Multiplexity: Rezolver

[cairnswm]

<sarcasm on>
Cool the Judges are judging already!!
<Sarcasm off>

PS. I would like to see comments like this from the judges where they feel they want tot say something. It will result in better quality games! And I dont care if it helps my competition "enemies"! ie. Please make more comments like this.

[Sascha Willems]

Well, I think it's the least I can do to try out the games available to at least tell the people wether they work on my system in advance, and not just in the comments after the deadline. That way they can try to fix it before submitting it.

And I also don't want to comment too much on the gameplay, as that could be seen as some kind of "hint" from a judge and other people may offended. So right now I'm only giving feedback on wether a game works as suspected on my system and on some minor stuff.
So you won't read something like "wow, this is awesome gameplay" or "change that to make it more fun" as that would spoil a part of the competition

[AthenaOfDelphi]

I'm not commenting for the exact reasons Sascha has outlined. I have tried pretty much every download thats been made available... had I encountered show stopping problems (like not running) I would have said something, but so far so good.

[jdarling]

I'm happy with just getting it runs/doesn't run on my system, that at least tells me I didn't screw up too bad.

Anyways:
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that during the last backup round I lost MOST of the source code for the game . The good news is, that I was able to re-build the game quite quickly.

This has actually proven to be advantagious in that now levels are even more flexible. You can see this by downloading and running the latest version. There are some new options in the character customization screen, but I completely lost the interaction code that was in place. So, no dialogs telling you what to do or giving you clues. You can still walk around finding the exit and going to the next level though.

Since this still fulfills Stage 2 guidelines, I'm going to release it as is and wait until Stage 3 starts to put interactions back in. Then I'll start working on other features that will make a big difference in gameplay.

I'm getting ready to upload my final for stage 2 as I type this.

[jdarling]

After A LOT of work and headaches the basics of combat are in place and available in the latest download. You won't see any combat until level 2, as in level 1 your goal is simply to find the exit. In level 2 you can find two MOB's to encounter then make a run for the exit. Finally level 3 is just more maze stuff. You can use the trojanhorse cheat code to start on level 2 if you want, but know that it may cause problems later on. Remember to setup your Combat Configuration using the mouse and SHIFT+ARROW KEYS before entering the combat system.

Check the project home page at: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/

[jdarling]

Well, the game itself isn't complete, but the engine has been successfully compiled and tested on Debian/Knopix. Since the goal of JumpStart has been to get a cross platform engine up and running, it wasn't hard to get this version done I just had to make sure that the code was stable enough .

You have to download and install the packages for Lua 5.1 and SDL for your Linux environment, but it should (in theory) work. It worked on the two boxes I have for testing, but I forgot to write down exactly what packages you need .

Anyways, if anyone downloads it and gets the game up and running please let me know so I can add the distro to my list .

Oh yeah, for some reason ZIP keeps marking the Game file as not an exe, so you will need to go in and setup your permissions to have execute rights.

Download here

[jdarling]

If you have played my entry, then my question will make more sense. If not, well then download the latest and give it a shot. I really need some feedback on the combat system. Everything from User Testing and QA has pointed that the Combat Configuration and Combat screens are interesting ideas, but that they need some improvements.

The general argument is that it is too time consuming to setup your combat queue and that it grows so rapidly its hard to maintain. So, here are my ideas on how to fix this so far. I'd like to know what ideas people like best as well as any new ideas that I haven't thought of.

1) Instead of actually configuring your tokens you configure the token types. So you would say show me x3 plays, basic attack, and minor heal before showing me x2 plays. Then when in combat you play from them.

2) Keep the same as it is now, but lower the number of tokens you receive, make combat shorter and thus eliminate some of the problem.

3) Remember the play order that the player came in with and when they go out try to match it (almost impossible to implement perfectly).

4) Change it to something like Guild Wars where you have only 6 slots for your next combat interaction that you have to setup at the beginning of each level.

As I said, I'd love to hear what others think, as well as other suggestions. I know that this is going to take time to implement, but I'd rather get it fixed now rather then later when it will take more time.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

The only real irritation I had with the combat system was the fact that the queue was jumbled after every fight. Whilst I don't know the in's and out's of the implementation, I wouldn't have though that making it remember the queue from one fight to the next would be too difficult. It is after all just a list of numbers.

That said, does the setting up before hand make that much of a difference? It forces you to think ahead, but you can also end up in a mess. Implementing a 'kind of' option 1 would potentially make it easier to understand and potentially more fun to play. By a 'kind of' option 1, I mean a system whereby you can pick any of your tokens at any time (within the rules). This gives you ultimate freedom, doesn't bog the player down readjusting the combat queue and can just as easily lead to bad decision making... possibly more so if you were to add a time limit to picking the tokens to play that round :twisted:

Just a few thoughts to chuck in the melting pot

[jdarling]

Stage 4 Development Screen Shots
These shots were taken once some of the final UI design was put in place. The new combat system is shown as well as the new graphics. These new shots are compressed JPG's to help save on some bandwidth.


Main Menu


Configure Combat Queue


Approaching a Merchant


Combat

More screenshots here