I never released anything - I failed to beat the popularity system and the current player count/length restrictions/no WASD controls online make it not worth doing for me.
Still I spent a long time on several maps and here are my findings:
- Core mechanics first.
- If you need a lot of triggers, use functions and split them up as much as possible. You want to be able to reuse them down the road and make quick and easy modifications. Large triggers end up turning into copypasta and spaghetti code.
- If the player has access to multiple units, implement exactly two of them so you can test whether the unit selection code works. If there are several enemies, implement one of them. Etc. Leave the creative work for the very last - unless you have everything flawlessly planned in advance, you'll have to modify or scrap things and it's much easier to adapt two units instead of 20. Not to mention placing doodads before you are 100% convinced about the map layout.
- User friendly! User friendly! Use unit and UI tooltips. If a building does something, make a tooltip that tells the player what it does. Don't make them click on everything and see if it does something (ahem SotIS). Another little convenience is colour coded upgrades: upgrades that go together have the same icon colour. If you think your upgrades are logical and make sense, play some HoN and look at the shop. They thought their item layout made sense, too.
- Polish. Missing wireframe tooltips, units that shoot missiles from the ground, ugly UI, ...
- The terrain. It doesn't have to be crammed with graphics but at least it should have more than basic cliffs and a handful of doodads. At least use texture blending.
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I never released anything - I failed to beat the popularity system and the current player count/length restrictions/no WASD controls online make it not worth doing for me.
Still I spent a long time on several maps and here are my findings:
- Core mechanics first.
- If you need a lot of triggers, use functions and split them up as much as possible. You want to be able to reuse them down the road and make quick and easy modifications. Large triggers end up turning into copypasta and spaghetti code.
- If the player has access to multiple units, implement exactly two of them so you can test whether the unit selection code works. If there are several enemies, implement one of them. Etc. Leave the creative work for the very last - unless you have everything flawlessly planned in advance, you'll have to modify or scrap things and it's much easier to adapt two units instead of 20. Not to mention placing doodads before you are 100% convinced about the map layout.
- User friendly! User friendly! Use unit and UI tooltips. If a building does something, make a tooltip that tells the player what it does. Don't make them click on everything and see if it does something (ahem SotIS). Another little convenience is colour coded upgrades: upgrades that go together have the same icon colour. If you think your upgrades are logical and make sense, play some HoN and look at the shop. They thought their item layout made sense, too.
- Polish. Missing wireframe tooltips, units that shoot missiles from the ground, ugly UI, ...
- The terrain. It doesn't have to be crammed with graphics but at least it should have more than basic cliffs and a handful of doodads. At least use texture blending.