"Free State" game would simulate 2050 New Hampshire

[Dave Ridley]

Storyboard images partly complete.

[Dave Ridley]

Arright:  Having been sort of becalmed for the last couple months regarding the current primary objectives, I guess something should happen to get us moving again.  Since we're all volunteers thus far, it's appropriate to expect only slow progress and appreciate all of it. But we should avoid sitting still for more than a couple months if we can.  Errol since you're probably the most productive volunteer I've ever had helping me with anything thus far...  I should probably do something that could be rewarding for you , even if it is prodding.  You have a pretty cool reason to be less available lately!

I'd like to place a small bitcoin bounty on the successful implementation of our current primary objectives:

http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=24297.msg351565#msg351565

It would be available at least in some form to anyone who completes the objectives, not just to Errol. So Errol on the one hand I guess you would be able to go from volunteer to contractor, earlier than expected.... But you also face the possibility of competition.  I will probably run an ad on the Ridley Report advertising the need for help and then start headhunting.  I'm not sure how a person just starting the process would go about accomplishing the mission without your help. Would you be willing to provide potential competitors the relevant information about your current program?  Assuming someone else has time to improve it and you don't.

I should probably not publicize the (kind of humble) amount of the bounty, in case the eventual recipient wants financial privacy. And I should probably pay you a larger bounty than a new participant, in recognition of your history.  I should also stress I won't be able to pay anyone else anything for a while, except whoever accomplishes those key objectives first. The original plan was not to pay anyone anything until some revenue was starting to come in.

Anyway that's where we stand.... also the 4 storyboard drawings Errol requested are complete; I just need to get them in proper light and make digital copies to post here.

[Dave Ridley]

Andy aka Cardman... I have a volunteer mission in mind for you, should you choose to accept it.  Would you be willing to make an interactive graphic for our eventual ship loadout screen?  If so I will probably draw picture or three; you would confer with Errol regarding any specs you might need to comply with in building it... and then you'd build it!  The more I think about graphics the more ideas I have, but I think the focus should be in creating new images, for new screens.    As opposed to improving the current look of things.  I like the way it already looks actually....no one ever seems to focus on improving the primitive graphics of angry birds or plants and zombies, so probably we shouldn't either. Does this seem like an appropriate outlook to you guys?  Also Andy, were you able to play the demo on your machine? 

[Errol]

Is here. Lots of life changes going on so it is a little difficult to find a balance. If you want throw some artwork, at me I'd be happy to add it to the prototype.

Hitting the wall with the chat is more to do with understanding the player.io framework than just providing the chat functionality. If I can't get the simple things to work, then I don't know how I will conquer the real time multi-player aspect of it.

Haven't spent any time on it in the past few weeks but I will spend some time on it tonight. Right now I am sort of in the learning phase with the multi-player stuff and trying to come up with a plan to piece this thing together.

[Dave Ridley]

Thanks Errol!  How about I join the Player.IO forum and if you have any questions about their services/functionality, you can just post them to this thread. I can forward them to Player.IO forums for you and hopefully you can get your answers.  There is no "contact" button to reach PIO management directly.  Obviously if it would save you time to register on that forum yourself then that's cool but I'm happy to register there and get the ball rolling meanwhile. I really did like what I read about PIO when you informed me about them, but if they're too big-learning-curve then maybe another service would be an option.  As far as you creating new artwork , I'd rather we delegate that to andy as much as possible.  I want you free to focus on the primary objectives. 

Msg from Andy, sent by email because of his difficulty accessing the forum:

"I accept, continually, the mission to make, create or develop from your sketches the Vector graphics needed for the load screens, etc.
Regards,
Andy"

Andy once you've created a vector graphic will others be able to make it clickable even if you can't? The ship loadout screen will need to eventually be drag and drop, etc.   For the most part we won't have a use for graphics that the players can't interact with....but much helpful to have graphics that only needs slight changes.

