Cap4Hold

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2010
#1

Hi everyone,

This is my first entry, I hope you enjoy it.

http://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=299

From the description:
The ultimate top-down capture & hold coop experience!

For this project my goal was to create a game with:

  • Next gen graphics and sound
  • Coop gameplay
  • Tactical AI

2 out of 3 is good enough for me.

Your goal is to eliminate your enemies (the evil greys) or to take all of the flags.

A few hints:
USE COVER! You can shoot from behind barriers but unless your enemy is close to the barrier you are probably safe.

Support your team-mates! You can provide a health boost to injured team-mates and they will act more confidently when you are close by. If you want them to play defensively, stay away from them. Once in a while you might get lucky and they will finish a level for you once you have been beaten.

Watch out for your yellow comrade! He is a bit too aggressive sometimes (counter-intuitively enough).

I’d like to dedicate this to Co-optimus.com – my favorite game website and the one where I first heard about this competition

#2

and probably your last, unless you are like a god, and do somehting int he next few hours.

#3

h3ckboy Hahaha, ;D

I don’t deny being god-like but I meant my first ever Java4k entry, not first for the year.

Anyways, let me know what you think of it.

#4

Arroy-Keys as alternative in Single-Player would be great.

#5

Very cool! Got to level 8. Some thoughts: Grays are too hard to see! At least on my monitor. I never know if my heal is ready, or who it healed. I also don’t know how much health I have until I’m basically dead. Limiting shooting to the direction I’m facing is a huge disadvantage. Mouse shoot would be much better, if only for single player (which honestly will be most people). Maybe break it into a 1 player and 2 player version to free up some 1 player bytes? I find my teammates pretty useless. I win usually by finding good cover and spamming the enemy until they happen to stumble into my fire.

#6

Thanks for the suggestions Nate, health is displayed in the top-left corner.

I agree that mouse control would be ideal but it takes up too much file size. Removing the second player doesn’t save much because the second player is controlled by the same methods as the first player, just with a few variables changed. Bringing in the extra classes necessary for handling the mouse brought the size up by several hundred bytes. The only other option for adding mouse support would be to lobotomize the AI (and it isn’t very smart to begin with so that’s definitely not going to happen!)

The teammates are more valuable in multiplayer since there’s twice as much healing going on. I mainly intended them for keeping the enemy busy while the player flanks. I was going to make them more interactive but without a more advanced pathfinding system (which itself would take a few K) it would be hard to pull off.

I plan on rewriting the uglier parts of this code and making a twin-stick/mouse&keyboard shooter out of it.

#7

I considered that too but my laptop keyboard couldn’t understand two arrow keys plus the space bar.

#8

I don’t get it. To be honest, I didn’t read all the explanations because I was lazy at some point. This might be an issue for the normal/average player.

#9

I thought it was fairly straightfoward – capture and hold flags in a top down shooter. There’s some AI interaction but it’s strictly optional. I apologize for troubling you with gameplay more complicated than Snakes. Next year I will be sure to make something anyone can figure out. Perhaps Pong? Or Arkanoid if having 2 paddles is too much to handle! :wink:

#10

Hey, don’t apologize; as I said, I was lazy. :wink:

#11

Can’t press (space + s + d) or (space + s + a)

I’d suggest using a modifier key (shift/ctrl/alt) for fire, as in my experience they don’t suffer from as many key conflicts.

#12

I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with it. I picked the layout after testing a few on different machines. I planned to include control options but dropped the feature as I ran out of room under the 4k limit. I found using left/alt control too crowded and right control interfered with the 2nd player controls. My only priorities were making it fun for 2 players and having reasonably intelligent, tactically-minded AI and I had to sacrifice quite a few niceities to achieve those priorities.