General New Game Discussion

[Hulky]

current update on my progress
(all the elementals have the animations currently hooked on buttons, so I figured I'd show them off while it's that way). The others are on idle animation. Archer dancing is upsetting right now, but it's whatever I guess. Fire Elemental, I messed with it's collider and forgot to switch it back.

[Wizzy]

It looks like that version of chess they play in Star Wars. the archer made me lol

[The One]

Phenomenal work so far, Hulky. I'm very excited with where this could go.

[Hulky]

I posted this in the world thread, but I'll repost here since this is more active



This is my first attempt at an open world like thing. Really rough draft and looks like n64-y right now, but could get drastically better. Not sure if an open world would get implemented, but I'm learning it anyways.

[Mar]

That's actually really fucking good after learning for a month, keep going. Like we could have the option of a battle after going through a door, etc. it would be like Pokemon except strategy

[Hulky]

That's actually really fucking good after learning for a month, keep going. Like we could have the option of a battle after going through a door, etc. it would be like Pokemon except strategy

that's basically what I was thinking but I don't have any idea how much harder it would be (or higher server costs?)

Anyways I know the world part wasn't really the part most people are interested in. I'll post a where I'm at right now (Matt Roe is doing it a different way in a different language, and Gabe is doing it also: they may be further ahead or whatever I dunno). I just started the Knight unit at like midnight last night so he is still glitchy as hell (including turn wait time, which is the only unit effected and I need to discover that glitch because it's going to be useful when I implement recovery times), but I did the Archers yesterday and they work well.

Things obviously fucked up:
- One player moves every unit every turn.
- There is no rotation, blocking or LOS
- All units have the same attack pattern (one tile), but there is range.
- There are no buttons for move, attack, rotate, (currently non-existent), (only end turn and restart).
- One player is AI (and it's not all that smart)
- All the shape units are wicked under powered and holder units so I can do testing.
- I don't have a chat or server or any of that connected. Just starting the basics of the actual TBS game.
- I'm not sure yet how to implement the settings style custom formation where you save the starting location on another scene and load it while entering a match. It's drag-drop and attach to nearest tile right now, but not the correct alterable way in-game.


The Knight glitch is if you move it's like a 12 turn wait or something like that to attack again. Which is craziness. I'm going to figure out where that is at and if I messed up the math somewhere (I had armor at one point being damage multiplied by armor = real damage, now I have it set up as subtraction since decimals aren't working in certain areas and I need to learn how to do PEMDAS in C#) . Also the units have unique scripts attached to them where like spear guy is weaker to Archer (who is at full stats so it's one hit kill all of them, but if I boosted spear guy to normal stats you'd see it) and spear guy is stronger against Paladin, who is stronger against Archer. I don't know if you will catch it but the big cylinder titled Hero has a one time boost button with a sword icon. It's directly on the unit and clickable, his power gets boosted for 3 turns if you click it. Basically thats the basis for the Spirit Element script to boost armor (replacing strength with armor and tweaking math and converting from button to a units attack). I have to change not being able to target your own units as well as when the healing Priestess is added it needs to target the team to heal.

Anyways yeah.

Thoughts on the shape of the board? I converted to Hex to try it and realized the tapered corners is not going to be able to be done the same way and there was no conversation on what a hex board would look like.

[Hulky]

I don't know if you guys have any idea how frustrating it is working on this for hours everyday and check many times during the day to see if anyone suggested anything from an environment that would be cool, to a CAU to even what to call the game instead of "the new game" and always see nothing.

It really really sucks because I have to go back doing what I was doing so I don't become a disappointment and quit building it like seemingly everyone else has done. I've wanted to make a logo for weeks so my user interfaces don't just say shit like TAO2 or Test in Arial font. I've wanted suggestions on anything environmental so I could make a world that looks like the damn world people want so they don't see the final project and have disappointment because it doesn't look how they wanted. I've wanted to know a grid size and or shape for a while so every time I make the game and test things and work out bugs in my code I don't have to redo it all because the fucking board looks wrong. I don't know fi you guys want Hex or Square, Square I made the board decision shape and size based off what I want and like 2 votes. Hex, no one has said anything about shape just maybe hex would be a good change. I haven't even heard a "yeah that unit looks cool" or a fuck I think theres a better looking _____ that could be made. I think Kash and Wizzy are the only two to really make a comment on appearance (no cape on knight, and side quiver is cool [both of which exist now]). This is really really hard to do and it's getting more and more expensive (which I'm not complaining about, but it sure as fuck is more money than I'd spend on a game to play by myself [currently $999.37 into TAO2]). All I want is some activity and I'll make anything ANYTHING you guys wanted for TAO over the last decade.

