Hi everyone! I'm a guy who likes bomberman but who was unable to enjoy multiplayer aspect of it due to not having means to acquire console/money in early days of multiplayer bomberman games. I also like starcraft which is a multiplayer RTS with a pretty cool editor. Somehow these two things combined resulted in bomberman map for SC :D

Here is a gameplay video from some time ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhAo-2qu3Is

I understand that not everyone has SC2 (most probably don't), I post here in hopes that you guys might share your experience of multiplayer bomberman games. My experience is only limited to single player campaigns and versus AI matches in SEGA bomberman games. So I'm curious, what were/are the joys and frustrations of multiplayer bomberman. What do you love/hate about the game. Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of when creating bomberman game? I was reading other topics but still feel that it would be more efficient to simply ask.

And about map itself:
differences:
-Since it's an RTS engine you control your bombers movements by ordering it with mouse just like unit in any RTS;
-Bombers collide with each other.

What I got so far in a nutshell:
-up to 13 player FFA or Team Deathmatch.
-10 powerup types + customizable item scheme (can set amount of starting powerups + arena spawn amount)
-5 arena themes (just visuals yet, no gimmicks);
-AI to practice against (not a challenge for skilled players but still good training material for newcomers)

Hours spent playing awesome ~10 player FFAs (even though they only happen once a week) keep my motivation alive to not abandon this little project. But I feel that there might be more to bomberman than I know. So please, share your wisdom with me :D

I don't have a SC2 so I can't really try it, but I must say that this is an amazing use of the map editor.

The things that bother me in bomberman are the things that allow for dirt simple cheap effective strategies to win over actual trap setting. When you combine bomb pick up and bomb throw, but let the picked up bomb stay in hand infinitely with movement, but still holds the counter from when you picked it up, that leads to a style of play that I don't like. Remote bomb, is also a tad overpowered, but I tolerate it as it's normally locked to certain levels. Any singular item that increases win chance by a large percent (so and is rare) is that way. Rui's aren't as bad at that just because while between 2 good players, it means a lot, it doesn't lead to standoffs and inescapable traps.

Hahahah, that's awesome.  

I concur with what fireball said. On the subject of Remote Bombs and such, as long as they can be enabled/disabled in each match, it should be fine... The most traditional matches tend to have only the Bomb Up, Fire Up, Speed Up, Kick, and Skull. The Kick is pretty much a staple and, in my personal opinion, shouldn't offer too much of an advantage.

As for the Skull - I'm not sure if you have implemented it yet, but in any case, I feel that it works best if it is passed from player to player upon contact (rather than infecting all players who are touched). In at least one of the games, it could infect multiple players, and the effects would eventually go away on their own. This kind of creates a sort of uncontrollable mayhem... But then, it can be amusing at times. Hm, does anybody else have an opinion on this matter? My opinions in these areas are not always so concrete, heh.

One more thing - about the Line Bomb item... I feel that it is more fair for the Line Bomb to stop at other players, rather than allowing the item's user to place a line of bombs underneath and past an opponent, trapping him or her. If that makes sense.

If I think of any more item/feature behaviors that I have something to say about, I'll be back with more comments. But yeah, nice work on this map, hahahah. It's really cool.

Hm, interesting. I've seen this sort of thing before for Starcraft, except with mimicking Dungeon Keeper. I suppose it isn't too uncommon, but I'm not really into Starcraft so I haven't heard much of it as one would expect. Never really understood the point of such things to be honest, might as well play the original game in my opinion. But that's just me.

It's pretty fantastic what people have been able to do with mods in the Starcraft series but even more so in SC2. Some of them are really quite something!

This bomberman one looks very good. Some of my favorites are Star battle which is fantastic and Gem Tower Defense was also fun for awhile though I got bored with it fairly quickly.

I mostly prefer to play the regular game myself. Particular Co-op with your friends VS AI, or the occasional matches agaisnt your buddies. especially 2 on 2 or something.

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Thanks everyone :D
@fireball87
Yeah, that combination you described seems silly to me too. While I’m all for item diversity some powerups (like death bomb which explodes in square) seem to be just bad.

Speaking of powerups. So far I’ve got +Bomb, +Fire +Speed, Kick, Shields, Wall Pass and Pierce Bomb, Remote, Power Bomb and Tracer. Plus I’m going to add Line Bomb and something like bomb throw(Line bomb, Throw and Kick are all utility items which you can have only one at a time. So picking Line Bomb for example will overwrite Kick or Throw if you had them).

I agree that some items/combinations are borderline overpowered (yay for kicking remote bombs) but it’s the chaos and randomness that makes bomberman. It’s cool to see differently crafted bombers to try to win with what they’ve found. And if you were unlucky you can try to survive until sudden death when a whole new different game begins :D.
It’s true that for any sort of competitive purely skill based play you’d have to use PenguBomber setup but for me the more variety I get the more colorful and fun game is. Due to nature of game in some situations you just can’t win but at least you can get a laugh at how game gave you nothing while that other guy had remote + speed as his first drops (I guess it’s not really funny in 1v1.. but with 4+ players it doesn’t hurt that much(but I guess for 1v1 you can set up your own item scheme)).

As for skull, I like the idea but I’ll have to modify it since players don’t pass through each other thus infecting others will be much harder.
Do you guys know of any more interesting powerups that could be added (and do you have something against current ones(theoretically, since you can’t play)?


