“Did you have any type of game in mind?”

No I didn't but I've done a little bit of everything. It sounds like maybe you just had a coder bail on you? “a project that died out after I practically finished all the art.” Maybe you'd like some help resurrecting that project?

Otherwise I have some of ideas…
-A platformer style Metroidvania
-An 8 bit version of Shadow of the Colossus or Red Dead 2
-Write a story line and build a game around that
-I'm currently working on a target shooting game, a graphical save system that can connect multiple projects, a platformer based around a little wizard, a space exploration game, a sprite animation system, a SpongeBob themed point and click adventure, 2.5D display systems, ‘remaking’ Polybius
-I had an idea for a platformer where you start as an egg in a tree and evolve into different animals as you progress and gain new game play styles
-we could start with a game type like scroller, platformer, etc and wrap a theme around that
-do a game where the player starts on a little island or boat and must figure out how to craft to survive
-redo an old game and put our own spin on it
-I've been wanting to do a game that is nothing but a series of boss battles
-Burrito Bison copy
-Redo Super Mario except now he really has to go into a nasty sewer to fix leaky pipes
-an incremental game here you level up a fighter to compete in an arena
-a game base on a Netflix show

“It sounds like maybe you just had a coder bail on you?”

That pretty much sums it up. The art is here https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/378583468/ It was his project, he already semi coded it, I only remade art for the alrdy excisting sprites but he still managed to not implement them. I kinda of took the 1st collab I could find to see what it's like. So Whatever we do I think we need to think a little about what a collaboration enholds. I get the idea you've done it before so I would love to hear what you think about it.

You got a lot of ideas, I love it! There is one suggestion that jumped out for me immediately because I was thinking about making one myself.

“-I've been wanting to do a game that is nothing but a series of boss battles”

Right up my alley! I love cuphead and I just love bossfights since forever. I did mention to you in our 1st conversation I'm not an 8-bit artist but with a game like that you could even mix in an 8-bit boss if that's really your thing. Here is some scratch made art that I made for the purpose of a boss game. https://imgur.com/a/3MBlSq4

And maybe tell me something about yourself Better if I start by telling I'm a 35 y/o guy from the Netherlands (hope that doesn't bother you.) with too much time on my hands apparently. I always wanted to code but never found the right way to teach myself. I found scratch half a year ago and it felt so intuitive so now I make games and teach it to children. And I'm trying to learn C# to make games in Unity

I will be on vacation friday for 14 days so I won't have time to start anything before that.

Looking forward to collaborating

Your art for that game looks great! Love your boss battle art too. The head on perspective matches the target shooting game I am working on now.It is basically a ripoff of an old 90s game called Cow Hunter. Makes me think of doing a boss battle where you have to run around in a side view but occasionally switch to a head-on view. Or a Cthulhu battle where you switch back and forth from jet fighters to ships to attack with a fleet.
No, 8 bit isn't my thing but I love art. I am 49. I joined Scratch almost 11 years ago after getting asked to learn and teach it at a museum. I am also a musician. I hooked up with another Scratcher and completed most of a game in Unity but they did all the coding. I wanted to learn C# as well, long ago my goal was to transition from Scratch to HTML5 and C# to make web games. As for that Unity game my collab partner went silent and that was the end of that for me. My laptop is very old and overheats constantly. The hard drive is going to crash permanently soon, it has been giving me warnings, So there is a lot of stuff I can't run anymore, everything from Fortnite to Unity to Blender unless I balance my laptop over a books with a fan beneath it.

My experience with Scratch collabs is they are hard to get started and even harder to finish. What are your priorities, to achieve a completed product or just have fun making as much as possible? If it is the first then I'd recommend starting small, getting something working and then adding bling. Otherwise the sky is the limit. I'm fine with either.

So back to the boss battles idea, do you already have a premise in mind for the game story? I never got that far, my idea was more about the mechanics. As in creating monsters with interesting fight mechanics and unique settings. If we brainstorm I'm sure we can come up with some great ideas. No rush either, enjoy your vacation!

1st of all thanks! much appreciated

I'm open to try any type of game as long as the game play is smooth. The game has to feel right and I have to enjoy playing it myself. I love using sound details to give feedback to the player to help the cause. Also Starting from a place of fun where we fool around a bit sounds like a good idea. I'm not really familiar with the examples you gave, but we'll figure that out when I'm back. Feel free to start an example engine.

As for getting started being hard, I realize that now i'm thinking about it. Maybe we should decide on the game character and how he moves. And from there make really rough sketches of different boss-mechanics and inspire each other. And then realize them into order, or maybe a Mega-man style where you pick the boss you wanna fight, followed by adding the bling like you said. So basically we need an engine, have fun with rough boss sketches, adding it all together and then animate it.

