Village Defense PGD edition

[Traveler]

<center>http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgd06banner.jpg</center>

Here's my entry (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/zip/village_defense.rar) for this years competition. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Plans for the near future are to extend it (hence the pgd edition). I had a good time building it and I heavily regret I did not have enough time to improve certain features in this version.
But, now that the competition is over and time is not so much an issue anymore, I've got the option to enhance current features, add new and bigger things, without having to worry about deadlines. :)

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think of it.

[czar]

It seems that there are dlls missing.

Where do I get them?

[aidave]

Sweet, been waiting for this!

[czar]

Ok I downloaded the open al.

Your game ran fine. The scrolling was smooth and the characters moved nicely.

You are probably still working on it but here are a number of things that I noticed.

- a readme would be good. detailing where to get the openal files and the background to the current release. i.e. what the user can expect and what stil needs work.
- It is unclear how much the towers cost or what they do.
- It is unclear when you can upgrade
- wasn't sure about some of the buttons on your interface - the red bomb in particular.
- at the moment your demo is not a game. I just plonked down a few towers and that took care of all the invading forces. However, I presume you will be adding the game element.

Anyway, I loved the presentation and the technical aspects of the game. Looks great. Hope you continue to develop it.

[aidave]

So far this game is the most fun I've played in the competition. Although it doesnt seem complete, like there are more things you want to do but didnt get time. I really like the idea behind it, and I think it will be an awesome game. If there were ai villagers running an economy and such, that got killed by the orcs, that would be cool! I got to level 9, but after reading the documentation i think i can get farther.

question: Did you make the music?

[Traveler]

Thanks for the nice comments so far. :)

I forgot to post that it requires openAl, although I did specify it in the documents under 'requirements'. But yeah,.. I'm guilty of not reading docs too so I should have seen that one coming :)

Its definitely not finished and should be considered more of a demo rather than a game.
Points like the ones czar mentioned are valid and they will be improved upon in later versions as I am definitely going to continue with this game.

I wish I could take credit for the music, but its something I got from a site with flashsounds, one the name has skipped me (hence the low quality of it). Most sounds are also taken from various sites like http://www.findsounds.com/

btw, thanks for the pm, aidave. I could have sworn I had taken out that bug in an earlier version. I guess it must somehow have found its way back :(

In any case. The round button with the tower on it, is the upgrade button. When you've got enough cash and a tower has been selected it will become available (as in not red). The button with the bomb is (obviously to destroy towers, and to regain some of the money spent, but alas, it never got that far.

Anways, thanks again for playing :)

[WILL]

Hey Alex, you finally finished one! :D

Nice work btw. I'll have to give this a run sometime soon.

[aidave]

I beat it! Finally...

I also tried seeing how far I could upgrade. I got this tower, which kicked butt:

http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/village-thumb.JPG (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/village.JPG)

also, no matter how much money you have, some upgrades drain all your money. Thats mean!

8)

[Huehnerschaender]

Just beating level 4 when the following error occured...

http://upload3.postimage.org/227571/vderror.jpg (http://upload3.postimage.org/227571/photo_hosting.html)

Any idea if I did something wrong or how I can prevent this Traveler?

Greetings,
Dirk

Btw. Really nice game!!! It beats the video you once posted by far!

[Traveler]

Thanks guys! :)

Huehnerschaender, that is probably the same error aidave mentioned. It occurs when you haven't selected any tower, but you do click on the upgrade button.

aidave, I've also noticed the 'money drain bug' It is however in your advantage. Iirc the upgrade costs 300, but the upgrade button becomes available before you actually have that amount of money. :?

[Huehnerschaender]

Ah ok, thanks... then I know how to prevent it...

[Huehnerschaender]

http://upload3.postimage.org/228967/vd.jpg (http://upload3.postimage.org/228967/photo_hosting.html)


Yeah ^^ I think I finished it ^^

Is it right, that after wave 16 (I guess it was 16) the game ends? No more enemy spawn and that's it? I was in a hurry to place new towers and then I realised that no more enemys spawn ^^ Maybe I have overseen a message that I am playing like a young god or something *hehe*

Anyway,
nice entry traveler!
Seems a little too easy, but hopefully you go on with it. Presentation is very nice! And the game idea is cruel! Hope to see more of it in the future.

