[Slick2d] Retro-Pixel Castles > Now on Steam! <

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#261

Haha, LOLed on the homosexual and the rabbit traits. Good stuff. :slight_smile:
Also followed you on twitter. By the way is it just me or your posts really show up with a green background? :stuck_out_tongue:

#262
#263

hah! that explains it. I was wondering why some people here on JGO (You and Cas are two of them, for example) are always green for me.

#264

Wouldnt it be cool if there was an interface for adding new traits without having to change any code?
Maybe a folder full of JSON files named after the traits they describe and at launch-time, the game could parse and uses all the traits from that folder.

#265

Are you asking for this in RPC or are you suggesting it as a concept? I consider it standard issue by now.

#266

I’m a bit confused on what you’re suggesting. Are you recommending a way I code the traits or are you asking for a way to make the traits editable? (or both? :P)

Really as far as coding does, I wasn’t going to do anything too complicated, the method that controls their base stats are just going to run through a filter that modify the output based on whatever trait flags are set to true. Well, that’s the plan anyway! I haven’t even started the trait system yet. :slight_smile:

#267

I believe he meant it would be neat if the villagers were serialized in an easily editable format (JSON), perhaps something like this:

{
  "type": "villager",
  "name": "Bob",
  "level": 1,
  "happiness": 87,
  "str": 5,
  "dex": 5,
  "int": 5,
  "hp": [20, 20],
  "hunger": [93, 100],
  "energy": [88, 100],
  "job": "lumberjack",
  "traits": [
    "lazy",
    "hyper",
    "crazy",
    "strong",
    "fast"
    ]
}

I figure you have (or plan to have) something like this anyway for saved games.

#268

ah, yeah, I already have something like that planned. I just wasn’t using JSON. :stuck_out_tongue:

#269

I really got into your game and made a few things with the editor.

#270

That’s a nice little detailed area you got there. ;D

#271

The last few days have been well spent working on the new farming and hunger mechanics. As with everything in RPC, farming had a ton of AI work that needed to be done, as well as some behaviors for hunger and starvation!

[b]In this update, I've added:[/b]

  • Hunger, they now go home when they need to eat. If they have no home, they scavenge for scraps around or outside of town! Be careful, if you don’t get your farms going before your villagers start to starve they may eat all the nearby food, dooming you in the long run!

  • New farm building added, can now plant nearby crops and make them a renewable resource to keep your village running strong.

  • The farmers will distribute food to all the homes nearby, and tend to the crops automatically. No player intervention required once you have a functional farm going!

  • Happiness now is directly affected by hunger, now your villagers happiness will drop when they’re hungry, so keep them fed!

  • Villagers who’s hunger hits zero will slowly starve to death.

    Future farming plans:

  • Many various farm building sizes, some small and quick to build, some large and resource intensive to build.

  • Food storage building (Like the lumber storage, just for food of course.)

  • More plant types! Currently we only have carrots, but that will change eventually.

  • Animals/meats, these will be added someday after the core mechanics are all in place. Probably sometime during alpha.

  • Farming flowers, for use in future decorative builds.

http://sixtygig.com/junk/bannerTest1.png

[center]

Quiet Village Farming


http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_620x2000/InDev-2014-08-05-4.png

A little bit of overkill late night farming.


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Some carrots all by themselves.


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A few early development shots from a few days ago.


http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_300x150/InDev-2014-08-04-5.1.png
http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_300x150/InDev-2014-08-03-5.png

http://sixtygig.com/junk/bannerTest1.png

[/center]

#272

For a while I wasn’t really sure how large the scope of this project was, but by now I’m definitely buying it as soon as it’s out.

#273

Ray , I need to thank you . Seeing how well this has turned out has given me some inspiration and excitement over my project again. Great work I know this will go well. Its a genius concept put together perfectly.

#274


I guess those poor guys wouldn’t starve halfway between home and lumber storage doing work. Well, I don’t know how those villages are organized political, but maybe a king had to flee. Well, would be funny in my opinion :smiley:

ClaaJG

#275

Thanks! :smiley: I hope you do well in your project. :slight_smile:

heh, as the AI is setup now, sometimes they actually do start to starve to death before they make it to a food source. But that’s your problem if you made the food hard to access though! Currently, there’s two tiers of “being hungry” in the AI:

  • The first happens when hunger drops below 20; If they have a home and their home has food, they will stop working and head home to eat. At 20, they should have plenty of time to make it home before starving (in my tests, they usually have a hunger of 14-15 by the time they get home.)

  • The second is the starvation mode, that happens when your hunger drops below 10. Usually this only happens if the villager is homeless (no stable food source) or when their home has no food at all. When they get below 10, they refuse to work, and wander aimlessly looking for food. They will pick up any food item on the ground, or harvest naturally-spawned food on the ground. Alternatively, if they’re below 10, starving, and then food is finally brought to their home they’ll immediately stop searching for food and head home to eat.

…and finally, once their hunger hits 0, they start to lose hit points slowly, and will eventually die.

#276

Nice. Just make sure that it’s easy for the player to realize their behavior is due to effects like hunger and stuff, because it can be frustrating when you’re playing a game and all of a sudden your factories shut down and you start losing the war effort and you can’t figure out why… then before you know it you’re being carted off to the guillotine. Duh! The people are hungry!

#277

oh, I will. I was going to add floaty “status” icons above their head when something is wrong. Possibly a drumstick if they’re hungry, or a “Z” if they’re sleepy, something along those lines.

#278

I’ve been mostly working on the GUI in the play mode over the past few days, really polishing it up and adding in all the missing buttons. The great thing about GUI work is it really makes the game shine, although the drawback is the inordinate amount of time it takes to code/draw! But, it’s all worth it in the end.

Another feature I’ve finally added is villager names, there are now over 4,000 first names, and 10,000 last names for the game to pick from when a villager is generated. That’s over 40 million combinations! Some of them with hilarious outcomes.

Next up will probably be building mechanics, so our little villagers can actually build objects. We’re getting closer and closer to actually calling RPC a “game” every day!

A new villager drop-down pane. You can now see all of your villagers in a simple, easy to view list.

The new bottom Pop Out information pane, that displays statistics for villagers or objects you click on:

…and the whole thing, all together, and also featuring some of the other small changes:

http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_620x2000/InDev-2014-08-10-1.png

#279

I’ve changed gears a bit and decided it was time to overhaul the shadow engine. The game is reaching a point I can start adding several new buildings, terrains, topography and resources, so I decided before I started in on that I should get my new shadow engine concept working since it involves hand drawing shadows for everything in the game. It just makes sense to do it before I have dozens of building and sub-building types in the game. :slight_smile:

So, here it is! The new shadows. The new hard shadows really give the buildings, walls and terrain a bit more pop. It’s a lot easier to see the depth ques (Very important for a true top down game!) and personally, I think it gives the game a nice clean and crisp look to it. Enjoy!

In-Game shot, featuring the walls and some of the buildings at various stages while the Lumberjacks and Farmers do their work.

http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_620x2000/InDev-2014-08-14-7.png

Inside the map editor, a small mock up of some walls, rocks and trees.

http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_620x2000/InDev-2014-08-14-1.png

A tiny village at the edge of the map.

http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/34/33713/thumb_620x2000/InDev-2014-08-14-2.png

#280

Do the shadows move as the sun moves across the sky?