Heh, yeah. :p Ragdoll Masters is not my game, it was made by Matteo. I've showed him an early demo of my game though and he thought it was pretty good.

Anyway, if you're having trouble running Ragdoll Masters, you need to extract or unzip the ZIP file. If you're using Windows, just right click the file and choose Extract All.

Quote from Cosmoseth

thats pretty awesome, good luck with the AI.

whats the point of having it under 10 k?

if you add backgrounds and such, the game would be so much better!
Most 56K modems can load 1MB in a minute anyways.

Thanks. In an interview I read online, Matteo said that the AI for Ragdoll Masters is pretty simple. Mostly what it does is charge after you and then maybe reverse direction and spin around. So I was thinking of having it try to learn the right timing for when to go after you and when to spin and when to crouch and so on.

About the size limit, I personally don't like waiting for games to load. I like the way it is now - practically zero load time, and I think I could keep it that way without much trouble. Some people probably won't want to wait a long time to try out a new game. Plus this is a very quick game that you can have fun with for minutes at a time, so it's nice to be able to pick it up and drop it when you feel like it.

And backgrounds... I've had a few people suggest that I add backgrounds, so I'll try to do that. What kind of backgrounds do you mean?

I've been looking into some vector art styles to see what might look good as a background. Here are a few examples of the different types out there:

• Circle clusters
  
• Wavy lines
  
• Distant hills
  
• Stained glass
  

(Yeah I'm having fun with this new LIST feature :D )

For GLOW, I was thinking of having some little glowing firefly things that float around. Maybe they could be used as an indicator of health, like each time you get hit, a number of fireflies of your color could be added (or taken away). What else could I add to the background of GLOW?

I guess CORONA might look good with circle clusters of heads, except with a thicker outline maybe, and possible wavy lines coming out. Maybe every time someone gets hit, another circle could be added to the form randomly. I don't know. That might look really weird. Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of?

For the original thin style, one thing I've tried is to make it look like a pencil sketch (kind of like Fancy Pants Adventure). It can be kind of annoying, but I might try something like that for another variation. I'm guessing the background would be made of lots of thin wavy lines, and maybe big circle outlines. It don't want it to be too distracting from the stick figures though.

Any ideas?

The Distant Hills was the best background... let's see... ideas... Special Powerups like Giant size, Super Hit, etc. Annnnd...that's all I can think of for right now.

The corona style is awesome. Are you ever planning on team fights? (IE 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, 99 vs 4)

Quote from axcho

stuff

You said you were getting 120fps.
Was that in browser?!
Because that seems far fetched.
Always test in browser after every major code addition.
Also i cant stress enough how important having a well finnished game is.
When backgrounds are missing etc it really does put people off.
And 10kb is just a pointlessly small size.
You could make it 1mb and 56kers wouldnt mind.
Seriously, a better looking game is ALWAYS worth the wait.

Quote from SSChiba

The Distant Hills was the best background... let's see... ideas... Special Powerups like Giant size, Super Hit, etc. Annnnd...that's all I can think of for right now.

Distant Hills? Okay, I think I'll try something like that for GLOW. For this first game, I'm trying to keep it simple (no powerups), but I will definitely make other games with powerups like that. If you think of any more ideas for powerups though, let me know for my next games. :)

Quote from Skatecrosser99

The corona style is awesome. Are you ever planning on team fights? (IE 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, 99 vs 4)

Not in this game, but yes in future games. I'd have to rewrite the engine to allow that, plus it would run slower. But I do have plans for a bigger game with many players and powerups and such.

Quote from FrAnKeH

You said you were getting 120fps.
Was that in browser?!
Because that seems far fetched.
Always test in browser after every major code addition.
Also i cant stress enough how important having a well finnished game is.
When backgrounds are missing etc it really does put people off.
And 10kb is just a pointlessly small size.
You could make it 1mb and 56kers wouldnt mind.
Seriously, a better looking game is ALWAYS worth the wait.

