v4pre1 release
StarInfidel
http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/index.html
Improvements:
- save/load feature using a server - to able to save or load first
you'll need to input a key
- new messages area
- keyboard shortcuts - look in the manual
- unique names for nodes/investigators
Please test :)
Florian Ludwig
On Fri, 2010-09-24 at 00:22 -0700, StarInfidel wrote:
> Fresh version of Evil Cult is up here:
> http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/index.html
Cool!
> Improvements:
> …
> - new messages area
Nice idea! I like not having to close the events window every turn. But
now news are to easily missed imho. It would be better if the messages
look different depending if they are about you or not. Messages that
involve you could have the same green color of the player and so
standing out.
> …
> Please test :)
In google chrome it once hang and consuming 100% cpu after ending a
turn. Everything else worked smoothly.
Thanks for the update
Florian
--
Florian Ludwig <di...@phidev.org>
Max Kowarski
> Hi,
>
> On Fri, 2010-09-24 at 00:22 -0700, StarInfidel wrote:
>> Fresh version of Evil Cult is up here:
>> http://evil-cult.appspot.com/static/cult/index.html
>
> Cool!
>
>> Improvements:
>> …
>> - new messages area
>
> Nice idea! I like not having to close the events window every turn. But
> now news are to easily missed imho. It would be better if the messages
> look different depending if they are about you or not. Messages that
> involve you could have the same green color of the player and so
> standing out.
Yeah, I could change the color - and the symbol too.
Cold
>
> signature.asc
> < 1KViewDownload
Max Kowarski
halcyon1234
"Mozilla open gaming judging round opens" article.
I've played through the beta a few times. Here's some thoughts and
feedback:
I also get the occasional full cpu load after clicking End Turn. I
guess it's some infinite loop happening in the AI?
Is there anything I can do/run to help trace it down?
I love the sidebar notifications. It'd be nice if there was a bit more
visual information about between-turn changes. Some suggestions:
- A red, horizontal line that divides between "All the ! below just
happened, all the ! above are from previous turns".
- More color in recently captured nodes. I'd like to see a shade in
there that shows if it was captured from another team. So if Purple
steals one of my nodes, outline it like you do now, but also shade it
dark green to indicate that I just lost that node. Also, when a node
is lost to an Investigator, it'd be nice to shade it to show who it
used to belong to.
- Some sort of flash around Generator nodes that just lost their
protection. Have it fade from white-outline to grey outline, then back
and forth a few times, ending in grey outline, with about a 0.25
second transition between the two. Something to show "pay attention to
me, I just lost my protection and need help!"
- Speaking of the recently-captured outline, could you give it a bit
more brightness. On my laptop I can see it no problem, but at work on
a large LCD screen, there isn't enough contrast between the background
and the outline to see it. (For the longest time I didn't even know it
was there)
- A bit more indication that a turn has ended and the next has begun.
There's times when I click End Turn, and the game takes a few seconds
to think before switching turns. Then there's times when I've
misclicked and the turn hasn't actually ended. I'm not sure which, and
there's always the danger of double-clicking "End Turn", which can
turn out really horribly. Even if it's something simple like greying
out the End Turn button until the new turn begins to prevent a double-
click (like most ecommerce sites will do with Pay Now buttons).
- Wish List: A 4th difficulty level. Maybe I'm just playing too much,
but I've gotten to the point that unless the first few turns go really
bad, I can pretty reliably beat the game. (And yet I still play!
It's-- so-- fun!). Not sure how to notch it up without making it
frustratingly difficult. A 4th enemy? Let the AI look a few more
branches down the decision tree?
- Super-ass Wish List: Multiplayer. =)
On Nov 23 2010, 12:13 pm, Max Kowarski <starinfi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure, I know of the bug but don't have the time yet to chew on it.
>
Max Kowarski
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 2:35 AM, halcyon1234 <lka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Great game! I found out about it from a comment on Slashdot in the
> "Mozilla open gaming judging round opens" article.
>
> I've played through the beta a few times. Here's some thoughts and
> feedback:
>
> I also get the occasional full cpu load after clicking End Turn. I
> guess it's some infinite loop happening in the AI?
Argh, still don't have time to look into that. Yeah, near the end of
the game an infinite loop happens somewhere in AI functions.
> Is there anything I can do/run to help trace it down?
You're not a programmer by any chance? :)
> I love the sidebar notifications. It'd be nice if there was a bit more
> visual information about between-turn changes. Some suggestions:
>
> - A red, horizontal line that divides between "All the ! below just
> happened, all the ! above are from previous turns".
Okay, that sounds good. Put that into the issue tracker, please.
> - More color in recently captured nodes. I'd like to see a shade in
> there that shows if it was captured from another team. So if Purple
> steals one of my nodes, outline it like you do now, but also shade it
> dark green to indicate that I just lost that node. Also, when a node
> is lost to an Investigator, it'd be nice to shade it to show who it
> used to belong to.
