Katuko

Problem is, we have Vakama's visions designated as "glitches", and other masks seem to at least operate under a set of rules. The further we got in the story, though, the stranger they became. I'm the weird kinda guy who needs no explanation for why you can shoot lasers out of your hands, but more metaphysical concepts like manipulating probability (that's a mask too) sound strange to me even by magic standards. I am quite fine with the Hau's force field and the Kakama's speed boost never being explained in full, but I'd really like Clairvoyance to have at least a vague mention of how it does it. You know, I really, really don't like the Mohtrek's power description either. He never allowed pulled out any true past selves anyways, as they all had his Karda Nui form, so why not just say it's a mask that clones the user? Sounds much simpler, and while there's just as much magic going on, it is less convoluted magic.

From what I remember it is identical except for the hexagons instead of circles.

Vakama's visions are called "glitches", but if I were in charge I'd call them one way for the Destiny system to try forcing his hand towards certain actions because he was completely lost at times... but unlike the other Toa (who would need a Mask of Clairvoiyance) he was possible to reach with input like that. Actually, the Mask of Clairvoyance is pretty BS in my book. I mean, I can get that advanced technology would be able to take all the data available to you and people in the area (via a telepathic sub-power) and form some sort of predicted outcome of their intended actions. But the Mask of Clairvoyance seems to take it a step further, not just simulating the experience like the Mask of Alternate Futures does, but actually going so far as to predict events outright. Although, I guess you could make a case for the mask not predicting anything in particular, as Gaaki only said "one of us will not return", and that could be true for any number of outcomes. Teridax kills one of them (he's very likely to try), Teridax imprisons one of them, the person flees or chooses to stay, etc. Like, if you are planning to go fight Teridax with a team of 6, then the mask could actually be going through the data of "in 10 out of 12 predicted outcomes, the result is one of you dying brutally while the rest use the distraction to stop the villain". The "predicted outcomes" could then include situations based upon the team's personalities, their available equipment, what is known about Teridax, and so on. I wonder if the thing taps into the MU systems in order to read data and possibly info about destinies? It seems certain beings were able to read the destiny of others, or at least make educated guesses. Mata Nui, of course, had full access. I imagine him to be playing Sims, now, but eventually lose interest in the "game" because the commands he scheduled never happened as he wanted them to (because of full sentience being developed).

I've viewed Destiny much like a computer program scheduling things as well. We really need a new Toa to go fetch a Zyglak, and we want Matoran A to do it, because he has qualities that are suited for the job. However, on the way it might be that he meets a Muaka and gets chomped to death. Whoops. Can any other Matoran with Toa energy in him do the job Matoran A was supposed to do? In that case, let's shift some destinies around and try to make Matoran B into a Toa instead. If not, then we get The Kingdom, with a massive change in schedule due to the failure. The system is in place, and can probably influence things to a small degree, but I'd certainly hope there's not a big super-program in the MU that directs people's actions and actually tell their brains to make certain decisions. That alternative is basically everyone running on some form of mind control towards their pre-set goal, which is a case for predetermination of events and a type of storytelling I just find "bleh".

If we can make custom sprites in Rayg style, I am sure we can make custom sprites in Chimoru style as well. I've just never used the kit before, so I haven't had a reason to do so. Well, as I've mentioned before, every element will be given a power related to itself that can be channeled through weapons that don't come with a specific power. There are shock and light weapons, by the way. The Rahkshi Staff also probably counts as elemental. But I hear you, more weapons with a specific element might be a thing. The whole deal with AI that shuts off the moment they lose their target is a major problem, but it will hopefully be improved by rewritten (state-based) AI sometime in the future. Same goes for the Olmak power, since I couldn't find a good way to have the AI use it without it seeming too overpowered. I wanted to have them spawn one portal in a relatively dangerous place, and another a short distance in front of you, but since they did this without having to stop and aim it ended up as way annoying. I'll play around with having them use a delay while placing portals, but then I'll also have them stop doing what they do with, well, drowning themselves or something because they stop doing whatever life-preserving activity they did before aiming. Spawn camps ahoy, yeah. The healing pads will be gone later in development, after I balance the amount of healing you get from killing enemies. It was supposed to spawn health based on how much damage you caused (so that killing an enemy from full health would yield you more healing than if you finished off someone who had 5 HP left) but right now it seems to just spawn a random amount anyways.

