FreeGameDev

MCMic {l Wrote}:It is a lot slower, firefox even ended asking me to kill the script because it was slowing my PC

Is it slower overall or in some place? And is is slow from the start? When did the firefox ask you to kill the script?

1. I love the new message area, however it can be greatly improved:
* Differ between old and new (appeared immediately before and during current round) messages by making the old ones have less opacity or just darker colors (opacity might be resource heavier)
* Visualize what fraction is affected by a message. The color of the exclamation mark should be of the affected fraction's color. When two fractions are affected, perhaps two exclamation marks could be used?

2. The "Failed to shatter investigator will" message still appears as pop-up. (should appear the same way as "could not gain new follower IMHO)

3. Bug: I seem to be unable to start the ritual. Should I not be able to start it in the game I made a screenshot of? (EDIT: Hard game mode)

PS: I now got the 'script is slowing down' ff message. attached is a screen of the situation when I got it. The freeze appeared when I clicked 'end turn' in the game.

Assumption: there is some 'if priests == 3 and virgins == 9' which when true causes an endless loop.

Stopping the script allowed me to continue playing the game. I just had to click 'end turn' again.
PPS: It happened again!

Yeah, it was the same problem for me, I kill the script and continue playing, but I never could do the ritual :-/

You should apply to this : https://gaming.mozillalabs.com/ ("Game On 2010 is Mozilla Labs' first international gaming competition. Game On is all about games built, delivered and played on the open Web and the browser. ")

MCMic {l Wrote}:You should apply to this : https://gaming.mozillalabs.com/ ("Game On 2010 is Mozilla Labs' first international gaming competition. Game On is all about games built, delivered and played on the open Web and the browser. ")

I agree! Audio should not depend on flash for that purpose though.

I'll check out what's causing the slowdown/hangup as soon as I have some time.

I applied BO and amoebaRL to the competition, they don't need any additional work. As far as EC, I'll think about it. Generally I'm too lazy to make any changes of that kind Also I'm not sure if the newest version will do with the saves requiring a google appengine app to function (though it's not even ready yet, of course).

qubodup {l Wrote}:1. I love the new message area, however it can be greatly improved:
* Differ between old and new (appeared immediately before and during current round) messages by making the old ones have less opacity or just darker colors (opacity might be resource heavier)
* Visualize what fraction is affected by a message. The color of the exclamation mark should be of the affected fraction's color. When two fractions are affected, perhaps two exclamation marks could be used?

2. The "Failed to shatter investigator will" message still appears as pop-up. (should appear the same way as "could not gain new follower IMHO)

3. Bug: I seem to be unable to start the ritual. Should I not be able to start it in the game I made a screenshot of? (EDIT: Hard game mode)

1. Done
2. I remember feeling it was important to be that way so that people would not miss it but you win :P. Fixed
3. Fixed
Also fixed save loading bug.

Released v4pre2 with bugfixes. Tell me about the hangups, folks - do they persist? If possible, make a savegame with these conditions under some different key you normally use and share it with me.

http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/index.html

P.S. I wonder why noone even tried saving/loading. Noone needs it or am I missing something?
P.S.2 Does anyone needs debug mode on by default in development releases?

I usually don't feel like stopping in the middle of a match, so I keep playing until I feel I can't win or I've won or I'm close to winning but too lazy to finish (usually I'm not too lazy for that )

I love the new version, especially the colors! I usually ignore news until I wonder "huh? what did happen?" and now I can usually figure it out by looking at the news icons, rather than reading the news

Fighting investigators is kind of complicated. sometimes I don't get a message at all after clicking the grey "!" and when I successfully kill one, a message should appear similar to the "couldn't get rid of investigator" message I think..

I was able to get -1 resources by pressing aggressively on a slow computer (eee pc 1000h + firefox). See attachement.

I find the tool-tips annoying sometimes for the items in the resource bar. An option to disable these could be useful.

qubodup {l Wrote}:I usually don't feel like stopping in the middle of a match, so I keep playing until I feel I can't win or I've won or I'm close to winning but too lazy to finish (usually I'm not too lazy for that )

I see I'll continue to add stuff to grow the game in complexity so at some point the match could take a few hours

qubodup {l Wrote}:I love the new version, especially the colors! I usually ignore news until I wonder "huh? what did happen?" and now I can usually figure it out by looking at the news icons, rather than reading the news

Great

qubodup {l Wrote}:Fighting investigators is kind of complicated. sometimes I don't get a message at all after clicking the grey "!" and when I successfully kill one, a message should appear similar to the "couldn't get rid of investigator" message I think..

You mean the grey W? I don't give a message when the attack succeeds, only on failure. Though I probably should.

qubodup {l Wrote}:I was able to get -1 resources by pressing aggressively on a slow computer (eee pc 1000h + firefox). See attachement.

omg, i wonder if clicking in javascript is multithreaded or something.

qubodup {l Wrote}:I find the tool-tips annoying sometimes for the items in the resource bar. An option to disable these could be useful.

That would need to have a whole options dialog. I'll write it in tasks but no promises on when it's going to be implemented.

about -1 resources: perhaps input frequency is higher than update frequency?

Script: http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/cult.js:2685 sometimes freezes firefox and I have to stop it.

PS: I somehow managed to buy more priests than I could afford adepts (4 used of 3) see screen

> Script: http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/cult.js:2685 sometimes freezes firefox and I have to stop it.

Ugh, gonna have to fix that somehow but no idea where to dig yet. At least it started to happen only in v4pre.

> about -1 resources: perhaps input frequency is higher than update frequency?
> PS: I somehow managed to buy more priests than I could afford adepts (4 used of 3) see screen

Judging by the screen and those overflow bugs, at some point the game just becomes so slow that all those bugs appear. I optimized the code a bit for when there are many nodes visible. But in the end I'll probably have to move to HTML5 canvas display - right now each node is a div and each line dot is also a div which is horrible. But this will cut off people on older browsers. I'll start with using images for dots and node backgrounds and see if it helps.

I took a break from EC development, currently working on a new project. And I also got myself a blog (though I won't concentrate on tech stuff, game design is an interesting area, too) - http://starinfidel.blogspot.com/

starinfidel {l Wrote}:And I also got myself a blog (though I won't concentrate on tech stuff, game design is an interesting area, too) - http://starinfidel.blogspot.com/

Glad to see you blog!

PS: to me, design is more interesting than tech

Evil cult! I wanted to do something like that myself with similar inspirations: google maps & 'political' stuff to do. Seems like you stole my secret vision and made a good game.

I'll have to play a while until I can give more in-depth critique, this all looks well thought out already.

But I already know I'll have a hard time selling this to my friends due to no graphics :) I mean I like rogues like the next rogue-fan but for most people it doesn't sell. Maybe if you show a big, end-game network as your splash-screen or smth. Anything to catch the eye ;)

oberhamsi {l Wrote}:Evil cult! I wanted to do something like that myself with similar inspirations: google maps & 'political' stuff to do. Seems like you stole my secret vision and made a good game.

Thanks! I'll be sure to steal any more cool secret visions in the future :P

oberhamsi {l Wrote}:I'll have to play a while until I can give more in-depth critique, this all looks well thought out already.

I try to release only "complete" versions, so it should be pretty okay. The game mostly suffers from the lack of any actual work done for the last 6 months or so. As soon as I finish with the Doctor cycle, I'll start working on EC to expand it.

oberhamsi {l Wrote}:But I already know I'll have a hard time selling this to my friends due to no graphics I mean I like rogues like the next rogue-fan but for most people it doesn't sell. Maybe if you show a big, end-game network as your splash-screen or smth. Anything to catch the eye

Or boobs, yeah

According to the manual "No more than 10 police officers can be on the map at the same time", but often there are more than ten of them at a time (screenshot).

Nice game btw. :-)

Taldor {l Wrote}:According to the manual "No more than 10 police officers can be on the map at the same time", but often there are more than ten of them at a time (screenshot).

Nice game btw. :-)

Wrong thread
I'll fix that in the next version, thanks.

