A86: Re: Strategy Games
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A86: Re: Strategy Games
If you are refering to my project, yes, I started writing a C&C type game
over two years ago, didn't finish and uploaded the source to ticalc.org.
All that was implemented was a b&w scrolling map that you control using a
mouse. Possibly not the best interface, but it gives you enough to look at
and determine if you think that type of game would work on the calc. The
screen is small, but if you kept all of the units small too, it might work
out ok. There is a game similiar to Star Craft for the Palm Pilot, called
Galactic Realms. I played through a few levels in the demo, and while I was
impressed, it is hard to control, and the small screen (the palm screen is
160x160 versus 128x64) shows. Although generally the calc has much better
controls, in this case, the palm is a bit easier to control, since you can
just drag the stylus on the screen to select units and such.
A C&C game is a huge undertaking. It doesn't seem that difficult when you
start, but when you think about everything involved, you will realize how
much there is to do. Though, I probably just didn't finish because I'm lazy
and never finish anything (Matt, no jokes about Zelda here). Doing
buildings requires a lot of advanced tilemap techniques, and keeping track
of everything is a pain. Also, a game of this type must be done in
grayscale, otherwise it will look terrible and be too hard to see what is
going on.
The other issue, probably the most important, is that a C&C type game has to
be multiplayer. Sure, you can play through the missions, and I'm going to
buy Red Alert 2 to play through it because I enjoyed the first one, but the
real reason for playing is multiplayer. You can only do so much with
missions, and on a calc, that puts even more limits on what you can do with
them. The problem with multiplayer is that the link port sucks. There has
never been a really successful multiplayer link game. ZTetris generally
works, but it doesn't send a lot of data, games don't last for half an hour
or an hour (usually), and even it gets messed up from time to time. Look at
Bomber Bloke. That game would be awesome to play multiplayer on two calcs,
but the link always gets messed up. And for a C&C game, you need to send a
LOT of data.
A game like Civilization would be very cool to have. That would be
workable, and you could have it be multiplayer, because it's turn based. If
you wanted to keep switching the link cable between calcs, you could have
more than two people even. I thought about doing this for a GBC or Palm
Pilot version, using the IR port. The 86's screen is a bit small, but on
the 89 or 92, you could have nice looking 16x16 tiles for everything. If
someone is interested in working on Civilization for the 86 or 89, I'd be
willing to help with the project. Civilization was designed to be single
player, games take hours, sometimes all day, and when you get done, you can
play a new game and it's totally different. What more could you want?
> I was wondering why something like this has only ever been done once,
> and even then only in BASIC (huge, but decent). Sure someone has
> tried making C&C for the 86, and was gonna end up with a freakin'
> huge program, with large maps so he dropped the project... go figure.
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