Archive for June, 2007

30 June, 2007 | No comments

TOD: skills

Took a break from the map, and finished the skills screen. As you can see, there are plenty of skills to choose from You can re-roll the starting values, then fine-tune the skills you are more interested in, by spending the skill points available (this process will be identic also in the game everytime you level up).

You’ll add skill clicking on the + icons next to the values. Notice some skills are in red: this because the class I’ve choose in that screenshot (healer) is forbidden from learning some skills (like Dual Wield, or Black Magic!).

I’ll go back on the editor now. Will take quite some time. For sure making an editor will delay the game release after Christmas. But, on the other hand, will make me able to release episode 2-3 much faster than without it, and most importantly people will be able to modify in practice almost everything in the game.

Going to make the spells editor now

29 June, 2007 | No comments

TOD: map done

I finally managed to make the map work! Everything seems to work fine. Zoom, pathfinding, fog of war. You can see a development screenshot below:

you can see the fog of war in action. The icon in the center of the screen represent your party. Ok the rest is just walls and the floor, and on bottom you can spot a door Not much else, the room is a bit empty now but I haven’t implemented items and monsters yet. I need first to make an editor for them and will take a while!!

Now that I have “visualized” the map, I’m going to resume and finish the character creation, and in particular the spells system. I don’t think I can have 180 different spells, so I’m probably going to:

1 - have some “common” spells between the various deities, and a few “special” ones that are reserved for each deity.

2 - reduce the number of spells you get each level. Now I reduced the maximum reachable level for episode 1 to level 5, so in theory I should have a new spell for each magic school (six) for each level (five) for a total of 30 spells for each deity, so 180 different spells total. I could reduce so that you get a new spells at level 1-3-5 so I would cut down the total number of spells to  108 (not that is easy anyway to come up with 108 unique spells!!).

I’m thinking to use method 1. I never seen a rpg with 108 spells anyway, and also as I previously saisd, I don’t want to just rename the spells but recycle old effects. Fewer spells but really different, this is the way I want to go

26 June, 2007 | No comments

TOD: map problems

So I’ve finally a working prototype of map. I’m proud of it, it has zoom in/out, pathfinding (with unpassable walls and doors), and fog of war (so as you discover it, some zones clear out). But - I have some serious bugs

First performance problem - had to use batch to blit all the various tiles, since there are 4 layers… background, terrain, moveable objects (party and monsters) and fog all over it. Now with batch, I have some problems with zooming since I can’t now just use one single function to zoom in/out…

Well I guess that was too good to be true to have such a system ready in only 2 days of part-time work. I’ll have to spend more time on it. Anyway, I’m also wondering if is better to have big maps with realtime movement , or smaller ones with turn based movement.

The pathfinding algorithm works fine - so that’s not a problem. It is mostly about playability, not sure if exploration should be such an important part of my game, or just focus on combat (after all, in Magic Stones you go straight to the battles and people seems really to love it…!). With realtime, to make a level last some minutes, I would have to make a bigger map. With turn-based, would be more a matter of avoiding monsters or even using sneak attacks, and so on. Actually I was even wondering if to discard the first person view and use only the topdown even for the combat…
I’ll have to think carefully about this aspect since it would influence all the game.

20 June, 2007 | No comments

GBGames: Do I Need a Business Checking Account?

If you’re just starting a company and sweating about decisions such as “Do I need a checking account for my business?”, I know how you feel. I went through this same decision, concerned about doing the right thing. Actually, I was concerned about accidentally doing the wrong thing and messing up somehow. Are there [...]

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Free Game News: RGB

RGB is a brand new Room Escape game created by the Japanese developer Neutral, the author of the popular Sphere. The game is available in both English and English.

As usual, you are trapped in a room and need to find a way to get out. Search for items everywhere, combine some of them, fin the RGB codes and enjoy the experience.

RGB is a great looking Room Escape game, with very polished graphics that should keep you challenge for a while. Note that you can save your progress at any time. I have the feeling that a lot of people will spend hours playing RGB!

Have fun!

On a side note, have you noticed the Orange Ball Clock on the wall? This beautiful clock was designed by George Nelson in the 1950’s and has become an Icon of Modern Design…

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Jay Is Games: Starshine

Ricochet shooting stars across the sky to light the heavens and unlock levels in this dazzling new action puzzler by Hero Interactive. Starshine is a game of rays and angles in which the objective is to light all of the stars to advance to the next level. You have but a single shooting star in your arsenal to fire from anywhere along the outer edge of the circular field of play. The path your shooting star will take depends on the type of stars it comes in contact with.

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Free Game News: OddPawn

OddPawn is an interesting Riddle game created by AWP and DonD that popped up in June 2007.

Your main goal in a Riddle game is to reach the next page by solving the riddles. To do so, usually you just need to change the last part of the URL (The address of the web page) with the word you found solving the riddle.

In OddPawn, simply use the answerbox to enter your answer(s). OddPawn automatically saves your progress and keeps track of all your answers. 50 levels or so are currently available, and the authors plan to add more levels to the game in the future…

Have fun!

Update: the game is playable in FF and Opera - except the sound!! You ‘ve been forewarned!

Update: 09-16-07 - OddPawn v2 is online! The game is expanding and chapters 2 and 3 are up now!

Update: 12-15-07 - OddPawn v3 is online! 50 new levels and two more chapters has been launched. This means that 5 chapters are now available for your riddling pleasure. A few new features has been launched as well, such as online chat at each level and a progress bar showing you how far in the game you are.

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Granado Espada

I got really hooked on this game when I first got it. It seemed like one of the best games I have played for a long time. It was great but after a week it got stale I will tell you of the games details you may find it more fun then I did.

most MMORPG's have a system where you can have 1 character logged in at a time now this one is different in the way that it allows and almost requires you too have 3 characters out at once

intial thought is oh yeah thats cool 3 characters at once thats awesome and unique for the genre the main problem is the system they had to put in place for something like this to work in order for people to have am easy time controlling 3 characters they need one where you can tell characters to do thing as a group or act independently so they have several commands like hold ground where you attack whatever gets near and patrol where the character will pursue monsters who get within a certain range. when you get to later levels 25+ most of the leveling seems to be done in a manner that I dont think really seems right. I am not saying all the people who play do this but a good portion of it is nothing but people in either patrol or hold ground mode basicly camping spawns. if you go to an area about 2-4 levels lower then you its very easy for you to leave them on for hours and hours at a time with little to no interaction. They tried to prevent this with things like boxxes/barrels/stones that cause massive spawns to swamp people since they dont automatically use multitarget skills the scout class still automatically heals. When a character dies or gets knocked down they lose their hold ground/patrol status This works if the person has bad equipment or in an area their level. If the person has good equipment they can just leave it and gain several levels overnight. I tested it myself I gained levels 34-39 overnight and I was able to make enough vis(ingame currency) to buy decent equipment from the built in market system to go and do it again. In short its a good plan executed poorly I was playing the Singapore beta but I doubt this is really a thing they plan on fixing as it seems to be one of the main draws of the game

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Battle for Wesnoth: The Valley of Death

It took me a long time to be able to survive The Valley of Death in the Heir to the Throne campaign (I am talking about Battle for Wesnoth in case you didn't read the title). Because of that I've always had a lot of respect for this particular episode and consequently anytime I get to The Valley of Death I just send all my units south, defeat the lich and stay put until the rounds are up. Occasionally I send a few units to gain some extra experience by knocking off a few walking corpses coming from the east.

The other day I decided to try to defeat all three liches. It turns out to be quite simple. This is what I did.

I sent my three white mages up north. They are efficient against the annoying wraths. With them I sent Delfador to act as a backup in case my mages run into trouble. After a few battles with wraths, one of the mages becomes a Mage of Light. I get my second Mage of Light by defeating the northern lich.

To the east I sent my three horsemen and Kalenz. One of my horsemen was a Grand Knight, the other two level two knights. These two quickly become level three characters as they get attacked a lot. The three horsemen take care of all the walking corpses easily. Although there are many of them they do little damage and the horsemen are strong. When I horseman needs to heal he runs to a village and Kalenz temporarily steps in. Kalenz is of course mostly useful, but can buy some time while a knight heals.

In order to separate the walking corpses I spread the horsemen out so that one attacks from the North, one from the West and one from the South. Kalenz stays behind to the West, but ready to move where he needs to. When I'm ready to kill the lich I entice him to attack my Grand Knight who has full hit points. Then the other two horsemen ride in and destroy him.

To the South I sent my three red mages. One quickly becomes an Arch Mage and one other gets is just 4 points from promotion at the end of the scenario. Because the units can take quite a bit of damage from the enemy units in the South, I also had brought two elvish shamans along. In addition, I recruited one scout to cause distractions and prevent all enemy units from attacking my mages all at once.

I used my new Arch Mage to soften up the southern lich, and one of the red mages to deal him the final death blow.

What about Konrad? Well, I sort of forgot about him, and left him in the middle. My Konrad is a level three character, so I would probably have sent him South to act as an additional backup, had I remembered him.

Now that I've lost my respect for the Valley of Death, I'm going to try again with a few changes. First of all, I won't use my Grand Knight. It's better to my level one horsemen so they can gain some experience. Second, I'll let Konrad go South instead of recruiting the scout. He will be responsible for creating a diversion.

I also think I'll send two white mages and a red mage up north, and let the third white mage join in to the south. That way I have one unit that can heal there and won't need the shaman anymore.

A few tips

First of all don't get close to the liches with units that are injured. It's a quick way of losing them, as the lich will attack a weak unit. As a matter of fact avoid confrontation with a lich during the night (they are hard to defeat then). When you do attack, it's a good idea to have a powerful unit (Defaldor, a Mage of Light or an Arch Mage) standing by, just in case they need to step in. Once you begin your attack on a lich you should finish him off before he gets a chance to counter-attack.

