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[Anvilfolk]

Heck, I can probably make it customisable!

Also, someone has apparently found a fix for making an .exe when using SFML. I'll try it out when I get home and let you guys know how it went.

I've also been debating where to go from now. I still haven't decided, which is why I haven't worked on this these past few days. I think the next steps are going to be adding Bug drones that can harvest bodies for food. Then tunnels, etc.

I'm thinking food's going to be the basic resource for bugs. Perhaps they can set up buildings that create food, and that's what they use to spawn more warriors and more drones. Tunnelling, making new hives, etc, could all be payed for in food as well, for the energy expended in tunnelling, etc.

Not too happy with this system, but at least it'll be progress.


I'm wondering whether to hack it and have something interesting that you can play against as Terrans sooner, or whether to implement Bugs as a proper faction which could be playable at some point. Who knows, maybe even MP at some point? No promises.

What do you guys think? Interested in playing Terran, or also Bugs? And how important is playing Bugs for you?

[Mephansteras]

If you're going to do MP you should probably decide sooner rather than later. Switching over from a self-contained game to a networked game later on is a nightmare from everything I've seen.

[Anvilfolk]

Thanks for the tip! That's actually why I spent a few weeks just reading stuff on how to program game engines. The stuff that I'm developing is *HOPEFULLY* well equipped for that extension. It's fairly event driven, which means you can simply add some Views that receive all relevant events and sent them over the network.

Here's a quick example, in case you're interested in the technical side of things:

Code: (python) [Select]

class HPComponent(Component):
  def __init__(self, entity):
    Component.__init__(self, entity)
    self._hp = None
    self.HPMax = None
 
  def init(self, XMLRoot):
    Component.init(self, XMLRoot)
    self.hp = self.HPMax
   
  @property
  def hp(self):
    return self._hp
 
  @hp.setter
  def hp(self, hp):
    self._hp = hp
    if self._hp <= 0:
      self.notifyDeath()
 
  def notifyDeath(self):
    print(str(self._entity) + " died!")
    e = Event(self._entity._world._time, Event.ENTITY_DIED)
    e.entity = self._entity
    self._entity._em.handleEvent(e)


Basically, whenever you get an entity's HPComponent "hC", you can simply do stuff like hC.hp = hC.hp - 10. In case you change it so that hC.hp =< 0, then it will automatically notify whoever's listening to this entity that the entity died. Some important events can also be forwarded by the World. Meaning that all you need to do if you want to notify another player that something died is add a listener for ENTITY_DEATH to the World, and then package it and send it off over the network.

This way, actual gameplay code doesn't need to worry about spawning events. You might have a dozen different situations where something takes damage, but by hiding event creation inside these components, you can create events only when data is actually changed.

Anyway, I am *hoping* it makes it easier to adapt later. I've read a fair bit, but don't have that much experience programming games, so it's probably way more complicated than I'm making it once I actually get to it

[mastahcheese]

We can't let this die!

Also, I've been thinking of something, in the movie, when the sergeant shows the troops one of the bugs in confinement, he shows how it comes at him, and he shoots it's arm off, and it keeps coming, then he shoots a leg off, and it still keeps coming, until he shoots it in the heart.

Maybe the bugs shouldn't have an actual "health", but rather a "damage", where every shot fired at them has a chance to miss, injure, or kill, and they simply keep stacking injuries until they receive a kill shot, with the injuries slowing them down.

Then you could have the amount of research points they give be based on how much damage they took before going down, so if they got riddled full of holes, they wouldn't be worth as much.

This would actually make snipers pretty awesome, they aren't good at dealing with lots of them, but they have higher chances of delivering a clean kill, making them worth more to pick up.

Now, explosives and fire would likely have special rules, but I think it'd be cool to think of.

[Anvilfolk]

Thanks a ton for posting again!

Been working on the Agora project, but am getting the itch to get back to this again. Your post really helped! I really get motivated and excited when there's other people involved, but since noone really hopped on board I guess I got a little demotivated.

That idea is actually really cool. Reminds me of the start of Starship Troopers: Invasion! It would really help differentiate between units. It would probably not be too hard to specify what constitutes a leg hit, arm hit, etc. Different types of hits could reduce stats like maximum speed, attack range, attack damage, and so forth.

