Worklog for djdee
RTS game
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So, yesterday i went out and got a package-deal with Starcraft,
BroodWar and Warcraft 3 for a measly $20 at the local game-store here in
stockholm. Im not a fan of WC3 because of the heroes, xping and creeps
and stuff. The balance of the heroes makes the other units feel
completely useless, but i guess its a matter of learning how to play it.
Im a long time fan of starcraft, so it was no problem jumping in and
wopping the AI ass over and over again. I think the AI is very
impressive in starcraft, but i also know the AI is cheating. He knows
where you are from start, and probably knows the whole map at all times.
But it surely makes for a good AI. I compare it to the AI in RedAlert 2
witch i recently tried, witch basicly sits back at one base, sends a
few tanks now and then, builds some superweapons and attacks you, not
much more from the games i played. If you check the box "No
superweapons", it wont be the same tech-race, instead the AI just sits
there and sends some tanks now and then. By building a perimiter of
units around his base you can stop his cashflow, but the sad thing is,
once you can do that, you probably have enough to wipe his base out
anyways. The thing that makes starcraft so interesting, is the need of
more than one rescource. I think thats key to making the game more about
control of key-locations, to force the player to expand once he has
drained one area of rescources. Im gonna watch the starcraft AI
extensively over the next few days, maybe putting a few "insane" AI's
against eachother and se what happens. As Always, if anyone have any hints, links or other valuable info, email me! |
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Im currently researching how to build a RTS game. I have a fair amount
of previous knowledge about programming and making games, so i believe i
have what it takes, but i dont wanna do any stupid mistakes, so im
trying to find all the right ways to do this from the start. This way i
will hopefully have fewer surprises later on. Im currently studying
starcraft immensly and trying to grasp all of its dimensions. (being a
long time fan i have been playing it countless hours in lan-parties).
One part that will be important is network-code. I will need both LAN
functionality and online functionality. The reason for this is that it
aint worth building an RTS if people cant play against eachother, or
co-op against one or several cpu's. I have never built
networkfunctionality before, so that will be an area of research. Im
trying to figure out how to build the game so that this part can be
added later, so i need to organize how games and players are handled.
Basicly, i will from the beginning create a skirmish-mode, where you can
select number-of players, and assign different cpus to different teams
etc, and try to get all that working. About the selectable races in this RTS. I have decieded that there will be 3 playable-races, of witch 2 are based on humans, and the 3rd is an alien race. I have outlined the alien-race witch will have a unique gameplay for this kind of game. Im trying to make the races gameplay as different as possible now in the designphase, they are relying on totally different technologies and weapons, so this will be featuring a rock-paper-scissors mechanics between the three races. At this point i wont reveal much more about the three races. As always, if you have any hints or tips about how to best solve this or that problem when making an RTS, email me at contact@... |
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Ok, i guess we all know how it goes. I have been making games for quite
some time now, and still i have hardly ever actually completed more
than one game. I have a couple of projects on ice at the moment. I
believe it is because most projects is a challenge for the programmer,
and for me atleast, i think i want to check and se if i have the skills
and brains to solve the problems related to the gameproject at hand.
When i have overcome the major technical difficulties i often loose some
inspiration/lust to code and from there on its often downhill. Also,
you can realize that this gameproject youre currently working on is way
to big and if you just had a few other people there to help you out it
would be really great. Anyways.. At my school (The Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm Sweden) there is an annual competition called
Swedish Game Awards. So since i found out about a year ago, i wanted to
enter the competition. Mostly to have a goal to work towards, one that
feels serious. Me and a classmate was supposed to be making a game for
this year, but our project is still just in early idea-phase, so i doubt
we will be able to enter the competition this year. Anyways. I am a huge fan of Starcraft, and RTS games, (but the only one i really like that much so far is starcraft and age of empires). In a recent coarse in school we learned about abstract datatypes, problemsolving trees, and sorting-algorithms and more. I thought now that i know much more, i would like to make a more challenging game. I think that the devious thing about thinking, "hey, i wanna make a very simple game, this game is so simple it will only take a week to complete" and then featurecreep comes in, i think it is because of the lack of challenge in the coding, witch really is kind of like the ultimate game for a coder. We are constantly looking for new challenges. So i think this new RTS-game im planning feels really exciting, its luring me in more and more. Anyways, i have a black book where i write down all gameideas that pop up in my head, so far i have filled around 140 pages with drawings, and some nonsense to, as well as a lot of text here and there. So i have started to draw and plan some basic features of gameplay. Today i tested RedAlert 2 and the gameplay feels so light-weight compared to starcraft. Its like the tanks weighs less than a soldier, and the buildings fall over so easy, it doesnt take much force to take down an enemy base, but same goes the other way around. I much more prefer the gameplay feel in starcraft where the buildings are much more durable, and where there are more punch in the fights. Thats the focus i will have, also, since im only one person, i will focus minimal efforts on the graphics, i will use placeholder gfx for everything, simple squares with descriptive text for buildings, basicly everyhting will look pretty ugly at first, but that will let me concentrate on the actuall game. The only thing i might expand ealy on graphically is some basic units and explosions/weaponeffects, just to have something. I will be on the lookout for someone to make graphics for this and other of my games in the future, so if you know someone good (preferably swedish) of if you are good, hit me an email at contact@... Also, if anyone have any tips regarding making an RTS, please email me with any hints to the above mentioned email adress. Until next post, later folks//steve |