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Right now the main part to this game is Roleplaying on the boards. And for now, the program acts as a way of keeping track of statistics and such. As the game evolves, you will be able to do more such as building facilities, battling NPC's, Flying and travelling to other planets.

Currently it does support a few functions, but not much. I am programming this on my own right now and making the rules up on my own.

The best way to describe this game is: Evolving Forum MMORPG/Graphical MUD.

Hey guys, its not an adventure game, but it is a game release of mine. I just wanted you all to see it and tell me what you think. It is based on Hasbro/Takara's Transformers cartoon/comic/movie/toy series.

Here is the news I posted:

Thats right! Its been released! Go here http://www.energon-plant.com/Webpages/rpghome.php and click on download.

Please note that you need ODBC drivers 3.51 to run this game.So if you dont have it, follow the download link to get it.

Keep in mind that this is just a pre-release, or BETA version of the game. In other words, once you create the player character, dont get to used to it becouse I am gonna be resetting the game world. I am just trying to get an idea of what you guys think of it.

Before signing up, please read the rules on this.

Here are some features:
*Registering your character
*Logging in.
*Searching/Viewing/Editing your profile and other character profiles
*Hiding/unhiding your player profile and info
*Sending messages to other players
*Viewing who is online and who is registered to the game.
*Leaving/Joining a faction.
*Viewing Tech Specs
*Viewing your messages and deleting them
*While sending messages, you can send anonymous messages
*You can reply and forward messages
*You can transform
*You can view IC/OOC news
* And some other cool stuff.

If there are problems, please remember that this is a BETA version. Infact, I am looking for you guys to find the bugs and keep in mind that all the rules are not set in stone. I am basically trying to mimic http://www.swcombine.com . It is thanks to their inspiration that I am developing this game.

If you have any praise/insult or suggestions/bugs, please post it on the energon-plant forum in the appropriate place.

Let me know what you guys think...

Hey, I made some very minor updates to the game demo. Check it out in the first post.

Thanks SSH, but Monkey's workaround worked great! Thanks guys.

Yeah, I did. Still didn't work right. Thats why it took me so long to test.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!! Thanks Rui. I looked up the manual and I searched and searched. For some reason I only got the Display and Character[Ego].say etc... Thanks!!!

The else if didn't work either. It just keeps displaying the first message and not the second one instead.

What I did was, in the interaction editor for the object, I did a conditional where if the player character was Homer, it would run a script. Thats where I put the script.

Thanks anyway. Any other suggestions?

This is my code:

int Eat_Cereal = 0;

if (Eat_Cereal == 0) {
oCereal.Graphic = 69;
cHomer.Say ("UHHHMMMM. Haaaiiirrryyyy...");
cHomer.Say ("***DROOL***");
Eat_Cereal++ ;
}
if (Eat_Cereal == 1) {
  cHomer.Say ("Ohhh. The Bowl is Empty!");
  }


I want Homer to eat the Cereal, and when he eats it, it basically empties the bowl. So the next time he tries to eat it, it has a different interaction on it. But this script above doesn't work. It keeps Doing everything, no matter what.

Anything visibly wrong with this code?

2) Automatically resizing an object will always look ugly. If you draw the object in the correct size from the beginning, you shouldn't need this.
The "Use walkable area scaling" works just like it does with characters, it resizes the object according to the scaling setting of the walkable areas it's currently on. You may need this if the object is not stationary but moves around the room.

Maybe it didn't work for you because the base of the object is the lower-left corner, not lower-middle like characters. Make sure this point is actually on the walkable area.

Nope, checked it out. I put it in every which way possible. I spent 38 minutes retesting it. It doesn't work. Atleast not for me. I could just be dense though. I do appear to be slow at times. But a resize feature would be nice either way.

I am glad to see that many of you feel that my suggestions are useful. I really do feel it would speed time up considerably.


----------EDIT-------

PLEASE dont kill me for making this question or request.

But I think I need one more function. CurrentChar.Say function.

Right now if I have to specify which character says something. But I would love for there to be a script option and something in the editor which would allow to let the current character say a line. I have 3 playable characters and I would need that. Some times they say different lines, other times they dont. So rather than doing an "if playercharacter is" type thing, is there a function to do this for me?
I thought there was, but I could be wrong...

Just four small suggestions. And these are not just some random suggestions I am throwing in there just for the heck of it.I started working on my two Simpsons games again and my template. And playing around with the editor I noticed that there are some features needed that can make the editing life much faster and easier. In fact, I am almost begging for these features...

1) Do you think in the room editor, when editing an object, could there be a checkbox that says "Ignore Walk Behind"? rather than having to script it? I have 2.72 and cant seem to see this anywhere on the editor. Could offer some more clean coding and less scripting as well as making it visually easier for the user. What do you guys think? I would really like it personally.

2) I noticed that the "use walkable area scaling" option either doesn't work or is not what I thought it was... Is there anyway that in the objects editor we can have a resize option? In other words, Can we have it so there is a button that says "Resize Object on Screen now" and what this does is create a box around the image and you drag the corners and resize the image right then and there?

3) I found a workaround for the Simpsons game character image sizes. I copy the image to the clipboard and then import it at 640 res.  But, I need to still make some fixes and I need to keep testing the game constantly to do this and it is annoying. Each room has different sizes to it, so the player needs to be tested in every room to make sure the size fits (I mean character scaling).

What I was thinking was to add a "Test Character in Room" Button. What this does is sizes out the character and puts him on the screen right then and there. Depending where you drag him, it changes size due to the scaling of the room. This would be beneficial becouse then we can change the scaling size right there, rather than changing the scaling, saving the game, testing and teleporting to that room only to find out that you are going to have to rechange the scaling.

