The Grid - A Tron Related Project

ID:181305
 
Dec 27 2010, 10:19 pm (Edited on Dec 28 2010, 6:49 pm)
I have always had a love / interest for Tron. So after seeing Tron Legacy, I really wanted to do a small mini-game for BYOND based off of that... it would just host the Light Cycle game, and Disk Arena... However this simple idea evolved a bit more...

I thought of the idea for... "The Grid" (the name obviously taken from the recent movie...)...

Background info
Users will create a program (Program being code for your player), in creation you just set a name, the gender. Originally I wanted to have the user select the color that appears on their player, but they will have to deal with Blue, as "enemy" AI will be Red, and your program copy may be yellow (maybe..). (Colors based off of what they were used for in the movies).

In "The Grid" you can challenge other players to a game of Light Cycle or Disk Arena, and you can play Space Paranoids single player (unless I find a way to make it multi...).

Rankings
There will be a counter for total wins and losses, along with separate wins and losses for the games.


The AI
This will be the hardest part of the game, and also the last part to be worked on. My idea is to be a bit true to the original Tron... The Programs are like people, when you aren't using them they're still around and doing stuff.

To make this idea work, I had a thought. Whenever a user logs off, a copy of your program remains live on the game. This program can be challenged by the online users to play the games. This requires a good AI system...

So for example if you were to play something like Light Cycles, it would play the game with you, but you want the AI to be good, well here is my idea.

When you are playing the games yourself, the game will record every move you make, if you win your matches these moves are saved in a list, inside of another master list. When your program plays, it will randomly select your winning moves, or create its own. Of course there will be some object detection to make sure it doesn't hit the walls or anything. That way, the NPC can come as close as possible to copying the users skill level. Any wins and losses will be added to your wins / losses, and if your program makes any winning moves, you will be alerted with a list of its moves and for how many tiles it was in each direction, etc...

This same idea would apply to the other games, however I think it is light cycle that requires the best AI for it.

My final goal for the AI would to make an AI so amazing and great, that the game can essentially "Play itself", meaning that the NPCs could challenge other NPCs.

I have bought several books on AI and such for me to read and go over. I really want to see this through because it allows me to work on something so hard, yet with something easy like light cycles.

Not an RPG
Some people have asked me if you can explore the city and such... No, this is not a Tron RPG, you log in, you're in a lobby, you play the games. As of now, I do not intend to make such a thing.


Some UI

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridChallenge.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridCreate.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridError.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridLoadProgram.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridNaming.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridProgramDelete.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridUI.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridStart.png

http://files.byondhome.com/EnigmaticGallivanter/TheGrid/ TheGridProgramProperties.png
Dec 27 2010, 11:00 pm
It might be just me but I am having a hard time reading the text in those images. You might want to change up the style.
Dec 28 2010, 12:31 am
Yea, I've often wondered about things like that. If you could pull this off then I would consider you a god :D

Good Luck.


<<<<<<<<<<<<
http://dungeonquestbyond.webs.com/
<<<<<<<<<<<<
Dec 28 2010, 1:27 am
Model your game on games like Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Majesty, Theme Park, etc.
Dec 28 2010, 6:32 am
In response to Twin II
Me too. It looks nice but the font is hard to read.
Dec 28 2010, 11:52 am
In response to Toadfish
Really? I read it pretty well...

I am really stuck on that font because it really does fit the theme, is there anything I can do to make it more readable? I don't really want to say I am too stubborn to edit it, I just really like it how it is, but it should be readable...
Dec 28 2010, 12:17 pm
In response to EnigmaticGallivanter
Well you made it so of course you can read it because you already know what it says.

I think the reason I am having a hard time reading it is because of how the font was made. The space between each letter is the same distance that is used in the shapes of some letters; for instance, one letter could be made of 2 or 3 different shapes and the space between those shapes is the same as the space between each letter(or pretty close). So at first look, my brain just sees a bunch of random shapes and doesn't even recognized that they are supposed to be letters.

Anyways, its a cool idea but I don't think the AI part is going to go too well.

But it would be pretty cool adding in new games or arenas for people to challenge each other in. And have rankings for each and global rankings.
Dec 28 2010, 1:22 pm
In response to Twin II
Well of course players can challenge other players. In little "rooms". Rankings should be obvious because of the win / lose counter.

As for the AI, I understand it will not go as planned, and if it does it is just going to take a long, long time, but I've got time because I just want to make a great system, and I have a few people helping me out on this.
Dec 28 2010, 5:13 pm
This is the unoriginality that is killing BYOND.
Dec 28 2010, 5:19 pm
In response to Vermolius
Vermolius wrote:
This is the unoriginality that is killing BYOND.

damn right it is, and right now... I'm sorta ok with that because at least it isn't a rip...(aside from a "rip" of ideas).
Dec 30 2010, 11:54 am
I added a bit of organization to this.
Dec 30 2010, 1:49 pm
In response to EnigmaticGallivanter
EnigmaticGallivanter wrote:
Really? I read it pretty well...

I am really stuck on that font because it really does fit the theme, is there anything I can do to make it more readable? I don't really want to say I am too stubborn to edit it, I just really like it how it is, but it should be readable...

I feel like spacing the letters out ever-so-slightly more might help.
Dec 30 2010, 6:07 pm
I also at one point started working on an isometric Tron game based on the bikes, it would be really easy to do something like that in Byond. Then, I thought to myself, "There are so many BETTER ideas I can come up with, than something out of Tron."
Dec 30 2010, 6:26 pm
In response to EnigmaticGallivanter
It's not the font itself, but the color that makes it hard to read.
You need a different color besides the background color, like making the inside of the letters white.
Dec 31 2010, 12:05 am
In response to Maximus_Alex2003
Maximus_Alex2003 wrote:
It's not the font itself, but the color that makes it hard to read.
You need a different color besides the background color, like making the inside of the letters white.

I swear I sound stubborn, but I am trying to keep the TRON (legacy) style of text and "art", so filling in the letters most likely won't happen, but I will try to fix up the spacing!