Development Log: January Engine - Week 7

Been a while with this project because I've been spending a lot of time with paper-and-pencil, which doesn't upload well.  However, I have the .swf in its latest state uploaded, which you can play HERE.

Changes from last time include: making the hexes you can't click on invisible, smoothing out scrolling (which can be done with the arrow keys or WASD), and cards at the bottom, representing your hand.  Refresh a few times to get either two Yellow Cards or two Green Cards.  If you do get them, you can pass your cursor over green/yellow hexes to see a popup which indicates that you can place green/yellow squares on the hexes.  (Well, you can't place stuff yet, but I'm showing that I have the code in place to understand combinations of cards).

Now, that's not particularly too much work done, code-wise, but I've done a lot of design work:

The game I am designing is a combo of Magic: The Gathering and am RTS.  Basically, you use simple resources which are in your hand (as shown in the demo), to combine and create units, buildings, and spells, and place them on the hex grid.  The units/buildings on the grid are represented by icons, but they can be expanded to view the stats of it in card format.

As for the goal of any given level, I have many possibilities, but I'm not sure which I like best.

This card shows you all of the possible stats you may have on a unit or building card.

On the bottom, the seashell-shaped swirls are health.  Any unit or building can have between one and five health.

The tricky things are on the left.  The large hex is the primary color of the card, and is the color hex you can place the unit/building on (if it's a unit that can move, all that matters is that it's initially placed on that color).  It is also the first color resource card you must use to place this unit/building on the grid.

The next six hexes below it are other resources needed, and they can be the same or different color as the primary resource.  Black indicates any color resource.  The majority of cards will take less than seven resources, and the hexes will simply be missing to avoid confusion.

The next three hexes, A, R, and M, with numbers inside, represent Attack, Repair, and Movement stats.  Attack is how many resources you must pay to attack another unit/building with this one.  Repair is the number of resources it takes to repair one health point on this unit/building.  Movement is how many resources it takes to move this unit/building (usually a unit) one hex space.  These stats are always black, so you can use any color resource to do it.

The bullseye and the human eye below represent range and sight, respectively.  If the unit/building can only attack in melee range, the range is one.  Sight is used to remove fog of war.

As you can see just by this one card, this is shaping up to be a radically different game than I began this project as, and I like it a lot more.