Projekt Weltherrscher - "Phase 2"

[Sascha Willems]

It took me much longer than expected, but I just uploaded a new release of the open beta for windows and linux :

(Windows) Projekt “W” – Phase 2 – Open Beta rev. #170 (~74 MBytes)
(Linux, i386) Projekt “W” – Phase 2 – Open Beta rev. #170 (~78 MBytes)

Screenshots :



This release includes the new 360° space backdrops for the main view as well as the main menu, and the extensive ingame tutorial (70 chapters, over 25,000 words in two languages) that should help starters get a grip of the game but also includes information that experienced users may be interested in. Other than that there were some small bugfixes and changes that can be found in the changelog.

[SilverWarior]

Verry nice.
I see that you game has quite a lot of text. Have you ever considered using word compression?
Two main benefits I see in using word compression would be:
1. Less space needed for storing game texts (not really needed nowadays due to large HDD-s).
2. Ability to precalculate width for each of used word which my increase performance of automatic line war, especially if you are using bitfonts.
But there are also drawbacks of using this:
1. You need to have special routine which would decode text before it can be rendered.
2. Every small change in text requires you to regenerate word dictionary.
3. If word dictionary file gets damaged it will screw up whole ingame text.

[Sascha Willems]

Nice idea, thouth I don't think this would benefit the game at all. Line wrapping is done at loading time, and displaying text is already extremly fast as it's only a single glCallLists for a whole line or block of text. The only way of improving performance I can think of would be to put a whole memo's text into e.g. an FBO, though that performance boost could get eaten by overheads to to texture updates. There is more optimization potential elsewhere, and I've been optimizing the game to move the limit away from the CPU towards the GPU over the last years

But well, it's a turn based game anyway, and with more than 100 fps on my pretty old system in fullscreen with 4xAA is sufficent for me.

[SilverWarior]

That was just an idea I got when playing one game a few months ago. While that game didn't use word compression for storing thext it was actually using word compression for encoding some text for certain ingame puzle. So to solve the puzle you had to conect proper words with their indexes.
As for optimizing Memo like component that I have designed for my Silver GUI library I render the whole text once to some RenderTexture and then just reuse that texture for further rendering of the Memo controll. This even comes in handy if memos render texture exceeds the size of the memo itself (more text that it can fint inside the memo) since I can only do partial rendering of this texture to represent memo controll.

[Rodrigo Robles]

It took me much longer than expected, but I just uploaded a new release of the open beta for windows and linux :

(Windows) Projekt “W” – Phase 2 – Open Beta rev. #170 (~74 MBytes)
(Linux, i386) Projekt “W” – Phase 2 – Open Beta rev. #170 (~78 MBytes)

Yeah! I will test the Linux version right now!

[Sascha Willems]

Later than expected (partially due to a power supply failure on my PC) here's the new beta release #190 of "Phase 2". As usual it's available for windows and linux :

(Windows) Projekt "W" - Phase 2 - Open Beta rev. #190 (~83 MBytes)
(Linux, i386) Projekt "W" - Phase 2 - Open Beta rev. #190 (~80 MBytes)

Here are some highlights from this release, for a full list of changes take a look at the changelog :

• AI Builder for regions
• New soundtrack, including the game's very own theme song
• New and improved sound effects
• Several improvements to the user interface / gameplay :
  
  • Visual warnings for regions with low loyalty or high pollution levels (right to the region's flag on the globe)
  • The region list can now be sorted by different criterias (economic power, population, pollution level, etc.)
  • You can now have the units placed by the computer on the battlefield (by simply ending the placement phase)
  • Unit health is now displayed for deployed divisions in regional view
• Almost two dozens of bugffixes and minor improvements

So this release doesn't only add to the game's overal atmosphere with the new soundtrack and improved sound design, but also adds some finish with lots of bugfixes and small improvements to the user interface. What's still missing from the sound design is the battlefield. Units currently don't have any sounds assigned, but that's planned for a future release. It's sadly kinda hard finding military unit sounds that sound good and won't cost any money.

Also on the list are some missing features like the whole politics area of the game (it's partially there but disabled for the current build) and the different game modes that I intended to add at some point during game design.

I hope you enjoy this new build of "Phase 2" even more than the recent ones. And a big thank you to all the people that send me their valuable feedback on the game. That's what actually keeps me motivated

[WILL]

You know... even if you don't sell this game on Steam or something, you should at least show it off at the IGF.

[Sascha Willems]

You know... even if you don't sell this game on Steam or something, you should at least show it off at the IGF.

Yeah, thought about that. But not until it's finished.

And it'll soon be available on Desura (for free), making it my first game to get published on a digital platform. I must admit that the guys over from Desura responed very quick to my request and currently the installers and standalone releases are awaiting green light

[Sascha Willems]

Projekt Weltherrscher - Phase 2 will be available on the digital distribution platform Desura starting June 20th (as usual for free)!



Making this my first game to be available on a digital distribution platform, so starting from that date you can install and play it from the Desura Client (Windows and Linux). The game already got some attention and good feedback since I put it on IndieDB, and releasing it on Desura will hopefully boost it's popularity outside of the development communities I used to promote my games.



If you want to spread your game, distribute it or get some attention outside of the (pascal/delphi) development community, IndieDB and Desura are awesome. So I'd suggest anybody over here at PGD to at least put their projects over to IndieDB and take a look at Desura's publishing capabilities if you want to publish your games.

[SilverWarior]

Nice work!
I have done some promotion on several game forums so expect increase of interest for your game