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Post by Daniel Everland on Nov 6, 2015 16:41:43 GMT 1
KoGaMa Announcement
Hello KoGaMians!
Today we're happy to announce a completely new a revamped 2D mode! We realised the old version was poorly designed, to say the least, so we decided to completely redo it!
The new version contains: Play on a fixed plane, which means you cannot walk forward and backwards. At first this might sound like a constraint, however, I can assure you it greatly improves gameplay! Aim using your mouse! Completely new edit mode Much snappier grid snapping Much much more. If you'd like to try a game designed with this in mind, have a look at our 2D Jetpack Arena!
I'd usually leave you with this, but I do have something to announce. We're happy to officially announce that we're working on a KoGaMa app, and have been so for a month or two. This app will at first only be released on Android, but if it does well we're going to port it to iOS as well. We currently don't have a release date in mind, but I promise we're going to release it as soon as possible! Feel free to ask questions in the comment section below
- KoGaMa Dev Team
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Post by Draven Does It All on Nov 6, 2015 16:52:15 GMT 1
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Post by YL on Nov 6, 2015 17:25:55 GMT 1
Kogama for mobile, awesome, I've been dreaming of this since 2012 Any rough estimate for release date?
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Post by Jatsu on Nov 6, 2015 18:27:38 GMT 1
- Aim movement is a little sluggish when firing/charging. Most noticeable with railgun.
- Adding a model from the Inventory and pressing F will snap it to the center of the project. Also applies to editing anything and pressing F.
- Drawplane can't be moved in 2D edit (neither can the spawn point) which hurts perspective and scene building.
- You can't rotate models freely in 2D edit mode. Only 90 degree variations available.
- The advanced 2D template (I'd check others but don't have time at the moment) doesn't have a 2D scene.
- Not really sure how this works, but the drawplane (the real one) can be brought into 2D edit mode by clicking to add a model from the Inventory, pressing F, and clicking to place the model. It has a chance to open, but not always. Unclear if it needs to be a new model or if the unmovable (the other one) drawplane has to be active or not.
+ Logic is rotated in a way that's usable.
+ For better or worse, the terrain edit UI works fairly well. Clicking from far away makes it whole again.
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Post by Hawk64 on Nov 7, 2015 0:38:16 GMT 1
My projects are broken
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Post by Jatsu on Nov 7, 2015 14:06:18 GMT 1
HEAVY HANDED CRITICISM INCOMING IN ONE HOUR: BE PREPARED.
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Post by YL on Nov 7, 2015 14:09:30 GMT 1
HEAVY HANDED CRITICISM INCOMING IN ONE HOUR: BE PREPARED. It takes you an hour to write a forum reply?
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Post by Jatsu on Nov 7, 2015 14:28:51 GMT 1
STFU. I don't see you contributing anything.
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Post by ᴳᴬᴹᴱᴿNexusᴳᴬᴹᴱᴿ on Nov 7, 2015 15:10:56 GMT 1
STFU. I don't see you contributing anything. LOLOL
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Post by De Lírios on Nov 7, 2015 15:32:25 GMT 1
The fixed movement should be an optional thing. Just give us a box to tick, otherwise there will be no reason to create top view camera games anymore.
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Post by ᅚᅚ ᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚ ᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚ on Nov 7, 2015 15:44:52 GMT 1
The fixed movement should be an optional thing. Just give us a box to tick, otherwise there will be no reason to create top view camera games anymore. Exactly. Due to this update, :OUT: has been completely destroyed as if it were an egg in a microwave.
