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[Charlie Fleed]

Hartacon Tactics Demo for Windows is now available for download here!

[Charlie Fleed]

In-game map editor

[Charlie Fleed]

New tileset:

[Charlie Fleed]

A new demo is available. DOWNLOAD

There are a lot of updated and new features, starting with counterattacks and support, new maps, a new single player mode, and faster gameplay.

[Charlie Fleed]

Have a look at the improved map editor in this video showing me building a map with the new desert tileset.

[Charlie Fleed]

During the last week or so I have been working on the server. I am making all the communication over http, so it is actually a web server that processes messages coming from the game clients and replies with messages instead of ordinary html pages. The platform is ASP.NET with MySql.

With the web server installed on my laptop and two game clients, one on my laptop, and the other on my old laptop (which once went on fire ) everything is too damn slow, so I will start using the webserver I got. Btw you can reach the WIP home page here: http://www.hartacon-tactics.eu/

It's all pretty basic and incomplete. I'm experimenting with jQuery and CSS, but it's not my thing really.

[Charlie Fleed]

Hi guys, I'm testing online battles with Hartacon Tactics, if you would like to join and help, just download the game from http://www.hartacon-tactics.eu/public/setup/hartacontactics.zip and let me know. I'll make you an account with your chosen username.

[Charlie Fleed]

Hartacon Tactics website is online at www.hartacon-tactics.eu

The game’s press-kit is available for download at www.hartacon-tactics.eu/public/press-kit.zip

A new Hartacon Tactics alpha build has been released, featuring online multiplayer battles.



The new build comes with an improved map editor, and the new desert tileset. Players can challenge each other on maps of their own creation.

[Netsu]

Loving the tileset, looks really great

[ephoete]

Same here. Pretty neat effects on the stones indeed.

[Charlie Fleed]

Thanks guys, credit to http://mryulcha.deviantart.com/

[Charlie Fleed]

Hello dudes and dudettes, thanks for stopping by. You know that recently I released the alpha with multiplayer battles. Did you try it? You can download it here: www.hartacon-tactics.eu/public/setup/hartacontactics.zip

Thanks to your feedback I was able to fix an annoying bug and now the game doesn't freeze when the game's window loses the focus. It's an issue that many XNA developers had to deal with.

I cannot help but notice that very few registered an account and are playing online, so I wanted to ask you how do you feel about playing TBS games online against other players. What makes it good for you and what turns you down.

Finally, I am thinking about switching to a squad-based turn system instead of a character-based one.

FFT had individual turns, but it's one of the very few successful titles which took this road, the large majority of TBS went the other way.
Maybe the most engaging aspect of tactics games is the fact that you control a team of characters and not just a hero, and being able to move all your team members together gives you a lot of freedom, more decisions to make, more room to plan and carry out your strategy. However, when played online, with large teams, and possibly more than two players, this could mean you have to wait a lot until your turn comes, and some sort of advantage necessarily goes to who plays first, hence my decision to go for individual turns.
But now I feel that I am sacrificing too much in terms of gameplay.

So, how do you feel about it? Squad-based or character-based turns?

[Charlie Fleed]

I have received feedback on other places about my previous post, but none here. I guess I'll stick with character-based turns, but I'm still open to listen what's your idea about it.
Anyway, here's last week's development sort-of-summary.

• I revised the recruitment system. Now you don't just recruit generic representatives of classes, but unique characters, with a rank that influences their stats bonus above the basic level for their class, and the skills they come with. Naturally, higher ranked characters have higher cost.
• I changed the color scheme a little bit. Now windows' colors are darker and match the background's colors.
• I added environmental sounds, different for each kind of setting.
• I modified the cast-magic animation to include the sysmbol of the used magic.
• Did I meantion the game has archers now?
• What about the cover system?

And here are a couple of screens:

[matwek]

So, how do you feel about it? Squad-based or character-based turns?

I don't think I've played many games like this that use a character-based system (if I have then I can't remember them).
Although most of the games have been single player, so squad-based turns seems to make sense, but I can see how annoying that could be for a multiplayer game. Even when playing Advance Wars, on some of the larger maps I use to get annoyed waiting for the enemy to take his turn even though the whole thing was sped up.

Have you tried something like a 'Time' resource?
For example you have say 50 units of 'Time' per turn, as each unit makes a move you deduct their speed value from the units of time. Once you reach zero you can't make anymore moves and play passes over to your opponent.

- This way you still get to plan major attacks by moving more than one unit at a time.
- But the pace of the game isn't slowed by having to move your whole team.
- The 'Speed' value is still important to the gameplay.
- Slow heavy hitters come at a cost but quick units can get the most out of the time you have avaliable to you.
- You could even throw in new skills that alter the passing of time.
- Or even use 'Time' as a resource that can be stored and saved for later. If you make less moves on your first turn you can make more on your second.

