Galactic Artifact - Pre-alpha Binary For Windows/linux

[jook2oh]

Wowie, that is a massive amount of goals. But I like the nebulae goal, they are pretty.

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.

Ahh, gotcha. Noone wants that. Well if I have any more 'bright' ideas... I'll be hesitant. h34r: But how bout a couple more? If you don't like them, leave them alone. Always better to have more suggestions, then you can be selective of what to do.

1: Different difficulty. Based on the number of stars, alien planets, or artifacts in the screen you're on when you press '*' once. As an example: ~50 stars for Hard B) , ~100 for Medium, and ~200 for Easy.

2: Black market items sometimes. So that when you are at an alien planet, it picks one random item from another race that it sells there, but costs a random amount 20% to %30 more than it should.

3: Start on an alien planet. This one is a 'duh'. One time I started on an alien planet in the beginning of a game, I hit 'Enter' and there I was, at the beginning, with 100$... :rolleyes: Maybe you could make it an option in the option menu.

4: Random prices for items sold. With a range of 10%. So Instead of just a boring $120, it could be 108 ~ 132. 30 would be 27 ~ 33. and 210 would be 189 ~ 231.

~Outlandish Idea~
5: Depth chunks. We all know the galaxy isn't flat, so I thought you could make 3 chunks, the middle would be the thickest. Maybe this could be an option in the Multilayer missions.

Of course you probably thought of these already. If you didn't, then I hope I helped. Who knows, maybe you ignore them all, and the game is better...

Wait, what are you doing!? Stop reading and code... Just kidding.

I'll be making a call for testers, artists, and possibly voice actors soon.

Oh oh, Me Me. I'd like to test. I can beat the game in 14 ~ 25 minutes, depending on a "sparse start". Once was lucky enough to get under 10 minutes. Plus I noticed if you pan down from all the way zoomed out, there is a strange glitch/bug. But you already mentioned that, I think.

 

[TrevorBradley]

Wowie, that is a massive amount of goals. But I like the nebulae goal, they are pretty.

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.

Ahh, gotcha. Noone wants that. Well if I have any more 'bright' ideas... I'll be hesitant. h34r: But how bout a couple more? If you don't like them, leave them alone. Always better to have more suggestions, then you can be selective of what to do.

1: Different difficulty. Based on the number of stars, alien planets, or artifacts in the screen you're on when you press '*' once. As an example: ~50 stars for Hard B) , ~100 for Medium, and ~200 for Easy.

2: Black market items sometimes. So that when you are at an alien planet, it picks one random item from another race that it sells there, but costs a random amount 20% to %30 more than it should.

3: Start on an alien planet. This one is a 'duh'. One time I started on an alien planet in the beginning of a game, I hit 'Enter' and there I was, at the beginning, with 100$... :rolleyes: Maybe you could make it an option in the option menu.

4: Random prices for items sold. With a range of 10%. So Instead of just a boring $120, it could be 108 ~ 132. 30 would be 27 ~ 33. and 210 would be 189 ~ 231.

~Outlandish Idea~
5: Depth chunks. We all know the galaxy isn't flat, so I thought you could make 3 chunks, the middle would be the thickest. Maybe this could be an option in the Multilayer missions.

Of course you probably thought of these already. If you didn't, then I hope I helped. Who knows, maybe you ignore them all, and the game is better...

Wait, what are you doing!? Stop reading and code... Just kidding.

I'll be making a call for testers, artists, and possibly voice actors soon.

Oh oh, Me Me. I'd like to test. I can beat the game in 14 ~ 25 minutes, depending on a "sparse start". Once was lucky enough to get under 10 minutes. Plus I noticed if you pan down from all the way zoomed out, there is a strange glitch/bug. But you already mentioned that, I think.


Difficulties: My youngest daughter would kill me if she couldn't instantly have a ship maxed out. There will be different difficulty modes. There could also be a faster game limited to a smaller area, say Sector 2, or Sector 55.

