Trenchant

Community Forums/Showcase/Trenchant

Warpy(Posted 2006) [#1]
EDIT: THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR AS COOL AS THIS GAME GETS! SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS THREAD!



Here it is, in a dulce et decorum 1mb exe

Here's a picture:


Controls:
You'd only mess it up, so there aren't any.

Press escape to quit, because there's no honourable way out of war.


Zenith(Posted 2006) [#2]
Haha, that is so slick.


big10p(Posted 2006) [#3]
Fascinating.


SSS(Posted 2006) [#4]
I love it! Very cool action. I wonder though, why do you have it wipe just before a team is going to win?

Did it have to be Wilfred Owen though? I mean, it does suit it but it gives nightmares. Of the poetry I know he is not my favorite.


Stevie G(Posted 2006) [#5]
Superb Warpy .. another gem of an idea .... missile command meets ww1's war of attrition ;)

Only one problem - I could still here the battle effects long after I've closed the program!! How do I get rid of it without a reboot?

[EDIT] and I can't delete the program from my desktop either .. what's the score there?

Stevie


Weetbix(Posted 2006) [#6]
Stevie, alt + ctrl + del, then go to processes and it should be listed there somewhere just click it and end task.


Tyler(Posted 2006) [#7]
Wow, I sat and watched that for far too long, but it was great fun to watch! Nice one.


Neuro(Posted 2006) [#8]
Yessss. Mindless chaotic violence and death simulator. I LOVE IT!!!


Genexi2(Posted 2006) [#9]
Fun to watch...I take it you took a long while writing the AI up for that, I see signs of flocking and what not, cool to see these things played out in a birds-eye view.


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#10]
stevie - one of my friends had that problem as well... maybe it's something to do with me cueing the same sound hundreds of times a second :P
that is reet spooky about not being able to delete it... maybe you hadn't in fact closed it, you'd just pressed the close button, which I can never get to work, instead of pressing escape. Call it Post Traumatic Stress or whatever.

Tyler - nice Mitch Hedberg reference :D

Genexi - I can't remember taking that long on the AI, but as I spent all day making this and I can't think of anything else that could've taken much time, I suppose I must've. The AI has several states - first it runs on to the field, then it decides whether to shoot or move up to the next trench. It's also always checking how many people are around it to see if it needs to move up or down to a less busy area, so the team can hold a good line. When a guy's standing in a trench, he'll run over it if he has enough men behind him and no enemies in front. Finally, I cheated and animated the turning so it looks like they're not turning round instantly when in fact they are, and made them run at different speeds and angles to make them look more lifelife. You have no idea how much that acceleration when they start running helps to make them look lifelike!

Glad you like it everyone!


Geehawk(Posted 2006) [#11]
Facinating stuff 8)


Stevie G(Posted 2006) [#12]

Stevie, alt + ctrl + del, then go to processes and it should be listed there somewhere just click it and end task.



Duh, if only I'd thought of that!!


Genexi2(Posted 2006) [#13]
It's not the first case I've heard of Stevie experianced, had it occur on another BMax-made demo as well (think it was Bullet Candy?), does BMax not have an End-command B3d equivelent so you dont have to worry about free'ing up everything upon closure?


BlackJumper(Posted 2006) [#14]
One day we will all move to a William Gibson/Matrix existence, living within a computer simulation....

... I vote Warpy does the coding !


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#15]
Haha, if you're happy to spend the rest of your days as a cookie whose chocolate chips attract woodland animals in order to encrumbulate them, I'll get started right away!

Actually, that's not a bad idea....


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#16]
So I've uploaded a new version.




Defoc8(Posted 2006) [#17]
hah!..nice + interesting :]


Neuro(Posted 2006) [#18]
Its a little tall for my screen...any way to allow us to maximize the window?

Awesome...now to make it even more real-worldish....throw in some towns and innocent civilians in between and see everyone reacts..!


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#19]
neuro - I am going in completely the opposite direction!
And what screen res do you use? 1024x768? That's crazy old! I do plan to eventually put scaling and zooming and stuff in, so hold on until then :)


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#20]
I would say this idea came to me in a dream, but it actually came to me just before I went to sleep last night.

The game now has controls. You control the worst kind of war profiteer - an ice cream salesman! It's your job to go out into the trenches and sell ice cream to the hungry soldiers.

You control one of the red ice cream men. Move the mouse where you want to go. The yellow text above your wagon shows how much you'll get for each ice cream sold where you are. Further right means more money. When you've found a good spot, left click to turn on your jingle and start selling. The white text above your wagon shows how much you've earnt so far. When you're out of stock and your wagon is empty, move the mouse to the left of the screen to trundle back and drop off your earnings and restock. Bullets and shell damage will deplete your stock, so try not to get overrun by the enemy.

Here's a pretty picture


If ANYBODY skips the instructions then complains about not knowing what to do, I'm going to stop making games forever. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

(anything to up the post count in this thread....)


Neuro(Posted 2006) [#21]
Yah, my work computer is at that res. Its fine running on my home one. Heh this concept is awesome. Now who would of thought of making a game about selling ice cream in the middle of battle thats going on!?

Don't forget to throw in the "special forces" also for some "unconventional warfare". Perhaps seperate it up into island also and have naval ships battle it out on the sea! And throw in the Marines for the amphibious landings and invasions!!!! This would be awesome!!!!

Strangely....the game doesn't seem to "exit" when ever I shut it down.....its still runs in the background even when the game window has closed...strange.


big10p(Posted 2006) [#22]
lol @ that screenie with all the soldiers lining up to buy icecream in the middle of a battle. Genius! :P


Booticus(Posted 2006) [#23]
Dude. The jingle is just too fricking great. Such cheerful jolly music while the carnage spews forth all around you. I love it. Please, please you're killing me. Can't stop laughing here! Ice cream. In the battlefield. And th damned news ticker on the bottom advertising that some corporal got a bronze star. Too great.


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#24]
thanks :D
Glad you liked the ticker, I wasn't sure if it was funny or not.


Regular K(Posted 2006) [#25]
You're a genius.

Great game!

I hope you expand upon this in the future.

It would be nice to see how much you've overall earned, and compare it with your competitors.

What about the idea of being able to choose who you want to be, ice cream stand, soldier or tank commander?

Just some ideas.


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#26]
overall earnings - err, the text at the top? Or do you mean how much you've earned individually?

Who would want to be a soldier when you can sell ice cream? Maybe being able to choose what you're selling.... I was thinking about letting you change colours when you cross the battlefield.


Paul "Taiphoz"(Posted 2006) [#27]
give more control over the wee support unit, like point and click instead of having it follow the mouse.

Also would be nice to be able to make the troops rally behind it, run them into a enemmy zone and drop them off.

Im not sure about you guys but iv run it like 15 times now for a while each time, was using it like a screen saver. and iv not seen a side in the last zone yet. they always stuck in the middle.


Booticus(Posted 2006) [#28]
Yeah I gota say the same as Yavin. i notice they all get hemmed up in the middle and my guys all hang out on the border of the middle-most trench just fiddling about. But that still doesn't stop me from making money off of them with my ice cream!! ;)


Dreamora(Posted 2006) [#29]
Give us poison cream to kill the enemy soldiers ;-)

naw, really, quite cool game :-)

Reminds me to some point of an idea I had some months ago but only in those points, that you have some "army" which you can influece but not control yourself :-)


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#30]
About the deadlock : that's by design. I spent ages getting it to do that. That's how trench wars work.
But I suppose there could do with being a bit more action, so I [a jttp://www.DapperGent.com/trenchant.exe]got the guys to follow behind the tanks[/a], like real WW1 soldiers did. I don't think I like the effect, but what do you think?


Paul "Taiphoz"(Posted 2006) [#31]
In terms of AI, the next thing I would do is stop the tanks wasting pointless ammo on troops, they would never focus fire on troops with other tanks near.

The troops fell in line two by two behind the tanks as they crossed a trench, once over the tanks would take up defence as the troops secured the trench, they then scrubbed and repeated the process.

I would recomend trying to recreate this AI, I would also add little Morter troops that drop thos shells.

I like this a lot and think its got tons of potential for being something worth while. I hope you continue to develope it.


Could I also suggest one last thing. A possible end result of your project.

I dont know how you have coded your AI, its looking prity basic which is good, probably state based with a descision being made once a second?

Either way, if you conter the AI to a script, you could allow players to battle each other by allowing them to code their own tactics , objectivs and plans. then have the game load player 1, and player 2's AI. sit back and watch to see who wins.


Warpy(Posted 2006) [#32]
1) they already do that, it's just that their range is really small. I'll increase it.

2) that's sorta how I had it originally, but they weren't moving about enough

3) I was going to draw the mortars, but.... why bother?

4) This isn't already worthwhile? Bah!

5) Correct, but updated each frame because I hate your CPU and want it to melt.

6) Scripted AI would only be fun with more interesting terrain. Trenches are not about clever tactics. I like this game less each time I add something to it, and I might go back to when there were no controls. Odd how everyone seems to be ignoring the ice cream man and thinking about tactics and simulations and everything. People - what the hell?


Picklesworth(Posted 2006) [#33]
Yah, forget war; we're here to sell ICE CREAM!

Perhaps some of the enemy troops could be attracted to the ice cream and rush to buy it, while other mindless, over-patriotic drones will still aim to blow up the ice cream truck.
Then the enemies who want ice cream would get angry at the drones and engage in all sorts of mutiny :D

Very cool game, Warpy!


Yavin:
For AI contests, check out Realtimebattle.
I've been working (incredibly slowly, as you can guess) at learning how to write a BlitzMax program that works with it... and it's actually really easy to get going.
(I'm just trying to find the differences between the 3 methods of doing it to ensure that my BM program isn't at a disadvantage to other stuff which uses the more complex methods. And I have to actually port over some constants / commands).


Booticus(Posted 2006) [#34]
Dude I LOVE the fact that Im selling ice cream!

What really cracks me up is when my damned ice cream cart gets blown away, I'm only left with indignation at the sudden silence, my damned tune stopped playing when I took a bullet. That just KILLS me.


Neuro(Posted 2006) [#35]
Why don't we just throw an indestructible beach ball into the mix....?