DREAMBOUND - Bound to the dream of releasing before 2037

[spiraldoor]

Could you copyright this or something to stop people from stealing it?

[Droolie]

Copyright what? "Eclipse", "Blue Lily Entertainment" or the game itself?
I don't actually know how to 'officially' copyright anything, and I don't think I will.
If I ever notice anything stolen from my game though, I'll say so, and the people will know that it's stolen.

[Phoenixan]

According to US Copyright Law, something is copyrighted to an individual upon creation. All people have a right to their own works. Of course, that does also mean that making a fangame or fanfiction is technically illegal, but since UbiSoft isn't one of those that typically disagree to such a thing, like Square-Enix, Viacom, or the like, and since Ancel has said in interviews that he likes seeing peoples fanfics occasionally, I think we're in the clear in that aspect.

Now if you mean trademarking the logo or something, that would need money.

[Droolie]

Here's some progress.
I haven't worked on this game very much this week. Actually, I only made the level design ( not the graphics yet ) for the third part of the first level.

Also, the guy who I asked to make music for my game a few weeks ago doesn't seem to reply at all. That's why I decided to try to make music myself, and here's the result. I'm quite satisfied with it, even if it's obviously not as good as professional game music.
http://www.mediafire.com/?xz4wzjqngyf
Here it is! ^^
I plan to use it as the main menu music, or maybe as a theme for Electrix, because it fits great for both the main menu and Electrix's story.
Please tell me if you like it or not, or what you would like to change to it.

[Phoenixan]

Not bad at all. Though it did kind of put me to sleep.

Hey, have you tried out the GM8 Beta yet? It's alright, but the new sprite editor and collision masks deal actually screws over my game big time, so no way I'm doing yet another switch when it comes out. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on it in terms of any effect on your game's development, if any.

[Holy Crap]

Sounds nice... You've done a quite decent job.

[Droolie]

Thanks. And if it puts you to sleep, I don't know whether that's a bad thing or not... menu music is supposed to be background music, isn't it? So it can't really be energetic...
Maybe I'll use it, maybe not... depends of whether I'll find a good composer or not.

Oh, and GM8 Beta, you say? I didn't know there was one. I'm going to try that out immediately!

EDIT -> The site where you are supposed to get the beta doesn't load. XD
EDIT 2 -> It still doesn't load, but since people are saying that it's faster than GM7, and with the added support for transparency ( that's about time ), I'll certainly try it out. I see he's also changed the colors in the code/script editor. In GM6 and 7 there was a way to change them. Is that still there now? Can you still change the colors so they match the old ones?
EDIT 3 -> Come on, it STILL doesn't load... -_- Oh, and it looks like Softwrap will not be involved in GM8.
EDIT 4 -> It finally loaded, and I downloaded the BETA to test my game on it. It works fine, faster than normal! I used to be able to run the first part of the first level at 180FPS, but now I'm able to run it at 300FPS! That's quite a major improvement... I also like the transparency support.
I had some problems while trying to get it working though:
- sprite_get_transparent(sprite) got removed, but that's okay, I barely used it. I'll have to change something to my "waving" script which I used for underwater plants.
- Timelines seem to have stopped working for some reason.
- Alarms don't run as well as they did before. They sometimes stop before reaching the end. But that's okay, because I was going to use step timers instead of alarms anyway ( timer variables in the step event work a lot better than alarms! ).

Right now, I'm going to report some issues...

[Phoenixan]

Yeah, the timelines got changed BIG TIME. XD And the timers issue may actually just be a bug, since it is only the beta afterall. Good to see that you're getting a performance boost of of it though. That'll definitely help your game to run even better on older computers.

As for me, I've got way too much to convert over to make my game run on GM8, so I'm leaving Phoenixan as it is. Mostly, it's all just due to the fact that most of the time through the development process, I'd just have adjusted masks by number instead of collision mask sprites, simply because I found it to be a little faster to do, since I can just so easily enter the numbers in via 10-key when I load the sprite. XD In addition, I use the bbox functions quite often.

The one simple sprite-editor change has actually effected every single gameplay aspect in FUS. XD

[Rsandee]

I think this is a bit late but, do you already have gamemaker 8 beta?

[Droolie]

Yeah, I do.

[Joshua822]

To be honest, the music is not so great for the menu.

The piano sounds in the first part sound to " hard ", and they aren't fluid, which makes it quite annoying to listen too.

Good start, though, but i think for now you might ask a composer with experience to do the music

[Droolie]

Of course. I tried to remix some R1 songs as well, and they didn't sound very good, so I don't think I was going to make the music anyway.
I still hope that the one I asked to make the music will reply, but I can't wait forever, so I'll ask someone else soon. ^^

[spiraldoor]

The Super Red Lums should restore five times as much health as a standard Red Lum, just like a Super Yellow Lum is worth five normal Yellow Lums. Maybe it would be worth making the Super Red Lum a "full health" pickup, like the big red yokes in R1.

Perhaps Super Blue Lums (restore 5x as much as a normal Blue Lum, i.e., full oxygen) would be an idea worth exploring.

Super Purple Lums: Lol. No.

Super Silver Lums: Holy shit. Five powers in one. That would be ridiculous.

Super Black Lums: That's actually a damn good idea, if I do say so myself.

Super Green Lums: Maybe they could allow you to actually save your progress, rather than simply functioning as a checkpoint?

I'm full of great ideas today, feel free to steal them

[Droolie]

Hmm, Super Green Lums looks like a great idea for save points. Maybe I'll use it... and credit you!
Super Red Lums are already a "full health" pickup. You normally have only 3HP max, but when you pick up a super red lum, you get 5HP max, and your health is set to 5HP.
Super Black Lums would be awesome ( and they'd have a devilish smile ), but black lums are not in this game, and I don't have any place to put a super black lum boss in, so I won't be able to use that. It's an awesome idea though.

[Droolie]

Here are two screens to show you some progress I've made. I just can't resist showing you so much.
This first screen is still from the second part of the first level you can see in the video, but the second screen is not. I will NOT explain the second screenshot ( that'd be a major spoiler for the next video or the demo ), but I will explain what has changed to the first. There's some kind of mist now, and it fits the atmosphere, so yeah. It looks much better when it's moving, by the way. ^^

[Holy Crap]

I like the lighting in that second screen. Looks very mysterious.

[Rsandee]

Yeah, I do.

I should not use it untill the final version is released

[Droolie]

Of course, I'm still using GM7.

And thanks, Holy Crap.

[PluMGMK]

And here's the logo I made for my "game studio"!

That looks very like the BP Helios. Maybe you should change it.

[Droolie]

No way I'm changing that logo for something I've never even heard of.
Besides, it really doesn't look like that at all. Mine is blue, theirs is green. Mine is beautiful ( IMO ), theirs not ( IMO ).