Hello!

I’m in for this MiniLD. My plan is for something in the area of a god game, which I think is probably close enough to being a real time strategy. Even before starting my idea was scoping out a little wildly so it’ll be interesting to see what remains by the week’s end. It’s quite possible that by then I’ll have decided to skip over the “strategy” and  “game” parts of the design.

Language: Haxe

Platform: Flash

Flavour of the month technology I’ll regret using: Flash Workers

As well as the Flash API and HxSL (like GLSL or HLSL, but it can compile to the bytecode used by Flash’s Stage3D rendering stuff), I’m using my hodge-podge of a self-made library. Recently I’ve added stuff to that library to deal with data sharing between workers, so this should be a nice relatively small scale test for it.

With most of the first day gone I’ve got the basic core of memory and worker management going, and a rendering height map. Easy to forget the time it takes to write even quite simple code to generate a mesh from height map data, definitely a good thing this isn’t 48 hours.

Hi everyone.  I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring for the 7dRTS challenge.  I enjoy RTS games although I’m typically not good at them, but that might just come from playing against my younger brother back in high school who was very good.

The inspiration

One of my favorite games for the SNES is Metal Marines, which is an interesting take on the RTS genre.  If you’ve never played it you build up a base on an island and fire missiles and large robots (the Metal Marines from which the game gets its name) at your opponents islands trying to destroy their base.  The game alternates between building and attacking modes.  The building mode is real time where both players simultaneously place units and upgrade existing ones.  The attack mode is initiated by one player who then fires up to 4 missiles and 3 metal marines at his opponent whose automated defenses try to resist.

There are a couple of things about the game that I don’t like.  Each level can take a long time to complete.  Although it is very satisfying to watch a missile fly across the ocean to strike your opponent after a short while it becomes really monotonous (and you will fire a lot of missiles).

Design Goals

• RTS should focus on macro management instead of micromanagement
• All attacking and defending will be done in real time
• Individual units will be built and managed automatically leaving the player to focus on choosing where to attack and defend.
• Games will be play and be resolved quickly

I’m not sure that I’m going to achieve all this, but anyway, I give you…

POWER GRAB!!!

In the future, solar power rules.  Corporations battle over floating islands that cover the Earth for solar powered supremacy!  The backstory makes no sense, but who cares!

Players will start with an island with a single power station.  This station produces a fixed amount of energy every turn.  Each station can build and pass energy to many different nodes.  In turn, these nodes build and power units that either attack or defend.  Maximizing your energy usage will be key and attacking is always more efficient than defending, so defenses must be used sparingly.  Find and destroy your opponents power stations to win!

I don’t have a name yet 😐

Day one progress!

Graphics all very placeholdery of course.
I have a level editor done, recycled some code to make a level selection screen that loads all levels in the levels folder and displays information about them before you choose one (level name, size, author, difficulty), placed a worker unit who can be clicked on to move him around, or double clicked on to give him orders – right now all he can do is build three different types of treehouse.

It’s basically going to be a village of elves defending and protecting a forest from an invading army of something, probably orcs and the like. I have some weird resource management ideas for it that should make things interesting that I’ll post more about once they are working 😀

I couldn’t resist this challenge! RTS Games is one of my favorite genres. I actually created Warcraft 2 Levels back in the day; which is part of the reason why I got hooked on creating games.

Gameplay Idea

Aircraft command is a tactical time management combat game. That’s what I wrote back in 2009. Basically the game is a reverse Tower Defense game. The player must successfully lead a group of bombers (which he does not control) to a series of targets. To do this, the player has access to a different units. These units will eliminate the turrets and fighters that are trying to kill the bombers.

Win Condition:

Get enough bomb mobs to the target. ( I may do some type of other element like a ticking timer)

Lose Condition:

Lose too many bombers, or let time run out (This may change)

Tools:

• Unity 3d
• Photoshop
• Playmaker (Unity Plugin)
• Maya

Goals:

• Expand knowledge of Unity Playemaker
• Finish an old idea in 7 days
• complete a damn LD type challenge!
• Port game to Ouya
• Port game to ipad

Luckily I’m not starting from scratch per se. A lot of the work I’ve done for my main project can be repurposed.

I also have some art that a friend made for this very project a few years back.

Here’s my progress so far:

I got the main bomber mobs going to the target. I’m working on making the first turret fight back against those pesky invaders. Follow me on Twitter to keep up with my progress. ( @MarvinHawkins) I’m also going to post here!

I have never made simple physics or platforms before, so this is extremely exciting!

Tomorrow I make side-scrolling and a player that controls the world around him!

