[Java] Vore Strategy Game v0.0.8 (2017-03-27)

[EtPerMun]

The game is inspired by Felarya, and hence prominently features giant nagas (currently as the only playable race), and huge size differences between races. Also, loads of forest. However, the game is a strategy game similar to Civilization, and hence does not particularly focus on characters, so don't expect to see any particular character. The graphics are rather simple, that's simply because I'm a programmer, not an artist. If anyone actually makes proper pixel art for this, I'll readily incorporate that, the game already uses tilesets, so that'll be easy. The game is, in fact, extremely moddable, as most of the critical information is stored in easily readable config files, so everything aside from the mechanics and - at the moment - the terrain generation can be changed.

Currently, the player starts with a single naga village and unit. There are several human, neko and inu villages spread over the world, and the players goal is, ultimately, to destroy them (we're ignoring for the moment that exterminating your food source would be an extremely stupid idea). The villages generate units, and like the player units, they move around with speed depending on terrain and race. The prey AI is currently very simple (and seems to work oddly as well, not that it really matters), and thanks to most physical properties scaling with size, it's nearly impossible to lose ATM (which should change as soon as other pred races get implemented). Hence, the player can pretty much gobble up units and villages with impunity (vore action and raze action, respectively, see below). Attacking, either melee or ranged, is pretty useless against tiny folk, but very effective against your own size or larger (while the inverse is true for vore), so that will mostly be irrelevant for the player until there are other pred races. In order to create more units, the player needs to return to their village and use the Mate action. The success rate of mating depends on which level the unit is on - successful and famous individuals will have a much easier chance finding a mate.

I'm very excited to hear any kind of criticism or suggestions for improvement (or bug reports), so fire away! :)


Features <Planned features>

• "Big" races: Nagas, <Fearies, Nymphs>
• "Small" races: Humans, Nekos, Inus
• Government types: Tribal, <Imperial, Arboreal>
• Units and unit recruitment
• <Hero units>
• Melee attacks, ranged attacks, vore attacks, <proper attacks on settlements>
• <Magic>
• <Proper> levelling and XP system
• <Buildings>
• <Tile improvements>
• Randomly generated map <with logical terrain>
• "Round" world
• Saving and loading <of old saves>
• <Resources of various kinds>
• <Proper> AI

To run the game, either double-click the .bat file (on Windows) or execute the .jar file (on any operating system). The game requires Java to run, which, if you don't have it installed, you can find here.

CURRENT VERSION (v0.0.8): https://mega.nz/#!NsIBTT6Y!Y9ayg2SOaQw7ve8_ePhOGDPqtEasvi08Ahjbpk7mjPM

Version History

Spoiler: show

v0.0.2
Units, Map, Selection, Cursor, Map + Units displayed, Tile + Selection info, basic .cfg infrastructure, can spawn default units

v0.0.3
added Unit movement; added actions: Melee, Ranged, Vore; added action info; added Races; working cfg-files for Game (main.cfg), Tileset, Races, Units, Ground and Keys

v0.0.3b
added Town (class only), moved img and cfg to seperate folder (src)

v0.0.3c
added Mate, added unit schedule in Settlements

v0.0.3c2
added Suicide

v0.0.3d
heavily optimized framerate (VolatileImage), created AI class, moved several values to .cfg (game.cfg)

v0.0.3e
Minor changes, DO commit

v0.0.4
Switched to constant redrawing in separate thread, switched to real-time redrawing (abandoning pre-rendered map), added basic FOW and FOV, added description for Settlement etc., some other minor stuff

v0.0.4b
Minor improvements and bug fixes

v0.0.4c
Added basic Prey AI (still buggy)

v0.0.4d
Minor improvements to Unit

v0.0.5
INITIAL RELASE CANDIDATE 1
Solved freezing issue with sleep (conflict in scheduler), added true SettlementActions, added UnitAction, added Raze, unit tags now read from config, fixed several other issues, removed several instances of unnecessary "synchronized", sped up game by making everything static-compile, fixed artifact creation, other stuff

v0.0.6
INITIAL RELASE CANDIDATE 2
Fixed tearing image, made world round (along x-axis), made HexHelp always assume calls are in relation to current TileMap, fixed victory/game over, greatly improved stability, various other fixes

v0.0.6b
INITIAL RELASE (2017-03-16)
Quick, dirty fix for villages on islands sometimes rendering the game unwinnable

v0.0.7
RELEASE (2017-03-18)
Added main menu, saving (not version-compatible), loading (not version-compatible), basic ability to display current controls in the game, fixed up display by adding units, slightly changed capacity and voracity dynamics, added simple text field support

v0.0.8
RELEASE (2017-03-27)
Changed default resolution to 48x48, replaced simplistic graphics with proper tileset, minor changes to allow this, added config option to disable display of tile borders, minor fixes

v0.0.8b
Added empty second textFrame including drawing support, changed resolution to 1276x768, made new-opened frames center themselves on screen, made global map square, tweaked terrain generation (more forest), fixed some issues connected to the menu and the new game action

v0.0.9
Added Building, BuildingTemplate, generic Template, ScheduledBuilding, generic ScheduledEntity, added config for buildings, added support for buildingRequirements, added support for buildingEffects: unit, growth, viewDist, minor fixes

