Fantasy Land

[cairnswm]

This is a new game I am working on for a local South African game development contest.

Fantasy Land - Medieval Village Manager

You have been raised to the rank of baron in the Kingdom. Therefor you have been given a medieval village to manage. Within the boundaries of the village you can build buildings and adjust some parameters on how people behave within the village. You job as Baron of the village is to keep everyone happy and the village as prosperous as possible, remember all the time that your village is in a wild and rugged area, with raiders and highway men being constant problems. The king of course expects his Tithe each month as well.

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland1.jpg


There are basically four different resources
1. Food - needed to sustain a largish population
2. Iron - needed to build weapons and for special items in the game
3. Wood - needed to build new buildings
4. Gold - used as a trading resource

Within the village boundaries are identified places where buildings can be built. There are three main categories of buildings.
1. Resource Buildings - Farms, Mines and Lumber camps
2. Core buildings - Markets, Docks, Castles etc - these define how the village will progress
3. Utility Buildings - they assist the resource and Core buildings to do their jobs better

However the number of spaces available for each type of building is limited. You can have up to six resource buildings, five Core buildings and four Utility Buildings.

Each resource building will provide a certain amount of resources each turn. Each Core and Utility building will consume a certain amount of food (and in some cases Iron/Wood or Gold) each turn. Your job is to ensure that all the buildings function properly.

Resource Buildings (Can build max of 6)
Farm - Produces Food
Lumber Camp - Produces Wood
Iron Mine - Produces Iron
Gold Mine - Produces Gold

Core Buildings (Can build max of 5)
Castle - expensive to build - Allows building of army, gives small bonus to all other buildings
Gate House - - Gives village high level of defense against raiders and high way robbers
Market - - Allows the sale/purchase of good from other villages
Dock - - Gives small amount of food, allows a small amount of trade per turn
Mill - - Increases the production of Farms
Stable - - Increases the production of farms (Less than mill), also gives small amount of food
Lumber Yard - - Increases wood production from Lumber Camps
Church - - Increases population happiness
Blacksmith - - Increases town defense and improves mining capabilities.
Storehouse - - Increases maximum levels of goods that can be kept
..
..

Utility Buildings (Can build max of 4)
Light House - - Increases all aspects of the Dock
Guard Tower - - Increases defense of Gate House, Increases size of army allowed by castle
Shrine - - increases effect of the church
Bakery - - Improves farm output, also makes people happier due to better quality food
Pub - - Increases Happiness
Windmill - -
..
..

Parameters that the baron controls:
Tax rate - earn money from Core and Utility Buildings
Effort - assign effort between resource buildings (Like when you need extra food etc)
Army allocations - Defenders/Attackers
Trade - Buying and selling of goods from the market/docks
Tithes - How much money is sent to the king. If the king is kept happy he can be asked to send soldiers to defend the village in time of need. The Baron can also decide to become independant and may even end up at war with his previous king.

The Baron can send the attacking army out to fight the highwaymen and robbers in the area. This makes trading from the market/dock safer. Defenders are used to defend against raiders attacking the village and pillaging the buildings.

By building the right buildings and setting the parameters right, the baron must ensure the people in his town are happy and content. If people arnt they get upset and if they get too upset they will appeal to the king to have the baron replaced.

Interaction between the Player and the external entities such as the King, foriegn villages, the raiders and the Highway men will be done through text messages on the screen. The player is then given choices based on the messages and how they want to react.


Nice to Have 1
How about building updgrades. Improve the level of the farm to get more resources. This could possibly be dependant on a Core or Utility building being present in the village. (e.g. To get a level 2 farm you need a stable in the village, to get to level 3 you need a stable and a mill).


Nice to Have 2
Heros - Each utility building will give the village a hero that the Baron can send on missions/quests to get extra money or other benefits. The utility buildings can create the heros but the Core buildings give them special abilities.

