Re: [Help-liquidwar6] Liquid War 0.0.11beta released

[Christian Mauduit]

Hi,

> 2011/10/29 Christian Mauduit <address@hidden>:
> Yeah, a wiki would be really nice, not just for the upload option! But
> it might not be compatible with:
> 99: The Lens of the Raven -- Is making this worth my time?
Yep. Agree. 99 wins. No wiki then ;)

> BTW, I got the book 'Art of Game Design' from the library. However,
> they needed me to deliver it back 'as soon as possible'. But I have
> found an Android app with all 100 cards from Art of Game Design! It
> let you pick a random card, sort by subject, and will let you see the
> card illustration in fullscreen.
Cool! BTW I cannot really lend you book, it's in French ;)

> Thanks! (It's not *that* high priority, but I don't want to fine tune
> too much if the system changes anyway)
Perfectly understandable, you're right.

> When I tried ./configure, it told me this:
>
> Configure: error: *** Liquid War 6 needs GNU MP (http://gmplib.org)
>
> Could this be the problem?
No, not exactly, the problem is I forgot to mention you one thing, see 2.3.3
in http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/manual/html_node/Installation.html
and look at the lines that start with "apt-get". Ubuntu is DEB based, you need
to type that crazy line (as root) it should install all the requirements.
Alternatively, you can use the graphical interface of your choice and install
all those devel dependencies (from "make" to "debhelper"). The good news is
you do this only once, when it's done LW6 compiles fine. The current release
probably has 90% of the dependencies LW6 will ever need (it's already a hell
of a lot!) so you're very likely to run this once and never again.

> LIQUID WAR HAS BEEN CLONED!
>
> I have discovered a Liquid War clone for android devices: Battle of Pixels.
>
> Here's some screenshots:
> http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6030/battleofpixels.jpg
Hey, that's cool!

> I tried playing the demo, but it's not all that impressive, especially
> considering that they charge money for the full beta version. But it's
> still interesting!
>From what I see they stumble on the usual problems when coding that game -> it
looks quite simple at start but when you come to really complex maps, not
really very complicated but with tricky topology, then serious things start.
Also they are very pixelized, which is IMHO due to performance issues (I'm not
talking about the non-smoothed stuff, just the fact their are few fighters).
Anyway they have pretty nice stuff we don't have, including, but not limited
to, explanations of how their power-ups work, global description of the game.

> The full (beta) version should have network play. Yeah, big deal, so
> do we. Almost.
Yeah, almost almost.

> The wall area are placed on top of the pixel fighters. This looks
> good, it no longer looks like the pixels overlap:
> https://ssl.gstatic.com/android/market/com.game.battleofpixels/ss-480-1-2
Now that's a cool idea indeed.

> They use red flashes for pixels that are converted. There are no red
> team, of course. It looks okay, actually. It made me think that Liquid
> War could have some sort of visual effect to show that a figher has
> been converted. Maybe a converted fighter was flashing the color of
> its new team at full brightness, or quickly flashes all 10 colors, or
> white. (I don't know how this would look.)
Yeah, that effect would be nice, I'd see something like a big star/explosion,
something shiny that lasts 1/3rd of the second when converted.

> FUTURE
>
> What if we somewere in the future ported LW6 to Android?
>
> I have added a LW6 screenshot to my HTC Wildfire S, to see how it would look:
> http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/285/lw6androida.jpg
>
> Close-up:
> http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5664/lw6androidb.jpg
>
> The finger controlling the cursor would be obscuring the view. I think
> we would need to make the cursors be positioned at a distance from the
> finger, or let it be controlled with two fingers - one controls the x
> axis, the other the y axis of the cursor. Using the accelerometer
> could also be an option.
I tend to disagree. You do not need to keep your finger always on the screen.
You could just press here and there from time to time.

> I watched the LW6 gamecast on youtube using my Android phone. It
> looked cool too.
>
> Visually, I think it looks really great. But would a phone have enough
> power to run the game?
OK, since I know Androïd does have GLES support, I know even the current
renderer - or its equivalent converted from standard OpenGL to GLES - would be
fast enough. The core algorithm? Well, the first time I ran LW, it was with
LW3, back in 1993, on a 386 SX-16. I mean, come, I managed to have an
"equivalent" game run on a 16 MHz computer that was almost faking its 32-bit
nature. You can trust me if I manage to overcome the various obstacle for an
androïd port (first obstacle: time available, second obstacle: nightmare of
dependencies to port/fix for Androïd, third obstacle: conversion from OpenGL
to GLES) then the speed will be a joke. Really. Seriously, Rage (latest FPS by
Id Software) runs on an iPhone. I should find a way to animate some pixels ;)
Keep in mind most Androïd games use Java, the port I imagine would use the NDK
(native development kit). While this probably raises some issues as far as
compatibility on different hardware is concerned, it helps a lot concerning
performance, especially when dealing with core algorithms like the one in LW6.

FYI I bought the complete OpenGL books series, just for my personal culture
(for some reason it's easier for me to learn reading printed books and online
docs never reached the level of efficiency of a good old book) and pre-ordered
some upcoming Androïd NDK book. So things are getting serious on that front,
I'm getting ready for the battle ;)

Still, there's an important question now, I ask it to you of course, but
ANYONE on this list could answer: which do you think is more important?
Androïd port or network support?

On one hand network support is just really needed, it would allow us to play,
chat online, have fun with something else than stupid idiot bots. It would be
a great community maker I think. On the other hand, an Androïd port coming in
2 years is just like no port at all (exagerating a bit, but well, the fact
"Battle of pixels" is here proves we somehow should build our positions).

Have a nice day,

Christian.

-- 
Christian Mauduit - http://www.ufoot.org/                    ___ __/\__
Liquid War 6 - http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/      / _")\~ \~/
Mouette & Charbons - http://mouetteetcharbons.tumblr.com/ _/ /   /_ o_\
Ultrafondus - http://www.ultrafondus.net/                (__/      \/