2010-11-03 23:48:21 (edited by Aprone 2010-11-17 19:00:42)

I'm anxious to share how the game is going so I'll just keep editing this post to say how it's going.  This might help me stay more organized too.  tongue


Current configuration of the Keys:

- Escape opens the main menu.
- Tab (or Shift + Tab) cycles through the current menu.  This includes build and upgrade options.
- Moving the Mouse will move you around the map.
- Arrow keys will move you around the map.
- Enter confirms a menu selection, upgrade, or purchase.
- Q zooms out (This affects the sensitivity of the mouse, it does not affect players who only use the keyboard).
- Shift + Q zooms in (This affects the sensitivity of the mouse, it does not affect players who only use the keyboard).
- W Adjusts music volume (Shift + W goes in the opposite direction).
- E tells general layout of the path (where it begins and where it ends).
- Shift + E gives a more specific path layout.
- R tells position of any towers you have built.
- T skips the next section of message being read.  This is used to skip to desired parts of a message.
- A turns on/off the grid position announcement.
- S turns on/off the announcement as you earn gold from kills.
- D pause/unpause the game.
- F toggles the game speed between Slow, Normal, Fast, and Blazing.
- G tells you how far the farthest monster traveled so far.
- Z announces your current gold.
- X announces your current lives remaining.
- C announces the current level.
- V announces your current score.
- B (when hovering over a tower) tells how many shots this tower has fired, as well as, how many kills it received.
- B (when hovering over the path) tells the health of each monster on the current tile, as well as, the new speed of any monsters which have been crippled by frost towers.
- Space bar tells you what will be coming with the next wave of monsters.  Press Enter to begin the next level.
- Control button (when not hovering over a tower) tells you what type of land you are currently on.
- Control button (when hovering over a tower) reads off the current statistics for the tower.  Backspace then sells the tower.
- Tilde (`) creates a text file called output.txt which contains an ascii print out of the current map.
- 1 reads off the land-type of each tile in the current row (horizintally).
- Shift + 1 reads off the land-type of each tile in the current column (vertically).
- Right-click on the Mouse reads off the current grid location you have selected.
- Double left-clicking the Mouse acts the same as the Enter key in most situations.


