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Happy to help out.

Awesome game, I loved it, nothing special to add.

Game is boring, unoriginal, and hard to control.

Why is hitting another block always a death sentence? Why is is so hard to change direction without overshooting?

Why does it need to be 3D when you aren't even taking advantage of it for gameplay?

At 3/8/09 04:29 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Why does it need to be 3D when you aren't even taking advantage of it for gameplay?

Ah, that's a good point. I'm sure that you'll add more features to the game that means it needs to be 3D, like dropping down to lower levels and things that jump you up to higher ones.

At 3/8/09 04:29 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Game is boring, unoriginal, and hard to control.

Why is hitting another block always a death sentence? Why is is so hard to change direction without overshooting?

Why does it need to be 3D when you aren't even taking advantage of it for gameplay?

I'm putting in a control sensitivity slider to make it easier to maneuver. Also, it's 3D for visuals only. I'm limited with what I can do physics wise without tanking framerate.

Awesome controls don't change them. It takes 10 seconds to get used to and it adds challenge to the game. On the physics side you should remove the almost elastic collision between ball and wall because it doesn't make sense for an 8-ball to have elastic properties.

At 3/8/09 05:01 PM, AnalogStick wrote: Awesome controls don't change them. It takes 10 seconds to get used to and it adds challenge to the game. On the physics side you should remove the almost elastic collision between ball and wall because it doesn't make sense for an 8-ball to have elastic properties.

Easy enough to change that, thanks!

At 3/8/09 04:58 PM, flaminggranny wrote: I'm limited with what I can do physics wise without tanking framerate.

No you aren't, you're just taking the easy way out cause you don't know how. Graphics are always your main source of lag. Flash can do math and physics really fast if you know how, and adding slopes really isn't that processor intensive at all.

Then show me an example of full 3D gameplay with the level of graphics I have.

Typical Glaiel, never knows a damn thing about what he's talking about.

Graphics AND Gameplay? Get out of town!

This game is the BOMB.

At 3/8/09 05:11 PM, flaminggranny wrote: Then show me an example of full 3D gameplay with the level of graphics I have.

Here's an old game with better graphics and gameplay and physics
http://www.1980-games.com/us/action-game s/address-games/gyroball.php

Granted it's not 3D, but seriously it's not like 3D and physics are mutually exclusive, you just don't know what you're doing.

And you obviously haven't tried it yet to show that it would lag too much. Then again your use of 3D here lags as it is because you don't really know how to optimize it, so I wouldn't put it past you if you don't know how to do physics (or optimize it), just don't try to make excuses blaming the limitations of flash when this is 100% your own limitation.

Okay, let's pen down my thoughts...

1) The menu buttons have pretty bad hit boxes - make them easier to click on.
2) An auto level restart would be nice.
3) Maybe an option to control it with the keyboard?
4) It bounces a little too vigourosly off the wall of boxes - some of the momentum would be taken away, so make it a little slower coming out of the bounce.
5) Is the ball meant to react differently to wood and stone surfaces? That's not too clear.
6) The game over sound effect gets really fucking annoying - option to turn that off but keep the music?
7) Could the ball be held in place after you reach the finish? I feel like a tw*t when I win and then fall off the edge...
8) It seems like !!all!! of the ball has to be in mid-air before the ball falls off - more realistic gravity, possibly?
9) Let's talk replayability and motivation - how about unlockable ball decals for finishing levels (fast)?
10) I would love to see a level editor :D

I love your game, but I want it to be even better!!!!!!

At 3/8/09 05:22 PM, The-EXP wrote: Typical Glaiel, never knows a damn thing about what he's talking about.

Graphics AND Gameplay? Get out of town!

This game is the BOMB.

Thank you, EXP, I needed a pick me up after that trolling. :)

Oh, and sorry for the double post, but one more thing:

11) Looping levels seems a bit... Odd
12) Glaiel, go and take your happy tablets, and stop being so damn angry.

Thank you, EXP, I needed a pick me up after that trolling. :)

You're welcome, that mean old Glaiel, do you want me to speak to his parents for you?

