Warrhand:campaign
Community Forums/Showcase/Warrhand:campaign
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Here's an in dev shot of WarrHand:Campaign It's taking the core part of Mainsworthy's Warhand and taking it into a a different direction. In essence it is a card game played over 5 campaigns. Each campaign has a map, and positions on the map where you can place a card. once all cards are placed.... The battle starts! |
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| Nice to see the slopes being added to the iso-landscape That green bottom on the playing card looks a bit dirty/dull/less saturated than the red part. If there is no text on this portion (todo?) then it might benefit from either a texture or more "vibrance". Maybe add a slight gradient to the "ground color" on the border tiles (thst ochre colorer ones)... will make it look more "cutout from the world surface". Except of this...it looks fine (and surely improves ...if you do not loose interest ;-p ) . Bye Ron |
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| Noted. I'm just at the point where the 'battle' starts. Each campaign/battle is made up of (up to) 3 rounds - where cards are compared and points awarded. Similar to Mainsworthy's version: - the zone is replaced by the actual map, where the ground and height all have slightly different effects on the round. as does the placement of the cards in relation to each other. - there are 2 basic types of cards... soldiers and modifiers (mains worthy had soldiers, leaders, armour and bombardment) - in the soldier you have different types with different effects: mortar, mine detector, medic, radio, infantry, squad, grenade, sniper, and bazooka - in the modifiers you have much more unusual things: bombs, radar, gas, paratroops, mechanic, barbed wire, lookout, grenade, ammo, wire cutters. some of these will be good some will be bad, some will affect anything in their range. E.G. gas is indiscriminate and will damage everything in it's range, etc once a campaign/battle has been fought, you go to the next one with a new map and any played cards are replaced with new ones |
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| Reminds me of Populous. |
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| lol, yep in some ways ;) here's the dev testing of the first battle:  |
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| Will have to play to really understans the gameplay. If you need ideas to make it more complex....feel free to ask for them - I will surely have a handful of thoughts on it. 3players scenario possible ? What about leaderbonus (troop leader in range) or veterans from last combat? Rain / Fog / weather (paratroopers do not like storms)? Undo function (disables score)? ... Bye Ron |
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| a bit like populus indeed, I'd a fair slice of isometric fun with that a couple of years ago.... or did I mean decades ;) Love the style of your graphics. |
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| 3 player scenario - now you're asking minor update men in water now only show heads. plus here are the soldier card with numbers present - no text yet  |
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Could you put the water soliders in orange Dinghy's? I think that would be neat and add some colour too. |
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sorted: completely nuts! plus added different card backgrounds and color schemes:  |
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| lmao. Now it reminds me of Rollercoaster Tycoon!! River Rapids lol. |
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| Whhheeeeeee.... OK @Derron:  The different coloured flags mean different (computer) players. so there are either 1 or 2 enemies now ;) Also notice there is gas around. Compare with previous image Still dev work, but in essence gas will affect all soldiers on a particular level, so beware! When you place a card, it starts the soldier generation process. a soldier will appear at the placed card, as you place cards, more soldiers are added (think game of life). where there are soldiers present in a position, they will spawn new soldiers next to them. |
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mmmm, got gas attack working with gas that propagates and disperses: @Mainsworthy please feel free to drop in and suggest AI concepts I think I have to try and firm up how it all fits together as the 'little soldiers' have added personality to everything and you want them to go an beat each other up (sort of worms?) Suggestions? |
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| little soldier1: "I can't swim" little soldier2: "I have deadly farts" little soldier3: "I like the nature, especially forests" little soldier4: "I was born in the ocean, nobody swims or paddles faster than me" @ Gas while it looks ok the way it is: maybe it looks a bit more "fitting" when done a bit more pixelated (so it is scaled similar like the rest). I am quite unsure about this: maybe give it a whirl and trash it if looking worse. bye Ron |
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UI getting firmed up now and supports up to 3 players: You can now see the color differences between the players, their flag backgrounds and their mini men @ derron Not sure about the text |
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| @Adam - nice (Dinghy's) I wonder what else I cam make you do. |
