I stopped work on Hexarena for a while because I was too lazy to implement all the features and made a bunch of 10-minute maps, two of which I will list here because they fall under the similar theme of worker-killing:

(Will post maps when I get back home.)

I was quite disappointed with SCVArena, actually. Gameplay was slow and it ended up like a typical D- ground-only TvT: Two sides cowering behind sieged tanks and mining until the minerals run out, and occasional ventures into enemy territory deadly. Stalemate was inevitable unless one team massed marines/tanks and decided for a lucky break. An attempt to improve it eventually led to the creation of...

Probe Arena:
This was created after the failed SCVArena experiment. Drastically different apart from the core concept, and definitely far more fun to play than SCVArena.

Probe stats: 5/5 shields/HP, 50 armor, 51 damage

You no longer have to mine, but automatically gain vespene gas as time elapses; the more enemies there are, the faster gas regenerates, and staying near a gas station causes your gas to regenerate at a much higher pace.

Minerals = life
Gas = mana

You may have a maximum of 50 gas at any time, although there is a "buffer" of mana beyond 50 that you cannot see, which will restore your MP very quickly when it is depleted from 50 as long as there is gas left in the buffer. It is, however, not instant.

Creating buildings allow you to cast spells; you must construct pylons (influence) in an area before you may cast spells there. The only spell you can cast without influence is blink (Nexus), which teleports your probe to the center of where you placed the nexus. Obviously, the area must be clear of obstacles.


EDIT> I added a mission briefing and set the objectives to a spell list, as well as changed some spells to be more practical for use as per poison_us's suggestions. Should be more user-friendly now .

Attached are versions with/without BGM, compressed with little loss in fidelity by Azrael.Wrath .

Attachments:

Post has been edited 10 time(s), last time on Jun 14 2010, 3:16 am by Aristocrat.

I find it rather...wanting. Here's a list of everything I noticed.

• There's an attempt at balancing if you have uneven teams.
  
• No tutorial, no explanation, no anything for any player. Fine for people who know what does what.
  
• It takes advantage of the 2x glitch, and makes it even harder for people to learn.
  
• Spells don't last long enough to be worth crap, at least in my opinion.
  
• Any sort of fair gameplay is thrown out the window if teams are unbalanced: one player can aggro, the other can stay back and farm up.
  
• Explosions.

Basically, this map seems more like an attempt to show off what you can do, rather than making it enjoyable for the player. I'm sure people can argue the same thing for every map, but this blatantly takes advantage of players who have no idea what is going on.

I guess you can blame most of those issues on the lack of a mission briefing/pre-game forced tutorial, but I wanted this to be a fast-paced game that players get into immediately. I added a briefing and made the spells list into the mission objectives.

The spells are designed so that they will deal the same amount of damage each cast. (1 attack from zealot/dragoon/reaver), so their duration can't be longer or the lower-tiered spells will kill probes in one cast. I did improve them a little by changing the functionality, though.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 14 2010, 3:17 am by Aristocrat.

Mission briefings are useless because everyone just skips past them. Sad, but true.

Unless maybe you put in the mission objectives 'READ THE BRIEFING FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PLAY', but I don't rate your chances.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 4 2010, 12:25 am by Lanthanide.

It would help if you had any time to experiment with stuff before getting ROFLSTOMPED into the ground non-stop.

I just hope that SCV Arena will continue in development alongside this project, because a bit more paced gameplay centered around having 1 life I find to be more rewarding than gameplay involving respawning and dying every 3 seconds until you leave the game.

I love how "Probe Battle" has like 9000 times more views than this.

Is the phrase "Arena" some kind of plague?

You do realise that Probe Battle was originally posted back in 2007, when this site had a lot more traffic?

Also "Probe arena" does actually sound gross.

I actually just played this with you lawls. If you want a few suggestions from me lemme know. Cuz I like it but there's just a few things I feel like whyyyyy....

Sure, post away.

EDIT> CHANGELOG:
-Blink animation changed.
-Gas income doubled.
-Gas station added: increases income near center of map.
-All spells now have distinguishable cast animations.
-Zealot mechanic changed: life greatly extended but disappears after first blink and attack
-Dragoon aiming improved
-Fixed cannon glitch
-Reaver damage decreased to 54.
-Probe damage decreased to 51.
-Stargate is now Spellbinding Circle (30). Draws in all probes in a 5x5 region and binds them to center. Lasts 14 seconds and can be moved by casting again (mana is refunded). Cannot be targeted by conventional attacks when bound (zealot/dragoon/DT/probe melee attack have no effect).
-Only one circle on the field at once. You cannot escape from the circle by any means.
-Fleet beacon is now freeze. Slow removed due to making no difference on 2x speed.
-You can now move mines by laying it again.
-Templar archives warping time increased.
-DT lifespan increased.
-Grenade fuse time shortened.
-Archon lifespan increased.
-Hallucination no longer allows fake tributes.
-Observatory: Invincibility for 5 seconds.
-Invincible probes now cannot be targeted by damaging spells (removes all non-binding spells in vicinity)
-Arbiter tribunal: Corrosive acid. Melts all buildings, friendly or hostile, in its area of effect. Lasts 30 seconds and is moved around by an observer.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 14 2010, 3:09 am by Aristocrat.

I was going to but I should probably test it more before I really pass judgement so I'll wait

You have to download the map to test it, ostensibly... xD

I can't host this 24/7, I have other mapping projects to do.

Ok this is obviously just my opinion and what I'd do if it were my map.

☼ Make the map a bit larger / make the playing area larger
☼ spawn people randomly around the map (or have designated spawning areas where enemies can't enter)
☼ Make team colors (like make 1 team white, yellow, pale yellow, tan vs blue, teal, green, purple)
☼ I personally wouldn't use building stuff to make spells since its easy for enemies to get in the way and since you require a pylon which just sucks

I remember while playing I didn't feel like I had enough time to recover/build after dying
(and even if I'm wrong and it lasted as long as you said, having to build a pylon and then buildings while enemies are all up in your shit is really rough).

HAWT HAWT HAWT. I played this game for hours XD. It was epic. .