$12256 / $11500
Hi all,
I have been developing a 2D hex grid RPG in Java (with scripting in JavaScript) for over 6 months now. The project is now fairly mature, with lots of content (maps, items, creatures, abilities, crafting, ...) I have used a ton of art from this website and also the Battle for Wesnoth project (due to the hex grid).
The combat is all turn based and uses a system inspired by D&D, old school RPGs, as well as more modern Western RPGs.
Currently the game is most in need of new tilesets.
It is currently fully playable with a Tutorial and a Test Campaign with about 2 to 3 hours of playtime. There is also a fully functional game editor for creating new areas, creatures, items, and a lot more.
If interested, please take a look! http://hale.sf.net
I have a screenshot gallery available: http://sourceforge.net/apps/gallery/hale/index.php?g2_itemId=71
Any artists wishing to help are more than welcome, as is constructive feedback.
This website's content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Hi Grokmoo.
It's a really good start! I had a go with 0.2 - first thing I'll point out is that you should compile with different settings because the download requires Java7 but the code does not require Java7. I had to download the source and run from Eclipse, and I have Java6. I would say that Java7 is not widely installed at the moment.
I died quite soon in to the tutorial. I'm not sure what happened. I went in to the cave, walked around a corner, and saw two -9s as the potion dialog popped up, and died - but it all got covered by the menu.
http://forum.freegamedev.net/
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for taking a look! You were actually nearly through the Tutorial at that point. What happened was a bug - a Trap that was supposed to fire only once instead fired twice, killing your character.
Thanks for pointing that out along with the Java compiler version issue - I didn't even think about that when I did the release.
If you are at all interested I would suggest you try playing through the TestCampaign a bit. You can create your own party of up to 3 characters, and there is quite a bit of content there.
I am going to release another version 0.2.1 addressing these issues immediately.
All,
I have released a new version, 0.2.1:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hale/files/hale-0.2.1.zip/download
This addresses the two issues reported by Charlie as well as a few other things.
This version is compatible with Java 6 or greater. I apologize to anyone who downloaded the previous version and had trouble.
Many thanks!
I have not played it yet, but it seem that it it very window instensive. Popout out window after popout window and that they could be intergrate into the main window providing a better experience for players.
I've found a couple of bugs:
1) In Tutorial 1, if you don't equip the club and go to the bridge, the orc appears. If you slay him and equip the club afterwards, you can't finish the level anymore. (I'd suggest either not spawning the orc as long as the club isn't equipped or checking regurlarly whether the orc already was killed.)
2) In Tutorial 2, if you drag the club into the quickbar after getting the message 'The Quickbar', and then hit the shortkey of the quickbar button, the club is unequipped and the messages 'Equipping an item' and 'Scrolling the view and movement' are shown. EDIT: This also happens in Tutorial 1, and the messages are also shown if unequipped via the club's right-click menu, not just if unequipped via the shortkey.
3) In Tutorial 2, if you re-equip the club after unequipping it, the messages 'Combat statistics' and 'Scrolling the view and movement' are shown. EDIT: This also happens in Tutorial 1.
EDIT # 2: 4) In the editor mode, if i click 'Area->Create New Area', the game crashes with this exception.
Borrowing from Wesnoth is cool, but you are borrowing from an old version. Many of the tiles you are using have been greatly enhanced since the version you've borrowed from.
Very impressive and inspiring. I am using Java and Libgdx and hoping to do a similar old school RPG for the Android platform. Seeing what you have come up with has been the equivalent of a swift kick in the arse :)
Grats and good luck with the progression!
CruzR,
Thanks for those bug reports. You can fix issue #4 for yourself by creating a "core/" directory in your Hale directory and extracting core.zip into that directory. I am working on a permanent fix. I am also working on the issues with the Tutorial that you described.
verbalshadow:
Thanks for your feedback! If you get a chance to play it and have any more specific ideas about how the interface could be improved, let me know!
While newbishly playing the game, I found the following questions. (Note: I didn't read the conversations of the NPC's that well)
Conclusion: The game is not yet newbie proof. On the other hand, coding this is not an easy achievement. Keep on the good work.
Wokste, thanks for your well reasoned comments. You have made a lot of good suggestions!
(1) You don't really need to know which slot is your weapon slot unless the weapon is already equipped, in which case it is obvious. However, adding background icons to each slot is a good idea. I will just need to find a set of appropriate background icons :)
(2) There are actually a lot more right click items available than you realize (more than 10), so always having them present would be a bit much. However, in the specific case of "Equip" I think you have a good idea; I could just add a disabled button to the menu when you don't have enought AP to equip.
(3) You can resize all the windows that are not popups in the game. This is intentional and quite useful if you have a lot of items in one window or if you choose to play at a higher resolution and want to use more of your screen real estate.
The only windows you can't resize are those which block all other input (like the world map and the conversation window. (The conversation window should be resizable, but that is an additional feature that will take quite a bit of work; it is on my list!)
(4) This is a very solid idea that I probably wouldn't have thought of. Thanks!
(5) Yeah you are right. I just got lazy when I was doing the tutorial.
(6) Some area transitions are two way, some are one way. I agree making the tutorial transition two way makes sense.
(7) This is a good point. It is initially confusing to a newbie. I'm not sure I want to show all available locations right at the start though, as there could be a lot of them. I will have to think about how to address this.
(8) I can see how this can be confusing. I think you are right that having creatures die at less than 1 HP is probably best.
You've borrowed a lot from Wesnoth, which is fine, but you've borrowed from an older version. Many kinds of terrain look much better in the current version, if i do say so myself.
Hi eleazzaar,
Yes, I grabbed most of the terrain graphics from Wesnoth quite a while ago. I should copy over the newer graphics at some point.
A+ i really love these kinds of games.
Could you add short licence information to the CONTRIBUTORS file? I think having a quick reference on them in one place is always nice (and I think in many cases required by the licence itself, don't want to get you into any trouble).
Good work on the game, though!