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coming along now... The 'extras' cards (<-thats what they are called internally) now support barbed wire and landmines. When placed, the icons grow outwards allowing for some nasty strategy. I would have thought that any soldier caught in barbed wire would be sitting ducks. and... If they were on a landmine - BANG! |
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| Seems there are different levels of water ... which is ok, if the other side of the water surface isn't a water fall :-) So if water is having this differences in height level, take care of not displaying these "waterfalls" at the border of the map. In the top left side of the screen there are these white-boxes with slight "roundish corners"-look (the bright borders). Maybe append a similar style to the corner tiles of the level map - to make it look a bit more "plastic" ... together with the slight gradient I suggested, the whole level should appear more "cut out". The bright lines should only be added to ground-tiles to avoid a "hard corner" look of waterfalls. @ barbed wire / landmines instead of a 2D-drop-shadow you might experiment with a circular shadow simulating a shadow on the ground. I mean something which makes it look more hmm "in the world" than "from the HUD". Just...like with the units or some ground assets. I assume this is differing because the ground assets are done in your editor and the "overlays" are done in a pixel/vector-editor. @ unit signs / flags Z-Ordering intended (flag-pole in front of units) @ 3 player mode Hope you prepared "3 player hotseat mode" (aka "end turn" and then allow to control the next player). @ grass / corn Maybe think of let the corn grow - which modifies "sight" (blocks view behind) and avoids getting spotted by others (if you have a unit mastering camouflage :-) -> not the strongest unit, but because it can hide themself that fine, hit chances are lowered - and in high corn, the chances are even lower than before). @ water (again) If you plan (or plan after this post ;-)) to add "fast moving" waters (maybe add some "<<<<" direction-overlay on these tiles): units not moved for a turn get moved into this direction for one field at the end of the turn. Once it fell of the "level" the unit has gone for this scenario. bye Ron |
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| Nice looking game :) |
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| Just a quick point. but water shouldn't have slopes :P |
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| @ grindalf this is what I was trying to describe. But: water could have slopes - if there is a drain in that direction (big height difference: waterfall). bye Ron |
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| It can have slopes if it is a glacier ;-) |
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| mmm water - slopes, check - checked and sorted ;) 3 player hotseat - ooooh thats good |
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| ok, now Adam tell me what do you drink/eat/smoke/sniff because your productivity is quite a little high compared to mine 'sloth style' efforts. :/ back in OT: nice graphics (Populus is back! :D) and mechanic - for what I can understand from the images. |
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| LOL. M-Kay I like to work first thing in the morning when it's nice n quiet. But I also take 5-HTP which help me sleep and increases seratonin level in the brain - Very good for trying to rescue those braincells that clubbing didn't get a few years back ;/ working on the card decks and how to actually do it all now :) |
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| mm... this is hard ok. The deck is made up from 2 types of cards: 1. soldier cards - these add soldiers with different types of behaviour. infantry, snipers, etc. they also have an armour rating which adds to your total armour for that campaign 2. wild cards. these are the red ones and affect soldiers nearby, stuff like aerial bombs, paratroops, gas attack, mines, etc so far the wild cards are now finished. there are 22 of them, each one having a different range of affect. Here you can see the map with just these placed:  from the cards you can see that the wire cutters have a range of 2, so any barbwire in that range won't have any affect. both medic and ammo have a range of 3 meaning more soldiers are affected. and last the radar has a global range (the entire map is affected) so there is no range One thing that is apparent is you could immediately play the game just with these cards only! This sort of opens up the concept of decks and being able to play with different decks of cards? |
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| I see the border-gradient - and an equalized water surface level ;-) Maybe you still might think of reordering "flag-poles" and "units" (pole-bottomcircle-center-y to unit-bottom-centery) ... but that is a minor. "house"-border looks a bit more smudged compared to units or flag- borders. @ "playing with these cards only" Hmm, we need to be able to play it to have an opinion about it. bye Ron |
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| Maybe you still might think of reordering "flag-poles" and "units" (pole-bottomcircle-center-y to unit-bottom-century) yep. I can give that a whirl :) |
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| I would give the world affecting cards a little world or compass image |
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Good point - implemented and fits well with the overall design patterns: Wild cards now have the base color of you. in the above, the base is green. This means that when different players cards are visible, you can tell which belongs to who :) |