Keeping the white mages together in the north is a good idea, since they heal each other.

In the South you really need to position the units carefully to avoid a single unit being attacked by multiple enemy units at once. This is also true to lesser degree to the North. To the East however, you will want to place your horsemen where they can act like "corpse magnets". The more the merrier.

When you are recruiting/recalling, make sure you position the units so that they can move as far as possible in the direction they are going. The key to success here is a swift attack, at least to the North and to the East. You shouldn't let the wraths get a chance to get away as they are way to quick for a mage to keep up with. I held back a little more to the South, where I used the scout to try to as far as possible single out enemy units and take them out one by one.

Obviously how you play will depend on what type of units you have. I tend to use mostly mages on Isle of Anduin, Muff Malal's Peninsula and Seige of Elensefar. At the Bay of Pearls my horsemen get a lot of battle experience. On the Princess of Wesnoth episode, I use a combination of mages, elvish rangers and horsemen to attack from different directions. That way, by the time I get to Valley of Death I already have some experienced mages as well as horsemen.

20 June, 2007 | No comments

Nothing to do with Nelly Furtardo

Tying in with my tumblelog (see the sidebar), I've been playing a lot of Forza Motorsport 2 recently. Having bought the game on friday I think I'm now three million hours into it and still no sign of getting bored. Here then, for posterity, is my own review of the game.

In case you've not been paying attention to console games for a while, Forza Motorsport was one of the bigger games on the Xbox. Though it's creator claims that it wasn't trying to steal Gran Turismo's crown as the ultimate petrolhead's game, you only had to play it for five minutes to tell that it's trying to do just that. Hundreds of cars, tons of upgrade options, an extensive tuning system and (the main thing it had over GT) the ability to customise your car's exterior with new paint jobs and decals.

Last Friday, Forza Motorsport 2 was released, and it blows GT out of the water completely. This time there's over 300 cars, each with an even more extensive choice of upgrades than the previous game. The ability to tune your car is, once again, even more detailed than before, and if you know what adjusting the front and rear differentials will do to your cars performance, you'll be in heaven. The paint shop is also back and this time you can have an utterly ridiculous number of layers, meaning you can create far more detailed/ugly/offensive designs than ever before.

The gameplay is much the same as the first. There's an arcade mode where you can race in set car classes on set tracks, as well as in time trials to get the best lap time. Then there's the bit most people will play more; career mode. In career mode you start off with a car from a choice of about 8, then compete in races to earn cash to either upgrade your car or buy new ones. As you earn more and more cash you increase your driver level, which in turn opens up new races and new cars for you to buy.

The initial races are pretty simple, with few restrictions over what sort of cars you can bring to them. As the difficulty ramps up though, the entry criteria becomes more and more stringent. No longer is it OK to bring that 700 horsepower monster Corvette to a race featuring mainly Minis and Beetles; no, you'll have to bring something that means you don't just win by pressing the accelerate trigger and hoping for the best.

This is the reason to play Forza though - it gives you an incredible sense of ownership. You'll likely keep your first car forever and return to it over and over. Constantly tweaking, never 100% happy with it, but you know it'll win you those races that your new souped up Ferrari just isn't quite doing the business on. It's the same trick that GT has always played on you - it's YOUR car. They've even added an online auction site, so you can basically stick your cars up on eBay and see if anyone wants them. It's a great way to earn a bit of extra money, but you'll only earn top whack for your cars if you make them memorable, and that's where the paint shop comes in...

Now I'm an enormous geek, as you can tell from this blog. So the first thing I did upon getting a Porche 911 in game was think to myself:

"Can I make this look like Jazz out of transformers?"

The answer, of course, is:

 "No, you're a clumsy idiot who no-one would trust with anything more complicated than putting stickers in a sticker album, stay the hell away from that classic car with your stickers."
And that's fair, but nevertheless I had a crack at it and the result, as you can see, is not too bad at all. I even got the Autobot logo sorted out eventually, but it's not perfect so I'm not posting it. Oh, and in terms of those screenshots? Forza lets you take photos in game and upload them to the ready and waiting community website, so you can photograph your creations and share them with the world, should you wish.

 Graphically, as you can probably make out, it's lovely (just as you'd expect from a 360 game). I've read reviews complaining it doesn't look as good as Project Gotham 3... well I'd say it's too close to call really. There's certainly a lot more going on than in PGR3 (with a physics engine updating 360 times every second) but I don't think it's any worse looking. The only criticism I would have of it in that regard is that the graphics really need an HDTV to be appreciated and my old Panasonic merely looks great instead of fantastic.

All in all then, it's a bit of a corker, and I'm sure I'll waste many, many hours on it right up until my kid arrives on the scene and demands my attention. On the other hand, I'm sure I can get him trained up enough to use the controller within a few months. Just as long as he doesn't eat the bloody thing...

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