ACWraith's Fooldom Come

I stated in the the BYOND Strategy rules that if you can't form plans then it's not a strategy game. Meanwhile, the original GrimTunnel design seems a bit too random. The game itself is deterministic (other than content generation), but the player actions are hard to account for.

I was planning on allowing GrimTunnel minions to use as much loot as was available at once and the effects would stack. However, this stacking makes the loot choices themselves less important. It becomes a question of how much people bought instead of what they bought. Why buy a expensive loot if you can use multiple copies of cheap loot? Why worry about negative effects from random loot if you can balance them out with guard or invade loot? Why worry about breaking locked loot open at any time if you can just toss it in with everything else? Why bother predicting what your opponent is going to throw at you if there was not any reason behind their decision?

I'm now thinking that it would be better to limit minions to one piece of loot at a time. This will make loot choices more important during the Shop phase in terms of both the loot's strength modifiers and the way the type of loot has to be used. Meanwhile, opposing players will be able to predict a smaller set of meaningful combinations... In other words they can form plans, at least in the short term.

Again as I said I would, I updated Occupied Forces.

New:

• Sounds have been added.
• The defense formula no longer divides ally power by 7. It should be easier to do in one's head. However, it may also make territories with arriving allies too hard to take over. Consider it an experiment.
• Subscriptions to GrimTunnel now yield mercenary points.
• Host options have been made more user-friendly.

Fixed:

• The End Phase button did not work. Doh!
• The number of voters required to end a phase now depends on the number of unique IPs.
• Custom unit directories can now be loaded properly. Doh again!

I keep thinking that the default set could use a few more units, but I don't think that a smaller set hurts the game.

That weird bug, where the arrow overlays disappear until another arrow is added, is still there. I don't know what it could be since I never remove a troop's overlay without adding another and I don't touch previous troops at all when a troop is added.

I updated PathWrath 2 as I said I would.

• Added: Chat, entrances, and exits now have audio alerts (which can be toggled off).


• Updated: Various interfaces have been moved, providing a less cluttered experience and a larger chat space for spectators. Cards are now inside of the Play tab. Options are now inside of the Start tab. The camera buttons are only shown while a game is in progress.


• Updated: The host options should be more user-friendly.


• Changed: Configuration files are now saved and stored separately. Old configuration files will no longer work. On the bright side, deck changes are saved automatically.


• Added: PathWrath subscribers are now all subscribed to PathWrath 2 for free.


• Added: Occupied Forces and GrimTunnel subscribers are now recognized. (Actually, I just found out that I messed up the GrimTunnel passport, but I'll fix it when GrimTunnel subscriptions become available.)


• Removed: Many of my older game subscriptions are no longer recognized in PathWrath 2. They might be back when the respective games are updated and new subscriptions are offered. (I don't think that all of those years of extra value was that bad though, do you?)

I also noticed that BYOND appears to no longer like the way I was displaying cliffs. I used to create them as blank images with set directions which had images with no directions in their overlays. I moved each direction into its own icon and now it seems back to normal.


I have the control freak option turned on. It has nothing to do with caring if people edit the skin. (As a matter of fact, I'd really like to save the splitter changes.) It's because saved radio or pushbox buttons make multiple selections when loaded. I asked about it in the forums ages ago and didn't get an answer. I think it's a BYOND bug.


At some point, I might change some of the output controls into grid controls in the hopes of avoiding some scrolling. (I seconded a request to toggle off an output control's auto-scrolling, but I'm guessing it's not a high priority.) I didn't want to delve that deeply into the turn pipeline this time.

I might have to shut down my electricity in a few weeks, but the loss of USENET on RoadRunner still irks me.

USENET was one of the few places I could quickly download missed tv shows from with my current computer and operating system. Lacking a decent VCR made it handy. However, it was going to be even more important in the coming months since I'll probably have to turn off my satellite and local channels.

I know why RoadRunner and other ISPs are doing it. I'm happy to have less of a chance to run into that particular content, but I think it's overkill. Of course, that doesn't bother me as much as the fact that their price is staying the same despite the loss of a service. How about taking $10 off instead of suggesting (lying) that nobody uses the service and telling me to spend $10 on a third party?

The outcome of my last poll did not change in the last few days. That's good because I've been hard at work on the winner, GrimTunnel.

Flick donated some pixel art which can be seen in the banners. Those 4 pictures are meant to represent "living", "synthetic", "dead", and "undead" minions. Each minion will fall into one of those categories and have strength versus each. There will be one minion of each type available in the store during every round.

The store will also contain 4 categories of loot, which sometimes restrict their use to a certain minion type.

• "Guard" items have set stats, but can only be used on minions who are blocking a player's progress.
• "Invade" items have set stats, but can only be used on minions entering rooms.
• "Random" items can be used whether guarding or invading, but could be harmful.
• "Locked" items can be broken open to reveal something random of the current value. However, they are worth holding on to because their value increases each round and they are the only items which can be sold in higher level rooms.

Minions and loot will be randomly generated by the store each round. (I could have gone with another custom XML routine, but I'm keeping the units simple. Besides, I don't know of anyone who has been creating mods.) Minions will start at 1 point of value each and have 4 distributed between them. Likewise for loot. Everyone will be buying from the same store so nobody will be screwed over by randomness... Unless they don't like the random minion names which are used as an alternative to stacking. ;)

The skin seems done. I'm currently working on the battle phase. Nothing has been tested. I'm still in the habit of creating the game mechanics before I implement the framework for joining and starting a game. The fact that I could probably rip it out of another project at any time just makes it worse.

***

I've been looking around for alternative blog sites for Tech Tree. Not that I expect many views, but I wanted a place which would let me profit from ads. And was free for me. I clapped my hands and believed in faeries, but it still looks like I'll be using my IGN account. If I can't get ads then I might as well try to go where gamers are... You know, the ones who are not likely to find me in all of the blog spam there.

On the right is a new PayPal donation button. Mysteriously, my custom link box has moved from the bottom to the top of the site. I tried to tell the button that it wasn't being subtle. It told me that I was talking to a button and could not afford a shrink.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to decide if I want to try to find something to eat before I go to watch SciFi Friday programming. Live. In 2008.