Dirami Conquest

Featured Games
#1

Since the “1 Week Roaring 20’s Monochrome Strategy Competition!” was the thing that originally got me actually coding this thing, I guess I should post an update, since the due date is up. I am not really done with the game, but it is in a playable state at least, and it could be interesting with some feedback. I have made the game fairly modular, so I hope to be able to tweak and change the game and add more levels and improve AI later on. Gameplay ideas/feedback always welcome.

You play the team in the brightest color. Click planets to select start planet (click drag to select several start planets), and then each click will move 1/3 of the fighters to the destination planet. Click background to deselect start planet.
PLAY!

http://games4j.com/Wurusconquest/thumb.gif

#2

I have done some changes to the game.

  • It now contains some help instructions before several of the maps.
  • It isn’t as monochrome anymore. It was really difficult to see the different races.
  • AI is slightly less stupid. It might actually be quite difficult
  • Speedbuttons have been added
  • Music is back in

Let me know if you have any problem loading the game
Is it easy to understand how to play it?
Is it too easy/difficult?
Would it be better to set the target destination with the right mouse button?
Suggestions

#3

just lovely - very simple gameplay. Similar to dyson and the other java clone (also on JGO)

#4

Very nice and quite addicting! I love the music.
The only thing which annoyes me is the control scheme, because selecting a planet and
and ordering units to a planet is both left mouse press. It happened quite often to me,
that i wanted to select a planet but moved units instead. Perhaps I am to much conditioned
to Starcraft where left mouse always selects and right mouse triggers actions. ;D

I don’t know if I missed some explanation (I played the tutorial level), but the three planet
modes were not clear to me af start. The defense mode seems to slow down fighter production,
what to what concrete advantage? And I have seen the turret mode only for the AI. If I select
it, nothing special (gun fire!) happens.

But nonetheless, much fun to play.

#5

Great game.
Controls could be a little better.
Network games would be very cool in this.

#6

Thanks! Are you talking about this game, or are there more?

It is also inspired by star baron, nano wars and galcon. I would however like to have it a little bit more strategical than the simplest versions. What do you think? Better with fast, fun but mindless or Slower and more strategical. I Think the game is set up so that I should be able to do both, but it could be that people like one type or the other, but maybe not both.

#7

OK, so +1 for rmb to set destination. I am quite for it as well, but wasn’t sure it is “casual enough” with 2 mouse button.

Hmm, yes good point. I was probably a bit lazy, and have also noticed that people generally don’t read instructions longer than 4 lines. What I should do is probably to split it up to introduce the defense and turret at different levels.

Anyway, quick intro here:
Defense will produce protection twice as fast (at least, have to check the code) as a planet producing fighters, but it is naturally only useful when you are attacked. Fighter production is halved (or so), and defense goes away when you switch to another mode. So if you see enemies homing in on your planet from far away, or if you conquer a planet deep in enemy territory, it can be good to switch to defense.

Turrets will automatically shoot at enemy fighters that are within a certain range. Bigger planets will have a higher fire rate. Useful if lots of enemy fighters are in the area, but defend it well, as this irritates the enemy. :slight_smile:

Suggestions welcome for changes, as I am not quite set on how it should work. I sort of would like a more clear line between the races on the map during the battle. Maybe make the turret shoot faster, but with a shorter range.

#8

Thanks!
You want rmb to select destination or something different?
Yes, network is definitely in my mind. This was however a 1 week project that I ended up spending 2 weeks on, but if people like it, then I might spend the effort of making it network multiplayer.

#9

Ah you see, all these improvment suggestions only show that it is an attracting game :slight_smile:

Like I mentioned before, the controls should be changed. Taking some time to play I figured
the three modes out by myself, but an explanation is needed for some strategic details.
Some things I am interested in:

  • first I thought my planet would no change in turret mode, but later I saw that it takes some
    time that the visual “lines” appear and the planet starts to fire. But why? and when?

  • The defensive mode is easy to understand, but which effect does it have in detail
    (one defender takes how much attackers)?

  • how strong is a turret blast?

#10

That is a pretty good game and rather addictive. I did honestly enjoy playing it and even came back a few times to play it again. I do have some minor issues with it, firstly the applet height is pretty large and odd for a web game. The applet doesn’t fully fit on my browser when using firefox (just about fits with chrome), 2/3 its current height IMO would be perfect for this game.

