World War Whatever - First demo!

[DilloDude]

Well, it looks like making a BattleShip is harder than I expected; positioning the cannons is faily hard. The hard part is getting an angle variable based on the direction from the battleship's animpos, and its looking like I might need a switch with 35 cases . Reason? Because the animation doesn't line up exactly with it's ten-degree increments for some reason, and I am having trouble getting it right.
I might try re-doing the battleship animation, making sure it matches, and I'll see if I can solve it.

[DilloDude]

Ok, I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start with the bad news: My battleship is still not ready; this is because the angle you are looking afrom is not straight down, but on an angle, so the path followed by the cannons on the battleship is actually an elipse, rather than a circle. I may have nearly got it, though. The good news is, I have ready the next version, available here. Press space, ctrl, alt, shift or tab to pause. I have also included a map of the island. I also have plans for making a website, which will make it easier to upload files, but it will probably take a while.

[Game A Gogo]

OMG, its so awsome, nice going!

[duracel92]

Now i suggest you add some doobers, dodads or features whatever you choose to call em. perhaps some whales in the sea that jump out every so often on timers, trees that sway and when the plane collides with it the plane is smashed to peices.

Also, it would be good if you made the game so it had lives, and random drops of ammo, I ran out in the first 2 mins lol...

Oh, and I hope my feedback is anygood to you

[DilloDude]

Well, now I have made a few useful changes:

• I have whales in spots in the sea ( don't place the creators to close to the land; it looks just as odd seeing a whale dive out of the sand with a splash as seeing him sink into the sand).
• I have it so you have to bomb a target and if your bomb misses you die.
• I have it so you have 5 lives, when you die, you lose one and take off again, but all enemies remain in their current place.
• I have some trees and forests tiled around, to give you more of an idea where you are, to make it look better, and to hide things like AAGuns.
• I have barriers so you can't fly out of the level.
• I have it so you land when you have bombed the target.
• I have a breifing at the beginning.

I think that's all.
Here are some things I have planned:

• Having a control tower near the runway that occasionly drops health and ammo.
• Having more missions, based around an interesting scenario.
• Adding more scenery.
• Adding more enemies.
• Possibly having a score.
• Uploading the next version here sometime.
• Finishing the game.
• Thinking of another.
• Making it
• ...

Quite a few things, and I'll probably think of more.

[Game A Gogo]

i cant wait to see the full version!

[DilloDude]

Now a few more improvements:

• I now have a control tower.
• I have a couple of cheats, of which you can only use six of per life:
  • I have one which increases your ammo by 500.
    
  • I have one which creates a force-shield around your plane, which lasts 30 seconds and destroys shots and damages enemies.
• I have worked out my battleship script! So now the guns stay on the ship and blow you to peices - which doesn't sound nice, but it is better than sitting in the sea next to the ship and blowing you to peices. Now I just need script to move them, so they'll probably appear in the next version.

[DilloDude]

Now I am thinking about saving and loading games (among other things), and I was wondering

1. Is there a way I can do an action only if the file exists (like loadvars)?
2. Can I delete a file after it has been created?

Any solutions will be useful, and eventually (hopefully) to your own benefit.

[DilloDude]

While you're thinking on that (at least I hope you are) I have been adding more missions, and I have made it available (by creating an actor at startup and not create another) to also have the mission of shooting down a scout balloon. I have another interesting idea for one, in which you must liberate some captives from a prison camp. But I need to decide how to do that: you can't bomb it, or you'd kill the prisoners. I also want to avoid having to land there. Any ideas?

[WauloK]

drop a rope ladder to the door?

[DilloDude]

Well, I think at least you'll want to destroy a guard tower, and then do something: maybe drop a paratrooper off to rescue them.

More pieces of news:
I have another type of mission: You have an aircraft carrier, and it gets attacked by enemy ships! You have to defend it for a time limit, and then you can land on it to complete the level.
Also another enemy type: the destroyer. These move fast and can turn fast, but have no weapons themselves; instead, they have an AAGun mounted on them.
So now thats three mission types: Bomb target, Destroy ScoutBallon, Defend carrier. Then there is the Liberate Captives if I can make one. Also, another idea is one where there is a convoy truck that you must escort. Unlike the carrier, it is travelling to a diestination, and enemies don't keep appearing, but are already placed along the route.


PS: If you can think of other good mission ideas, please let me know.
PPS: If you think of any other useful things to add, let me know also.
PPPS: If you know a solution to the above problem, let me know that, too.

[DilloDude]

Ok, another problem. Anyone know how to stop tanks driving into the sea? Because at the moment, it is setup so the actor LandTiles extends into the sea to stop ships going too close. I know how to get my tanks to turn around, but I don't want to hve to create another land border actor to receive collisions. But unless i can find out the colour of the pixels being collided with, it looks as though I migh have to.
Another thing - for actors that should turn around, I am using a map center actor to know which direction to move to. But in some cases, I might want multiple islands. Anyone know how to select the closest one? Maybe I could cycle through all of them, and if distance is greater than the previously recorded one, replace the name, but is there an easier way?

