Ender is the main character of Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game, training to be a military commander (in space). Part of his training is competing in the Battleroom, a large, null G room with a few cubes (or "stars") floating in it to provide cover. Two armies of forty people each enter on opposite sides of the room, then proceed to fire their light guns (which have both a sniper and a shotgun mode, and overheat) at eachother. When hit with a lightbeam for more than a split second, the movement amplifying suit they are wearing freezes in that location, limiting the ability to fight and ultimately stopping the wearer from moving at all. Victory is traditionally thought of as disabling all enemies and then completing the "victory ritual" of getting 5 people to the enemies entrance (or "gate"), but technically can be completed without disabling all enemy soldiers.
How is This a Map?
While it is impossible to make the game operate in three dimensions, an open area with square cliffs rising up serves well as the battleroom. As for movement, whenever the player's unit gets too far away from a wall (either of the room or of one of the stars), he kicks off the wall and floats through the air at high speed, until he collides with another wall. Combat is a simple top down shooter, using either a sniper skill (that deals low damage but travels a long way) or a shotgun skill (that deals high damage, but has limited range). Victory conditions could be set as either deathmatch or victory ritual (with a changeable required number of players completing the ritual).
How is it Unique?
The issue with top down shooters is lag and the insistence on using WASD movement. My map not only slows down combat considerably (by using energy to fire the gun), but with the null G movement, reduces the twitch reliance and virtually eliminates the annoyance of lag. Despite all this "slowing down" and "simplification", it will still be a fun, challenging, and tactical game. Shots fired don't hit the enemy instantly (they travel out in a straight line), so you must surprise them or intercept their course (as they cannot change course if they are floating through mid air!). Stars provide cover, as well as blocking view for sneak attacks. And the best part? While it will take relatively little to make a playable game, it has plenty of opportunity for updates with new skins, abilities, and tactical options.
Here's Where I Need a Partner
I am primarily a trigger man and the map has little requirement for terraining or custom ui, but I do need at least a couple skills. I have completed the terrain for a 1v1 battleroom, and gotten all aspects of movement and camera control finished (camera control is actually quite cool, it follows a point in between your mouse and unit).
While I will be finishing terraining (and regioning, and pathing) the other sizes of battlerooms as well as making my triggers multiplayer-friendly, all I need is a data editor to make a couple abilities. Exceptional skills aren't even required, although you must be able to at least make a shockwave type spell (much like a lurker's attack).
Please PM me if interested. I can communicate via Skype, phone calls, emails, etc. if necessary.
Edit: I would post a video of everything working, but I have no idea how to make one that doesn't lag like crazy (my screen recorder probably gets a solid 1 fps at lowest resolution and quality).
Updates:
I'm looking for someone to make a video of my map for me (as my computer seems to hate me). Its pretty simple stuff if you know what you're doing though. The map is in one of my next posts.
Thanks to Aczchef and SouLCarveRR for offering to help.
Shooting has been changed from a shockwave to a projectile skill.
Dead units are now made colorless and (if they were moving when they died) bounce around the battleroom for the rest of eternity :)
Live units now bounce around the battleroom (gaining speed after the first bounce or so) and must press W to grab onto the next wall they encounter.
Officially went alpha and then made a shitton of improvements.
Well, thanks to some awesome help from aczchef it may become reality! He offered to help me with the ability as he seems to love making data assets. Once that is taken care of, I will be very close to alpha release and will get to start testing!
Oh, and I've decided to change shooting from being a shockwave type skill to a projectile type skill (I thought it shouldn't pass through objects).
Here's a chef sent me. The first skill is pretty much exactly what shooting is going to be like. Which reminds me, if anyone would be willing to download my map and just jump around a little bit and make a video of it for my opening post, that would be amazing. The movement should be pretty intuitive, and as far as I know there are 0 bugs with the system (please point any out if you see one). I would do it myself, but I'm pretty sure my graphics cards are completely shot, so my best fps with a screen recorder is about 1.
Edit:
Removed the map, because I have an extremely updated version out.
Bump. And the game is getting very close to alpha testing. I just need to fix shooting a little bit (it will occasionally pass through stars and needs some animation work) and put in starting/victory conditions.
Officially went alpha! Got a couple people testing out my map, and it looks like gameplay needs a little shift. You will now fly slowly after you first jump, and when u hit a wall bounce off it and increase in speed (up to a maximum after 1 or 2 bounces). Hitting a hotkey will make you stick to a wall next time you hit one. This is to both increase the chaos and slow the game down (more bouncing around, but usually at a slower speed).
Other changes so far include:
Specialized camera movement lagged too much. Went with a very zoomed out unit following camera instead.
