Hey everyone,
When I saw this competition I thought, hmm wouldn’t it be cool to fit an infinite world in just 4k? So my aim was to write a naval exploration/warfare/conquest game using a Perlin noise generated “infinite” landscape.
The game has gone through many manifestations - I started out with the idea of a ship-battling, sea monster-fighting action game but that never really got off the ground. Then I started to think along the lines of Colonisation and The Wager (http://www.surprisedman.co.uk/the-wager/) to make an explore, expand, exploit game (but no exterminate! :D).
Update! Now under size - 4,091 bytes ;D But not without some grievous cramming, as you should be able to see from the horrendous font and aliasing.
Latest news: Font rendering has thankfully been restored, but not antialiasing yet :’( Also the flashing red screen is back… hooray! Size is 4,093 bytes.
All comments and suggestions very welcome! I’m particularly interested to hear your thoughts on the gameplay as that’s all pretty rough… but I feel like at long last this is a game that actually might work or even be fun :o
[applet archive=4king130228.jar class=T width=512 height=512]
Aim:
The year is 1496. The King has sent you forth to distant lands on a voyage of discovery, conquest and exploitation. Explore uncharted waters to find the finest locations to settle, and begin transporting precious resources back to sell to the motherland. You have 100 years to prove yourself - do not let the King down or you will live out the rest of your days as a serf! Serve the King well and he will make you a Lord of the realm.
Interface:
- Top-Left (top to bottom): Current year (game ends in 1596), Rations remaining on board (red bar), Cargo hold (to carry wood & iron), Settlers on-board (white dots)
- Top-Middle: Gold earned
- Top-Right: Mini-map showing charted & uncharted territory
Tips:
- Food (red bar at town): Will help to grow the town quickly, so you can get new settlers. Also the higher the town population, the faster the resource generation rate and the more gold you make.
- Wood (green bar at town): Required for building new towns, so make sure some of your towns are near woods! (dark green areas on the islands)
- Iron (blue bar at town): The most valuable resource, generated if mountains are within the town radius.
- Resource Bonuses: Diamonds on the map are resource bonuses, the colour indicates which resource they apply to (light green: food, dark green: wood, grey: iron). If a bonus is within the radius of one of your towns, that town’s production rate for the resource is doubled (or quadrupled for 2 bonuses, etc.)
- Transporting Settlers: Carrying multiple settlers can help you to expand quickly, but beware you don’t end up out at sea with no rations! The more settlers you are carrying on the ship, the faster the rations deplete. If you run out of rations you will sleep with the fishes (the screen will start flashing red once the level of rations is below 25%). Your rations will automatically be replenished if you dock at a town.
- Town Growth: To grow above a population of 2 requires wood, and above 3 requires iron. So to maximise production you will need to transfer resources between towns.
Controls:
- Left mouse-click: Set direction of ship or Settle new town at mouse location (in settling mode) or Load resources from town (when docked at a town, click mouse with S = settler, W = wood, D = iron)
- Right mouse-click: Unload resources from ship to town (when docked at a town, click mouse with S = settler, W = wood, D = iron)
- Space: Anchor & activate settling mode (when no town is in range) or Anchor & dock at town in range
Known Bugs:
- Ship can get stuck in crevasses in the terrain. Pressing space (anchor) can sometimes help.
Your packing skills must be superior to mine…