Author Topic: Project Valenguard: A retro MMO with a Chrono Trigger live action Tech combat!  (Read 12369 times)

unenergizer

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Hi Chrono Fans!

I am a huge fan of Chrono Trigger and all the work done by Square back in the golden days. Since I was a child I knew that I wanted to create video games. Over the past 10 years I’ve studied programming, game design, and network engineering in order to be able to create awesome multiplayer games.

In October of last year I started to create a prototype mmo client and server game frameworks or engines. The client is based on LibGDX game framework and the server core is written from scratch. All of this was designed for PC and mobile devices in mind (iPad, iPhones, Android tables and phones etc) with low bandwidth requirements. And all of this works as expected.

So why am I here telling all of you this information, you may ask. Well the answer is simple, I intend on recreating Chrono Trigger but imagined as a live action game with real people in a party executing techs on monsters or other players. Have you ever imagined a 60 man raid where the entire raid has to lock in on a tech to perform a move powerful enough to take down a foe? Well if you haven’t, then now is the time to give it thought.

Currently I am in the process of writing the combat system to facilitate this functionality in a live multiplayer game.  I have studied all of the spell effects in Chrono Trigger and I have achieved various levels of success replicating these effects from scratch. Some of them are very simple, and some are complex involving shader technology provided by GPU.

What I would like to see is if people are interested in a project like this. No other mmo that I am aware of has a tech system like this for combat.

Anyhow I have a video showing some basic functionality of the server and client framework. This video does not contain any combat. That is being developed now.

https://youtu.be/YhMgEuT6foI
https://youtu.be/LgBWF8PcEKs
https://youtu.be/vB2iDHpG-ik

If you guys are interested in helping create this project let me know! I’m only a programmer, not an artist, writer, world builder, script maker etc.

Let me know what you guys think!

Our website: https://forgestorm.com/
Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/NhtvMgR

P.S. All graphics and UI visuals are just placeholders. Nothing graphics wise is set in stone. These elements are put in place to show that the underlying functionality has been implemented in code.
P.S.S. Added our discord and website links. If this is against the rules, please feel free to remove these links. Thank you!
« Last Edit: February 15, 2019, 08:41:37 pm by unenergizer »

justin3009

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This is actually REALLY cool and something more I'd love to see evolve.

TheMage

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I'm really interested in this as well! I know next to nothing about coding and programming but 2D sprites and tilesets I can do.

unenergizer

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Awesome guys! I am getting things ready to begin combat.

The game plan:
1. Finish implementing gear and character stats. (In progress)
2. Make character and monsters on the screen killable.
3. Implement a spell system.
4. Implement a team/party system
5. Expand #3 and #4 to be able to cast magic with party members.
6. Create spell/tech/combo effects and a system to sync these actions.
7. Expand and create more and more effects based on team party members

This will take a few weeks, but I’ll continue to hammer each feature out one by one.

chrono.source

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    • Chrono Source - A Chrono Trigger Prequel
so is the end product going to have Chrono Characters? or what do you mean by recreating?

unenergizer

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I am not able to use Chrono Trigger characters because I don’t own the copyright. However, I can provide a way for players to supply their own textures, which will allow you to play as whomever. Be Chrono, or a ninja turtle, doesn’t matter.

Also, I have gotten basic combat working tonight. It is very simple where you walk up to a hostile enemy and you start trading damage. If the enemy dies, it despawns, if you die, you respawn at a graveyard. Once I get some more polish done, I’ll make an update video. Probably tomorrow I can make it.

Techs or combos, will take much more time. But I can’t tell you how good it feels to equip armor and a sword and the walk around killing stuff. Makes me very excited for the future!

Also if I post my discord link in here, is that okay? I respect the website and don’t want to break any rules!

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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I haven't yet chimed in, but just wanted to say that this is a cool looking project -- especially if the players can skin their own characters!

unenergizer

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Hey guys quick little update. I said I might have a video to post. Right now I am in the process of fixing some tracking and combat issues that make the system a bit inconsistent.

I have a few hours tonight to try and hammer out the bugs in the two systems (tracking and combat). Once I get them to a more satisfactory level I will post another video.  I don't want to make video to show off something that is broken, that is no fun!

Here is a little gif though, to show it working. Still needs hp bars, but damage numbers fly up.



Can you guess how much HP crabs have? xD

p.s. the anti-spam checks are pretty annoying...
« Last Edit: February 14, 2019, 12:16:06 am by unenergizer »

CptOvaltine

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Judging by your characters health...I'm guessing a lot. haha

The art style reminds me a lot of FFV, whereas I'm getting a runescape vibe from the gameplay (or the gif rather..haha)

The spam checks are a little obnoxious at times, but the spam bots are 10x more obnoxious when they're turned off.

unenergizer

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I think I was able to squash the obvious bugs last night. Need to continue to clean it up, but I should be able to make our first tech soon. The first one will be the hardest to make because I’ll have to dial in how tha system should actually work. I have a few ideas so it’s not a complete mystery.

The movement is similar to RuneScape. Good catch! When learning how the server program should operate, I looked at the code for RuneScape private servers and other game servers (wow, Everquest, etc). Minecraft was a huge inspiration programming wise on the backend.

The graphics are all temporary. I intend to pay to have better stuff made. I want it to look chrono like without direct ripping. Get the graphics: https://itch.io/c/4042/7souls-rpg-graphics

I watch this video religiously https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrmDrlgTr3Y
I’m confident that I can remake all of these. I watch them full speed but anaylize them at .25 speed. Some are a lot harder than others. For instance (not shown in video) when Lavos does temporal shift, I have no idea how they do the waving background scenes. I assume I’ll have to write a shader program to pull it off. The circle background image is a static image that they do color palette shifting on, so no fancy secrets their.
Color palette shifting: http://www.effectgames.com/effect/article-Old_School_Color_Cycling_with_HTML5.html
Lavos Video https://youtu.be/uhqWWSISMtY skip to 7:46

unenergizer

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Gif shows:
Taking and giving damage. And when killed, a graveyard respawn.

Tonight:
- Added health bar above head
- Added mob respawns
- Added code to handle healing (for potions, and reheal on death)
- Fixed bug where Monsters couldn't find players if players weren't moving
- Improved Monster target selection if more than one player was in range to attack (it used to attack the same person every time even if someone was closer to it)
- Enlarged the size of damage numbers
- Fixed other random bugs I can't seem to remember at this point lol

Kodokami

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This is definitely interesting and I'm excited to see how it turns out in the end.

unenergizer

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This is definitely interesting and I'm excited to see how it turns out in the end.

Glad it has peaked your interest!

Everyone I have updated the first post with a link to our website (no forums) and our Discord channel. Feel free to join us!


Our website: https://forgestorm.com/  (a work in progress)
Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/NhtvMgR

unenergizer

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Sorry for double post!

Got some basic item drops working. Every RPG needs this right? I mean when you commit murder, you should get a reward?  :picardno



EDIT: *Repeats to self* Thou shalt not tripple post! lol here's the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJdAfjxHuw
« Last Edit: February 17, 2019, 12:45:10 pm by unenergizer »

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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Hey bud, triple posting is okay over here. So is thread necromancy! As long as it's not blatant abuse, of course. But we don't discourage others with overly-stringent posting rules. Just as long as it's not insanity.

:D