Galactic Artifact - Pre-alpha Binary For Windows/linux

[Tempel]

As a former SC2 obsessive, i am excited (Melnorme Spacebucks? Awesome).

But i've hit a problem. On my 64-bit Ubuntu Linux install, after running "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/" and executing GalacticArtifact0055, i am told "error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_image-1.2.so.0: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64". I presume this means that it doesn't like the 64-bit version of this library. Anyone know a workaround?

 

[TrevorBradley]

As a former SC2 obsessive, i am excited (Melnorme Spacebucks? Awesome).

But i've hit a problem. On my 64-bit Ubuntu Linux install, after running "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/" and executing GalacticArtifact0055, i am told "error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_image-1.2.so.0: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64". I presume this means that it doesn't like the 64-bit version of this library. Anyone know a workaround?

Hhrm.. Probably best if this were compiled against a 64 bit linux system, and I don't have one of those in the house...

There are multiple SC2 references hidden in the artifact names as well...

EDIT: I'm wondering if I can compile this from a live CD version of 64-bit Ubuntu. I also have a few people asking for OSX copies....

 

[marshal]

I certainly would be all for a 64bit version. I guess it's not worth loosing too much time on it yet though. For a stable release sure but for a pre-alpha version it might not the worth it...

And while that might to be the best solution, the game seem to run fine under wine.
I played only 10min for now and it does seem interesting, not sure how much time I will need to finish a game.

I know the game is still alpha and all but did you think about how this will be played control wise on a pandora. Do you think being able to play the whole game with only the stylus or the gaming control sounds like a good idea interface-wise ?

 

[TrevorBradley]

I know the game is still alpha and all but did you think about how this will be played control wise on a pandora. Do you think being able to play the whole game with only the stylus or the gaming control sounds like a good idea interface-wise ?

Gaming control on the pandora will be slightly different. I'm planning on using D-Pad+button instead of the numeric keypad to zoom in (as well as retain keyboard control).

Stylus would should also be possible (I'd actually not considered stylus, amazingly! I just ruled out analog pads.) I'll add mouse control to my to-do list. Shouldn't be too hard. (Left click zoom in, right click zoom out, right?)

 

[Hotcooler]

Google mapsish mouse wheel zoom will be cool

 

[jakewastaken]

Google mapsish mouse wheel zoom will be cool

I think this would be cool as well. I also agree with it being difficult at times to select certain stars when there are large clusters present. Sometimes it looks like I obviously need to just go to the left, but then it shoots waaaay over to the left to another star instead. At that point I'll try and move above the star I need so that I can just go down, but then I encounter the exact same problem as before - it goes down to one much further away.

One half-assed solution to this might be to have a button that cycles through all available stars. Like let's say the Tab key does in a flash game. This way I'm not burning fuel in order to fly in circles around a difficult star.

For a long time I was just trying to make money and sell artifacts before I started paying more attention to specific colored cargo and selling those for information. This clearly makes the game go by MUCH quicker

I was just more focused on exploration than I was on eliminating sectors (eliminating sectors being the point of the game, I clearly made the wrong call, haha).

Sorry for the long drivel-like post, but let us tab through all available selections if that isn't already implemented. If it is, well then by God I am a moron and didn't even try it last night.

 

[TrevorBradley]

I have the first mouse code done. Right now it's Left click zoom in, right click zoom out, but there's no reason why it couldn't be mousewheel as well. (Even though we're drifting far away from Pandora controls at this point). Lemme just nudge that.

The very cool part is that I was already thinking ahead to the panning code (presently done with the control key). You click on a blank region of space and drag in a direction and release to pan one one sector in that direction.

The sectors MUST snap into position for reasons of implementation sanity. There are 40,000,000 stars and I get away with only knowing about at most 50,000 of them at once by enforcing sector segregation. You'll notice that if you pan across a sector border, say from 5777777 to 9333333, the stars outside the sector you're viewing get very thin. Stars are generated by spawing children each level you go down, so to go between 5777777 and 9333333, all the stars (except the inital 5000 seed stars) need to get thrown out and recomputed. To do a proper pan showing each of 5777777, 9333333, 8111111, and 4999999, I'd need to hold 4 times the data I do now.

It might be theoretically possible to do a proper google style free pan, but I think it would kill performance, and it would pretty much require a reimplementation of the game from scratch.. So sector snapping it is..

 

[dentrado]

I have almost played one round and I really like it, keep up the good work!
and now I have to try Ur-Quan Masters/ Star Control II too.

