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[eobet]

Yes I did, but I never liked it. 

High-five!

Wait, what, why? The match making and interface did suck, but what was wrong with the game itself?

[DrDerekDoctors]

Just don't like that format of strategy game, with the simultaneous moving. I like literal turn-based stuff.

[happymonster]

Neither do I, so don't expect to see any of that new fangled simultaneous moving! Let's have good old British turns where we all respect one another properly and do everything in the correct orderly manner!

[happymonster]

It Scrolls! (Don't sue me..)

Ok, now we can scroll the map around using either the arrow keys or the right mouse button and panning around. I will have to implement some reverse direction panning. It just feels more natural to me to move the mouse in the direction you want to scroll in, rather than the opposite as with Google Maps.

In implementing the scrolling, I realised that it didn't look as smooth as it should and so I've implemented smoothing factors to the movement. However it still wasn't as smooth as I wanted so I've done a big rewrite of some of the engine code. Now, if I have no other programs running (Browser, Email client, etc..) I get a quite solid 120fps at 1280 x 960. Not sure what else I can do to make things smoother when other programs are running and dropping the frame rate at irregular intervals though.

I'll see if I can improve things a bit more and then I want to look at auto-loading and saving of maps.

[happymonster]

Ohh.. I think I've addled my brain by trying different ways to improve the scrolling. Now my eyes hurt and the world keeps moving! 

Time to take a break for tonight!! 

[happymonster]

I'm currently thinking of saving the maps without any kind of encryption or anything like that. Although I'll probably use compression via gzip, but would like it be easy for maps to be externally modified if people want to. I don't think it matters for this kind of game if people change things in the maps..

What do you think?

[negativeview]

Definitely allow the player to modify to their hearts desire in single player. Without the relatively easy ability to make world editing tools and such, entire sections of the Minecraft community would never have formed. In multiplayer there's a valid reason to restrict it, in singleplayer, not so much. If players want to cheat themselves out of the game... meh.

[happymonster]

That's what I think too. Really the file sizes for maps won't be massive even without compression. It might be easier just to have them as easy to modify as possible if people want to do that.

[DrDerekDoctors]

Definitely allow user modding! In fact if your editor is nice, I say include it. I remember me and my mate James writing editors for Laser Squad and Lords Of Chaos on the SAM Coupé which poked into the emulation snapshot.

[happymonster]

Oh I do intend to include it. It's always nice to be able to make your own maps and edit games.

My main job has been very busy lately, but from tomorrow onwards it should be quieter than I have more mental energy for programming and drawing the graphics. 

In the meantime I've still been mulling over different ideas in my head.

[CrazyMLC]

Hey there happymonster! I remember you from pixelation, cool to see you're working on a game.
I really like X-Com, so I'll be looking forward to this. Good luck with the project!

[happymonster]

Thanks!

Even if I'm not good for much tonight after work, I've at least managed to improve the camera. Now it will accelerate towards the new position and then decelerate smoothly when it gets close to the new location. This all happens quickly, but makes the movement feel smooth, whilst still feeling accurate and that you are in control. At least when I test it..

This kind of work is very important to me, it has to feel right else I won't like to play the game, nevermind other people! It's all these little bits with tweaking and testing that might not appear obvious but can have a big impact on the overall feel.

[happymonster]

Map-making

Christmas is almost here, and I've now got auto-map saving and loading implemented. 

The way it works is that when you start on a blank map the viewing area is actually in the centre of a 256 x 256 map. Once you have drawn a map the game will analyse the map to see what part of the larger 256 x 256 map has any newly drawn tiles on. Only this part of the map is saved, and when it is loaded again the map is placed automatically in the centre of the large 256 x 256 map.

This makes it easy to expand and shrink existing maps, whilst only saving the area that's relevant.

Does that make sense?

[happymonster]

Shadowlands

I am using a shadow effect in the game to make the walls and other objects look a bit more solid and 3D'ish.  One problem with this is that the angle of lighting to make the best shadows (probably top left, shadows going down right), also means the lighting is behind most objects. This means that if we try to have semi-realistic lighting then the front of walls and other graphics will all look quite dark.

Clearly, this wouldn't look very appealing, so like the Matrix we have to bend the rules and make the gfx look a little lighter then would normally be the case..

With that decision out of the way, we also have to look at the shadow direction. One of the most common (and effective) is the shadows falling to the bottom right of objects. However I tried this, and it just didn't work too well for me. Not sure why. So in the end I've gone for a small shadow cast to the bottom of objects. This lets me use a shadow around the bottom of our soldiers / enemies as well without worrying about it overlaying other graphics to the right.

However one thing I have added is a soft edge to the bottom of the shadows. It does help might it look softer and I know it is now commonly used in games. Not sure if I've seen it used in this kind of genre before.

Next I want to get highlighting of units when selected, and start to do the selection logic so we can look at moving units around. 

[happymonster]

Just want to say Merry Christmas Everyone!!