Light House - Bjorn the Viking
Wizards Tower - The White Wizard
Guard House - The Red Knight
Shrine - The Priest
Fairy Circle - The generous Fairy

Dock - Allows heros to go further away
Gate House - Gives Heros a +1 on Defense skills
Castle - Gives hero +1 attack
Mill - Means heros can travel further as they have more food
Church - Gives the heros an improved health
etc

The Game will then create quests and missions that heros can be sent on. Missions and quests will be in the form of messages that the player can respond to. The player does not know how long a quest is, or how difficult it is.


Nice to have 3 (extension of 2)
Core buildings give citizens that can be allocated tasks. Tasks could include accompaning heros, or helping in the farms, or training heros etc. Basically they do jobs around town, while heros do quests out of town.


Nice to have 4
Have a Country instead of only a village. Have a country map with multiple village sites, the player then needs to manage them all and could include having trading routes between towns to balance resources. Certain towns could have better mining or farming abilities.

Each village could also vary in size, with different number of buildings that the player can build in each place.


Nice to have 5
Each building can be configured for different effects. For example a Dock can be set to concentrate on fishing and therefore decrease the amount of trade it allows while increasing the amount of food it produces.

This will mean that each core and utility building must have multiple impacts on the game.



Nice to have 6
Add a complete fanasy feel tot he game. Include raiding goblin tribes, fairies and trolls. Allow the player to build a cave to summon a Monster to the village. Include various magic spells the Wizard can cast to help the village.

[cairnswm]

The economic model is working, buildings can be made, turns ended, income sheet checked and help screens are done.

Will spend this afternoon adding in the logic to build heros in the game. Then next week I'll do quests etc for the heros. I also need to spend some time making the game more polished, like in allowing the playing of multiple games each time you run the program, maybe even a scenarios section where you can choose to complete a specific (difficult) quest.

Latest Screen shot:
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland2.jpg

[jdarling]

Looking good cairnswm, I'll check it out more over the weekend if I get a chance. Any chance that this one will end up as OpenSource on your site as well?

[cairnswm]

None of my games are released as open source - all my games are released as FreeSource :)

Yes - this game will also be available as Free Source from my website. Only 1 game that I have done so far are not free sourced - Farmer Joes Matching yard - As I am trying to see it as Shareware.

For a full list of all my games look here: http://www.nag.co.za/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13480

When I have better internet connectivity I'll release the first pre alpha Fantasy Land.

[cairnswm]

Great news - the first pre-alpha version of Fantasy Land is available for download. Not too much laughing please!

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland.zip

Click on a circle on the playing field to build a building. Right click on a building to see its cost etc. (Right click is always help in the game). Once you have a building you can also see what heros are available from the building.

End turn will end the turn. Each building costs 1 of each resource per turn (only 0.5 iron though) - so be careful how you build.

There is currently no way to start a new game - you need to exit and start again.

[cairnswm]

First Playable release:
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland.zip

Quests dont work yet. However the bandits and raiders that live near the village can be scouted and fought and will also attack the village.

[Robert Kosek]

Sounds good Cairnswm, I'll check it out when I have time tomorrow. ;)

I would assume this is either an RTS or a Turn Based Strategy? It looks neat in either case.

[cairnswm]

Turn based management actually. You manage the village by building a limited number of buildings - and trying to balance your economy, people happiness (not yet implemented) and enemy feelings.

You only have access to build buildings call and command heros.

[Robert Kosek]

A few bugs for you:

If you navigate back in time with both finances and messages and do not return to your position, you can jump to the future too, then you continue forwards from that date through the days you have already gone through.

Also, by the second year, 3rd month I got a tithe request and went to check my finances. They 'capped' at year 1 month 3, so I couldn't tell what my current rate of production was. So I went back, and my date was reset to year 1 month 3, but I cannot move forwards again and ending my turn simply reprocesses that specific month indefinately.

