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[Average Software]

I have an exciting new demo available for Franchise, the game of restaurant warfare.

This demo includes the configuration program, which has a wealth of display options, from windowed/fullscreen to normal/widescreen aspect ratios to full framerate control.  The framerate control loses accuracy at higher rates, but it's close enough up to 500 FPS or so.

This demo includes the first 5 maps of the tutorial campaign.  The first 4 of these were in my previous demo, but they were redone to take advantage of an event scripting system that I wrote.  This should make the tutorial maps much more informative and understandable.

All of the graphics are placeholders at this time, lifted from the campaign editor.  There are some graphical oddities with the text in a few places, such as words running off the edge of windows.  These issues will be fixed once fonts and interface details are more concrete and I don't really care about them now.

Here are some screenshots for those that are interested, WARNING:  these pictures are big, 1.2MB or so each:

A supply duck unloading a wage slave on an island:


A pair of SUVmarines bombard enemy TMMWVs from offshore:


The game is mostly mouse driven.  Left clicking selects things, right clicking (or control-clicking, for Mac users) will scroll the map to a hex.  The mini-map in the corner is also mouse navigable.

There a few keys to be aware of as well:

The arrow keys will scroll about the map.
The C key will move the map to the active unit.
The H key will move the map to your headquarters.
The return/enter key will skip to the next map, for convenience.
The escape key will quit the game.

The last map has some enemy units on it, and the AI is terribly primitive at this point.  If they see something they can attack, they will, otherwise they just sit there.  There is also no graphical representation of combat at this point, so it can be difficult to tell when you are attacked.

Windows and Mac builds should run as is, the Linux build is for 32-bit x86, and requires OpenAL, Gtk, FreeType, Ogg and Vorbis which are common on most Linux distros.  The project is built against libpng 1.4, which some distros aren't shipping yet, so you may need to acquire that.

Download links:
Linux
Mac
Windows

The campaign editor (GPL, complete source code included) is also still available from my website.

Bang on it and see what you think.  The Linux version has gotten the most testing since that's my primary platform, the Windows and Mac builds have had considerably less.

Next demo, I'm aiming to have all game features implemented and local LAN play up and running.

[Xishem]

Technical Stuff:
Windows Vista, 64-bit
2.1GHz dual-core
4GB RAM
Radeon HD 3200 (2GB)
I averaged around 145 FPS in windowed, and around 70 in windowed mode at 1440x900.

The concept of the game is nice, and I could see it getting somewhere.

However, a few things that I didn't like:

I'm not a big fan of the very little usage of the keyboard. It's tiring to be moving the mouse around so much when you could very easily add a few shortcuts for things like moving, attacking, or building. Using the mouse would obviously still be an option if the played wanted to do so, but some people would rather use the keyboard. You have a keyboard, why not use it?

The tutorial levels also seemed a bit long-winded. I don't know if you plan on these being in the final product, but to me it seemed that the player gets the concept you are trying to teach him, and then some. Maybe a bit too much some. This may also have been attributed to the annoyance I had as I contracted arthritis from moving the mouse around so much (to be fair, I was using a touchpad, but all the same).

Also, I'm not a big fan of primarily using the arrow keys to move the view around in a strategy game. It's fine to have it as an alternate (as sometimes it is nice to have the extra precision of the arrow keys), but I would prefer being allowed the usage moving the pointer to the edge of the screen, and having the screen scroll that way (like in games like Warcraft and Starcraft).

It was also sometimes difficult to determine which unit was actually selected to be doing stuff. I realize that you can hit "C" to go to the unit, but, especially when the unit is amongst quite a few other units, sometimes it is still difficult to tell which unit is selected.

Some of the symbols and acronyms in the game are also somewhat cryptic.

What does ADSM mean? Attack/Defense/?/Magic? I don't know. It's just sort of a guessing game. And maybe you explained this in one of the tutorials, and I just missed it. I'm not sure.

There are also various aspects of the HUD that I don't really know what's going on with them. What do the (+#) after things like money and whatever the thing in the top right mean?

Also, when selecting a unit to produce, "5/10/20 Production" is pretty cryptic. I did eventually get it, but it was fairly confusing at first.