At 3/8/09 05:23 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 3/8/09 05:11 PM, flaminggranny wrote: Then show me an example of full 3D gameplay with the level of graphics I have.

Here's an old game with better graphics and gameplay and physics
http://www.1980-games.com/us/action-game s/address-games/gyroball.php

Granted it's not 3D, but seriously it's not like 3D and physics are mutually exclusive, you just don't know what you're doing.

And you obviously haven't tried it yet to show that it would lag too much. Then again your use of 3D here lags as it is because you don't really know how to optimize it, so I wouldn't put it past you if you don't know how to do physics (or optimize it), just don't try to make excuses blaming the limitations of flash when this is 100% your own limitation.

OMFG, where do I start? First off, yes I have tried 3D physics and it lags like hell even without bitmap textures. There are Papervision 3D physics engines available and they all lag too.

The example you gave is nowhere near 3D physics and actually requires way less calulations to make it work. With your body of work, I would have thought that you'd realize that.

As far as optimization, I've already done three passes on the engine. Still going to a few tweaks here and there, but it's less than 100 lines as it is right now. I don't think I'm going to get it much smoother than that.

When you show me a real example I'll start considering your input.

@Shmenon Pie

Thanks for your input. I'll take it into consideration.

At 3/8/09 05:32 PM, flaminggranny wrote: OMFG, where do I start? First off, yes I have tried 3D physics and it lags like hell even without bitmap textures. There are Papervision 3D physics engines available and they all lag too.

EXACTLY you don't need papervision 3D physics, their physics engine is much more complicated than what you need, which is why you program your own!

The example you gave is nowhere near 3D physics and actually requires way less calulations to make it work. With your body of work, I would have thought that you'd realize that.

Exactly! Nothing says you can't do something like that in your game! It's better than a flat thing.

As far as optimization, I've already done three passes on the engine. Still going to a few tweaks here and there, but it's less than 100 lines as it is right now. I don't think I'm going to get it much smoother than that.

Number of lines of code has nothing to do with how fast the game runs. Most of the time trying to compress statements into less lines actually makes it run slower. What you need to do is tweak the rendering engine and make sure you aren't rendering what's not on the screen and make sure back face culling is on.

When you show me a real example I'll start considering your input.

Have fun not trying anything new then.

I don't mean to be a jerk, but Glaiel is right...

Here's a few games which run fast and use 3D more than your game:

http://apps.facebook.com/bowlingbuddies/
gameinfo?pf_ref=x1008
http://boomblox.electronic-arts.de/
http://www.gameshot.org/?id=3200

Just a matter of tweaking or making your own engine.

I liked your game, though.

Glaiel, thanks for showing your completely superior knowledge of proper coding techniques. Guess my degree isn't worth jack. Srysly, though, less lines can only slow down your game if you're running loops that make it as if there are more lines than before, or calling external classes that have more lines, especially in an interpreted language like Actionscript. This goes for any game; console, native pc, or web.

So, you're going to say, "why do games on the DS or PSP have full functionality when the system has less memory?" Simple:

1) Because the code is compiled.
2) Because the bitmaps are indexed to a format that is native to the system.
3) Because it's the only thing running on the system, so RAM is focused only on that one thing.

3D in Flash is still a very new technology. Even Silverlight, which from the beginning, allowed for native 3D processing, get's sluggish when you pump this level of physics in it. Because, yes, the physics in my game, coupled with any size level, is a HUGE drain on RAM.

i'm sorry flamingranny, but you could easily keep the tile based nature of your world and couple it with slopes very easily with such a nominal drain on runtime speed that it's not worth considering.

At 3/8/09 05:49 PM, zuperxtreme wrote: I don't mean to be a jerk, but Glaiel is right...

Here's a few games which run fast and use 3D more than your game:

http://apps.facebook.com/bowlingbuddies/
gameinfo?pf_ref=x1008
http://boomblox.electronic-arts.de/
http://www.gameshot.org/?id=3200

Just a matter of tweaking or making your own engine.

I liked your game, though.

Okay, here we go. The first two examples you showed were in flash player 10. I'm doing this in 9 with papervision. Love to buy CS4, but I have to save up.

