Ok, Ive been playing with Coldstone for a about an hour, so i am very new to it still, but Ive been trying to track down a way to do this, and would appreciate it if anyone could let me know if it is possible.

Is it possible when a NPC enemy takes damage, to run an animation? Example: character smacks NPC with a sword, and NPC recoils in pain, before coming back for more....? I think this is really important, as it could really spice up combat....

think Zelda on SNES... when you hit a baddie, it would bouce away from you....

any clues?

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jwalton
(url="http://"http://www.four09.org")409(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.four09.org/jp")mmodule(/url)

I am seriously bummed. It appears that there is no way to do this. The one workaround i could come up with would be to kill the NPC in one hit, thus triggering an action that would place another (hurt) version of itself in the same spot (starting with an animation of it reeling from your blow).

But this would require that on death, you could seamlessly replace the dying NPC with the other (hurt) verison, and that can't be done. The NPC on death, fades out in the coldstone 'death' dissove, and you can't target it specifically with the 'delete' NPC control option to override this!!

this brings up another problem as i see it, which is that everything you kill will ALWAYS die in the way that Coldstone has predetermined.... all NPC's will always fade out to nothingness. Can you NEVER have a sliced/burned/fragged/bruised/etc NPC collapse/topple/stagger/etc to its dramatic death!!??

(begin rant)
maybe this is all premature. Maybe I have not delved deep enough into coldstone to find the answers. If that is the case, i apologize.

But if I am right, than its IMPOSSIBLE to build fun-to-play combat with this engine! forgive me, but POG (a great game in many respects), has a major failing in its tedious battles. hack hack block. hack hack block. I chop into goblins, and they just stand there, not registering a hint concern over the fact that they are getting mauled.

This is not just an aesthetic complaint, the gameplay would be much more enjoyable if the sprites recoiled from each other from the force of the blows. Knocking the enemies away from the character would add much needed variety to melee combat under this engine. More than the enemy making a beeline for the character, and just standing there hacking 'till someone dies (the fact that you cant give an NPC more complex attack patterns is another issue altogether).

Maybe i am being to harsh, or maybe i was just expecting too much (SNES zelda being my benchmark here)... I can tell that there is some really great thinking here, there is great possibility and power in coldstone, but i wonder if it is somewhat wasted if you can't make something with fun gameplay

maybe i am speaking waaaaayyy too soon, and if so PLEASE someone prove me wrong.... i would love to be wrong about this.
(end rant)

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jwalton
(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

(This message has been edited by jwalton (edited 01-18-2002).)