Envision, Create, Share

Welcome to HBGames, a leading amateur game development forum and Discord server. All are welcome, and amongst our ranks you will find experts in their field from all aspects of video game design and development.
Music Fighter

"Music Fighter" by ValkyrieGames (Entry Complete!)

 

mockup_small.png


demo.png

Check it out here!


intro.png

Since a few people have made already made topics for their construct 2 game contest entries, I thought I'd do the same! Here I'll post my progress and any difficulties that I hit in to in case others may also learn from it.

My game "Music Fighter" will be a music action game, where players will have to play particular combinations of notes to perform attacks against enemies. I'm a little uncertain how difficult it will be to make this a fun game, but I thought it would be enjoyable to try something different and make a game like this so I decided I'd just have a go anyway to see how far I get :)

Hope you guys enjoy reading this topic and joining me on my journey as I work to develop my contest entry! :D


story.png

Planet Beat is a peaceful planet, full of fun and music, however recently s large number of bugs have appeared out of nowhere stealing musical beats and raising havoc. Musical Beats are the life of Planet Beat - they make everything work, they keep things alive. You could say everything on Planet Beat was made up of a little Musical Beat.

Being a peaceful planet, Planet Beat was defenseless, and could do nothing as it was plundered by the masses of bugs. But this moment was when a young mechanic would rise to be a hero. Her name is Chloe, and she had been working on a ship. A ship that could gather the power of the Musical Beats to fend off the bugs.

This is her story.


gameplay.png

This game is all about rhythm and control. The aim of the game is to hit the beats that appear when they align over the flashing hit pads. Hitting Mana (Blue) Beats will give you mana to use to cast attacks. Hitting Enemy (Red Bug) Beats will allow you to prevent the enemy from attacking. If you miss an Enemy Beat your ship will be damaged by a small amount. If you cast a skill SKill (Green) Beats will appear. If you manage to hit them all, you will successfully cast your skill. Skills range from Bullets, to Energy Beams to Repair skills.

The aim of the game is to survive as long as you can, take down as many bugs as you can with your ship, and to get the highest score.

Tip: There are no penalties for missing Mana Beats (the blue beats) so if things get too hectic, aim for the other Beats!


controls.png

Movement_Keys.png

Arrow_Keys.png


skills.png

Basic Attack
Mana cost: 5
Damage: 15
Description: Launch a simple shot filled with highly condensed Beat Energy to the enemy.

Launch Rockets
Mana cost: 10
Damage: 7 per rocket.
Description: Launch three rockets to bombard the enemy together.

Energy Beam
Mana cost: 50
Damage: 10 per second.
Description: Shoot a super charged Energy Beam at the Enemy.

Repair
Mana cost: 30
Heal: 30
Description: Repair your ship for 30 damage.

Summon Mini Fighter
Mana cost: 20
Description: Summons a Mini Fighter to fight by your side. Mini Fighter shoots mini bullets at the enemies for 1 damage per shot.

Speed Burst
Mana cost: 30
Description: Put your ship in to turbo drive to speed past enemies. The ship speeds up so fast that all damage dealt to the ship while speeding is reduced by 50%.


screenshots.png

final.png


easteregg.png

Yes there's an easter eggs! And not just because of easter! Can you find it? This easter egg was inspired by rosareven. Hope you all like it! :D


followus.png

We're on Facebook and Twitter! Click on the images below to find us!



promo.png

If you like our project and would like to support it, please feel free to stick our banner in to your signature!

Click here for the code for the banner!


Small (350px x 19px)


Big (600px x 168px)


log.png

Day 1 (9/03/2012)
1. Thought out some design concepts and made a mock up for the game!
2. Decided it was time to sleep since it's 2pm, and to postpone any more work 'til tomorrow!

Day 2 (12/03/2012)
Because Music Fighter will require the player to play (improvise) music during the game I required musical note sample for the game. Today I spent the first few hours looking for guitar and music samples which were surprisingly difficult to find. When I did find some, they were not suitable for the style of game. I created my own midi music notes in the end - which I may replace if I can find something better eventually.

I worked on the music bar today, where half of the gameplay will take place. Pressing the designated keys on the keyboard will create "notes" on the board. Pressing a particular chain of notes at the right time, in the pace and in the right order will allow you to cast certain skills when you are fighting enemies. Red PowerLines will be significant when casting attacks (more on this in later posts). Graphics and layout not yet final!

day_2_music_bar.png


I also played with particle effects a little, and plan to use it when special "Hyper/Overdrive" situations occur in game, but more on that later as well... :)

That's it for now. Back to more development tomorrow! :D

Day 3 (13/03/2012)
1. Implemented an infinite path for the player to move on.
2. Player scrolling working.
3. Note positions tweaked.

day_3_note_tweaks.png


TODO:
1. Calculating combos.
2. Initiating combos.
3. Combining keys to make combos.
4. Enemies.
5. Movement (up, down).
6. Random path spawns.

