ErikH2000
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Note this is a new topic started in reply from the "Game Requests" topic.

Krishh wrote:
1/4 Contemplative Light Cycles, 1/4 extra Nibbles, 1/4 DROD, 1/4 me, and here is a rough draft of the result:

The Flow.

I'm not all too sure myself if I actually like it, however. The basic single-player seems a lot like "game x, just not as good", and while I might just work on the idea started on level 3, it does seem a bit erratic.

I think this has the possibility to be a solid little puzzle game. With more rooms and more elements, it could be pretty fun. The most obvious thing to add is monsters or other computer-controlled serpents.

And the two player mode, while providing some interesting strategic options with only one advanced element already, also suffers from erratic pacing.

It's terrible to wait for the other player to hit a key when there is a long boring space between you. I think either make the playing area smaller or get a computer-controlled snake opponent so you aren't waiting on alternating players to hit a key.

Still, something tells me that playing against a human or anything that makes perfect decisions will be boring, because you can just move towards whatever area has the largest open space and fill efficiently. If there are more elements to mix it up and make decisions less obvious then "vs" might have a chance at being fun.

And Erik, is it ok that I ripped the graphics from DROD?

It's fine. All graphics and other media (not source code or executables) from so-far-released versions of Caravel DROD are public domain. If your game gets some momentum and you want to make it more polished, I encourage you to look around for better graphics to use and ask on the forum for art help.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
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Krishh
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The thing is, both the single and multi-player stumble upon an AI controlled flow. It could be random, but that would deffinetly ruin the whole puzzle quality of the multiplayer, but it could do for single player though, even though it would still be better with AI.

ErikH2000
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Krishh wrote:
The thing is, both the single and multi-player stumble upon an AI controlled flow.

In your last release is it that way? I only played three levels and then it showed me the screen for versus level selection. No ai-controlled flow was in these first three levels.

It could be random, but that would deffinetly ruin the whole puzzle quality of the multiplayer, but it could do for single player though, even though it would still be better with AI.

It seems like you really have two different games here. The rules for multiplayer might need to be a whole lot different than single-player to make it fun. Personally, I'd just focus on single-player, because it has less obstacles to being fun. In fact, single-player is fairly enjoyable right now.

If you really want to do multiplayer, I think you need a solution for two problems:
1. It's boring to have many moves in a row where you and other player are just hitting keys to traverse a lot of space.
2. The strategy for simple rooms where just space is filled is too simple. It will boil down to whoever goes first either wins or loses.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

trick
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I only got to play two levels before the versus screen popped up... Was there more elements in level 3 ?

I like the idea of this game, but I agree with Erik that the 2-player can get boring. For the 2-player mode to work, it should probably have less space, be more puzzle-oriented... Hm...

How about if, in 2 player mode, each player controlled both flows ? The objective would be to make the other player go into a trap, die, or somesuch. Kinda like a war between two mimic flows... The levels would need to be carefully designed so that both players would have equal opportunity to both win and kill the other player without getting boring. Just a spontaneous idea though, haven't really thought much about it...

- Gerry

Krishh
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I like the idea of two seperate identical parts for multiplayer, where both players can move at the same time, with the goal being to screw up the other through puzzle elements ( for example two seperate sets of trapdoors, with the door guarding a dangerous monster on the opponents side)

And Erik, I meant that both of them stumble upon the need for AI controlled flows.

Krishh
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EDIT: Ok, with the addition of monsters ( a funny thing here with Gamemaker, it is easier to create realtime monstrers with it than to create turn-based ones) I realised that indeed the singleplayer and multiplayer are like two different games now, and the singleplayer is the priority, so I am dumping the two player mode.

In other news, the single player is progressing along nicely,with the addition of monsters creating some interesting and ,as far as I know, unique challanges.

[Edited by Krishh at Local Time:11-08-2004 at 12:34 PM: No multiplayer]

Krishh
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File: TheFlow.exe (1 MB)
Downloaded 70 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

After a week of silence due to circumstances beyond my control (school and complete lazyness), here is the latest version, with more than double the levels in the previous version! Also added- mosnters.

To do:

!1) either a) (preferable) fix the standstill situation found at the end of level 7 to not flicker and work in open spaces too
or b) (I'd rather not) get rid of the standstill entirely.
!2) get rid of the flicker of monsters when hitting walls.
3)Much more levels and stuff to put in them
4) Completely redo the main menu, the entire graphics; add sound (how's that for a single design point? )

P.S Since new versions will probably come out and for testing purposes, you can press O to skip a level while the game is in development.

ErikH2000
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Krishh you are doing something very interesting here with the two snakes. The new levels are cool. You are definitely moving out of DROD and Nibbler territory and making a new type of puzzle game.

I still think the interface needs work though, because currently controlling the two snakes is very frustrating for me. I often want to forget about one while I concentrate on the other, but I have to keep hitting a key for him. And many times I forget which snake is active so I end up hitting a key and it doesn't do anything. When the red snake dies off, I breathe a little sigh of relief because then I can just control the blue snake.

I have a solution which I think allevates 82% of this frustration:
1. Show which snake is currently active. Maybe put a white dot on his head or something like that.
2. Create a new command that when you hit the space bar, whichever snake is currently active will move forward if the square ahead is clear. If the square ahead is blocked, the snake will pick a new direction automatically and move in that dir. (This last rule lets you send snakes down twisty 1-square-wide corridors without much effort.)

