[[ataxia_ii]] Doodleblog

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Ataxia II is the sequel to my game Chaos Wars, both remakes of Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Download:

Requirements: Windows (tested OK on XP and Vista), requires some form of graphics card.
Instructions and screenshots at link http://www.marasmusine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ (You can also make donations there!)
See included readme.txt for credits and licence.


25/12/10 - link http://www.zolyx.co.uk/blog/its-absolute-chaos/

17/12/09 - No activity here, because I've been learning Python (on Ubuntu!) My current programming exercise is to remake Crystal Orb Adventures, since it's text-based. So Ataxia on hold for a while.

27/10/09 - Accidentally left a test mode on last upload, so new version uploaded. Included a rare psychic monster.

15/10/09 - Added "Book of Wizards" high score table. Fixed bug with custom creatures. Uploaded new version, sans music.

3/10/09 - Found that Ataxia II already supports higher resolution sprites. How clever of me! Just needed to adjust spell icon creation for summon spells. Doubling the size of an image (so each 'pixel' becomes a 2x2 block) made the sprite appear much crisper in-game. May do this for all the sprites. Cursor keys track the camera in overhead view.

3/9/09 - Further playtest reports show that the crash occurs pretty much randomly, no matter what is happening, so perhaps it is the music. I've turned it off by default, let's see if that makes a difference.

23/9/09 - I think we've narrowed the crashes down to the player spell selection phase, so I will concentrate error trapping in that area. I still don't understand why it works fine on my and Derek's computer, but intermittently on everyone elses.

21/9/09 - Must not forget the spells from Lords of Chaos: Added Elephant (lawful). Constructs (walls, trees, etc) raise the ground a little when cast. During attack, defender's defence roll is displayed just underneath the attacker's roll. Fixed slight mistiming with the wounded throb.

19/9/09 - AI tweaks. Added buttons for music / camera options. Perhaps it's the music that's causing crashes? Try turning it off.

16/9/09 - I can't help but wonder if the crashes that some users are getting is related to the 3D display. Therefore I'm writing a 2D display library to see if this fixes it.

13/9/09 - AI will consider higher ground, which now gives +1 to attack and range. Added message log for debugging. Uploaded.

12/9/09 - Mostly internal code cleanups, some minor bug fixes. Hydra is now rare. Added a "Raise Ground" spell which finally adds a 3rd dimension to the grid. At the moment it just looks pretty and is difficult terrain, but the intention is to give a bonus to attack for height advantage, and to teach AI ranged units to seek such terrain.

07/9/09 - There is a strong bias towards chaos, particularly with creature summons. I need to look at group weightings and introduce some more Law creatures. I've put in a sneaky Brownie for Fae; other ideas? Priestess, Aegean warrior, Knight (heraldic, perhaps start allowing some monsters to mount). Next release will also have some debug logs.

06/8/09 - Instead of working on stability issues, I've added a "combine" spell that lets you make horses that breath lightning, expanding vortex storms, mountable dire wolves, or any other combination of Summon and Attack spells. Seems to work quite well; need to teach AI how to use it.

02/8/09 - Magic Fire was appearing underneath the board, instead of on it (due to me messing about with the board thickness). I will need to change the method of active character highlighting: the current " alpha throbbing" effect doesn't really show up too well in overhead mode.

01/8/09 - Defense values weren't returning properly, so all attacks always hit. Oops. Experimenting with the camera a bit. Set up structure for multiple cameras, if need be, with "O" cycling between them. Although I don't see a need for anything beyond the free-floating and overhead views. Dragons are now Rare spells, but as rank 2 creatures have double the endurance. New version uploaded.

28/7/09 - Okay, by request, out with the scrolling spell information, and in with spell cards, as I realized I can use the space underneath character information. New version uploaded.

27/7/09 - Started some optimization. Need to remember that not everyone has a GeForce 9800. One problem with the overhead view is that character sprites now lie at the same angle as corpses ("flat" on the board).

26/7/09 - Game grids can be variable in size now, and made default grid to be 20x20 (rather than 32x32). This means it should be comfortable to play in an overhead mode, looking basically like the old Ataxia. Unfortunately this means loosing my planned 3d-terrain mesh, which would only work with fixed power-of-2 size grids: 32x32 is too large and 16x16 is too small.

23/7/09 - Caught bug with game crash after monster is killed during its movement phase. Updating ai focus process, for example to avoid having too many guards crowd around a wizard.

20/7/09 - I needed to increase the proportion of mountable creatures so delved into mythology to see what there was. I started with Norse mythology: the battle boar that Freya rides. In the process I ended up renaming and reogranizing the spell groups.

16/7/09

11/7/09 - New Fey group attack spells (Sprite Arrows, Feyfire, Vortex Wave, Fey Bolts), Teleport spells. Uploaded new version.

10/7/09 - AI does not cast forest spells when already in one. A handful of new spells. I wonder if it might be fun to have the attack spells randomly generated, using the wizard as a seed? So each wizard has unique attack spells.

9/7/09 - Bugfix; will not try to apply burning damage if damage resistance takes it below 0. Bugfix: AI considers attack spells again. Graphics: When watching the AI, ranged attack spells seemed too sudden, so created a short "charging" effct.

5/07/09 - AI creatures without a route (guarding monsters, idling wizards, etc) now melee attack. Special bite attack for Ghul. Made messages and icons a bit less "bouncy". Spell information improved and put in a scrolly.

3/07/09 - Updated and uploaded today. *Yawn* still bugfixing. To summarize new things: Sprite size can be altered using +/- on keypad; records of wizard's performance kept after each battle; bugfixes for persistant effects, pathfinding, song/panic, nicer grid pattern; some more particle effects for areas of high law/chaos, and winning wizard gets some lame fireworks.

29/06/09 - Still tweaking. Particle effects for grid areas with high law or chaos.

22/06/09 - "+" and "-" on keypad scale the sprites, as they do look a little better to me when slightly larger, but let's give the player the option. No release today as still testing the record keeping feature. Known bugs with pathfinding: AI still sends ranged units to the northeast corner of map, fault after skirmishers withdraw.

21/06/09 - Framework for wizard records (number of wins, kills, spells cast, etc) which should be forwards compatible. Fixed bug with resistances/immunities. We're set for a published update on Monday.

20/06/09 - Checks for "immobilize" effect on entities with no movement anyway. End game routine.

01/06/09 - Changed some filenames for system compatibility. Today, the sun was shining on my monitor and I couldn't see what was going off in the game, so I've made the grid pattern a bit stronger. I'll have to experminent a bit to get it looking nice, I think. You may also notice the music behaving a little differently.

18/05/09 - This is the first release with the new pathfinding routine in. Feedback on AI behaviour appreciated.

05/05/09 - In progress: Since there are now large-area terrain effects (tangle-vine, walls, etc), and future maps may have chasms and rivers, I am implementing a better pathfinding routine for the AI. Specifically, this is the A* routine which I only recently learnt about. My previous pathfinding only merely picked the best of the immediate moves a character could make.)

04/05/09 - Flanking gives a bonus to hit. Go, skirmishers, go! Fixed bug with some one-turn effects not having any value (light elf sorceress now immobilizes enemy correctly, for example.) Uploaded.

01/05/09 - Re-uploaded with the WAV folder this time. As always, don't forget to unzip before you play. Thanks for the feedback!

24/04/09 - Bugfix for area attacks on passengers on creatures that have been destroyed; colour-coded messages; Spell icons are reduced in size if they cannot be cast (attack spells that have no targets in range, for example); Lurkers are hidden from view when a distance away and cannot be targetted; other minor tweaks here and there.

21/02/09 - Adding a new gameplay mode, partially for fun, and partially to help me decide how to maintain some of the functions. Watch this space. No not that space, this space. Over there ->

04/02/09 - Had a break, due to various things happening. I'm now rewriting some of the code for readability, maintainability and reusability, so no surface changes for a while. Upcoming developments will be: See what I can do about those creature sprites; Give the existing creatures some more abilities (lurker types can hide, berserkers do more damage when wounded, etc)

11/01/09 - Added several "turn undead" spells for the "spirit" group.

8/01/09 - Framework for non-damage-type resistances in; ljosafar (light elves) shrug off persistant charm effects (harpy's song) easier, for example.

6/01/09 - Pretty sure I've fixed status effect timing now, so people shouldn't be permamently immobilized for example. Made some spells rarer (starting with Tanglevine and Turmoil). Added spell groups; wizards have two specialty groups, they start with 7 spells from each, plus 7 from "misc"; decks seem to be nicely themed, but it transpires that things are heavily weighted in favour of Chaos. To balance this, I've added a group called "Empire" with Law summons of a military theme; skirmisher, soldier, captain, magician.
Adding Norse creatures. New creature flags; "large" (+1 body, -1 reactions), "small" (-1 body, +1 reactions)

3/01/09 - Happy new year, I suppose. A few bug fixes (mostly AI spell targetting), so new version uploaded.

21/12/08 - After playtesting with Vic, caught two bugs: Stopped dazed flying creatures from getting a flyby attack, and moved attack reduction code from hit() to move_char() and ranged_attack() [this was stopping wizards from getting a melee attack if they cast an attack spell, which makes sense in D&D, but this is Chaos] Happy Solstice!

18/12/08 - Camera is working to my satisfaction, so uploading. v1.0 is really close. Only getting about 1 hours programming in per day. Need to look at line of sight / Wall spell again, sort out numberpad control with rotation and I want to put in a monster and wizard level-up mechanic. A few AI tweaks, and a proper front-end / game-over interface and we're done.

17/12/08 - Wasn't happy with camera rotation, so brought back camera track; rotate now rotates the board on a pivot, and I've put in camera pitch during zoom. Also the camera points to the active character, which is less dizzying than the previous auto-track. In general, looking much better. I need to fix collision detection for shots, but then I'll upload again.

14/12/08 - Phew, the baby's asleep. Finally fixed mouse-selection after camera rotation, so changed the cursor controls from camera track to camera rotation/zoom. Numberpad directional controls will need orienting to camera rotation. Then I can move onto the camera pitch-whilst-zooming that Alex suggested.

13/12/08

12/12/08 - New version uploaded. Improved particle effects for ranged attacks. Lightning in particular has a beam effect, which opens up the possibility for beams for different damage types. Perhaps link effect with attack type (beams for vs. reactions, rolling sprites for vs. body; formalize spell names and icons). Added lots of new attack spells.

10/12/08 - Turmoil done. Not sure why I left that one till last, I guess I didn't know what kind of visual effect to go with it. I've gone for a sort of dizzying camera zoom out/in effect.

9/12/08 - Wall is in, blocks LOS but will probably need some tweaking. Before tackling Turmoil, I'm going to put in some some other generic spells (started with "Weaken", "Ice Bolt" and "Fire Wave"). Decided to increase the hit chance of higher level spells (to that of a wizard of equivilent level) in "entropic" mode, as they are already penalized enough with the lower cast %.

8/12/08 - Pegasus, Harpy, Hydra in. Only Wall and Turmoil left to do! Fixed freezing messages (was a buffer problem), caught possible bug with uncorpse() if another creature is standing on the corpse (thanks Vic.)

7/12/08 - link http://www.marasmusine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Yes, I'm rubbish at web page design.

6/12/08 - Finally fixed some niggling bugs. Added troll.


