Since this entire post will revolve around the flowchart, that will be the first thing I'll display:


https://www.vizzed.com/VizzedBoardFiles/vizzedflashbash/vfb%20flow%20chart.gif

This flow chart shows the flow/actions the user will take to get to each screen.

NOTE: Lobby, Create / Join and Chat screens are all part of the 'Lobby'.

2ND NOTE: There will be 2 ways of getting into this game, by going to the vizzed board lobby (which will eventually contain access to other games), and by going to the game directly (which will lead you to the lobby to start a game with other people if you choose online mode).

Now for the rest of this thread I'm going to go into detail about what each screen will have and the graphics for each.


Most of the content in this thread is pending....


=======================Vizzed Flash Bash=======================

Intro
An animated intro screen. Most likely just an animation of 'Vizzed'.
(graphics and info coming soon)


Main Menu
The screen which will display the modes of game play (offline and online and options). This will change as future releases of the game come out.
https://www.vizzed.com/VizzedBoardFiles/vizzedflashbash/vfb-title-animate-smooth.html


Options / Info
Lets you possibly adjust options. Also gives you in depth information about the game.
Possible options which you can change may include:
Game Music: On/Off
Game Sounds: On/Off
Adjust Controls: (change the controls of the game)

This will also display the credits on the game, what you need to do and download in order to hear the music in the game (midi), what you need if you want to play the game with a pc controller, how to play the game, future releases, etc.

(graphics and info coming soon)


Offline
This is basically just a redirect to the 'Offline Mode' menu


Online
This is basically just a redirect to the VFB lobby


Offline Mode
A menu displaying the offline modes (offline mode is only 2 players). This contains all the options of online mode except team play.
(graphics and info coming soon)



Online Mode
A menu displaying the online modes. Only the person who created the room from the lobby can choose a mode to play (or we might just have it that when the person creates a room in the lobby, they select the mode of game play).

NOTE: A "series" will be considered a set of games played. At the end ofthe series, players go back to the chat in the lobby to decide on another series to play. A game is the actual battle that is played.

Modes of play to begin with will be (3 for now; later updates to game will have more):
-Free for all: In this mode, you can choose how many matches there will be, how many people are playing (2 - 4; future release may support up to 8, in this case there would be special levels for that many people), how long each match will last (3 minutes is default but you can choose as many minutes as you want, as well as unlimited but unlimited cannot be selected if the winner is decided by 'most points'), how many lives each person gets, and what determines who wins. After each match, the biggest loser of the match gets to select the next level (the person who started always is the first to determine the level of the first match; it can also be set so that the levels are picked randomly for the entire series). Also, stats are recorded for who won the entire series (the series is considered all the matches), stats are recorded for each win/loss a person receives from each battle (if 2 people tie for a win, that goes down as a winning tie and same goes for a losing tie), stats are recorded for each person you knock out or get knocked out by, stats are recorded for how many matches played, stats are recorded for how many series played, and stats are recorded for how much time played. Winner can be decided based on 'most points', 'most KO's' and 'last man standing'.

-Team Play: Choose what the teams will be for the entire series and than choose how the winning team will be decided. Teams can be 2 on 2 or 3 on 1. Just like free for all, you choose how many matches there will be, how long each match will be, how many lives each person gets, levels, etc. A team win gets recorded as a win for the stats and a team loss recorded as a loss. Winner can be decided based on 'most points', 'most KO's' and 'last man standing'.

-Group Play: This is same exact rules as free for all except that you can fight with more than 1 character. For example, if the series is set for 5 lives per a match, that means you choose 5 characters who you want to battle with and you select them in order and you can also choose a single character more than once.
Example: If my game has 3 lives, I go to choose Mario, Sonic, Mario. This would mean I'd first play as Mario, once he's KO'd, I play as Sonic, once he's KO'd, I play as Mario, once he's KO'd I'm out of the match.
Also in this mode of play if the winner is decided by 'Most Points', and since 'Most Points' doesn't allow you to play using lives, this means that in this mode of game play, you select 1 person to begin with and for each time you get KO'd, you can choose a new person to play with for your next character (you get 5 seconds to choose otherwise you play as the same person again).


