The Hamger Games

UPDATE APRIL 30, 11pm:
I've uploaded a playable version of the game. I'll definitely be working on it after the competition, so please give it a go and give me feedback! Let me know if you see any major bugs.

Hi all,

I paused my main game project and will focus on this less intensive one so I'll hopefully have something for the jam.

The Hamger Games - http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/18466





Description: You (the pig) are tossed into an arena by wolves and given 30 seconds to prepare before the gates open. In those 30 seconds, you must first collect "resources" then use them to fortify against the onslaught. At first the goal was to survive as long as possible before being eaten by wolves, death being inevitable. However, I am now trying to add a time goal, so if you last 10 seconds after the wolves are released, then you survive to play another round. And then your goal is to see how many rounds in a row you can survive. We'll see how that goes.

I've been mulling over this idea for a while, about how a super short, frantic, RTS with no hope of survival could play. Emphasis is more on short and frantic, less on strategy. We'll see. Play it now to get the idea.

Feedback, please.

Neat idea. If you can add more 'to-do' stuff and polish out the design it'd be pretty fun.

Nice concept. Would love to see it fully realized.

GREAT concept! Add the ability to throw/shoot at the wolves from inside your fort and you're onto something I would play

Thanks for the positive response, guys!

I'm adding a screenshot of my own art to the first post. (The game itself has a lot of placeholder art in it while I'm prototyping the gameplay)

It's definitely an unfinished mockup, but any feedback on the direction would be much appreciated!

Also, I'm still playing around with the game mechanics; I'll try to upload an updated game soon.

Yeah great concept! I want to see all kinds of crazy traps that can be set, poisoned meat etc You should flesh it out! Great job!

Update: I was trying to get a working prototype up before this busy weekend, but I'm having trouble finding the source of a bug that locks up the game in the labyrinth of hackfulness called my code. Hopefully I'll have time to get it fixed soon.

Ah, code not "well-organized" perhaps? Aye, its so easy to do... I know its happened to me.

What exactly happens anyway?

It locks up the whole flash debugger--randomly it seems--after I refresh the scene, requiring me to Force Quit out. So if I were to refresh the scene 10 times, there would be a good chance one of those times would lock it up. Any thoughts?

Do you mean when you use a switch/reload scene block (or in that general vicinity)?

Yes, when I use the "fade out, reload scene, fade in" block. The scene reloads but then locks up.

Hmm... so it could be any number of things, couldn't it? Are the wolves and resources randomly spawned? Perhaps there is some sort of error being caused by that, like too many wolves spawned on top of each other = too many collisions = "NO! BOX2D COLLISION BUG!" As usual, I would look at anything that uses "repeat X times" or "repeat until" loops for infinite looping. Other than that general advice, its harder to diagnose without looking at the code.

Does the game version linked to have the same problem? Or is it only for the unreleased version you are working on now? I could try to reproduce it in the linked game to see if I can notice anything... or, if you really wanted me to, I could look at the game file itself. I'd be willing to take a shot at finding that error, but I don't know how you would feel about me peeking at your game code. 

Thanks Photon. I haven't had time to sit down and look at it. I'll let you know when I have time.

UPDATE: I've uploaded a major game update to Stencyl Arcade (It looks nicer and is buggy but playable.) Here's the link: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/18466.

Things needing work:

FUN FACTOR: Self explanatory.

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay still needs a lot of work. I just haven't had much time to tweak and test. My list:
- The click-to-move seems clunky and slow. I may tweak or find other ways of "collecting."
- I'll soon add wood and brick resources, but I'm undecided on the mechanic of building using multiple block types.
- Wolf AI is pretty lame as is. Will tweak and improve.
- Wolf interaction with blocks is lame as is. Will tweak and improve.
- I'd like to add "bonuses" that parachute down randomly: Traps, time extensions, etc.
- Sound, of course.
- Options like sound on/off, refresh, pause, exit, etc.

ART: I really want to flesh out the ambience of the game, even though the whole game takes place in one scene. It would be nice to surround the arena with spectators, bacon vendors, billboards, guards, wolf nobility... you know, everyday life at the Hamger Games.

SOUND: I always get to this last. We'll see what happens.

Thoughts?

@Photon, thanks for your offer to help. I was finally able to sit down tonight, and was actually preparing to send my game code to you for help, but stumbled upon the solution. It was an AS3 error that was [hopefully] resolved by disabling continuous collision. We'll see.

Update:

- Added Wood and Brick as resources. Bricks and wood last longer than straw against the wolves. Tomorrow I'll change it so that if you pick up wood and brick you slow down slightly, because they're heavier.
- Tweaked menus, buttons, etc.
- Tweaked keyboard input. Now SPACEBAR switches from gather to build mode, and Z simply toggles between the three block types when building. Still needs some work.