"A rushed game is forever bad, delayed game good forever?" -Shigeru 'Mario' Mario
It has been a long time... Nevertheless, I have reignited the work on the Day at the Races Dota 2 custom game and managed to implement something that could be called a minimum viable product. It isn't fun yet and it certainly isn't pretty but it has achieved at least some of what I set out to do and provides good room for expansion in the future.
Let's start by reviewing what I had set as objectives for the MVP in the previous post
Looking backwards -analysing the previous objectives
Design and make basic map consisting of race track and seating area
-DONE, absolutely destroyed this one. Hammer is a great tool
implement three state gameflow skeleton
- DONE, main gameplay loop finished awaiting tweaks to the ruleset
Randomly generate a set of couriers with mildly randomised attributes (Movespeed and turn rate are probably a good starting place)
-REVISED, figured it was not worth the effort, reasoning that the race winner was 1) largely random even when couriers had same starting attributes, 2) going to be dependent on player actions(rigging races) anyway. Will try and crank the bullshit-factor up high enough to obfuscate that the couriers aren't any different to one another.
Script couriers running around track. (Look into creep pathing. Probably could reuse creep scripts.)
-DONE, absolutely destroyed this one. Hammer is a great tool
Implement way of algorithmically generating odds - based on courier attributes?
-DONE, I used "algorithms*" and "coding**" to come up with a genius solution for this one***
*random number generator, **odds=math.random(2,10), ***making it up
implement user interface for placing bets
-DONE, hijacked the Dota 2 item system to make a system of stacking gambling slips.
Overview of Game in its current State: it blows
In this section I will cover what the game looks like at the moment with the aid of photos.
As a reminder this is the flow diagram that I had envisaged for the overall game.
3 stages, nice and simple flow between them (why is that so pixelated??). The current flow diagram, fleshed out with the implemented mechanics looks like this:
Let's go over each of these in turn starting with the shopping phase.
Shopping Phase: Like those odds, do you?
When you boot up the game you are immediately faced with a screen that looks like this:
This is a modified version of the Dota 2 UI. Those familiar with Dota 2 will not be surprised by most of this, the map's different; the shop's different; our player character, Axe, has lost all his spells and we have a new window off to the left documenting 'Live Betting Odds' (A). Using this window you can make informed decisions about which racer to entrust with your money*. When you have decided, you can buy betting slips:
That's currently all you can do in the shopping phase, so let's move onto the Race Phase.
*if those odds look suspicious its because this bookie is extremely stupid. Rates are easy to change though; I just need to do some research on Odds Setting.
Race Phase: Excuse me mate, you have any idea how fast you was going?
The stage is set and its time for the main event. On this demo map, racers complete one lap of the circuit shown below.
Look at them go!
Once the race has finished, its time to distribute prizes.
Cleanup Phase: Here comes the money (maybe)
If you bet on the winner, you -err- win and reap the cash prizes based on the odds. Then, all betting slips are deleted - no hold overs to the next round, nice try!
This time also provides opportunity to recalculate odds.
It's then time for the cycle to restart -starting again with the shopping phase.
A Few Words on Timing: The Inspector
You may wonder how a player should know how long the shopping phase lasts -the duration of the other two phases is much more straightforward by comparison. To this end, The Inspector is summoned. This gruesome gourmand traces out the race track during the shopping phase: with the race starting immediately upon his completion of the lap. In a technical sense, he solves a number of our problems: To start with, he introduces players to where the race course is. He provides a visual indicator of how long the player has until the race will start. Also he's quite scary looking
TODO:
Implement Weapons
Give Couriers a defence (we dont really want them to be possible to kill)
Add more racers/tidy how they are managed (its a mess)
Experiment with vision. Currently all players can see all things
Tidy Graphics
Actual non-demo Map
Will most likely focus on the first 2 to begin with, see you next time. May also do a functional breakdown covering the next level of detail
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