next »

[happymonster]

Wow! How did I miss this yesterday??!

http://kotaku.com/5873348/x+com-returns-to-turn+based-strategy-with-enemy-unknown

[happymonster]

Well, for some bizarre reason which I don't fully understand myself, I've managed to name my first test unit: Captain Islambard Steeplejack 

Hmmm! 

[happymonster]

Turn around when possible

I've been thinking about the movement mechanics the last few days. After having worked on Chaos Funk and Chaos Groove I appreciate the Chaos style of movement which is very simple but works nicely. This is basically that horizontal and vertical movement is counted as 1 movement point, whereas a diagonal move is counted as 1.5 movement point. This leads to a circular style potential movement area which makes sense as in real life but doesn't bother with costs for turning.

X-Com and Laser Squad however used the 4 action points (ignoring terrain costs for now) to move, 1 action point to turn 45 degrees method. This was more realistic when turning around and checking corridors for aliens, etc.. However it also meant that the potential movement area could be a square which is actually less realistic.

So, I've been wondering if I can somehow combine the two? Perhaps with more cost for moving diagonally, but still having costs for turning 45 degrees.. Any thoughts?

[Yodhe]

In my game I use a far higher overall number of action points, with a cost of 3 to make a turn 45 degrees, and anywhere from 10 up for forward movement, depending on other factors such as terrain. Diagonal and cardinal movement are treated the same.
This thread has provoked to me to think that I need to change the FOV of the units from a 90 degree arc to an almost 180, for unit that aren't wearing gasmasks/helmets. Infact you just provoked me to realising I need a variable FOV arc in my game for various situations, and units.

[happymonster]

Any reason why you settled on 3 and 10 points?

I hadn't thought about the FOV issue either..

Glad to hear there are a few different turn based tactics games with devlogs here. And they all have different themes: Fantasy, Apocalyptic and Sci-fi.

[happymonster]

Mental note: Pathfinding in an area of roughly 12 x 12 should not do checks on 24,000 tiles.. Idiot! 

[happymonster]

Button Moon

Ah! Now we come to musings on game interfaces and design.

It seems to me, (although I am not a professional interface programmer), that interfaces in games went through 2 phases. The first phase was heavily button based, normally the screen was segmented into view areas and control (button) areas. In this era I am thinking of games like the original Command & Conquer, X-Com, Diablo I and II, Starcraft I, etc.. While there was interface aspects in the main view (selected unit icons, damage bars, etc..) the main focus for the interface was away from the view area.

As time progressed and it became easier to do transparency and glowing images over the main view we start to see more highlighting in the main view, such as movement areas, shields, etc.. (Starcraft II and Civilization V does this to some extent) and a reduction in the number of buttons present on the screen. This is also because as complexity increases it leads to more and more buttons which can reduce the view area visible anyway.

The advantages of shifting to an interface overlaid over the main view is that it can help reduce both the amount of button controls needed as well as provide more information to the player at a glance (showing movement areas). Having indicators overlaid over the main view also keeps the player from splitting attention between two different parts of the screen.

The disadvantage is that the main view becomes more cluttered and can be obscured - it also trades complexity in the button view for complexity in the main view. It's a balancing act and can make things even less approachable to the new player than having clear buttons.

Nevertheless I am a firm believer in the more dynamic interface overlays in the main view approach. I tried to do this in Chaos Groove and minimise the buttons and it really helped (IMHO).

I will do the same if for this game, although it will be harder because there is more complexity in the movement and attacking that in Chaos (directions to face, line of sight, different types of firing). Still I think you will find that I push the interface towards this direction much more than I've seen in any other turn based game (although I haven't been keeping upto date with them recently, admittedly).

I'll talk more about this in the future.. 

