Games

I started programming from a young age. One of the earliest programming projects I worked on that I was pleased with was a version of Risk called “Supremacy”.

Shockwave was a technology created by Macromedia as a sort of companion/competitor/successor to the then ubiquitous Flash¹.

Back in late 2000, I managed to get access to Macromedia Director¹, the authoring software, and started playing around with it.

This was back when I was learning much of my programming from books (there was less available on the internet then). So I bought “Advanced Lingo for Games” by Gary Rosenzweig (Lingo being a bespoke programming language created just for Director).

Both Director and Advanced Lingo for Games are available on the Internet Archive now.

Supremacy is heavily based on the “Strategy Game” code sample included with that book. So much so, that the “Copyright © 2001 Oliver Brown” with no attribution makes me cringe a little now. So now is as good a time as any to thank Gary Rosenzweig for writing the book (and the code). I did eventually take it further, but that is for another post.

I made the game available on a website called “Shocklive!” on March 14, 2001 (and apparently released an update on March 18 with “no known bugs and better AI”).

Shocklive! as of May 17, 2001.

Today, the game has been submitted to the Flashpoint Archive and should be available soon.

Random trivia

Since it has been almost 25 years since I worked on the game, my memory has gaps. But I do still have the source code, so here are some things I can either remember or have worked out.

The name

Early in development I called it “Domination”, which is why the main file for the game is called dom.dcr.

Risk mechanics

It really is a bare bones version of Risk (mostly because it was designed as a programming tutorial and at best as a jumping off point to do more).

It has the original 42 countries from Risk, and uses the base rule: reinforcements equal to a third of your country count. It does not have continent bonuses however. This makes it much harder to snowball and as a result games tend to take longer (see the video).

It also does not use dice - every battle just gives attackers and defenders an even chance to win. This, combined with the fact that it also has no cards further lengthens games.

The computer player names

The default computer players are named after famous fictional AIs:

• Deep Thought - The super computer from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that determined the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was 42, and which went on to design an even more powerful computer, the Earth.
• Orac - A sophisticated artificial intelligence from the British sci-fi TV series Blake’s 7.
• Ziggy - The super hybrid computer from the sci-fi TV show Quantum Leap that runs Project Quantum Leap.
• Zen - The master control computer of the Liberator, also from Blake’s 7.
• Hal - The artificial intelligence and main antagonist in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• K-9 - The robot dog that was a companion in Doctor Who.

Title background

The background image is a Vietnamese girl holding an AK-47. I believe I sourced it from somewhere implying the girl was undergoing training to be part of some militia or military.

I still have the original copy and when I did a reverse image search I found it, with the description:

a Vietnamese high school girl practises taking aim with an AK-47 assault rifle during military training for students in Hanoi September 8 2000 high school and university students in communist ruled Vietnam take part in such training every year as part of a national defence programme"

Fonts

The main title font is Romulan Eagle. It sounds Star Trek based (which definitely makes sense with my interests at the time) but I honestly cannot remember anything about it. I have no idea where I found it. Possibly from the internet, possibly from a CD (CDs full of fonts were popular then).

The body font is Tahoma a standard Microsoft font which was apparently the standard screen font for Windows XP.

Also included in the project for some reason is Monaco, a font by Apple that was standard on Macs at the time. Which is a bit odd since I was using Windows at home and Acorn Computers at school.

Galaxia branding

Some time after the initial release, I added the message “Brought to you by Galaxia”. Galaxia is another game I developed (from which I got the online name I’ve been using ever since - GalaxiaGuy). I was working on a new version of Galaxia (which I tried a few times) when I first started this blog. The old Galaxia posts are still available.

Life on this blog

In fact, the game was available for a while directly on this blog. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

Screenshots

Some in game screenshots:

Opening in the project in Macromedia Director on a Windows XP VM:

I’ve just found out about Flashpoint Archive, an application for playing old content created using Flash, as well as other obsolete browser technologies.

The core functionality is provided by sandboxed versions of the plugins that run the content, a proxy server for games that need to believe they are run over the internet, and a launcher allowing you to browse and launch content - all wrapped up in a neat package.

And for the true archivists, there is a version that embeds all the content for download that, at the time of writing, is 2.28TB.

I’m interested in this for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the preservation of history. I would like everything we create as a culture to remain available in some way (which is why I also support the Wayback Machine and the Internet Archive). I’m also of the right age that much of this was some of the most popular content available on the internet when I started using it.

But also, I myself have some stuff I’ve produced that is hard to access in modern browsers. Specifically, some Shockwave and Silverlight games.

So, for the near future I’m going to do what I can to get my games added to the archive.

I recently a recorded a bunch of videos of the game Overcooked on Xbox One.

Your goal is to assemble meals out of various ingredients, cook them, and serve them. Over time the meals get a bit more complicated and the levels get a lot more complicated. It is strongly designed to be played cooperatively with up to four people, and even supports two players on a single controller.

My only complaint would be the difficulty is based too much on complicated level design (and jumps up a bit too quickly). Some times the controls are not exactly tight and you can end up selecting the wrong thing - having levels with moving targets or slippery floors for instance just accentuates an otherwise minor problem. I would have preferred more meal variations (that are also more complicated) on simpler levels.