Greetings,
Dirk

[Traveler]

Thanks Dirk :)
The game indeed ends after level 15. I suppose I could have made it go on indefinitely, but the competition required an ending.

Its funny to see how people play it though. I'm more like a build a few, upgrade a lot kind of player, but apparently you seem to use a more aggressive strategy.

[Huehnerschaender]

I first placed all the towers right near the spawn point of the enemys. But then after they are becoming stronger from wave to wave, there was 1 or 2 breaking my defence. Then I started building more towers on the way to the village to kill the enemys which break my lines with low life. Seems this technique works... only one or two enemys reached the village.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Hi Traveller,

I downloaded and played Village Defence the other night, but didn't get around to posting any feedback.

Its pretty neat.

I had the same issue thats been reported (AV I think when I clicked one of the destroy/upgrade buttons). I also had an issue when I first tried with the enemies wandering off the play field. They came down the track from their start point, did a right turn and then when they were supposed to turn left, I think the navigator got confused and proceeded to lead them off the map... net result, I couldn't finish the game. I tried again, and whilst not all of them wandered off, some did.

Performance wise, it was ok on my slow machine.

[Traveler]

Thank Athena,

Orcs not following the path,... I'll need to look into that. I believe your pc doesn't update the positions fast enough to tricker the turns. Once past a 'checkpoint' and they're lost :(

I haven't had any problems with that on the machines I tested with, but then again they are all pretty fast.

Could you tell me your machine specs?

[AthenaOfDelphi]

My machine is an aging Athlon 800, with 1GB RAM and a 32MB GeForce 2 GTS running Windows 2000 Server.

If you want me to do any further checks... turn logging or whatever on, let me know and I'll do what I can to help.

[Traveler]

Thanks for offering, but that's not needed at this time. I am already working on a completly new methode of handling the turns. The current works okay, but does has a few backdraws.

[Warior]

Look like clone of www.Master-of-Defense.com game :?

[Traveler]

Which in turn is a clone of many warcraft TD mini games.

Yes I know the idea is not origional. I never claimed it is.

Is that the sole reason you made an account here or do you have something constructive to add?

[idee_fixe]

Traveler - I finally completed your game! I could get to level 13 or 14, but the last couple levels tripped me up. I was finally able to beat it using only 4 towers, and not a single orc got through! It's way more advantagous to upgrade towers instead of buying new ones.

Congratulations on a good game!

[Traveler]

Thanks idee_fixe! I'm glad you like it. :)

[idee_fixe]

Update - Completed with 3 towers, and not a single orc got through! I got to level 13 with 2 towers, but I chickened out and built #3 just in case.

I was curious, is there some end sequence that I am missing? As soon as I beat the boss it says Level 16 wave approaching in... Is that right?

Anyway, fun game; I'd love to see more of it!

[Traveler]

Hehe,.. you're becoming quite an expert already :D


I was curious, is there some end sequence that I am missing? As soon as I beat the boss it says Level 16 wave approaching in... Is that right?

Nope, I'm afraid your not you're missing any ending sequence. That message should not have been there.


I'd love to see more of it!

No worries,.. you will :wink:

[grudzio]

Hey, Traveler

It is a very nice game You have made. I have managed to coplete it, although I an not as good as idee_fixe - ten towers or more and still some orks got through :oops: The idea is excelent. I really enjoy playing it. (if ejoy is a good word for bitting nails and watching, will orcs pass my towers or not :D ). I only miss the ending sequence and that I cant distinguish which tower is upgraded to what level. Maybe upgraded towers should have different colors? Also is there any info on costs of towers and upgrades?

I dont know if you are planning to work more on VD, but I think it would be great if you add more villages - after defending one village player will be moved to defend another village. You can make next villages harder to defend by changing the road layout - making it less winding or adding another road, so enemy can attack from many directions.
You could add some more defensive gadgets. For example some kind of barricades which can be placed on the road to slow enemy down for some time.