Stuff working
-----------------
- Using mouse or keyboard to move around the map
- Navigating the menus
- Purchasing towers
- Selling towers
- 6 tower types
- Assembling spoken sentences on the fly
- Directional sound for towers shooting and enemies traveling
- Money system
- Launching each wave of enemies
- Reading off gold, lives remaining, level, and score
- Pause / unpause
- Ability to turn off grid cues and money from kills
- Upgrading towers (all 3 upgrade types seem to work, but I'll test more before i'm 100% sure)
- Toggle between 3 game speeds
- Customizable zoom feature
- 8 Monster types
- Defeat sequence
- Toggle zoom levels (some standards zoom amounts)
- Main menu (when entering the game) *Now more stable yay!*
- Read off current location (right click)
- Keyboard alternative to hear tile's description (left control button)
- Add to the graphical map (full screen, towers, enemies, colors fixed)
- Click to confirm (double clicking now also works for confirming towers and upgrade purchases)
- Better balance so it is now possible to survive past level 2!  lol! big_smile
- Path description (to help users understand the path's layout for a level they are unfamiliar with) (Press E and SHIFT)
- Key to list locations of each tower  (Press R)
- Review mode following each level  (Press G to hear how far the monsters made it along the path before dying)
- Adjust Cannon tower (add splash damage over an area)
- Add Micro-wave tower (constant damage to all in range)  *The forum won't let me say micro wave as 1 word lol*
- Add Frost tower (slows enemies)
- Add a sound-skip button to fast forward during game speech (Press T)
- Fixed bug that requires a second click to upgrade towers (I hope it works this time, but I'm not 100% sure yet)
- Fixed bug that won't allow a new tower after you've just sold one
- Simple path description (a quick and straight forward alternative to the lengthy one ) (Press E without SHIFT)
- Difficulty settings (Easy, Medium, and Hard) (These currently adjust starting money and lives)
- Option to save game
- Option to load a saved game
- Fixed an issue where Micro-wave tower wasn't hurting all enemies within range (tower is also slightly stronger now)
- Fixed bug that causes too much money, per kill, to be earned when using certain towers
- Fixed bug that sometimes skips over tiles (YAY it finally happened to me so I could see what was wrong)
- Fixed bug that sometimes stopped playing grid when keyboard was used instead of mouse
- Fixed bug where enemy sounds linger even after they are gone
- Standardize it so each time the game begins you on A1 (Why I didn't do this already is beyond me)
- Keyboard options are now much more stable
- Adjust score based on difficulty
- Adjust score based on number of towers used
- Fix bug that sometimes reads off incorrect tower upgrade information (I FINALLY found it!)
- Fix bug where sometimes enemies can still be heard even after they are dead
- Online high score list (I'm offering this as a separate zip until I know it works)
- Finished the rest of the levels 16-20 (I went with 20 instead of 40)
- Victory sequence
- Fixed a bug that can sometimes cause the game not to see an internet connection if you've loaded a saved game
- Finished up the balancing for Normal and Hard mode (fine tuned it a little)
- Different sized maps
- Level select (4 maps are now available)
- Game modes for variety (Traditional, Sudden death, 4-Kings, Jack of all trades, Specialist, and Apocalypse)
- Game now has an official name (Aprone's Towers of War)
- The game's executable has been renamed to TowersOfWar.exe
- Normal and Hard mode adjusted to be a little easier
- Fixed a small bug with the interest earned after each level
- Adjusted income levels for the Apocalypse mode
- Added the Relativity tower
- New way to give more details about towers and monsters (Key is B when over towers or the path)
- Hopefully fixed the "No internet connection" bug
- Added security measures to prevent people from cheating (Now without the false alarms, Yay)
- Fixed the anti cheat bug that gave false positives
- Added feature to dump current screen into a text file (Key is ` tilde key)
- Added Row or Column read out (Key is 1, without shift = row, with shift = column)
- Added Automatic updater and version control (So future updates shouldn't require all these downloads!)
- Fixed the Frost tower (It was dealing out way more crippling power than it was supposed to)
- Fix bug that stops information from being said while enemies are being shot at by towers
- Menus are more stable now
- Poison tower added! (Deals poison damage over time after the initial hit)
- Re-record voice so it sounds nicer and you can't hear my wife or the tv in the background lol
- Sound Mod editor now included, so that people can easily convert the game to another language.
- Updater should be stable finally


Stuff Not working
----------------------
- Smooth sound transition when moving between tiles (It was buggy so it is disabled for now)
- Clearer distinctions between building and upgrading towers
- Figure out why some keys stop working until you move off and back onto the tile
- Add option to hear high score for specific settings after you've finished a game
- Confirm whether or not the high score was properly submitted
- Level editor (I'll separate them into "Official" and "Unofficial" maps.  Only Official maps will have a high score list)
- Game music (supplied by Peter Hubert of AGOGentertainment) (Removed for the time being)



Stuff I'm not sure about having or not (suggestions are welcomed)
------------------------------------------------
- Letting someone sell a tower (BACKSPACE) without having to click/CONTROL the tower first
- Monster specific resistances and vulnerabilities (this opens up a whole new set of balancing issues)
- Monsters' descriptions (could be cool, but it wouldn't change the game any... up to you guys)
- Configure keys how you like
- Flying units (The farther I get, the more I realize how much re-work this would require)
- Support multiple paths (The farther I get, the more I realize how much re-work this would require)


The instructional mp3 might be missing a few new features.  Please read the "what works" list above to spot any new commands.  When you're ready for the next wave press the space bar (then enter to confirm).
www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/instructions.mp3            (5 MB)
www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/towersofwarbeta.zip   (14.3 MB)  (Last updated 11-17-10 12:03 pm EST)

A walk through of the first 7 levels so that beginners can get a better idea of what to do.
www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/walkthrough1.mp3   (19 MB)

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 01:16:43

Well, this is sounding pretty fun thus far, actually rather amazing progress on the game considdering.

