Blockade Implementation Details

Blockade Implementation Details

Brett208 18 Oct 2016 07:51

Since it looks like we are going for Blockade, I thought we should start laying some foundations to work on. Here are some of my higher level thoughts.

Game Programmer Art
My wife is willing to make a 2D PNG tiling wall piece, tiling snake piece, and tiling background piece. It will probably be a little more colorful then the 1980s version of Blockade. I was thinking a metallic looking wall, with a 80's orangish background. If there are other sprites we want, let me know.

If someone wants 3D or some other 2D art, let me know fairly soon!

Gameplay Modes
I'm assuming we will shoot for local multiplayer and networked multiplayer. As a stretch goal, we could work a snake AI so you could play single player, or some combo of human and AI players. I think a co-op mode where you work with another player to kill 2 enemy AI snakes would be awesome. That being said, I'd rather see the networked code looking good before the AI.

User Interface
I think we are looking at a pre-game configuration screen, a high score/victory screen, and some sort of lost connectivity screen. Maybe we should expand in a separate thread what all we want in the UI. Are we looking for mouse control or just keyboard control for the UI?

Here is what RB dug up on the original game:

Networking Code
I think it would be nice to flesh out our plan with the networking. It didn't really come together during Xevious (which is fine as it was our first attempt I think?). I know there are 2 basic protocols we can choose from, but I need to research to remember what they are.

Here is the page with a lot of implementation thoughts from Xevious: http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/forum/t-1678332/networking-code

Re: Blockade Implementation Details

PiscesMike 20 Oct 2016 01:19

Sounds like we are off to a good start. I'm on board with everything so far.

Once again, I'd like to attempt the networking since I already have a little framework set up. At least for the basic connection stuff, and networking architecture. That being said, one of the things that held me up last time around was the configuration of the server, the actual data channels, and the structure of the communications in general.

I think with a little preplanning on that part and correcting the server to hold the game state we can get this done. So, I'm going to try and spend a little time before we get started ironing out those details. One kind of neat thing I did already figure out though, was that the game state can be started and maintained with a small packet. The transmission would consist of the block the player is moving to next, along with those same positions of each player. The server only needs to track the next move for updating and collision detection for each player, as the past moves can be maintained in an array. Each system would maintain a history of each players move and could use predictive collision detection to ask the server if a collision has actually occurred. It would cut down on latency quite a bit, I believe.

At any rate, I need some votes on this. If you guys are good with me tackling networking and using the client/server set up as we did last time I'll need to go ahead and get started.

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Blockade Implementation Details

Brett208 21 Oct 2016 04:39

I don't mind if you get a head start on the networking and work on it during the competition.

-Brett