This Thread was originally intended for Admins to view only, but I've decided it should be avilable for all Trusted members to submit their idea's and give their comments. What this thread is about is a project I'm going to hire someone (or people) to build, which is sorta a 2D version of Super Smash Bros, except it'll have different variations, 2D graphics, contain other video game characters, and most importantly, be an online multiplayer flash game where you need to log into Vizzed Board to play. Not only will this provide much more entertainment to vizzed board, but this should generate a ton of activity.

Imagine playing as Sonic (online), you're friend is playing as Master Chief, and you 2 are fighting against Mario and Luigi (controlled by other vizzed members) on a Mega Man level...are you having a digital orgasm yet? if so, read on...



First of all, I did do a search for other Flash 'Super Smash Bros' games, I could only find one, which was this one
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/333995
This one is great and all but it's not online multiplayer. Basically, this is our only competition (besides Super Smash bros for the consoles), and we gotta make sure to be better in every way possible. Also, this one has a quest mode, ours wont to begin with but a later version upgrade will contain one. Lastly, Vizzed Flash Bash isn't necessarily a 'Super Smash Bros' game, but rather a game which is very similar (vizzed flash bash will contain a bit of differences).

This thread will be broken down into 7 categories, each category which you may give a response to (which is required from bigbob and mvash).



1) The Name
Back before there were online playable games, people could only judge a game by it's cover and screenshots. Now days, with so many games available online, it's very common for someone to judge a game by it's name. If you see a list of Flash games, you'll most likely click the ones that sound interesting or fun.
Is 'Vizzed Flash Bash' a good name? If not, please submit other idea's for a name.
The great thing about Vizzed Flash Bash is that it's name says a lot; Vizzed = who made it; Flash = Made in flash; Bash = Bash usually stands for party of people.



2) 2 Separate Flash Developers?
I really want to keep the cost of this at $1000 or less (to begin with anyway), and the most cost affective way of having this game created is to pay a cheap india flash developer to create and develop the game, and than another developer (a smartfox server developer) to make the game online and to set it up. Since the smartfox developers (smartfox is the software installed on the server which makes it so flash games can be played multiplayer online) charge a lot more money (probably $20 an hour), I think that it'd be pointless to pay one of them to develop the entire game. I myself will be designing how the game works and everything, ripping the graphics + sounds + music, and I'm assuming Bigbob will just be the one who links the Flash game with the users on the board (if your up for that). Also modifications to the profiles will be required, possibly a 'Vizzed Flash Bash' profile which simply lists number of games won, lost etc, games played, which members beaten or lost against, etc... just various stats.

The only issue with having 2 different developers is that it may be a bit hard for the smartfox developer to make a game someone else made be online multiplayer. So not only will the developer of the game have to make clean code, comments, etc but he'll probably need communications with the smartfox developer. Anyone with thoughts on this?



3) Stats
It's no fun if all the characters play exactly the same. Each character will have 7 different stats. Each stat can be a number between 1 - 7, the higher the number means the greater teh stat. Each character will have 21 points total to be distributed to those stats. Also, almost all the characters will have a special ability, and depending on that ability, a certain number of points will be subtracted from that character (so if mario's ability is that he can jump on people to hurt him, I'd subtract 2 points from his 21 points which means he now has 19 points to be distributed between his stats). Here are the stats:
Health - Health meter which displays how much longer until the character is KO'd
Energy - How much energy a character has; everytime a character does their 'energy attack', their energy goes down, and they cannot use their 'energy attack' until they have enough energy to use it. More energy can be obtained by items on a level. It also slowly regenerates when your character is standing still. If energy is lower than 5%, than the character becomes exhausted and they ran half as fast and jump half as high. Also, if we have the ability to run, running will also slowly drain the energy.
Speed - How fast a character can move
Jump - How high a character can jump
Main Attack - The strength of the characters basic attack; this drains no energy and can be used unlimited times. In the game which the character is based on, this attack is usually the attack that character uses most in the game.
Physical Attack - The strength of the attack which the player users body parts to attack with; these are used for when your close enough to your opponent. If on ground, usually punches, if in air, usually kicks.
Energy Attack - Strength of the characters attack which requires energy. This attack is usually a strong attack and is almost always stronger than the other 2 attacks.



