[BETA] Dawn of the Hulker

[TOdorus]

Finally I'm getting near to getting it finished. I'll be working on the background story the next week and in the meantime I'm looking for some feedback on the game. So if you can find bugs, have a suggestion for interface/balancing/story, feel free to post!

Dawn of the Hulker BETA (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/DawnoftheHulkerBETA.html) (no preloader yet, give it a wait)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lffcMiZ_97Y/SgIw8HADCXI/AAAAAAAAAA4/wAuvkN4yyVM/s320/BattleSnap3.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lffcMiZ_97Y/SgIxdHJ40UI/AAAAAAAAABA/umrYbDOzlm8/s320/BattleSnap4.jpg


For anyone wondering why I'm a bit late with posting this:
Well this has been sitting on my HD for the last two days. I wanted to do the Beta with Mochi to get a nice preloader, mochibot and to test if the ads would bring up bugs. Now I can't seem to update Dawn of the Hulker on Mochi. A test account did accept all the files. Mochi is looking into it now, so I hope to hear from them soon.

UPDATE:
Hold M and click to issue a "move to" order.

[therobot]

Nice work man! I'll take a look at this later on today and give you some feedback.

[therobot]

Hey Todorus,

I looked over your game, and I have some feedback that you should probably consider. I had to give up because it looks like I cannot zoom out using the scrollwheel. I'm on a Macbook, which are fairly notorious for not meshing well with the flash scrollwheel stuff without workarounds. If I were you, I would map this to a key.

Anyhow, here's some thoughts:

1. How big is the swf? It takes a long time to load (too long?)

2. no mousewheel support for the mac? I can't zoom out on may macbook. Is there an alternative keyboard shortcut?

3. add some keyboard shortcut & clickable button to page back & forth through the dialogs. if you miss vital info, you miss it for good. Considering you have pages and pages of dialog here, it's easy to get bored and skim. I think I missed some valuable info this way.

4. more on point 3, consider spicing up the typography a bit. have more vital pieces of information in your dialogs be a different color, font, whatever. something to make it stand out. Don't count on the average user reading everything. Most people will just want to hop in and play.

5. Thank you for letting the user choose the message speed.

6. Hook up some more sound fx in the front end, it feels really lifeless without sound.

7. You should better integrate all the tutorial text into the tutorial levels. What I mean is, you have like 15 pages of text your supposed to read before you even touch any controls sometimes. I think a lot of people learn better with a hands-on approach.

It looks like you poured a lot of time into this, and I would like to try it, but I think the scrollwheel issue has unfortunately crippled the experience for me :(

[TOdorus]

1. How big is the swf? It takes a long time to load (too long?)

A whopping 8.4 megs with Mochi encrypting and a less whopping 7.6 megs on it's own. It's what you get for using png's.


2. no mousewheel support for the mac? I can't zoom out on may macbook. Is there an alternative keyboard shortcut?

I was unaware of that. I've added the "T" key as a shortcut. I'll update the tutorial later.



3. add some keyboard shortcut & clickable button to page back & forth through the dialogs. if you miss vital info, you miss it for good. Considering you have pages and pages of dialog here, it's easy to get bored and skim. I think I missed some valuable info this way.

4. more on point 3, consider spicing up the typography a bit. have more vital pieces of information in your dialogs be a different color, font, whatever. something to make it stand out. Don't count on the average user reading everything. Most people will just want to hop in and play.

Good points. This really is a problem for me, as the game is too big in scope for a Flash game (maybe point 1 is a bit related to that ;) ), so anything to make it more accesible is welcome. I'll look into this in the next couple of days.


6. Hook up some more sound fx in the front end, it feels really lifeless without sound.

I hope you're not talking about sound fx for explosions, shots etc. The game would break down. I think having some bleeps in the interface and confirmation of commands in there, without taxing it too much.


7. You should better integrate all the tutorial text into the tutorial levels. What I mean is, you have like 15 pages of text your supposed to read before you even touch any controls sometimes. I think a lot of people learn better with a hands-on approach.

