Cold Cobra

Off the top of my head I don't think so. The closest you could do would be to create a Reactive Event of "Character A is defeated" being the cause and the effect being location A either switch to inactive or swapping with a new location of "Ruins of Location A". The only key difference would be that Character A would most likely still be alive, unless you got a very lucky dice role post-battle!

Yeah, I had more health early on but the first play test showed me that didn't really work. I use the stars as just a mark as to how powerful they are, stats-wise. Therefore you can't fill your team with the big powerful characters, only one or two big hitters during major events (but plenty of options for smaller skirmishes!)

In my mod (which I do hope to release a first version of eventually...) I ended up settling on a fighting game-like system, where nearly everyone has the same health split across three levels (apart from canon fodder having less and a couple of super powerful boss-like characters having a bit more) and everyone has at least one offensive move that deals 1 damage guaranteed to activate, 2 damage that will hit if you roll a 2-6, and 3 damage with a 3-6 roll, with mid-range characters having a "super move" that deals 4 unlocked at health level 2 that can only be used 6 times at a 4-6 roll and again the few really powerful have a 5 damage move that unlocks at level three that can only be attempted 4 times at 5-6 chance. The same goes with moves that allow people to dodge, they nearly all have a 5-6 chance of activating and I've tried to avoid as many stun effect moves as I can all in favour of speeding the battles along a bit. This way the fights are down mostly to who has higher stats allowing them to stop attacks or not, unless they get lucky on the dice roll. It's not a system that would really work for a 1-on-1 game but given all the fights are made up of teams it's actually working really well, it's just a shame it took this long for me to figure it out as its involved going back over old characters I'd already "finished" and updating them a few times now...

Also worth thinking about if they're all active in areas where they can reach each other, as that's also a major factor.

After having a lot of fun with the editor since launch but not really feeling the main game like I did CBH I believe the ideal game lies in between the two. A game where you select a character to play as but you have an end goal of swinging the balance of power towards a concrete end game, trying to gain enough notoriety or score the right friendships / enemies / group placement to get involved in the higher stakes showdowns. This solves the issue most had with CBH, that there was "nothing to do or aim for" while keeping a lot of a great stuff introduced to CBU like the storylines, artefacts and generally the whole moves / attributes / powers system that has been so fun to play around with. You'd have to change up the balance of power to be harder to impact as you'd hopefully include AI fights happening the background again ala CBH (a personal gripe with CBU just seeing one fight be round means some areas just don't pop up and kind of makes me want to put less areas in) and having your chosen character end up part of a user-created story might be tricky if the user didn't want to take part in it, but there are ways around that. It would also be nice if you could chose to be a villain and try and shift the balance negatively / create enemies / join factions for the bigger showdowns, but that's not a necessary addition or anything. Now obviously given the length of time between CBH and CBU I don't expect anything to really come from this post any time soon / if ever but I never thought we'd get a sequel to CBH at all, so I just thought it'd be worth mentioning while it's on my mind. I'll be continuing to use the editor because bending it around certain franchises and their varying powers is extremely fun and I do still enjoy the odd game, just not anywhere near as much as I enjoyed feeling like I was travelling around it with a specific person while the world turned around me.

I've ended up going for the "Crossover fighting game rules" in that each of the characters in my game are "restricted" to the same rules: light attacks (1 damage), heavy attacks (2 damage) and special moves (3 damage) with most also getting a Super (4 damage but can only be used 6 times and normally not available in the first level of health) Some world / universe ending threats have one or two bigger damaging moves but they're normally a one-off when they're nearly defeated and still isn't in the double digits, damage wise. Likewise most characters have three or four levels of health, with each level giving them 5 HP, again with some super powerful (or popular) characters getting five levels, some low-tier getting two and the gag characters like Goombas or Galcias get just the one. I've also dramatically reduced the frequency of being stunned by removing "stun if missed" and very few attacks have automatic stun (and if they do it normally does zero damage and can only be used once or twice) while abilities that allow people to dodge is 50/50 if they're really high-level, otherwise it's a harder thing to roll. This all allows the fights to be fierce and fun without too much worry about turns where nothing happens. Big time characters still feel stronger than the smaller ones but not to the point where it's hard to keep track of it. Melee and Range attack points is really the only place where there is a big difference, with the previously mentioned top few heroes and villains having things in the early 20s but most having less as they go down the pecking order. This all creates a world similar to those of Crossover fighting games, hence the title of my "rule set". Like in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 where Chris Redfield, flanked by lawyer Phoenix Wright and wrestler-turned-mayor Mike Haggar can take down Galactus because Chris used his Grenade Launcher super move at the right time... although that might be pushing it in this database, but you get what I mean. Your question about move strength compared to base strength, this is what I ended up going with, and in tests its proven to be very fun indeed. EDIT: Just wanted to add that characters do still have loads of traits and abilities unique to them, this was just about power scaling! Just read this back and it sounded like I only gave people offensive moves, which would be something of a massive waste given the stuff on offer here...

