The Daily Click

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Moddable Games

Author:

DJ W

Submitted:

12th October, 2003

Views:

5280

Rated:

Hello Fellow Clickers. I know it says im a newbie, but I have been clickin for 3 years... so ya. Well Im here to talk about Mods on click games. You dont see this much, or at all!

What is a mod you ask? A mod is an edited version of a program made by another person. Like for Half- Life They gave away the source and tons of Mods came out! Like ounter Strike and team fortress online. With Click products though, we cant realese the source, because there may b other clickers who dont have click products so how would we do it?

Well, A Mod for a click game would be like Putting all the graphics as Jpegs, in a folder that anyone whol downloads the game can see, and if they want.. edit. A mod for a click game would also have all the settings in an Ini File, like. What kind of weapons, the shot power, Gravity, Stuff like that.

Well, It was a pretty lame article, but im really tired, so i hope you like it... and i would really like to see more mod games from click products... get the community involved in one game

Posted by Keatonian

12th October, 2003

Good points, but you didn't say anything on how to do it, and it could use a bit more help.

Interesting though, and I agree.

Posted by Reaven Khali

12th October, 2003

Ugh, you just gave me a headache,.. and changing physics and graphics doesn't define a MOD. A MOD is an entirely different game made from the engine of another. In order to do taht you would have to give out the source code, and use Clickteam patch maker.

Posted by Tigerworks

13th October, 2003

You really need an SDK to make a real mod and Click games can't really do that at the moment.

Posted by danjo

13th October, 2003

maybe just opensourse code to a game engine would be classed as a mod

Posted by DeadmanDines

13th October, 2003

"In order to do taht you would have to give out the source code, and use Clickteam patch maker"

Not always. It can be achieved by making the WHOLE game very dependent on external files. Interface graphics, an engine for building the menu from an external file (which can be editted to add new options), a template for building whole menu screens out of a custom language in external files, and a World-Craft style level editor which has the actual events built up with objects.

Joshtek also once said a very good idea, but I'll let him mention it if he wants to.

Posted by Jimmy Brzezicki

13th October, 2003

I'm a noobie veteran too! (if you get my meaning). Surely though the best way would just be to release the code and hope they've got the same editor, or make it on KnP which TGF and I assume MMF can edit. That way you really can change everything.

Posted by Lew

13th October, 2003

Actually a mod doesn't have to be a complete game. A lot (as in, most!) are just new stuff.

Posted by Robert100chat

13th October, 2003

Mods sounds like a good idea. People complain about mario games but if some one comes up with a good platform game you could put the mods on it.

Posted by chrilley

13th October, 2003

Well... with this method you can make Small mods... I know many mods btw that isn't much mroe then changing damage of weapons for games... the big mods like Counter Strike is more of a Total Conversion...
The article had some bright ideas... though it could have been a little more, do not write articles when your tired

Im gonna experiment with this...

Posted by Dark One

13th October, 2003

Lol, that's not really considered a mod, the creation of a new game with an engine, lol. That is just a recreation. Most new games are engines off another game that the company bought to say time. A mod is an like for example : You can mod ships for Star Trek Armada 2, like changing there names, graphics, weapons, hardpoints, shields, armor, and stuff like that. That's a mod, it's not the creation of a different game, just an edit of the game. My upcoming game Vexindrelle(rts) will be completely modable with an editor but, I'm not going to talk about that because clickers hate commercial games

Posted by Jenswa

13th October, 2003

Mod is a package you can select inside a game, but the package is installed externaly (so it's not part of the main game) and can be removed. The package runs on the engine of the game. And modding is chaging gfx, sfx and level structures.

You should be able to write your own story lines in a mod, something that cannot yet be done with a click-product. But can change gfx, sfx and level structure, but not replace object for other needs than in the original game, or can you?

Posted by cake

13th October, 2003

A mod is literally a "Modification" of the game. Reaven Khali, what you refer is called a TC or "Total Conversion" I think. A mod can just add new weapons and new levels and change the rules of the game, that is still a legitimate mod.
The only thing that would NOT be considered a mod is if someone just changed all the graphics and sounds of the game, that would just be like a media pack.

I think this article highlights an interesting point, one that I've been thinking about in last few days; should I make my game easy for other people to edit? I was really considering it. Usually if its easy for other people to edit, its easy for you to add things to too. Like if I make a level editor and an engine that loads the levels, I just make one frame for the game engine then I can just make like 50 levels and know they will all work. And if there's a bug I find on one stage, I just open up the one engine frame and fix the bug and its gone, I don't have to go through all these frames and find the ones that have the bug.
Plus it adds lastibility to the game, a lot of people love level editors, and it adds a certain depth to your game no other feather can add.

Posted by cake

13th October, 2003

feature* not "feather"

Posted by Zapper

14th October, 2003

Mods dont have to be very different

Hmm thinking about it I wonder what the first mod was

You know I think it was Ms Pacman!

Posted by DeadmanDines

17th October, 2003

It's not impossible to get MMF to 'include' raw cca files. Think Subapp. When a subapp runs one application within another, their memory area seems to be shared or something -- global arrays within the parent are global to any children within the game as well. A simple request/result engine can be made which sends functions and data to and from subapps. Just create an SDK for the subapp, like you would in C++, but do it in click. Easy enough...

Posted by Phayze Games

20th October, 2003

Could ANYONE give a link or something that will tell you HOW to mod/media package a game.

Posted by Adragon

29th March, 2006

Some of you guys really don't know what a mod is. I suggest you visit Wikipedia (<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_%28computer_gaming%29)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_%28computer_gaming%29)</A> for a full definition of a mod and several links. It's a popular emerging trend in the PC games industry and will soon become a Klik trend too.

Honestly, a weak article that had plenty of potential. All you really did was provide a basic (and perhaps inaccurate) description. You could have easily included a few simple methods of integrating moddability into a project.

Author Info

DJ W

Registered
12/10/2003
Points
780

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