[DilloDude]

Well, I made a function to return the closest MapCenter, and it seems to work. Here it is:

Code: Select all

Actor *NMC()//Nearest Map Center - adjust to your situation
{

    double dist1; // get the distance of one Map Center
    double dist2;// get the distance of the previously closest MapCenter
    char *PMC = "MapCenter.00";//create a string for previous MapCenter's clonename, assigning space to it
    char *MCC = "MapCenter.00";//create a string for one MapCenter's clonename
    char *CI = "00";// create a string for a cloneindex
    int i;// create an integer for the cloneindex
    for (i = 0; i < ActorCount("MapCenter"); i ++)//repeat for each MapCenter
    {
        strcpy(MCC, "MapCenter.");//Set MCC to MapCenter.
        sprintf(CI, "%d", i);Copy the cloneindex integer into the CI string
        strcat(MCC, CI);//add the cloneindex string to the clonename
        dist1 = distance(x, y, getclone(MCC)->x, getclone(MCC)->y);//set a distance
        dist2 = distance(x, y, getclone(PMC)->x, getclone(PMC)->y);//set another distance
        if (i == 0){dist2 = 999999999;}//if it is the first time, dist2 should be greater than dist1
        if (dist1 < dist2)
        {
            strcpy(PMC, MCC);//if dist1 is smaller than dist2, update the previous closest
        }
    }
    return getclone(PMC);//return the closest one.
}


You could also modify this to return the furthest, or make a string so you set which actor to return the closest one of.
I suppose I will have to make another actor for the land border. Oh well, its better than sailing tanks...

[DilloDude]

Well I have made a border, and it makes the tanks turn around - yay!
But when I set visibility state to DONT_DRAW_ONLY, it still drew the actor. It worked properly for other things, though. So I ended up setting transp to a high number and ZDepth to a low one, and you don't notice it.
Now the only problem is I have to tile out a separate border on any level with tanks - as if tiling the map weren't hard enough!
All I need to do now is to make more enemies, possibly more misions and work out a solution to the problem(s) mentioned above:

1. Is there a way I can do an action only if the file exists (like loadvars)?
2. Can I delete a file after it has been created?

and I can make a new beta with the first few levels.

PS: I possibly wouldn't need to erase the file afterwards, it would just be nicer, but I need to find if one with given name exists, so I know whether to load it, and when the game is finished.

[DilloDude]

Here is a list of all (I think) important game objects, which have been added so far:
Shots

• Basic shot: does 1 damage, usually high fire - rate.
• AA Shot: does 5 damage, usually slightly lower fire - rate.
• Missile: does 20 damage, can be destroyed, homes, usually low fire - rate.
• Laser: does 10 damage, very fast, usually medium fire - rate.
• Rock: not a proper 'shot', does five damage.

Enemies:

• KWildcats: Have no ammo, usually low health. They just try to crash into you.
• Wildcats: Have 100 Basic shots, 100 health. Turn into KWildcats when ammo is depleted.
• AAGuns: Ground - based sentries, unlimited AA Shots.
• Trebuchet: Ground - based sentries, unlimited rocks.
• MBalloon: Air - based sentries, unlimited Basic shots.
• Chopters: Can move in a different direction from aim, not always moving. Unlimited Basic shots.
• MTank: Can turn without moving, unlimited Missiles.
• BattleShip: Has two separate cannons, firing three AA Shots at a time each.
• Destroyer: Has a mounted AA Gun on top.
• UFO: Warps randomly, fires lasers.
• Fighter Jet: Unlimited AA Shots, unlimited missiles.

Missions

• Training Mission: No objective.
• Bomb Target: Drop a bomb on the target.
• Destroy ScoutBallon: Destroy a ScoutBallon, usually well defended.
• Escort Convoy: Escort a convoy truck safely to it's destination.
• Defend Carrier: Defend an aircraft carrier from attack for a time - limit.
• Liberate Captives: Destroy the guard towers around a prison camp.

Special Mission Objects:

• Bomb -> Bomb Target: Drop this on the target. If it misses, you fail.
• Convoy Truck -> Escort Convoy: Defend this on its path.
• Convoy Tank -> Escort Convoy: These attack the convoy truck; destroy them.
• Carrier Under Fire -> Defend Carrier: This is the carrier you must defend.
• Carrier destroyer -> Defend Carrier: These attack the carrier; destroy them.
• Guard Tower -> Liberate Captives: Destroy these so the captives can escape.

I think that's most of it.
If you would like anything else to be added here, let me know, so I can add it before I complete it (which will be very dificult if I can't find if a file exists, but is this even possible? I hope so.).