of damage to dragon type enemies), EXP, DROP1 (standard item drop), and DROP2 (rare item drop). You can interact with background objects and doors when a text balloon with an exclamation mark appears above your head. Doors tend to lead to small passageways filled with different items, traps, or monsters. There are summons that you can get ahold of. Each summon has a certain strength indicated by the elemental emblems on the summon insignia when you summon them. I think that's everything.

[TheShyGuy]

So the most complicated (or did you just mean unique?) boss would be like Czar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMMIBd_Z6jc at ~one min thirty seconds)? The bosses in this game should be easy for most people to make.

If the upgrades are similar to the game Faxanadu (from what I've seen in those 10 mins), where they player's abilities remain simple, most people shouldn't have a problem either.

About taking photos and viewing it: Atleast for the members at MFGG, for pause screens, I think they take a snapshot of the game then show that image behind the pause menu. What I'm saying is, it's easy to take a photo in a game, view it, save to and load from disk. Or did you mean "too much" as in "not necessary"?

To be more clear about the environment problem, I'm only referring to the collision masks, which are (should be) coded independently of whatever rendered sprite or background is associated with it. You can have a forest with bumps, hills and whatever, but if the player is only moving horizontally on a flat collision mask then collision-wise, it's simple. It's the same mindset where you use a simple rectangle for the collision mask of enemies and players instead of a "pixel-perfect-fitting" one.

If you're interested in having some control over the randomness of drops, you're going to want someone with at least intro level statistics. Your programmer is going to have to know about random distributions and how to cause them. (I.e. Cause rare drops to have x% chance of occuring. Or cause some random status affect to occur w/ ~100% chance by the 5th attack of a boss... if that's the theme of the boss. etc).

Stats and stat interactions, interacting w/ background objects, and assuming summons are consistent with the simple boss AI, these should be simple to code.

I am assuming your game is kind of simple and similar to the Faxanadu, based on what I've seen in those 10 minutes. If it is, I don't think you should have much problem finding a capable programmer for it. Or maybe you will because it is a fangame so I assume they won't be getting paid. (Or maybe I incorrectly assumed too much about your game)

__
As a programmer, the theme or story is less important than what the code actually has to do. You can have siblings on opposite ends on the multiverse, but if that's just a story detail then it doesn't affect the code at all.

[SmithyGCN]

Yeah, it's a lot like Faxanadu. As for the photos, I was originally planning on making pixel art of whatever you photograph, but, then I decided I was doing a lot already.
Abilities in this game range from new attacks to exploratory skills. Like a rocket jump or a mattock that demolishes stone walls for exploratory. Yeah, I get what you mean about environments. There are some bumps and hills and valleys in the environments, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

[TheShyGuy]

I see. Good luck.

(~Most(?) of the links in the OP are broken. I remember someone mentioned it at MFGG a few months ago, but I wanted to remind you.)

[SmithyGCN]

Oh, right! When I get through with my errands, I'll get right on fixing them.

[SmithyGCN]

Ah. I also forgot to mention that there will be semi-transparency, mode-7, and rotating pieces for some objects in the game.

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Fixed and added to the Mario Bros. section so far.