Armoured Commander Alpha [roguelike]

spelk · February 13, 2015, 06:40:32 PM

Found this over at Temple of the Roguelike forums, think its still heavily in development, but its a WWII Tank Commander roguelike!!!!!!
Seems to be based on the board game "Pattons Best".

http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=4460.0;topicseen

jomni · February 13, 2015, 06:55:53 PM

OMG tried it out. It is Patton's Best. I love that game and want a computer version of it.

Staggerwing · February 13, 2015, 10:57:23 PM

Most interesting. I've been glancing over the PB rules all week, thinking about having another go at the game. Now this... :o

Nefaro · February 14, 2015, 01:47:52 AM

Excellent. Still designated as an Alpha so I'm guessing he's gonna add more.

jomni · February 14, 2015, 05:13:46 AM

So far, it's just an endless mission. You try to survive as long as you can and earn points. Game ends when you get knocked out. No continuation for surviving crew. No different eras and different Sherman models.

Jarhead0331 · February 14, 2015, 08:00:05 AM

Awesome graphics!

GJK · February 14, 2015, 09:47:17 AM

So negative JH!

I've been screaming for somebody to do this for I don't know how long and I'm really quite impressed with the programming that this guy has done; he has the shell of Patton's Best game in there. Yeah, it could definitely use a real UI/GUI and there's a good number of things from the boardgame that aren't in here yet but it's a great start. I've drawn and redrawn all of the graphics for PB for the VASSAL and Zuntzu modules and have those images. I'm going to reach out to this guy and see if he's at the programming ability level of actually using graphics or if not, if he would mind if we start to find someone to collaborate on this thing that he's started in order to get the graphics in there. Of course there's Hasborg's copyright issues to worry with as well but that needs to be looked in to and confirmed.

By the way, speaking of graphics...when are you going to pull that poster off of your sigline JH? That thing takes up half a screen. :))

spelk · February 14, 2015, 10:46:49 AM

The only thing I would add is that the roguelike community pride themselves in not needing graphics to appreciate a game, hence the squillion ASCII roguelikes out there. Nowadays it is popular to embelish the roguelikes with decent graphics and many of the new one being released are all being jazzed up with eye candy.

The dev might be amenable to help souping the game up with a decent graphical front to it, but don't be surprised if he really wants to keep it all based in pure ASCII... its kind of a RL "thing", from the beginnings etc.

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation

GJK · February 14, 2015, 11:14:06 AM

Yeah, I'm seeing that now that I've looked at the site and the whole concept of what the "rogue like" actually means. Still wouldn't hurt to reach out to him I suppose.

TacticalWargames · February 14, 2015, 11:29:14 AM

I've mentioned it on my Tactical Wargames FB page!:)

https://www.facebook.com/Tacticalwargame

JudgeDredd · February 14, 2015, 11:54:26 AM

Sorry - absolutely no chance whatsoever of that EVER being on my PC.

Shallow I know...hell will freeze over first. Gameplay my ass :P

GJK · February 14, 2015, 01:08:41 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on February 14, 2015, 11:54:26 AM
Sorry - absolutely no chance whatsoever of that EVER being on my PC.

Shallow I know...hell will freeze over first. Gameplay my ass :P

Graphics whore.... :P

JudgeDredd · February 14, 2015, 01:10:21 PM

I know...shamefully so ;)

spelk · February 14, 2015, 01:20:44 PM

I've had some epic gaming experiences with ASCII only games. I wouldn't rule out anything because of the presentation. In fact previously high end graphics have forced me to not experience them, simply because I can't afford the hardware to run them!

Screw the Berlin Interpretation!
http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=403

I know some RL gamers are fanatical about their support for the ASCII character set, but most play both and offer ascii or graphical tilesets. Theres a whole slew of new games nowadays coming out with really stylish and good looking graphics (The Nightmare Cooperative, Sproggiwood).

Some of Jeff Lait's (Zincland) 7-day Roguelikes are brilliant and are mostly ASCII based, I wouldn't have missed out on them, or Brogue (both ASCII and tiled versions exist)

http://www.zincland.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/

http://oryxdesignlab.com/brogue-tiles/

Rev_Sudasana · March 15, 2015, 07:28:07 AM

Just discovered this thread - I think this led to ArmCom being featured on Rock Paper Shotgun's Flare Path after ArmCom was spotted on the Tactical Wargames FB page, so thanks very much!

I've recently updated ArmCom to Alpha 5.1 (downloadable at http://www.armouredcommander.com/), which adds a longer campaign calendar as well as the full range of Sherman variants. Now there's still a ton of features that are still missing or only partially implemented, but I continue to make steady progress.

I should mention, however, that while ArmCom is inspired by Patton's Best, I'm not looking to make a PC version of the board game. ArmCom will be moving beyond the scope of PB, but I hope that it will be an enjoyable and exciting game nevertheless. The choice of a Roguelike format is intentional, but if you're hankering for a graphical version, the source is available under the GPL, and something like PyGame would make it relatively painless to develop a hex-and-counter branch version!

If you try the game out and discover any bugs that haven't already been mentioned, or have constructive suggestions, please feel free to email me or post on the Temple of the Roguelike thread at http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=4460.0