MekaWars meets Gun-Tactyx

Yesterday I cited the space marines that populate the starships during battles.

Space marines defending the
central area of a module

My idea was to develop the MekaWars control unit system (as you may already know, in MekaWars the players develop the AI of their units - that's how MekaWars is meant to be played) and recycle it for Gun-Tactyx-2 (that is the sequel of Gun-Tactyx).
Then, recently, I had a more interesting idea: why don't merge the two projects? This brought to an additional mechanic of the game.
During starship battles, hits can destory a unit (producing wreckage that is going to be collected), but starship modules can't. The latter are only disabled, but hulls may be robbed of their resources (up to a certain percentage).
The additional mechanics is: before materials can be brought away from a module, a space marine unit must assault it and defeat the defending troops. Here is where the Gun-Tactyx fight-style comes in.
You can imagine hard fights between starships and, at the end, you'll see assault units moving to the modules; then the attention is focused on the inner corridors of the modules, where attackers fight the defenders (as in the initial scene of the first Star Wars movie) to steal the contained resources or the whole module.

Space marine on an assault
unit waiting for the attack

MekaWars' dungeons

The starships concept included in MekaWars was extended and improved. Additional modules apart (research module to develop the projects from which devices, units and ships are designed; factory module to effectively build devices, units and new modules), the ships have now got a crew.
I'm not talking about the pilots of units or the captains of the ships (or even the admiral that commands the fleet), but there are also the space marines that defend the ships from outer attacks.
I'll descibe them more deeply tomorrow. For the moment give a look to the starship's corridors.

Starship's corridors

MekaWars' stellar systems

Yesterday I talked about the Galaxy. Today is the time of stellar systems.

The star, one planet with a moon
and a fleet exiting the hyperspace

Each sector of the Galaxy contains a stellar system. The prototype of the system is given by a star, with several planets, each with its moons.
The asteroids rich of resources will be located in that environment, so the units must scan the space to avoid the star, planets and moons and look for asteroids or enemy units.
I already told of a different combat system. One of the differences is: once a unit (fighter, harvester, exoskeleton etc.) is destroyed its deviced will be available as wreckage, after the explosion. Special units will look for that wreckage to collect it and bring it to the fleet hulls. Then such devices will be used to assemble other units or sold to other players.
Some ship will mount research modules and factory modules to build units, but collecting devices from enemy players will save a lot of energy and resources.

MekaWars' Galaxy

MekaWars Offline will feature a strategic map like the one you can see below.

MekaWars' strategic map

Each player has got a sector to manage, separated from other players by neutral sectors.
A fleet can travel from sector to sector through hyperjumps, because travels among stellar systems needs too time being performed at sub-light speeds.
A fleet can jump in a neutral sector only if no more than two fleets are already there (well, one can jump, but it's almost sure that the fleet will appear too near to the star to survive).
Then there are three possibilities: if no fleet is there, the harvesters can freely work to collect resources (the usual iron, silicon and uranium) to research and produce new devices, units and ship modules; if there is a friendly fleet that is already harvesting, the cargos can commerce exchanging materials; finally, if there is an enemy fleet, a battle could take place.
A new kind of battles, different from the usual ones described in past posts and shown in the demo, will be available, but let's discuss it in one of the next posts.
Different rules apply when a fleet enters the sector where the base of a player is located: only one enemy fleet at a time can enter and enough time since the last attack must have passed.
Just an additional note about resources: asteroids rich in uranium (useful to produce energy) will be more frequent near the center of the galaxy, the silicon (useful to build devices) will have an higher density along the border, while iron (necessary to build any kind of structure) will be located more frequently in between.

Post MekaWars: SoccerTactyx

As a final example of projects that are going to benefit from the MekaWars development, let's consider the very-long waited Soccer Tactyx (ST). If you have been reading this blog since the beginning, you remember that ST was planned on occasion of the European Football Championship. Now I think that a more realistic release will be on occasion of the... Football World Cup!

Delays apart, also very common in professional games, you must consider that all the code behind MekaWars is also very useful to ST as well. In fact, if you look at the 2D viewer of the recent MekaWars preview (MekaWars.zip), you can easily imagine to substitute the space-fighters with soccer players and the resources with a ball. After this imaginative effort, you can immediately recognize the soccer mode of Gun-Tactyx when seen in 2D mode. The view is more suggestive and realistic in 3D mode, of course, but the viewer is independent from the simulator, once the rules of physics and the soccer players' behaviors are set.
In conclusion, in Soccer Tactyx the units are not fighters and harvesters, but soccer players. The enviromnent is not outer space, but a soccer field. The players will program the AI of their team, and watch them play against teams the AI of which was written by other players.
It's a long way to Soccer Tactyx yet, but the programming behind MekaWars will be useful even in this very different field.

