ok, so I’m back. Even though I’ve had a week away from doing any work on this I’ve returned with fresh eye’s and I think im there in proving the concept of what I’m trying to do!
Rather than continue with this build I’m ready to sit down and come up with my own story, graphics and game play. So with that all said, here it is, the proof of concept.
Launch MLMGameDev Proof of concept
It’s important to note that this isn’t a alpha, beta or any sort of finished game. It was written in 3 weeks. It’s simply a proof of concept. For those of you that have played mega-lo-mania before you may be able to get to grips with it!
There is no end to the game, if you wipe out the other 3 CPU players then consider yourself done :D
Enjoy
Just having to take a break on development for a week as other things have come up and burning midnight oil is taking its toll. Stay tuned will be back in a week! :D
Working on the little guys that sit in buildings defending them. I had started writing these in a completely different function to the normal troops, but now I’m thinking that I need to put them into the main display list so that they are handled as normal troops.
This helps because all the throwing functions of bullets and things already exist. Troops can throw pebbles, rocks, arrows, spears, bullets etc.
Pulled a late one last night trying to get started on the CPU AI. I’d love to have more than one CPU player, say up to 3 other players which you can battle against. I’ve read a few approaches to AI and still trying to understand where to start. I guess the main thing is to give the CPU players goals … which is to ultimately wipe out all other players.
Anyway, after some late coding I’ve managed to get one CPU player simply move around the island looking for zones that it doesn’t own, and invade them. I have to say that Mac’s SUCK at flash rendering, gees. :p
Its a start.
Starting from the foundation of the game which is about collecting and managing resources, it’s a lot of number pushing (rather than pixels!). To keep track of what all the functions are doing I’ve cobbled together a quick ‘test board’ as a front end. I’m going to use this to display all the variable’s and data so I can make sure everything is doing what it should.
Also on this board is basic interactive bits, like selecting what idea to research, changing zones of an island, selecting created ideas and so on.
Reading up on CPU Player AI … hmmm
Thinking is over and the time to roll up my sleeves to get stuck into the code has arrived. I’m going to start by just getting all the numbers working. The game will be split into Islands with each Island containing Zones.
The zones will have their own resources that can be gathered and mined. At the moment I’m going to stick to 5 main resources but I’ll make sure that this can be expanded if needed in the future.
First, team research and object creation.
Flash boot …
So I’ve decided to start this blog to document a game dev …
Over Christmas I struck gold by finding all my old Amiga Format magazines, I’ll post a picture later. After rooting though them a wave of nostalgia gripped me and I’ve decided to use Sensible Software’s Mega-lo-mania game as my inspiration.
In a nut shell, it’s a ‘God’ game mixed with a good dose of arcade. I really want to make it accessible to both the casual and serious gamer. A kind of game that really feel’s rewarding for that stick value. But unlike most God games, have a dip in and out approach as well. I also want to use pixel graphics as I’ve got a real passion for them and find these the most inspiring.
My aim is to get a working wire frame of the games workings together within a few weeks. Having never written a game like this before it’s going to be a challenge and an adventure … I hope :D