Spring RTS Engine

I really liked all the space geologist stuff

The rocket so genewars..

knorke wrote: I have/had two projects in spring, one unreleased (cube thing) and one released. (spring tanks)
Both were only played when I asked people to test but afaik nobody really tried playing them on their own. So released or not, not really a difference

To my credit, I did try to get you to put spring tanks on desura where I think it would do quite well for itself (and I still think it would)

The two people in this thread with spring logo variants for avatars should make a game together!

FireStorm, you gave up the fat guys with cannon in chest for ba?
This is the worst christmas ever, oh the humanity!

This game mechanics would be very easy to create with a bit of modification of the morph gadget but the UI would be crappy. My UI standards are very high so this would be quite a hard game for me to create. But I think that a powerful UI is required otherwise the exponential production rate of units would be quickly capped by a player's ability to manage it.

I feel like in spring gameplay often develops in a way that requires powerfull UI.
For example (re-)building lots of mexes all the time, so areamex widget was invented.

Another example is how range of units is always so important (keep raiders out of turret range, find a spot where you can make missiletower to shot at LLT, etc) so all units now show their weapon range.
Allows more "effiecent" play but game is so much about watching circles.
Scouting a base is basically drawing a line and try not to insect circles.
So the problem is that the UI can become too noticeable and that disattracts from the actual game...

I once had a game idea where you would have sharks, and they would have FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS ATTACHED TO THEIR HEADS!

In the end, I couldn't get the animations to look right, so I went with Mutated, Ill tempered Sea Bass.

In the end, I couldn't get the animations to look right

but sharks are animal that spring can animate nicely!

knorke wrote:

In the end, I couldn't get the animations to look right

but sharks are animal that spring can animate nicely!

that is because sharks are that awesome.. someone make a mod about sharks damnit.

I wanted to do a Herzog Zwei / Airmech style DOTA game that was more focused on arcade scroller shooter style PVP action rather than RTS. But it seems the engine isnt as good at keeping up with heavy FPS / arcade movement and command information while keeping in sync.

Oh and I guess one of the optional game modes was to fight coop against an AI of quickly spreading but immobile technological tumor like force.

...
which kind of reminds me of another one where you factions took the roles of a host immune system, a bacteria, or a virus. but add some artistic licensing creativity to be less boring than a biology simulation.

bobthedinosaur wrote:I wanted to do a Herzog Zwei / Airmech style DOTA game that was more focused on arcade scroller shooter style PVP action rather than RTS.

you might already know about this but a chrome game called "air mech" did that

also bob. what ever happened to your contact mod....the few 1v1 of that game i played with you have been the funnest and most tactical spring experience i have had (sorry nota)....

nightcold wrote:

bobthedinosaur wrote:I wanted to do a Herzog Zwei / Airmech style DOTA game that was more focused on arcade scroller shooter style PVP action rather than RTS.

you might already know about this but a chrome game called "air mech" did that

Emphasis mine.


Also, Knorke's last post gave me an idea! what would it take to make a Spring game with minimal explicit UI? Some games do a really good job of hiding the interface, but few of those are RTSs. Grim Fandango did this thing where your inventory was shown as part of the game world (the inside of Manuel's jacket). Maybe we could do something similar for buildmenus witha simple game. E.g. barracks have clickable "archer/fighter" areas that queue one of the corresponding unit.

doable- but difficult to realize without having a loose on complexity or comFort/performance.

@ FLOZi, MidKnight, knorke
Maybe that idea wasn't such a disaster, and maybe it could still go somewhere sometime.

I do like FLOZi's ideas and have always appreciated his (offer to) help with stuff so... maybe... (Stuff is always easier said then done )

In any case, I think BAR has to be finished fist. That shouldn't be to long now.

@PicassoCT
Hmm, that always seems to happen to me. Next time I'll just deliberately copy something from an existing IP and save myself the trouble of trying to be creative and original.

@ FireStorm: Actually thats a good thing. Beeing so unique in design as bullfrog was.. thats the highest praise i got. It doesent get any nicer from there on ..

Still.. why do you find programming so difficult? I thought so too once, then learned it "for real" at university, and now its actually the easier thing. If you have a insane idea and want to try it out, the code pops into your mind without ever thinking much. :D

I never said my laziness had nothing to do with it.
Also when I do program, there is a little voice asking me if I shouldn't be doing other creative stuff where I know I'll get more done. Not the best excuse but still.
I'll probably give it another go in the near future.

E.g. barracks have clickable "archer/fighter" areas that queue one of the corresponding unit.

Yes, along these lines. I can see that working, though in none of the current spring games.

But why do spring games mark geothermal spots with giant ugly yellow spike things? Why not make the smoke more visible?

Another example, Settlers 2 has resource spots somewhat similiar to springs metalspots.
In spring games (ie zk) you have abstract icons to mark the spots.
In Settlers 2 you had signs as part of the game world:

Or even further, games like Starcraft and C&C where resources are clearly visible above ground and to not be marked at all.

coding is creative to..
I actually got quite inspired by the datastructures and stuff i learned about. Sorry just cant stand the sublimal message that everything were you can work relaxed (without concentration ) is art and everything else is not.

FireStorm_ wrote:Also when I do program, there is a little voice asking me if I shouldn't be doing other creative stuff where I know I'll get more done. Not the best excuse but still.
I'll probably give it another go in the near future.

Don't bother coding if you are an artist - a far rarer breed in open source communities.
I've worked with artists before, on a single 24h competition, and it's just absurd how much they can get done in terms of art that little time, and vice versa, it's just not worth doing everything yourself if you can specialize (not everyone has that luxury though...).

(I'd gladly help you with any coding you need done, although I'm just as busy as you atm)

FireStorm_ wrote:@ FLOZi, MidKnight, knorke
Maybe that idea wasn't such a disaster, and maybe it could still go somewhere sometime.

I do like FLOZi's ideas and have always appreciated his (offer to) help with stuff so... maybe... (Stuff is always easier said then done )

In any case, I think BAR has to be finished fist. That shouldn't be to long now.

@PicassoCT
Hmm, that always seems to happen to me. Next time I'll just deliberately copy something from an existing IP and save myself the trouble of trying to be creative and original.

Old offers still stand!

@PicassoCT
I agree . I think there are a lot of similarities (that's why I said "other creative stuff"), especially with writing, which is probably obvious.

gajop wrote:(I'd gladly help you with any coding you need done, although I'm just as busy as you atm)

I'll keep it in mind. Thanks.

FLOZi wrote:Old offers still stand!

Maybe you can take a look at Geologists and tell what you think.
If nothing else it might be fun to just look at some of the ingame models. It's probably in much worse shape than you imagine. (can't even promise my code won't cause performance issues)

All mind that I'm not saying I'm going to work on it again now; I meant what I said about BAR.