I'm currently toying around with a board game, and I want to capture that look-and-feel of recent games like the WoW/Doom/Settlers boardgames, where you play with plastic miniatures of some detail.
So, without much ado, here's the set of pieces- each player will have a Warrior, Sorceress, Archer, Rogue, Priest and Barbarian at their disposal, and I tried to create them as cast miniatures. Unfortunately, I have little experience with that "metallic" style.
(http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/8165/arcanepiecesbg6.png)
Here's a screenshot too, to show the minatures in their "natural environment".
(http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6398/arcanedebugfo3.png)
Any suggestions, feedback and paintovers are extremely welcome!
edit: added description of game mechanics
I'd like to explain that concept a bit because it's easy to crit too, and maybe we can make that a joint effort.
Arcane
"Duells between Wizards are commonplace, be it for land, knowledge, power or sheer
boredom. These days, Wizard Duels take place in the Combat Grounds, a magical landscape
where Wizards pit their champions against each other."
Goal of the game:
To either conquer or destroy the opponent's Tower Of Wizardry.
Gameplay:
Each game starts with an empty Combat Ground and both players owning a tower placed in their Stronghold. Initially these towers have 20 "hitpoints". Players can add mines, pylons and quarries to the Stronghold to gain gold, mana and stone.
In each turn, players can put down a land tile in the Combat Grounds. Land can be placed only on tiles adjacent to the player's tower or land he already controls. The amount of land boosts the amount of resources a player gains each turn.
In each turn, a player may buy and place a champion on land he controls. The game's units have individual Power (damage dealt), Life (er... life) and Movement Points (how many fields they may move). They also have an individual attack range- the Knight, for example, is slow, has good life and high power, but may only attack his adjacent tiles. Rangers, on the other hand, can't attack their adjacent tiles but have a range of up to 3 tiles in total.
Combat happens when two champions are in "Combat Range". Damage dealt by A is counted against B's life. Defeated champions are removed from the Combat Grounds, but can be resurrected. Players can also purchase "spell cards" to cast on their champions.
Endgame
Once both Strongholds are connected by land tiles, champions may attack the tower as soon as they are in Combat Range, or can attempt to "storm" the tower (moving directly on its tile). A tower has 20 hitpoints but can be reinforced.
Other features
The land tile a champion is standing on affects his stats. Wizards, being firebased, are more powerful when standing on "lava tiles". Barbarians gain additional "defense" while on "mountain" tiles. There are a total of eight different terrain tiles, and players draw them at random from a box or may buy a special land with their resources.
Spells can be cast on champions (by means of "event cards") to buff them up or even alter their Combat Rance. These spells are lost when a champion is defeated and resurrected.
Players can also cast spells that affect the overall gameplay by adding rules like "No Rogue can attack this turn", "Knights cannot cross water" or "Players can't gain stones from their quarries".
love the look...
love the concept...
love the style...
love it!
I might suggest making the colored "bases" of the miniatures taller by 2 or 3 pixels. It took me a second to see how the colored "sides" were denoted!
I haven't the time (here at work) to do a metallic paint-over on the sprites but you're pretty close ... just need some bright spots!
I'm not wild about the font choice "red player your turn" ... but it's not a deal-breaker either!
Good job!
Interesting concept and lovely board!
The miniatures are detailed and a pleasure to look at, but it's a bit difficult to discern wheter they fight for the blue or red player. Have you ever thought of making them of two different colours? If you like a metallic style you can choose bronze (or copper) and iron/silver, etc!
Thanks a lot- with pixel art, changes can be done quite fast, so here...
(http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6320/arcanepieces2kw8.png)
Added a few lighter spots, and made a larger socket.
@bic: I wanted to add coloured "details" at first, but then an even better idea came to mind. Since this is written in pure C++ with Allegro as the "graphics motor", it's not to hard to include a "Paint your miniature" screen, allowing you to add layers of colour at your heart's desire. As I said, this is to be a "true" board game sim. And who hasn't admired the craft some people perform on their Warhammer minatures ;)
@darth: Does my heart a lot of good to strike such a response with such a small pic! The font, well, is not final :)
Game concept added to first post
I'm growing more and more interested after reading about the game mechanics. It seems the game will start "slow" and positional to end in a more tactical way (if you have ever played chess you'll sure get what I mean).
I'm interested expecially in the first fase ("building" the board). How many different tiles do we have to choose from? I currently see three of them, with water having the obvious functionality of creating a "wall". What about the other two?
As a sidequestion: have you thought about AI? Minmax will surely do for the endgame, I see more difficulties for the opening fase.
Thanks for the interest! Let's have a look:
(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5973/gameboardkx3.png)
We have:
Lava, River, Grassland, Plains, Desert, Magical Ground, Icy Mountains and Burnt Ground. No land tile is exactly a "wall/border", but each tile can be part of the odd tactic.
