Worklog for RifRaf
Tiny Tanks
Return to Worklogs
| ||
| Tiny Tanks is starting to get some attention in the small corners of the net. A review on gamershell.com , adwords ads are now active and a few gaming forums have about 5- 20 people playing a day. Not all at once yet unfortunatly, but theres hope. just take a look at the leaderboar now, last week there were 3 on it http://tinytanks.empowergames.com/leaderboard/  http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| Well, Tiny Tanks got a big promotional piece in a mmo blog site in brazil www.mmoblog.ro Im very happy that even though these players so far away are connecting with 200 - 400 pings or worse, that the netcode is holding up and allowing them to play a pretty smooth game in most cases. Some extremely latency connections of 900 - 1200 ms can timeout but thats to be expected. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| I've decided to go the free route with Tiny Tanks, after being snubbed by a few publishers for either not having a single player campaign or multiplayer requiring too much support. Im not entirely dissapointed by this, because they were right. It will require more support for many reasons as well as require a player base to make it any fun. I can still put some ads on my website wich players will visit to see leaderboards and such, and Tiny Tanks will make a nice little portfolio piece. ill be spending some money on advertisement now to get the word out and see if it goes anywhere. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| Been a long road , about 10 months so far ! :) The experience of sticking in there and not giving up has been really great. Im glad im still working forward to my goal. I have a new website up http://tinytanks.empowergames.com New addtions and changes to the game are.. Tiny Tanks now has 6 classes soldier, scout, bomber, marksman, juggernaut, and pyro Gnet code has been extended to allow player name and pw , as well as leaderboard data. So while you can have differnt stats on every server, your name will be your own. For example, there will be only one player who can be Rifraf , on all the TT servers. I thought this was an important feature to make the leaderboards worth while. Thats it for now, check out the new site!! http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| I'm still pushing forward with this title. Recently added moving platforms , wich was trickier than I thought it would be to sync up.. simple interpolation for platforms across the network still had some artifiacts I had to work out. Race mode is in , atm im doing some house cleaning on the dedicated server. Clustering packets where I used to handle them indivudually, as well as adjusting scoring and ranking in modes like control point & race. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| .. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| Tiny Tanks is getting closer and closer to a full multiplayer game. Destroyable scenery is in and working great , ive spent the last few days tweaking it some more and getting more map options in. I think there should be things happening in a map besides what the players are doing so I added what ive described below. I have added several map options, wich are tweakable per option type in the map editor . First main class is teleporters, predifined scenery objects represents the teleporter visual representation. In the map editor you can drop a teleporter class, and define wich team can use it. If its a source pad, or destination pad. Also you can set if the player can do both ways or only from source pad to destination pad. You can drop damage areas, assign particle effects to them and tell them wich teams to effect as well as put them on timers or intervals. Also you can create the same effect for "special" actions. So far all the predefines I have are listed below.. Each defined type can be tweaker per map by the editor Damage (either pos or negative.. hurt/heal) Slow Speed Invisible Spring (toss the the player if they touch it) Here is a shot showing the damage areas put into action on am map in the form of fire chambers that turn on for 20 seconds, then off for 5. You can also see in the distance some blue things. (not a good shot of them) but they in 10 second intervals slow you down , while displaying the effect of wind cmming to them. (a magnetic ripple). The possibilities with just hese few classes are pretty neat. This shot was taken in "performace mode" wich limits effects, draw range and removes the toon outlines.  http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| Things are progressing steadily. Today I tacked a strange movement glitch that, when triggered caused a player to click across the playfield instead of move smoothly. I still have no dedicated server line to test with , so all my testing is still on a private network. I also added alot of functional improvements such as ).when you cap a flag, it returns to its base but can no longer be picked up right away.. Instead there is a 30 second window that it cannot be grabbed. This has a visual cue of the flag being mostly transparent on its base. I was concerned with cap trains, where one person waits on the base when another caps. ). I have taken a recommendation and added soft shading to the game, removing the flat look it once had.. Screenshot below. ). Many small improvements I could bore any reader to tears with , so I wont detail them.  http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| I was able to get a mild multiplayer test in with 5 people. This was on a local private network so pings were very good. The movement was as expected, pretty smooth. But I did find out what I need to change next. 1. When struck with an EMP you slow down and cannot fire for awhile. The victim of this attack needs an immunity to another attack for a duration longer than the effect itself. I found out that you can be grieved by chain EMPs There also needs to be a visible cue to show you are now immune to emp and/or under the effect of one. otherwise it looks like a bug when a tank is moving half speed with no indicator why. 2. Land Mines need a small delay to "Arm" themselves after hitting the ground. immediate detonation if an enemy is nearby makes them too powerful with their huge damage and radius. 3. Sniper Cannon needs quicker reload times. and slightly higher damage. 4. Weapon sight for sniper and repair blaster should have longer view range. 5.Voice Sounds somtimes play very loud, some time they dont play very load at all.. Have to track this down later. I should be able to complete those changes pretty quickly. heres a video of tonights test. The videos here are of my two young children trying to take me on, they are used to consoles and have to get used to keyboard + mouse controls, they are also 5 & 9 yrs old. So ya.. i pwned them hard. My 5 year old son derek and I were the last two in the game, and decided to have jumping "follow the leader" contest. EDIT: all the above modifications are now in the game. http://www.empowergames.com/ttmultiplayer.wmv http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| New demo available http://www.empowergames.com/TTALPHA2.ZIP has destroyable scenery and new spring tracks powerup. i just linked it so im hoping to see someone log in today, or post if they have connection issues. The active server on the list is - REMOTE EEPC -- the others are private internal servers here http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| Today I completed the destoyable scenery. In order to keep the network traffic light, and still allow user moddable scenery obstructions I created a theme, wich is around the map there may be Holographic Shield Generators. Each generator has adjustable health and once placed in the map editor can have any scenery object attached to it anywhere on the map. When the players attack the generator its health bar will go down , when its destroyed all scenery attached to it will fade out.. while the generator burns in flame for the preset amount of time.. Then it will restore its health and the scenery fades back in. I will post a small video of it in action later today in this worklog. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |
| ||
| ive been a member of the community here since Blitzbasic 2D was the only thing on the site, and this is my first entry here. Well Tiny Tanks was originally conceived to be a multiplayer online game that kids could play without being subjected to blood and gore. My son being my motivation who loves to play games with his old man. Progress so far is 85% complete at a quick guess. With the following features CTF Gameplay Solid Netcode in tests so far Server Lobby Online persistent player stats per server 5 weapons 3 powerups Cartoon Lighhearted feel, with no tramatic violence. -- however--- Competitive design allows players to have fun and enjoy winning Here are some movies from the game, just me running around by myself. This movie shows a power up I added in the last few hours I was considering how bland things could get if the only way up to a platform was to always take the ramp. So the springtracks were born. I tested them multiplayer as well and they work great, just the variance I was looking for. Next thing to do is complete is detroyable scenery modifications and special ground tiles that can cause damage, slow you, or repair you when driven on. about 3 meg http://www.empowergames.com/springtracks.wmv about 14 meg i think http://www.empowergames.com/TTbeta.wmv and some current screenshots   I have everything tested on local servers, but I need to test them out on a real public server. Wich im having problems with because my DSL modem is set up with a dynamic line. At any rate this has put my public testing back a bit so im back to internal local testing and creating new features. http://tinytanks.empowergames.com Free Mesh Particle system for B3D. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2442 |