Whoops

Overlords v0.5
Fixes a glitch that makes the final boss impossible to beat.
Adds a pause button.
Some other nonsense.
That is all.

The Overlords have taken over

Overlords v0.4

And with this version, I declare Overlords to be a complete game.
New features for this release are four more cities, a proper final boss, interface and AI tweaks, and the last Overlord spell. This is a fairly solid, if simple, game I have got here. I have more I could add, but it would be icing on the cake - this is Overlords, fully formed and fully playable.

If anyone has any ideas for things to add, I will try to squeeze them in the last couple days if I like them.

HOME STRETCH

Overlords v0.3
There are now three different cities, each with a different level of Overlord power. Interface is improved (Hero hollows out as it takes damage and flashes when it can DASH, and enemy name is listed instead of just TARGET HP). On the last city, the Overlord has a new attack.

Due to time constraints, I'm not going to tidy up the Overlord's AI - instead, I've just made it compulsively teleport if it's stuck against a wall. Hack solution, but I'm on a deadline here.

NEXT: Seven more cities! Two more Overlord abilities for the final battle! Woo!

Tactical Minor Update Action

Overlords v0.21
Summary of changes:
-Main menu!
-New font.
-Difficulty settings!
-Speed settings?

With that out of the way, I think I have my path set for the rest of the month. It goes something like this:
-Clean up enemy AI a bit. Right now soldiers and the Overlord can get mucked up in corners alot.
-Interface improvements (again, some of xenofur's suggestions).
-Support for multiple maps, unlocked in sequential order (scoring?).
-Multiple levels of Overlord power.
-Finishing touches.

I have nine days left. CAN I DO IT‽

An Injection of Fun!

Overlords v0.2
Okay, some changes have been made (including xenofur's suggestion - thanks!), making the endgame much more engaging.
Total changelist:
-The Hero's health has been upped by over 50%, and his speed by 25%. He wasn't quite enoug of a badass in the previous version. Also, he heals 50% faster at allied generators now.
-The Overlord now has three forms - one that only the soldiers (not the Hero) can damage, one that anyone can damage, and one that only the Hero can damage. The last form forces the player to get involved in the battle at least a little, as does the Overlord's new abilities to teleport to the Hero's location, instantly capture adjacent generators, and summon minions around himself.
-There are two new soldier types - Scouts, which have very low HP but are incredibly fast, and Giants, which are very slow but have massive HP and attack power.
-New city again.

I think my next step is going to be to put some actual game structure around it, like a main menu and a GAME OVER screen and all that jazz. Also, difficulty levels.

I think I'm a big behind schedule, but I'll survive!

The Overlord Cometh

Overlords v0.11
Now with our very first Overlord! With a whopping 128 HP and the ability to plow through most soldiers without slowing down, it should raise the tension for the endgame a bit. Also, a new type of soldier (Bravos - normal soldiers with more HP and attack power), and a special Dash attack for the hero (hold Z and press a direction - consumes 10 MP).

I'm currently pondering how to balance the endgame, starting when the Overlord emerges. As it is, the best strategy for the endgame seems to be to run away from him until your minions take him out, which isn't exactly exciting. I'll see how it is once I give him the ability to summon bravos or teleport near the Hero.

Progress continues!

Holy Gameplay, Batman!

Overlords v0.1
The game is FAR from complete, but here is a general idea of what the gameplay will be like!
Left to do:
-Add the Overlord to the endgame
-Add multiple soldier types
-Touch up the interface
-Add some way to see the HP of things other than what you're attacking
-Add special attacks for the player
-Pretty up the HUD
-A zillion other things

But! There it is.

Demo 3 - Chase!

Progress progresses progressively!
Overlords Tech Demo #3: Enemies
Now containing three enemies, loaded from map.dat, who will chase the player around the city semi-intelligently. So far, it looks like the AI is not going to be as hard as I imagined, mostly because I'm not doing any real pathfinding. I'll just have to keep the maps fairly simple.
NEXT STEP - Combat!

