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[jeb]

Hey TIGSource!

We've made another game prototype. This one's called Horror Tactics and is a tactical move'em'up kind of game, inspired by Space Hulk.

Download here: http://www.oxeyegames.com/files/HT/HorrorTactics.zip

Some teaser pics:




Readme copy-paste:

Code:

   CONTROLS
   
You move one squad member at a time using the ARROW KEYS. The member will run as
fast as possible, but will not be able to shoot while running. Press and hold
SHIFT to move more carefully. When you hold shift the squad member will keep his
facing.

Switch between members with TAB or the number buttons (1 through 8).

The squad members will fire their weapons automatically when they have an enemy
in sight.

To move down or up through stairs, move the member so that he touches the stairs
and press ENTER / RETURN.

Note that it's very dangerous to go to a new floor alone, so you can also hustle
your whole squad by grouping them close to the stairs, and then press SHIFT+ENTER.


   EQUIPMENT
   
The RIFLE is carried by privates. It's probably the best weapon since it can hold
off large numbers of ghosts.

The SHOTGUN is used by the captain. It's slower, but has the benefit that it will
almost instant-kill enemies that show up around corners at close range.

The PISTOL is the worst weapon. It's only useful in self-defense. It's carried by
the medic and the communications soldier, since they need a free hand to operate
their other equipment.

The SCANNER is carried by the communications soldier, and is used to give hints
about the enemies' movements.

The RESTORER is carried by the medic and will heal any soldier that is standing
directly in front of the medic. The medic will also use the restorer to heal
himself.

Things I forgot to write about in the readme but am to lazy to re-upload:

F11 - Take Screenshot
Alt+Enter - Switch to fullscreen
The whole prototype is written in Lua, so you can edit the source files if you want to adjust difficulty or other settings.

[Dacke]

Pretty neat!
I mostly feel the need for some kind of visual indication of the units' field of view. It was a bit difficult to figure out what areas I were covering at any given moment.

[increpare]

yes i like this!

like space hulk indeed, but considerably less brutal from what I've played so far : D

(also good to see something new from you)

[george]

I loved the controls on this, and I like it without the field of view in fact.

This was very playable even at 5 FPS  , I had to move it to my secondary screen because of the window size -- would changing the size be as simple as editing the tile and map sizes in gameState and map.lua?

[increpare]

This was very playable even at 5 FPS  , I had to move it to my secondary screen because of the window size -- would changing the size be as simple as editing the tile and map sizes in gameState and map.lua?

Easy way to find out!

[jeb]

I loved the controls on this, and I like it without the field of view in fact.

This was very playable even at 5 FPS  , I had to move it to my secondary screen because of the window size -- would changing the size be as simple as editing the tile and map sizes in gameState and map.lua?

Hey

No, actually that would mess up the game. Changing map size would break the map loader, and changing tile size would actually change the physical properties of the game (it's box2d in the background).

What you need to do is to change the _width and _height values in main.lua. However, if you make the window height too short, you will get some rendering errors in the squad member list.

5 FPS sounds really bad though... sorry for not optimizing this...

[george]

OK, changing map size works -- can play it on the laptop now so speed is back to normal. 

[shrimp]

This is great! Really looking forward to seeing where you go with it 

I got to about level 4-5 when my comms guy died, I'll have another go later.
I'd agree that some sort of indication of field-of-view would be nice. I guess a "full" version might have some sort of lighting system anyway which would probably do it.

Controls were good too, although I had a couple of issues:

It sometimes became a bit of a dangerous and unfair/artificial-feeling handicap not being able to move more than guy at once. I'm not sure if this is solvable - maybe some special key (like Walk, that I discovered very late) that drags any touching teammates along with the controlled soldier. I realise that you can do something a bit like this already by pushing your teammates, which I did use a few times. Maybe it's just a matter of more cunning use of the pushing trick by the player

In fact, having played a bit more, this is mostly a problem when you want to just hustle the whole team into position, or rush for the stairs or something. Pushing wouldn't work in this case.

Coming out of stairs seems unfair, even using shift-enter. I haven't died yet because of it though.

The other one is that it might be nice to have some kind of "panic button" to switch control to someone who just got bitten... sometime i end up punching all the number keys frantically trying to find the guy who got snuck up on.

OK, I just got to an extremely awesome bit... gotta get back to that... event...

Woohoo! finished!

[jeb]

Wow cool, Ed! Congratz on beating it! 

All your points are valid. I added the "hustle down stairs" feature fairly late (today), and when I started testing it I felt like... "oh gee, this feels really rewarding". So more special features like that, for sure

[Kinten]

[quote author=Ed link=topic=9367.msg291727#msg291727 date=1258924087

The other one is that it might be nice to have some kind of "panic button" to switch control to someone who just got bitten... sometime i end up punching all the number keys frantically trying to find the guy who got snuck up on.
[/quote]
Great idea!

[shrimp]

Cheers guys! To be honest, I would say the "panic button" is not as important as some sort of "group-move" ability*, and some sort of extra thing that happens when emerging from stairs... it always seems like the medic stumbles out into a vulnerable place and there's a scramble to swap him with a rifle guy.

(*I'll PM you a little story about when I really felt I needed this, I don't want to do any spoilering)

[starsrift]

I enjoyed this, it reminded me of X-Com, moving the units from position to position and making sure they had enough room to shoot something that popped out.

It seemed a bit limited in terms of squad selection - I didn't feel the need to select all of them at once, the pace of possible choke points and addition of soldiers to block them was just right, for me, but I would've loved to be able to select a specific unit rather than tab through all of them to get to the one I wanted. (number keys mebbe?).

The screen barely fit on my laptop monitor, too - would've been nice if it was a little smaller or resizeable.

I found the story hard to follow - when the guys would start speaking, I was more inclined to nervously watch the screen for more ghosts and make sure the dudes were positioned properly rather than read the text.

Looking forward to see what you do with this!

[Dacke]

get to the one I wanted. (number keys mebbe?).

I have now magically added this to your game. No need to download a new version. You are welcome 

[starsrift]

I have now magically added this to your game. No need to download a new version. You are welcome 

Holy cow, that's AWESOME!

*facepalm* Idjit me.

[jeb]

I added a playthrough clip in case you want to see the game but cba to play it (totally understandable!):