Okay, okay, not in browser. I didn't know there was a difference. But with Flash running (takes a lot of resources) and several windows open, it still runs faster than it normally does (normally 30). I think that should be enough, but I still have to test it on some slower machines. (how do you display the exact frame rate?) Are there any (trustworthy) volunteers here with access to slow computers? ;)

You think that lacking backgrounds makes it unfinished? :p That's pretty funny. I'm not worried about backgrounds increasing the file size - they won't (it's the sound that does it). I was more worried about finding something that doesn't look really ugly and distracting! If you have ideas for what it should look like, or other examples to point me to, post them! Thanks.

So... when's it coming out?

Oh, I forgot to mention that. I want to release it before the end of this month, August, because I am entering it in the Armor Gaming Challenge (no bonus if I enter it in September). So, it will take at least a couple weeks before I finish. I might wait between releasing new variations, but I will make sure to release at least one version this month.

I want to just keep messing around with new styles and fancy graphics, but I'll have to force myself to get the boring stuff finished first (AI and menus). After I get a plain version out, I can take my time with prettying them up. (and I might release the source code after a while too)

Suh-WEET! I can't wait!

Quote from axcho

You think that lacking backgrounds makes it unfinished? :p That's pretty funny. I'm not worried about backgrounds increasing the file size - they won't

I disagree.
A detailed background must be saved as a bitmap.
Detailed vector images take up way too much CPU power.
So yes.
Backgrounds do take up space.

Quote from SSChiba

Suh-WEET! I can't wait!

I am encouraged by your enthusiasm. ;) Thanks. :p

Argh. Is there no way for me to edit my posts? Sorry for the double post.

Quote from FrAnKeH

I disagree.
A detailed background must be saved as a bitmap.
Detailed vector images take up way too much CPU power.
So yes.
Backgrounds do take up space.

Well all the graphics in this game are and will be vector graphics, generated by ActionScript. So they won't noticeably affect the file size. I do acknowledge that they will take up CPU power, which is one of the reasons that I was hesitant to include backgrounds at first. But I was only talking about file size before.

Anyway, if I use Flash 8, I can both generate the backgrounds with ActionScript and have Flash treat them as bitmaps, avoiding the problems you mentioned. :) The only problem with that is that some people (at school perhaps) might only have Flash 7 and be unable to upgrade. But we'll see.

Quote from axcho

Argh. Is there no way for me to edit my posts? Sorry for the double post.

Well all the graphics in this game are and will be vector graphics, generated by ActionScript. So they won't noticeably affect the file size. I do acknowledge that they will take up CPU power, which is one of the reasons that I was hesitant to include backgrounds at first. But I was only talking about file size before.

Anyway, if I use Flash 8, I can both generate the backgrounds with ActionScript and have Flash treat them as bitmaps, avoiding the problems you mentioned. :) The only problem with that is that some people (at school perhaps) might only have Flash 7 and be unable to upgrade. But we'll see.

I was unaware that ALL the graphics will be made by actionscript.
And the only way to do the outlined stickman would be with the filter effect actionscript in Flash 8 no?

Quote from FrAnKeH

I was unaware that ALL the graphics will be made by actionscript.
And the only way to do the outlined stickman would be with the filter effect actionscript in Flash 8 no?

Heh heh. Actually it's just a thick colored line with a thinner black line drawn over it. That's also the method I use in GLOW for the braids. There are a few things that aren't purely ActionScript, like the circular heads (which would be more trouble to draw), but I still instantiate them and position them with ActionScript.

Btw im very interested in ragdoll in flash.
I was wondering how you went about creating the ragdoll engine.
I've tried a few times with no avail.

This looks INSANE! Finish soon please! It looks so SWEET! And don't worry about a background it looks ok the way it is. But if you absolutely need one don't use alot of colors. I especially like the Corona and the Glow. Glow the best i think. Good luck =)