Battle Tanks Standalone Game

[ssl]

Hey Griffin, do you have any updates on this topic yet? It sounds very promising! BTW: What programming environment do you work with?

[griffin1987]

Hey Griffin, do you have any updates on this topic yet? It sounds very promising! BTW: What programming environment do you work with?

Most of the code is done - still open:
- music ( just have to have time to record it )
- sounds ( time, time, ... )
- balancing ( fiddling with numbers and algorithms takes time as well )
- models ( not really important right now, as you can play with geometric figures for testing )

At the moment I'm reworking the network code, as I don't like the high latency coming from the synchronous game state approach of wc3, as well as the possibility of desyncs - trailing state synchronization is the best candidate at the moment ( d3 could be using this I think ), but it's not easy to implement correctly and in a clean and performant way ( needs tons of memory if you code it without thinking - and with tons I mean you can end up using 100 times as much as the game needs anyway, like in 200GB ram )

There's also some small stuff missing, like an installer or a manual, but I don't really care about that right now.

For your question on environment: I'm switching between mac and windows, as I'm building everything atop SDL + OpenGL + OpenAL, which makes the whole thing portable (not tested on linux yet, but should work there as well), so it's XCode/Eclipse on mac and Eclipse on windows (eclipse is painfully slow sometimes, and doesn't have much profiling/debugging support built in, which is why I often use XCode on mac)

I guess that's all to say for now.

About KickStarter: Not gonna use it. I've not heard a single positive thing about yet from people getting less than a million. Google some calculations of people who got funded - most of them ended up paying more than they got (substract kickstarter (15% i think), transaction fees, transactions that don't go through, and all the goodies you have to pay like tshirt printing, and you end up with a big fat minus ). Also with kickstarter you need to constantly upload new stuff, which would shorten the already small time I have for developing, so, no. Anyway, money is not really an issue for me, and I don't plan to make big cash with this thing

[ssl]

Wow, that's great news. I didn't expect you to be such far with developing. If we can help you somehow, just let us know.

Guess I didn't specify my question enough: I wanted to know the language you are programming with. XCode and Eclipse are just the IDEs.

[eSVau]

coded in plain C using an object oriented approach, for those who are technically interested

[ssl]

Thank you, I missed that.

[horselance]

What about models grifin? Will you make them yourself or you have other idea Maybe some people can help. Or simply change the game to new era: Battle Cubes

[RikonVan]

LOL battle cubes why not maybe in the version 0.01beta xD

Kickstarter is a nice idea, i would pump u too.

[Belshamaroth]

Hi,

first of all: nice work!

But I have a question and a warning: where from will you get your assets?

Me and some friend of mine (all of them are computer scientists, mathematicians, designers or musicians) tried to develop the same, what you are trying now: a (non commercial, developed in their free-time ) BT standalone system. But we failed. (The project was stopped 2 years ago)

The coding (C++ based) has never been the problem (as there were professionals involved) but after we finished the raw framework for a game (3D-Engine, Controls, Menu, Network) we got a lack of content. We had one sound designer (me) and one (2D) graphic designer in our team. But nobody of us was fast and skilled enough to produce the needed amount of animated 3D models in a quality that would be satisfying. Also we had to learn that one graphics designer does not suffice to create all textures for menus, backgrounds, models, terrain ... We thought about using free-licensed material from the web but without an overall design such a game looks like a patchwork rug. And no code can save an ugly game... ("ugly" does not mean "no eye-candy" - "ugly" means no harmonious design of all components like models, textures, sound, user controls etc.).

Now I'm working as freelancer (sound-design & coding) for a couple of game studios and advertising agencies (ad-games, web-software etc.) and got to know that EVERY professional team has one guy (an artist or a designer) who acts as a chief of design. Most of the assets are not created in-house but are bought from different freelancers for a notable amount of money. They constitute the main development costs as they require the most of man hours. The chief designer now put this fragments together to create a harmonious general impression - a job which is a challenging piece of art.
I think this is the reason why AAA games have these huge development costs... As original BT shows: code seems to be minor problem in game development..

So what is my conclusion of this long post:

Coding is important, coding is nice. And yes, games are not too hard to code (compared to some simulations I worked on during my PDE-courses at university for example )

But a game is no database tool. It needs content, content, content... So your project will stand or fall by its design. You should care early about modelers, texture-artists, sound-artists (open sound libraries will not give any satisfying material as it will not sound belonging together) and most important a chief-designer who puts the pieces together.

Maybe the BT-Community provides such experts - I would hope so :-)

Best Regards

[Exodus]

@Belshamaroth: I'm both happy and sad. Happy, because people seem to like BT well enough to actually put a lot of work into such a project. But I'm sad, because you didn't tell me anything, we might have helped you with that ;)

I'm not a graphics designer or anything (as anyone might have guessed), I'm 'only' a programmer (that's true for nearly everyone in the DevTeam), but I guess, if there are that much programmers, that are interested in BT (or games in general), we should be able to find designers that are interested in BT (or games in general).

Anyway. My offer still stands: I'll help with such projects if it is within my possibilities (since griffin seems to have done anything up till now on his own).

[decio]

I count zero but nice idea






BEST REGARDS.

[Althend]

If you guys do something serious, i can provide design easily.

[RaptorXI]

Hey Griffin, are you still working on it? And what help do you need?

[RikonVan]

You could ask Riot Games to do it. They are a great developer Team and specalised on games like btanks.

[Perfektionist]

You could ask Riot Games to do it. They are a great developer Team and specalised on games like btanks.

i think the community is to small for a rentable project^^

[RikonVan]

Well there are much worse games out there and get developed so why not give it a try?

[Crag_Hack]

why dont startup a Crowdfounding (or just a donation) via this forum and facebook so u maybe will get some money for all the stuff and licenses are needed to programing the game (and if there are enought u will be paid out for the time u spend too or u invest it the game for game server and so on) and u dont have the problems u written to kickstarter

[griffin1987]

For those still interested: Project has been stopped a few months ago. It's not dead, but I'm working on something WAY bigger and plan to use parts of the money made with my current project to build a professional BT game.

Still I'm not sure anyone of you should get their hopes up about that, as it will be at least another 1,5 years till I get to a playable (beta) state, which means bt community might be dead by then.

So, anyway, if you want a bt map now: learn how to do sc2 maps and build one

Sorry to disappoint you, but something done in your free time is always just that: dependent on how much free time you have.

Best Regards

[RikonVan]

Still interested. I think a lot about this issue.

I could seek for a developer who would do this professionally if you allow me to do that...

[mcpilz]

a standalone would be awesome!! Anyone still here?

---

For those still interested: Project has been stopped a few months ago. It's not dead, but I'm working on something WAY bigger and plan to use parts of the money made with my current project to build a professional BT game.

Still I'm not sure anyone of you should get their hopes up about that, as it will be at least another 1,5 years till I get to a playable (beta) state, which means bt community might be dead by then.

So, anyway, if you want a bt map now: learn how to do sc2 maps and build one

Sorry to disappoint you, but something done in your free time is always just that: dependent on how much free time you have.

Best Regards

Something similar?

[Flygplan]

Well Im still here!!
The biggest pratical reason as far as I see too make a stand alone BT game is to circumnavigate wc3 limitations and instead have something optimal for BT.
However I can't anything about C I only got knowdlege about Java so I can't really help if that is at some time needed.

The biggest problem I see is how to get anybody to know about the game and play it, it would be tragic if the game is dead as soon as it is born.