Black Market: A decent idea. I've recently been thinking of a "Marketplace" or "Bazaar" where you could buy anything, or random things, but at inflated prices. But I think I should only add this if tweaking of other parameters fails (For instance, I'm thinking of letting you spend that $100 before the game starts, that would really ease a lot of the early game pain.

Alien Start: (see previous)

Random prices: A good idea, and it would take about 5 minutes to implement. I'd like to see the existing prices for artifacts sold and upgrades tuned first before implementing it though.

Depth Chunks: I spent several months at the end of last year attempting to model the galaxy on paper and split it into sectors. I had a rather interesting model of concentric cylenders split into sectors of even volume, stacked on top of one another. But when it came time to navigate it, or even number the sectors, things got painful.

A two dimensional galaxy allows me to play these mathematical tricks with area. It is possible to give information in a three dimensional space, but nearly impossible to conceptualize it. Also since this is a "powers of two" game, the stacks become meaningless pretty quickly as half or all of the stacks would be eliminated. No, if I were to add more depth, it would be zoomed in rather than out... either more stars and another zoom level, or (an already rejected idea) planets in each star system you would need to explore (this totally broke the flow of the game)

Already fixed the panning out of the picture bug (I actually prevented this, but the level you were zoomed into jumped down by two without changing the scale. It turned out to be a pointer bug and it's amazing it didn't cause a segmentation fault)

I'm going to need playtesters soon to fine tune the experience. You guys would love SVN version 138 (is it 139 now? just added ship captain names to the cursors in the screen), but I'd likely be restarting the server so much it would get annoying. Let me finish of my list of features for Release B and I'll get you all something to play with soon enough..

 

[jook2oh]

* 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.

I'd likely be restarting the server so much it would get annoying.

Ok, so it reverts to single-player. How bout an option in the game called "Open Communications" that basically lets you turn any 1 player mission into an online Mission, by connecting to the server. It will say "Communication Possible" if the server is up and running. Then when the server goes down, red text says "Communication Lost". And next to your name, it tells the difficulty level you are on, E(easy), M(medium) or H(hard) And a small part of the screen titled "Communication in Progress" has a list of all the people online, but that list would need a scrollbar.

Well... just my two cents. Here are my credentials: myOpoly (simulates monopoly for statistical purposes, works in firefox. i just threw it together one time when i was bored, too lazy to do it up right in C++ Not my best work, just an example of some code I made up)

 

[hessiess]

The Linux binary wont run on 64 bit

CODE
./GalacticArtifact0055
./GalacticArtifact0055: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_image-1.2.so.0



But there is a so called ``libSDL_image-1.2.so.0'
CODE

:/usr/lib$ ls | grep libSDL_image
libSDL_image-1.2.so.0
libSDL_image-1.2.so.0.1.5

 

[fusion_power]

Game sounds interesting. I had no time to test it yet (more screenshots, anyone please? ^^) but I enjoyed "Ur Quan Masters" onto the GP2X so I think this game here could be also something for me. I spent more time in Star Control 2 with searching for valuable Materials than following the plot or fighting (I THINK you can fight and follow a plot in SC2 but I never was interested in this) :lol:
I'm a fan of Discovery Channel documentations about ancient cultures, treasures, hidden tombs etc...such a galactic Game about finding artifacts is a very nice concept to spend time with it.

Will it be possible (some day) to land onto 3D planets and search for artifacts into a nice 3D Environment with Jungle or Desert or Water or complex ruins, Tomb Raider style...? (hey, don't laugh! )

 

[Tempel]

The Linux binary wont run on 64 bit
I finally managed to get it running using getlibs, a convient, if hackish, tool for getting all the 32-bit libraries (although it's designed with only Debian and Ubuntu in mind).

And after you've got libSDL_image in place, you'll still need to run "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./" to get it to find libSDL_gfx (until Trevor Bradley releases a fixed binary).

 

[jook2oh]

(more screenshots, anyone please? ^^)

I uploaded 11 pictures of the game, but I can only post 5 here, so rapidshare has all of them.

