Simple Rts

[Vynx]

It's a great idea David Beoulve, and i'd love to see both, but right now i'd really like a traditional RTS - After that i'd love to see something like your idea implimented, but right now i'm looking for my standard fix

I came up with the idea of Simple RTS so it could start off some there and slowly be moulded by what the community wants, perhaps becoming something vastly different to the original concept, who knows?

 

[Winterkid]

Added a legend for the picture so you know it's not just random little doodles, there is method to my madness.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

Added a legend for the picture so you know it's not just random little doodles, there is method to my madness.

Yummy!

Yes, definitely a more traditional RTS, which I would love to see. Playstyles which are meant for mice scare me on the GP2X, however. I've tried Populus and Dune on the Genesis on my GP2X. We'd have to do some thinking to get it right - pushing a cursor around to do everything isn't fun.

Perhaps a scheme where the general theme I came up with was used to control selection and movement for your RTS? As in, make it easy to select troops and move them, not necessarily use a grid system.

Maybe I can get some kind of development platform set up this weekend and actually DO something.

 

[jbrodack]

i think that liquid wars or something along those lines would be perfect for gp2x and a lot easier to control and get into than a traditional rts. the traditional rts just seems like it would be too annoying to control on the gp2x and would not be good for quick on the go sessions of gaming.

 

[Parkydr]

i think that liquid wars or something along those lines would be perfect for gp2x and a lot easier to control and get into than a traditional rts. the traditional rts just seems like it would be too annoying to control on the gp2x and would not be good for quick on the go sessions of gaming.

Liquid wars is good, I've got it running and it plays fine. I haven't released it yet because it is hard to change maps - keys are simulated but it needs mouse simulation to navigate the colour choice parts of the menus (I've got to learn a bit more allegro).

 

[JaqMs]

See how a simple thread that gave the idea of a homebrew RTS turned into countless people asking for a port of Liquid War?

 

[Dzz]

See how a simple thread that gave the idea of a homebrew RTS turned into countless people asking for a port of Liquid War?

In a year or so most of the obvious porting candidates will have been ported and the emulators will be down to tiny refinements. By then techniques for making the most of the hardware will be well-known and a group of developers will be more familiar with writing gp2x programs. I expect to see more interesting homebrew by that time.

Plus, the XGP series (assuming it gets released) will have attracted many of the emulator writers and app porters by then. I imagine the software availability for those platforms will be similar to what we've seen on the gp2x.

But back on topic, a RTS on the gp2x would be really nice and I think there are some promising ideas being put forth here about how one could work.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

In a year or so most of the obvious porting candidates will have been ported and the emulators will be down to tiny refinements. By then techniques for making the most of the hardware will be well-known and a group of developers will be more familiar with writing gp2x programs. I expect to see more interesting homebrew by that time.

How... true.

 

[Vynx]

Added a legend for the picture so you know it's not just random little doodles, there is method to my madness.

Yummy!

Yes, definitely a more traditional RTS, which I would love to see. Playstyles which are meant for mice scare me on the GP2X, however. I've tried Populus and Dune on the Genesis on my GP2X. We'd have to do some thinking to get it right - pushing a cursor around to do everything isn't fun.

Perhaps a scheme where the general theme I came up with was used to control selection and movement for your RTS? As in, make it easy to select troops and move them, not necessarily use a grid system.

Maybe I can get some kind of development platform set up this weekend and actually DO something.

(Winterkid, you really need to use the PNG format instead of JPG, it makes the images blurry and a little dirty, which makes re-using them difficult)

I have an idea for a control sceme, but bare with me on this, it's a little non-traditional :lol:

I'm using this as a really quick example, so you can understand how it works.

Now becomes this control scheme;

This box can be moved on the map, whatever is in it will be selected with a button press - L + R can increase or decrease the size of the box, and the units must always be visible under it, either as a transparent or semi-transparent box.

Option 1; Make it freeform, the box can be moved anywhere
Option 2; Make it magnetic to the centre of the screen, making it quicker to select units then move them further distances

This will be much much faster than using a mouse, and not only that, it can actually look less intrusive to the design if done right - my example isn't the best, but done right it could easily seem natural and instinctive to use. Of course, a circle might better than a box, but it's just an example

You can even include information in the box, like a health percentage of your units and the enemy units inside it, or overall value of the resources it's hovering over - intel and simple unit selection all on one screen.