Post MekaWars: GunTactyx2

You may know that MekaWars, the game currently in a heavy development, is a spin-off of Gun-Tactyx (my CROBOTS-like QUAKE3-style programming-game) and long before of JRobots (my Java CROBOTS-like game with online tournaments). You also may know that I planned long ago a sequel to Gun-Tactyx, that is GUN TACTYX 2.

The occasion to develop MekaWars has delayed the GUN TACTYX 2 development a lot, but all the code behind MekaWars can be applied to GT2 as well. Effectively, if you look at the 2D viewer of the recent MekaWars preview (MekaWars.zip), you can imagine that those dots may represent different kind of objects other than space-fighters and space-harvesters. This means that a lot of code will be easily recycled.
Thus in GUN TACTYX 2 the units are not fighters and harvesters, but soldiers. The enviromnent is not outer space, but indoor or outdoor spaces. The players will program the AI of their team of specialists, each with his own different weapon, and watch them fight against soldiers whose AI was written by other players. Much more complex than MekaWars is, because of the articulated environment, but also worth a try and very beautiful to see.
It's a long way to GUN TACTYX 2 yet, but the programming behind MekaWars will help a lot even in this challenging environment.

Post MekaWars: City Racing

If you have read the last posts, you know that MekaWars is currently in a heavy development phase. You can also discover the concept behind MekaWars playing with the recent preview (MekaWars.zip).
MekaWars is a game set up in a outer space environment, but the genre of "programming-games" can be obviously applied to worlds subject to other rules. For example, let's consider a few long waited APOCALYX demos starting from City Racing.

In City Racing, the units are not fighters and harvesters, like in MekaWars, but racing cars. The enviromnent is not outer space, but the streets of a town. The players will program the AI of their pilots and watch them race against pilots written by other players. Not as tricky as MekaWars is, but since the pilots' management is simpler and the action more fast paced, the game may result even more involving.
It's a long way to City Racing yet, but the programming behind MekaWars will help a lot even in a so different environment.

Spore prototypes

As you know, the long waited Will Wright's Spore game is on the shelves. There are quite different reviews about Spore, but I think that a game designed by the author of SimCity ans The Sims can't be so bad.

Anyway, I'm not interested in the game itself, but in its development prototypes that are available for free and learn a lot about the step moved towards the real thing.
In particular I'm interested in their interfaces, for example that of the Space prototype, the screenshot of which you can see in this post.

Here is the news release of the Spore prototypes from EA.

Play with our Prototypes
Spore has been a huge undertaking. Along the way we ended up exploring countless design directions in gameplay, simulation and user interface. One of the ways in which we explore possible design directions is by building simple, playable prototypes that we can play around with to get a sense for a particular system. Usually these prototypes are never seen by the public, but we thought some of the more intrepid players out there might enjoy playing around with a few of our early Spore prototypes. Keep in mind these are not tested, supported or even easily explained.

MekaWars' spaceships

After a few MekaWars' screenshots, let's talk a little about it.
MekaWars is a game in development of the "programming games" genre, those games like Jrobots, where the players program the AI of their team of bots and then watch them fight against teams written by other players.
The environment of MekaWars is outer space, so you can expect fights among bombers, robots and spaceships.
Here I briefly describe the constructible ships system. Every player will be able to build his fleet starting from a given number of resources. Fighters, bombers and robots apart, that are fixed in their structure except for the installable devices, the players are going to build their spaceships from a defined number of modules, like those depicted below.

Each module has its own role and characteristics. For example, the battery installs cannons, the hangar and the deck hold fighters and bombers, the generator produces energy, the hold stores resources and so on. Since the modules are octagonal in shape, there are several possibilities to connect them in different ways.
Assembling the modules, the players can build specialized ship classes. Here you can see just a few examples.

This battleship connects 3 batteries and 2 engines, because the weight of the modules may require a lot of kinetic power.

This carrier alternates hangars, that store fighters, bombers and robots, and decks from which the vehicles lift off.

This heavy transport requires 3 engines, a powerful generator and carries several holds full of resources.
Other assemblies are possible, of course, and the players are going to build their fleets according to their preferred tactics and strategies.

MMORPG in development

Some days ago I talked about the ancient origins of the APOCALYX engine (read the post). I said that all started from a demo written for an old NeHe Contest, the author of which was Matteo Perenzoni.

I forgot to mention that Matteo has further improved his demo developing his own 3D engine, independently from my APOCALYX. That engine was then improved to support MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), those games like World of Warcraft Online or Star War Galaxies that focus on large persistent worlds where players meet each other in cooperative quests or player-vs-player combats.

