changes * add shadows to buildings and units (sipmle effect but looks a ton nicer imo) * more storage space (stacks are now 8 high) * play sounds only for visible events (less sound cacophony) * fix teleport worker picking up from teleport and immediatly dropping at the very same teleport * refactor asset preload (dropping a few unneeded while i was at it) * cleanup fetch/store worker AI
I like it. It's clean and just focuses on the RPG core.
I'm wondering why you didn't tune this a bit for tablets/mobiles? I see you are already using bootstrap and the GUI is simple enough.
Here are my thoughts after playing this for the first time:
As i understood it, i'm supposed to use the idylic beach to level up until i am strong enough to fight the swamp dragon. Right? That's the gist of the first few minutes.. maybe i missed something.
What I had trouble with was: finding the map and realizing that this is how I go on quests! And generally how I drive the game forward. Maybe highlight the map icon or make the map choices always visible while player is at home? The same goes for the "continue" and "fight" buttons. Maybe highlight them when they are active (slow glow or something else visually)
Random detail: why do you clear the battle log after each fight? I would love to read through the log before hitting continue :) currently, it's hard to know how difficult the monsters are because you won't see their stats except during combat.
I see there are a lot of items in the game: i think you should drop at least one maybe even two items in the first level. Just so the player knows items are in the game. Lots of people will play it for only 30sec and you should make those the best. Even if later in the game the items drop super rarely.
I'm open for suggestions regarding the overall style. For example, I like all of those:
or this theme:
maybe this in steam punk style?:
the next one is maybe too comical for my taste... but if the artist is good in that style i don't care ;-)
The current buildings are tiled together from those two tilesets. I think even with those sources something better could be built. I didn't grok how all those tiles are to be used.
the same module styles aren't present for every page, and there are many more module styles than this, so the combined file would be much larger and most styles would be unused
to clarify would i originally meant: i think conventional wisdom is that doing another HTTP requests takes longer then downloading another KB of data.
the frontpage already has excellent cache headers (most importantly "expires", which tells the browser to not even ask the server whether the file is recent enough until the 'expires' date -> no http request).
so it seemed odd to me that everything is so well cached and optimized, yet those 17 CSS files aren't combined and don't have expired set.
sorry for rambling about this. it's really a minor thing and i'm very happy with how oga is run and the technical focus seems on the right track.
It's a functional base-building game with early and mid-game. The current (unstated) goal of the sandbox map is to build multiple functioning colonies.
I'm currently looking for more artwork in LPC style (but scifi-ish, obviously):
monster sprites
a bigger, more sci-fi flying monster; current one is tiny and looks like a bat
distinctive, self-explanatory, prettier buildings. That's certainly possible with what's already there in LPC.
optional: animation when the building is producing/working
alien relict buildings (i think that can be done with LPC)
new "science bot" which walks around alien relicts and scans them
new "carrierbot" (current one is just a white default unit model)
optional: visualize the carried resource
maybe completely redo the GUI or at least replace parts
fugly parts of current GUI to be replaced: option screen, build menu, building info tab
The units are 32x32; the buildings are built with tiled (see "buildings.tmx". I just export that as png and cut out the buildings.)
The late-game goal is to build science stations to investigate all relicts on the surface. Once all relicts are fully understood, the real nature of player's colonies will be revealed and the final protocol starts.
i fixed some low hanging fruits and released it as alpha 1.2.
you can grab the new version here: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html
changes
* add shadows to buildings and units (sipmle effect but looks a ton nicer imo)
* more storage space (stacks are now 8 high)
* play sounds only for visible events (less sound cacophony)
* fix teleport worker picking up from teleport and immediatly dropping at the very same teleport
* refactor asset preload (dropping a few unneeded while i was at it)
* cleanup fetch/store worker AI
@johndh that came across a little belittling towards this game here.
i think this game here isn't *that* easy. it's rather bare bone but has lots of choices.
Another game similar to the one john mentions is probably the infamous cookie clicker: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/
I like it. It's clean and just focuses on the RPG core.
I'm wondering why you didn't tune this a bit for tablets/mobiles? I see you are already using bootstrap and the GUI is simple enough.
Here are my thoughts after playing this for the first time:
As i understood it, i'm supposed to use the idylic beach to level up until i am strong enough to fight the swamp dragon. Right? That's the gist of the first few minutes.. maybe i missed something.
What I had trouble with was: finding the map and realizing that this is how I go on quests! And generally how I drive the game forward. Maybe highlight the map icon or make the map choices always visible while player is at home? The same goes for the "continue" and "fight" buttons. Maybe highlight them when they are active (slow glow or something else visually)
Random detail: why do you clear the battle log after each fight? I would love to read through the log before hitting continue :) currently, it's hard to know how difficult the monsters are because you won't see their stats except during combat.
I see there are a lot of items in the game: i think you should drop at least one maybe even two items in the first level. Just so the player knows items are in the game. Lots of people will play it for only 30sec and you should make those the best. Even if later in the game the items drop super rarely.
ps.: checkout localStorage. cookies suck :) http://codepen.io/awesom3/pen/Hlfma
That's obviously a good idea.
Now, here's a list of buildings currently in the game: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/images/techtree.png (the buildings are actually bigger in game! i just scaled it down).
I'm open for suggestions regarding the overall style. For example, I like all of those:
or this theme:
maybe this in steam punk style?:
the next one is maybe too comical for my taste... but if the artist is good in that style i don't care ;-)
The current buildings are tiled together from those two tilesets. I think even with those sources something better could be built. I didn't grok how all those tiles are to be used.
i think if you would turn just the cave generation into a library.. tons of people would use it? all those maps look gorgeous.
I did a new release 1.1-alpha: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html
it has the fix for the linux users (libudev.so.0) and there's now less clutter after you unzip the file (nicer packaging).
It should be farily easy to make a macos package but i dont' have testers for that https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/How-to-package-and-distrib...
to clarify would i originally meant: i think conventional wisdom is that doing another HTTP requests takes longer then downloading another KB of data.
the frontpage already has excellent cache headers (most importantly "expires", which tells the browser to not even ask the server whether the file is recent enough until the 'expires' date -> no http request).
so it seemed odd to me that everything is so well cached and optimized, yet those 17 CSS files aren't combined and don't have expired set.
sorry for rambling about this. it's really a minor thing and i'm very happy with how oga is run and the technical focus seems on the right track.
cool, thanks for the detailed analysis.
thanks for replying. i just noticed there's still 17 CSS on the frontpage but i guess delieving the images really is the bigger load.
it might still load faster for frequent visitors if there's less individual requests to be made.
It's a release! Alpha 1 out for windows & linux http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/
downloads are here: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html
It's a functional base-building game with early and mid-game. The current (unstated) goal of the sandbox map is to build multiple functioning colonies.
I'm currently looking for more artwork in LPC style (but scifi-ish, obviously):
The units are 32x32; the buildings are built with tiled (see "buildings.tmx". I just export that as png and cut out the buildings.)
The late-game goal is to build science stations to investigate all relicts on the surface. Once all relicts are fully understood, the real nature of player's colonies will be revealed and the final protocol starts.
Thanks for reading
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