Board Horde Stats Update

two more things;

when you only have one hero on the board, after rolling the dice, the hero should move automatically. it saves time and makes sense, since it is the only choice.

when you have to move to a trap or potion, it should not show the 'sign' of what it is until you finish moving. that way, it scares the crap out of you waiting for the move to end, to find out what the trap or potion might be. that adds a lot more relief to 'phew'...lol.

Kuso

Fair point about the a.i. Taking ages to roll a six. I'll probably speed up his dice rolls a bit to make it less tiresome. I did try implementing farflamex idea about having the heroes reappear on the entrance square on the next roll after they die, but this threw up an unexpected error; if blues last hero died, followed by reds last hero, blue would appear on the entrance square, then on reds go he would appear on entrance square and kill him. Then blue would appear and kill him, and so on in an endless cycle!

I'm currently working on some status icon designs which will appear on the HUD profile pictures (lightening bolt for haste etc). If I get time, I might put some visual effect on the heroes who have been affected by potions.

harrio

The automatic moving hero when there's only one out should be easy enough to do (he says optimistically, yet with a due sense of dread) so thanks for the idea.

The trap and potion signs coming up early is something I hope to sort out by the next weekend update, though there's lots of other bugs to squash first. I've just discovered one when the a.i. managed to get characters out that had already escaped, so I best try and put a stop to those sort of shenanigans!

Thanks again for all the suggestions, you brilliant marvellous people!

This is looking really good now. The AI makes it really playable and fun and I like the new effects (although I'd still like to see an actual text description of what the effect does, e.g when you pick up a potion, you should get the nice flash effect but also something saying 'Next turn, blah blah', just to make it really clear).

About the rolling a 6 thing, could you not have it so that if you have no hero, you get a free one and then you just do a roll for him to move him his first move? That way he won't be stuck on the first square and that'll solve that bug.

I also found a bug that locked the game up. For some reason the AI rolled 4 times and then it just locked. But you may be aware of this anyway.

farflamex

I think the reroll lockup bug is possibly a result of me having fiddled with the reroll system one time too many. I was aware of it, and will try sort it out in time for Saturdays update (aiming for Saturday this time as its the only day I have free to work on the game).

I did try what you suggested with the 'getting a hero out and rolling for him' idea before I actually introduced the rolling a six thing, but it lead to a few awkward balance issues and made it more tricky for the other player to break away from the pack. Once I've finished with the bigger additions, such as fully functioning a.i. and a scoreboard, I will then focus more on getting the game balance right.

With regards to the potions, as well as better positioned text objects which will alert you to having gained a certain power, I'm also hoping to have an in game menu the can be accessed from the top right of the screen, which will contain useful info on what does what for anyone who forgets. Hopefully with that and the Status Effect icons that will appear on the HUD pics, I'll have most angles covered.

Thanks for the input again, and I'll get round to testing your space game again soon.

Sadly I've pretty much given up on my space game for now. I don't know what else to do with it. The only real way to get a game noticed I think is to get a spotlight/feature and/or a 5/5 rating. Not sure how to do either of those.

I'm looking for more places to launch it, but so far it's been a disaster (Kongregate) or just gone unnoticed.

Thinking about other ideas, either starting fresh with a simple game (something I may struggle with, since I don't personally like simple games) or rewriting it somehow. We'll see, having a rest for now :)

I'll keep my eye on Board Horde, and good luck with the competition. If you can complete it I think you'll do well.

farflamex

sometimes after putting so much effort into a game, it's good to take a little break from it.

