Plan for Tom Bampton
by Tom Bampton · 10/27/2005 (6:48 am) · 11 comments
Nauris and I have been talking for a couple of years now about making a Civilization style game. The main reason we haven't done it yet is mostly just one of time. There are always more important things to do then what amounts to a pet project. You may remember a previous attempt in the form of Loot, a past GID.
Recently we started talking about it again and decided to hell with it, we'll actually do it this time. In our spare time. Something neither of us has in any degree of abundance. We have a pretty solid idea of where we want to go with the game, and how to reduce the game to the realms of doability.
Without further ado, here's a screenshot.
You might recognise the art from Loot. Ignore that, that's just because Nauris is away right now so we have no new art (well, apart from a crap load of nifty concepts).
The screenshot shows off a couple of nifty technologies, the first I have dubbed the Naffomatic Map Generator, or NMG for short. For you Americans, Naff is a common british word that is fairly synonymous with Crap.
The NMG places the sea, map poles (you cant see them in that screenie) and then randomly places a few rectangles. This is what it looks like once the NMG has done its stuff:
Following that, the Naffomatic Coastline Generator, or NCG for short, passes through the entire map and generates the coastline tiles. Actually, the NCG is not really that naff anymore. It does generate weird coastline in 1 isolated case, but thats only because I dont have tiles for that case and I couldnt be bothered to make them.
It might interest you to know that the NMG and NCG are written entirely in TorqueScript.
The ships you can see in the screenshots are T2D active tiles. They only render the unit plus the health bar at this point, but will have a few other things when its done.
It's a long way from being a game. However, a lot of the framework is now there to actually make the game. There are still a fair few things missing, but hopefully this weekend's GID should sort those out. Total time spent so far is about 10 - 15 hours across 3 vastly separated days.
Recently we started talking about it again and decided to hell with it, we'll actually do it this time. In our spare time. Something neither of us has in any degree of abundance. We have a pretty solid idea of where we want to go with the game, and how to reduce the game to the realms of doability.
Without further ado, here's a screenshot.
You might recognise the art from Loot. Ignore that, that's just because Nauris is away right now so we have no new art (well, apart from a crap load of nifty concepts).
The screenshot shows off a couple of nifty technologies, the first I have dubbed the Naffomatic Map Generator, or NMG for short. For you Americans, Naff is a common british word that is fairly synonymous with Crap.
The NMG places the sea, map poles (you cant see them in that screenie) and then randomly places a few rectangles. This is what it looks like once the NMG has done its stuff:
Following that, the Naffomatic Coastline Generator, or NCG for short, passes through the entire map and generates the coastline tiles. Actually, the NCG is not really that naff anymore. It does generate weird coastline in 1 isolated case, but thats only because I dont have tiles for that case and I couldnt be bothered to make them.
It might interest you to know that the NMG and NCG are written entirely in TorqueScript.
The ships you can see in the screenshots are T2D active tiles. They only render the unit plus the health bar at this point, but will have a few other things when its done.
It's a long way from being a game. However, a lot of the framework is now there to actually make the game. There are still a fair few things missing, but hopefully this weekend's GID should sort those out. Total time spent so far is about 10 - 15 hours across 3 vastly separated days.
About the author
Recent Blogs
• A Game in 2750 Days• GID23 and NPC Editor
• Fun with Lua
• How NOT to make a game
• Thinking Outside the Box
#2
Good work Tom. Nice seeing you actually do a game for once :P
10/27/2005 (11:11 am)
Wow, the nafomatic 3000 :)Good work Tom. Nice seeing you actually do a game for once :P
#3
I think it would be cool to make a bizzarro version of civilization where the natives are trying to colonize europe ;)
10/27/2005 (3:17 pm)
Wow....I almost naffed my pants! Sorry, I just had to use the word in a sentence...ok the moment has passed.I think it would be cool to make a bizzarro version of civilization where the natives are trying to colonize europe ;)
#4
Edit: Oh, the health bars are now fully functional too. There's just nothing to hurt you yet :)
Brian,
I said fairly synonymous ;-) Crap in the "that's trash" use of the word, not the defacation use of the word ;-)
T.
10/27/2005 (3:27 pm)
Today was quite productive ... unit selection and movement now works. Sounds so simple now but there was quite a bit of framework stuff that had to be in place. Still a long way off being a game, but its closer then it was this morning :)Edit: Oh, the health bars are now fully functional too. There's just nothing to hurt you yet :)
Brian,
I said fairly synonymous ;-) Crap in the "that's trash" use of the word, not the defacation use of the word ;-)
T.
#6
10/28/2005 (12:44 am)
Quite nice. Can't be working with Nauris, me says!
#7
Edit: better screenie:
Edit2: finished fog of war (black areas == unexplored, dim areas == explored but no units can currently see it, normal areas show range of unit vision):
10/28/2005 (4:29 am)
Just thought I'd add ... Fog of War now works ...Edit: better screenie:
Edit2: finished fog of war (black areas == unexplored, dim areas == explored but no units can currently see it, normal areas show range of unit vision):
#9
10/29/2005 (8:02 pm)
If you want some terrain tilesets le me know. I can whip em up easily since my civ3 days. I think I even have a few terrain packs sitting around I never used. 
#10
10/30/2005 (2:50 am)
Civ games are great fun to play, looks like your making quick progress as well :)
#11
@Brian, catch me on IRC :)
Latest screenie:
10/30/2005 (3:36 am)
Yeh, progress has been a lot quicker then i thought :) Hopefully today I can get a combat system going and thus make the game actually playable. @Brian, catch me on IRC :)
Latest screenie:
Torque 3D Owner Xavier "eXoDuS" Amado
Default Studio Name
Looking good, your naffo coding abilities are showing off there :)