Community Service for the Donkey

I was just informed that a previous post of mine was used to save the Little Fighter 2 community forum. That's pretty cool =).

LF2.5 Annoyance

My Little Fighter 2 mod, LF2.5, is doing great. It's been downloaded over 100,000 (!!!) times, and is consistenly in the top 3 at WinSite.com, sometimes peaking at #1. I estimate it's made me around $100 from Google Adsense.

But this popularity comes at a price. Several times a day now, by email, AIM, MSN, or Meebo, I get pestered with questions. Now, I don't have anything against asking questions, but most of these are ... well, I can't call them stupid, but ... ok fine, stupid. Questions like:

"Where can I download LF3 and 4?" Where they got the idea that LF3 (and up) exists, I don't know.

"What are the controls?" Maybe it helps to read the so-called README before wasting Alex's time!

"How do I change the characters?" This one in itself is not a bad question, but usually involves at least 15 minutes of trying to explain how to get to the data/data.txt file ("Go to the LF2.5 directory" "How do I do that?"), then another 15 trying to explain the syntax, and usually involves me finally giving up.

"Can I play as [insert character from random videogame] in LF2?" This is one of the worst. But the prize for the most hated question of them all goes to...

"Where can I get Electro/Mario/LF3 Firen/etc. ?" OK, one thing I can't comprehend is that although people seem incapable of finding the controls to the game, they are still able to find out which characters were taken out from previous versions. And then when I explain that these guys were scrapped, they still want them! OK people, if a character was removed, doesn't it make you stop and think, "Hmm why was he removed?" Ooh, I know, maybe because THEY SUCK!!

Of course, the fact that the majority of these questions come from people less than 10 years old, and judging from their spelling, non-native English speakers, does not help matters at all. Al Harberg writes, no "customers" are idiots, but I'm finding that hard to believe. I try to be as polite and helpful as I can to each and every LF2.5 user, but sometimes it just doesn't help.

I wish every person with a question about LF2.5 could read this post before asking me...

Little Fighter 2.5 Released!!

Gah... forgot to post this yesterday...


Little Fighter 2.5 has been released!!! See this topic for details.

LF2, Ladders, and Logarithms

(Don't worry about LF2.5 - I'm still working on it ... and I'll release it in three days!!)

I've decided to help Mgccl, a fellow LF2 modder, build an online ladder system for LF2.

The ladder should have the following features:

• Track and store the results of all ranked games. (No idea how we'll do this - for now we'll do it on an honor system, where players submit their game results.)
• Keep track of each players' wins, ties, and draws.
• Calculate each player's rating, using a variant of the ELO system.
• Support clans and countries, and rank them as well as ranking individual users.
• Support all possible team combinations, from 1-vs-1 to 2-vs-5 to 4-vs-4.
• Track which character each player uses, and rank them on each player (i.e. best Davis players, best Julian players, etc.)

Today, the first thing we did was come up with a database. Here's what we have right now (courtesy of myself and Mgccl):

country:
country_id , country_name , country_flag , country_wins , country_total_elo, country_total_exp

clan:
clan_id , clan_name , clan_leader , clan_wins , clan_losses , clan_draws , clan_ranking, clan_total_elo, clan_total_exp, clan_members

user_stat:
stat_id, stat_elo, stat_exp, stat_rank, stat_win, stat_lose, stat_draw

user_prof:
user_id, clan_id, country_id

team_user_link:
team_id, user_id

vs_games:
game_id , team1_id , team1_winrounds, team2_winrounds

Mgccl also singlehandedly coded the ELO script (this guy's amazing at PHP!) Now we are missing one crucial feature - ranking for team games. Since I'm good at math, it falls to me to solve the following problems:

1. I must find a way to average the team members' ratings to create a team rating. A simple arithmetic mean won't work - a team with one member rated 1500 and one member rated 1000 does not have a 1250 rating!
   


2. Figuring out 1) will let us play 2-vs-2, 3-vs-3, and 4-vs-4 games, but what if we want to play a game with unequal teams? I must calculate how to adjust the temporary team ratings, to account for the fact that teams with more players have a much better chance of winning.


3. Once I find 1) and 2), I am able to use Mgccl's ELO algorithm to find how to adjust each team's rating, but wait! Teams aren't rated - only players are! I must figure out how to apply the rating adjustment to the team members. As far as I see, the answer to this is to simply take the team adjustment and adjust each team member's rating by it, but I'll have to do some more research on this.

Some data to help me: The ELO system is designed so that if two players (or teams) have a rating difference of 200, then the stronger team should have a 75% chance of winning. I think that if I take a few logarithms, I should be able to figure out the answer to 1) and maybe 2) from that statement.

Whew. Long, very long, incredibly long, post.

