Monday, December 24, 2007
(I Don't Know Why) But I Do
I'm working on the gui, there will be some changes, for example the tactical operations maps will be in 3d. Sadly there will be no Christmas demo, sorry.
A sidenote: remember the counsellors that popped up when the player was on the buttons screen? they were Tzipi Livni for the diplomatic options, Meir Dagan for the Mossad and Dan Halutz for the IDF. I wondered if it was somehow illegal to use those photos in the game so I sent a mail to the Israeli government asking if there was some legal issue. The little problem is that I received a response but yahoo mail put the answer in the spam folder, and I realized only after cleaning the folder that that mail could be legittimate! Its title was something like "re: answer from the office of the prime minister", at the moment I forgot I sent a request and I really thought it was spam. However, this is only to thank the Israeli government for their answer, regardless of the content (which I didn't read, my fault).
In any case I had already decided to change the pictures to bring some abstraction (Dan Halutz has been removed some time ago, so my game was already obsolete): now the player will have as counsellors David Ben-Gurion, Eli Cohen and Moshe Dayan; it's nothing special, just three pictures, as three phantoms from the past that help the player.
A sidenote: remember the counsellors that popped up when the player was on the buttons screen? they were Tzipi Livni for the diplomatic options, Meir Dagan for the Mossad and Dan Halutz for the IDF. I wondered if it was somehow illegal to use those photos in the game so I sent a mail to the Israeli government asking if there was some legal issue. The little problem is that I received a response but yahoo mail put the answer in the spam folder, and I realized only after cleaning the folder that that mail could be legittimate! Its title was something like "re: answer from the office of the prime minister", at the moment I forgot I sent a request and I really thought it was spam. However, this is only to thank the Israeli government for their answer, regardless of the content (which I didn't read, my fault).
In any case I had already decided to change the pictures to bring some abstraction (Dan Halutz has been removed some time ago, so my game was already obsolete): now the player will have as counsellors David Ben-Gurion, Eli Cohen and Moshe Dayan; it's nothing special, just three pictures, as three phantoms from the past that help the player.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
I passed the ISCW! for the next few days I'll have some rest from the books.
I'm still working on the a.i., I'm on the purchases engine. I'm at a good point having completed the a.i. engine for the deployments, the order of battle, the disposition of troops and the diplomacy.
A note on the disposition of troops: in the old version one could choose between five different dispositions, more or less aggressive, for the land units. Now it will be possible to choose between three: I think it's better because now the player will have to choose a defensive, offensive or mixed disposition for each land unit, a concept easy to grasp. Five different dispositions were simply reduntant and confusing: in this case less is more.
Second note: in my previous post I discussed the possibility to transform the map into a round globe. I thought that from a design perspective the player would lose the feeling of playing on a board, so I might abandon the idea of a round base map, and enhance the sense of being in front of a board.
I'm still working on the a.i., I'm on the purchases engine. I'm at a good point having completed the a.i. engine for the deployments, the order of battle, the disposition of troops and the diplomacy.
A note on the disposition of troops: in the old version one could choose between five different dispositions, more or less aggressive, for the land units. Now it will be possible to choose between three: I think it's better because now the player will have to choose a defensive, offensive or mixed disposition for each land unit, a concept easy to grasp. Five different dispositions were simply reduntant and confusing: in this case less is more.
Second note: in my previous post I discussed the possibility to transform the map into a round globe. I thought that from a design perspective the player would lose the feeling of playing on a board, so I might abandon the idea of a round base map, and enhance the sense of being in front of a board.
