Tank game in progress

Community Forums/Showcase/Tank game in progress

sswift(Posted 2005) [#1]
http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/tanks.zip

I'd like some feedback on the art, as well as what you would like to see as far as gameplay.

Spacebar generates a new terrain. That's about ther extent of what you can do.

Also, let me know if it doesn't work for you. Make sure you unzip so there is an images subdirectory.


Naughty Alien(Posted 2005) [#2]
..cant open winzip file...BAD ZIP FILE OFFSET error appear...


MadJack(Posted 2005) [#3]
'Bad Zip file offset' error here as well.


Matty(Posted 2005) [#4]
Same problem - it opens "arrow.png" and "crosshair.png" and that is as far as it gets.


sswift(Posted 2005) [#5]
Darn it, that's the second time that's happened to an archive I've uploaded... Uploading again now.

...

Okay I've reuploaded it. It should work now. I figured out why my FTP program has been doing that, I had it set to auto-resume instead of ask. I guess I figured that it was checking to make sure that the file it was resuming was the same as the original by the date.


NobodyInParticular(Posted 2005) [#6]
The archive seems to be ok now, I was able to uncompress it with no errors. I liked the the look of terrain a lot and how fast it was created. It is much faster and nicer looking that anything I came up with when I was thinking about making a Scorched Tanks type of game a couple of months ago.


Rob Farley(Posted 2005) [#7]
It works and it's fast, although can I make a suggestion of building the tank graphics on the fly, that way you could have a colour picker for choosing your tanks, it also means a smaller download (athough I accept the images are tiny). The tank images only use 60 pixels each so to do a 60 write pixel fasts per tank isn't going to take a long time!


sswift(Posted 2005) [#8]
Well I did it the way I did, because it was easy to implement, and gave me more artistic control.

Plus, I don't think it's realy that important to people that they be able to select a specific shade of purple for their tank. I offer ten different colors, I think that's enough. :-)


Dock(Posted 2005) [#9]
Art-direction looks really good, I like the little tanks.
Are these just scaled and rotated 3D-sprites? They rotate really nicely with good anti-aliasing.


LineOf7s(Posted 2005) [#10]
Nice quick terrain generation; excellent night sky; small but detailed tanks.

Excellent stuff... if not the sswift tank game I was hoping for. ;o)

Gameplay-wise, I'd suggest all the basics of a Scorched Earth game without the potentially pace-killing minutiae of resource management. Some other way of gathering different weapons would be welcome. Oh, and netplay with optional bots would be nice.

But hey, you know what Scorched Earth games involve. Do that. :o)


sswift(Posted 2005) [#11]
Dock:
The game is all done in 2D.

The reason the antialising looks nice is because I wrote a custom rotation-with-antialising function.

The rotation function Blitz comes with for 2D images doesn't work right on images which have an even size. It does a very poor job of antialiasing as a result. Plus it changes the size of the image which though neccessary if you want to avoid clipping causes headaches with positioning things, because the resulting image doesn't always end up an even width.

My function rotates even sized images properly with or without antialising. Futhermore, when antialising it uses a cosine based interpolation. What that means is that if it is closer to the center of one pixel than to the center of another, instead of simply interpolating them linearly, it "weights" the one it is closer to so that it affects the final pixel color more. In a way, it is a blend of a pure antialiased image, and a pure non antialised image. This results in slightly less smooth lines, but they're also slightly less blurry, and the colors stay more saturated.

I've been thinking about adding these functions to my BOB system.


LineOf7s:
"But hey, you know what Scorched Earth games involve. Do that."

Well they're all a little different. I'm trying to find the best balance. Things you might not think are important can have big impacts on how fun the game is. Like how you aim for example. I was going to make it so you just move the mouse and click to fire, but I decided that is too simple. Though it would make the game fast paced, aiming that way just doesn't feel fun. I may instead make it so you have to click a button to change the angle, and then you move the mouse to adjust the angle. Or I may make it so you have to aim using the keyboard. I suspect casual gamers would prefer to aim with the mouse though. Aiming with the keyboard in Worms is fun though.


Michael Reitzenstein(Posted 2005) [#12]
Why would making it harder to aim make the game more fun, though?


sswift(Posted 2005) [#13]
Why does making a game harder by making you collect stupid puzzle peices, or making vehicles spin out when you take a corner fast make it more fun? I don't know, it just does. :-)


Grey Alien(Posted 2005) [#14]
graphics look great, the terrain is very nicely done.
Did anyone ever play the original worms on the Amiga?

sswift, how many projects are you working on at once? You are often posting about a windows app now you show us this game?


sswift(Posted 2005) [#15]
Grey:
I have lots of games half-finished. This is just one of my latest projects.
I was working on this before I started working on the Seamless Texture Generator, but I got sidetracked. :-)

Actually, I thought it would only take me a week or two to make the app when I started. And I figured it was likely to sell pretty well, so it was worth the time.
Little did I know it would end up taking me eight weeks to finish!

I've only just gotten back to working on this game. So far I've only crated this new set of graphics. I had another version which had daytime graphics, but I wasn't happy with the daytime look. If I manage to stay focused on it, then I might be able to finish it in a couple months like the texture generator. The program should be easier to write, but the graphics and sounds will probably take up the extra time.