That sounds okay, but right now the map is small enough to keep track
of that without additional help. When I'll implement bigger maps that
will be of help.
> - Some sort of flash around Generator nodes that just lost their
> protection. Have it fade from white-outline to grey outline, then back
> and forth a few times, ending in grey outline, with about a 0.25
> second transition between the two. Something to show "pay attention to
> me, I just lost my protection and need help!"
This one will be pretty hard to make since those are all html divs
right now. But later probably (I'm thinking of moving to images, divs
take a lot of memory while not adding anything)
> - Speaking of the recently-captured outline, could you give it a bit
> more brightness. On my laptop I can see it no problem, but at work on
> a large LCD screen, there isn't enough contrast between the background
> and the outline to see it. (For the longest time I didn't even know it
> was there)
Hmm, okay. Please add this to issue tracker.
> - A bit more indication that a turn has ended and the next has begun.
> There's times when I click End Turn, and the game takes a few seconds
> to think before switching turns. Then there's times when I've
> misclicked and the turn hasn't actually ended. I'm not sure which, and
> there's always the danger of double-clicking "End Turn", which can
> turn out really horribly. Even if it's something simple like greying
> out the End Turn button until the new turn begins to prevent a double-
> click (like most ecommerce sites will do with Pay Now buttons).
Sounds reasonable, I was having that problem myself. I'll think about
it. Probably try to make buttons clicked more visual in the future.
> - Wish List: A 4th difficulty level. Maybe I'm just playing too much,
> but I've gotten to the point that unless the first few turns go really
> bad, I can pretty reliably beat the game. (And yet I still play!
> It's-- so-- fun!). Not sure how to notch it up without making it
> frustratingly difficult. A 4th enemy? Let the AI look a few more
> branches down the decision tree?
Oh yes. Another brave soul says the game is too easy :) I have two
potential solutions in that vein - one is making custom difficulty
where player puts in all the parameters himself (will have to wait a
bit) and another is making hard more hard. The feature I've worked on
before RL stepped in will make hard longer and harder to play.
> - Super-ass Wish List: Multiplayer. =)
Oh god, this one always pops up :) Hot-seat multiplayer is probably
not that hard to implement (but players will have to turn away from
the screen or something) but proper server-client architecture will
require a complete overhaul of current code moving all logic into
server - an unrealistic amount of work. Then again, I'm not a fan of
turn-based strategy multiplayer :P
halcyon1234
if I can track down the End Turn loop for you.
Out of curiosity, which IDE are you using for the code? I haven't
found a good javascript one yet.
Also, I'd love to code an extra AI or two for the AITurn() function. I
think there's a few strategies I can throw into the AI that will make
the game more challenging.
I think the Divs work fine. They're highly customizable, you can use
CSS on them, and they don't require a graphic designer (or a massive
image overhaul if you decide to change the shade or shape of
something).
It isn't the size of the map that's the issue, it's more the amount of
information on it. Removing the end-of-turn info screen helped
immensely, but right now I need to stare at the screen, hit "End
Turn", then hope my swiss-cheese brain picks up on all the changes.
I'll add the issues you've asked for into the issue tracker.
Max Kowarski
> Yup, I'm a web developer. I've been reading through the code. I'll see
> if I can track down the End Turn loop for you.
Hey, that's great!
> Out of curiosity, which IDE are you using for the code? I haven't
> found a good javascript one yet.
Vim. I don't use IDEs :)
> Also, I'd love to code an extra AI or two for the AITurn() function. I
> think there's a few strategies I can throw into the AI that will make
> the game more challenging.
AI is my weakest place I think. If you can manage to make it more
challenging, that would be awesome.
> I think the Divs work fine. They're highly customizable, you can use
> CSS on them, and they don't require a graphic designer (or a massive
> image overhaul if you decide to change the shade or shape of
> something).
But they use up lot of memory and are slow to operate upon. I haven't
tried yet but my guess is that changing those divs under nodes into
images would bring an improvement to memory and speed. Also if you
didn't know those line points are all divs too :)
> It isn't the size of the map that's the issue, it's more the amount of
> information on it. Removing the end-of-turn info screen helped
> immensely, but right now I need to stare at the screen, hit "End
> Turn", then hope my swiss-cheese brain picks up on all the changes.
Hmm, never had that problem myself :) If you feel like doing the
changes you mentioned, don't hesitate. Though there won't be new
releases until I find some time to implement sects properly - the code
is currently in "half-done" state.
halcyon1234
On Jan 19, 5:04 pm, Max Kowarski <starinfi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:29 PM, halcyon1234 <lka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yup, I'm a web developer. I've been reading through the code. I'll see
> > if I can track down the End Turn loop for you.
>
> Hey, that's great!
Sidenote: Randolph Carter. Ha!
> > Out of curiosity, which IDE are you using for the code? I haven't
> > found a good javascript one yet.
>
> Vim. I don't use IDEs :)
Javascript? (One version I used did so for PHP).
