Welcome to PiArmada
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:28 am
Hellcat was nice enough to set up this forum for discussion of PiArmada. It's been around a couple years now, but he said that a lot of folks here probably aren't even aware of it, so let me give you a little background.
I've always wished that the games I used to love were less buggy, more easily playable on modern systems, and infinitely customizable. To those ends, the idea of reproducing or cloning games has always appealed to me. Wing Commander Armada is foremost among those games. When I first learned C eight years ago, one of the first structs I ever created was for a corvette. I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned a lot poking around. Two years ago, having learned much much more about what I was getting into, and having discovered Python, I finally dove back in.
My original intention was to create a generic turn-based space strategy engine, so I could reproduce and fix other games, like Star Wars Rebellion and Birth of the Federation. However, Armada just took over. After a year, the game was finally playable in strategic mode. Thanks to the hard work of Hellcat and Spirit, the fourth release last summer included a roughly integrated flight engine. Just recently, I released version .09, which was much more polished. Gameplay is now very similar to the original game, but with a far more flexible interface and better graphics.
However, the game is far from done! Right now, my biggest need is feedback. I've gotten much less than I'd like over the years, so anything you've got to say, any suggestions at all, would be very much appreciated. Really, the game is a giant prototype. Very little pre-planning was done, and what there was has been thrown out and redone since then! Because of that, a lot could probably stand some touching up. Game balance is a definite question, as with all games. If anyone has suggestions for better music to use at different points in the game, those would be nice. The interface was designed by me, with better replacement graphics provided by others, but I think the whole thing could stand to be redone with a better unifying theme. All the images can be easily replaced by any user, but I'm open to repositioning things as well. Since I wrote the buton handling code myself, it's kinda raw. I'm tempted to redo the whole thing in the PGU sub-library of Pygame now that it's more mature, but that's way down the line.
The next release, .1, will have a lot of new features that make things even more interesting. I'm planning to have empires totally modular, so that the player can select who to play as and who to play against. Terran and Kilrathi already exist, obviously, but others should be relatively easy to make if anyone cares to. Of course, integrating those into the flight engine might be a little more difficult, but knowing VS, most of the material is probably already out there somewhere. I also plan on adding an interface to select what map the player wants to play on. I have the giant XML WC universe map to work from there, but if anyone wants to create more, they're more than welcome. I'd like to include gauntlet mode, so a VS mission file for that would be great.
Help with coding is also welcome, if anyone's talents lean that way. The source is included in the main download. Further down the line, I'll be adding network play. I'd also like to extend the concept of Armada past its original boundaries. One proposal was for a game that doesn't allow construction, but gives you a larger fleet with many kinds of ships. In addition to being fun, it would be a good stepping stone to a game that would allow for expanded building possibilities as well.
Right now, it's a decent game. It's playable, and looks like it has a lot of potential. However, it's far more likely to reach that potential with your help. The next release is .1, in which I want to reproduce the single-player Armada experience as well as possible. .2, I want to include multiplayer, and at least one spinoff game idea. Beyond that, who knows what this could turn into? My ultimate goal is to hear people say, "Yes, we could play the original game, but... why would we want to?"
Anyway, that's PiArmada. I hope it seems interesting to you. If you have any questions, comments, whatever, feel free to post in this forum. I'll be here.
Oh, and the link!
https://sourceforge.net/projects/piarmada/
I've always wished that the games I used to love were less buggy, more easily playable on modern systems, and infinitely customizable. To those ends, the idea of reproducing or cloning games has always appealed to me. Wing Commander Armada is foremost among those games. When I first learned C eight years ago, one of the first structs I ever created was for a corvette. I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned a lot poking around. Two years ago, having learned much much more about what I was getting into, and having discovered Python, I finally dove back in.
My original intention was to create a generic turn-based space strategy engine, so I could reproduce and fix other games, like Star Wars Rebellion and Birth of the Federation. However, Armada just took over. After a year, the game was finally playable in strategic mode. Thanks to the hard work of Hellcat and Spirit, the fourth release last summer included a roughly integrated flight engine. Just recently, I released version .09, which was much more polished. Gameplay is now very similar to the original game, but with a far more flexible interface and better graphics.
However, the game is far from done! Right now, my biggest need is feedback. I've gotten much less than I'd like over the years, so anything you've got to say, any suggestions at all, would be very much appreciated. Really, the game is a giant prototype. Very little pre-planning was done, and what there was has been thrown out and redone since then! Because of that, a lot could probably stand some touching up. Game balance is a definite question, as with all games. If anyone has suggestions for better music to use at different points in the game, those would be nice. The interface was designed by me, with better replacement graphics provided by others, but I think the whole thing could stand to be redone with a better unifying theme. All the images can be easily replaced by any user, but I'm open to repositioning things as well. Since I wrote the buton handling code myself, it's kinda raw. I'm tempted to redo the whole thing in the PGU sub-library of Pygame now that it's more mature, but that's way down the line.
The next release, .1, will have a lot of new features that make things even more interesting. I'm planning to have empires totally modular, so that the player can select who to play as and who to play against. Terran and Kilrathi already exist, obviously, but others should be relatively easy to make if anyone cares to. Of course, integrating those into the flight engine might be a little more difficult, but knowing VS, most of the material is probably already out there somewhere. I also plan on adding an interface to select what map the player wants to play on. I have the giant XML WC universe map to work from there, but if anyone wants to create more, they're more than welcome. I'd like to include gauntlet mode, so a VS mission file for that would be great.
Help with coding is also welcome, if anyone's talents lean that way. The source is included in the main download. Further down the line, I'll be adding network play. I'd also like to extend the concept of Armada past its original boundaries. One proposal was for a game that doesn't allow construction, but gives you a larger fleet with many kinds of ships. In addition to being fun, it would be a good stepping stone to a game that would allow for expanded building possibilities as well.
Right now, it's a decent game. It's playable, and looks like it has a lot of potential. However, it's far more likely to reach that potential with your help. The next release is .1, in which I want to reproduce the single-player Armada experience as well as possible. .2, I want to include multiplayer, and at least one spinoff game idea. Beyond that, who knows what this could turn into? My ultimate goal is to hear people say, "Yes, we could play the original game, but... why would we want to?"
Anyway, that's PiArmada. I hope it seems interesting to you. If you have any questions, comments, whatever, feel free to post in this forum. I'll be here.
Oh, and the link!
https://sourceforge.net/projects/piarmada/