Recent posts by Solanix on Kongregate

Topic: Game Programming / Multiplayer Game Dev Contest - Play Entries!

According to the second eligibility section in the official rules, the game apparently has to be a cooperative multiplayer. I’m kind of curious as to why there is no mention of that anywhere else. Also, why would a competitive/free-for-all focused game be turned down if it can fulfill all the other requirements and recommendations? Or is this all just a copy/paste error?

Topic: Game Programming / AS3 overloading?

Since I doubt you’ll be working with images that have a height of around 4294967295 pixels:

public function pixelAt(indeX:uint, y:uint = uint.MAX_VALUE):uint
{
	if (y == uint.MAX_VALUE)
	{
		//use indeX as an index to get coords
		//overwrite indeX and y with the results
	}

	//use indeX and y as coords
}

Or inverse it if you want to go from coords to index. Just make sure you document the function well if you don’t want it to haunt you back in six month.

Topic: Game Programming / [Performance] Old JSON vs. New + Native

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.2.202.235 Release PlugIn

Parsing...
JSON Length: 7,631,861 

skyboy v1(AS3) 	 649
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 686
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 690
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 694
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 695 

skyboy v2(AS3) 	 310
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 362
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 354
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 359
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 367 

Adobe Native JSON 	 650
Adobe Native JSON 	 609
Adobe Native JSON 	 613
Adobe Native JSON 	 614
Adobe Native JSON 	 617 


Encoding...
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 623
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 614
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 614
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 615
skyboy v1(AS3) 	 628 

skyboy v2(AS3) 	 685
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 684
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 677
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 675
skyboy v2(AS3) 	 675 

Adobe Native JSON 	 1207
Adobe Native JSON 	 1117
Adobe Native JSON 	 1094
Adobe Native JSON 	 1083
Adobe Native JSON 	 1097 


Total time: 20612
Input: Kongregate badge list Array (x10)

Topic: Game Programming / [AIR iOS] Webview video and sounds

I guess you’re out of luck if you can’t upgrade then. You could try using drawViewPortToBitmapData() instead of adding it to the stage, but I don’t think there’s any way to pull the audio out. You could check if webview happens to be using something like SampleDataEvent in the back for its audio that you could catch, but I doubt it.

Topic: Game Programming / [AIR iOS] Webview video and sounds

You wouldn’t, by any chance, be using a version older than AIR 3.0?

Topic: Game Programming / Art vs code vs performance - what's more valued nowadays?

Originally posted by Ace_Blue:

Where Dwarf Fortress excels is in generating emergent behavior: behavior that is not explicitly coded but arises as a consequence of the game rules interacting with each other. This aspect is lacking in the vast majority of games. In fact, AAA titles are practically designed to avoid such behavior, because the designer doesn’t have full control over emergent properties, and most commercial game studios are obsessed with controlling the player’s experience. In the end, that model is self-defeating, since I’ve never seen an awe-inspiring cutscene, no matter how much attention to detail went into the cinematics, while many DF stories are awesome enough to elicit reactions in the order of “Man, I wish I’d seen that!” even though the only things to see were ASCII symbols and a text description.

I don’t think it’s something reserved to emergent behavior. While the idea of crossbow wielding scorpions is hilarious, I also greatly enjoyed that scene in Fallout 1 (or was it 2?) with that radscorpion that could pick locks, had 20/20 vision, and was a grandmaster chess player (who gets betrayed by a talking plant, by the way). I think it simply involves not being afraid of not reusing the same old copy-pasted settings as is, or not abusing the same tropes over and over, or not regurgitating memes after memes that we’ve already heard a million times already. There’s nothing wrong in using them moderately, but most games these days just seem to be a collection of memes coupled with something I’m not sure could be defined as a plot. It’s a difficult balance, something that is constantly weird will simply be alienating while something constantly mundane will be dull. But if you build a world that can be (for the most part) related to, then throw in some sprinkles of weirdness here and there, you just might get something engaging, something that makes you want to explore every inch of that world. Is it worth the risk and effort? That I cannot answer, because in the end it all depends on why you are making (and playing) those game.

About DF and ASCII graphics – do you people still remember the first MMORPG games there were, namely MUDs? They even lacked ASCII art, they used text commands to interact with the world, they pretty much required a lot of imagination to go beyond the simple “ki bug” approach, but they were highly playable and enjoyable. And, PVP! :) While it’s pretty fun hearing DF stories, and attempting to imagine a scorpion flinging arrows and reloading a crossbow (ROFL), DF is not oriented towards average player (and I’m not even saying “casual” or “YOBA” player), and its genre puts emphasis on gameplay instead of everything else, so art for it is largely redundant.