If you are interested to follow the development of Matteo's MMORPG (waiting for my own planned RPG game), or also want to help or know more about his engine, visit the official site of the Lost One's Land (in italian), that is the title of the game.
There you can find screenshots of the game models and editors, some concept art and also interesting tricks about the development. For example, to ease the work of the modellers, Matteo developed a tree genereator, so the engine automatically fills with trees the ladscapes of the Lost One's Land.

Lost Garden Awards

Lost Garden is one of my preferred blogs. The owner, Danc, always posts interesting articles about game design and also provides nice 2D graphics to developers who want to prototype his designs. From time to time, Danc also launches game prototyping challenges and assigns virtual bronze, silver and gold awards to the best works.
Now it's the time of Shade, the latest game prototyping challenge, the first that is not designed exclusively for 2D, in fact shadows play an important role in the game.

Since the game is based from the beginning on a 3D environment, I can finally develop a prototype based on APOCALYX, instead of my less powerful TooDee engine. As you can read in the article that describes the game, all the necessary features are already available. Shade needs a flat terrain, a simple HUD, several moving objects (the player avatar, the mushrooms etc.) and blocks that cast shadows. Since APOCALYX is completely scripted, it's the perfect tool to develop a fast game prototype: a challenge that one has no excuses to refuse.
Danc describes the basic gameplay as follows: "You play the part of a rugged mushroom rancher who must collect adorable sentient mushrooms living in the shade. All you need to do is run up to a planted mushroom and touch it. It will pop out of the ground and start following you around. Lead it back to the start location and you'll be awarded multiple point based off its size.
Unfortunately, it is a scorchingly hot day. You can meander about the landscape of giant grassy blocks with impunity due to your meglo-awesome wide brimmed hat, but the mushrooms wilt quickly in sunlight. To lead them back successfully, you'll need to keep to the shadows and plot the optimal path home."
For more details, read the complete article at Lost Garden.

SOCCER TACTYX API

Finally I've found some spare time to spend on SOCCER TACTYX, just before the Euro2008 match between France and Italy. Now I'm implementing the API through which the players will program their team of bots. Thanks to Kr0meel, who designed the API, I can work on a well defined set of functions.

For example, there are several functions that control the movement of the bot, such as: SetWalkSpeed(), SetStrafeSpeed(), SetRotationSpeed(), Jump() and Dive(). Then there is an important action, Kick(), and several functions to communicate with the teammates. Finally, there are a lot of input functions, like GetBallPosition(), GetPlayerPosition() and others, that are absolutely necessary to the bots to be aware of the sorrouding environment.
Users, who know about JROBOTS or GUN TACTYX, are already familiar with this kind of API. In practice the bots interact with their environment through input functions, that mimic the sensors of a robot, and output functions, that represent the actuators of a robot. A simplification, in comparison with other similar games, is the complete knowledge of the position of the ball and players on the field: in other cases a Watch() function that returns the positions of the objects in a limited angle of view is returned, but in this case we adopted a solution easier to manage.
At the end, the player, who will write the best algorithm, is going to score more goals and win more tournaments. Win the best!

RPG environment (III)

It was a long struggle, but finally the poll has given its results: the background of the next RPG game that I'm going to develop, based on APOCALYX, is the Middle Earth-like.

The results are: Middle Earth-like (29), Ancient Japan (25), Buccaneers (11), Western Fronteer (11), Post-atomic (11), Roman Empire (9), Galactic Empire (6), Gangsters (5), Ancient Egypt (5), Arthurian cycle (3), Other (1). The latter was about a RPG based on several environments, where the player travel through the ages. A nice idea, but let's start from something less complex.
Since the stuff about the "Lord of the Rings" is copyrighted material, the game will roughly inspired by Tolkien's world, in practice we'll see the usual races of trolls, orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves and humans and, probably, the usual classes of wizards, warriors, merchants, craftsmen and so on.
Now I'm only collecting materials and ideas for the first demos, to convince someone to join the team. Of course, I still have to complete some projects that I have begun in the past weeks, but this is the right time to send suggestions and ideas on how to develop the best amatorial Role-Playing game based on a fantasy-medieval asset. Thank you in advance!

RPG environment (II)

After a week, the poll is already giving interesting indications. I asked the visitors to choose among different backgrounds for the new role-playing game that I want to develop. There are a lot of possibilities, from the Galactic Empire to the Ancient Egypt, but the choice seems already restricted between the Ancient Japan and the Middle Earth options, the latter prevailing. In particular the most ancient backgrounds, from King Arthur down, are almost ignored, while most recent ones share almost the same preferences.
I can't believe that only orcs, elves, trolls, dwarves and the like, deserve the attention of a CRPG, thus you have still a week to change your mind and choose something different. Of course, you can confirm your preference, but remember that also multiple choices are possible: if you like orcs, but also post-apocalyptic mutants, you can choose both.