4) Controls
A = Run
S = Main Attack
D = Physical Attack
F = Energy Attack
SpaceBar = Jump
Up arrow = Climb stuff
Down arrow = Duck
Down arrow than Spacebar = Jump down a level (if you can on the current platform)
Left arrow = Move left
Right arrow = Move Right



5) Features
What features will the game contain (not all may be available on the 1st release); here is what I have:
-4 players (eventually 8 players)
-Can chat while playing (possibly text would display in a text bubble above character like comic strip)
-Atleast (6 to start with) 12 different stages (with background music to each)
-Atleast (6 to start with) 12 playable characters
-Some levels may have hazardous obstacles such as spikes, random enemies firing (which are killable), acid rain (in which you have to get underneath something to avoid it or you lose health), rising lava (get up high to avoid), wind (which pushes you in the direction of wind if your not behind something to block it); possibilities are endless



6) Items
In the game there will be various weapons and items. Some levels may have weapons that others don't. Additionally, some players may not be able to use certain items. To pick up an item, press D (which is the physical attack button). If it's a weapon, you press D to use it. To drop a weapon, press F (which is the energy attack button); when holding a weapon, basically you can't use physical attacks or energy attacks. To begin with, there wont be to many items. I also want to avoid having items which replicate the attacks of a playable character. I also want to avoid having to many weapons mainly because that just requires more animations/graphics for each character.

Here are some idea's:
MedKit - Boosts health (on mario level it's a mushroom, on mega man, it's those health bars, on sonic it's coins)
Energy Bar - Boosts energy (on mega man, it's those energy blocks, on mario it's the flower?)
Hammers - Weapon where you throw hammers (10 ammo); only on mario levels
Shield - Item where you have a temporary force field around you which prevents you from being hurt; once you've been hit once it goes away; only on sonic levels
Sword of Vizzed - A weapon which kills enemy in 1 hit; you hold it either until you've hit someone with it, or until 30 seconds is up; probably will only be on vizzed level (yes there may be a vizzed level)
Shotgun - A spreadshow weapon (doesn't go very far but strong); ammo 8
Pistol - A weapon; 16 ammo
Machine Gun - An constant firing weapon (the bullets themselves dont do much damage but a lot do since it shoots a lot at a time); ammo about 100
Bazooka - A very powerful weapon (drains health usually by half; bullets travel far but not as fast as other weapons); about 4
30 x Baseballs - A weapon that can be thrown at enemies, have 30 ammo
Baseball bat - A weapon that you must be close to the enemy to hit them with; can hit baseballs that are flying at you and there's a 25% chance that the balls will fly back at the person throwing them (either way, the baseballs go flying in some direction)
Stealth ? - Character is temporarily invisible; not invisible on own screen but appear invisible to everyone else (lasts 10 seconds)
Blackout ? - Screen goes black temporarily (5 - 10 seconds?)



7) Characters and their Stats
Mario, Luigi, Sonic, Tails, Mega Man, (suggestions)

Their possible stats:

Mario
Can jump on people; -2
Health .... ||
Energy .... |||
Speed ..... ||||
Jump ...... |||||
Attack .... || (throw flower power fire balls)
P Attack .. |
E Attack .. || (star power which hurts with contact and cannot be hurt but drains E. fast)

Luigi
Can jump on people; -2
Health .... ||
Energy .... |||
Speed ..... |||
Jump ...... |||||| (stays in air longer when jumping as long as jump button is held down)
Attack .... || (throw flower power fire balls)
P Attack .. |
E Attack .. || (star power which hurts with contact and cannot be hurt but drains E. fast)

Sonic
When jumping, Sonic spins and while spinning, hurts enemies with contact (landing on people gives him a boost and he bounces into air); -4
Health ... |||
Energy .... ||||
Speed ..... |||||
Jump ...... ||||
Attack .... (none)
P Attack .. |
E Attack .. (none)

Tails
Can jump on people; -2
Health .... |||
Energy .... |||
Speed ..... ||||
Jump ...... ||||||| (can fly)
Attack .... (none)
P Attack .. || (hit with tail)
E Attack .. (none)

Mega Man
Health .... ||||
Energy .... ||||
Speed ..... ||
Jump ...... ||
Attack .... ||| (ordinary shooting weapon)
P Attack .. ||
E Attack .. |||| (power blast)

Wolverine
Energy slowly regenerates; -4
Health .... ||||
Energy .... ||
Speed ..... |||
Jump ...... |||
Attack .... ||||| (has to be close; uses claws and can swing fast and constantly)
P Attack .. (none)
E Attack .. (none)

Other possible future characters:
Master Chielf (health regenerates), Charizard (can fly), Pikachu (can call lightning from sky), King David (massive sword he got from goliath), Ryo from Shenmue (all upclose attacks but very strong), Bowser (slow but strong), Trivian from Vizzed Ville demo (just a basic well-balanced character), maybe 1 or 2 vizzed side-kicks, Crash Bandicoot, Contra guys, Link, metroid lady, Bonk, Bomberman (throws bombs), a disney character?, etc...