I'm a bit against using button schemes or anything like that when we have much simpler and natural solutions available to use - coupled with -/+ being mapped to selecting seperate unit types - all your troops, all your tanks, etc, I imagine it'd be pretty damn easy to control

 

[DavidBeoulve]

I'm a bit against using button schemes or anything like that when we have much simpler and natural solutions available to use - coupled with -/+ being mapped to selecting seperate unit types - all your troops, all your tanks, etc, I imagine it'd be pretty damn easy to control

Actually, I really like the sound of your solution.

Looks like we (being, Vynx, Winterkid and myself) need to get together and make an RTS.

 

[Vynx]

I'm a bit against using button schemes or anything like that when we have much simpler and natural solutions available to use - coupled with -/+ being mapped to selecting seperate unit types - all your troops, all your tanks, etc, I imagine it'd be pretty damn easy to control

Actually, I really like the sound of your solution.

Looks like we (being, Vynx, Winterkid and myself) need to get together and make an RTS.

I would be more than happy to, but sadly my programming in experience in SDL is fairly limited, graphic design and concept work is mainly my forte

If someone has the experience to help with the project, then i'd love to get it up and running. Any good with development David?

Perhaps if we drafted up a nice long concept page with details on the game, graphics, design and controls, someone will take interest?

 

[Wite_Noiz]

Perhaps if we drafted up a nice long concept page with details on the game, graphics, design and controls, someone will take interest?

I'm already interested. I really like the idea of taking the graphics away and just being left with the gameplay of an RTS.
I've been watching the thread but been too busy to comment (damn work getting in the way of real life!).

 

[DavidBeoulve]

(to Noiz and Vynx and whoever else is following)

Well I intend to get a development environment set up at home and actually do some programming again. I'm a C/C# programmer, and note that does not include OOP (Object Oriented Programming).

The main issue with an RTS is AI, so to keep the AI workable, we have to keep the game simple. Fortunately, that's been the topic all along.

It looks like going through all of these is the path and the way to GP2X game programming:

• Lesson 1: Setting up SDL
• Lesson 2: Surface Loading and Blitting
• Lesson 3: Extension Libraries and Loading Other Image Formats
• Lesson 4: Event Driven Programming
• Lesson 5: Color Keying (background transparency)
• Lesson 6: Clip Blitting and Sprite Sheets (Sprite sheets are collections of images held in a single image file. They're useful for when you have large amounts of images but don't want to have to deal with many image files.)
• Lesson 7: True Type Fonts
• Lesson 8: Key Presses
• Lesson 9: Timers
• Lesson 10: Regulating Frame Rate
• Lesson 11: Calculating Frame Rate
• Lesson 12: Motion
• Lesson 13: Collision Detection
• Lesson 14: Per-pixel Collision Detection
• Lesson 15: Circular Collision Detection
• Lesson 16: Playing Sounds
• Lesson 17: Animation
• Lesson 18: Scrolling
• Lesson 19: Scrolling Backgrounds
• Lesson 20: Key States
• Lesson 21: Mouse Events
• Lesson 22: Joysticks
• Lesson 23: Window Events
• Lesson 24: Getting String Input
• Lesson 25: Game Saves
• Lesson 26: Alpha Blending
• Lesson 27: Tiling
• Lesson 28: Bitmap Fonts
• Lesson 29: Pixel Manipulation and Surface Flipping
• Lesson 30: Using SDL Threads

But I mean - that would take me at least the entire four day weekend IF i get Monday off. So give me some time I'll do some thinking. Keep posting here, guys.

 

[Vynx]

Perhaps if we drafted up a nice long concept page with details on the game, graphics, design and controls, someone will take interest?

I'm already interested. I really like the idea of taking the graphics away and just being left with the gameplay of an RTS.
I've been watching the thread but been too busy to comment (damn work getting in the way of real life!).

