Well, I've decided for you. Here's the original design, with an experimental background: [REMOVED]

You may download this demo and try the game, but do not send copies of it to other people! Also, please don't decompile it or edit the file without my permission. And try not to tell many people about it. This is a private preview. ;)

Anyway, at the moment, this is the basic engine with no AI or structure. However, you can still play with two players. One with the mouse and mouse button, the other with arrow keys and space bar. Try it on full screen mode, it's best that way.

And let me know what you think! I'm hoping that having felt the actual game in motion, you will be able to have better suggestions! And what do you think of that background?

Anyway, enjoy, and please give me more feedback! :D Thanks.

Weird. You're talking about braids.swf? Maybe some computers can't run it outside of a browser?

Well, try selecting Macromedia Flash Player from the list. By the way, this version requires Flash Player 8, because of the background.

[EDIT]
Hey, my avatar shows up! And I can edit posts! :D Yay.

I downloaded it myself, and it works for me, even without unzipping the file.

Pleasepleasepleaseplease make it look like this one :P


It looks so hot.

:D Paperclip, begging? :p

Don't worry, all the versions will come out. It's just a question of when. I think I'll start with the plain version, and then release GLOW and CORONA afterwards, like in September. Then I will try to do some other variations. I'll probably have different music and stuff for each version, so it might take a while in between.

Can Adobe Flash Player work?

Well, on my computer the default program is "Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 r22" but it might be different on yours. It should also work if you open it with Firefox or Internet Explorer (though the fonts are messed up in IE), but as you know, it runs slower in browser.

I can't seem to get FP installed.

The loading box appears white with the red X in it.

Looks like I can't play the game.

You have to put it in a different format or something.

Axcho, you may think that looks don't matter but it does. You have a much better chance of winning a place in the contest if you use GLOW or CORONA. Style and substance, you know? So please submit one of those versions for the contest. This hard work deserves a fair chance. I hope you win ,man. Good luck!

EDIT: THE GAME OWNS!! I've played ragdoll masters and you did an awsome job on this man! I can't wait for another version. I have my brother down to -60 or something but for some reason when he clicks nothing happens. The spacebar works fine though.

A different format than Flash? Well, I can make an HTML file that contains it. Try this out: [REMOVED]

Quote from shoxpyre

Axcho, you may think that looks don't matter but it does. You have a much better chance of winning a place in the contest if you use GLOW or CORONA. Style and substance, you know? So please submit one of those versions for the contest. This hard work deserves a fair chance. I hope you win ,man. Good luck!

EDIT: THE GAME OWNS!! I've played ragdoll masters and you did an awsome job on this man! I can't wait for another version. I have my brother down to -60 or something but for some reason when he clicks nothing happens. The spacebar works fine though.

Yay! :D That sounds like a good first response to the game. About the clicking, I'm not sure why it doesn't work, but one thing to keep in mind is that you have to hold the button down, and the mouse cursor has to be inside the Flash window. Full screen mode would help with that. But you've probably thought of those things already.

I'm also curious to know more about how you think it compares with Ragdoll Masters. How do you like the mouse control, the crouch button, the more realistic damage, and the smaller field size? I think those are the main differences. Also, thanks so much for your compliments. :)

About the visual style, I think I'll take your advice about the contest. Actually, I've emailed one of the guys behind it and he said it would be fine to release all variations as one game. So I could do that.

But I'm still working on the style, so I will keep trying to improve it. Like the hanging rope background thing - what did you think of that? Ideally I'd like to keep the feel of the characters from the original style, and also have it look good. The other variations seem to lose that original feel, though they're still pretty good.

I think what might help is to give it a more detailed look, but keep the focus on dangling braids and stuff. Something like this picture. Any ideas? :)

[EDIT]
I just remembered something. I was thinking that I could make it so when you get damaged, you lose control during the slow motion, like you're stunned. I thought that might give a little more opportunity for strategy, since you can stun them with a little hit and then position yourself for a big one. It might also be cooler, and easier to tell who was damaged. :p What do you think?

In my opinion i think the mouse idea needs to go. It's a nice i dea but it doesn't work that good. I've been trying for a while and i can't get the click on the mouse to do anything. The most proper controls i can think of could be 'W,A,S,D'(or I,J,K,L) and space bar for player one; and for player two '8,4,5,6' on the num pad, and enter. But thats if you would rather not copy the controls from Ragdoll masters.