For example, Lava is of the element fire, and the Sorceress will have a more powerful, magical attack as long as she is on a fire tile. Water is the element of the priest- as long as he stands on a water tile he will have increased defense. And so on; I must admit I'm trying out quite a lot of things here at the moment: The Rogue is an extremely weak champion, for example, but can counterbalance this with her ability to the the bonus from all adjacent tiles, instead of the one she's standing on. I'd also like to have the Ranger have a "better shooting range" when on mountain tiles. But this system must be transparent to the player, and mustn't be too complicated.
Obviously, a player can try to shape the land to his advantage- by creating, say, a narrow bridge and moving his champions so that the opponent can't safely cross it ;D
AI is planned and will eventually become a feature, but right now I'm content with allowing "hotseat".
Great work there, ghost. I really like the style, simple but lovely and clear. And I'd love to play that game.
Regarding the gameplay: Is there a finished map at the beginning of the game and the players just transform it to gain some advantages or do they form the landscape that is empty at the beginning?
And it seems that there'll be (interactive?) objects on some tiles, like that pyramid. That would be cool.
Interesting use of AGS. Good work so far! :)
Check out the TCP/IP plugin and you can have live 2-player!
Quote from: SSH on Tue 08/07/2008 13:31:41
Check out the TCP/IP plugin and you can have live 2-player!
:o :o We have such a thing???
SSH is making advertising of the new module/plugin TCP/IP in AGS Forum :P
Your game feels great, the minis are ok (the head of the barbarian less...).
You thougth about make some variety to the miniatures? Well; You gonna break your ass scripting the game, and the only miniatures the player is gonna to be are Six. Yes, You can do a lot strategies with that... but you can make a bigger number of miniatures... with the same rules.
Example: Making Female-Male versiones. (As the board game Dragon Strike, Inexplicably it has a female and male thief.... :S). But six miniatures in female-male version, created at random, and with random name, will kick more ass and create deppest in the game. You can see that the wizard generates a being that thougth hi lives for his own reasons but is only a pawn in the wizards plan to destroy the other wizard.
Another thing is the Monstrous miniatures, in two ways:
-One side has monstrous miniatures, and the other human miniatures.
-Monstrous miniatures are an upgrade of the human miniatures.
Example:
Figther: Orc
Ranger: Lizardman
Rogue: Tiefling
Barbarian: Minotaur
Luck with the game ;)
Quote from: Ghost on Tue 08/07/2008 14:42:38
Quote from: SSH on Tue 08/07/2008 13:31:41
Check out the TCP/IP plugin and you can have live 2-player!
:o :o We have such a thing???
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=35018.0 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=35018.0)
Looks great by the way. I'd love to have a go at playing this game! More updates! MORE! ;D
This could be something really good!
I love the style and concept of your game, I miss the battles on Heros games and it reminds me of that!
good luck
Wow! I love this!
I love all kinds of board games and this one looks/sounds spectacular! I am looking forward to this... I want to play it now :'(
The only C&C I can think of is (besides what Darth has already mentioned - good eye, Darth!) the text you are using to tell which player turn it is.
I think it's too red, too big and maybe a little too "dynamic" (and a little too "cheap flash game-ish). The other text you see on the screen is very basic and white, which is perfect. It doesn't seem to fit in to me - and may be distracting to an extent.
I suggest maybe using symbols instead of text to tell which player turn it is. Maybe colored boxes (isometric of course - or maybe not) clear (or even faded) when it's not your turn and colored when it is. I think symbols would fit in a little bit more than any text.
But anyway, fucking awesome shit you've got going on here!
--Snake
Quote from: Ghost on Tue 08/07/2008 14:42:38
Quote from: SSH on Tue 08/07/2008 13:31:41
Check out the TCP/IP plugin and you can have live 2-player!
:o :o We have such a thing???
We do. Thanks to scotch. He is a hero!!
Here's my edit of the fighter:
(http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb259/khrismuc/_redraw_gho-1.gif)
3x
Shiny! That's a great one, will try that... Thanx!
I really liked KhrisUMCs edit, but I didn't think it was very intimidating! So I tried to mess around with it and utterly failed...
However I figured I'd put it up and Khris can berate me and maybe inspire you to make the fighter more of a TOTAL badass! =D
(http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll183/QuestionableQontent/fighter.png)
I like the idea of adding some decoration to the armour, so thank you for putting it up! I think I get your idea of an intimidating warrior... maybe a cloak would also help.
If I can crank up the code I will totally support "user-made bitmaps" and allow players to make their own tilesets...