Most game ui is now gone. 3 status bars (shields, life, and "thermal" (inverse of energy)) now appear in bottom left corner.
Shields are being lowered from 25 (1 full hit) to 15. So being hit once now does 10% damage instead of 0%. 5 second delay for shield regen still applies.
Future updates:
Considering bringing back minimap and moving status bars to top right.
Need to implement short range shotgun type ability.
I may be able to help with this. I have some experience in the editor, and unless you made some changes in the most recent version, It appears that there is a ton of easy optimization you can make in the trigger editor. For example, You are not storing the player's location and motion vector in arrays, but rather individual variables, requiring you to make a ton of duplicate code. Also, I have an interest in this game, considering I loved the Ender's game series.
However, If you are not in the US region, there is little possibility of me assisting. (Possibly add that, and your bnet username and charactor code to your profile?)
Oh yeah, plz don't judge me on that stuff. Thats all just extremely janky "I wonder if this will work" easy to update/fix triggering. Before I went alpha I put everything in arrays and stuff like that (also got rid of the complicated camera movement, as I realized there was no way to fix it to be latency free). My main issue right now is the skill I am using for shooting. I just have tons of graphics issues and general bugs that are really annoying. I'm at a wedding right now, but I'll upload the map and describe my problems in more detail as soon as I get back to my desktop.
I'm back. Fixed a few bugs and started to implement the bouncing system for live units. Will upload map once I've done the Catch ability (you catch the wall instead of continuing to bounce if you hit the hotkey at some point in your flight). Unfortunately this means a trip over to the data forums for me (I really am terrible at data...).
Edit: And here it is! Units now bounce around all the time! Catch the wall by pressing W. It all works.
For those of you checking the map out, "-hurt" will lower your health, "-zap" will lower your shield, "-kill" will kill your unit, and "-look" will create an observer for you (try using look, then using kill while at top speed to see your dead unit bounce around forever (actually forever now, I fixed that bug). Turn victory conditions off first though.
Note that I think the flying speeds between testing single player and testing online are hugely different (havent looked in a while though).
Edit2: Fixed a couple more bugs and added "-reset", "-victory off", and "-victory on"
There is a few places where you can glitch out of the map.
There is an issue where you can fire out of a gate, but cannot fire in.
You sometimes have trouble grabbing a wall, and there is no visual indicator of the grab state, possible allow for it to be a toggle?
If you have a mouse wheel, you can screw up your camera angle. Can you lock the default camera angle and zoom in the game-play constants?
Can you post it publically so I am able to test it multiplayer when you are not online? I can certainly do it single player, even if the file is not posted here, but I can't do it multiplayer.
Ideas - Allow some kind of collision effects with other players, bouncing off of enemy players, and various things with allies.
Attach, Attacks you to an ally if in range somehow, giving both of you the same velocity. (average of your former velocity)
Push, has you and your ally push off of each other from an attach effect, You gaining velocity in the direction of the targeted skill, and your ally gaining equal and opposite velocity that you gain. This is added to the former combined velocity.
Both of these also work on frozen players
also both can work if you are holding onto a wall as well, push on a wall however allows you to use an ally to launch at full speed, via both of you pushing to gain it
If used on a frozen person on a wall, it will cause them to launch from the wall in the same direction as the angle between you and then (basically, push directly on them)
these would mainly be used to allow for more complex maneuvers to be potentially done while flying, especially in larger battle-rooms.
Thanks, and sorry for how short the testing session was (apparently everyone needed my attention right then).
I've noticed glitching out of the map when my triggers are messed up, but never when they are working properly. Can you elaborate?
That I was waiting on fixing until I actually get the round system (and victory ritual) up and running
Heres actually where I need some help. Since I can't show the applied behavior (with the game ui removed), how do I show that? I didn't want to make it toggle, because someone might press it multiple times and then forget whether it is applied or not (and not want to look in the bottom right).
Will get on that. Need to learn how to first.
Gimme a bit, I can't work for another few hours at least.
It occured almost exactly when you dropped/left before logging out (having to go, because everyone needed you, XD) I also managed to, if I fired at the correct spot in single player, to shoot through the wall. It may be a function of distance, meaning it may be a result of *frame skipping*, meaning that the check misses the point where the height changes. However, I do not know how the height change is detected, so I am unsure if this is the case.
Ah, OK
A few ideas would be to
Show a local overhead icon, such as the stim buff
Also make the icon be replaced with a different icon (like ghost cloak is)
One of the data editor sections has a bunch of gameplay constants. I can't remember what it is called atm.
Sure, I can wait till Everyone no longer needs you XD
Edit: The data editor section is called "Game-play Data" under "Camera Margin Aspect Adjustment"
Also, It would be possible to easily reveal the map via a trigger rather than an Observer, and also easily possible to toggle it via the same cheat.