Believe it or not, I actually worked on BoomBlox for Nintedo DS, so I have a descent sense of the physics, and the example there looks to be using Box2D with 3D models, not 3D physics.

The last example is a great game, but is a platform game. A totally different type of engine is needed for that, which requires less processing.

At 3/8/09 05:52 PM, flaminggranny wrote: Glaiel, thanks for showing your completely superior knowledge of proper coding techniques. Guess my degree isn't worth jack. Srysly, though, less lines can only slow down your game if you're running loops that make it as if there are more lines than before, or calling external classes that have more lines, especially in an interpreted language like Actionscript. This goes for any game; console, native pc, or web.

No, less lines runs slower because optimization does not come from how many lines of code you have. Flash is not 100% interpreted as written, it is compiled into bytecode first, and it does a NOTORIOUSLY BAD job of doing so, so the more lines of code you have the more you can control how flash compiles. Talk to delta, he's done a lot of speed tests and found ways to extremely increase the efficiency of your code (which in no way, shape, or form has to do with the number of lines you have).

Besides, its your algorithms that need optimizing, not how you translated them into code. Other games have been shown that have better and faster graphics than you, and better and faster physics than you, and a few had both (full rigid body physics (2d) with 3D graphics, now don't complain that "it isn't 3D" because 3D ball physics on ONE ball will be so much faster than 2D rigid body physics unless you're doing something horribly wrong, not that you even need full physics when you could just store slopes on the platforms and a Z-speed on the ball and add gravity. It's like no overhead at all to do that)

I guess my professors didn't know what they were talking about, then.

At 3/8/09 05:59 PM, flaminggranny wrote:

Okay, here we go. The first two examples you showed were in flash player 10. I'm doing this in 9 with papervision. Love to buy CS4, but I have to save up.

Believe it or not, I actually worked on BoomBlox for Nintedo DS, so I have a descent sense of the physics, and the example there looks to be using Box2D with 3D models, not 3D physics.

The last example is a great game, but is a platform game. A totally different type of engine is needed for that, which requires less processing.

Are you coding everything in AS2? If not, then you could try Flex.

And professors don't know everything.

Anyways, just my .2

Oh and props on working for the DS. :D

oh shuttup flamingranny, get off your high-horse thinking you known more than everyone else.

You're engine requires no clipping the way your worlds are interacted with, with no clipping i have been able to get upwards of 300 triangles rendered at once with texturing and z-sorting on a larger screen than what you have with a smooth fps on my shite old computer, so graphics shouldn't yet be a bottleneck.

Implenting a heightfield style terrain, using a particle to simplify things would involve only a few simple operations on pre-computed values for the plane representing the triangle the particle is above, this could easily be expanded to deal with discrete changes in height involving a few extra computations.

You could have a proper sphere interacting with the heightfield style terrain involving at most 8 triangle-sphere tests per physics pass, if you wanted discrete changes in height either for cliff faces style things, or crates like in your current engine, would involve at most another 4 triangle tests per physics pass.

If you are going to sit there and honestly tell me that such a simple physics engine would be too intensive for flash, you are either insane, stupid, or seriously ignorant.

At 3/8/09 06:26 PM, dELtaluca wrote: 300 triangles

make that 500

You need to add extra platforms where the ball can drop too, and fix the balls collision with the box.

@deltaluca

Show me this example you speak of.

At 3/8/09 06:33 PM, flaminggranny wrote: @deltaluca

Show me this example you speak of.

Have you seen the WOW 3D physics engine? You may be able to use that.

Don't like to double post, but I thought this was important to say. I don't think anyone else's opinion is ignorant or uneducated, but I, like some other people in this forum, I'm sure, have been doing this for a living for a while. I have a innate problem with people who knock other people's work that haven't implemented anything like it, or at least, don't have any examples up to prove it.

I'm currently checking into the wow engine, as it seems it might be able to do what you guys say my game should do (it's what the bowling game is working in). If it works, I'll implement it, but what I'm rendering in graphics is already more than that bowling game, unfortunately. With luck, it'll work and I'll be able to make the game play in a way that makes everyone happy.