You remember all the frustration about 2010ish maybe earlier or later individually, but the idea. The idea you spent months of TAO subscriptions $60 a year for years and Seed was gone? All those ideas we all posted in suggestions and CAU, thousands and thousands? All those ideas and the frustration knowing none of it would happen? This is the same feeling for me, except I'm years and years of subscriptions in money wise and it's the community that isn't participating. There isn't a Seed is gone, it's a community is gone right now feeling.

For the last 2+ months I have worked on this new game (notice it's still new game instead of a game title because no one has any input on wtf we should call it) for so many hours that my computer overheats everyday and I have to ice it down to cool it off so I can keep working until somewhere between 2 and 5am when my eyes burn and close and I fall asleep only to wake up and keep working? My birthday was the first of this month. I worked on the new game for something like 8 hours or so and that has been my biggest break. The day before I worked on the new game all day inside, then went outside when the sun went down, worked until my eyes burned and my brain shut down (somewhere between 3 and 4 am) and woke up with the sun rise, screen still open and began working again. I've done that at least 4 times in the last couple weeks. On the night of July 3rd through the 4th of July I sat in the same fucking chair I'm sitting in now and played Game of Thrones in the background for distraction beginning Season 1 Episode 1 and I've finished season 4, all while working on this and taking breaks to refresh the forums hoping ANYONE suggested or commented on ANYTHING.

People wanted this new game as soon as possible. They wanted it the second TAO died. I am putting my full fucking effort in and it's incredibly frustrating to not see any discussion.

Do you guys remember the Slack group being formed from the FB group and the end of the old forums? There is 26 members in that chat. 26 people that said they would work in some capacity on this game. The last messages on it were June 12th, it was "Is Hulky in this chat? Or are the forums a better place for discussion?" "Yeah, but 100% of discussion nowadays is on the forums because it's mostly creative stuff".

I have a playable game right now. A game no one has put any input in at all for. Not a single custom unit (CAU style with a name and stats or even a partial or an idea). Not a single image for "I'd like ____ to look like this sorta" for anything from a fucking tree to a button. Not a single suggestion about any of it. Just TAO and some minor discussion I've started. The Slack group was basically the same, except Billy suggested his old school project as a basis. The most productive has been the chats Matt, Mel and Gabe have had with me, and even those have become seemingly inactive. I'm so many steps past and so many hours in past the last messages sent in those chats.

I started my own alpha because I don't want this project to be another cock tease. I am 100% committed to making this - and it 100% will be done even if it costs me another thousand or five dollars and another month or decade to finish. I've put my entire life on hold to finish this and I am probably among the least qualified of anyone to do it. All I want is what we all wanted. All I want is a handful of people to have a sliver of give a damn so my hundreds of hours of work doesn't become a game that is 100% my creation and my ideas that is played by me. Nothing would be more depressing than if nads was right in 2004: TAO[2] is only Hulky and his alts.

I've even learned how to make it for virtual reality, iphone app, android app, computer browser [minus chrome browser, but learning that too] whatever fucking PS4 or xBox1. It works already. I'm a game ahead of that last video and it's only been seen something like 10 times where at least 5 of them are me. Every time I say or write something along "the new game" it fucking kills me because it reminds me that seemingly no one cares enough to suggest even a name, not just for the game but even down to a unit or less like "put a fucking chicken in the game call it chicken and have it run around and shit".

