TIGSource Forums

Current version:
(http://gamejolt.com/data/games/1309/screenshots/1309_2688.jpg) (http://gamejolt.com/online/games/strategy-sim/assemblee-flixel-tactics-working-title/1309/)

I liked the first one better
Also on the topic of adding the black outline during runtime, you could use a glow filter I guess

Thanks :P
This one is more achievable though, for various reasons.

Regarding outlines, I mean it would be possible to do it at the pixel level, as in SDL. Anyway, might be irrelevent since I might go with the Rebelstar/Chaos look.

I should be able to upload something tomorrow... I just want to fix some UI bugs and play about with the tileset a bit first.

Wow this... this is going to be awesome! Glad to see those graphics being put to use!

;):handthumbsupR: Cheers, mate!

I think you should use the iso-tiles that went with the character tileset, or just super simple b/w line walls.

Thanks guys!
(edit: I kind of want to avoid iso stuff as I don't really have much experience wrangling the numbers, so it would be a bit too time consuming. Also I like the Laser Squad 2.5D projection too much!)

New mockup (which I may not have time to convert into a playable thing today, might be next year ;))

(http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm90/tigshrimp/1bitmockup.png)

Features:

• yokomeshi's dudes,
• easyname's 1-bit tiles (repurposed in 16x16 form),
• ETG's gun guys and some tiles,
• xion's strangely nonchalant robo-skele-devils (who will be the main bad guys with 4 levels of strength/decay),
• Oddball's (Arne's) palette for colorizing
• More to come...

The characters still require a black outline but I'm sure it's doable. I'm also looking into procedurally one-bitifying some other little bits and pieces ;)

Here's a preview!

CLICK TO BATTLE... YOURSELF (http://gamejolt.com/online/games/strategy-sim/assemblee-flixel-tactics-working-title/1309/) :handmetalR: :handmetalR: :handmetalR:

There's no AI, so you have to play both teams.

The HUD is a mess, that's the next job (maybe). There will be some slide-on panels for the selected character and the targetted character, along with a % indicator for attacks.

There are two archers there, but no ranged combat yet ;)

There are currently a few non-assemblee placeholder things in there, they'll be replaced soon :)

The semi-PG map system is running. I have it almost set up so I can author the maps as PNGs and then when it loads them it will convert them into nice tiles. Currently it uses a single simple text file.

I've added sounds, mainly for a bit of feedback when attacking (although eventually there will be some nice yokomeshi-explosions as well).

Sound credits - may not all be used (yet), I got very confused with all the wav files:
  Stian Stark, pgil, FeebleTheMighty, Saros, Shaktool
Music:
  Atuun - "Flaut"

Tested, working well. White side won. Not much tactics to the tactical side of the game yet, but that'll come I guess. A double-pixel feature might be handy?

Thanks for testing! Yeah, tactics are absolutely minimal right now. In fact they might not be amazing in the final build, but we'll see... :)


It should currently be running at 2x zoom (400x320 game in 800x640 monitor pixels). Was this what you meant? I haven't tried changing the flixel setting at runtime, but if it doesn't like it I'll just compile a few versions at different zooms.

Sweet, I like the music and sound effects, can't wait for the finished version.
Good luck with your development.

I lost  :'(

Seriously though, great start. The visuals and sounds work together perfectly.

Wow, the green team is seriously underpowered in this.  But I guess for a beginner level it should be pretty hard to lose.

Also: The white text is really hard to read on the light grey turn-indicating bar.

Really like this so far, has a nice mood and feel to it. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Suggestions:
Needs a simple attack bounce or something.
Visible health bar next to each unit? or alternatively the ability to select any unit to see how healthy they are.
And obviously stuff like arrows and magic and all the other "content" stuff.

Sweet stuff!  The green team is pretty underpowered, but you definitely know that...


Yup, agree with this -- and for a "health bar" that keeps in line with your minimal style, you could try messing with the sprites' alpha values?  More transparent = more damaged.

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly the "HUD mess" I was talking about  ;)
The next version should have a near-finalised HUD/UI, so see what you think then...

Could you clarify this? Do you mean some movement of the sprite(s) during the attack or some kind of knock-back for the loser? (if knock-back then I am planning to add it for some creatures/attacks)

Heh, well, at the moment everyone has 1HP and the attack is just a kill/don't kill result. This is copying how Chaos* worked, although the game will probably end up not really suiting the 1HP idea. I'm not sure if there will be HPs or something more qualtitive like injured/KO'd/dead. Anyway, whatever it is, I'll make sure it's properly displayed!

