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Just a heads up:

Test build available with a draft implementation of workshops and coins to test and balance. As it is there’s been hardly any attention made to balancing those changes so we’ll be looking for feedback from experienced players on what changes they think should be made based on a few hours of play.

Here’s me atop my freshly created stack-o-workshops.

I was well paid for my efforts building this, netting just over 600 coins I think. That’s probably too much and we’ll need to balance it all, but regardless this sort of building is stupidly useful – anyone standing in the quarters gets free HP over time, arrows on top of the murder-section and beside a bunch of firing ports means archers barely even need to leave the window to stock up and, well, everyone knows what the bomb workshop is for 😉

In summary, get ready to test out how this plays over the next few days, hopefully it’ll be in a suitable state to go live for the weekend!

NO MORE KNIGHT SUICIDE BOMB RUSHES 😀 😀 😀

Geti

EDIT: grab the test and give us your comments in this thread.

A new engine

I’ve been trying to code all the stuff we are planning for the next release which you can read here, like coins, workshops and movable ladders. Unfortunately it has become increasingly difficult for me to add stuff with the current engine. The problem with it is that it is a mash-up of 3 games I’ve been working on for the last 5 years and all of the KAG code is more like prototype code than proper game code. I did this because I wasn’t sure KAG would be a success so I just coded it really quickly without thinking much how that will affect the future.

This method is great and I spent an entire game development lecture last month emphasizing this approach. So if you’re a game developer – please do prototype your games and don’t think much about what will happen later!

However last Monday I just sat for an hour or so trying to add points scoring for digging resources and I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t figure out a way to do it without breaking the existing game elements or completely rewriting the game.

So I decided to actually rewrite the KAG engine completely from scratch. Now this is an amazing opportunity for everyone so please take the time to read what benefits there will be from this change:

1. New additions a lot faster
2. Less bugs
3. Much deeper gameplay mechanics

1) New additions a lot faster

The rewrite will probably take about 3-6 months before it reaches the stage the game is right now. This will take some time and this is the only negative side of this decision. I know you guys are waiting for new stuff!

I decided not to drop the current KAG engine and continue developing it along with the new KAG. This means there will be new updates as usual, it’s just that they will probably happen less frequently (as at least half of my time will be spent on the new engine).

What will happen after these 3 months will be worth the less frequent updates. From then on additions to the game will happen extremely fast. This is because:

• I am designing the engine in a way so that I can add new stuff very quickly without breaking any code
• It will be easy for new people to jump in and code with me (Geti is actually designing the engine with me, so we’ll code together)
• Modding will be even easier than it is now (the engine will use scripts and a plugin architecture from beginning)

2) Less bugs

In the current engine it takes me a large amount of time to track and fix bugs. This is because of the spaghetti nature of the code. With the new engine, bugs will happen less frequently and if they do, they will be very easy to debug.

3) Much deeper gameplay mechanics

What we have presented publicly is the tip of the iceberg of what we are planning. We are redesigning things like building mechanics and the user interface around building and using items. So the game will not only have more stuff but it will be easier to use them.

Wish me good luck. I hope we have an even more awesome game in the next half year. In the meantime expect (a little less frequent but still) updates. This will come as promised probably next week:

MM

Interview with MM on IndieGames.com

There’s an interview up on IndieGames.com and Gamasutra.com with me. Half of it is about Soldat and alpha funding, so it’s not strictly about KAG but I’m posting because it’s exciting to have those sites write about us.

MM

Go vote!

So, this little thing:

http://adrenic.net/?page_id=284

So, we’re losing on this poll, and they spelled the game’s name incorrectly! Not a great start, but considering there’s less than 200 votes on the board we can turn this train wreck around with your support!

Voting us up takes ~5 seconds, get in there! Vote KAG! Tell them the spelled the name wrong in the comments for bonus points! Support your country Game! … Oh, and us, too 😉

Edit: Huzzah! We’re on top and they fixed the name and it’s thanks to you guys!

Thanks for your support guys!

Edit2: Yikes, AoS is catching up! If you haven’t voted yet, hop to it! It’d be good fun to win this thing.

