Senet Beta

Community Forums/Showcase/Senet Beta

jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#1]
I have created a version of Senet, an ancient Egyptian board game.

Senet was arguably the world's first board game. In its time, Senet was exceptionally popular. Many pharaohs and other wealthy people were even buried with Senet boards. It wasn't restricted to the wealthy people either. They've found boards crudely scratched into blocks in pyramids, suggesting that the workers may have been playing during breaks and such. Later in its reign of popularity, a certain mystique was formed about the game that suggested that people who were good at it were favored by the gods.

Unfortunately, since it was so pervasive in their culture, nobody bothered to write down the rules. Scholars have made educated guesses and came up with a few different rule sets. I cherry-picked the best ideas from each, and made my own variation.

I have modernized the game to make it appeal to today's gamer. It features network play, both Mac and Windows versions, sound and music, and some unlockable features.

I'm looking for whatever constructive feedback and bug findings you're willing to provide. You can download the beta versions from the links below. Right now there's a Windows and a PowerPC Mac version available. They expire on January 31st.

Windows - http://jhanson.com/downloads/Senet-Setup.exe
Mac (PPC only at the moment) - http://jhanson.com/downloads/Senet.dmg

Also, here's a screenshot for you so you know what you're getting into:




jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#2]
One thing I forgot to mention is that this was developed using Grey Alien's excellent BlitzMax Game Framework, with a few custom tweaks including using MaxMod for streaming music. I posted the MaxMod tweak over on Grey Alien's forum.

Also, a couple of updates from the beta process so far:

1. A Windows user mentioned that Avast anti-virus thinks that the installer package is a virus. This is a false positive. For some reason the latest Avast thinks that anything packaged with Inno Setup is a virus. I'm looking into alternate installer packages since this seems to be a recurring theme with Avast and Inno, but the current package is safe to use.
2. I'm working on a second beta to improve a few details, including making it more obvious when the player has unlocked a new feature, and to fix the one bug that has been reported so far.

Finally, some questions about how you like the game.

1. I'm looking for any comments you may have on the sound and particle effects. Are they good as is or are they distracting or lacking in any way?
2. Is the AI challenging enough? Too challenging?
3. How is the networking?
4. Do the instructions make sense?


Grey Alien(Posted 2008) [#3]
Have you posted this on Indiegamer yet? You might get some useful feedback there.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#4]
I haven't, but I will now!

EDIT: Avast seems to have fixed their false positive issue with the defs released around noon today. That's quick turn around time on their part! I'm very impressed.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#5]
Wow. No feedback at all?


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2008) [#6]
I did not play it yet, but may give you some feedback noless: first, let me tell you that I think it's a great idea you picked up this ancient mother of all board games, true cultural continuity. The glyphs and symbols also look pretty good, although there may still be a bit of sexup potential.

The background as well as the the green and blue blobs are poor. They are looking like placeholders. don't know what possibilites the bmax game framework offers (probably only 2D), but I'd say it's such a waste to use such an excellent game idea, with a lot of cult potential, with such cheapo graphics. Hope you don't mind, I am very direct here. I can even see the Photosop filter you applied to the blobs.

Now, what I would expect, and what would make this game a possible game in stores, is top graphics that will take the player to an other world, the ancent world of egypt, with mystic atmosphereical graphics, cutscenes and things (may have a look at filax egypt demo, for instance). 3D render abilties would help here a lot.

I Hope you take this as it was meant: constructive critism.


JustLuke(Posted 2008) [#7]
I agree with jfk.

Basically, you need to work on improving your media. It needs to be more slick and professional, interesting, and in needs to evoke the exoticism of ancient Egypt. The gameplay mechanics are already proven to be strong.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#8]
Awesome. Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, I'm not happy with the pawns (blobs) either. I've been experimenting with different types and haven't found one that fits yet. A few of them have made it in as unlockables (one that looks like an old coin, another like a gem, etc).

There are a lot of effects that don't show up in the screenshot (particle stuff when you make certain moves) and there are cut scenes of sorts when things are unlocked. No 3d, because I don't like 3d rendered cut scenes.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#9]
OK. I updated the screenshot with some pawns that I'm thinking of using in place of the old blobby ones. There's also a new version of the beta that includes the new pawns and a couple of minor fixes.


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2008) [#10]
I am still not very excited about the green and blue colors, as well as the wood background. The wood is looking rather like plastic laminat floor than like real wood.

Here are some suggestions for precious root wood intarsia material:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Maser-Wurzelholz-Nussbaum-SCHNAPPCHEN-Furnier-A41238_W0QQitemZ230211944171QQihZ013QQcategoryZ126201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/Maser-Wurzelholz-Nussbaum-SCHNAPPCHEN-Furnier-A561758_W0QQitemZ230212274047QQihZ013QQcategoryZ126201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/MYRTE-TOP-Maser-Wurzelholz-Furnier-Edelhoelzer-X52354_W0QQitemZ230213066056QQihZ013QQcategoryZ126201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/Maser-Wurzelholz-Nussbaum-SCHNAPPCHEN-Furnier-X27257_W0QQitemZ230212690873QQihZ013QQcategoryZ126201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/Maser-Wurzelholz-Nussbaum-SCHNAPPCHEN-Furnier-Y34188_W0QQitemZ230212692098QQihZ013QQcategoryZ126201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
And what could be done with them: http://www.gildedageantiques.com/inventory/english_tunbridge_box.html
Tho, no wallpaper sized images, you may get an idea what I'm talking about. Basicly I'd say: maybe it doesn't have to be wood (only). You may also think about the classic egypt top materials, such as marble, gold, lapislazuly. (tut's cap with the gold/blue stripes...)

Searching for images about "egypt" and "inlay" on yahoo also gives some nice results, although one should not confuse islamic inlay and wood artwork with ancient egyptian artwork: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A9G_bHIpsJNHo0oBSA6JzbkF?p=egypt+inlay&y=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&fp_ip=CH&x=wrt&js=1&ni=21

For the blue and green "blobs" I would suggest to use Topas (as seen here: http://www.gemtrade.de/contents/de/d266.html ) and probably Smaragd as seen here: http://www.gemtrade.de/index.html?lang=de&target=d239.html
but you may of course browse the other gemstones as well, some of them are real cute. You may however prefer round shapes since brilliant cuts aren't accurate egypt historic culture.

BTW one further point is: you should try to avoid mixing multiple fonts whenever possible.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#11]
Thanks for the additional feedback!


Arowx(Posted 2008) [#12]
Hi jhanson,

Well done you've got a game up and running! ;o)

When I start playing a game how do I then quit that game?

You could consider tooltips when your the mouse hovers over a square with a symbol, as it I couldn't work out what they did?

Enjoyed it, simple enough that I got the basics and managed to nearly win the cpu first time! ;o)

Gemstone link, crystal pawns would look good, although you could probably use a nice marble effect to give a plished stone effect, if you wanted to consider a more authenic looking piece, still the egyptians had gold so you could try something like that.

I've been playing with blender a free 3d modelling/rendering app that would allow you to easily model a nice but simple piece for your game!

If your interested could you have a look at my game Qbix it's the Release candidate version so hopefully almost ready, and let me know what you think?




jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#13]
Hi Merx,

Thanks for the feedback!

You can quit at any time by hitting Escape.

When your mouse hovers over a square with a symbol for at least one second, you should get an explanation of what it is in the bottom left box (similar to what you see in the screenshot above). If that's not working, please let me know what OS you're on so I can test it out.

Also, I'll be glad to check out Qbix tonight. It certainly looks great from the screenshot. I'm a Mac guy, though, so I'll have to borrow the wife's PC.


Arowx(Posted 2008) [#14]
Hi jhanson,

Yep the 1 second delay to display the info works. Seems a tad slow, you might want to reduce that to a shorter time?

Just played again and wondered as your actually going around a track, have you considered a more track-like layout e.g. segment of circle, S curve, you could have fun with a landscape graphic of some kind with this, worth thinking about?

Have you considered animating the moves/jumnps?

Cheers.


jhans0n(Posted 2008) [#15]
Hi Merx,

Yeah, I've been playing around with the delay in the different builds, trying to find a happy medium. I don't want it popping up every time you go to click on a pawn, but I want it to show up after a reasonably short delay. I think it's going to end up being about 0.8 seconds instead of the 1.0 seconds that's in the current build. Doesn't sound like much of a change, but it makes a big difference.

As for the track layout, I was trying to keep to the traditional Senet board shape. I may include a different shape as an unlockable feature, though, since it's simple enough to do.

With the animated moves/jumps, I ended up going with the little particle effects rather than a piece sliding across the board type animation after a lot of trial and error. I just couldn't get it to look natural, so I decided to go with the supernatural zap/teleport type thing. It kept ending up looking really mechanical to me for some reason. Even when I got it looking a little more human, it ended up looking a little too "Hasbro" and not mystical enough, if that makes any sense.


Arowx(Posted 2008) [#16]
So it sounds like your beta is about right, maybe some graphical improvements and it's ready to release!

Nice one!