LF2.5: Volt

Today I added a new character: Volt. He replaces my old electric char (Electro).

Here's some screenshots I took (JackieRabbit - the creator of Volt - put the second one on his site =) ) :



Don't know why I took the third one ^_^

LF2.5: It's Very Near the End!

Title says it all!

Tomorrow I'll give you some screenshots. I promise. =)

LF2.5: Racing Towards a Release

I am almost done with LF2.5. Over the past few days I have skinned, hacked, and modified every aspect of the game.

However, I still have a few things on my agenda:

- Figure out which extra (non LF2/CE) characters to add. There are currently 20 open slots and I want to fill them with the best characters possible.
- Work a little on backgrounds and items.
- Edit the stages. I'm working on making two stages of my own: a 1-vs-1 Mortal Kombat style stage, and a medieval stage with knights and dragons.
- Skin it up a little more. Some aspects of the game do not look so good.
- Rewrite the readme. I want to be especially careful to give credits to everyone who contributed characters/items/backgrounds/skins/support.
- Test, test, test.

Basically, I want the game to be perfect. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am giving a release date!! I don't want to rush, but I don't want this to take up my whole summer either, so the date I am giving is JULY 25. Mark your calendars! =)

And lemme post some pics of how the game's going:

The new skin (courtesy of LF2 NS)












Stickman's hair (courtesy of his buddy Electro)







Uhhhh what?

Yet Another LF2.5 Post

Marshall, the developer of LF2 CE, has notified me that he will be encrypting the much-anticipated next version of CE, so that the source code cannot be copied. Guess that all that waiting was for nothing.

One problem that has to be addressed is how my mod will be different from LF2 CE. Well,

* My mod includes all LF2 characters that do not have CE equivalents, so that it's possible to play Stage, Battle, etc. I'm not sure if this feature is available in CE.
* LF2.5 will have several (5+ is my goal) characters that are neither from LF2 nor CE.
* Guns. 'Nuff said.

But seriously, my game is becoming a little too similar to CE. So, I think it's probably a good thing that I won't be able to use the final version of CE in LF 2.5 - this gives me room to be creative (the non-encrypted version of CE only has about 10 characters).

At the moment I'm trying to find some fun and unique characters. You can help! Simply follow this link, find the character download section, try out some characters, and tell me what you like - if I accept your character(s) of choice you'll be listed in the credits!

Happy Fourth of July?

Let's just say that my Fourth of July was not the best I've ever had.

The day got off to a not-so-good start when it turned out that the Hamachi client that I installed on my dad's computer to try out Network Games in LF2.5 had opened the door to a score of viruses. The computer got so screwed up that we had to restore it from a backup. Fortunately, our weekly backups take place on Monday evenings, so we didn't lose anything. In retrospect, we were incredibly lucky - we didn't lose any data at all. However, we still have a lot of work ahead of us, in restoring all the files - the backup wasn't complete, so we have to carefully copy files from the old hard drive to the new one.

That's the last time I use Hamachi.

After this uhh ... incident ... I had a doctor's appointment, due to some neck pain I've been having. Doctor says: physical therapy for eight weeks, and twelve Advils a day. Doctor, isn't this taking it a little too seriously?? It's just a little neck pain, and you're prescribing twice the recommended daily dose of Ibuprofen. Side effects here I come...

Afterwards, there was a party, where my friends and I entertained ourselves by making homemade videos on my cellphone. I'd post them here, but messaging is not included in my plan, and I imagine emailing a video to myself would be rather costly.

So yeah, that was my Fourth of July.

LF2.5: Networking Issues

I didn't work on LF2.5 too much today, but what I did work on is Network Games.

There were two problems:

1. Connection issues, usually caused by private domains. To fix this, one must get a public IP address (using Hamachi will give you a public address)

2. Synchronization issues, which were very common. I couldn't find any fix other than to reinstall the game (which only takes about a minute, so it's not much of a problem).

In addition, Bob has playtested the game (partly by playing network games with me), and I'm working to use his comments. Most importantly, I like his idea of taking out the duplicate LF2 characters entirely and replacing them with CE characters, since CE characters retain all the abilities of LF2 characters.

Down to 82 objects now, after removing the last of the LF3 characters (guess LF3 wasn't such a great mod after all), and following Bob's suggestion, I think I won't be pressed for space any time soon! =)

LF2.5 Day Seven - The Boring Stuff

Now that I have just about everything done with LF2.5, I only need to do a few more things:

1. Add the rest of LF2 CE (still waiting for Marshall to finish this one).
2. Perhaps a few more characters and backgrounds.
3. Rewrite the readme.
4. Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting!
5. Fix all the bugs discovered by #4.

Today I worked on #3, #4, and yes, even a little of #5.

Still waiting for Marshall...

LF 2.5 Modding: Days 3-5

On Day 3, I ran into my first obstacle: LF2 only supports 100 objects (data files), and I had gone over. I then spent the next few days optimizing the game: removing all unnecessary characters and objects. I am now down to 92 objects, a safe number. To get there I had to remove several characters: I took out almost all the LF3 characters, leaving only LF3 Firen and LF3 Freeze. The reason for this is that the rest of the characters were just graphical changes, without actually changing the code.

When I first made LF 2.5 a year ago, I meant it to be a combination of LF2 and LF3 (a popular mod at the time). However, I have now realized that it is downright stupid to just restrict myself to this, and now I have a new goal in mind - to make this game as fun as I possibly can! If I have to remove some (or maybe even all, in the end) LF3 characters, then so be it.

However, I still managed to get some work done. I have added a new character, Electro, made by Marshall, the same guy who compiled LF2 CE. He works fine, but the only problem is that he takes up a whopping seven data files! In the end, I may have to remove him because of this. I don't want to, but I may have no choice.

In the above screenshot, Electro shows off his Julian-esque D^J combo.


I also added a little known mod called Gun-LF2. I know what you're thinking - Little Fighter with guns???? However, I can assure you that the game is still well balanced. In addition, now there's several ways to kill an enemy: 1) With your fists and close-range weapons, 2) Using your combos, 3) Shooting him to death, or 4) Using an explosive crate. Although there were explosive crates earlier, there are many more ways to use them now - for example, you can throw an explosive crate at your enemy, then pick up a shotgun, shoot the crate, and watch it go nuclear! ^_^ Hopefully, this wide array of ways to dispatch an enemy will make LF 2.5 more fun!

Finally, I added a new map, Bunker, which looks especially nice with guns - see the above screenshot.

One more thing I have to add: ENGLAND LOST????? >.<

LF 2.5 Modding, Day Two

Marshall, the deveoper of LF2 CE, has informed me that he is working on a new version of his mod, that is much better. Since a lot of characters I'm adding to LF2.5 are from CE, I have two choices now: I could push ahead, or I could wait for Marshall to finish.

I dislike waiting, but I don't like unnecessary work either, so I chose the middle path: for now I'm not adding CE characters, just characters from other mods, and backgrounds.

Today I worked on backgrounds. I added five that i liked, three from CE and two independent backgrounds. Enjoy!

LF 2.5 Modding, Day One

After working on the PrestoSoft site, and doing a bit of Euro work, I decided to see what I can do with Little Fighter (note that it is now going to be called Little Fighter, not Little Fighters, Little Fighter being the correct name) 2.5.

The first thing I did was remove some characters. With Bob's help (Bob is my playtester =) ) I managed to find the ten least used characters (duplicates for the most part), and removed them. The reason for this is that the original LF2.5 had an overwhelming array of characters, and this way I'll be able to add some more characters without overcomplicating the game. Some characters removed included LF2_Template (accidentaly inserted twice in the last version), LF3_Louis (a carbon copy of LF2_Louis), and LF3_VanderTower (a very screwed-up character to say the least, his only moves involved committing suicide apparently).

I then proceeded to add a few characters. I'll start by adding all (or at least most) of the characters in LF2 CE, as I mentioned in a previous entry. Today I started by adding CE_John and CE_Deep, the first two characters in LF2 CE. I haven't modded LF2 for over a year, so I have forgotten how to use the Data Changer for the most part, and it took me a while to fix some simple bugs, but I finally got both characters to work perfectly.

CE_John demonstrates his new Electro Zap move


CE_Deep uses a Sword Demon to knock Freeze back a fair distance

Competition in a Small Niche

I made Little Fighters 2.5 a little over a year ago, as a standalone compilation of different modifications of LF2, a popular freeware fighting game. The reason I made it was actually to have some fun in computer class (LF2 itself was starting to get boring), but it's become much more popular than I dared imagine, with over 60,000 downloads at last count. I've profitted from it as well, making a bit of money off Google ads.

However, competition has arrived in the form of Little Fighter CE, a modification with the same premise as my own. It has become rather popular among the LF2 community.

Now I am faced with several choices:

1. Ignore it. After all, I have superior marketing (for now at least), and besides, I haven't edited LF2.5 for a year - I've probably forgotten how to do it after all this time.
2. Release a new version of LF2.5. Hey, I have some free time. And there''s plenty of content I can add.
3. Combine LF2.5 and CE into one game. The original LF2.5 is simply a combination of several mods. All CE is is one big mod. So the logical next step would be to literally absorb the competition. It's perfectly legal as well.

I'm working on a lot of things right now (my fledgling web network, the Prestosoft site, AP summer work, math), but if I have time I might try releasing a new version of LF2.5!