miTanks, Part 8, Initial Release!!!

Added another ground type, gravel. But thats about it.

The ground is randomly up and down, but never so high that you can't climb it. I think it's the most realistic ground I have made. Suprisingly easy as well.

Ok guys. I'm running out of ideas. Foo's to get to work on having the menu up and running. I'll going to get to work on some of the inside bits.

I really want to make a release for you guys. What I'm going to do is find a way to put up a .jar file. Because the program has no real visual output, I'll leave you instructions on how to run it through the command line. This will allow you to see what I see. Playable, but in no way is it finished.

Download Link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/442108182/miTanks.jar

How to use:
Download the jar file and place it somewhere on your computer.
Right-click on the file and click 'Properties'.
Copy the location of the file.

Open the command line. (Windows > Search > "cmd").
Type "cd [location in full]" and press enter.
Type "java -jar miTanks.jar" and press enter.

This will open the game.

Notes:
The ground is gravel and there are 3 players (2 human controlled and a computer controlled). The first player is the blue one, he is human controlled. The second is red, and is also human controlled. The last is still red, but he is a computer player that randomly picks a direction, power and fires.
If I get some comments, I'll upload versions with a certain amount of what players and what ground etc.
The angle works like this: 0 is straight up, -90 is left, 90 is right.
Power goes between 0 and 100.
Your power and angle will be displayed in the command line.
Your life comes up here as well as you get damaged.
And some other crap. Sorry I'm still using these tracers so that's why they are still there.
Once you win you will have to close and open again. Just press up when in the command line then Enter.
Controls:
w = increase power
s = decrease power
a = decrease angle
d = increase angle
z = move left
x = move right
q = previous weapon
e = next weapon
Enter = fire

Please leave a comment! Chances are, there will be some issues with this.

QR and Google URL Shortener

Here is the QR code for http://screaminghawk.blogspot.com/. Android has an app that reads these barcodes and then takes you to the sites are adds the contact or whatever the information. Handly dandy ay.

I'm sure you all know TinyURL. Well now google has http://goo.gl/. Because this site is new the URL wills be even shorter. It also tracks page views etc. http://goo.gl/ZafRK = My blog. And then the QR code for that URL is even smaller.

To generate your own QR codes go here http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/. It's fantastico!

miTanks, Part 6

A little more progress. Moved the ground builder into the Ground enum so that each type of ground has it's own way to build the terrain. Implemented a Sand random ground generator and a Rock random ground generator. Guess which one is which.

You can see the code behind building these is only a few lines each. Writing the rock one took less then 10 mins. The sand one was just over an hour.

The sand one still has some issues. I haven't quite got the constraints for the range, period and shift of the wave. And then applying some additional scaling so that it doesn't fall off the bottom of the game.

Haven't done much else really. Will look at adding a straight shot weapon that moves through the floor. This is probably going to be alot more enjoyable then the game to work. To be honest there isn't that much else to do to get it playable.

There are a couple of steps I have when I create a game:
Working = It does what it should.
Playable = You can see it doing what it should.
Done/Fun = There is enough story/options/levels/bells and wistles that you will enjoy playing it.
Finished = It's actually done.

At the moment miTanks for PC is at a proof of concept stage. Which is some wierd combination of fun and playable, but not quite working. This usaully happens when I get bored of doing behind the scenes code and start making stuff that I can actually see. Like the ground generators.

Please read this:
I've made the sound support on this PC version. Still waiting some sound effects. If you go to Vocaroo and make me a sound, I will put it in my game, and your name in credits.
Just post the Vocaroo link in a reply below.
If you want a weapon just tell me what it should do, how to move and shoot. I'll put that in aswel. Credit will be made to you also.

See example comment below.