Astro Vulpus (Still Dead) Aug 02

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I mean I've tried Unity before, it's just that I like Flash better. In fact, the only thing I don't like about Flash is that it constantly crashes when I try to use great graphics.

[Lucky777]

Is there some way you can have the animations stored in another folder or something and just be accessed by flash when needed?

I have ABSOLUTELY no idea about anything related to programming wizardry, of course.

But I think the guy who makes "Aria" (SpiralVortex or something is his name) has a similar system in place.

His animations are all still drawn 2D stuff though, so it might not be relevant at all.

ALSO I could be remembering wrong, but still.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Yes, anything is possible, it's just difficult, and more to the point would be very close to starting from scratch.

The problem at hand is that the "easy way" to do this game is to set up a bunch of timeline events. gotoAndStop("scene_pepper_x_harriet_01"); Put the movie file or clicky event dialog at the right keyframe and I'm done. But placing the scene in the timeline means the scene must be loaded into Flash to begin with and having a bunch of decent graphics or long MovieClips (which is like a timeline within a timeline) loaded into Flash CS4 is what makes it crash.

It's totally possible to do this stuff with code, the problem is that instead of just dropping elements into the crashy editor, I have to write code like this:

Code: Select All Code

var myFont = new Font1();

var myFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
myFormat.size = 15;
myFormat.align = TextFormatAlign.CENTER;
myFormat.font = myFont.fontName;

var myText:TextField = new TextField();
myText.defaultTextFormat = myFormat;
myText.text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog";
addChild(myText);

myText.border = true;
myText.wordWrap = true;
myText.width = 150;
myText.height = 40;
myText.x = 100;
myText.y = 100;

And basically I have to guess what that will look like, instead of see it in the editor before I compile.

There is however, a middle path. Flash CS has the ability to export bits of timeline as .swc's, which FlashDevelop, the code only program that doesn't crash, can import and use in the game. Then I just need a state-machine, which is an extra step, but not super hard.

The issue is more that if I have to start over almost from scratch, why not do it in Unity instead? Everyone keeps trying to convince me that Flash is dead or dying or super gonna do it at some point, and Unity does have a bunch of features, like 3D armature animation and nav mesh and camera angles that I could do great things with.

Also, frankly, there are a bunch of things about Astro Vulpus that I'm just not thrilled with. I'm not convinced that the upgrade system, as is, would be fun for a longer game. I don't especially like the Star Fox parody characters. I think they're too much of a compromise, not starfoxy enough to attract anyone to this game (especially since it's not a starfoxy combat system anyways) and not as fun for me as original characters would be. I also don't like the mouse controls as much as I did when I started. It would be okay for something quick and brainless, but if I do a shooter game, I want to do an awesome shooter game, and I could be awesomer with a different control scheme. And again, fixing all of those things basically amounts to starting over from scratch, so why not?

[AcetheSuperVillain]

So okay, let me throw a few ideas around. Here are some things I could do differently if I did a reset. Mostly thinking about game-play for now.

Lately, I've been thinking about doing another version of Alloy Tengu/Blazing Void. If you don't have time to play, these games have Asteroids style controls, RANT:(no it's not tank-steering, that's not how tanks steer), and you fight great big battles against lots of enemies with lots of allies at your side. There's auto-aiming, homing missiles and crazy speed. The main hook of the originals were their transforming player fighters, Variable Geometry "VarGeo", but I've tried to make VarGeos in 3D before and it's pretty hard, so I might skip that. (EDIT: Might give them some kinda mecha that's in permanent gerwalk mode and a button toggles between air and land driving style) The original Alloy Tengu was sort of a parody of Macross, so an Alloy Tengu porn game might have you dating rockstars in between space fighter missions. However, since the system is designed to work with team battles, it would be a very natural format to fight alongside your squadron members in combat and build on some kind of relationship there.

In theory, there shouldn't anything especially hard about making a full 3D Ace Combat or Robotech:Battlecry sort of game in Unity, but I don't think people like those games as much as arcadier shooters.

