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[Alex May]

Very sorry Magnnus, I have been updating the build over the last hour. I have no idea why you're crashing after the roots reach the cores... that's most odd. I'll have a think and get back to you in a few hours.

Sorry again about the download trouble. It should be OK now.

[Alex May]

Right I totally screwed up that release - sorry Magnnus. Please update to the latest patch with http://www.deadrock-game.com/files/Dyson-patch.rar which hopefully should fix your crash. Very very sorry about that.

[Magnnus]

No problem, I'm just glad to help out.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm sorry I didn't play this sooner, it's a great game. For some reason the voting process for these contests always takes place when I forget about these forums

Anyway, most of what I would say has probably been said above, so I'll simplify my thoughts on the game to a few points.

- I think the different statistics for each asteroid thing is kind of superfluous, if it were me I'd get rid of that entirely since it isn't that important to the gameplay and just complicates things.

- I found it very hard to determine how many trees were on an asteroid without holding my mouse over it. It'd be nice if there were some type of visual indication for this, so I know which ones I need to replant (my strategy was to keep the ones I conquered at 6/6 at all times).

- It'd be nice if grabbing on to a blank spot and moving the mouse "dragged" the screen, allowing scrolling left/right/up/down without the use of the arrow buttons.

- Early on, the talk of "power" and "armies" turned me off from the game and seemed to go against the peaceful aesthetic. This is only a minor tweak but I suggest rephrasing some of that stuff to "flocks" or "swarms" instead of "armies", and similar changes, to make it seem less warlike.

- I think the game needs more variety in level design -- like different asteroid fields. Some with only a few asteroids, some with more; some with only one color opponent, some with more, etc.

- When I conquered all the asteroids, a message popped up with two options. I had no time to read it but accidentally clicked on one because it appeared right under my mouse. What did that say? Did I ruin anything by clicking on it too quickly, and give up the chance for more levels or something?

- It'd be nice if the other color bird/insect things started with a few asteroids, so you could see their "base", rather than you being the only one that's actively spreading places.

- I expected the large circle in the middle to be some type of super asteroid / final boss, but was disappointed when it seemed to be nothing at all. Or perhaps that was because I clicked that message before I read it and missed out on something?

[Melly]

- When I conquered all the asteroids, a message popped up with two options. I had no time to read it but accidentally clicked on one because it appeared right under my mouse. What did that say? Did I ruin anything by clicking on it too quickly, and give up the chance for more levels or something?

It's a message telling you that you're victorious and asking you if you'd like to quit or keep playing.

- I expected the large circle in the middle to be some type of super asteroid / final boss, but was disappointed when it seemed to be nothing at all. Or perhaps that was because I clicked that message before I read it and missed out on something?

I guess that could be the sun.

Then again, you'd have to ask Haowan and Borsato to be sure.

[Alex May]

I'm sorry I didn't play this sooner, it's a great game. For some reason the voting process for these contests always takes place when I forget about these forums

Anyway, most of what I would say has probably been said above, so I'll simplify my thoughts on the game to a few points.

Thanks for the great feedback rinkuhero, I've been wondering where you've been for a while now

- I think the different statistics for each asteroid thing is kind of superfluous, if it were me I'd get rid of that entirely since it isn't that important to the gameplay and just complicates things.

I agree that it makes next to no difference as it is. We plan to make it a lot more exaggerated. The original idea, which we may still try to strive for in some way, was that the overall makeup of your output from an asteroid would be determined by what kinds of things you'd mined from it, so the properties of your seedlings would change over time.

- I found it very hard to determine how many trees were on an asteroid without holding my mouse over it. It'd be nice if there were some type of visual indication for this, so I know which ones I need to replant (my strategy was to keep the ones I conquered at 6/6 at all times).

Yes, also I personally find the popups intensely annoying and think that they jar with the game's atmosphere along with the rest of the UI. I would rather represent these things graphically.

- It'd be nice if grabbing on to a blank spot and moving the mouse "dragged" the screen, allowing scrolling left/right/up/down without the use of the arrow buttons.

The middle mouse button does exactly this, but who really likes to press their mouse wheel? Not me; I would like to put this in I think. It fits in with some of the plans we have to vary the size of the asteroid and generally make them bigger anyhow.

- Early on, the talk of "power" and "armies" turned me off from the game and seemed to go against the peaceful aesthetic. This is only a minor tweak but I suggest rephrasing some of that stuff to "flocks" or "swarms" instead of "armies", and similar changes, to make it seem less warlike.

That is great feedback thank you. The tutorial wasn't written in a terribly considered fashion but it really hadn't occurred to me that it was very contradictory. We'll have to redo the tutorial anyway as it's not a very good guide - only one step abve a readme or a page full of text really.

- I think the game needs more variety in level design -- like different asteroid fields. Some with only a few asteroids, some with more; some with only one color opponent, some with more, etc.

I'm constantly bothered by the idea that the ring-based gameplay might limit the true joy of this game, but we haven't experimented with different fields. Something for the list.

