Lots of science fiction has huge space battles in. In many ways, all that monkeying around with plot, characters and storyline is just foreplay for big fleets of impossibly large space battleships to blast away at each other and go bang.

I applaud this initiative.

And I understand, as someone making entertainment, that so much in the classic sci-fi space battle is bullshit. There are no laser sounds in space. No ship, regardless of damage ever loses its artificial gravity etc etc. This doesn’t bother me, because I’m making a not-too-serious fun battle game, so my lasers will go zap and fizz just like the rest of them.

What I’m more interested, because of the strategy nature of my game, is the actual mechanics of the battles. Take (for example) the big space battle at the start of Revenge of the Sith:

There seem to be some nice huge battleships here blasting the hell out of each other at extremely close range, and lost of tiny fighters flying around going zap zap too. The thing that interests me is the economics of it all. Why can’t side A field a fleet of 50,000 fighter/bombers instead of a nice aesthetically balanced fleet of 10 huge capital ships, 50 average ones and 200 fighters. Each of those capital ships is maybe 5,000 times the size of a one man fighter, and must cost 5,000 times as much to build.

Is it because the fighter’s lasers can’t penetrate the armour of the bigger ships at all? Do they need carriers to get them between systems? do they need refuelling? And given that the fighters fly at 100 times the speed of the bigger ships, how the hell isn’t the fighter vs fighter battle over long before a single capital ship gets within firing range of an enemy capital ship?

These are the questions which currently keep me awake at night, because I’m trying to design a set of spaceship and fleet construction rules that allow you to have lots of freedom, yet still ensure you end up building a fleet of disparate size ships that look good in space battles .

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I finally got some not-temp art in there so the ships don’t look so out of place. And I’ve got the system working so you can drag and drop spaceship modules to create new ships, which is nice

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I remember watching a documentary once about how political interviewing has become less sycophantic over the years. It started with a black and white clip where the interviewer ends with this (paraphrased)

“We would like to thank you wholeheartedly minister for taking the time to talk to us today, is there any other message you would like us to broadcast to the people of britain?”

And ended with stuff like this

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwlsd8RAoqI

Games journalism is too often still like the former. here’s a quiote from a games preview I just read:

Journalist: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to add about [game name] or about [franchise name] in general?

Developer: [game-name] has allowed us to create a more-intimate single-player experience while greatly expanding multiplayer. We think we’ve struck a good balance that meets the needs of both audiences.

Journalist: Thanks,  Looking forward to it.

Pathetic. Why don’t they just print the guys press release verbatim and dispense with the pretence of being journalists? If you arent prepared to dig deaper into information that the GAMER might want and the developer might not be keen to reveal, then plrease go work for activisions PR department.

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A recent (censored) blog comment:

is your anti-3D rant cos you’re shit at it and can’t code it very well?
most of the time coders who knock 3D struggle with the maths, if that’s you just be honest and say so.

–> Actually I was top in my entire school for maths, took my maths O level* a year early and got an A, with a perfect 100% score in my mock exam, then did pure economics at the London School of Economics. I can do sums thanks

*before you were born.

clearly as you’re just a one-man-band you struggle to hold a candle to a big 3D development so you resort to knocking them.

–>Absolutely, my game plan is to try and bask in the candlelight of big 3D games, You caught me out kid.

“Game designers need to get over the 3D obsession and make more considered design decisions” – Translation: I’m crap at 3D, I can’t do it very well, 2D is about my limit. I’m going to try to pass of my inability as an “considered design decision” YES! That’s it! I’m not crap! I choose to be crap, it’s consideration. Excellent, that fooled them.

–> Yup, 2D is my mental limit. That’s why I make diner dash clones in Blitz Basic, not original simulation games based on neural networks. Again, well spotted!

is the expression “considered design decision” the self-important ramblings of pretentious cXXt? I think yes to all of these!

–> Maybe I am pretentious, but I’m not pointlessly abusive. I know which I’d rather be thanks…

I’m glad you get your games pirated you cXXt. The more they get seeded on torrents the better. Now fXXk off with your silly public polls and asking the public why they pirate your shit. I don’t know why anyone would want to pirate your games anyway, they’re all shit nobody’s heard of.

–> Someone REALLY needs to get laid.

Also, why do you advertize yourself as from “England” is that american friendly? Isn’t your country of origin Britain or the UK? What’s this “England” shit? You’ll be saying London, England next you prententious cXXt. fXXk off and die Cliff.

–> I was born in England. You may disagree, but judging by your ramblings, it was about twenty years before you were born, so I hardly think you have evidence to the contrary. BTW advertise is spelt with an ‘s’ here in ‘England’. Also, at least learn to spell pretentious, otherwise you look foolish.

I enjoyed that
EDIT: I’ve decided to post the retards later comments so people can see the shit I put up with just for trying to make indie strategy games and stop them being pirated. This is the mentality of the kiddies who are into ‘the warez community’. read and laugh. It amuses me to know none of them will ever get a decent job, because any employers with a brain cell would run a mile from employing people with such an abusive attitude combined with a sense of total entitlement for zero effort.

Enjoy *your* jobseekers allowance kiddies. My taxes pay for it.

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Why do I make 2D games? Is it because its’s easier? or because it’s the best format for the games I make? It’s the latter and here is why.

For games that involve strategy, humans naturally think in 2D. We exist in a 3D world, but strategically, we operate in 2D. We think about our environment generally on a 2D plane.  We navigate from point to point using 2D maps. Computer operating systems work almost entirely using 2D metaphors (Have you EVER used the flip3D feature in windows vista?).

I don’t think this is surprising. We are descended from apes (creationists stop reading now), whose predators attacked us on land, not from below or above. We spend the vast majority of our time on the same level as those around us. Even if we work in multi-storey buildings, we think of each floor as a seperate 2D space. Unless you are a submarine captain or fighter pilot, your concept of 3D space is probably hugely limited. I’m sure alien worlds with super-intelligent fish and birds are natural 3D strategy gamers, but not us.

And yet some strategy games still try and force us to play them in 3D. Thankfully, most game designers have finally realised that *true* 3D is generally more trouble than it’s worth. For every gamer who embraced Descent or Homeworld as the greatest thing ever, there were hundreds who found it thoroughly confusing. It might make for great screenshots, but not for great gameplay, at least not for everyone.

Sins of a Solar Empire and Company of Heroes are great examples of games whose makers realise that 3D makes for great trailers and box shots, but lousy gaming. Company of Heroes actually restricts the camera into a pseudo-isometric fixed view, allowing you to zoom in for no adequately explored reason other than to take screenshots to show off your graphics card. Every single player of the game plays at maximum zoom, because thats the only way to have any concept of what is going on. Spinning the camera around 360 may make for great GDC trailers, but its entirely unsuitable for actually controlling an army. People lose orientation very easily. Being able to spin the world around you is great in theory. In practice, you just forget which direction is which. (If spinning the map made so much sense, army commanders would have had circular map tables )

3D isn’t new or exciting in 2009, It’s just another option in the toolkit. Game designers need to get over the 3D obsession and make more considered design decisions. Some genres work great in 3D, some don’t. Large scale battles work best in 2D and probably will right up until we are all commuting to work in flying cars.

Long live the future of 2D strategy games.

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Ok, so lots of people have broadband now. Yipeee. But just because I have decent bandwidth, doesn’t mean that video is always preferable to text. A lot of the time when I’m surfing, someone else is watching TV or having a conversation. I’m sat there reading the web, just like I’d read a book. Someone might even be asleep, (human or cat). In other words, in a lot of these situations sound is not desirable.

Plus I read quickly, very very quickly, and videeo rarely keeps up with the speed I want information. Because of this, again, video is inferior to text for me in the case of spoken word information.

I find TV weather reports unwatchable. minute after minute of some gormless fool waving his/her arms around and trying to ‘engage’ with the audience. Get over yourselves, you are there to tell me two things, the temperature and the chance of rain. Everything else is filler. Weather reports should be capped at 12 seconds.

Online video is obviously a great thing, but ONLY when it’s better than text. Would this blog post be better if it was a video of me sat there reading it? I doubt it, but I just wish a lot more web sites realised this. Thats my complaint of the day

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I just agreed a contract with my first contractor to work on ‘The Space Game’. I basically trawled the internet for the best nebula photoshop tutorials, the best nebula textures for sale, and the best examples I could find of people drawing spacey nebula backdrops. I then found my preferred artist, and managed to contact them on a web message board and then later discuss budgets and artwork.

