Get it here: http://savefile.com/files/5670381 EDIT: A few have commented on it being a little hard to understand - as per the contest rules I have included Manual.doc which is reasonably detailed on the features specific to my game, mainly how to control > 1 unit. Levels 2,4,5 are most fun - 2 is the last one with pirates and in 4/5 you start getting a lot more units and base defense buildings. Mission 1 is pretty bare since it's more of a training mission. You do need a few minutes to play a level though, rather than giving it a 2-min blast! One thing, you can zoom in and out. I hope you can figure it out because I forgot to explain how in the manual! Any comments/reviews? [Edited by - d000hg on November 11, 2005 7:51:44 AM]

I have to admit, I couldn't figure out how to play [grin].

Can you upload the manual somewhere and give us a link? Or, might as well post it here, I suppose.

Ive tried the first level and the last one. Last one was very easy :)
Some points if you play to enter in the next 4e4-competition:
- It would have been nice if you could select your troops by draging your mouse like in most rts games. However, it got better as soon as I found out to make squads :)
- I like it better when the view isn't completley top down, any design reason for this, it is after all 3d, right?
- More sounds!
- Took some time to figure out how to create squads, would have been nice if the buttons highlighted when selected.
- If mines don't collect stuff when built on normal ground, they shouldnt be allowed to be built there at all.
- When fps was under about 100, it felt a little slow..
- Nice to change mouse pointer, and the green lines indicating where the troops moved was nice.
- Move with M, Attack with A was helpfull and intuitive, found out without looking in the manual!

Quote: Original post by Avatar God
I have to admit, I couldn't figure out how to play [grin].

Can you upload the manual somewhere and give us a link? Or, might as well post it here, I suppose.

Have you played an RTS before -all quite standard? And if you looked the manual.doc file is put in the installation folder...

Quote: Original post by d000hg

Quote: Original post by Avatar God
I have to admit, I couldn't figure out how to play [grin].

Can you upload the manual somewhere and give us a link? Or, might as well post it here, I suppose.

Have you played an RTS before -all quite standard? And if you looked the manual.doc file is put in the installation folder...

lol, I really stink at finding things. I was looking in my dowloaded folder, not the installed one. I'll give it another shot :)

Well so far I have finished the first level, which is all I had time for at lunch today, but here are my thoughts so far.

What I liked:
I liked the music, I thought it fit nicely as a background track. It was interesting enough to notice but wasn't distracting from the gameplay.

I really liked the play gui layout, it was easy for me to find everything I was looking for.

The models and textures, while simple, were good enough to get the point across and did not detract from my enjoyment of the game.

I liked that you could group the units into squads and queue up building tasks. The only thing I would have done differently is add the drag and box method to group units that is expected for an RTS. I'm guessing this wasnt added due to time constraints?

So far, thru level 1 the game seems stable and has a solid feel to it.

What I didn't like:
Maybe I missed it in the manual, but a way to see your mission objectives would be nice. I was halfway thru the first mission when I got distracted at work. When I came back to play I forgot what the objective was exactly so I couldnt figure out what was required to beat the level until it just ended.

Sound Effects - Apparently there are none... I think if you decide to continue work on this, or for your next project, make sure your units have sound effects. Especially for firing and maybe movement and an under attack noise.

I think a fog of war would be a good idea too. Knowing exactly where the enemy is and how many units he has kind of takes away part of the fun of an rts. Or maybe have the fog as an option? That way players who hate it can turn it off.


So far I have only played a few entries, but I liked this one enough to continue playing into level 2. I'll post a full review after I finish the game, but so far I say good job!

Cool, thanks. Pretty much all those compaints are things I planned to include for the contest but just got pushed down the priority list - I wrote the enemy AI scripting the day before the contest ended for example. I was really annoyed not to get sound in, but doing that would have meant zero play-testing and the levels would probably be unplayable- as it is I reckon they're actually not too bad although the last one is maybe a bit easy.

The drag-select was kinda left out on purpose in favour of squadrons - I wanted to force you to use squadrons otherwise everyone would just drag-select. Most of the reasons I went with the squadron-level approach didn't get implemented yet - they are the bits that would actually bring something new to the genre!

Mission 2 is pretty similar but the pirates get a new (nasty) unit. After that the robots come in and they are a very different enemy!

I was just reading the comments here and elsewhere as I decide what small things to do to this next.
I found it amusing that:

I have comments saying it is impossible to understand, and comments saying it is too generic

I have comments saying the enemies are too difficult, and others saying the AI is stupid (true) and easily defeated

How is one to get a real view of one's game when one gets completely contradictory feedback on everything?!

Hehe, that just goes to prove that everyone has a different opinion on what makes a good game.

I think the best way to go about improving your game would be to decide who your "target audience" would be and design for that if you plan to sell the game. Or if you are just making it for fun, make the game how you want it to be, something that you actually have fun playing even after all that time spent developing.

Just keep in mind that no matter how great you make your game, somebody is going to say its too easy or too hard.

Hmm, I suppose it started as a generic RTS where I wanted to fix all the things that annoyed me in the RTS games I've played. I've got ideas to develop it and actually add something to the genre in which case the target would be RTS fans primarily.

I'd not thought it would be sellable - do I not have to have a fancy 3D camera and loads of video cutscenes for that? I'd be happy with a game that people wanted to play for free but why would they be drawn away from WarcraftIII or even Starcraft - not to mention the new Total Annhilation game etc etc etc...