It does that? That’s just silly >.> Agree that line bomb should stop when it meets other bombers.

@DarkFire4114
To play bomberman with your starcraft friends of course :D. Some people buy Blizzard RTS (SC and WC) just for custom content(which is hundreds which turns into thousands of maps as years go by).

Your current list of powerups looks good, yeah.

As for other items... well, the Push is a neat item. It allows the player to push opponents (by use of an action button) a couple of tile spaces away. I think that it may have only appeared in Super Bomberman 4... But don't quote me on that.

You could include Rubber Bombs. They are chaotic and people complain about them sometimes, but they could always just be disabled.

I can't think of any other traditional battle game items, other than the Full Fire, which seems kind of redundant with the Power Bomb (and the Power Bomb limits the use of the expanded firepower in a way that promotes strategy anyway).

I actually don't mind rubber/water bombs. They're easy enough to avoid in general, and their chaos is as much of a detriment to them as an asset. They don't do much to the balance of power, you trade a chance for lucky hits for reliability.

Hah, push sounds potentially hilarious, I had an idea for a Random Powerup whose one of random effects would be bomber gets +speed but players would be able kick him as if he was a bomb should he run into them. Pushing people into flames does sound interesting. Maybe I’ll try it out later   .

As for Rubber Bombs, my only problem is that they need another item to be useful. But I suppose I could implement them for specific powerup setups   .

Surprisingly, I only now found bomberman wikia (no idea how I missed it back when I was gathering materials, I guess I thought it wasn’t useful :l ). I’m looking over game modes and gimmicks. Anything you think I should take a note of? (As in is there anything you think would be cool to see if you so some reason acquired SC :D)

This is probably one of the closest bomberman imitations inside of another game that I have yet to know if, with all of the power ups and game elements that have been adapted from the looks of it. I've never played starcraft before so I'm not sure what it's like, but it sure seems like it allows you customize things quite a great deal.

I'll give my opinion on a few things that were mentioned in this topic so far.

Line Bomb
I don't have any problem with it going overtop of a player and trapping them, that's where punch or being careful comes in to save the day.

Rubber Bomb
These are actually quite fun depending on how they behave, getting the chance kills after kicking them from them bouncing all over the place is quite enjoyable and potentially humorous.

Remote Bombs
I don't like these too much, being able to set a bomb off at the exact moment is too powerful and somewhat limits the other players movements. Especially coupled with other game elements like punch and kick, which can make it a bit too powerful without some kind of restrictions.

Throw Bomb and Walking around
I don't mind basic bomb throw, but I'm not fond of players being able to walk around with it. Since there's too many cheap ways that this can be used as has already been mentioned, and it seems unnecessary overall.

As for what I think should be added, since you haven't added it already I'd recommend adding punch. Since it's one of the main basic game elements, instead of other miscellaneous stuff.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Heh, thanks for reply Razon, different opinions help me shape/fortify my own understanding of the game.

Right now I'm not a fan of punch at all since it's like improved kick. You can get out of traps if someone bomb blocked you and it can't even be countered by reinforcing trap with second bomb behind first one. Plus it throws bombs through blocks, which is same as throw (which is strong). Seems so much like a super item that I can't see any redeeming qualities :'(

Anyway, this has been surprisingly helpful to me, thanks everyone =D

In terms of overpowered you had mentioned that you added Wall Pass, I think that being able to walk through walls is far more overpowered if you had to compare it, especially early on in a match.

I'd say that the redeeming quality of Punch is that it makes for more competition by adding another balanced and useful gameplay element. It makes it require more skill to kill your opponents, the fight doesn't need to end just because 2 bombs got placed in front of you.

See what you think after watching this video that has it used in competitive 1 on 1 matches.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIaa47ceA_M&hl=ja&hd=1

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

 

That was awesome, I see now that bomb punch is not as bad at all, at least in such competitive environment. I have misunderstood the extent to which bomb mobility can be used.

Unfortunately my map is not as fast-paced as that bomberman and one of the reasons is point and click movement (Bombers control is not as smooth/easy as in stand-alone games). Still, that video gives some food for thought and future experiments.  

As for Wall Pass, it's more of a gimmicky powerup, since you can't pass through each other it's easy to block wall-passing bomber from doing any real damage to you if he found it early and decided to pressure you. (But to be honest I haven't had much testing on it since we usually play without it).

Thanks Razon, your video has reminded me how much I miss having good opponents from time to time. *grumble*

Yeah, those guys are pretty sick. lol. I never got too into 2D bomber man games. they are kind of fun, especially with a lot of people but I never got very good at them.

I was best at Bomberman 64, which could get pretty intense at times. Escaping from pursuers with bomb jumping, deflecting thrown bombs by holding one up in your hands. Knocking people out and throwing them off the course.... good stuff! Pumped bombs and other items like the flaming body, and then the sudden deaths made those last 30 seconds or so even more hectic.

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I on the other hand don't like 3d bomberman. I never felt that it had the same tactical feel to it.

3D bomberman seems to be mostly about skill, reflexes especially.

2D bomberman is a combination of skill and tactics cause you definitely need to be skilled at timing attacks and remembering when you placed what where. reflexes are also fairly important but it's more about knowing where to place what and when to get your kills.

in both games grabbing better gear/grabbing gear faster then your opponents is also vital.

All in all.... From my perspective, 2D bomberman probably takes more work/practice to get really good at, and thus probly why I prefer the 3D ones.

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