Default controls
(apart from F-keys, controls can be looked up in the game or changed in the config files)

• Arrow keys: Move map (+ shift: move faster)
• IUHKMN: Move cursor or selected unit
• Mouse (left click): Move cursor
• Select/deselect: J

• Melee attack: A
• Ranged attack: S
• Vore attack: D
• Mate: W
• Raze: E

• Next unit: Space
• End turn: Enter

• Force screen refresh: F5
• Save map to file: F6

Example for a generated map (as the map loops west-east, the diagonal borders are invisible in-game)

Screenshot (v0.0.8)

Spoiler: show

[DarkRain]

[DigiThing]

Can't seem to get it to run. Ive always had bad luck with java on my comp. The .bat file runs but at a point it stops and nothing happens. Then the jar file just does nothing.
and yes. i updated java.

[EtPerMun]

Can't seem to get it to run. Ive always had bad luck with java on my comp. The .bat file runs but at a point it stops and nothing happens. Then the jar file just does nothing.
and yes. i updated java.

Hmm. I assume the .bat file opens a window? If it does, what does the window say when it stops? Does it say anything about an Exception or Error? If the program starts correctly, the output should look something like this:

Code: Select all

[location of the game]>java -jar "VSG.jar"
Starting game...
Loaded tileset in ... ms
Loaded grounds in ... ms
Generating map (this may take a few seconds)
Generated map in ... ms
Loaded races in ... ms
Initialized races in ... ms
Generated text field in ... ms
UI started up in ... ms
Startup completed in ... ms!

If the box closes too fast to see, rename the .bat file to .txt, add a line at the end of the .txt file with just the word "pause", save, rename it back to .bat and try again. It should then stay visible until you manually close it or hit a key.

[Zookmaos]

This is amazing! Thanks for sharing your work, it's very appreciated

[CartoonVore]

This game looks extremely promising, so I'll add my review, along with critiques and possible bugs.

An odd thing to compliment, but I love the UIHKNM controls centered around the select button, J.

I do think adding a list of controls to the game itself would be extremely beneficial.

If you want to add graphics, I would suggest a simple portrait for each character on the map, and if some action happens, such as a Naga voring a Neko (which I just so happened to do), the game would cut to a brief video of a naga swallowing a Neko. Just a thought!

Also, if you like the idea of cutting to an animation like that, I might be able to pitch in some help. I operate a vore channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/cartoonvoremmd) that specializes in both vore games and MMD animations. If I could get my hands on some character models for Nagas and Nekos, etc., I would likely be willing to construct short (3-5 seconds) animations of the specified action occuring. Let me know what you think.

In the stats on the right, I have questions about some of them that could be clarified:

In 'Vore Chance: 14.0', does that mean I have a 14% chance of successfully voring the lucky victim? If so, adding a '%' sign would easily clarify that.

In 'Digesting: *victim* (num/num2)', I think, instead of starting at 10/10 and going down, starting at 0% and going up, to signify completion of digestion, would be easier to understand.

I've noticed that when I try to raze a settlement when directly next to it, that I can't cancel the action to move directly on top of it. How does one do that?

I'll cut it off here. I'm enjoying this game too much! Keep working on it!

[EtPerMun]

This game looks extremely promising, so I'll add my review, along with critiques and possible bugs.

An odd thing to compliment, but I love the UIHKNM controls centered around the select button, J.

I do think adding a list of controls to the game itself would be extremely beneficial.

Hmm, I'm already planning to add a menu of sorts (for saving and loading as well), so putting controls in there would definitely be possible. Making them changeable from in the game, at least so that they are saved, might be more difficult, but possible.

If you want to add graphics, I would suggest a simple portrait for each character on the map, and if some action happens, such as a Naga voring a Neko (which I just so happened to do), the game would cut to a brief video of a naga swallowing a Neko. Just a thought!

Also, if you like the idea of cutting to an animation like that, I might be able to pitch in some help. I operate a vore channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/cartoonvoremmd) that specializes in both vore games and MMD animations. If I could get my hands on some character models for Nagas and Nekos, etc., I would likely be willing to construct short (3-5 seconds) animations of the specified action occuring. Let me know what you think.

