Fuego!

[BenniBanni]

Since two weeks you were patrolling the waters around Fort Hope, spotting no sign of Blackbeard's armada of dark-sailed ships.

Suddenly your man in the crow's nest shouts "DARK SAILS!". You throw some commands at your well trained sailors and within minutes your ship is ready to fire at those evil pirate-landlubbers.

Then, the first of Blackbeard's ships is in range for your cannons... "FUEGO!" you yell, and the first enemy sinks.

I already submitted the first playable version to J4K2013...  
http://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=456

[BenniBanni]

I think there is some more work to do:

1.) The player-ship sometimes "escapes" the screen upon start-up.
That's because the ship always tries to reach the mouse-position, and if the mouse never has entered the applet, this goes wrong. 
I'll define a starting-point for the target-position, if the mouse has never entered the applet.

2.) The hitpoints-bar of sunk ships should disappear. It doesn't look good...

3.) The reload-time of the cannons should be visualized. Maybe there should be 2 separate times for the left and right cannon...

4.) The enemy-ships sometimes appear to close to the player upon a new stage. I'll move the randomized spawnpoints slightly outside the screen, so they sail in (and don't pop up suddenly)

5.) The cannonballs should make a splash in the water, if they missed...#

6.) the pirate-ships should try to avoid each other. Looks odd, when they pass through another ship...

7.) Stuff all that into the remaining 19 bytes... 
Well, I'll have to clean up the rendering of the ships a bit, to make space... 


Any more feedback? Anyone? Please? 

[RobinB]

Well i guess the game is a little to boring.
Everything moves really slow, and there is not such a big threat.
Its just circling around ships until you get an lucky hit.
Maybe add some more speed / strategy.

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[BenniBanni]

Do you mean the concept of the game is lame?

• don't steer the ship directly - only set a target with the mouse
• fire at those pirates with the correct left/right cannon

Or is it only the lack of real threats?

• because the pirates don't shoot at you
• you have infinite ammo
• etc.

I don't agree with the lack of speed, as they are huge sail-ships and should behave slowly...
And so its possible to not only get a "lucky hit" but rather score "skilled hits"
(ok, only if the game is interesting enough to train the skill... hm...)

But maybe i should limit the ammo, and let the hit ships drop some floating ammo-chests, which the player has to collect?
So running out of ammo, and no floating chest remaining would be a game-over...

Or should i kick out the stages and instead always send 2 new pirates in for each defeated ship? That would faster increase the danger of running into sunk ships...

Thanks for the feedback, gave me some points to think about  

[StephR]

I was surprised not to see a game inspired by Broadsides or Sid Meier's Pirates! sooner in this contest.
Whatever are the problems with your game, your ship models are nice and some interesting gameplay is here.

To make it more thrilling, add guns to your pirate-ships, even if they shoot randomly ! Ideally, if the wind was taken into account, the game would become even more strategic.

Beside that, I don't mind much your points 2) to 6). I don't find your game too slow. I would not limit ammo. I also like steering with the mouse.

It would be better just to click on screen to start or restart the game, as I find tedious going from the mouse to the keyboard then coming back to the mouse.

[Localhorst]

I also like the game, but i agree without the ability of the pirates to shoot back it is a bit boring.

Cheers

[Damocles]

Reminds me of the Patrician 2 and Port Royal.

Unfortunately my ship only shoots to the starboard side, not portside.

[BenniBanni]

Yikes!
I "optimized" the rendering-code for the ship model, now I've only 2 bytes left (instead of 19) 

I'll try to add shooting pirates, but I'll have to make space for it...

@Damocles: thats strange. I'm using Applet's
handleEvent(Event e)
and then the Modifier META_MASK to determine, if the right Mousebutton was used:
if((e.modifiers & Event.META_MASK) == Event.META_MASK)

Alternatively you can use "A" or "Arrow-left" to shoot portside and "D" or "Arrow-right" for starside...

[BenniBanni]

Ha! Did it! And it worked!

After refactoring now there are about 360 Byte left, and the pirate-ships also fire their cannons 

The new version is already posted on java4k: http://www.java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=456

Thanks for the feedback! That helped a lot... 

[BenniBanni]

Just updated the game on java4k ( http://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=456 )

Now the reload-time of the cannons is shown as yellow bar over the ship, and the bullets that dont hit anything fall into the ocean with a little "splash"-animation.   

Unfortunately, i dont have any more time to change more things before the deadline.

So, I'd like to wish everyone a happy contest!   

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[zeroone]

Can you draw a target indicating where the ship is being directed?  I know it's following the mouse cursor, but the game does not provide a visual indication of that.

[StephR]

Well done for all these improvements to your game. I really appreciate the gameplay now.

Unfortunately, I missed the message you posted two weeks ago about them, so I didn't make any new comment sooner.

And I'm sorry to disagree with zeroone, but I think the ship handling is just fine as it is.

[BenniBanni]

Thanks for your replies!

What a luck, that my business-appointment tonight was canceled, so i could add further things to Fuego! 

I added a slightly visible curved path from the player-ship to the mouse-position, which visualizes the skippers wish, where the vessel shall travel to. (So its not an accurate prediction of the path the ship will go, just a visual hint)
This should be a perfect tradeoff between the last two suggestions...

Further i've fixed a bug in the game-state-handling, when crashing into a sunk enemy-ship in "press-mousebutton-for-next-stage"-state. Now you can not be destroyed after you won a stage. 

[zeroone]

Thanks for your replies!

What a luck, that my business-appointment tonight was canceled, so i could add further things to Fuego! 

I added a slightly visible curved path from the player-ship to the mouse-position, which visualizes the skippers wish, where the vessel shall travel to. (So its not an accurate prediction of the path the ship will go, just a visual hint)
This should be a perfect tradeoff between the last two suggestions...

Further i've fixed a bug in the game-state-handling, when crashing into a sunk enemy-ship in "press-mousebutton-for-next-stage"-state. Now you can not be destroyed after you won a stage. 

That helps a lot.  It feels like I'm dragging a toy ship with a string. I finally beat the first stage.  Since it's difficult to aim, can you make the enemy ships take fewer hits before they are destroyed? 

[StephR]

I find the difficulty level totally acceptable as it is now. I reached the 4th stage without complaining.

At least, no one will blame you for not listening to your audience !

[bainit]

Earlier I didn't pay much attention to this game, but now I have found this game very funny which inspired me to a new idea.
Good job.

[BenniBanni]

Thanks, bainit