Game Prototype: Crane Wars

I am happy to see new awesome stuff.

That is pretty awesome, I'm looking forward for more stuff.

I LOVE Crane Wars, but at some points in the game when i'm playing, the mouse sensitivity gets a little too high, and it messes me up!

What's you're next game gonna be?

Hurry up and get Crane Wars on the home page already!!!!!!

Ramming buildings and chucking parts of buildings at other buildings are definately my favourite activities.
Building IMHO is impossible with this type of controls (it's possible, but too much of a pain in the ass).
And I agree to the previous poster about the Q and E as alternative hook height adjuster buttones because my browser (Opera) likes to scroll the page instead of letting the game do what it's supposed to. The problem can be gotten rid of by going in fullscreen but that's not really a proper fix now is it?!
Great idea, has some great potential - good luck on finishing it!

My suggestion for the controls would be:
-WASD for the moving the vehicle
-Q and E for adjusting the hight of the hook
If this game is about constructing something then i think the player should be able to work more precise. How about using SPACE for stabilizing the hook/vehicle so it doesn't break as soon as the player turns the vehicle.
I also think that it would be easier if the hook would follow the mouse always and work more like a magnet, attaching to an object automatically. The LMB would then be used for releasing the object again. This would prevent any cramps of the right index finger :P

The game idea is very good and has a big potential for a lot of levels.Good luck finding a good control scheme.

Hi guys!

Thanks for all the feedback! We have been fiddling a lot with the control scheme to try to make it a lot more fluid. Right now we have something that is mouse-only that seems to be a good candidate. I'm sure we'll have another prototype to put up sometime soon.

I agree the breaking already feels pretty good. (I want everything to be pretty destructible, so we will have some performance optimization to do.) Ideally though, we want a good balance between destroying and building so that both options are equally fun, about like Minotaur China shop. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled and keep the comments coming!

I just have to say that smashing through the destructible blocks with the truck was a heck of a lot more fun than trying to pick stuff up with the crane and stack/throw it. The way that the blocks collapsed into their component parts was very pleasing to the eye, especially when they all sprayed out after a more forceful collision. Also, driving over the rubble was much easier than I thought it would be. I'm wondering if the crane mechanic might be a little too difficult to master for the average Blurster, seeing as the other games are so intuitive.

While I was screwing around it occurred to me that this could end up being a sort of cross between Velociraptor Safari and Minotaur China Shop, but with a build element added in. You drive your vehicle around beating the hell out of a destructible environment for points, but you can also use the crane (or a god grip sort of thing should the crane not work out) to build more environment to smash. And you get points for doing anything and everything.

In the destruction demo why can't you adjust the normal map. Make another layer of the normal map that just erases the old normal map.

You guys should check out Bontago for more block stacking game ideas.

Hello, I've been playing the prototype for a bit now and here is what I think. First off destroying stuff is fun, but with the current controls hard. If I want to smash something, I press space to lower the hook (but then I can't move the hook anymore) and release it in the direction I want. It almost never hits the building I wish. To make destruction fun, you should let us move the hook while it's lowered (maybe implementing a control to move it up, and one to move it down). When a piece gets destroyed, it loses it's inherent velocity (or speed) and stops moving. This makes for funny destruction.

The truck should stop when you release the arrows, because it's tedious to make it stop. I've also been flipping it over a lot, so some way to avoid that would be essential. On the fun part, I'd like HUGE WHEELS with awesome suspension. That would add a lot to the personnality of the truck (so to speak).

When I tried to build stuff, it was very hard and annoying. For example, I click on a piece to position my crane, press space bar to hook it up, release space bar and VOOM! it's thrown far off... Or I grab something, and click somewhere to position my crane, and VOOM! byebye again :)

I don't know what the best would be, a click and hold solution or move up/down hook controls, but I'm quite sure the current setup is hard to work with.

Other than that, the game seems like a good idea if you can simplify it a lot. And make building stuff more lego-like (where pieces snap together) and fun.

Cheers

hey,
i have a question about game blust.
do you know what should i do in order to expand time while playing?
i guess it is not right place to ask this question.

No I havne't had any problems with your other games.

Another thing I noticed is that if I go fullscreen before the game finishes loading it will get all messed up and laggy, but when I leave fullscreen the game runs normally with no glitches. I just assumed there might be a small mistake in the coding the repeated the code once, but now it seems that my computer seems to fall into a repeat of everything.

I might make a small video for you to see what is happening, but only if you think it would help you find the problem(which I kind of doubt =-P).