4) This is not as important as the above suggestions, but it would be a load off a lazy guys hands. I suggested this years ago and would love to see it implemented. What I wanted for the editor for walkable areas, walkbehinds and hotspots is a new drawing tool. Plotpointing. It could have two options, 3 point plotpointing and 4 point plot pointing. Basically, you click on the screen and a point is made. Then you click again and a line is drawn from the first point to the next point. When you click your last point, the first point draws a line to the last point. This makes it faster to draw on screen. I know there is a line tool, but rather than dragging the line carefully, this could be abetter and faster system.

The other option to this is that rather than using 3 or 4 points, you could have unlimited points. And when your done drawing, you could hit something like CTRL-P and the first and last point connect. This is not such a rush of a suggestion, but it is something I have always wanted.

I hope others find these suggestions useful...

Looking real good. Let me know if you need a translator for an Italian Version of the game.

I have always thought a view should be owned by the character or object to which it applies. I don't think the ability to reuse views acorss multiple characters/objects is of much benefit or even a sound practice.

What do other people think about this? My impression was that a view for something like an explosion might be reused by different objects in different rooms; or would people prefer to have views created within a character/object and not available for global use?

I would leave it for Global Use. It shouldn't really effect anyone making a game if it stays. It might just make more work actually. Besides, you know someone is going to request it in the future. YOu may as well let that stay. Thats my two blue cups.

I know what your talking about. But I dont think its a good idea. It would help reduce space, yes, but there are drawbacks to that:

1)Anyone making their sprites in 3d, would really need to split their characters up well. It would be too hard.
2) Many of us are used to drawing the whole character.
3) Might take longer for Chris to implement.

I think for some this would be a good idea, but for most, it wouldn't. But who knows, maybe Chris will find a way to implement both and make us all happy.

I would only impprt GIF. Didnt really think people use flc.

LOL Monkey!! The correct choice is F though

No, I apologize. Perhaps I didn't explain myself well. All I have left of the game files is what is in the template that I have a download of. The reason for this is becouse when I went to redo my computer harddrive, I backed up the sources onto cd along with other important software and documents. Then I formatted my drives. When I went to put in the cd I made, it had a read error. It wasn't readable. I was pretty sure I had finalized the disc and that the disc was compatible with hundreds of cd/dvd rom drives.

I tried it on my brothers computer and on other CPU's and it didn't work. It was readable after I burned it. But once I redid the system, it was no longer readable. So, the template I made available is where I am going from.

I lost the where's maggie demo source as well. The good thing about that is that I could easily continue that game with the template, being that the demo was small anyway.

But at some point I want to redo those images. I thought this implementation to the sprites would help. If it wont be a feature, then I will spend the extra time to re-edit the sprites, no big deal. But since I wont do it soon, this would be a good feature.

Sorry for the mis-understanding of why I deleted my sprites... I didn't delete them "Intentionally" without a backup. But thats what happened.

If the sprites were linked to external files you could do that by updating the external file. So IMO the external linking would be the more reasonable request as it would also take care of that.

I'm assuming this was for my suggestion right? If it isn't, just ignore this then. The external sprites are deleted. So now I am just running on the images in my templates so I would love to have a way to resize in-editor(or even at run-time rather than have to change the room walkable area scaling), rather than do it by exporting it and then resizing it and reloading it. Thats why this would be useful for me, and I am pretty sure others may eventually make the same mistake I made and will need some way to change things easily.

I had another idea for organizing the Views in the editor as well.

I was thinking that maybe each view could have more loops within them. Dont automatically assign the first loop to walk up, the second to walk down, etc... Instead, just fill in the loops you need for each view. If they are to be attached to a character, then maybe in the character editor a person could assign a loop for the walking animations there.

Then add a property or function to be executed in the script during run time that if a character changes his clothing, you can just change the walkup, down, left, right, rightup, rightdown,leftup,leftdown view and loop of the character and even the speech view. For instance a script like this: ChangePlayerViewLoop(PlayerId, direction, View, Loop). This is especially usefull if we chose to run next loop with the first loop. Becouse then what happens to that next loop? Does this make sense?

This way, and with more loops per view, we could easily organize all of the views and animation a character will have with just one view. It would be easier to keep track of in my opinion.  Does this make sense?

View an example:
http://energon-plant.com/Images/Sample3a.JPG

I have One requests. I may as well even demonstrate how or why this would be used...

1) Allow the ability to resize the sprites in the sprites folder.

A reason is in case you imported sprites and want to resize them without exporting them out. In this case, this would be most helpful for me with my Simpsons game where the characters are huge and I dont have the original files anymore. So rather than export each sprite and resize them, then import them and redo the views, Maybe we could just resize them in the sprite manager. Maybe an additional option could be to do a mass resize. Meaning you could resize more than one at a time.

If someone was enraged with your artwork, tell them "Screw you!" and ask them to make something better for you. After all, your making a game for US, in YOUR SPARE TIME, for FREE. Do what YOU NEED to do and not worry about 1 or 2 people that aggravate you. Actually, I should learn to take my own advice. It just gets on my nerves when I see people being enraged for something they cant do better in.

Keep up the outstanding work!!!!!

EDIT: Sorry, maybe you shouldn't say "screw you". But something to make them understand that they shouldn't tell you negative things or be enraged toward you...

I wouldnt worry about your art. I cant draw anything near as good as that. You had (And still have) talent. Dont knock what you have done.

Cool! I have been linked to... Yeah, I think I can offer the basic things you need by following the rules there.