A Miner Adventure

by Forum_account
A Miner Adventure
Use a pick-ax and bombs to dig tunnels and build scaffolding to traverse the caves. Be careful, you'll never know what kind of danger you'll find!

More Progress Updates

ID:109274
 
Feb 8 2011, 11:55 am
A Miner Adventure

When I posted the update last week I had just started to work on the game again. The update isn't ready to be posted yet but it's getting closer.

In the last week I've implemented a generic way to handle game modes which includes support for mode-specific rules (ex: in this mode scaffolding costs money) and logic (ex: in this game you win when ____ happens). It also includes support for a custom HUD for each game mode.

Here's a screenshot from the "Tutorial" mode:



This shows that I've created a tutorial mode. It also shows the HUD at the top (the Health/Oxygen display). It looks similar to the old HUD but it's HTML-based, like the HUD in Exordium & Terminus. Pressing tab cycles through the HUD pages. This screenshot shows a different page:



Here is the display options menu:



These options are aimed at improving network performance.

I also added elevators and changed the way some sound effects work. I think I found some problems with sound effects that may have caused unnecessary lag in this game and Exordium & Terminus.

I still need to create the menu for creating a game and a way to handle game mode-specific options. Once that's complete I can add the different modes of play and start to work on medals. Most of the content is planned out I just need the time to add it.

Exordium & Terminus

I have most of the evolution upgrades for level 2 planned out and some for level 3, I just need to draw the graphics for them. I've also worked on some new tile sets so I can finish off the maps for levels 2 and 3. I still need to plan out the evolution upgrades for level 3.

RPG Sweeper

I spent a while trying to think of new ideas but came up with nothing. Any feature would just be a way of repackaging the same content (ex: new maps), it wouldn't change the game in an interesting way. For now, no progress has been made towards an update.

Other Stuff

I've had a DM project called "rts-framework" on my computer for a couple of months but for a few reasons I've started working on it more lately. The goal is to provide developers with a starting point so they can slap in some graphics, define some units and buildings, and have a working RTS. There is a lot of work yet to be done and I'm not sure it'll ever get to a state where I'd be comfortable with releasing it.
Feb 8 2011, 4:10 pm
I've had a DM project called "rts-framework" on my computer for a couple of months but for a few reasons I've started working on it more lately. The goal is to provide developers with a starting point so they can slap in some graphics, define some units and buildings, and have a working RTS. There is a lot of work yet to be done and I'm not sure it'll ever get to a state where I'd be comfortable with releasing it.

Inspired by an older post of yours, I gave a 'board game framework' some thought a while back. The main problem I encountered is that it's hard to tell when to draw the line between what the framework assumes (and so facilitates) for developers, and when it should leave them to their own devices. I eventually settled for creating one very abstract framework (which handled lobby functions, some non-interfering utility systems and the such), along with choice from a cluster of frameworks for specific board game types. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to doing anything with the idea.
Feb 8 2011, 4:24 pm
There will always be some assumptions that you need to make, but I'm hoping that content can be logically split between the framework and the demo that comes with the framework. The framework by itself is not a functioning game. The demo shows you how to use the framework to create a game. Developers with less experience can make small modifications to the demo to learn how things work, those with more experience can just use the demo as a reference that shows what the framework provides.

Aside from the design of the framework itself, I think the biggest obstacle is getting people to understand that they'll still have to learn things in order to use the framework.
Feb 8 2011, 4:35 pm (Edited on Feb 8 2011, 4:45 pm)
Aside from the design of the framework itself, I think the biggest obstacle is getting people to understand that they'll still have to learn things in order to use the framework.

This mentality was my primary concern. Ideally, a library (framework) should be easy to use at a basic level, but also offer depth for the more experienced developer. However, a design elegant enough to allow this isn't always apparent, and in such cases the problem is deciding on the balance between ease of use and depth. Especially around here, the framework needs to be both easy enough to use to hook a newbie (the competition is, I guess, a collection of readily-available compile-and-play 'frameworks'), and complex enough to appeal to most developers. Any framework basically -is- an assumption, but the question is, to what extent?
Feb 8 2011, 4:51 pm
I think this is the problem I'm seeing with my sidescroller and pixel movement libraries. They seem to provide useful functionality and people are downloading them (or maybe the same person is downloading them over and over again) but I don't see many people advertising creations that use the libraries. It's hard enough making things appeal to developers, it's even harder when you're given no feedback about why it's not appealing.

I suppose it depends on the genre. RTS is probably easier than RPG because if you say "this framework can make RTS games similar to Warcraft 2" there are a good number of existing RTS games that fall into that category. If you made a framework that can be used to create RPGs like Final Fantasy 1, there are many types of RPGs that are wildly different and totally outside of the framework's scope. For board games it's probably quite difficult to find a mold which fits most games.

I'd favor ease of use over depth. The framework should be appealing as long as the common features are completely handled by it or are easy to implement. There will always be people that exert less effort but expect more results. You just can't please all of the people all of the time. I guess the only real solution is to develop the board game framework if you intend to make a board game yourself - at least you'll have one satisfied user =)
Feb 8 2011, 6:49 pm
I eagerly await Exordium & Terminus updates!