Well the tutorial were more of a slap-on really. I'll try to improve on that. I think you're referring to the tutorial about advanced orders specificly?



It looks like you poured a lot of time into this, and I would like to try it, but I think the scrollwheel issue has unfortunately crippled the experience for me :(

Thanks for trying therobot, I really do appreciate it. Like I said the scope may be too big for a Flash game, so I've learned that I won't be doing something as complicated again. Come to think of it: it might be a good idea to redesign the galaxy map, so that the first few battles are set and after those the player can choose it's own Path. I hope you'll give it another shot with the "T" key and you may have some more suggestions.


ps: Mochi's servers are giving me the finger again, so the new version is again without preloader

[SparK_BR]

hmm... i know you want the player to see that the ships are BIG, but they occupy almost half screen and zoom out isn't really a zoom out but a radar view :(

well i think if i start the game, everything i must do is to click buttons to attack or defend... the game plays for it-self?

hmm... the tutorials look good, they look like military training videos, but font is too big and again i can't see the game because half of the screen is covered with the tutorial and the other half with the ship

in the tutorial to try different tatics you don't really see them because it ends so fast,
your ship appears shots the other ship, it dies and you can't really know how tatics work.

sorry i am being too hard, it's cause it is 03:52 AM here and i am making hitboxes in all the objects in my zombie game so they know where you hit them... like making a headshot in a zombie.

nice game...
and btw, i remember you asking something about the shape of the ship and the thrusters' positions in a very very old thread. (can't find it with search)

added your game to my play everyday list

[TOdorus]

hmm... i know you want the player to see that the ships are BIG, but they occupy almost half screen and zoom out isn't really a zoom out but a radar view :(

That made me experiment with scaling down everything to 50%. I actually like it, the game becomes more of an rts than it is. It also gives me the idea to add some more ships to the battles so (especially in the beginning of the game) there will be more tactical play. It's a lot of work to rescale everything so some of it is looking quite wonky (with not everything rescaled), but I'll upload when I'm finished rescaling.


well i think if i start the game, everything i must do is to click buttons to attack or defend... the game plays for it-self?

Yeah the first few battles can be won quite easily, the standard AI basicly does the work for you. I'll start working on the AI accepting a "do nothing" order, so the player has to select the targets itself at the start. Basicly it's the same but I think the feeling of accomplishment is waay different. Also I was thinking of adding a "move to" order. Some of the later battles could really use this, when a ship comes to close to a heavily armed spacestation. It's also more conventional ofcourse.


hmm... the tutorials look good, they look like military training videos, but font is too big and again i can't see the game because half of the screen is covered with the tutorial and the other half with the ship

in the tutorial to try different tatics you don't really see them because it ends so fast,
your ship appears shots the other ship, it dies and you can't really know how tatics work.


That's a new one, never really thought of that you'd want to see what's happening besides the tutorial. Noted.

The tactics tutorial will be updated, it's a very old relic of me debugging the tutorial triggers and I wanted to continue fast. Since I'm coming of of the focus on one huge ship the tutorial could feature some faster ships against a big unarmed spacestation (which have enough armor to hold out a while)




sorry i am being too hard, it's cause it is 03:52 AM here and i am making hitboxes in all the objects in my zombie game so they know where you hit them... like making a headshot in a zombie.

nice game...


Nice way to contradict yourself, but I'm glad you can dish out the criticism while you like it =)



and btw, i remember you asking something about the shape of the ship and the thrusters' positions in a very very old thread. (can't find it with search)

I believe that is in the physics section of Flashkit. The idea of the game was more on a few ships per battle that you can really customize, so I wanted the player be able to place thrusters anywhere and the game engine should calculate how the ship would behave and the AI would figure out what thrustercombinations would be best. I didn't do all of that as you can see, but the physics and AI are still in there (allthough the AI is hardcoded for which thrusters to use for left, right etc.). It made creating shiptypes a breeze though, so I can highly recommend it, as the math for some psuedophysics like these isn't that difficult.


Guess with all those changes you and therobot suggested I won't be writing backstory just yet.