5/12/08 - "Engaged in combat" done. Non-flyby melee attacks cause mutual lock on movement. A withdraw attempt can be made (with the W key; perhaps make a mouse icon for this?); success removes the engagement and both parties can move. Base chance is 50%; x1.5 for skirmishers, x1.5 for phasing creatures, x0.5 if the enemy is a "soldier" type. Skirmishers automatically attempt to withdraw after they make a melee attack, as they may have remaning movement points.

4/12/08 - Nearly two months without an update, and we're all ill again :/ So, I'll put up what little I've done. A few tweaks here and there. Wizards start closer together, there's some demarkation between human players' turns, some sound effects here and there.

9/11/08 - No update, since I've been taking an Ataxia break (and working on another project). Dragon sprites fixed. No upload yet, as there is still a crash problem with wound/self-spell overlays, and archers still have the strange habit of running to the top-left corner.

11/10/08 - Dragons are in, but for some unfathomable reason their sprites don't auto-outline in dark grey, so they look blocky.
I urge you to draw your own sprite and see what happens - just write over the originals - 64x32 .png files
As always, don't forget to unzip the file:

09/10/08 - Progress slow due to me being ill, wife being ill and baby being ill. Magic Fire and Gooey Blob are in, some more stability fixes (end-game still needs tidying).

29/09/08 - Seems pretty stable, and more core spells have been done, so here's another update. Happily, I'm approaching a complete core game, at which point I'll slap "v1.0" on it and start formal version numbers.

28/09/08 - Caught the other bug that made AI wizards not dismount to enter magic wood/better mounts. So now I can get on with more core spells.

27/09/08 - Finally found that bastard bug that let two characters occupy the same square. Grid was not updated correctly when a mount died.

25/09/08 - Started on self-effecting spells (Magic Shield, Armour) which change the wizard's sprite. Implemented a variant of Dunc's AlgoMusic, which is sometimes lovely and sometimes horrid, so needs work.
At the moment the music reacts in a basic way with the global law/chaos status (major chords, suspended/diminished chords respectively) and the number of creatures on screen (number of channels)

21/09/08 - Law/Chaos I,II,III, Dark Forest, Magic Wood done. AI probably needs some tweaking to encompass these, but at the basic level AI wizards will move towards any spell-granting entity and (hopefully) mount them.

15/09/08 - Decree, Vengeance, Justice, Dark Power done. The latter two work pretty much the same way as they do in Chaos, with three seperate non-LOS attacks, rather than the area effect they had in Ataxia. I made these spells attack an enemy's willpower, and they cause alignment damage (so Justice is a good one to use against undead, for example) Will probably upload and update today.
I'd say the core content is about 33% done.

13/09/08 - For some reason I can't quite get the sprite effect I want for trees and castles :/ So just sticking them in as regular sprites for now. Update hopefully some time this weekend.

9/09/08 - Progress going slow because I have purchased Spore. Local alignment changes are smoother and subtle now, and creatures can also gradually saturate the board with their alignment.
This will be more pronounced for powerful creatures, or shadow wood/magic forest.
Illusions and disbelieve are in. Illusion is a "meta-spell"; the player selects it, then selects what spell it is going to act on. Other possible meta-spells might include "Elite", to make a ranked creature, or "Power" to improve a ranged attack spell. In any case, "Illusion" and "Disbelieve" are intrinsic spells for Entropic mode, so aren't used up on casting.

4/09/08 Another download
Lots more creatures. The faun has a special "panic" effect, which occurs automatically near the enemy. The king cobra can poison.
Caught a few fatal errors; it might even be completely stable now, let me know.
Still lots and lots to do.

1/09/08 Yay, a download is available
Okay, here's the first public pre-alpha "proof of concept".

21/08/08
Early reports indicate that the new code "is working" and the game looks set to be "better than the first game, at least."

19/08/08
I suppose it will be simiar to its prequel, except:

ataxia_ii, Rev. 112, Last changed on 2010-01-25 16:34, 2832 page hits
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