Here is a list of different ways the winner can be decided:
-Most Points: You gain a piont for knocking someone out, you lose a point for getting knocked out. The person with most points wins the series. With this one, everyone has unlimited lives.
-Most KO's: Whoever knocks out the most people. The person with the most knockouts at the end of the series is the winner.
-Last man standing: Play until everyone is out of lives except 1 person. The person gets 1 point and the person with the most points at the end of the series is the winner.


Future release of this game will contain an 'Adventure' mode where you go thru levels and fight AI enemies. This will also contain a 2 player option to go thru levels with another person online or offline.

(graphics coming soon)



Player Select
This will allow the users to select their character.
Highlighting a character will display his sprite at the bottom, his stats to the right, additional info about him/her and will lighten up his Mug shot picture.

Clicking a character will automatically make them your character. You can click again to unselect him, however, if your the last one to choose your character and you select him, you wont be able to unselect since the game will than go to the level select screen.

At the top right is a timer, if someone doesn't pick a character in under 60 seconds (online mode only), they will have a character randomly selected for them.

At the top left is various information. In offline mode, it will tell player 1 to select a character and once he has, it will tell player 2 to select a character. In online mode, it will say the users username, say how many people have selected their character so far, and also tells the user to select a character.

Here is what this screen will look like (the example shown is based on if the character was highlighting sonic)
https://www.vizzed.com/VizzedBoardFiles/vizzedflashbash/vbf%20character%20select%20screen.html

And here is what the animation will look like once everyone has picked their characters (the graphic which it reveals will display the level select screen)
https://www.vizzed.com/VizzedBoardFiles/vizzedflashbash/vbf%20character%20select%20screen%20-%20animate.html


Level Select
A screen which displays all the levels of game play.

There will also be a 'random' button which randomly selects a level.

Future release will include an additional option for each level which lets you choose if it has 'hazards'. Hazards will be environment things which affect game play, such as wind, rain, meteorites, fire, night/day, etc.

(graphics and info coming soon)


Battle
The battling. Once the battle is over, in offline mode it takes the characters back to the mode of game play screen, in online mode it takes them back to their original chat in the lobby.

NOTE: I didn't mention it in the flow chart, but depending on the mode of game play, between matches a user may be able to select the level.

(graphics and info coming soon)





=======================Lobby=======================

Lobby
Lobby will display a main room where people can chat, and it'll have sub rooms (listed as "Chat" below) which will have title names (chosen by room creator), which you can join; the sub rooms are where you discuss and get ready to start a game with other people. Everyone who is in the sub room has to click a button called 'Ready' when they are ready to play. The room creator at any point can change the mode of game play and the mode of game play is shown in the sub room. Mode of game play basically displays how teh game will play.

(graphics and info coming soon)


Create / Join
You can either choose to join a room or create one. Creating one lets you determine how many people will be playing (and this also determines how many people can join the room), and how the game will be played. You can also specify if the game is private; if it is private, you can select who can enter the room and you can also invite people (no one else can join besides selected people and invited people).

(graphics and info coming soon)


Chat
This is the sub room where the people chat before beginning the game. People can chat in game also.

(graphics and info coming soon)



=============================================


Sudden Death

If it is a timed match, and the user has ‘sudden death’ on, the game goes into ‘sudden death’ mode where there is less than 60 seconds left of the match. The stuff that happens continues to get worst until there is only 1 person left on the level. If it isn’t a timed match, than the stuff starts to happen after 1 minute of game play and after the sudden death has taken place for 60 seconds, it does not get worst but stays consistent the rest of that round.
Here is the ‘stuff’ that happens to each level:

Super Mario Level (1st level): Bullets shoot in from the sides of the level (graphic is attached). These bullets shoot in from the left, right, top or bottom (randomly); if the shoot from the top or bottom, they go thru the screen vertically and if they shoot from the right or left, they go thru the screen horizontally. There speeds are random also, but the start out slow and become faster as the ‘sudden death’ counts down (so after 60 seconds, they are at a full speed). Also, the beginning of the sudden death, there is only 1 bullet shooting across the screen at a time but more start to shoot across the screen as the sudden death progresses (so to begin with, probably 1 bullet at a time and slowly work up to the point where there are 10 bullets shooting across the screen at a time). The bullets can go thru all objects and do 25 damage if they hit someone and if they hit someone, the bullet disappears.

Super Mario Lava Level (2nd level): Once the sudden death has begun, the level slowly starts to rise to the top of the screen and does not stop until it reaches the very top platform (it will not go above the top platform though and it should take 60 seconds until it gets there).

Sonic Level Green Hills (3rd level): Spikes slowly rise from the ‘grass’ platforms (any platform that has grass). The spikes will rise slowly and will randomly rise from the ‘grass’ platforms (and by the time 60 seconds has gone by, by that time all the grass platforms should have spikes sticking out of them). The only platforms that wont have spikes rise out of them are the bridge and the rock.

Sonic Level Casino Night (4th level): All the health and energy disappears. After about 10 seconds, Screen slowly fades completely black (takes 3 seconds to fade to black, stays black for 5 seconds) and than slowly fades back to normal (takes 2 seconds to fade back to normal). After about 5 seconds, screen blinks red and everyone loses 10 health. After another 5 seconds, the screen fades to black and back again (exactly how it did it earlier). After 5 seconds after that, screen blinks red again but this time everyone loses 15 health.

Mega Man Level (5th level): After the sudden death has begun, the flying guy does not drop items if you kill him. Also, once sudden death has begun, he’ll shoot 2 times more often than he did before. After 15 seconds has gone by, he’ll appear twice as often (which means more of a chance that there will be more than 1 on the screen at a time). After 30 seconds, he will again shoot twice as often as before. After 45 seconds, he will again appear twice as more as he did.

X-Men Level (6th level): The robots start to move back and forth once sudden death has begun. They’ll be able to move from left to right but they will not be able to cross eachothers bodies but there bodies can go off the screen just as long as their heads don’t go off the screen and they will basically just move from left to right and continue that motion. After about 15 seconds, they will shoot twice as much as they did before. After about 30 seconds, I’d like for a 3rd robot to rise down from the top, but he will not be as far down as the other robots, he will be in that empty area above the robots and below the top of the screen and he will also not move around and he will also be horizontally center of the screen and he will only shoot down, not to the sides like the other 2 robots and he will also shoot as often as the other roobts. After 45 seconds has gone by, all 3 robots will now shoot twice as much as they did before (which means they are not shooting 4 times more as they originally did from the start of the level).

Step 3 was done before step 2?

I love the select character screen, much better than the standard 2d ones.
As for the animation of after you pick a character, it looks alright, could be better.. maybe the whole stage tweens down as you build up speed going up and up and UP! eventualy the building comes to an end and you see sky and clouds, and after about 2 sec the sun (a big white bright ball with lots of pointy white things around it) is in the middle of the screen and sorta "solar flares" the player and the screen tweens white... now that would be cool .

I think you ment it, but didnt show it, but dosnt "online" point to the "lobby" ?

Chat, Create/Join are both part of Lobby, I should make that more clear.

As for your idea for that animation, sounds pretty cool but who wants to wait for an entire animation that big before every single fight? lol. I'll work on the animation for when everyone has selected a character, I'll just have to make sure it's quick though, or I could just have a simple fade effect.

I also forgot to mention the loading screen. The flow chart is missing a few other small elements also but I will add them when I get the time.

Put in red dots for loading screens .

There should only be 1 loading screen, assuming this game is under 1 MB.

On that loading screen, I may sell some ad space, that might be able to help generate some money for future enhancements to the game.

Advertise your ebay shop

Never thought of that, might be a good idea.

I just updated my first post with more information regarding the flowchart and the screens.

I know it might sound dumb, really dumb, but maybe the winners of each round in online mode could get something like (not forum Viz) in-game Viz to buy weapons for specific characters. Your game is coming along very nicely! I think also adding a soul-calibur III create-a-character thingy would be good. Sorry if I'm throwing too much at you, I don't want to make the project less enjoyable. Also, the nickname option from SSBM is even more awesome. Right when I logged on and saw this project, ideas started flying out of my head. You won't have to add another button to the main menu, just when the user clicks "Online Mode" or "Offline Mode", the little virtual shop tab and create a character button would be nice . *Clears up some RAM and prepares to play in the coming months*

All you'll need to do is be logged into vizzed and your username will be used for the game.

The Viz idea I had never thought of but I suppose we could make it so a winner gets a small amount of Viz, maybe 25 Viz per a win or something.. We will also have it so you can bet Viz, so if you have 4 people and each placed 25 Viz on teh match, the winner gets 100 Viz.