Otherwise it looks pretty good. :)

[cairnswm]

Thanks Robert - I hadn't seen that bug - was due to returning to a 'new' game each time you closed the gfinance screen due to GameState property links :)

[Robert Kosek]

Ah, glad you fixed it. ;) It had me thrown for a loop for a few turns.

Think you could show the cost of building? I wanted to build some stuff but they either simply said 'not enough materials' or I risked making something really expensive.

I'll try it again when you release an update. (Strategy is my favorite genre, by the way)

[cairnswm]

Hopefully this is management :)

To see costs - right click on building - I've decreased costs A LOT :) so it should be more fun.

Most units and objects in the main screen have a right click for help.

----------------
New version posted.

The king works well.
Baddies will attack.

New Funny hero is added. :)

To Do - Markets and Quests - maybe scenarios

But I have to go to work tomorrow (on a public holiday :( ) - so I dont know how much time I will have - Tomorrow evening is the deadline for the contest.
-------------------

Hints:
If you get more income in than you spend on maintenance - the local tribes get jealous - and will start attacking the village - and destroying buildings.
Heros on Scouting duty will inform you about how the tribes feel. (No report is good - as long as you have scouts out there)
Heros on Patrol will fight aggressive Tribes. Then they calm down until later again.
There are 4 tribes - each scout or patrol action is only against one tribe at a time.
The king expects one turns income to be sent to him a year. If he is happy with you he gives you a free hero. If he is unhappy he takes it away - The hero is available from The King screen.
Destroying buildings is possible.
Heros cost money to maintain - except the Pizza boy and the Kings Knight (So lots of Pizza Boys is possible)

[Robert Kosek]

Good revisions! I like sending Ninja on scout missions, since they do an awesome job. :P But then again, they're ninja and you'd expect that.

One little reccommendation though. I get a lot of 'village attacked by bandits' messages, but I never know the outcome outside of the fact that I didn't loose buildings or heros. How about describing what happened in greater detail? Such as "The knight fended off the bandits with only minor cuts to show for it" or something similar? Also, is there a way you could hint to the sending tribe, so maybe I could retaliate? *rubs hands to gether viciously*

What's the approximate tribute that the King likes? I sent a tribute of 15 gold and 10 for the rest, well over a tithe, and he didn't do a single thing about it. I wanna see his hero! :D

Edit:

I laughed aloud when I destroyed the temple and got a fatal error, causing the game to crash and burn pretty hard. I just thought it was really funny! :D I had a priest on patrol just for the heck of it, but I guess he assassinated me for it.

Also I noticed that when bandits attack they do so relentlessly, and don't destroy anything. I think perhaps you may want to put a little logistics into how the bandits attack, since I think of them as a more ragtag group of dissidents rather than a formidible military force. But I also think they need to be a bit more dangerous, since I haven't lost a single building without a single defender on patrol ... unless scouts count for defense. So while I think they should be a bit more dangerous, I think they also need to take losses and recuperate too.

[JernejL]

Also I noticed that when bandits attack they do so relentlessly, and don't destroy anything. I think perhaps you may want to put a little logistics into how the bandits attack, since I think of them as a more ragtag group of dissidents rather than a formidible military force. But I also think they need to be a bit more dangerous, since I haven't lost a single building without a single defender on patrol ... unless scouts count for defense. So while I think they should be a bit more dangerous, I think they also need to take losses and recuperate too.

hmm, here is an idea: bandits could take hostage situations ;)

[cairnswm]

Final (Compo) version: http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland.zip

Thanks for the suggestions on the attacking bandits. I dont have time to implement them now but will do in the future.

The kings expected tithe is one turns income. (The kings happiness with you starts at 5 - at 7 he offers his knight - there was abug where his happiness with you did not go up). The new version lets you know how happy he is with a message each turn (or nearly each turn).

The Crash when deleting a building should be fixed now.

There is only about a 5% chance of bandits wrecking a building - but it seems to happen to me every time they attack. Tribes get jealous when your income from resource buildings is higher than the maintenance on Village buildings. :)

Quests work now - so give it another try. I found the addition of Quests adds a lot more interest to the game :)

Post compo version - pre Compo GameDev.Ner 4E5 entry:
1. More info about tribesmen - maybe even more different tribes men
2. Two new buildings - I want fairies and maybe some other fantasy hero added to the game (problem: my data structure will not allow another hero)
3. Make the green shield the knight carries more prominent in the game. Sort of have it everywhere
4. Add a map of Europe so you can decide where you wan tto play. This will possibly affect which buildings you will have access to.
5. Each time you play the game a Scenario Quest will be generated. the goal is to beat the quest. Limited time may be allocated to do so.

[Robert Kosek]

The uploaded archive is corrupt, but WinRar was able to repair it enough to extract the new version. I would reccommend a you upload a new copy. I'll comment on it a little later.

[Robert Kosek]

Okay, nevermind the repair statement, as the game gives a fatal exception when I launch it. The entire archive is corruptted. Gimme a holler when you upload a fresh copy.

[cairnswm]

Reuploaded

[jdarling]

Well crainswm I finally managed to download and play your game. Interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to win. I had over 1000 of everything, all my slots filled up, more people then would fit on the screen (to me thats a nasty bug) and was into year 5 something or other... Click to setup market again (done it quite a few times) and it crashed :(

Game play wasn't too bad. Actually quite enjoyable. I really like turn based games, they are easier for me to find time to play when I get time between the kids wanting attention :)

[cairnswm]

We had prize giving for the contest at the Local game expo (rAge - really Awesome game expo), Fantasy Land won 2nd prize worth R2500 (~US$325).

Gots lots of changes to make, and then I'll be entering it into the 4E5 contest on GameDev.net.

[Robert Kosek]

Hey! Congratulations William! Great to hear that you made second place! :D

[Huehnerschaender]

Congrats from me too!!! Nice to know people from PGD win prices around the world :)

Keep it on!!!

Greetings,
Dirk

[cairnswm]

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/rage2006prize.jpg

[Traveler]

Sweet! :D

congratz cairnswm!

[Huehnerschaender]

Cool! Was the girl part of the prize? *lol*

Hehe...

just kidding...

Must be a good feeling to get a prize on a stage with moderator etc...

How big was the audience?

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

Excellent Stuff!

[cairnswm]

Some minor fixes have been done.

1. Mouse over building shows building costs
2. Mouse over hero shows hero costs
3. Max heros = number of happy faces +1
4. Heros have an indication of their current roles, and also how far they are with the quest (simple % counter for now)
5. Fixed buy/sell button errors for food.

The full version with fixes can be downloaded from
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland.zip (~3.3MB)

A patch for the current version can be downloaded here
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasylandpatch.zip (~0.1MB)
(Just overwrite the existing exe with the exe included in this zip file)

[cairnswm]

Hi Dirk

The prize giving was at the biggest computer game expo in South Africa. Its a yearly event called the Really Awesome Game Expo (rAge).

The exhibition hosts about 40000 people over 3 days. It included the XBOX 360 South African Launch.

Our Game Development community (http://www.nag.co.za/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?10) actually had our own stand at the expo where we did presentations, game development demos and generally tried to encourage new people to try making games. I personally did a presentation on "Frameworks for rapid Game.Dev". Edition 7 of our free game development magazine was launched (see in my signature). I think I made PacMan 5 times over the three days in demos, and also a small version of crimsonland (all in game maker actually). Here are some more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/62099480@N00/

For three days we had about 7 people manning the stand, all volunteers who just want to grow game dev and make people realize its OK to make their own games.

At the end of the weekend we had the prize giving. There was an audience of 200 or 300 people. It might have been more though as it was the prizegiving of the tournamenets held over the weekend etc.

Being involved in something like this was absolutly amazing! Next year will probably be better than this year was :)

[Traveler]

If only we had such events in Holland... :(

[pstudio]

I must say I really like this game and I'm looking forward to see the final game.

