While waiting for Jesse to finish up his part of Solar Trader, I’ve been reworking Pits of Seth for a long-needed update. Already, I’ve added sounds, better damage controls, and dungeon “area” to give it a more lived-in feel.

But what is most striking is my sloppy code the first time around. This was my first game in excel, and I was still learning as I was doing. Most of the dungeon creation was done with cascading tables – really quite interesting (even beautiful) in a way. But I was still learning VBA – just looking stuff up on the net as I needed it, and doing most of my processing in the cells.

Funny the things I don’t have, like a function to go out and fetch things I need – I’d always pump out a long-winded formula to get it direct. Tedious. So now I’m adding those (as I need to modify the dungeon before the player goes in to add those ‘areas’ I spoke of). Overall, there are a lot of things I’d do different – more code, less cell-processing – if I did it again.

But I don’t know if I ever will – POS is a friendly fun little game, and after these changes, it will be about as good as I can make it.

But we’ll see…

Now that I’m waiting for Jesse to finish up a review on Solar Trader (Alpha), I’ve started doing all the changes I’ve promised for POS. And it’s really coming together. New things to look for in the next version…

1) Sounds – mostly in. Some of them are a hoot!

2) Large corridor – more of a hint towards what lies ahead!

3) Special area – there will be new randomized layouts for small areas (barracks, the harem, the treasure vault, etc) that will appear on each level, three per level. These will use the new Large Corridors to help define them.

4) Death-step – I didn’t like that you could go from 4 health to 0 in one hit. So now, the game will grind you down to 1 point but not let you go to death unless you were nearly dead. This means you’ll get maybe ONE chance to perhaps throw a spell or run or something before you get killed. This should make it a bit easier to live. At least death won’t come as a total surprise.

Anyway, all this should be coming out soon. Sounds are half-in and corridors are working. We’ll see if I can wrap this update up quick!

Well, this sucks.

There you are, sitting in your tiny scout ship when a massive alien mothership skids in a deceleration slingshot around our sun, blowing out system-wide communications and dumping elements of a vast fleet (complete with dreadnaughts) across inner space. The Earth fleet is scattered to the various planets and all you can do is to assemble them.

You’ll need to play this smart and hot, probing and analyzing and guessing. Maybe you’ll find a disabled civilian ship with a specialist you can use! Or maybe you’ll smash into an asteroid and doom us all the the hive’s feeding vats. It all comes down to how clever and lucky you are.

So probe your way through that inky night. Good luck. We’re all counting on you!

(to download, go to The Games: System War One and pull it down there. Full rules, sounds, screen icons (and, of course, the game) are all in the zip file.

Finally had a little time last night to sit down with Dispatcher and play a bit of a game. I’d play myself, and see how it went.

Okay, first thing I haven’t done in a long time – set up the counters on the “order of battle”. I had to put about a hundred train counters into their starting cities, on the little grid of starting positions. And unfortunately, the game only listed ending cities on the counters so it took a bit of looking about. We certainly don’t do that now in our games. It all happens in a blink of an eye.

So I started playing both sides to see how it went. Hoo boy. See, Dispatcher uses a unique system – phases – though in 1958 they didn’t detail it, only implied it. If a train moves four squares in a turn and a turn is an hour, than that train moves at, say, 8:00am, 8:15am, 8:30am, and 8:45am. A train moving two squares and hour moves 8:00am and 8:30am. You move all the 8:00am trains first, then the 8:15’s, and so on. Even doing it railline by railline, it got confusing fast. I found myself consulting the timetable, thinking did I move this guy? I’m sure there were mistakes galore.

So, yes, the game was a lot of fun (before I gave it up – I’d made a number of serious mistakes). But I’d like to play it more, and I’d really like to see it computerize (so the computer can help you along). So I’ll be looking at this next.

I do want to write it so other divisions can be added – users (or designers) can add their own.

But first, I’ve got to get that Solar Trader Alpha version out to you guys. Jesse’s got it for review.

Jesse…?

While running a train at a model railroad ops session (where we “game” a model railroad into being a real “day” on a railroad), I accidentally brushed a stack of stuff under the layout with my leg. It fell over. Oops. Stooped down to restack it and there was Dispatcher.

