Project - Apolyton game - Page 6

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 14:21

Sorry... it wasn't that clear what I wanted... I'll try to fix up a small example...

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 14:27

Here's an quick drawing of my idea (Don't mind the colors)

Explanation yet to come...

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 14:33

The part on the left/bottom corner is the menu (host game/join game/highscore/whatever). The white area should be something along with a chatbox (I don't plan on just using some standard textfield, so I prefer it to be 'connected' with the background somehow...
The blue boxes are some small buttons which should be as small images... they should give the host an option to kick the players out of the game...
...would be nice if the nick and kick 'button' goes into one line per player... just make one line and add as a different file, so I can add/remove it in the code...

What I ment with the 'Just make one button' is:
If you make one long empty button, I can manually (in the code) change the label on the pictures... that way you don't have to make a button for each option...

Hope this time it's more clear...

General Ludd · March 16, 2004, 14:37

Quote:

How about a kind of "stencilled" font like on millitary equipment, and make it a light transparacy laid accross the picture?

That's better, i think. It might be good to put a metal backdrop behind it, too.

ADG: I haven't given any thought to the button layout and such, yet... but I think it would be better to keep it all in one place, otherwise it will get too cluttered.

I'll think out the buttons next...

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 14:41

Yeah sure, the host game/join game/whatever should be in one place... but I don't think they should be in the same place as where the list of joined players are...

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 14:42

Does anyone have any idea on how to make the background in labels transparent in Vb.net? It used to be easy in VB6, but I can't find the option here

alva · March 16, 2004, 14:50

On the form-designer-->label-->properties-->backColor--->web is a tab for transparent, no idea wether it what you(re looking for though.

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 15:04

But when chosing transparent it just goes white

alva · March 16, 2004, 15:14

It think it works for me. ( not that I tried with your program though)

General Ludd · March 16, 2004, 15:16

What about something like this?

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 15:28

Looks great, though I think the chat might be a little to small...

And the buttons... it does look great, but I also need a few other buttons: Exit, high-score and maybe a credits

Sure, the high-score and credits is something we can live without... but not the exit button...

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 15:38

I'm not doing any more programming for tonight... for those interested, here's the files:

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...NuclearWar.zip

It didn't turn out to be much programmed today... spent most of my time on trying to get that transparent label working (I found a dll file that should be able to add such label to the program... but couldn't get that one working either

)

General Ludd · March 16, 2004, 16:10

What would be required to do an animation, such as a menu sliding out from the side?

Adagio · March 16, 2004, 17:54

If it's just sliding it wont require much on my part... if it's full animations it'll probably require most on your part...

General Ludd · March 16, 2004, 19:35

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG
If it's just sliding it wont require much on my part... if it's full animations it'll probably require most on your part...

Yeah, I'm just wondering what I would need to do.

ie. would I need to make animation of it sliding into view, or could I make a still-picture of it in motion, ect...

General Ludd · March 16, 2004, 20:03

Alright, here's another layout. ( I haven't bothered applying any effects to the windows) I was thinking that I should maybe make the exit button smaller and just puting an X on it.

Have I forgotten any buttons? The highscores and such could be added later to a little pop-up menu, maybe.

Adagio · March 17, 2004, 06:23

I'm not sure what you mean with adding highscore, etc in a popup menu?

My idea was when clicking on high-score/credits, then the list comes in the green field in the right (Where the chat, players list, etc has gone)...

...and a sliding window would be easiest to make by just having a still-picture... But what are you planning to add in a slide window?

Adagio · March 17, 2004, 06:25

But couldn't you post the buttons as files, instead of adding them on the background?

Jamski · March 17, 2004, 06:38

He's just making the "look" first I think...

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I meant with the text, Oswald

Looks pretty damn alright, better than I imagined it would.

-Jam

Adagio · March 17, 2004, 07:44

Has anyone else tried to run my program?
When running on my room-mates computer it comes up with a .NET Framework error (Pointing to some directdraw error)

I don't have any other computers to test on, so I don't know it it's a problem with his computer or my programming...

General Ludd · March 17, 2004, 08:38

Yeah, I get: "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application."

Adagio · March 17, 2004, 08:41

Damn

I can't seem to find any errors in the code...

General Ludd · March 17, 2004, 20:12

Well, you better get that sorted out.

I've been polishing the graphics and trying to sort out the buttons.

Is this acceptable? I used a plug-in that was designed to make it appear indented for the 'pressed' version, but it basically just flipped the shading around.

