Printable View
very nice game, I enjoyed it up until the game became no challenge lol, because I just had huge amounts of upgrades on cannons. In the later levels it seems as though cannons are the only thing that can actually damage the castle, everything else just dies.
Good game, nice concept but units are pretty unbalanced as far as I can see.
To Dylan:
Quote:
Originally Posted by VENGEANCE MX
Allilm, good idea. :)
I think I will give the enemy an army. However, I don't want to have to redraw the sprite sheets of the enemy units (ie, giving their infantry different colour armour). Does anyone mind much if I just made enemy troops tinted red? Would be a lot easier to make. :)
I reached level 101 just buying and upgrading only the blue guy,and releasing all of them at the same time
Not that fast with more then 150 mcs on the field, i get 7 fps
You including arrows as well as troops? And I wouldn't call it 'not that fast' when we're talking that many MCs. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Cimmerian
In that sense is fast, but the average player will see the speed of things slowing down, and down, and dont care about how many mcs are in
Okay, if it's such a problem, then tell me even one thing I could do that I haven't done already to make the engine be able to cope with bigger armies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cimmerian
Perfectly fine speed here.
Yeah I got to level 98 and there was no considerable slowdown. Veng, have you implemented the idea of *not* shooting one of the arrows every so often to further improve performance?
Also, can you reiterate what it was you said in the other Invasion thread about the flip-flop means of hitTest cycling?
Nope, haven't done that yet, but I'll try to remember to. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ImprisonedPride
Well, basically, flip-flopping would be skipping every second collision check (so only half the arrows would check for collisions on each frame). However, the unique, superfast collision system I'm using in Invasion 5 means that flip-flopping is completely un-necessary (all it'd really do is make the arrows less accurate).
Here's a simple flipflop code (well, part of it. Didn't include the un-necessary bits):
PHP Code:currentFlip = false;
bullets.attachMovie("bullet","bullet"+getNextHighestDepth(), getNextHighestDepth(), {flipVar:currentFlip});
currentFlip = !currentFlip;
onEnterFrame = function() {
for (b in bullets) {
bu = bullets[b];
// Movement script would be here
bu.flipVar = !bu.flipVar;
if (bu.flipVar) {
// Collision check would be here
}
}
};
Ahhh I see now. Thanks. :p
I just love it
Some times I play a game once and thats it, this game made me play it more times, LOL
This game doesn't really have substance. Just spend all cash on footmen, press and hold footmen in battle and watch how it turns out.
Glad to hear it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by scheletro
Brilliant game vengeance! I've always loved the invasion series. Even though the graphics were not made by you, I have to say that they are very eye friendly (especially the 'game over' and 'victory' screen). Imo the best new addition so far to the game is the optimisation (it's ludicrous how fast the game runs now with hundreds of soldiers).
Now that I've praised the game, it's time to be picky and suggest some ideas:
-As mentioned several times before, the game can be quite easy when continuously using the same troop type. This is a trend that has continued throughout the entire invasion series. I think as someone has suggested, it would be a great idea to create strengths and weaknesses against troop types, so you can create levels/scenarios where players are forced to use a differenet strategie..
eg. castle could have cannons= bad for player to use long range attacks
castle could have a mote= bad for foot soldiers
castle could be surrounded by pikes= bad for knights
castle could be surrounded by difficult terrain =bad for rams
....etc.
Imo what would make the game incredibly awesome, is to be able to have army vs. army battles occasionally. Personally I would find it much more enjoyable, because it would feel like more strategie and tactics are involved (plus, it would look spectacular). Unfortuantely it's probably too different and could really be a different game on it's own, but maybe you could consider it as one of the boss rounds.
-The pre-battle screen has absolutely nothing on the right side of the screen..I'm assuming that you'll eventually put something there, but if not, make better use of the space and spread things out.
-(This is more of a question) Why does the game have cannons rather than catapults or trebuchets?? I know that you wont be changing this, but it has always puzzled me. Are cannons easier to draw?
I'm looking forward to playing the final version of the game (hopefully soon :)), good luck :thumbsup:
Viza
Nice work blue :)
Only had a brief go, but it felt nice and solid. Be good to have some more info on the purchase screen, I didn't have a clue what I was buying ( Could have missed something though ? ).
Hopefully you're planning on adding a tutorial level ? Think it's needed, lot's of pop-up tool tips etc.
Shaping up nicely, and a really quick turnaround considering you were in attack wave hell 'til just before Christmas ;)
Squize.
It's a cool game - the balancing it a bit whacked, but I'm sure you'll sort that out.
