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[kierkle]

Anyone here willing to help playtest a prototype I've been working on in my spare time? It's a simplified RTS (build, farm, battle, etc.), that takes place on a grid, against up to 4 other players (or bots if I can't find enough players).

If you're interested, try it out and tell me what you think: What did you like? Dislike? What direction should I take the game in? (Should I go full-featured RTS, more 4X, more minimalist?) Any feedback is much appreciated.

You can play in the browser at: http://kierkle.io/
(Warning: programmer art and ui)

[Ramus]

I played it a bit. I like the simple setup.

• It feels a bit bland. Add some sound effects! BFXR and freesound.org make it very easy.
• A pause function (when in an all-bot game ofc) would be very welcome.
• Show tool-tips when hovering over buildings in the menu. I had to guess in the first few minutes of gameplay.
• Add an option for immediately starting an all-bot game.
• It seems like the bots don't do much other than build and farm resources. The occasional attack would be more challenging.
• I feel like selection and move orders should be more distinctive. They look the same now.
• Move and select should be two different buttons, at least on non-touch platforms

All in all, a fun little game that one would spend a few minutes on during breaks I think.
[Edit:] I bookmarked it, I want to see if I can win the next round I play :D

[Personman]

I like this! I would like to play against humans at some point.

I also don't totally understand the victory condition, and the rules don't state it.

[marcgfx]

you have to cover as much area as possible, as far as I could understand. as there were never any humans, it would have been nice to be able to skip the 30s period. it would also be nice to play 1v1, with a goal of destroying the other. It was disappointing to suddenly end with out a climax. selecting was quite difficult/tedious, I am using a macbook with touchpad.

[kierkle]

Version 2

Thanks for the feedback everybody! I agree with all of it and I’ve updated the game with some of it already. I have a full time job, so the progress is slow.

The goal of the game is indeed to cover as much area as possible, but each building gives a different point value (walls give 1 point, towers 5, camps 6, and your castle gives 30). I keep tweaking the stats although, so this will change. You can see the raw stats in JSON format here: http://kierkle.io/stats

Release Notes:

- New Building: Catapult. Use the catapult to lob a projectile that does AOE damage around it’s target.
- Added tooltips if you hover over any of the buildings
- Buildings can be built using QWER keys: should help trackpad users a bit

Next Week Goals:

- Button to start match with AI: waiting 30 seconds does kinda suck.
- Tweaks to the server
- Start to update the art

Future Roadmap:

- Update the Art: the idea is to have a variety of different armies (military, aliens, vampires, zombies, etc.), each with their unique take on the 4 buildings. I’ll start with a simple one: vikings. My art skills are pretty bad, so no promises.
- Upgradable buildings + a branching choice at the max level (allows for different troop types)
- Terrain: effects troop movement, building placement, etc.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Ramus]

Cool to see you're updating! I'll take some time to play ASAP. Looking forward to testing that catapult.

Note on my last post; I said that the bots didn't attack. But they do! The first time I didn't have an agressive playstyle and sat out the game a bit to see what happened. The second time I played way more agressive/expansive, and boy was I surprised that I got attacked! So I guess the enemy AI prioritizes according to point value or something like that. That's good. ( but maybe do a low percentage of attacks on lower point players for a "coup de grace" move? As long as it doesn't upset the balance. )

[Ramus]

I played another game!

1. Please please please add sound effects  
2. The clicking on the buildings to produce more minions is getting a bit tedious. Considering this is an action the player wants to do anyway, always, maybe just make it automatic?
3. Same for clicking each separate camp to have a minion attack, on desktop, the separate multi select button is too tedious to use.
4. The thing I'm getting at here is this: the controls are obviously meant for touchscreen platforms. I know it's boring, but please separate the controls for keyboard + mouse players and touchscreen players. Serving both with similar controls will not serve either well.

5. I like the new catapult. It's not what I expected, since I was quite surprised to see shots landing in the middle of my base all of the sudden! That made it harder for me to win, since I had to start focussing on the enemy's catapults. Bit weird-ish though, they only shot at my castle. And since that's quite strong, they hit it repeatedly, but were never able to destroy it. It would be way harder if they shot at my towers.



I've added a picture of my strategy here. Note that this round I didn't find the need to build catapults until the last 5-ish minutes of the game. What seemed to work quite well was the towers, those deprive my neighbors of their resources. Red and pink were not able to build new catapults very fast. The only one a had to be mindful of was blue, since they had 2 towers. ( I think I destroyed two by sending in big waves of minions, that's how I also dealt with pink and red's catapults ) Note the room around my castle. It was able to take all the hits and all my other structures were unaffected. I used the multi select a lot more in this game, but I'd still like it if I could use the right mouse button or something similar for it.

[Edit:] It would be cool if there was an "outlast" gamemode in which you can play for an unlimited time, until all other enemies are destroyed.

[kierkle]

Version 3

Thanks for the feedback. I really liked the screenshot, that seems like the optimal strategy against the current AI. You guys got me thinking about different win conditions to make the game more interesting - an outlast mode where the climax is you destroy everybody else will probably be more fun, but I think I'll need something to hasten snowballing and prevent stalemates (board powerups, bosses, squares start exploding bomberman style?)

Release Notes (it's not much - no real gameplay stuff):

• Start bot game button: as long as I've got an extra server available, why not?
• Added hotkey (QWER + Shift + Arrows) messaging
• Better build controls for browser (indeed game was meant to work with touch and mouse, but I should be more committed to keyboard/mouse)

Next Week:

• Continue working on art / making things look, feel, sound more interesting
• Upgrade levels to buildings