It has been a long week for me. A lot of stuff came up in my personal life that needed to be sorted out urgently. I’ve spent much of this week on the other side of the country chasing people for many different reasons. I lost 5 days this week due to that and when I finally got back I had all my usual stuff to catch up on, causing further delays.
This was all unexpected and I couldn’t have prepared for it, but I am sorry for these delays anyway. I am all too aware that my university course is going to start again soon and I know I need to get a lot of CCSO done before then. Everything IRL is sorted out now and my life is back to normal. I do have some interesting stories to tell though 😛
More Players!
On my travels I came across an old friend, a computer scientist. Back in early 2013 we spent a few months as friends and played games together. Our lives diverged after that due to our placement years and we haven’t spoken to each other for about a year and a half, yet when we met this week we acted as if we were best friends and had always been together. It was really weird…
Anyway, I told him all about CCSO and he was impressed, especially by the artists. He is a game developer himself and still uses circles and rectangles for his graphics. I have always wondered if our artists, Laura and Eld, are aware of just how awesome they are. While I have them, 99% of other developers have no one… It’s a sadly competitive world out there and I’ve only managed to get a leg-up by having this wonderful community of a multiplayer game as a startup.
Do any of you really realise how important you are to CCSO?
He liked CCSO a lot and is interested in trying it out. Told him it wasn’t ready yet but the forum version is playable and he wants me to get back in contact when a new game goes up. Lovely, another new player and another skilled user in the community… probably. He is a huge fan of games such as Mafia/Werewolf and The Resistance, so he will love CCS I’m sure.
Perhaps he will like the game enough that he will be willing to join us in the CCSO project? Like me, he graduates from uni this summer and will be looking for something to focus his time on. In terms of programming skill and experience, he is above me, but we can have a technical conversation without me getting lost, so in many ways we are on the same base level.
But even if he doesn’t want to join us, we both share friends with a number of other computer scientists and I’m certain we’ll be able to convince some others to play the game. Hopefully one or more of them will wish to join the CCSO team ^^
People say I’m too optimistic and that my ideas sometimes walk the border between reality and dream, but this attitude has gotten me this far already so I’m not changing 😛
New Concepts
Over the past few days, many new ideas have come to me, some my own creation and some from the devs I talked to.
1. Limited Game Mode
To make the multiplayer game more accessible to new players without them first playing the single player campaign, the number of components available can be greatly reduced. In Limited mode, the game is as normal except there are only a handful of chassis and weapons to choose from, and a digestible number of abilities to browse. Components will be chosen for their simplicity, unambiguous descriptions, and uniqueness. This will allow players to still experience much of the variety of CCS and learn the core game without being put off by the large number of components in the full game.
2. Component Statistics Neatness and Additions
The component stats page where it lists all components and ranks them in terms of damage per gold, range per gold, health per gold etc., could be setup in a large table with each column sortable. This would be a nicer display and allow a more interactive experience.
Additionally, a distribution for some statistics would be a great feature. Such as a range distribution for weapons, e.g. the number of weapons with 0 range, 1 range, 2 range, etc. Could help with players who create components, so they don’t make ones with insane stats.
Also could add the number of weapons that have less than x range. That way if you are say 4 range from an enemy, you can see how many weapons have 4+ range and so the chance of them being able to attack you.
Do this for all weapons and chassis for a variety of stats, and maybe something for abilities too (such as number of upgrades, average cost of an upgrade, damage per shot per round for offensive-type abilities and so on).
3. New Unit Creator Layout
I have never been happy with the way the unit creator has been. It is acceptable, but could be so much more manageable and fancy. Here is a possible future redesign of it:
(click image for full-sized version)
What you can see is at the top the components selected so far (Saboteur + B. Impact + Feint + Slot 2 + Slot 3), and the total gold cost is right of them. In the game there will be two buttons next to the gold, one for enhancements, and another to submit your unit. There will be a further button on the left of the top bar (left of Saboteur) that will let you view your unit’s stats. These buttons aren’t show in this picture.
On the left you can see a list of components. This is a scrollable list containing every component in the game, under headings. Components are highlighted red when incompatible (e.g. cost too much, or are air only and your unit is ground, etc.) and blue when selected [but the colours didn’t come out amazingly in the scan 😦 ]. Selecting a component puts it up in full in the right panel. The art and full text is displayed along with a button to select the component. If it can’t be selected, a message next to the button will tell you why and the button will be greyed out.
There will be a search feature somewhere on the page which will highlight components matching a search query in the list. This will provide a nicer experience and offer more choices for searching than the current system.
The words are only capitalised to make them readable on the page – my normal handwriting is pretty much unreadable – they will be written normally in the game.
Powered components are shown alongside the normal components. I know I missed out Mortar+, but you can see how it looks for Missile+ and Nitro+.
Clicking an equipped component at the top will display it in the right panel where you have the option of removing it from your unit.
Feedback welcome! 😀
The current unit creator was chosen because it was simple to code and that was where my skills were at during that time. It is actually very poorly coded and really isn’t that stable, although it does work. Since then I have gained so many skills and want to try something more advanced; but this will have to be in the future – right now I remain focused on getting the gameplay working…
Falcon Art
Just look at that contrast between the engines and the wings! Pretty awesome 😛 Thanks ElDromedario!
Speedy is also on its way and you can see a draft of it in the Concept Art section of the alpha site. Also done my best to reduce the loading time of images on that page (total file size reduced by a whoping 99.5%), although the very first time you load the page it will be a little slow.
More art is always on the way!
Finally
Turns out I am moving house again in a week’s time. (gosh Key, y u move so mush? Because I am going back to University. Being at Uni means moving a lot.) So yeah, I need to pack and organise stuff this week, but I will have time to get back on CCSO and hopefully bring you some real content next week! 😀
See you then!
I’m not dead. I’m not sleeping. Well… I was sleeping, but I definitely wasn’t dead, so put down your shotgun, I ain’t no zombie.
The remains of St Andrews cathedral. It really does look this good irl.
CC Survival 
