HAM (Rodent Consortium Update!)

[Frost]

Suggestions and bug reports:

-I'd drop the "move the mouse to the edge of the viewport to move it" aesthetic. It works well for non-game programs and RTS games, but not so much casual card games. You should probably widen the window (or shrink the tiles) until the player can see the entire playing field. Any computer capable of running this will have at least an 800x600 display, so you might as well make the window a little larger.

-The game won't let me buy something that would put me at zero money.

-I'm not sure whether I just selected a bunch of cripplingly expensive cards, but I couldn't place anything on my first turn. You might want to give each player a token amount of money to get the ball rolling.

-When playing against an AI, my cards are hidden unless I mouse over them. Presumably this is a holdover from the two-player version of the game.

-It would be nice to be able to see the special abilities of an enemy unit when I mouseover them. Some of the special effects are pretty bewildering unless you're familiar with all of the cards. I'd advise displaying an entire card when the unit is moused over, rather than just a small tooltip.

-Speaking of mouseover, it seems to be a little broken, at least for enemy units. The tooltip and the enemy's movement range seem to be displayed randomly rather than consistently.

-The A/S/C/R identifiers for the statistics aren't very intuitive. Might want to replace them with little symbols. A sword, an arrow, crossed swords and a pawprint, maybe?

[Ryavis]

Oh, on that note, it would be nice if it showed the attack range shadow of enemies on mouseover, to make dealing with ranged enemies require less guesswork.

[Somfunambulist]

I think probably the biggest aesthetic improvement would be to shrink everything down. This would require redoing most of the sprites for the units, but as far as the card images go I think the space can be better economized without utterly redoing all of the artwork. If everything was smaller, things would fit the screen better, and just be nicer to look at in general.
If you would like, I would volunteer to help with shrinking the unit sizes.

[Kazerad]

Aw, am I the only one who appreciates the size? I always hate it when these games make things too small.

Though it did take me a long time to figure out you had to click on the edge of the card to use it. Really, I think the biggest improvement would be some more feedback. Like, maybe a little "can't afford that bro!" when you click on a card you can't afford, some effect when you click on one you can afford and it switches to the placement mode, etc.

[Varkarrus]

Just before I talk about anything else, I'd like to point out that I decided that the boost for the wall is that you get 2 and they are immune to counterattack. If this is too much/too little I will rebalance them again.

okay well I uploaded the code!
http://www.freefilehosting.net/cardgamewar_4

What I really don't like about the code is that I have a different object for every unit and every card. The worst part is I actually know how to make them all work with only one different object, but at the time didn't feel like putting in the effort leaving me screwed later on, mostly because I was at a friend's house when this game was conceptualized. Pretty embarrassing, no?

I am totally okay with the idea of shrinking down the screen size, especially once I decide to make the move from the shitty sprites I have right now to proper, well-made sprites. Which is something I only want to do once I know I will constantly have enough support. (It would be not okay if I had a bunch of sprites made, but only enough to fix some of the units, then suddenly have the sprite-making fans run out of steam and leave me with a bunch of guys with cool sprites and a bunch of guys with bad sprites.)

The one problem with shrinking everything down is running out of room for those little attack/move buttons. Though I guess I can shrink those down too. I'd have to go through a bunch of code.

If you want I can get this moved to group art projects though, and then everyone can make sprites!

Oh yeah, while I'm at it:

Suggestions and bug reports:

-I'd drop the "move the mouse to the edge of the viewport to move it" aesthetic. It works well for non-game programs and RTS games, but not so much casual card games. You should probably widen the window (or shrink the tiles) until the player can see the entire playing field. Any computer capable of running this will have at least an 800x600 display, so you might as well make the window a little larger.
You can also use the arrow keys to move left and right, which is something I do more often. The actual width of the game is 1152 pixels, but I can halve the game's width.

-The game won't let me buy something that would put me at zero money.
This should be possible... I mean the code even uses a ">=" sign and stuff, so try checking to see if it's a specific card?

-I'm not sure whether I just selected a bunch of cripplingly expensive cards, but I couldn't place anything on my first turn. You might want to give each player a token amount of money to get the ball rolling.
This is a good idea. Plus I'm not sure I like the idea of starting with only 4 cards, so I'll probably set it back to 9 cards at start and give you 10$ instead of 5.

-When playing against an AI, my cards are hidden unless I mouse over them. Presumably this is a holdover from the two-player version of the game.
I'll fix this right away.

-It would be nice to be able to see the special abilities of an enemy unit when I mouseover them. Some of the special effects are pretty bewildering unless you're familiar with all of the cards. I'd advise displaying an entire card when the unit is moused over, rather than just a small tooltip.
Problem with this is lack of space. If you have a specific design in mind, I will gladly recreate it.

-Speaking of mouseover, it seems to be a little broken, at least for enemy units. The tooltip and the enemy's movement range seem to be displayed randomly rather than consistently.
I'll see what I can do.

-The A/S/C/R identifiers for the statistics aren't very intuitive. Might want to replace them with little symbols. A sword, an arrow, crossed swords and a pawprint, maybe?
This can totally be done, but daaaang that will take a while.

Oh, on that note, it would be nice if it showed the attack range shadow of enemies on mouseover, to make dealing with ranged enemies require less guesswork.
Currently, an unmentioned feature (originally a bug that I found to be useful) is that you can look at the move and range of a unit to see how far it can go. I think I will make it so that the movement and attack buttons are left in during the other person's turn so that they can still hover over it.

Really, I think the biggest improvement would be some more feedback. Like, maybe a little "can't afford that bro!" when you click on a card you can't afford, some effect when you click on one you can afford and it switches to the placement mode, etc.
I can totally imagine me recording my friend's saying things like "Yow, Pricey!" or "Can't afford that bro!" or "We're broke, damnit!" (if you are at 0 bucks in particular). As for the effect for when you DO buy a card, maybe it quickly scrolls to your side of the screen and plays a sound?

so yeah thanks for all the feedback and making me realize I'm a lazy arse.
I'll get right on adressing all of your ISSUES and CONCERNS
If there's anything I'm really good at it's going quickly.


EDIT:

Here is an alpha-alpha halved version screenshot:


Imagine this with better sprites.
I personally am not a fan, but it will probably look better fixed? Or I might need to get used to it???


Also I found a small peice of code I forgot to remove causing a bit of a thing that needs fixing, and the AI is currently constantly using one deck in particular. Gotta fix that :I

[Kazerad]

What I really don't like about the code is that I have a different object for every unit and every card. The worst part is I actually know how to make them all work with only one different object, but at the time didn't feel like putting in the effort leaving me screwed later on, mostly because I was at a friend's house when this game was conceptualized. Pretty embarrassing, no?

oh man you code like I do.

Imagine this with better sprites.
I personally am not a fan, but it will probably look better fixed? Or I might need to get used to it???

I'm not a fan either Was the scrolling really that bothersome?

You could just have an option for increased screen size. Like, kick it up to 1024x768, keep the sprites the same size, and spread the cards out more.

[Varkarrus]

ooh that I can do!

[Somfunambulist]

This is how I imagined it could look

Basically your cards would be displayed as icons on the far right, colored to resemble the full sized card in order to tell them apart. You'd click on the card you want to deal with, putting that yellow arrow over it. This would bring up the image from the card there in the middle, and display the information on the side. The font I used for those stats is pretty lame, but you get the idea. I also had the background be a more tinted red, because having the fully saturated red was sort of hard on the eyes.

[Varkarrus]

Okay.

THIS I like.

Still kinda unsure about the miniature play-area, but let's do this anyways.
The worst that happens is a lot of wasted time.

[Gjarble]

It's always nice to see fellow game-design bros here (I'm trying to have something up within the next few weeks- though my work habits are like a slower version of Valve Time). I love the game and am looking forward to seeing more of it. I did have some problems playing it, but that's probably because I'm on a Mac, running the game on an unofficial build of Wine. If that doesn't cause errors in translation, I don't know what will. For instance, the start screen is completely black for me, and I have to click the close-window button in order to start playing (more specifically, I do that to get the "do you want AI" box to pop up). I assume that's a problem on my end, or somebody else would've mentioned it by now.