The thing with having characters who were never originally in a 2D platform game is the fact that they'd have to be completely made which requires extra time (or extra money if we hired someone). Also, each additional character would require further programming and stuff like that.



To begin with, the game wont contain all the features, characters and levels, this will all slowly come over time. Some of the features will cost extra money of course. We can even have a list of what features are to come in the next releases and how much money needs to be donated in order to pay for them. I'm sure that people will be willing to donate money so that we can get those features sooner, especially if this game becomes big with many loyal fans.

Further information and idea's for the game (copied from the 1st admin forum thread regarding this game):
===========================================================




Vizzed Flash Bash (aka Super Smash Bros)
A 2d (side-scrolling perspective) super smash bros type game. WOULD BE ONLINE MULTIPLAYER, most likely 4 players to start out with. Players would be able to choose from several classic video game characters to battle out on selected stages from classic side-scrolling games. Some stages may be a single, full screen image, others may be scrollable (if that's possible within the budget). Levels would also contain obstacles to hide behind or to use to an advantage, and items such as weapons to fight with.

Basically the characters sorta fight until there's no one less (unless they play a different mode). It probably wouldn't have a percentage system like super smash bros has.

Each character will have most likely 2 attacks, a main attack which they can do an infinite amount of times, and than a special attack which they'll be limited to how much they can use it (since it will require energy, but energy can be gained as an item on the levels)

Every character will have advantages and disadvantages. Some characters may have more health than others, some may be faster, some jump higher, some with stronger main attacks, some with strong special attacks, etc. I could even give everyone a 3rd attack (such as punch when your in contact with enemy or kick with in the air and contact with enemy).

On top of classic 2d characters (which i most likely will rip their graphics from the games, as well as all other graphics), we can convert some modern day characters into a 2D sprite form such as master chief, crash bandicoot, etc.

Features:
-4 players (eventually 8 players)
-Can chat while playing (possibly text would display in a text bubble above character like comic strip)
-Multiple modes, may rip off a few ideas from Super Smash Bros for the Game Cube
-Atleast 12 different stages (with background music to each)
-Atleast 12 playable characters
-Some levels may have hazardous obstacles such as spikes, random enemies firing (which are killable), acid rain (in which you have to get underneath something to avoid it or you lose health), rising lava (get up high to avoid), wind (which pushes you in the direction of wind if your not behind something to block it); possibilities are endless
-Adventure mode with 2-4 player co-op (wouldn't come until later)

I'm not a huge fan of all the stats. What made Smash fun was that you didn't have a health gauge or anything to worry about besides your percentage.

Well Super Smash bros has stats, they just dont show it. Some characters are tougher, some have special moves, etc.

I personally didnt care to much for the whole percent thing in the Super Smash bros games, I would rather have health and lives.

And besides, this isn't exactly a Super Smash Bros clone, it's just a game which will be very similar.

One of the things that made Mario Kart DS one of the highest rated Mario Kart games is the fact that each car has it's own stats, most gamers like being able to pick and choose what their going to use based on the stats.

I havnt had time to read that massive thread yet, but what about custom characters?

As in, I make a BigBob85 character with my own stats. Programing being high, and agility being low . Infact, my stats would look like a cos wave

To begin with, no one would be able to have their own characters because adding extra characters might be costly and I would want to stick with gaming characters. If someone wants their own character, they'd have to pay about $50 because I'm sure the labor for that would be a few hours (if we had a single smartfox server guy make the game, charging $20 an hour would add up).

I wasn't talking about the jumping, power and what not. I meant the stamina, energy, and health. Stamina and energy in partticular

Well there's no stamina, just energy. And the main purpose of having that is so that a character can't do their really strong attack over and over again, basically it makes it so you have to wait a while before you can do your really strong attack again (or get a item which refils it instantly).

