You're one of the many scattered generals of the late Earth's forces. It seems that since the fall of a united government, diplomacy is a too dangerous chance to take, so what used to be a united army now turned into an interplanetary battle royal.
Everyone's fighting for their share of the remaining fossil fuels, capable of powering space travel. To survive, you have to gather what's left of it on the remaining planets in this solar system. Rally your troops, fight your way through their forces and grasp for the only thing you still care for in this doomed place.






rosareven put in quite well-understandable terms what's going on and what you have to do here:












You're looking at a strategy game that attempts things known to be quite difficult in game design: A casually approachable and at the same time very challenging play style, as well as relaxed and fun gameplay that is equally playable with a lot of tactical thinking and calculation.

Starting with a base camp that will take care of fuel gathering and unit production, you have to raise your mancount and try to clear the surface of the opponent's pesky units and their base.
The catch is that your units will consume the valueable fuel you're here for in the first place. Every time you accelerate, turn or produce units, you will need to blow some valueable fuel into the atmosphere. Heavier tanks will consume more fuel than light ones, but can take more damage. Your base is what you really need to protect, though, as you lose the game the second the enemy destroys it.

The key to scoring high is therefore to achieve a lot with little means and fewest units possible, as all your success will be measured by at the end of the day is how much fuel's still left on that planet you're trying to suck dry.




I'm finally done with this project... for now, as I might take it to an entire new level should I win the license.

Let me put some stats down at this point, though:

• I used 90 events in total (internal count used, meaning global and local variables included)
• I started working on this on the 5th of March
• about 20 hours have been put into interface and graphic design in total, not counting their functionality scripting in C2
• about 50 hours have been spent working in C2 - about 20 hours of that hasn't been cut again later on
• you will need about 10 minutes to play through this game against a friend
• I've taken one and a half days off to work on this throughout the month (half of that actually being used wisely)
• I'm so fucking glad I'm finally through

I definately didn't expect such a hassle with this project at all past the point of getting the circular gravity to work (which was about an hour of work). In the beginning, it went very smoothly, but I quickly stumbled upon problems when trying to seperate the units into two factions, or even getting the smoke particles right. About a week until completion, I encountered a project-breaking lack of functionality in C2 (according to my knowledge, of course) that made it impossible for me to get an AI into the game.
So, I was restructuring my work, thinking of how to rescue it, and multiplayer was the only thing that could possibly save me from starting an entirely new project. I was rebuilding large parts of the game to get it somewhere close to what I wanted, and to think that I only today (on the last contest day) started to implement a second unit is definately not worth a good rating on planning skills.
The interface was the hardest part, as I tried to get something done that wasn't copying any existant tactical or strategy games, and specifically rendered to my game's needs. I especially like the way the health display works, but overall, I think it's a pretty nice piece of work on this department. Took me about 30 events and two days of work alone for just the interface functionalities, by the way.
Hope you like the outcome somewhat, even though it's relatively thin. I would've loved to implement an artillery kind of unit that can fire over others, or a jet fighter that can fly over units. I'm sorry to disappoint your expectations already, as this isn't an in-depth strategy game or anything close to it... maybe you can still apprechiate the effort being put into it, and see where this could have gone when Scirra would've let me use families in the free version I would've had more possibilities.

Credits

The song you can hear throughout the game is 'Dictatorship' from Zodio's album 'Fuel' (fitting, isn't it) - make sure to check it out, as it has some very cool, chilled instrumentals in it that are worth listening to! Sound effects are shamelessly stolen from RMVX. Well, not as much stolen as used legally, but either way. The tank graphics are from a Nintendo Wars game I don't have the exact name of. They have been reworked, but not been created by me. Everything else, meaning graphics, interface design, coding/eventing, the game idea, and whatever else is completely my own work.

Special Thanks

Glitchfinder's name in the initial contest advertisement banner got me to actually join this... don't ask me why, but here I am Venetia, for spending way more time into turning this contest in the hbgames.org marketing machinery it is now. Aside from the fact that she got everyone on the right track, I feel she made an awesome grid girl! everyone who used some of their signature space to promote my game! Most of all, all those who pushed me in here and outside this topic to continue working on it, knowingly or not. That's pretty much everyone that posted here or wrote me via PM. Noone ever wasted a thought if I'm actually going to finish this, which is kind of nice... Thanks, and I hope I'm not letting anyone down

Damn it, BlueScope! You can't keep us waiting like this!

Screens soon? :D

I'll hook you guys up tomorrow... preparing the stuff right now ;)

K', so the first drop of info is up there... not quite screenshots yet, because I wanted to make sure what I put up here is representing, but you should be fed those very, very soon. I actually grew to like the idea myself more and more during developing it, and I already improved the underlaying concept that I thought of so much since I started working on it... I just want to make sure it hits public the right way ;)

I figured before I'll drop all the way to the bottom on the forum with my thread, let me finally feed you some visual impressions, even though they're in highly work in progress state.
I also updated the gameplay paragraph by a bunch of core functionalities, so you should have something to comment about... which you hopefully will, as every input could influence the final outcome right now.

That's sounding like a pretty good idea. I enjoy strategy and blowing things up in games :) Great to see some screen shots. Also great idea with the high score table, but how will you implement it? As far as I can gather there's no in built function for it and that you'll have to write code using ajax! Let me know if you figure out something simple, I'm pretty sure I'll be needing it in the future - luckily for my current entry high scores of others is of not too much importance :)

I've seen a few AJAX tutorials around for Construct, even specific for high-score tables. Either way, I'm a web designer by profession, so the AJAX handling shouldn't be the problem any more than getting used to Construct's object... but I didn't look into that at all yet.
I'm tinkering with submitting my game as an open project afterwards, so you'd be able to look into it anyway... but I'm not entirely sure there, depends on how done with it I get ;)

Bluescope this is a cool spin on some classic strategy action. I'm really looking forward to this, though that may be my inner strategy game nerd talking. These fingers have destroyed so many panzers in Steel Panthers II.

Heh... I just hope I can live up to your expectations ^^" But I'll definitely try my best :D
Thanks for the input.

Hey that's certainly generous of you. It'll be great to see how you did things and I'm bound to learn heaps - especially with the AJAX! (I should try to learn that some time since it sounds pretty handy). Fingers crossed in you getting it done then aye! :D

Thanks... it's definately one of those contest entries I'm hope seeing finished in the end And yes, yours is among those as well ;)