Have to agree here, I'm trying to do chunks of my mod at a time but that keeps leading me to discover things I'd missed before and go back over things I'd already considered finished! It'll be a good while before I (hopefully) post the first release of mine, but I am very hopeful it'll be great when it gets there...

.... Basically that, yeah. I enjoyed my time in the actual game but that just made me more excited to get a move on with my massive cross-over database so I can play it with characters and locations I'm familiar with. Sadly (well, in terms of what we're talking about) me of 10 or so years ago had all the time in the world to make the massive database, me now working 9-6 most weekdays and 9-5 every other Saturday is finding it slow going updating it. It's so much fun that there are times at work when I'm thinking about how to create a certain power or storyline in the game with the editor, but then I only have an hour or two in the evening to actually do it. I've got a set of "rules" in terms of health levels and attack power that seems to work well in test battles so I'm now pushing ahead with editing the characters, but yeah... I added a LOT back then. Still, it's not like its going anywhere, and updating the characters with matching background pics and creating their moves and all that is really fun anyway, so it's not like its a slog waiting to play the actual game with the database. So overall I'm with you, I'm very happy with the game but it will be a while before I'm deep into an actual game.

If it helps, this is what my e-mail receipt from yesterday says (minus key codes and the like, obviously!): Your Order £22.46 x 1 Charges will appear on your bill as PP* FS greydoggames Order Reference: Tax: £4.49 Total: £26.95

Happily ordered this as soon as I got back from work. I've been spending the week thinking of ways to create things in the editor when away from home, which is sort of sad but I really don't care! 😛 Looking forward to a full game and lots more editor work!

I have to disagree there, plenty of times in CBH I've used the opening battle cry to signify someone's rival being on the opposite side of the battle that's about to begin, be it a shout of anger or a snide villain taunt about his nemesis showing up again. Like special intros in fighting games, basically.

Actually I meant to post about something similar myself. When I converted my database I look at "Opening Battle Cry" dialogue directed at someone that I'd already done from that game and it has a target drop box, but when I create a new Opening Battle Cry Dialogue I don't know how to make it target a specific person. I can see how to target when selecting other triggers like scoring a KO or attacking a person, but not for Opening Battle Cry.

I've converted my Mod (that I do plan on actually releasing this time...) and it's fine, but thanks to all the new things to do with health levels, powers and traits being renamable and having extra things like being able to hit multiple people or even just putting in damage amount, it really is a character-by-character thing if you want it to run properly. Thankfully you can clone just the Health or traits or schemes part of another character onto one your doing, which is going to prove handy when editing lots of grunts that while from different series are practically the same. I've got an excel file where I've roughly planned out health and attack power in general that I'm now using across the board, so it should be smooth sailing from here, just time consuming because I keep thinking of a neat way I can use a power to represent something, or just rename a stat buff or health level to something series or character specific. That's not even touching items and storylines, which obviously don't have CBH equivalents. I wish this game was out five years ago when I was unemployed... So basically if you converted the big Marvel 90s mod that was always floating about and then clicked to start a game it'd be okay but the damage and health levels will be off and none of the new interesting things will be active.

Oh of course! It's like in JPRGs when someone has to spend turns charging before doing a powerful attack. That's great! More ways to make characters more unique and like whatever franchise they come from. This editor really is so flexible, it makes me laugh that my first glance I thought the list "seemed smaller". Cheers.

I'm having a proper look around the editor now (and my God is this going to be fun!) but I'm unsure of the Token stuff in the powers and abilities menu and when I type "Token" into help nothing is coming up. It takes up a big chunk of the powers menu and seems interesting but also seems somewhat complicated... Otherwise I'm having a blast just renaming powers and health levels to be series-specific, it makes it so much more varied visually even if a lot of characters will technically have the same power.