Until tomorrow! :)

Day 4 (15/03/2012)
I have discovered some fatal flaws today in my game concept after experimenting with the way players will play the music notes. As it turns out, playing combinations of notes in a particular order repeatedly becomes very tiring very quickly, and having 7 different keys for 7 different notes made it difficult to remember which key was for which note. In addition to this, it makes it difficult to have any interesting background music because of the clashing of the tunes. One final issue was that key combinations that initiated moves had to be memorized by players which may make it difficult to play, and too much effort for the average player to memorize - even with them only being 3 or 4 notes long.
To address these issues will assign skills to particular trigger keys, and once triggered a flow of notes will appear. These notes can then be tapped by pressing the arrow keys use the traditional arrow key controls for hitting the notes. When all the keys are hit, a skill will trigger (some skills will partially activate during the hitting of the notes). This should hopefully make it more fun, with less boring memorizing and fiddling with the keyboard going!

Day 5 (18/03/2012)
1. Partially implemented the new beat system.
2. Made a nifty little banner for my project for my sig!
3. Picked out some awesome music for the game!

day_5_redesigned.png


Day 6 (19/03/2012)
1. Finished implementing the beat system today.
2. Started on the skill system and half the skill patterns are done. Actual skills are yet to come though.

Once actual skills are completed I will be posting up a very basic playable demo! I'm quite happy with the progress that I was able to make today :)

Day 7 (20/03/2012)
1. Finished making the skill patterns.
2. Implemented restrictions on player movement (to stay on the road).

I didn't get so much done today, but hopefully will get more done soon! ...after Wednesday because I'll be at work again those days :(! Hope I get everything implemented on time by entry date! >_<

Day 8 (22/03/2012)
1. Finished the Skills Processor module - when all the correct beats are hit for a skill, a skill will be flagged to be spawned.
2. When a beat is missed, the rest of the beats in that skill are destroyed (TODO: grey them out or fade them out instead).
3. Created the stub for the Skills Spawner module - soon actual skills will appear in game (next update, I promise!).

We're almost there to a demo! :D

Day 9 (24/03/2012)
1. Implemented Simple Shot, Rocket Launcher, and Energy Beam Skills.

day_9_energybeam.png


More to implement tomorrow! Also, 78 events down... running out of events! D: I might have to remove some skills that I was planning to implement :/

Day 10 (25/03/2012)
1. Finished Energy Beam skill animation.
2. Finished basic Summon Mini Fighter Skill, and Speed Burst Skill.
3. Fixed minor skill bug.
4. Added a background to our WIP forum topic :)

More to come tomorrow!

Day 11 (26/03/2012)
1. Lots of little tweaks today with the graphics, animations and skills. Also added a little polish to the game.
2. Implemented the damage module for damage dealing, monster removing, and damage animations.

The game is almost ready for a tech demo! For now, some eye candy! :D

day_11_beam_explosion.png


Day 12 (27/03/2012)
1. Did a whole lot of tweaking today and fixing image sizes etc. so that it's compatible with all computers.
2. Created the instruction graphics for the game.

I finally did enough to get a basic tech demo up and running - it's very basic right now so don't expect too much, but it should show a little of how gameplay will be! Press the skill keys and try out some of the skills. It's not quite a game yet because you can't die, the player has no HP or Mana, and there's no end goal yet, but hopeully I can get something more proper up soon. The GUI also needs tweaking quite a bit. If you try it out though, let me know what you think about the skills and the process you need to go through to trigger those skills! Also let me know if there's any lag issues, and if there are what kind of browser and computer you're using. Cheers!

Try out the demo here! [Click Me]

Note: If the beats are out of sync with beat of the music, reload the webpage to put it in sync. This will be fixed once we have a title screen going! :)

Controls
Movement_Keys.png

Arrow_Keys.png


* Note: Enemy Attack and Heal Skills do not yet work. Mana Beats do not yet add mana, only points.

Day 13 (29/03/2012)
1. Added polish to the game.
2. Found a way of saving myself more events but then hit a bug in Construct 2 which does not let me change the Bullet.AngleOfMotion independant of Angle. Now I can't save myself approximately 12 events :(
3. Added attack arrows.
4. Tweaked the GUI and some game variables.
5. Uploaded new version for everyone to try!

Day 14-15 (30-31/03/2012)
After 19 hours of solid work over the past 24 hours, I'm finally done! There's too many changes to list down right now. Why don't you go ahead to the final project and just have a look yourself? Oh by the way, there's an easter egg awaiting you if you can find it! :D http://www.valkyriegames.net/musicfighter/final/

Also, just finished beautifying my thread! Did you know it was Day light savings just today in Australia? The time's got me all confused now! But I'm done! :D:D:D

Day 16 (2/04/2012, Post Submission)

So for the past day I've been busy catching up on sleep and playing everyone's games. I feel like I've become addicted to these forums and keep checking for new posts. Having finished reading everything so far I thought I'd busy myself again and share some statistics for my project with you all for the fun of it. Enjoy~

Statistics for making Music Fighter
Time spent: Approx 15 days. (Est 85 hours).
Number of events used: 100
Number of layouts used: 2
Number of layers per layout average: 3
Number of ternary operators used: A bazillion. ... Okay I just counted, and I used about 64!

