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Nuparu77

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Year 16

About Nuparu77

  • Birthday 02/03/1990

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Michigan
  • Interests
    Programing,
    Building stuff,
    Computer games,
    ...uh...
    Long walks on the Seashore?

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  1. Tren Krom and nunziotocci good answers. I your insights are great. For the Infected Mask vs. Krana question: I remember comparing Lewa being controlled in the hive in the original MNOLG, to the Le-Matoran having Krana in the flash animation. Le-Matoran seemed to talk while being controlled, whereas Lewa simply attacked, and talked only when Makuta's grip on his mind loosened. Flash Professional is available for Mac, and that should be all you need. Getting it can be either expensive or tricky. The best and quickest way to learn flash is to simply dive in and start making something. Find a goal, something that you really want to do (for me it was making MNOLG1.5) and just keep working toward that goal. If you are not good at programming I would suggest starting with animating and learn that first. In my opinion, coding is really easy once you learn to think in programming terms, which may take a while. Computers are dumb, so you have to spell everything out for them; tell them exactly where to go, and what to do. I'd say that there are 3 main concepts to Flash programming: 1) "Folder Structure" How things are saved and accessed in Flash. Flash saves variables kinda like you save files in windows explorer (sry Mac ppl, I'm a PC ) C:\Music\Song.mp3 ---> (Song.mp3 is inside the folder Music on the C drive) In flash you simply replace the slashes with dots. Game.Player1.Winner ---> (the Variable Winner is inside the object Player1 inside the object Game) 2) The "if" statement is your friend!! if (Game.Player1.Winner eq True) { trace("You WIN!!") } This code simply says that if the variable Winner value is True then send a message that you win. 3) Basic Flash Commands Flash is an animation software, so it kinda runs like a movie. gotoAndPlay(30) ---> this will tell the movie to skip backward or forward to frame 30. and all these commands (for ActionScript2.0) can be found online here. Now, you real programmers out there are cringing and thinking "Nuparu, Flash programming is... is... so much more than just these few items....." Yes you're right, but if a beginner can understand how things are stored, grasp some basic logic, and learn a few commands they will be able to get started. more complex things will be learned as you progress and the need arises. Besides, pretty much any hurdle that you face when coding has already been asked somewhere on the internet... So when you run into a wall, just Google it. (that's what I did ) ...or get frustrated and play Minecraft (I did a lot of that too , mostly just rage on Shotbow)
  2. Hey Everyone, So I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I'm going to tell it like it is. I've been traveling for work a lot, which leaves me with little to no time to work on this project recently. Apparently I have a lot in common with scratchR I tend to bite off way more than I can chew... I had this great idea to build an isometric fighting engine to supplement the game, however it was too much for one person to do alone. and now that I've invested so much time into it, I cant bring myself to just scratch it out of the game. Ever finish a game and then just sit through the credits?..... aaaand 15 minutes later your still watching credits.... I'm starting to understand why it takes an army of people to build video games. I'm still going to try to get Chapter 2 part 2 done.. I want to leave this game in a place where others can pick it up easily if there is interest to continue this and not leave them with half-completed stuff. I have to say .... I've learned a lot and had tons of fun developing this though. A little history on how/why this project came about: I've never taken a programming class, well I've had MATLAB training as part of other classes but no actual dedicated programming class. However I was always interested in learning how games were made. I also like making stories, even though I'm bad at English & writing (you all know this, lol) After watching or playing something with an interesting plot I enjoy picking it apart and critiquing it, asking questions like: What would I have done different if I was writing this story? What parts did I enjoy? What plot elements where original and unique to this story? I obviously did this for Bionicle too... Pohatu should've been the Toa of lightning, I mean c'mon whats the difference between Earth and Rock abilities really? ...Would've gone along with his speed theme too... So anyways I started developing this game because I wanted to learn programming and make stories... simple as that. and let me tell you, I've learned a lot about programming especially with regards to game development. I understand the principles of creating physics engines, AI intelligence, web interfacing, and much more. so on a personal development scale this is a huge success for me. .....as a game however, not so much.... For all those aspiring developers out there.... let me give you some advice, Looking back my biggest mistake was trying to develop a game solo. I should've first found some other programmers out there and done this as a team. Believe it or not, it's REALLY hard to force yourself to work on something when you don't have to.... Game development may sound like fun, and in truth it is, but not all the time. And it's those times when its not fun, that you need a friend/team to keep you going. so, Is this project dead? Yes and No, I am going to continue wrapping up the battle Engine and Chapter 2 part 2 if I can, but beyond that I cant realistically see this going much further. Just for the sake of conversation (because now my planned story for MNOLG1.5 will probably not be made) As I hinted at above, a tool that I use to develop stories is I ask myself questions. Here are some questions that I asked myself when thinking up the plot: 1) What is the difference between a Matoran/Toa wearing an Infected Mask and a Krana? How does wearing one or the other effect the subjects ability to fight? How does wearing one or the other effect the subjects ability to strategize or think critically? 