StormyVenture

Sorry. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything. I just find RPG Maker's default tilesets a bit limited, personally. You really don't need to be talented/gifted to create art, it just makes it that little bit easier and more natural. It does however take a lot of practice to get better. This particular context doesn't require vector art (which specifically means an image that built up elements that can be mathematically defined --- lines, circles, curves, polygons). I can see how working that way might help some people though. I.e. you can work at a scale you're comfortable with and make something you'll be able to scale uniformly. The piece I posted above is just a quick sketch I made in Paint.NET (has layers, transparency, and some basic transformation options, which is a big step up from ms paint). It mostly just a couple of filled ovals and a little scribbling using a screen cap of the show for reference.

@Comp Just my two cents here, but as should soon be evident (if it isn't already) it took almost a year for @afan to even hear anything back on this particular issue! That's a pretty terrible turnaround time just to find out if anyone even got the message, let alone where things stand. It really shouldn't have been necessary for him to use every option listed on Pony.fm's FAQ page, especially when it apparently went completely unnoticed (from his perspective at least). The fact of the matter is that it's really quite difficult to figure out who to contact or what the best place/way is to communicate that there is a problem. While the admin may well conceive of the "Poniverse" as being a unified set of websites (and a community), from my perspective (and maybe that of other users) it's not much more than a unified login system. There are a bunch of different places on MLP Forums alone that one might try, but there's not much obvious reason to go there if the issue is with anything other than the forums. And there's very little in the way of contact information on the very plain Poniverse account site. E.g. https://mlpforums.com/forum/377-support/ https://mlpforums.com/support/ https://mlpforums.com/contact/ (Contact Us link in TINY BLACK TEXT at the VERY BOTTOM of the webpage.) P.S. I would like to point out that while using/being open source software is great, with something like a website it can be challenge to help or contribute from the outside. You pretty much have to run your own instance of it (database server, web servers. etc.) plus a local dev environment just to be able to contribute anything beyond feedback.

No offense intended, but you are eventually going to need some better art and tilesets for this game. The basic ones that come with RPG Maker (any version, really) are of pretty limited utility. Even a palette swapped version of the castle tiles with blue carpets and different floor colors would be an improvement when you have two "castle" locations that need to be distinct. You don't need really high quality art, it just needs to look half-way decent and to be recognizable. E.g.

@afan Any updates? Just checked for kicks and it seems to work for me, right now. The forum complained that link embedding isn't working with respect to pony.fm, but I don't know what that's about. https://pony.fm/night-blaze

Sure, anytime. I just wish I could be more helpful. Unfortunately a lot of bronies/pony fans seems to have effectively ditched the fandom and anyone who knew them through it, at least as far as casual friends and acquaintances. Mind you that's just my perception and I've never exactly been super social. I don't know when Pony.fm changed hands (from the original creator/owner or anybody it was handed off to) and became part of Poniverse. If this problem predates that switchover, then it's probably some weird bug related to changes in the code over time. Otherwise it may have occurred during any technical efforts involved in the change of ownership and any back-end updates or changes.

Well that's a bummer. Without having access to any of the actual data for the site it's hard to know whether anything else is up, but it seem likely that your account might be marked as disabled based on how I think the code probably works. It sure is interesting that you can log in, though.

Any luck? I suspect part of the issue might be with this code (app/Http/Controllers/ArtistController.php) or at least part of problem manifests/is affecting the results at this point. The reason being that if I try to paste the exact profile URL (https://pony.fm/night-blaze) directly into my web browser, I get sent to a 404 page! As you should be able to see in this code: IF the user variable ($user) is valid AND neither of the attributes 'redirect_to' or 'disabled_at' exist THEN the app should return the results of View:make('artists.profile'). An invalid user and the existence of 'disabled_at' as an attribute should both result in App:abort('404') happening instead. public function getProfile($slug) { $user = User::whereSlug($slug)->first(); if ($user) { if ($user->redirect_to) { $newUser = User::find($user->redirect_to); if ($newUser) { return Redirect::action('ArtistsController@getProfile', [$newUser->slug]); } } if ($user->disabled_at) { App::abort('404'); } return View::make('artists.profile'); } else { App::abort('404'); } } https://github.com/Poniverse/Pony.fm/blob/master/app/Http/Controllers/ArtistsController.php

Oddly enough, trying to go to your profile directly returns a 404. (HTTP response code which indicates that the requested resource wasn't found). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_404 That seems pretty weird to me, but maybe the data was lost/corrupted or the site's code changed and doesn't work correctly for some things? Based on Pony.FM's FAQ page, you might try sending an email about this issue directly to mercury@poniverse.net or support@pony.fm if you haven't already done so. Given the description of Issue #239 (https://github.com/Poniverse/Pony.fm/issues/239), which I see someone (probably you) commented on, I would guess that either there is a more complicated problem or the site back-end may be treating your profile as though it is disabled. I assume you are still able to login based on your statements?

You might have seen OP's other post already, but: https://happyhearth.itch.io/final-fantasy-friendship I should warn you that, having played through the intro/demo, it's pretty short at the moment and heavier on dialog than game play. Hopefully we will get to play a version with more things to do soon...

