Vehicle Wars Progress Report #8

ID:81517
 
Sep 7 2009, 7:41 am (Edited on Sep 7 2009, 8:02 am)
Keywords: game
Though I've probably been working more at burning out from Champions Online than working on my game, my game is not forgotten. I'm still working on improving it while I'm at school and between homework and other obligations.

I'm currently in largely a brainstorming phase. I now have the essential framework in place, but I'm now thinking heavily in terms of player interaction. It would be easy enough to just stitch up the game and let the players poke and prod, but the substance is thin.



In the meanwhile, I do have a little treat for anyone who might be watching the game develop: a video of it in action. Clumsily captured by an unregistered FRAPs, washed out to prevent rips (like my screenshots have been thus far) and draped over with music I sequenced myself to cover up for the fact there is no audio yet...

... but I think it nonetheless shows off why I really could not stop development of this game if I tried.
Sep 7 2009, 7:57 am
Looks great and the sound track was a perfect fit. :)

Will the swarm always work outwards in a circle?

Was that base an underdeveloped base?

Have you tried a multi-player session over the internet yet? Performance seems like it would be a major concern.

The swarm alone has so many moving objects. I wonder if it would be feasible to halt their "animation" (not there work) when they are not on screen. That might require a major design change. Actually, it should be stated as, "animate only when in the players view."

Anyway, looks fun.
ts
Sep 7 2009, 8:01 am
It's fun to watch, but I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.
Sep 7 2009, 8:08 am (Edited on Sep 7 2009, 9:34 am)
Will the swarm always work outwards in a circle?

For the time being, yes. The victory condition of the Natives (swarm? You know - I might just hold a contest to name them something better) is to take over the entire map.

Was that base an underdeveloped base?

It was constantly being built. You can see a bit of yellow as the second layer was being built right before the natives overtook it.

Have you tried a multi-player session over the internet yet? Performance seems like it would be a major concern.

That's a worry of mine as well... I'm not sure if BYOND's really capable of efficiently delivering that much movement.

However, in the event it can't, I guess I could always just beef up each individual member of the Natives by 10x, require 10x more resources to make one, and just have 10x less. Currently the game is weighted so they taper off after about 1000 of them are active. 100 spread wide across the map probably wouldn't kill the game.

The swarm alone has so many moving objects. I wonder if it would be feasible to halt their "animation" (not there work) when they are not on screen. That might require a major design change. Actually, it should be stated as, "animate only when in the players view."

Hmmm... I suspect BYOND does this by default, but it's to say.

It's fun to watch, but I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.

For the time being, that's part of the mystique. ;)

I will tell you this much though: there's two factions being presented here. The first are the "natives," which are basically alien morphers which are consuming and expanding over the terrain. The second are the "terrans," who have established a base so they can collect resources.

In the movie, the natives pretty much consume the Terran base alive. Even with turrets blowing them away as they advance. Even though the Natives don't have any combat units or the common sense to keep away from areas which are dangerous yet - they just sort of plow over it with their relentless advance.

You see, they consider anything that isn't barren land to be edible... the unlucky Terran base is quite edible.
Sep 7 2009, 8:21 am
Geldonyetich wrote:
Will the swarm always work outwards in a circle?

For the time being, yes. The victory condition of the Natives (swarm? You know - I might just hold a contest to name them something better) is to take over the entire map.

Was that base an underdeveloped base?

It was constantly being built. You can see a bit of yellow as the second layer was being built right before the natives overtook it.

Have you tried a multi-player session over the internet yet? Performance seems like it would be a major concern.

That's a worry of mine as well... I'm not sure if BYOND's really capable of efficiently delivering that much movement.

However, in the event it can't, I guess I could always just beef up each individual member of the Natives by 10x, require 10x more resources to make one, and just have 10x less. Currently the game is weighted so they taper off after about 1000 of them are active. 100 spread wide across the map probably wouldn't kill the game.

The swarm alone has so many moving objects. I wonder if it would be feasible to halt their "animation" (not there work) when they are not on screen. That might require a major design change. Actually, it should be stated as, "animate only when in the players view."

Hmmm... I suspect BYOND does this by default, but it's to say.

It's fun to watch, but I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.

For the time being, that's part of the mystique. ;)

I will tell you this much though: there's two factions being presented here. The first are the "natives," which are basically alien morphers which are consuming and expanding over the terrain. The second are the "terrans," who have established a base so they can collect resources.

In the movie, the natives pretty much consume the Terran base alive. Even with turrets blowing them away as they advance. Even though the Natives don't have any combat units or the common sense to keep away from areas which are dangerous yet - they just sort of plow over it with their relentless advance.

If you need it, I'm available for perf testing the internet side of things as needed.

I'd suggest starting with the worst case scenario and then having your tester join.

ts
Sep 7 2009, 8:34 am
Tsfreaks wrote:
If you need it, I'm available for perf testing the internet side of things as needed.

I'd suggest starting with the worst case scenario and then having your tester join.

ts

I appreciate it. The time will definitely come.

Right now, I've got a game that plays itself to demonstrate the systems are working. I've put foresight into adding support for the players playing it - the GUI elements are pretty much built and half-way coded, for example - but it's not exactly a game players would log in and play, yet.
Sep 7 2009, 8:37 am
Geldonyetich wrote:
Tsfreaks wrote:
If you need it, I'm available for perf testing the internet side of things as needed.

I'd suggest starting with the worst case scenario and then having your tester join.

ts

I appreciate it. The time will definitely come.

Right now, I've got a game that plays itself to demonstrate the systems are working. I've put foresight into adding support for the players playing it - the GUI elements are pretty much built and half-way coded, for example - but it's not exactly a game players would log in and play, yet.

Understand perfectly. Although, my suggestion would be to leave all the UI and interaction out of it for your tester. Just have them join and be an observer of perf. This avoids a lot of the distractions and interference a "player" would introduce.
Sep 7 2009, 8:42 am
Tsfreaks wrote:
Understand perfectly. Although, my suggestion would be to leave all the UI and interaction out of it for your tester. Just have them join and be an observer of perf. This avoids a lot of the distractions and interference a "player" would introduce.

The way my game is coded as a sort of an open and largely destructible environments and tons of NPCs swarming around wiht somewhat randomized, lifelike behavior, it's funny to think that I might have accidentally stumbled into creating something where players distracting and interfering with the thing might actually be robustly supported natively. ;)

That said, I know what you're getting at here: see if just having a client logged in would present nasty problems with trying to send the data around, especially with all those units flitting about. It's an important hurdle to overcome before one should dare introduce a player with expectations to have fun.