A useful tool to have hanging around is Beyond Compare, to compare v3
and v4pre side by side. It's how I noticed the new line
in .upgrade(level).
> > I think the Divs work fine. They're highly customizable, you can use
> > CSS on them, and they don't require a graphic designer (or a massive
> > image overhaul if you decide to change the shade or shape of
> > something).
>
> But they use up lot of memory and are slow to operate upon. I haven't
> tried yet but my guess is that changing those divs under nodes into
> images would bring an improvement to memory and speed. Also if you
> didn't know those line points are all divs too :)
with pre-loading images in jquery, but it is doable. Though, there are
some really neat things you can do with CSS classes and transitions
via JQueryUI (fading from one class to another to "pulse" between
single and double borders).
The only time I did line drawing in javascript was a visual Image Map
creation tool, and it used divs to create lines, too. I guess it's the
best/only way of drawing lines with HTML (short of that Canvas thing?)
Max Kowarski
>
>
> On Jan 19, 5:04 pm, Max Kowarski <starinfi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:29 PM, halcyon1234 <lka...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Yup, I'm a web developer. I've been reading through the code. I'll see
>> > if I can track down the End Turn loop for you.
>>
>> Hey, that's great!
>
> I think I found the culprit. See the issue tracker.
Okay, you're right about aiUpgradeFollowers potentially having 2
infinite loops (I'll fix that, thanks) but last time everything hang
up, I checked where was it (don't remember clearly, either Firefox or
Chrome has the ability to pinpoint location where did you stop script
execution) and it was not there - it was in the Node.update if I
remember correctly which means the culprit is one of those loops that
update nodes around the one which was changed in some way.
BTW, that's one of the reasons I want to do away with divs (and
potentially move to html5) - each node takeover sends ripples of those
node.update()s -> uiNode.update()s which take a significant amount of
time.
My guess is that those ripples of node updates somehow just go over
and over in infinite loop. So one of possible solutions would be to
mark them on their first pass and don't propagate if the mark set. And
clean the marks at the start of AI turn.
> Sidenote: Randolph Carter. Ha!
Hehe, I knew someone would find that eventually ;)
>> > Out of curiosity, which IDE are you using for the code? I haven't
>> > found a good javascript one yet.
>>
>> Vim. I don't use IDEs :)
>
> Roughing it, huh? Though does Vim do syntax highlighting for
> Javascript? (One version I used did so for PHP).
Roughing it? In what way? ;)
Sure, it has syntax highlighting for everything and if it doesn't you
can make your own syntax highlight file basing on something else.
As a side note, you're probably poking around in cult.js? Keep in
mind, that this code is generated, so if you want to submit patches,
it will have to be in Haxe code.
> A useful tool to have hanging around is Beyond Compare, to compare v3
> and v4pre side by side. It's how I noticed the new line
> in .upgrade(level).
Yeah, I knew that eventually it will have to be careful looking over
some diff between those two versions.
halcyon1234
> >> Hey, that's great!
>
> > I think I found the culprit. See the issue tracker.
>
> Okay, you're right about aiUpgradeFollowers potentially having 2
> infinite loops (I'll fix that, thanks) but last time everything hang
> up, I checked where was it (don't remember clearly, either Firefox or
> Chrome has the ability to pinpoint location where did you stop script
> execution) and it was not there - it was in the Node.update if I
> remember correctly which means the culprit is one of those loops that
> update nodes around the one which was changed in some way.
>
> BTW, that's one of the reasons I want to do away with divs (and
> potentially move to html5) - each node takeover sends ripples of those
> node.update()s -> uiNode.update()s which take a significant amount of
> time.
>
> My guess is that those ripples of node updates somehow just go over
> and over in infinite loop. So one of possible solutions would be to
> mark them on their first pass and don't propagate if the mark set. And
> clean the marks at the start of AI turn.
> >> > Out of curiosity, which IDE are you using for the code? I haven't
> >> > found a good javascript one yet.
>
> >> Vim. I don't use IDEs :)
>
> > Roughing it, huh? Though does Vim do syntax highlighting for
> > Javascript? (One version I used did so for PHP).
>
> Roughing it? In what way? ;)
function to definition of function". Admittedly, I haven't found a
javascript IDE that actually does that. =)
> As a side note, you're probably poking around in cult.js? Keep in
> mind, that this code is generated, so if you want to submit patches,
> it will have to be in Haxe code.
first.
Max Kowarski
Vim has that but I don't use it :)
> function to definition of function". Admittedly, I haven't found a
Vim has that and I use it occasionally.
> javascript IDE that actually does that. =)
>
>> As a side note, you're probably poking around in cult.js? Keep in
>> mind, that this code is generated, so if you want to submit patches,
>> it will have to be in Haxe code.
>
> OK. I haven't used Haxe yet, so I'll have to climb the learning curve
> first.
Don't worry, it's _very_ close to Javascript.