next »

[Quarry]

cartography

MY WALLETS

[Eigen]

cartography

MY WALLETS

I shall not be held accountable for features that might not be implemented in the end.

I just need a pretty way to represent the map, also something that would make deforming it inaccurate easy. Verticessomethingsomething probably. We'll see.

[Quarry]

I'd rather have places far away from you use randomized pixels rather than an actual disortion

[Eigen]

On the map, you shouldn't be able to see any further than the areas you've explored. I'm not sure if the map should be generated automatically or not. One idea is that you pick the character with cartography skills and then click "draw up map" and it draws up a piece of map in a certain radius of the character. That would get tedious I think. A better solution would be that the map drawing happens automatically but it takes time, so you need to stay in one area for a while. The longer you stay put, the more accurate the map is. How accurate the map should be and if it's even needed at all is up to the player.

[IndieGamesDig]

It's cool to finally play this. There's alot to like with the graphical style and music (especially once it gets going).

Do you need to click End Turn every time you run out of moves? If so, it'd be more convenient to automatically end the players turn or have a popup or hotkey for to move to the next turn, just to streamline things when you're just trying to walk or sail.

Also, will there be any way to traverse treelines? I think it'd be cool if you could maybe move through trees, but it'd consume more moves. Are you planning on having people walk through trees, or just chop them down to move through.

And finally, are you planning on animating more things than just the boat and water, like the people (walking) and trees? At that one point in the song where it sounds like wind, I was really in the mood to see the trees rustle or sway.

Can't wait to play once more features get implemented 

[Eigen]

Thank you very much

Do you need to click End Turn every time you run out of moves? If so, it'd be more convenient to automatically end the players turn or have a popup or hotkey for to move to the next turn, just to streamline things when you're just trying to walk or sail.

I thought about it. Automatically ending the turn doesn't quite work because you can several characters to control. There's no way to tell if the character you're moving should end the turn after it has done its thing or if you want to move around with the others as well. I'm really used to pressing the E key so there's rarely any slowdown when moving for several turns. What if there was togglable option for a short countdown timer (2-3 seconds maybe), so when you complete the move and don't switch to another character (which cancels it), the turn is ended.

Also, will there be any way to traverse treelines? I think it'd be cool if you could maybe move through trees, but it'd consume more moves. Are you planning on having people walk through trees, or just chop them down to move through.

At first I considered trees impenetrable when not cut down, but slowing down the movement trough it (should cost 2-4 moves perhaps, depending on the density) makes sense too. And of course, you will have axes and stuff to chop down the trees. The slowdown in movement was planned for swampland and such from day one actually.

And finally, are you planning on animating more things than just the boat and water, like the people (walking) and trees? At that one point in the song where it sounds like wind, I was really in the mood to see the trees rustle or sway.

Yes, of course. It's just that animation is really not my thing. With characters on such a small scale it shouldn't be too difficult, as there's only so many pixels to push around, but the trees and such are probably quite challenging. I spend ages just trying to draw the darn things.

[oyog]

I notice the animated ships wake continues onto land.

[caiys]

I don't have time to play this right now but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this, it's shaping up rather nicely.

[IndieGamesDig]

Thank you very much
I'm really used to pressing the E key so there's rarely any slowdown when moving for several turns. What if there was togglable option for a short countdown timer (2-3 seconds maybe), so when you complete the move and don't switch to another character (which cancels it), the turn is ended.

Oh, ok, there was a hotkey. No that help alot then, although, a timer might be useful too...but only after your selected character is out of moves and you're not pressing anything, and 2 seconds seems too short to me...might be frustrating if I finish moving one char, then stop to think, then lose my moves with the other explorer.

I think one easy thing to do is, once one char is out of moves, to automatically select another (especially if they're out of the boat), then automatically end the player's turn if they're out of moves, sort of like Civilization or something.

With characters on such a small scale it shouldn't be too difficult, as there's only so many pixels to push around, but the trees and such are probably quite challenging. I spend ages just trying to draw the darn things.

I see, but even a 3 frame animation could end up looking cool. And to make a tree look like it's being blown slightly by the wind could maybe be achieved by moving a few pixels, maybe even in a fashion similar to the way you did the water. Just a suggestions ofcourse, such a decision is a matter of art-style preference, unanimated trees would be more retro charm, but I just found myself in the mood for some more visual stimulation while I was exploring.

I used to make sprites by just taking stills from an image, like, if you are behind the idea of adding animations for the trees, find a video of a blowing tree, then cut a few frames from it, pixelate the crap out of them in Paint.net or something, and then cartoon them up alittle if they still look too realistic or don't fit with your other sprites.

Again, there's already alot to like there though.

[eobet]

The tech demo is really nicely animated.

One thing which bugs me to no end, though, is the inability to scroll the view by using your mouse, either by moving the cursor near the border of the screen or by right-click dragging.

Also, one would think that the view would follow the selected unit during its moves, so one wouldn't need to scroll manually at all...

[Houndninja]

Downloading the tech demo now! I'll tell you what I think once I'm done with it!

[jonarkanix]

Wow, looks great and the videos have sold me on the game. Downloading the tech demo now!

[Eigen]

Thanks everybody and sorry for the lack of updates. It's been a busy week and I haven't gotten much time to do the things I've wanted. Still, I made an options screen for changing the resolution and toggling full-screen mode, map mouse scrolling, made the view follow the selected unit and bunch of other stuff. The ease of changing the resolution and toggling full screen with SFML surprised me pleasantly. *Snap* and it's done. With some 3D engines, you have to reload the textures and what not.

This morning I checked the download count for the tech-demo and it had nearly doubled over night. It's now an impressive 80 downloads, which for me is ... well, impressive, given this things is barely anything. "What gives", I though, "Is the counter broken?".

Turns out this had appeared

I'm really happy that someones sees a potential in this, in such an early stage nonetheless, and is willing to share it. Thank you, Cassandra Of course the video in the blog is the very first dev-video, so really crude stuff.

Also, try-outtable build for the Macs, anyone? I'll build it up when I get to work.

edit: The link for Mac version of the tech-demo is now in the first post

[s_l_m]

Man, I have to say this looks awesome. I am flashing back to pirates hard just by looking at the screenshots. Keep up the good work 

[IndieGamesDig]

Congrats on the indiegames.com nod. I actually have a draft post about Pioneers ready on my site but was waiting for you to add a build with more features before I hit publish; figured you'd not want too many people playing a demo build with little more than walking around.