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Program Announcements / Firewall: Your Computer's First Defense - RTS - new demo released

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CPU
21
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 6th Jan 2005 23:36
hmmm... then maby you should release it as an education program for uncreative people???

Any other hazards that randomly occure(meaning not the white sphere's) besides the power surge?

CPU

[center]K-OS Battlefields
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The Game Programmer
19
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Joined: 4th Dec 2004
Location: Sitting, and waiting, and staring, and..
Posted: 7th Jan 2005 19:25
I think it would be really cool if you had some disaster robot. It could bring about destruction(in different ways than the wreckers) within the ranks of the enemy. I dunno, sorta like the priests in Empire Earth who could make volcanos's and stuff. I'm not sure how to make it more futuristic though. Volcano's on a motherboard don't exactly work out.

Well, I'm trying aren't I.....

When Life gives you lemons make orange juice. Then sit back and wonder how it was done.
Jess T
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 8th Jan 2005 10:46
Bolt, I was thinking too, ( rare, I know ), For the 'normal' game, you may have certain things that you want to protect.

Lets say that you get given a huge chip in your corner to protect. It may give you some advantage over your enemies, but if it falls, then you lose.

Or, possibly you get a really strong Wrecker that you can use and will bow to your whim, however, again, if it falls, then you lose.

I'm thinking along the lines of Blizzard's RTS's here, how they have "Raynor must survive" "Some Big Kingly Dude Must Survive" etc etc.

Jess.


Team EOD :: Programmer/All-Round Nice Guy
Aust. Convention!
CPU
21
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 9th Jan 2005 09:17
You know if you think about it that way, you might also be able to do somthing similar in the RTS portion of the game, like you might have to say, block the virus from penetrating to some specified squares for a specified length of time or maby or you have to re-capture some squares in a specific length of time, or control a certain amout of memory for a certain amount of time etc...
(another one one those rambling posts...)

CPU

[center]K-OS Battlefields
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Xander
21
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Joined: 3rd Mar 2003
Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 10th Jan 2005 11:25
I think that Jess was also referring to the RTS portion of the game...

Dang, those are really good ideas. Now I might have to redo some of the campaign mode Well, if it makes it that much better it is probably worth it. It wouldn't really be that hard either, I am just sort of feeling lazy today. Well, now I will have something else to do while I wait for my new motherboard model and music updates.

A couple more things I have done:
-All of the powerups are complete and work plus have cool sound effects
-A really stupid bug fixed that wouldn't let the player get past the second campaign battle...oops
-The display objects for the powerups are all done and look cool
-You can now "boost" vertically in the arena. The height you can jump depends on the mass of your robot

Things I still need to do:
-Perfect the music (waiting for new track...)
-Update graphics in arena (waiting for model...)
-Add a couple more interesting RTS battles...
-Give AI ability to use powerups in arena...

Not too bad. I may get this thing finished in a month...hopefully.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Major Payn
20
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Location: United States of America
Posted: 10th Jan 2005 12:17
How do you do the special effects? I am particularly enterested because I am about to reach that point in my own RTS, are all those cool special effects textured, ghosted, alpha plains?

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
Jess T
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 10th Jan 2005 18:06
Nice work Bolt

Keep up the great work, and I'm sure you will have a release in a month!

Jess.


Team EOD :: Programmer/All-Round Nice Guy
Aust. Convention!
dark coder
22
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Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: Japan
Posted: 11th Jan 2005 03:00
ill do the mesh on wednesday as i have mocks and all atm


Xander
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Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 12th Jan 2005 04:22
@ Major Payn: Yes, nearly all of the effects are just ghosted plains. The tricks are to find or create a good texture, use fading and scaling, and proper rotation.

@ Jess: Thanks for the hopeful compliments. I finally feel that this thing is getting close...

@ Dark Coder: That is fine, I understand that you have important stuff to do. Thanks again for the help, I couldn't model as well as you do.

@ Everyone who likes cool special effects:











I have kept at it, and got a couple more things done:
-The AI can now jump and use all of the abilities inteligentilly in the arena
-I am playing through the campaign and sorting out bugs
-I put the actual models of the robots in for the buttons for the robot selection, it looks a lot cooler.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Jess T
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 18:01
Sweet stuff there Xander!

It's definatly a whole lot different ( in an awesome way ) than the first version that I got hold of, many, many months ago!

It's great

Jess.


Team EOD :: Programmer/All-Round Nice Guy
Aust. Convention!
CPU
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Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 17th Jan 2005 08:39 Edited at: 17th Jan 2005 08:42
Very nice, I like the toned down charge-pads (shorter) much better i think than those realy tall ones. I can't wait for the next demo/beta cause i'm realy looking forward to trying out that new areana!

One question: will you be able to jump up on top of parts (like say some of the flat chips) or will it be like ther is an invisible wall or what?

This is starting to become one of the best games ever made with DBC!

[edit]How did you do the AI for the arena and for the battle mode? cause personaly(for me at least), it's a piece of cake to beat the AI on battle mode simulation with a medum sized bord, 10 dificulty level, and about 5 opponent viruses[/edit]
CPU

[center]K-OS Battlefields
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Xander
21
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Joined: 3rd Mar 2003
Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 18th Jan 2005 11:11
There should be a demo release within 1-2 weeks.

Actually, you can't jump quite that high. The lighter robots can jump higher than the heavy ones, but they still can't jump on top of parts. But the short chips are low enough that anyone can walk on them, you don't have to jump to get on top of them.

Yes, I agree, the computer AI is not overly intelligent...but it is different in the arena. You see, in the battle mode, everyone is working against everyone else, so the computer's don't really have an advantage when there are more of them. In fact, they have less of an advantage. In the campaign, there are a couple battles where the viruses are teamed up against you (you probably played them), but they are still not too difficult when on easy difficulty levels. The arena is a little different because when there are a lot of robots they can gang up on you because they are all on the same team. However, there are sometimes freak coincedences (quite cool though) that cause huge explosions which can cause chain reactions...so the arena has a little more chance in it than the battle mode.

Well, enough about that. I have to go fix an annoying bug so that the music system works again. I am remaking it so that there are seperate folders for the menu, arena, and battle music. Then you can add your music files to whatever folder you want so they play when you want. Pretty handy.

Oh yeah, I finally downloaded GIMP so I got around to fixing up the textures for the powerups. That is all done now...and one of the computer robots attacked me with a sonic wave today, it was awesome!

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
CPU
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Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 19th Jan 2005 06:39
I guess i was talking more about the nuts and bolts of the AI...

But like I was saying, there's somthing screwed up with the AI in Battle mode in the last beta you sent out, the AI in simulated Battle mode virtualy NEVER built hackers even on the most difficult level, all they build were drain and turret bases with like 3 implode drones on them... and when I'd attack them, they'd just create a few bots to counter attack which were quickly eliminated... I even managed to reach the maximum unit limit as well as the maximum drone limit, with all the drones on one wrecker, it was TOTALY AWSOME to see a hover wrecker with like 10 range drones 5-10 accuracy drones and about 30-40 power drones...
made for some pretty awsome special effects!

CPU

[center]K-OS Battlefields
IS
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Xander
21
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Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 22nd Jan 2005 02:59
Oh, well, I don't know what happened to the AI in the last beta...that was not good... Don't worry though, I am testing the game a lot more by myself before I release the beta this time, I don't want it to be buggy. I plan on giving this version to publishers.

About the AI in the arena, it is basically just the same AI as the wreckers have in the battle mode: they search for the closest target, strafe to avoid shots, etc. But the major difference is that they also see the static collision boxes of the objects so that they don't uselessly shoot them instead of the robots on the other side...

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
CPU
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Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 22nd Jan 2005 05:32
well, can't wait for you to release another demo/beta, it's realy comming along nice. BTW how do you go about publishing your game, and what company are you going to try to get it published with?

CPU

[center]K-OS Battlefields
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Jess T
Retired Moderator
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 22nd Jan 2005 16:32
Quote: "I am testing the game a lot more by myself before I release the beta this time, I don't want it to be buggy."


Don't get me wrong, but isn't that the exact reason you're giving the game to us Beta testers? So that we push it to it's limits, and act like stupid users, doing all sorts of things, to see if we can get it to slip up, and track down all those annoying error meesages



I too am eagerly awaiting the next beta ( Arena looks so nice now ! )

Jess.


Team EOD :: Programmer/All-Round Nice Guy
Aust. Convention!
Xander
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Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 27th Jan 2005 00:47
Just a little update on my progress with Firewall...

I have found a new source of music, and it is already all composed. It is really cool and really adds to the game. The music issue has been solved.

Dark Coder is almost done with my new motherboard model, after I put it in I will release a new demo and beta, yay!

And I made a new banner...

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Chimera
19
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Joined: 18th Dec 2004
Location: Belgium
Posted: 27th Jan 2005 04:00 Edited at: 27th Jan 2005 04:10
I can't open your site... It says in the bottum of my screen: site with restricted access (or something like that, it's in dutch and I translated it freely)

EDIT: ah, seems like a problem with internet explorer's security lvl

Don't eat yellow snow!
Xander
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Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 27th Jan 2005 06:39
Hmm...it still works for me. Are you on a school or work computer? You might be denying you access for that reason. Sorry I can't help more.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Techno Freak
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Location: New Zealand ... (Where?)
Posted: 1st Feb 2005 05:06
How did you make that explosion on the last screenshot? I have been trying to make an explosion like that for my fps.

Firewall looks awesome,
Sam Corbett-Davies
Xander
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Posted: 1st Feb 2005 07:14
Thanks Sam. Actually, the explosion on the last screenshot looks a little different because the robot exploded inside of the energy charger....but here is a link to an explosion generator I made a long time ago, it is the same method I use for Firewall:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=24518&b=6

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Cliff 3degs network
21
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Location: Sweden
Posted: 6th Feb 2005 17:25
the last screenshoots yust look awesome.
great work keep it up.

AMD ATHLON 1.8 XP WITH AN GEFORCE 4 TITANIUM 4600 (128 MB) AND 256 MB DDRAM (266).
Dark Chaud
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Joined: 5th Feb 2005
Location: portsmouth, england
Posted: 9th Feb 2005 04:45
this is just an idea but on that motherboard level, how bout being able to shoot of the heat sinc and fan, so the processor gets white hot and can be used as a trap

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