As regards your various questions though, I suppose it really comes down to how many different factors are involved in each level, eg, different enemy type,k starting position, terrain differences, and whether their are enough to warrent such features as a level select or even editer.

Might perhaps factors like speed and enemy density involve a change in difficulty, allowing for easy or hard levels? do changes in terrain on the map alter gameplay significantly enough for their to be variety betwene different levels? Might it be possible to have some enemy types or upgrades for the player on some levels and not on others so as to allow a steadily upscaling challenge factor or the ability for the player to discover new challenges in the game as their skill increases?

I'm afraid I'm not really familiar enough with the basic concept and mechanics of tower defense games to say whether these things make a difference or not myself (perhaps if you actually gave a brief gameplay description that might be helpful).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 01:46:17

Good idea Dark, let me see if I can explain how the game will play.

The object of the game is to survive a set number of levels, all taking place on a single map.  Monsters will start at the beginning of a stone path and will wind their way around the map until they reach the end (which is your base).  Each level will bring more, different, stronger, or faster enemies.  Your job is to kill the monsters before they are able to reach the end of the path.  Each monster who reaches your base will take away 1 of your 10 lives.  Killing the monsters is done by placing different types of towers around the map... each with its own unique characteristics.

You begin on a 10x10 map that is composed of land, water, and a pathway.  Each tile type has its own sound and you can somewhat hear the tiles adjacent to the tile you're currently hovering over.  The wave of enemies won't come until you are ready, so you can take your time "feeling" around so you understand how the map is laid out.  You can't build on water or the path, but clicking on land lets you spend money to construct a tower.  Non-buildable areas of the map and spots where the path weaves back near itself change how effective different tower types will be in different spots.

If you select a tower you've already built, you can cycle through options to upgrade its damage, range, or rate of fire.  Players will have to balance between building new towers or upgrading the ones they already have.

When you are ready the monsters will come.  You don't have to worry about them attacking you... the difficulty is planning out your tower placements and upgrades so that all of the monsters will be killed before reaching your base.  Each kill earns you a little gold and when all the monsters are dead you will receive a 10% interest payment based on how much gold you have saved up.  This rewards players who are able to survive a level while spending as little money as possible.

Each level gets harder and harder, and when you finally win or die you are presented with your final score for the map you are playing.  Eventually I might put together some type of online high score list, but until then people could just post their scores to brag.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 03:23:19

Ah, it's sounding fun and actually slightly different to what I thought.

My only real concern is that the map has sufficiently good overview commands so that you can grasp where things are well enough to begin your stratogy.

You might considder inserting a path description command to have the path's movements described to you, for example "the path starts at 1,1, moves south to 3,1, turns east to 3,8, turns south to 5,8" etc, sinse this would give players an overview of where the path was and allow them to know what they need to work with.

Also, perhaps some review commands of battles, so that you can precisely find out what monsters were killed by what tower and where, and thus be able to learn what does and does not work in each situation.

As regards your earlier points about levels, given that the layout obviously matters a great deal, perhaps different selectable levels or an editer might be nice.

It'd also be rather fun to see a number of monster types in the game as well, perhaps even make these editable  ;D.

If you don't mind one more question, what were you planning to do about voicing the game? prerecorded speech? sapi? for including overviews and the like sapi would have some advantages, especially if editable content is in the game.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 03:40:10

The path description idea is excellent!  I can add that fairly easily and I agree that it would really help.  I'm officially adding that to my to-do list.  The review commands also sounds pretty useful... I think I know of a good way to accomplish that in the game.

Currently the voicing in the game is just my own speech.  By not using a synthesizer it does keep the game from being able to read off any custom text (IF eventually there will BE custom text).  For the time being there isn't any need for custom text to be read so i'll stick to my voice recordings.  I suppose I'll cross that bridge if I end up adding some feature that needs it.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 04:37:03

Well I'm going to take the rest of the night off I think.  It's been a very productive day and I'm actually really close to a beta stage.  I usually try to stay away from installers so i'll probably just have it so you can extract the zip file and you're done.  Hopefully I can get some of you guys to test it for me (when I post the beta) and let me know what you think.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 09:04:17

Well this probably has to go down as one of the fastest developements ever! ;D.

Lack of recorded speech wouldn't matter if all of the in game elements are set at startup, in fact sinse there are only a max of three tile types per map, there could stil be an editer even without pre-recorded speech.

I'll certainly be interested to try this one, and certainly it's deffinately breaking new ground as far as audio game developement goes.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 09:38:54

lol, rapid development is kind of my specialty.  smile  I usually say, if it can't be done in a week it isn't worth making.

I just tested the beta on a bare-bones XP machine to make sure the drivers all register properly.  Everything worked out great so hopefully I'll post a crude beta after I get some sleep.  I still need to fiddle with the main menu but that's about it.

I'll probably post an mp3 with a basic tutorial for the game.  Eventually I'll incorporate tips and a tutorial into the game itself, but not for this beta.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 11:09:06

Hello,
Your game project sounds very interesting to me.

If you need help regarding something in the game, I would be happy to helpyou : programming C/C++/java, level design, or just testing, and eventually french translation if you plan to make your game internationalizable.

I just have a question: are the monsters able to destroy existing towers, or you don't ahve to handle with tower damage and repairs ?
Does the monsters strictly follow the path or they are ocasionnaly able to fly over water or jump in grass ? Or is it possible to have multiple paths ? It might make a big difference in higher levels.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2010-11-04 11:21:11

Thanks Aminiel, I appreciate your willingness to help.  I think it would be really cool if the game could be translated into french once it is complete!  big_smile

For this game I tried to stick as closely as possible to how mainstream "tower defense" games work.  Since, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't any true tower defense games available to this group of gamers... it makes the most sense to stick to what is considered standard.

Monsters will never be able to harm your towers, so there is no need for repairing.  The monsters will also strictly follow the path.  I considered adding "flying" units which would ignore the path and travel in a straight line to the base, but I ended up deciding against it.  Some mainstream tower defense games feature flying units, but the majority do not.  Similarly I considered having paths that could split to take monsters in multiple directions (some versions have this), but I won't do that because the majority do not.

I know it sounds like I'm throwing creativity out the window on this, but I think its important to pave the way for a blind tower defense genera with a time-tested and truly standard approach.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 11:52:24 (edited by Aprone 2010-11-09 23:46:49)

Well I zipped up my rough beta and posted it on my file server.  Anyone is welcome to give it a try... just keep in mind that it is NOT finished!  Odds are you guys will spot some bugs (please tell me if you do).

I also posted an mp3 of me going over the game's commands since there is no help or tutorial section in the game yet.  I HIGHLY suggest you listen to the mp3 first or you will be completely and totally lost when you try to play.  I left out a description of how the game is actually played so please read the one I wrote earlier in this thread.

I didn't bother making an actual "Install" file for this game yet, so just unzip into a folder and hopefully it will run fine.  Without an installer it IS possible that some of the game's files won't register properly so the game won't run.  Please let me know if that happens so I will stop procrastinating and make an installer LOL.

Please leave your questions and comments here.  If we get a good turn out with testers, catch all the bugs, and change things that should be changed... then I expect the game will be finished in no time!  After all, the project is only a day and a half old as it is.  tongue

www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/instructions.mp3            (5 MB)


OH!  I remember what I forgot to include in the mp3!  When you're ready for the next wave press the space bar (then enter to confirm).

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 12:49:02 (edited by Aminiel 2010-11-04 12:59:21)

Thank you. I'll try it this week-end, I wont probably have time before (sorry).

But I find that having multiple paths and flying units could really be good for the gameplay. By multiple paths, I mean more than one entrance and more then one exit, with crossing and splits but not necessarily (why not a level with two distinct paths ?)

I have (perhaps the wrong) impression that you could become fast bored if the monsters always follow a single path. and this type of game must propose a certain amount and a certain variety of levels to keep the player in, otherwise he would finish the game too quickly.
That's also why you should definitely provide a level editor or a way to let the user create their own levels (i.e. text files), in order to make the game endless, as well as creating a community around it.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2010-11-04 13:40:33

Oh, tower defense? cool, it will be first game in this category, i mean audio game lol

I remember some good games like tower defenses or in similar style of gameplay, like fat princess for the PSP.

Good job.

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Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2010-11-04 18:52:52

Hi.

nice going indeed, and an impressively strategical game (though I also got my rear kicked on level 2).

i'm afraid sinse I lost my mouse I couldn't try that and had to use the keyboard, and one command I couldn't find in the keyboard was the click on square and be told what it was. the sounds were fairly good considdering sterrio pan, though i generally found them a trifle quiet (especially the sounds denoting when you'd put a tower on a square).

Obviously not all overview commands are entered, so I did find it a litle difficult to understand which of my towers were doing in which monsters, i also would like to know when I'm upgrading an existing tower (perhaps by having the word upgrade in the menue), sinse as it was it was a litle difficult to tell when i was upgrading a tower as opposed to building a new one.

Also having played the game, a list towers command might be helpful, sinse I did find I forgot where I put towers.

That being said it's a really great beta and deffinately a nice concept for a game.

Btw, I very much appreciated the high contrast graphical map. Without overviews or clicking, it was my main source of information about where the path ran and where to put my towers.

I was a trifle confused at first sinse I assumed the blue tyles were water ;D, but quickly realized they weren't.

I'm not sure how far you want to take the low vision angle, but you might considder adding white or yellow tyles to denote where towers, ---- and possibly your based, are placed.

Lastly, I'm afraid I have some bugs.

Firstly, when first starting the game, I get a plane window with no graphics labled "endless mouse" at that point, escape brings up the main menue, but pressing any other key (eg, the arrows), gives this error:

---------------------------
Tower Defense
---------------------------
Run-time error '11':

Division by zero


Then, after starting the game, moving around doesn't work for a few seconds (initially I just get the voice speaking individual letters and numbers), then when I start moving around, for some odd reason the curser skipps streight from rank 3 to rank 1 and I cannot move onto any square in rank 2 (which is irritating sinse I wanted to stick a tower there). The same thing also happens with file I for some reason, the curser just skips from H to J.

Appologies about the complaints, but hopefully this will make fixing them easier.

Btw, as regards flying units and multiple paths, my personal thought is that for the initial game they might be confusing, however as extra options or higher difficulty modes they could be fun, and afterall everyone likes Dragons! ;d.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 19:35:18

If I try to start the game, I get an error message. It's a runtime error and it says "active x component can't create object" What can I do?

2010-11-04 20:26:39

Excellent feedback guys!  big_smile  I was thrilled when I woke up this morning and saw everything you guys had written.  Usually when I make games I have to sit on my hands for a few days before people start testing it for me.  This quick response will help keep this game on track for a quick finish date.

I'm thinking, more and more, that Aminiel is right about the flying units and multiple paths.  I think what i'll do is incorporate various Game modes.  This way I can have still have it mainstream standard in a "traditional" game mode that doesn't include those 2 features.  Other game modes could include fliers and multi-paths so people would have a greater challenge to beat.  big_smile

Bladestorm, if you click on the beginning or end of the path it tells you... but there isn't an actual tile called "Base".  I was going to have one but it just takes up precious space on the map.  Essentially the monsters walk On to the map, travel the path, and walk back Off.  I still have to add Dark's "path description" idea, and I think that will help solve the problem.  In case you missed how he described it, pressing a button would read off where the path starts, explain how it curves around the map, and finally where the path ends.

I've added your coordinate suggestion to my to-do list... I like it.  big_smile

Sadly I worried there might be some sound volume issues.  My laptop has a loose speaker wire inside so the volume goes up and down on its own sometimes.  It made it Very hard to get all of the volumes how I wanted because even when I was happy with them I never knew if I was currently in another fluke... extra loud or extra quiet moment on my laptop.  tongue

The water not being blue thing, LOL!  Actually, early on that was a typo I never fixed (I had the tile numbers matched to the wrong colors) but I ended up getting used to it and never remembered to fix it.  I also didn't set it to maximize with your screen but I will do that.  I'll also fix that up a bit so it shows towers and enemies better.

Are you kidding Dark, lol, finding bugs is EXACTLY what I wanted you guys to do!  big_smile  The main menu was the very last thing I tossed together just so I could post the beta.  I knew it wasn't very stable and apparently I was right.  When I get back to working on it, i'll look in to those errors Dark.  Oh, the skipping over tiles is probably due to an issue with the zoom feature I added late last night too.  I finally caved in and went with traditional zooms and I can imagine a few ways that might cause tiles to get skipped if I messed a part up.  I'll check it for typos and hopefully fix that.

Niklas, do you know if your machine has Direct X 7 installed on it?  My game uses Direct X 7 and that is my best guess about the problem.  Once I have an actual installer it might fix that issue.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 21:09:03

Oh Dark, I never explained the "endless mouse" thing lol.  I was messing around with something so that the mouse would never collide with the edges of your screen (and I called it endless mouse).  I might have been over thinking it but I thought using the mouse in Tower Defense would be best if you never had to worry about hitting an invisible "wall" at random.

I'm actually glad it works as well as it does because I have another game idea that would use it.  I don't want to stray from THIS project, but afterward I think I want to put together a multiplayer real time combat game.  big_smile

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 21:29:07 (edited by Aminiel 2010-11-04 21:38:17)

I couldn't wait to give it a try

ON windows 7 Pro 32 bits  + jaws 11 : Can't create ActiveX object, directly on application start, even in compatibility mode set for windows XP.

ON windows XP SP3 32 bits + jaws 11 : the application starts, announce tower defense and main menu, then
- If I press an arrow key, I get runtime error 11 division by 0
- If I press escape, I alternatively have nothing and main menu on second press, but it doesn't change anything else (the arrow keys are still not working)
- If I press escape before the annouce say main menu, I get runtime error 9 subscript out of range
- If I press enter or space, nothing happen, or I have sometimes runtime error 9 subscript out of range again

Be careful, the keys like V, C, etc. to announce gold, level, score, etc. are working in the initial screen, which is probably not desired

- Be carful that you can navigate outside of the grid, i.e. before column A, below row 1, above row 10, after column J, using the arrow keys.
If you go outside the grid, there aren't any coords announce but there is a psshshshhshshst sound

- I was unable to clearly identify where is the path, where I can build towers and where was the monsters. It says that I finished level 1 but by pressing C on level 2 it still says that I'm on level 1.

- When you explain what can do each tower, you are telling range about tiles. What does it mean in fact ? I don't think that a tile = a square, because you would never have a range of 14 or 40 if it was the case. It would by easier to express ranges in squares, i.e. a tower with range 1 can kill in the 8 squares immediately next to it only, a tower of range 2 can kill on 8 adjacant squares + 24 squares adjacant to the first 8, etc.

P.S. Did you do it with visual basic 6 or visual basic .net ?

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2010-11-04 21:33:16

Ah fair enough regarding the mouse. if I find mine I'll try the game (I obviously need a mouse trap).

I do miss the ability to click and identify tyles, though luckily for me this is slightly less necessary because I can use the graphical map.

As regards the map, I wasn't certain whether maximizing the thing would be possible or not which was why I didn't ask, but if it could be done it's a great idea, ---- though you might be surprised at the size it'll end up on the 40 inch flat screen I've got plugged into my pc (and in fact my Snes), especially if your doing the developement on a laptop ;D.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 22:11:25

Aminiel, the problem with windows 7 sounds a lot like Niklas' issue.  If I remember correctly, windows Vista and windows 7 ship with Direct X 10 but don't come with any of the earlier versions.  My game uses Direct X 7 to handle sound.

The problems with the main menu don't surprise me much.  Initially as soon as I ran the game it was already at the screen to start building... I threw in the main menu last minute so I'm sure it is absolutely riddled with programming mistakes haha.

