UnNatural Space

[Orbitguy]

Hey, I've been working something in Game Maker over the past couple months that I think is about ready to share. [ Yes. Game Maker. The program most know for it's drag and drop functions and younger audience appeal.]
However it's language GML is also fairly easy to learn, and I had a copy of this program from a few years ago, so I thought I'd see what I could do.

Obviously I had to take my own shot at a sequel to Stellar Conflicts, so I present you with UnNatural Space.

Some primative screenshots of so far:







Yes this is an online game I am making. I will post more info, on one of my other computers w/ a better internet connection.

[Raygoe]

That's a good start!

[Orbitguy]

Yeah okay, now I will explain a bit further. I appologize on the image sizes, until I rehost them it's best to view from mabye 75-80% on the page.
I've been working on this game since sometime in September, had the idea actually coming for several years, I spent time messing around with engines, even tried to write my own, and it finally reached a point where I picked up one of the best I'd created and decided to just work off it in my spare time and see where it went.

These screenshots don't really show too much, behind the scenes it has been a hellova job making things synch and debugging code. I've got primary and secondary weapon shooting down in code, but I don't have them synched yet. One or two more debugging sessions you'd think would do it. Movement was completely synched, but I managed to screw up direction synching along with the player's name all of a sudden not being sent this last week. I've fixed the player name issue as is apparent, however I have not yet worked out what I did to mess up my direction code.
I've worked out my first SpacePort, all of those purchase buttons have both client and server-side code behind them, but all you get at the moment if you try them is "You do not have enough funds to purchase suchandsuch." In the top left you can switch between a weapons purchasing interface and a squad management interface. (note I haven't done any actual coding work on squads yet)
For controls, you use the arrow keys to move, ctrl to shoot your primary weapons, and shift for now to shoot your secondary weapons. (I will change this back to space once I have coded in a deselectable chat bar)
Also, alt is used as the action key. You cannot see it in these screenshots, but I have an area where you can mine different minerals. This also needs work and only "Tangun Asteroids" have been implemented so far anyways. These would be easy to make work probably, but I haven't touched the mining ability in about three weeks. xD

So yeah, that's about it. I do have code behind almost everything you see here, just not all of it works. lol Which is why there is no alpha for the game maker community yet.
So the other reason I'm posting this here is that if anyone would like to help, Game Maker Language(GML) is not hard to learn, and this program has so many built in functions that things are sped up if you know how to use them.
How those from GMC or here who want to work on this will be doing it:
I will give out a copy of the gmk, so that you can see where to put things and in what format.
You can download a free copy of Game Maker 8.0, or Pro if you feel compeled, then write your code in the editor, then submit it to me w/ locations in which events to put them, then I will upload the changes to the main server. I plan to back up a copy every day or before large updates which have not been debugged so we don't get overwhelmed.

Every person who is on my MSN list and submits code which we can manage to debug will be added somewhere on the staff list, so they can recieve full testing access for updates.

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Other notes:

Game Maker itself has pretty bad multiplayer functions, the are mostly meant for client-client types of setups, with one acting as the host, and the others connecting. These functions are dubbed as the "mplay" functions because their prefix is mplay, which stands for multiplayer.

Luckily the GMC has a pretty active community of dll and other extension makers.
What I have used for this project and what is commonly used for the client-server setup is the 39dll, created by 39ster.
This dll adds support for functions which make use(I believe) of winsock in some way, which works out much better for this hosting setup and is generally viewed as faster by those who use Game Maker.

Finally, the person with the [Smod] prefix in the screenshot above was actually an account with no name and no password, which is why it looks glitched. I was just too lazy to create a new one for my testing.

Thanks for reading, more info coming later. =D

[Raygoe]

Yeah, I used to use Game Maker ages back (year or more before I knew about SC).
I think it had just been upgraded to Game Maker 4.3 when I joined. (there was just one version back then, and no Pro).

I haven't used it for ages, but it doesn't sound like it has ever changed. Back then, the multiplayer functions had no Client -> Server -> Client. Back then it was all P2P, too.

While, customarily, I would suggest that it's probably easier to use SFML.NET in C# with Visual Studio, you seem to have gotten a quick start in Game Maker at any rate.

Good luck !

[Orbitguy]

Why would it be easier to use SFML.NET w/C#? Is it like using OpenGL w/C++?

Just out of curiosity, since I've never used either extensively, nor do I know what SFML does.
I don't know if I would call it easier. Game Maker handles so much stuff you'd have to program manually in C#, and also lays out places to put code, such as step events, create events, on click or keypress events.
Then again, it does look fairly simple, again I would probably just have to get used to not having those predfined places to put code in.

These days, you have to have pro to use the multiplayer functions, mplay or 39dll. Ofcourse Game Maker isn't exactly tailored towards multiplayer online games, so they haven't spent much, if any time working on the functions, although it is quite compatiable with making them.
But since GM Pro is only $20, and the dlls are all free....
Generally I have gathered that after a certain point it will be nessecary to rewrite the server in C++, since Game Maker gets rather slow after a certain point processing messages.
However, it is rumored that Stick Online, a discontinued GM MMORPG, was able to hold over 200 players on a Game Maker Server, probably with very efficient coding, but still.

One other reason my pictures are so big above, is because the resolution is like 1375 by 800 or something along those lines, which is basically full-screen. SC was never a full screen game and I always thought it should have been one, which was my motivation there.
Hmmm, actually looking at my school computers, theirs is 1280X1024, so there goes all my smart thinking lol.

[Raygoe]

Well, mostly, it'd be easier because you don't have that much to do other than collision detection. You'd also have to write 2D Scene Manager, but you could use the .NET XML parser for that and just send a scene.xml to the client (or ship it with it).
You'd also have to create Player objects and bullet objects, etc.
Yeah, you'd have a bit of work to do, but it's the right way to go if you want a well programmed game.

Sure, you could do it far faster in Game Maker but, at least for me, that's the difference between doing it right and doing it quickly. Game Maker is also not efficient when it comes to the games it creates. And, of course, like any Game Development... kit... you have many limitations that cannot be avoided.

C# is a fairly simple language and .NET has built-in Asynchronous Socket support. C#'s Event & Delegate system is the best paradigm on the planet for asynchronous coding.

I would also recommend a Python server (Twisted Framework.)

[Orbitguy]

Well after discussion with some more experienced online game-making members today I have concluded that it is really far more practical to program the server in C++ than in GML.

It is nearly impossible to run a GM .exe server on a VPS on Linux or Windows Server and you almost always get a "Failed to initialize surface" error. Secondly as I had already discovered most of these servers don't have decent graphics cards either, and even the GM server requires a DX9 compatiable one just to run.

Luckily I'm not the first one to do this... so off to convert my server lol.

Python would be interesting,.. I'll have to see.