Here goes: Galactic Artifact Pictures

Or here:







Edit: Sorry, I cut off the bottom. When I made them I cropped them to 800x480, the size of the game. Unfortunately I forgot that the menu bar is roughly 25 px. So about 25 pixels was cut off the game, its ok, just look at the pic he put on the first post to see whats there in the game. His Pic

 

[TrevorBradley]

The Linux binary wont run on 64 bit
I finally managed to get it running using getlibs, a convient, if hackish, tool for getting all the 32-bit libraries (although it's designed with only Debian and Ubuntu in mind).

And after you've got libSDL_image in place, you'll still need to run "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./" to get it to find libSDL_gfx (until Trevor Bradley releases a fixed binary).


I'm asking in the dev forums for some help on how to compile a "static" binary. Every time I try to make one it complains I'm not including glibc and X11. Even if I could get it working that seems like overkill..

I'm uncertain that would make the x64 issues go away though. I'm still running 32 bit Linux here out of fear that I'd hit very similar issues for other software.

 

[fusion_power]

I uploaded 11 pictures of the game, but I can only post 5 here, so rapidshare has all of them.

Thanks. Looks interesting. Graphicaly very plain but not bad for a Alpha version. Do you actualy step onto the Planets like in Star Control II or is it just about finding a planet and you will get the Artifact without seraching for it onto the Planet Surface?

 

[plopperz]

I uploaded 11 pictures of the game, but I can only post 5 here, so rapidshare has all of them.
</snip/>

Could you (or someone) upload it to imageshack and just provide a text link to it?
RapidShare doesn't like me

 

[TrevorBradley]

I uploaded 11 pictures of the game, but I can only post 5 here, so rapidshare has all of them.
</snip/>

Could you (or someone) upload it to imageshack and just provide a text link to it?
RapidShare doesn't like me


There were screenshots posted in my last thread...

When "Release B" comes out in a few days, I'll be sure to post more screenshots on the new website.

Thanks. Looks interesting. Graphicaly very plain but not bad for a Alpha version. Do you actualy step onto the Planets like in Star Control II or is it just about finding a planet and you will get the Artifact without seraching for it onto the Planet Surface?

You get the artifact (if any) just by visiting the star. All the finding the planet and going down to its surface is assumed.

I had previously stared working on planetary systems, you would zoom in from the star to see planets orbiting around it, which would have aliens to talk to or artifacts to steal find, but it totally broke the flow of the game, so I ditched that code. It won't come back unless it's demonstrated the game *really* needs to slow down a lot..

It's *not* Star Control 2 and it's not like anything you've played before (AFAIK). Give it a try and see what you think.

 

[WizardStan]

The Linux binary wont run on 64 bit
I finally managed to get it running using getlibs, a convient, if hackish, tool for getting all the 32-bit libraries (although it's designed with only Debian and Ubuntu in mind).

And after you've got libSDL_image in place, you'll still need to run "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./" to get it to find libSDL_gfx (until Trevor Bradley releases a fixed binary).


I'm asking in the dev forums for some help on how to compile a "static" binary. Every time I try to make one it complains I'm not including glibc and X11. Even if I could get it working that seems like overkill..

I'm uncertain that would make the x64 issues go away though. I'm still running 32 bit Linux here out of fear that I'd hit very similar issues for other software.

You could just rebuild it on an 64 bit machine against the 64 bit libraries. Unless you're doing some funky bit-math, it shouldn't need anything other than a recompile. Then you let the person decide which binary to download, the 32 or the 64 bit.

 

[jook2oh]

There were screenshots posted in my last thread...

Sry, didn't want to step on any ones toes. I didn't even know about that older thread.

When "Release B" comes out in a few days, I'll be sure to post more screenshots on the new website.

