I worked on this game for quite some time. Probably a good 20-30 days of work on it. This is my first ever large scale game and has a functioning high score system by rankz.armorbot. (went down long time ago)
I didn't perfect everything yet but I am working on it so criticism is welcome. I am more worried right now about coding problems and glitches than making the jumping and collision detection perfect.
I also used a template from flashvillage.com to create a little movie about the making of the flash game and what goes into creating something like this.
I had a problem with this game. I thought you'd be interested. My keys kept on getting stuck. Like when I press the right button/"D" key, the character walks right and keeps on walking when I even let go. I dunno whether that's a flaw in the coding, or something else. It doesn't happen with other games as it did with this game. I couldn't play it too well sadly.
AceofSky, I was unable to reproduce the error you are encountering. Can you give me a little more information as to what system and browser you are using when it happens? PC/Mac/Win7/Tiger/Leopard/Linux/etc? Thanks!
halogunner, Thanks! Pretty good score for a first run I'd say!
The game borrows concepts from many different games, and was more of a programming project than a game design project. If I knew I was going to be able to complete the game to this level I could have brainstormed better game ideas/concepts, but when I started I didn't even think I could program one single level to the depth I did in this game. As I spent more time (days/weeks) working on the game I got more into the programming and less into the conceptual work.
It's a good start, but try to incorporate your own graphics to replace the super mario graphics. Or try adding your own element in the game so its not just super mario with a guys head on his body. If you just copy and pasted the programming then i'd stop that and actually LEARN programming. I'm in school for game design so trust me on that one. Other then that, good start and try to make it your own.
fantasy4life, You are a horrible reviewer, and I recommend that you review some of your own flash projects (if you even have any) before thinking you have a "status" that makes me think that your review holds weight. The whole review you wrote is arrogant and disrespectful.
I understand that many of your "suggestions" are true if I was working for a gaming company, but the point of the project was not to appease YOU. It was for ME to gain a level of understanding in how actionscript game programming works and where improvements could have been made. I do not intend to waste time on an already bland game trying to make it spectacular because some keyboard warrior thought he could sum it all up in one post with a ending statement of, "you have a lot of mistakes I can't cover all in one post, but I'll come again to review it more in-depth". It's been 8 months, where's my in-depth review?
Anyways, you didn't play the game through all the levels and it shows because all your suggestions are based around items in the first level or opening screen/GUI. I have yet to master the X-Y coordinates on the blocks you say, I guess you've mastered it? It's called hitTest - a method in AS2 which is not very good for complex collisions but it works. If I made another game I would most likely use AS3 with an actual collision detection engine, but this is close to as good as it gets without writing a collision detection engine for irregularly shaped objects.
fantasy4life, You are a horrible reviewer, and I recommend that you review some of your own flash projects (if you even have any) before thinking you have a "status" that makes me think that your review holds weight. The whole review you wrote is arrogant and disrespectful.
Actually, looks like you're being "rude and disrespectful".
plasmafish. You gotta accept bad feedback and just try to improve. If you just always say "you suck" to whoever gives you bad feedback, will you ever get better? Nope.
It is a OK game. Try zooming out the camera and using more readable fonts. Animations seem very choppy... It doesn't make a whole lot of sense how some things are PS'd pictures, and some are 8 bit pixel art.
I use hitTest also, it works well. But again everything in the game seems squished, please, please zoom out the camera!
Sorry for the mean start to a post but I can't stand it when people poo poo every negative post.
Alright, now for the good stuff: Physics is nice, I never sunk into the ground or bounced around. I like how you dont bounce around when pushing against walls.
I like the weapon power-up.
But really, what do I have to say, I always hated Mario flash remakes.
Oh well, honestly it has no appeal, even if it was meant for you to gain a level of understanding, if your gonna make a game it's not all about the code. A lot of a good game comes from level design, graphics, and just fun stuff to do. For example, in the game FPA3, you never HAVE to do a backflip, but it's possible. Just fun stuff to do for fun. Right now the game seems to limited, like you can only do what you have to do.
I really recommend trying to make something else, copies of mario really have no appeal at all, they're not fun, funny, cool, they're just pretty boring...
I can see you put a lot of time and energy into this game. Very impressive.
My personal opinion is that you should retain all the knowledge you learned from this project, and.... abandon it. Start writing down ideas and game design on a new project in a completely different direction, keep at the platform design and grow on it.
I'm kinda surprised your still working on the same project and that the project looks about the same as the last time I played 3-4 years ago. What I said in my comment before still applies and I would really recommend you ditch it and starts new original project from scratch. I think feature creep syndrome set so you should kill it off and start anew imo.
Also you seem to be taking criticism more personally. My comment 4 years ago was wayyyyy more negative yet you took in stride.
mightybob, I wholly agree with you and just had to put my response out there because I did not come back to this site/thread for quite some time due to that post. Many of the prior posts I have taken with good consideration, but I understand the new posters may not have read through previous replies. I am not a fan of the design (Mario) I took initially and did not remake the game because of the time involved. If I was to remake it I would want to create/use a much better collision engine and obviously create unique graphics/animations/levels. The tutorial I worked from is located here and was extremely incomplete for what I wanted to accomplish: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/platform_game.htm
weirdlike, thanks! I have been currently employed as a full time developer and work with a team of graphic designers for my companies projects. I do most of my coding in ASP.NET/PHP/SQL and create custom flash projects that do not include games. I am near complete on 2 other personal flash games that I started after completing level 4 of this game, but they are not publicized anywhere except for my website.
Darkroot, yes, I have not done much work on this project since you have last seen it. I did a couple things, but it was mainly code optimization. I have started some original projects from scratch, but my employment keeps me from dedicating a lot of time to them at the moment. They are near complete though and I believe they are what you are thinking (custom graphics, no proprietary sounds, original programming/logic flow). I have even written a very complex CMS in the past year using PHP/MySQL with code simplicity and modularization in mind. It is still in development and if you'd like to check it out, send me an email through my website. I was just disgusted at that last comment and in reality I am done with this project and don't know if I will edit it again. I've moved on from this project but still like to read the feedback.