[therobot]

I've learned that I won't be doing something as complicated again

It's not that it's too complicated, I think it's more how you're presenting the information. The tutorials seem really overwhelming with all the pages of text that come before them. I think if the text was trimmed down, and better integrated into the actual gameplay, it would hep ease the player in a lot better.

I'll check it out later on today with your new 'T' key

[SparK_BR]

Well, this post will be my bug reports =D
anything i see, hear or try that go wrong i will post here.

know that mission against baron bodonch? well
i saw two spelling errors

in the second text i think, there's a word "adept" that should be "adapt"
and in the text that says that there's a new crew type
it says "reqruited" and i think you meant "recruited" (i know the sound would be the same but...)

hmm... that's it for now, if i see any other errors i will post here also (same post, not same thread)



list
- spelling errors ("adept"="adapt", "reqruited"="recruited");
- some destinations descriptions are empty, i think they should show how many enemies and stations are in by default.
- spelling errors on first mission of the left side galaxy(second text "send here"="sent here")
- spelling error? ("Bleu Plasma"="Blue Plasma"???)
- memory leak? (my firefox process got heavyer each loading! i know it's adobe's fault)
- some "new technology" messages appears twice
- when i select the EMP in small turrets the selection circle keeps flashing
- game is freezing in the last planet of the left-side galaxy (the last one for me!)
so i can't play it, but i don't know if it's the planet or the ship upgrades (i'm using the last technology)
when you fix then i will erase them from the list :rd:

edit10:
just found what is freezing the game in the last stage
copied the shared object to the localhost folder
and downloaded the swf, using a flash 10 debug player i found this:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2106/totodorus.png (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/totodorus.png/)

hmm... lost a reference for an object? looks like thrusters() method is calling something in an object that doesn't exist!
it only happens like 10 seconds after the game starts

[TOdorus]

Well, this post will be my bug reports =D
anything i see, hear or try that go wrong i will post here.

Thanks a lot Spark. It's truly appreciated. I'll get started on the easy ones tomorrow.



edit10:
just found what is freezing the game in the last stage
copied the shared object to the localhost folder
and downloaded the swf, using a flash 10 debug player i found this:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2106/totodorus.png (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/totodorus.png/)

hmm... lost a reference for an object? looks like thrusters() method is calling something in an object that doesn't exist!
it only happens like 10 seconds after the game starts

Could you upload the shared object? I have a few ideas which function it can be, but I have no idea why it would crash at that point.

[SparK_BR]

ok, here it is

there's a 1kb .sol file and a roflCopter.html XD

if someone, other than TOdorus, knows where to put the .sol file, feel free to play with my fleet. ;)

[TOdorus]

Patched: I forgot to define the booster thrusters in some Bolter definitions, you happened to pick one of them. Not that the Bolter has a booster thruster setup (using the side thrusters to give a little boost when going straight forward, just look at you flagship and Hovers)

About the memory leak: you're probably facing new technologies, so the prerenderer prerenders the spritesheets with all the rotations and animations. That's isn't unintended so it's controlled, although I admit BitmapData's are on the "whopping" heavy side, but that's what makes the game run smooth.

I also found a "bug" in the Flugan definition. Having a rate of 5 would result in a cool down time between burts of 0. Enter rapid fire artillery. I see you were exploiting this ;). I adjusted how much rate influences cooltime, so that's fixed. I also gave them a range of -1 instead of 0, to really make them more close ranged. That was actually very interesting to learn from your setup, that the Flugan are actually a good option for artillery turrets (btw you might want to put Rinandi at the bridge in combination with that tactic).

That's it for today. When I get a version with smaller ships, a modified galaxy and an attack at Sparks buglist I'll update again. I'll think about how to implement therobots suggestions (they're a bit more on the design side I'm weaker at, so they require more thought).

In the meantime feel free to post some suggestions.

[SparK_BR]

tell me when you update the swf
and change the updated part of your signature too =D

and btw
next time you will call something you don't have sure the reference will exist
use 'try' and 'catch'

[TOdorus]

Just updated the file. You may need to clear your cache first.