The style is nice and consistent however the aliasing on the GUI buttons does break it a little, also feels odd that you get no Mouse over reaction when hovering the mouse over them, maybe highlight them a little by making them brighter when mouse is over them or emboss them.

The AI is pretty good and challenging (if a little cruel at times :slight_smile: ).

The sound effects are ok but did feel that it could do with a few more small touches especially like a small blips/click when a ships hit a planet, raising defence, deploying turret etc.

The controls felt a little odd at first, was expecting something like right click to select planet and left click to move ships, but once you get the hang of it, they work pretty well (especially considering one button macs).

But overall very nice and enjoyable.

+1 point if the game installs and uninstalls correctly
+1 point if the game doesn’t crash ever
-1 point if the game is slickly presented
+1 point if the game has “good” graphics that suit the game
+1 point if the game has “good” sound that suit the game
+1 point if the game’s overall style is “good”
-1 point if the game is original or brings a great new original twist
+1 point if your judge enjoyed playing the game
-1 point if the game is complete enough that doesn’t feel anything is missing
+1 point if you don’t whine and you demand nothing of the mods

7/10

FEATURED.

#11

Well, as I mentioned, then games was a 1 week test, that took 2 weeks to make :stuck_out_tongue: All graphics is procedurally generated, and … well the turret didn’t really come out that well, but it represents how powered up the turret is. The fire rate is dependent on the size of the planet, but it takes a couple of seconds to power it up to max fire-rate, and that is what the lines indicate. Since I got some good feedback I might try to improve the representation of the turret. I just can’t wrap my mind around how to draw a turret on a planet.

One defender equals 2 or 2.5 fighters (have to check the code) currently. Each planet has a max limit where it won’t produce fighters or defenders any more. That means also that you can defend a planet better in the defense mode. (It is really not defenders, but a defense level, but that is irrelevant).

  1. :slight_smile:
    I am thinking about creating a story mode or similar, where you try to conquer solar system after solar system. Some solar systems will contain (for lack of proper story atm) power ups, where you can get more powerful turrets. Currently you need 2 missiles to kill one fighter.
#12

Tried playing it, got a blank screen…

#13

Was the whole screen blank or the just the applet blank?
What OS, VM, HW?

You have to wait a bit after the spinning logo is done spinning. I will try to reduce that, but that is the way it is now.

#14

Yay! 8)

And thanks Kapta for the great feedback! You were absolutely right on basically all accounts and I will try to fix the issues you mentioned as soon as I get time.

The only thing I didn’t quite get was the aliasing of the buttons. They should be looking fairly OK and anti-aliased. Either I am too mild in my self criticism or this is a cross platform problems that has appeared again. I noticed some problem on OS X a while ago with procedurally generated gfx for another game I made. What OS are you on? It could also be a problem with different look on CRT vs LSD. There is one pixel that is incorrectly drawn, probably from some roundoff error, but I don’t think that is what you are talking about. I will post a screen-shot just to see if we are talking about the same thing.

#15

well its just a bit of a nitpick really and nothing major but what I mean is as follows

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9297/buttonby.png

as you can see the text has antialising just not the button edges, which makes it stand out a bit, giving it a rough cut and paste job look.
a bit of blur should remedy it.

btw I’m on windows.

#16

Right, I will add some alpha blending to it and hope it won’t affect performance too much. I have just been a bit worried about using that in real time, since I am not quite sure how it performs in different environments.

#17

Some bugs and minor issues:

  • Sometimes if I quit the game or close the browser, the music keeps playing back. Once I had
    to kill the jvm

  • I had the bug when playing a long time and transferred all fighters to one planet (having > 2k):
    the numbers of swirring pixels was not reduce after transferring them again away from the planet.
    Although the planet has the right number of fighter to control, the old mass is shown.

  • is there any way to quit a game?

#18

Not good! I have never seen that, so might be platform dependent. What OS, VM are you on?

Can’t reproduce. Have you seen this more than once?

Press escape.

#19

New version uploaded.

  • LMB to select (or toggle) start planet(s) and RMB to select destination planet. You can still drag select many start planets. (Standard RTS type I believe).
  • Added a bit of alpha blending to buttons to make them smoother.
  • Improved the planet images a bit.
  • A bit more sound FX.
  • Some minor tweaks.

Thanks for all the feedback! It is getting better. Let me know what you think, especially about the change of movement style.

#20

Hey jojoh, quite nice game! And I love the music. Not sure I like monochrome graphics though.