Looking for opinions on game..."Bushwhack"

[Leathrewulfe]

I completed a short game. The details follow:

"Bushwhack" is a fast-paced casual game for Windows with an educational element based on the American Civil War. The game is primarily geared for middle-school aged children, but can be played by all age groups.

"Bushwhack" follows the adventures of two young scouts during the American Civil War (1864), as they attempt to recover gold from three lost caches. The scouts, Benjamin and Tobias, lead their scouting party through the fictional Wilderness Territory's three regions. The race is on to gather more gold than the competition and capture the region. Along the way, they not only must protect themselves from the dangers of the wild, but also protect the troops accompanying them. At their disposal are makeshift traps, to slow and frustrate their opponent...and if they are not careful, themselves. However, the forest is full of other dangers to avoid, including bees and wolves.

Choose the Confederacy or the Union and see if you have what it takes to capture the Wilderness before your opponent in the this short and exciting adventure.

SCREENSHOTS
http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/3/563351/7691369_orig.png
http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/3/563351/2050200_orig.png
http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/3/563351/1574197_orig.png
http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/3/563351/2866420_orig.png
http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/3/563351/7892987_orig.png


REQUIREMENTS:
* WINDOWS XP / VISTA
* DIRECTX 9.0c
* VIDEO CARD CAPABLE OF 1280 x 720 RESOLUTION
* WINDOWS COMPATIBLE MOUSE

DOWNLOAD
http://www.lycanth.com/leathrewulfe/Bushwhack_Setup.exe
(35,365 KB)


Thanks in advance for comments.

BAD MILK GAMES <http://badmilkgames.weebly.com/>
Email: tjjezeski@gmail.com

[GeneralGrant]

Pops up a message box saying my video card doesn’t support 1280x720 (I run 1920x1200) and then crashes. :(

[jpoag]

Pops up a message box saying my video card doesn’t support 1280x720 (I run 1280x800 dual monitor) and then crashes. I'm not sure if windows is reporting the resolution correctly...

[Leathrewulfe]

Odd.
I recoded the resolution check and uploaded a revised version. Let me know if the works for you.

Thanks.

[jpoag]

Ok, I tested it out (albeit on another machine [Vista-64]) and it ran up.

The dialogs interrupt the flow of the game. A lot of the information ones could be redone as 'toast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_(computing))'

I figured out that you could hit the space bar to get around the box. The point is that switching between the mouse and keyboard detracts from the game play. Since it's an educational game, and focusing primarily on questions, then I think you should stick to the mouse.

Also, it's not very deterministic with the random confrontational battles. You should throw questions into the 'face-off' battle between the scouts.


BTW, I think the enemy still moves during some of the dialogs (could be my faulty memory).

And the text is too hard to read for the directions. You could do a very simple tutorial with popup dialogs.

Minor fixes though, I know you aren't doing it for a commercial release.

[Leathrewulfe]

What makes the instructions hard to read? Font size and/or font color?

I agree with your suggestions. Thanks for the feedback.

[jpoag]

Size and color. If the pop-up tutorial is further than your willing to go then perhaps a series of dialogs with pictures?


the white text may not be the problem, it might be the contrast between the text and the dialog image. Try rendering a font shadow. A couple things I would try: Black, Alpha Shadow (black), a complementary color to the BG.

Yeah, the font size is too small. I have new glasses and still am having trouble reading it.

[jpoag]

ok, played the game again, this time all the way through until the 'end'

The controls are pretty bad. The key presses are pretty unresponsive. I know that a lot of games written from scratch suffer from this problem in the beginning, so I'm not surprised, but it does make the mouse look a little more attractive.

I have a Demo here (http://sexyfaq.jamespoag.com/AStarPathfinder.html) that shows traversal of an avatar across a hexagonal map using the mouse. The mouse isn't clipped to the hexagon ( a simple extra step after it passes the Rect Test) but the demo was about the application portable A* pathfinding, not the hex map. Also note that it supports both Widescreen and standard monitors.

That framework that I wrote it in has the controls nailed down pretty tightly, even the mouse cursor! Also automatically does lot of things for you. I'm not sure writing this game for the XBox is a great idea...

but I digress...

The paths on the last map are more akin to a real game map. For this game, the map should have several paths to and from the home base. With the extra paths, you can add artwork hints to the path and surrounding areas that suggest a certain path is dangerous (higher probability of being attacked by bees or wolves).

For instance, wooded areas would naturally be high in wolves, and a beehive with honey leaking out or a bee swarm would indicate bees.

As for mouse movement, you can implement a turn clock. This will allow the user to select the end destination and not 'zoom' to the end place. it also makes the AI movement lockstep with the player. You can 'pause' the clock during a dialog which would fix the AI running over you while disarming a mine.

Another thing I noticed is that I couldn't tell how far ahead of me the enemy was in filling their coffers. And if they were turned sideways, I couldn't tell if there were 2 or 3. Try staggering them.

Little Icons above the head could indicate how much money they are carrying (avatar and AI).

How is it that the AI is so smart? Why does it disarm it's own traps? I simply waited for the AI to pass on one round and it walked through the 4 traps it set (in a row) and it cleared the traps for me. Does that mean I would fall prey to my own traps?