Navigating outside of the grid should take you to a static sounding border.  I didn't have that originally and I personally felt it was harder to navigate with the mouse.  If you take your time with the arrow keys you can hear each coordinate read off, but if you move quickly with the mouse it is immediately apparent you've hit the edge of the map when you hear static.  If the border isn't helpful I can remove it... i'll let you guys decide on that.  Because I can see I know I won't always/usually understand what works best.  smile

Oh yeah, once you've finished a level it will still say you are ON that level.  The "level complete" announcement tells you the monsters are gone, but you are still free to upgrade, buy, and sell before you allow the next wave of monsters.  Only after the new monsters start coming will it consider it the next level.

I am SO GLAD you brought up the range issue!!!  As it turns out, that spot has a typo so it is mixing up Range and Rate of fire when it speaks.  The Rate of fire for that tower is 40 shots per minute and the Range is 1.4 tiles.

I wrote this with Visual basic 6.0.  I know most people say .net is better (because of cross platform ability within .net) but I personally don't like using it.  I'm set in my ways and am too lazy to force myself out of my comfort zone.  I'd much rather use what I'm most comfortable with so I can work as fast as possible.

Bladestorm, sadly I've never had much luck using the mouse wheel... but I might just give it another try.  smile  I was also thinking that the right mouse button would be great for listing the current location!

Thanks for the encouragement man, I'm just happy I can contribute to this community!

Um, no... the combat game idea wouldn't really be an action RPG.  I THINK I can push the mouse to work in a very fast paced game.  Think of a top-down map of only walls and ground, max of 2 teams of 10 people each multiplayer... or bots to fill in if human players are missing.  A few game modes are easily possible, but I'd start with "capture the flag".  Tones change as you move the mouse over yourself, allies, enemies, and walls with directional sound.  I've messed around with this a lot actually (when taking short breaks from tower defense) and it is working really well!  Keyboard keys would almost exclusively be for speaking during the game, so a mouse would be required for the game.  Essentially you, and your team, navigate the simple map (believe me it wouldn't be too involved since combat is the main focus) and blast the crap out of your enemies.  "Looking around" with the mouse is relative to your own location so you won't be bogged down with a huge map to deal with.  I'm 99% sure I can get team play to be smooth and intense... I'm thinking 1 tap on a button plays the sound for you and a second tap Speaks it in the game.  This will cut down on people saying 3 things they didn't want before landing on the one they did.  Nothing is worse than your team mate yelling "North!", "Hold up!", "Lets go!"... when he only wanted to say "Lets go!" ROFL!  Positional sound would mean only people close enough would hear you speaking so you wouldn't have to deal with meaningless info coming from the other side of the map.  Once people got used to all the different voice commands I think they would become second nature.  I don't know if anything like this already exists, but basically my goal would be to create a mutiplayer game that was as fast paced as any mainstream game for the sighted.  Promoting team work under heavy fire should also help bring new players together to form friendships.

Wow that description got long fast lol.

Dark, I've already started overhauling the graphics in Tower defense.  smile  I think you will be much happier with them when I update the beta.  Oh... the game will have no trouble resizing itself to your screen, but with a screen that large would it be too large for you?  Depending on how close you sit, and how well you see, should I include options to shrink the map so people can still see the whole thing at once?

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2010-11-04 22:30:01

aprone, i've tried the game and it's amazing for less than 2 days project, i can't wait for the
complete version. i think that different modes of gameplay just increase replayability factor
and makes the game better.
oh, now you got my interest. you mean a game similar to counter strike? that's just what i
wanted for years, quake can get close, but there are not these different configs that you
mention, for example, capture the flag.
in this case you could have lots of modes and settings too.
good luck with these projects, and congratulations.

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2010-11-04 22:34:50

The mouse multiplayer sounds fun, if a litle hectic, though I'll freely admit I'm less of a multiplayer sort of person myself, but stil it is true we have nothing at all like that accessible currently, sinse the only fast action multiplayer games are things like two player tenis or the recently released palace punch up.

