next »

[Triplefox]

Progress:

• Character sprites in-game
• Particle effects when clearing terrain
• Building walls
• Non-functional guards(soon they will disperse to guard/patrol marked areas)
• Some improvements to the way markers work(islanding is handled correctly)

Yep, the gameplay's starting to come in.

I'd post a build or screenshots but this computer got hit with a horrible trojan and it screwed up Dropbox. Will reinstall everything tomorrow. The OS install is something like 1.5 years old now anyhow, it has way too much cruft.

[Triplefox]

http://www.magnategame.com/

The game officially has an official site. As well as the changes I mentioned in the last post, guards are working and will try to patrol through the marked areas. (They don't try to solve the travelling salesman problem to do so, I'm sorry to say.)

[Triplefox]

A small bumper for an upcoming big update on the 22nd(my "pre-GDC" demo), including:

• Some small graphical improvements
• World is shrunk to 128x128(more cozy than the 256x256 map, and better for performance)
• Destroyable monster nests that spawn equally destroyable creeps(who try to make their way towards friendly units).
• Friendly units, creeps and nests have "vision" boxes and use this info to enter combat or begin spawning.
• Combat: for right now, automatic projectile spam at the last target within vision.

Some last things I'm trying to get in by the 22nd:

• Some more graphics(all the new features have led to some asset requirements that I haven't fulfilled yet)
• Friendly units can be "killed" (at least, disabled.) The final mechanic will turn them into captives which the player can rescue.
• A few functionality/polish things involving creep invasion - things like them not walking through walls.

I'll have another build for GDC around the 27th or so. That'll probably be more polish, filling out features, etc.

[Triplefox]

Updated!

It is a very slightly playable game now. Albeit, you basically have no chance to "win" proudly, since the creeps spawn forever and your guards die too quickly and it takes too long to destroy nests. You could eventually conquer the map, though, if you die and respawn over and over.

The GDC build is going to focus on refining all of these things.

[Triplefox]

Update for GDC

• Build palette
• Markers can be removed now
• Fullscreen toggle button
• Some reworking of the gui's looks
• Idling units will try to unstack(aesthetic improvement)

It's getting more fun

[Triplefox]

Newest build, same time same place:

• 3-frame character animations(crits welcome)
• A bit of rendering optimization while doing the anim code
• "Real" save and load(only one slot for now)
• Tabbed controls
• Some behind-the-scenes stuff to get all of these features going

The old save/load test is still there by pressing ctrl+\

Goal for next release: Inventory + items

Once I have that working, tons of stuff for gameplay will open up.

[Chris Pavia]

Those creeps sure move fast!

[Triplefox]

Yeah, I haven't really done anything to tune combat or movement yet. I'm actually going to throw away the AI they use now and let the player decide when they invade so that it's possible to enjoy preparing, fighting, and defeating them. But final combat AI + tuning will probably wait until I have some equippable items and stats in place.

But since you mentioned it, I put up another build with slower and weaker creeps, so you don't have to be scared about wandering around

[Triplefox]

Another new build...

• Building costs resources now, clearing collects them
• Drag and drop (DragonDrop) inventory and equipment - equipment is non-functional right now...sorry...but it's fun to collect!
• Items are randomly generated when terrain is cleared (5% chance)
• Some backend stuff to improve future moddability
• I improved my build system, which means I can incorporate foreign APIs better now. Analytics are properly integrated in the swf now, instead of the hack JS thingy I was using before.

Next thing to work on, I think, is the village economy, specifically building defenses. Once I have some defenses to build and play with, I can do another pass on the combat and invasion AI.

In the process I'm also going to expose more stuff to build - more wall types, maybe more floor types if I'm ambitious, so there will be some changes rippling up and down the interface and backend there.

[Triplefox]

• Prisoners can be rescued by standing next to them(prioritized this since I was asked)
• Walls have "real art" now - may do another pass on it though
• Prisoners animate
• New build menu - this one is going to be "web scale"

[Triplefox]

It's here! The creeps can invade!

• Windows(that don't work yet, and will need another pass on the art)
• Four types of defenders now: Guards, archers, dwarves, and wizards. They don't behave differently at all yet. Each has its own marker type.
• New tab for "war," it's the little sword.
• Next Wave button under the war tab - press this and the creeps will plan and execute an invasion. While fighting the battle you will be unable to build.

It took me quite a while to get over the "Next Wave" hump but now that it's here, I can start thinking more about the content, balancing, and all that fun stuff


Edit: There's a bug with the invasions where the creeps will just restart their path too early, floating back to their starting position. Will fix sometime next week.
Edit 2: Figured it out, I think. Should be fixed now. Also tuned the pathing behavior a little.

[JobLeonard]

Not enough people are posting encouraging words.

Keep it up dude!

[Triplefox]

Thanks.

Today's update:

• Hp change numbers are shown as a "particle effect."
• Hp is recovered slowly over time.
• Targeting tries for the lowest distance instead of "anything I see."
• Projectiles go through windows
• Nice-looking windows
• JSON-based tuning data(not really tuned yet)
• Refactored pathfinding and AI behaviors...
• Creep invasion behavior is much better now.
• Movement is slightly smoother.

[Triplefox]

Today

• New projectile sprites
• Colored hp change text
• Line of sight is checked when targeting
• The different guard types have unique weapons. Not well balanced yet...the dwarf will destroy everything
• Range affects damage - "melee" weapons will do more damage at the edge of their range(more leverage) while "ranged" weapons do less. The archer tends to get 0 damage easily right now...
• Flag animates
• The last creep in a wave drops a key. In the future this will "unlock" nests and make them visible, where right now you can just march up to any nest and kill it easily.
• Tuned the creep path-cost heuristic a bit.

[Triplefox]

Small update. Ace of Spades has drastically slowed me down the last few days, and sent me into a fit of doubt over whether the game is "good enough."

• Nests are not visible until you unlock them with the key.
• Collecting the key shows a compass pointing you towards the nest.
• Next wave only re-enables after you've destroyed the nest.
• A bit more tuning and balancing.