[Kde-games-devel] Kapman

[Matthew Woehlke]

Mathieu Ducharme wrote:
> I remember a few years ago many websites got shut down for hosting a flash
> game where the main character looks very similar to a pie chart.
> I personally would not use anything close to ghosts or pie for the artwork.
> Those "retro" themes could always be distributed with KHNS.
> 
> There are many ways to keep the exact same gameplay without having the
> artwork match so closely the original...
> - "Cave Digger", with gold instead of "pills". (hey, it could be sold as a
> "top-down KGR"...)

Lode Runner must not be enough of a cash cow (actually I think it's free 
these days) for people to get chased for cloning it. Huh.

> - "Archelogists", in the same veins, dig bones, avoid errrr.. zombies?
> - "Zombies", Fetch brains avoid... errr.. archeologists?

Heh. I like that :-).

> - "Pirates vs. Ninja"
> - "Konquie" (he should be in every games in a non-default theme....)
> - "Whatever..."

The problem is that the animation system is nowhere near sophisticated 
enough to support anything but crude animation (i.e. floating 
characters). In fact, the animation system last I checked (i.e. a few 
days ago) really doesn't support *any* animation other than moving 
static sprites around (by "supports" I mean "is able to run tolerably").

I already have an idea how to go about supporting "anchored" animations 
(i.e. walking animations, where the position of each frame is 
important), but there is quite a lot of work to be done to get to that 
level.

> I would personally like an "Italian" theme where the walls are made of green
> pipes, the enemies are turtles, the pills are coins and the "special pills"
> are mushrooms.
> It could be trademarked too though :P

You think? ;-)

> About "AI":
> 
> I can't find any source right now but I am pretty sure in the original (or
> it might only be in the sequel: "Pie Chart with a red ribbon") had 4
> different behavior for the enemies. It was something like, one random, one
> aggressive, one passive and another one I cant remember at all...
> 
> I think it was part of what made the-orginal-that-shall-remain-unnamed so
> tough. Too hard, IMHO.

Hmm, that *would* indeed be interesting. But not, I don't think, 
necessary for good playability.

A few years back I wrote my own, er, "pie chart" game. The AI I use, 
which seems to work well, is still random, but with a bias of 4.0 given 
to moving toward the player (1.0 for other directions). It's very 
simple, but reasonably effective. It's also easy to tweak; "easier" 
would be giving less bias to moving toward the player.

-- 
Matthew
I sure hope they never make a hearse out of a Honda Element. I wouldn't 
want to be caught dead in one.