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[Zoltam]

ROBOTIC MELEE

A simple multiplayer online game with robots and explosions.

You can play on web browser, it's made with flashpunk. Play here. (Move=Arrows | Rotate= C, V  | Shoot=Space)  
If you want to test it, open several windows of the game, to see several robots moving around.

It will not be the best game of this competition. I just want to make my first MMORTS game (although maybe not very Massive, not much Real Time and not much Strategy   ).

[tzachs]

I took it for a spin, the movement is smooth, so nice one on that, but is there anything to do except moving?
If there's a button for shooting, I didn't find it, so I guess it wasn't implemented yet...
The robot sprite looks cute, btw.

[Zoltam]

Now you can shoot an play with other users. I update the game when I improve it.

I wanted to make dummy enemies controlled by AI, but that's much work, so probably I won't do it. So you need to play against another player online.

It would be great if several players test it at a time, and have some feedback about gameplay, ideas for improvements and so on.

[eigenbom]

had a quick play, some comments:

- speed up the robot walk speed and turn speed (by 2x?)
- add strafing (very important!)
- speed up the explosion animations (by like 5x)
- add a laser trail, so you can see more easily where your shot is going

i'm looking forward to seeing where this heads

[moonmagic]

Just talked to you in your chat program. I find this game really cute! I agree that it needs strafing, and some kind of weapon that bounces (ala combat) to make hiding behind walls riskier.

[Zoltam]

Updated: Now it's quite playable. Added a score system, lateral movement, laser to aim, and faster explosions.
Also added dummy robots, but the game is much better when there are several players online (the AI robots are not very clever).

I know the speed is not very fast, but that's the limit speed to play real time online. If I try to speed it up, things happen at different moments for different players.

[eigenbom]

nice!

i'm not sure how much time is left in the comp but here's some more suggestions:

- i had a bit of trouble with the movement controls, maybe 'wsad' for forward,back,strafe and arrows to turn?
- speed up the explosion animation

As for speeding things up..

Could you work on reducing or compressing the network data to increase the speed? This could be something as simple as

- compressing robot positions to a byte per axis
- sending robot rotation every second instead of every frame (as it is less important)

And to increase responsive, a simple client-side prediction should help a lot. I used it in my last game, and it went from sluggish to fast. The drawback is that on slow connections robots prediction glitches will be more visible, for for most of the time it should feel a lot more responsive at no extra network cost.

[charlestheoaf]

Pretty fun! The movement system could be tightened up, but I enjoyed it. Set a new high score! Unless that was just my personal high score :p

[Zoltam]

FINISHED: Changed keys (Move=Arrows | Rotate= C, V  | Shoot=Space). I chose the keys to rotate, C and V because the are quite close to Space. I was not happy with WASD and arrows. Also speeded explosions, added music and some minor changes.

I have tested how to improve the client-side prediction, and adapt it with ping time, but the results were not very succesful. Now there is not time for improvement with the deadline, but I will try to improve next versions.

Thanks eigenbom and moonmagic!! Your tips were a great help!
And thanks to Nathaniel Edwards for the music!

[eigenbom]

I just jumped on then but found that the keys are the same: 'a,s' strafe, 'arrows' move, turn. Did you forget to update the binary?

[Zoltam]

I could be wrong, but I think the binary is updated.   I have tested again and again, and now it works with Arrows=move,  C,V=turn  
Try to refresh your internet browser, maybe it is remembering with cache file... but that would also be strange, as I have changed the url of the link.
... or maybe there is a time paradox and you are reading the new changes today, but you are playing the game yesterday in another universe... That would be a much more funny explanation!    

You are right. I had updated the links from the first post, but not the one in the last post.  

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Increpare, Terry Cavanagh, Sophie H and I tried this game for a while.

- Robot movement is weird
- Stephen likes the music
- players didn't seem to die, goal was vague.