The main problem is there doesn't seem to be much reason to use more than on differrent type of attacker, especially once you start upgrading them. This means there really isn't much strategy to it - just a case of upgrading the one you've chosen, buying shedloads then releasing them.
It does however run ridiculously fast:-
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q...nvasionPic.jpg
Yes, that's in firefox, yes that's flash and photoshop running at the same time. Never went below 20 fps. (I have a good computer at work though - 3.6 ghz, 3gb ram)
Just like the previous version there are only three units that matter at all: archers, cannons, and battering rams
knights, sabortours (sp), and warriors ? (not sure what they are called) all die before they reach the castle.
Game play is great though no lags at all. It is amazing watching 400+ knights all getting killed by arrows....
I dont know, maybe you can put more than one unit in a movieClip
Another thing could be use math square to square hitTest
@Cimmerian:
Can't put more than one unit into an mc, that'd stop the scrollRect-based animation system working.
Also, that's how the collision originally worked before I optimized it (lost about 10 fps when doing it like that). With my new method, there's only one calculation per mc per frame, so 200 arrows and 200 troops = 400 calculations. Easy enough for Flash to handle. However, with the method you suggest, it's 40,000 hitTest()s (and it'd go even slower if you worked it out mathematically - ie, writing your own hitTest() - a hundred times slower :p).
@Viza:
Yeah, I love the graphics, too. When Kortex first made them, I actually couldn't string together an intelligible sentence for about 5 minutes.
Very nice idea for the anti-unit things! The only one I'm not so sure about is the moat - I'd have to make some kind of 'slipping' animation (or just go all Wile E. Coyote and make them tread air for a few seconds and then fall in - the scary thing is, that doesn't actually sound like a bad idea...)
I think army vs. army battles are too distant from the Invasion series. After all, I made the Commando series just for that purpose. The good news is, I'm planning for Commando 4 (not being made any time soon) to be basically an Invasion with proper in-game control, and attacking armies as well as buildings (destructible terrain, baby). Would be modern warfare.
The right side of the pre-battle screen? Big secret I haven't told many people yet... I'm planning to add a 'battle plan' selector for it. You'd have one of about 6 mages to pick from to lead your army (might even make the mage go onto the battlefield during the match). Each of the mages would give your army various statistical bonuses (planning for one to summon a giant clay golem to get hit by arrows and hammer on the castle - with screen shake effects). Also, 'make better use of the space'? Have a look at how much space I used up in Invasion 4 before I trimmed it down to this.
The game's set in the Imperial Age (not sure if that actually exists, I'm just using Age of Empires II terminology), during which gunpowder was discovered (the infantry attack the castle with swords because they feel like it). I was originally considering catapults and trebuchets (note the greyed-out 'mangonel' and 'trebuchet' units in Invasion 1 and/or 2, which to this day I regret not putting into the game, due to how many people email me about it). Originally I culled them because I couldn't draw them, but at the time I didn't feel like making a pack/unpack system for the trebuchets.
Thinking over it again, trebuchets and mangonels would actually be a very good addition to the game - mangonels would act as medium-range units, so they'd be unlocked (yes!) in the later levels, where the castle would have additional firing ports lower down; trebuchets would act as strong long-range units which would be very vulnerable until deployed. Maybe I should try drawing them again, to see if my skills have improved since I was 12.
@Squize:
Definitely have to make a tutorial, I still have nightmares about Commando 3.
Turnaround has been quick because I'd already got the whole game mechanics decided (4 times so far :p), had already done most of the engine before Christmas, and had a lot of time on my hands during that period. Speaking of the 'attack wave hell', how much is left to do? Sounds like a lot of new features have been requested or something. :(
@happinessSam:
Yeah, but as I said, balancing is currently the problem I'm ignoring for the time being (anti-unit measures seem to be called for, maybe a random one each level, so you have to build an adequate all-purpose army to cover all eventualities). Really surprised that you got 20 fps with that many troops when you don't even have the hardware rendering of the Mac Flash Player. Then again, even more surprised that you played that far into the game at work. :) Is it because the game's fun, or your job's boring? ;)
@shavlor:
Yes, I noticed that cavalry were useless. Maybe I'll give them an extra HP. Saboteurs need to do a lot more damage, but I want them to remain as vulnerable as they are (maybe make them faster, and make cavalry faster again to stop the horses being overtaken on foot).
And I did the same thing, but with only 50 cavalry. Truly a sight to behold.
Would a Java port of the game run any faster? Would be a nice first project to try and get to grips with the language.