Scratch

Been chosen for an interview?

Please answer the following:

1) What inspired you/ where did you get the inspiration from to make your project?

2) Have you ever regretted making a particular project?

3) Are there any projects you'd love to make but you couldn't possibly work out how to make them?

4) What have you got installed for us in the future?

5) What are your top five most favourite projects from your own collection and your top five from other members?

Thank-you.

Last edited by Borrego6165 (2012-09-01 06:13:18)

Borrego6165 wrote:

1) What inspired you/ where did you get the inspiration from to make your project?

Well, Ive always wanted to make my own pokemon-styled game since almost the fifth grade, this eventually became Spectrum. But I wasnt really satisfied with it so I made large improvements to it and this eventually became Spectrum 2. I took lots of inspiration from Earthbound, for the graphics, and from Dragon Quest IX and Phantasy Star 0.

Borrego6165 wrote:

2) Have you ever regretted making a particular project?

Well gee, no!

Borrego6165 wrote:

3) Are there any projects you'd love to make but you couldn't possibly work out how to make them?

Id really love to learn how to render 3D objects with the pen, in all different types of rotation, but I cannot figure it out. Also, id love to make a fully 3D game, but obviously due to the software limitations that would be impossible.

Borrego6165 wrote:

4) What have you got installed for us in the future?

I do not know, at the moment. I usually get an idea, and then 2 days later i'm finished with the game. I dont have ideas stored away, most games I make are a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Borrego6165 wrote:

5) What are your top five most favourite projects from your own collection and your top five from other members?

Top 5 of other people:
Shoot It! by TM_
Christmas on Pluto by 2030
Mandelbrot-zoom by Fractal
Chomp by OverPowered
Unfamiliar by Hubalaboo

Top 5 of my own
Spectrum 2
Aftermath
Asteroid Blaster 2
Shapefield
Ultramarine

there you go 

Borrego6165 wrote:

Thanks Wes64! I hope you will appear on this thread again with another amazing project.

if i appear again the only answer that will change would be answer #1 (and if I find any more good projects, answer #5) lol

bump

I can't offer any snapshots or anything, but I'm planning something for 2.0. Several things in fact. After I turn my Tanks series in to one big project, with unlockables, a start menu, and other extra things, I will make an online checkers game with the cloud variables. I'm not going to get started until 2.0 is out, but that's something I'll try out, just to test the cloud variables.

Last edited by sonicfan12p (2012-09-03 14:53:23)

Don't let the Test part fool you, it will still have neat features!    But yes, I'll focus more on Tanks.

Back in business!

An interview with FishingPro98 discussing Prehistoric Fishing

1) What inspired you/ where did you get the inspiration from to make your project?

I generally love fishing, and I first started fishing after I watched Jeremy Wade's "River Monsters", which inspired me to fish. This inspired me to make my projects. If you go to my projects I have made a game that I have copied from one of his episodes to pay homage to him.

2) Have you ever regretted making a particular project?

Nope, one of my projects has just been featured and the extra-popularity is awesome.

3) Are there any projects you'd love to make but you couldn't possibly work out how to make them?

No, I know what I'm doing, and of course there have been times where I have been stuck! However, I have taken a lot of time to overcome these problems and everything has worked out, so far...

4) What have you got installed for us in the future?

I have a huge Idea's list, here are a few of my favourites that are ready to be released:
Fishin' On Scratch - The motion picture.
Survival in the Antarctic.
Two weeks in the Bahamas.
Fishin' On Scratch - Storm breaker.
That's just a few! Feel free to ask me for a few more or tell me any of your idea's.

5) What are your top five most favourite projects from your own collection and your top five from other members?

My top 5 are:
Survival in the Antarctic.
Two weeks in the Bahama's.
Fishin' On Scratch - Prehistoric Fishing
Fishin' On Scratch - Xmas Special.
Fishin' On Scratch - Big game fishing.

Top five for other Scratchers are all pretty equal but the one that stands out the most is Prehistoric Fishing.
Interestingly, his favourite project from another scratch member is one of his own projects, but other than that let's say thank-you to FishingPro98 for answering the questions!

Last edited by Borrego6165 (2013-01-02 13:28:54)

Anyone doing the polls?

Borrego6165 wrote:

Spectrum Vs Spectrum 2

Is it worth upgrading?

Introduction
Well, the answer is yes and don't look back! Unfortunately, I do not have the original review I made for Spectrum 1, but I will go over some of the original points. So, welcome to our first of the 'Is it worth upgrading?' series! We'll be comparing original games with their sequels and seeing whether or not they are worth upgrading to.

Game Design 9/10 (Original: 6/10)
The story is engaging, and you rarely feel lost. Although the text boxes could be a little larger (to fit more text per box and speed up the cut-scenes a little) it still deserves the high score. It loses a point on the bases that the turned based battles are quite lengthy, especially when after you complete them you are bombarded with twenty 'you have received' messages. However, the tutorial you receive the first time around makes you realise how brilliantly designed these battles are.

If only the tutorial was as good in the first game as they were in S2, it could have got a high score. The original's battle system was too confusing for anyone who had never played a turn-based game before. This is my first time with one (excluding S1) and I must say, it was epic in S2. Also, the places seem more realistic then the first, and instead of generic locations, for example, the first city is a seaside town, and all it needed was the sound effects and it would have been very charming. These have more character then the first places, like the prison island seemed very full with the greyish grass, although upon further looking it turned out that the grass is the same looking in every place, but it seemed duller in the prison environment.

Originality 10/10 (Original: 8/10)
Lots of ways to attack, rememberable characters and less generic locations. These are the three key things that make this game so great.

More unique than the original, but the original still differed from many scratch games and professional RPGs for that matter.