Some few bugs I encountered while playing:

1# I don't know what happened but in the 4'th year and 8'th month when I pressed the 'End turn' button the game crashed. Windows told me that an error had ocurred and the game shut down. I haven't played the game again so I can't really tell you what happened :(

2# When I'm in the Market it doesn't seem to matter how much food,iron or wood I want to sell or buy. It just substract or add 5 when I press a button no matter what I've set the amount to.

3# When the king is so happy with me that I'm allowed to to summon a knight, it seems that I can summon as many as I want. I pressed the summon button 3 times (by the way it would be nice with a popup message that told me I had summoned a knight) and when I closed the King menu I had 3 knights. And since the knights apparently don't cost me anything at all, it can't be right that I can summon 3 so strong knights for free.

I hope you can use this information to improve your game. Anyway I can't wait to see how your final product is going to be. Good luck :D

[cairnswm]

Hi pstudio

Thanks for the feedback - the one about the Kings Knight is a serious bug and I'll fix it quickly.

I haven;t had a sudden crash like that on the end turn option. Sounds like an access to a pointer that has been freed

The market works on an 80% option. Each Buy spends 5 gold for 4 resources, each sell sells 5 resource for 4 gold. The setting of an amount is used for auto trading - i.e. somthing that will happen every time you press the End Turn button. (this also works on an 80% calculation). The idea was to allow players to try and build an all Gold economy, and just being able to purchase the other resources they needed.

Cheers

[pstudio]

The market works on an 80% option. Each Buy spends 5 gold for 4 resources, each sell sells 5 resource for 4 gold. The setting of an amount is used for auto trading - i.e. somthing that will happen every time you press the End Turn button. (this also works on an 80% calculation). The idea was to allow players to try and build an all Gold economy, and just being able to purchase the other resources they needed.

Oh ok. I didn't realize that :roll:

Edit

I just remembered some few more things :)

4# When I want to send my hero on a quest and I have to pick one - if there are to many quests they will be listed so that they go outside the quest-box. It would be nicer if you made a scrollbox.

5# When my hero retruns from a quest it says something like 'He retruned with 34 gold". What happens to that gold? When I look in my Finances box it says that I've earned 34 gold on quests from that turn, but it hasn't been added to my gold.

[cairnswm]

There should be a check to not create new quests if the qust count is too high to fit in the box.

I'll check the gold being added to your finances on quest completiton.

Thanks for the reports


I will be modifying this game to enter it into the GameDev.Net 4E5 contest. I'll do this by allowing you to choose where you want to build your village within europe. (And possibly change which buildings/heros are then available). And by using the Knights Green and White sheild as an Emblem in the game. Combat reports will be extended to include the emblem - and possibly emblems for the opposing forces etc.

One thing I did wrong in the game was how I give visual feedback on fights and scouting reports. I want to extend this by having a 'local' map screen on which you see the village in the middle along with the neighbouring tribes and their feelings toward you. (Show a little camp with Orcs around it, fading out based on how long ago the report was - possibly be near the village if they are getting aggressive etc)

I'd also like to do some work on extending the quests side of the game - somehow give progress reports or something as the quest progresses - and also possibly making the more difficult quests longer.

[cairnswm]

Version 1.02 is available

Money recieved from quests now added to Treasury.
You cannot summon more than one Kings knight at a time.

The full version with fixes can be downloaded from
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasyland.zip (~3.3MB)

A patch for the current version can be downloaded here
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/fantasylandpatch.zip (~0.1MB)
(Just overwrite the existing exe with the exe included in this zip file)

[grudzio]

A very nice game :!: I really enjoy playing it. Just few things I noticed (version 1.02).

1. Problem with help. At title screen when I press 'help' button, then go back with 'main', the 'help' button doesn't work anymore.

2. Same problem as pstudio. After some time pressing 'end turn' button causes game to crush. It happened in three games each time at different turn.