EDIT: just saw your reply-

That stun idea sounds interesting, but should only happen on a hard hit you know? It could get really repetitive and annoying. And the background is nice. I think if you did this stuff with glow it would be really sweet. To me glow matches up with your original style pretty close. But the problem with the current game is the white background. Still looks really plain.. Maybe try making the original games background not plain white. And I really like the gamplay more than ragdoll masters. The crouch button really adds a cool effect to the game though. And the characters don't look dead for a change. lol. When your playing it it looks like they are actually fighting, and not just flopping around at eachother. Another thing it needs now is a way to win. When someone gets down to 0 it should say something like who won and then ask to restart or quit right?

New Edit: I noticed everything lags when you listen to music. So hopefully you can find a way to get music on there. Use some prodigy especially their song Smack my ***** up. Hope you get everything working, that song would be perfect. You should even use some punk and some rock in your compilation. But whatever just some suggestions

Hey, thanks for the detailed reply.

About the mouse control, that's definitely going to stay - I really prefer the mouse because it gives me so much more control, particularly for dancing. ;) It's also a lot more intuitive for non-gamers (like my grandma, who doesn't even have a computer!). I'm not sure why the mouse button doesn't work on your computer, but it works just fine on mine. I'll have to wait and see if anyone else reports the same problem. Plus I'm using a laptop so I don't have a numpad.

Hmmm, that's a good idea about GLOW, though the ropes would have to be more subtle, or else they'd become too distracting. And I definitely agree that the white background looks pretty bad, at least with the current color scheme. It's okay for just the sticks, but it's kind of weird with the hanging ropes. Plus, with the red and blue it could suggest an unintended nationalistic message. :p

I was looking at this picture, which has a similar hanging thing going on. That might be an interesting color scheme and style to imitate. Plus the guy on the ground has a similar posture to my stick figures.

I'll try the stun idea and then put the file up here for you to test out. First I'll have to make the structure though, since right now it's just an engine, which is why you can't win. It calculates the force and damage, but it will take more structure to actually do something about it. So menus and winnable matches should be next. :)

And I also like how the ragdolls don't look dead. ;) I think part of it is that the heads kind of lock into position at either side of the body, so they seem to be facing the right way. But also the engine and ragdoll skeletons are a bit different than those in Ragdoll Masters, which somehow makes them seem more lively.

EDIT:
It lags when you play music? I have just been listening to music playing separately from my computer, so I didn't know that. But that probably could be fixed if I increase the frame rate.

I'm not at all familiar with punk or rock music, but I welcome your suggestions. :) For later variations, that would certainly be a possibility. For this first one I was thinking Afro Celt. ;) Have you heard of it? It's kind of techno plus African rhythms plus Irish bagpipes and whistles. It's actually quite good.

XD Maybe this is why it was lagging...
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Of course there will never be that many braids in the background since we won't be getting -500 hp and stuff haha. Plus the click only doesn't work when i play the swf or w/e. It works fine in the html version.

Anyway, the backgrounds. DISTRACTING? HA, ragdoll masters has the trancy moving background that warps into different colors and stuff. I don't think it'll be distracting. I'd like to see a pic if it's possible though =)

I also thought when the player kills the other one they lose control of him and it can have a message in the bottom right saying who won Player1 or player 2, red, blue, light, dark, whatever you call them anyway. And until they restart the game the winning player can beat up on their opponents lifeless body lol

And another thing, i can't stress how good your engine is. It feels really cool, great work man. And I had a blast playing. I ended up getting some really good hits in on my bro when we played, although we had to fight over who got red...-
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PS: Maybe since we are SUCH GREAT FRIENDS and all...maybe you could make a feature for custom controls?! =D lol

Looks like a nice game so far.

Is there a link for a browser gameplay? Please post it again please =) I don't want to go through all these pages.

Quote from axcho

A different format than Flash? Well, I can make an HTML file that contains it. Try this out: ----> [ATTACH]3048[/ATTACH] <----

Yay! :D That sounds like....

Right there. The html version in there works better. I can't get the regular ones mouse click to work. It's meant to make him crouch.