 

[jook2oh]

That is really a nifty widget you got there :blink:

Might I have a crack at a few minor suggestions? OK, no one minds...

1: A "Memory" of stars you have been on.
So that the last few sectors you have been to, when you pan to them later, you can see any planets/aliens you have already been. Or any planets/aliens you have scanned with a level 8 or above scanner. But not ALL the places you have been, just the last few screens. I first thought the "computer" upgrade could do something like this, but you already said the computer would be for something else. I was thinking that the computer could do what you planned, and for every level, it would remember that many screens back of your past. So that with a level 1, you could pan to the last screen/sector you were on, and see what was there. Not very useful, but at level 3 or 4, it would really help in the early game. :lol:

2: A possible fix to the pan problem. Unless it is what you were referring to already <_<
Right now:
***
***
***
My clever (obvious) solution would be to know 4 sectors at once, then pick a 3x3 inside that:
oooooo
oooooo
o***oo
o***oo
o***oo
oooooo

Is this what you were talking about when you said "I'd need to hold 4 times the data I do now"? Well if it was, then... now everyone knows what you meant

I can't think of anything more, but something will come to me, you can be sure of that. h34r:

 

[Tobriand]

I've finally gotten round to actually playing the game, rather than just making suggestions based on its description (finished a rather long essay which I had to do first). It's *awesome*. Especially the way the upgrades aren't just in power, but also in the way the piece of kit works.

A few thoughts:
- If there isn't already, it might be worth adding some distribution mechanism for artifacts in sparse star systems. By which I mean, it really sucks if you start in a nearly empty part of space, and can only find $ artifacts to sell to anyone you can find. It's also quite unlikely - sparse star systems would presumably have been less explored than dense ones, so one might expect there for be more $$ and $$$ ones there than in dense ones, where dense ones might have $ artifacts overlooked by previous expeditions. This would obviously need to be balanced quite carefully, but it might be useful.
- Jettisson cargo feature. It's annoying to have found a $$$ artifact and be full of $ artifacts with no buyers around.
- "Fly anywhere" feature. That is, a button that selects any star available on the current screen and sends you there. This would be useful when you've zoomed out a long way and don't really care which star you're going to, just that you end up in a a general region of space.
- Computer memory? At the moment it seems to recall all information received and automatically rejects obsolete stuff. It might be interesting to have that more manually managed at lower levels - so recognizing redundancy might be a level 6 or 7 feature, whilst recognizing obsolescence a higher one, and a limited number of information lots (possibly one per level? Unsure if that would feel balanced).
- Quick refueling: double tap enter on the "buy fuel" option to fill up as far as possible.
- Might it also be worth having as a cargo upgrade the ability to judge the value of an item, rather than having that by default? Probably a cargo upgrade of level 2 or 3 (since it would automatically arrive in radar upgrades later anyway).
- Obviously hacking upgrades, wormholes, black holes? (your fuel efficiency would drop immensely in their vicinity when flying away from them?).
- Different ships? For simplicity's sake, maybe only two per civilization but in any case, the ship would place limits on the levels of tech it could take - so 10 across the board would never be possible.

Many of those wouldn't be much use, I imagine, but some of them could work quite nicely. As it is, you've got a *really* fun game. Reminds me a little of Decker, somehow, despite being nothing like it really...

 

[EdCa22]

to run it on debian I needed to
CODE
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./
chmod a+x ./GalacticArtifact0055
./GalacticArtifact0055

Thanks, the game is very nice!

"export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./" seems a bit unwise to me

 

[GuSec]

Totally awesome game. Creds to you! When is the next demo coming out?
Beat it in 20 minutes myself, but it took a couple of tries to do that. Your kinda screwed if you can't buy a couple of drive upgrades in the beginning. Also the Speed ones are kinda vital for your own lazyness. Will this game only be released for the pandora or are you planning a Windowsrelease too?
Are you planning a adding other elements to the game? Like worm-holes, a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, neutron stars, nebulas and such?

 

[TrevorBradley]

That is really a nifty widget you got there :blink:

Might I have a crack at a few minor suggestions? OK, no one minds...