3. Destroying buildings by enemy does not work properly. The buildings are not destroyed or destroyed inproperly - message said that barracs are destroyed but castle disapeared.

Here are some thoughts on a game play

1. Maybe the market option should be avaiable when palyer builds marketplace
2. I can send king's tithe any time I want. In one game in one turn I sent it few times in one turn and made king happy (could summon kings knight early in the game).

3. I just cannot figure out how to make my heroes defend village :oops: . When the message says the bandits are preparing to attack should I send heroes on patrol or leave them at home?

4. How about adding some random events like famine, flood, plague etc. which affect happines and/or resource gathering.
Another type would be king's events: king visits your castle - costs some food and gold, or war with another kingdom - king urgently needs money.

5. Are you planning to add save and load options?

Okay. That's all from me.

Cheers.

[cairnswm]

A very nice game

Thanks :)



1. Problem with help. At title screen when I press 'help' button, then go back with 'main', the 'help' button doesn't work anymore.

I'll have a look at this. Seems rather strange as there should be no link between the game states. Must admit I didn;t check it while making the changes for version 1.02


2. Same problem as pstudio. After some time pressing 'end turn' button causes game to crush. It happened in three games each time at different turn.

This is obviously a serious problem that needs to be resolved as soon as possible. Out of interest did you happen to have heros out on quest? Was it possible that two heros were out on the same quest? This is the only thing I can think of that might cause the problem - but I thought I had handled it....



3. Destroying buildings by enemy does not work properly. The buildings are not destroyed or destroyed inproperly - message said that barracs are destroyed but castle disapeared.

I'll look into this. Seems to be a common problem.


Here are some thoughts on a game play

1. Maybe the market option should be avaiable when palyer builds marketplace

That was the original idea - I just forgot to add the Button.visible = (Market <> Nil) statement into the code. Then as I'd released it that way thought I better leave it for a bit :oops:


2. I can send king's tithe any time I want. In one game in one turn I sent it few times in one turn and made king happy (could summon kings knight early in the game).

I know about this problem. I havn't worked out a good way to fix it yet though. Maybe I can make it that the king only gets happier if you send at least 10 resources. I sort of cheat by in the first turn sending the king 4 dispatches 1 wood, 1 gold, 1 food - then get the knight


3. I just cannot figure out how to make my heroes defend village . When the message says the bandits are preparing to attack should I send heroes on patrol or leave them at home?

I will be redoing a lot of the combat stuff. Currently heros on scout send back reports on how the tribes feel. Heros on Patrol may fight the tribes, which lowers their aggressiveness (if you win the fight). Heros at home will try to defend the village by fighting tribes that attack, if the defense fails there is a 1 in 20 chance you will lose a building.

I want to make a 'military' screen where you see your village in the middle of the screen and around it the various enemy tribes camps along with some indication of how strong the enemy is (based on scouting reports) possibly small battles between heros and the tribes being shown as well. As time passes the images of the enemy tribes will fade away to show that the report is old.


4. How about adding some random events like famine, flood, plague etc. which affect happines and/or resource gathering.
Another type would be king's events: king visits your castle - costs some food and gold, or war with another kingdom - king urgently needs money.

Someone suggested using the quests to represent these things. So if a Great Dragon invades the land, all trade drops to a 50% return. If a wizard captures a princess then magic heros get bonuses etc.

I could do some non quest events quite easily. That can also have effects on the game.


5. Are you planning to add save and load options?

Yes. I dont think I'll store the full history of things like Messages and Finanaces, but I might make it store the last 3 turns or something. Save should be easy to implement as its just recording whats in each square, which heros and skills and some quests, messages and finances. Loading will be harder as I need to dynamically create the right buildings in the right spaces.


Once again - I really appreaciate the feedback and ideas. I'd like to see if I can get this game to Shareware quality.

[grudzio]

Out of interest did you happen to have heros out on quest? Was it possible that two heros were out on the same quest? This is the only thing I can think of that might cause the problem - but I thought I had handled it..