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| Nice :) |
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| Looks great (as always), but I'd be wary of using red/green as the only differentiator -- these are among the most commonly confused colours for colourblind people, who supposedly number around 1 in 10 (from memory). |
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| Green cards against a green background?! Change it back to red cards! |
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| point taken and changed it's just a single line of code :) I can use a different method for showing who owns the cards - already thought about size differential |
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ok, wild cards back to red and added range shown on map: so now it's clear how far will be affected |
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| Just a small idea when seeing the paratrooper card: Maybe add "wind": if there is strong wind (4 directions) then paratroopers will eventually shift for one field. This is similar to my idea for strong/fast water flows moving boats which were not moved during that round. This also would fit well to "radar" and "camouflage-perfecting units hidden in the corn / forest fields). Basic idea is: every unit with special "pros" should have some kind of "con" (next to counter measurements against special attacks - mines need units capable of deactivating them with a xx% chance etc.). bye Ron |
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| Whilst great ideas. I think it is better at this stage to get the next bit done - the actual battle routines. Here's my thoughts on how this will work: - so you've got your cards and placed them on the map battle will then commence against an enemy or enemies - a battle is fought in rounds/hands - the cards you have placed are the cards you have to play with (say grenade, bomb, and troops) each round you pick a card to play from those on the board - the enemy does the same with their card - the board animates showing what happens - if there are any cards left (you or the enemies might have run out of cards), another round/hand is played depending on what cards have been played, your soldiers will have been killed. the one with the most soldiers is the winner. if you have no soldiers then you are defeated. simple but effective? |
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| Maybe limit the amount of cards to play in one turn (to avoid "rushing") bye Ron |
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| 1 card per turn - so the cards you have placed, you will need to think which card would be the best to play. Brings lots of strategy into it. Also, because you can't predict what enemies will play, they might blow your plans completely up - literally |
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| Adam So So Sorry Ive been away , my internet connection has been dodgy. I hope I can give some insight into your game, first off you need attack and defence values for each card against armor and against non-armor. this is because tanks beat infantry in the open , but lose in rough or built up areas. you have different ammo aginst different targets , so an infantry unit fires at an armored car with no effect, but a bazooka would do it. so you have armored targets and non-armored targets, but you also have a fifferrent defence with armor and non-armor, an anti-tank gun would attack armor and have some effect on infantry, but a Heavy machine gun would have an effect on infantry but nothing against armor.. you do all this by having 4 values per card 1) attack value vs armor 2) defence value against armor 3) attack value against non-armor 4) defence value against non-armor each unit has different effects against different targets, and ground type also has an effect, tanks work best in the open, and infantry in cover. I hope I have helped a little at least after all your help with my games |
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| PS Wow, you can really create games ! |
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| PS I'm still having connection outages, so sorry if I miss replys, hope for it to be fixed after ther weekend |
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| Instead of limiting to armor/nonarmor you better introduce various armor type (light/none/heavy ... or piercing/none/...). Then create attack types. At the end you create a table containing effectiveness of all attack types vs all armors. So light attack has eg. 125% effect on light armor. 100% on normal armor and 75% on heavy ...or so. Additionally to this each unit could get an individual armor modifier...so a heavy armored tank will only get hit for 75% * mod when hit by light-attacks. Specific armor of units could also be used to reduce done damage after attack-armor-calculation. As this is split...damage reduction is relative to attack-armor-constellation. Above is a typical RTS attack-armor-approach. Bye Ron |
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| The thing about armor is you cant damage it with less like 75% attacks, it takes a certain attack of at least 100% anti-armor to break through , that's why the german heavy tanks were so feared. also you have different armor strength at the sides and rear, I suppose its not so important in a game, I thought Id mention it. In my game I did it very simple, but I think your game is far more complex, by picking groud type etc... |