Another idea I've been holding onto for years is "Invader Rogue". This would function more like an old-school JRPG, where you run around in a dungeon and get into random fights with "monsters" but instead of an RPG battle system, you go into a shooter game battle system. My original thought was to make it like Galaxian, where enemies that scroll down to the bottom of the screen reappear at the top, but it could also work with the Alloy Tengu battle system. There would be a little more emphasis on dungeon exploration and rogue-like survival and a pretty simple shooter system. That said, I always wanted to try making a shooter game where you can "guard" by moving backwards like you do in fighting games, and I would probably add some version of the barrel roll, probably tap →→ / ←← to do it.

It's also conceivable that I could do a game where you play as a person instead of a ship. Like a space adventurer with a jet pack or a witch on a broom or flying animal anthros or hoverboards or whatever. It should also be easy enough to make a top down shooter like Shock Troopers or Jackal or whatever, Unity's built in collision engine and level editor and animation system are designed to do that. I guess it could also be something like riding dragons or tanks or gundams or AT-STs or post-apocalyptic-murder-cars. But I do like space ships.

EDIT: Oh yeah, another possibility is to do something with a bunch of hard point modifications like this: http://tsundereoujo.deviantart.com/art/ ... -155938033 This is basically how they are designed already, but I mean there could be some in-game modifications or "dress-up" for your ships. The trouble here would not be designing that or programming it directly, but programming a menu that lets you dress-up your ship would be painful in Flash and I don't know Unity's UI system very well yet.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Also, as part of going back to the drawing board, I'm going to review some of the ideas I've been jotting down for a while. Here are some that I'm particularly thinking about.

Star Trek Online style: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p596985
Diesel Punk theme: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p598736
Traitor Map System: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p599274
Weed & Seed: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p607669
Do Avoider Game instead: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p597025
Do Pokkoloh instead: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7463&start=20#p603286

I don't get a lot of feedback from the ideas forum, so I'd be interested to know what you guys really think about these things, or what, if I anything I should change about Astro Vulpus or its descendant when I switch to Unity.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Alright, quick update on the thought process. Mostly my head is still spinning and I'm not sure what to do next.

I'm looking into teaming up with a particular developer. Don't want to give any name yet, just in case. But if he says yes, the "Astro Vulpus sequel" will still be in Flash, and I'll need to wait and see what he wants to do. It's also possible that he will want to do something else as a team, in which case the "Astro Vulpus sequel" will be what I work on for myself.

I'm leaning more towards a Traitor or Roguette style map system, over the various other options.

I've had an idea for characters based on a leopard shark, lace monitor and king cheetah. Here's what those animals look like:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I've tried to do patterns like that in the past and I didn't like what I came up with, but I haven't tried it since completing my college education, so maybe it's worth another shot. If I decide the patterns aren't worth it, I could either cartoonify them into something simpler or just change it from those animals into some other kind of shark, lizard and cat.

No solid thoughts on a protagonist yet. Could be all girls. I also thought it would be funny to do a hentai game with an R2-D2 type robot as the main character.

Since I was a little dissatisfied with Astro Vulpus' friendship/summoning system, I decided to try a few dating sim games, and I feel like the only one I really get excited about is Pokkaloh. So I might make the "Astro Vulpus sequel" into some kind of Pokkaloh-IN-SPACE game. I still want to have a scrolling shooter component, but the core of the game might be more about collecting materials and building things instead of just shooting. That should also work well with a Traitor/Roguette map system. In this case, I'm not sure if the women would be fellow pilots, like in Astro Vulpus, or if they would have some other function, like shop keepers, or if they would have no function, besides having holes to plug. It could work like this new Soda Dungeon game where "you" just hire people to go on adventures or fly space fighters or whatever.

However, if the "Astro Vulpus sequel" does use a Roguette style dungeon/battle system, that might breath some new life into the summoning system, since you could have summons per dungeon run instead of summons per flight/battle/mission/whatever, in which case having lots and lots of summon times would make more sense, especially if later dungeons get longer.

[Yorozuya]

So... haven't been here for a while. Mind giving a recap about why you're not satisfied with this project anymore? Or were you finished with it and not sure how to progress next?