(*play Chaos, Rebelstar and Laser Squad here (http://www.zxspectrum.net/)! They are listed by year of release, which are 1985, 1986 and 1988 respectively)

True, although the spindly bird things are pretty strong, the main problem for them is the big golem dude. Funnily enough when testing on my second PC, green won the first 3 times! I was getting worried that the RNG was machine-dependent in some mad way. Anyway, the main thing this proves is that it's too random right now. I might have to change the combat resolution system once the proper HUD makes it all more obvious what is going on.

Thanks for all the playtesting and suggestions! Really useful! :coffee:

I mean like, when a unit 'attacks' they just bounce up and down, or shake back and forth, or something to indicate they are 'attacking'.

oryx - yep, I'll hopefully implement that. I was thinking of just having sound + impact sprite, but it would be good to have that too.

Progress: I've mostly been working on the mission select side of things today, although I stupidly spend several hours working on an overworld map + "mission control centre" frame, and then when I put them in they just didn't remotely marry up with the spectrum-ish tactical view so I had to resdesign (and re-find assets) and start from scratch.

Here's the result (first pass version). Contains easyname's 1-bit tiles (again!), Oryx's 1-bit trees and tiles, and a few symbol bits from Oddball's font sheet.

(http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm90/tigshrimp/1bitoverworld.png)

Each city/factory/etc is a location where dynamically generated missions (assault, sabotage, rescue, etc) can become available. There's no "party" sprite on this map, you'll just click on the mission, go to a briefing/loadout screen of some sort and then go to the tactical map.

The monolith is supposed to be the in-game version of this (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9230.0), which will appear in the title screen/intro.
(clearly now I've looked again at Melly's original, I need to change the look of it a bit...)

I'll post up the abandoned version when I'm less annoyed at having made them in the first place ;)

Ok, due to illness and dayjob, I've basically got zero done since the last post, except another spectrumish rework and simplification of the world map.

So. I'm going to cut down the design to an arena tactics deathmatch/skirmish thing. Hopefully this will make it a bit less insane and more reasonable to finish in the time left (Saturday and Sunday morning, by the magic of timezones). I will probably do something based on Chaos's setup of each player having a wizard with the ability to summon a deck of creatures dealt out at the start of the match. Will be hotseat multiplayer and AI bots.

ZX Spectrum!!  :-* That's just great game! I like what you've done up to the moment!

I guess the health bar is not needed at all. There were not many livebars in ZX games and that's very stylish! You can give a few damage points to each creature (like golem has 3, archer 1 and so on) and add some qualitative states (injured, KO etc.)

That's pity we all do not have another month to polish up games. However, that is neverending process :)

Thanks AC... I reckon I can just about finish this, although I had to cut a ton of stuff. We'll see what happens after the compo ends.

New Chaos-like version:

http://gamejolt.com/online/games/strategy-sim/assemblee-flixel-tactics-working-title/1309/

I'm currently working on the game set-up screen - just click to skip the placeholder. Will hopefully finish that tomorrow and add some half-arsed AI :)

Screenshot for great justice:
(http://gamejolt.com/data/games/1309/screenshots/1309_2688.jpg)

Oh and lacking any name ideas, I'm naming after yokomeshi's spritesheet  ;)

Ok, I uploaded what I managed to get done - see GameJolt link in first post - but I'm not calling it finished.

What is there:
- game setup screen where you can add human and AI players
- very rubbish broken AI logic (if it gets stuck, fortunately you can click End Turn to unstick it)
- some stats set up for creatures, however they are mostly at default values which are far too defense-heavy
- very cut-down summoning mechanic - you have a deck of 5 summons that replenish. It's not really balanced

What there isn't:
- a map select screen - the default arena has a few fragments of wall just to show they exist.
- ranged attacks
- much fun (although setting up a match with 8 AI players is mildly amusing)

Hopefully I'm not so sick of looking at this that I'll manage to refactor the hell out of it and make a proper releasable game later, we'll see.

Any feedback on the general feel and direction would be great. I might switch it back to something more squad-and-mission based in future (maybe keep the arena mode for skirmishing)

Looking forward to playing the finished entries, looks like some real gems in there!!

Now:  :beer: