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
SPAM SPAM MALWARE SPAM SPAM
I downloaded some of Gameleaper's other games and they weren't spam...
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
QuoteThere 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
Quote from: Toonces on October 26, 2013, 06:29:35 PM
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
Quote from: Darkspire on October 26, 2013, 08:07:14 PM
QuoteThere 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
ZX81 :) but I started on mainframes , but you know your stuff Darkspire. "Hello World"
ZX81? That came after the ZX80, and was more of the same, makes me laugh with all the RAM folks have these days :)
I shall say no more other wise we will both be put in a museum :)
10 print " Hello "
20 goto 10
Darkspire
Ok fixed all kinds of things, first whipping has a lot more to it, you see icon and message when someone whips then the result message. Whipping has doubled in the amount of time the chariots get to whip. Totals have increased to allow for more excitement with whips, and to allow you to whip your own horse more.
A.I. has had a major update, I had not touched this project since it was shelved a while back , so sorry for the late update.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0f8c8eacm5c3ryh/Chariots62WinMac.zip
I've fixed the points you guys said, Now you can only do damage to your horse when you whip your own horse, the horse strength has been increased to give you the possibility of whipping your horse more. I've let the race auto run after you have wrecked your chariot. I've lessened the stumble horse effect, and introduced flinched, and sand in your eyes to slow you down at times.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0f8c8eacm5c3ryh/Chariots62WinMac.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0f8c8eacm5c3ryh/Chariots62WinMac.zip
http://i39.tinypic.com/90dok3.jpg
Ok I've finished and tested FINAL version(for Now :) Drastic changes in the A.I. , now the A.I. will seek in inside lane, speeds are now from 0 to 2 then 3, so it really feels like a race, no more random lane changes, the A.I. will overtake even at Maximum speed. I promise you this version is totaly differrent from my earlier version A.I. its a totally differrent race
If you add a ten best scores table that will keep scores between games I will put it next to solitaire on my quick launch bar :)
Darkspire
:) I think something like that will be in a future update Darkspire :)
QuoteI never played Circus Minimus/Maximus
And I thought you are a...Grog...*sigh* :P
QuoteI think GJK would make a great project leader if I was working in games programing, he has a great way of seeing things.
He has...he's one of those I 'met' online over the years whom I consider a true Grognard...that means...he is totally dedicated to The Hobby and he has many skills that moves this hobby forward (mods for Vassal and Zun Tzu and such)...and he's a nice guy (he's unfortunately too far away for having a beer over a debate about counter clipping or not counter clipping, but if I - a Kraut- would have a beer with him...that means something...although you Americans can't understand that...you drink...Millers or so :P )
I primarily drink wine coolers and white zinfandel but I'd be up for a game of ASL with you any time Andreas. ;)
Actually I and my girl had a major break in ASL awesomeness...too many games...not enough time...writing reviews and such...but we plan to be back soon :)
Ask if she would be interested in having a threesome some time. I'll let her pick which side she wants. ;)
First the cruel thing with the two forbidden words 'Up Front' (twice!) and now this 'threesome picking sides' stuff...heck...I thought we were online friends... ;)
I was being Up Front about the threesome in ASL. Heck, I'll even let you guys play the Germans. ;)
Ah...how generous Gary, thank you very much....Germans always start great and then lose...wow...you are da friend, homey!!!
Ok, started tinkering with the graphics a bit. The chariots need to be done but here's a tease:
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.garykrockover.com%2Fuploads%2FChariot.jpg&hash=f6937027e3c89224ad9159c34207ed8219073095)
Quote from: gameleaper on October 30, 2013, 03:02:23 PM
:) I think something like that will be in a future update Darkspire :)
Thank you :)
Darkspire
Played it last night. More suggestions for improvement:
1) My chariot got knocked out on about the 5th lap and the game continued moving the rest of the chariots - great job! However, they kept going and going and going. How many laps is a race? Suggestion: Add "of x" on the lap counter screen (ie., "Laps = 5 of 20").
2) Add the option to choose how many laps you want to race for in increments of 5.
3) If you could have the racers sort in order (running in first down to last/out of race) in the Lap screen after each "turn", that would clear up any confusion in the event that a chariot gets lapped.
4) Instead of listing the chariots as "Green, Blue, Red, etc", have the same graphic that is used on the track to indicate the racer in the Lap list. This would make for quick visual reference instead of associating the word "red" to the red colored chariot. This may seem to be a very minor thing but I think that it would add some "polish" to the final look. First, it would add some graphics to break up all of that text and secondly, it would make the association between the chariots on the track and those in the list instantaneous.
Keep going, it's coming along nicely!