[AcetheSuperVillain]

So... haven't been here for a while. Mind giving a recap about why you're not satisfied with this project anymore? Or were you finished with it and not sure how to progress next?

Sure.

A) Primary problem was that uploading video into the Flash CS4 project caused it to crash. I expected Flash CS4 to do this at some point, but not at the first video. I can't work if CS4 is crashing at the drop of a hat, so I need to rebuild the project in FlashDevelop or Unity, either of which is basically starting from scratch, which means I might as well fix a bunch of other little things that have been getting on my nerves.

B) I'm not happy with the mouse movement controls.

C) I'm not convinced that the current upgrade and summoning system will hold up for a longer game.

D) I don't particularly like these characters. They're okay, but too much of a compromise, not as fun for me as original characters and not Star Foxy enough for anyone to recognize.

E) I've got zillions of shooty game ideas running through my mind, I could come up with something more interesting or more immersive than what I've got now.


EDIT: So here's a drawing of what the new characters might look like:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I probably won't go for bunga boobs in the final version, I just wanted to see what that would look like.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Here's an idea, and some questions for you.

One type of shooty game I wanted to make someday was something with a random dungeon and Asteroids/Alloy Tengu style controls, so it would be like flying into a cave or flying into the super structure of the Death Star. The only real barrier to doing this is making an AI that can navigate the dungeon. If the AI uses the same movement rules as the player, with turning and acceleration and deceleration, that's going to be really complicated for a path-finding algorithm to figure out, and I'll probably have to spend most of my time on that to get it right. Unity has a built-in pathfinding system called NavMesh which could kinda work like Asteroids but can't be used with randomly generated terrain, which would mean I have to set up maps myself and they will always be the same, which is a bummer but not a deal breaker. Another solution is that only the player uses Asteroids/Alloy Tengu style controls, any enemies and allies within the dungeon use a more simple up/down/left/right system of movement, or they could use A/AT movement but not be allowed to leave their rooms, which means they can't chase you around the dungeon.

And then the obvious solution is that if A/AT movement is the problem, skip it!, and use something else, like WASD + Mouse or Shock Troopers style movement. WASD+M (as in WASD to move, Mouse to aim/shoot) has worked well for a lot of Flash Game shooters, the main drawback there is that you need a mouse, when I know that some people only have a touchpad and if it's Unity, I can program it to use a game controller, which I totally have. Although it should be simple enough to use the controller's right stick to aim instead and give people the choice of either. I can have a pretty good auto-aiming algorithm from Blazing Void so if the mouse or touchpad is too clunky, I can use that to compensate. In Shock Troopers you move around with the up/down/left/right, and if you move while the shoot button is held down, you'll keep facing the same direction (there were many games that used the same type of movement, but Shock Troopers was my favorite). Aiming was very imprecise, but you had more buttons to work with as a result, so you could do things like throw grenades, jump and roll. Shock Troopers style movement is also pretty similar to movement in Legend of Zelda. If I ever did a LoZ type game, I would make it more like Shock Troopers than LoZ because Shock Troopers was more fun (suck it, Miyamoto).

Doing this would probably merit some changes to ship designs I already have, flying around in something like a Gundam or a Gerwalk would make more sense than an airplane if you've got the ability to hover and move in any direction. I could also just use people instead of mecha, like Shock Troopers does, which would make more sense in a dungeon anyways, but it would be trickier to animate and not as cool as Gerwalks.

This method of gameplay would have the advantage of a map, which gives you better immersion and is more natural for RPG/upgradey elements. My original preference was to have the dungeon map that splits to a new battle screen with scrolling shooter combat (like Pokemon, sorta) but I don't know how to juggle scenes like that in Unity. It's a big advantage to have the combat and map elements in the same scene, and I know a lot of people don't like separate map/battle screens anways. It would mean that's not at all like a scrolling shooter anymore, the summoning system would be very different, if I keep it at all.

Since we're talking about overall design again, I know a lot of porn developers like the idea of mixing pornography into the gameplay, but I find that tedious sometimes, because I'll have moments when I want either to advance in the game or stop and fap, having to stop in the middle of a bossfight or something to view a sexual cutscene is frustrating, so I want to design the game so that you can enjoy either aspect at your own pace. This is non negotiable.



