Paper Wars

[gruso]

Flying units!

 

[GreenDream]

Good. God. This looks incredible. This is probably the stupidest question ever, but how did you get the environment to look that good? Are they pre-rendered?


>_<


Immediately regret asking.

 

[fusion_power]

Good. God. This looks incredible. This is probably the stupidest question ever, but how did you get the environment to look that good? Are they pre-rendered?


>_<


Immediately regret asking.

Pro Blender Skills I guess. The Paper really looks like Paper, lightning and shadows are improving this impression, really good work. The paper looks also seems to be "in" these days:


http://derrickthedeathfin.com/ XD


Oh, one question, does the Paperwars Soldier can fly over a longer distance when he starts from a higher position?

 

[traylorpark]

Good. God. This looks incredible. This is probably the stupidest question ever, but how did you get the environment to look that good? Are they pre-rendered?


>_<


Immediately regret asking.

Not a stupid question at all! The shadows, ao and bump maps are all baked to textures and then assembled in photoshop. Since the lighting is static, there is no need for super complex shaders and shadowing if you can convincingly fake it.

Pro Blender Skills I guess. The Paper really looks like Paper, lightning and shadows are improving this impression, really good work. The paper looks also seems to be "in" these days:


http://derrickthedeathfin.com/ XD


Oh, one question, does the Paperwars Soldier can fly over a longer distance when he starts from a higher position?

Derrick the Death Fin, does indeed have a great paper look. But I was putting the paper look into Paper Wars before knowing about that game ^_^ .


The soldier's flying distance doesn't benefit from height, but trust me, you won't notice it, he can go pretty far. The height variation in the maps isn't that extreme regardless.

 

[Link]

Brace for impact!

Is this a warning?

 

[crow_riot]

ok here it is - another release of paperwars! ... phew this took definitely more time than expected ...


keep in mind, it's BETA


so what can you expect?

• every unit is now animated
  
• a new big map
  
• a map currently work in progress - only the layouting and the movement is done, there's no mesh yet.
  
• reworks of the game mechanics: every unit has now a special power - hopefully speed up the game a little
  
• and last but the most important: NETWORK gaming including super duper ingame chat
  

and this is where you guys/girls come in: i've played some network matches on my local computer, using different machines and devices and it works quite well! but of course my test+time resources are limited, so i dont know if really everything plays nicely. so we ask for your time and play some of the network matches.


how does that networking gaming work now?


well it's quite simple, on the menu there's a fat "network" text button, just hit that, choose your team, the map you wanna play and then it'll (hopefully) connect to the server i've setup for you to play public matches against each other. there's no lobby or something. the matchmaking is simple: if 2 players connect and want to play the same map, they get connected to each other. but wait - the one who waits longer has a bit of priority, if both players want to play the same team, the earlier one gets it!


but wait, what happens if my server crashes?


well here you go, we release the server binary, too! that way you don't need rely on my server stability or whatever, but just can host a gameserver on yourself. B)


a quite self-explanatory paperward.ini is included to configure the server to your likings. oh and it's written in java, to make it easier to host.


i've even tried to let it run on the pandora, and it starts, but then the java vm just crashes. didnt spend much time investigating it, but it is something linux-arm related java issue or so.


so, how do i connect to an alternative server?


check your appdata/paperwars/ folder. there's a network.ini file, where you can configure the main and the fallback server.


drawbacks?


of course!


the single player game is not working at the moment. i've fully invested my time in writing a server and all those nasty network backends for a lot of platforms. so this is the part i'll dive into next (though i'm quite stuck with).


gimme!


paperwars pnd: http://crow.riot.org...ars-rebirth.pnd


paperwars server: http://crow.riot.org...wars-server.zip


have fun!

 

[pmprog]

Wow... A lot of changes, looking great!


Here's a few things from my priliminary test:


The menu looks less "interesting" than the old one, but I appreciate it's still work in progress; Also, maybe petty, but an Exit option would be nice.


If you select the main-base on the first map, the size of the "purchasing" bar is pretty large. Didn't try on any other maps


Unit and menu selection in-game seems less responsive in this version.

 

[fusion_power]

Oh, no single Player? Hmm, then I have to wait until it is working but this is not a problem, I can wait. (I just don't like PvP, no technical reasons)

 

[Link]

I freeze at the b&w "paper wars" screen.

 

[pmprog]

I freeze at the b&w "paper wars" screen.

You need to tap the screen to start

 

[traylorpark]

Wow... A lot of changes, looking great!


Here's a few things from my priliminary test:


The menu looks less "interesting" than the old one, but I appreciate it's still work in progress; Also, maybe petty, but an Exit option would be nice.


If you select the main-base on the first map, the size of the "purchasing" bar is pretty large. Didn't try on any other maps


Unit and menu selection in-game seems less responsive in this version.

Thanks for the feedback! I`ll address the art related stuffs. The menu is less interesting for sure. What it is is mostly a place holder/concept prototype of the future menu. Crow wanted to get it all in 3D. The real menu will be all 3D decorated and stuff.


The large bar size is actually the fault of the camera being much closer to the menu. Thanks for pointing it out, its on my todo list.