2) In MNOLG 1 Ahkmou sells infected kolhii balls, and when discovered runs off and is branded a traitor, in MNOLG 2 he is back running his shop in Po-Koro. What could possibly happen in MNOLG1.5 for him to regain his fellow Matoran's trust? A simple 'sorry' isn't going to cut it.... he must've actually done something..... 3) What would happen if Kanohi Komau (Mask of Mind Control) was attempted to be used on a Bohrok? Bohrok are being 'Mind controlled' by the Bohrok queens... so would it work? or would you be opening your mind to the whatever controlling power the Queens are using? would it backfire? These are just some of the questions I've attempted to answer when creating the timeline of events for MNOLG1.5 I'm interested to hear what your opinions are on these points. So put yourself in the developer's position and ask yourself..... "if I was writing this story what would I make happen?" (If quoting please do not repost this entire post... its long, delete what you don't need)
  3. The Battle Engine is finally in a playable state!! Yes that's right, a mere 10 months of working, programming and debugging on my free-time has finally produced a result that I can show to all of you loyal (and patient) fans. Is it done yet? no.... but I'm getting really close! I still need to add more Terrain types, Player Units, Enemy Units, Animations, and sounds to the game. All of the fundamental components of the game are finished though, including Map Generation, Map zooming/rotation, pathfinding algorithm, Unit Movement, Unit attacking, Computer AI, and pages of pages of code that make it all work. [Download Here] Screenshots: In Anticipation of incoming questions, here are some answers up front: This cool, but what is it? I was looking around at how a lot of games all had their own battle systems, and thought "why not add one to MNOLG 1.5?" This minigame will be used throughout the rest of MNOLG1.5 whenever a battle with the Bohrok ensues. This is taking you a long time, do you regret devoting all this time to just one minigame? Despite how long this has taken I still believe that it is worth it, and here's why: After making the Snowboard minigame, I realized that one-time-use minigames where going to be a pain to keep re-inventing over and over. So I decided to spend extra time making one well-built minigame that can be used over and over again without having to make anything from scratch. That is why I usually refer to this as an 'engine' not a 'minigame' I can use this framework to quickly create a lot of unique battle games without much coding at all. How Easy is it to make / modify a map? It's actually quite simple because I've not only built a game engine but I made editors for it as well. This way generating a battle event will be super simple for me later on. The editors are the .xlsm excel files in the game_grid folder. Map Editor: game_grid_terrain_rev6 This will modify the map and unit placement. Press the "Export ALL" button on the 3D Map Tab to save all changes to the map. Unit Database Editor: game_grid_unitdata_rev8 This will modify unit attributes: damage, speed, attack range, etc... There is another excel file: Unit Stats Explanation that attempts to explain what some of these stats do, and how other unit characteristics are calculated. Press the "Test Export" button on the Export Tab to save changes. Wow Nuparu77, your so cool! Thanks for taking the time to not play Minecraft and make this awesome game! Aw gosh, thanks so much. You know its little thank-you's like this that make it all worth it. and yes, coming home after a long days work and not just zoning-out and starting up Minecraft may be one of my toughest mind-over-matter challenges yet. Battle Engine? That's nice... Now when will the next chapter be released?!? I cannot give a definitive answer to when the next chapter will be out, I've tried giving definitive answers to Indigogeek and some others but, something always comes up be it real life or a bug in the game that takes me a while to trace/locate/find/and squish. And before I know it I'm way past the time I thought the task would be done. One of the main reasons I haven't been able to accurately pinpoint release dates is because of this battle engine. I've never made a minigame this big before. However once this Battle Engine is officially complete I should be able to more accurately predict release dates for the remaining chapters. In fact I'm playing around with the idea of actually trying to release a chapter every month, maybe put up a "development progress bar" or something. Your last post was on Jun 24th, 4 months ago, why don't you talk more? [Lame excuse that makes it sound like I'm not lazy]...I uh, have a bad internet connection...[/Lame excuse that makes it sound like I'm not lazy] Seriously though, I usually just relay things to Indigogeek, which is great because it allows me to focus on programming and developing this game. I do read the forums quite frequently though, and usually answer technical questions or bug reports. Is someone checking your grammar/spelling? yes, I have people fixing the grammar and spelling issues. However I am not going to make a special release for just those changes. The spelling and grammar issues for chapters 1 and 2 part 1 will be fixed when I release chapter 2 part 2.
