Very nice cave background. I hope you have copies of these without the signature, since it'll look strange if people see it in the game (although we could make it a kind of easter egg).

Also, we can still use the forest one. I'm sure we'll have flashbacks, and I like AP's idea of interactive ones (like in The Company Of Myself). Also, once you eventually get out of the cave, we can use it.

Talking about getting out of the cave, what do you guys think of having extra quests and story after that? Like, you're the only person who can travel between above and below, and you do stuff for people from both sides. We could also make the two worlds affect each other, adding and extra dimension to the game (like how in the Ocarina Of Time things you do in the past affect your future). For example, one quest could be to stop unusually frequent earthquakes in a village up top, by going underground and finding the cause.

Was that paragraph the best brainstorm ever or what?

Cool idea, puggsoy. ^^

I haven't joined the Google group yet because:
1. We can talk here.
2. Limited-bandwidth internet means not wanting to do too much online if I don't have to.
3. I have no idea what a Google group is. What is it?
4. I can't seem to find a link. Linkie?
5. I've joined tons of random sites already, and for all I know, a Google group means I'll have to remember yet-another-username and yet-another-password.
6. If it's something email-related, I get tons of emails already, and more emails would just add to the obnoxiousness.
7. I'm lazy.
8. If it's gmail-related, I have no gmail account.
etc...

It's basically a mailing list. You give us your email address, someone adds it to the group, and you get email whenever something happens. You can also browse the old messages like a forum.

Ah, k, that sounds like it'll work.
Does somebody have my email already? Because I thought you or Red or somebody did... if not, I can post it here.

I think you still need a GMail/Google Account though. Although I may be wrong.

just email me you email address, MOM:
hendrik (dot) henderson (at) gmail (dot) com
www.groups.google.com/group/goofans-game

No, I was able to do it with a private web mail account on a different group.

Thanks Red for dimensions

Short message from the idea fairy.

*Presses triangle up*

I am aiming for cave story like character design, but more defined. Here is what I mean:

http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx47/Mario9919/Other/CaveStoryWii.jpg

It will be a little similar. There are many reasons behind it. It can be scaled to whatever size you please.

Objections, suggestions, comments?

i think that will be good.

The resolution is pretty small.. I thought you guys wanted it to take up a lot of the screen. If we have multiple resolutions, the drawn one for the character should be at least 4x that size.

I think he means stuff like massive head, tiny neck, etc.

That would be OK, but since we've got heaps of items and magic, maybe we should make hands and arms more prominent than in CS.

Yes, massive head is okay then. Don't forget to make it your own!

Ok this is a sample of what characters would look like

(Pose: Standing)

Its enlarged for your viewing

I also decided to do one of those face portraits you see in the dialogues of some games

http://i42.tinypic.com/nlr2ft.png

Good shaping, but I'll likely halve that resolution. Another thing would be the eyes are far apart, and it makes him look less heroic than he should be. Otherwise, you're nailing our descriptions!

Epic. That dude looks as awesome as Serge from Chrono Cross.

I do agree that the eyes are slightly far apart (maybe it's just a little bit too much like Quote from CaveStory), but other than that, pure awesome.

His eyes remind me of a Mimiga.

But yeah, as Red said, shrink eye distance and it'll look awesome.
Could you give some smaller resolution images too? Just to see what it'll look like in-game.

Gobbledygook, I'm late on this, can I beta test? Looks awesome! And maybe making it more of a puzzle, like LIMBO?

We're sort of leaning towards a Zelda/Cave Story/Maplestory sort of thing, so puzzles might come in, but nothing too serious.

Yeah, sure. I'll mark you down on the other topic.

I finally have another download available here! Sorry it took so long. I was busy with schoolwork, and I ended up redesigning the whole engine. The reason I'm so proud of this version is that I made a variable image-queue system without using STL. MOM4Evr can check out the code and so can anybody else. The debuggable version is in the Debug folder. The version without a companion terminal window can be found in the Release folder. Thanks.

Here's a screenshot of what the result is. It isn't very much, but I'm proud of the code.

Very nice! I approve wholeheartedly! Keep up the great work!

NOODLES it! Being the Linux noob I am, I can't compile this thing! And I don't want to reboot to windows, its so slow!

Argh, now I'm having C++ trouble. Are any of you good with Win32API?

This is giving false positives.

if(GetAsyncKeyState(0x44) && GetAsyncKeyState(0xA2)){ //Check for keycode: LCtrl-D

@momo: It's a Code::Blocks project, you ought to just be able to install Code::Blocks from your package manager and press F9 to compile and run.

@AP: Hmm, that always worked for me. Try VK_CONTROL instead of 0xA2 for the second one. I'm not sure that the Win32 API distinguishes between LCTRL and RCTRL, since I never tried. Could be a bug.

It does distinguish. It's a little annoying, but it allows for a bit of freedom.

Ok, I tried Code::Block but for me, the compile and run doesn't seem to work... MOM, can you plz plz plz compile for linux and post it up here?

Riight, sorry, it wouldn't, because he's using libBox2D and such, and the precompiled libraries are architecture-dependent... Sorry, should've realized that instead of misleading you. :\

Currently, I'm on Windows, but it may not be worth the effort for you to compile it, since it's just drawing data/images/map/play/block.png twice on a black background. The code is more of the important thing here, as Red has rewritten the engine, and it looks fantastic. If you want, I can make a Linux build, but it's not much to see. Also, I'd need to know if your machine is x86 or x64. I don't currently have a way to build for x86.

I'm on a 32bit system, if that's what you mean.

Yeah, that's what I mean. I'm on 64-bit, and due to my limited Linux knowledge, I don't know how to compile for 32-bit. Sorry.

What you CAN do though:
I'm guessing that the compiler is saying stuff like "Cannot find "SDL.h" or something like that, right? You can search your package manager for some package named "SDL1.2-dev" or something like that, and that'll include those headers you need to compile. There will be similar packages for SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf, and SDL_image. tinyxml might have a similar library, but if not, you can download tinyxml, and point the compiler to the "include" directory of tinyxml in the compiler search directory options... then for linking errors you'll need to make sure you have `sdl-config --options' (I think that's what it is; running off memory here) in your project linker options, and add -lSDL -ltinyxml -lSDL_mixer -lSDL_image -lSDL_ttf (which should be in the linker settings anyway).

Post if you run into any errors.

I've probably lost you; don't worry about it, to be honest. I'll figure out how to make a 32-bit build for Red's next release, which should have more features, anyway, and get that to you.

Meh, I think I'll boot up on windows later?
EDIT: Did I Just say noodles it?