Release Hase 1.4

[Ziz]

Hi,

normally I try to make some kind of rolling updates for my games, so that you sometimes even get an update per hour if I work constantly on a game.

However with my Prototype of Hase I ran into three problems

• Some people didn't get, that it was meant as a prototype and that every release placed value on a specific fact. The first release was about the gravitation calculation, the second about networking. So they started criticizing some misbehavior, which exists, but was not the goal of the release...
• Secondly some people here and in the dingoonity board didn't get, that the goal of the project was to make a (gravity based) Worms clone. So in Worms you have teams, different weapons and stuff like that. Instead they made some suggestions about game play changes, that didn't work at all for Worms and make in fact a totally different game. Often even the idea of gravitation physics didn't have anything to do with the game ideas...
• Thirdly some people made suggestions, but never tested the actual game.

So I spend the last weeks to make maaaany improvements for Hase and decided to cut the "Prototype" as pretty much nobody sees as difference between a Prototype and a released game. Maybe it was a bad idea to already release the prototype to the repository. However giving a Prototype such a bad rating is not very nice. :\ So with today Hase is no prototype anymore.
To avoid, that people still make suggestions, that doesn't fit in a Worms like game I implemented the very important basics of Worms, so now you have

• Teams with different hares,
• a global health bar for every team and
• different weapons

In fact you have only 6 different weapons and you will be quite disappointed about the repertory, but you will get the idea.I did one little change in comparison to worms. Weapons will consume weapon points. Every turn you have 3 weapon points and depending on the power of your weapon it will use 1,2 or 3 weapon points. These are the 6 weapons I implemented for now

• Classic carrot bazooka as you already know. Costs 3 WP
• Smaller carrot bazooka, with the same flight properties, but a smaller detonation hole and lower damage. Costs 2 WP
• Smallest carrot bazooka, with the same flight properties, but the smallest detonation hole and lowest damage. Costs 1 WP
• Build tool. You can build a circle everywhere if you want! Of course this new circle has gravitation as well! Costs 2 WP
• Choosing the next hare in the team. Costs 1 WP
• Choosing the previous hare in the team. Costs 1 WP

With this you could e.g. first try to hit an enemy with the smallest bazooka and if you hit, you send a second bigger one after it. Of course the damage is a LITTLE bit less than sending the biggest bazooka in the first place. Or you hit an enemy with a very weak weapon, but afterwards hides behind self build environment. Or you choose the previous hare, because he was quite near to a nearly death enemy and it is easier to change the hare than to jump to the enemy somehow.
Also I made the aiming harder. It was to easy in the last version, especially if you used full power. Now you have to trust your Haki / force, but afterwards you will see the trace of the bullet.

A big problem was the main window, which was made for networking games, but was quite unhandy for creating a local game. So I have a main menu now for creating a local game or joining or creating a network game. Furthermore there is a little help (not very helpful atm) and an about window.

For that I made a new approach for the "windows" inside the games with feedback functions and stuff. Was a bit work, but you will see no real difference. However I had to tell you, that this made a lot of work. ^^

I also changed the controls. (A) is now used for "OK" in menus and jumping in game. (X) is used for "Cancel" in menus and shooting ingame. You will adjust the power of the weapon (or the distance of the built circle) now with the shoulder buttons. For zooming you have to hold pressed (Y) and press the shoulder buttons. Furthermore the zoom "locks" in. Also you can watch around now with the D-Pad if (Y) is pressed, which may be quite handy. With you select your weapon.

On the visualization front I added a particle effect, made a new health bar and improved the font for the GCW.

Here is a video of the recent version:




https://www.youtube.com/embed/qsbd9VZmtU8?feature=oembed
Download as always here:

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=hase_prototype-hase_prototype-12345&dp=true

greetings,

Ziz

 

[foxblock]

TIL the word "hare" is in fact not a misspelling of the German "Hase", but a proper English word...

Nice work, gotta give this a try in multiplayer after my next exam.

 

[levi]

Ah, TIL that hase is German for hare


TBH I think you could have dropped the prototype label from the second revision on, it became more like iterative dev of a release product to me. But now it's a one-point-something, perhaps I could pester you for some audio. Any musicians interested in providing some tunes for this awesome game?


Also FWIW, the A button is the third button I test in trying to work out what the 'OK' button is on Pandora, so I'd prefer if B or X was the primary button, but I can live with this setup.


Downloading now, looks like a worthwhile update!

 

[levi]

Okay, played a game now, and it's now very very very good. Was a bit surprised to see so many rabbits on the screen at first, until I spotted another version of myself and realised we all had five rabbits. No need to add so many AIs any more I guess. New menu system is a lot nicer to use too.


AI aiming seems to be worse than ever though, and one of my enemies spent the first half of the game shooting his own teammates. And none of them seem to have got the hang of firing a test small carrot first, instead burrowing their big carrot into the terrain some distance from their intended target every time.


Also, the way enemies take damage surprised me too, in that if there are two rabbits atop each other, if you hit the top one, the bottom one doesn't seem to take any damage at all despite being well within range of the circle of destruction.

