Archive for January, 2009
Customizable Megaman Battle Network: Day 2
Well, today was mostly a sprite ripping and planning day. I got a bit of programming done as well, but I’ve been more looking over the old code and seeing what can be improved.
For one, there is no longer any need to separate the classes for Players and Enemies as far as code goes. They both run off scripts, its just one is controlled by keyboard input and another is by an AI. I have different controlling classes to handle that.
It took awhile to figure how to strip maintenance of Navis/Viruses (What I define as “Net Entities”) from the battle field class as far as position goes. I figure to just have the battle field compare their positions directly (each net entity stores its own row and column position), rather than store them in an array representing the field and comparing positions that way.
My aim is to have this out by March, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ll be releasing a version that can be played directly from this website and a version that can be downloaded and customized.
Hopefully by the end of next week I’ll have screenshot material of the new engine. That way all of my updates will actually be interesting 
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Customizable Megaman Battle Network Engine: Day 1
I’m taking many different approaches this time around.
The first of which is that the Battle System now manages all resources. The first time around, The Battle System just managed the flow of the game, pretty much just switching phases. It held a Chip Menu, Battle Field, Music, and Sound effects. The Battle Field held and managed all of the Battle Panels, Navis/Viruses, and Attacks. It became a problem having to send scripts from the Chip Menu through 2-3 classes just to get to the Navis.
What I’m doing this time is separating the Battle Field from the entities and letting the battle system manage it. The Battle Field will only manage the Battle Panels, telling the system whether an entity can move there or not and sending any scripts a panel may have.
I’ve also strip script handling completely away from Navis/Viruses and Attacks as well. They will pretty much only hold sprite information and information on what to do when a certain action button is pressed.
This will make it much easier to keep track of scripts, which definitely will help when it comes to putting online battling back in.
Original NSF (NES) Song: Smooth Jameson
Hey readers! Today I worked on a song using FamiTracker, which is used to make Nintendo Sound Fonts for use with the NES. There are many plugins and players that can read in NSF files so you can check it out too. I’ve also supplied an mp3 version for those who don’t want to use the plugin 
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Smooth Jameson
NSF Version
MP3 Version
2009 IGF Student Showcase: City Rain
Now I’ve seen the videos of people playing Tetris on a city building, but a Tetris-like game that you play WITH city buildings? This looks very interesting. City Rain is a mixture of the falling blocks puzzle element of Tetris and the strategy of building and maintaining a city such as SimCity. I’m definitely going to be playing this tomorrow after I do my usual programming. You can also try it out too by going to the developers official website and downloading it there.
You can also check out the other finalists at the Independent Gaming Festival Student Showcase page.
I hope I can get showcase a project of my own next year, I always miss out on these events .
Fangames to watch for: Megaman Battle Network Project Advent
The project is lead by Careno and the video above shows off some of the new character designs (of Lan, Megaman, Mayl, and Chaud) for this fan game. They have also released a demo, which you can get here. I haven’t been able to try it out yet, but from the looks of the screen shots it seems they’ve got the MMBN engine done well.
If you want more information about their project you can also visit their forum.