This looks totally awesome. Promise me, that after you get it finished, you'll send the concept to some boardgame producer and try and sell it :)
I was going to try and make some paintovers of all the little figurines, just for laughs. It feels a bit sad only the fighter get's modified, and alone that, might probably make it stand out a bit too much. Then... I realised I still lack a graphics program after formatting my HD :(
Quote from: Tuomas on Fri 11/07/2008 21:34:29
This looks totally awesome. Promise me, that after you get it finished, you'll send the concept to some boardgame producer and try and sell it :)
Promised!
I'm a bit surprised the Fighter's so popular too. Pers'nally I like the Rogue best. But don't worry, they'll all get their details... detailed.
IMO the barbarian and the preist need to be touched up, the other two need two be polished and thfighter needs to be a fighter instead of a royal guard! =P
SO edits incoming:
{space reserved for edits}
The rogue:
(http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb259/khrismuc/_redraw_gho_rogue.gif)
3x
I picture the pose for the Sorceress with her facing south, levitating with her arms opposite from each other. As if the forces of gravity and wind work for her.
I really like the look of the Rogue edit. The dark shadows give it the look of pewter figures. I don't think the base is tall enough still. Maybe a light red over the top of the base to make it look like a tinted metal. The colored features would be good too, like cloaks or something.
I like the rogue the best too. I'm excited to see how this plays out.
I think the colors could use more contrast, and I've made an edit of your priest to show what I mean.
1. Redesigned the priest to look more like a 'medieval' priest to fit with the other designs.
2. Took several colors from a photo of an actual pewter figurine and used them to re-shade the character, focusing mainly on highlights and shadows to bring out the dull metallic look of pewter.
(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/figurine.gif)
(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/figurine.gif)
Hopefully this helps!
I have to say, although I like the style of ProgZ's sprite, it looks a little 'fuzzy'. I much prefer the bold style that KrisMUC has used in his edit.
I was imagining the priest with a longer cape or a cloak, what's the word? And I was looking for a missing cross, but it's in the hat, right? I first thought it was a crown. Perhaps a little less detail on the head area would in fact make a more proper game... I was just thinking, it might come too messy, as with the fighter, who was pretty decorated at some point.
This looks really good! Great concept!
Looking at what KhrisMUC did in response to Darth's post, I think it might be appropriate to give the red base of the sprite some functionality. A couple of suggestions:
- The dark red side could and act as health (or mana) bar. It could start off green and turn red as the enemies eat away your energy.
- The light red side could change color as you move, to highlight the fact that the cell your standing on affects your abilities. For instance, it could go blue when you're on water. Also, during the player's turn this part of the base could animate in different shades of blue to show that he is the active character.
Just my two cents.
Actually, I nicked the base from Ghost's own edit. :)
Apologies then ;)
Aussie: Great suggestion all the same- especially the "health bar" makes perfect sense. I think that would be quite useful to have; my first idea was to bring up an "info sheet" when a miniature is touched, displaying all of the stats and modifications. I will try out how the health bar performs :)
I also managed to get the GUI working:
(http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2980/gamescreenkopiefn6.png)
I appreciate your interest and the amount of responses, all the same!
Those pieces look great indeed, the style *vaguely* reminds me of ... MUNCHKIN! The best card game EVAR
The main reason I posted was response to Questionable's edit. That looks rather ... questionable, if you look at it wrong, like he has a really big...*sword* :p
It's shaping up quite nicely, Ghost! :)
A few suggestions (I think some may have been mentioned already, but forgive me, I haven't read the entire thread :))
-the sprites could use some higher contrast
-the environment tiles could use less saturation; when the sprites are on top, they lose a lot of visibility
-adding a slight hue (instead of a pure greys) would look more attractive, I think. I'm not a fan of pure grey, the eye craves colour! ;)
-this is entirely subjective, but I find the colours of the GUI a bit drab. I made a quick edit:
(http://crabshackgallery.com/edits/ghost.gif)
-I warmed up the tones and increased contrast so things are a little more matched up.
-removed the pure grey
-made the wooden slats of the background bigger. Assuming this is a table, having the slats so small messes with the scale of the board, I think. The edit scale isn't ideal either, but it's just to show what I mean :)
Hope this helped, good luck with the project! :)
Quote from: MashPotato on Sat 19/07/2008 02:48:05
Hope this helped, good luck with the project! :)
Mash, aww, that surely helped! I'm learning a lot of new stuff here, be it palette- or sprite related. Thanks for all the tips; I'm sure I can put them to good use!
The decks of cards, means that will be random card stuff? or not? a random-card stuff will be interesting (sorry if you said it before, i dont see it >_<)
Quote from: Hollister Man on Fri 18/07/2008 23:26:38
Those pieces look great indeed, the style *vaguely* reminds me of ... MUNCHKIN! The best card game EVAR
The main reason I posted was response to Questionable's edit. That looks rather ... questionable, if you look at it wrong, like he has a really big...*sword* :p
Everything I do is of questionable... something. It's part of being unique! =P
Thatnks for the shout-out man!