SWEET! You mean like this?:

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. smile.gif
* 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

Hmm. You are pretty busy on this. Will you use a different domain name for the game site? (http://randomlynx.net/temp/) ~ or ~ (http://www.internetgenealogy.com/trevor/galactica/)

 

[TrevorBradley]

SWEET! You mean like this?:

Hmm. You are pretty busy on this. Will you use a different domain name for the game site? (http://randomlynx.net/temp/) ~ or ~ (http://www.internetgenealogy.com/trevor/galactica/)



Yes, I mean *that* Release B. I'm still aiming for about a week from now. (My sister-in-law was visiting this weekend, so not as much dev time as last weekend).

I still have one major bug that my wife (the ex-video game tester) is still trying to track down.

The site will be games.randomlynx.net, which is up but not yet complete.

Once release B comes out, it will be a bit of a trial. Presently I've not put a limit on number of simultaneous players. In need to test how players the game can handle at once. Actually I'm probably going to have to put in a server limit before release to ensure that I don't have to release a new version.

 

[nubie]

Teaser for Alpha Release B:

http://games.randomlynx.net/GalacticArtifact/

When is it expected?

 

[TrevorBradley]

Teaser for Alpha Release B:

http://games.randomlynx.net/GalacticArtifact/



Hey, I'm editing that! No peaky!

When is it expected?

Hours. Likely overnight tonight (GMT-8H). Real life is catching up with me.

The documentation and website may seem trivial to some, but this is my opportunity to call for testers and graphic artists, and I don't want to miss it. I'll need them for release C.

 

[jook2oh]

Typos on the page:
http://games.randomlynx.net/GalacticArtifact/instructions/

"...if there are to industrialist settlements..."
should be:
"...if there are two industrialist settlements..."

"...when you soom in on a..."
should be:
"...when you zoom in on a..."

Oh, and I was just thinking. Anyone know of the 'slingshot' (or: 'gravity assist') method used to increase velocity of spacecraft. Where you get up close and add its trajectory to your velocity by being dragged to its speed by its gravity. Lol, maybe with a level 10 computer and a level 10 drive, the computer would do that automatically when your flight path is near a planet, or when you leave a planet, thus decreasing your fuel consumption, and increasing your speed. Well, just a thought. I think I played one game that you could do this on. Can't remember the name tho.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_slingshot
Simple Explination

lol, or a:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetar...ansport_Network

 

[sinoth]

Hours. Likely overnight tonight (GMT-8H). Real life is catching up with me.

I'm quivering with anticipation :>

 

[TrevorBradley]

I've already got 12 pages of corrections and additions on a printed copy. Lemme actually do the thing myself..

As for gravity assist, there's no way the ships could actually be traveling through normal space, unless the time frame for the game is in the millions of years. Relativistic physics would take over at anything above 0.9c. Black holes can bend light only because photons have no mass. An actual ship going that fast would barely be affected by anything smaller than a supergiant star.

No, we're travelling through some sort of wormhole/hyperspace here. The most realistic way would be to pop out of one part of space and into another, but that doesn't look as cool.

For real gravitational physics, you might have a look around the forum for my failed GP2X game "Orbital Mechanic", which had real gravity and spaceships in real orbits determined by Kepler's laws of motion. (Failed mostly because the Fenix game interpreter only had floats and not doubles which would be critical for real orbital mechanics. Here it's not needed.)

The forum post on Orbital Mechanic was here.

My first GP2X game needed longs, which Fenix doesn't have either.. had to write my own arbitrary precision integer math library for Fenix. Go figure...

You guys are getting antsy... Lemme finish off those edits and get this thing up.

 

[jook2oh]

As for gravity assist, there's no way the ships could actually be traveling through normal space, unless the time frame for the game is in the millions of years.

Hmm. The speed in the game could easily be measured in light-years a second (roughly 5.8 Trillion miles per second). So no, a slingshot could never let you reach that speed.

I've already got 12 pages of corrections and additions on a printed copy. Lemme actually do the thing myself..

Oh yeah, I forgot, you mentioned something to that effect earlier. So I'm sorry for the diversion. h34r: