New Version: 0.9.2

[Walt D]

A new version of Tanky-Tank has been released!

Latest changes:

+ Tanky-Training!
+ Support for custom scenarios.
+ First custom scenario: Raid On Metropolis.
+ Again, yet another menu background.
+ Bug fixes to CTF modes.

Visit http://www.tanky-tank.com, to download. Or alternatively start
Tanky-Tank and wait for the "new version" message to appear.

[David Billingsley]

Nicely done, Walt.  This truly makes the game.  I'm so excited that you put it together. 

The background is also nice.  Please turn on some soundtrack for the game... even if your bored of something, there should still be noise to show that the game has life when a new user comes to see the game.

Recommended adjustments to the tutorial:
On the page that starts with "Your first kill..."
the line goes: "... health, you dead, got it?"
Is it suppose to read "... health, you're dead, got it?" ?

Also the box that contains the step of the tutorial has the text coming right up to the edges.  Perhaps some buffer space would be nice.

Just some suggestions.

I'll try to make up some content for the turret damage to show up in game.

- David

[Gabriel]

Since you are submitting Tanky-Tank to the game competition, I think
it is about time to work on the fonts. They still look bad on my
screen because everything runs onto the next line.

I like the scenario, but I don't know if it is possible to win. I
like the new background, but I agree with Dave that it needs music.
But all together the graphics look great and it is far removed from
the rectangular tanks on a green grassy square that you started with.

[Walt D.]

Thanks Dave & Gabe for the suggestions...

Menu soundtrack -- How about some light "environmental noise"? A
soundtrack composed of tank sounds, like engines, treads, turrets
turning, etc...(Anyone wanna work on that?)

I'll fix the text in the tutorial. I guess I should fix the buffer
space around the text as well -- Alex complained about that too.

Fixing the fonts is long overdue.

The scenario is definitely winnable, but it's pretty hard. Play
conservatively, and go after the powerups before taking on the AI
bots.

Here the really big items on my to-do list, in approximate priority order:
1) Finish damage textures.
2) Terrain shadows. This would help immensely, but it'll also take a
lot of work. On my end, I have to rewrite the terrain engine. And
somebody else has to redo the tilesets, splitting "ground" tiles from
"wall" tiles so that walls are rendered in a layer above the ground.
Drawing shadows might also be necessary, but I've yet to figure out
how I want to do them.
3) Additional game modes.
4) Fonts
5) AI

[David Billingsley]

As much as I love AI, I agree with this order of attack.  And you know how I love me some good AI.

Can we also make in-game Tank Selection GUI and Team Selection GUI go on the list of priorities?  Where would they fit?  What would they hotkey to: space; enter; shift?

Again, the background is terrific.  Thanks Walt for assembling it (I think), big props for Alex for making the word "Tank" appear so riveting.

To anyone who wants to start working on a font a little each day, I have the following suggestions:

• I got pretty far with a quick concept by looking at the digital display on a cordless phone: pixels with spaces in between that have an "off" color and an "on" color.
• If the characters are regularly spaced (even if we decide that every character doesn't have to fit the same space), then Walt can read the large character matrix image with just three coordinates: ROW, COLUMN, # pixels the character will actually take up.
• If we'd fit this motif, every character could take up the same space.  Try counting the number of boxes needed to display capital "W" and lower case "g".
• A little animation (or two) of these boxes blinking on and off in some random order sweeping left to right as each character appears would give a computer read-out kind of feel that would be both simple and worthwhile.
• Transparent background for the characters.
• Possible two-color combination with one separate image being a transparency and gray-scale set of the "off" boxes that would fit the space of a single character and another image being all of the ALPHA #umeric and $ymbol characters in a transparency and gray-scale image (like a giant matrix).  This will enable Walt to color the "off" color background and the actual "on" boxes that represent the characters any way he wants them.
• Don't try to do this all this in one sitting; you'll get burned out and abandon your progress.
  

I have attached a few files for inspiration from when I started working on text back in July.

 - David

[David Billingsley]

Oh and maybe there should be one font size with the "on" box two pixels in width with a spacer between boxes of a one pixel size as well as a second font size with the "on" boxes three pixels in in width or four pixels with a one pixel or two pixel spacer.

Have fun.
 - David

[Walt D.]

All credit for the new background goes to Alex. I did not make any of it.

I want to change the tank selection paradigm so that you have to click
on your desired tank to spawn/respawn.

A team selection GUI would also be nice, but isn't as necessary I
don't think. We might want to consider a way to auto-arrange teams.

I'm not so keen on having "off" pixels. I'd rather only worry about
one kind of pixels.

On 10/28/07, David Billingsley <david.bi...@gmail.com> wrote: