Pirate King [alpha]

[doktorfinkelstein]

after playing too much minecraft i wanted to do 'something like it', i.e. persistant and grindy, but it had to be an RTS because i love 'em and it would let me get away with 2D.



* play the game: http://apps.gamejs.org/pirateking/alpha/
* source: https://github.com/oberhamsi/pirateking-gamejs
* a gameplay video (without sound): http://vimeo.com/36223841

a short weekend later, i had the obligatory perlin noise generator pumping out landscapes. which turns out to be the tinyist problem of them all. i spent more time tweaking the noise *rules* to output what i wanted (most of the time...) than implementing the noise algorithm.

the landscape generator now churns out islands with (mostly) interconnected regions and forests & hills in between. it also puts a couple of shop buildings on the map and the enemy spawn portals.

besides that i dug out ye'old boid classes and slapped A* behaviour on the flocks. which is neat! because A* would give you "rough", edgy paths, but the flock behaviour on top of it smoothens it out "for free" (CPU...A* is why i needed webworkers).

during the week i always found time to hammer out the gameplay: you start as the captain with one pirate under your control. you have to survive 9 waves on enemies, which get increasingly stronger and more of the throw-rockets-straight-in-your-face type.

besides the fighting, you hire pirates with the gold you find or get for killing foes. the gold is also well spent on throw-able bombs, or at a doctors to fix up the captain for the next wave.

now how is it an RTS? not much, but in this first version you can at least toggle your pirate squad between "follow me and shoot everything" and "stay here and shoot everything", which also gives you the emergent order "come to me and shoot everything in between".

so that's about it. it has a 5 different enemy types, two weapons for the player, sound and even shows you statistics about how awful you did, when you die

it's fun for roughly 16 minutes, which is about the time you need to play it twice. i overshot my target of making a 5min fun game and am content. if i'm super lazy, i might wait this one out: i think by summer all browsers should play it well and i can tune the gameplay until then and maybe even add protect-the-convoy-missions.

[kiba]

Sound like you accomplish this more in a few weekend then I did in 3 month in my game project!

[domasx2]

Love procedural world generation!

Currently I get to around 7th wave :P Could not figure out a better strategy other than to buy pirates and rush into enemy waves. Grenades feel clunky to use with unclear effect :/
What gameplay mechanics do you have in mind to allow for increased skill cap?

What's the story fo the game? Who are the bad guys and why are they trying to kill the poor pirate?

Where are teh sources? :P

[doktorfinkelstein]

hi guys,
thanks for trying

Currently I get to around 7th wave :P Could not figure out a better strategy other than to buy pirates and rush into enemy waves.

yeah head on is good. the only other tactic is this:

* stop your entourage (with SHIFT)
* move your pirate king so the enemies are between the entourage and the pirate
* then call the entourage back (SHIFT Again) - thus having your pirates run straight at the enemies

if the pirates attack 'head on', when running towards you, they attack better than when the just follow you. if they follow they scan their surroundings erratically, but if they have a direction they'll mostly look forward thus attacking more efficiently (assuming the enemies are in front of them).

Grenades feel clunky to use with unclear effect :/

i think i need a marker which shows the throwing ark. grenades are pretty strong and imo essential for killing the red rocket-throwing enemies and the machine-gun blobs.

What gameplay mechanics do you have in mind to allow for increased skill cap?

i want to go in the RTS direction. you should be able to control 2-3 groups, possibly with different attacks.

and i should really use the landscape more. i want to make exploration more worth while: have different shops for the three kinds of things you can buy (pirates, bombs, health).

What's the story fo the game? Who are the bad guys and why are they trying to kill the poor pirate?

i have no idea yet any suggestions? i'm mostly constrained by the art i find on oga

Where are teh sources? :P

i need to put them onto bitbucket. i hesitate b/c i haven't gone through the art to figure out if the licenses all compatible (the important stuff like units, tiles are)

[domasx2]

hi guys,
thanks for trying
if the pirates attack 'head on', when running towards you, they attack better than when the just follow you. if they follow they scan their surroundings erratically, but if they have a direction they'll mostly look forward thus attacking more efficiently (assuming the enemies are in front of them).

Ah, this is quite confusing. I just assumed they attack the nearest target, like in most games of similar nature

What's the story fo the game? Who are the bad guys and why are they trying to kill the poor pirate?

i have no idea yet any suggestions? i'm mostly constrained by the art i find on oga

I can't really come up with a good rationalization for flaming skulls sprouting from the ground and chasing a pirate :P
Personally I'd go for a necromancer instead of a pirate: raise an army of undead, raid unsuspecting villages and fend off noble knights

[oberhamsi]

Grave digging this thread but I just add a bit of polish to it.. like adding a tutorial which will loop a couple of hints. Another notable change is that it should stutter less (still works best on chrome, though)

http://apps.gamejs.org/pirateking/alpha/

edit:seems I gave away my other persona. i hope multi accounts is not against forum rules (I mean.. it's transparent to the forum owner)

[devnewton]

Very good work!

I like the idea of controlling a team with simple high level order from a leader in the battlefield, it's remind me of Mount and Blade.

Do you have some sort of roadmap? Project website?

[qubodup]

Frustrating! But also fun.

I got stuck in a wall at some point. I got unstuck by one of the skulls pushing me out of it.

Is there any base/tower/maze/wall building (yet/planned)?

Art credits are missing unfortunately.

PS: Whee! Screens!

[oberhamsi]

thanks for the kind words. I don't have a roadmap/website for this project.. I have big plans for it in my head and on paper but first I wanted to figure out how fun killing/fighting would be, so I turned it into a small survive x-rounds game.

Mount & blade.. I have played it a lot :) I want to add some of the city/empire building mechanics.. too early to tell.

About it being hard
I haven't beaten all 9 rounds in a while :) It's really hard especially once the rockets launchers appear... but those have one weakness: there is a minmum arming distances, so if you are super close to a rocket launcher, his rockets can't kill you. And another trick: The rockets don't just kill you.. they will also kill any enemy if they are between you and the launcher.

About arts and credits
indeed. It is a mess and I have all the original filenames but not yet written a full list of who is in with what. I should probably at least name the few artists who gave me the big building blocks like landscape & units.

[qubodup]

Keeping original file names is a very good method for easing giving credits (doesn't work sometimes if artists use generic names of course).

Is the project in a repository anywhere? Or is one supposed to just use the HTML from the link you gave?

PS: The automatic firing was weird to get used to. It's also impossible for me to come to a standstill while walking diagonally.

PPS: I made it, but in stage 7 I think, the monsters killed themselves somehow. In stage 9 I used the flame monster's bombs against the other enemies. My last playthrough was first a "get mass army, then try to split enemies" type of play, then in the last level it was a survival, keep max-possible-distance run-away type of shooter.

[doktorfinkelstein]

Is the project in a repository anywhere? Or is one supposed to just use the HTML from the link you gave?

Thanks for insisting on this :P Yesterday I started cleaning up the repository and writing up a proper README with credits and all... and I'll put everything on github this weekend. I'll update this topic...

PS: The automatic firing was weird to get used to. It's also impossible for me to come to a standstill while walking diagonally.

definitely a bug, I could easily reproduce it. i'll see what I can do.

PPS: I made it, but in stage 7 I think, the monsters killed themselves somehow.

that can happen if the "AIDirector" spawns the enemies in an unreachable location (it's just terribly hard to control this on a procedurally controlled map), then they get killed instantly.

In stage 9 I used the flame monster's bombs against the other enemies. My last playthrough was first a "get mass army, then try to split enemies" type of play, then in the last level it was a survival, keep max-possible-distance run-away type of shooter.

oh congrats! You may be the first besides me to finish all stages.

[andrewj]

that can happen if the "AIDirector" spawns the enemies in an unreachable location (it's just terribly hard to control this on a procedurally controlled map)

After generating the map, do a kind of flood-fill to mark tiles which are unreachable (starting at known reachable spots, especially where the player will spawn).

[Buch]

Nice game! I like the idea of guiding a crew in battle that way!
Do you plan on adding more team commands (like the defense one, I mean)?
Also, I noticed that crew members sometimes just walk through obstacles (it seems to happen when they can't find the leader for a while, but I'm not really sure about this) - is it intended or a bug?

[oberhamsi]

Nice game! I like the idea of guiding a crew in battle that way!
Do you plan on adding more team commands (like the defense one, I mean)?
Also, I noticed that crew members sometimes just walk through obstacles (it seems to happen when they can't find the leader for a while, but I'm not really sure about this) - is it intended or a bug?

thanks, bunch. i slowly add stuff and i'll consider anything proposed here :P

crew members (and enemies) sometimes walking through obstacles is an optimization and probably won't change (you're the first to complain about it hehe)

and: i got off my ass and did a proper release: https://github.com/oberhamsi/pirateking-gamejs (i'm still working on the credits but hey this is better then anything i showed you yesterday)

that can happen :) if the "AIDirector" spawns the enemies in an unreachable location (it's just terribly hard to control this on a procedurally controlled map)

After generating the map, do a kind of flood-fill to mark tiles which are unreachable (starting at known reachable spots, especially where the player will spawn).

right, that should work. I think if i had to do it again, I would do two things: flood-fill to detect spaces but I'd also tune the map generator so I can create wide spaces of tiles of some types (like grass) but not necessarily for others (mountains)

[devnewton]

Thank you for making that release and even start documenting the code!

When you will get clear idea about what you want to do with your game, maybe you can start a wish list for contributors?

[qubodup]

Also, I noticed that crew members sometimes just walk through obstacles (it seems to happen when they can't find the leader for a while, but I'm not really sure about this) - is it intended or a bug?

crew members (and enemies) sometimes walking through obstacles is an optimization and probably won't change (you're the first to complain about it hehe)

I'm so grateful for them being able to do so! I so often saw them get stuck and being-used-to-NPC-companion-AI-intuitively started a rage sequence ("Fffffff") but then they just walk over water, through mountains and walls and I'm relaxed and filled with joy.

[Addriano]

Pirate King is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that utilizes a turn-based combat system. In this game you have the opportunity to find your favorite One Piece characters in the world of Anime Pirates and build your own personal pirate crew.
Pirate king browser game