Here is the game I've been working on since the beginning of April: Fangorodrim.zip (13 megs) This is a real-time strategy game inspired by Sins of a Solar Empire. I'm looking for feedback on where to go next with this. All of my original goals have been met. Its difficult to know if the game play is balanced. After 1000 games I have no idea if this is too easy or impossible to win or simply no fun to play. My perspective is shot. Notes: 1. You win by colonizing all of the sectors. 2. Should take about an hour to win.3. Freeware game made using Torque Game Builder4. Looking for feedback and bug reports.5. This is a simplistic game made by 1 programmer and 1 artist.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
i dont remember any performance issues before the animated brute.
anyway, heres the 3rd purchasable ship, tried to convey it as a flying blockade of some sort.
Indeed, well done! I love how it is totally different. How do you come up with this stuff?
Today, I addressed most of the little issues you raised (tech icons, labels, sector lanes). I may upload that version later this evening before I work on the formation editor (funny how I keep putting that off). I wonder when the tank should appear: available from the start or maybe a reward for establishing contact with neutral alien race? I like the idea of making this a reward of some kind.
Edit: It took me all night but I finally got the sector lanes to work (the bear was saving/loading). Anyway, the lanes show up as you use them. There are some hidden lanes that are fun to find.
Fangorodrim.zip (13 megs)
i meant that the lanes will be visible, and that they wont be in a linear progressive way, but that means that a totally diffrent approach to how the enemies plays is needed, as you will never survive a hike to sector 4 too early, so its probably better to keep it this way, for now atleast.
just had few games, the class name changes are good! i must say that after almost always playing the 2nd ship, i returned to the first and again, it feels so diffrent, this is a good thing. i think that the 2nd ship needs other kind of utility early on beside the missile though.. maybe a slow beam that temporaly slows the enemy in a radius around the ship? single target temporal EMP blast that stuns?
i will start working on the formation editor circle, the def drone, the neutral alien base/ship (for the tankish ship reward) and the enemy hive. btw, not sure if i only notice it now or that it was always like this, but once you colonize all of the sectors, nothing happens.
btw - game runs smoothly now, except at the last sector, at the start theres a major drop in frame rate for about 10 - 15 seconds.
Wow, I love the stun beam idea! Also, something I haven't published yet because I'm still testing it is the "Fire All Guns" key. This is awesome for the Dreadnaut. hit ; to try it out (I think its active in v1.44).
Please verify that all of your colonies have survived. A few versions ago, I added a green marker around sectors you actually own on the minimap. Its common to lose a colony in sector 3 or 4 by the time you get to the end. Hopefully, you have a saved game you can check.
For the formation editor, it would be best to keep the center clear of artwork. Something like the blue blank area you have in the bars would be perfect. I don't know how this is done, but for the F.E. screen can you make the blank area semi-transparent while leaving the border solid?
Not sure what to do about the performance drop. One remedy is to reduce the enemy count. What difficulty setting were you on?
medium difficulty, maybe theres a memory leak of some sort?
anyway, heres the neautral alien ship, wanted to force the player to see its not hostile, hence the dove reference.
Ah, the dove of neutrality! Looks like the kind of ship peaceful elves would produce. I'm trying to figure out a way to give the player something to do in the early game when you're just sitting there waiting for the resources to tick up. Maybe that is when the peaceful alien should show up (about 3 minutes into the game). After the dialog, he leaves and you find him again in sector 4?
sounds good. he is being chased by a few enemy ships, once you kill them he thanks you and plead for you to help his mother ship in sector 4.
i will have to paint the alien as well for the dialoge..
i set the alpha in the blue part to be 70%, but i am not sure the engine will relate to this aswell. if it will not, i will simply make it blank in the middle so you could put a tranparent blue circle there.
That is perfect! Nicely done!
A common complaint I keep getting is that the sectors feel crowded. I'm thinking about mounting the camera to the ship when it gets to the edge or just leave it mounted all of the time. This way what you see now is like a viewport on 60% of the sector. You would have to move the ship to find the edges. Is that something you think is worth the effort?
yes.i think it does worth it. i was thinking myself that the sectors felt too small.
heres the neutral portrait..
turned out abit goofy....
Pretty cool!
For the past couple of days I've been working on improving the font. Also, another big change is the option to switch to full screen mode. This may improve performance on some machines.
Fangorodrim.zip (v1.45)
Before I start adding new game components I want to get the HUD working so that we can have bigger sectors. This may take another few days.
I've been following this, and although I haven't actually tried it yet, the artwork I've seen here is amazing.
oh this is a very good update! the intro screen fonts are much better.
in HUD you are refering to the formation editor or overall interface?
metanerd3000 - thank you!
btw, i will be going into a slow pace in the next couple of days due to duties for uni.
I refer to the interface as the hud: menus, resource indicators, minimap. The formation editor will be part of the hud. In order to increase the sector size, I have to attach the camera to the player and then keep the hud elements in position relative to the player. (not as easy as it sounds)
an attempt at the alien nest,
how's it updating?