I was thinking of portraits instead of symbols, but videos are definitely beyond what I'm planning for the moment. Videos would both increase the file size dramatically, and would likely be incredibly difficult to implement (short animations, especially on the map, are much more feasible, though likely still quite difficult).

In the stats on the right, I have questions about some of them that could be clarified:

In 'Vore Chance: 14.0', does that mean I have a 14% chance of successfully voring the lucky victim? If so, adding a '%' sign would easily clarify that.

In 'Digesting: *victim* (num/num2)', I think, instead of starting at 10/10 and going down, starting at 0% and going up, to signify completion of digestion, would be easier to understand.

Yup, that's a percentage (Also, 14%? Is that a Neko Adventurer? That's a very low chance XD). Added to my to-do-list.
The (10/10) represents the hitpoints of the unit being digested - yes, they aren't dead immediately (and later, there might be units that can escape from a stomach!). That's also why you don't get healed at that point; only when the HP reach 0 and the unit is added to nutrition does healing start. I suppose I could use a percentage instead, but you can just look at your digestion stat a few lines above to see how long it will take.

I'm trying to raze a Large Neko Hamlet, but despite being directly next to it, I get the message of 'IMPOSSIBLE: too far'. Am I missing something, or is this an unfortunate glitch?

You need to be in the settlement. Just walk into it. (Yes, that's why "proper attacks on settlements" is an unimplemented feature )

I'll cut it off here. I'm enjoying this game too much! Keep working on it!

Great that you like it! I certainly will

[CartoonVore]

Perhaps some pictures from the animations could do for now. Also, I'm sure you know of the creator of Felarya, Karbo. If you asked him on Deviant Art, he might give permission for you to use some portraits for this game. I can't guarantee it, but he is a kind fellow.

[EtPerMun]

Perhaps some pictures from the animations could do for now. Also, I'm sure you know of the creator of Felarya, Karbo. If you asked him on Deviant Art, he might give permission for you to use some portraits for this game. I can't guarantee it, but he is a kind fellow.

The big problem is image size. It may not be obvious, but these tiles are tiny. Each hexagon is a mere 32x32 pixels in size, and because of the shape, the largest square a unit sprite could occupy is 22x22 (circles do a bit better, but a diameter of 26 is still the limit). If you scale a normal image down to this size, it becomes nearly unrecognisable which race it is, not to mention which character. Even if I use an image that fits very well, this is pretty much the best you can get:



Now, I could increase the size of each tile (say to 64x64, as I did below), but that would significantly decrease the number of tiles the player can see, cutting down on overview. Ignoring the graphical effects from scaling up the tileset, in the image below the race is now clearly visible, and you may be able to recognize the character - but it's still very tiny, and you can see a lot less in one screen than you could before - you can now only see a total of eleven tiles horizontally!

Spoiler: show

So, unless I implement some kind of zoom and stuff, it seems I can sadly only use pixel art or symbols. Pixel art works great, because it is optimized to work with small resolutions (unlike normal art), and make use of as many pixels as possible. Sadly, I have been unable to find any pixel art for 32x32 hexagons. I have found some for 32x32 squares, but the very benefit I just mentioned (make use of as many pixels as possible) also means they don't fit into hexagons. Nonetheless, here is what they might look like if they did (with normal resolution scaled up to 40x40, and the consequentially ensuing scaling issues):



So, if you happen to know a pixel artist, please do introduce me. Same goes if anyone here on the forum does pixel art. Until that happens, or I somehow get a huge amount of money to commission one, I'm afraid we're stuck with symbols

But I can change loads about mechanics and anything that is not tilesets without needing an artist, so it's not like there is no way to improve the game!

[CartoonVore]

Having beaten this game twice now, I have a few more opinions:

I think this game has enormous potential. I do wish that the settlements were swarming just a little bit more with morsels, to force the player to vore even more lucky victims in order to win (as is the spirit of Felarya). Perhaps difficulty levels that control the frequency of produced humans/nekos?

Whenever I mated and produced another naga, if I ever tried to use the spacebar to jump from the new naga to the original naga, I would receive an error. Would you like me to go back and get the exact error displayed in the window?

I understand the difficulties of file size for animations/pictures. I hope you find a way to make it all work. I do think a character portrait of a Felaryan naga would be cool, and maybe a window with a single picture depicting what just occurred. As for the character portrait, there are a few delightful nagas to pick from. I'll see if I could maybe get a cheap, pixelized version of some portraits, if that could help.

I can't wait for an update to this game!

[EtPerMun]

Having beaten this game twice now, I have a few more opinions:

I think this game has enormous potential. I do wish that the settlements were swarming just a little bit more with morsels, to force the player to vore even more lucky victims in order to win (as is the spirit of Felarya). Perhaps difficulty levels that control the frequency of produced humans/nekos?