Also andy is there anything helpful I can do to promote you or your work, as a thanks for your help on this project?  And what are some other things I can do that will make it easier for you to help us...

cc: andy/cardman

[Dave Ridley]

Actually I had a thought: Andy there is something you can start doing right now before I even finish drawing the ship loadout screen.  Eventually we will be making enhancements available for each ship, these would go in the enhancement slots for extreme customization.  Each enhancement that can be mounted on the ship will need to be designed, or commandeered from the public domain.  Can you go ahead and start designing/commandeering these?

Here's a description of the planned enhancements options players would be able to drag and drop onto their ship.  You can make them look pretty much however you like within certain parameters:  they'd need to fit Errol's needs.  And I guess bear in mind that currently the game has sort of a cartoon look and I don't want to do deploy any graphics that would slow performance.

) Thruster - Boosts your ship's speed by 500%. This includes top speed, turning speed, reverse speed and "flying home disabled" speed.  Installing more thrusters means more speed, but the effect is cumulative, not compounding.  This is probably the most important enhancement to make available after we start implementing enhancement slots.  without it everyone would be flying a snail.  Only people who *want* AFK play should have to do that.  Once mounted the speed increaser automatically stays active until dismounted or lost.
) Left gun - Fires straight out the ship's left side....unguided.  Uses 1 SU every time you fire it. The October 2013 version of the game features perfect left guns already.  These will be mounted and unremovable on every ship, to ensure that this unique element of our game remains prominent. Default effect: 1 point damage each time it his the enemy.
) Right  gun - Fires straight out the ship's right side.  Other than that, it's the same as the left gun.
) Forward gun - Behaves the same as the side guns except for the direction in which it fires. And the fact that it's optional.
) Rear gun - behaves same as side and fwd guns except for the direction in which it fires.  And the fact that it's optional.
) Healer - Pressing the appropriate key heals every friendly unit or tower within about 1/10th of a screen width. I'm referring to a conventional laptop screen.  The weapon's "effect radius" should be easy to see,  perhaps it would be just a circle that appears around the healing ship. An unlimited number of units can be within range and thus an unlimited number can be healed with one "shot" if you time it right!  Units can't heal *themselves* under any circumstances, creating more teamwork play. Uses 3 SU each time you fire it. Default effect: Heals 1 point of damage on all friendly ships within the "circle"
) Mine tube - Drops an aerial mine that just sits there for 3 minutes or until an enemy flies through it.  At that point it explodes.  Default effect:  Does 5 health damage to whatever enemies are within about 1/20th of a screen width of the explosion's center.  Uses 5 SU every time you fire it.  The area effect is not a big deal and doesn't *have* to be implemented.
) Bomb bay - Explodes a short range EMP bomb "under" your ship when you press the relevant button.  Default effect:  Same as a mine explosion.  Does 5 health damage to whatever enemies are is within about 1/20th of a screen width of the explosion's center.  The area effect is not a big deal and doesn't *have* to be implemented.  Like the gasser, it uses 5 SU every time you fire it.
) Missile tube - This would fire guided projectiles in any direction from your ship.  I'm thinking missiles should move at about 300....the same as the top speed as the default ship we gave players in the October 2013 era.  Or you could say 1/3 the speed of October 2013 era gunshots.  Range is about 4x as far as those gunshots.  They are guided and home in on the enemy unit which was targeted by the firing player.  I guess they should blow up when they hit *any* enemy along the way, but that is not super important. Default effect if it hits:  2 points damage.  Firint it uses up 2 SU. Probably the missile should be faster then 90 percent of the ships in the game.
) Health booster - Each enhancement slot you fill with one of these increases the number of hit points you can suffer...by 500%  Your ship starts with 10 hit points, so the first booster ups that to 50. The second ups it to 100...and so on.   Does not directly decrease speed, but obviously it takes up slots that could have been filled with speed increasers.  Once mounted the booster automatically stays active until dismounted or lost.
) Multiplier - Each multiplier increases by 500% the effectiveness of all guns, bombs, missile tubes, gassers and healers on your ship.  Each system thus does 500% more damage (or healing) each time it hits.  You can stack multipliers, though they have a cumulative effect rather than a compounded one.  So: If your carrying only side guns with no multipliers, each gun guns does 1 point of damage per hit on the enemy. Add 1 enhancement and they do 5 points.  2 enhancements means they do 10 points damage,  etc.  Alternatively, if you load 1 gasser and 9 multipliers...each gas cloud you drop will do 225 damage instead of 5!  See what we mean by extreme customization! Once mounted, each multiplier automatically stays active until dismounted or lost.
) Supply pack - Each pack carriers 100 units of universal supplies. We call them "supply units" or SU. These service your ship's guns, healers, mine tubes, bomb bays, missile tubes and also serve as fuel.  Ships will not be able to much do anything but fly home as a ghost, if they don't have a supply pack with some SU remaining.  Different systems use different amounts of  them.  Fuel, BTW, is not going to be a system of its own... it will probably be represented as a constant decrease in the amount of SU you have left.  More on that later.  SU would gradually increase while your ship is at a friendly base.  I'm thinking it should take about 1 minute to top off each pack, and all your onboard packs would reload simultaneously.

