[news+question] Barbarian :)

Hi there ! ...

been a long time ... first impression is, beurk at the new forums ... second is, actually, it's not that bad :)


To our subject : it is not directly Flash related, but i'm collaborating as a graphic designer to the remake of one of my FAVORITE classic game : Barbarian, aka Death sword, a fighting game that pits muscular dudes against some other muscular dudes, and this for the "pretty eyes" of a not so muscular "gal" ( but she compensate :)) ...

For the younglings here, that doesn't know the game, refere to this critic : http://tacgr.emuunlim.com/downloads/...l.php?recid=90 .... basicly, the tagline is that the game was the first to feature quite gorey decapitations and a pure sword fighting bonanza ( 16 moves ! ) ...all of this back in 1987...

However, this isn't devlopped in Flash, it will be an installable, regular game, coded in C++ ... so i'm a bit out of subject here ...

but ... I would love to have this baby ported in Flash, and I would LOVE to be able to pit two players against each other across the web ... with some tweaks in the game play, this could be a true blast ...

So, here again, against all odds, I am asking if a coder would be interested to team up with me : the deadline would be quite short, the game would have to be done in September ( i'm full time on a PS2 game from then :)))

I would take care ( as usual ) of the GFXs and the website + promotion tools, and someone would assume the coding ...

All the original backgrounds are done, and finished, and I can quickly create new ones to expand the variety of the game ... I am currently working on finding an appropriate, more contemporary style for the sprites ...

Well, if nobody wants to collaborate, is anybody able to point me to good links concerning cross-web multiplayer fighting games ? I would be curious to know the ins and outs of such a problematic ... eventhough, if I stay alone, this is likely to stay a "split-keyboard" C++ game :-/

Ho ...the usual screenshot ( in a thumbnail, the original version : i tried to stay as faithfull as possible, with introducing some minor new elements ... )

http://grafikdezign.free.fr/barb4.jpg

Thanks for your replies ... I still remind you my "generic" adress : http://www.luxgames.net ... will be updated soon :)

PS : By the way, i found a kickass job ! :))

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Originally Posted by luxregina

Well, if nobody wants to collaborate, is anybody able to point me to good links concerning cross-web multiplayer fighting games ? I would be curious to know the ins and outs of such a problematic ...

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Well, webgeek has posted many times about multiplayer real time games, you may want to search for those. Your main enemy doing this will probably be lag, as I suppose the game is fast paced and good reactions are needed and not turn-based (that would be so much easier).

Grats on the job :)

Good news on the job mate :)

You'd know I'd love to work on this bad boy, but I've really not got the time at all ( Been about a year I've been saying that to you about this project :rolleyes: )

Good luck with it, and I'm gutted it won't be me working on it.

Squize.

hey luxregina did you draw that screenshot that looks amasing :) good luck with the game

ahhh
I've very fond memories of the bbc micro version, and would love to see a flash port...
... and I think that 2 players cramped next to each other on the same keyboard (just like the old days) would be a fun way to start.

Hey Lux!
Yup, congratulations again on the job. Thats a nice 'modernisation' of the old interface.. I love it!

Still waiting on luxgames.net though... :P

Yeh, lag is pretty much the killer when it comes to making multiplyer games in flash. As long as you have a host which has a) fast upload and download speeds and b) allows you root access to it to install a socket server then it could work well.

Hope to see it done. Can't wait to play it.

That image looks really good. I used to love playing Barbarian on the Commodore 64. Never could beat that wizard though... I'm still working on my own projects to try and get my own kickass job at the moment. But I wish you the best in this project and finding a good coder. Good luck luxregina!

Lag is a solvable problem depending on the type of game. I do think though that you should just stick with the side-by-side for now.

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(...)Lag(...)

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I was assuming that for that type of game, the packets sent would be minimal : basicly keys pressed and other player position - since it would be one VS one, we could limit the amount of "dueling rooms" and put some queues ??? wouldn't that solve most of the lag generation ?

Lag and bandwidth are two different things. The amount of bandwidth being used vs. the time it takes to actually send the data. The game is doable, but its going to take a lot of work to keep it playable in high lag areas. It's not uncommon for users to be seperated by as much as 1/2 second of latency.

The graphics looks great, and I wish you all the best!

I do think it will be very difficult to make a satisfying multiplayer fighting game over the Internet because of the lag. If there is one game genre where lag can kill the gameplay this is it.

Thanks !

I was wondering : is the lag you are talking about inherent to Flash socket servers, or something inherent to the packet send process, regardless of the technology ?

Flash and socket servers in general add some lag, but it's generally trivial. For instance, ElectroServer can receive a message, parse and process it, and send it back out within less then a single millisecond on most machines.

The fact of the matter is that the internet is slow. This is what causes the lag you see in games. Just try pinging yahoo.com to see what I mean. I ping Yahoo and am told that it takes 50 milliseconds to go round trip. This means that it took 25 milliseconds to simply get from my computer to Yahoo's servers. This isn't much, but then say I was communicating with someone else through XMLSocket. I would have to send data to the server, then the server has to send the data to the other person. If they are at 80ms round trip (thats a pretty good speed), then it takes 25 (me to the server) + 40 (the server to the other client) to send the data. Thats 65 milliseconds of delay just to tell them I pressed a key.

In practice though, that delay climbs into higher ranges very quickly. People on dialup often get a latency of 100-200ms for servers located close to them. It's getting MUCH better with all the broadband users, but still not perfect. The Disney MMO game "ToonTown" was actually developed to support latency into several SECONDS. You push a button to punch someone and they don't see it for a few heartbeats. That's unplayable for most games.

Fighting games are even worse. People react pretty quickly in games like that. Two or three hundred milliseconds is enough that the game will feel a bit sluggish to all involved. You need to use latency hiding tricks to correct this. Problem is that those tricks are not going to apply well to a fighting game. This is why you don't see many (any?) real-time hand-to-hand fighting games. When you can make things occur from a distance (like all the FPS games), then you can cheat in how accuratly positions are displayed.

I hope that explains it a bit. Have fun!

Not only it explains well, but also prevent my next question :)

Ok, i'll stick to shared keyboard players then ... but then, no real incentive to adapt it in Flash anymore ...

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Originally Posted by webgeek

.... This is why you don't see many (any?) real-time hand-to-hand fighting games...

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There IS a pretty good internet port of streetfighter, but it is painful to play for exactly the reasons webgeek mentions.

Just to let you know that i've uploaded a gameplay video teaser ( with the old sprites, still ) on http://www.luxgames.net/ :)

I played this game on the c64 alot, and then on the Amiga.. and actually just like a month ago on Amiga using WinUAE. Great game and AWESOME pixling luxregina.

yeah, I had the Amstrad version :) definitely my favorite game at the time : I always wished that the Amiga version would have been better looking rather than just a port : I'm sure I'm trying to compensate that still :D