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| I know that in reality things work different ...and if your soldier just has a knife, he wont hurt the passengers of a tank (ignoring screw removal or so...). But as it is a game it is always the principle "rock, paper, scissor" - each element has to have his counter element. So far so good: but what if you have a scenario with just "scissors" and "rocks" - you cannot win with the "scissors" then ;-) This is why people introduces "damage reduction". I would absolutely support you POV when it is a game containing tech-age-levels (like stoneage vs nuclear-age). Maybe you know "Civilization" in which you could attack tanks with your phalanx or chariots ... in such scenarios I would really say "damage reduction 99%" (maybe an arrow somehow hits a screw in the tanks armor which then gets loose ;-)). Dunno what is better for games - mine is the more "casual" approach, yours the more strict/hardcore-mode approach. bye Ron |
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| mmmm... ok, First off there is no artillery (tanks, cars, etc), so that can be removed from things in essence you have a soldier and a range, each type of soldier has an armour rating. I know this sound very unrealistic, but I tried to simplify things. Depending on the ground (pole) chosen, armour and attack will be changed. E.G. being in cover would give you +1 attack and +1 armour I'm trying to make the end result fun, so reality will be sacrificed. The other side of things is it is stall a card game (of sorts). you should be able to look at a card and instantly predict what it will do. E.G.  The top left is the damage and the bottom left is the range. so a bazooka has a damage of 4 and a range of 3 so, when played anything in the range will take 4 damage. I'm not exactly sure haw armour and damage will be calculated, but in essence you get the idea? The map and the numbers of men on the map have an added complexity that is not simple to put together. |
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OK, heres the first 'real' hand: all card now show the correct decals, number, etc. so what is the hand? I'll take it card by card: 1 . bazooka (with star) the range is slightly less than with a star. bazooka can add 1 armour point 2 . bazooka (normal). bazooka can add 1 armour point, has a range of 5 and an attack of 4 3. wild gas card. this will be indiscriminate so will kill any soldiers it gets to. it's range is the whole map, but in practice it will have a range that will grow on it's own 4. medic. with 2 armour, a range of 1 and an attack of 0. 5. radio (with star). with 1 armour, range of 1 and attack of 0 6. wild aerial card. troop will be dropped around the card there is no specific range. now.... placing the cards will alter some of the armour and attack of the cards. The gold star cards are special, if you win a round with one of these, you will get a star rating added that campaign. there are up to 3 possible stars per campaign. So not only do you have to win, but a good win is better (more stars) How many cards are there? 22 wild cards of different types 18 normal cards 9x2 9 normal cards with gold stars a quick note on the cards they are all data based, so card numbers can be modified, say if it was found that bazookas needed more range, we just change 1 number, etc a quick note about the deck a deck is made up from card references so we could easily have different decks with different cards. you just decide how many cards in the deck and decide which card references to add to that deck. Shuffling, dealing, etc is directly handled by the deck, so it doesn't care about the contents, it just does it's job with the data you give it. It's also very small code and very simple |
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| very nice |
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| @Mainsworthy: what tablet do you have, os? I can see about looking into fullscreen workarounds :) |
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| I have a surface pro 3 full windows tablet, I like it. your game looks good Adam, I know your the real deal of games development, your games are purchasable. |
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| i've got a surface 3 (lowest version) so we can test on a sorta unified platform ;) OK, question for you about AI. I've got 6 cards, how does your AI pick the best card to play? similarly, how does the AI pick the worst card (or cards) and decide which to replace? |
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| I assume with "you" you mean "Mainsworthy" and not "all of you" So excuse if my reply is not wanted in that moment. best card to pick: there are multiple routes to go: a) choose an enemy unit first and then choose the best available card b) choose the best card you have, then choose the best area to use "best card" is another story. When having choosen "a)", the best card might be the first card able to deal with the targeted unit. (avoid using the "best" for a lower level enemy). If there are more units around, add them in to your calculation using some "in range?" calculations: - is a unit able to attack me next round? Take it into "defense" calculation - is a unit able to get attacked by the card next round? Take it into "attack" calculation Hmm while thinking about it: - maybe sort your hand by a custom "points"-sort. Points are given for possibilities: - - destroyed units in this round - - being able to defend against X enemies this round so other units are not attacked - - uniqueness of the card (if you have 4 of them, it is possibly a good idea to increas variation by getting rid of one of them) If your game is really good balanced, you cannot go the easy route of sorting by a "inner" ranking (you as developer would then know which card is the best one). But if every card would have his counter piece, then you could only order by "rare-ness" of a card (how often is it available in the game). Like said: sorry if you only wanted to ask Mainsworthy. bye Ron |