I posted on the FB group "also a little longer term, the World this game is set in is coming up eventually and I want to know what you guys want it to be like. Is it an island? [...]" and that was June 27th. I finished an Island open world days ago and the only ideas were weather (thanks Max I've looked into it and I can do it) and Kash's feedback on my birthday a not me post ago in this thread. Long term is about a day for me right now. I'm blowing through this. I've deleted TAO-like games multiple times a day for the last few days, not because of errors but because I'm so fucking frustrated that no one else is caring enough to post.

You wanted updates.
You wanted a game similar to TAO, but with everything we all ever wanted in the old suggestion boards.
We can have it but I don't know what you all want because you don't tell me.
What I don't want is a game that's just me and my ideas.

I don't really care if you guys say you want GTA like open world where your avatar explores and shoots chickens and stabs people. Where birds fly and the day comes and goes and you can look at the sky and see the stars. Where you can enter different areas and trigger a battle against AI with aggressive and defensive AIs depending on their formation. Where you can say fuck the open world I just want to play now and enter a game against another player and play head to head. I have collectables. I have custom tiles do custom abilities. I have a set of core units ready to fucking play. I have the drag and drop custom fucking formations.
I have all this.
I have it all made.
What I really have though is thousands of scripts, models, terrains, user interfaces including screens cameras buttons toggles and all that which really are just pieces to a puzzle that no one will tell me how they want constructed or what the name on the puzzle box is fucking titled.

I am really frustrated. To be honest my feelings are hurt. This is a butt hurt post. I am not going to post for a few days and I'm going to return and post a video of the game I've made - maybe as many people will watch it as people signed up to help make a game.

[The Butcher]

I apologize hulky, i haven't been on the forums much lately, lot of personal shit going on. I'll get caught up today.

Thanks for all the work you guys have done. This is what I tried to explain a lot of times before when I was tourny mod.. you do A LOT OF WORK for people and get little to nothing in return, unless you count complaints and jokes. It's just part of it.. you've got to set your sight on the goal and get there for yourself. Even if you make a perfect game, you know not everyone will be happy. Not everyone is going to be on the same consensus.. and they SURE AS HELL aren't going to help you for nothing in return. I'm not saying you need to offer something (you're already giving them a game) but that's again, how it is. It's a hell of a lot easier to log on and complain about what you're doing than to help make it better.

Make what YOU think will succeed, it's your game.

[manonfire101]

current update on my progress
(all the elementals have the animations currently hooked on buttons, so I figured I'd show them off while it's that way). The others are on idle animation. Archer dancing is upsetting right now, but it's whatever I guess. Fire Elemental, I messed with it's collider and forgot to switch it back.

This is great, Hulky. I'm not sure if it was an accident, but I think it would be cool to have units kind of oscillate even when they aren't being used.

Is that the view we would see if we were playing a game? I think it would be easier to visualize a move if you were looking at the game board from a completely overhead point of view (like completely orthogonal to the game board and not angled at all). Also I think it would be easier to visualize moves if the units all fit comfortably into one square. Some of the units look like they are sort of on more than one tile. Or at least, from an angled view it looks like they have heads and limbs that are in tiles other than the ones that they are standing in. Changing to an overhead view might help with that. Changing the color of the game board might also help with that. If it's a turn-based strategy game like TAO was, then I think making the board and units as non-cluttered as possible is important.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just trying to give you constructive feedback. I'm really impressed with how much you've been able to do with this.

[Aristocatt]

Last two weeks have been a real struggle for me, and I believe Gabe as well. I am still 100% committed to building this game, and unless I have to go back to building my Node server, I still expect to be done with the Web browser alpha version around the end of July. The node server is also almost done though, so even if our current server and plan doesn't pan out, I am still ready to have an alpha 2-D version done sometime in August.

Also I know it is hard to recognize, but both the servers that have been built at this point have already addressed some of the most difficult aspects of building this game. Honestly the last really big hurdle is the graphics. That doesn't mean the game will be ready for market in a month or two, finalizing the game will take a lot more time, but the things that have caused other developers to quit are mostly worked out at this point, at least on paper.

In my limited experience with web development and software design, the best advice I can give you, is to not put your life on hold to finish this. Easiest way to fail a project like this is to burn out halfway through.