Hello!
I plan to make a 'boardgame' style game, very similar to the old Space Crusade game that was around for the Amiga.
Before I even think more about making this or advancing ideas on the mechanics of the game, I would like some advice regarding the following:
1/ Making it appeal to multi-players. This doesn't mean at the same time, just that it will be turn based.
2/ Dice randomisation.
3/ Moving from 'one space to another space' style movement.
4/ Line of sight system for ranged combat like tabletop games.
Exactly what advice do you need? All things you mention can be done in AGS, if that's what you need to know:
1) If you want actual multiplayer there are many ways to implement this. For a large-scale game I'd go the Civilization2 route: Just allow savegames to be traded via net. And I think there's modules too.
2) Easy: The Random command can do any sort of dice magic.
3) Absolutely possible, either by keyboard controls, grid systems...
4) Also possible but maybe a bit harder to code; here you'd have to provide some more information how you want to use LoS.
Thanks! That'll give me some things to consider for proper, just to make sure I'll ask the right sort of questions when attempting to code and design the game I had in mind.
The whole idea is to make this as much like a boardgame as possible, where you get to choose 'equipment', 'skill' and 'order' cards before a mission starts and the dice has symbols to resolve combats.
Concerning the LoS, since this will be a board grid system, divided into floors which the figures move along and the walls which they obviously cannot enter. So it is finding a way for me to show the relation between firer and target and if a wall is in the way then no firing can take place.
Oh, I remember that one! Those things can all be done in AGS, I used a grid in Operation: Forklift, and was experimenting with line of sight, but opted just to go for the "Advance Wars" way of doing it instead.
One way of doing it would be getting AGS to work out a line between the shooter and the target, then check every coordinate along that line to see if there's a wall there. If so, block! If not, hit!
Maybe not *extremely* helpful, but over at RogueBasin, where they build Roguelikes (where LoS is a core feature), some interesting articles can be found:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php/Articles#Line_of_sight.2C_field_of_vision
Thanks so much! That'll give me plenty to consider for now. :)