Battle For Tiny Space - Routing Edition by thynnmas
::Goal::
You select things, and attempt to guide them to their corresponding things. The small, moving things are selectable, and should be guided to their corresponding large stationary thing. Colors code where they go, as well as their shape (the ones with holes go to the ones with holes, etc.). The faster you get them there, the more points, but any thing that leaves the world, or hits a non-corresponding large thing is lost.
There are two game modes:
-Time attack mode, where you must collect as many points as possible in 2 minutes, disregarding lost things entirely
-Score attack mode, where you die when you've lost 200 things.
[NEW]
It seems the gameplay here is quite confusing, as even my brother upon vocal explanation and demonstration took two rounds to get it, so instead, I'll now go into excruciating detail. You're adviced to keep an eye on the screenshot as you read along.
In the middle of the screenshot there are two large circles (purble and red) that are filled. We call these two for "Nodes". The four large circles with dark spots
(toruses) in the corners we call "Warps". All of these spawn, at fixed intervals, the smaller versions of each other we call "Particles". Nodes spawn paricles that correspond to warps, meaning they look the same, in the same color as the warp they correspond to. Warps spawn particles corresponding to either nodes or other waprs. Thus, something coming out of the center circles corresponds to one of the corners, but something coming out of the conrner may correspond to other corners as well as center circles.
You are in charge of uniting corresponding particles and nodes _and_ corresponding particles and warps. Any particle that appears it is your mission to get to the corresponsing Node or Warp. Keeping on top of that task is the game...
You do this task by "boxing" a set og particles (with LMB) and then routing them somewhere (with RMB). This alone will only get you so far though, as there are tricks to be employed. Once you have given a particle the order to go to it's corresponding node / warp it will speed up.
The rest of this section will describe one such trick:
The speed-up, coupled with the (Shift + RMB) "append command" functionality ( by holding down shift, and giving a series of points to visit, the particles will visit them in order all the way to the last one) allows you to group units together, string them around the world and towards one node/warp, at which point some of them will speed up, and the rest can be taken off crash course in time.
[END NEW]
::Controls::
-Left mouse button : Selects things by DRAGGING THE SELECTION BOX OVER THEM, clicking will not work!
-Right mouse buttons : Gives move-commands
-Shift : Modifies the above as such:
LMB now extends the old selection with the new one
RMB adds that move-command after the last previous one given to that unit (used to create zig-zag routes)
-Crtl + [0-9], Ctrl + [Num 0-9] / Ctrl + F1-F10 : Creates control group with selected things
-0-9, Num 0-9, F1-F10 : Selects the corresponding control group
-Space or P : Pauses/Unpauses the game
-Escape : Closes the game from the menu, returns to manu from ingame
The following two are bugged, and should NOT be used (or be nescessary):
-Mouse Wheel : Zoom
-Mouse Wheel pressed + drag : Moves view
Also important:
Once a thing has been routed to it's correct destination, it will become slightly darker and speed up. This is so things don't get cluttered; you can still give it new orders.
::Story::
Alas, the (back)story fits neatly to an RTS game, not so much to this. But how is it related to "Tiny world" then, you say? Well, the universe is vast, size is perspective, and we only see a few objects somewhere in space, with nothing to relate their size to. For now, let's just assume they are tiny ;)
::Comment::
See next post...
::PS::
There was a massive bug in the first version, but this has now been fixed.
::Linux Notes::
See readme included in tarball. Only 64-bit for now.
You select things, and attempt to guide them to their corresponding things. The small, moving things are selectable, and should be guided to their corresponding large stationary thing. Colors code where they go, as well as their shape (the ones with holes go to the ones with holes, etc.). The faster you get them there, the more points, but any thing that leaves the world, or hits a non-corresponding large thing is lost.
There are two game modes:
-Time attack mode, where you must collect as many points as possible in 2 minutes, disregarding lost things entirely
-Score attack mode, where you die when you've lost 200 things.
[NEW]
It seems the gameplay here is quite confusing, as even my brother upon vocal explanation and demonstration took two rounds to get it, so instead, I'll now go into excruciating detail. You're adviced to keep an eye on the screenshot as you read along.
In the middle of the screenshot there are two large circles (purble and red) that are filled. We call these two for "Nodes". The four large circles with dark spots
(toruses) in the corners we call "Warps". All of these spawn, at fixed intervals, the smaller versions of each other we call "Particles". Nodes spawn paricles that correspond to warps, meaning they look the same, in the same color as the warp they correspond to. Warps spawn particles corresponding to either nodes or other waprs. Thus, something coming out of the center circles corresponds to one of the corners, but something coming out of the conrner may correspond to other corners as well as center circles.
You are in charge of uniting corresponding particles and nodes _and_ corresponding particles and warps. Any particle that appears it is your mission to get to the corresponsing Node or Warp. Keeping on top of that task is the game...
You do this task by "boxing" a set og particles (with LMB) and then routing them somewhere (with RMB). This alone will only get you so far though, as there are tricks to be employed. Once you have given a particle the order to go to it's corresponding node / warp it will speed up.
The rest of this section will describe one such trick:
The speed-up, coupled with the (Shift + RMB) "append command" functionality ( by holding down shift, and giving a series of points to visit, the particles will visit them in order all the way to the last one) allows you to group units together, string them around the world and towards one node/warp, at which point some of them will speed up, and the rest can be taken off crash course in time.