1: A "Memory" of stars you have been on.
So that the last few sectors you have been to, when you pan to them later, you can see any planets/aliens you have already been. Or any planets/aliens you have scanned with a level 8 or above scanner. But not ALL the places you have been, just the last few screens. I first thought the "computer" upgrade could do something like this, but you already said the computer would be for something else. I was thinking that the computer could do what you planned, and for every level, it would remember that many screens back of your past. So that with a level 1, you could pan to the last screen/sector you were on, and see what was there. Not very useful, but at level 3 or 4, it would really help in the early game. :lol:

2: A possible fix to the pan problem. Unless it is what you were referring to already <_<
...
Is this what you were talking about when you said "I'd need to hold 4 times the data I do now"? Well if it was, then... now everyone knows what you meant

1: It's possible. How about a stored "travel path" showing your crazy zigzag between sectors of the galaxy? Or yes, just the past few screens... What the computer does is still open, but it could very well do something like this.

2: That's precisely what I meant. It's possible, but it's going to be really difficult to implement. not a chance for Alpha version B (coming out very soon), probably not for C, perhaps afterward. My fear is that I could take a week to implement it, only to find out that the extra CPU usage will kill the actual Pandora.

My wife, the former commercial video game tester and pragmatist, has reminded me I need to finish and polish what I have now, before adding in new game ideas. Adding in too many modifications could be the death of the project, and while ID#2 is awesome, it doesn't actually affect gameplay in a dramatic way.

More info in a second...

 

[TrevorBradley]

I've finally gotten round to actually playing the game, rather than just making suggestions based on its description (finished a rather long essay which I had to do first). It's *awesome*. Especially the way the upgrades aren't just in power, but also in the way the piece of kit works.

A few thoughts:
- If there isn't already, it might be worth adding some distribution mechanism for artifacts in sparse star systems. By which I mean, it really sucks if you start in a nearly empty part of space, and can only find $ artifacts to sell to anyone you can find. It's also quite unlikely - sparse star systems would presumably have been less explored than dense ones, so one might expect there for be more $$ and $$$ ones there than in dense ones, where dense ones might have $ artifacts overlooked by previous expeditions. This would obviously need to be balanced quite carefully, but it might be useful.
- Jettisson cargo feature. It's annoying to have found a $$$ artifact and be full of $ artifacts with no buyers around.
- "Fly anywhere" feature. That is, a button that selects any star available on the current screen and sends you there. This would be useful when you've zoomed out a long way and don't really care which star you're going to, just that you end up in a a general region of space.
- Computer memory? At the moment it seems to recall all information received and automatically rejects obsolete stuff. It might be interesting to have that more manually managed at lower levels - so recognizing redundancy might be a level 6 or 7 feature, whilst recognizing obsolescence a higher one, and a limited number of information lots (possibly one per level? Unsure if that would feel balanced).
- Quick refueling: double tap enter on the "buy fuel" option to fill up as far as possible.
- Might it also be worth having as a cargo upgrade the ability to judge the value of an item, rather than having that by default? Probably a cargo upgrade of level 2 or 3 (since it would automatically arrive in radar upgrades later anyway).
- Obviously hacking upgrades, wormholes, black holes? (your fuel efficiency would drop immensely in their vicinity when flying away from them?).
- Different ships? For simplicity's sake, maybe only two per civilization but in any case, the ship would place limits on the levels of tech it could take - so 10 across the board would never be possible.

Many of those wouldn't be much use, I imagine, but some of them could work quite nicely. As it is, you've got a *really* fun game. Reminds me a little of Decker, somehow, despite being nothing like it really...

Distribution: I just finished implementation of the "findRandomStar2" algorithm, which enforces player stars on minor spiral arms, at least 40% away from the core. Which means much more stars in your starting location. My wife frequently complained of crappy starts, and the previous algorithm would often drop you in a sector in the middle of nowhere, which would take a good 20 minutes just to get an upgrade.. or you'd end in fuel death. Now you have a better chance.

Jettison cargo. It's on the list! I could do it with a mouse click (more on mice in a second), I'm just not sure how to do it with the D-Pad. Should make it in for Version B.

"Fly Anywhere". I *could* do something like this, hit enter and go to the center of space.. the trick is finding an actual star to go to. Actually that's not too bad. Not sure how to do this with the mouse. I'll think about it.

Memory: Mentioned in the last post. Will have to wait for Version C.

Quick Refueling. It's supposed to be annoying to refuel. You hold down the enter key to refuel, and there's a reason why when you get close to full it slows down. It's supposed to be like filling your gas tank at the gas station. Ever seen someone refuel an SUV and take minutes to do so, way more time than a fuel efficient car with a smaller gas tank? I can change the timing somewhat if it's too slow, but those kinds of delays will make more sense in the multiplayer. (Especially once computer upgrades are in place.. they'll be need for opponents ships to slow down and stop for extended periods of time so you can hack into their computer.)

