Darwinia

[daset]

Hey.
After about five mods created and trashed, I finally finished one of them before it hit the garbage.

Here it is(updated): http://stellarmatter.net/static.php?page=reprisal

As most mods have already covered every aspect of gameplay found in Darwinia, my mod focuses more on story(and I suppose, eye-candy). All story is included within(including the bootloader). I hope you enjoy it, but if not, please flame me.

Thanks to Lowell for some badass shapes(I hope you don't mind that I stole a few).

Last edited by daset on Tue May 09, 2006 2:48 am; edited 9 times in total

[martin]

daset wrote:

my mod focuses more on story

Finally someone else who realises that story is just more important (if not more than) clever scritping stuff!

I'll download it now and play later or tomorrow.

[xander]

-- The plural of locus is loci (virusdisplay_2).
-- I really resent not having 'nades, but that is your artistic vision, I suppose.
-- If you leave the first level, the locations of yellow DGs are not preserved, they all disappear.

More later, as I play through.

xander

[daset]

xander wrote:

-- The plural of locus is loci (virusdisplay_2). -- I really resent not having 'nades, but that is your artistic vision, I suppose. -- If you leave the first level, the locations of yellow DGs are not preserved, they all disappear.

Yes, well, I really wanted to emphasize the rockets, as they are underpowered in the original Darwinia aside from SD killer suicide squads. You will get the grenades later on the second level.

I never really noticed the yellow DGs not saved to a mission file. Hmm, I'll try to figure it out.

[Major Cooke]

Very well done mod. Perhaps amongst the top mods made yet? I especially envy your abilities to make blue darwinians in the beginning, but unless your doing the client instructions (nihilistics or neothermic made them) then you cant use them in the game... their just shadows, but overall is excellent.

[xander]

-- The objective in Cliffs is a bit ambiguous. You should probably create an explanation script that tells players to go to the trunkport, or have the mission objective say "Bring a Squad to the Trunkport" or something. I was not quite sure what to do, and clicking on the objective didn't explain anything.

xander

[Major Cooke]

Also, i would hide the spam in like... a valley of some sort so it has more protection than where its at, because the moment I loaded the map was the near moment I finished it... just spawned and armor, deployed, turned it on the spam and killed it. Just a suggestion.

[xander]

Okay, I must admit that I have stopped playing Reprisal. The third level was incredibly frustrating, and I haven't bothered to go beyond it. The problem, which is also a factor in the first level (though not to the same extent), is that the yellow DGs get mowed down by spiders (which they cannot defend themselves against) that are launched by triffids. You can't really clear a path, then go back for them, as the spiders are after them, but you can't have them tag along, because they won't shoot at anything while controlled.

I like the idea of herding yellow DGs around. It is an interesting idea, and an interesting challenge, but I don't really like the way that it has been implemented. My own theory of level design (which, of course, is not universal, and others probably feel differently) is that any units that are (1) vital (i.e. if they die, the level must be restarted) and (2) vulnerable (i.e. they cannot defend themselves) should be started in a position where there is no risk of getting trounced. This gives the player an opportunity to scout out the level, and figure out what is going on before their units are made into spider bait. In the first level, you can sort of do this, by luring a group of yDGs over to a spawn point that is mostly safe, but this strategy is nearly impossible in the third level.

Again, I am sure that other people like the level design, and find the levels enjoyable. Personally, I thought that several of the traps that you set up in Cliffs were quite interesting. However, I think that the yDG escort levels are far to frustrating, compounded by the fact that yDG unit positions are not preserved, requiring a level reset everytime you leave the level. Unless something major changes later on, I really do not look forward to finishing the mod...

xander

[trickfred]

xander wrote:

Okay, I must admit that I have stopped playing Reprisal. The third level was incredibly frustrating, and I haven't bothered to go beyond it. The problem, which is also a factor in the first level (though not to the same extent), is that the yellow DGs get mowed down by spiders (which they cannot defend themselves against) that are launched by triffids. You can't really clear a path, then go back for them, as the spiders are after them, but you can't have them tag along, because they won't shoot at anything while controlled. I like the idea of herding yellow DGs around. It is an interesting idea, and an interesting challenge, but I don't really like the way that it has been implemented. My own theory of level design (which, of course, is not universal, and others probably feel differently) is that any units that are (1) vital (i.e. if they die, the level must be restarted) and (2) vulnerable (i.e. they cannot defend themselves) should be started in a position where there is no risk of getting trounced. This gives the player an opportunity to scout out the level, and figure out what is going on before their units are made into spider bait. In the first level, you can sort of do this, by luring a group of yDGs over to a spawn point that is mostly safe, but this strategy is nearly impossible in the third level. Again, I am sure that other people like the level design, and find the levels enjoyable. Personally, I thought that several of the traps that you set up in Cliffs were quite interesting. However, I think that the yDG escort levels are far to frustrating, compounded by the fact that yDG unit positions are not preserved, requiring a level reset everytime you leave the level. Unless something major changes later on, I really do not look forward to finishing the mod... xander

Ouch. Scathing critique, and exactly why I removed yDG escort missions from EW3 - they were going to figure into it, until I realized that they don't attack while under the influence of a Controller. Makes them too vulnerable. (That, and the Controller's still pretty wonky.)

[xander]

Again, it was not meant to be non-constructive -- lord knows I received worse during the early days of Insurrection. It looks like there are some really good ideas in the mod, including yDG escorting. Even the third level wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that you get overrun by spiders in less than a minute.

In reality, I would love to see the controller weapon fixed. There is a lot of potential, I think, for missions that use it, as there is potential for missions that use bridges (I would have used a couple of bridges in Recruitment to force players to choose between more reinforcements, or Squads). However, as things stand right now, I think that you have to be very, very careful about using elements that don't really work properly.

xander

[daset]

Thank you, xander!(I hate it when people get all polite and nice and give me the "oh it's good" bullshit).

Anyway, the level was made to work so that you would use the radars to get around, most of the time, since the yDGs would be protected via the radarstreams(they follow the squads through), and you could take out the loci while running.

However, I realize that this level is extremely hard for not just me, as I tried to make every level barely completeable by me since I know I suck(never made it farther than past the second level of Insurrection, but still trying; I will get one of the next levels someday). Try the above strategy, and if you still can't get past it, I will modify it to make it easier.

Once again, xander, thank you. I was afraid I wouldn't get anything but polite "yeah, it's ok" posts.

[daset]

Reprisal 1.0.1 is up, including some spelling changes and some level tweaks. I modified radars and outbreak so they shouldn't be as hard as they were. There were some modifications to spam as well.

[xander]

One other small comment. Some of your level names are... inappropriate. Even if they do not show up in the game, they are easily accessible by anyone. You might consider cleaning it up a bit, as there are children that play the game.

xander

[daset]

Sorry, I forgot(and was too lazy) to clean up my random file names I had made at the start. I will get a new version up soon.

[daset]

I have fixed the file names in 1.0.2(and all of the appropriate objectives, scripts, etc.).