  4. Sorry it took me so long to reply, If anyone is having trouble saving their game for the downloaded version of MNOLG1.5 follow these steps: 1) Open the game 2) Right Click anywhere on the game screen 3) Select Settings 4) you should see the menu above, select bottom tab with the folder and green arrow. 5) Make sure the slider is not at zero. Q: How much file space should I let flash use? A: One save game is about 2KB (that is really small for you who aren't sure how big a KB is) So I would set the limit at 100KB.... unless your computer is really cramped for space... in which case you have bigger problems than being able to save you MNOLG game.
  5. Open the Debug menu and change the text language to English (yellow button at the bottom of the panel) Do the numbers on the trees exist? Do they change when you move to another section of the forest? Which entrance to the forest did you use? the one next to Ta-Koro? or the one between Ta-Koro and the beach? What version of the game are you running? As takua123 said, were kinda using everyone as beta testers. I release the game with bugs, and then fix them as people find them.... well, try to anyways...
  6. I've Talked with Tazakk If we would have known each other before we started our own projects, a collaboration may have been possible, however as it stands, the story that he has envisioned and the one I have are different. So using his animations would not be possible without drastically changing my plans for MNOLG1.5 However we are sharing any custom drawings that we create as well as advice on Flash programming / editing. ....and speaking of custom drawings.... I'm working on the isometric Bohrok view for the Battle Engine. I'm finding that tracing is actually quite easy, so from now on whenever I want to draw something all I got to do is take a picture from the correct angle and trace it.
  7. You don't need to draw anything perfectly, just get a decent representation so when I draw in it Flash I have something to start from.
  8. GREAT job. There was one more matoran that didn't make it out.... keep talking with all the matoran around Ta-Koro, one of them will mention the last matoran. Then report to Whenua who is missing. But stabby-stab is just so cool.... lol, I'll take this into consideration. What do you mean? the image overhead is a rather crude back angled isometric view. In fact, I am upgrading it at the moment. I mean something like an overhead view, to match the released preview of the battle engine. I don't know how good you are at art, but drawing up some views like these for the Bohrok would be really helpful. NOTICE that there are only 2 unique views, the other two are mirror images. Upper Left and Right are Mirror images of each other. Lower Left and Right are mirror images of each other. So something like this might work well for both lower Bohrok images: PS: My computer is having issues.... so I'm in the process of upgrading to a much MUCH faster pc!
  9. Actually he gets older by 10 years every post, until about 8 posts from now, when he turns 5. I suspect time travel shenanigans. LOL ... I guess with this post I'm ten years older. The Bohrok is already recolorable inside flash. All of the body parts are actually gray. As you can see in the image above, on my sidebar I specify an alpha (transparency) along with a RGB value for the given movieclip. Gray is the color I use because the lighter the color the more effect the RGB value has on it. This is why as long as you get a concept drawing done I can re-draw it inside flash where I can manipulate it around in the game. Also here is some more Bohrok stuff I have. For your remix, just wondering, how did you get the audio? Because extracting the original .mp3's from flash will give you the best quality and access to each individual sound track. LeKoro_Band
  10. I'm only using 200% and 50% movement speed for testing purposes. Don't worry, the final release of the minigame will have balanced movement speeds. For me to use a sprite in the game I need it to be drawn in flash. However it is simple enough for me to re-draw anything you draw in flash. I will need to draw an isometric view of the Bohrok to use in the minigame, as you can see here the only Bohrok views that the original game had are front-facing. I plan to add in new units as the game progresses. The Gukko force will be playable units in the battle engine after Le-Koro has been reclaimed. (Chapter 5-ish?) And boxors could be playable as soon as Chapter 3. Thanks! I'm only eleven and a half years older than half of a quarter century. or if your bad at math, my age is my current number of posts read backwards. Saving in chapter 2 should be possible. The post was old, there used to be a button on the debug menu that would add the bird-flute from the original game to your inventory. Now the only way to get the flute is to know a cheat code for the debug menu. Eventually Takua will get this item back... maybe after Le-Koro is reclaimed. Interesting idea... and it would be simple enough for me to do this. I'll try to remember that this would be a good improvement, remind me if I haven't changed this in the next release. I can guess, but I do not know how long it will take me to finish the battle engine, because I have never made anything like this before. However, after I finish the battle engine I'm planning on making regular releases. (update every month, or every two months, or something)
