Bushtarion Java game?

Max

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Hi people!

I've recently just cracked how to write in Java, and made my first Physics applet for my PhD studies.

On the back of this, I am seriously tempted to try and write a simple game. Potentially something that mimics a bushtarion battle with some simple shape animation!

My question is this - do you have any ideas what it could look like or how it could play out?

Idea 1) I am thinking it could work like an animated battle report generator
Idea 2) A bushtarion tower defence game, with upgrades like dev tech trees?
Idea 3) Pick an individual unit and get to fight other enemy units one-to-one

Please do help me think of some creative ideas and I can give them ago while I learn to code some more!
 

timtadams

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Hi people!

I've recently just cracked how to write in Java, and made my first Physics applet for my PhD studies.

On the back of this, I am seriously tempted to try and write a simple game. Potentially something that mimics a bushtarion battle with some simple shape animation!

My question is this - do you have any ideas what it could look like or how it could play out?

Idea 1) I am thinking it could work like an animated battle report generator
Idea 2) A bushtarion tower defence game, with upgrades like dev tech trees?
Idea 3) Pick an individual unit and get to fight other enemy units one-to-one

Please do help me think of some creative ideas and I can give them ago while I learn to code some more!

Thats great Max! I started learning Java mid year before i decided ps3 was more fun :p

I think that any animated game you make will not really be like bushtarion, not that its a problem.

I dont know what you mean by animated report generator

I like the idea of a tower defence game, and have thought of similar. So you could build an offensive army and defensive towers based on your route. For each unit that gets through, you steal a certain amount of land (or other source of income). Not sure how alliance play would work in, if it were to be included. I imaging attacks would start pretty instantaneously. Maybe an alliance could just exist to have the most overall power. Or maybe there could be a secondary objective to alliance play such as additional income or stats from an alliance HQ, which is developed similarly to bushtarion. So you can donate funds, and rather than build army/towers you tech alliance (which in turn gives bonus to everyone in alliance). Its like an online multiplayer TD.

Maybe you could have a third component in addition to attacking army and defensive towers such as bombardment/catapults/whatever, so you can weaken approaching units, and maybe you could send these units to defend others. But then i image it will just make it too much like bushtarion where people mass attack, mass defend, and because its a TD, you dont lose troops and then it never stops. So probably a bad idea to be able to mass attack/defend allies. If someone tries to attack at the same time as someone else, they just get a message telling them there is no room, they have to wait (or something).

Or maybe you could kill towers and lose all your units? Hmmm, and is there a point at which you cant keep growing because there is no room?. Maybe you can continue to level up your towers and units continuously. Or maybe you have certain techs which just act as multipliers. Obviously these techs/multipliers would have to be known to other players, so people can judge roughly what their chances are.

Maybe you could have induvidual attacking and defensive stat rankings. And overall ranking is the total. Also, since attacks would be over pretty quick, would you limit the number of attacks per day? Maybe have some kind of turn based system. e.g. every 10min you get 1 turn, and one attack costs one turn.

Individual 1v1 sounds boring, and i believe similar stuff exists. Sounds like you keep leveling up one guy, battle more and more, level up, repeat. Nah.

I havnt really thought any of it through, since im v busy but hopefully I gave you some ideas.
 
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Max

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Yeah I'm nowhere near clever enough to make something multiplayer - I was thinking more of just a traditional single player thing - but you've come up with some brilliant ideas there. I love the idea of the enemy units in tower defence firing back at the towers! :)

As for the animated BR generator - the idea was to put in attacking and defending units on both sides, and then animate it step by step. For example, each pool of a different unit is represented by a circle related to the number of troops, which decreases in radius as it is fired upon. Then later I could update it so rather than just circles decreasing in size, I could use an "old school final fantasy style" system with animations to represent each unit attacking the enemy.

I'll need to start small though hehehe :p
 

timtadams

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I was wondering whether you were thinking of multiplayer or not, but i thought multiplayer would be more fun.

You would need to set up a server for multiplayer, unless you could host data on someone elses. I would think that income would be updated on server, whilst battles would be calculated on attackers pc/device, and then results sent to server. Animating for defender could just be neglected, and they could just receive a battle report to make things easier.

But I do not know how to do this anyway. Of course, start out small, and build up. Once you have a working app, then maybe have a look at making it multiplayer. I reckon youre clever enough to do multiplayer, you just need to find out how.

Which IDE are you using? I presume you know about the Android SDK and its plugin for Eclipse. It might interest you if you are designing for Android devices.
 
