Old Mountains and Water

Reminiscing on our old mountain and water tiles before we update them to be brand new!

Update 6/24/10

- New Menu System
- Redone Player and Enemy Soldiers
- Multiplayer Added
- Resume Game Option
- Level Difficulties
- New resource counter
- New fortify option (allows regeneration of health and defense)

Random Terrain Feature Placement, New Graphics and More Aggressive AI

Check the screenshots below. We have added terrain features (just water and mountains for now) which cannot be moved over and are placed randomly on the screen in a manner that (hopefully) looks somewhat organic. Gary has created the graphics for the above mentioned terrain features as well as new factory and tank visuals. And the AI continues to get more aggressive rushing the gold flagpole and defending it throughout the game.

Scrollable Map, Better AI and Upgraded Attack Mechanics

The map has been doubled in size and the player can scroll around to view different areas of the map. The way attacking works has been changed as well and the AI is much aggressive in its play style now. It was a good day :)

i can haz iPadz?!?!?!?!?

The iPads finally came in today :)

Better graphics and new AI tactics

So as mentioned in the last post we are continuing to experiment with the AI and tweak the basic gameplay model. Below are screenshots of the game as of this morning and today we hope to add additional units and change the attack mechanics.

And a few turns later (I gave up)....

The computer is a much more formidable opponent now.

Computer Attacks, Better AI, Scrollable Map Soon...

So we had a few slow days preparing for and giving our presentation to the rest of the research groups. First of all the computer attacks back now and the tank unit has been implemented. Dr. Ramsey spent a lot of time today improving the computer AI and the computer is now a much more formidable opponent, but you can still win the game in less than 30 turns. Gary began to implement a scrollable view which will allow us to make much larger maps as well as zooming in/out.

Control Resource/Flag Points and the start of AI

I rushed to the enemy factory and found out that the computer is currently the ultimate turtle!

Build Queue

Up, Running and Bug Free. Built those soldiers simultaneously too!

Turns and Build Queue

Put the finishing touches on the Fog of War today, now the fog returns to any area the unit can't see. Got the turn system up and running today and tied it in with the build queue. Working on generating units to all the grids that touch the grid the factory is on and alert the user if a unit can't be placed on the map and preserve the build queue.

Line of Sight!

Fruits of my labor from last night. Fog of War! Light green are areas visible to the player. The blue square is a factory, the red square is a soldier unit. The pink squares are enemy units at the limits of the factory's vision.

Menu, Movement Rules and Fog of War

Today we added a permanent menu bar to the bottom of the screen where the user can issue units orders, end the turn and is presented with gameplay data (props to Gary, the menu is great). We then implemented movement rules that stop the player from moving any distance they want. We also made it so that the transparent box that shows where the unit will be moved to is not displayed anywhere it would not be possible for the unit to move. We then moved on to implement the Fog of War effect so that the player cannot see anywhere on the map that it would not be possible for their units to move to on the next turn. Unfortunately the game crashes before it ever displays anything on the screen, but I'm sure this will be resolved quickly next week and we'll have some sweet screenshots to show off. Until then...

Framework up and running!!

So we now have a basic framework established. A player can move red blocks around the map and create more red blocks with the blue block. I'm excited... Check the pics

END OF DAY UPDATE: You can now attack and kill other soldiers and buildings...balla!!!

Maybe we are onto something here??

http://www.quarterdown.com/Editorials/Can-the-iPad-Save-RTS-Gaming/

Makes a few good points about how generic RTSs have become and how control schemes based on touch could revive the genre.

What this blog is about

Hello, this is one of the team members for Washington College's 2010 Summer Research Internship (Otto Borden) in Computer Science. This blog is meant to be a journal of sorts in which the fours members (Me [Otto], Cory, Gary and Dr. Ramsey) can keep a "diary", if you will, of what we are doing here and keep a record of our progress. As of now (5/25/2010) we are beginning the basics of an Turn-Based Strategy game in which a player must capture all of the cities on a map to win. We are literally are on day one of this project and will keep those who are interested updated from this point.