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Castle Vox alpha testing

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:18 pm
by dustin
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.

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:18 pm
by nimrod7
Just popped in before work, but it sounds good.

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:59 pm
by Lantern
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?

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:18 am
by Enokrad
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.

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:01 pm
by dustin
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.

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:56 pm
by Odelay
Right clicking moves all armies for me.

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

Thanks!

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:57 pm
by dustin
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.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:21 pm
by mbauer
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).

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:31 pm
by Mike
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.

Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 11:06 am
by Mike
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?

Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:39 pm
by dustin
I've thought about letting 1 human control all the players on a team, but it would require some reworking of the internals.

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:19 pm
by mbauer
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?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:39 pm
by Lupus ferox
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....

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 5:36 pm
by dustin
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.

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:28 pm
by mbauer
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.

:)

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:47 pm
by nimrod7
I'll get right on that truckerB.

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:19 pm
by Drifter
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.

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:56 am
by dustin
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.

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:53 am
by Lupus ferox
I can't recruite

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:15 am
by mbauer
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:

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:14 am
by Mike
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

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 12:40 am
by Marauder
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

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:00 pm
by dustin
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.