Board Horde Stats Update

farflamex

I've just updated the link. The audio preload has been disabled (so there's likely to be a delay on Sfx playing for the first time) and I've also removed all unnecessary Sfx, and reduced the art size so the game should load three times faster.

For anyone looking to reduce their art file size, you'll find this article of use: https://www.scirra.com/manual/129/image-format

Hope it works alright!

Still not right on mine. I left it loaded and went downstairs for a while, came back and the screen was finally showing, but it was just the background, the characters at the top and the die in the centre. Nothing else, and when I clicked around, e.g clicked the mouse and the characters, nothing happened. It's either locked up or just taking forever to load in.

farflamex

Very strange! I've got the file size down to three megs so it shouldn't take that long (though all the pieces you mentioned - background, character HUD and dice are usually the first to load. The traps, enemies, board and potions are loaded at random from details stored in an array). I've tried it on both Chrome and Safari on my ipad, and there's no problems. If I get the chance later I'll see if my laptops encountering any problems. Out of curiosity, is the old version still working okay for you (the link to that is still active on the front page)?

Been busy working on the Village Idiot level a.i. today. It's going better than expected so far, though I'm bound to encounter more joyous problems!

Hmmm, old version not loading in either, so something's wrong. It could be something at my end, or maybe your Dropbox is playing up or something.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, this sorta thing can just get in the way when you should focus on your game. It won't affect it in the end so don't worry, although I'd like to help with feedback and stuff, but I'm sure you have plenty to be getting on with :)

Just got beaten when playing against my own 'Village Idiot' level A.I. and I haven't even finished working on it yet. Next time I'm gonna try hard to create a game that I don't suck at...

Next time I'm gonna try hard to create a game that I don't suck at...

lol...

I just cleared my cache and browsing history and the same thing is still happening. I should point out that it IS running - I know that because the fps counter occasionally changes from 59 to 60. But all I have is the empty board, the 6 counters at the top and the 'Board Horde' headline. Nothing else happens and I can't get it to start - there's no sound either.

It might just be Dropbox being very, very slow? I have left it for 5 minutes though and it's just not starting.

Have you tried putting it on Clay.io? I'm not sure if it needs to be 'finished' to go on there, but the last I played, it's playable so I think it'd be ok. They seem to have really good servers, although I thought that about Dropbox until now :p

farflamex

I've just managed to replicate close to the problem you described when using Chrome browser (took ages to load, then when it did all I got was the HUD character selection pictures, and an empty board. After waiting a bit longer, the dice loaded in, followed by the background, but nothing else). According to the console, it's experiencing some sort of 'Dom Exception 18 Security Error in the C2.Runtime.js:49', which I'm guessing could mean Firewall issues. Also a resource fetch failed on one of the .ogg sound effects, so it's possible I uploaded one incorrectly. I'm also getting a message that states 'Viewport Target Denisty.DPI is undefined'.

I'll try and sort this all out by next Friday's update, and have also signed up at Clay.io to investigate that avenue further (as other creators have been experiencing problems with dropbox, especially where Chrome is concerned).

Fortunately when I submit the game to the Newgrounds competition they host it on their site, so if the main issue is with dropbox I should be alright (though it sounds like it's a combination of factors).

Anyway, it's all part of the learning experience; if you hadn't mentioned anything, I'd never have discovered the chrome console, or been motivated to reduce the artwork size to something more manageable, so you've really helped and it's appreciated!

I will give you more feedback on Korelos later.

Okay, after poking around a bit in the forum I found a discussion here:

http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic65707.html

I changed the link slightly, and it worked perfectly on Chrome. If you could give the link below a try and let me know if it works, I'll update the link on the front page.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97335933/BoardHordeC2ver2/index.html

for anyone else experiencing similar dropbox issues, change the start of your link to: 'https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com'

On Chrome works to me perfectly. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Kuso

thanks for taking the time to check it out. At least I know it's definitely working for one person! I've ammended the link on the front page now, so hopefully it will continue to work until dropbox changes its security protocols again. This also tends to suggest that preloading my audio wasn't the cause of the problem, so I can probably do that again to improve the sound.

I should have a new update ready by Friday, fingers crossed!

It works! Back to normal now, loads in fast and plays perfectly :)

It's definitely coming along and going in the right direction. The sound effects are nice and overall it's looking pretty good.

Couple of things - is the AI in the game yet? I had to play against myself as usual but I'd like to play against the AI. I couldn't work out how to do that.

The rule that you have to roll a 6 to get on the board can be pretty aggravating. Is it central to the game, or could you fix it so that if you have no pieces on the board, you get a free entry next turn? I like the fact that you need a 6 to get EXTRA pieces out, but if you have none, it can take forever (I know you get 3 rolls but it actually took me 4 turns to get a piece out once). I know this is common in some board games but I don't like it and you just feel a victim of the dice (I guess that's board games for ya :p ).

I still feel a bit more visual instruction would be nice rather than a pre-game description (I'm lazy like everybody else nowadays). Say you hit a potion, a quick pop-up bubble saying what it does would be nice. And I'd still like to see the flashing pieces :p

Still, overall it's quite intuitive and if you just play it through you soon pick up the rules, so I'm just nit-picking really. With the excellent graphics and simple-but-fun gameplay, you'll do well with this :)

farflamex

I'm glad you managed to get in again, and cheers for the feedback.

The A.I. Version will be uploaded on Friday, (currently the a.i. can only get one character out at once, but I'm hoping to fix that). I'm planning to spend the last two weeks of the competition concentrating on the aesthetics and helper objects (like flashing/highlighted selectable characters, and a few more animations). This week I've been focused on A.I and HUD graphics, next week I hope to jazz up the text objects (which will make it more obvious that you've picked up a potion) and hopefully implement a scoreboard system that lists most deaths, kills, traps avoided etc.

I'm in two minds about the Having To Roll A Six to get another character out on the board when you have none; on the one hand, this is a useful board game component as it allows the other player to get the upper hand, but on the other it can be annoying if you have to wait ages to get a hero on the board (if there are none out on either side, I might tweak the protocols a bit so that it's easier to get someone). Anyway, I've still got to tweak the game balance a bit (enemies are spawning too often, and the trap needs more features added) so it's comments like that one which will really help me when considering what to go with. Hmm...Maybe I could introduce some sort of Free Entry But Movement Temporarily Halved consequence? you've given me something to think about, so cheers for that!

I think if you have no pieces on the board, then on your next roll, you automatically get to place a free counter so your next roll is just your next move. That's how I'd like it to work, but bear in mind I don't know the nitty-gritty of the mechanics as you do, so maybe it would affect the game balance too much.

I didn't know you were doing this for the competition, so good luck with that :)