A

Albertto

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Well guys I am too interested to learn java to develop a game by myself and I have just started learning the tutorials. Your discussion is looking worthy for me. thanks. BTW, after how much time I'll get perfect ?
 

timtadams

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Well guys I am too interested to learn java to develop a game by myself and I have just started learning the tutorials. Your discussion is looking worthy for me. thanks. BTW, after how much time I'll get perfect ?

Well I havnt learnt much, but first you need to understand the basics of how the language works. Like classes/objects/inheritance. If you have some experience in programming then that will help with the basic idea of loops, conditional statements, calling functions etc. And then there are large libraries of functions and stuff which you need to start looking into. I dont get it all. It's not easy to start learning, but once you understand the basics its easier to build up.

Then programming starts to become less about just getting it to work, and more about efficiency. I don't think you can ever be perfect.

Maybe Max can give you a better idea of how long it takes to become 'proficient', because I don't really know Java. Heck, I'm not proficient in any programming language.
 

Max

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Well it's taken me about 1-2 weeks of struggle to get to grips with it, working through dozens of tutorial etc.

But now I'm finally getting the hang of it - everything is falling into place pretty quickly :)

I do have a lot of experience programming elsewhere though - such as MATLAB and a little bit of C++.

Best piece of advice I can give you is to download Eclipse (for Java developers), copy a piece of simple tutorial code and start playing around with it :D
 
A

Albertto

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Well guys I have some basic knowledge of C & C++ like operators, statements, loop and functions. But not versed in OOP concepts. So, can I learn the OOP in an easy way. thanks.
 

timtadams

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The Java Tutorials > Getting Started

So you'll need the JDK (Java development kit) which you can download.

Those tutorials will start you using notepad and compiling via command prompt. Which is not really difficult, but you could do it in Eclipse. The tutorials introduce you to OOP, and the explain the fundamentals quite well, without assuming you know anything. So maybe start off there, and when you have a grasp of OOP, then as Max said, copy some tutorial code and start playing with it in Eclipse.

Eclipse for Java
 
A

Albertto

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These things are looking really worthy for me and definitely I am going to to download the JDK, but in C and C++ there is a command to compile and execute the code but how it is done in Java. thanks
 

timtadams

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depends on the IDE. So if you are using Eclipse, i dunno, i havnt use it, google it or look in help files.

If youre just using notepad or some other text editor, then you need to run the command prompt, and change the directory to your JDK folder.

something like this
cd [java directory path here]
eg
Code:
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk7.0\
or whatever.
And then put your text documents in that folder. name it with file extension .java
and to compile you use javac
eg
Code:
bin/javac YourApp.java
because javac might be in "bin" folder. I dont remember though, have a look through folder to find it.
And to run compiled app call java
eg
Code:
bin/java YourApp
and its case sensitive. And pay attention to extensions. With javac, you need to include .java, but java automatically adds .class so you dont include that when calling java.

thats how the tutes run through it, but if you use Eclipse, then it should be more straight forward.

But that tute link i posted above should really guide you step by step from the ground up. It will help you understand OOP.
 

Max

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I've got a good idea of my first project that I want to try - basically an animated BR generator where you watch each pool of troops deplete every tick.

But on the recommendation of timtadams I'm researching how to write an android app for it first. I've made my first app already and flying through the android developer tutorials at the moment, so fingers crossed I'll have it finished by Christmas :D

I don't think I could ever make it a multiplayer game without my own server to churn through all the calculations though.
 

timtadams

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I've got a good idea of my first project that I want to try - basically an animated BR generator where you watch each pool of troops deplete every tick.

But on the recommendation of timtadams I'm researching how to write an android app for it first. I've made my first app already and flying through the android developer tutorials at the moment, so fingers crossed I'll have it finished by Christmas :D

I don't think I could ever make it a multiplayer game without my own server to churn through all the calculations though.

Just another thought, after you've created something (if on Android), you might want to look at including the ability to battle a friend via bluetooth/wifi. Im guessing bluetooth would be easier, but it's something you could look at if you want to further develop it after you already have a working app.

It's funny cause world ends on the 21st.

How much you wanna bet? :mrgreen:
 

Max

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OK so progress is going well - I've learned how to do a lot of stuff in android now including fragments and things - even if it is a beast at times to get it to work!

I'm also making progress constructing a Java BR simulator that I can put into an app.

Thanks for your advice so far timtadams, once I've got a working app I will consider bluetooth/wifi for sure!!! Would definitely be a nice addition and a good coding skill to learn.

I have no idea how different / more / less difficult it is to make an iOS btw - I'm sticking with android for now :p
 
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