2725. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) –
04 Aug 2005 16:47:49
[ What I do ]
Yep, a fine film... |
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2724. Chris Wass (207.227.21.162) –
04 Aug 2005 15:08:45
[ What I do ]
Have you seen Dirty Pretty Things? |
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I'm not at all trying to discourage discussion.. keep the ideas comin', if you like, just know that I probably won't add any new tiles for a month or so... |
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Agreed (but you did ask for it! ;) ). |
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These are interesting suggestions, everyone.
Remember: the name of the game is simplicity; the general design principle is that of putting together simple building blocks to make complex behavior. Simple things are easier to implement, too.
There are some technical reasons why some of these things won't work. It's not possible to push regular tiles on top of anything except for panels, because of a lack of foresight almost ten years ago. It's not possible to give a moving thing a destination, since there is a single destination per grid space and it remains the same.
Although turning tiles into holes certainly seems "realistic", I think it's a bad idea because holes are pretty useless. That is, it seems like there'd hardly ever be any reason to destroy a tile. At least, that is my opinion. I think 'rough' would make some sense too and be more useful, since you could at least walk over it.
I want to add more things that can be triggered with wires, but I generally think these should not be 'single-use' things like detonators or electricity-off buttons. Part of the tension of wires is that you send out pulses in every direction, so pressing a button can force you to activate more than one thing, or one thing more than once (which can have good or bad consequences). Activating single-use things seems thematically wrong, but that's just a vague sensation I get.
Perhaps the easiest route is to make a bomb a kind of bot (sedentary, like broken or sleeping bots). Bots can be pushed on top of things, and bots can be "activated" (like exploding or moving) from afar. This would have a few drawbacks: first, the number of bombs would be limited. Second, there would be a few oddities; standing on a bomb would kill you, and daleks would walk right on top of bombs (turning them into broken bots) instead of pushing them. You wouldn't be able to push them "into" walls, rather, they'd be activated by a timer (this is good if there is a blast radius, anyway). But mostly I think this makes sense, at least, more sense than what I can imagine with regular tiles... I just can't see a good way to implement them as regular tiles.
Anyway, I'm trying to make changes/additions to the game slowly, so let's see transponders become cannon before we get more crazy stuff... |
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Sorry for all the clutter, but I've got some more bomb suggestions:
I think a bomb should target one tile as the "epicenter" of the explosion. When exploded, this tile should become a hole, the player should die if he is on this tile, and any bots (including dead bots) should be vaporized as if they moved into electricity.
There should also be a blast radius of one tile that doesn't change any tiles, but kills the player and turns living bots into dead bots (dead bots should be unaffected). This blast radius could also trigger chain reactions with other bombs.
Since four different directional bombs is probably not desirable, maybe they could be able to be pushed on top of any tile except one occupied by a bot or player (though I don't know if they should be impervious to electricity? Probably not.)
As far as activation, maybe rather than a detonator activated by buttons like lights, they can be detonated by an independent detonator tile that blows up any bombs within a certain radius when pushed, maybe 4 tiles or something like that.
[One more thing, maybe bombs should target tiles as panels and teleporters do???] |
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2717. Tom 7 (h-72-244-70-115.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) –
04 Aug 2005 10:24:18
[ What I do ]
Yes, a German just recently suggested Princess and the Warrior to me. It's on my list.. |
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ok i'll have to check it out.
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2715. Max (qu-advlan110.quinnipiac.edu) –
04 Aug 2005 09:48:34
[ What I do ]
The live action/stop-frame animation/bizarre puppetry version of Faust is great. |
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2714. julian (c-67-170-236-18.hsd1.ca.comcast.net) –
04 Aug 2005 02:51:38
[ What I do ]
If you enjoyed Lola Rennt, then you should also probably check out Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior, why they reversed the English and German I'm not sure). It's not quite the same type of movie, but it's the same director and lead actress as Lola Rennt. I very much enjoyed it. |
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2713. Tom 7 (h-72-244-70-115.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) –
04 Aug 2005 01:02:55
[ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]
And the original DOS version of Escape was written in QB. ;) |
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2712. mjn (pool-68-161-213-167.ny325.east.verizon.net) –
03 Aug 2005 19:39:31
[ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]
Oh, and Brandon: I'd recommend QBasic (or its cousin QuickBasic) for learning how to program. It's downright ancient by now, but it still runs fine on Windows. (Well, Windows 2000, anyway; I haven't tried it on XP but I'd be surprised if it didn't work.) The only problem is that it no longer comes with Windows, so you might have to find it on the internet somewhere.