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
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Another idea that I think is even better! (I'm so smart.)

Use a mouse interface instead of keyboard. The left mouse button picks a destination square for the blue snake. The right mouse button picks a destination square for the red snake. So suppose you left-click on a square that is 3 away from the blue snake's head. 7 turns will be taken in response to your mouseclick:

1. Blue snake will move towards your dest square.
2. Red snake will move forward in whatever direction he is going and if blocked pick a new direction automatically.
3. Blue moves towards dest square again.
4. Red moves forward again.
5. Blue moves towards dest square again.
6. Red moves forward again.
7. Blue reaches dest square, which completes the command you issued to him.

If you right-click, then the movement behaviors are reversed: Red snake moves towards the dest square and blue snake just moves forward.

You can't issue new commands while the snakes are moving to meet your last request. You click and wait for the blue or red snake to reach the dest square you picked, then click a new dest square.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Krishh
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I know, that is why I am making the levels so that you can usually focus on only one of them at a time but the controls seriously do need improvements.

1. is rediculously simple and I see no reason to not do something like that.
2. will take some work but would definetly improve levels where one of them moves along a set path.

However mouse control, while possibly the best option, is quite immpossible. Something like that would require
a) mouse support for even basic movement. Since I started making games (at least with game maker) I have found that the seemingly simplest things take the longest to make, and mouse support for a tiled room would be quite hard to make.
b) a near complete rewrite of the timing in the game. This would probably be the easiest, it has been rewritten at least 2 times already anyway.
c) a pathfinding AI for the flow moving towards the direction square. *shudder*

[Edited by Krishh at Local Time:11-17-2004 at 10:16 PM: Lots of typos]

Mattcrampy
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Hmm...

Is there some way in game maker to get the co-ordinates where the mouseclick in in the game window? If there is, and you're using a grid, it's just maths to work out in which square the click was.

As for pathfinding, skip it. Snakes go horizontal, then vertical, alternating each turn. Kinda like roaches. Players will have to deal with that.

Matt

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Krishh
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Sure, it's just maths, and I even have a vague idea how it would work (get the coordinates of the mouse, approximate them to a square, get that squares postition relative to the square the flow is in), but they are pretty annoying maths , and if I want to also keep the keyboard controls (which I do, because if you ever need to control the two flows seperately with precision, it is a pain to drag the mouse all over the place) I would have to basically create two seperate ways of movement for the flow.

I have an idea to make the spacebar thing a toggle (or a sigle press button to automatically move the current flow and a seperate toggle for each flow), so that you can concentrate on one flow at a time.

trick
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Congratulations! The latest version of TheFlow crashes Wine! This is, in my experience, a sure sign of a quality game that I'd like to play. However, I managed to get my Windows partition up and running, so I could try it out anyway!

But seriously, the game is progressing nicely. I found a bug in level 6, though... After the red flow has been killed, the game fought for independence, won, and started living a life of its own. I couldn't control the blue flow, and the roaches went back and forth without me pressing anything. I had to use the levelskip cheat to get to the next level.

I like Erik's idea of a new control method, btw. I also expanded a bit on his idea ... In stead of always having one uncontrolled flow just going straight forward, you could set targets for both flows at once with the mouse, and use the middle mouse button or space to progress one turn (or maybe even use the mouse wheel to go forward/back one turn!). So, you would for example leftclick somewhere the blue flow should go, rightclick somewhere else the red flow should go, and tap space a few times until the flows were where you wanted them. If you wanted to change the targets before the flows reached them, you could just stop tapping space for a bit and click somewhere else. Once a flow reached its target it would revert to just going forward unless you set a new target. You could also combine this with the current control method, so that you could fx use the arrow keys to control the blue flow while the red flow was pursuing its target, or control the red flow with wasd while the blue flow was homing in for its target. All this may sound a bit complicated, but I think it would actually be very easy and intuitive to use in practice.

Example play:

1. Leftclick somewhere for the blue flow to go.
2. Control the red flow a bit with wasd while the blue flow goes for its target
3. Rightclick somewhere for the red flow to go.
4. Tap space a few times while both flows go for their targets
5. Manually control the blue flow with the arrow keys a bit to avoid a monster (the red flow will continue towards its target) (I don't the pathfinder shouldn't avoid monsters, would make it too easy)
6. When the blue flow is safe, tap space a bit more to make both flows continue towards their targets
7. Set new targets, manually tune movements, etc

- Gerry

Krishh
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The crashing I can't do anything about, more probably than not it is an issue with GameMaker, not my game.

The level 6 bug has been fixed.

And about the cotrols, while your scheme is quite powerful, it would be very hard to make, and would be somewhat confusing to play. I will go with the keyboard. I can live with only 18% of the current frustration.

trick
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Okay, you're the boss

And hey, don't worry about the Wine thing.

- Gerry

rowrow
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please help me by the room with 1 roach and it is in the long hallway by the stairs. There is the red and blue flows. It is the 2nd roach room of the game. I don't know what I am supposed to do.

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Krishh
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If I ever get anywhere with this game I will certainy rearange the rooms quite a lot as the difficulty varies too greatly now.

rowrow
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eytanz
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rowrow wrote:

Click here to view the secret text

×To destroy it you must put the red flow there but after that it can't move and it is blocking the way.

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Krishh
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It can be done in an easier way.