 

[Ziz]

Okay, played a game now, and it's now very very very good. Was a bit surprised to see so many rabbits on the screen at first, until I spotted another version of myself and realised we all had five rabbits. No need to add so many AIs any more I guess. New menu system is a lot nicer to use too.

Thanks.

AI aiming seems to be worse than ever though, and one of my enemies spent the first half of the game shooting his own teammates.

Yes. I have to fix that. ^^'

And none of them seem to have got the hang of firing a test small carrot first, instead burrowing their big carrot into the terrain some distance from their intended target every time.

Yes. The AI is stupid. However I could easily make it better. I will see.

Also, the way enemies take damage surprised me too, in that if there are two rabbits atop each other, if you hit the top one, the bottom one doesn't seem to take any damage at all despite being well within range of the circle of destruction.

The damage depends from the distance of the detonation centrum. If you are more far away you get less damage.

 

[levi]

Ah okay, linear or square of the distance, cos it seems to drop pretty rapidly? Still, could be useful if you've a teammate in a pack and what to pick out your target. I should play more and get used to it.


Don't make your AI too intelligent - I'm enjoying winning most of my games since the prototype 2 version, though I guess there should still be some challenge to keep me playing.

 

[Ziz]

Ah okay, linear or square of the distance, cos it seems to drop pretty rapidly? Still, could be useful if you've a teammate in a pack and what to pick out your target. I should play more and get used to it.

Squared as in "reality"

Don't make your AI too intelligent - I'm enjoying winning most of my games since the prototype 2 version, though I guess there should still be some challenge to keep me playing.

YOU nagged the AI is stupid. It is easier for me if the AI uses just one weapon and if it is incredible good at aiming.

 

[levi]

Of course, tis the nature of all AI to be easier to code if it never makes a mistake. Personally, I like being able to recognise the different skill levels/AI routines in each enemy, and it's always fun to have the occasional enemy that commits hari kari rather too often (as I've seen a few rabbits jump into their own carrot when escaping).


Realistic AI coding is hard though, so I guess I shouldn't nag too much.

 

[Ziz]

New version with better AI and some fixed bugs. No friendly fire anymore.

As the new AI would break games between different Hase versions an update is necessary for online play.

Enjoy!

 

[Ziz]

New version with

• More decent colours
• Options menu
• Sound (because many people nagged, that the sound isn't working...). However this is more a placeholder than the final solution

Enjoy!

 

[levi]

Excellent! I've been playing quite a bit of (the previous version of) this recently, just against AI, and it's a lot of fun still!


A couple more suggestions if I may: when you have a lot of AI opponents, the player list can obscure a good part of the screen. While I like being able to see exactly how long it is until I'll play, so I can go scrolling about the level to see where everyone's placed, I suspect a scrolling window showing no more than five players with the current player in the middle would give me enough time to conclude my surveys.


And showing who took damage better would make it easier to plan the long game and decide who needs to be taken down a notch or two if they hit you. I'm thinking if the bar goes red after the screen flashes, as it more slowly decreases, kind of street fighter style.


And just as aside, I'll note that I've pretty much stopped using any weapon than the big carrot. I'm not sure what could be best done to encourage more experimentation, but I tended to find that shooting off a small carrot first followed by a medium one slowed down gameplay too much for my tastes. Better to get a good position then fire everything before running away.

 

[moxie]

There was this board game in sweden in the early nineties, see, called "NeoBunnies". The basic idea was that the bunnies were at war in the glade, and they had to fend off the trolls in the forest as well, and occasionally go down to the bunny lair to do what bunnies does best in order to secure the survival of the clan.

Anyway.

My mate decided to run a tournament of NeoBunnies at a local gaming con, got a number of contestants, and a few days of qualifications, quarter- and semifinals, and finally a big final. And of course, the occasion demanded a soundtrack. An ambience. Some nice background music to keep peoples spirits up.

He chose "Poing" by Rotterdam Termination Source. On repeat. The whole event through. Poing. Poing. Poingpoingpoingpoing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqD1OohY2to

So, when Levi requested some audio tracks for the game, I have a linked request.

Don't make that audio be "Poing".

 

[Ziz]

So, zear and cas did some test games with me and the network code didn't work.

I investigated it and it was no bug...

It were TWO bugs. >.<

The first one made, that you didn't send your last turns, so after a minute your opponents have to think, that you are disconnected and replace you with dummy moves

The second one was about the heart beat functionality: If you weren't the game master you didn't get a heart beat thread. So after a minute you get killed, too. >.<

Fixed it!

Hopefully...

Furthermore I added the functionality, that I can inform you if the server is broken and can close if for maintenance

 

[Ziz]

Excellent! I've been playing quite a bit of (the previous version of) this recently, just against AI, and it's a lot of fun still!

A couple more suggestions if I may: when you have a lot of AI opponents, the player list can obscure a good part of the screen. While I like being able to see exactly how long it is until I'll play, so I can go scrolling about the level to see where everyone's placed, I suspect a scrolling window showing no more than five players with the current player in the middle would give me enough time to conclude my surveys.

Hm, I will think about this.