Soccer tactics

On occasion of the European Football Championship, I'm going to publish a preview of the new GUN TACTYX 2 framework, based on the models of the International Online Soccer MOD for Half-Life that you can see on the left. I've found those models a month ago (read the post) and I immediately thought that they were perfect for the soccer mode of the game.

The (real) european football championship is going to start and I'll try to finish the preview of the game in a hurry. The simulator will be a simplified version of what I had in mind since there is too few time for the complete version, but I hope that the players will appreciate the simple and neat functions needed to program their soccer team. To drive eleven players after a ball is not a simple task for a script, but nodoby says that these kind of games are accessible to everybody.

For those who don't know yet what kind of game GUN TACTYX is, visit the official site at GameProg.it.

RPG environment (POLL)

So you have chosen. The next real game that I’m going to program from the ground up, based on APOCALYX, is a Role-Playing Game. In fact, the results are: RPG (30), RTS (12), FPS (6), Other (0). Now it's the time to choose the background of the game. There are so many possibilities that I'm disoriented: Is it better to choose the usual inflated medieval asset, or a more original one? The choice is up to you.
Here I simply list several possibilities, with just a few ideas about the possible careers, but you can also propose something different. In the last case choose "Other" and send an email describing your idea: the more original, the better. You can also offer your help, if you want: in that case contact me!

• Galactic Empire to boldly go where no one has gone before
• Post-atomic Mad Max-like earth or Waterworld-like oceans
• Gangsters from news-boy to gang boss or police chief
• Western Fronteer gold-miner, bounty-killer, cow-boy, gambler
• Buccanneers from ship-boy to governor or captain of galleons
• Ancient Japan ronin, samurai, ninja, shogun, emperor
• Middle Earth-like goblins, trolls, orcs, elves, dwarves, humans
• Arthurian cycle from esquire to king Arthur or wizard Merlin
• Roman Empire from slave to gladiator; from private to emperor
• Ancient Egypt from slave to Pharaoh or Minister of religion
• Other give your fantasy a chance: describe your ideas

RPG vs RTS

It seems that the visitors of the APOCALYX Blog hate First Person Shooters games. It is very strange because FPS are the simpler games that one can create with the engine. Anyway I'm very surprised by the current result: RPG beats RTS with a result of 8 against 4. I must say that I'm more experienced in RTS, while RPG are quite outside my interests.

I like to play Real Time Strategy games like Warcraft or The Settlers because I'm addicted in the management of resources and in the building of armies, but it seems that I need to begin the study of the basics of Role-Playing games. Anyway there is still a lot of time to change the outcome of the poll: if you like RTS or FPS games give your vote to that genre, if you prefer RPGs continue to keep it at the top.

Choose the next game (POLL)

The last poll has given its answer. The next APOCALYX demo that I’m going to develop is “City Racing”. It has collected 10 votes against the 7 of “Worm-Holes” and the 2 of “Meteor Hunter”. In the next days, I’ll report step by step the progresses in its development, but it’s already the time for a new poll.
Now I’m not going to propose you to choose among a list of simple demos, nor between two set of models for a game already designed like GUN TACTYX 2. Now it’s time for a real game, the first real game that I’m personally going to program from the ground up, based on APOCALYX, of course.
Let’s start from the beginning. I’m going to ask you the most important thing: choose a genre. You can choose among the following short list, but you can also propose something different. In the last case choose “Other” and send an email with your idea: the crazier, the better.
Here is the list: First person shooter, Real time strategy, Role playing.
You choose the genre, but also can help, if you want: in that case contact me!

TooDee 2D Engine

Here I talk almost exclusively of APOCALYX, my 3D engine, but I have developed also a 2D engine, that I call TooDee. It is based on LuaSDL, so I can program in LUA 2D games rendered through the low-level SDL functions.
I use it mainly to fast prototype games and test their design, like those games shown in the “Experimental Gameplay Project”. It is useful also when sites like “Lost Garden” provide nice 2D graphics, to develop in a short time simple games.

Almost an year ago, I used TooDee to program a simple puzzle game: “The Lost Sheep”. I have developed it for “The CCN SpeedGame Contest 2007” and I achieved an unexpected third place.
If you want to try the game, download the “Lost Sheep” from GameAce. An editor of puzzles is included, but it’s quite raw and no documentation is available. Feel free to ask for further explanations.