AutoFire [7DRL-2016] [Success, and update]

[PatrickLipo]

I hadn't actually talked about my 7DRL on this forum, so no time like the present!

AutoFire can by downloaded at my site here: http://www.patricklipo.com/randomprojects/autofire-a-roguelike-in-7-days/


Autofire is the result of my second year participating in the 7DRL challenge.  In it, the player drives an armored battle car driving through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, battling bandits and mutants while salvaging weapons and armor.  While last year's entry Huge was primarily used to get my feet wet with some comfortable mechanics, this year I wanted to cut loose and try some turn-based car combat mechanics I’ve been kicking around.  This includes the idea of vehicle speed, mounting vehicles on each side of the vehicle, and a grip meter to force players to maintain control…  but also sticks to the Roguelike feel of one input per turn.

Design Notes
The core of the game requires players to understand a control scheme where traditional up/down/left/right keys control rotation and acceleration.  The player gets additional actions per turn (per “second”) when they drive at higher speeds. However each weapon has a fixed second-length cooldown, so players must make use of weapons on all four sides of the vehicle for maximum advantage.  Finally, the faster you go, the more your maneuvers drain your Grip meter. When your grip drops to zero, you start to skid…  Although with clever use of skids you can pull off some sweet drift-type behaviors and clever swiveling to bring your various guns to bear.

The game is a bit more ugly than last year's entry (especially since I raided multiple sources for quick sprites), but I shifted my efforts to UI to help illustrate the new mechanics. I think probably half my time was spent on feedback, UI and trying to ease players into the new mechanics... and there's so much more to do.

I also created a loot system to allow players to choose where to mount the weapons they salvage, and give players the ability to use weapons mounted on various sides to deliver multiple attacks per turn. 

Updates
Overall I’m really happy with the results of the game, and I'm continuing to work on and improve it.  The original 7DRL entry is also available on the site.  Would love your feedback and comments!

[jere]

Just want to say that looks amazing. The drifting is unbelievably cool and I'm really digging the red preview you get for your next turn. Good job.

[PatrickLipo]

Thanks!  Am definitely looking to continue work on it going forward.

[PatrickLipo]

There's a new point release on my site next to the original 7DRL version.

I had a few core things I wanted to refine and adjust from the original, particularly in the feedback department...  Since the controls for AutoFire are similar yet different from a typical roguelike, creating an experience that is easy for beginners is a continual work in progress.

In terms of driving, I simplified the grip meter to make it easier to do the "drift racing" style actions that people wanted to do, and then added new cues to help people understand their current speed.  For combat, there was a lack of understanding of when damage was being done, so I improved damage and attack feedback as well as gave users more information on the HUD about the weapons they were using.  World generation got a slight improvement, and the difficulty was increased from the admittedly easy 7DRL release as well.

Check the update out on my site if you're interested:  http://www.patricklipo.com/randomprojects/autofire-a-roguelike-in-7-days/

Changelist for v0.2:

• UI: Grip meter no longer has two halves.
• UI: Highlight weapon that would be fired when targeting enemy
• UI: Display stats in the target panel of the weapon that would be fired
• UI: Display ghost cars in quantity matching speed.  3 moves/second shows 3 ghosts.
• UI: Improved display quality and sorting of damage text.
• Graphics: Skids now show smoke where the player was.
• Graphics: Changed world tiles from crates to buildings.
• Graphics: Projectiles now visibly move from source to target.
• Graphics: Dropped loot now slides from source to its resting point.
• Gameplay: Added line of sight checks for player and enemy weapons.
• Gameplay: Grip no longer goes below zero, and will start to recharge if the player faces in the move direction.
• Gameplay: Barrels explode and damage/destroy things nearby.
• Gameplay: Repair values of wrenches and armor patches were halved.

[PatrickLipo]

I grew really fond of AutoFire over the course of the 7DRL and have continued to work on it nights and weekends.

Over the past couple of months I took some time to convert the entire game to Isometric 3D and putting in entirely new world assets. 
I've also completed phase 1 of getting enemy AI cars to battle in.



Then, after some urging by my friend Jim (Dungeonmans) Shepard, I cleaned up my code and started to get things rigged up to cross between multiple maps.  Then I put some effort into learning more about Voronoi regions and Perlin noise to generate a basic overmap.  It's not gorgeous yet but I'm pretty excited about adding some more structure to the experience.



After that, I'm headed back into combat-land and working on both revising the input scheme and improving combat with enemy vehicles.

Visit http://www.patricklipo.com for more updates!

[akeley]

How did I miss that? Auto Duel...Roadwar Europa...oh my. Downloading now...

[PatrickLipo]

Early this year I went back and played Roadwar 2000, and while it was just as clunky as I remember, it totally inspired me to push my car combat passion in the Roguelike direction and do it for 7DRL. :-)

[Tzan]

I loved playing Roadwar 2000 on my Atari ST, good times.

[akeley]

Impressive stuff.  It`s a blast to play, literally. Now just hoping you`ll take it further seeing as  you have the most important/difficult elements sorted: the combat and movement - they`re just super fun. So it`d be a crime not to build on this.

[PatrickLipo]

Thanks!  I'm really into the idea of a sophisticated Autoduel homage combined with the thoughtful combat decisions of the original Car Wars, Roadwar 2000, and roguelikes in general.  This week I continued refining my outdoor visuals. I do need to get in some highways in there, but here's an update:





As usual, check out http://www.vertigames.com!

[akeley]

Hmph. I liked the 2D version a lot and I`m  always bit wary of switching to an isometric style. It seems to generate lots of problems with general clarity of what`s going on in combat (eg: all the early Bioware cRPGs and even the recent Pillars) It also might generate additional requirement for camera controls and so on...

But, it looks good visually of course, and I suppose a man with your CV probably knows what he`s doing ;) I had a look at your Gamegeography and it was quite an impressive nostalgia blast...I remember being awed by Shadowcaster, one of the first true-FP fantasy games, Hexen 2: with its next gen gfx and then Necrodome was intriguing too, though I think I only had the demo (was always a huge fan of car combat carnage...Twisted Metal, Quarantine, Interstate and so on)

Also, I could argue that the assault rifle actually "works" very well in Halo, but that`s probably the wrong forum for that :P

[PatrickLipo]

Do not fear, it's still turn-based and tile-based and mostly top-down, and it plays the same with the new viewpoint.  The screenshots above are simply "beauty shots" to show off recent work.    I like 2D quite a bit myself, and enjoy how much easier it can be to create content.  However, I think in the long run 3D will give me a lot more options for showing what I want to show off. 

To make sure that 3D does not become a detriment I'm returning to refining the game experience now, and making sure the interface is as crisp and clear as I possibly can, then switching to adding campaign-style content.

And man, if you know Necrodome, you are probably one of 1000 people on the planet who do.  My respects to you. :-)