CIRCUS MAXIMUS Chariot game PC/Mac free with A.I.

[gameleaper]

Hi I noticed the chariot game from matrix, and got me to remember I have a chariot boardgame for the PC and MacOSX with computer A.I. so to give some competition to matrix here is my free game, If you don't like Avalon Hills CIRCUS MAXIMUS you wont like it, the game is themed to be a boardgame.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/0f8c8eacm5c3ryh/Chariots62WinMac.zip

http://i39.tinypic.com/90dok3.jpg

[Jack Nastyface]

SPAM SPAM MALWARE SPAM SPAM

[Toonces]

I downloaded some of Gameleaper's other games and they weren't spam...

[gameleaper]

I forgot to put in the text file with the game, the secondry objective is to wreck your arch enemy roman chariot, just pick one, and attacking your own chariot can increase speed but at a price use at the ending of the race for speed.

[GJK]

Ok, downloaded and gave gameleaper's Chariot game a go.  This isn't bad at all really.  The makings of the functioning game are there, but it's missing elements that would keep you from playing it again and again; namely a "campaign" of race events, sound, music, animations, etc.

Initial suggestion is to show in the listing of chariots which ones the AI are controlling and which the player is controlling.  It took me two moves before I figured out that I was the green chariot.

I overwhipped my horse and broke and wheel and was thus out of a race.  I would suggest that at that point the game take over and just finish out the race turn by turn with no interaction by the player since he can't do anything to influence the outcome at that point.  After I was out of the race, I had no desire to keep clicking to advance the turn but I would be curious to see how the race progressed.

I never played Circus Minimus/Maximus or any other chariot racing game so I don't know what other options the player has in those games aside from whipping your own horse, whipping at a neighboring chariot rider/chariot and moving in or out of your lane (always going forward).  Replay is very limited because there's really not a lot to do here.  Obvious tactic is to get to the inside track, hope that you don't break your cart and just keep going.  Does the AI whip at your cart?  I didn't see any indication of that.

But as mentioned, the makings of the shell of the game is there.  Hell of a lot more than I could ever hope to code.  I hope that gameleaper keeps working on his designs.  More experience will continue to produce better and better games and then who knows, he may make a "Flashpoint Campaign"-esque game of his own some day!

[gameleaper]

GJK thanks, you have a great idea of what makes good games. I never thought of running the race auto if you wreck you chariot. the other chariots will whip you and other chariots, but May need more whipping added. I will update it I think, I want to add a selected chariot for the player to wreck. and work on the A.I. a bit. the players green chariot has (YOU) by it to show which is your chariot. I think over whipping may be to severe prob change that too.

Im glad you tried it, GJK your comments are truly helpful.

[Toonces]

My current goal is to be able to code games like you GL.  So far, I'm not even close, so you have my respect!

[gameleaper]

Toonces Thanks for the respect, Im sure you will get a game going soon,my first game was space invaders really fun learning how to do it. I saw the other chariot raceing game from matrix truly looks good, mine was a shelved project but got me looking at it again, I think GJK would make a great project leader if I was working in games programing, he has a great way of seeing things.

[GJK]

Oh thanks gameleaper.  Not sure if I'd be a great project manager or not but I have no problems picking out things that I like in a game and things that I think can be improved upon.  That's based on my personal experience and my preferences however.  By the way, I did pick up MaxBlitz based on your recommendation.  I haven't really had the chance to tinker with it yet however.  Perhaps one of these days soon, we can chat a bit about how you go about designing a project and coding that project.  I could use tips from you on how to get started.  One simple question would be coding a simple "path finding" app that would take a counter (unit, piece, whatever) and have the user be able to move it along a hex grid.  Next, I'd like to have that unit have x number of times that it can move (movement allowance) and then have each hex subtract 1 from the remaining number of moves left while certain hexes cost 2 or more each.  Simple stuff like that.  I'd love to work with you on some of that stuff!

[gameleaper]

Hi GJK, believe me you are a perfect games director, I would expect Matrix Managers to have less direction than you. I have a simple game with source code for blitzmax here http://www.mediafire.com/download/4dka6zx2d6566fx/TexTPrivateer.zip it show general ways of displaying graphics and how to store lots of data etc... only don't ask me about it , forgot everything I did already, its a long program as the star systems were just repetitive copy and paste code snippets, just use it as a guide, other peoples code always looks complex, but you build it bit by bit, the blitzbasic website has billions of code snippets to get bits from and the commands are listed in blitzmax for reference. I would advise doing a simple game first without complicated hexgrids ect.. just draw a ship and move it and fire it, and you will be hooked, from there on you need no help its addictive

path finding is a lot like go one way if that's blocked go a different way , so you check destination before moveing, the hexgrid has an x and y location for each hex, so if your target is higher x = x - 1 if your target is to the right y = y + 1, you decide up or down left right by a random 1 or 2,3,4 value so the movement looks natural. each hex has a set of properties , so a 100x100 grid would infact be 100x100x10 say, if would look like this in blitz hexgrid[100,100,10] the x coordinate on the hexgrid would be stored in hexgrid[1,1,1] = 10 the y like this hexgrid[1,1,2] = 12 examples. hexgrid[1,1,3] = movecost etc... then display the hexgrid on screen in a loop through all x and y drawimage(chits,hexgrid[x,y,1],hexgrid[x,y,2],hexgrid[x,y,4]) this means in plane English draw a chit at hexgrid X, hexgrid Y, the chit number, there are two Xs and Two Ys in this example the hexgrid numbers and the x,y coordinates on screen stored in the hexgrid

Blitzmax is very easy to build a gameup slowly, its Basic but with powerfull commands to do graphics. best of all games are only a couple of MBs when finished. you cant scroll over a large map you have to use tiles, like hextiles. I use MSPanint in XP SP2 to create Transparent PNGs.

[GJK]

Cool, thanks for that.  I'll download your sample and tinker around with it soon.  My pet project that I've wanted to build for years is a PC version of Victory Games' "Carrier" (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1679/carrier).  I think that Rekim or somebody else here as that same dream.  Heck, maybe we should all team up and work on that.  It has the "AI" built in already and I've already done all of the graphics for it (for the VASSAL module) so all that is left is the coding.  :)

[Toonces]

That was me.

If I get anywhere with it, I'll be sure to let you know and we can surely collaborate if you'd like.

There are any number of boardgames that would port to PC with a programmed AI; Downtown is another I have strongly considered.  I have a few other ideas as well.

I need to learn to program, first.  Getting to the level of Gameleaper would be a huge milestone for me.

[gameleaper]

I'm very much a free spirit when it comes to codeing, I may not do any code for a year then jump-in to a game, Its hard work codeing and Im old now and don't want to do it so much,I'm starting to lose interest in programing, so I would not like to commit to a project I wont be able to finish sorry guys, But I may be able to give pointers if you run into any bad problems. codeing isn't about programing, its about understanding the errors your compiler throws at you, and you generally need to be the actual programmer to know what you just did to cause the error. Im not an expert though.

There is an old saying if you can plot a dot of any color on the screen, you can do anything.

[Darkspire]

There is an old saying if you can plot a dot of any color on the screen, you can do anything.

That sounds like old ZX80 (with the ram pack wobble) words of wisdom.

Darkspire

[gameleaper]

That was me.

If I get anywhere with it, I'll be sure to let you know and we can surely collaborate if you'd like.

There are any number of boardgames that would port to PC with a programmed AI; Downtown is another I have strongly considered.  I have a few other ideas as well.

I need to learn to program, first.  Getting to the level of Gameleaper would be a huge milestone for me.

Toonces, All I do is simple stuff, just lots of simple stuff put together. Just draw a battleship in MSPAint , load it into blitz if you have it , use cursor keys to move it, then fire the guns. I promise its realy easy to build a program