Just checked this out. It was kinda fun to play, albeit the game play is very simple and not particularly challenging in any way. Also, a few things weren't entirely obvious right away... Just my two cents, but I do think there is some room for improvement/changes that could make it a little more appealing.

I would argue that instead of trying to kludge away an ugly artifact of the problem, you would be, in fact, better off fixing. One possibility is to make it so the sprite/subsprite switches to a version where the umbrella is tilted out of the way or closed+folded down somehow. Ultimately, whatt you really want is at least three planes. For example, you could have a background, a foreground, and an in-between plane where you can draw the character. Either that or you might consider faking it with a z-index system that simply draws things in the right relative order. That is, as opposed to building three separate, independent layers and then compositing them.

Looks interesting. After watching the video, I do think it could use some more pony-like colors m (e.g. not enough pink and purple), I don't know what the SNES color/palette limitations are (if any).

For the sake of simplification, I would suggest you make the hit box enclose every part of the actual pony except manes, tails, and horns. In theory you could even play with excluding part of the pony's outline and any pixels around it that are just accessories/equipment (crown, shoes, etc) if it makes sense once you have a playable game. With regards to the mane and tail, I feel like it would logically be a glancing blow at best and a total miss at worst. So, consequently it doesn't really benefit you to make the box larger to include them. A direct hit on the horn would probably really suck if ponies were real, but it's such a small area and would add a lot of empty space to the hit box. Since you can't use a polygon hit box, it's hard to exclude the area/empty space in front of the hooves and under the head or the area above the back and behind the head. Those are probably going to be the most frustrating aspects to the player.

For Rainbow Dash you could have her create a little mini tornado/vortex that would just strike an opponent directly or pick one up and shoot it out the top. Alternatively one of those little miniature thunderclouds that the pegasi jumps on to make it shoot out lightning. Fluttershy could potentially call up an animal stampede or get an animal friend to take out an enemy (bear?). I think the basic move should be more related to ponies/their 'race' (unicorn, pegasus, earth) and their "ultimate" or a stronger move should be something related to their cutiemark/talent. A 'fire form' could be the same for each of them and along the lines of that bit where Twilight catches fire in S1E15 or just likr Fluttershy using the stare instead of her ability to communicate with animals.

Okay... I didn't see another obvious route, but I'm not real familiar with the original game. I can have another look later. That does lend a bit more weight to my comment about marking other paths as the wrong way, though.

I apologize for any confusion. In the first level to the left after starting a new game there is a gray platform (w/a horizontal chevron texture?) about 3-4 jumps to the right. There are two flower platforms between the level start and the gray platform. That platform will fall down after maybe 5-10 seconds of staying put and cause an insta-death. I'm calling it a 'floating' platform because there's nothing below it to land on and it disappears or drops quite abruptly after a short time of standing on it.

I definitely think the judges and I were on the same page with the first one up top, though they had more patience than me if they made it to the other end of the level. That is, the MLP reference is clear, it's okay play wise, but it falls short of what it could be. Regarding your other entry, it's a little more like what I'd expect, but could use improvement. For starters I would suggest figuring out if you can change the level names (and if so, make it more thematically appropriate) as well as clearly indicate that the level to the right side is a dead end. The latter could be accomplished with a simple level name change (e.g. 'Not This Way!'), some in-level signage (chain of signs telling you to stop and turn around already), a solid wall/obstruction, or possibly an obnoxiously frustrating level with a congratulatory message informing you of how this was totally pointless and you should have gone left. Unfortunately I didn't get past the first "real" level even after 5 tries. Playability wise it seems just a tad too difficult for someone who never a SNES and the original game. I do have the SNES Classic though which I think has SMW2, so maybe I'll play that at some point. I do think your first level is just a little too difficult though with it's jumps that are relatively hard to make, floating platform that falls right away (lose game once just finding that out), and enemies positioned out of view and in places you're likely to bump into even if you stick the landing. Also, maybe it's just the way the game was or SNES 9x as an emulator, but Spike seems like he moves too fast and the spinning jump is a little unpredictable somehow in terms of landing position. P.S. I'd suggest directly linking to the javascript, web page version of the patching tool (link in download description on SMWCentral). I found that it makes for an easier flow from seeing your post to trying out the patched rom (and one less download).

Looks nice! That said, I think that her ears and horn should have been a little more solid.

Meh. There's just not a lot there and what is there isn't all that enjoyable. You have a "level" with Luna as a character sprite and Discord gets a cameo appearance of a sort. It probably does a decent job of meeting the criteria of "questionable", but otherwise it's not that great. It took me a while to figure out that 'shooting' the flowers turns them into coins and in the "chaos" part of the level it is very hard to tell what can be killed and what can't. I do think you could make something a whole lot better out of the basic elements (i.e. Luna, Discord, Canterlot Gardens, Luna stuck in some sort of chaos mode/world) here. --- If you think your other entry is worth sharing, I'd be willing to have a look.

Would you care to elaborate? Any specific examples come to mind?

So, wouldn't it make sense to hide/remove the entire sub-forum then or at the very least update the forum's "banner" so that it's clear to anyone that it's totally down/gone? https://mlpforums.com/forum/201-poniarcade/