If enough people agree that this shouldn't be in the game, I can get rid of it, but I just thought it'd add a slight bit of an RPG / realistic element to the game. It also makes the game a little more different than super smash bros, afterall, if the game is exactly like super smash bros, than what fun is there in that? Might as well play the real thing than. And I can avoid copyright issues if it isn't exactly like super smash bros also, though I doubt Nintendo would find out about this game and complain but if they did, I could easily just take their characters out (or remake the sprites to look very similar to those nintendo characters and not call them by their nintendo name).

Additionally, this game isn't a button masher, since this game you'll be using a keyboard, you're not able to randomly and crazily press buttons in order to fight. So therefore, this game would require a little more strategy and planning, use the energy moves when you need to and plan out when the best time would be to use them (most characters will be able to use their energy attack multiple times before energy drains out)....

Some characters may be weaker to other characters. For example, mario's attack is the fire power, which bounces off the ground, some characters that can jump high would be able to jump right over this, but other characters, such as bowser, would be screwed (can't jump very high). Tails on the other hand can fly and would be good at dodging mario's fire power attack. On the other hand, since Tail's attack is tail whip, he has to get close to the enemy, and if he got close to bowser to hurt him, bowser's attack would (or could) but flame thrower, which doesn't go far but is very effective. So in this sequence, mario beats bowser, bowser beats tails, tails beats mario. Obviously mario can still beat tails and so on, but it's just a slight advantage. Now to make things interesting, lets say there's a match where each player gets 3 lives each. Lets say you get to choose what characters you want to battle with for that match. So before the battle begins, my team consists of Sonic, Mario and Master Chief. I choose to start with Master Chief, I get KO'd with him, now for my 2nd life I can choose either Sonic or Mario....Mario gets KO'd, now my last option is obviously Sonic, if he gets KO'd, I lose. That is just one mode of game play which would not only be exciting, but would be a little strategic as well.

I'll be producer!!!

1. The name sounds fine to me.
2. I can do that when its needed.
It would be good if you could get an indian developer that knows how to use smartfox.

3. Does this mean if you get hit, you may not jump as high or run as fast?
I like the idea of energy and becoming exausted, it'd have to regenerate fast though.
Speed - hopefully this wont effect how fast a user can jump up (that should be static for all characters), just making note of this now. This should only effect left/right movement.

4. Controls look all good to me, in theroy it'd be possible to make custom controls though.

5. Possible to bet Viz on a game?

6. " basically you can't use physical attacks or energy attacks." Does this mean the attack is then based off the weapons stat?
Stats should combine, so a sword might give +2 Attack. (after I acutaly read the weapons it should only effect mellay {spelling} weapons)

7. Stats look ok i guess.


- Possible Feature -
Unlockable/purchaceable characters, to be payed with viz, or awarded from various vizzed competitions and such.

Bigbob:
3. No, your energy does not go down from receiving damage, so this would not cause you to run slower or jump shorter. Speed wont change how high a character can jump, but it would determine how far (makes sense).
4. Most likely we will let the user set their own controls, this just would be default. Idea is to have 5 action keys and the 4 control keys.
5. Betting is an excellent idea. Your feature on msn was excellent too.
6. All weapons have their own stats and wont have anything to do with the user's stats (unless of course that certain user can't use that certain item, which would be rare that a character wouldn't be able to); we could have a vote as to whether we should make melee weapons just increase your attack rather than having it's own attack stat.
7. Character stats can be adjusted any way possible but these stats are pretty much based on the games they are from so I think for the most part it's accurate.

After reading this
http://www.smartfoxserver.com/whitepapers/performance/
I've concluded that my server would probably be able to handle 100 simultaneous connections. They also offer an equation, basically they say that if your receiving 10,000 unique visits a day that it'd probably consume 100 connections. Either way, I'm pretty confident that 100 connections should be good for atleast a year. And if needed, I could upgrade my server to one that is about 3 times powerful, and that would only be about an extra $45 a month (which would be about $80 a month, i'm currently paying $35 for the current server).

Also, I read their FAQ and if we bought the fox server pro for 100 connections and decided to upgrade to the 500 connections, we'd just pay the difference between the 2.

This software is a bit expensive but we also wouldn't need it right away since the trial version suppose 20 simultaneous connections, equivelant to around 2000 unique visits a day.


Prices for this software? (in US):
20 connections - free
100 connections - $736.45
500 connections - around $1500
unlimited connections - about $3000

Seems rather expensive...

Yes, very expensive, as to why I'm in no hurry to jump out and get the 100 connections...mainly because it'll take almost 2 months to have the money to get the game developed. This also is why I'm considering splitting the cost with jigsawkiller.

