Slick Forums

Hey all,

I'm new here, and just begun making a game in the genre of SimCity and Pharaoh. It's called Walkable Urban Simulator - and the goal is to simulate a modern walkable urban community (ie. a dense, fully-integrated urban development where cars, if needed, are parked on the periphery.)

The player will have to deal with such factors as Local Community, Economic Viability and Environmental Sustainability.



Here's the Java WebStart link for it.
Currently you can only build cobbled paths! But the interface is about halfway there.

Cheers,

Nathan


PS: I'm loving Slick. I haven't played with Java since university, but you've made it so easy to make a tidy 2D game with a tidy language!

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

Alright, well since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of gameplay I'll give you some feedback on the interface.

* Make the buttons bigger, was a little hard to click them.
* The tooltips would appear underneath the buttons thus obscuring them
* Try to make the icons a little clearer. Wasn't clear by looking how the build road and build structure were different.
* Build structure didn't seem to do anything, so I couldn't really tell what it was for at all.
* It said "right-click for more info" or something in the top right, I did, I got a cool square, but I couldn't turn it off by right clicking again...
* Wasn't clear what the more info I got was either, liked the square though
* Liked the save menu artwork
* Not really wild about the buttons, though, still too small
* I would place the whole hud into a panel of some kind so it was really distinct from the rest of the game. This is how many RTS games work, for instance.
* I don't like how the game connects the roads automatically at times. I'd actually argue it shouldn't do that at all, but at least it should work differently. Sometimes it would connect a road in a way I didn't want.

That's all for now. I'm interested in seeing where things go, sounds really ambitious!

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com

manunderground,

Hey thanks for your reply!

This is a very early draft, so a lot of the things you brought up will be answered as it gets closer to completion.

I am thinking of making all those buttons 40x40 instead of 30x30. 30x30 buttons are as big as typical small toolbar buttons in, for example, MS Office 2003, but I guess we have become used to bigger buttons these days. Making them bigger will also make them a bit more distinct.

About the tooltips - this is a bit of a bummer because they're part of the button object and not the general interface. I will make a method to render the tooltip separately so they can be rendered last.

Build structure currently does nothing. It will be used to make homes and businesses.

The right-click thing is not implemented yet. Basically it will show more detailed info about the purpose and influence of whichever access or structure your mouse is on.

re: the automatic connections - I spent a long time on this! These particular paths are connected in such a way that the most ideal links are made without having two adjacent connections 45 degrees apart. Other access types may only connect N-S and E-W.

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

I think that 30x30 might make sense for Word but in a game where you need to make quick decisions it's a problem if it's difficult to find the right button. Speaking of, you might consider adding keyboard shortcuts, too, which could be displayed in the tooltips or as part of the button.

Sorry to rain on your parade! I'm sure that the algorithm behind the road completion is pretty awesome and maybe others will enjoy the mechanic more than I did. What I find frustrating is when the computer tries to be smart but ends up doing the wrong thing; once more of the game mechanics are in place it might be clear that this isn't a problem, but when I was just placing little pieces of road down I found it to be more a pain than a pleasure.

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com

hi!

can you make a zip, exe, or so on of this project? At work webstart doesn't work

Hi ya and welcome to the slick community

I think manunderground has provided some good feedback which I would agree with. On the more positive side, the project sounds very cool and I like some of the touches in the interface such as the box in the top right hand corner growing in size rather than just changing immediately, it just makes things look nicer, but then I'm a Mac guy where I'm surrounded by things which don't just change but use subtle transitions, so maybe that's why I like it.

It would be great to keep seeing the progress your making so keep it up and I look forward to your next drop.

MikeD

_________________
Work In Progress:
Atic Atac Remake
MegaBlast (First Slick Game I started)

Gornova,

To be honest, I haven't figured out how to make an executable yet! I'll have to get around to that at some point.

MikeD,

Thanks again for the feedback. I've already sorted out a few of the interface issues you guys mentioned. Buttons are now resized from original images which are 100x100, so I can change their size within the code now. I'll post another demo within the fortnight.