Oh, no single Player? Hmm, then I have to wait until it is working but this is not a problem, I can wait. (I just don't like PvP, no technical reasons)

Yeah, Crow is painstakingly hand crafting the AI from scratch yet again. It is far from an easy task as this is a fairly new type of turn based strategy game and there is very little useful reference material for him to utilitize. Crow deserves all the respect for tirelessly working on perfecting the AI systems.


For sure, single player will be coming back. Thanks for your patience in the interim.

 

[traylorpark]

What I would like to do is set up a time, this weekend, when all of us Pandora Paper Wars players can get online together and have a great time playing against each other.


Perhaps we could set up a few times that cover multiple time zones? Maybe a couple times spanning Saturday and Sunday? I`m based in Japan, so my time availability is a little odd, but I can try to make it work.


I`d love to get a chance to verse you all!

 

[notaz]

Just gave it a quick try, it's nice and smooth, good work!

 

[fusion_power]

Yeah, Crow is painstakingly hand crafting the AI from scratch yet again. It is far from an easy task as this is a fairly new type of turn based strategy game and there is very little useful reference material for him to utilitize. Crow deserves all the respect for tirelessly working on perfecting the AI systems.

I thought he already was happy with his improved AI? He was working on it quite a while when I remember correctly. ^^

 

[erico]

Uau this game just gets better all the time! You sure have a winner there Crow_riot.


I have a caanoo but no wifi stick Is there a way I can help on this? like a pc version or something?


Anyway, impressive!

 

[pmprog]

The menu is less interesting for sure. What it is is mostly a place holder/concept prototype of the future menu. Crow wanted to get it all in 3D. The real menu will be all 3D decorated and stuff.

Yeah, figured that, but just pointed it out, because, well, that's what I do


Oh, it might be worth saying on the b&w Paperwars title screen to "tap to continue"

Yeah, Crow is painstakingly hand crafting the AI from scratch yet again. It is far from an easy task as this is a fairly new type of turn based strategy game and there is very little useful reference material for him to utilitize. Crow deserves all the respect for tirelessly working on perfecting the AI systems.

Definately. You both deserve respect for what you've accomplished so far. I'll be happy when I finally finish a playable demo, never mind a full game

What I would like to do is set up a time, this weekend, when all of us Pandora Paper Wars players can get online together and have a great time playing against each other.


Perhaps we could set up a few times that cover multiple time zones? Maybe a couple times spanning Saturday and Sunday? I`m based in Japan, so my time availability is a little odd, but I can try to make it work.


I`d love to get a chance to verse you all!

Damn, I think I'm going to miss all of this

 

[crow_riot]

thanks for the feedback!


i'll just reply in no specific order ...


i've worked on the touchscreen just short before releasing it, i had a bug where i sometimes interpreted lost touchscreen events as a pressure-loss which caused some issues in the previous version. i've also changed that you actually need simulate a click (press and release) within a certain distance, so that it gets recognized. i'm not happy with that either and i'm going to change that back to just 'press'.


well the ai ... i'm also not happy that it is not working currently. i've working on and off to get the old AI where i actually wanted it to be, but it got just PITA and so i decided to restart the AI workings from scratch. i had to change lots of internals to get the way down to the AI i want to have - one that can play some moves in advance and pick the "best" move (like it's done in chess and i think advance wars, too). this was not possible before but is now and will hopefully help.


but anyway, this beta is there to test PvP and get some input. We've been sitting too long onto this without throwing out builds for you which will hopefully change now... and you could still play hotseat with a friend, too (show off pandora and paperwars!


i need to check if the windows build is releasable in it's current state, so more people could playtest.

 

[bzar]

This is again sooooo smooth


A lobby system would be very nice. Also some labels on which mode I selected, since there's no highlight when I touch the mode "buttons". At first I wasn't sure I was selecting the network mode at all . I'm up for trying a match

 

[eyecreate]

Just happened upon this. The art style is really fun and makes it visual stunning. Great job! Will have to try it out.

 

[bzar]

Just played a game with Cloudef. His end froze halfway through . The system was still responsive so it was paperwars. Anyway, some constructive gameplay notes:

• Copters are underpowered. They fly and move fast, but do VERY little damage compared to the retaliation. They are also expensive. The healing ability is great, but since it costs a 50 per use, it's a bit steep. A copter can't really keep a unit alive on its own without massive income, but just sway single battles one side or another. I'd suggest either lowering the copter price to something like 120 or healing price to 30, if you want to keep the mas support units.
  
• The damage calculation is very random, and doesn't favor neither the attacker nor the defender. Usually these types of games scale damage based on health difference to give first striker an advantage, but here you can just stay put and wait for the enemy to waste his moves on attacking you until the last strike. There's no point attacking back if it's not for a kill shot, since you deal roughly the same damage back anyway through retaliations. We both first thought the defender always does 1x worth damage to reward the player using all his moves on attacking, but it's just the same.
  
• I'd probably make infantry move 2 spaces by walking and tank move three. Moving is slooow right now and making any sort of strategic moves is hard because all your moves are used on getting an infantry soldier somewhere without draining all your cash in the form of papery gliders.
  

And some praise:

• The game is smooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth as butter. I even forgot to set the clock frequency back up after suspend, but it was still very much playable.
  
• Gliders rock!
  
• Network play works awesomely