Free Time
I'm afraid I'm not going to have much free time in the near future. I'm trying to move across the country on two pennies and a needle, if I can pull it out of this haystack.
So, there's not going to be much here. But you can feel free to Download the Engine Demo and tell me whatcha think!
So, there's not going to be much here. But you can feel free to Download the Engine Demo and tell me whatcha think!
posted by Craig Perko at 12:32 PM
6 Comments:
I played the demo, and I fowarded it to the listserve of my local Development club. I thought it looked really nice and the physics introduced an economy of timing, which gave me the idea to have quick boost moves be part of an rechargable energy economy for the game the boys are working on. Its rough, but I get the microgame idea and think it'll work once you get the vector balancing in place.
The other guys had a bit of trouble getting it to run, from what I gather, and were slightly bemused by the surplus of mines once they did. They're opting for a from stratch physics and gameplay model, but I wouldn't take their fairly shallow criticisms too seriously. The one you might want to take seriously is the claim that the gunner/mouse and movement/keyboard combo didn't come intuitively. It did for me because I had read about the project and its design long before playing it. You should definelty think about applying your play loop theory to easing the player into the design, when you get to the beta version.
Heh, I like mines.
Obviously, the large number of mines is not mandatory.
What problems getting it to run did they have? I need to know if T2D has serious compatability issues!
As for the mouse and keyboard, I agree. I've got a few ideas.
If they do want to use this game system, they are welcome to tell me what capabilities they would like. I can see whether or not my engine could support their needs. It probably can.
They won't find a better deal than "free". :)
There truly isn't a better deal, and I told them you were a pretty open source kinda guy, which I'm sure they respect. I don't thingk T2D has serious compatability issues, I think it had more to do with clicking through your front end to get to the action.
They've decided to do the engine for their game by themselves, since a major point of their doing what they're doing is to teach themselves how to code a game. I think they're also doing their own scripting system. However I've related the incredible power and flexibility of memetic/adaptive content, and was wondering if they could appropriate some of the PAC algorithms you use for Machine City, but suited to their desing (which I've had plenty of input on). We would also need to figure out the vector mathematics of the particular design, once we've hammered out a final feature set, which should be sometime next month.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to do it on your own.
If you do decide to use any of my theories, that's fine. I'm not greedy. However, I doubt they will. That's fine, too.
If it were "my" project I would see to it in the design, but from what I've said to them they'd still be interested in using some of the algorithms you've used, provided it isn't impossible to adapt. From your blog entries I can get an idea of where you're coming from, but it isn't clear enough for me to concieve of an implementation. Do you think you could release some sort of technical documentation when you reach beta, describing how the PAC engine works? This would not only help other indies trying to follow suit, but serve as an academic benchmark in a new field of game desing, which I'm sure plenty of people would be interested in reading.
I should have enough free time to do so in the near future.
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