I wouldn't say that Kongregate has been a disaster for you, as there's a lot of positive feedback there, and most of the negative feedback simply relates to the badly positioned Ad preventing people from being able to play the game properly (and a few browser issues relating to IE). What you've learnt from that experience is to be careful in your ad positioning in future (though there will always be people who downrate your game simply because it has an ad in it, and they believe everything in life should be ad-less and free. Bloody hippies!). Also the constructive criticism on Kongregate seems to mirror what other people on the Construct 2 forum have been saying; the near static planet backdrop restricts the feeling of speed, and the combat can be a bit unexciting (being 8 way directional travel, this is a tricky one to tackle. Perhaps by just adding a Thruster for speed bursts, and some homing missiles to get the player started, it might help ease the player into the game and experience the deep world you have on offer).

I think the way to go with Korelos sales is either selling on your own site as an exe, or through Windows 8. Might also be worth looking into MarketJs and seeing if you can get a publisher interested there.

Anyway, as far as Board Horde is concerned, things are going well. The A.I. is functioning reasonably well for getting all three characters out at once, and it's managed to beat me on a few occassions even though its choices are entirely random. As I don't have a free day until Friday, I'm spending most of my evening 'sofa time' finishing off art assets on my ipad (I've created a retro style font, and a few more death animations etc).

The tricky part is going to be optimising for iphones etc (as I don't have an iphone, though I have an ipod touch which should at least give me an idea of what to expect size-wise). There's definitely going to be a need for the ability to zoom, as the characters are very tricky to select on a phone due to their tiny size.

anyway, thanks for the words of encouragement, and I will play your game some more when I get the chance (not just because I'm testing it. I really enjoy playing it and discovering new things each time).

I've found Kongregate to be difficult more than once though. The problem here is that I couldn't see any bugs (and still can't), so the only thing I could think of doing is removing it altogether, removing the ads altogether, trying to get it to work on IE then putting it up new. Even so, unless you get a 4-star rating, Kongregate doesn't pay I think.

I'm trying to think of a way of totally reworking it, but as you say, 8-direction movement is a tough one because it's needed to 'explore' but it doesn't really make for a great shooter style. I was trying to think of a way I could make it something more of a shooter - perhaps every time you go off on a mission or to find asteroids, you have to pass through 30 seconds or so of shoot-em-up .... but then that spoils the damage aspect of the game which is one of the best parts.

I have tried MarketJs but no response. I think it's just seen as too complicated and not the sort of game with mass appeal.

And the problem with marketing it myself is I dunno where or how to sell it. I don't enjoy marketing at all so I'm not sure that would work out too well. I was rather hoping it could get some views on various sites and then I could consider a demo but it's hard getting many hits.

You're right that Board Horde obviously won't fit onto a phone screen, or if it does, it'd be very hard to see what's going on. I've just started messing with phone games and it's hard to get the dimensions right. Zoom would spoil BH a bit, but if the option to zoom in and out was there I think it would work. So you zoom out to see the entire board and then zoom in for moves. It would work but I think that would be quite tricky to program.

Let us know when there's an update :)

Hullo chaps!

There's a new version of the Board Horde game on the front page. Here's the change list:

1. A.i. can now get three heroes out at the same time.

2. Dice changes colour to indicate whose go it is (based on a forum suggestion)

3. Status effects now display above the heroes heads. If clicked on, they give a bit of info on what the effect does (also a forum suggestion)

4. A few more attack animations, and instant death anim added.

And here's the marvellous bug list! yaaaaaay!

1. A.i. Occasionally rolls the dice four times when he has no heroes out, and stops the game working (just press back for now, if this happens)

2. A.i.s turn sometimes ends before he can move, or he rolls a six and forgets to move, or he gets a hero out when there's already one stood on the entrance square.

3. If a hero is killed on the entrance square, his HUD picture sometimes still displays as 'out' which causes collision issues with monsters.

4. Sometimes when a blue barbarian dies, he spreads blood all over the bally shop (this is not a feature), and occasionally changes direction mid flight.

5. Sometimes the computer a.i. beats me (clearly a bug, and nothing to do with my playing ability).

6. If the warrior dies when he has a weakened status effect, he sometimes still has the effect present when he's next on the board.

There are more bugs which I mean to fix over the next few days, but if you spot anything I haven't mentioned, or think of any brilliant ways to improve things then please let me know. So far everyone has been hugely helpful, and its been most appreciated (you beautiful marvellous people, you!)

So, as there's two weeks left to the deadline most of my time will be spent refining what I've got, finding and destroying oh so many bugs, and attempting to optimise for mobile phone (which will be the biggest challenge, as the game is best played on a larger touch screen device).

Chin chin, and whatnot.

Hullo again!

Right, I have my latest update now playable on the front page. I still have a day or so of free time left for refinements, but next Friday ill be uploading Board Horde to the Newgrounds site for their competition.

Here's the change list:

1. Better text objects to draw attention to potions, traps etc.

2. More attack animations.

3. A menu theme tune from the marvellous Olivia Egbunike (https://soundcloud.com/olivia-egbunike)

4. Better functioning A.i. That's less prone to crashing.

5. Far less bugs! (Still enough to keep me busy)

Anyway, once the competition is over I will get down to all the features that I'd hoped to add, such as scoreboard, advanced a.i., special skills and more boards.

All suggestions for improvements are hugely welcomed, as always.

Cheers!

Dave Hailwood,

good luck with newgrounds, and i hope you finish it afterwards and publish it. you deserve to get some income from this great game. it's perfect for tablet and phone play.

harrio

thanks for the kind words, and all the ideas. I'm still hoping to have the hero move automatically when there's only one hero out, if I get time to include the feature.

I've encountered a few weird browser issues (such as bits of art not loading in, or the music playing over itself again and again) which only occassionally happens, but hopefully once I've got a proper pre-loader for all the art and sounds in there in might solve the issue.

I thought I'd gotten rid of all the game breaking bugs over the weekend, but discovered a new one a few seconds after I uploaded; if you die on the first square of one of the boards (the one I like to call 'Butterfly'), and then immediately roll a six and come out again, the hero forgets to turn the corner and goes off the board! If I can't figure out what's causing the issue, I may have to cheat and make the board one square longer before the corner (so the hero has more time to mirror, signal and manoeuvre).

Also, on rare occassions the a.i. seems to freeze up for no apparent reason, which is a tricky problem to figure out.

Once I've finished updating the tutorial, destroying the bugs and adding in a few 'helper' items for people who are playing for the first time and can't be bothered to read the rules (i.e, everyone), I will see if I have time to optimise for mobile (even if that just extends to being able to click the heroes Portrait picture to get them to move, as that's a larger Touch area than the heroes themselves). Though board games are much better suited to larger touch screen devices.

Anyway, the plan is to upload on Friday afternoon (so there's still time to make changes if the Newgrounds community encounter any issues) and then go straight to pub for a celebratory pint!

If anyone notices any more bugs, or has minor improvement suggestions then please let me know (and if anyone can see how it looks on iphone, that'd be hugely appreciated)

Soooo...

got there in the end, though there's still plenty I plan to do with the game. If I get the chance at the weekend, I might make it even more obvious how you're supposed to play the game, as even a button marked 'rules' doesn't seem to be enough. It's kind of understandable, though - even when testing the other games I have a tendency to avoid the instructions and just get straight to the game.

Looks like a few 'Arrow Helper' objects might be a useful addition at the weekend, providing I can be bothered (after four solid months, I'm bloomin' knackered!)

Thanks for all your help, guys!

Dave Hailwood

hi, just catching up with your game before I have to head out the door... so much has changed since the last time .. the rule button works really well and gives a clear understanding on how to play.. also the instructions when you roll the dice too..

good luck with it <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

mineet

thanks for the words of encouragement throughout the whole process. I made sure to include you and a few of the other marvelous forum chaps in the credits (which can be found by pressing the in game pause button).

I might still have a bit of a tinker at the weekend, but a jolly long sleep is very high on the priorities list!

Dave Hailwood

thats really kind thank you.

enjoy your weekend <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />