Castle Vox alpha testing

Synchronized-turns strategy. Calling all teamers.
Post Reply
User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Castle Vox alpha testing

Post by dustin » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:18 pm

Castle Vox is the tentative title of the next Sillysoft game. It is a world-domination game similar but also very different from Lux.

Gameplay: Every player plans out their recruits and attacks and moves during the same time, independently of each other. When all the moves have been declared (or the time limit is up), the orders from every player will be revealed together on the map. Then any conflicts are resolved according to the attack/defence values of the units involved. This is similar to how the gameplay of the Diplomacy board game works.

The goal of the game is to capture all the Castles for your team.

There are bonus Continents, and each country can also have an individual bonus.

The map included with this prototype is Alpha Hex. The "Join Game" button will try to join a host I'm running with 24 hour turns.

Since everyone goes at once in Vox, a player is never waiting with nothing to do. Also, it means that a game with a large number of players doesn't have to take a lot longer then a smaller game. The reason I've resisted expanding Lux beyond 6 players is because it would increase the waiting time between turns. Having everyone go at once routes around this problem nicely.

The game also supports teams. You will be able to move your units into friendly countries, and defend/attack with your teammates.

The gameplay means that games could hopefully be played quickly. It's also expandable into longer once-move-a-day games. If the time limit for a turn is set to be 24 hours, then every user can login once a day and declare their moves, and check back the next day to see the results.

You should be able to play the game. The "Join Game" button will try to join a host I'm running with 24 hour turns.

Does it make sense? What do you think of the game mechanic? Join the multi-player game and let's see if it's any fun.
Last edited by dustin on Sat Feb 27, 2010 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
nimrod7
Clown Prince
Posts: 9685
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:51 pm
Location: Under the big top
Contact:

Post by nimrod7 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:18 pm

Just popped in before work, but it sounds good.

User avatar
Lantern
Lux Superhero
Posts: 4080
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:18 am
Location: Floating down the river

Post by Lantern » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:59 pm

well dustin i had a few minutes after i got home from work to give it a go.

the game seems real interesting. It took me a bit to not think "Lux" and before I knew it the bots were killing me.

a few observations...

i think that the recruit box should pop up each turn to remind you to select new troops.

also while selecting troops i had a difficult time differentiating which troops I was selecting.

i noticed that the type of troop or castle "greys" out when you don't have enough to purchase. Is it possible to have the selection you chose be highlighted or maybe flash. When you click and there is no action it gets a bit frustrating (not trying to sound harsh)

another observation...

i started with the center castle - is there only one entrance to each castle? I assumed there was but then red attacked me from the north where i thought was protected.

i will try again maybe tomorrow and give more feedback.

Overall I think it's a great concept. Is your thought to have this a game without chat? or with chat?

User avatar
Enokrad
Dark Spawn
Posts: 3367
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:16 am
Location: New York
Contact:

Post by Enokrad » Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:18 am

Hey D,
interesting concept.

after playing a little i noticed a few things.

1) there is no option to resize the map.

2) the info box is not full size (it has a scroll bar) - this is on a win7 OS

3) when recruiting from the castle some times the recruits never showed up next round.
not sure if i was doing something wrong or not. (gold points were removed but as i said, not soldiers appeared)

also it would be nice to have a small help file (for the testers) explaining how to play it (what exactly each soldier/horse/castle does exactly)

i found myself attacking with 4 horses and 10 soldiers against a castle and just lost everything

4) needs an undo move or something to that extent.

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:01 pm

Thanks for the feedback so far! I've added some things to my To-Do list from it.

The plan is to eventually add in some of the lux things that are currently missing from vox: map resizing, emotes, etc.
Enokrad wrote:3) when recruiting from the castle some times the recruits never showed up next round.
Can figure out a way to reproduce this? i.e. does it happen only in certain circumstances? Vox has a log file like lux, send it to me with this happening if possible (and hopefully near the start of a game, so not a ton of other noise in there)

You can Undo moves by right-clicking on them. This might not be the final interface for it, and there will definitely be a c-Z keyboard shortcut to Undo.

User avatar
Odelay
ooodelayheehoo!
Posts: 2124
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:51 pm
Location: Yonder...

Post by Odelay » Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:56 pm

Right clicking moves all armies for me.

Is there a setting I am missing for adjusting the timer in single player, preferably off?

Thanks!

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:57 pm

I think at the moment that right-clicking will undo IF you right-click on top of an existing move (but the click detection isn't the best yet), otherwise it will place all units.

There's no way to set the timer right now.

I found some bugs in the server, so I restarted the multi-player room with an updated version. Me and Ode played a few rounds there, and it was working well, until it hit an error in one of the bots, which crashed the game. I restarted it again, and if we fill it with humans we should avoid that bug. But I guess it's possible for some bots (Nemo and Capitalist i think) to crash single player games also. fyi.

User avatar
mbauer
Not A Truck
Posts: 3959
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:59 pm
Location: Tallahassee

Post by mbauer » Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:21 pm

When my team mate and I are on the same space it is very hard to distinguish which one is which. I think it would help if all units I cannot control are either grayed out or 75-50% smaller than mine (similar to how they appear when you move or first place units).

User avatar
Mike
Lux Townie
Posts: 5662
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:42 pm
Location: Alabama
Contact:

Post by Mike » Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:31 pm

mbauer wrote:When my team mate and I are on the same space it is very hard to distinguish which one is which. I think it would help if all units I cannot control are either grayed out or 75-50% smaller than mine (similar to how they appear when you move or first place units).
Good idea - or perhaps colored to the players color.

User avatar
Mike
Lux Townie
Posts: 5662
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:42 pm
Location: Alabama
Contact:

Post by Mike » Fri Feb 12, 2010 11:06 am

Ok - im referrring to 'Babylon' here with specific Game play - but I have 2 questions/comments -

1. Would it be too difficult to allow one player to control - Egypt, Saudi and Pakistan, but moving them differently, and not combining the income?

I like having 3 different armies, each dependent on their own income, rather than re-vampin the map to have one player in 3 areas. This would allow more challenging gameplay -

Say for example in a different map setting. Each player can control 2 or 3 castles - or countries if youlike - with each 'Castle' producing it's own income - and not benefitting from ownership of another.

2. If this scenario is possible - Could then one could use forces to take over a new castle - but then the forces from that castle are responsible for gaining their own income -

The rule might be - Any new castles are tied to the forces that occupied that land to build it - and therefore, one could extend the range of one's income by building new castles... but Castles that are conquered - took over - would be like taking control of that castle, or act more like controlling that country - similar to how Egypt, Saudi and Pakistan all work together on Babylon, but they are different countries?

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:39 pm

I've thought about letting 1 human control all the players on a team, but it would require some reworking of the internals.

User avatar
mbauer
Not A Truck
Posts: 3959
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:59 pm
Location: Tallahassee

Post by mbauer » Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:19 pm

Will Vox have the ability to have 2 human players play on the same computer?

Right now the map decides how many players there will be. Will users ever be given control over that?

User avatar
Lupus ferox
Creator of Maps
Posts: 668
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:51 pm

Post by Lupus ferox » Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:39 pm

This is a great game. Especially the recruiting from castles only and the opportunity to install new castles make it a very strategic game. I'm not good at it (yet).

To me all the units make it look complicating, especially in team mode. Castles and knights only i would say, with more clearly distinguishable units in team play. Something with colors or so......

The attack arrows seem to be on the foreground, i mean they aren't as clear as i like. I would propose simple one-line arrows with the amount of armies half way the arrow, clearly floating on top of the map.

The game isnt as dynamic as Lux to me. Especially in bot mode. I guess it would improve when playing with people. Probably because you can move only 1 or 2 steps in one turn. ..


Overall: wow....

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Sun Feb 14, 2010 5:36 pm

mbauer wrote:Will Vox have the ability to have 2 human players play on the same computer?

Right now the map decides how many players there will be. Will users ever be given control over that?
I'm not sure.

User avatar
mbauer
Not A Truck
Posts: 3959
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:59 pm
Location: Tallahassee

Post by mbauer » Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:28 pm

Did the server go down or something? I was just about to wipe all of you out and now it's appears to be stuck.

I think Dustin is cheating and he should be banned.

:)

User avatar
nimrod7
Clown Prince
Posts: 9685
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:51 pm
Location: Under the big top
Contact:

Post by nimrod7 » Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:47 pm

I'll get right on that truckerB.

User avatar
Drifter
Semiholy Rambler
Posts: 6770
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2005 5:06 pm
Location: An undisclosed location... for reasons of security, and therefore... insecurity...
Contact:

Post by Drifter » Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:19 pm

He went to go watch live Curling I bet...

--------------------------------------

When I did try multi-player games, the room was empty... dang my schedule... I'll try again soon.

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:56 am

it looks like the multi-player server may have crashed, I can connect to it, but it doesn't show chat anymore.

PS: yes, I went to a live curling match today. It was awesome.

User avatar
Lupus ferox
Creator of Maps
Posts: 668
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:51 pm

Post by Lupus ferox » Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:53 am

I can't recruite

User avatar
mbauer
Not A Truck
Posts: 3959
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:59 pm
Location: Tallahassee

Post by mbauer » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:15 am

dustin wrote:it looks like the multi-player server may have crashed, I can connect to it, but it doesn't show chat anymore.
Same here. I can't recruit or move anything and the only button is "bonus"
dustin wrote:PS: yes, I went to a live curling match today. It was awesome.
Seriously? Did you think: "Man, this is just like that awesome map that Drifter and MB made!"

:lol:

User avatar
Mike
Lux Townie
Posts: 5662
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:42 pm
Location: Alabama
Contact:

Post by Mike » Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:14 am

dustin wrote:
PS: yes, I went to a live curling match today. It was awesome.
Wow, I'm envious. I've watched more curling this year than anything else. I have to say, I'm a fan. We don't have anything like that down here that I know of. The closest thing is shuffleboard - :P

User avatar
Marauder
Midnight Luxer
Posts: 493
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:34 pm

Post by Marauder » Sun Feb 21, 2010 12:40 am

Curling is awesome, there is no other event in the olympics that I can think of where a slightly overweight bald man nearly cries because he misses an important shot.

And I am saying that in a good way actually, it may not be the most athletic event, but I dare say it is the most strategic event in the winter olympics, and you can cut the drama with a knife.

My favorite event this Olympics, although the speed skating has been pretty good as well.

P.S. I just stumbled across this forum, I have downloaded Vox and look forward to checking it out :D

User avatar
dustin
Lux Creator
Lux Creator
Posts: 10998
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 2:01 am
Location: Cascadia
Contact:

Post by dustin » Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:00 pm

FYI, I took down the crashed multi-player server. I'm going to put up another one with a fast timer in the next few days.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 57 guests