I think the following situation can be considered a win situation in evil cult:

1. Player has an origin
2. No enemy cult has a generator
3. Player has no investigator
4. Player awareness is 0%

Also, how about a favicon? Like

qubodup {l Wrote}:I think the following situation can be considered a win situation in evil cult:

1. Player has an origin
2. No enemy cult has a generator
3. Player has no investigator
4. Player awareness is 0%

The svn version has a new player victory condition - all AI cults paralyzed. IMHO, all of these together do not signify a 100% victory, it's more like a temporary positive state except number 2. Have you actually seen this condition? A cult always has one generator - it's origin. Except when it loses its origin and it becomes paralyzed - and that ties neatly into the "AI cults paralyzed" victory condition.

qubodup {l Wrote}:Also, how about a favicon? Like

What does V stands for? Victory? But favicon is a nice idea. I think it would be great if the triangle of three nodes connected by lines would make it into 16x16 favicon. But their insides would just be a few colored pixels instead of B, I and P letters. I'll have to research that a bit later.

I always play for controlling all generators. once I do, there's nothing stopping me.

"Player owns all generators" could be enough of a win condition as well..

V for Virgin

And here are a few more icons. All copyright transferred to you or cc0/pd if you want.

> I always play for controlling all generators. once I do, there's nothing stopping me.
> "Player owns all generators" could be enough of a win condition as well..

My guess is that when that happens, you're just a few turns away from "kill all origins" victory anyway

Thanks for all the icon variants! I'll be sure to put favicon on EC as soon as I finish with sects refactoring. PD is okay, I guess. Which one of the icons do you like most, btw?

Ah sorry, I failed to understand that there is a " no enemy origins" win-condition.

I like #5 because of the colors but the two I attached I like as well.

I just played Evil Cult for the first time, because of qubodup's blog post, and it's really a great, evil joy. Even losing is fun because of the wicked text messages.
Do you plan to make the other cults playable, too? It would be cool if every cult had a special bonus, so that each cult would require a slightly different strategy.

The game reminds me a bit of Master of Orion 1 which I consider the best title of the series. The others had too much micro management, MoO 2 was just Civilization in space. I mean I like Civ, but MoO 1 was a lot faster to play and still complex.

PS: I think qubodup has played too much Evil Cult. Look at his post count.

> I just played Evil Cult for the first time, because of qubodup's blog post, and it's really a great, evil joy. Even losing is fun because of the wicked text messages.

Glad you liked it!

> Do you plan to make the other cults playable, too? It would be cool if every cult had a special bonus, so that each cult would require a slightly different strategy.

Actually I thought about it right at start but decided against it until I've had a good core gameplay. I can't tell you the date but this is definitely one of the things I think about now and then. It will probably have to wait until the game has expanded some more.

> The game reminds me a bit of Master of Orion 1 which I consider the best title of the series. The others had too much micro management, MoO 2 was just Civilization in space. I mean I like Civ, but MoO 1 was a lot faster to play and still complex.

Yeah, MOO1, MOM and Civ1 are my all-time TBS favorites - I tend to steal ideas from them when nobody's watching
Can't promise anything about the amount of micro management though - I'm still undecided on that. On one hand I'm all for horizontal expansion of gameplay - I have lots of ideas that I want to try. On the other hand, though, XCOM1 for example is probably too much.

> PS: I think qubodup has played too much Evil Cult. Look at his post count.

Lol

Skorpio {l Wrote}:IThe game reminds me a bit of Master of Orion 1 which I consider the best title of the series. The others had too much micro management, MoO 2 was just Civilization in space. I mean I like Civ, but MoO 1 was a lot faster to play and still complex.

starinfidel {l Wrote}:> The game reminds me a bit of Master of Orion 1 which I consider the best title of the series. The others had too much micro management, MoO 2 was just Civilization in space. I mean I like Civ, but MoO 1 was a lot faster to play and still complex.

Yeah, MOO1, MOM and Civ1 are my all-time TBS favorites - I tend to steal ideas from them when nobody's watching
Can't promise anything about the amount of micro management though - I'm still undecided on that. On one hand I'm all for horizontal expansion of gameplay - I have lots of ideas that I want to try. On the other hand, though, XCOM1 for example is probably too much.

Just i case you did not know, but there is a open source version of Masters of Orion, it is called FreeOrion

svenskmand: I thought FO is more of a MoO2-derivate. Both FO and OpenMoO2 were mentioned in my post btw

Skorpio: I mentioned EC before. Were it the videos that caught your attention? Glad to have infected you though! Also thanks for the MoO hint; I've been playing some MoO2 lately and too-much-micro is my major complaint.