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Post by Jatsu on Nov 7, 2015 15:52:39 GMT 1
I'm not even mad about you guys trying to do something new with the project editor, because it's like, FINALLY YOU DID SOMETHING WITH IT. It's just, the changes you made to the 2D project editor made it dysfunctional in several big ways. Forcing creators to build in this 2D perspective is difficult and unnecessarily limiting. Mainly, you can no longer build a scene or environment for your game. This means no more backgrounds or foregrounds which help create a setting for the more creative games. For example, if a creator wanted to decorate a path with a tree, then that tree is stuck on that path and now obstructing the players movement. You're only allowing creators to build a single line that players can run and jump on, and that's pretty boring and not immersive at all. Next, you disabled all interaction in one axis. This means that rotators and moving platforms won't push players off the line they walk on. Granted, I understand why this was done - you want all players to be able to interact on the same plane. At the same time, however, it does hurt creativity and detaches the player further from the existing 2.5D perspective. Creators can now only rotate models by 90 degree turns and this is just silly. It needlessly hurts the amount of variation a creator can use in making interesting content that's non-orthogonal. Besides, after testing I found no way to redirect a player off their line - no angled models, no rotators, no windmills, no explosions or oculus, and not even pre-existing moving platforms that deliberately push out of the plane you're in. Moving on to less harsh criticism, I think that like anything new, it simply is just a matter of taking the time to get used to it. I honestly feel like I can get used to editing with a fixed camera. Do I like it? No, not really, I find it limiting. I think it would make more sense to allow full 3D camera access to edit, with a toggle option to fix your camera to see what a player sees. Nonetheless, seeing in the same perspective the player will see helps design the game a little bit, so I won't deny that. It really is just a matter of getting used to it. Next, the change in the block manipulation UI. Overall, it suits the 2D perspective, but the corners are definitely quirky. They're split across the diagonal for which direction it's being edited and this causes some confusion when the edit corner isn't at the corner of the block. For example, if you move the corners to the center of the block, it becomes way harder to determine the hidden diagonal split and editing it in the right direction becomes tedious and difficult. I get that it's just a limitation of the current UI, but it could be made more obvious if that diagonal was somehow shown. The templates Steady Cam Base and Steady Cam Advanced don't suit the 2D template well at all. You are not able to immediately edit the path the player interacts on until you delete the blocks in front of it. Additionally, because of the first argument I made, having those background and foreground elements doesn't mesh well considering that you can't edit them well. Plus, having a flag outside of the plane the player walks in is pointless, I mean unless if you just wanted it there to taunt the player then, well, that's not very nice. Also, I'm conflicted about the changes to the camera setting. On one hand, it's much simpler since you fixed all the other settings. But on the other, the creator now has less settings they can manipulate to make creative games. I guess all I can complain about is why that one settings needs such a huge menu screen! Grr, unnecessary space! Okay, joking mood is gone now. I found out why the cursor moves sluggishly when aiming weapons in play mode. It's the camera distance. The farther away the camera is, the less accurate and slower the cursor moves. I just find it annoying. At least it's kind of funny to see the weapon rotate inside the player's body when shooting, but I understand there's not really a better way of conveying that information given that most weapons were designed to be worn. The next thing I want to talk about is drawplane. Just seeing transparent squares isn't doing it for me, I would like to see the grid lines come back on that. It's actually a helpful visual measuring tool and it would actually help make it clearer when the drawplane is actually active in a 2D project (because the button for it doesn't go transparent when it's off in this mode now). Plus, you know, if you feel (sigh) like giving players the ability to edit depth (foregrounds, backgrounds, and layers) in 2D games again, that ability to move it forward and backward would be nice as well. There's a pretty big issue when adding stuff from the Inventory to the game with the drawplane inactive though. The biggest issue is that pressing F to disable the drawplane while placing something will stick it at the center of the project - which isn't in the same plane that the player will be interacting with. This specifically hurts things like teleporters and other interactable objects, but MORE IMPORTANTLY it moves spawns points off that plane too. So a creator can force players onto a second plane and prohibit their actions with players on the "default" plane. Also, for some inconclusive reason, attempting to add content from the Inventory to the center of the project also carries a chance of initiating the true drawplane, one that a player can move forward and backward to change the depth of the project. This, however, is clearly unintentional on your part, however much I wish it was a real feature for your new 2D editor. Moving on, the cursor look-ahead camera movement is nice and I like it. It's really quite cool and opens up some room for creativity like hiding messages behind walls or something. I did find an issue with it though, and that's that it doesn't follow the player when they die. For example, if you die from an Oculus, your body will go flying off who-knows-where and your cursor just sits there. Kind of weird, but can be humorous depending on the context. More praise goes to the person who made certain the logic boxes face a usable way in the 2D editor. Having access to those prongs is nice. Also, text boxes are facing the right way too (I was genuinely worried about this). Although, not all logic was rotated correctly by default. Namely, the spawn points and the windmill. Now, the spawn points aren't that big of a deal, you can only move left or right anyway so who cares if you face backwards. But the windmill's pitch rotates outside of the 2D plane which makes it ineffective. Fortunately, players can rotate it to the right direction to make it useful, but it's unusual nonetheless. Overall, I like the update, it actually makes the 2D feature feel like a separate part of the editor which can be good. I hope that its problems and quirks get ironed out though, as it does restrict a lot of creativity in making 2D projects. Now I didn't mention everything, but I'll add the stuff that didn't deserve a paragraph in a bullet point TL;DR:What's Good:- Look-ahead pointing cursor is great for 2D perspective.
