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[Kyzrati]

Always great to hear that more players are enjoying the game!

I'd like to finish all four chapters of Victor's story, but it takes so much time away from real development so those probably won't happen. For the time being new content is pretty much in modders' hands (there are still more mods under construction) since I'll be working on improving the engine for a while, before eventually setting up the framework for the real game data and not this demo stuff.

[( Tchey )]

I'll be adding a way to rebind all the keys, but that's still a few versions off when the options menu is included.

There is no other way to change the keys ? I've searched into the files to edit something, but i'm not good at that. Can't i edit the "main file" and set new keys ? I really like the game, but being unable to look "up" is very annoying.

[Werdna]

Kyzranti,  this is a really cool game engine you have here and I've been following with a lot of interest.  I noticed however while playing Rookie's Tale that I quickly became a little frustrated with the End Turn mechanic, early on at the ranger's house.  Moving around and exploring the treehouse (so cool to see something like that implemented in a rogue-like, kudos) quickly became tedious because of the limited TU's and waiting out 'enemy movement'. 

I understand that this is a replication of the X-Com engine; but I've always thought X-Com's TU-method had a big liability when it came to exploration.  We're all familiar with how tedious it was in the original X-Com to find that last alien on the map, one micro-managed turn at a time.  It's fantastic for combat obviously, and you've captured that aspect perfectly (even improving on the original I might add).  However, I quickly found myself wishing for a Baldur's Gate-like "unpause" where I could simply turn off turn-based movement when outside of combat.  Something like giving everyone unlimited TU's, and running dynamic enemy movement concurrently, until friendlies sight a hostile.  At that point maybe you could give the party 1-150% of their TU's to start the turn, to reflect the level of "surprise" involved, etc.

Obviously this may be a huge design change for the engine, but ultimately I think it would address what I think is a weak point to TU-based gameplay.  Anyway, something to think about!  Keep up the good work.

[10ebbor10]

Or, even simpler, just add the option to auto turns untill an enemy is sighted/ the desired action is done. No need to go do complicated stuff.

EDIt: Because we all know that a hybrid system will be abused, because you're never truly OOC.

[Drakale]

Jagged alliance worked like that I think, once hostiles where out of sight you could move around... Or was it only when they where all dead?

[Delta Foxtrot]

Jagged alliance worked like that I think, once hostiles where out of sight you could move around... Or was it only when they where all dead?

You could toggle it in the options, either as long as no hostiles were in sight or only once all of them were dead.

[jakeread1]

Great game, especially like the mods for it. Really versatile game and I can't wait till the geoscape is done, think of the possibilities!

[Kyzrati]

Kyzranti,  this is a really cool game engine you have here and I've been following with a lot of interest.  I noticed however while playing Rookie's Tale that I quickly became a little frustrated with the End Turn mechanic, early on at the ranger's house.  Moving around and exploring the treehouse (so cool to see something like that implemented in a rogue-like, kudos) quickly became tedious because of the limited TU's and waiting out 'enemy movement'. 

I understand that this is a replication of the X-Com engine; but I've always thought X-Com's TU-method had a big liability when it came to exploration.  We're all familiar with how tedious it was in the original X-Com to find that last alien on the map, one micro-managed turn at a time.  It's fantastic for combat obviously, and you've captured that aspect perfectly (even improving on the original I might add).  However, I quickly found myself wishing for a Baldur's Gate-like "unpause" where I could simply turn off turn-based movement when outside of combat.  Something like giving everyone unlimited TU's, and running dynamic enemy movement concurrently, until friendlies sight a hostile.  At that point maybe you could give the party 1-150% of their TU's to start the turn, to reflect the level of "surprise" involved, etc.

Obviously this may be a huge design change for the engine, but ultimately I think it would address what I think is a weak point to TU-based gameplay.  Anyway, something to think about!  Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the interest and opinions, Werdna et al. Definitely something to think about, and think about it I did--before starting the project, actually! As you mention, it would be a huge design change for the engine, to the degree that this isn't really possible at this point. Back then I made the decision to go with pure turn-based gameplay, for quite a few reasons.