[danieru]

Even when playing Advance Wars, on some of the larger maps I use to get annoyed waiting for the enemy to take his turn even though the whole thing was sped up.

Bit off topic here but there was a reason why AW had annoying long AI turns. The AI needed all the time it could get. On the NES Famicon Wars offered no movement speed up, it needed all the the time it could get. Then on the SNES in the remake of the NES version they added animation skiping. Fast forward a few years to AW1 on the GBA and the AI got much stupider but still had the skip animations. In compromise AW1's maps and CO powers gave the AI massive advantages. Over time the AW series got better AI which they used to make the maps less AI biased. AW4 on the DS had the most powerful AI and least powerful CO powers.

Back on topic: Don't get discouraged Charlie. Your game looks fun and attractive. There isn't much for other developers to post about. Tigsource has a high hurtle for registration which makes it a developer-fest. There should be some users here just reading.

[john sandoval]

hi

couple of things:

1. every so often the game will flash white for no reason and a window (behind the game window) will appear and disappear. i dont know why this happens but it does.
2. selecting an attack direction is really awkward. when i select one direction, i have to move the cursor in the exact opposite direction to return it to the selected unit's cell before i can pick a new direction.
3. the action menu (attack, defend, move etc.) functions in an awkward manner as well. if you roll the joystick from UP to RIGHT, the menu doesn't actually select the rightmost option. if you're not extremely precise when moving the joystick from down to up, or move it in a non-cardinal direction, then it basically selects a random option. then there's minor details like the arrow moving all the way around the circle when moving between the defend and attack options.
4. issuing a movement command is also really, really awkward. when i hold the joystick in a specific direction, i want the character to move ONLY in that direction. sometimes the character will make turns for no apparent reason.
5. i'd advocate switching to a squad based control system asap. single unit control, governed by a speed stat is the bane of strategy rpgs. an added bonus is, if you're planning on having online play, a squad based turn system suits will suit play much better, as players have enough time to go on the internet and read some articles, or have a small skype conversation. having players control one unit at a time takes long enough to get /boring/, but not long enough to do anything else with your time. single unit control takes way too long for the game state to change in any interesting way.

this game is pretty polished but there's a few issues that really irritated me and i stopped by the second mission. nothing in single player stood out to me from a mechanical standpoint, or made me want to play it over actual FFT. maybe multiplayer has something to it but i didn't have a chance to check it out.

[Charlie Fleed]

1. every so often the game will flash white for no reason and a window (behind the game window) will appear and disappear. i dont know why this happens but it does.

something in the XNA framework does that, I am investigating the issue.

2. selecting an attack direction is really awkward. when i select one direction, i have to move the cursor in the exact opposite direction to return it to the selected unit's cell before i can pick a new direction.

just changed this behavior!

3. the action menu (attack, defend, move etc.) functions in an awkward manner as well. if you roll the joystick from UP to RIGHT, the menu doesn't actually select the rightmost option. if you're not extremely precise when moving the joystick from down to up, or move it in a non-cardinal direction, then it basically selects a random option. then there's minor details like the arrow moving all the way around the circle when moving between the defend and attack options.
4. issuing a movement command is also really, really awkward. when i hold the joystick in a specific direction, i want the character to move ONLY in that direction. sometimes the character will make turns for no apparent reason.

mhm... not sure about all this...

5. i'd advocate switching to a squad based control system asap. single unit control, governed by a speed stat is the bane of strategy rpgs. an added bonus is, if you're planning on having online play, a squad based turn system suits will suit play much better, as players have enough time to go on the internet and read some articles, or have a small skype conversation. having players control one unit at a time takes long enough to get /boring/, but not long enough to do anything else with your time. single unit control takes way too long for the game state to change in any interesting way.

this game is pretty polished but there's a few issues that really irritated me and i stopped by the second mission. nothing in single player stood out to me from a mechanical standpoint, or made me want to play it over actual FFT. maybe multiplayer has something to it but i didn't have a chance to check it out.

Thanks for your thoughts, please consider that it's still an ALPHA, meaning that not all the features are complete, and there will be changes, also based on the feedback I receive, for example the single player campaign is just an empty container for battles at the moment. It will get more interesting in the next alpha.

[Charlie Fleed]

Dudes and dudettes! Hartacon Tactics has finally been released on XBOX 360 Marketplace, in the indie games section. Link: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Games/XboxIndieGames?SortBy=ReleaseDate

The game is right now the all-time top rated!!!

[Charlie Fleed]

Help Hartacon Tactics get on Steam!

Vote on GreenLight
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=390964051

Watch the GreenLight trailer




The STEAM release will be an upgraded version of the XBOX 360 one.

[Pixelologist]

I keep thinking of heart tacos when reading the title. I'm not sure I'd eat something like that. Nice work so far, we need more tactics games on PC.