35 replies to this topic

[chrknudsen]

Greetings fellow DOS gamers!

Over the past year I've programmed a game called WormWars 3. It's based on the classic Snake game with a whole bunch of extra stuff, including 20 different weapons and devices, three levels of difficulty, 11 default levels, built-in level editor, two game modes (score match and death match), and a fairly sophisticated AI for challenging games against the computer. The game is textmode, so all 'graphics' are ASCII characters, but this shouldn't detract from the gameplay value.

I've currently finished the first beta version of the game (which is pretty much a completely finished version) and am looking for a bunch of people to test it for me (hopefully around 15-20 people). If you would like to test it for me, please drop your email address in this thread, send it to me in a personal message, or email it to me at: webmaster[at]wormwars.net. (Or, just let me know that you're interested in playtesting and I'll PM you a link to the game.) I will then send you an email that contains both the DOS and the Windows version of the game, as well as further instructions on how to test the game (i.e. what to do if you find a bug, what kind of feedback I'm interested in, and so on...).

As the game is freeware and I've made it in my spare time, I can't offer any form of payment for your playtesting services. But since you're all gaming fans anyway, I guess playing a game doesn't exactly qualify as "work"... ;o)

Thanks for your time!

Kind regards,
Christian Knudsen

[Potatoe]

chrknudsen, on Aug 25 2006, 02:15 PM, said:

Greetings fellow DOS gamers!

Over the past year I've programmed a game called WormWars 3. It's based on the classic Snake game with a whole bunch of extra stuff, including 20 different weapons and devices, three levels of difficulty, 11 default levels, built-in level editor, two game modes (score match and death match), and a fairly sophisticated AI for challenging games against the computer. The game is textmode, so all 'graphics' are ASCII characters, but this shouldn't detract from the gameplay value.

I've currently finished the first beta version of the game (which is pretty much a completely finished version) and am looking for a bunch of people to test it for me (hopefully around 15-20 people). If you would like to test it for me, please drop your email address in this thread, send it to me in a personal message, or email it to me at: webmaster[at]wormwars.net. (Or, just let me know that you're interested in playtesting and I'll PM you a link to the game.) I will then send you an email that contains both the DOS and the Windows version of the game, as well as further instructions on how to test the game (i.e. what to do if you find a bug, what kind of feedback I'm interested in, and so on...).

As the game is freeware and I've made it in my spare time, I can't offer any form of payment for your playtesting services. But since you're all gaming fans anyway, I guess playing a game doesn't exactly qualify as "work"... ;o)

Thanks for your time!

Kind regards,
Christian Knudsen

So you don't need to run this in DOS/DOS emulator?

[chrknudsen]

No, you don't need DOS or a DOS emulator -- you can just use the Windows version of the game, which is for Windows NT, 2000, XP, and any other Windows version that isn't DOS based.

[Potatoe]

chrknudsen, on Aug 25 2006, 06:46 PM, said:

No, you don't need DOS or a DOS emulator -- you can just use the Windows version of the game, which is for Windows NT, 2000, XP, and any other Windows version that isn't DOS based.

I don't know.. Does this testing thing require a long time commitment?

[chrknudsen]

Not really. Just that you play the game and let me know if you find any bugs, and any thoughts you have about the game (too hard/easy, what you liked, what you didn't like, and so on).

[Potatoe]

chrknudsen, on Aug 25 2006, 08:26 PM, said:

Not really. Just that you play the game and let me know if you find any bugs, and any thoughts you have about the game (too hard/easy, what you liked, what you didn't like, and so on).

I might join. But I can't do it for sometime(monday, maybe sunday..) So if that doesn't bother you. I'm in.

[chrknudsen]

That's fine. No hurry.

I've PM'ed you the link to the game files.

[a1s]

I'll do it.

[Potatoe]

Wow. This game is good. Ok, I didn't encounter any errors but a few suggestions:

-Sound effects(music if that is possible). It would be fun to here the atomizer go "WOOOSH BOOOM".
-When you crash head on with the opponent, make it a tie, not that the computer wins.

The overall feel of the game is nice. It's simple nd fun, the idea is somewhat original(I've seen games like this before,  though shareware). The level editor is nice and is easy to use. I'd say that work on it a little more and we've got ourselves some fun.

[chrknudsen]

a1s, on Aug 26 2006, 02:16 AM, said:

I'll do it.

PM'ed!

Potatoe, on Aug 26 2006, 05:40 AM, said:

Wow. This game is good. Ok, I didn't encounter any errors but a few suggestions:

-Sound effects(music if that is possible). It would be fun to here the atomizer go "WOOOSH BOOOM".
-When you crash head on with the opponent, make it a tie, not that the computer wins.

The overall feel of the game is nice. It's simple nd fun, the idea is somewhat original(I've seen games like this before,  though shareware). The level editor is nice and is easy to use. I'd say that work on it a little more and we've got ourselves some fun.

Thanks for the feedback!

- I actually had sound effects (though only the PC speaker) in the DOS version to begin with, but I wasn't able to add it in the Windows version, so I just removed them. I'll look into ways of getting sound in the Windows version...

- When you crash head on with the computer, the computer wins because it manages to change directions just before you crash. When you die, however, the level ends and the computer controlled worm isn't moved, so you can't see that it actually managed to change directions before the crash... Hmmm... I guess this should be more clear... Any ideas on how to show this?

[Tom Henrik]

chrknudsen, on Aug 26 2006, 09:36 AM, said:

Any ideas on how to show this?

Slow motion replay before it is declared that the computer won?

But as I haven't played the game, this might not be possible.

[chrknudsen]

Tom Henrik, on Aug 26 2006, 09:53 AM, said:

Slow motion replay before it is declared that the computer won?

But as I haven't played the game, this might not be possible.

Yeah, not really possible. And the problem is, that the worm isn't actually moved, so you can't see that it changed direction before the crash - even in slow motion...

But thanks for the idea!

[A. J. Raffles]

I take it there's no way to actually make it move slightly in such a case?

[chrknudsen]

A. J. Raffles, on Aug 26 2006, 10:42 AM, said:

I take it there's no way to actually make it move slightly in such a case?

That's certainly a possibility, but then the computer controlled worm would be moved an extra time every time the player crashes -- this would create a whole bunch of other problems....

I'm thinking about just having a couple of arrows somewhere on screen, which indicate the current direction of each worm. This could also be helpful if you've been frozen and want to fire a weapon, but are unsure as to which direction the weapon would be fire...

[chrknudsen]

IMPORTANT:


I've just discovered that I by accident have been handing out a DOS version of the game with an error -- when you play this version of the game, you always start out with 10 of each upgrade if you're player 1.

I've fixed this, so for those of you playing the DOS version, please re-download the file. The links are:

www.wormwars.net/ww3dos.zip
www.wormwars.net/ww3win.zip

Anybody else interested in playtesting can just download these files as well...