Initial impressions are good! I was worried at first about having the attacks and traits in the same menu looked weird but then when I actually had a battle it made a lot more sense. The same goes for how it seemed like there were a lot less options for moves but really we just lost unnecessary specifics (Stab, slice, throw, grapple, weapon attacks in general are now all just physical) though this does make some of the movesets imported a bit pointless (no need to have a Sword Slash and a Sword Stab that do exactly the same amount of damage and are now in the same category) so that's even more editing to do! I do like being able to name your own powers and even version of powers specific to each person if you want. I'm sure that was probably covered in the journal but I evidently forgot about it! I've only taken a quick look at the editor otherwise but storylines and items look as much fun as I was hoping. I'll need to look at the default database's stats and attack levels because the imported database is all 1s, 2s and the odd 3s for attacks out of 25, which seems odd and there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to the personality section again at a cursory glance, unless that's covered in traits. Anyway, I'm rambling, but I am enjoying the actual game which will help with all the database editing I have ahead of me...

Looking good. The basic breakdown of the stats in the box underneath the bios is an interesting way of doing it, looking at it a big list with a bunch of icons or something would disrupt the flow of the screen so I like the way it was handled (plus you can click on it for more detail, so it's no biggie), and I see plenty of new powers and abilities already. The location screenshot look great as well, really looking forward to creating the sites now I see how it will look.

Yes, it makes the world of difference, and thanks to a big increase in already-cut-out PNG images in recent years it's going quicker than I thought it would...

I think you pretty much nailed it for me as well, though the other way round in that I'm most interested the story aspect and seeing how creative you can make it, and the addition of Items is a fun extra that could tie into it. The change to locations is also fun, I was just hoping for pictures for them but the addition of even more detail (with even more pictures!) is great, though will add some significant time drain to getting my mod up to date, luckily it's a really fun thing to do! I'm also interested in seeing the new layout during battle idea in action. Just generally looking forward to it, I'm doing all I can at the moment to prepare my old CBH mod for the transfer but it was in pretty rough shape to begin with and there obviously things I don't want to update because I know I'll have to change them again in CBU anyway. I've been mainly cutting pictures with a matching background, something that was sorely missing in my original database.

Not much to say about the faction update accept its nice to see how more detailed it is. Finding faction logos for some of the more obscure teams will be a fun challenge!

I'm not Adam but in the one of the yet-to-rematerialise posts in this thread he confirmed the picture sizes and format are the same as CBH.

Not much to add after the previous update, it's much the same in that it sounds really fun. I'm certainly tempted to add more generic henchmen / monsters into my database for the sake of the "villain calling in henchmen mid-fight" mechanic. As usual with all games I'm happy to wait as long as it takes for it to be a good as possible on release, even if in this case it's more about waiting for assets allowing for more time to bug test / add things rather than any kind of delay due to things not working!

That's fine, I don't mind battles only happening in places from time to time so long as it still feels like those locations are actually moving and evolving. That just means when a battle comes to a location it'll most likely be different each time even if you start a new file. My excitement has been retained

Loved today's entry, makes the game sound like a really fun JRPG, with terrain, a team of heroes and lots of moves both defensive and offensive to chose between. Definitely a major step up from CBH. Out of curiosity, after spending some more time with my old CBH database (and boy does that ever need a major update when CBU comes out...), you've said before about each issue having an incident occur via dice roll but does that mean only one thing happens in between a turn, or do smaller skirmishes and characters moving around still happen across the whole playing world and it's only the area you're currently at that gets effected? (if that's even still a thing given you don't command a specific person) Otherwise it feels like having a larger database would mean a lot of areas of the game world seeing little to no action for many turns at a time. Obviously new character debuting and major incidents should be at the mercy of the issue dice roll but just had to wonder how active the world will be outside of the issue-to-issue transition, or is it that the issue-to-issue stuff happens so much quicker than the CBH turns that it still makes everything feel more active? Either way colour me very excited indeed!

A nice taste for what's to come. Sounds a lot more fun than CBH's click to see what the encounter is, told what it is and then do it gameplay loop, sounds like this time there's not only more story to the encounters but the team / rating scenario and the extra locations and items will mix things up nicely. It's a shame this forum isn't seeing more activity, but then I suppose GDS is more about sports sims. Still, hopefully it creates a big splash upon release. I'll certainly do my best to big it up everywhere so long as it meets my expectations (which I see no reason why it won't)