Vapourware Zodiac Legion - X-COM and dungeons

[Galdred]

My biggest complaint about the hex map is that all the textures are so dark and too similar in color to tell apart easily at first glance. I'm not really a fan of the top map, but the one thing it has going for it is the contrast between grass and trees.

The eye is naturally drawn towards light, and all else being equal, the player will be drawn to exploring toward the light. (That's why so many games use a fog color lighter than the ambient light. It helps the player see where he can go.) I think your hex map could do something similar with the different colors to show that the lightly colored plains are more easily navigable than the dark mountains and forests.

Or if you wanted to keep going with the CC3+ style of map, I think that shows a lot of promise. I would recommend using similar graphics instead of the wide range of styles we see in the sample map.

Or another recommendation for the hex map: Do you have the option to change tiles--or at least borders--programatically? For example, adding coastlines and mountain foothills and getting rid of lighter blue between ocean hexes. Doing that by hand would be a huge pain, but if the game could swap the borders automatically, it would look better without you having to place every detail manually.

Good points about the hex borders, it really looks too cheap indeed.
Regarding automatic swapping of boders, I will probably end up doing it on the tactical map, because it makes tileset creation very expensive otherwise.
But either options would basically end up almost as expensive as the tactical map, so I doubt it is worth it (a dedicated tileset would probably be 300 times more expensive than Unity stock assets...).

If the gameplay on the campaign map doesn't use hexes, then the visual representation of it shouldn't use hexes either, imo. Bad kind of inconsistency.

Procedural generation for that other style of map isn't impossible. I mean Dominions 4 has random generated maps too. Of course it can get pretty difficult to have it produce acceptable quality consistently.

Distances would be based on hex if we go for this style. It does not make a big difference in the end.
I didn't know that Dom 4 had procedural map generation. I don't think Dom 2 had it.
I think it would be too difficult to do it for this project given the time constraints (maybe in Zodiac Legion 3!).

 

[Galdred]

Or another recommendation for the hex map: Do you have the option to change tiles--or at least borders--programatically? For example, adding coastlines and mountain foothills and getting rid of lighter blue between ocean hexes. Doing that by hand would be a huge pain, but if the game could swap the borders automatically, it would look better without you having to place every detail manually.

Btw, on the tactical map, the hexes are already swapped programmatically, given that there are 64 variations for a single border type (grassland=> forest). It would have driven anyone insane to do it by hand, so we use the automaping feature of Tiled.

Regarding the strategic map, I think I will try the dark theme of Campaign Cartographer, leave the game location blank, add custom structure sprites that will appear on the map for quest locations, player and opponent bases.

 

[Jimmious]

The last overland map is gorgeous! I didn't like the hex map looks out of place especially with the pretty sweet artstyle you have in combat

 

[curry]

If the main focus of the game is tactical combat, you really don't need to put too much focus on the campaign map. Just pick one that's simple and looks good and spend your energy on actually finishing a game. Too many promising projects turn into vaporware because of mission creep.

 

[Galdred]

If the main focus of the game is tactical combat, you really don't need to put too much focus on the campaign map. Just pick one that's simple and looks good and spend your energy on actually finishing a game. Too many promising projects turn into vaporware because of mission creep.

The focus of the game is tactical combat indeed, but the not-geoscape part is critical to give context to the battles themselves. That said, the idea is to keep it as simple as possible indeed, but it needs to be dynamic and not just a way to pick between the next campaign quest or a side quest.
I'd rather have the strategic layer play like X-COM then XCOM: EU, but that can still be achieved with minimal work.

 

[Farewell into the night]

This game looks like fun. I had similar idea in mind when I was playing xcom years ago. Looking forward to it!

 

[Galdred]

I'm working on the UI right now. Can you recommend me a game with a good squad selection UI?
I'd like something with an easy way to compare the stats (ie skills, attributes, perks) of different characters to select the one you need (bonus point if you can sort by a given skills)

 

[Jimmious]

Any UI that has nice lists that you can sort by each attribute would do perfectly!! (Sorry don't have something in mind atm though)

 

[Ventidius]

First time posting in this thread, but I check it every once in a while. Very interesting project. Also, Saint Seiya was freaking cool indeed.