If I find my mouse I'll have to try it with tower defense, though at least for this game I hope you'll emulate all mouse functions with keyboard commands, ---- eg, ctrl to identify current tyle, shift for the list options business.

For edge of the map, I do think a sound is a good idea, sinse it demarkates the area, however i'm less convinced of the sound of static sinse it is rather indefinite, and also similar to some other game sounds (such as the water sound), also I'm afraid that the lack of volume doesn't help with the static either.

Perhaps something more percussive such as a wall scraping sound would be better.

As regards map size the, the actual reason I have a large tv is precisely because! of low visual deffinition. I would find a game with characters the size of super Mario brothers impossible to play on a 17 inch tv (though flat screens are another matter, sinse the higher deffinition means they are sharper and easier to see).

Obviously the map in tower defense is far less visually complex than mario, and in fact I had litle difficulty seeing it even windowed.

Sinse however it wouldn't really be right to get into a low vision games discussion on the audio games forum, I'll stop here.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2010-11-04 23:01:36

Hi,
The game sounds great, but I just hope it'll work on my xp pro system. I have direct x 9 installed. I'll give it a try. All in all, I think this is gonna be fun.

2010-11-04 23:17:36

Aminiel, the problem with windows 7 sounds a lot like Niklas' issue.  If I remember correctly, windows Vista and windows 7 ship with Direct X 10 but don't
come with any of the earlier versions.  My game uses Direct X 7 to handle sound.

It would be fine if you could make your game compatible with both XP and 7, as tehre are more and more users going in that system. My XP laptop is getting old, it is 4 years old.

Navigating outside of the grid should take you to a static sounding border.  I didn't have that originally and I personally felt it was harder to navigate
with the mouse.  If you take your time with the arrow keys you can hear each coordinate read off, but if you move quickly with the mouse it is immediately
apparent you've hit the edge of the map when you hear static.  If the border isn't helpful I can remove it... i'll let you guys decide on that.  Because
I can see I know I won't always/usually understand what works best. 
smile

The sounding border is not a bad idea, but that's not really an explicit sound. You should use a beep or ding sound I think, it would be clearer. With the current sound, I though it was a bug.

You should also tell with a sound in which type of square one is. I don't hear anything or it is so low that I can't be sure. That information must absolutely be clear, one should be able to distinguize water, grass and path, as well as already used squares within a tenth of a second. Til now I can't, it's an essential point.

The monster wave is not really clear too. Or your first wave has only one monster. I think I should hear more than only one monster shout.

I am SO GLAD you brought up the range issue!!!  As it turns out, that spot has a typo so it is mixing up Range and Rate of fire when it speaks.  The Rate
of fire for that tower is 40 shots per minute and the Range is 1.4 tiles.

Aha, it immediately seems more realistic and more explicit. I though you confused yourself between squares seen by the user and your internal coordinate system you may have multiplied by 10 or 100.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2010-11-05 00:16:18 (edited by Aprone 2010-11-05 00:19:11)

Thanks again to the new guys giving their support. big_smile

My only issue with compatibility between XP and windows 7 is that I only have XP machines at my house.  Making sure my game works with Vista or windows 7 will just involve a constant guess-and-check method when you guys, who are not using XP, spot problems.

I will make the tile sounds louder, and look for a new (more distinct) sound to replace the border static.  I think the low tile sounds was yet another product of my laptop's bad speaker connection.

I do plan to make all mouse commands have a keyboard alternative.

The monsters flow onto the map one-by-one and follow each other around the path.  If you're hovering over a tile you can hear them approaching (and leaving) but the sound does not represent the actual number of monsters present.  Levels could easily have a few hundred monsters and I don't know of a good way to represent that with sound.

Bladestorm, it is hard to stay on topic lol.  The creation of this post was exactly because I kept going off-topic in a Sound RTS thread.  I would handle the combat game from a top-down perspective rather than first person.  The way I'm imagining the game, I think it will be easier on the players this way.

P.S. Arg, real life responsibilities have kept me from doing much on the game today.  sad

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software