Finished: THEATER OF WAR ww2 strategy game.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 10:25 am

Ghislain wrote:...creating a 2 player version was pretty easy to do, and is something nice for those who are able to coax a friend to play against them.

So no online multiplayer option yet?

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:51 am

orion70 wrote:
Ghislain wrote:...creating a 2 player version was pretty easy to do, and is something nice for those who are able to coax a friend to play against them.
So no online multiplayer option yet?

Did you want me to pay the homeless guy who lives across the street from you to play with you?

Post by **Jeff-20** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 1:46 pm

The whole project was very fast. Impressive!

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:18 pm

Latest version with two-player option:

Download it here: https://sites.google.com/site/gdbsite50 ... ects=0&d=1

(I also updated the information at "New releases for 2010")

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:36 pm

Jeff-20 wrote:The whole project was very fast. Impressive!

Thanks. I think that creating a smaller game after making a huge project last year is a good way to start making games again.

Hopefully there will be even more to come in the next few months.

tokra · Post by **tokra** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:51 pm

Ghislain wrote: Anyway, I found an old WW2 photograph to convert to .PGM

Is it just me? I cannot figure out what's supposed to be shown in this picture. Can you post the original?

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:23 pm

tokra wrote:Is it just me? I cannot figure out what's supposed to be shown in this picture. Can you post the original?

I also "solved" my own game. I was able to slip a tank through the enemy's defenses at level 5:

I think I had about a 1 in 2 chance of winning here in this position if I continued to "mop up" the enemy's forces rather than go for the easy win and capture the flag.

I'll continue playing this, and if I find myself making it to and beating level 5 more often than the computer beating me, I might tweak the difficulty a little bit higher until the right game balance is achieved.

Of course, this session may have just been a bit lucky from my end. A lot of my attacks went favorably my way more often than not. I never used any strategy I hadn't tried before (deploy tanks + a wall of anti-air guns, then deploy soldiers to take out the enemy's anti-tank guns in the endgame), so for this session it just happened to work.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:52 am

Congratulations, both for the excellent game for our unexpanded VIC, and for having finished it (OK, with a bit of luck, but we know luck matters even in military strategy

).

I will download the game once at home tonight, as usual. Thanks again for you effort, I'm looking forward for your next release(s) - hoping they will be turn-based strategy/RPG games

.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:56 am

orion70 wrote:Congratulations, both for the excellent game for our unexpanded VIC, and for having finished it (OK, with a bit of luck, but we know luck matters even in military strategy ).

I will download the game once at home tonight, as usual. Thanks again for you effort, I'm looking forward for your next release(s) - hoping they will be turn-based strategy/RPG games .

Thanks. The game turned out even better than I thought it would. I was tempted to use terms like infantry, motorized infantry, armored unit, etc. but decided to go with soldier, truck and tank because it would be more 'user-friendly' that way and to use terms that actually matched what was seen on the screen. As well, a single soldier icon does not mean a single infantryman, but probably a regiment, or even a brigade, but I do not define this in the game and leave it to the player to use his or her imagination.

What I like the most is the "rock-paper-scissors" aspect of all 7 unit types that can be deployed. Soldiers and trucks are pretty helpless against tanks, so if one sees several enemy tanks breaking through, just put out a few anti-tank guns (especially if reserves are low). This to me was the most important part of the game, and I adhered to it as much as possible even if it meant using up precious bytes that could have been used for other features.

As for my next project, I designed an outline in an excel spreadsheet for a professional wrestling game (working title: CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN). I did a pro wrestling game back in the day in PETSCII graphics called RINGSIDE WRESTLING (and it can be seen on side 2 of the Realms III Psytronik disk) but it was a very simple affair: just press a key and execute a wrestling move directly from a standing position without even any logical transition or context.

What "Catch" will do is present the player with a list of available moves depending on the context of the position (standing, looking over a downed opponent, in a headlock, from a lifting position, etc). I will also do it with custom character (non-PETSCII) graphics.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:07 pm

I transferred the game from D64 to floppy and played it on the real hardware.

I solved it again, this time with a clean, decisive victory.

It was fairly easy, but time consuming.

I'm seriously considering increasing the difficulty (though I want to keep the number of levels to 5) if I find that my own game does not pose a challenge to me anymore.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:18 am

Hey, wait, it IS difficult - at least to me!

bokvamme · Post by **bokvamme** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:22 am

tokra wrote: Is it just me? I cannot figure out what's supposed to be shown in this picture. Can you post the original?

I had the same problem.
Had to work myself down from the hand (that much I was able to see pretty quickly). Then after watching it for like 1 minute I could see the man...
Clearly something that made my brain struggling to connect the pixels to real object(s).

If I watch the picture now, it's instant recognition.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 10:02 am

orion70 wrote:Hey, wait, it IS difficult - at least to me!

I made some slight modifications:

Player reserves = 100 plus an additional reserve for every enemy unit that is destroyed.

Player supply = 10 plus an additional supply for every 10 enemy units that are destroyed.

Enemy reserves = 100 per level
Enemy supply = 10 per level

I reduced the amount of rough terrain presented on the map. This will make it easier for the computer AI to move his units across the map, while still providing some hindrance to movement (and for tactical considerations).

The computer AI now tends to deploy more tanks on average. That being said, the human counter to this is to deploy anti-tank guns, but this does not always work. I was involved in a fairly exciting playtesting session today:

I did make it to level 5, and built a similar 'wall' of anti-tank guns, but there were so many enemy tanks that they broke through and won.

I think I'm a bit more satisfied with the latest iteration. I'll upload it soon.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:21 pm

I upload the latest version with the aforementioned changes. I hope this is the last of them:

https://sites.google.com/site/gdbsite50 ... ects=0&d=1

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Nov 28, 2010 6:56 pm

I know it's annoying, but can I have a PRG? I don't really know how to work with D64 files on real hardware. I keep forgetting what commands I need to enter to access it on my uIEC.