As I've changed the galaxy old savegames will be overwritten (I'm so glad I put a version parameter in my sharedObject). The ships now start out inactive and will only start to attack when an enemy comes close. You can give them a target or a move order to activate them yourself. Move orders are given by holding the "M" key and clicking on a spot.

I'll tackle therobots suggestions this weekend. I think I can only use capital letters to distinguish keywords. I'd love to use color instead, but I'm not entirely sure if that's possible codingwise. I'm also going to do some balancing to have less and longer battles.

[SparK_BR]

I'll tackle therobots suggestions this weekend. I think I can only use capital letters to distinguish keywords. I'd love to use color instead, but I'm not entirely sure if that's possible codingwise. I'm also going to do some balancing to have less and longer battles.

there's a property in the text field called "render as HTML" or something.
then if you use '.htmlText', you are setting the text as is in the field to be displayed,
if you use '.text' you can use tags in your text.

edit:
"houston we have a problem"
i tryied to play the first tutorial again and there are 2 ships stoped there
i click one of them and the manouvre says stoped
i click it and it changes for a frame and then stoped again
i had to click a lot of times very fast to make my ship approach and kill something

and instead of "Battle Won" text i got:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6726/morebugs.png (http://img99.imageshack.us/i/morebugs.png/)

edit2: hmm... now i see why i got this, i didn't read the tutorial where it says i must click the < and > buttons.
isn't there an objective screen that flashes an icon somewhere and tell me what i have to do?

edit3: OOOPS!
forgot to check the .swf name before trying to redownload
you made another .swf without the BETA in the end of the name...
sorry for posting all of that stuff based on the old version :emb:

edit4:
this one was taken in the advanced orders tutorial in the new version:
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4108/advorderstut.png (http://img148.imageshack.us/i/advorderstut.png/)

other stuff you might like to look into is the bomb manouvre acting like a run away for the flagship

edit5:
can you make the flagship bigger in the engineering room?
its hard to equip things in it

edit6:
when i press < and > after a ship of mine has died, i can see where it died cause the camera cicles through them even when they are invisible...

[therobot]

I have to take a look at this again. I gave it a second shot, using the T key to zoom in lieu of the trackpad, but the unit selection seemed to be bugging out for me pretty bad. I would have to click/double click units multiple times for anything to happen. Not really sure what that was about - your custom pointer couldn't possibly be interfering with mouse clicks could it? Again, I'm on a macbook, but I haven't really had so many problems with other flash games :/ More input is on the way.

Anyhow, yeah, you can color code the text if you render it out as html. It's pretty easy - the help files can probably explain it better than I can though :)

[TOdorus]

there's a property in the text field called "render as HTML" or something.
then if you use '.htmlText', you are setting the text as is in the field to be displayed,
if you use '.text' you can use tags in your text.


Anyhow, yeah, you can color code the text if you render it out as html. It's pretty easy - the help files can probably explain it better than I can though :)

Doh, totally forgot about htmltext. Now to look up the code for color (I've never coded html). Thanks guys.



edit4:
this one was taken in the advanced orders tutorial in the new version: <screenshot>

other stuff you might like to look into is the bomb manouvre acting like a run away for the flagship

edit5:
can you make the flagship bigger in the engineering room?
its hard to equip things in it

edit6:
when i press < and > after a ship of mine has died, i can see where it died cause the camera cicles through them even when they are invisible...

The tutorials can be bugged at the moment, as I've made some pretty big changes to the AI. Also I haven't checked if a player can deliberatly break a tutorial, good reminder.

Bomb isn't really a good idea to use on the flagship. It makes a ship circle around it's target, maintaining a distance. The distance would be the range of the turret with the biggest range. This way a ship has a better chance to stay out of harm as it keeps a distance between it's target and keeps moving so retunring fire can only be done by ships/turrets that can keep up. Since the flagship is by far the slowest ship in the game, it's targets will be close pretty fast (even in they're not attacking the flagship) and it has to move away from the target to maintain the distance and "be safe". The flagship has all that armor and a shield to be safe, so really it's not ment for the flagship.