(the button graphic I used previously was just a stock image that I used as a place holder... I'd rather try making my own buttons)

Also... would you prefer to have the chat and player screens black or blue?

Adagio · March 18, 2004, 09:13

I like the blue color

Adagio · March 18, 2004, 15:04

I think I found the problem... for some strange reason all machines that should run this game needs to have a special version of DX9 installed to work... some guy working in the MS DX team said:

Quote:

We are working on this problem as we know it is a hassle

alva · March 18, 2004, 15:36

SPECIAL version ?

Adagio · March 22, 2004, 15:44

Yep, a special version... I don't have any official link to where it was said though

Btw, I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten about this project, I've just been busy programming a webserver + client in vb.Net for school...

Adagio · March 26, 2004, 12:48

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG
Here's some of the rules (Mostly taken from the game). Please comment them.

(The numbers are to be discussed)

Weapons:

There exist two different kinds of weapons: Nukes and bombers
Bomber:
A bomber needs to be prepared before they can attack. The startup time is one turn. If the bomber isn’t used the following turn, you need to re-prepare it to use it. A bomber can attack two turns in a row (Unless being countered with a shield)
The bomber exists in 2 versions: (Please come up with a better name)

The weak bomber: When successful it kills a random number of people between 1 & 20
The strong bomber: When successful it kills a random number of people between 15 & 40
Nuke:
A nuke can be fire, without any preparation time, but can only be used once.
There are 4 different nukes: (Don’t know anything about these values, but I believe it was those values used in the game)
10 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 1 & 15
20 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 10 & 25
50 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 20 & 40
100 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 30 & 60

After an attack (For bombers that is after 2nd attack), the weapon is used. All players have a weak bomber, and 2 of 10 mgt nukes, and 1 20 mgt nuke. To get more weapons, you need to build more

Defense:

There’s only one kind of defense, but there exists two different versions:
Simple shield: When used, it manages to destroy 75% of all nukes, and 50% of all bombers
Advanced shield: When used, it manages to destroy 85% of all nukes, and 75% of all bombers

This works like the weapon system: When using one, you lose one, though more can be built in the factory.

The % of chance of success is based on some random number between 1 and 100. If the # is lower than the %, the defense worked as it should

Factory:

A factory takes one turn to ‘do its job’. During this turn, it builds a random number of weapons/defense (How exactly this works, should we talk about… not sure about it)
A factory output could look like this:
1 x 10 mgt nuke
3 x Simple defense
2 x Strong bombers

The computer games factory is very random: Sometimes you get one 10 mgt nuke, while some times you get enough weapons to win the whole game… The randomness should defently (sp?) get tuned down

Spy:

The spy system should more or less work than in the forum game. Maybe with the exception, it’s not possible to spy on a player who haven’t issued an order yet (But no changes to the sabotage order)

Propaganda:

When doing propaganda on a specific city, you get a number of its citizens to one of your cities (A random city of yours). You can get all citizens in specific city (Making this city ‘wasted’)
This number is based on:
-Randomness
-How many times you’ve attacked this player (The more times, the fewer citizens)
-How many times you’ve used propaganda on this player (The more times, the fewer citizens)

If a player before you destroyed target city before your turn, you get nothing
There’s a small chance a propaganda has a side-effect: You lose a random number of citizens from a random city of yours, to target city.
This number is based on the same as above, though with a ‘the more times, the higher risk’ instead

Bonus:

Not sure if we should include this or not. Just going to mention this, since it was in the game

Each turn there’s a minor chance (Based solely on randomness), a random player gets a small bonus… or anti-bonus:
This bonus could be like getting more people in a random city (By a baby-boom), or maybe one of your cities loses some citizens to some alien abduction… and stuff like that…
They were pretty funny, but might screw up the game too much… What do you think?

Just bumping this 'numbers' to last post, so I don't have to search for them whenever I need them...
I'm working on the calculation part at the moment...

Could someone who has VB.net installed please try my game (from inside vb .net). Just put all directX/directDraw stuff in comments... And then report back if you have any problems (Except for the problem with closing server when you haven't started one)

General Ludd · March 26, 2004, 13:01

Whoops... I forgot all about this. I think i finished the graphics, but I'll look over them again once more and then pack it up for you.

What format do you want them in? are .pngs alright?

Adagio · March 26, 2004, 13:06

I don't know much about different graphic formats... what do you suggest? png?