Probably first and foremost is it's what I'm most familiar with from a coding standpoint, and I'm really setting out to complete a game based on many years of experience here, not spend most of the time ripping my hair out trying to get new tech working right ;p

Another aspect was that I noticed some of the X-COM community is divided over the appeal of pausable real-time turns, as seen in opinions about Apocalypse; it did have larger maps which necessitated the change, but it really does change the way the game is played, for better or worse. (This is also one of the reasons why I decided to go with a cap on the size of an individual map.)

I completely agree on exploration potentially being tedious under certain conditions, and it's funny you mention the ranger's tree house, because I had that exact same thought while designing it: "Sheesh, it's going to take a few turns just to get up here, meet Veldorn, and get out."

This will be less of an issue in the main game where you can bring more soldiers with you if you like and have surplus squads that you can send out in different directions. In Rookie's Tale since you have a fairly limited party this issue is sometimes brought to the forefront, and it could still impact similar mods, of course, which need to work their design to hopefully somewhat mitigate it, such as avoiding backtracking where possible. That's one reason Rookie's maps are packed fairly densely, so it doesn't get too boring even though there's lots to explore. I wanted to add more content to Veldorn's house or the way up to make it more interesting (an ambush by some enemy you could destroy the wooden bridge in order to send falling to his death would have been fun), but ran out of time. Part of the future of X@COM will include expanded information warfare against the aliens, so you'll hopefully have ways to be a lot more informed about the environment and potential threats, which should also help reduce the tedium. Other thoughts are welcome, but we'll have to stay within the realm of back-and-forth turns.

Another advantage of true turn-based play as opposed to real-time is that it will give me more freedom to create a more interesting, and intelligent, AI (also involves less hair-ripping).

As for the lone alien problem, we'll deal with that when the time comes, but it'll surely be dealt with.

I'll be adding a way to rebind all the keys, but that's still a few versions off when the options menu is included.

There is no other way to change the keys ? I've searched into the files to edit something, but i'm not good at that. Can't i edit the "main file" and set new keys ? I really like the game, but being unable to look "up" is very annoying.

Nope, it's not in there yet--keys are hard-coded for now. Because I know how much you love this game, Tchey, (and how much you like to sketch out your encounters =p) the next update will have a special set of keys you can use to change your z-level--I'll make sure they work on your keyboard. Unfortunately, the next update is not around the corner, so you'll have to wait.

Great game, especially like the mods for it. Really versatile game and I can't wait till the geoscape is done, think of the possibilities!

That's what I'm imaging as I work on it: It's all about the possibilities!

[Kyzrati]

More sound coming to an X@COM near you.

[Kyzrati]

Video with a sample of audible combat.

[Talvara]

wow, Great addition it really does a lot for the atmosphere. you're going to need plenty of alien death screams (now if there was only some subtle creepy background music )

I still want to give X@com a proper try sometime. I'm terrified of learning a new rougelike. is there something like a tutorial in place?

[Kyzrati]

Thanks, I will definitely be adding a lot of good screams and other alien sounds.

There's not much of a tutorial yet, just a bit of explanatory text giving you an overview of the HUD elements and windows, and F1 which lists all the commands. Most of the mechanics are straight from X-COM, so at least the gameplay is not too hard to for veterans of the series to pick up, but an in-depth tutorial won't be available for a long while (like, beta stage...). No need to really rush into playing it, anyway, since there's still a good bit to do and pretty soon I'll be working towards making it more user friendly by giving the UI an overhaul that enables mouse control for everything.

[Hiiri]

Nice! The explosions are impressive

[Kyzrati]

They're completely dynamic, so if you're blowing out a glass roadside storefront you'll mostly hear glass shattering, stone walls would send rocks crumbling and tumbling, bringing down trees you hear the thud of the trunk and leafy branches crashing to the ground... The houses in the video are mostly brick and wood, so that's the majority of what you hear when they're coming down.

Once it's done it should be pretty immersive. Next I'm adding material-dependent bullet impacts and ricochets, shell casings hitting different types of surfaces, then sounds for thrown objects and melee strikes. These are a good bit more complicated since they all involve the relative materials of different objects.

[Mephansteras]

Very impressive!