I am not into My Little Pony, as I do not enjoy the art style and a bunch of other stuff about the series. However, I have laughed at a few of the show's jokes, and I understand posts where people explain what they like about it. Just not my cup of tea, you know. I have no problem with others liking it so long as it's not shoved in my face. It's like that with every show, from MLP to Pokémon. I am a Touhou fan, though, and that is a video game series filled with nothing but cute anime girls. Granted I played the fighting game spin-off, so I guess you could say I have a penchant for violence still, but I can still spend an hour or two reading Touhou manga with no other plot than "isn't this cute?". I am a fan of all sorts of other anime and video games, both hardcore violence slaughterfest settings and more cutesy-wutesy settings. I like giant robots punching monsters in the face, I like seeing people firing machine guns with bottomless magazines, and I like to... spend an hour tweaking my character in Skyrim, essentially playing "dress me up" for a while. I also happen to play as Gaige in Borderlands 2, who is a schoolgirl-aged robo-engineer. She happens to have a few MLP references in her ability names. People are more complex than just "boys like guns, girls like dresses", and the posts above summed up most of my thoughts on the matter. An overlap occurring between two decently-sized fandoms is natural, anyways. Apart from MLP and Homestar Runner, Homestuck was/is big for a while here too, AFAIK. On other forums I have seen at least one fad where people tried to make a Minecraft version of every character they could think of, much like how MLP fans make a pony version of characters. It's an interesting design challenge, actually, to transfer one character into a completely different form.

I know it, but I don't really enjoy it much. The letter style doesn't really appeal to me, as all the circles are annoying and I feel it doesn't work outside of a certain computer-made Flash environment.

Proper knee and elbow joints is a major one, as well as the ability to turn the character's head. Going away from clone sets was also good. I agree with Iron_Man5 that having less uniform villain personalities made for better stories as well. Apart from that I don't know. Less focus on having to collect an insane amount of slugs/disks seems like a plus as well, despite Kanohi masks being nice to have in different colors.

I've been thinking that the top-left corner of the screen will have the essential character health and energy levels: - Health bar - Main elemental energy bar - Kanohi/special energy bar The air and temperature bars would be separate. They could be either horizontal or vertical, I imagine, and fade in top-center or center-left when needed. Potentially I'd even just remove the temperature bar and use a small "it's getting hot/cold" type of icon instead. The lower-left will have equipment stats. A somewhat slim frame containing space for a weapon icon plus its current stats (as in, durability and charge/ammo level) would work nicely. Armor would show durability plus maybe its damage threshold as a simple number. I'm not certain about Kanohi, but I'm thinking that while an icon might appear next to the energy bar, their durability etc. should be kept along with the other equipment boxes. Mockups: Box testing In an actual HUD setting The resolution of each could probably be done in at least two sizes; one for smaller screens and one for bigger ones. The current health bar is roughly 200 pixels wide without the icon, while the larger bar is about 300. The weapon bars have been roughly 100 pixels. Still, if it looks good and is not too intrusive, it will probably work. EDIT: I dunno about Halo weapons. I am stretching it a bit already by possibly including elemental blaster weapons, and I try to avoid using items from other games directly.

Great, thanks. I was thinking that the effects would be applied only to the bar itself, as a sort of texture. It's therefore not necessary to freeze the entire HUD over, and it does not need to be animated. I can just move the texture a bit with code if needed.

You can post topics about game demos, which I believe include mods-in-progress. You may want to make a download to the modification more apparent in this topic as well, though, since it's rather scarce compared to the Minecraft forum topic you linked to. This one might get mistaken for a project that hasn't started yet, especially since you're saying it's being rebooted. You can PM a moderator and ask for one of your topics to be closed. You'll find a list of moderators for each sub-forum next to the sub-forum's entry on the main page, as well as at the bottom of the sub-forum topic list itself. For Fan-Created Media, the moderators are Hahli Husky, Nuju Metru and Emzee. Still, if the topic is well-established and the project will stay pretty similar to what it was before, then it might be best to ask for permission to revive the old topic, and keep using it. The project looks interesting, by the way. I've tried out BIONICLE in MInecraft before, but I don't recall if it was your version in particular. I'll check this out at some point, once I get back into the Minecraft drive.

