NetMission Engine

Gaming Indie Works
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NetMission Engine

For the latest on NetMission, be sure to check out the development blog!

This forum topic originally started as a fan-game idea called “Metroid Online” by PrimevalDarkness. Through a series of confusing steps, the conversation eventually transformed into progress reports for Troid92’s general-purpose 2D game engine called NetMission Engine. The full thread is left here intact for historical purposes, but the official development blog seeks to paint a clearer picture.

An old update:

* NetMission is an unreleased general-purpose 2D game engine being coded by Troid92 in his spare time.
* Note that at this point the game engine itself has no references to Metroid or anything Nintendo-related.
* It originally started in this very thread as a fangame called “Metroid Online” (“Multiplayer 2-D Metroid game”) to be coded in C++ by PrimevalDarkness in 2005.
* It was quickly renamed to “Metroid: Net Mission”, and after cycling through a few programmers, the concept was handed to Troid92 to make the game in Game Maker 6.1.
* Troid92 felt Game Maker 6.1 was not a good fit for the game, and he began writing code in C++, differentiating the fangame and its engine code with a single space (Net Mission vs. NetMission).
* The fangame team gradually disbanded, but Troid92 kept working on the engine in the hopes of someday making games with it, perhaps even “Metroid: Net Mission”.
* In 2013 he used NetMission to produce an official P2D tech demo called “Defend Your Flaahgra”
* To this day he continues to post his updates in this thread, although there are often huge gaps (many months) between his updates since he is in the middle of a completely unrelated career.

An older update:

Metroid: Net Mission:
- Multiplayer sidescrolling 2-D Metroid game being programmed by Troid92.
- 13 characters to choose from, including Samus and the Hunters
- Lots of weapons, new and old, and plenty of sweet upgrades
- Currently some demos are out, check the forum announcements or later posts in this topic
Click here to go to the forums

Primeval’s original post:

I am working on an online Multiplayer version of Metroid. You can choose which character you want to be and fight other players. Maps will be taken from all the metroid games, as well as characters.

Powerups will either give you new weapons, or, if you don’t have weapons, a new transformation. A transformation would be like a Metroid growing into an Alpha Metroid, then a Gamma, etc.

Here is a list of some of the characters I will be using. The ones that are indented aren’t choosable in the beginning, you have to upgrade to them.
GF Trooper
- Dark GF Trooper
- Dark Missile Trooper
Samus Powersuit
Samus Variasuit
Samus Gravitysuit
Samus Phazonsuit
Samus Darksuit
Samus Lightsuit
Splinter
- Dark Splinter
- Alpha Splinter
- Dark Alpha Splinter
Metroid
- Alpha Metroid
- Gamma Metroid
- Zeta Metroid
- Omega Metroid
Space Pirate
- Power Trooper
- Wave Trooper
- Ice Trooper
- Plasma Trooper
- Shadow Trooper
- Elite Pirate
- Phazon Elite Pirate
- Omega Pirate
Baby Sheegoth
- Sheegoth
Dark Samus
- Dark Samus2
War Wasp
- Ram War Wasp
- Barbed War Wasp
- Queen War Wasp (note: I made this one up, thought it would be cool)

There will also be many environments and maps to play on. Some environmental objects would be:

GF Gate
Different doors
Luminoth Turret
Auto Defense Turret
Mega Defense Turret
Lava
Acid
Water
Elevators
Portals to the light and dark worlds
Tentacles
Phazon
GF Bridge

There will also be many different game modes to play.
Tag
Deathmatch
Team Deathmatch
Queen of the Hill
Bounty(collect coins like in MP2)
Survival
Grab the Flickerbat(first person to kill it wins)
Capture the Artifact(Capture the flag)
Defend your territory(one team holds an area, the other must take that area)
Hunter (one person verse all, hunter gets upgraded depending on number of enemies)

I have already started working on it and may need some help with sprites. I am making the game entirely in C++. I will probably put up a website soon.

2

Dude. You have an awesome and amazingly complex idea up there. NO way you’ll finish it all yourself though, seriously. Go find some team members. If I could, I’d help you. Personally, I think it’d work better as a mod of some FPS, but still, you have such a good idea… I’m not gonna ruin it. Gogogogogo~ Metroid multiplayer goodness!

3

Q1. What do the different suits for Samus do?
Q2. Aren’t the beam troopers kinda cheap?
Q3. How on earth do you plan to finish all this?