cc: Andy email.

[Dave Ridley]

Msg from andy:

"Dear Mr Ridley,
...Are they sure they need vector graphics, instead of Sprite sheets or other Java animation library graphic style?"

[Errol]

I poked around at it. I threw away the code I was working on since I broke something and couldn't fix it and is was holding me up. Started over from the template player IO provides. I got it working doing simple things like keeping track of the score and reporting it. Nothing very exciting yet. Same chat problem (can't get user names to appear), so I might go into the player IO forums and ask some questions tomorrow. A helpful hint couldn't hurt. I'll be happy if I can just get a prototype working.

My needs as far as graphics go are just to keep it simple to render. I doesn't have to be angry birds simple (that works for me too), but just something that won't cause the game to choke on rendering graphics. Vector graphics means it is easily scalable to any screen. The drones as they are now are simple vector graphics (so simple I just draw them in the code), and don't require much code to handle or tweek. SVG, EPS, or AI formats will be fine. No rush though. I'm not set up for the moment to handle sprite sheets, but if you have something really cool then I'll see what I can do.

A static graphic for the moment is fine. I do sort of imagine the drones to be like RC helicopters, so maybe slightly animated drone graphics can be added at a later point (with spinning rotors or small flaming jets or some fictitious technology that makes them fly).

[Dave Ridley]

Andy I guess it would be best to steer clear of sprite sheets then.    I want to keep this as smooth as possible for Errol, since he'll have enough complex hurdles to deal with in the programming/implementation sphere.   Did you get the answers you need from Errol regarding the code Andy?  I had a problem getting a good image of the storyboard drawings and am trying something else.  Meanwhile, for those who can't open the game for some reason... here are some screen shots:

[Dave Ridley]

More screenshots.

[Dave Ridley]

Hmmm all the images i've shot of the storyboards are too low resolution after using 2 diff cameras.  I will need to scan them in that case but won't have access to a scanner for a few days.  Sorry for the delay.

[Dave Ridley]

http://freestategame.com is now up and running, after a fashion.  And the help wanted ad is complete.

[Errol]

The link takes me to the free state project forum.

Quick update. Starting to try and move some of the prototype functionality to the server side (baby steps). It may be a while before I have something that I can show. I am imagine it will remain a single player game for a while till I can get the server to be doing enough of the functionality effectively.

[Dave Ridley]

Yes for now it's just a link to a thread post which summarizes the project and then links here.  I posted it on the fsp forum because some folks have trouble viewing simple machine forums.   and thanks for continuing to hack away at it!

[Errol]

No problem. I only wish I had something more to show.