I'm working on the UI right now. Can you recommend me a game with a good squad selection UI?
I'd like something with an easy way to compare the stats (ie skills, attributes, perks) of different characters to select the one you need (bonus point if you can sort by a given skills)

It might seem weird that I would put forward a console game as an interface suggestion, but Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon has a pretty decent one. Since it is a DS game, it has a dual screen with the selection below and a rundown of the stats and equipment above:

Spoiler

You can toggle between that unit grid and a list (couldn't find a pic), and the list allows you to sort units by Name, Class, LV, HP, each Attribute (Str,Mag, Skill, etc), each stat(Hit, Avo, Crit, etc), and Equipment(in fact, pretty much every item that you see in the pic above). You can check it out for yourself if you have a DS emulator. It is pretty detailed, and even more impressive when you consider it is a DS game. Sadly, they simplified the interface in the newer 3DS games and most of that stuff is gone now.

 

[Galdred]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a look. I played it on my DSi quite a few years ago.

The special attack animations are all in game now (I just need a few icons added for them. That and designing/balancing the skill themselves).

 

[Galdred]

I got rid of the circles eventually (not only in the mockups!):

Spoiler

 

[Darth Roxor]

Nice

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Looks good. It's a lot cleaner like that. But then when you select your dudes, or choose an attack target, will there be some indicator of who is on whose side?

 

[Galdred]

Looks good. It's a lot cleaner like that. But then when you select your dudes, or choose an attack target, will there be some indicator of who is on whose side?

I currently use the HP colors to distinguish between friends and foes (red for friends and blue for foes). Also, the hex is highlighted in red if there is a potential target in it.
Blue is currently selected unit, red is target in range, and orange is target that is in move+attack range. Purple are hexes that could be reached by expanding the unit action (he cannot attack if he runs).

Spoiler

I probably need something subtler (or at least, an option to have something subtle), but it will do for now.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I think the red and blue HP bars work really well. What's that thing on the left though? It kind of looks like a tilted skull over an empty frame.

 

[Galdred]

I think the red and blue HP bars work really well. What's that thing on the left though? It kind of looks like a tilted skull over an empty frame.

The skull is a placeholder to indicate the class of the character, and the empty frame, will display the level of the character.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

class of the character

You have barbarians right? Asking for a friend.

 

[Galdred]

class of the character

You have barbarians right? Asking for a friend.

That would make a nice stretch goal then!
Note that a barbarian wannabe is hidden somewhere in the title screen mockup:

Spoiler

 

[Lyre Mors]

Absolutely loving the look of that UI, man. Not to mention the beautiful environments, portraits, and character models. Great job!

 

[Galdred]

Now with tooltips:

Unlike every other feature so far, this one was much faster to implement than expected.
I'm now looking for a way for a player to get the hit/wound/and kill chance from a hex against a target without having to move here, because I hate it when games wait for you to move to tell you you had a better chance to hit from your starting position.

 

[Jimmious]

The difference of the left margin of the first and second sentence is killing me
Really cool otherwise

 

[Galdred]

The difference of the left margin of the first and second sentence is killing me
Really cool otherwise

Good catch!
I hope moai has a built in way to remedy this or it might take some time to remedy.

 

[Galdred]

On second thoughts, it seems there is no margin at all (changing it doesn't seem to do anything), and the difference might be because of the "hitbox" of the W in the font file:

Spoiler

If I use the same letter, the lines start at the same location. Please disregard the animu inventory placeholder: )

 

[Jimmious]

Oh damn, that could be it. Sorry! Still maybe a small margin would be nice for letters like i and l so that they don't "stick" on the left border but that's my preference

 

[Galdred]

Indeed, I'll have to correct it.
Now regarding the skillbar:

Which do you think works best to display the shortcut?
We are leaning towards the 5th one.