{"author_name":"auto_suggestion","cat":"MiniLD","comments":[],"epoch":1374999360,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"42236","p_author":"auto_suggestion","p_authorkey":"24942","p_urlkey":"77859","p_title":"rgb, an RTS about resource management: first post","p_cat":"MiniLD","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1374999360","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"24942","us_name":"auto_suggestion","us_username":"auto_suggestion","event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"text":"<p>Hi! I go by auto_suggestion, and I&#8217;m a fairly newb-ish game developer. This is my first Ludum Dare anything, and I&#8217;ve been really excited to participate since several years ago when I first heard about Ludum Dare.<\/p>\n <p>Yes, it&#8217;s already the final day of the 7dRTS challenge and this is my first post, but I&#8217;m just going to talk about my entire process from the day I conceived the idea until now. In any case I&#8217;m really glad how things turned out, and I&#8217;m still motivated to continue working; even after the Monday deadline comes and goes. The 7dRTS challenge has given me a push, if not a push to the finish line.<\/p>\n <p>=====<\/p>\n <p>I did a lot of thinking about the RTS genre. I love playing and watching RTS games, being a League of Legends player and crappy Starcraft player. Much deliberation led to listing the elements of an RTS in writing in order to clear my thoughts; this is what I came up with:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Resource management \/ building units<\/li>\n <li>Unit placement \/ control \/ micromanagement<\/li>\n <li>Base management \/ placement<\/li>\n <li>Map \/ terrain considerations<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>My game idea (partly affected by the fact that I knew I had to aim low to get anything done at all) was to abstract one element and make it the focus of my game, and at the same time de-emphasize every other element. I decided to focus on resource management. Here&#8217;s an early mockup.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/mockup.png\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-264024\" alt=\"mockup\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/mockup.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>A two-player game. You are responsible for two things: collecting resources and spending them. You have a set number of workers that you can allocate to each type of resource, red, green and blue (hence the name of the game, &#8216;rgb&#8217;). The number of workers allocated determines the speed at which you collect that resource.\u00a0The resources you collect can then be used to build certain units. For example, a unit of the grunt class costs 1 blue, 1 red, and 1 green. This is where the creativity comes in. Unfortunately, I haven&#8217;t thought about this part at all, and I have no experience with game balancing. Fortunately, designing and balancing the units is a completely self-contained job and has no effect on development of the engine, which I&#8217;m working on now, so there&#8217;s no pressure to think about that now. I have some good ideas floating around, though. <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>\n <p>Anyway, \u00a0your units are completely AI controlled (no micro for you!; a de-emphasis of unit control). They&#8217;ll leave your base immediately upon being built and make a beeline for the enemy base, stopping only to attack the enemy units in the way. There are several lanes which the units can spread out on, so that there won&#8217;t be a problem of bottlenecking like in the flash game, Age of War (does anyone know about this?)<\/p>\n <p>=====<\/p>\n <p>That&#8217;s essentially it for the idea. As for actual progress, here&#8217;s a screenshot of &#8220;gameplay&#8221; (though my game is not playable yet):<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SCR20130727_02.png\"><img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-264025\" alt=\"SCR20130727_02\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SCR20130727_02-300x188.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>One major concern I have is multiplayer implementation. What about private information, like total resources collected? Isn&#8217;t it possible to immediately counter the enemy the moment they start building something? Stuff like that. The end-goal is putting the bases on separate screens, essentially splitting the battlefield in half and putting them on their own screens, probably on mobile devices. I can think only of Spaceteam, which uses Bluetooth for multiplayer. I have no experience there either, so that&#8217;s a milestone for another day.<\/p>","time":"July 28th, 2013 3:16 am","title":"rgb, an RTS about resource management: first post"}