- Most logic rotated correctly by default so it's convenient for creators.
- The camera box was made simpler with only one setting.
- A News post was made for an update. Yay, transparency!
What's Quirky:- The corners for block manipulation UI do two functions, despite not being clearly depicted.
- Building with a fixed camera angle feels weird, but it's disabled while editing models which is inconsistent.
- The camera box setting has a lot of empty space for one option.
- Pre-existing moving platforms and rotators that attempt to push players out of their plane are ignored and sometimes push them into the air instead.
- Nothing can move a player off their line (no angled models, moving platforms, rotators, windmills, etc.)
- Spawn points and windmills (pitch setting) aren't rotated in a way that's readily usable for 2D.
- The water box is probably even harder to locate when added and isn't placed where it should be placed.
- The combination of max fog setting and max camera distance setting makes almost everything impossible to see.
- The cursor is less accurate and moves slower at large (or max) camera distance settings.
- The left-click move/rotate UI is missing the vertical movement buttons. It just feels weird to move it with the cursor, and there doesn't seem to be harm in allowed the up/down buttons to be usable in 2D mode.
What's Bad:- The 2D drawplane is transparent and hard to see. Please add grid lines!
- The drawplane button doesn't become less transparent when it's off (like it did previously).
- You can't move the 2D drawplane back and forth, prohibiting creation of backgrounds, foregrounds, and layers.
- Creators can only rotate at 90 degree angles. Please allow all 7 normal angles, there's no obvious reason why this was removed.
- The Steady Cam Base and Advanced templates contain scenes that are not readily editable for use and contain elements that can't be interacted with in 2D.
What's Bugged:
- Disabling the drawplane while adding content from Inventory places it in the center of the project. This displaces it from the default plane, making some content unable to interact with.
- This allows creators to displace spawn points which breaks interactions between players.
- You're bugged if you're only reading this list.
- Disabling the drawplane while adding content from Inventory sometimes initiates the true drawplane which can be moved backwards and forward and is usable to place blocks outside of the default plane.
- The camera doesn't follow the player anymore when they die.
- Spamming P to switch between play and edit mode quickly will distance the camera far away from the editing area pretty quickly.
Probably forgetting things, whatever. I doubt any of you slackers will read this anyway.