@soad667 -- We considered using RMB for the hook, but we've stayed away from it so far because it kills the web player context menu (to go full-screen, etc).

We're not totally happy with the hook behaviour yet. The mousewheel/space + LMB approach right now feels kind of sucky. I like being able to chuck things by just letting off the mouse button, but obviously want the ability to lower things carefully, too.

I want to make the height-adjust smarter. Right now it looks at the height where you click, but not the height of intervening terrain. Doing so shouldn't be too tough, and should make accidental crashes less likely.

@Harley Witt -- Glad you enjoy the videos! For the hook, we use a custom Spring class connecting the hook ball to the crane arm -- similar to SpringJoint. When the hook collides with an object it can pick up, it creates a FixedJoint between the hook and the building piece.

@The Advisor -- We'll look into it, that sounds very odd indeed. Have you noticed any problems with any of our other games?

I've been having a bug where every single object(lighting included) is duplicated and as such my truck moves like most glitched objects and if a feather so much as touches a building... well all I can say is that my computer finds it easier to show a nuke going off in fallout 3 than what happened there.

I'm using Firefox 3, and have got an Nvidia card(with PhysX hardware if that helps).

P.S. When I start the game I see the normal game for a frame or 2 before it duplicates everything.

Nice. I was just wondering how to create hinge joints to allow objects to swing from each other. Any chance you can create or point me to a quick tutorial on that? I am creating the free Alphabet puzzle game for kids and need to do this for a future level. Please keep education in mind when you build your content so kids can play and learn. I just started using Unity (the Windows beta version) and have my progress here http://worldlearningtree.com/b...
Thanks for posting videos like this. They are quite inspirational.

So, the lego-likes aren't there just to take up your precious space. Nice! :P

From the above 'stuff-to-try' things, i pass most of my time with ramming through buildings and throwing things around (not much of a surprise, huh?). I wish there were a lot more buildings to destroy. After smashing everything down, it's really cool to see the result (and there aren't even textures yet).

Re-stacking is fun once you get used to the controls (and their clumsiness in this prototype), but the pieces/walls/etc break a bit too easy. Maybe when the controls get better, this won't be much of a problem. Or/and make the buildings a bit more resistant.

Btw, click&hold to grab something doesn't work as intended. I use the mouse just to place the hook where i want and then i leave it. Then, just pressing space, lowers the hook and grabs whatever is underneath. If you want to leave/throw the piece, you have to click once.

And speaking of the controls, how about using the LMB for placing the hook and RMB to activate/deactivate the hook for grabbing stuff or not? So you can make some little adjustments if you want (like a magnet). SPACE for lowering is great. And i think the MOUSE WHEEL could be nice for moving the main part of the crane up/down, changing its angle (so you can e.g. bring it to an over 80 degrees position to reach the highest possible place that is next to you without smashing down everything).

Last but not least, is there a chance to make the pieces break more random, into more parts? Like in Sumotori. This could bring the smashing/ramming to a whole new level.

Wow, that looks like a long post. Music helps. Well, enough for today. Enjoy reading, FBS! :P ;)

Fun little demo, but the crane is a bit hard to use, so I've just been running down the buildings with the crane itself. what about allowing the crane's height to be controlled by the mouse's Y position, because right now I can't seem to so anything with the crane.

Here's some stuff to try, let us know what you guys find fun!

Re-stack the buildings. Try to make a giant tower!
Pick up buildings and chuck them at other buildings.
Ram through buildings and watch them gib!
Try to carry a building carefully through the town.

The controls also aren't totally done yet. What feels good and what doesn't? Is the car fun and responsive to drive? What are the most and least intuitive parts about using the hook?

Also, we have a few ideas for vehicles. ;)

Chrome has input problems with Unity (that should be fixed in a week or two). In IE you'll probably have to click on the content before it'll accept any keyboard input.

Are there any known issues or browser limitations? I've tried to play the prototype on both Chrome and IE but can't see to get it to do anything.

The crane/truck just slowly inches forward until it hits the wall. No ammount of button mashing or clicking elicits a response.

Thoughts?

Hehe, saw the video a while ago, but giving us the chance to try this prototype? Really nice! ;)

Do you think of using a normal vehicle for the crane or some kind of a weird animal with a mounted crane on it? My first thought was a triceratops. :P

Controling the crane/hook was a bit weird at this point, but i had some fun with the "smash everything down" feature. :P

Anyway, good luck, can't wait to see more on this!