But despite all that it’s a fun party game that almost anyone can play. And of course it is made in Unity.

One final note. The first video in the playlist above was generated by Google Photos. It turned out well, except for its automatic cropping.

Gravitas is rapidly approaching something playable, now that ships can be destroyed and new levels are generated.

“Something playable” is still quite far away from being an actual game. In terms of features required for even an alpha release, it still needs: scoring, match state, player lobby, AI, and better level generation.

Some other features I would rather have but aren’t strictly required include: special powers (especially warping, to get players out of impossible situations), better UI feedback for touch controls (which was not necessary for the original) and some match options.

But overall, progress is good.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPhbri7XIdo&w=640&h=360]

First, a video of the latest progress. Now includes aim lines.

Second, if you aren’t using Unity Cloud Build, you should be.

Over the past few years, the importance of automated builds in software development (and the wider concept of continuous integration) has grown in importance. In my day job, setting up automated builds is one of the first thing that happens on any project. The details tend to be different for different platforms and it generally requires a fair amount of maintenance. The good news is, Unity do most of the hard work for you, and across most of their platforms, and surprisingly, for free.

In software development (and product development in general) is a concept called MVP or Minimal Viable Product. According to Wikipedia it is “a product with just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development”.

My plan was to develop a Gravitas MVP in Unity and release it as quickly as possible. After reading a bit about some of the cool things I can do with Unity quite easily that would have been hard before, I inevitably got distracted. But it’s okay, since technical spikes are also an accepted part of software development (again thanks to Wikipedia: “a product-testing method that is used to determine how much work will be required to solve or work around a software issue”).

Specifically, one of the things I wanted to do in Gravitas was add a real lighting model, probably using normal mapping on the sprites. I had read up how to do this in MonoGame, but decided to see how quickly I could do it in Unity. The answer was about 2 hours. That includes the time to create the normal map for the ship (and finding a tool to help do that).

The tool I used incidentally is Sprite Illuminator from a company called CodeAndWeb. If you plan to do any 2D games I suggest you check them out. Their tools all come with trials, and the only reason I haven’t bought it is yet, is I’m deciding which bundle to get (I’ve already used Sprite Illuminator and I’ll almost certainly use Texture Packer. Physics Editor is probably less useful to me, but is only £10 extra with the other two).

TLDR: Go to Kragenmoor to the Grandmsters Palace and find Grandmaster Omin Dres to begin the quest Aggressive Negotiations.

Elder Scrolls Online on consoles has an achievement/trophy called Hero of Ebonheart which requires you to complete all the in game achievements relating to the Ebonheart Pact.

As I was checking through the list of ones I completed, I noticed that for the achievement Hearts of Darkness, the middle step - Stop Tanval from unleashing the second Brother of Strife - was incomplete. When I checked the map there were no black markers normally indicative of an incomplete area, nor did I have any incomplete quests in Stonefalls.

It turns out there is short series of side quests that are easy to miss in the Kragenmoor area starting with Aggressive Negotiations. This eventually leads to To the Tormented Spire which adds the Tormented Spire as a location to your map. Complete this quest line completes the middle part of the Hearts of Darkness achievement.

Remember to visit Gravitas on Google+.

It’s been a while since I reported that Gravitas was in final play testing. To be honest the process didn’t actually take that long, I just became busy in the meantime. But I have now finally submitted Gravitas for peer review and it’s currently marked as “60% complete”. Based on what I’ve seen of other games as a reviewer that means it should be a few days before it’s eligible for release.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been some work not related to the release. Firstly, the game now runs successfully on a Mac thanks to MonoGame which I hope will lead to a Mac App Store release. Secondly, I’ve been cleaning up the code (mainly separating out anything that isn’t Gravitas specific in preparation for beginning my second game, which for the moment I’m going to keep quite about.

To keep up to date on that and any other Gravitas news, visit Gravitas on Google+.

CCP have just announced DUST514 will be exclusive to the Playstation 3. Which is a shame (check out the EVE Online forums for some stronger opinions). Unfortunately it makes sense for a few reasons (well making it exclusive to one console makes sense - whether the 360 or the PS3 was the better choice is more debatable).

Developing for a single console is quicker and easier - especially important for a game that will probably have more updates than the average game.

There are suggestions that one or both of Sony and Microsoft aren’t happy about cross-platform multiplayer games.

Since the idea of the game (a console FPS interacting with a PC MMO) is quite revolutionary they could get a lot of support (both financially and in terms of marketing and other benefits) from the console manufacturer, but only if it’s exclusive.

That being said, it may not be the end for the Xbox 360 and DUST.  Sony have suffered recently and definitely have lower consumer confidence (will players have to give Sony any personal information to play DUST?) and this decision will have been made long before Sony’s hacking problems. If sales are lower than CCP hope they may rethink the plan. And remember, “exclusive” in the games industry can be a vague and rarely lasts for ever.

The game is scheduled for a Spring release so at least 360-only owners have a while to decided if they want to get a PS3 just for this game…