I've done some large improvements to my strategy game. Its a turn-based game influenced by CIV and Warlords 2 amongst others. Plz try it out and comment. AI is still pretty bad but its already a blast playing against friends or just slaying computers! Full download (game under development but very playable) wake.rar (5MB, needs directX installed) Plz comment - bugs/crashes - balance issues - something is hard to understand? (after reading the readme and looking at ingame tutorial) - suggestions? Magic with summoning, spells and research will come Enjoy Erik, Sweden

I'm short of time at the moment, im downloading but won't be able to play until I get back home later.

But just wanted to say the screenshot looks pretty good. Seems like a nice UI, nicely detailed graphics. I'll tell you more once I try it!

Alright. Now first off, don't be discouraged by my comments. I'm only commenting on development aspects.

First, you should make the tutorial windows movable. Often times they block screens and other things I'm trying to observe. Or make the screen you're wanting to look at come to the front, or something.

Second, when I was given a mercenary, I was trying to use my right click mouse to move him into my town to defend, and it only selected the town. So in this instance, I must use the numberpad. Maybe think about changing this.

Third, you're tutorial has some problems, it may be your style to lack the professional touch, but your grammar is poor and you use self demeaning language for your own game, such as "Now lets build some crappy units". I'd discourage the use of this language, especially for a game that is this well developed.

Fourth, I'd like the option to turn the tutorial on an off, maybe even have a index of topics for the players convenience.

Fifth, having to click the little boxes in the lower right hand corner to close the information window is annoying.

Six, I wanted to know what a foundry did again, but when I tried to get information, the building selection screen did not present it (Assuming because it was already built) I want to know if it also increases gold production for plantations, but now I assume I'll have to go to your encyclopedia.

Seven, there is a glitch, I asked the army to split, and it did for some alotted number of turns, so now my army is all located in one city (I didn't want this), and now I tried to split and goto, but that didn't work.

What does a workshop do?
Why is there a limit on how many units can be in a city/town/whatever?

Eight, Upkeep and income are not very clear, you need to add in your head how much each settlement is bringing in.

And remember, if you have answers and solutions for most of my concerns, it doesn't mean what you got right now is user friendly.

Resource management information would be very helpful. If you'd like, I could think about what kind of windows and information screens players could use to help them in their game and to better keep track of information.

It's got the beginnings of a cool game, though its not my thing, I'm not a big fan of the fantasy world, but well done.

Is that it? just build your armies to level3 and attack the other opponents? If so, maybe think about expanding on that more. Maybe to level 5 or something like this.









[Edited by - Awoken on July 2, 2009 12:38:50 AM]

Many of your concerns are answered in the readme and/or tutorial itself. A game this complicated is hard to make self-explanatory so you need to experience a bit. Remeber civilization, warlords 2 or master of magic? Nearly nothing was explained how it worked but players managed anyway.
If you want the full details on game-mechanics and controls, the readme has a lot already, otherwise just experiment:)


1. God point. The window should be moveable.

2. The select town with RMB will probably stay since the other methods ive tried has been worse unless i come up with some complicated keypress (for example you dont wanna wake up the defenders from fortify when selected a town). I found that the problem you have is only annoying the first time you play, you learn quickly to use keys.

3. This is an early version, the text will be altered and some missing encyclo-text will be added etc. Also, theres a lot of placer-art.

4. You can do this from the options-menu or by clicking the close-button on the window itself (placer-art at the moment, just a box in the courner)

5. Use space to close stuff. Its described.

6. Right-click the item in the build-menu to get info as described. For some items the desc is still not written though. Workshops produces gold.

7. Uh? seem like some bug but i didnt quite understand. Care to elaborate?

8. If you select a town, you'll see that towns own income without upkeep. Look at the screenshot: this town earns 5 food, no upkeep counted. Upkeep is empire-wide, not specific to any town.

ONLY 10 UNITS PER ARMY?
Yes, for balance reasons and to make battles more concentrated and fast. Also, i wanted cheap units to be useful in the beginning and for small scrimishes but not be able to swarm more expensive units. Hence the 10 unit limit.

GOAL? TO KILL ALL?
Yes. This is the goal of all good strategygames:) I realise my game seems rather empty at times but its not complete. And if you play against a human friend its very nice already. The AI is kinda boring. But magic and research will be added. In civ the development of cities is much more detailed but in Warlords 2 for example, you have nothing like this, mostly moving around armies and that game is still nice to play:)

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT WINDOW
I'd be glad for some input. What is unclear? There is some info on F1 and graphs and history on F2 if you havent tried them already. The player also get a base income of 2 of each resource.

Well, i noticed when I select a unit it flashes. Couldn't you organise it something like this:

-have a universal boolean for UNIT "is selected"
-have a universal boolean for one object that is "no selection" as in, the ground or something. This way the programe can identify before it fires. Example

sub settlement as handler of blah blah blah

if uni_select = true then
blah blah blah
movementsub()
else
blah blah blah
end if

K, and like I said, if you want a really polished experience for the player, it's gotta be more user friendly. Looking for ways to constantly improve these aspets. I'm not satisfied with the methods in place. haha, sorry for being a hardliner.

A good thing, while at work I thought to myself, huh, I wanna play that game again.

K, first things first, you provide upkeep information for your whole empire, but you don't provide hard number nformation for your whole empire, just % of upkeep. This is crap. I wanna know how much of everything I'm pulling in. And I want it in the settlement screen.

And AGAIN, in regards to the foundry, because I had built one, that option was missing from the purcahse menu.

I want an information screen that shows me what's being built and where, and how long I can expect it to be before each is built. I want the same information screen to show me what is priority and what isn't. I don't wanna have to click in every city all the time and go "K what did I build again". Seeing as your game is mostly about the fighting, I would encourage you to make resource management as easy as possible so people can focus their attention on their military.

good that you got the craving:)

Once a building is done, you can right-click the building itself to get info, or just fire up the encyclo (ESC-menu) but then you have to scroll to the right building.

Why haven't more people commented on your game yet? Dang hey, it was like when I made a map for Counter-strike. Spent years perfecting it and then Voia-la, 4 people tried it. LOL. I really hope your game gets more attention. How much work have you put in so far? What language are you using?

this has been a couple of different games before i landed in this one:) The "engine" has therefor been "in production" for 4 years i think.

I use c++ with a game-engine called HGE which is really straight-forward for all basic stuff like updating screen, input etc. Sound is FMOD.

E

Who does your art? It's very good for programmer art.

i do it myself but many things are partly stolen or made from other stuff like public textures etc.

The photos are simply stolen and will hopefully be replaced:)

Erik