  11. UPDATE 1/26/13 The Battle Engine is coming along nicely. The map editor is finished, and the unit database editor is nearing completion. That's right, I'm not just making the mini-game but also building editors for it so that I can re-use it throughout the rest of the chapters without any additional programming. The game can robustly load in all map data (map size, terrain types, & tile elevation), place units on the map, and load unit data. Map Editor screenshots showing the elevation-map and the terrain-map: The numbers in the elevation-map define how high that tile is, and the numbers in the terrain-map define the type of terrain that the tile is. (0=Grass, 1=Mud, 2=Path) Screenshot of what the game currently looks like: The grayed-out unit in the center is selected and his information is showing up on the side-menu. The menu isn't completed yet, all of the unit data is loaded into the game, I just haven't set up the menu to read all of it yet. All map navigation systems are working! Such as: map panning, zoom in/out, and rotating map (only snaps to exact North,South,East,West) Zoomed out all the way: Map rotated so that East is facing up: The compass on the lower-left of the screen displays the direction that the map is facing. The next step in the development process is to work on making the units move around. I already have a path-finding logarithm written, so I just need to integrate it. Currently I only have Grass, Path and Mud terrain types. These 3 basic terrain types will allow me to test for Slower/Faster/Unchanged movement speeds. For example: units should be able to travel twice as far if on a path, only half as far on mud, and grass offers no movement hindrance/benefit. Once I have the basics worked out of course I will expand this to account for the different unit types. (Example: Ga-Matoran travel FAST in water, whereas every other Matoran will slow down.) Long story short: Finished: - Map Editor - Map loading from editors - Units loading from editors - Map manipulation <-- took me forever to finish this - Basic terrain types Working on: - Unit database editor - almost done - Loading unit characteristics from editor - almost done To Do: - Unit Movement (path finding code already written) - Unit Attacking sprites - Player Turn / Enemy Turn functionality - Enemy AI (path finding code already written) - Add more unit sprites - Add better-looking / more terrain types Estimated: 65% completed
  12. My replay is going to be short... I'm locking myself in my computer room and limiting all social interactions (including forums) until I make major headway on developing the game. Anyways, the discussion has been fun to read, and has given me lots of insights. My Perspective: As you all know, I'm working on a fighting minigame that will be used throughout the rest of the game. It's probably not going to be completely cannon, but I'm assuming that every village has their own fighting style that is more or less balanced with all the other villages. Ga-Matoran are better at dodging but have lower Hp, Ta-Matoran have more Hp but are less agile, Le-Matoran specialize in ranged attacks, Onu matoran do better in tight spaces thus specializing in Melee attacks, etc... My thoughts on the Army vs Guard debate: I'm assuming that every Koro has its own guard. (Group of defending Matoran) and as shown in the first MNOLG they only preserve their own Koro, and do not interact or team up with any other Koro's guard. An Army, in my opinion, would have to consist of a group of matoran not just defending but going on the offensive, moving throughout the island wherever the Bohrok threat is the greatest. Not tied down to a specific Koro, but helping all of them. A second united-matoran effort... with the Chroniclers company being the first. and I'm going to stop there before I give anything important away. These are just some of my thoughts. I want to try to make this game as epic and interesting as possible, so I agree that there should be more action in this game that in the original.
  13. So it seems that some people are still having trouble solving everything.... I dunno, maybe I should try to spell things out more... I don't want to because I feel that the challenge level is just about right. I definitely don't want this game to become too simple, and have people just whip through it without needing to stop and think. Anyways, what suggestions do you guys have about things that could be changed to clarify some things, but keep the challenge as well? The idea of changing the Le-Koro hut to a vertical-pan is a good idea. Right now that room really has no use... so I might be lazy and change it around when the story demands something there. Any chance you could make a higher-res version of that? I want that banner as my wallpaper... Sure, here is a folder that I will dump any desktops into from now on. Scaling images up in Flash is extremely easy. I had made the Boxor image a while ago, just never used it until now. and it's actually the second slightly-doctored up image I made. This one was the first: Please use spoiler tags for spoilers only. -B6
  14. Two things: One, I assume you mean "an" engineer? Two, "I'm an engineer, not a poet." You should've said that, seeing as your username is Nuparu and that's one of his quotes. I should have! Maybe I can make a banner for that...
  15. Text when talking to people is usually stored in a text file separate from the .swf movie these text files can be changed easily with an excel speech editing tool I made.Text in a cut-scene is currently stored internal to the source .fla file, and can only be accessed/changed if you have Flash CS5 or CS6 software. I'll PM you with some more info.
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