I feel like the game just needs more gameplay. The basic combat is in, now it'd be nice to have something to use it for.

And as usual, I'd still love someone who would put together a nice consistent gameplay structure for the game. I'm going to try to make it easier to participate in developing the game, by using what we've used for the Agora project.

Here's a collaborative Google Doc. Just drop by and write your ideas! There's also a chat option, so I'll try to be around there in case people want to discuss ideas on the fly!

Also updated GitHub repository name but if we do get more people interested we can create a GitHub organisation and make it easier for people to contribute directly!

[cheesemcmuffin88]

PTW

[Ak-Sai]

PTW of course. I think it's great when someone's idea become available to others via programming and enthusiasm.

But... is there any progress since October, or "All quiet on a bug front" ?

[mastahcheese]

I thinks its been quiet.
It disappoints me.

[Octobomb]

The quiet makes me dissapoint. So, I'll kick things off again with another suggestion: Shotguns. They could be separate weapons or underslung like in the movie. They would be high damage, short ranged weapons, fairly likely to shred a bug. You could have them automatically switched to when the bugs get too close. You could even switch between slugs and pellets if you wanted. Pellets would have the effect of being essentially a short ranged flamethrower so it can hit multiple bugs.
As for bugs... There is always the brain bugs to consider.
And yes. I would definitely like to see them playable. I'll have a go at the Terrans later, prehaps.

[Anvilfolk]

Hey guys

The project isn't dead, I just need to find a way to work it back into my schedule. Some other things have taken priority because that's how life goes :\

I am also probably going to port this over to Unity - it's fun working with Python and doing everything from scratch, but then you spend a lot of time making an engine, not a game. Unity has mostly all the features I'd ever implement, implemented better, and then some. Changing to that will make development a ton faster too, not to mention the game will perform better.

Another thing is that I really thrive on collaboration, and I've had better luck getting collaborators on the other stuff that I'm doing, so I've pursued that a bit more.

Anyways, I'll try to set up a branch of the github repository soon. I think Unity has some nifty animators too, meaning we can do sprites for limbs and then animate them rather than sprites for the entire thing. Having weapons as separate entities is also going to be a lot easier

[mastahcheese]

You mean we'll actually be able to visually tear bugs/marines limb from limb?

ALL MY YES

[Mephansteras]

Nifty. You'll have to let us know what it's like to work in Unity.

[Anvilfolk]

I tried getting some animations to work using Unity but 1) I clearly suck at it and 2) don't really understand how it's done. I'll have to try to look at some tutorials in more length Unless someone knows how to animate stuff, in which case you're welcome to download the project, animate stuff, and then submit the patch on Github

Having individually modelled/animated limbs is cool because in the future we might be able to apply damage to specific parts of things, so it's something I'd like to be able to do. If it's too much work, we can just go with the previous spritesheet and have units be a single blob, and not lots of little parts and limbs.

[Svampapa]

"Animate stuff" is pretty vague. But I guess that was the point.

Some sort of skeletal animation system might work. Once you got that implemented, detaching a bone (or a chain of bones) from a skeleton and applying physics to it should be piece of cake. Lots of work to get there though, and maybe not ideal for the pixely style you got going.

Check out Spine if you haven't already. Really cool 2D skeletal animation software, and even though most examples are vector art, I bet its possible to make it look good with pixely stuff too.

Another way is making the bugs a compound sprite of sorts. Animate each leg separately, layer them all together in code. That way dismemberment is just a function/method call away. I guess the same could be arranged for the MI, even if bipedal animation is a little more complex, especially with wielding guns and what not.

Neat little project this, though I did shed a tear it wasn't the book that gave you the inspiration rather than the movies.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, I get that. I did see the movie before I read the book, but they're two very different stories. One is about the message, the other is just a pop scifi thriller... which is better adapted to the game I want to make


What I'm trying to do is the compound sprite. It's fairly easy to make a hierarchical tree of sprites, and while I did make one animation with keyframes and all, it apparently wasn't attached to the unit and got lost somewhere in limbo. Unity's just more vast than it seems at first, I guess