So what do you think?

- Does a randomized dungeon matter to you?

- Do you prefer A/AT, WASD+M or ST style movement?

- Do you care if enemies have to follow the same movement rules as the player?

- Do you have any preference to explore dungeons as an airplane, gundam, gerwalk, person or something else? (Related, do I keep the Astro Vulpus mecha, or design new ones?)

- If I don't use the same friendship summoning system, do you have any thoughts on how else to woo vixens into amorous escapades?

[Dead2112man]

I personally like random but I understand that it does not work for all situations

WASD+M

as long as they can't do anything we can't with out good reason, then no

NO preference

You could create different sub missions for each level or time you go out, and if you meet that goal, that increase the woo ness

[Yorozuya]

Sure.

A) Primary problem was that uploading video into the Flash CS4 project caused it to crash. I expected Flash CS4 to do this at some point, but not at the first video. I can't work if CS4 is crashing at the drop of a hat, so I need to rebuild the project in FlashDevelop or Unity, either of which is basically starting from scratch, which means I might as well fix a bunch of other little things that have been getting on my nerves.

B) I'm not happy with the mouse movement controls.

C) I'm not convinced that the current upgrade and summoning system will hold up for a longer game.

D) I don't particularly like these characters. They're okay, but too much of a compromise, not as fun for me as original characters and not Star Foxy enough for anyone to recognize.

E) I've got zillions of shooty game ideas running through my mind, I could come up with something more interesting or more immersive than what I've got now.

Well that's a lot of issues where my input would be meaningless... Can't say much about which programs you should use. As for the gameplay aspects, what about movement / summoning / upgrades that don't strike your fancy. It feels decent enough for me, but I'm not sure about what you're looking at in the big picture, how challenging would the endgame be that this system wouldn't be able to keep up, etc etc.

As far as character aesthetics go, you've proven with the games you've made in the past that you're able to make entirely original content and characters, so I'd like to ask what's stopping you from doing the same with this game? Unless you meant this to be a 'tribute' to Star Fox or something along that line. And for shooter games to be immersive, it usually falls down to the gameplay alone. Is it like seriously fun, such that the players are thrilled to go into the battle after battle? Then that's a success in my book. Plot, porn, and everything else would just be icing on the cake at this point. If gameplay is not the focus though, it falls to ambience, small details, depth of story, and so on. Not saying that it's impossible to have both, but the balance to get the best of both worlds would be pretty fine.

That being said, ever tried Starwish? It's a Shooter/RPG/Visual Novel genre flash game. It has a good story and decent shooter gameplay with upgrades and such. It's not Rated R, but that can easily be arranged if you have the imagination. I'd say go ahead and try it, maybe you'll get an idea of what to do to revamp your own project, or conversely what not to do.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

As for the gameplay aspects, what about movement / summoning / upgrades that don't strike your fancy. It feels decent enough for me, ...

That's really the problem, "decent enough". It's not a system that makes me think "yeah! I really want to play Astro Vulpus!" and it's not a system that makes me feel like it's worth the time I've put into it. It's not that it's bad, just that I should do better.

And yeah, Astro = Star, Vulpus = Fox, it was supposed to be Pepper = Peppy, Harriet = Falco, Slick = Slippy, Jewelia = Krystal. Now I'm thinking, why bother? I don't particularly like Star Fox anyways (except in Smash Bros).

I have played Starwish, but only when it first came out. I should give that another play for ideas now.



Also, thanks Dead2112man for the responses.

As for this idea of sub-missions, any thoughts on how these are delivered? Like, does one of the girls say "You know what would really get me hot? Coming back with 24x Froinlavenite shards!" Or does a disembodied box show up reading "Current Sub-mission: Collect 16x Wet Thrusters". The submissions could directly reward you with friendship points or a specific sex scene, or they could basically give you extra money or collectibles that you use to date the girls back at the base.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I'm working on graphics for now, since that will be pretty much the same no matter what gameplay I choose.