The zig-zag hexagon patterns may be a bit too much, but I like the style of that third one. Would it be possible to do something similar with the bars in a few different layouts?

Yeah, same here. Then again, with the kind of time span BIONICLE usually uses, I guess they didn't want to do a timeskip-story in the new setting where Tahu stays the same but Gresh's family goes through a few generations in the interim ("No, I know I look like him, but I'm actually the third grandson of the guy you knew before you left on your so-called short vacation. It's been two hundred years, man."). That said, there could be potential there, with the Agori at least aging more compared to MU beings. Certavus is the only named character I can recall that died of natural aging.

It's been considered, but it requires a lot more drawing ability from my side to make special shapes etc. look good. Definite no to Matoran text.

The shiny effect might be a bit out of place, but it'll be optional. Apart from that I tried making a slanted rectangle bar, but while it looked more "technical" it also looked kinda meh. I honestly just kinda threw together an updated version of the current bars (rounded rectangle tool, lol) and that's it. If anyone have suggestions for a better interface, I'm open for suggestions.

I'm thinking the bar for Kanohi/special power would have an icon that looks like the equipment using it. The Kanohi would just use the front angled Rayg sprite; maybe I'll use Chimoru or something for big versions. Chimoru could work rather well for a generated avatar of the player as well, in lieu of someone selecting their own.

The HUD is getting an upgrade. Click here for more work-in-progress bars. I'm still not entirely set on how I want the HUD to look. I kinda want to integrate the actual HP numbers somewhere, rather than tacking them on to the end of the bar like it currently works. I could go the traditional RPG route and stick the number on top of the bar itself, in the center. I'll be trying out some effects to make it more clear when you're taking damage, such as adding a flame overlay to the healthbar when you're on fire. It will show lost HP as a bright white or yellow segment on the bar, similar to many fighting games. I was thinking that when your HP is refilled or drained by something like the Kanohi Avsa, the bar would gain a small effect to show energy flowing into the end of it. When you get frozen in ice, the bar could show a frost overlay, which would then flash and spawn a few particles if you take critical damage from your ice cage being broken. These effects would be optional. The currently glossy overlay would also be optional, as well as the hatch marks, I imagine. Note that I plan to make the hatch marks a bit dynamic, so that each represents maybe 20 HP and you'd therefore have more or less of them depending on your max HP. I can also have options for varying sizes, so that 10-20 HP marks are small and 50/100 marks are big. I've also made two sizes of the bar, for optional small/large HUD variants. And of course, I've tested some looks for the energy bar where it changes color based on which element/power you wield. It works surpisingly well with a simple gradient. The old engine will keep using its current HUD. The new engine will have the following elements ("optional" means it is not a big priority and that there'd be an option to turn it off): TOP-LEFT: Health bar Main power bar (elemental energy) Kanohi/special power bar Optional: Player avatar, element logo, etc. When needed: Air supply bar fades in near the healthbar. Optional: Horizontal temperature bar (fades out when neutral) Optional: Vertical temperature bar (fades out when neutral) TOP-CENTER: Time left of match and/or other objective info TOP-RIGHT: Objective items/icons (Keystone, overcharge, and so on) Current score and position on the scoreboard If active: Mini-map of sorts, such as for the Kanohi Arthron, Elda, etc. BOTTOM-RIGHT: Equipped weapon(s). Optional: Name and/or item icon. Durability, power active yes/no indicator, ammo/energy level (for weapons with ammo, weapons that can be charged, etc.) Durability and potentially other minor info about weapon/armor/shield CENTER-LEFT: Multiplayer chatbox and other such features. CENTER-RIGHT: Optional: Current stat list and/or active effects These are open for change and could potentially be modular or have multiple styles available. Any thoughts about this stuff?

BIONICLE: The Game did something like this as well, but with different sound bits. Vakama speaks English during the intro, but once the first level starts he (and everyone else, for that matter) is reduced to saying things like "hooo" and "haah!". Speaking "Simlish" is very common in games and animations that don't have full voice acting. The creators just stick in some noises meant to convey the general tone of voice, and that's it. Some series - like Half-Life and The Legend of Zelda - throw in a few jokes about it (such as Midna asking Link if he's been rendered speechless, when we never get any dialogue from him anyways), but in general a character saying "mumble-mumble" is not an indicator that that is meant to be their real language. If that was the case Midna herself would be saying gibberish despite her English text. Unlike fictional languages that get translated directly to English with no words seen, we've got actual words from Matoran speech, which I'd assume not to be pronounced "click-whistle-pop" if it's written "Mahri". I agree, this is the impression I have gotten as well.

The game only supports Windows, so I don't know how Mac would treat the executable. Tattorack's suggestion is probably right on.

I have some scythe sprites lying around.

I once read that they can, somewhat surprisingly. A Matoran, as well as a Toa or a Turaga, can die of old age, though they typically live many times the length of a human lifespan. Takua/Takanuva, who is over 100,000 years old, doesn't show any signs of old age such as physical infirmity or senility (Imagine if he did and the Turaga didn't... that would be hilarious) The point at which a Matoran is at risk of dying purely from old age is clearly above the 100,000 year mark. They can die of old age, but it would take a very, very long time. If it is correct as we've theorized that metal parts can just be replaced and that the organic protodermis can regrow itself from scratch (as with the Toa Mata's muscle tissue), then you'd be hard pressed to find any part of a Matoran that seems as old as they actually are. They'd have to wear out their organic generator parts, and if those parts can just be replaced...

If we go by the typical notion of robots in fiction, they likely speak a language very close to their creator's, but with slightly more stilted grammar due to stripping away unnecessary words (at least at first, before they developed into "true" living beings). I think I mentioned the Geth from Mass Effect last year sometime in a similar topic, as they have notable similarities to Matoran. They are artificial servants of sorts with a half-robot half synth-flesh makeup, and they speak "English" with a different way of thinking than us. When they speak to each other, they sound like clicking and thumping noises, due to the incredibly fast transfer rates. Geth also designate every member of the Quarian species as "Creator [Name]", for example, because the Quarians created the Geth and their programming originally only distinguished between individual people as a way of modeling data. Would make sense for Matoran not to have given names at first, since they refer to many other things directly by title. "Kanohi Pakari" literally means "mask of strength", as far as I remember, meaning that unlike our way of using Pakari as a given name, Matoran use "Pakari" as a direct descriptor. This already implies a lack of connecting words, such as "of".

Yes, so long as I have animations for them. Currently I only have proper animations for the original Matoran forms. Sounds a bit like what is planned for the current Worker/Craftsman repair power perks., but it could conceivably be made into a more specific ability if we figure out how to control it. Honestly, I have no clue about development time. I work very sporadically and I am bad at networking.

Ah. I honestly kind of missed the backpack feature, since clicking the icon means messing up the camera, and that does not feel natural. I'd recommend using a keyboard shortcut to open the backpack and suspend camera look while it's open. Where do you get Bula berries, by the way? It took me a while to actually try pressing E near Harakeke plants, because I did not expect them to be anything but scenery. Berries I haven't seen. I've been looking around for a spear too, but I found nowhere to get one. Does Ahkmou have anything to do with it? I have avoided him because he seems to crash the game when I talk to him. Also: Po-Koro gives me fish, but that is most likely after I have spent all my energy running there. I think basic things like jumping shouldn't consume energy, since there doesn't appear to be much point in it. The energy is even used as your breath meter, so not having it recharge once you resurface feels a bit counter-intuitive; and if you drop into water with 0 energy, you're doomed, as you can only walk slowly to shore. Speaking of: I got hit by a Nui-Jaga in the Onu-Koro tunnels, which dropped me to 0 HP and put me back at the beach with 1 HP. However, if I die to things like drowning, it says "your Matoran has been deleted". Any reason for this disparity? I question the logic that forces me to bring specific things into Onu-Koro in order to have any hope of ever leaving the area again, but I guess it makes sense if the torch is only supposed to be needed for quests etc. in the Onu-Koro area. Still, having the Ussal taxi able to carry me out again would be great. I tried to just pick up lightstones and candles the first time I visited, which to my dismay did not work. Second time I followed the wall in typical maze-solving fashion, but ended up as Nui-Jaga food instead.

After searching Internet Wayback Machine, I found the game: It was called "World Builder". It also has a sequel. I think several games got a sequel back then too: Junkbot and the MNOG are two of the others. And yes, you did succeed with this decal, at least. I don't remember if I've seen any of your other ones at this moment.