4

Gladly help beta testing if you want. Other than that I’m also curious to see how you get this done. Is this a stand alone game? Or a Mod. If it’s a mod then I can see it happening rather quickly, stand alone game I’d be heavily impressed if it got out this year.

5

Okay here are some suggestions:

  1. Get rid of the Samus clones and Dark Samus’.

  2. Get rid of the beam troopers.

  3. Get rid of the Omega Pirate, unless you plan to make him some sort of special “transformation”

  4. Make the portals button-access so that they don’t have access limited to Dark and Light beams.

6

Yeah… how can a barbed war wasp even fight with an omega… or an alpha with an omega… or saamus with a war wasp… or a baby sheegoth with a sheegoth…
Y’know? remove the sheegoth and add thardus… remove the omega and add arachnus (the first boss in fusion that gives you the morphball and that also appears in metroid 2)

7

Thanks for all the feedback. I guess I’ll answer some questions now.

Darkblade Shinobi -
Q1 - What do the different suits of Samus do?
A - Right now I am not quite sure. They will either do nothing except give different looks, like different multiplayer skins, or they will each have an advantage and a disadvantage. If you have any ideas for them that would keep them balanced, then let me know.

Q2 - Aren’t the beam troopers kind of cheap?
A - First, you have to upgrade to them. That makes them harder to get right away. By upgrading I mean that you have to find a powerup that can be used for upgrading, which aren’t in large supply. Second, they will probably just have their type of weapon, and not be invulnerable to all others.

Q3 - How do you plan to finish all of this?
A - One step at a time. My first goal will be just having samus, like in MP2. Then after I have a complete game going, then I will start adding more maps and characters. I will probably need help on some of the sprites, so if you can help me out with some of the creatures let me know.

Enzd and Slothien483-
The idea behind the transformations is to have normaly weak creatures get stronger, and thus have it more fair. Samus doesn’t have one, which may make her stronger in the beginning, but then get weaker once creatures start upgrading. Also, getting up to something like the Omega pirate might be very hard because every time you die you loose your upgrades. So if you do finaly reach Omega pirate, you deserve to be able to kick a little butt. But then if he dies, he goes back to a normal old Space Pirate.

Also, some creatures like the War Wasp and the Splinter will have other things to help them out. When they spawn, a number of other creatures will also spawn with them. They aren’t human controlled, and they immediately go out and start playing like a computer bot. Any kills they get go to the human. Also, they are all labeled as the same player so an attacking player might get confused between which ones are computer controlled and which are human controlled.

The idea is that every creature has certain thing that keep it mostly balanced. Omega Pirate might be very strong, but upgrading to him without dying will make him much less of a threat.

8

Dude. This code will be like. Impossible.

-EDIT- You’ll be working for years on this is what I mean. This is NOT easy, and you will have to be coding this from SCRATCH, most likely… (Unless it’s a mod.)

I can’t imagine it.

9

What do you mean by that?

10

I think he means that you’re a bit too ambitious.

11

Nothing’s impossible. I’ll just keep my mouth shut untill he shows us the first demo or first release.

12

The #1 thing to do when it comes to game programming: THINK SMALL.
Start with something really small, like a basic movement engine, then move up from there. Add tiles and environments, as well as more levels, weapons, and abilities. But don’t plan it all out; just do it one bit at a time. If you think too big you’ll never get it done.

EDIT: What programming language are you using?

13

This will probably not take as long as you think. I already have a graphics engine I made a few months ago, which will help speed up the development time. I already have basic movement down, such as morphball, running, crouching, etc. Tommorrow will be tile maps, gravity, jumping, and collisions. I may post a demo tommorrow or Sunday. By the way I am coding this in C++, and it is not a mod.

14

Oh cool then. I eagerly await. :smiley:

15

Does anyone know where I can download tilesets from any of the metroid games, but preferably MZM and MF?

16

Ask someone to rip em. They will.

17

Can anyone here rip the tiles from Metroid Fusion and/or Metroid Zero Mission? If you could your help would be greatly appreciated.

18

Can you really do that much in one day?

19

I will probably just get the map system up today, because I have to work later. If I can’t get any tiles the maps are going to look pretty bad.

20

this is the best looking fangame i’ve seen yet!(apart from p2d of course) I agree that this will take quite a damn while, so, BEST of luck.

edit:no offense, but if you can make this as good as it sounds, on your own, I shall gladly rip my arm out of it’s socket and beat myself with it , while bowing down to the fangame’s title screen.