Well, there is a lot of unseen prey in the settlements, as indicated by the population (usually in the 100s), but they stay within the settlement and are not represented on the map (they are, however, the reason you get loads of XP from razing settlements).

Currently, the AI produces one unit per 100 inhabitants of the settlement, but I'll think I'll add an option to adjust that number in the next update. Setting it to 1 will however mean that settlements will essentially produce units non-stop, so you might find yourself a bit swarmed

Whenever I mated and produced another naga, if I ever tried to use the spacebar to jump from the new naga to the original naga, I would receive an error. Would you like me to go back and get the exact error displayed in the window?

Found the bug and fixed in, fix will be in next version.

I understand the difficulties of file size for animations/pictures. I hope you find a way to make it all work. I do think a character portrait of a Felaryan naga would be cool, and maybe a window with a single picture depicting what just occurred. As for the character portrait, there are a few delightful nagas to pick from. I'll see if I could maybe get a cheap, pixelized version of some portraits, if that could help.

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood you. By portrait, do you mean the image a unit is represented by on the map (the sprite, e.g. the letter N) or the possible addition of an image representing a (selected) unit elsewhere. for example in the sidebar?

I can't wait for an update to this game!

Maybe I can do it today, I'll have to see

[EtPerMun]

Game updated to v0.0.7!

Download here.

New features:
* Added a main menu (very much barebones ATM)
* Added ability to save and load the game (but not over version borders - saves from 0.0.7 will not work in the next update)
* Added a way of starting a new game without closing and re-opening the program
* Added an in-game display of controls, though it is relatively ugly and will be quite temporary; I hope to make it possible to actually set controls in-game
* Changed how capacity and voracity worked
* Changed how some stats are displayed (including percentages now having a % sign!)

Please report and bugs you see, and feel free to offer criticism or suggest improvements

[calin22]

Awesome, new RAADD and a new update for this!

Just out of curiousity, are you planning on adding new units soon? Maybe some "Wonders" like a sacraficial pillar or a temple for a goddess!

So far it's really fun!

[jyoster]

Need help, don't Know how to run it.

[EtPerMun]

Need help, don't Know how to run it.

First, unzip it (for example, with 7-zip). Then, if you're on windows, double-click the .bat file (VSG.bat), or execute the .jar file if you're not. You need to have Java installed, but you probably do already anyway; if not the main post contains a link.

Awesome, new RAADD and a new update for this!

Just out of curiousity, are you planning on adding new units soon? Maybe some "Wonders" like a sacraficial pillar or a temple for a goddess!

So far it's really fun!

I'm planning to add buildings first, and also making it possible to select which new unit to recruit (on that note, "Mate" will probably become "Recruit"). Adding a new unit itself is already possible for anyone, just edit the respective file (unit.cfg) in the cfg-folder.

Wonders are a great idea, but I'll probably have some more urgent stuff to focus on for the moment - like aforementioned buildings. Which are kind of very, very basic wonders

Glad you like it

[jyoster]

Can't find said .bat file...

[jyoster]

Seriously, I can't find it please help.

[jyoster]

Never mind...
I got it down...

[SmokeStriker125]

Can't download the game, the mega upload file needs a decryption key. But, from just looking at the screenshots and reading your description of the mechanics it looks impressive. I can do pixel art but I'm working on another project for darkevilme at the moment, their Nomad game.

Another game you may want to copy for ideas would be Conquest of Elysium 4 (Here's an good overview of the game, bit long though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BQWIf7-DoY).

[EtPerMun]

Can't find said .bat file...

Seriously, I can't find it please help.

Never mind...
I got it down...

For future reference - the .bat file is in the main folder, along with the groovy-file, main.cfg and VSG.jar. If you have set Windows to not display known file endings, it is the file of the "Windows Batch File" type.

Can't download the game, the mega upload file needs a decryption key.

That's odd, the decryption key is included in the link. If that somehow didn't get copied, it's simply the latter part of the link, for v0.0.7 that's

Spoiler: show

!sgDlsIXCLTPPmDC5DQt2F3EK31bIb--eRO4tH7l0kXo

But, from just looking at the screenshots and reading your description of the mechanics it looks impressive. I can do pixel art but I'm working on another project for darkevilme at the moment, their Nomad game.

Ah, pity. Well, if you do ever have the time, please contact me

Another game you may want to copy for ideas would be Conquest of Elysium 4 (Here's an good overview of the game, bit long though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BQWIf7-DoY).

I've actually played CoE3 (which I assume is quite similar?), though my concept was mostly based on Civilization and especially Endless Legend. It just... isn't quite there yet :/
Though considering the way I've planned the different government concepts, Tribal or Arboreal races might end up a lot more similar to CoE than the nations in Civ or EL.