[Yodhe]

The reason I went for a higher number of action points, is that in my game I currently want to hide the "statistics" to put more emphasis on strategy and tactics than maths, which in my opinion coming from a pen and paper RPG background, killed RPGs. In fact it makes me want to slap people around the face with a very large wet fish when "people" reduce CRPG to leveling up, experience points, and skills, with +67 adamantium power rocket launcher of the golden mages. Tbh, it is quite clear that these people seem to me, to know little about roleplaying, or rather are just abusing the RPG term in its marketing sense, to "sell their product" to a certain audience.
Hence there will be some "stat" representation, but I want to make it more vague, or rather less numerical, than take 2 hit points and you die, and little bars to show much health the enemy has left.
I also personally believe that you end up with artificial constructs such as "healing potions" and their ilk, which make mathematical sense but too often destroy the roleplaying element in the game. For example just the idea of "morphine" instead of the standard healing potion, opens up a whole gamut of game possibilities to add depth, and flavour. OD'ing on health potions?

That isn't to say that "number watching" doesn't have its place in the plethora of games out there, just not mine. Of course this might alienate and put off some people, as I know plenty of people who love the whole stat thing, and back-in-8-bit-day I too loved such things, but it was the roleplaying that I loved more than what used to get called "power" or "rule-playing" gaming.

I also brought a copy of Laser Squad Nemesis which I have never played before, so I am also looking forward to plundering that for inspiration, as JG's game have been a massive inspiration to me.

I do want to add like you, I think it is fantastic there is so much "home-brew" talent at the moment and I am looking forward to giving your game a go soon.

[happymonster]

Thanks for the support! I'll be following your devlog too..

I agree with you about stats, I think that if you are number juggling just to work out if you can move one more square and still fire (as you had to do in Laser Squad) then it's too much. X-Com stopped that with the reserve time units options. Similarly upgrading loads of values by small amounts with constant levelling up and that level of detail that's in some RPG's is not something I favour really either.

[Miguelito]

All this sounds truly... fascinating.

You seem to have put tons of effort in the game already. Have you found an artist, or are you going to do everything yourself? I know for a fact that you're extremely competent, so the latter route would be equally viable, I guess.

Anyway, I can't wait to see some of the game in action as well. All the best!

[happymonster]

I've sent you an email Miquelito, but at the moment I'm focussing more on the game programming and design side than the graphics.

[happymonster]

Move your feet.. to the rhythm of the beat

Hurrah! You can now move your units (and enemy ones at the moment) to new tile squares! This is all done with smooth pixel based movement rather than tile jumping. At the moment they face the new direction instantly which will need to be changed so they turn to face a new direction. Also because there is no animation they do have a tendency to look like they are gliding or ice skating. I had to fix a few issues with clipping when they move behind and in-front of other graphics (walls, other units), but this was remarkably easy really.

Still it feels very good to me (I am biased, so take what I say with a pinch of salt), and this is going to be an absolutely amazing game!!   

[happymonster]

Well, the first ingame screenshots of the new XCom game from Firaxis have been released on the net and my reaction was similar to many posting on the official forums.. Disappointment.

Maybe it was the choice of screenshots, but the only ingame shot of the tactical part of the game was shown at a rather unfriendly (for tactical decisions) camera angle. The Interface (which I was looking forward to seeing) is the now far too familiar holographic light blue, instead of something more interesting. Additionally it seems to be for the XBOX version and so doesn't make much sense without more details as it's not clear what all of the icons and bars mean, and is based around a controller rather than a mouse.

Ironically perhaps this is a little bit of payback for me for praising the benefits of using an overlaid interface rather than something similar to the main view.. however this is certainly not what I had in mind and is NOT how my game will look or work. 

So, we really need more information and pictures, but my initial hope for the game has been dampened quite a bit.. 

[happymonster]

My plans to do more programming today have been thawted by a strange (and rare) VC 2010 bug. Not quite sure what happened, but the icons to run a build from Visual Studio disappeared and Ctrl + F5 (the shortcut to run a build) stopped working too!

I tried a lot of things and did forum searching around the net, but in the end I had to use the reinstall option which meant I had to redownload MSVC and then set things up again.

Oh well, maybe I'll have time tomorrow!

[happymonster]

Actually not really much more time today! 

I've mostly been thinking about the style of the game, I like both Laser Squad style one-off missions and X-Com's story based approach. I'm having difficulty with thinking how best I can merge these two styles..?

In Laser Squad it didn't really matter if all your guys but one died as long as you won the mission. In X-Com you start to care about the characters (even if little more than a name, stats and a history) and so tend to reload if your best men die.

Any thoughts guys?