Cargo determine value of object: I'm really hesitant about this. I'm thinking the player should be able to determine the value of the object if they've got it on hand without any ship upgrades. Not being able to do so seems a mean impediment, especially for the early game when things are already so rough.

Wormholes, Blackholes. My daughter really wants a black hole in the center of the galaxy, and I'm thinking of having an achievement of losing the game by falling through a black hole. For version B, not a chance, *maybe* version C.

Different Ships: Was already thinking along these lines. This was actually going to be relevant around the computer stage (Did I mention the computers would eventually talk to you?) But I hadn't considered limiting the max upgrades by ship type. That *does* make things more interesting. I'll give that one some serious thought!

Next post...

to run it on debian I needed to
CODE
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./
chmod a+x ./GalacticArtifact0055
./GalacticArtifact0055

Thanks, the game is very nice!

"export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./" seems a bit unwise to me


Yea, sorry about distributing SDL_gfx in that crummy way, if anyone could point me towards some tips on compiling *selective* libraries staticly, I'd appreciate it. Every time I try the compiler spews hellfire at me. (usually asking for X11 libraries to be added in)

Totally awesome game. Creds to you! When is the next demo coming out?
Beat it in 20 minutes myself, but it took a couple of tries to do that. Your kinda screwed if you can't buy a couple of drive upgrades in the beginning. Also the Speed ones are kinda vital for your own lazyness. Will this game only be released for the pandora or are you planning a Windowsrelease too?
Are you planning a adding other elements to the game? Like worm-holes, a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, neutron stars, nebulas and such?

I'm thinking of allowing the player to spend their M$100 before the game start on any upgrades (some sort of alien marketplace) so you don't get *totally* screwed with a bad start.

The game will be released for Windows and Linux, and ported to the Pandora when it comes out.

Other elements will come. As I said, I have to be very careful with addons... the more features I insert, the greater the probability of project non-completion comes. I've already eliminated white dwarfs.. No chance of planets there. Talked about supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy already. Worm holes as a gameplay feature I'll need to think about. Nebulae, just for aesthtetic purposes I'd love to do, (throw it behind a cluster of stars for an "OOOO! Shiny!" effect) but the art is scaring me a bit. Not sure how to implement it yet either.

 

[TrevorBradley]

OK, here's an update as to what I've been up to:

The first pre-alpha (Release A) was SVN build 55. I've been busy since then and am presently up to SVN version 138. Some of the changes I've implemented since the alpha:

* Added New fonts to Alien Interface Code
* Fixed a bug with Omnidirectional Radar (Radar 9, 10)
* Added left hand keyboard navigation (QWEASDZXC) as per suggestion, for laptop users
* New cargo hold graphics
* Galaxy minimap now with background graphics
* Stars dim correctly on zoom out
* Fixed looping music with gaps
* Implemented Mouse code. The game is now completely playable with the mouse (though Alien Interface can't be clicked on, you need to use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down between options). Can left click to zoom in, right click to zoom out, or use mousewheel. Click once to move cursor, double click to move ship. Click and drag to pan to next sector.
* Game starts are now always on a minor spiral arm away from the core to ensure you have more stars at game start.
* Network multiplayer. Game now logs into a server, and multiple people can play simultaneously. You see opponents location on the galaxy map and the minimap.
* Better framerate management through nanosleep/_sleep instead of SDL_Delay
* Switched from SDL_gfx rotozoom to SpriG zoom, MASSIVE (x2 at least) improvement in framerate during zoom. (and WOW the game looks pretty now with that proper zoom)
* When logged in multiplayer, players are given names of famous explorers: Ancient, Modern, and Future.
* Fixed a bug where upgrades cost $10 more than they should have.
* Multiplayer players have different ship cursor colours.
* Fixed data corruption bugs related to panning.
* Fixed a bug where you would visit aliens in a different sector without actually moving to it.
* Multiplayer artifacts now plundered... artifacts can be taken by one player and another won't be able to see them.

Wow that's a lot... a lot of the work was getting the multiplayer network code working.

I am aiming towards a "Release B", an alpha version which should be out in about a week. Here's what I need to do before then.