Oooo, I love it!
v1.47 is ready to play around in:
1. Sectors are significantly larger.2. right-click is now a zoom toggle. Its really cool to play in full screen and zoomed out.3. Logistics controls how many of each building type allowed4. Planet types affect resource rate. If you place a powerplant on the gas giant the energy rate = 0.8. If you build a mining station on the moon-like planet, metal rate = 0.8. and there are various degrees in between.
Still working on the Formation Editor. I have the logic worked out and the screen layout. Now I just have to make it work.
Edit: Fangorodrim.zip (v1.47)
looking good. i really like the zoomed out mode. and i also like the fact that you cant see the entire sector and therefore have to explore it. it adds the mystery factor in. will it be possible to make the sectors large enough so you could explore in the zoomed out mode? as right now the ships and buildings related to the screen scale in it is good.
about logistics that control the number of buildings, i think it can be nice, but a more expansion approach is better, since the screen is so big and there isnt any incentive in building in a spread out formation and rather just stick every thing close so you could wall in incase of heavy attack, i think that maybe limit the buildings by forcing the resource buildings to be built only on specific zones. have you considered the automated trade ships i suggested? this could allow for restrictions in that they only deliver to colonies, so just buildings mines in distsant sectors without colonies can be dangerous.
after playing again, i think the interface isnt done yet. the sides interface text is written in bad font for the situation, i will replace it with a thiner one and make it stand out more. also, i think that enlarging the middle circle could be a good thing.
the pop up screen still stays abit too long after your mouse leave it. about half a second to a second too long.
i think this great game concept is starting to become a great game.
Are you suggesting the sectors be even bigger so you can't see it all while playing zoomed out?
What do you mean by zones? Zones in the gravity well or zones out in space?
Well, I like the idea of trade ships. Its just not at the top of the list at the moment. I still have to finish the F.E., the EMP weapon for Dreadnaut, and neutral encounter. I would like to integrate the idea of trade ships to give the player something to do in the early game instead of waiting for resources to tick up.
As for the font, go ahead rework that part of it. You don't need to send the whole graphic. I'm currently using a separate sprite anyway to try and make it more readable.
As for the center, you probably don't realize how much work it is to change the size or shape of these HUD elements. Everything has to line up perfectly so that you can't see the intersections (very time consuming process). Here's what the center part looks like by itself:
The other pieces (open and closed) have to be lined up using the level editor and because they are different scenewindows, I have to run the game after every slight change to see how they line up. Gasp, please lets close the door on the center part.
p.s. build bar, research bar, center = 5 separate HUD elements (i.e. scenewindows). If they overlap, the mouse events are cut off for the one below it.
1 - as for the sectors.. well, thats the suggestion - keeping the zoomed out better graphical scale (as in, doesnt feel like your poking your nose in the ships) while having the extra exploration element. not the most important, but will certinally help in removing the notion that the sectors are mere battle arenas.
2 - zones out in space. astroids for the miners, this way each sector could have its own limitation and therefor its tactical importance.
3 - interface wise ,sorry, i was not aware of the hard work involved, my programming background is limited to flash. this isnt gamebreaking anyway, it is good as it is, its just that little perfectionist in me that got to tweak everything. it really never ends so you can surely ignore it.
1. I can have the sectors expanded by another 3rd in about 5 minutes. I'm worried about how the star fields are getting stretched out, but we'll see how it looks in the next version.
2. So you don't want to be able to just build 7 powerplants and 7 miners in each sector? Some sectors will have both zones, some will have 1 or the other and some will have none? Technically, this should not be difficult, just trying to understand your concept. However, I can see how this correlates with point 1.
3. Okay, that's a relief!
Btw, the F.E. is done and the EMP weapon is coming along nicely. I should have the next version uploaded tonight.
1 - whats the starfields?
2 - well, the sole intention is to force the player to spread out and think where he wants to pour his money, both in the sectors themselves and in the universe as a whole. so pretty much yeah, as an example, a certain sector may contain 4 metal astroids that are very close to the star while another may contain 6 spread out ones. right now, how's the game is being played, meaning linear route of expansion, this is really not important because no matter what happens, you will expand to all of the sectors. the only thing it affects is the speed in which you will do it.
however, if the game gets to the level of a risk like expansion and manouvering route, this can add depth and interest, as the question of which sector should the player expand to first and which sectors the player prefer: the easy to defend poor ones, or the rich spread out ones which will require more def drones, are questions that can become important.
- i am looking forward in seeing the FE and EMP weapon!
1. the background of each sector.
what pixel dimension you require those so they'd appear non pixelated/stretched? if there were, how will bigger files affect the game size/performance issues? i am asking, as those are pretty easy to fake in photoshop.
I think 800x600 will be good. In png format, try to keep them in the 600 - 800k range. I currently use 17 different backgrounds.
oh, this is not that big so there's no need to make them, there are many larger in pixel right here:
http://www.google.co.il/images?hl=en&q=nebula&rlz=1I7GZAZ_en-GB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#q=nebula&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1I7GZAZ_en-GB&tbs=isch:1,isz:l&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=aMEWTN2PCIm1sga4p-XeCQ&ved=0CAgQpwU
that is if your comfortable in using existing ones, if not, then it can be done quite easily, just will take me some time, because as i said before, i am in the end of the semester so i got a lot of projects going on.
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