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Post by YL on Nov 7, 2015 16:40:01 GMT 1
STFU. I don't see you contributing anything. Not often you see a forum moderator telling you to shut the f*** up
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Post by ᅚᅚ ᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚ ᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚᅚ on Nov 7, 2015 17:44:29 GMT 1
I'm not even mad about you guys trying to do something new with the project editor, because it's like, FINALLY YOU DID SOMETHING WITH IT. It's just, the changes you made to the 2D project editor made it dysfunctional in several big ways. Forcing creators to build in this 2D perspective is difficult and unnecessarily limiting. Mainly, you can no longer build a scene or environment for your game. This means no more backgrounds or foregrounds which help create a setting for the more creative games. For example, if a creator wanted to decorate a path with a tree, then that tree is stuck on that path and now obstructing the players movement. You're only allowing creators to build a single line that players can run and jump on, and that's pretty boring and not immersive at all. Next, you disabled all interaction in one axis. This means that rotators and moving platforms won't push players off the line they walk on. Granted, I understand why this was done - you want all players to be able to interact on the same plane. At the same time, however, it does hurt creativity and detaches the player further from the existing 2.5D perspective. Creators can now only rotate models by 90 degree turns and this is just silly. It needlessly hurts the amount of variation a creator can use in making interesting content that's non-orthogonal. Besides, after testing I found no way to redirect a player off their line - no angled models, no rotators, no windmills, no explosions or oculus, and not even pre-existing moving platforms that deliberately push out of the plane you're in. Moving on to less harsh criticism, I think that like anything new, it simply is just a matter of taking the time to get used to it. I honestly feel like I can get used to editing with a fixed camera. Do I like it? No, not really, I find it limiting. I think it would make more sense to allow full 3D camera access to edit, with a toggle option to fix your camera to see what a player sees. Nonetheless, seeing in the same perspective the player will see helps design the game a little bit, so I won't deny that. It really is just a matter of getting used to it. Next, the change in the block manipulation UI. Overall, it suits the 2D perspective, but the corners are definitely quirky. They're split across the diagonal for which direction it's being edited and this causes some confusion when the edit corner isn't at the corner of the block. For example, if you move the corners to the center of the block, it becomes way harder to determine the hidden diagonal split and editing it in the right direction becomes tedious and difficult. I get that it's just a limitation of the current UI, but it could be made more obvious if that diagonal was somehow shown. The templates Steady Cam Base and Steady Cam Advanced don't suit the 2D template well at all. You are not able to immediately edit the path the player interacts on until you delete the blocks in front of it. Additionally, because of the first argument I made, having those background and foreground elements doesn't mesh well considering that you can't edit them well. Plus, having a flag outside of the plane the player walks in is pointless, I mean unless if you just wanted it there to taunt the player then, well, that's not very nice. Also, I'm conflicted about the changes to the camera setting. On one hand, it's much simpler since you fixed all the other settings. But on the other, the creator now has less settings they can manipulate to make creative games. I guess all I can complain about is why that one settings needs such a huge menu screen! Grr, unnecessary space! Okay, joking mood is gone now. I found out why the cursor moves sluggishly when aiming weapons in play mode. It's the camera distance. The farther away the camera is, the less accurate and slower the cursor moves. I just find it annoying. At least it's kind of funny to see the weapon rotate inside the player's body when shooting, but I understand there's not really a better way of conveying that information given that most weapons were designed to be worn. The next thing I want to talk about is drawplane. Just seeing transparent squares isn't doing it for me, I would like to see the grid lines come back on that. It's actually a helpful visual measuring tool and it would actually help make it clearer when the drawplane is actually active in a 2D project (because the button for it doesn't go transparent when it's off in this mode now). Plus, you know, if you feel (sigh) like giving players the ability to edit depth (foregrounds, backgrounds, and layers) in 2D games again, that ability to move it forward and backward would be nice as well. There's a pretty big issue when adding stuff from the Inventory to the game with the drawplane inactive though. The biggest issue is that pressing F to disable the drawplane while placing something will stick it at the center of the project - which isn't in the same plane that the player will be interacting with. This specifically hurts things like teleporters and other interactable objects, but MORE IMPORTANTLY it moves spawns points off that plane too. So a creator can force players onto a second plane and prohibit their actions with players on the "default" plane. Also, for some inconclusive reason, attempting to add content from the Inventory to the center of the project also carries a chance of initiating the true drawplane, one that a player can move forward and backward to change the depth of the project. This, however, is clearly unintentional on your part, however much I wish it was a real feature for your new 2D editor. Moving on, the cursor look-ahead camera movement is nice and I like it. It's really quite cool and opens up some room for creativity like hiding messages behind walls or something. I did find an issue with it though, and that's that it doesn't follow the player when they die. For example, if you die from an Oculus, your body will go flying off who-knows-where and your cursor just sits there. Kind of weird, but can be humorous depending on the context. More praise goes to the person who made certain the logic boxes face a usable way in the 2D editor. Having access to those prongs is nice. Also, text boxes are facing the right way too (I was genuinely worried about this). Although, not all logic was rotated correctly by default. Namely, the spawn points and the windmill. Now, the spawn points aren't that big of a deal, you can only move left or right anyway so who cares if you face backwards. But the windmill's pitch rotates outside of the 2D plane which makes it ineffective. Fortunately, players can rotate it to the right direction to make it useful, but it's unusual nonetheless. Overall, I like the update, it actually makes the 2D feature feel like a separate part of the editor which can be good. I hope that its problems and quirks get ironed out though, as it does restrict a lot of creativity in making 2D projects. Now I didn't mention everything, but I'll add the stuff that didn't deserve a paragraph in a bullet point TL;DR:What's Good:- Look-ahead pointing cursor is great for 2D perspective.
