Advance Wars update

Just back from seeing the hobbit with my best friends family, was pretty good had some really good light comedic scenes and couldn't help but laugh every-time they're in a mine falling and no one ever falls or is hurt from falling. Also laughed at the MMO adverts they put on before hand, seems to be a trend to get a cheesy quote and high rendered cutscene to advertise MMORPG's at the moment. I mean have you see this one :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajz5Poh_giI

Added all the units, except APC's so far

-Infantry
-Mechanical Infantry
-Recon
-Small Tank
-Medium Tank
-Neo Tank
-Artillery
-Rocket Launcher

Got the triggers sorted for capturing the buildings, has a lot of issues detecting just infantry units in a region so the infantry initiate the capturing now and as long as you have more units than the opposing player then you continue capturing. Also like the turn based game-boy game the buildings heal allied units on upkeep. The floating text for upkeep (+100 and the HP +25%) slowly pans up and last for 5 seconds). Permanent Floating Text is also used to represent who owns which buildings and changes colour when captured by the opposing team (blue).

There is also a simple weather system which checks every minute having a 1 in 5 chance to be raining this minute or 4 out of 5 of being clear weather. The rain half's the vision of units which disables artillery significantly and makes Recon units more important.

The other terrain advantages and disadvantages are controlled using region entering/leaving triggers. The forest regions slow down the units movement by 25% and the roads increase movement by 25%.

Spent a lot of time getting the units balanced counters but only a good length of play sessions will really show if there are significant dominant strategies or units. So I can't really start fine-tuning unit stats yet. I've been thinking over whether to have CO's (commanders) like the advance wars games each with there Special Powers and Unit bonus'. But again it's probably something best added when the units themselves are at a more balanced stage. I could have a select like Hero maps do for the game before the game begins or perhaps just a Button input select screen at start.

I also have another idea I might try for a map inspired by seeing the old bomber-man game being played on the sega genesis at my friends house before going to the cinema. Where as bomber man is about capturing people offguard with bombs placed, kicked and thrown. I was thinking of doing the same with a caster and different missle types. Missleman! :D Delayed missles, slow heavy damage missile,s fast missiles strengths could be based on there mana cost or recast time. Could throw in random pick-ups and destructible environments like bomber man also maybe even creatures?

Also decided to get some 3d modelling done for a change, working on a Anti-Infantry Steampunk Mecha-Tank design at the moment

Advance Wars : Steampunk Rising? :D

So I've had the idea of making my favourite GBA game into a map and been thinking about how to go about changing it from turn based to real time and what triggers I'd need for the capture points. Whilst sorting out my other map, which is a come very far and quite near a finished build. Currently working on issues with the escape airship placement and need to add the ending cinematic.

I decided to go with the iconic map Little Island since it focuses entirely on ground units and fast close quarters 1v1 combat, the very opposite of my current survival hero/tower defence map.

Here's a Screenshot of the map so far, just added the income triggers and been play-testing/setting up 3-4 units.

The original Gameboy version of little island looks like

I've decided since it's real-time to break the forest A-symmetry as they effect the infantry movement/flow a lot more on my map and have lengthened the width by one space to allow a gap between the 2 closest buildings to the base and the trees.

Quick Update on things (Warcraft 3 Survival TD Map!?)

Hey, long time no post. Have been doing a lot as always just been busy with some physio exercises and distracted from my Blog in my extra time. I've been switching between a lot of things recently I've been doing less Uscript, made Third/half the framework for a Magic the gathering card game setup and worked on some platformer AI practising Ray-tracing and States. Also practised using the material editor (UDK) Making several materials. 

Made a quick UT3 Map with a 3d skysphere/box and some weapon Mutators.

Been working on some 2D Animation and Parallax Backgrounds for a Android Game, not sure if it's going anywhere yet. Here's a sample of one of the combinations...

Spent the last 3-4 days play-testing and heavily reworking my Warcraft 3 Survival Tower Defence Map which is going really well, been working in some music and sorting triggers out for more waves and Boss fights tonight.  Besides fixing the usual list of this was supposed to work and why is this change done yet. xD Finding it great fun to have some keen play-testing for once it really is helping me take this map much further to completion both in morale and feedback.

Also got some Morrowind Fanart and Age of Empires 2 : Forgotten Empires cover art in the works which I'm slowly crawling through. xD I really just need a job x3 ah well. Hopefully I can use some of my more polished  recent stuff to help get me work in the near future. For now I'm going to try and enjoy the freedom the best I can. Although I find it much easy to work with others around, probably half the reason why I've been going at this Warcraft 3 map so much.