And showing who took damage better would make it easier to plan the long game and decide who needs to be taken down a notch or two if they hit you. I'm thinking if the bar goes red after the screen flashes, as it more slowly decreases, kind of street fighter style.

Hm, good idea. I will do something like this.

And just as aside, I'll note that I've pretty much stopped using any weapon than the big carrot. I'm not sure what could be best done to encourage more experimentation, but I tended to find that shooting off a small carrot first followed by a medium one slowed down gameplay too much for my tastes. Better to get a good position then fire everything before running away.

This three weapons were in fact chosen to have 6 weapons to chose from... I will add more weapons in the future, then you will have a reason to change weapons.

 

[Ziz]

Don't make that audio be "Poing".

With great power comes great responsibility...

 

[Granitehead]

Don't make that audio be "Poing".

With great power comes great responsibility...

If you add a feature in the next version which greps the home directory for the term moxie (case insensitive) and plays Poing infinitely if it matches anything I'll ... hmm ... what the hell could I offer ... I don't know, my gratitude. :-DBonus points if the audio is launched in a separate process and keeps playing after you quit the game.

 

[levi]

Minor graphical bug report: the new big direction arrows when you zoom out is cool, but something weird seems to happen if you zoom out after shooting a shot (or when your enemy shoots). The arrow seems to shoot out backwards from the rabbit in the opposite direction to the carrot. I suspect some interaction between the camera's logic and the arrow's rendering logic is a bit atwixt. Looks quite funky at times though


Oh, and a suggestion for more weapons. One of my better tactics in this turns out to be sitting on people. If you sit on all your AI opponents, they'll be unable to move, and if they can't see anyone to shoot apart from you sitting on them, they'll just drop a low power carrot underneath them, to try to dig their way out (but they're too afraid of getting any damage themselves, so in practice they just dig a hole a little way away from them). On your turn you can hop of, shoot them, and hop back on.


So, if they had access to a short-range punch weapon, they could have a defence against that tactic. Say, you had to be almost on top of your target, it only affected the one rabbit it touches, and perhaps it gives them a little inertial nudge to get them shifted (which could be employed in dastardly ways in low gravity situations!).


Actually, those low gravity situations are my favourites. I always pick a level with more than one equal-ish island, rather than a single blob of shapes, so you can have slingshotting carrots around objects, and the danger that if you jump injudiciously, you might end up floating off into the great unknown.

 

[Ziz]

Don't make that audio be "Poing".

With great power comes great responsibility...

If you add a feature in the next version which greps the home directory for the term moxie (case insensitive) and plays Poing infinitely if it matches anything I'll ... hmm ... what the hell could I offer ... I don't know, my gratitude. :-DBonus points if the audio is launched in a separate process and keeps playing after you quit the game.

Maybe I can combine this with a fork bomb...

 

[Ziz]

Minor graphical bug report: the new big direction arrows when you zoom out is cool, but something weird seems to happen if you zoom out after shooting a shot (or when your enemy shoots). The arrow seems to shoot out backwards from the rabbit in the opposite direction to the carrot. I suspect some interaction between the camera's logic and the arrow's rendering logic is a bit atwixt. Looks quite funky at times though

Yes, I already saw, that the arrow is sometimes hopping funny, too. I have to investigate this further.

Oh, and a suggestion for more weapons. One of my better tactics in this turns out to be sitting on people. If you sit on all your AI opponents, they'll be unable to move, and if they can't see anyone to shoot apart from you sitting on them, they'll just drop a low power carrot underneath them, to try to dig their way out (but they're too afraid of getting any damage themselves, so in practice they just dig a hole a little way away from them). On your turn you can hop of, shoot them, and hop back on.

The don't try to dig themself out... They make the move, with which they make less damage to themself. However this is a stupid move! ^^

So, if they had access to a short-range punch weapon, they could have a defence against that tactic. Say, you had to be almost on top of your target, it only affected the one rabbit it touches, and perhaps it gives them a little inertial nudge to get them shifted (which could be employed in dastardly ways in low gravity situations!).

Hm, I don't think you should invest too much time in suggestions how to make the AI harder. This is at the very bottom of my ToDo list. In fact this game is meant to be played with other open handhelds owners all over the world!

Actually, those low gravity situations are my favourites. I always pick a level with more than one equal-ish island, rather than a single blob of shapes, so you can have slingshotting carrots around objects, and the danger that if you jump injudiciously, you might end up floating off into the great unknown.

Yes, I do so, too. It just makes fun to jump on a little moon and to kill your enemies from there with your "Laser".

 

[Ziz]

Today I had a deeper in look in crosscompiling win32 applications within Linux and got it to work! So I don't need a crappy Windows VM anymore to make windows builds, but will just be able to release Windows builds like any other target. Furthermore I improved the keyboard mapping for playing on PC. So these versions are now ready to be played with:

Linux 32 Bit Version: http://ziz.gp2x.de/downloads/hase/hase-i386-1.4.4.0.tar.gz

Windows 32 Bit Version: http://ziz.gp2x.de/downloads/hase/hase-win32-1.4.4.0.zip

I tested it with wine, so please tell me, whether this works in a real windows...