So, here’s what I accomplished yesterday: Building a particle system for my isometric game. This game has been in the works for a while now, but I’m aiming to get something playable together by the deadline – possibly some kind of ultra-simple twin stick MOBA, or a cooperative defense game (including elements of base construction). Anyways, pretty happy to this system in place. It still needs a lot of tuning, but it looks damn cool. And everyone knows, graphics > gameplay (edit: Images are animated; click to view).

Quite a few particles can be on screen at one moment. At least, until I add those perspective performance drains like “enemies” and “objectives”.

The sprite creates a perfect particle replica of itself upon death, as you can see when I free their movement.

Tags: bossfighter

Great seeing all the activity! To fully enjoy this post, open this in a new tab so we can enjoy it together. It’s time for a premature victory lap. Volume warning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcTStCOKXGI#t=27s

While we sort out what kind of game we want to make, I’m free to explore the tech before I’m crushed by the weight of demands. RTS is terrific for multiplayer re: input, you’re sending commands instead of keyboard input. And not to mention no collision gargle. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a shot.

I gambled on Player.IO as I’m not into hosting a Haxe remoting server and I figure Flash-only-networking for this compo is ok. Yesterday I didn’t know if I could get Player.IO working in Haxe. Today I know!

I long for the day when I’m free to send bullet data across the network every 16 milliseconds. But alas, I’ll spend some time bringing down the 130+kb/s transfer.  

BTW The bullets on the other clients are stalled because they don’t know they’ve been told to fire — I can send prefabs across the network but not commands like “go here, this fast” just yet. RPC’s to the rescue!

Finally, here’s the game code so far, all in one file: CTF.hx: http://pastebin.com/MD6fdZGe

CTF is the class that defines and spawns prefabs like with Unity. It does this by creating Actors (GameObjects), and adding shared Behaviours between them. Once defined, we’re free to spawn them however we like, mixing and matching behaviours as needed for gameplay.

You can see it inherits the Engine class, I don’t want to even call it an engine, as that implies a huge turkey that you have to stuff in your mouth all at once (UDK, Unity, etc.). With a framework, I’m free to nibble or scarf as I choose. Having this class makes creating new games all the quicker because the boilerplate is solved up front, but can be modified per game with overrides to add new components or just replaced completely, see?: http://pastebin.com/Wz3eh23f.

My strategy this compo: keep the tech clean, funnel in art, stumble over game ideas by accident, be able to punch out a game in 60 seconds …if… when the inevitable Swordfish-hacking-scenario erupts. [IMAGE CENSORED]

Stay ready people!

I think lightning zweihander is pretty imba.

1. Melee damaging has been added.
2. New unit: Zweihander guy. Zweihander guy is slow but his attacks are powerful. His weapon also has a large reach.
3. Smoothed camera rotations.

Web demo WIP

Tags: progress, screenshot, Strat Souls, unity, unity3d

So today I managed to pull my disparate code base together, and get the very basics of an RTS up and running.  What I have is essentially a field of more or less randomly positioned planets, as well as some ships that spawn at the start of the game and can be directed using the standard RTS interface of left-click to select, right-click to order.  I also have box-based group selection, though there is a kink with that I still need to work out, and my first pixel art!

Resource management and combat are still a ways away, though.  Tomorrow I hope to at least get the enemy faction implemented, as well as basic combat.

Don’t forget to get your sleep, guys!

Today was more difficult than me and Sebastian have anticipated. He spent a long time today having trouble with drawing characters. I have also had troubles based on programming porting and the options menu. We managed to get some things done however in the 7 or so hours we worked today (all on stream on Twitch.tv/zxeonz and twitch.tv/threadNecromancer) His log will be coming sometime tomorrow.

Anyway, what I have managed to accomplish today.

07/22:

• Set up parallax scrolling for the Y axis of the camera //This was the last thing I accomplished today, and also the easiest. I merely needed to add a few lines of code to the existing Strider Run codebase for the camera.
• I updated the start and options menus.
• I worked on ranged weapon implementation. It currently has a few problems with the gamepad control not working, and the controls for the mouse are inverted.
• I added the ability to resize the window. //I just need to add an option for Full Screen.

Anyway, that is all we have accomplished on Day 1. Do tune into my Twitch channel if you want to see the development process. I will be streaming most of the day on Twitch.tv/zxeonz.

I will add media once the game is actually more like an RTS. In the mean time, if you really want to see the game, I did live stream it.

If you want to follow this developer blog easier, then go to www.kerinova.blogspot.com I will be posting these blogs there, in addition to here.

Tags: day 1, Ludum Dare, programming, progress

For the next couple of nights, I’ll be taking a break from Chess Heroes to join the super duper seven day real-time strategery compelooza!

After spending (wasting) time on a generic fantasy idea (with clever mechanics, but still) and getting my mind blown by McFunkyPants (again), I went back to the drawing board. Instead of trying to create something brand new and falling short (which I often do during competitions), I’m going to mash some stuff together.

Hence: MOBIUS: A portmanteau of MOBA and the -ius genre of side-scrolling shooters (Gradius, Darius, Parodius… kids, ask your parents!). I’ll be using Unity and Photoshop, as per the usual.

Early sketches:

This article is copied from my personal blog.

I have decided to participate in the 7-Day Real Time Strategy Challenge, July 2013 edition.

I am working with Broken Sounds who will create sound effects, music, and be in charge of the “atmosphere” of the game.

I am using chem, a canvas-based game engine I made for rapid development occasions such as this. It has been working out quite well and I think it has been playing a large role in my productivity today.

The game is codenamed “pillagers”. The idea is to mix space physics with real time strategy and see what comes out. Instead of creating a carefully planned out base, you will be campaigning through levels, pillaging for resources.

That’s the idea, anyway. We’ll see how it pans out.

Here’s a list of the things that work right now:

• Selecting squads and telling them to move around.
• Ships shoot enemy ships, destroying them when their health reaches 0.
• Scrolling around the map.
• Auto generated parallax background with stars and a planet.

The code is open source, hosted on GitHub. It’s 941 lines of JavaScript:

   46 src/bullet.js
   33 src/explosion.js
  432 src/main.js
   19 src/militia_ship.js
  241 src/ship_ai.js
  165 src/ship.js
    5 src/uuid.js
  941 total

Screenshot of a squad of ships under attack:

Short video of me playing around with some elements of the game:

http://youtu.be/QQ1jGk5e7o0

It was a fun challenge to write the AI to get the ships to stop at the intended destinations. As is it’s not optimal, but I think that’s okay. Maybe later classes of ships will have better AI.

You can actually play this game right now. Since it’s web based, you don’t even have to download anything.

Here’s what the TODO list looks like currently:

• Edit the main militia ship to have short range.
• Auto targeting enemies should only work when close enough.
• Ability to right click an enemy ship to tell squad to target it.
• Add enemy turrets and ships to level 1.
• Add enemy flag which grants victory when destroyed.
• Add 2nd class of ship which you get some of at beginning of level 1.
• Instead of giving the player ships at the beginning, give them cash and buildings which they can use to create the ships they want. The user will thus be able to choose how many of class 1 and class 2 ships they want.
• Put instruction label text in level 1 to explain the controls.
• Start planning level 2.

Well, I’m off to bed to get some rest. Looking forward to Day 2!

Just wanted to share a small arcade game I made for the RetroNoFuture competition a few weeks back.

This game requires 3 or more players, and a microphone. The louder you yell the faster they work. First team to finish their building wins!

You can find it here: http://kanako.dk/clients/fun/WOOORRK!/

Lets pretend this is opposite land, screw the introductions and jump straight in!

So, we are making an RTS inspired by the Worms games of old. That should give you a vague idea of where we are going with this, and the best part is that statement holds more depth than you might expect.

Time to hammer this concept home!

• Side-view Camera: Yup! This RTS will be using a side view camera, it was inspired by Worms after all.
• Guns!: Yes, we will have those. Code are focusing on the Rocket Launcher first, so if it works then drinks all around! (Then get back to work!)
• Real Time Combat: ‘But.. but Worms is a Turn Based Game!’ Yes I know! The challenge is to make a Real Time Strategy though, so that’s what it’s going to be!
  Players can select a Troop to aim their shot individually, or select a bunch and have them mimic each-others aim. Once a Troop fires a shot, they will have a reload time (varies depending on weapon), once the reload completes they will fire again. So, the player will have to micro manage their Troops position, where they are aiming, and the power of their shot. So it’s going to be a Super Hectic Real Time Combat Worms Styley Strategy Game. A SHRTCWSSG if you will.
•  Multiplayer: Hopefully by the end of the week it will be networked, so you and a friend can battle it out over the interwebs!
• Art Style: Big Guns! Big Troops! Big Explosions! Unfiltered, Uncensored 80’s Action Movie inspired goodness!

Day 1 Progress

We have a basic game-play prototype with moving, aiming, firing, and path-finding. The image below the selection and moving of blocks around a thing! SHIP IT!

Art has made great progress, you can see the current state of a level below. Day 2 will be spent populating this with loads of little details to make it feel more like a ruined city that still semi-functions.

So that’s the Day 1 post!  Things are going well, so tune in next time to see everything go horribly wrong.

Tags: #7DRTS, day 1, gamedev, Ludum Dare

Brace The Gates will be a hybrid RTS/adventure game in which you take on the role of an unlucky protagonist who finds himself alone in a castle besieged by the evil forces of the undead. Reinforce the defences, rescue fellow survivors and brace the gates!

So I’m at a point where I’m wondering how the whole game will work. Will it have harvester units? Worker units? Are units upgradeable?

Here are multiple ideas that I’ve come up with:

Traditional RTS Type

1. You have harvester units who gather souls from corpses in the map. (like Tiberium fields in C&C)
2. You have a nexus which is your base. If it gets destroyed, you lose.
3. You create units by summoning them into the map, costs souls.
4. Summoning takes a long time to complete, and the enemy can attack the summoning point to prevent that unit from appearing.
5. You can only summon near your nexus, near other units, or at summoning fields that you can construct. Summoning fields can be destroyed by the enemy.
6. When your units kill enemies, they level up automatically (i.e. veterancy in C&C).
7. You upgrade your nexus to gain access to better units. You can purchase upgrades also in your nexus.

Tactics Type

1. There is no base-building, no resource-gathering.
2. Instead of an army, you have a party of heroes. Your enemy has likewise.
3. Tries to capture the Dark Souls vibe, just that instead of controlling one character only, you control maybe 2-5.
4. Controls are much more micromanage-intensive.
5. May be more suited for a single-player experience.

Epic Battle Type

1. Inspired from the multiplayer mode in Total War games.
2. There is no base-building.
3. Each player has fixed number of souls at the start to purchase units.
4. When you kill enemy units, you gain souls equivalent to half its cost (i.e. dwindling economy).
5. You can summon reinforcements in the middle of battle. Summonings are almost instantaneous.
6. If you don’t want more units, you can use souls to upgrade your units instead.
7. When your unit dies, all the rest of your remaining units gain size, until you are left with one unit who is a giant boss that you control.
8. This ensures that an “epic battle” at the end of a match always happens: between the winning side who has so many units, and the losing side who has a giant boss.
9. It’s also possible that both sides end up with giant bosses too.

I could eventually try implementing all of them but I have to consider which I will make first.

I’m also wondering whether I devote my efforts into creating a single-player mode first, or a multiplayer mode first. Of course I want to add both but I’m wondering what I prioritize for the 7 days.

Single-player means I make AI, multiplayer means I do networking code.

Feel free to give suggestions!

Web demo WIP

Tags: brainstorming, design, progress, Strat Souls

Hi there! First time participating in a Ludum Dare challenge. During this MiniLD I’ll experiment with this idea I have using Enchant.js – a cool javascript framework I found.

About that game I’m going to make – I had this idea for a RTS game which has multiple dimensions. These dimensions will be visible on the same map and will be distinguished by colour. To go to another dimension there are special units who can open up a portal to a certain dimension. Furthermore, this game will use traditional RTS elements.

What will this mean for the gameplay? First of all, the players cannot see each others units if they are in a different dimension. So, if player one has a unit in dimension A, gathering resources, player two is not able to see the other player’s unit because his unit is in dimension B (see picture below).

Of course the player himself can see his own units in all dimensions. Also, each player’s base is placed in a different dimension. In a normal RTS you have to look for the player on the same map, but in this game you will have to travel to other dimensions to seek the enemy.

Perhaps it all sounds a bit complicated for now. But I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. Already I’m behind schedule ( mainly because of the nice weather ). But by the end of this MiniLD I hope to show everyone at least the basic gameplay of Dim Wars!

<<cross-posted again from TiltTheWindmill>>
23/07:
Putting off map design by messing around with cameras.
Alrighty, that stuff is being put off until later.

(IU*ASHDOIUAHSD Fed up with my original concept. Need to come up with something new. At least what I’ve made so far is really just an RTS base.

…later…

HAVE A NEW CONCEPT!
This new idea is completely different to my original one. But luckily, most of what I have so far can be used.
It is now divided into two distinct areas: RTS & RPG. (I do use the term RPG VERY loosely though.)
I will explain more later once both sections are a bit better.
RPG mode now has nice cameras and keyboard/pad control.
RTS mode is, well, the same as before so far.

The split has occurred in code. Will work on both much more tomorrow.

Progress (not in gif form.):

Very little has happened apart from the town layout.(and the comically bad mini-map) I usually am terrible when it comes to level/map design but this is alright.
I will elaborate on things tomorrow evening I hope. I have a lot to do before I comfortable talking about it.

No whiteboard photo today as it’s near identical to yesterdays…

//Discuss technical stuff
Alrighty, I should have talked about this in the first post.
Language: AS3
Libraries: Flixel
For coding I switch between FlashDevelop and SublimeText.
Making music I use main Logic Pro. Occasionally Reason.

Yep.
At this rate, it’s very possible that there’ll be no “art” by time Monday rolls around. But there should be a game and a good deal of music!

Song of the day: Spiel mit dem Feuer (Piano version) by Saltatio Mortis (Sorry, no link for this one.)

I’m open to taking questions about this design as it might help me solve some inevitable problems.

Hi Everybody

Been working hard on the 7DRTS yesterday and I’ve already got a playable prototype!

Play Here

The game doesn’t have a title yet but it’s a Turn Based Tactical Shooter for two players. Each player controls a team of four units. Each turn the player controls one unit. They can move and shoot as much as they like for the length of the turn, but with limited ammo. The objective is to eliminate the opposing team! It’s like a mixture of Worms and Counter Strike.

Let me know what you think. Remember to check my blog and follow @Trashgames on twitter for more info!

Enjoy!

Here’s a picture as well

Still no pretty screenshots or anything because I had trouble with my engine last night, so here’s some design work I did. First, my requirements:

MUST HAVE

* Map
* Buildings that either produce units or resources
* The ability to gather resources with units.
* The ability for units to fight each other.
* The ability to control units with band-selection and target specification.
* The ability to win the game by destroying all enemy structures
* Graphics for each unit, building and map
* A basic AI.

WOULD LIKE TO HAVE

* Map with different terrain types: blocking, slowing and normal squares
* Better graphics
* Sound effects
* Improved GUI
* Improved AI

WOULD BE AWESOME IF I COULD HAVE

* Multiplayer. Possible in seven days?
* Artist-done art (find one on IRC?)

Second, the design notes (I present these as-is, they are kind of free-associating):

Chitin is about two colonies of bugs fighting over resources. There will be buildings, workers and combat units.

Workers: Mite swarm. This is a swarm of very small units (basically dots) that will harvest any resources near their nest. Mites can’t be killed, so there’s no way to stop someone from harvesting. Mite nests can be built near resources and they’ll strip the resources bare in no time; think army ants. There’s no “owning” a resource; if two colonies build a mite nest near a resource then both colonies will harvest it (depleting it twice as fast).

Combat units: Three of various sizes. Dead combat units can be harvested by mites so it’s best to fight away from mite nests you don’t own. Classic rock-paper-scissors setup. We’ll have spitters, armored melee and fast melee. Spitters beat armored melee because they’ll wear them down before they get into range. Fast melee beat spitters because they get into range quickly and spitters are relatively weak. Armored melee beats fast melee because fast melee has no armor.

Plus, how about a big gargantuan unit, like a beetle? Slow, hard to destroy, but spits powerful acid a long way and can kill a colony all by itself if left unattended. Worth a lot resources if it can be killed and harvested, so it’s a risk/reward thing for the player that tries it.

Direct control of combat units?

Hmmm…how about a slow but steady drain on – YES. You win the game not by destroying the enemy whatever, but by making your enemy run out of ichor. Ichor is the resource of Chitin and will be used for everything. Ichor will have a +- marker next to it just like a resource in Total Annihilation, so you can see if your ichor income is rising or falling. You start with a slow ichor drain and every unit and building you make increases this drain, so you need to get out there and use your units to explore (which means there must be fog of war).

Creeps. That’s it, I think. There will be other insects on the map, you use your combat units to kill them for food then plant mites next to them to gather their resources. As you do, your ichor goes up meaning you can make new units (and maybe upgrade them?) But if you have no bugs to harvest, your ichor level will drop based on how many units you have in the field; when it gets to zero, you lose the game (your colony is untenable).

Creeps are also of the three different types; use the right bug on the right kind of creep – but be aware that you could get ganked by an enemy bug army that can counter yours.

The player can directly control all units except the mites. There won’t be any pathfinding on the units – after all, they’re drones. It’s your job to get them where you want them to go.

The player will end up with mite nests all over the place but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. A smart player might lure a creep towards a might nest before killing it.

So far I’ve got two buildings (colony and mite nest) and four units (spitters, speeders, brutes and the big bug) and one resource (ichor). That seems doable in seven days.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Feedback welcome!