DEMO 2 - Alone in the City

Three minor updates today:
1: I have uploaded demo #2 of Overlords, which contains a single Being which can be controlled using the arrow keys.
Overlords Tech Demo #2: Being
2: Zombie City Tactics did NOT make the top ten in the Independent Games Festival Student Showcase Competition. Oh well.
3: There are, to my knowledge, seventeen people currently participating in the '07 Super Game Bakedown. We're growing!

A little late

Okay, so maybe it wasn't later that day, but at least I'm delivering!

Overlords is a game heavily influenced by both Dynasty Warriors and my previous major project, Zombie City Tactics. Each game takes place in a city about 30-60 tiles across, constructed out of walls and Generators. Each generator can either belong to the Player or the Enemy. Generators periodically churn out soldiers, which will automatically move towards and attempt to capture enemy Generators. Different generators can produce different types of soldiers, so controlling the most powerful and well-placed generators can be key to victory.
The player controls one soldier, the Hero, who is exceptionally powerful. His job is to rush into combat and mow down enemy soldiers, pushing them back enough for his allied soldiers to gain victory in battle and move on to capture generators. He will be able to execute some number of special attacks, and recover lost health by resting near allied generators (enemy generators will also restore health to nearby enemy soldiers).
Now, the objective of the game is not necessarily to capture all generators and claim the entire city - that is only a means by which to force the beginning of the endgame. Once the player controls a certain number of generators, one of the remaining enemy generators will produce an Overlord. The Overlord is extremely sturdy and dangerous, with abilities to teleport, summon powerful soldiers around itself, and so on. The Overlord will crash through the allied army on a direct warpath towards the Hero, and attempt to kill him. If the Overlord for a city is defeated, then the game is won. If the Hero is killed first, the game is lost.
Game movement is realtime, but tile-based. Remember Chip's Challenge? Sort of like that, only more action packed. I'm mostly doing it that way because I'm on a time budget, and it'll be much easier to program than letting beings move freely. The player will also possess the ability to command nearby allies in some limited form, but I haven't worked out the details on how that will work yet.

So that's the basics of Overlords. I don't know if it'll be fun or not, but I intend to make it!

A demo appears?!

Man, usually it takes longer than this for me to churn out the first tech demo. But hey, this one isn't very impressive!
Overlords Tech Demo #1: Map (462kb)
Features:
-Map data loaded from file
-Camera control (smooth!)
That's it so far, in terms of what the user can see. Next step is to start populating this wacky world.

Incidentally, the final game will not have maps anywhere NEAR this claustrophobic - doing so would force me to give the AI soldiers A* pathfinding, which means boatloads of work for me. I just threw something together in Notepad for the purposes of this demo. Also yes, the title has changed; you'll find out more about that in my next post.

COMING LATER TODAY: Extended post about what the game will be like!

SUPER GAME BAKEDOWN 2007 GO

Urghh. I was going to post earlier, but, well. I was going to post as soon as the website for this project was up and running. However, the beginning of the month has come and gone, and the website is still not up yet. I hope for it to be up as soon as possible, but this year is gonna be a fairly minor one because we didn't get the website up in time, so the news hasn't had anywhere to propagate to.

Anyways. We have a new name for our month.
Good bye, NaViGaWriMo.
Hello, SUPER GAME BAKEDOWN.
I'm not going to go into the justifications behind the name, or the definition of the word "bakedown," as those will be explained well enough on the website when it goes up. In the meantime, stop worrying about the name and get to work making your games!

As for me, I have been somewhat lacking in inspiration for my project for the Bakedown, but I think I've got it at last. I'm abandoning both of my themes that I came up with earlier for now, and saving them for another year.
My project for this month is currently running under the working title of "Conquer." It will be a tile-based strategy/action game revolving around two armies being constantly generated and fighting each other over a sprawling city-type area, with the player taking control of a commander whose job is to turn the tides of the battle and convert being generators over to his army's side. Sort of partway between Zombie City Tactics and Dynasty Warriors. I don't know how most of the details of the game system will fold out, but it will involve large numbers of auto-generated, computer-controlled beings fighting each other for control of the city, while the player moves among them to fight enemies and take control of generators to make them stop creating enemy soldiers and instead start making friendly soldiers, until he gains enough momentum to conquer the rest of the battlefield.
I'll talk more about it later after I think about it a bunch!