[Work in Progress] Mythic

[RunningRiot]

Hello friends, I'm finally announcing my work in progress creation, Mythic.



First of all, I'd like to come out and say, this is my first time doing serious coding in C# and that my progress will be slow, but I will learn a lot from this game alone. I have only enough knowlege to get by and am choosing to make this type of game because I believe it is within my limits and that it will teach me a lot about the language.

Mythic is very unique in that it combines several elements of games and ideas you have seen previously in a brand new world where this type of game play hasn't touched before.

The idea behind Mythic is to take a little Mike Tyson's Punchout, Dance Dance Revolution, and a fantasy setting then smash them all together in a Zune-Exclusive experience.

I'll let some of the screenshots give you an idea of my design.

THIS IS ALL ORIGINAL ART EXCEPT THE OGRE AND FOREST, BOTH OF WHICH WILL BE REPLACED WITH MY OWN, HAND DRAWN ART BY THE FIRST RELEASE.


This is the start menu. Options may be added on such as playing your own music and such.



Okay, what you've seen is a faux enemy, Ole' Stinky(IE. Rocky) is your enemy and timing is your sword. You'll notice the orbs at the bottom moving towards the orb collector, these are your 'Strategy Orbs'. Think of each one as a moment of time, if you move correctly, you can have an advantage against your opponent, but if you move slowly you won't have quite as much (and too slow will net you a pounding!). The bar you see up at the top is the 'Strategy bar', the more perfects you pull of and better you do, the pointer will move to the right. Get all the way over and you will be victorious, get too in the red and you'll be out of luck.


If you press the button on your Zune corresponding to the arrow shown on the orb at the time when the orb is exactly in the center of the collector, you score a perfect hit which gives you a bonus against your enemy.


If you press the button at the wrong time but the orb is still close, you do a weak attack which wastes the orb and does little to help your cause. If you press it at the total wrong time... well, I have to tell you about the enemies first.

In the upper-right hand corner you will notice two numbers, 21 and -2. The first is your foe's strike and it happens only if you totally miss an orb or it is very little in your 'strategy collector', seeing as your strategy meter is (right now) 0 to 100, Ole' Stinky here can really pound you if you screw up. The second number is the monster's 'Fear factor' (no not the TV Show). This number is a constant drain on your strategy meter every once in a while and can't be stopped, which is why you can't just sit there and do nothing. Manipulating these allow me to manipulate the difficulty of the monsters as well as add some interest and flavor to them. This along with the speed of the strategy orbs allows me to add some real toughies in there to keep the game rolling along.


So far, I've got a lot of great ideas for monsters and even a storyline, but I'm going to need a lot of time to make this. The graphics you see are VERY real, but not actual screen shots yet. The ogre and trees are from WoW and Oblivion, respectfully. Again, I will change these with my own drawings (and I assure you I am a fine artist). Also, touch support as well as support for Zune 30s is planned so no one is out of the game!


I hope you enjoyed my sneak peak at what is in store for the Zune. Feel free to ask questions and comment!


-Irenicus

[outkast32]

thank you sooo much ive told everyone that if u develop a ddr type game it will be a HUGE hit. This i feel could be the best game ever in development for the zune. Take your time get it right because you have an Extremely great concept.

Thank you for finally doing a ddr type game. YEAH!!!!!!!

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by outkast32

thank you sooo much ive told everyone that if u develop a ddr type game it will be a HUGE hit. This i feel could be the best game ever in development for the zune. Take your time get it right because you have an Extremely great concept.

Thank you for finally doing a ddr type game. YEAH!!!!!!!

No problem Outkast32, I'm so happy you like the idea! I really wanted something easy, simple, and fun to jump into and I believe that this design will really spark.

I will post some concept art in the following days to keep everyone excited!

[zunebro]

funny thing i was talking about a game like that to Dino. But with you actually controlling. The DDR thing will be fun.

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by zunebro

funny thing i was talking about a game like that to Dino. But with you actually controlling. The DDR thing will be fun.

It started out like that, but the coding seemed more rough to me and I didn't want to take a risk of setting the bar too high. Really, I loved Knockout and perhaps after this, I will attempt the fantasy knockout I've always dreamed of.

[soccerfreak24]

Sounds awesome, Good luck with your work!

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by soccerfreak24

Sounds awesome, Good luck with your work!

Thank you, I really appreciate the support!

-Irenicus

[outkast32]

sorry i know you probably wont want me to ask this but, do u have any sort of idea when this will be released as an alpha or beta version( which ever you decide to release first) Im not looking for an exact release date but like are we looking at a 2 weeks? a month? 2 months?

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by outkast32

sorry i know you probably wont want me to ask this but, do u have any sort of idea when this will be released as an alpha or beta version( which ever you decide to release first) Im not looking for an exact release date but like are we looking at a 2 weeks? a month? 2 months?

To paraphrase a Gamespot article...

"This project is done the exact time as all Blizzard-developed titles. In other words, when it's ready."

As far as betas and alphas, we'll see what is in store. I'll keep updated and post concept art, design ideas, or snags in development if they pop up.

I don't mind you asking at all, I used to develop programs a lot, in GML and Visual B especially. I'm pretty used to these questions and even like to see people jumping at asking them.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

it is a interesting and novel idea. the artwork is looking good and you have an actual concept on how your game will work. hope the gameplay work with the zune.

