It's come to my attention...

That the splitting of the game may not be such a great idea. Based on the poll results in RII's Game Application topic, plus based on how much the Game Maker side has been doing, and how much the Clickteam side has almost nothing, it seems to me that maybe we should fore-go the split.


As of now, we have Xgoff and Victor TH working on the Clickteam side, along with me... somewhat, and it's very inactive, and we have no motivation for anyone else to do the Clickteam side.


As well, because we're getting little from the Clickteam side, progress is slowing down in general, as we have to wait for the Clickteam part of the game to get something done so we can figure out where to go next.



So, I'm thinking, because Victor has already said he doesn't like having messy code, and because Xgoff shouldn't be doing this almost solo, we should eliminate the Mario Bros side and have it as one Game Maker game.


That doesn't mean all the Mario Bros sprites and ideas are for nothing. If we wanted, we could establish it in the game, still.


What do you guys think? Do you agree/disagree, do you have suggestions for what to do if we go through with this?

Well, it's kinda your choice, so what can I say? NO!!!!!!!!!!!
Clickteam needs more love. Nobody makes games with MMF2 of TGF anymore. It's always GM this and GM that. And it's sickening. Well, I'm off to spamming now. Ta-da.

Does this mean Luigi with Petey Piranha as a partner? But either way, since I probably can't really do much to help, I'm just waiting for the finished result.

Okay...

It would be fun to have a contest

The best Clickteam users make a game

The best GM users make a game

The better game wins

(Oh and Clickteam certainly does need more love, but as I said before; unless Clickteam makes their products free or WAY cheaper, GM will always be downloaded by n00bs and those n00bs will become experienced GM users, and the Clickteam users will be wiped out.)

If you guys are thinking I'm degrading the quality of Clickteam products, I am not in the least. I know they're great, hell, I use them myself, and would love to see more Clickteam-type games on MFGG.


But for this CFP, it's not worth having it if we only have two people, one who doesn't want to program too much for it, and one who's busy with other things, working on it. It's too much work, compared to the number of people working on the Game Maker side, as well as the spriters and other individuals, and it's slowing down general progress if we continue at the rate we're going.

Sorry, I can't donate more than a potential level editor. Although a lead programmer doing the bulk of the work isn't necessarily a bad thing ... things stay more consistent, but it requires a lot of drive.

I feel sorry for the Clickteam side. I've seen what MMF2 can do in various other projects, but appearantly there are not enough bored people here who use it.

I really would have loved to see both teams progressing fast, but as of now it seems that the Mario Bros. team is dead. And to be honest, Wario Bros. Team isn't too fast either.

Just to add my two cents why I'm afraid that this project will not go anywhere for both of the teams:
There are many people contributing ideas, but the thing is everyone says stuff like "we need double and triple jump and wallkick and all powerups from all games and amazing graphics effects and a gazillion of complicated enemies and AI partners" but nobody thinks who will actually program that.
Seriously, if people brought up some ideas that average skilled programmers could solve, this could go way better as there would be more people willing to program.

As an example I'd like to take my latest engine gnome 2.0:
It has all kinds of jumps and fancy tricks implemented, but all that requires a system that every programmer (in this case only myself) needs to know.
However, if you want to have like five people (with different skill level and/or programming style) work on an engine with all that stuff, it just won't work. We have seen that, of all the people who yet contributed to the GM engine, only I was able to add something as simple as slopes, so tell me how you expect double-triple jumps and groundpounds and all those complicated enemies and whatnot to be done.


So what do we do?
We have graphics and we have basic engines. So why not take these and create SIMPLE games. Even without double-triple-quadrible jumps and AI and stuff a good game can be created. We just need to have a basic system that almost everyone can add on.
Maybe we can rescue both Wario and Mario Bros. teams.

I'm pretty sure I could help with the Clickteam site, adding a few stuff here and there. The only real challenge in this "coding sharing" with MMF2 is because one mans brilliance can be another man's mess. This is not the case with GM since it is pretty much all text coding (as far as I know anyways).

But eh, if you don't want me to help around here then that's okay, really.

Text coding isn't exempt, it's just not as bad as eventing.

But expecting to have 5 programmers working on either engine is actually a recipe for failure. It just doesn't work without a high skill level and lots of discipline, and a strong leader. You're much better sticking to 1-2 programmers working closely together, and if you can think of ways for other people to contribute minor things, more power to you, but it has to be on the terms of the lead programmer and no one else's.

I was also wondering if it was a good idea to abandon this project for another one that involves more people.
I was thinking Wario Ware, as it has only one "core" engine, but all the minigames basically have very different code. Everyone could make anything simple and submit it and the lead programmer just fuses them together for a kind of MFGG Ware game.

The only thing that speaks against it IMO is the fact that we have seen many Wario Ware style games on this forum, some of them were good even, and the other one would be that we would have made all the sprites for nothing...


For rescuing the current project, maybe it would help to have one highly skilled programmer on both sides as the lead programmer, only him touching the engine until it's stable and the others spriting and helping out. The problem is that all highly skilled programmers on both sides are busy with their own projects.

If you guys just need another programer, I'd be glad to volunteer.


I really don't want to see the click portion of this thing die ;_;

By the looks of your avatar, we can do it!

Can't we, maybe, hunt them down PM them or something? Place bounties on their heads?


Maybe if we show them that the project is suffering because only a fraction of people is doing anything, they might be motivated to return.

I was looking forward to a two-game project. I don't see the lag the MMF side is creating. Even if you take you time, others can still progress considerably. Should everyone finish before the Clickteam Team, that's fine. Game Maker folks can hold off on releasing the final version. You'll have all of the resources by then anyhow, making progress that much easier.

If we were to erase the MMF side, we'd have to rework characters, story lines, etc. I don't believe it's worth the hassle. Just make a decent engine and work off of that. I don't think the Game Maker side is too extravagant.

I can understand the MMF undertaking being too taxing on a single person. You say you've only got 3 or 4 people working on it? That about as many members as we have working for the Game Maker half.

while we really shouldn't abandon it, we probably do need to design it to allow many more people to contribute; a few days ago i was thinking about having most levels save for the boss levels/cutscenes being made through TL. it's also part of the reason why i've been suggesting lua for it, since its text-based, it's easier to share code and allow non-CT programmers to work on it... however i still can't do the OO part worth **** (so someone else who's awesome in that area with lua would have to do it) and letting MMF handle it is a no-no

in fact i think it would be a good idea if both games were designed in such a way that anyone could work on anything for either game

This is a good idea actually.

I'd help, but I'm not very good at MMF2 and think I'd just make it worse.

Here's the thing. The Mario Bros. graphics are much easier to do, as they are generic and take less effort to think with. Most of the main Mario Bros. sprites that are needed are done.

On the other hand, Wario stuff is wackier, and takes more effort and brain power to put together.

So each side is evenly matched. either it's graphics are easy programming is hard or programming is easy and graphics are hard.

We've made this feel too much like a job. No one wants to take time out of clicking random crap sites in the web to take part in some jooooobbbb *turns nose up in mockery of others*. It doesn't feel fun enough to attract people.

why don't they just use GM for both? GM has way more programmers...

i think you missed the "community" part of this