Vangard

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#41

I haven’t published an image for a while. I did some work on the social tab today, where you will chat with the AIs and explore the social millieu. At the moment there is only a cheesy experience ranking (which is buggy because it does not show multiple entries for any given experience level). The pink thing is a market (of course), the red blips are peasants, the yellow blips are woodcutters, and the dark green blocks are vegetable patches.

Full size: http://i.imgur.com/AqHc2Ux.png

#42

The fact that the vegetable patches have a sharper colour than trees or houses annoys me… But I do believe you are going to redesign markets and vegetable patches, aren’t you? :point:

#43

Absolutely. I have built a tool for drawing assets, and veg patches are first on the list.

…also not happy with the grass green, need something more restful.

#44

@J0, how does this look? With my internet wizardry, I am giving you a zoomed in and out view. My tool exports to PolyPerfect 5.1 format (PP5), but I can’t yet import to Vangard so you will have to live with a screen capture of my rival to Photoshop.

#45

Well that does not sound very practical, does it :wink:
Nah, other than that, I have great hopes in your game and I know you’ll deliver something awesome in the end!

J0 (on a side note, that’s a zero, you’ll know next time 8) )

#46

I obviously implemented import-export for my PP5 format for the graphics package, so it should be simple to add an importer to Vangard. In theory anyway :slight_smile:

The screen is getting a bit too ugly with pink and dark green blocks, so I will focus on the graphics for a bit. (1) PP5 importing, (2) LOD support, (3) “frills”, so grassy areas look more naturalistic, (4) rain/lightning.

#47

It only took half an hour to write the basic importer. Here is my veggie plot model loaded into the game:

#48

I’m beginning to think you might be able to code this without using any of those actually! ;D

Those vegetable patches, do you think you could rotate them 0 | PI/2 | PI | 3PI/2 radians? Imo that could add diversity in a very quick and easy way (depending on your current code, that is). :point:

J0

#49

Thanks!

The vegetable rows should run east-west, so rotating 90/270 degrees would be wrong, but I will add a variety of different plots, fallow fields, with different crops, farm animals and so on.

#50

No offense, but I expected a totally different (consistent) drawing style.

Your trees were simple but truly awesome, I don’t think the vegetables fit your game.
To be honest, your houses would lose in an instant too if they were to battle with your trees in a beauty contest. :slight_smile:

To make your game look more cohesive:
I would suggest to make one vegetable look like a small tree (if you want to create a yard, you could concentrate them in a small area (will look nice since they have some transparency).
The same for bushes etc. with some colored berries in there (the bush/fruits have the same design as the trees, but on another scale).

Also, if that isn’t the case already: I would make the trees (thus your vegetables and stuff as well) ‘wobbly’ (slowly transforming), like a slime, pudding or this bird:

Sorry for the bad example :stuck_out_tongue: Make your game become alive!

#51

No offence taken. For now I am happy to get the model loading in the game, but that doesn’t mean i am finished with modelling! The colors of the veg patch are all wrong and the image is to too hard and blocky, and I will make alternative models more in keeping with the trees.

I do plan to add a wind animation to the trees, and I am currently working on frills (mushroom circles, little bushes and so forth) to break up the grass a bit.

#52

Is this any better?

and zoomed in…

#53

I like it certainly more now!

Thanks for taking my feedback seriously, therefore I have made an example image for you as well, it’s done quite quick and low resolution, but I hope it points out a little better what I stated in the above post.
Your vegetables are lined up, what is best for farms? I guess that’s a matter of experimenting, this example does at least fine for wild bushes though.
You could also distinguish farms by surrounding them with a little fence or something.

Some strawberries and single colored sorry for being boring forest fruits

As you see my bushes have two layers just like your trees (but smaller), what tunes them the most are I think the fruits I added. This is still quite vulnerable to experimenting though :smiley:
Just throwing out some ideas, hope it can help!

#54

I’m busy with adding small frills to the game like little shrubs and so on. I need to do this as if the screen has no trees visible, you get a sense of being lost in a green void, there is no sense of motion if there are no reference points.

Also trying to get more character classes into the game, even if they are just standing around for now. I’m doing some late coding tonight as I’m staying up for the super moon eclipse.

Current playable content: 0%. Making great progress here!

#55

I played through a pretty neat game from Steam called “The Banner Saga” which has a strong Norse theme, and good writing. The AI on the character interaction seemed pretty good, too, though it was entirely through dialog choices. I got it as part of a combo package, so it is probably inexpensive. The main draw for me was that the composer was the same one who wrote the score for “Journey.” You might find it interesting to peruse, though the basic layout is very different from your game.

Am looking forward to seeing where you go with this.

#56

Here’s my best photo from the eclipse:

#57

Just a little update… I have added miners and guards to the village as well as starting on smiths, hunters and chieftains. I have got frills working ok, and added some new models to the village. I just need to get the smith working, and implement tax and pay relationships and I will have a basic village economy up. Well, I will have 50 basic village economies up. Then I will build a JAR for this currently uneventful non-game. It will be interesting to see the rendering and logic benches from some other systems.

#58

Hey :smiley: If memory serves, you commented on my Marionette Cards project yesterday, and you shared your game on my thread. So I came here to check it out and yep, it’s amazing. Keep up the great work :wink:

#59

Indeed I did comment on your game, it interests me greatly. I am a fan of social simulations, as well as a fan of card games… so I want to see where your card game goes.

#60

Thanks :smiley: But seriously, your game is pretty amazing. If you’re 12-15 years old, like I am (I’m 13), hats off to you; you really are talented.

EDIT: Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean to boast. I was just trying to say that being 13 and able to create a game on this large a scale (I’m talking about Vangard) is just as crazy as being 15 and able to re-create Minecraft, or Call of Duty, or GTA, or something. Scratch Minecraft, that game is comparatively easy to create, except for the redstone part.