Archive: 13 posts

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Okay. Things in my head are a little muddled this morning so my apologies if this post is a little random. Let's start from the beginning. I'm working on a series of platforming levels called the Printz Diaries, where I would like our little sackboys to control the main character as a sackbot, as opposed to appearing in our own costumes. That's no problem, I've played about with remote control and ovverrides and sackbot checkpoints and that's all gravy. My only worry (and it's not a huge worry so much as a gripe) is - this is really only suited to 1 player mode. I could theoretically spawn 4 Printz bots so all the sackboys could play the hero, but that just wouldn't be right. I also have three fairies who could be controllable sidekicks, but I'd like to have some puzzles where you need to guide them through so that they can assist you (as in Factory of a better tomorrow and Hansel Gretelbot). If I had extra players entering as themselves, would there be any significant lag caused by four player & four sackbots on screen at once? And then, could the fairy's logic get too confused about where to go (though I suppose that all hypothetical as I haven't even started the level proper as yet!) I suppose I'm just curious about people's thoughts - I've seen many community levels designed for 1 player only, and I'm thinking that's the way I'm going to have to go - but does this idea turn you away from playing a level? Personally I love the option of having hidden multiplayer areas and so on, and the social side to playing where you help each other figure things out. I really want this issue sorted in my head before I start arranging my ideas into the first finished level. Comments, suggestions?

2011-02-22 12:41:00 Author: rialrees Posts: 1015

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Hmmm, it's a tough one. Both my levels so far (my only published one and the one I'm working on), both should really be 1 player only. The first one I set it up so other players just fall and are never seen again, but that'll be harder on this next one. As for situation personally, I'd test how the faries work with 4 players. I'm pretty sure the lag wouldn't be bad, think about The Factory of a Better Tommorrow where you were being followed by way more than 4.

2011-02-22 12:57:00 Author: kirbyman62 Posts: 1893

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Very true. I suppose it's not too taxing to have extra player checkpoints as well at the bot checkpoints either. It's going to take soo much working out just to figure out the sackbot ai on the fairies, a couple of checkpoints cleverly hidden here and there are nothing in comparison lol!

2011-02-22 13:35:00 Author: rialrees Posts: 1015

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I'm a really antisocial gamer, so multiplayer is more of a turn off to me than 1 player. I can't be the only solo gamer out there.

2011-02-23 06:18:00 Author: Shiro Posts: 108

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I don't mind at all. My next level is going to be single player only. In some levels multiple player support just opens up a whole can of worms. It's not uncommon to tag your level as single player only.

2011-02-23 06:35:00 Author: midnight_heist Posts: 2513

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its hard to test for more then one player and it hard to keep you level hard but not too hard for players when you dont know if 1 player or 4 players will be playing it

2011-02-23 08:43:00 Author: jump_button Posts: 1014

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I can't be the only solo gamer out there. Not at all. I do most of my gaming anti-socially. Lbp is the only game I play online and I mostly hang out with others to work on stuff or to play fun versus levels. Still, I have a dissenting opinion: I think that if it's at all possible, every level should be playable by 1-4 players. I put a lot of effort into my recent vs level to add in A.I. bots so that a single player could play the level and enjoy it. Back when I'd build mechs in lbp1, I would always try to add in extra seats and functions for players 2-4 so that I wouldn't have to limit it to one player only (sometimes the best I could do was two players, though). Of course, having said that, I have to admit that I've seen some pretty freakin' impressive 1p levels that have made me question my opinion a bit, but I still think that those levels would be better if they supported multiplayer. If it's possible for you to support multiplayer, I would encourage you to do so, whether it's allowing players 2-4 to control the fairies, be themselves, or make additional characters for them to play as.

2011-02-23 09:51:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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So are you saying, what do we think of 1player only levels. I do play lbp online, im able to play with people but I think you can get the full experience (apart from versus mode) If you do make a one player level make the other three players join but make the go into a control seat so they can mess up the level.

2011-02-23 09:58:00 Author: bakscratch Posts: 258

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Hmm. Lots to think about here. I'm kind of on the fence but leaning to the side of multiplayer support, as you suggest, sehven. I love playing levels on my own, and this level is truly designed for one player at the moment, but the possiblities when I include multiplayer could make things much more fun for all involved. The part I'm really unsure of is having AI bots to help out when other players aren't able to join. I'm gonna have to play with that for some time before I'm happy I reckon. I imagine the AI is simple enough to do so long as I'm organised about tagging things for the act circuit to trigger, but if anyone can mess up something simple in two seconds flat, then its me Hmm, well I played around in a sandbox for the majority of last night and found that I suck at double AI. It looks as though the first incarnation of these levels are going to be 1p only. I even made a selection screen so the players could select which character they wanted to play, then realised that may mess up my tags for the other character's AI. Lord. I wonder if God had these problems . . . (No, I don't consider myself god. Just feel like he might have been this frustrated at some point.)

2011-02-23 14:53:00 Author: rialrees Posts: 1015

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I wouldn't try to do A.I. teammates for the player. Even real game devs have a hard time getting that right so what chance do we stand? Instead, my preferred approach is to scale things to the number of players. For example, in my latest level (I don't mean to plug it so much, but it's my best singleplayer/multiplayer work) I set the enemy bots to appear is there's one or two players, but they won't appear for three to four ('cuz it's a versus level at heart, but I wanted to support single player, and two player can be boring with no bots). Then when I set the score limit to unlock the boss fight, I scaled that by the number of players--with one player you need 1000 points, two: 1500, and three: 2000. Last but not least, I set the boss' health to scale to the number of players. He has double the health when there's two players, triple for three, and quadruple for four. Other things you could do would be to rig it so more enemies spawn when there's more players, or they're tougher to kill, or you could emit sections of the level slightly differently depending on the number of players: instead of making 2x sections optional side sections, destroy a single player section and replace it with a similar section that requires two players to navigate (though that might get tricky if one of the players drops out of the game--I suppose you'd need a system for detecting that). Or you could go old school and have the players take turns so that when one dies, the next one gets to play (though I wouldn't suggest that for long levels or levels where it's easy to get through without dying). There are a myriad of ways to offer multiplayer support that don't involve trying to make teammate A.I.

2011-02-25 09:17:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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Due to the loading screen issue I feel that all multiplayer games, whether versus or co-op, are a complete waste of time in LBP2.

2011-02-25 09:30:00 Author: Ungreth Posts: 2130

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If the gameplay's not too action-y, you could try letting all the players control the one sackbot, so they'll need to reach some kind of consensus. It can get messy very quickly, but so can paintguns and I don't see anyone making paintgun levels single player.

2011-02-25 14:07:00 Author: Rogar Posts: 2284

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Hmm. Good points all. My isue is really kind of moot at the moment until I get the area fleshed out a little more. I'm currently working on the boss, which is playable as any amount of players in theory. All of the level is in fact playable by any amount, but issues such as ckeckpoints and npc bots will vary depending on the amount playing. I understand what youre saying too ungreth, that the lack of online functionality really saps the fun out of multiplayer levels, but I dunno, I still have a pang for it Time will tell I suppose. I'm going to persevere with 1p for now, and I suppose if I get to the point where I think - this would be pretty nifty - then I'll have to start investigating!

2011-02-25 14:54:00 Author: rialrees Posts: 1015

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