Found "Camera Margin Aspect Adjustment". Looks like gibberish to me. Cant find any explanations either.
Decided to just lock the camera while your unit is alive and unlock it when it dies. Made a few updates and republished publicly. Will try and get a few more games going now.
Ok, This is what Happens when I am lazy and Assuming I know what I am talking about when In a hurry. Actually, I cannot seem to locate it (but assume it is in the camera settings under default camera), and I would need to experiment with settings to figure it out. And just locking the camera would work fine anyhow.
Alright, tried to fix the bouncing system a little bit and added a red lightning bolt (unfortunately on the marine instead of above) that indicates that you have pressed W. Updated document in opening post.
Well, for now I'm using the locked camera method, only issue is that it messes itself up if you use the mouse wheel while u are dead (fixes itself in a reset though).
Ender's Battleroom
Who is Ender and What is His Battleroom?
Ender is the main character of Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game, training to be a military commander (in space). Part of his training is competing in the Battleroom, a large, null G room with a few cubes (or "stars") floating in it to provide cover. Two armies of forty people each enter on opposite sides of the room, then proceed to fire their light guns (which have both a sniper and a shotgun mode, and overheat) at eachother. When hit with a lightbeam for more than a split second, the movement amplifying suit they are wearing freezes in that location, limiting the ability to fight and ultimately stopping the wearer from moving at all. Victory is traditionally thought of as disabling all enemies and then completing the "victory ritual" of getting 5 people to the enemies entrance (or "gate"), but technically can be completed without disabling all enemy soldiers.
How is This a Map?
While it is impossible to make the game operate in three dimensions, an open area with square cliffs rising up serves well as the battleroom. As for movement, whenever the player's unit gets too far away from a wall (either of the room or of one of the stars), he kicks off the wall and floats through the air at high speed, until he collides with another wall. Combat is a simple top down shooter, using either a sniper skill (that deals low damage but travels a long way) or a shotgun skill (that deals high damage, but has limited range). Victory conditions could be set as either deathmatch or victory ritual (with a changeable required number of players completing the ritual).
How is it Unique?
The issue with top down shooters is lag and the insistence on using WASD movement. My map not only slows down combat considerably (by using energy to fire the gun), but with the null G movement, reduces the twitch reliance and virtually eliminates the annoyance of lag. Despite all this "slowing down" and "simplification", it will still be a fun, challenging, and tactical game. Shots fired don't hit the enemy instantly (they travel out in a straight line), so you must surprise them or intercept their course (as they cannot change course if they are floating through mid air!). Stars provide cover, as well as blocking view for sneak attacks. And the best part? While it will take relatively little to make a playable game, it has plenty of opportunity for updates with new skins, abilities, and tactical options.
Here's Where I Need a Partner
I am primarily a trigger man and the map has little requirement for terraining or custom ui, but I do need at least a couple skills. I have completed the terrain for a 1v1 battleroom, and gotten all aspects of movement and camera control finished (camera control is actually quite cool, it follows a point in between your mouse and unit).
While I will be finishing terraining (and regioning, and pathing) the other sizes of battlerooms as well as making my triggers multiplayer-friendly, all I need is a data editor to make a couple abilities. Exceptional skills aren't even required, although you must be able to at least make a shockwave type spell (much like a lurker's attack).
Please PM me if interested. I can communicate via Skype, phone calls, emails, etc. if necessary.
Edit: I would post a video of everything working, but I have no idea how to make one that doesn't lag like crazy (my screen recorder probably gets a solid 1 fps at lowest resolution and quality).
Updates:
I'm looking for someone to make a video of my map for me (as my computer seems to hate me). Its pretty simple stuff if you know what you're doing though. The map is in one of my next posts.
Thanks to Aczchef and SouLCarveRR for offering to help.
Shooting has been changed from a shockwave to a projectile skill.
Dead units are now made colorless and (if they were moving when they died) bounce around the battleroom for the rest of eternity :)
Live units now bounce around the battleroom (gaining speed after the first bounce or so) and must press W to grab onto the next wall they encounter.
Officially went alpha and then made a shitton of improvements.
I don't have the skills you're looking for, but I loved that book and think this is an awesome idea! glglglgl
Well, thanks to some awesome help from aczchef it may become reality! He offered to help me with the ability as he seems to love making data assets. Once that is taken care of, I will be very close to alpha release and will get to start testing!
Oh, and I've decided to change shooting from being a shockwave type skill to a projectile type skill (I thought it shouldn't pass through objects).
@HamsterBoo: Go
Id be interested in helping as well
tell chef to hit me up if he gets stuck
@SouLCarveRR: Go
Will do!