- Most logic rotated correctly by default so it's convenient for creators.
- The camera box was made simpler with only one setting.
- A News post was made for an update. Yay, transparency!
What's Quirky:- The corners for block manipulation UI do two functions, despite not being clearly depicted.
- Building with a fixed camera angle feels weird, but it's disabled while editing models which is inconsistent.
- The camera box setting has a lot of empty space for one option.
- Pre-existing moving platforms and rotators that attempt to push players out of their plane are ignored and sometimes push them into the air instead.
- Nothing can move a player off their line (no angled models, moving platforms, rotators, windmills, etc.)
- Spawn points and windmills (pitch setting) aren't rotated in a way that's readily usable for 2D.
- The water box is probably even harder to locate when added and isn't placed where it should be placed.
- The combination of max fog setting and max camera distance setting makes almost everything impossible to see.
- The cursor is less accurate and moves slower at large (or max) camera distance settings.
- The left-click move/rotate UI is missing the vertical movement buttons. It just feels weird to move it with the cursor, and there doesn't seem to be harm in allowed the up/down buttons to be usable in 2D mode.
What's Bad:- The 2D drawplane is transparent and hard to see. Please add grid lines!
- The drawplane button doesn't become less transparent when it's off (like it did previously).
- You can't move the 2D drawplane back and forth, prohibiting creation of backgrounds, foregrounds, and layers.
- Creators can only rotate at 90 degree angles. Please allow all 7 normal angles, there's no obvious reason why this was removed.
- The Steady Cam Base and Advanced templates contain scenes that are not readily editable for use and contain elements that can't be interacted with in 2D.
What's Bugged:
- Disabling the drawplane while adding content from Inventory places it in the center of the project. This displaces it from the default plane, making some content unable to interact with.
- This allows creators to displace spawn points which breaks interactions between players.
- You're bugged if you're only reading this list.
- Disabling the drawplane while adding content from Inventory sometimes initiates the true drawplane which can be moved backwards and forward and is usable to place blocks outside of the default plane.
- The camera doesn't follow the player anymore when they die.
- Spamming P to switch between play and edit mode quickly will distance the camera far away from the editing area pretty quickly.
Probably forgetting things, whatever. I doubt any of you slackers will read this anyway. EVERYTHING HERE
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Post by CaptainJens on Nov 8, 2015 0:07:31 GMT 1
I'm not even mad about you guys trying to do something new with the project editor, because it's like, FINALLY YOU DID SOMETHING WITH IT. Two hours later... - Disabling the drawplane while adding content from Inventory sometimes initiates the true drawplane which can be moved backwards and forward and is usable to place blocks outside of the default plane.
- The camera doesn't follow the player anymore when they die.
- Spamming P to switch between play and edit mode quickly will distance the camera far away from the editing area pretty quickly.
Probably forgetting things, whatever. I doubt any of you slackers will read this anyway.I read this, and I still don't can believe that it is possible for write a sooo loooong post, and I think that it is impossible that you have forgot one thing.
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