Nate

Hi @Tmra I read your post when you first posted it and took some time to consider your input, and wanted to share what route I've decided to go down and been working towards coding today: - The area takes place in an abandoned Quarry where there is plenty of places to dig. There is an NPC where you can get a free random tool per day (on the rare occasion he may give you 2), however you may also purchase as many tools from him as you like using Gold (the onsite currency). - You have a "Tool Belt" which starts of with 2 slots which you must fill before you can dig. Tool belt can be upgraded to support more tools later on. - Once you click to "Let's Dig!", you are shown 3 potential "rock patches" and you can decide which once you want to dig. - Each wall has a "Damage Threshold" of 100%, the different tools add different values onto that threshold. - Digging reveals Pearls, Gems, Rubies, Gold Treasure, Trinkets etc. Each item discovered takes up one slot in the user's bucket. Each "dig" ends when one of these 2 criteria are met: - The user's bucket is full or - The damage threshold reaches 100%. When a dig is over, there is a 50% chance once of the tools you have used will be broken. Any loot items in your bucket are then added to your backpack, and you are free to dig again if your toolbelt has at least 2 tools in it. Tools list: - Wooden Bucket - Can store up to 2 pieces of Loot while digging. Can be used 5 times before breaking. - Plastic Bucket - Can store up to 4 pieces of Loot while digging. Can be used 10 times before breaking. - Steel Bucket - Can store up to 6 pieces of Loot while digging. Can be used 20 times before breaking. - Brush - This will only remove layer 1 in a criss-cross pattern, however only adds 1% to the Damage each use. - Hammer - This can smash through many layers of rock, but adds 8% to the damage - Chisel - This can knock through all levels of rock, but is very concentrated and doesnt do a large Area of Effect. Adds 3% damage. Tools I'm considering adding: - Trowel - Removes 1 layer of rock regardless of level in a diamond shape. Adds 4% damage. - Shovel - Removes a 3x3 square of all layers, but adds 12% onto the damage. - Pickaxe - Removes a small diamond shape form all layers, but adds 10% onto the damage. - Surveyor - Electrical Device that scans the rock and shows marks where items can be found. Can only be used once per dig, and doubles all damage % from other tools for this dig. As for the loot items you get from digging, I've set them up to have specific rarities, so for example, a single Diamond wont appear in anyone's digging patch until collectively all players have mined 50 Rubies, etc. This isnt something the players will be conscious of, however by doing this method it ensures we can force different loot items to be rarer than others etc. As for loot usage, there will be another NPC which will accept them in exchange for Rare items, for example you might trade in 50 x Rubies for a Ruby Sword, or 150 Golden Cups for an Avatar Item etc. The reason I've gone down this route, is because it makes it a little more interesting, and tools, buckets and loot items can then all be traded amongst players themselves.

Fantastic, thanks I'll start to explore this once my game is closer to release

I know this is still pretty fresh, but it would be really cool if owners could integrate their game to TGL in such a way that news posts will automatically post to the blogs section

I've added TLF to the Games List and added all the news posts so far from the temp forums into the blog section. If you dont want to join the temp forums, you dont have to - I'll post all news in the blog section. Be sure to join the club though!

So, this is for those that watch GoT (roll on next season wooo!), Which character from House Stark do you think is most like you? Once you have voted put up a short message just to explain why Once this discussion is over, we can slowly work our way through the other houses

@Nova this looks pretty cool! The graphics remind me of Zelda from the GBC-era. What is the object of the game? Count me in for helping test it

Hey @Aminirus Thats great to hear, thank you. I'll shoot you a message :-)

Yessss Great news, thanks for the update!

Perhaps in the "virtual pet site" world, the only way to segregate would be to only allow easy vs easy, hard vs hard etc in multiplayer? But then this limits the multiplayer capabilities if the game is small >_>

^ This pretty much sums it up. Most that I have seen are owners that dont really realise how deep things will get - they dont take into consideration how much time it takes to run a pet site and before they know it they start disappearing for days at a time with staff questioning what is happening, until suddenly one day the owner stops logging in. I've also seen instances of people being paid and not completing the work that was paid for, and this make the owner give up on the project >_<

Yes! Unity is amazing! I tried it a while back and followed the tutorial with the ball going round in the blue space and collecting all the points. The tutorials for Unity are the best tutorials I have ever seen, and I would certainly recommend them for anyone looking to get into 2D or 3D games.

.. , and he was terrified because he knew what it meant - they were coming. Before he could even react..

Haha no problem. I completely understand what you mean - I've seen my fair share of "people work for free then the site goes under" pet sites, and it is saddening to see all that hard work go to waste :-( Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have poke around on DeviantArt when I get home today ?? Thanks for your help

Hi kami, Thanks for taking the time to respond on this, I really appreciate your input :-) Re-reading my post I probably haven't worded it in the best way possible - Im currently paying 2 artists for map and NPC art work and Im commissioning a TGL artist for pets monthly starting next month. I'm not looking for someone to take on a free ride (although now you've pointed it out I can see how my post comes across with my quote "when the website makes money"). My apologies with that ✋? I completely agree that art is worth being paid :-) My logic behind this thread is that perhaps there might be artists out there looking to go down the equal ownership road but don't have any programming knowledge, it wasn't my intention to come off in the tone it seems to have taken, My apologies ??

@Tmra Thanks, definitely :-) Ive actually posted a video in another topic for critique and feedback on one of the Minigames I'm currently working on within TLF, if you get a few minutes to check it out and let me know your thoughts ???

Thanks for the info @Digital . Looks like a really interesting game tbh. @Tmra apparently the devs have now completely abandoned developing any fixes or DLC for Andromeda. Oh dear ?

Thanks, I really appreciate it :-)

Hey all, I'm currently developing a virtual pet site, and today decided to revisit one of the games I started a while back (but never finished). I scrapped the old code and re-wrote from the ground up in the last few hours. The idea behind the game is that you are "Mining" for treasure, so I've created the terrain generation when you first open it, followed by the ability to "hammer" and "chisel" into the rock. If you have ever played the "underground" mining in Pokemon Gen 4, then you will know what this is based from. For now, it is simply 4 layers of brown that get darker the more tougher it is, however before release I'll likely add images for the tiles instead. The player has 2 tools at their disposal, but I've coded it so that it could have more in the future - maybe a drill for the hard rock, or a brush for the light rock. I'm thinking there could be an "energy" bar that depletes each time you hit, and the game is over once the energy bar is empty. The Hammer reveals more and digs deeper into the rock, however would use more energy than the chisel, which doesnt dig as deep. The player would need to decide which would be better to use. At the moment there is no "win" scenario, however I'm going to have it show a greyscale version of reward items that get revealed, and if the player manages to reveal the entire item before their energy is depleted, the item switches out into it's coloured version to imply "you have found this". The player can then continue looking for other items before their energy is all gone. I've recorded a minute video of it so far to demonstrate the mechanics of it, I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas or suggestions? PS. Sorry for the bad quality.. YouTube doesn't like this video because I haven't ran it through Adobe Premier before uploading.

So Xbox 360 changed the Console world when it introduced Gamerscore/Achievements. Sony following shortly afterwards with their rubbish copy of it in the form of trophies. Most conversations with my friends used to revolve around who had the most gamerscore or most platinum trophies etc - they used to be something to show off... but since the latest console generation has come out, it seems nobody really cares about these values any more, at least they dont in my gaming/social group. Has anyone else experienced this?

This is great news! The new theme looks very shiny, and I think the Clubs feature is a great addition to the forum Now if only we could get a :thumbsup: emoticon added, my life would be complete! haha

Hi All, Not really sure where this should be posted, but I've been considering my options as far as development of my virtual pet site goes. Due to the sheer upfront cost of Art for a virtual pet site, are there artists out there who are willing to work on a promising project with the guarantee of future pay once the website makes money? Or better yet, are there artists out there who would be willing to take part ownership of the game in exchange for providing art (with me providing all the programming and server costs etc)? I'm looking for a generic pet site style - not "realistic", and preferably someone who is capable of most formats (ie, pets, items, maps). I know there aren't many people here on TGL, so it's unlikely I would find someone here willing to do that who could dedicate the time, however are there any online communities where I might find such people looking to expand their portfolio with the prospect of future success with this game?

I've took some time to reply to this because I wanted to seriously think about it. In my opinion, I think the hardest part of a "difficulty setting" would be implementing it. Simply hindering players at the start of the game wouldnt be enough. For players playing on harder difficulty settings, games traditionally have baddies that are harder to kill, or rewards that are harder to earn. How would this translate to your game?

Can't say I've heard of the Surge, however Horizon Zero Dawn is freaking amazing. I've platinum'd it and I'm so ready to go back and play it again haha! What is The Surge about?

I dont want to nominate myself to run it, however I'm eager to start participating once this starts running again

Reminds me of my 2 favourite virtual pet sites that summised to this - SonnexPets and NutrinoPets