I'm not really into stories myself I prefer making a parody or ode to excising games. Maybe something along line of “The princess is in the other castle”. is good enough for me. If you do feel inspired that's fine with me too.

See you later^^

This is a song about being happy.

Hey wanted to let you know that I'm back. I've been fooling around with a character let me know if you see some future in it Also I'm curious what role you are most comfortable in? writing code, story, art? Or everything? Let me know and let's have some fun, I'm down with whatever,

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/413243452/

Also I was wondering if you know how to make a good platform jump script together with some colliders. Not decided on anything yet just playing around.

Yo! Sorry, my kidney stone has me out of commission at the moment. I'll hit you up asap!

Daym, sounds rough..! Hope you get well soon man. Take care.

Thanks! I hate that it puts me out of commission. I'm fighting back, out in the yard moving rocks which just ruins me for the next 2 days lol. But when I finally pass this thing I'll be 110%

Ok, back to business. Love you ninja sprite! The poses are great and I love the way the hands sprite works. As for platformers, yeah, I've dabbled rather extensively It is far too long neglected now but I spent some time compiling the most inspiring platformers I could find on Scratch into a studio for people like us to check out and get inspired by.

My latest was a collab that kinda played more like an adventure game than a platformer but still used platformer physics.
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/380565689/
We got a lot more done, enemies, had a boss started, etc, this was just my stub to optimize the code

just a sketch of a platformer idea where the player starts as an egg in a tree, then hatches and gradually evolves through different creatures, each with their own abilities and platform levels.
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/392412154/

an idea I had for destructible walls
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/273495829/

a Zelda themed platformer graphics test
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/243567778/

As for what I feel most comfortable with? Pretty much anything. In the past I would code and fill in wherever needed because I was fanatical about using Griffpatch's Tick Broadcast coding method but I'm moving away from that in collabs for the sake of being more fun to work with. I also usually suggest planning simple collab projects in the hopes of getting something complete. Honestly though, even though my last few collabs died out anyway I was still proud of the work we did. I think I'm adjusting my collab expectations from hoping to complete a game to that is cool if it happens but in the meantime have fun and make something interesting.

Since your sprite is a ninja, this seems fitting to mention.. I'm about to hit year 11 here at Scratch. I've seen a lot of Scratchers put out really nice projects to commemorate Scratch anniversaries and I think I've finally decided on the game I would like to make. My first home computer was a Commodore 64. I didn't have many games but I had a fighting game called Bruce Lee that I loved. In retrospect the incredibly sketchy cassette load system may have influenced that. During the early arcade games I was fan of one of the first fighting games, Yie Ar Kung-Fu because it really felt you were pitting fighting styles against one another. Another thing I loved was weekend Kung Fu movies on TV. That was where I discovered and became a fan of the Golan-Globus movies. I want to make an action fighting game with a story line like one of the old movies. The player will be a character who must fight against and learn some of the classic kung fu styles with sprite animations to match. I recently decided that the old Golden Axe 2.5D format would be a good fit for Scratch except with some additions like simple platformer areas. I also want to do cut scenes, focus on character creation, character development over time, etc. You know, the kind of things people do when making games to be published. Of course this would be a huge endeavor so I'm just stockpiling ideas at the moment. Just for kicks I started a Kung Fu Attack Name Generator that I need to add more terms to.. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/415903479/fullscreen/

I'm open to collabing on pretty much anything. We could even start with some kind of simple but fun mechanic and wrap a game around it. Remake a classic, build on your platformer, the sky is the limit! We could try a few things and see what is the most fun to work on.

Hey I'm sorry that was quite the post, I had to find the time to process it! 1st of all I love your Idea's. Also that Yie Ar Kung-Fu game you used to play looks *. I was raised with a commodore too my oldest brother had one. I remember playing Escape from the Planet of the Robot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1fWBBgCfcs And am pretty nostalgic about old video games, but am mostly a snes fanatic. I am however a bit confused to what you would like to do. You give a lot of diffirent ideas. So you want to build an anniversary game with a kung fu theme 2.5D.. With me? Alone? optional? Cause I'm open to anything too. The ninja was made for the purpose of this collaboration, So if you like it I say let's build on it! Let me know what you think.

My anniversary game is just a personal project, Sure, we can build on the ninja. You mentioned platformers, is that what you want to do with it?

I guess I understand the point of your post now. You wanted to use the theme for your project, sorry I missed it haha. If I'm wrong this couldn't get more awkward but i'm fine with that. You are right about getting started is tough. Btw how do you feel about R-type games, Gradius, Strike Gunner etc. I made enough platformers for now anyway. And best of all Bossfights.

I was a huge R-type fan back in the day. Do you still want to use your ninja character? We could fit it in. It would work for cut scenes, or you could exit your craft in places for a Super Mario style level, or turn it into a mech that you beam to from your ship. I dunno, just thinking out loud But now I have an idea for the screen format at least, right scrolling side view?

Ninja not needed, I might use it later on. Yeah let's do the R-type format and make it our own. How do we get started!?

(I think mixing gamestyles might make it too heavy, But we can decide if it fits later on) I kinda like the idea after thinking about it

Sorry, missed your messages. I threw together a player ship test this morning, see what you think.. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/419381719/

The ship is pretty ugly, was just a place holder to get the code working I'm using clones for exhaust, lasers and stars. Hold C to get an active clone count. We are barely going over 20 which is great but we can always reduce them later if needed. I'm using a YouTube video of R-Type as a reference. Until I hear from you I'm gonna throw together some walls to fly through also as a test feature.

Honestly a project like this will be pretty easy to code. We may want to go ahead and start thinking of game themes. Do we want a specific theme or plot to the game or just a cool looking space themed shooter? If we have theme that will drive graphic designs. Or we can continue building basic sprites and code using placeholder images then go back and fill in a theme or just better images later.

Haha I've been working on a spaceship too! https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/419195786/ I have a question on something that bothers me since the start of scratch. Is there a way to make sprites follow better? Because stuff lags behind. I want the finish too look more slick too.

I love the fact you got right on it. I actually like the finish on your spaceship made me think we could definitely make several different ones or skins. I think we can mix in organic with mecha, maybe some hybrid aliens. The plot is all yours, I'll just might add on to what you come up with. As for being too easy code, good, we'll make it hard with complex dynamics. Make the enemies really stand out instead of simple sprites.

Oh yeah, your ship looks awesome! The trick for getting sprites to sync with a moving sprite is to still have it go to the main sprites location but then adjust its position the same amount that the main sprite moves once. So if the sprite is moving right 6 pixels per loop then have all the follow sprites go to then adjust them all 6 pixels to the right. Only takes a little extra code, I usually just rig up a second set of “if <key> pressed” blocks, works perfectly.

As for a theme, I guess we can just use big generic building blocks for now and fine tune the story later. I like the idea of opening with the ship flying away as Earth scrolls off the the left. I thought about doing an animated sequence with the planet exploding as you escape but that seems a little much for now. I'm gonna start scripting out a plot on Google Docs then you can check out out and help fine tune it to match any graphical ideas you have or whatever.
I dunno if you have access to Netflix but there is a killer documentary on at the moment “High Score” about the history of video games. I had to turn it off so I could concentrate on this Very inspirational!

One thing I want to do eventually is add a permanent high score system. I think we can make something really cool and that will help make it more popular in the long run. We could also add a text save system so people could unlock skins, achievements, etc and carry them from one game to the next.

That makes sense, I hadn't thought of that yet, lifesaver! And I will check it out the series for sure sounds cool. Are we going for a color that makes clear which parts of enemies to shoot, or we going for an original idea here. I'm gonna think about an original aspect that makes the game something to remember. I remember a modern scrolling shooter where you could switch between red and blue mode. In red mode you could dodge red bullets and in blue mode blue bullets. I forgot the name, but something like that could make it stand out.


Also for inspiration, my god these games are cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA8TNnCuI2Y

By “which parts of enemies to shoot” do you mean the bosses or any enemies in particular? But yeah, It is traditional to stick a bit of red or whatever color you want to use somewhere on various enemies, then tag the hit boxes areas of a boss with that color, like psychological prepping. As for color changing now that Scratch's color block is working we can color flip sprites, background, etc with ease. I like any cheap effects, stuff that can have big effect without requiring lots of code. Exploiting Scratch's features elegantly is like a digital haiku

Yeah, I'm gonna need to check that video out. Looks like we could get some great ideas for all kinds of stuff, nice!

Here are some quick details I drew up for the game theme, nothing is set in stone. I really prefer to build on and adapt ideas over time anyway as we find things that inspire better ideas.
Who is the player? A space fighter.
Where did the player come from? Earth.
Where is the player going? To rescue a big, damaged mining ship.
Who is the enemy? AI made self-aware by aliens.
Why is the player an enemy? Because the time of machine is at hand.
Where does the player travel? The mission initially is to get repair parts to the ship but then expands throughout space.
How does the player evolve? Temporary ship boosts are awarded in-game while gathered resources can be spent on permanent upgrades back on Earth.
What rewards does the player earn? Rare materials