Spring RTS Engine

If you're going to review games, you owe it to the developers to not stream it on a potato -_-

Wrong, nobody owns anything to any developer..

The day the realization kicks in that you are expected to develop two builds of your game of any Game in which you have to reduce it to the absolute basics and keep it looking good :)

KingRaptor wrote:Nice :)

It took me a while to figure out haste is needed to unlock cloak/teleport (actually I pretty much discovered it by accident).
(I'd draw connecting lines manually on the tech window using the gl functions)

Thanks. I agree on the connecting lines. I also think there should be some indication on what techs can be unlocked and the reason why others can't be.
Regarding the unlock availability, I wanted to use some sort of animated/glowing buttons.
That said, I didn't have time to do this, but it's something I want to complete as I think a refactored version of the tech system is neat to have even for future LDs.

PicassoCT wrote:Wrong, nobody owns anything to any developer..

The day the realization kicks in that you are expected to develop two builds of your game of any Game in which you have to reduce it to the absolute basics and keep it looking good :)

I agree, sorta.
I don't think there's a reason to have a fixed number of builds (certainly not 2), and I don't think all games can be good looking while still having only the absolute basics. Games such as the Sly Slime would look horrible without shaders - which Spring disables by default and too many GFX cards.
However I feel we need to provide users an ability to choose the graphics settings (with autodetected sane defaults) so the game would run without FPS issues but still look "as good as possible". Alternatively simple inform the user that their PC cannot run the game -> it's better to refuse to start it than to have it not render the map or something as awful.

YOU SHOULD BE FEEL GRATEFUL FOR GIVING YOU A FREE COPY OF A GAME. THIS IS NO WAY OF EXPRESSING GRATITUDE TOWARDS DEVELOPERS OF THE GAME.

Some PR guy probably.

PicassoCT wrote:Wrong, nobody owns anything to any developer.

They don't but if they are going to stream crap video they will not have viewers very long.

i've put map and game on rapid, downloading by pr-downloader is possible:
to start game, it seems to work to select game + map and as "enemy": "Player Only: Testing Sandbox"

abma wrote:i've put map and game on rapid, downloading by pr-downloader is possible:

Code: Select all

pr-downloader area17:test "Area 17 - v01"

to start game, it seems to work to select game + map and as "enemy": "Player Only: Testing Sandbox"

So maps can be put on rapid too? I can't seem to find it http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps either.
I'm not sure what map you used, but https://github.com/SpringCabal/Area-17/releases/tag/0.3 should have a newer version iirc.

gajop wrote:So maps can be put on rapid too?

oops, no. i meant i put the map to springfiles and the game to rapid. on springfiles it is only on api.springfiles.com.

i've uploaded the map from the package from http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?uid=52862

abma wrote:i've uploaded the map from the package from http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?uid=52862

Well the post-jam version (which you should use) is v02. It's available on both that page and the link provided

gajop wrote:Well the post-jam version (which you should use) is v02. It's available on both that page and the link provided

i've just downloaded the first link... can the other links be marked as "don't use" please?

abma wrote:

gajop wrote:Well the post-jam version (which you should use) is v02. It's available on both that page and the link provided

i've just downloaded the first link... can the other links be marked as "don't use" please?

Assuming you're talking about the first link in the top post of this thread, it leads to a page that has both the original version (for judging) as well as the post-jam version (the last released version). Seeing as this thread is about LD primarily I don't want to remove any links to it.

i'm talking about this page: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?uid=52862

there are 4 links to download files, can you please mark two of them as deprecated / old?

"Post Jam" sounds like addon-files, not an updated game.

abma wrote:i'm talking about this page: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?uid=52862

there are 4 links to download files, can you please mark two of them as deprecated / old?

"Post Jam" sounds like addon-files, not an updated game.

That's for LD users, they know what Post Jam means (it's common terminology).
I can't mark it as deprecated because it's what's used for judging! It should remain there ideally forever so people can see what we did in 3 days even after it's over.

I've added a " - Original" to them. I hope that makes it clearer.

The results (http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-3 ... &uid=52862) are in as you all know and I think we did pretty well, although it's a shame we didn't get in the top 100 - and we were so close in 'fun' too!
Try to update your section of the post mortem in the Google Docs. I'll finalize mine when I get back from Italy in a few days and we can then post it here.

I haven't had a chance to try the game yet but those are great results. Hopefully I can join in with LD 34 :)

gajop wrote:The results (http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-3 ... &uid=52862) are in as you all know and I think we did pretty well, although it's a shame we didn't get in the top 100 - and we were so close in 'fun' too!
Try to update your section of the post mortem in the Google Docs. I'll finalize mine when I get back from Italy in a few days and we can then post it here.

I think it's wonderful how we improved in Fun from gravitas' 800s to the current 100s

hokomoko wrote:I think it's wonderful how we improved in Fun from gravitas' 800s to the current 100s

Yes, and getting a higher score in Fun is key imo.

Silentwings wrote:I haven't had a chance to try the game yet but those are great results. Hopefully I can join in with LD 34 :)

That would be great of course. I have plans to organize it again if I'm available.

Our total score LD32 -> LD33 progress is:


Coolness 100% -> Coolness 70%
#823 Fun(Jam) 2.60 -> #110 Fun(Jam) 3.71
#558 Overall(Jam) 3.17 -> #186 Overall(Jam) 3.66
#293 Graphics(Jam) 3.74 -> #351 Graphics(Jam) 3.74
#365 Audio(Jam) 3.10 -> #364 Audio(Jam) 3.17
#554 Innovation(Jam) 3.04 -> #373 Innovation(Jam) 3.21
#549 Mood(Jam) 3.00 -> #589 Mood(Jam) 3.03
#671 Theme(Jam) 3.14 -> #665 Theme(Jam) 3.26
#654 Humor(Jam) 2.57 -> #684 Humor(Jam) 2.52

I agree with the Fun and subsequent Overall increase because we had much better controls than in Gravitas. We had the same Graphics score but lower rank which is what I expected. Gravitas looked better in my opinion, probably because our 2nd artist had higher availability in LD32 and the entire team focused on visuals a lot more. Audio should've increased more, the music is better, but I guess neither are outstanding to warrant a large departure from the "average" rating. Theme and innovation should've been lower, as Gravitas was much more innovative than Area 17 - I think the reviewers rated poorly (or were influenced by the overall score too much). Humor is meh, we weren't funny in either jam I guess.

FYI: uploaded map v02: http://api.springfiles.com/?springname=Area+17+-+v02

Shadowfury was kind to make a review stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNGe4KTdVN4
I think he does a good job of detecting some of the main things our game lacked: lack of/unclear goals, boring citizen grinding/desire to protect civilian structure, weak hp regeneration (fixed in git version)