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| not a problem derron in some respects it much harder than AI for rogue likes. I'm just writing a basic random AI at the moment. Well not quite as the AI decides the best flag to pick and goes for that first. but this will get extended as I can evaluate how the AI is doing things. The main thing is to be fun, so if it win all the time or you win all the time, then something must be changed... |
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| mmmm, the first played cards are the most powerful as when you place a card, the number of soldiers increases. so the first card get more soldiers. |
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| Another option is to let the AI fight the AI ... and then store which cards were "good" versus other cards. To the AI is able to "learn by playing". Then just simulate 1000 games...and the AI picks the right cards without having got informed about "which is the best" (in the developers opinion). With learning I mean: it is able to see what effect has a played card"A" versus card"B" or card"C" when the environment is environment"A". The difficulty there is to calculate the "points" ... points means: how good was this action (eg. "costs of own units versus killed enemy units"). If you decoupled Logic from Rendering, the simulation could be done very fast. Of course the whole AI area is something hmm "tedious" to setup but maybe you are interested in tackling it this way? Another thing to consider: in a 3 player match you often try to play together with one of the enemies to kill another enemy - there is "silent agreement" (just by attacking the same enemy) or "public agreement" ("hey - lets kill him first"). AI might at least consider playing together if the other enemy is an AI too (regardless of the 3rd enemy). bye Ron |
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| I know this sounds crazy, but I got it working on many things I create a loop of say for f = 0 to 5000 next , then each pass choose at random card and target, then do a test to see if it is a good hand, if its a good hand use the old basic friend goto to skip the loop from then on. If you then repeat this if you don't get a good hand for a medium hand, then repeat this system for a low hand. you can also split it for different types of hand. you can also do it for target EG: select a random target or a miss, eventualy over 5000 times you will get a valid target this method sounds crazy and simple but its worked many times for me. Adam, Ive got realyy faulty internet, I was offline for 2 weeks and I'm getting intermitant connections, so please progress without relying on me PS: you would only use a bazooka against tants or armor NOT infantry |
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| mmm interesting about the bazooka. ;) @Derron The only problem with 'automatic' AI learning. is that there is no simple card against card. E.G. When you play a card, it will affect and cards (and soldiers) in it's range. This happens until all cards (placed on the map) are played. Placing a card on the map has no effect until it is played. And the map position and how near other placed cards are (plus things like gas, barbed wire, wild cards) may not actually do anything until they are played. The actual winner is the one with the most soldiers left alive. So, you could have a scenario where there was one card on one side and a cluster on cards on the opposite side of the map. The winner would (potentially) be the one with the single card, as no other player's action could kill those soldiers (i'm still working on how this all operates though) |
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| Hmm, so it is similar to other games: you need some kind of prediction tree? I mean: AI assumes round 1 and then simulates potential turns of the opponents. This is indeed a problem hard to solve "realtime" (imho) - maybe it needs some precalculation-database for such things - and maybe chess software developers (or ones who tried) might be helpful here (hello? anybody of them reading this?). To decrease amount of "leafs" you could prepare some "opening" setups (If I have cards A D F G I always tend to start with "F" then "D" diagonal of it). @ loop to 5000 The problem is not the loop but "if it is a good hand" - what makes a "good hand" ? bye Ron |
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| All points taken :) Here's a single campaign with 3 players (i'm green):  I've currently shown all cards and given them the edge color of their soldiers so I can see what cards have been placed. Given the above campaign, I would say I'm dead, and blue would win (especially as he has a little group far away from everyone else). but... blue's far away card is a bomb. so when he plays it, it is more than likely he will get killed by his own bomb, leaving orange to win. looking at my medic card, there is at least 1 soldier that will explode due to mines. (i think that I will have some form of random here so maybe he will or maybe he won't...) but an initial strategy would seem to be 'place the wild cards last' and 'place wild cards near other cards) |
