Conquest Public Beta (indie student game project)

[Zarel]

I'm a bit sad because I couldn't find a way to cross-compile for mac, though on the other hand one should have a machine to properly test it on anyway. I have pretty much zero previous experience with Macs and OS X, so I hope I'm not disappointed.

Xcode is a really nice IDE. It has "Back" and "Forward" buttons, which turn out to be insanely useful. And a bunch of other stuff. Apple is really good at UI.

As for the technical side of it, one of the things you should watch out for: Mac OS X applications have the .app extension. They're usually distributed in .dmg form, where the .dmg contains the .app. The .app is then dragged to /Applications/, where it resides in:

/Applications/[i]AppName[/i].app

This appears to be a normal file to all file browsers, however it's actually a folder. The actual executable is in:

/Applications/[i]AppName[/i].app/Contents/MacOS/[i]AppName[/i]

And the program data is usually in:

/Applications/[i]AppName[/i].app/Contents/Resources/

Thanks for the insight, I can imagine that the first version will be for 10.6 and then depending on the difficulty, need and time also on eariler OS X versions and PPC. It sounds pretty annoying to have to take OS versions into account so much. I see games needing versions like 10.5.4 or above, is that because of driver (OpenGL) versions or some other changes to the OS? I have to say it would be pretty exciting to see it run on another architecture as well though, but then again I'd need a PPC mac, or can you use Rosetta to run the PPC executable built on 10.6? Hehe.

Taking earlier OS versions isn't that bad. Universal 10.4 binaries run on all later versions (that's what Warzone does, and I believe Wesnoth does something like that, too). Jetrel's just saying that if you do hit upon compatibility issues with older versions, making 10.6-only binaries isn't a big deal (although I personally believe he's understating a bit - you should at least support 10.5).

We're big fans of OSS, hell, without OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, boost etc. we wouldn't have a game, but we don't feel like this is the right opportunity for us to give back to the community, at least right now.

That's reasonable, but we would immensely appreciate if you told us your reasons. It could be beneficial to all of us, if we can find solutions to any remaining reservations you have about releasing your game as open-source. I've addressed what I believe was the primary issue - that you can still release proprietary games using your game engine. Otherwise, we understand if you don't want to talk about this further.

That's a good point, distance-wise it's closer to a circle, but otherwise having more directions to go means going more towards a circle's flexibility. The reason we don't have hexagons is because the code would be a pain in the ass compared to now, at least that's what I hear (I'm not personally working on the graphics). It can be changed later on, but it's quite some difference.

It's far easier to start with hexagon support, or to add hexagon support as early as possible, than to add it in later.

It's indeed harder, but definitely still possible. It's also a feature that can help you stay ahead of your competition.

[SephiRok]

Xcode is a really nice IDE. It has "Back" and "Forward" buttons, which turn out to be insanely useful. And a bunch of other stuff. Apple is really good at UI.

It will be hard to overcome my love for Eclipse. (!!!)

That's reasonable, but we would immensely appreciate if you told us your reasons. It could be beneficial to all of us, if we can find solutions to any remaining reservations you have about releasing your game as open-source. I've addressed what I believe was the primary issue - that you can still release proprietary games using your game engine. Otherwise, we understand if you don't want to talk about this further.

The main two reasons are:
1. We want to give game development a serious try and have a small indie studio => we have to make enough money from the games to survive.
2. Being OSS sounds like it focuses more on management, what to accept and what not, you can have potentially dozens of contributors, now we're 2 + an artist. We want to _make_ the game.

Things that also come up are:
3. To me it seems other tools benefit the community more from being OSS than games. If we would go OSS we would do it mostly so that the game can reach it's highest (or at least higher) potential. Perhaps we can make OSS a tool or engine part we develop.
4. I'm not sure this is the sort of game which would gain as much from going OSS as other might. It was designed to be a competitive multiplayer game. At the moment it has no campaigns aso. Of course this can always get expanded and one could say it's a plus from going OSS as it gives more possibility for expansion into different directions and satisfy a bigger variety of people. Still, competitive multiplayer is the highest purpose.

Also to note is that we would go OSS once we felt the code is polished enough to present, most likely when the game would be quite finished (at least some of us feel very strongly about this), even if it's not a reason for not going OSS it is somewhat connected to reason 2. I can imagine we might want to focus on developing something else afterwards.

It's far easier to start with hexagon support, or to add hexagon support as early as possible, than to add it in later.

It's indeed harder, but definitely still possible. It's also a feature that can help you stay ahead of your competition.

Of course it's less effort since you don't have to redo things, but somewhere in the equation also comes the knowledge of exactly what you'll have to do and how to do it. This was for us the first experience with 3D—even our first game—so it made more sense to keep it simple (which is almost always better as well). I still stand by our graphics programmer's opinion if he says it's too complicated to be worth the gain, I can see it myself. I'm not even sure if we'd have went with hexagons now, after all this experience and knowledge. The terrain is already not limited to square representation, so the only difference would be the amount of territories you can move to and the look of the grid. It might also have a bit different feel (natural movement as you say), but is that worth complicating the code, making further management and changes more complicated and giving up the days required for implementing it?