The reason I don't finish up one of those other projects is because they'd take more time to finish than this, and this is more likely to sell well.

My dad intends to move to Florida at the end of this year, amd I won't be going with him. So I need to either finish something that makes me enough to live off of, or I'm going to be looking for a job in the game industry soon. I'd rather work for myself and continue working with Blitz.

Anyway, I've worked it out, and I need to develop something that sells at least four copies a day. I dunno if this will do that, but it looks like my Texture Generator sure ain't.


Grey Alien(Posted 2005) [#16]
sswift: You've made some great apps ... but the market is limited to blitz programmers and then only those that need the apps.

I was a professional developer and then manager for 8 years but I now work as a consultant, and in my spare time I am making a shareware game. I have done a lot of research into shareware and tested loads of games. What is good is that one man can make a shareware game unlike a 3D epic that takes 20 people and loads of money. It doesn't even have to be that good if you can market it correctly! You can sell a shareware game on your own (if you avoid publishers who take a big cut) and you don't have any distribution costs associated with selling it in shops. I emailed some sucessful companies inc. the developer of Platypus (the shoot 'em up, he was really nice) and found out that a good shareware game may sell 10,000 - 20,000 copies in a year. At $20 each, I'll let you do the maths ... If my game sells for only $10 and I only sell 5,000 copies, well I'll still be happy, then I'll make a level pack and more games!

The important thing seems to be to stay focused and not give in with poor sales. i.e. don't work on loads of projects at once (I used to do this as it's fun!), focus on a clear goal and work to achieving it. That is what I am trying to do now, so wish me luck ;-)

As a matter of interest (for research purposes), I would like to hear your sales figures for your apps. Obviously you may not want to post them online but you can email them to me if you feel like it, I really am interested.

regards


sswift(Posted 2005) [#17]
Grey:
You mean sales figures for my systems? I make less than $200 a month off those on average.

A shareware game I made called Poker Solitaire only ever sold maybe five copies over all the years I've had it out there. A screensaver I made called Bunny Blast sold about the same.

And so far I've only sold five copies of my Seamless Texture Generator.

Overall I haven't been particularly successful selling stuff. But that may simply be because I've chosen the wrong things to sell.


Grey Alien(Posted 2005) [#18]
Well $200 dollars a month is a start. Imagine it was $2000 dollars per month! Your tank game might sell, if pitched at the right price and advertised in good places. Good luck.


sswift(Posted 2005) [#19]
Grey:
Yes, and I could IMAGINE that my cardboard box is a luxury apartment too. :-)

Actually, I haven't given up on the Seamless Texture Generator quite yet. I plan to buy some advertising through Google for it, right after I get the webpage finished. I'm working on getting that in place and then I can get to work in earnest on this game.


Sarge(Posted 2005) [#20]
ok when i press the window's key on the keyboard and then come back into the game the terrain comes out funny but other than that its a nice looking game.


sswift(Posted 2005) [#21]
Sarge:
Comes out funny how?

It shouldn't be any different. If it is, chalk up yet another bug in Blitzplus.

I did a few times end up with the terrain missing completely, but I could not track down what I did to cause it. I am sure though that it is not a bug in my program.

Blitzplus loses image data when you log out of your account in Windows, and its likely that this is the same sort of issue. I don't know of any way to detect the condition either, so there's no way to correct for it.


Genexi2(Posted 2005) [#22]
This is what the screen looks like when I alt-tab, if I recall correctly, BlitzPlus garbels the images or something when the resolution gets changed, first noticed this in one of Eikon's B+ app's, apparently the problem didnt exist in the older versions of B+, though I'm not sure if the problem I'm see'ing in your program is of the same case.



Since you asked about the graphics, I'll answer. I like them, alot, the way the terrain is textured reminds me of the golden-age of Worms Armageddon, and the backdrop looks great, not annoying or distractive at the least.

[EDIT] Forgot to mention I'm on an AMD64 3200+ system with a GF6800 GT with 3rd latest drivers installed. (since the 2 most recent ones have critical problems on my pc)


sswift(Posted 2005) [#23]
Aha, I found the problem.

Not long ago, if I remember correctly, Mark changed LoadImage so that images loaded with it default to Managed. But he apparently didn't update CreateImage, because that still defaults to Dynamic! The help file of course does not mention what createimage defaults to, only what loadimage defaults to, and to see the flags at all you have to look at the loadimage entry!

Changing the call to createimage to specify flag 1 fixes the problem. This may also allow me to correct a simialr bug with my Seamless Texture Generator. It too would lose the image data when you logged out of your account.

I'll let you know when I get to testing that. :-)

...

Okay, I tested it... But it doesn't help.

When you log out, all canvases lose their images, and the images themselves are freed as well, even with the 1 flag.

So using the 1 flag just makes sure that tabbing out works properly.


Grey Alien(Posted 2005) [#24]
Yeah I posted about the same flag problem a while a go. It works for Alt_Tab but not for logging off/on.

sswift: I don't wanna hijack this thread but have a look for my "Iron Fist" posting in the Showcase forum, I'm interested in what you think. It is no way finished and the level is just a silly test level but I like it.