What I find interesting about the procedure is I had no idea who this artist was. As it turns out, said individual is male, in his twenties and from California. But the key thing is, I had no idea. He/she could be female, he/she could be black/hispanic/white. They could be disabled,  obese,  have any number of other characteristics, and I don’t know and likely never will.

which is exactly how it should be.

I’m employing this guy to do artwork for me, and all I care about is how good the artwork is, and how professionally they do the work. I don’t need to know anything else about them, and I think it’s in many ways a great thing for employers in general not to do so. The reason I think this, is because as more and more people get employed in this way, it’s really going to help reduce sexism, ageism, racism and all other forms of discrimination.

I once worked for a guy who said he wouldn’t have given me the job if he’s noticed during the interview I’d once had my ear pierced. he also proudly told me he’d never employ anyone black, or with a foreign sounding name. What a scumbag. As it goes, I’m average weight, male, white, and have a london accent, which means in the UK I’m probably the least discriminated person imaginable. I *did* get a lot of grief as a teenager and twentiesomething for having long hair though.

Anyway, I’m rambling now, but I just thought it worth noting that at the same time that the USA gets it’s first ever black president, there is a constant revolution going on amongst people doing ‘virtual’ work, where what color you are not only doesn’t matter, it’s’ not even information your employer will ever have unless you want them to.

That’s my thought for the day.

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Uk indie developer Positech games are celebrating the inauguration of the first Black president of the USA with a special offer for one day only. A special celebration edition of the political strategy game ‘Democracy 2′ is on sale today for just $9.95 instead of the usual $24.95. This edition has the same gameplay as usual, but the political quotes in the game all come from Barack Obama, and his image is featured in the menu screens for the game.
A special web page has been set up just for today for people to download a demo of this version and buy it here:
http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2…ter_obama.html

dugg:

http://digg.com/pc_games/Indie_Strategy_game_less_than_half_price_on_inauguration_day

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So what is this space game all about then?

Well it’s basically a big space battle simulator. A top-down, 2D space battle strategy game with no resource management, empire building, exploration or diplomacy.  The game is influenced by a number of things, in visual terms, I’m inspired by the stupidly big battles at the end of star trek:ds9 and the start of revenge of the sith. In game terms, it’s inspired slightly by galactic civ II, and partly by an old pen and paper RPG called traveller.

One of the books of traveller was called ‘trillion credit squadron‘, and it was based around the players being given a trillion credits to design and build a big space fleet (with certain restrcitions) to fight other players. That’s the basis of the gameplay for this currently un-named game. There will not be a big story, it’s basically a case of build a big fleet, send it into battle and enjoy the fun. I’ll be trying to make the battles look as good as 2D battles can look.

There is a lot more to the game than this, but that will come later. All my art is placeholder right now, so obviously there will be original spaceship designs. I haven’t found my spaceship artist or backdrop artists yet. In fact I haven’t started looking yet. Even now, it looks pretty cool in a big 1900×1200 window with maybe 40-50 ships a side. I hope to scale it up way way beyond that.

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I’ve spent all day working on damage textures, and they work, even if my amateurish texturing makes them suck a bit. I’ll get proper artists once I’m sure how the game will look and play.

Rather than doing anything cleverly procedural, I’m defining set damage sprites for each ship that layer on top of the ship once it’s been hit at that point (see below).

There is a combination with some of them of being a static texture, and having a particle emitter on them which makes it look better when the ship is moving (hopefully running away at this point).

There’s tons more code to write and tests to do before I become convinced that this works and looks ok. I’m not happy with it yet, but it looks better than the ship remaining spotless until it suddenly goes bang and dissapears. It’s also very expensive in CPU/GPU terms so the framerate nosedived a bit. It’s still way over 120 FPS in debug, so I’m not worried, plus I havne’t made any obvious speedups yet. Don’t forget I have a decent PC, so I’m aiming to ship a game running comfortably over 100FPS on mine, so that it handles 60FPS for lower end machines.

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