[Zarel]

It will be hard to overcome my love for Eclipse. (!!!)

...why would anyone have a love for Eclipse? o_O Having used both, I find Eclipse absolutely horrible. I mean, even disregarding the slowness... Just try Xcode, man. It does everything Eclipse does, but faster. And better. And some things Eclipse can't do.

[SephiRok]

For everyone still interested, I can now officially confirm there will be a Mac version. Most likely we'll go with a min requirement of Intel and OS X 10.5.

I got one of the new MacBook Pros. Being my first real OS X experience I'm still struggling to like it; Apple has done a really poor job at implementing automatic graphics switching and I'm still missing some terminal functionality with this keyboard/OS, but the laptop itself is awesome - the trackpad is pure love.

Here's a shot:

P.S. If anyone frequents Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Conquest/375488914911

[lmelior]

Well done sticking to it for this long, Conquest looks great. Congrats on the IGF 2010 Honorable Mention, too. Looking at the winners (and other honorable mentions for that matter) there's a pretty clear bias towards unusual puzzle games. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I'd rather play Conquest than most of the finalists.

[SephiRok]

Thanks, that means a lot.

[Gambit]

Re: Open sourcedness (yes I know that was a long time ago)

You could follow the Humble Bundle's example. Open source the most basic core parts of the engine, but charge for the actual content. Think of wesnoth with all the unit cfgs, art, music, campaigns, maps, and what not removed. You're left with a fully functional christmas tree to open source, and you can make people pay for the ornaments (i.e. the actual game part of the game).

This let's you access whatever benefits there are to opensourcedness, but you still keep full control on your product to make money. Just downloading the source won't get them any actual gameplay. And making their own gameplay assets would be very time consuming.

[em3]

Re: Open sourcedness (yes I know that was a long time ago)

You could follow the Humble Bundle's example. Open source the most basic core parts of the engine, but charge for the actual content. Think of wesnoth with all the unit cfgs, art, music, campaigns, maps, and what not removed. You're left with a fully functional christmas tree to open source, and you can make people pay for the ornaments (i.e. the actual game part of the game).

This let's you access whatever benefits there are to opensourcedness, but you still keep full control on your product to make money. Just downloading the source won't get them any actual gameplay. And making their own gameplay assets would be very time consuming.

This has some psychological implications, when the work of one part of team (programmers) is given away for free and work of other parts of team (graphic, sound, scenario developers) is cashed. Might make the coders feel... weird.

[Gambit]

This has some psychological implications, when the work of one part of team (programmers) is given away for free and work of other parts of team (graphic, sound, scenario developers) is cashed. Might make the coders feel... weird.

They'd still be getting paid.

[em3]

Yea, I know. I'm not really against this model, even though I'm a programmer myself. I'm just pondering.

[Jetrel]

For everyone still interested, I can now officially confirm there will be a Mac version. Most likely we'll go with a min requirement of Intel and OS X 10.5.

Honestly, it's unreasonable to expect PPC or 10.4. You can do it, but if you do, you're wasting your time, because by several metrics, the number of mac users on either is a single-digit percentage - if they haven't upgraded, they're unlikely to be the kind of people who actually buy/install new software.

Re: Open sourcedness (yes I know that was a long time ago)

You could follow the Humble Bundle's example. Open source the most basic core parts of the engine, but charge for the actual content. Think of wesnoth with all the unit cfgs, art, music, campaigns, maps, and what not removed. You're left with a fully functional christmas tree to open source, and you can make people pay for the ornaments (i.e. the actual game part of the game).

This let's you access whatever benefits there are to opensourcedness, but you still keep full control on your product to make money. Just downloading the source won't get them any actual gameplay. And making their own gameplay assets would be very time consuming.

Actually, that's exactly what we're doing with frogatto. Open engine of our own making, but closed, copywritten art/music/content.

It lets us facilitate people making other games, which is the whole point of OSS, but prevents people from "freeloading" our hard work.

[SephiRok]

We are nearing our release and are looking for testers with Intel Mac OS X 10.5. If anyone is interested please send me a PM.

[SephiRok]

Hey guys,

we've released (!!!). There's a free multiplayer demo with some restrictions (think similar to Defcon) for download at the front page of the official site http://www.conquest-game.com. Get all your friends! Appreciate any feedback anyone has.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs-57Xp3x2o

The full version is available for $15, and if anyone is big on facebook we're giving out 5 33% discount coupons for our fans at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Conquest/375488914911.

Cheers,
I hope you enjoy the game.

[SephiRok]

Situation update!

We've rolled out an immense update with end-turn animations, offline play and other fluffy stuff (new gameplay video included): http://www.conquest-game.com/board/news ... -one-t194/

We've also set up two contests you can participate in and win other indie games (even just for participating): http://www.conquest-game.com/board/news ... izes-t199/

Last but not least we extended the Conquest sale for another week, feel free to tell your friends, it's 50% off: https://sites.fastspring.com/proxystudi ... t/conquest