Yes, I think that those crashes are caused by quests. When the quest is completed it is not removed from the quest list, so it can be assigned again. And game crushes in turn when quest should be completed for the second time.

And same quest can be assigned to many heroes. When I sent my two brave soldiers to slay an evil king, they both completed the quest giving me twice the money 8) . After that that I sent them to another quest, but second hero was sent two turns after the first. When the first hero completed the quest, two turns later game crushed.
Also, an info about quest status (assigned, completed, free to take) in quest list would be good thing to have.

Btw. Sometines quest progress goes above 100% :)



I sort of cheat by in the first turn sending the king 4 dispatches 1 wood, 1 gold, 1 food - then get the knight


And I thought that I have to send amounts given in the king's menu.
My suggestion is to allow player to send tithe only on kings request. And as time passes by king will ask more and more. Or player can send tithe only once per turn but if he sends to often king gets suspicious.



Loading will be harder as I need to dynamically create the right buildings in the right spaces.

Well, I don't see problem there. If for each square you save its map position and building type then recreating where which building was, will be easy.

[cairnswm]

And same quest can be assigned to many heroes. When I sent my two brave soldiers to slay an evil king, they both completed the quest giving me twice the money 8) . After that that I sent them to another quest, but second hero was sent two turns after the first. When the first hero completed the quest, two turns later game crushed.
Also, an info about quest status (assigned, completed, free to take) in quest list would be good thing to have.

Nice idea. I'll spend some time checking why the game crashes on the quests - I looked at the code here at work and it seems it should be ok. I cannot test while at work as the game only runs 5FPS on my work notebook.



Btw. Sometines quest progress goes above 100% :)

100% is when the hero should be back - if he is busy fighting the Great Dragon it might take him sometime to kill it - and therefore he is away longer :) - Maybe on 100% and more I should put a comment "Heros is late returning - he may have died"



And I thought that I have to send amounts given in the king's menu.

This is the minimum amounts to keep the king happy. (Actually as long as you meet at least 3 of these and the resource total is the same its enough.)

My view is the king has a minimum expectation. By meeting this expectation you make him happy. If you deliver less then hell get unhappy. If you send him a lot extra he will get happier. Note that each extra send must still match what he is expecting.

I am considering missing the first tithe (year 1 month 3) and only doing tithes on the 1st month of each year from year 2. And making his minimum at least 5 of each resource. Less than this wont be enough.

[grudzio]

I am considering missing the first tithe (year 1 month 3) and only doing tithes on the 1st month of each year from year 2.
Or make it on the 12th month. After 11 months player should have enough resources to pay.

[cairnswm]

I've had a busy weekend, so have been unable to make any new changes.

I think I've worked out the cause of the crash. Bad design on my part and I'll have to correct a few design aspects to solve the problem. (Basically I have a link between messages and Quests - but quests get freed and then theres a missing link between them).

Expect a new version on Wednesday morning sometime.

[grudzio]

How is your progress on Fantasy Land? It is been a few weeks since the last news. I hope you did not abandon this project.

[Traveler]

I saw the entry too at Gamedev's 4e5 screenshot page, so I kinda agree with grudzio. It's most likely the only Pascal game competing.

[cairnswm]

The project is definitly still continuing - or will be as soon as my scouting effort into the dark side is done.

Been busy looking into C# Express and XNA Game Studio Express. And to be honest I'm impressed.

[grudzio]

The project is definitly still continuing - or will be as soon as my scouting effort into the dark side is done.


Good to know. But be carefull - the dark side is very tempting :hellspawn:.

[cairnswm]

Fantasy land version 1.1 is now available. This is the version that has been submitted as my GameDev.net 4E5 entry.

Very few and small changes actually. More of a clean up (and hopefully fixed the Multiple Heroes per Quest bug).