[END NEW]
::Controls::
-Left mouse button : Selects things by DRAGGING THE SELECTION BOX OVER THEM, clicking will not work!
-Right mouse buttons : Gives move-commands
-Shift : Modifies the above as such:
LMB now extends the old selection with the new one
RMB adds that move-command after the last previous one given to that unit (used to create zig-zag routes)
-Crtl + [0-9], Ctrl + [Num 0-9] / Ctrl + F1-F10 : Creates control group with selected things
-0-9, Num 0-9, F1-F10 : Selects the corresponding control group
-Space or P : Pauses/Unpauses the game
-Escape : Closes the game from the menu, returns to manu from ingame
The following two are bugged, and should NOT be used (or be nescessary):
-Mouse Wheel : Zoom
-Mouse Wheel pressed + drag : Moves view
Also important:
Once a thing has been routed to it's correct destination, it will become slightly darker and speed up. This is so things don't get cluttered; you can still give it new orders.
::Story::
Alas, the (back)story fits neatly to an RTS game, not so much to this. But how is it related to "Tiny world" then, you say? Well, the universe is vast, size is perspective, and we only see a few objects somewhere in space, with nothing to relate their size to. For now, let's just assume they are tiny ;)
::Comment::
See next post...
::PS::
There was a massive bug in the first version, but this has now been fixed.
::Linux Notes::
See readme included in tarball. Only 64-bit for now.
| Windows | http://www.schmidx2.com/Code/LD23_compo.zip |
| Linux (64-bit, incl. src) | http://www.schmidx2.com/Code/LD23_compo_linux.tar.gz |
| Timelapse | http://youtu.be/dna2VDh6BR4 |
| Source | http://www.schmidx2.com/Code/LD23_compo_src.zip |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=11885 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 75% | 2 |
| Overall | 2.48 | 727 |
| Audio | 2.09 | 581 |
| Fun | 2.42 | 645 |
| Graphics | 2.21 | 760 |
| Humor | 1.89 | 607 |
| Innovation | 3.12 | 346 |
| Mood | 2.35 | 636 |
| Theme | 2.48 | 692 |
I tried the Survival mode but for the most part I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing. Perhaps using something other than (just) colours would have made it more playable, especially with the two green targets. I was having quite a bit of trouble deciphering which one was the intended goal of a hokey-puck.
The large circles spawn small ones. Your job is to select the small circles and right click where you want them to go (hold shift to que up commands and build a roiute around things). You want them to go the the large circle that corresponds to them in color and shape.
The middle spawning points will only spawn circles for the outer ones, whereas the outer ones will spawn for each other as well as the middle ones.
The faster you guilde them to their target, the more points that circle will gain you upon arrival. Dropped circles gain you nothing.
*I'll get some more people to test; in my build both route-modes work. Thanks for playing...
When hundreds of people make non-browser games, that means that, to play all of the entries, I would need to download hundreds of games to my computer. I typically use OS X, so Windows-only entries are particularly inconvenient.
Please consider making a browser game next time.
The selection- and routing bug confuses me, as I haven't been able to reproduce it. It could be that my explanation above was (still) too vague, and that you are attempting to click the units, while it is required to drag over them (to "box" them). That was actually intentional, as getting use to boxing right away should be very beneficial to the players skill at the game ;)
I've actually built games with SFML before, but I still had trouble (mostly my own fault-- package manager was broken).
Anyway -- the concept is simple enough that even a single tutorial screen would be enough to explain it -- I highly recommend doing this next time!
Gameplay was a bit tedious at times, but I sort of like frantic games like this. Maybe if there weren't really penalties for things going to the wrong shape on their own, just a lack of extra points. Another thing I'd like to see is shift-left-click-drag to _add_ units to your current selection.
The color choices were not the best. I had a hard time distinguishing green from green-blue(?) -- Maybe next time use different _symbols_, like they did with Tetris Attack or the like. Also, it wasn't always clear which units I currently had selected; was this a bug or just a poor choice of color?
Other than that, my only tip is to write games for the web, as you're going to get a much wider audience and better feedback that way. (Although I will admit to loving SFML, so I can't blame you for choosing that as your framework. Heh) Keep it up!
I gave somewhat lowish scores but only because the core idea was not quite developed enough for me. For instance I would have really liked to have a score or goal, some level progression, etc.
I think you should make this into a full game. If you had a level progression with fewer growing to more targets, generators, and targets of different size in different locations you could use just that to build a compelling game.
Cool concept!
The reason for the bad colour and (lack of) shape differences is simply that eveything is palceholder "art", and 5 minutes before deadline everything was still green and gray. I simply ran out of the time that was left after running out of time.
While frustrating, it's not really "game breaking" though, so I can't fix it now.
I think it'd be a lot more fun if stuff came at you in attack waves, rather just constantly.
the graphics reminds me of a small Game or Simulation i created some time ago.
good job!
As PsySal says, I think it has great potential. I found the gameplay frenetic (which is good for me!). Also found complicated distinguishing from selected/unselected symbols. And if you select an area that spans out of the window it cancels the selection and you start to pull out your hair! (I took it too seriously *rage*)
I think you have a good little game for Koreans and their Starcraft training plans :-) Well done!