After some down time due to busy schedules, we've been hard at work on Tile World. Take a look at our progress:
- As we're nearing the Alpha stage, the game finally has fully functional multiplayer support. Each battle's map, units, and actions are validated and stored on a cloud based server. Also, measures have been taken to protect against hacking and cheating.
- Unit ownership and combat have been implemented, meaning you can only preform actions with your own units and attack only enemy units. Along with this, a basic game mode has been added to the game, where each player is limited to 3 actions (create unit/move/attack) per turn, though currently without a win condition, which we will add at a later point.
- Since Moai, the framework used for the game, does not have a native Android keyboard implemented as of yet, we've had to create our own! Even though it's fully working, this custom keyboard is just a temporary solution until Moai releases an official keyboard.
- Floating combat text has been added to the game, displaying the amount of damage done in each attack.
- A sandbox version of the game designed specifically for testing has been implemented. It doesn't connect to the server but has all the other functions.
- A minor animation bug, where the character was seen sliding in it's initial direction until it got to the tile border - has been resolved.
We also have a lot of planned features in the works. Here are some things you can expect in future updates:
- Free, 2 finger zooming. Right now, there is only a button which toggles between 2 predetermined zoom level, which aren't exactly optimal. Free zooming allows the players to choose their own preference, and change it depending on the situation. Zoom levels can also appear differently on different devices, so it's hard to define a zoom level which would be good for everyone.
- Win condition. We're still open on this issue, so for now the plan is to simply declare the winner when all enemy units are dead or the enemy surrenders.
- The user interface and heads up display will be revamped with stylish and informative text and images. The current UI and HUD are simply placeholders while we are getting other important features in place.
- A recap of the other players previous actions.
- Game notifications. Once you've started a game, your phone will alert you when it's your turn to make a move. This might be quite a challenge since Moai doesn't yet have this feature; it's in the works but showing no progress. This means Lance might have quite a lot of work to do to before we get this feature.
- Connecting tiles. As you can see the tiles don't work that well together, and it will be an even bigger mess when all the new tiles are added in their forms and variations. To counter this we're thinking of making tiles of a kind connect to each other when bordering, so that you'd have whole areas of ice or forest and not isolated, random looking, patches.
- Pixel art characters and different colors for players. The current characters we have in game are only free basic models used as placeholders, which will be replaced as soon as we have some character concepts completed. For this role we're still LOOKING FOR A SPRITER, so contact us if you might be interested.
