Something I made in a few hours to take a break from a much larger project. There's no storyline or anything, just violence. Inspired by first-person shooters, it is simple but fast-paced, especially at 4x speed. Burrow to shoot (aim is automatic within limited range). The host may select 1, 3, 5, or 10 lives. Minerals represent ammunition, a fairly limited resource. You can also use a melee attack. Small awards are granted for 1 minute of survival (+1 life), 7 successful shots in one life (+30 ammo), or 3 melee kills in 1 life (invincibility from melee for the remainder of your life).

Shooting isn't as easy as it might appear at 4x speed with hero lings, but when you hit, the blood makes it worth it.

Did I mention the blood? The shooting system is actually a stripped-down version of one weapon from my larger project, and it's nice to give it some action. After a couple of kills in quick succession, it's time to hunt for some more ammunition.

All of the text in the game is supposed to sound vaguely like an Asian-language game in translation, hence the minimalism. I suppose some people might prefer more "conventional" messages, but these get the point across and fit with the sort of insane aesthetic that one learns to appreciate after playing crazy Japanese top-down shooters until one can't feel one's fingers anymore.

Known glitches: occasional unit unplaceable errors of special effects during mutual kills. Doesn't affect gameplay.

File download: http://www.staredit.net/files/580/

This is genius.

I wish I'd've thought of this first =(

Would you allow people to edit terrain, though?

Just to mix up the arenas a little =)

Go for it; I'm sure players would like to have multiple arena choices.

A few points for level design:
-It's harder to spawn-rape someone if you put walkable null on the spawns. You can still attack with melee if you spawn at the same spot, but if you're on the playing field, you can't walk back onto the walkable null.
-You don't actually need locations for the ammo system; I just used them to make things simpler to trigger. One or two locations (depends on whether you're using a location edge-displacement system or what for it) and burrowed lings for that location to center on would work too, if you memorize what order the lings give to another player in, and ensure that they will not claim the ammunition for themselves. The actual acquiring of ammunition uses no locations at all; there isn't one on the ling, either.
-It's nice to have areas where twisting terrain allows you to shoot someone from a significant running-distance away, or even from an area that is completely disconnected in running terms.
-Pretty terrain is nice, but it's easier for players to judge distance on nice, plain square-edged stuff.
-Don't put the edges of the level close to the edges of the map, because the crosshair system works by displaying the text after centering view, and it can't move the edge of the view off the edge of the map to center it on a unit that's close to the side. Because of this fact, it'll display the crosshair off of the unit that's being shot, which just looks strange.
-Narrow spaces (i.e. 1 square paths) make Unit Unplaceable errors more likely for the blood.
-Be sure not to remove the 4x speed by using a lower-powered editor.
-Make sure players don't see the anti-hack.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 19 2008, 1:47 pm by FoxWolf1.

You should fix some things:
- Why centering in black area when you die? It's just annoying. Center directly on your respawn.
- Give 2 seconds of invincibility when respawning
- You should make a bigger map with 4 arenas and the host choose one at start
- Personally, I dislike the fact that your screen get centred at the killed enemy
- In-game customable options? (Starting minerals when respawning, number of lifes, speed of ammo spawn, etc...)

-It centers on the lower left corner to give a nasty surprise to anyone who has turned on a hack that includes a map-hack. A hack wouldn't make much difference to the gameplay, but making things dangerous for hackers discourages cheating in general. I was originally going to have constant center view on the gunling, so I never bothered to put a view centering action into the respawn trigger. It'll be an easy addition for the next version.
-If you're invincible when you respawn and are very quick on the draw, you'll have a massive advantage when using your sudden appearance to ambush an enemy. The fact that you spawn on null offers some protection from melee, and for the next version, having your view centered on the ling means that you'll be able to react as fast as a player already in the area (who has their ling already selected, but not as much notification as centering view on respawn provides).
-It'd be even easier to just make copies with alternate terrain...less flashy perhaps, but more similar to first-person shooters where you can see what map a server is hosting before you join.
-Center view is necessary for the crosshair effect, and the motion of the view adds emphasis to the shooting effect. That particular system is unlikely to change.
-Lives are already selectable by the host. Other options wouldn't be too hard to add, but the game is balanced (in terms of how much time people spend running, how careful you have to be in figuring out when the other player has run out of ammunition, how careful you have to be with your own shots, etc.) for a single starting shot and the current ammunition speed. Other terrains, where the general spacing is different, might require different ammunition amounts and/or rates. Plus, more options means two things: a longer start-up time at the beginning, and more potential for arguing between players over settings (which includes the possibility of players leaving because they prefer to play under a different option set). So I'd say changes to ammo stuff is more likely to be integrated into alternate arenas than added as an option.

This is pure genius. Really innovative.

I recreated your firing system =)

Although I'm not sure if you created it, but the crosshair idea is definitely unique =P

A good addition would be upgrades to weapons, for example a sniper scope that gives you longer range and a crosshair following the enemy when in range. Should also have an option to turn the latter system off once obtained =P

Also, the lack of ammo in this map makes it easy to switch between hunter and hunted quickly, I'm glad you decided not to just jam loads of ammo packs wherever they fit.

I just didn't like the fact if you didn't read what was displayed at the start, u have no idea wats going on. Add mission objectives.

hm i liked it the first time i played with you becuase i havnt played sc with x4 since '03 or '04. it kinda gets really repetitive really fast but still original and i wouldnt expect anything less from "Something I made in a few hours to take a break from a much larger project."

UNVEIL DAT PROJECT NAO.

Okay, I added them in the next version, which the DLDB entry has just been updated with. The new version also centers view at spawn.


It'll be released when it's ready .

'Sfun, but not very replayable as Zombeh said.