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| Adam your game is mutating into a war game rather than a card games, its not a bad thing, maybe you could use models instead of cards etc.. I ysed a point system in my card game like gin-rummy etc... and maybe you could use a point system to keep it as a card game, I'm not saying its better , its a design decision for A.I. at this point tou could just do a point total for each card, for ground type, unit type, enemy position, that sort of thing, then each card can be higher or lower than the others, so giving you an A.I. that's not to complex |
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| ok I've got a download ready for anyone to have a look at: point your browser to: http://www.visualjockey.com/demos/ and then warrhand 0.1.zip There is both windows exe and OS X app file Special keys: r = give a new map d = reset cards It's basically a functional prototype that take you as far as the battle - which is where it stops. It will give you a feel for how it operates, graphics, animations, etc I've left in the other cards as they are played so you can see all cards on the map. I suppose this could be an option? Anyway - give it a whirl :) |
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| Ok ... tried it out here with wine: - glow around the card is way too fast - the "drop area effect" flickers too fast too - "dragging" cards is a bit bugged: - - move mouse over a card - - begin dragging (hold mouse button) - - stop dragging (release mouse button) - - do _NOT_ move the mouse out of the hovered card - - try to drag it again (does not work) - - move mouse out of hovered card area - - move it back in - dragging works again I placed one card... - bottom says "select card to play" - when trying to place the next one: - - the "possible drop zone poles/effects" are slightly visible (need a more significant "indication mark"). - - also for one location it was barely visible as the flag before has hidden it by a big portion). Maybe search for such "overlappings" and fade the pole/card out a bit after placing all cards and "battle begun" - game says "select a card" - no "drop zone" displayed -> think this is what you meant with "which is where it stops" Need a video of the "flickering/fast anim" ? bye Ron |
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| :) slower flickering - done dragging bug - fixing battle begun - not a problem, you just got to the part where the next section will go I've also unified the card graphics, so the top left will always show the range and the bottom left the attack How was the animation and stuff? |
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| Animation seemed fine... What was odd: when dragging a card...the card is offset to make place for the grid/ground-rect. it looked a bit weird but I do not have a ln idea now to avoid this ... only way would be to drag the grid rect instead of the card..but hmm also not the best choice. Bye Ron |
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| yep, suddenly things don't seem as simple as your thought they should be ;) |
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here's the new card designs: as said above: - top left (green diamond) is now the range the card has - bottom left (red pentagon) is the attack value - the shield changes to a gem-like version to stay in keeping Ohh, just noticed the gold star on the medic looks like something has been censored!!! |
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| Old range/attack-indicators were -imho- better suiting (flat-design versus 3d-plastic - which only the soldiers had). Better suiting, not perfect ... so maybe next roundup will contain a even more improved variant. Please allow me some more suggestions (not gameplay related): - experiment with "SetBlend LightBlend" (and a lower SetAlpha 0.2 or so) when drawing the "drop zone"-whirl-graphic, this will lighten up instead of just being "semi transparent" (so draw it as you do now _plus_ one time with the "setBlend lightblend" mode and a low alpha value - or animate that alpha value to make it "pulse") - I allowed myself to add some lines to your pre-previous screenshot to show what I was talking about when saying "add a bright line at the contour of the "ground tile" to make it look more cut out.  Hope you don't mind. PS: for "ranks" you could always use "^" (stacked). bye Ron |
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all points dealt with: colors tiny bit modified, edges, flattened attack/range/shield indicators I've also addressed the card offset and teleport graphics |
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| As you see in your latest screenshot - look at the most right card ("Detector"). The layout of the range/attack-indicators is not the best one. it looks a bit "squashed" in the bottom. So let's brainstorm a bit about potential ideas: Numbers: - range and attack are low numbers (0-9) - you need to see them "at a glance" (which makes [xxxx---]-bars useless] - - they only work nicely/similar effective (imho) for less high numbers, eg. 0-3) - - if all units of the same type have same attributes, players could "learn/memorize" them during playing, means the importance of a big "attack number" gets lower and lower during playing - - once people do not need to see the big numbers in the game, they would also might be okay with a smaller "5" and a emphasized "+1" or "+2" to show the difference of a special unit incarnation