Here's a start at the shark character:

leopardshark.jpg (7.56 KiB) Viewed 2103 times

And also, while I was working, I sort of made a technical mistake, that reminded me that I can do body morphs. This is switching back and forth from the new shark body to the old rabbit body:

body_morph.gif (114.93 KiB) Viewed 2103 times

I don't have any particular plan to use that mechanic, but I guess I could if I wanted to.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Okay, another day of thinking thoughts and I'm starting to get a more complete picture of what the new game might look like.

Gray from Patreon had a cool idea that you could pick one of the 3 girls to be your co-pilot. If I go with the astromech player character idea, the girls could bring their own fighter mechs, but they need to hook up with the astromech to operate, like an X-wing. Since it would probably be annoying to only be able to woo the girl you are flying with, I will try to make some sort of system where you collect ingredients out in the field and then use them back at the base to improve relationship with whoever you want.

WASD+M/Gamepad and non-random dungeons will probably win for controls, since there is a fairly elaborate tutorial about making exactly that kind of game in Unity. I would definitely add some kind of PANIC!!! button, like the barrel roll maneuver from before. The boards will not be Roguette-random, but there will be some degree of randomness. This will allow me to be more artistic and less codey, which is what I want right now.

I'm going to change the cheetah girl into a serval, because it genuinely bothers me that cheetahs are much larger than leopard sharks and lace monitors.

Trying to think of a name for the new game. Ion Tails? Buxom Blasters? It Came on Outer Space?



I played Starwish again today and boy, I apparently have much less tolerance for jibber jabber now than I did in 2012, because that game moved way too slow for me. My favorite story-driven shooter games are Project Inthri 3 and Agent Wing Defenders Final. Interestingly, neither of these games have any real upgrades.

[Dead2112man]

Trying to think of a name for the new game. Ion Tails? Buxom Blasters? It Came on Outer Space? .

I think you will have to progress more before the games true name will appear, but for now, using Ion Tails would not be a bad temp name.

[Yorozuya]

That's really the problem, "decent enough". It's not a system that makes me think "yeah! I really want to play Astro Vulpus!" and it's not a system that makes me feel like it's worth the time I've put into it. It's not that it's bad, just that I should do better.

Not sure how fun a 2D (top-down / side-scroller) shooter genre can be in its top form, though if we were to look at the classics like Raiden series or the ever popular Touhou series, seems like it would be encroaching on the "bullet-hell" territory.

As for this idea of sub-missions, any thoughts on how these are delivered? Like, does one of the girls say "You know what would really get me hot? Coming back with 24x Froinlavenite shards!" Or does a disembodied box show up reading "Current Sub-mission: Collect 16x Wet Thrusters". The submissions could directly reward you with friendship points or a specific sex scene, or they could basically give you extra money or collectibles that you use to date the girls back at the base.

If the game would have something like break time from the shooter portion, where you can roam around the base and talk to your squadmates etc, you could imagine something like overhearing their conversation about what they need, or you sneak into their room and read their notes to find out what they want. If you want it to be more personal, you can also arrange so the girls mention about wanting something when they're having small talks with you, or the more tsundere-type girl could treat you like an errand boy and straight out demands you to get her some materials for her project or something.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Today I decided to work on a new player-mech. Since you'll be exploring dungeons and able to stop and start with WASD+M, I wanted to replace the space fighter with a new ground vehicle. Thus, I present to you the "Raptor".

This is a "block-out", a 3D version of a sketch.
Intro:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

raptor_blockout.gif (549.15 KiB) Viewed 2080 times

Spin:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

raptor_blockout_spin.gif (650.65 KiB) Viewed 2080 times

I'm tempted to give it lots and lots of weapons hardpoints on every little surface, but there's probably no gameplay reason for that. The different girls will have the same mech with different weapons attached, like in Astro Vulpus.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Actually, I'd be curious to know your guys favorite WASD+M games(shooter games), since the games I like are usually not the most popular.