* Menu option at start to give player choice between single player and multiplayer.
* Ensure all these multiplayer changes I've made don't break single player game.
* Allow game to "loop" so that after victory you can play again/next round of multiplayer.
* Have a server memory of plundered artifacts so that new players joining a game in progress are notified about "missing artifacts.
* Victory Screen needs a new font.
* Computer upgrade needs to be set to 10 so that players don't waste their money
* Any cheats I've introduced (strictly for debugging purposes) need to be removed.
* Client should detect if server crashes during play and revert to single player (The server code appears to run for at least 2 days straight without crashing, but if I need to restart the server it shouldn't mess up your game.
* Sound system and Music system should be integrated, so that visiting an alien world pauses music instead of restarts it
* Game pause has serious bugs if ship is moving
* Set up website for game for distribution/information
* Fix any more bugs I manage to find

"Release C" and beyond comes later, perhaps many weeks from now, and would include the following features:

* A possible full conversion from SDL_gfx to SpriG to improve performance. (SpriG's colours are different, would take a bit of work)
* Player scores and a new score panel just above the message panel.
* Minimap zooming in when the information excludes all but one sector.
* Implementing Computer and all it's features (Still working on what all 9 features are!)
* A new overview surface, with more relevant info/readable fonts
* New star graphics in the overview surface
* "Alien" graphics in the overview surface
* Arfifact graphics in the overview surface
* Other game interfaces: Intro screen, Main Menu Screen, Credits, Instructions, Game Options, Game Setup, Multiplayer Lobby, Achievements/High Scores
* New Artifact Cargo Icons
* New Music/Sounds
* Achievements
* Mechanism to allow player to choose name and ship icon colour
* A way to dump cargo
* Alert for low fuel, a visual fuel circle, and an emergency rescue if you run out of gas.
* Stellar distribution for Population II stars
* Completed Artifact Naming
* Upgrade subtext on Alien Interface (to let you know what the upgrade does!)
* Improved Alien interface, with mouse support, visual indication of artifact types, better fonts
* Ship Computer voices
* Alien Voices
* Better ship cursor/traveling ship effect
* Possible alteration to ship traveling: acceleration instead of constant velocity (would actually allow you to travel any distance on little to no fuel, but would take forever to get there.
* Implement Joystick code (I've got a couple D-Pads I can use for testing here)

Just to name a few... whew, that looks terrifying.

I'm going to set up a website for the game soon, where I'll put a lot of this information. I'll be making a call for testers, artists, and possibly voice actors soon. Once that website is up and I have more regular game testers, I might be looking at a more frequent release cycle.

Hope that's enough info to wet your appetite for now. I'll post to a new thread once "Release B" is ready and the website is up.

 

[azmodean]

Kudos and a small suggestion.

Awesome game, this is precisely the kind of out-of-the-box design that can allow a small game developer to release a game that rivals less inventive games that have had far more resources poured into them. I particularly like how you get a sense of the vast amount of space you are exploring while keeping the exploration of said space manageable.

A thought I had on artifact naming is that you could solicit word lists from the pandora forums to supplement the ones you have already.

 

[TrevorBradley]

A thought I had on artifact naming is that you could solicit word lists from the pandora forums to supplement the ones you have already.

My wife is presently working on the word lists. She has a degree in archaeology and an incessant passion for all things random, and I believe she's taking some pride in completing the list on her own. So I don't think we're going to hand over the list in its entirety.

That being said, we're all for taking suggestions, particularly for Industrialist or Futurist artifacts. We have to be careful not to step on anyone's toes for copyright though. We've also been avoiding any references to things and places on Earth.

I'll try to figure out a way to solicit suggestions (or names for ship captains, that's a new list).

Website's almost up...

 

[Karel Jansens]

I liked the game, although I was a bit disappointed at first.

Explanation: I was expecting a sort of "NetHack In Space" and got something that was akin to an old Psion Series 3xx space trading game, but with a goal.

NetHack In Space would be kewl though...

 

[dentrado]

This is really impressive, keep up the good work, it seems that you are putting down a lot of time on this and have a lot of good ideas. I look forward to see more.

 

[TrevorBradley]

I liked the game, although I was a bit disappointed at first.

Explanation: I was expecting a sort of "NetHack In Space" and got something that was akin to an old Psion Series 3xx space trading game, but with a goal.

NetHack In Space would be kewl though...

I'm not sure how that would work. Elite (from 1984) seems the most appropriate equivalent, though giving it a third person massive multiplayer twist might be different. Maybe something like a massive multiplayer Spacewar, or Star Control II in constant combat.

Diablo is probably a better metaphor than Nethack. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge nethack fan, but the 100+ keys approach is a total disaster from a game design perspective. Diablo with the one button approach is a lot simpler and if done right really works.)

It's another game for another time (and likely another developer... I enjoy playing them, but I'm not too great at making blasty games). I should probably try to make a non-space game for my next game, to try to break away from the genre and give myself some time to think up some new ideas...