Download: http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/FantasyLand.zip

Some screen shots (each about 100kb - not compressed)
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/Title.jpg
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/Playing.jpg
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/Finanaces.jpg
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/Messages.jpg

(Hold thumbs for me to do well in the GameDev.net contest :) )

[Traveler]

Oops.. I just found a Fatal Exception error after seeling the witch shop.
Hurry and you might just be able to fix that in time. :!:

I was actually writing a more extensive report, but seeing as how that would take me at least another hour or so, I thought I post this one up front.

[Traveler]

Hmm,.. another one when selling the guard tower :?

[Traveler]

My post is getting longer than expected. I dont think I'll be able to finish it now. I'm afraid I have to finish it either tomorrow or the day after.

[Traveler]

I was actually planning on finishing my post from yesterday, but I then figured I'd first reread the previous posters on their bugs and suggestions. It turned out at lot of my problems were already mentioned ealier :)

On well, here goes anyway, although in a slightly shorter form:

Let me start with the good thing: the concept. Its pretty excellent! Then again you already knew this as it has already on a price :)

But, there is still a lot of room for improvements:
- Fatal exceptions
In short, they happen often. Too often, in fact.
I get them at the end of a turn, when selling buildings or even when removing a guard or hero.
They really made me wish there was some kind of saving feature that would kick in at the end of a turn so I could continue after a crash.

- Too easy.
Agreed, its not a bug, but still.
Put down a series of resource buildings and pay the kings tithe. Then add a few defensive buildings and put some guards to work and then slowly add more. I admit, The first time my finances didn't do too well, because of the many expensive buildings. But after that, I was a bit more careful and only added resource buildings and a few defensive structures. This seems like a workable strategy as my resources increased a lot, with only minimal effort.

- Help
It's very extensive, thats good. Unfortunately after returning to the menu I can't get in again. :-/

- The market.
First thing I noticed is that it isn't possible to click and hold to select a number of resources. Agreed, its not an big issue, but still it would be nice to have in case I want to select large quantities.
After having toyed around a bit to see if there were any exploits, I noticed that the quantity doesn't really affect things at all. For instance when I select 20 wood and click the sell button, only 5 wood are taken from my supply against 4 gold. Selecting more than 5 wood apparently wont make a difference. Buying seems to work the other way around. No matter the quantity or resource, I always sell 5 against 4 gold or buy 4 for 5 gold.

I realize you've already explained it in a previous post already, but I found it to be confusing nonetheless.

- Options
Hmm, again: saving and loading would have made a nice addition. A jump to the help page too. Restart does't work for me. At least nothing happens.

-NAG??
I'm afraid its a bit too late now to undo, but why the NAG advertising? I doubt you'll score any points with that?! Especially the lines about how Fantasy Land was developed for the NAG Game.dev contest number 10 sounds very odd to me, considering its an entry for gamedev's 4e5 competition!

-Layout
Another thing you should definitly take a look at is how the whole layout is designed. I realize your graphics abilities are not your strongest point, but really with very simple things you can do so much better. Take the main page for instance. The backgroundimage itself is very bright. Selecting a yellow font on top of large (nearly) white areas makes it all quite difficult to read. If you want to use a similar color for text, consider adding a bit of a contrast color around the letters to make it help stand out more. Also, consider which parts you really want the player to focus on. Right now everything has the same size, although with different colors and styles. It turns it all into a very busy picture. On top of that you're putting it all into a very small area. (which btw isn't a standaard 800x600 resolution either).
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/FantasyLandsmall.jpg (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/FantasyLand.jpg)
I've added my own version as a suggestion how things could be improved.

The main game layout also could benefit from a few minor changes. Something that immediately comes to mind are the large brown buttons. They really are too big! I can understand a large 'end turn' button because that's used the most. But for the rest?
You're building graphics are great, but right now they appear to be squeezed in there between the buttons and the big yellow containers. It kind of feels as if you want to have everything clearly visible, regardless of how it looks.

In all, its a pretty good game. However, IMO the bugs, the easy gameplay and awkward layout design, prevents it from being a really good one.