Also, let me know what you think of my favorite WASD+M games, what about them I should use as inspiration, what about them I should leave behind
Ether War - I enjoy the hectic pace, and the natural feeling to it. It seems very combat-like and not so gamey. The main thing is that you bide your time and defend your base while waiting until you get enough upgrades to damage the enemy alien thing. The enemy alien thing also upgrades over time, so if you're not pulling your weight, you will lose.
Endless War 3 - Almost the exact opposite of Ether War, Endless War is very slow and strategic. You don't get upgrades, you're just thrown into a particular conflict with an appropriate set of weapons. But it shares with Ether War is a very natural combat-like feeling. The trick to winning is often in luring enemies into exposing themselves or splitting up, which feels more like you're tricking someone than exploiting AI.

And, huh, apparently those were the only two in my favorite games list.



EDIT: so I spent some of my day testing out some of NewGround's top rated "Multi-directional" shooters, and damn, most of them are crap. There was a certain time in my development when I believed browser games and the filthy casuals were devaluing the sanctity of video games in general, and I saw WASD+M games as a posterchild of this infection and thus specifically avoided them for many years, instead favoring games that imitated arcade or console styles. Now that I have changed my mind about that, or at least resigned myself to the reality of filthy casuals, I was hoping to find a bunch of previously scorned top-down WASD+M gems, bu......t nope! So let me assure anyone invested in this project, I will do my damnedest to make sure this WASD+M is fun and arcadey and not like the majority of awkward brain-dead lazily designed upgrade number cruncher shit shows that exist out there.

Now I'll have to see how many times I need to yell "DonPatch!" to shake the grime of filthy casuals out of my brain...

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Okay, here's an idea for the plot.

The 3 girls are the only main characters. The Raptor mech is a remote operated assault vehicle, like a modern drone, which the girls operate from the safety of their base.

An autocratic regime has taken over and declared that our heroines' same-sex multi-partner inter-species hardware-assisted relationship is illegal. Our heroines escape to a far away planet where they can set up a colony and live in piece, but the govs come after them anyways. (Bonus: The girls might decide that if they're going to be made outlaws, they're going to go full outlaw and become space pirates, but I'm not sure that's necessary for gameplay)

So the game is to build a new sexy home, and defend it from gov't prude patrols with your remote operated assault vehicle. You do this with resources gathered from the planet and defeated gov drones (and from raiding space convoys if they go pirate). Upgrading your home will grant new sex scenes, for example, building a swimming pool will give you "sex-at-the-pool" scenes. Resources will represent different things, like gathering lumber from trees or metal from rocks or subsonic tri-compressors from MRF-305 Sable drones. Home upgrades and combat upgrades will require different materials, i.e. a swimming pool would not require the same resources as a railgun.

Donpatch! ...Nope, still filthy

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Thinking this over, the main weak point in this project will be in finding or making environment graphics for each idea. What with the current setbacks, I would much rather just use some of the millions of free 3D environment graphics out there than make anything myself. I've seen a lot of good modern-day graphics, and some decent fantasy-ish graphics, but I haven't been impressed with most of the sci-fi graphics that are available for free. I've mostly only looked at the Unity Store, but I know from other dives that most free 3D graphics are aimed at modern day settings. So it might make more sense for the "dungeons" to be modern city sets, like thisor this.

There are a few paid sets that I look at and think, "I could make that", especially this one, Tropical Temple. Rather than spend 17 bucks for a set that's not really formatted the way I want (i.e. flat, maze-like), I could just look at the images of this set as reference and model it myself.



The availability of environment graphics might change how I approach the plot. Like if cities and house props are the most plentiful sets out there, makes more sense to do something that takes place in an urban environment. It might be like Macross, where even though they're in space, everything looks like a modern city. Maybe some piece of dialog like "Ooh, 21st century retro! I like it!" to lampshade it away.



...However, simple sci-fi can be just a matter of boxy corridors with sci-fi panels on them, like this:

That would just be a matter of level design, which I would have to do myself anyways, and slapping a texture on it. I could probably find sci-fi textures online somewhere. The tricky thing is that I wanted house props, beds, tables, showers, toilets, whatever, these would be non-sci-fi.


Also, now I want to make a character that shouts "Donpatch!" during sex