There is one thing that I think might be a glitch in the actual game- not knowing how to deploy my troops, I started mashing all the keys on the keyboard at random and was suddenly endowed with a large hand (10-15 cards?) full of Circus Midget cards. I had no Circus Midgets in my deck (it was 5 each of Soldiers, Archers, Cavalry, and Cavalry Archers).

Are the rules of the game available anywhere? I think I know how it all works by now, but I can't find anything that says how to play. Is it accessible from the start screen and just impossible for me to access because of my aforementioned black screen problem?

I like the number of starting cards and money per turn as-is. I think increasing them would shift the focus of the game from strategic resource conservation to producing as many units as possible. I do think the players should start with more than $5, though... $10 or $12 seems good. Otherwise, many viable decks are unable to place any units on the first round.

[ProfessorLizzard]

As I have said some time ago, this is a rather nice game! Good job Vark!

Also I had an Epic Fight of an Oozite VS Momma Burger. It took forever.

[Varkarrus]

@Gjarble: Every single thing you mentioned is indeed a bug related to the fact that it's on a mac. There is supposed to be a help file that pops up at the start. Also, the version I am working on has the starting money increased to 10.

Except the circus midgets...
That was an easter egg that I partially programmed and forgot about xD.
(hitting P was supposed to remove every card from your hand and give you a full hand of circus midgets, only if you were facing the AI. It's a long-standing tradition with my games to make the P or the G button do something. Other traditions include succubi (for SOME reason???) and Dopefish.)

And at ProfessorLizard, Oozinites and Momma Burgers have some of the hugest potentials for epic in my opinion. I had an epic fight against a friend, where I had a hamsterking rocket trooper and a momma burger, and he had 2 oozinites!!! and 2 momma burgers!!! Plus I kept being retarded with my baby burgers, so he actually spared my momma burger so he could use her babies to regain health.

[Somfunambulist]

I'm glad you like it!
I played the game again last night and now I'm sort of unsure about the shrunken screen. I think its aesthetically nice to see everything at once, but it'd be a shame to toss some of the unit sprites that already exist, because most of them are great.

[Varkarrus]

yeah, I agree.
I freaking love the beast's sprite in particular.

But soon I'm going to start accepting fan-made sprites for this.

Also, I'm doing the X-TREME GRAPHIX OVERHAUL in 3 steps

Step 1: Shrink Everything
Step 2: New Card Area (as somfunambulist created)
Step 3: Fan-Made Sprites

During these 3 steps, the original will remain on yoyogames, and each step will be uploaded one at a time to this thread.

[Kazerad]

Step 1: Shrink Everything

I like Somfun's layout, but why not just make the window bigger rather than smaller? You wouldn't have to throw out your old sprites that way, and it would be easier to see the characters/easier to click the command buttons. If someone really uses a resolution smaller than the game's ~600x600, that one person can just live with it being automatically scaled down.

[Varkarrus]

I'm going to continue shrinking everything for now, just to see if it works. I have the backup saved.

[Somfunambulist]

as far as the button placement goes, you can move the arrow and x buttons to the empty space in the hud

[Varkarrus]

That is probably not as good an idea, then you'd have to click on the unit, then click on the buttons down on the H.U.D.
I tried to make the whole unit-y-move thing work efficiently so you don't have to wait ages for your opponent to move.

[Frost]

Is there any reason you're sticking with the current window width? It seems unnecessary and restrictive. A wider window would give you the benefits of "you can see all or most of the field at once", without the downside of "everything is suddenly tiny".

[Varkarrus]

Well, one of the reasons is so that it can fit on my own window, but I very recently had an idea to make a button to switch window widths.

[Varkarrus]

Okay so it's turning out that switching window widths in game is actually needlessly complicated. ARGH.
On the other hand, I went and added 3 new units, and started working on Somfunambulist's suggestion.
There are now 9 cards, in a box. Hovering the mouse over them will show the actual card.

Unit details:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Arachne (unique) 16
HP: 18, A: 4 S: 2 C: 4 R: 3
Knockback
Paralyzes

Hamsterkin Brute (13)
HP: 12 A: 1 S: 3 C: 1 R: 1
Gains 0.5 attack and 0.25 counterattack for every damage they take

Cavalry Mage (7)
HP: 5 A: 3 S: 3 C: 2 R: 1
Pierce (-1)
Sidewind

[Miff]

This game is nice in concept, however:


The UI graphics need improovement, especially the select card screeen.

So far the only tactic that seems viable against the AI is "zerg rush".

It should be easier to move a unit, especially over multiple squares at once. (Solution: click a unit and then click the destination square?) This especially conflicts heavally with the "zerg rush" theme.

You should be able to cancel playing a card. Also, it should be easier to see where your territory is.

The keywords on the cards should be explained somewhere. (I could go into a long and legnthy rant about keywords in card games, but I'll save that for somewhere else. Long story short: Of what I've played, MTG does it best and Chaotic does it worst.)

Perhaps add a scrollbar to the card selection screen and make the arrow an obvious "ready button", not "oh, is this a poorly-made scrollbar?".

You should be able to see the stats of your units in play by hovering over them.


Pretty unique game though, and some of the cards gave me a chuckle. :3

[Varkarrus]

This game is nice in concept, however:


The UI graphics need improovement, especially the select card screeen.

I agree with you on this one. Very much so.

So far the only tactic that seems viable against the AI is "zerg rush".

Pretty much every tactic is viable against the AI. It's really not a great AI.

It should be easier to move a unit, especially over multiple squares at once. (Solution: click a unit and then click the destination square?) This especially conflicts heavally with the "zerg rush" theme.

You can! Shift+Left Click!

You should be able to cancel playing a card. Also, it should be easier to see where your territory is.

This is something I want to try doing eventually.

The keywords on the cards should be explained somewhere. (I could go into a long and legnthy rant about keywords in card games, but I'll save that for somewhere else. Long story short: Of what I've played, MTG does it best and Chaotic does it worst.)

Well, there is a tutorial thingy, but yeah I should make it easeir to tell stuff like Sidewind and Pierce

Perhaps add a scrollbar to the card selection screen and make the arrow an obvious "ready button", not "oh, is this a poorly-made scrollbar?".

I can do that, not really sure what to do to fix the ready button, though.

You should be able to see the stats of your units in play by hovering over them.

This can actually be done. In exactly the same way you described it

Pretty unique game though, and some of the cards gave me a chuckle. :3
Thanks!

Yeah I'm not great at UI and stuff because this is like, the first game I made that I want to have get popular, and all of my other games were either experiments or things to play with my friends or just little stressbusting minigames.

[Gjarble]

Triple-comment time! My thoughts are underlined.

So far the only tactic that seems viable against the AI is "zerg rush".

Pretty much every tactic is viable against the AI. It's really not a great AI.

Man, and just when I thought I must have had a really good all-Daeva strategy going... I really need to play this against a friend.

You should be able to cancel playing a card. Also, it should be easier to see where your territory is.

This is something I want to try doing eventually.

Miff, what do you mean by "easier to see where your territory is"? Should there be a small map in some corner of the UI just showing the colors of all the tiles?

Perhaps add a scrollbar to the card selection screen and make the arrow an obvious "ready button", not "oh, is this a poorly-made scrollbar?".

I can do that, not really sure what to do to fix the ready button, though.

I would suggest moving it to the right of the screen (gives it more of a "going forward" feel) and putting the word "ready" or "go" on it. Maybe make it something other than a triangle, so it's less easily confused with a scroll button.

You should be able to see the stats of your units in play by hovering over them.

This can actually be done. In exactly the same way you described it

While true, you have to hover over a very specific, unmarked part of the square, at least for me. I have trouble finding it sometimes.

Pretty unique game though, and some of the cards gave me a chuckle. :3
Thanks!
My favorite is Fleep. He's just so happy.

Also, another suggestion with regards to UI: Reposition the health bars for the walls at the ends of the map so you can see all of them at once, instead of each wall covering up the one on the row above.

[Varkarrus]

Ah yes, minimaps. Not only are minimaps planned, but somehow, I'm thinking of doing a massive "instant replay" of the game at the end.

True story about the Fleep:
My friend sent me a couple graphics and cards, and included amongst them was the Fleep, doodled onto an unnamed, unmarked card. I came up with stats, flavour text (try rightclicking on a card in the selection screen :P), and drew a sprite.
My friend laughed a lot when he found it was added.