This is just a little look to see the vague direction I am going in.

AI is all I have been working on so far (getting squads to do route finding in formation).

http://ftw.shared.hosting.zen.co.uk/download/dbp.zip

(it just shows two formations approaching and weighing into each other)

(The white unit tries to maintain formation, but the purple one breaks out of formation)

Please give me a shout if it doesn't run.

J.

ps.. bearing in mind I originally hoped to enter this in the warmup competition, I am a little on the late side.

Crashes instantly because I don't have the 1.0 Refresh installed. Might want to mention that in your post as well. I'll install 1.0 and give it another shot in a minute.

Also, the .pdb file is a debugging file. You don't have to (nor want to usually) include that in your distribution. It just contains debugging symbols and information so that you can attach a debugger to the exe. So I'd make sure you take out both of those .pdb files. It will cut your distribution size down a bit (considering those files are larger than the assemblies they go with).

Tried it again, but it still crashes with a FileNotFoundException. Did you use another library that you forgot to include with the game? It has the Farseer DLL and I just installed XNA 1.0 Refresh. Perhaps you have incorrect file paths in your game? Might want to put in some try/catch blocks around your various pieces of code so that you can provide better feedback to the end user (who can then pass that on to you to fix).

It worked at my place and two things to say:

1)Incredable AI and Physics

2)What is this? :D

Hi all.

Sorry about the build not working for you Nick, I will try to get a more debugey version up later. (It really is an AI shell at the moment). To be honest, I wasn't even sure what version of the framework it was running.

Ashour... Thanks for your comments,

1.) the physics is all farseer goodness

2.) Good question :)

I have several directions I would like to go with it, but at the moment, I am happy just poking around making them move nicely. (Must remember to actually make a game with it.)

J.

Maybe you could convert your project to XNA 2.0. I did it with my project and was not so hard ;-) I could be wrong, but I think most of people is now 2.0-only...

Ok, I have uploaded a new version that should be xna 2.

I hope to add some logging and re-upload in a few days (in case upgrading to 2 didn't solve the problem Nick was having).

J.

I got a pop up that said "Test" but then it ran fine. Looks pretty cool. You could make some interesting games with just that basic idea that the circles sit there punching each other. Maybe you can level up your circles. Or maybe you can teach some to have more life but do less damage while others do more damage but have less life. It would be an interesting idea.

OK. By being 2.0 I could run it. It looks well. I suppose is some kind of strategic game, isn't it?

Good to hear that upgrading has sorted the gremlins out!

I really am not sure what I am going to do with it. The dream has been to create a game where you can have squads of units colliding, and pushing against each other.

Here is a collection of random stuff I have been thinking about whilst making it....

Gladiator, 300, big battles in LOTR etc ... Shield walls and charges, special abilities to do with "holding the line", The "AS ONE!" bit from gladiator, cavalry charges bursting through an enemy line. (and David Gemmell books).

But I know that will be tricky, so if I can't get that to gel, I may go for a vaguely "tower defence" style thing, but with a squad based twist.

J.

ps.. I am all excited again, back to my moving circles...

I'm at school right now so I can't check the game, I will when I get home, but a game similar to 300, where you play as the Spartans against some other army (Persians, probably), and totally whup them would be awesome.

 

Hah, that's cool.

You could also keep the circles for the game.. have like evil circles that go invisible and move to the center of your circle formation and blow up... or maybe domination circles that can take over some circles and your formation turns against itself...

or you could just use something else and use those concepts?

I want to draw a bunch of circles now...