My attention has been diverted from the development of this game temporarily, but I fully intend to continue at a later point in time. In the meantime, please visit my latest project, a free online strategy gaming portal. Here you can play almost every strategy game on the internet. Well, that is the goal of the site I should say.
To my faithful few: another project demanded and continues to demand my attention currently, which is unfortunate. We won’t let that stop our continued development of TGO. It is just a bit of a small snag. TGO will move forward, and you can expect to see an update soon concerning the first unit born for the game in a few weeks. While not blogging about it, the knight has been slowly created in Blender and will be viewable here soon. Being the first unit, a greater amount of time is going into him due to initial setting of common unit integration that all other units will share as well. It is very exciting, because soon you will be able to see not only a unit for the game but a screenshot of the first generated map. More to come!
Just a quick note – the game server is up and running! As it is an early version of the server, consider it in beta, but at least it is running. And to show you proof that it is working, I posted a very early version of the game that connects to it to allow you to create a game account, go to the army builder, and create your first army.
That’s right, the excitement never ends around here. Still don’t believe me? Head on over to the game page to see it in action.
Have you ever thought about playing with a 3d modeling program, but don’t have any extra cash to invest in one? Or maybe you just would like to see what one of the most powerful yet free ones on the market is like? Give Blender a try, you won’t be disappointed. Blender is a 3d modeling open source application that can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It can animate, texturize, even provide you with a standalone game engine without ever leaving this simple yet power packed app. Blender happens to import into Unity 3D seamlessly, making it an easy choice for developing our simple characters and terrain. Join me on our journey into Blender.
Expect to see a gallery come up soon, because we are going to have images to show you as it progresses. Finally, right? You get to see what this game is going to look like. Won’t that be nice!
TGO in MonoDevelop
There it is, MonoDevelop. Recently ported over to the Mac, this bad boy does it all. Syntax highlighting, code completion, indentation, and on and on the list goes. It even has contextual code completion, a feature you don’t see in many code editors. This is light-years beyond what I was working in before, a simple code editor called Smulton. There will be a short learning curve with this I am sure, but it will be worth it. The game server should be finished up by the end of this week, and then work can begin on the client side game programming.
The same approach as with the server will be done on the client, a revamp of Legendary Kingdom Tactics with many features cut out that added significant complexity to the game without a worthwhile trade off. The client development timeline is approximately 6 weeks currently.
Well, the game server is coming along nicely. It is about 50% written, with approximately 1 week of development time remaining.
Here we are, two weeks into development, and the army builder section of the game is finally functional. This section allows you to build your first armies for the game. Game dimensions have been considered in this process too, and I thought it best to go for 900 x 500. This is a good maximum window that should fit in most users browsers these days. There may be an option at some point to allow for a full screen mode.
More features will be added to the army builder eventually. This initial release has the bare essentials for your viewing pleasure. And let me share with you a reason why not much attention is going to be devoted to game balancing at this point. A built-in tracking system is being implemented that will save every game and the factors involved in the winning players success. Over time, this data will be used to alter point values of units, attributes, and abilities. The system for altering points has been built in already too.
So the final attributes that made it into Tactics Game Online are strength, defense, speed, range, and splash. These five attributes added with status effects that change units attribute values in battle should allow for plenty of variety.
The saving system in the army builder has been designed to make it transparent to the player. When you add a unit to an army, that unit is saved to the server immediately. When changes are made to the attributes of the unit, these are saved every minute or when the player selects a different unit.
For now, explanations on attributes and the point system will have to be handled on our website. An integrated help system will be implemented down the road. The simplicity of this game should minimize players need to rely heavily on a help system.