This weeks sneak peek

Sneak peek into what I’m working on this week all explained in a nice picture.

Other than that I’ve started exporting the game rules (like what happens on score, how much points for doing stuff etc.) into a script file.

MM

Call to arms!

This from one of our Guards, Neat:

Red, and blue, the biggest recorded single battle ever yet. We now have a 128 player server. It may have crashed at 60 players the other night but I think it’s worth a try to get as many people, hopefully the maximum number in at once.

If posted to tumblr and facebook and this forum, I reckon we can get 128 people at any one time and keep it going for a while (presuming it doesn’t crash, they’re going to work on the issues)

Kag is not tennis, Kag is WAR.

Help us iron out the networking bugs by tweeting/spamming facebook/mailing your grandma about this and playing on that huge server, we want to see some epic recordings and hear some amazing tales, and most importantly bug reports when it dies detailing when, how and why 😛

MeteorVPS 128 Slot is the place to be!

Have at it!

Geti

Build 158 released!

Oh this was a bad one. It seems like the big guys, like us and Apple are having problems these days :). But I was faster to fix it!

I noticed the amount of players online suddenly dropped so something was wrong. Servers and clients have to patch. Please restart to auto-update.

Changes 157-158:

– fixed not being able to connect to server after some time of server running

Features Coming!

This picture basically outlines 5 things we want to get done alongside the October event, some after, some before:

• Gendered players – not much difference between them, but being able to select Male or Female as part of your player customisations will help us be more inclusive as well as getting some variety onto the battlefield. After that we’ll include customisable heads – including hats helmets and haircuts for paid players.
• Workshops – Arrow and Bomb workshops pictured here, allowing construction of those items and potentially upgrades to them later on.
• Mechanisms – Spike and Arrow traps that you can attach to pressure plates and levers to allow forts to be more easily defended and to give builders a more interesting engineering task than 10-ply walls. These will be paid only.
• Wooden Buildings – A cheaper faster option than stone that will actually very likely be required before “upgrading” a tile to stone. A lot of work will have to go into balancing this, but I’m alright with that. We may add stone doors at the same time.
• Fire! – Bombs, fire arrows (and perhaps a few other things later on) will be able to set fire to wooden buildings. We’ve devised a way to make “putting out” flaming buildings possible without water that basically involves cutting out the flaming parts. Fire will give players a genuine reason to upgrade from wood to stone – fire hazards are a real concern you know 😉

Not pictured:

• Coins – a system representing the work a player has done for the team, you’ll drop coins upon dying and gain them from building, killing enemies, capturing flags, and manufacturing items. You’ll be able to use them to buy items (including bombs and arrows) which will provide a much better self-balancing system than the current resupply on spawn.
  That means no more endless stream of suicide bombers!

We’ve got more plans, but they’re not concrete so I’m not posting them. Feel free to ask questions in the comments – I’ll be watching this post over the weekend.

Geti

Build 157 released!

Changes 156-157:

– added “nocollapsing_nearspawn” variable to game rules file (CTF/gamemode.cfg)
– near spawn collapses prevention works for larger structures only (>15 blocks)
– fixed collapsing issues again
– fixed unbuildable spots bugs
– fixed crash reason
– fixed not being able to return to menu after disconnect
– knight image files height correction

Build 156 released!

Another quick patch. We’re ironing everything out before the next major builds that will bring some awesome new stuff. In the meantime the major bugs are being eradicated, I’m especially proud of fixing the collapsing issues. Should look much better now!

– unlimited resources on warmup removed (get 250 stone and 100 in tent)
– fixed creative/sandbox mode resources
– when max resource limit reached item falls out
– fixed picking resource item when full
– added circle on player when freezed
– fixed flag scored when touched on flag carrier
– fixed unsupported resolutions in fullscreen
– fixed frozen players dying
– fixed server browser sorting
– sort selection in browser is saved
– teams open doors can’t be destroy by team members
– fixed collapsing issues (floating blocks & not all blocks collapsing)
– fixed crash on start for old video cards