As long as we make the controls better than that Super Smash Flash game. It feels so floaty and I also think the damage wasn't really done very well on it, no attacks that I could find would really launch someone.

Here's my thoughts...

1. Name sounds fine

2. Controls might be idk... I'm use to (w) as forward (d) to stray right (a) to go left and (s) to go back. Those are for first person shooters tho so it probably won't work out well with this.

3. Weapons are ok but might be unrealistic. Blackout should be a FlashBang where it's pure white or black for a few seconds. 10 sec is a bit long. But know I see why you called it blackout lol. But I still think each character should have their own weapons or atleast their own special attack. Say Pickachu attacked aquaman, pickachu would def win lol.

4. More characters, I personally would enjoy seeing serious sam (serious bomb as special weapon, he would own!). This brings me to another issue of copyright, arn't tails and all them pokemon creatures copyrighted and trademarked? This might be a potential problem, I know everyone knows all those characters and they might be tired of them. From what I have seen david, you have some very awesome ideas for weapons and characters, i just think all these other creatures have been in the spotlight for too long. They are legends but legends get old one way or another, maybe not for some...

This brings me to the conclusion that since it is "Vizzed" might as well make it all "Vizzed" or else it will be too much of a ripoff with a different name. What I'm thinking is maybe have the legends as unlockables and start out with nobodies. The more characters the better! Not trying to be rude or sidetrack the production, I just think that it's best to go off your own ideas instead of use other peoples characters or you might as well leave the name to Super Smash Bros.

If none of that appeals to you that's fine just trying to get something original going no matter what way shape or form it is in. Definatly need a ton of characters to keep it appealing to a wider audience. For instance, use some more mature characters like serious sam, duke nukem, john mcclain lol, jet lee haha, micheal myers, leatherface, terminator... add some reality to it lol... hell even add a doomsday timer and other crazy things like that lol.

JigSawKiller

2: Most people are going to have their own preferences with controls, so most likely they will be able to be adjusted.

3. Blackout could be 5 seconds than but I like the idea because you sorta have to remember where everythign is since you can't see anything. It's a lot like Halo 3 where there's a weapon that makes everything white for i think 5 seconds or so. Yeah that might be a possibility of certain characters being able to do more damage to other certain characters. Also the Pikachu thing brought me to a point, since he's powered by electricity you would think he'd still be able to see in the dark (same for charizard)

4: We'll eventually have tons of characters but hte budget will limit us to only a few to start with. Hopefully as the board generates more money, we'll use some of that to have more things added to the game. Also, since we're not actually charging for the game, there's a very good chance we wont get in trouble for copyright issues, and if for some reason we did, we just replace the characters with look alike characters which are basically the same character but look a little bit different and a slight difference in name. Either way, I've seen so many fan games out there be successful and usually the game companies are honored (red vs blue is a great example of a fan based movie based on halo, microsoft supports them even). So as long as we're not actually charging money for the game, I think we'll get away with it.

As you all know, I've got a good collection of characters I've made up and created myself in the past
Here
https://www.vizzed.com/mygraphics.php?sub=sprites&item=characterssprites
and Here
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedkingdom/.
Eventually I'd love to make all these guys playable characters. Also I would like to make Trivian from Vizzed Ville demo a playable character, who is basically an all around normal person. Additionally, I would love to include a lot of the big name video game characters but I would also like to include people outside of video games.

Are you saying the name is like 'Super Smash Bros'? Also, we'll use a few characters from Super Smash Bros but we'll also use so many characters who are not from it. To start with though, I want to use the most popular and well known video game characters to appeal to more gamers.

Well I'd rather leave serial killers out of the game but yeah, we'll involve a lot of characters, it'll just cost a lot per a character, especially characters who weren't originally made as a 2D Platform game because than we gotta hire someone to make all the animations, graphics, etc. So the cost to add a single character can be anywhere from $20 - 100 per a character. BUT, eventually as the game profits we'll have many more characters, levels and features for the game!

you re gonna try to make a profit from this game? How would you go around tho do that.

2 ways...

1. Accept donations. Say how much more money we need donated before we can add a certain new feature or a certain new character.

2. Ads. Bigbob predicts we'll have 1000+ people a day in no time, at that rate, we make a few dollars a day on ads. If we can make lets say $3 a day on ads, that's 90 a month. There is good money in ads, just ask just about every other successful website out there.

You do know that you'll be sued to hell and back if you're gaining money (even indirectly) from an game containing licensed characters.