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by Ricardo Dawkins

it is a interesting and novel idea. the artwork is looking good and you have an actual concept on how your game will work. hope the gameplay work with the zune.

Me too, I'm definitely making sure I have an on/off ticker for the touch pad because I'm afraid it might be inaccurate.

[outkast32]

since you a developer il ask this too. Im only 15 and and sort of intrested in developing but i have no clue how to do anything.. at all. i read some tutorials and watched a video on youtube about some visual c# stuff and even the "simple" stuff made no sense to me. What can i do to learn some of this and learn how to make an EXTREMLY SIMPLE game for the zune. do u know what i can do to even begin to understand this stuff? or is 15 too young for me to even worry about it?

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by outkast32

since you a developer il ask this too. Im only 15 and and sort of intrested in developing but i have no clue how to do anything.. at all. i read some tutorials and watched a video on youtube about some visual c# stuff and even the "simple" stuff made no sense to me. What can i do to learn some of this and learn how to make an EXTREMLY SIMPLE game for the zune. do u know what i can do to even begin to understand this stuff? or is 15 too young for me to even worry about it?

There is definitely nothing wrong with being interested now, C# is a very complex language compared to Visual Basic and it's probably pretty easy to be intimidated by it (I'm still staring at my screen and saying "What?" to myself after reading some scripts).

I suggest picking up some Coding books for what language you are interested. They will start you out with some basics and give you the code to help you along. XNA requires you to know C#, and the reason this game will take quite some time for me to make is that I actually not very familiar with the language beyond basic commands and the structure of it and am learning as I go, but I plan to stick with it.

There's no reason you couldn't keep working to understand C# but, as I said, it's quite intimidating with classes, game components, and such. Just look around and don't feel like you need to rush into learning something.

Here is a great link to some books for coding in C#:

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/3324/16573.aspx#16573

Edit: The only bad thing is a lot of them are older and I'm trying to find a newer one.

Edit: Here is a book that is supposedly quite helpful too.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Start with Visual Basic...

[SimReality]

Originally Posted by Ricardo Dawkins

Start with Visual Basic...

Don't bother. If your goal is to make games with XNA Game Studio, just learn C#. It's not that much harder to start off with (honestly, the hardest part for most people is simply understanding how code flows; not syntax). If you learn VB, you'll just have to learn C# eventually or set up a more complicated dev environment (read the Common Misconceptions sticky for an idea of how that works). So since you have no knowledge of either, you might as well start off with the language that will make your life easier.

Sorry to derail. This game looks really nice. Are you going to have some little animations? Like when you hit the enemy the image changes to reflect it. Might add some life to it. But I'm sure you also thought of it .

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by SimReality

Don't bother. If your goal is to make games with XNA Game Studio, just learn C#. It's not that much harder to start off with (honestly, the hardest part for most people is simply understanding how code flows; not syntax). If you learn VB, you'll just have to learn C# eventually or set up a more complicated dev environment (read the Common Misconceptions sticky for an idea of how that works). So since you have no knowledge of either, you might as well start off with the language that will make your life easier.

Sorry to derail. This game looks really nice. Are you going to have some little animations? Like when you hit the enemy the image changes to reflect it. Might add some life to it. But I'm sure you also thought of it .

Don't worry about derailing, I agree with your sentiment which is why I pointed him to some C# books. As far as animations go, yes I was planning on having them in for the final release. The enemies just sitting there wouldn't be too fun. Making the sprite sheets will be laborious, but I do have programs to help quell the process. I have to keep pretty close eye on how I use the memory. Since there isn't a ton of things really going on, I'm not too worried. The slashes will be animated and I'm hoping to make a 'idle' animation for every monster as well as 'attack' and 'damaged'.

In order to cut down on time producing it, I might simply keep them in the idle animation when taking damage and use some of the 2dTexture effects (Thank god we got Alpha effects.) to make him blink red while the slash is showing (The slash is animated).

Edit: I'd also like to say that I have no plans to make this game easy, which is some of the inspiration and spirit from the Punchout game. While I do have an idea of implementing difficulties (which is ironically not too difficult).

Sure you can beat a few of them pretty simply and have fun doing it, but I can assure that this game will keep players pretty hectic towards the end and the last boss might be pretty impossible.

[cable729]

looks great, and i see that that ogre is directly taken from WoW

[RunningRiot]

Originally Posted by cable729

looks great, and i see that that ogre is directly taken from WoW

Yes, as I said, the ogre and trees are both from games other than mine and will be replaced with my own art. I was just too excited to show everyone the idea that I put together an example for you all.

[Thetimelessone]

Looks fantastic! I love timing games, and also how you have made it your own as well.

"honestly, the hardest part for most people is simply understanding how code flows; not syntax" - SimReality

I agree 100%. Sorry to continue an off-topic, but as nice a tool OOP is, it can get downright confusing to someone new. Ive been a hobby programmer for almost 2 years and am just now thinking I have a 'bit' of a grasp on it. With OOP...there is so many ways you can go about it, what one considers clean and organized, is anothers mess...or so it seems. To each their own?

...oh Hi, im new been lurking these forums a while

edit: Zewbie...thats cute XD