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The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game
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Author:  Dan Lawrence [ Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:21 am ]
Post subject:  The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

Hello!

I've been working on developing a turn based startegy game for the PC themed around running your own medieval-style fantasy mercenary company. Its my first indie project so wisely I've also been building a little 3D game engine along with the game, its taken about six months of engine building time but the boring engine parts are now mostly done so I figured it was time to start talking more about the game mechanics parts and get a few folks to try out the engine to see if it worrks on their modern windows based micro computers.

I bundled together a little tech test which you can grab over on my blog.

There isn't that much gaming, or even graphical joy, to be had yet and its also got some irritating AI glitching bugs that I totally need to fix, but it looks a bit like this:

Image

So if you want to give it a try, fiddle about with the graphics settings and let me know if it works I'd be grateful. I'd also like to know what you think about the game bits that are there as well. I'm in the early stages of the game design because I'm taking a very iterative feedback driven approach with a rough goal rather than having a big design already planned in its every detail.

The rough goal is to make an awesome turn based strategy game like X-Com with a medieval fantasy theme. Everything else is still to be confirmed.

Any thoughts you have I'd love to hear them.

Author:  seregrail7 [ Tue Feb 02, 2010 1:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

The tech demo is nice, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes because I love the idea behind it.

Not sure how much stuff you want us to say about things because it's early days, but I have some thought on the GUI if you want to hear.

Author:  Dan Lawrence [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

Sure, I'd love to hear anything you have to say. With me its never to early to judge.

I have a bunch of rough plans and things I know I want to improve of course, but I'd rather that anyone playing it just assume I didn't and let me know what they like or don't like about it as it is now. I'm going to be iterating on this little bit of content for a while to try and find the illusive 'fun' component so there is all still to play for.

Author:  seregrail7 [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 3:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

Ok, it's just a small thing that bugged me about it.

gui.jpg
gui.jpg


I made the icons for the abilities square, they were wider and tall and it looked strange to me. I also reduced the gap between them.
I reduced the padding on the tabs, there was a bit of wasted space on either side and it made them line up with the icons so I thought the icons were for selecting Abilities and Inventory.
I made the grey around abilities go down further, since it ended before the bottom of the Y in Inventory so they didn't highlight the same way.

Just some small things but I'm sure there are more important things to work on just now.

Author:  Dan Lawrence [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

Hey, wow that's some dedication to fixing my UI clunkiness. Thanks!

The ability boxes are meant to be square, at least in the long run. All the boxy bits of the UI are defined in relative terms so that the UI scales decently with the chosen screen resolution. Unfortunately I haven't got around to making it possible to force them to be a square by defining the Y in terms of the X or visa versa. I will!

I'll bear in mind the comments on the tabs. I think they could generally do with a bit more seperating from the selection panel they control as well. Also, that bullseye attack icon looks horrribly blurry... many things to fix!


Thanks again, for the comments. Its all much appreciated.

Author:  seregrail7 [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Free Company Thread - A fantasy/X-Com type of game

One other thing while it's in my head, the buttons are a bit wrong. If you put a highlight on two sides, you should darken the other two to give the impression of depth. My advice is to either do that, or not highlight any sides.

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