Potential SMBO Community Revival Project

[Kimimaru]

Glad to see you want to help out, purplystuff! Unfortunately I don't think we should continue with the current base, which has been written in C# using the XNA framework. I recommend we restart using Unity2D since it's a very good free engine that does a large bulk of the work for us (collisions, physics, etc) and has a plethora of resources where we can get help. Most of what we'll need to do from there is set up the client/server interaction and write scripts (can be in C# or JavaScript) pertaining to gameplay.

I currently have my hands full with two separate game projects, so I likely won't have time to actually do work on it. I am open to help with questions, however. I'm think I should make a separate board specifically for the Revival Project since it may be more reliable than the Skype group.

[Segatendo]

I'm think I should make a separate board specifically for the Revival Project since it may be more reliable than the Skype group.

Instead of a totally new forum (I think that is what you meant by that), create a new area here, and put everyone working on it in a group called Revivalist (or something like that, up to you really), and give that group permission to view that area.

[purplystuff]

Ah.. I see.. I was so excited about the engine D:

[Kimimaru]

I'm think I should make a separate board specifically for the Revival Project since it may be more reliable than the Skype group.

Instead of a totally new forum (I think that is what you meant by that), create a new area here, and put everyone working on it in a group called Revivalist (or something like that, up to you really), and give that group permission to view that area.

I was referring to a new area (aka a board). I don't know if we'll need a special type of member group since I think it may be beneficial if others can see the progress on it and may want to lend a hand.

Ah.. I see.. I was so excited about the engine D:

We can still make it, except now we're just going to use a more feature-complete commercial engine as a base instead of a very shallow base engine I wrote in a day (which still needs much more work on it to be complete). Basically, we'll be able to spend much more time recreating the game's content than building the engine itself, which would take up far too much time before we can start on the content.

Let's revive Super Pokémon Online and make it greater than ever!

[Razz the Koopa]

Wait, Super Pokemon Online? What the heck happened to SMBO?

[Segatendo]

You missed something vital on April 1st Razz. ;P
[spoiler]Worry not about the ponies, they only came very late at the end of the day where pretty much no one saw them.[/spoiler]

[Razz the Koopa]

Well then. I'd comment, but it'd turn into an arguement, so no comment.

[Penguin4478]

Off-topic: Then don't post about making a comment in the first place because there's really no point in it.

On-topic: So how's progress on the newer engine coming along?

[Kimimaru]

As previously mentioned, I have my hands full, so no progress has been made on it. However, you are all welcome to download Unity and familiarize yourselves with it. Here's the link to download it.

[purplystuff]

Curiosity.. is this still a.. thing? Necessarily? I've been learning alot of C# with Unity, and have prior knowledge with XNA.. I've totally never forgotten this game. Especially considering it's sitting idle online with potentially few to no players..

[Kimimaru]

The revival project has unfortunately fell through a while ago, but if you wish to start it up again that would be great, and I'm sure others would be interested in helping as well! I'm mostly busy nowadays, but I might be able to help every now and then if this got going.

I would still recommend using Unity or another solid commercial engine, as it would reduce the workload immensely.

[Kimimaru]

Sorry for the double post, but I felt motivated to set up the project myself and created a repository for it here:
https://github.com/tdeeb/SuperMarioBrosOnlineRevival

Clone the repository, download the newest version of Unity (5.5) and ask me to add you as a collaborator if you don't have sufficient privileges to push and pull from the repository (set up a GitHub account if you don't have one). When installing Unity, only select to install the Unity editor and VS Tools for Unity, as the other things are unnecessary for us.

Right after you open the project in Unity for the first time, immediately go to Edit > Editor > Asset Serialization and set the Mode to "Force Text" if it isn't set already. Git handles Unity assets forced as text much better and will give you fewer problems with this setting.

You're free to use whichever editor you prefer, but I have the .gitignore file set up for Visual Studio 2015, and Unity integrates with it extremely well. You may have to adjust the .gitignore file if you're using a different editor and don't want to track the editor files it creates. Furthermore, if you do not use Windows as your OS, you can still help with this project as Unity (and Git) is cross-platform.

If you're not familiar with Git, I suggest you read up on it here:
https://help.github.com/articles/good-resources-for-learning-git-and-github/

The command line allows for more functionality but I prefer using a Git client, such as Git Extensions. Other clients people use are SourceTree and the GitHub Client, but I'm strongly opposed to the latter as it is not as well-developed as the others and doesn't provide as many features (to put it into perspective, I worked with a non-technical artist who had trouble with it despite how minimal its UI is).

Currently all the project has is a placeholder image with a script that allows for unbounded movement. I created an AudioManager for playing music and sounds but didn't test it thoroughly. Right now I'd like us to focus on client-side functionality, then hook in a server using Unity's networking, as I've heard it has greatly improved. However, feel free to work on whatever you want.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Update: We now have a dedicated SMBO Revival channel on our Discord server. I recommend anyone interested in participating to join it, as that will likely be where most of our discussions will be had. You can join it here:
https://discord.gg/jud3Bsb