Anyway, it's very easy to use and there's a lot of stuff built in (graphics, particularly) that could be a pain for beginners in a more modern system. Also, the help system is great--I learned the basics of programming almost entirely by browsing through the help and reading the examples. |
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2711. mjn (pool-68-161-213-167.ny325.east.verizon.net) –
03 Aug 2005 19:25:52
[ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]
Ooh, I like the idea of bombs creating holes. Makes a kind of sense that there should be some kind of "damage" to the level, and you could still use them to clear stuff out from between transponders.
Although I guess they'd be no good for going through walls, unless you also had a gray block handy. |
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2710. QMJ (63.170.55.63) –
03 Aug 2005 15:16:31
[ What I do ]
The Apple
http://www.mgm.com/title_title.do?title_star=APPLETHE
Yes, that's Menahem Golan of Golan-Globus/Death Wish fame directing. |
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I like that idea.I found a websit that any of you can visit if you want to mkae your own game! |
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2708. QMJ (63.170.55.63) –
03 Aug 2005 15:03:18
[ Score! ]
In late 2004, well over a year after the services were performed, my wife and I kept receiving not-a-bills from our insurance company for an MRI she was given in 2003. Everything on the statements indicated that we owed nothing including the words "YOU OWE" followed by a box that contained "$0.00". Then, we starting receiving threatening phone calls from a collection agency who, when we insisted that whatever problem existed was with the insurance company and not us, said, "Don't be a deadbeat. Just pay the bill." One simple call to our insurance company confirmed that we had paid our share, but unfortunately, by the time we sorted it out and called the collection agency back, the woman who accused us of being deadbeats had mysteriously disappeared into the corporate ether. Hopefully it was a permanent move.
Money returned freely from a medical establishment... Isn't that a Chance card in Monopoly? |
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Back to the bombs discussion.
What if you had a few different kinds of bombs -- up, down, left, right -- that you could push around with the same rules as a red block, and that blow up one tile in the direction they are labeled with. You blow them all up by pushing a button that sends a signal through wires (or transponders!) to a detonator (detonator : blow up bomb :: blue light : change state of blue tile).
In any case, I think the explosion should turn its target tile into a hole (thus when targeting a hole, it can "fall through") and kill the player and any bots on the tile.
Well there's my two cents! |
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i figured out how to beat transponders, and thanks for the advice! I appreciate it. |
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2705. Tom 7 (h-72-244-70-115.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) –
02 Aug 2005 09:06:04
[ What I do ]
Oh, yeah, now we're talkin'. |
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2704. Marc (c-24-91-40-167.hsd1.ma.comcast.net) –
02 Aug 2005 08:38:38
[ trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and alone ]
Sorry for getting some things misunderstood, Tom. I think after reading through the 20-odd comments, I started to lose track of what your original message... |
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2703. Marc (c-24-91-40-167.hsd1.ma.comcast.net) –
02 Aug 2005 08:37:37
[ What I do ]
Creating Rem Lezar |
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2702. jetfuel (c-67-170-103-132.hsd1.wa.comcast.net) –
01 Aug 2005 22:04:25
[ Score! ]
My lawyer sister in law says that when you get silly medical bills like that, you should call them up and say that you're not going to pay it, or at least to demand an itemized list of what the charges are for. Most times you'll end up paying a lot less than what's printed on the not-a-bill. |
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2701. Tom 7 (h-72-244-70-115.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) –
01 Aug 2005 19:15:52
[ What I do ]
Oh yeah, I forgot about Interface. I need to dig out my VCR... |
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2700. Brian (gs134.sp.cs.cmu.edu) –
01 Aug 2005 18:52:26
[ What I do ]
I think you should watch "Interface" (1984), because it has creepy/funny <a href="http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/pictures/interface3.JPG">costumes</a> made from tinfoil and discarded computer parts. And because I lent it to you several years ago. |
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Hi Brandon. I'm not sure when the next version will be released; I usually just accumulate fixes until I think that the number of fixes and improvements outweigh the burden of downloading a new version.
You should be able to get back your old player and levels by just copying them from the old computer. Levels are usually saved in the "mylevels" subfolder of escape. You can just copy those over. Your player file is called (something).esp, and it's in the escape folder--if you copy that to the new computer's escape folder (make sure you don't overwrite a player file of the same name on the new computer; rename it if you need to), then you can import it from the player list.
I made this game by programming it up in C++ using the SDL (http://libsdl.org/). I don't think that's the best way to learn programming, and I don't really recommend C++ to anyone. I've been programming for a really long time, so I'm not sure what the best resources are today for learning to program. Maybe somebody else has a suggestion?
As for transponders, are you talking about the tutorial level? If so, my only hint is to remember that transponders are pushable... |
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