Back when I was a kid, I played an old Avalon Hill game, C&O/B&O, a train game where two railroads compete for revenue and efficiency over a 24 hour period. Yes, this was a “war” game, with counters and dice and a board game. I loved it and played it a lot – solitaire – since I couldn’t find anyone else to play.

But I knew it came from a game called Dispatcher, a pair of fictitious railroads locked in conflict. In the time before internet, I’d only heard rumors about it. Never saw it. Had no idea.

And now there it was.

I only have a few minutes to look at the contents. The owner saw me down there, hunched over a game that was 54 years old (as old as I am, since it was published the year I was born). He made a copy of the rules for me in his wife’s home office and I read them on the long trip home. I was fascinated.

Talked to him in the week that followed and finalized a purchase – I’d buy the original from him, with the maps and cards and counters. So in a day or so, I should have it.

And who knows – maybe it will be another game. Keep an eye here for details.

After an extended hiatus from coding Solar Trader, I’m back on the job.  Tonight I’m working on how to place objects given some general parameters – how far from a reference point – sunward, belt ward, outward, etc…

Once this is done, I’ll go back to working on the space encounters.   Trust me, be grateful that the current version doesn’t have pirates chasing you.  Space is dangerous enough to navigate without enemy ships pursuing and attacking you.

As Robert’s last post mentioned, we are close to ready to release the alpha version of Solar Trader .  So as a teaser, I’ve removed the password from the Solar Trader page.  Now everyone can take a look at the description and a bit of the artwork.  Check it out here.

Last night I worked out the first part of Solar Trader’s in-game tutorial (there are two). In the first, you learn the simple mechanics of the game – how to fly, how gravity works, how to flush your toilet (really, it’s in the game).

Once this is in, I’ve got the second – orbital mechanics, i.e. your flight from Earth to Mercury. This involves teaching how to take off and land.

Then I need to update the manual.

After this, I think we’ll have an Alpha version (i.e. still under development but okay to play). Outside of Jesse’s blind-mans-bluff navigation for all other shipping, you can actually fly planet to planet and trade. And trust me, you can lose the game easy enough without a universe full of bad guys.

Looking forward to a release in a few weeks!

This has been a little confusion with the release of Pits. It involves your money, keeping your money, and having your money work for you (or at least your score).

If you survive an adventure, you are asked if you’d like to retire (or retire and give your map to a younger version of you) or to go back into the old or a new dungeon.

If you retire in any way, all your money goes into your final score. And you’re done.

If you go back into the same dungeon, 10% of your cash (and one ‘use’ of every item you have) is expended. This constitutes your cost of living and side-adventures you might have before returning to those dank caverns.

If you journey to a new dungeon, 30% of your cash and two ‘uses’ of every item are burned off. This represents your long overland journey.

For these last two cases (the go-back-in deals), all the money not lost in turnaround goes into the ‘temple’ (which served as banks in ancient times, so we follow that model here). When you come out a second time, you’ll see your current ‘carried’ amount (in silver), followed by the amount in the temple (reduced 10% or 30%) and the grand total. This grand total will now be used for your final score (if you retire) or be deposited in the temple again (if another game is played). And remember, if you die, the priests shake their head sadly and say, in mock surprise, “What deposit?” Yes, when you die, you lose all your accumulated wealth.

And that’s where high scores come from!

Added Pits of Seth into the game library. This was a curious effort – I’d hardly done more with Excel at all at this point, just basic spreadsheet stuff and nosing into VBA (basic). Then I got the hankering for doing a Dungeon Crawl. Remembering some of the stuff I’d done before (I’ve done Pits about four times now, and was one of my first games back in the 70s), I started coding.

It actually worked pretty good. Sure, the dungeon is a little loopy and doesn’t make much sense (but who are we to question the ancients?). But it was a lot of fun.

Thanks to Jesse for beefing up my kludgy map by figuring out how to do solid edges. It made it a lot easier when trying to find how to get from that new up-stairway to the exit.

It’s a fun little game, so enjoy!