Yes, the ship should be bigger in the engineering, but I was too lazy to have it done last update.

Ah, the ships are dead but there is still reference to them in the squadronarray for a little while (big ships are a squad of one). I'll have to make an adjustment so that it skips dead ships.


I have to take a look at this again. I gave it a second shot, using the T key to zoom in lieu of the trackpad, but the unit selection seemed to be bugging out for me pretty bad. I would have to click/double click units multiple times for anything to happen. Not really sure what that was about - your custom pointer couldn't possibly be interfering with mouse clicks could it? Again, I'm on a macbook, but I haven't really had so many problems with other flash games :/ More input is on the way.

Nah the custom cursor actually is a little off when you move the mouse fast enough, because of the framerate. My selection scheme is based on circular hittesting, as movieClips would just slow the game to a crawl, so it's pretty independent of the pointer. I think it's a framerate issue; that your click won't get detected in time. Still you would notice if that would happen. Very weird. I feel really bad for not bieng able to debug that, as I don't have acces to a mac. Does the problem persist if you pause the game and then select?

[therobot]

It looks like the Unit selection with the mouse is a little better? Hard to say. I've played a few levels, and I have a couple more points to suggest:

- Engineering Menu -
* Rolling over the weapons to find out information about them is somewhat frustrating because the info pane disappears when you move the mouse. Another thing that is slightly flawed about this is that the mouse ALWAYS overlaps the text in the info pane, so I can never easily read the information here. I would recommend having the info pane always be present, and have it display information for whatever piece of weaponry currently has focus.

Another aspect of this rollover that I am not digging is the delay before the information pane pops up. I think it makes comparing stats more difficult than it needs to be. The fact that I can look at the stats for one weapon, then there's a full second delay until I am allowed to see stats for another weapon is an unnecessary hurdle in deciding which weapons are the best. Again, I think the best solution would be to have the info pane always active, displaying info for whatever item is selected. Making the info pane stationary, always in one spot would make this easier to navigate as well.

* A weapon's stats are presented in a table format, but the rows of the tables are not lining up correctly.

In-Game
* I think there needs to be some sort of roll-over help text that appears when you mouse over the commands in your circular menu. I don't remember the tutorials very well, and I don't exactly know what some of those icons actually mean.

* I really want to be able to tell my ships where to go, instead of being limited to moving them relative to their current target. There was one point where I appeared to have a weapon with greater range than my enemy, but I accidentally close enough for him to attack me, and there was nothing I could do but take damage from him. I had no way of flying away from him. (Am I missing something here? It looks like I can only move around a target, closer to a target, or I can stop moving )

I've spotted numerous spelling & grammatical errors, you ought to post the script as a text file here and let someone proof read it. It would be more efficient than having a bunch of people say 'hey this word is spelled incorrectly on this one screen on level 3'

[therobot]

Sometimes pictures are just better at explaining things. Doing something like this to your engineering screen might make it easier to use. Note the little weapon boxes that surround the ship. It makes it a lot easier to tell how many weapon slots you have available. You could even color code them to make it easier to read ( orange = small turret slots, red = big turret slots, etc ). I've moused over the little yellow dots on the ship a few times to find that they aren't actually weapon slots.

[TOdorus]

I'm a bit busy with uni stuff at the moment (both partying with the new freshmen/women and studying for exams), so I won't be able to work on this 'till at least next saturday, but I'll respond never the less.


It looks like the Unit selection with the mouse is a little better? Hard to say. I've played a few levels, and I have a couple more points to suggest:

- Engineering Menu -
* Rolling over the weapons to find out information about them is somewhat frustrating because the info pane disappears when you move the mouse. Another thing that is slightly flawed about this is that the mouse ALWAYS overlaps the text in the info pane, so I can never easily read the information here. I would recommend having the info pane always be present, and have it display information for whatever piece of weaponry currently has focus.

