I sure hope it will be awesome. :)
There is still a lot of work to do, but I have prototyped some of the
larger technical risks and feel confident I can complete the project.
It is mostly a matter of finding tons of time to pour into it.
This project is separate from Out of Sight Games.
It is just me working on it.
People are always welcome to donate to my work using the PayPal button
on my website. :)
I don't expect to run a kickstarter.
I do hope to release the project with some sound libraries, some
purchased, and some that only require attribution.
Donations could help to fund those sound library purchases.
When I get closer to release I will also be looking for help finding
royalty free sound libraries that are reasonable quality, reasonable
quantity, and low cost.
On 3/21/2018 8:22 AM, Zak Claassen wrote:
Ah, that makes sense about the AHC engine. Sounds like the new one is
going to be pretty awesome, can't wait. Are you going to be taking
donations for it like you guys did with the AHC kickstarter?
On 3/20/18, Joshua Tubbs <orin8722@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What will the programing language be like? I’m not a fan of C++ syntax, or-----
C#, which I’m pretty. Sure AHC is in.
On Mar 20, 2018, at 4:19 PM, Ian Reed <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Oh, another reason releasing the AHC engine would be problematic is that
I'd have to tear out the translation logic.
It is easy to accidentally use incorrectly,, causing tons of unnecessary
translations, so I would have to trust each person using the AHC engine to
get it right.
Plus I'd be paying for all the translations done in their games.
The new platform I'm working on takes this into account and makes it much
harder for coders to accidentally misuse the translation feature.
This means that the new platform will support translation of all games
into the 100+ languages that Google Translate supports.
On 3/20/2018 1:48 PM, Ian Reed wrote:
I won't be releasing the AHC game engine. A few reasons off the top of my
head are:
* I would have to write a ton of documentation for it.
* I would need to remove anything DRM related, since viewing that code
would help people reverse engineer AHC.
* The sound system is FMOD using sound banks. I'm not sure how accessible
sound banks are for blind users.
* FMOD's license would not allow me to release it as part of a standalone
game engine anyway.
* If I released it, I would spend a lot more time maintaining it, which
is less time for extending and maintaining the new engine/platform.
Overall, I've learned a lot from building that engine, but I want to take
what I've learned and implement a new engine that isn't held back by
needing to remain backwards compatible with AHC scripts.
I intend on bringing all the best features from the AHC engine into the
new project, which would make the AHC engine obsolete anyway.
The new engine will eventually support real time games as well, but I'm
going to focus on turn based games first, since support for real time
games is a bit trickier to get right.
Far down the road, the new engine/platform will have enough features that
you could write an AHC like game in it.
But it will also benefit from better performance, better tools,
multiplayer capabilities, and my long term support.
On 3/20/2018 1:50 AM, Zak Claassen wrote:
Hey Ian, this sounds very cool. I did some scripts for tb, but like
you said you're limited in what you can do, plus there are some bugs
that cause some scripts to not work like they should, so really
looking forward to this new engine. Would you ever consider releasing
the AHC game engine in a similar form so that people can use it to
create such games?
On 3/20/18, Ian Reed <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I am writing the new engine from the ground up.-----
I've learned a lot since I originally wrote TB, and more as I worked
on
the engine for AHC, plus the multiplayer features require some major
architectural changes.
I hope and expect the new engine will have better performance than my
previous attempts.
I'm far from perfect though, so we'll have to deal with issues as we
encounter them.
On 3/19/2018 5:41 PM, Shaun Everiss wrote:
The issue with tactical battle I found was that if you had a game say-----
startrek elete and you had well several hundred units same with
rampage, every action dead destroyed, new generated etc, would add to
a memmory buffer.
If that and when that buffer got full the system simply ran out of
memmory to actually do anything and crashed, rampage hit this thing
really fast.
I am not sure what you guys did with ahc but as I understand you
helped with that, now an engine based on that would rock, it
certainly
never had an issue with a multiple unit thing and if tactical battle
maps could work with that system that would rock a lot.
On 20/03/2018 12:31 p.m., Ian Reed wrote:
Yes, it takes scripting much further than TB did.
The new system has 2 roles, builders and coders.
Builders work with roughly the same set of tools that map pack
creators used in TB, plus some easy to use file formats for creating
menus and JRPG style story dialogs.
Coders use a programming language to define the game rules and
player
interactions.
Coders have a lot more power than scripters did in TB because they
get to define all the game rules, rather than only getting to inject
script at a few key points within the TB rule set.
TB is like a very moddable game.
The new system is more like a game engine that lets people build
their own games in a high level programming language.
Then it hooks those games up to the builder tools so they can easily
be modded.
I'll be making some sample games for the first release, so people
can
modify them instead of starting from scratch.
There is a lot to do, so it is still quite a ways off, but I am
excited for it.
On 3/19/2018 1:58 PM, Monkey wrote:
I'm excited to see what this will look like, I've really enjoyed-----
making stuff for TB.
Will be able to script for this new engine as well?
On 3/19/18, Ian Reed <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've restarted the TBServer so you can play multiplayer again.
Craig Brett deserves the credit for adding multiplayer capabilities
to
Tactical Battle.
I no longer maintain TB, but I am working on a new moddable
multiplayer
gaming platform.
I expect it to support a wide variety of turn based games, like
card
games, strategy games, classic board games, etc.
I will even remake some of Tactical Battle in it as a sample game
that
can be extended and modded by others.
It will be much more moddable than TB, so would better support
your
ideas for playing table top games, once it is finished.
The map editor and file format for defining units, skills,
effects,
items, terrain, etc, will remain roughly the same, so learning to
make
map packs in TB would be a relevant skill for the new system.
I think anyone who has enjoyed being a map pack creator for
Tactical
Battle will really enjoy the new system.
On 3/18/2018 8:50 PM, ryan.strunk@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi all,
I was very excited to see that version 3 of TB is playable
online.
When I tried to log on, though, the server was down.
Is this still in active development? Is it possible for me to run
my
own server?
I would love to explore the possibility of using this setup to
play
tabletop games.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Best,
Ryan
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