Cheers,

Nathan

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

Minor update: Interface improved.

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

* I like the bigger buttons.
* One bug I noticed was that it would lay a piece of road down when tried to switch to buildings or save.
* Why have the roads have rounded instead sharp corners? I think sharp corners fit with our mental model (mine anyway).

As for how to make an executable I recently played around with Ant and wrote a build file to do just that for your project. Here's the tutorial: Automate tasks with Ant

At the end there is a link to the build file I am currently using for Shade. It will require a little work on your part to rename things to match your project, but it shouldn't be too hard and I would be happy to field any questions.

One last thing to point out is that when you call `ant run` for my script it passes the necessary JVM arguments to hook in the native libraries, for a jar you wanted to distribute you would probably need to include those native libraries in the jar itself (just as I do for the resources) and, here I"m not sure, modify the manifest.

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com

Yikes! Sounds complicated! Makes me realise Webstart is so nice and easy. I'm actually brand new to Eclipse as well. ! I'll see if I can have a look at it later on.

re: the roads, these are meant to be meandering, cobbled paths for the early, low-density stages of the development. The later plazas and lanes will be a lot more regular in shape.

Yeah, the "Build Structure" button just does nothing right now, takes you straight back to Select mode.

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

Pretty neat. I like how the roads all get connected. The spacing of the grid where roads were placed felt a little strange at first (maybe because the grass tile was smaller than the road placing tile?), but it will probably make more sense once there are buildings and things like that involved.

I've had a simcity type game floating around in the back of my head, so I look forward to seeing what else you put together!

Minor update: Multiple improvements.

A couple of features have been added:
- Interface now indicates with an overlay whether placement of a tile is possible.
- Right-clicking on a tile when in Select mode now brings up a more detailed information box. This box still needs a little work.
- A basic one-bedroom house can now be built using Build Structure (in the future, this will be able to be rotated before placement).

twood, thanks for the encouragement mate!

Nathan


EDIT: By the way, I am getting an error when I try to run the Java Webstart on my Ubuntu desktop computer (the one on which I am developing the game with Eclipse). Everything loads, even the main window, and then I get:

Error: sealing violation: can't seal package org.lwjgl.openal: already loaded

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

Maybe this can be useful.
Create a little .bat or sh when you distribuite your work, so we can easy try WUS.

.bat or .sh:



And into the same dir of your jar (WUS-draft.jar) 've this jars:

Update! I'm on holiday again so I finally had time to do a bit more work on this.

Some major improvements all around.

1) Mouse-wheel now zooms out and in.
2) Moving mouse to edges of screen now scrolls screen.
3) The readouts at the bottom-right give the population and the proportion of car-slaves, car-servants, car-users and car-free citizens.
4) You can now build dirt lanes, paths, low-density single dwellings and parking spaces.

Here's the Java WebStart link for it.

(Gornova - thanks for that script - but I still haven't got around to using it, so it's webstart for the time being!)

_________________
Current demo of Walkable Urban Simulator

Wow looks cool, I like that I can now add buildings. Here are some thoughts.

* You seem to be a talented artist, I like the graphics for the gui, splash, etc
* That said the some of the assets could probably use some work,
* It was hard to tell what things were immediately, even the house took me a minute (but looks great once you see it)
* Not sure what to do w/ the editor,
* Do I have a limited amount of resources to spend?
* Why am I building roads and connecting them? (And why do I keep adding more...)
* Thought it was cool that you could zoom/scroll, though didn't use it much since I didn't have a big "city"
* Just realized there is information on the bottom, I can hardly read it!
* If it's important and answers some of my questions above then make it stand out more (bigger, on a darker background perhaps)
* I think you should bring those stats up and in focus as they might give a sense of purpose which is currently lacking.

I think right now my biggest question is what am I supposed to do? There isn't really any feedback so I'm not sure if I'm doing something good or bad or if I'm not intended to do anything at all.

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com