Another aspect of this rollover that I am not digging is the delay before the information pane pops up. I think it makes comparing stats more difficult than it needs to be. The fact that I can look at the stats for one weapon, then there's a full second delay until I am allowed to see stats for another weapon is an unnecessary hurdle in deciding which weapons are the best. Again, I think the best solution would be to have the info pane always active, displaying info for whatever item is selected. Making the info pane stationary, always in one spot would make this easier to navigate as well.

Sometimes pictures are just better at explaining things. Doing something like this to your engineering screen might make it easier to use. Note the little weapon boxes that surround the ship. It makes it a lot easier to tell how many weapon slots you have available. You could even color code them to make it easier to read ( orange = small turret slots, red = big turret slots, etc ). I've moused over the little yellow dots on the ship a few times to find that they aren't actually weapon slots.


I agree with the delay, it should be minimal (not zero, because it will be annoying to have the popup constantly pop up), say 3 ms.

About the static display. That is how I originally did it. When the player selects an item the stats and name for the item were displayed. Then pradvan suggested this way of displaying. I think it makes more sense, as it only shows the information needed at that time, keeping clutter to a minimal. It also comes in handy for people who want to check what is already on the ship. I may re-add stats to the box showing your current selection, so you can compare the stats of something on your ship to the stats of the selection.

The weapon slots already do have a system like that, turrets are circles hangars are quintagons. You're right that the color doesn't stand out that much. The players fleetcolor used to be red, so the blue would stand out more. I'll change it so it becomes more clear. Btw, the yellow things are it's thrusters. I planned for those to be upgradable, but this was dropped later on.



* A weapon's stats are presented in a table format, but the rows of the tables are not lining up correctly.

Yeah, about that. I typed out two mockup textfields. One with the names of the stats, the other one with some random numbers presenting the stats and aligned them. Everything was peachy, but then I set the textfield with the actual numbers to dynamic and the spacing between the lines changed. :puzzle: I tried correcting for it, but that's as close as it gets (I see I haven't properly embedded my font, so that might also contribute to that problem). This is quite the bug in Flash.



In-Game
* I think there needs to be some sort of roll-over help text that appears when you mouse over the commands in your circular menu. I don't remember the tutorials very well, and I don't exactly know what some of those icons actually mean.

I already thought people would like that. Again with the idea to have the minimal amount of info a player needs at a time. I understand that most people want to rush through the tutorial (if they want to do them at all). I plan to have that implemented next update.



* I really want to be able to tell my ships where to go, instead of being limited to moving them relative to their current target. There was one point where I appeared to have a weapon with greater range than my enemy, but I accidentally close enough for him to attack me, and there was nothing I could do but take damage from him. I had no way of flying away from him. (Am I missing something here? It looks like I can only move around a target, closer to a target, or I can stop moving )



Just updated the file. You may need to clear your cache first.

As I've changed the galaxy old savegames will be overwritten (I'm so glad I put a version parameter in my sharedObject). The ships now start out inactive and will only start to attack when an enemy comes close. You can give them a target or a move order to activate them yourself. Move orders are given by holding the "M" key and clicking on a spot.

I'll tackle therobots suggestions this weekend. I think I can only use capital letters to distinguish keywords. I'd love to use color instead, but I'm not entirely sure if that's possible codingwise. I'm also going to do some balancing to have less and longer battles.

True, it isn't in the tutorials and game yet.


I've spotted numerous spelling & grammatical errors, you ought to post the script as a text file here and let someone proof read it. It would be more efficient than having a bunch of people say 'hey this word is spelled incorrectly on this one screen on level 3'

I figured nobody would ever want to proofread all that text. I'll get working on that.

[TOdorus]

After the project lying dormant for a while I picked it up yesterday. Had a good playthrough and did some balancing. Now that I can look at it with some detachment I see that I was too focused on fixing every little thing, but it's pretty good as it is. I'm looking to finish it this week, as I will mainly be adding backstory and balancing from now on. I've started on a transcript of all the text in Dawn of the Hulker (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/Dawn of the Hulker Transcript.doc), so if anyone spots a typo/grammatical error let me know. I haven't added the Engineering descriptions yet, but I'll probably get on that monday (Sunday's going to be a romantic day off).