The order in which units had their turns also seemed random. Were they?

Don't take all this criticism as negativity The only reason I spent this much time replying is that I see potential in it.

Also, do you have a team to work with on this, or are you planning on doing all aspects of the game development by yourself? If so, perhaps its time to start working on the sprites and things as they seem pretty place-holdery, especially the unit sprites. Never mind this. I just saw the part of your post about this.

Edit: Strangely, I get an error message *only* when I run the game from my start menu (As in, I search "franchise" and run the .exe from there).

This is the error:
"Exception name: FONT_MANAGER.LOAD_FAILURE
Message: graphics/fonts/luximbi.ttf"

[Average Software]

I'm not a big fan of the very little usage of the keyboard. It's tiring to be moving the mouse around so much when you could very easily add a few shortcuts for things like moving, attacking, or building. Using the mouse would obviously still be an option if the played wanted to do so, but some people would rather use the keyboard. You have a keyboard, why not use it?

There will be many more keyboard shortcuts eventually, I just haven't gotten around to doing them yet.  The GUI system has stubs in place for them already.

The tutorial levels also seemed a bit long-winded. I don't know if you plan on these being in the final product, but to me it seemed that the player gets the concept you are trying to teach him, and then some. Maybe a bit too much some. This may also have been attributed to the annoyance I had as I contracted arthritis from moving the mouse around so much (to be fair, I was using a touchpad, but all the same).

I'll evaluate the tutorial lengths again as I get closer to release, everything is still in flux at this point, but I'll keep their length in mind.

Also, I'm not a big fan of primarily using the arrow keys to move the view around in a strategy game. It's fine to have it as an alternate (as sometimes it is nice to have the extra precision of the arrow keys), but I would prefer being allowed the usage moving the pointer to the edge of the screen, and having the screen scroll that way (like in games like Warcraft and Starcraft).

This is another thing I was planning on doing eventually, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

It was also sometimes difficult to determine which unit was actually selected to be doing stuff. I realize that you can hit "C" to go to the unit, but, especially when the unit is amongst quite a few other units, sometimes it is still difficult to tell which unit is selected.

This won't be an issue when the real graphics are in place.

Some of the symbols and acronyms in the game are also somewhat cryptic.

What does ADSM mean? Attack/Defense/?/Magic? I don't know. It's just sort of a guessing game. And maybe you explained this in one of the tutorials, and I just missed it. I'm not sure.

Attack/Defense/Speed/Movement.  The full game will have documentation for all that.

There are also various aspects of the HUD that I don't really know what's going on with them. What do the (+#) after things like money and whatever the thing in the top right mean?

The (+#) is income rate, I thought that one was obvious, maybe not.  Many games of this type do that sort of thing.  The thing in the top right is a production progress gauge.

Also, when selecting a unit to produce, "5/10/20 Production" is pretty cryptic. I did eventually get it, but it was fairly confusing at first.

This was actually explained in this first tutorial map, Civ veterans will pick up on it right away, too.

The order in which units had their turns also seemed random. Were they?

They're semi-random.  People always move before vehicles.  After that, the order is determined by a sort of initiative roll based on the unit's speed.  It's loosely based on Shining Force.

Don't take all this criticism as negativity The only reason I spent this much time replying is that I see potential in it.

Not at all, it's appreciated.  Most of the things you pointed out were things I was planning to do anyway.

Also, do you have a team to work with on this, or are you planning on doing all aspects of the game development by yourself? If so, perhaps its time to start working on the sprites and things as they seem pretty place-holdery, especially the unit sprites. Never mind this. I just saw the part of your post about this.

I have a partner who is working on shaders and 3D models.  We just don't have any of that ready yet.

Edit: Strangely, I get an error message *only* when I run the game from my start menu (As in, I search "franchise" and run the .exe from there).

This is the error:
"Exception name: FONT_MANAGER.LOAD_FAILURE
Message: graphics/fonts/luximbi.ttf"

Hmm, must be some kind of working directory error.  I'll check that out, I think I know what's causing it and how to fix it.

[Xishem]

Ah, yeah. I'm not exactly a Civ veteran, though I have played it a few times. Those things make more sense now.