Here's a chef sent me. The first skill is pretty much exactly what shooting is going to be like. Which reminds me, if anyone would be willing to download my map and just jump around a little bit and make a video of it for my opening post, that would be amazing. The movement should be pretty intuitive, and as far as I know there are 0 bugs with the system (please point any out if you see one). I would do it myself, but I'm pretty sure my graphics cards are completely shot, so my best fps with a screen recorder is about 1.
Edit:
Removed the map, because I have an extremely updated version out.
Bump. And the game is getting very close to alpha testing. I just need to fix shooting a little bit (it will occasionally pass through stars and needs some animation work) and put in starting/victory conditions.
Officially went alpha! Got a couple people testing out my map, and it looks like gameplay needs a little shift. You will now fly slowly after you first jump, and when u hit a wall bounce off it and increase in speed (up to a maximum after 1 or 2 bounces). Hitting a hotkey will make you stick to a wall next time you hit one. This is to both increase the chaos and slow the game down (more bouncing around, but usually at a slower speed).
Other changes so far include:
Specialized camera movement lagged too much. Went with a very zoomed out unit following camera instead.
Most game ui is now gone. 3 status bars (shields, life, and "thermal" (inverse of energy)) now appear in bottom left corner.
Shields are being lowered from 25 (1 full hit) to 15. So being hit once now does 10% damage instead of 0%. 5 second delay for shield regen still applies.
Future updates:
Considering bringing back minimap and moving status bars to top right.
Need to implement short range shotgun type ability.
Need to implement bouncing.
Round system will be added.
Game mode system will be added.
I may be able to help with this. I have some experience in the editor, and unless you made some changes in the most recent version, It appears that there is a ton of easy optimization you can make in the trigger editor. For example, You are not storing the player's location and motion vector in arrays, but rather individual variables, requiring you to make a ton of duplicate code. Also, I have an interest in this game, considering I loved the Ender's game series.
However, If you are not in the US region, there is little possibility of me assisting. (Possibly add that, and your bnet username and charactor code to your profile?)
@Ranakastrasz: Go
Oh yeah, plz don't judge me on that stuff. Thats all just extremely janky "I wonder if this will work" easy to update/fix triggering. Before I went alpha I put everything in arrays and stuff like that (also got rid of the complicated camera movement, as I realized there was no way to fix it to be latency free). My main issue right now is the skill I am using for shooting. I just have tons of graphics issues and general bugs that are really annoying. I'm at a wedding right now, but I'll upload the map and describe my problems in more detail as soon as I get back to my desktop.
@HamsterBoo: Go
OK, I understand.
I'm back. Fixed a few bugs and started to implement the bouncing system for live units. Will upload map once I've done the Catch ability (you catch the wall instead of continuing to bounce if you hit the hotkey at some point in your flight). Unfortunately this means a trip over to the data forums for me (I really am terrible at data...).
Edit: And here it is! Units now bounce around all the time! Catch the wall by pressing W. It all works.
For those of you checking the map out, "-hurt" will lower your health, "-zap" will lower your shield, "-kill" will kill your unit, and "-look" will create an observer for you (try using look, then using kill while at top speed to see your dead unit bounce around forever (actually forever now, I fixed that bug). Turn victory conditions off first though.
Note that I think the flying speeds between testing single player and testing online are hugely different (havent looked in a while though).
Edit2: Fixed a couple more bugs and added "-reset", "-victory off", and "-victory on"
Ideas - Allow some kind of collision effects with other players, bouncing off of enemy players, and various things with allies.
@Ranakastrasz: Go
Thanks, and sorry for how short the testing session was (apparently everyone needed my attention right then).
@HamsterBoo: Go
XD, I know what you mean.
Edit: The data editor section is called "Game-play Data" under "Camera Margin Aspect Adjustment"
Also, It would be possible to easily reveal the map via a trigger rather than an Observer, and also easily possible to toggle it via the same cheat.
Found "Camera Margin Aspect Adjustment". Looks like gibberish to me. Cant find any explanations either.
Decided to just lock the camera while your unit is alive and unlock it when it dies. Made a few updates and republished publicly. Will try and get a few more games going now.
@HamsterBoo: Go
Alright, tried to fix the bouncing system a little bit and added a red lightning bolt (unfortunately on the marine instead of above) that indicates that you have pressed W. Updated document in opening post.
@Ranakastrasz: Go
Well, for now I'm using the locked camera method, only issue is that it messes itself up if you use the mouse wheel while u are dead (fixes itself in a reset though).
I think you should make a thread in the project section BTW. This no longer seems like the right section for this thread.
Or ask for a thread transfer.
Alright, I made the thread in the project workplace section (rather hastily and lazily though). Posted your video too :)
Didn't know that forum even existed.