![\"screen4\"](\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/screen4-550x310.jpg\")
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I didn’t make a post last night when I finished so here’s one now. \u00a0Singulus is finished and I’m pretty happy with it.<\/p>\n
There is Only One sword and Only One shield to be shared around the gladiators. \u00a0You use the arrow keys to move and space to fire. \u00a0Aiming is automatic, it locks on to the nearest player.<\/p>\n
Click Here to Play It<\/a>\u00a0and the entry is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The gameplay is simple but quite fun andthe graphics aren’t too bad. \u00a0The sound is pretty basic (bfxr) and I couldn’t find the motivation to make some music despite having plenty of time. \u00a0Perhaps next time if I’m better practised with the right tool I’ll feel more inclined. \u00a0It’s just always an afterthought for me during LD.<\/p>\n Perhaps I could have tweaked the gameplay a bit more (size of the arena, speed of the players etc.) \u00a0I’m not sure if it’s optimal as it is. \u00a0Some people complain that the sword is too hard to dodge although I have to say that is the point. \u00a0The aim should be to get another player between you and the guy with the sword or grab the shield to protect yourself.<\/p>\n I achieved things a few things that I’d never done before with this game:<\/p>\n Made a networked multiplayer game.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I used nodejs for the server and communicated with the client via websockets. \u00a0There’re a lot of things I probably did wrong technically. \u00a0For example the network messages are very inefficient and there’s no client side simulation so when there is lag the game just freezes up. \u00a0However the result is a reasonably playable game.<\/p>\n There’s also no limit on the number of players. \u00a0I’m not sure how the game would play if a lot of people joined at once. \u00a0It seems like 4-6 players is about the optimal number. \u00a0Thanks so much to everyone who helped playtest the game over the weekend. \u00a0It’s hard to work solo on a multiplayer game so the few times people volunteered their time to help me test were very useful.<\/p>\n Made some AI well balanced and smart enough to substitute for human players.<\/strong><\/p>\n I knew when I started that a multiplayer game would be tricky because there often wouldn’t be enough people online playing it to be enjoyable. \u00a0I didn’t think I’d be able to make bots which wouldn’t either be so smart that they were unbeatable or so dumb that they’d be a walkover. \u00a0It seems like you always get one of these extremes when building AI. \u00a0However these guys seems pretty well balanced. \u00a0It’s lucky the bots worked out because I discovered playing with less than 3 people is pretty dull. \u00a0Now the bots make sure there are always at least 3 “players” at once at all times but they log off again once there are at least 3 human players.<\/p>\n