Once more, congratulations on excelent game.

Regards

K.

[Lord_ZealoN]

<center>http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgd06banner.jpg</center>

Here's my entry (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/zip/village_defense.rar) for this years competition. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Plans for the near future are to extend it (hence the pgd edition). I had a good time building it and I heavily regret I did not have enough time to improve certain features in this version.
But, now that the competition is over and time is not so much an issue anymore, I've got the option to enhance current features, add new and bigger things, without having to worry about deadlines. :)

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think of it.

I will try when come to home.

Is Freepascal? DelphI? GlScene? DelphiX? etc...

Source will be available?

CHeers.

[Traveler]

Thanks! And welcome back to PGD ;)

I wrote this game with Delphi7 PE using openGL as a renderer and openAL for music/sound (note, you may have to install (http://www.openal.org/) that before playing).

At the moment I have no plans for releasing source. Its likely that some of it may see the light of day in the form of a tutorial or code snippets, though. (the more interesting parts of the code, that is).

[Traveler]

Grudzio, I'm sorry for not getting back to you earlier.
Your comments are appreciated a lot and I definitely take them to heart.

Currently I'm in the process of updating my website. (No online changes yet though.) The whole site will be rearanged into something completely different, more focussed towards the VD game, less on other, old material.

Despite the bugs people have found in VD, I realize many enjoy playing it and want to see new features implemented. Different maps being the most mentioned of all.

I'm not sure when I'll begin again, with the new site in the works, World of Warcraft begging to be played, and WILL pulling my sleeve for the mug graphics (j/k). But rest assured, a new version will come.

[grudzio]

But rest assured, a new version will come.
All right :D So I am waiting for Village Defense II - Return Of The Horde :twisted:

[WILL]

Hey so how is Village Defense coming along? I'm waiting for that cool multi/random road & layout idea version to be released. ;)

[Traveler]

Hey so how is Village Defense coming along? I'm waiting for that cool multi/random road & layout idea version to be released. ;)

Well to be honest, a new release isn't going to happen any time soon. :)

As you may have read on my site, I'm not going to continue buliding on the existing code. There are a few reasons for that.
Prime reason: I've come to realize that there are far too many changes to be made and the old 'engine' simply can't handle those changes.
A second reason for a rewrite is that competitions tend to be good motivators, the deadlines however can easily persuade you to choose the easy and often dirty solutions. Let me tell you, there are a lot of those in my code. :)
The last reason is fairly simple actually. During the development of VD I've made some design choices, which looking back, could have been done differently and probably a lot better too.

A good example, is the fixed path that the orcs are walking.
I've used fixed coordinates for the starting position, each of the corners and the end. At first it seemed like a good and easy to do idea, but it also meant a lot of work when a path changed.
Granted, it was also mainly because my editor was not advanced enough to allow for an easy way to input new coordinates. Perhaps with a proper way to insert the coordinates it might have worked.
But still, now that I've had the option to think a lot about the game, I've come to the point where I think that it would be nicer if enemies were to choose their own way instead of following a fixed path like a bunch of mindless drones.
The ideal situation would be to have a totally random world with possibly more than one path leading from or to the village, have an arbitrary number of spawn points and have the enemies figure out a way to the village, by themselves.

And that's just one of the things I'm currently working on. Well I'm not actually writing that into the game, but I'm giving that, and other stuff a lot of thought.
Stuff like the setting of the game. What is the situation. I mean in this version I had orcs and ogres, but why are they there, why invade villages?
What are the surroundings like. There is currently one map, entirely covered with grass. But the options for more are limitless: rivers, mountains, different trees and rocks, hills etc, etc.

And what about the village itself. What kind of bulidings are there. Are there going to be villagers? Are they going to play a role in the game.
The nummber of questions is currently quite endless.

Apart from thinking out the answers to these questions, I've also been doing some research on how to create better looking graphics. How for example can you make some real looking water, that
1: is animated, and
2: perfectly blends into the rest of the world. (And I dont mean blending as in using glBlendFunc)

Anyway, as you can see, there's lots to be done.
I'll be adding info and images, possibly even video's on my site in due time. So please do keep an eye out.

[WILL]

Wow, looks like you have quite a bit of new things planed indeed. :) I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

You know I have an idea of something you can try for the 'find their own way' type of pathfinding...

Obviously the most common type of pathfinding is A*, right? Well I thnk that has a lot to do with the fact that you can tweak it so much. My little idea is to have each Orc/Troll/Goblin A* towards the village it's self, but instead of just having common terrain influenced nodes, you have an extra layer taht influences the map at random. ie.. add 0-5 extra points for all the nodes.

You can then have about 5 sets of these and assign them to each attacking enemy independant of what spawning point they come from... This will allow a sense of semi educated tactical movement on their part.

And of course over time they will learn what spots are hard to pass through so you can also then add enemykills score to each node so that they as a whole will seem to be learning the villages weak points.

And if you can just learn the basics of the algo it'll be the easiest thing to add to the game, I assure you. ;) Is A* cool or what? :P

[Traveler]

In case you are already visiting my site, you may have noticed an increased activity on my part in the development of Village Defense.
In the event you are not, and if you are interested in Village Defense or if you're just curious on how development is going in general: please do visit. (http://www.gameprogrammer.net)

I've recently opened a new screenshot section in which I add new screenshots of the game.
Currently there are only a few images in there, such as the one below, but I'm pretty sure many will follow during the next couple of months, especially when more gamecontent is added and the game itself is progressing to a more playable level.

http://www.gameprogrammer.net/uploaded/images/islandinwater.jpg

In case you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask :)

[Huehnerschaender]

JESUS! That looks great!

Is this rendered in realtime or is the water prerendered? Is it animated?

Anyhow, the technique looks fantastic. Go on with this style!

[HopeDagger]

Finally took VD for a run, and I'm very glad I did! The game plays well, the music good, the sound is fitting (and luckily not too repetitive!), and the graphics are excellent. Wonderful work, especially with the timeframe.

I'll resist the urge to start screaming, "SEQUEL! SEQUEL!". ;)

[WILL]

Very nice Alex.

I've unfortunately not checked out your site in a few weeks. I take it much is quite new, say... within the last couple of weeks? Must make the time to have a look... :scratch:

I'd be quite anxous to see how branching & multiple roads would work in the game. Also perhaps you can set a unit or team of skermishers to be bought and placed like the towers? Diferent things besides just the towers.

OR... you can upgrade or place guards/archers, etc into the towers/gates, etc... While not getting too crazy as to reinvent Stronghold 2. :P (A fun game though ;))

VD was one of the entries at PGD Annual that I thought had that strong visually polish and 'attention to detail' quality to it. How much in the way of new graphics or characters will we be seeing in the final version would you say?

[Traveler]

Thanks for the replies guys :)

@Huehnerschaender:
Like with the competition version of VD everything is prerendered (it is after all still a 2d game). However, the water is animated and, if I may say so myself, looks very nice. The island you see here consists of 16 tiles (4 blocks of 4 tiles) which (eventually) can be modified individually, to allow for different rock formations.

@HopeDagger:
Thanks for trying out VD. I'm glad you like it that much. And don't worry about a sequel, it will take a while but there will be one :)

@WILL:
Some good ideas there about the skirmishers and teams. I'm not entirely sure yet how gameplay is going to be in this version, but there is definitely going to be more to do for the player than just placing towers and upgrading them. The maps are probably going to be bigger, roads leading to the village longer and more varied.

As for new graphics and characters, there's going to be plenty more to see in the new game. As seen in the screenshot, there's at least going to be water in it, but I'm thinking of hills and possibly mountains too. These could allow for some interesting level designs such as two islands connected by a bridge for example.

About the characters: the orcs and ogres seen in the demo are not returning. I had far too much problems with the models to use them again in this game. However, I have already started to work on new models. I hope to be able to release some more info and screenshots about this soon.