Fantastic

It's a simple yet intuitive game made to give people a nice RTS fix

I don't think it needs a campaign mode, a skirmish settings screen will be more than sufficient, but if we do think it needs one, that can always be added at a later date - the most important thing I think now is to get a good, playable RTS out there which is easy to control on a handheld system.

Nice optionals would be thus;

- The ability to set up larger than 320x240 games
- Customisable units, settings loaded via a script and images
- Classic mouse control option, for those who really want it
- Some decent war-like music to set the mood (Seems unlikely, but it'd be nice to have)

Are you a proficient GP2X programmer Wite Noiz? A.I is probably the biggest technical challenge - while I agree with David that simple is indeed the name of the game - that shouldn't be the case for A.I, and modability if that ever gets included.

The game design is simple, but designing it so it's balanced and works well on a handheld, that might not be so simple

 

[michaeljustman]

I assume the overall world map is going to be bigger than the 320x240 screen, so a way to pull up the overview map and move the view around is going to need to be implemented, so you can send units across the map. Holding a button and scrolling like on Sim City on the SNES could be implemented, but it might be annoying to have to scroll really far across the map.

I like the box idea, but how is one going to select a single unit. Great for grabbing multiple units, but shrinking the box to the size of a single unit and selecting him would be far from accurate. Perhaps a button press to bring up a pointer that will only select one unit at a time would work. Also one could continue to hold aformentioned button to select multiple units in different places. (Often in an RTS, one does such things, yes?)

Also, would the box be used to select buildings (for making units/doing research, etc)?

Look forward to seeing this one in progress and wish that I could program better than I do.

 

[Vynx]

For single unit selection a button to switch to a mouse pointer would be best - switching between them both would give us a pretty solid control scheme I think, well done for spotting that problem

Infact, there are a few different ways this could be done, another way would be to instead of making the box shrink/increase with L + R, you hold R and move the digital stick left and right to increase/decrease size, and when the box becomes very small it would just automatically switch to mouse mode, where you could select individual units/buildings.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

Or, once an area is selected (this is assuming the action is paused), use L & R to have your cursor switch between selecting the given units in that selected area, or some other button for "grab them all".

Again, unit selection by type might help.

I'm just emphatically against mouse cursors when we can't control how fast they move (all at one speed) nor their direction to any degree of accuracy (0, 90, 180, 270, 360 degrees only).

I'm not sure what it is - but the usability specialist in me says there has got to be a better way if we let the medium tell us how it is easiest to use it.

 

[jbrodack]

jaqms i was the only one asking about a liquid war port. then i thought it would be a good idea to take the baisc design of that game and u ease of use and turn that into the basis of an ORIGINAL HOMEBREW gp2x rts. still it is nice to hear that a port is being worked on.

it seems that you guys would rather have a more traditional rts so go with that. just make sure ease of use is always considered. i think the hardest task will be to have a good control scheme and interface so I think that is the first that should be worked out. also i think it would be a good idea if the whole map fit on the screen or at least there would not need to be much scrollling.

good luck with getting this going.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

i think the hardest task will be to have a good control scheme and interface so I think that is the first that should be worked out.

Usability is king.

Maps larger than the screen are only evil if we have to scroll with a mouse cursor. One of the guys mentioned an overworld map - Michael? Not sure, I have to run home now, no time to look it up

 

[Vynx]

Or, once an area is selected (this is assuming the action is paused), use L & R to have your cursor switch between selecting the given units in that selected area, or some other button for "grab them all".

Again, unit selection by type might help.

I'm just emphatically against mouse cursors when we can't control how fast they move (all at one speed) nor their direction to any degree of accuracy (0, 90, 180, 270, 360 degrees only).

I'm not sure what it is - but the usability specialist in me says there has got to be a better way if we let the medium tell us how it is easiest to use it.

Selecting by type can simply be mapped to -/+, it can compliment the box selection method

jbrodack, ignore jaqms, he's on his own personal little crusade to convince people the GP2X good for nothing but ports and emulation.

David Beoulve - how about this;

L + Joystick = Map Scroll
R + Joystick = Increase/Decrease Box size, when box gets really small it becomes a mouse pointer
+/- Select Units By Type