I've added some pop-ups to the battle interface and made some changes to third tutorial. The biggest change is that I've done some balancing and added two of the light Leech ships to the starting fleet, because I thought the game started a bit slow. Battles will be bigger now as there are more enemy ships too, let me know if you think they take too long or have become too hard.

PS: ship specifications

Leech: 4 small turrets
Pounder: 2 small turrets, 1 big turret
Marauder: 2 big turrets
Mother: 1 hangar

Spitter: 4 hangars
Blaster: 4 big turrets

[TOdorus]

Hi guys, guess who's back.

I just finished writing a lot of filler. I've discovered I really dislike writing, so I guess my future games are going to feature a lot less dialogue. For any spelling and grammar errors (which I guess will be plenty) I refer you to the transcript of the game. This will make it easier for people to point out where I made a mistake.

I hope to push this out of beta to finished very soon, so I can finally say goodbye to it and try if someone is interested in offering money for it. There are other ideas I want to develop into games, so this baby has got to leave the nest.

For anyone interested if there are some changes to the actual game: a lot of balancing. The bigger battles should provide much more tactical challenge than before.

transcript Word2003 (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/Dawn of the Hulker Transcript.doc)
transcript Word2007 (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/Dawn of the Hulker Transcript.docx)

the game (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/ClosedBeta.html)

[TOdorus]

Houston, we're going commercial!

I've been getting Dawn of the Hulker ready for release out into the wild and adjusting the presentation accordingly. Moved some of the loading screens so the player can browse trough the menu's without seeing one (except for the one loading the swf ofcourse). This way players don't get put off by seeing a loading screen first thing. Mochi-ads' version control seems to be ok with the game now too. Added the interface to the tactical view and did a lot of work on tutorials. Still not happy with the way I explain things. I guess when it's not about code I'm not that much of a teacher :P

I'm pretty excited as how the sponsorship will turn out. Wrote a nice e-mail with to some of the bigger sites with links to a press package and the game. I've also put it on Flash Gaming License (http://www.flashgamelicense.com/view_game.php?game_id=8175) (at the time of writing it's pending approval). Fingers crossed!

[TOdorus]

A lot of people found the game confusing at first, so I've attacked that directly in this update. I've simplified the interface and that enabled me to shorten the tutorial considerably. Everybody that played the game (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/ClosedBeta.html): Try it out again, you'll be surprised.

Next up is the intro dialogue and engineering tutorial! People need to be able to get into this game quicker.

[therobot]

A lot of people found the game confusing at first, so I've attacked that directly in this update. I've simplified the interface and that enabled me to shorten the tutorial considerably. Everybody that played the game (http://home.planet.nl/~bogaa096/TanksTest/ClosedBeta.html): Try it out again, you'll be surprised.

Next up is the intro dialogue and engineering tutorial! People need to be able to get into this game quicker.

Cool, I'll check this out later today!

[glosrfc]

It's what you get for using png's.

It shouldn't be. If you're not using lossless compression, PNG's are saved as JPEG's but retain their alpha transparency. See the second from last paragraph in the section "24-Bit or 32-Bit Lossless Source Files" here:
http://www.freeopenbook.com/flash8-bible/BBL0152.html

"You may be surprised to see that even after you apply Flash JPEG compression to an imported PNG, PICT, or TIFF image, the transparency is maintained. You might say that Flash lets you have your alpha and eats the file size, too."

Try importing your PNG's into Flash, export them as individual SWF's, and then load them as required into your game SWF.

[TOdorus]

Yes you're right. That post is a bit outdated. That's why the filesize is 2.79MB now with Mochi version control added to it.

[TOdorus]

Well made some pretty big changes once again: less story and more tactical prowess. You're gonna love it. I don't know if the game has become too hard though.

The left side of the galaxy isn't balanced to fit the new tweaks, so those battles can be insanely hard or easy, depends.