to a normal one position: - players need both information, the Text of a unit is later on unimportant as people only need to read that until they recognize the icon/unit image. From then on, they only pay attention to: range, attack, special-attributes - things like "you have this card because you won last match" things are less important - and could be placed in a less prominent spot (and smaller sized - so maybe you could vary the bottom-rectangle - left and right a small rectangle-border in a different color, or "Sniper {small star}". This would allow for a more "centered text" (consistency!) approach - if you only present one number per "attack" / "range" I think they would also be readable if the unit (the soldier) is overlaying them a bit (as there are only 0-9 as potential numbers). This would allow that "diamond" to be cut by the card border (aka be below thw card-"border" - the green border line). It also allows to have one attribute on the left, the other on the right. color: - green red: I always assume the "red" things to be something like the wax seals of a letter ... or a seal on a old diploma. This is not a rant or so ... just what came into my mind when checking above's thoughts against the screenshots PS: you didn't update the zip-file to represent latest incorporated features/changes ;-) bye Ron |
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| ok I've got a download ready for anyone to have a look at: point your browser to: http://www.visualjockey.com/demos/ and then warrhand 0.02.zip There is both windows exe and OS X app file |
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| Ok, gave it a whirl. - "pulse" effect behind the player cards seems to be working now - new "dragging card" is way better that way (I also like that "start at the left half - card moves to the left upper side" thing --- albeit this is not needed) Things to improve: - when dragging a card, the card is drawn _before_ the hand cards (so it is covered by cards, not used in that moment - should be opposite) - "drop zone-whirl" is still animated a bit "fast" (it should be a "calm", "slow paced" animation as this is a "think about it game" not an "you are in a hurry"-arcade-game).  - the boats are "Jumping" a bit too much - while this might be okay for the soldiers, the "jumping boats" look a bit weird. Maybe only move them for +1 to -1 pixels (sine wave) and if you add a bit of "rotation" you could simulate waves on the water (but gentle and slowly ;-)).  If you want me (and others) to pay attention to specific things: mention it. bye Ron |
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| slowed down and less bobbing - sorted it seems that in essence the concept so far is now stabilised (it should be a "calm", "slow paced" animation as this is a "think about it game" not an "you are in a hurry"-arcade-game). That is an interesting comment and made me think about the next phase (where I was going to have a time limit which would make it a much more 'fast' paced game. |
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| Yes ... time limits are good if: - optional - and only used in multiplayer games (to avoid people using too much time) - if used in single player the AI needs to get an artificial limit too (eg less loops to find a good hand). bye Ron |
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| mmm further thoughts on this - (still thinking) ok. each computer player has a set of time intervals. - warm up: thinking (won't be doing anything, but any soldiers would be fighting) - cool down: doing (this is where a single card would be activated, and soldiers doing that action) Now. each AI has different timing, so AI 1 is faster that AI 2. And can be set individually. You can see the warm and cool of each player, but still don't know when a player will activate a card or what the result would be. E.G. AI 1 might not play a card at all. Once all cards are played, that campaign is over and the winner declared? |
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| Yes, in my game I also use some kind of "brainSpeed"-variable. at level 1, one action per "tick" is allowed, the higher the level, the more actions per tick. Of you could fine grain it (10 per tick, 11 per tick ... - with ticks happening not so often). You have to make sure that there is a "do something" action at the end (in your game: playing - or intentionally not playing a card) In my game we have multiple times: the real time (real world time) and "ingame time" (there is a 24hrs day simulated). I let the AI tick either every X seconds of ingame time or at least every second of real world time. So when doing a fast forward, the AI is also "thinking faster". Back to your game: so you mean: while in "warm up", the AI is allowed to think about everything without hmm "interruption" or artificial steppings. During cooldown it then gets these steppings? bye Ron |
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| mm, not quite there is a global time that the soldiers operate in. I'm still working on this, But in essence each soldier will be independent. if there is an enemy soldier really close, then fight that soldier else what until you have been activated if there is barbed wire then you are caught if there are mines, then you might get blown up etc, etc |
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| Ahh you were talking about the "unit behaviour", not the AI selecting the cards to play. Yes, the AI of the units should be updated "per tick". bye Ron |
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