Hauler v.004a is available for immediate play. That’s right, it’s a fully playable game now!
I’ve added the combat system, which was a lot of fun to design. There are two pirates that can attack your ship, and you choose to fight, flee or surrender during each turn. The player is punished/rewarded with varying severity based on their actions. For example, if you surrender the pirate only takes 1/4 of your cash and a random cargo item. If you attempt to flee, you could lose up to half of your credits and all of your cargo – or you could escape with no penalty. If you fight and lose, you lose all of your cash and cargo, then your dad sends you 1000 credits to start over again. If you win a fight, you get a good chunk of cash and your available cargo space is filled with a random trade item.
With this version you’re attacked EVERY TIME you jump to another location. This is so that people can test out the combat system. It’s not balanced yet, so both the player and pirate tend to miss shots a lot. I also need to have a visual display that shows the player their remaining shield strength, firepower, etc.
The big purple square is where the pirate’s image will go. I’d like to have the pirate’s dialog look (and sound) like the dialog from 8-bit games (a’la MegaMan, Legend of Zelda, etc.) where the text comes out one character at a time and makes a little noise.
I need to spend a day going over the visual aspects of the game and do up the buttons, etc. all 8-bit style.
The game’s settings are entirely XML-based, including the pirates’ scripted dialog during the combat parts. I refactored the combat script/interaction method a couple of times while I was working on it, and actually wrote the XML before I started coding. I usually try to get at least a basic data structure figured out before I build the application layer.
I have also bodged-up a swanky logo for the game. It’s based on the classic Mudflap Girl, but with a sci-fi twist. The chrome needs some help, but I’ve had this logo idea banging around in my head for a couple of weeks and just had to see it for realz.
The feel I’d like to get is a gritty, long-haul trucker culture and environment. I’m no graphic designer, but I’ll do the best I can. For this project I’m stretching my visual talents and it’s important that I do it myself.
AJH-1138 