Does the fact that a game caters only to a niche or small player base really harms its value? I mean yes, you won’t get a 4.5 star rating or 90 metacritic score. But you also have a much less saturated market to work with/against. If you’re making a plain shooter, what are you going to do to make it stand out over the hundreds of other shooters coming out this year? Try to throw in an innovative feature that has a chance to backfire on you or simply make your game feel gimmicky? Try to push graphic fidelity even more to the point of tripping over an uncanny valley? Or do you simply hope the marketing team know what they’re doing.

Also, is Shakespeare’s work worthless because there is a high learning curve to appreciating old modern english? And does the fact that a select, small, group of academia still refuse to modernize contemporize mean nothing in terms of overall cultural appeal?

And am I the only one who thinks audio is an extremely important part of games?

You know… They say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think we have enough example up here that shows that. From Zelda’s simple item get jingle to FF6’s 20 minute long Dancing Mad are all good, but they only become great when you’ve experienced their associated experience. I have a much harder time remembering good music from games that weren’t too engaging (and it’s definitely not because there aren’t any).

But the opposite is true too. I don’t care how great and fitting the music is if it’s attached to something like DuckLife 4. The game is still going to be inferior to any of its parts. And not because of its art or code or performance, but simply due to a few design decision that added nothing positive to the game.

Topic: Game Programming / Art vs code vs performance - what's more valued nowadays?

Doesn’t the value of the aspects of a game highly depend on its genre and draw? I mean, surely I’m not the only one that doesn’t care if your TBS or card game lags (unless it is composed of obnoxiously long, unskippable, animations), but will get infuriated at the sightless inconstancy in a rhythm or precision platformer game.

Same with art/graphics. I expect a roguelike’s graphics to be mostly functional. I want something that can efficiently, at one glance, communicate to me all that is going on, not something with fancy large tiles that only lets me see 5 tiles on each side of my character. But on the other side of that spectrum, I would expect decent aesthetics from a point & click because it’s usually a core part to the mood and atmosphere of those games.

Originally posted by Draco18s:

How many games do you know that….

A) When SomethingAwful decides that it’s terrible, go play it, and then decide it is in fact The Best Thing Ever?
B) Have people who donate to the dev despite having never played the game?
C) Allow you to pluck out people’s eyeballs?
D) Beat a man to death with his own severed arm?
E) Allow you to die because a colossus ripped off your pants and then beat you with them? (Can’t find the original source)

Meh, you missed that guy who got his crossbow and bolts stolen by a giant desert scorpion then got shot in the face with it… Ironic how such a game with ‘lacking’ graphics can convey so much imagery after all, no?

Topic: Game Programming / [Performance?] Array access oddity

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.1.102.63 Release PlugIn
Array as Array	371
Array as *	355
Array as Object	358

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.1.102.63 Release PlugIn
Array as Array	360
Array as *	372
Array as Object	361

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.1.102.63 Release PlugIn
Array as Array	358
Array as *	356
Array as Object	396

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.1.102.63 Release PlugIn
Array as Array	370
Array as *	360
Array as Object	357

  32 bit Windows XP x86 11.1.102.63 Release PlugIn
Array as Array	359
Array as *	356
Array as Object	355

Topic: Game Programming / AS3: How to prevent multiline TextField from scrolling vertically?

Doesn’t setting myTextField.selectable = false; remove the whole mouse scrolling issue? Or is there also a reason you need to have the field selectable?

Topic: Game Programming / Odd issue with two identical, simultaneously attached, objects

you start at 5, any value that your method adds that is above 5 will be in the next pass of the loop. the next value is retrieved at the end of the loop, not all at once at the beginning.

so you’re telling me that 8, 9 and 10 are not above 5?

Topic: Game Programming / Odd issue with two identical, simultaneously attached, objects

Originally posted by skyboy:

Originally posted by Solanix:

There’s no index to screw up in a dictionary. The issue is that any of the two added bullets could be added to a key that as already been (or would have been) updated/passed depending on when Ship is updated within the dictionary.

flash is not threaded. it’s physically impossible to have code do this in flash.

Could you please explain this to me then?:

var d:Dictionary = new Dictionary();

d[5] = true;

for ( var o:Object in d)
{
	trace(o + “ is being updated.”);
	if (o == 5)
	{
		var temp:int; 
		do { temp = Math.random() * 10 + 1; } while (temp == 5);
		d[temp] = true;
		trace(temp + “has been added.”);
		do { temp = Math.random() * 10 + 1; } while (temp == 5);
		d[temp] = true;
		trace(temp + “has been added.”);
	}
}

If I roll a 6 and/or a 7 with the above, those values get ‘updated’ within the same frame they were created. Any other values rolled are only updated next frame.

Topic: Game Programming / Odd issue with two identical, simultaneously attached, objects

Originally posted by vesperbot:

here seems to be your issue, your Ship causes alteration of Dictionary, making it ignore the next bullet or plain screw up the index, resulting in a bullet getting omitted.

There’s no index to screw up in a dictionary. The issue is that any of the two added bullets could be added to a key that as already been (or would have been) updated/passed depending on when Ship is updated within the dictionary.

Topic: Game Programming / Odd issue with two identical, simultaneously attached, objects

What’s calling the update/enterframe that spawns bullets, and more importantly is it part of this dictionary that is in the middle of being updated?

Topic: Game Programming / Yet another is this legal thread

sigh People who expect suppressors to do anything without proper subsonic ammunition…

Topic: Game Programming / Embedded SWFs, class names and WTFs

In the LoaderContext that you pass in your loader.load(…), you have a parameter that can give the child SWF its own application domain.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/system/LoaderContext.html#applicationDomain

Topic: Game Programming / X-Post - $600,000 Infringement Suit by Flash Developer

Originally posted by Draco18s:

Originally posted by Solanix:

Heck, even if the source code was completely different, they could probably still sue them under trade secret ‘misappropriation’ assuming that NDA is valid (but I bet 6Wave has a back door in it somewhere).

Even if it’s not still valid, it sure as hell was while they were in negotiations.

Well, valid or not, I really don’t like the looks of clauses #4 and #5. It goes against the whole point of a NDA.

Topic: Game Programming / X-Post - $600,000 Infringement Suit by Flash Developer

Heck, even if the source code was completely different, they could probably still sue them under trade secret ‘misappropriation’ assuming that NDA is valid (but I bet 6Wave has a back door in it somewhere).

Topic: Game Programming / Graphical bug when moving a MovieClip quickly.

Did you also apply it to the background elements?

Topic: Game Programming / probably nub problem: Adding private level variables to classes and editing them

You might want to define newObject outside your function if you want it to still exist when you leave that function’s scope.

Topic: Game Programming / What's the difference between AS2 and AS3?

If you attach any child that isn’t the original main timeline of a swf to the stage directly through code, it will point to your stage instance as the root. So I suppose some people use preloaders as their document class, and they then attach their freshly made Main to the stage directly once done?

Topic: Game Programming / [Feature Request] Minimum Flash Player Level

Originally posted by Drakim:

It should be possible to write a library that can check what flash player version is running and complain if it’s not high enough.

Don’t we already have this?

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/system/SystemUpdater.html

Topic: Game Programming / Object Typing (alternate to *?)

Originally posted by UnknownGuardian:

Its not an issue with it, I was just seeing if it was possible to do without.

Ah, I see. I suppose if you really want to avoid using the base class you could use the rest argument, but I think that’s sloppy compared to an interface or another abstract class here.

Originally posted by vesperbot:

public function gotoLevel(obj:Button):void

{

	if(obj.getData) obj.getData();else throw new ArgumentError();

}

Can this work? You check for a method existing, if true, then call.

No, that would only work both ways if the object is dynamic (and even there I’m not sure). try:

public function gotoLevel(obj:Button):void
{
	if(obj.hasOwnProperty("getData"));else throw new ArgumentError();
}

Topic: Game Programming / Object Typing (alternate to *?)

I want to allow multiple types of objects in to a function without having to have the base class (through extension or using interfaces) contain variables I want to access in that function. (So * can’t work in strict mode, which I want on).

I don’t understand, why is that an issue for interfaces? I don’t think anything is preventing you from not implementing it into your base class. Besides interfaces can’t access any variables unless you define corresponding get/set functions (and even there you don’t have to link them to any actual variables), so it shouldn’t matter in any case.

Topic: Game Programming / What is causing my For Loop to fail?

I’m not sure if I’m reading this right, but it seems you’re trying to basically create 200 vectors that each contains the same 14 bitmapdata. That’s… huh… quite a bit of pixels you’re trying to shove in memory.

You might want to try drawing you’re elements straight from the sprite sheets as you need them or at least make your animation vector static (and only assign it once).

Topic: Game Programming / Duplicated condition in an if...else block should throw an error

I suppose it’s because some bored programmer could do:

public function get a():int
{
	return b++;
}