Lagoon Arena (working title) - RPG Battle Arena

[CR4SH3D]

Hi guys!

I''ve put inflExion on hold for the time being to learn more about lua in order to finish it off. I've been working on this concept (getting a fairly quick sprite ripping technique etc) and developing early ideas

I'm hoping someone here would be up for working on it with me in order to get stuff finished quicker

Eventually it should have the basis to create a library for an onscreen keyboard (like many rpg games) as well as in game battle menus etc

Concept:

• To develop libraries for on screen keyboards & RPG style menus
  Create a RPG battle game similar to early the Final Fantasy games
  Eventually have 2 player and network support

Features:

• Create a 5 member party
  Various classes (Knight, Dragoon, Summoner, Dark Mage, Light Mage, Paladin, Assassin)
  Use sprites from the Bahamut Lagoon game (SNES) as the basic sprites
  Weapons all visually different
  Preset enemy parties for single player tournament
  Ability to share parties
  Different game types

Game Types:

• Deathmatch - standard fight till last man standing
  Defend the VIP - 2 rounds, keep the special character alive or attack them
  Destroy the Dragon - points based game, do most damage to dragon with bonus for destroying it
  Capture the Flag - bring center flag back to your side

The reason i'm planning on using ripped sprites is a) I'm not good enough to create ones that would do the game justice and finding someone is nearly impossible, b) It''s not going to be commercial game, and c) Bahamut Lagoon is a largely unknown game created way back by Squaresoft that everyone should know about but don't

If your interested please respond, you don't have to give alot of time to it and all help would be appreciated, it's going to be a big task!

[bartbes]

you don't have to give alot of time to it!

That sounds fair.. tell us which license, and you can almost certainly count me in. The keyboard sounds like a nice challenge...

[CR4SH3D]

license for what sorry?

[Xcmd]

License for the entire project. Are you making it GPL, LGPL, Public Domain?

[CR4SH3D]

im not too clued up on licenses, looking briefly at the wikipedia articles didnt give me much information but i guess public domain so the source can be shared, the libraries should be coded as libraries from the start, they can be shared separately and freely distributed

[qubodup]

Quick license how-to:

The options are
1. allow everyone to do anything (pdd/cc0)
2. allow everyone to do anything if "copyright YYYY by XXXX ZZZZ" is mentioned and your name isn't used without your consent. (bsd/mit/zlib)
3. allow everyone to do many things if (2) and changes to the code are released under the same license. (lgpl)
4. allow everyone to do many things if (3) and all software built around it is released under the same license too. (gpl)

Where does the lovely license fit into this?

[bartbes]

Personally I prefer 2...

Where does the lovely license fit into this?

You mean the LPCL? It's 1 with an exception, so put it 1/3 of the way between 1 and 2.

[CR4SH3D]

Yeah 2 seems most likely although what would be the position on using ripped sprites in such a project? I was under the impression that stating "Original Sprites Copyright of Squaresoft" in a non commercial project would be fine to use them

I'll be working on coding an early demo some point today
Menu Function Initial Design:
Menu Variables:

• Name - Name used to link to it, eg menuAttack[1] (attack menu for character in slot t)
  SizeX - Number of items horizontally eg 3 (3 columns to menu)
  SizeY - Number of visible rows eg 2 (2 visible rows)
  Width - Width of menu excluding size of corner images
  Height - Height of menu excluding corner images
  Border - Image for border (stretched to Width)
  Corner - Fixed height and width image used and rotated to form corners

Each character will have an array containing further arrays of menus

To populate menu:
Loop for i <= SizeX creating arrays ([CharacterSlotNumber][Name]List)
Add commands to arrays

To navigate menus:
If key z = pressed then
LoveMenus.Navigate(Name)
(Calls function to load and display that menu)

Keyboard Function Initial Design:
Keyboard Variables:
OnscreenKeyboard = LoveKeyboard.New(Name,Type,Position,Size,Font)
Name - Name of keyboard
Type - Numeric, Alpha Numeric, Symbols (Type of keys to show)
Position - Top, Bottom, Left, Right, TopLeft etc (Position on screen)
Size - X, Y Size of keyboard
Font - Font to use

LoveKeyboard.Draw(Name)
Name - Name of keyboard to draw
If type == (type) then Call function to draw keyboard type
Loop for number of characters drawing them at positions relative to fontsize, position, and menu size
Draw cursor at top left character
Set keyboard on variable to on
For keyboard on variable is on do
if arrowkey is pressed then
wrap cursor movement if at edge of keyboard
else
set new cursor position
end
if select key is pressed then
if cursor is at a character then
draw character to text string
update string variable
end
if cursor is at del button then
remove last character from visible string
update string variable
end
if cursor is at finish button then
prompt for confirm
if confirm then
store variable
remove keyboard effect
keyboard on variable sets to off
end
if cancel then
remove confirm box
end
end
end

Seems like that would work so far

[Robin]

Yeah 2 seems most likely although what would be the position on using ripped sprites in such a project? I was under the impression that stating "Original Sprites Copyright of Squaresoft" in a non commercial project would be fine to use them

So you have no copyright over the sprites, and you are not sure what license they used? I think you need their permission. (Remember: as long as they haven't said you could use it, you can't. Lagoon Arena being non-commercial changes nothing.)

[CR4SH3D]

Nope i dont :S

The thing that made me think it would probably be ok was that the game was released in 1996 on the SNES in Japan, it was going to be ported to the US but never was, there hasn't been any sequals or similar projects that they have done or are working on and its now extremely hard to fine a physical copy

Ive just read they ordered a fan sequal to chrono trigger using the original sprites to be canceled but as far as i know there is later chrono trigger games on various consoles so that series is still very much alive

Battle System Initial Design:
Set character timers to 0
Character timer = timer + character speed
If timer is full
If menu is on queue this menu
else
draw menu
(loop through menu code until command is entered or skipped)
Hide menu
Perform command