Time spent on the forums during the contest: Way too much! (At least 2-3 hours every day!)
Fun had throughout this contest: Just way too much fun.

If anyone else had any statistics like this to post, I'd be really interested to see them.

Cheers! :)

bug.png


I give HBGames.org permission to place my game on their online arcade! :)
 
Venetia":12rmerco said:
That is ........ ADORABLE o.O

Did you make those graphics yourself??

Haha I wish I did! I love the graphics too! Actually they were created by Daniel Cook of Triple Town fame and are available from his game development blog at lostgarden.com. I've been following his blog for a while now, and he has some very cool articles there on game development too!
 
For probably unnecessary enlightning of everyone reading this: Daniel Cook is actually more commonly known as Danc on the web - just mentioning this, as he's a member on these forums as well ;) (I kind of brought him here in the first place... but that's another story :huh: )

Actually, those graphics might work ridiculously well with an engine like Construct... quite a good thought! If I can give you a little design advice, however: be more scarce with text borders around those graphics, as they are drawn very delicate and with only the most essential of borders to them. Black borders (or font in general) usually looks quite bad in pitch black, so what designers usually do is go towards a #333 gray or something. In your case, I would use a darker shade of that orange you used, and maybe a less wide border setting.
Just mentioning this, as it really stood out to me when I saw the screenshot... please take it as constructive criticism.
 
@Venetia Thank you! I'm going to work hard to make something fun to play with! ^^

@BlueScope That's so cool, I didn't realize that he's on these forums! If you have the time you should tell us how you brought him over here! Where do you know him from? Thanks for the design advice, I'm actually not much of a designer myself, which is why any comments like this is really useful to me! I took your advice in to account and changed the graphics accordingly. I changed the black to a #111 gray and thinned the borders. I tried to make the orange darker but it looked very dark so I kept it still a little light. What do you think? :)
 
I don't really know him past the point that he was joining the topic in here (back when it was rmxp.org) about converting his Zelda-esque graphics into high quality rmxp resources - he came here to say he thinks it's great someone's working on that, and that's pretty much it. That, and I'm very very occasionally commenting at his blog.

As for the screen, either you didn't update it or my phone shows me a cached image... but I still see the very same image ^^"
 

onzephyr

Awesome Bro

The Concept sounds like it should be fun to try out. In both the playing of and designing of.
I'd be interested in the challenges you encounter making this. Far as I've seen not many music centric C2 games have been made.
Good luck!
 
@BlueScope Haha I see, well that's cool you got him to stop by these boards. For the screens I have updated them, I think it may be the cache that's showing the old image. Maybe if you come check back a bit later? :)

@onzephyr Thanks! I'm already encountering one or two issues with getting lots of sounds to play one after another, but let's see if I can work around it... :)
 
Yep, I see it now. It's definately better even though #111111 is still pretty much black - looks better though. What I meant with darker orange was to color the orange text's borders, though, not make the text color itself darker... it works like this as well, though :)
 
Thanks BlueScope! Ahhh I see what you meant now. Good to keep in mind :) Btw I'm looking forward to seeing your game with the graphics fully made by yourself! :D
 
Update Day 4: Not a great day today. Realized I had to change a lot of things in the game concept to make it fun. Back from the drawing board with some ideas ready to be implemented tomorrow!
 
Now I get what you're going for with this... good luck with further development, nice to see someone else is working on a more individual thing than the platformer and shooter genre :D
 
Looks great so far and I must say, after just recently having an idea to the effect of sequenced sound attacks, I really like the idea for this game. Good luck, looking forward to seeing how this one goes!
 
@BlueScope @Ugotsta

Thanks guys! I'm glad you both like the idea! Just a little bit more and I can release a demo! :D

In relation to the sequenced sound attacks... that's been slightly changed, but hopefully the impact to the novelty of the gameplay isn't too great!
 
Day 9 (24/03/2012)

1. Implemented Simple Shot, Rocket Launcher, and Energy Beam Skills.
day_9_energybeam.png
More to implement tomorrow! Also, 78 events down... running out of events! D: I might have to remove some skills that I was planning to implement :/
 

Thank you for viewing

HBGames is a leading amateur video game development forum and Discord server open to all ability levels. Feel free to have a nosey around!

Discord

Join our growing and active Discord server to discuss all aspects of game making in a relaxed environment. Join Us

Content

  • Our Games
  • Games in Development
  • Emoji by Twemoji.
    Top