Ease Of Use 4/5 (Original: 2/5)
As mentioned earlier, praise the Wes for the tutorials. However, your import/export system seemed a mess, and I'm one of those who gets confused easily (hence the low score for S1 when that confused me.) It would have been easier for the player (and possibly yourself) to use a save mode, my Rayman 4 game has 3 save slots and my Generation:4000 city game has to save huge amounts of data in lists but it still works. All you'd have to save is the location number (or however you assign each place) plus the places already visited and items collected. I do believe that you over-complicated the scripts and the usage of variables and lists which caused it to become difficult to save everything, but if for S3 every-thing was far more streamlined it might be possible instead of using text files.

Still, the game itself is far easier to use for beginners, and the tutorials are immense. S1 was just too over-whelming for newcomers, and the world lacked an order or sense of direction which this new place offers.

Difficulty Balance 5/5 (Original: 2/5)
With the tutorials, the battles made sense as I've explained time and time again. Tremendous! Oh, and I can walk through a large area and not get attacked a ridiculously high amount.

The original was too hard. Only an expert at turned based battles could get through it. There were too many battles, and after about three battles you'd be dead, so you'd wake up at the hospital and you'd have to go along the same path and battle the same battles over and over again until you reached the end.

Graphics 5/5 (Original: 5)
The graphics are pixellated for effect and not for laziness (sorry ftf841 if you're reading this, but Pixel isn't detailed enough for you to get away with such simple graphics.) The style and art direction is great, and the worlds are vibrant. Saying that, there is some flickering between the characters when the new scenes first load up, but nothing too serious. A thin border could have been used to stop other portions of the screen being caught in the wrong place when scrolling between land masses, and it could even hold information like a tool-bar.

I would have given this a 4/5, but because I am basing it on the solo game and not in comparison to the first I kept it at full. You see, every game has to improve graphically. Look at Roller Coaster Tycoon, and compare it to Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. Great game improvements, but with the same graphics and sounds. That's what I see here sadly. There are no lighting enhancements (if there were, it could have made the contrast between the sunny seaside resort and the gloomy prison island.) So, no sunny areas or shadows. The player only needed a circle, many professional games have used them instead of real-time shadows, but the scenery could have. Give a shadow to one of them in the editor, then every time you copy and paste it the shadow is already on it.

Sound 3/5 (Original: 2)
There were a few sound effects, and indeed music would not suit this game. However, some ambience would have been wonderful. Even if they were 20 second loops, it's far easier to disguise short ambience loops then it is repetitive music loops.

There were less sound effects in the original, but then again less were needed.)

Firing Round 8/10
Reliability 0/2 (Original: 1/2)
0 (Very Glitchy) 1 (A few glitches) 2 (Hardly any glitches)
Game Length 2/2 (Original: 2/2)
0 (Too Short) 1 (Descent Length) 2 (Long lasting or endless)
Game Pace 1/2 (Original: 0/2)
0 (Very slow or too long for it's own sake) 1 (Quite engrossing) 2 (Very well paced and fun)
Replay Value 2/2 (Original: 0/2)
0 (Would never replay/ did not want to finish it the first time) 1 (Might replay) 2 (Too good to stop!)
Programming 2/2 (Original: 2/2)
0 (Simple to make) 1 (Fairly advanced) 2 (It was very complex)

Overall Experience 45/50 (Original: 30/50)
-Well, firstly I will go over some of the firing round points. At the beginning there was the glitch where you could not exit a battle, and in the shop I could not work out how to exit it. So, I had to quit and restart the game. When I did, it flashed an image of the shop up, then it went to black and nothing happened. The game itself would have got 1 (because of the shop and the battle problem although you fixed the latter at last minute) but that chaotic import/export system dragged it to a flat zero. Perhaps a 'clear all data' button (which I provided in my games) might make it possible for me to play it again, because I don't know what to do with the game now.
-Nothing to say about the game length.
-As mentioned earlier, the game pace could be improved with larger text boxes for the cut-scenes plus sound effects to make it engaging to the ears and not just to the eyes.
-Reply value is brilliant.
-Programming was more advanced then it needed to be, and yet again this game is very messy scripted. Shame it isn't as neat as the graphics.

Also, perhaps you could buy maps from the shop, but there's only one map for each area? Then, you can zoom out of them and they'll appear apart of a bigger map (but blacked out) and the more maps you buy (if each area has a shop so one map might cover a large area) the more you'll see. Collect them all and you'll have the full world!

When you're in the shop, not only can't you escape, but also it takes a while viewing each product. Perhaps if the box at the top automatically changed what it was viewing when you highlighted each item, and then when you pressed SPACE two options appeared, one to buy and another to exit.

It was also a little hard to decide whether you selected yes or no on the little menu, and especially on the main menu having a tiny box like that after just seeing the huge rotating buttons looked silly and I felt like shouting 'Midget!' at it. Maybe they should both be grey still, but when highlighted NO is red and YES is green, something like that.

The battle screens have been greatly improved, and the tutorials are epic. The graphics and interfaces make sense, but either it's because you've changed it loads or now that I know how it works it just seems better.

Sounds are seriously needed though! Other than that, this greatly deserves...

TOTAL: 89/100 (Original: 63/100)

Key
0-19 I could have made that in my sleep!
20-39 Needs a lot of work.
40-59 An average project I suppose.
60-79 Quite a cool project.
80-94 Wow! It only needs a bit of tweaking.
95-100 You're the top cat!

we seem to have very differing opinions

Borrego6165 wrote:

write your own then, I'd like to see    (a comparison of the two, but it doesn't have to be as long as mine but that would be nice)

I was talking about my opinion of Spectrum 2. I have yet to play the first. But to be honest, I hate spectrum 2.

btw won;t be long before a new issue comes out!