- When I conquered all the asteroids, a message popped up with two options. I had no time to read it but accidentally clicked on one because it appeared right under my mouse. What did that say? Did I ruin anything by clicking on it too quickly, and give up the chance for more levels or something?

It said "Congratulations. Your kind has prevailed against all others. You may continue playing if you wish.". We were going to remove this option as continuing to play is pointless, but I forgot / couldn't be bothered.

- It'd be nice if the other color bird/insect things started with a few asteroids, so you could see their "base", rather than you being the only one that's actively spreading places.

We'll be limiting expansion depending on the size of the asteroid you're on / how many trees you've grown/built. This should make the game a little bit more manageable and give the enemies a better chance to develop a base. The AI is a total hack at the moment, needs a rewrite.

- I expected the large circle in the middle to be some type of super asteroid / final boss, but was disappointed when it seemed to be nothing at all. Or perhaps that was because I clicked that message before I read it and missed out on something?

Yeah it's just a sprite It's supposed to be the star.

Thanks again for the feedback. We'll be starting a thread in Feedback soon for the next version of the game.

[Alex May]

We're "Internet game of the month" in this month's Edge.

[Terry]

Bloody hell - congrats, man

[Bezzy]

Nice one Haowan and Boratso! Your hearts are not at all cynical right now!!!

[Lim-Dul]

Holy cow! Somehow I wasn't too interested in this competition and while I tried several games Dyson escaped me for some time. Now I have played it, however, and man, this is EXACTLY the kind of game I like.

It's the kind of gameplay I call "Konquest-like". There are quite a few projects of this kind - Pax Galaxia, Mayhem Intergalactic and one game that has been posted on the IndieGames Blog or TIGSource the name of which I can't recall - but this one is very, very stylish.

At first it crashed after ~10 seconds of gameplay but luckily everything is alright now. ^^

Geez - it'd be so great if you managed to make the game multiplayer (like e.g. Pax Galaxia, which I played a lot on the internet).

Several "real" suggestions, though:

- the number of trees isn't displayed in the "big" statistics, that is the ones displayed when you click on the planet, not hover the mouse over it

- maybe you should add some "control keys" to the clicks. While holding down the right mouse button is OK, I'd like to have the option to e.g. ctrl+click or alt+click on an asteroid to select increments of 10 and 50 seedlings respectively - I know that other games of this kind do it that way

- as to the visibility of trees - maybe they shouldn't scale as fast as the rest of the objects, so that while completely zoomed out you'd see a small asteroid with (comparatively) large trees on it?

- while I agree that so far the asteroid stats don't have much impact on the gameplay, you could make some visual indicators as to what type of asteroid you are dealing with - a similar system is in place in Pax Galaxia. What I have in mind is e.g. coloring the asteroid a bit in the shade of its most dominant statistic. E.g. if the asteroid were to be slightly reddish (its ownership is displayed by a halo anyways) you'd immediately know that its "strength" stat is dominant.

That's all for now, I think.

P.S. Does anybody know more "Konquest-like" games (turn-based or real-time)? I'm talking about games where you have planets and send ships (other stuff) around. I kinda collect them. Many years ago I started my first Linux-dual-boot setup only to get access to KDE and Konquest. ^^

[Alex May]

Holy cow! Somehow I wasn't too interested in this competition and while I tried several games Dyson escaped me for some time. Now I have played it, however, and man, this is EXACTLY the kind of game I like.

It's the kind of gameplay I call "Konquest-like". There are quite a few projects of this kind - Pax Galaxia, Mayhem Intergalactic and one game that has been posted on the IndieGames Blog or TIGSource the name of which I can't recall - but this one is very, very stylish.

At first it crashed after ~10 seconds of gameplay but luckily everything is alright now. ^^

Geez - it'd be so great if you managed to make the game multiplayer (like e.g. Pax Galaxia, which I played a lot on the internet).

Several "real" suggestions, though:

- the number of trees isn't displayed in the "big" statistics, that is the ones displayed when you click on the planet, not hover the mouse over it

- maybe you should add some "control keys" to the clicks. While holding down the right mouse button is OK, I'd like to have the option to e.g. ctrl+click or alt+click on an asteroid to select increments of 10 and 50 seedlings respectively - I know that other games of this kind do it that way

- as to the visibility of trees - maybe they shouldn't scale as fast as the rest of the objects, so that while completely zoomed out you'd see a small asteroid with (comparatively) large trees on it?

- while I agree that so far the asteroid stats don't have much impact on the gameplay, you could make some visual indicators as to what type of asteroid you are dealing with - a similar system is in place in Pax Galaxia. What I have in mind is e.g. coloring the asteroid a bit in the shade of its most dominant statistic. E.g. if the asteroid were to be slightly reddish (its ownership is displayed by a halo anyways) you'd immediately know that its "strength" stat is dominant.

That's all for now, I think.

P.S. Does anybody know more "Konquest-like" games (turn-based or real-time)? I'm talking about games where you have planets and send ships (other stuff) around. I kinda collect them. Many years ago I started my first Linux-dual-boot setup only to get access to KDE and Konquest. ^^

Thanks for the feedback Lim-Dul!

A very similar game (the one you mentioned perhaps) is called GalCon. Great game.

The tree head up display will be removed and we'll have a more graphical display.

I don't mind adding keys but I'd like to keep the mouse interface intuitive. More intuitive than it currently is! We need to think about that.

The trees actually do scale in the way you suggested. But they fade out quite early. We need better LOD on them, which is tied into how we'll represent how many you have when zoomed out.

Yep, we'll be working on how the asteroid stats are represented. Not set in stone yet how we'll do it though.

[Lim-Dul]

A yes - GalCon was the game I didn't remember the title of. Of course I know it!

While I agree with the intuitive mouse interface I don't see how giving advanced players the option to control their seedlings a bit quicker would make it any less intuitive - it's not as if these keys were required to play the game.

The things you're working on sound promising. Keep it up! I would have donated something if I didn't have trouble with PayPal (as usual) - they have a bug in their system that doesn't allow me to re-activate my account after a "routine security check" and I've been battling with their stupid support staff for the last two weeks. -.-

If the asteroid stats play a greater role in the future: since currently seedlings inherit the stats of of the asteroid they have been produced on (which is logical) the game might become quite messy when you're not able to distinguish where the seedlings you're controlling came from. Maybe you should settle for a less realistic but viable option of making the seedlings inherit the stats of the asteroid they are currently on. That would amount to a similar gameplay to all the games I have mentioned (especially GalCon and Pax Galaxia where you have planets that are offensive or defensive etc.) and you could launch attacks e.g. from a asteroid that has an especially good strength stat.

Ah - there's another "visual hint" that might be needed. There is no quick way to check an asteroid's energy except for clicking on it and when you are attacked on several fronts this might be a problem. Maybe an "ownership" bar as seen in many, many territory control games would be a solution? It could be at the bottom of the hover box. Grey would mean neutral and all other colors would belong to the various sides. Then, it'd "slide around" once your seedlings would start attacking the core.

Then, there's a random idea that might only complicate the game and I'm not really insistent on: how about making "supply routes". I mean, making an asteroid send all its produced seedlings to another one automatically. That would be a behavior similar to Pax Galaxia, which, mind you, has quite different gameplay, especially since the universe is discreet, not continuous, so you have predetermined routes.

P.S. How exactly do the stats affect the seedlings and asteroids? Energy seems pretty clear to me - asteroid HP and seedling HP. Strength seems clear in the case of seedlings - but is it kind of the "defensive value" in the asteroids' case? Speed - does it control the speed at which the seedlings are produced as well as the energy regen? For seedlings it's their, well, speed, I guess. ;-)

P.P.S. How about making an icon for the executable? It looks ugly in my Steam games list (yes, I use Steam as a "launch center" for all my games =).

[Lim-Dul]

After failed peace talks with the red swarm yellow considers its strategic options. ;-)

[Rudolf Kremers]

Great stuff Lim Dul :-D
Will reply saturday when I can think again (just got home VERY late after a long day but am delighted with the feedback. :-D

[Synnah]

Congratulations on the Edge mention, guys! Thoroughly deserved.

It took me three attempts to complete Dyson. My first attempt was interrupted, but I learned a few techniques that would be useful, like shifting seedlings to a single asteroid to bypass the limit of 32, and the Colonisation Run. I still got rolled over in my second game, however. I think my mistake was attempting to reclaim asteroids of mine that got taken over, instead of forging onwards. Also, is the number of enemies random? In my second game I encountered about 5 other colours, whereas in the third I saw only 2. Chances are the other teams got wiped out before I could discover them. I feel like I got a bit of an easy ride in my third game, at any rate, so I'll definitely be playing again.

[andre-yu]

I loved this game.

Suggestions:

During travel, flies should like get distracted by enemy flies and probably fight if they encounter flies. This would stop like, travelling through loads of enemy asteroids unharmed.

I think flies should take random paths to the core. Developed planets would take longer to conquer this way. And also, it would be cool to watch flies take random paths and eventually popping out on the other side of the planet or something like that..

Harder AI, and.. yeah.

[Alex May]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I've opened up a feedback thread in the Feedback forum for the game.

Mods: Should I lock this one now? Or leave it open?

[Krux]

You have used the Tao library, that makes the game perfect for a Linux port. If i can help you with it, please let me know it.

[Alex May]

Thanks Krux, I've been trying to get it (or at least, Cottage of Doom) working on the Mac with little success. There's a dependency on kernel32.dll for QueryPerformanceTimer, but I think I only need that for debug, so I'll try to take it out for the next build, at which point there shouldn't be anything in the way of running it on Linux.

On the Mac, it's a matter of packing it up into an .app file, which is doable but not so easy for someone with no bash-fu, and I don't know how to get any information out of crashes; the window flashes up and disappears again and gives me no more info.

[Krux]

i think it is the easyest way, to start the Game from a terminal. Just enter these two commands:

Code:

cd /path/to/Dyson
mono Dyson.exe

Of course you have to correct the first command, but then all mono runtime crashes will be send to the Terminal.

hope that could help you.