Sentinel Remake - Zenith

hamster

I came across this game earlier.. but it really has come on. Check it out here. It's based on the 8-bit classic Sentinel game. A 3D chessboard made of hills and flat plains - you start as a robot (synthoid) and work you way to the top by absorbing available energy around you in the form of trees. Watch out though, the Sentinel stands at the top and if he sees you - you will be at the receiving end of energy loss and finally destruction!
This version gives big landscapes, smooth and fast, overview map and is evolving all the time.

hamster

Actually also check out pocket universe. This is rather interesting... watching 2 galaxies smash into each other and how gravitationally each particle reacts...

hamster

Actually a new update on the homepage. Check it out. Playing a little bit more. Look how complicated the map can get... and this is still fairly early in the game.
The author is also looking for feedback and ideas. Play and try it - it's a standalone - in a window (maxxed or not) no installation etc.

For features... try hitting F9 to bring up the console.

eg. turn on 4xhq.
perf aa 4xhq

hamster

The console is very good. Type landscape and you get all sorts of info on the sentry placing. Their efficency at draining energy and their x,y,z locations.

>land
Size: 47

---

Scanner Type PosX PosZ BaseHgt ViewHgt State DoBlank Blank TScan TPlyr TObje ScanEff

---

01 Sentinel 014 023 006.30 008.80 Idle 1 0 05.55 04.66 04.85 149.1%
02 Sentry 027 021 005.01 007.01 Idle 1 0 05.44 05.22 04.64 262.0%
03 Sentry 018 036 002.51 004.51 Idle 1 0 05.75 04.34 05.16 315.7%
04 Sentry 042 004 002.51 004.51 Idle 1 0 05.13 03.77 04.73 215.1%

---

Scanners on the landscape: 4

hamster

Zenith Feedback:

1. Heartbeat is quite good feedback and a nice touch! Faster heartbeat means "a scan is coming!". Good technique, gives more info that a creak (although creak would be *really* nice too). Good job!

2. Great contrasts in color scheme (I love it) - between dark green hues - the background went darkgreen. Variety of colors do this game wonders! Wonder is there one with a near black sky? Would be sort of creey. Laughes.

3. I *love* the console. Type land (and you get the tech details of the map. nice.) The information is nice.
Map size, sentries and their heights. Idea of logging to text file and read in setup cmds from a text file is good.

4. Love the idea of protected / hidden sentries.
5. Nice use of being able to hide behind a wall more effectively.
6. Tried out various setting such as aa perf aa 4xhq and fps. Worked fine. 253 fps or 333 basic No-AA.
7. Map overview option is real nice and adds a lot to strategic planning/hiding.

My Base system is a Pentium D820 2.8Ghz 1Gb system with a GT7600 Nvidia card under XP Pro SP2. No crashes so far
on the latest version 0.9.9.10.

Will try to give some more info.

compsci

Just found this posting. I've seen Hamster's postings elsewhere, but I thought I'd reply for the benefit of other readers.

Good to see the PERF AA 4xHQ produces clean and fast results - it is previously untested.

Try the command SPECIAL DARK, or just SP DARK to give a landscape a different atmosphere. Add a parameter to indicate density of darkness: SP DARK 0.03 means you can see nearly everything, ...0.1 = see fairly far, ...0.2 makes it difficult to see distance.

Incidentally, the reason for not using darkness much in the game, is that peoples' monitors vary too much at the dark end of the brightness range. Adopting very dark landscapes and depth cuing using darkness (as in The Sentinel Returns, for example) would have been a poor design decision, in that it disadvantages players whose display is darker than expected.

The Command Console started as a debugging tool, which was used during development, but because of the general interest in the game from players, retro fans and game authors, I decided to keep most of the Command Console commands in the public releases.

The Player Guide has full documentation of the commands, and an overview is available if you type HELP in the Command Console.

Coming next:

• 'Campaign' play, which locks out levels until you've earned the right to play them. The current 'select a difficulty' method for choosing a game will be moved into a 'Quick Play' option.
• Player Guide on the Zenith web pages

hamster

Nice one John, I meant to get back to you and say that the same landscape is generated etc when I have the variation setting to 0. ie, it works perfectly. Currently on landscapes with difficulty 50+ and the landscapes generated at this stage are really interesting - almost like a course in mountaineering and wall climbing!

Just an off the wall wacky idea... Would adding a directional wind sound (default value variable to the user in settings) to the game atmosphere? - wind sound reaching it height when you face the wind headon. (a thought from your rain simulator program).

compsci

Such a wind sound (penned for a couple of releases hence) would not be very directional, but would be very ambient, like a distant howling from the landscape.

I'm reluctant to do too much 'physical' sound, because the game is based on an abstract landscape, not a real one. If too much 'realism' is built into the game, then peoples' expectations become much higher, e.g. "why are there no rivers?" The game simply does not need that much in common with a natural landscape.

hamster

compsci wrote:

Such a wind sound (penned for a couple of releases hence) would not be very directional, but would be very ambient, like a distant howling from the landscape.

I'm reluctant to do too much 'physical' sound, because the game is based on an abstract landscape, not a real one. If too much 'realism' is built into the game, then peoples' expectations become much higher, e.g. "why are there no rivers?" The game simply does not need that much in common with a natural landscape.

Too true - vital sounds would become swamped. Just a mad hatter idea there I had. Superfluous "eye-candy" and not much game value.

hamster

This is the first landscape I truly found tricky and devious... even to simply transfer from place to place. Well done! Your really have to think by this stage and hide from the eyes from sentries while planning your next move.



I even missed two sentries (bottom left) when I left this landscape. I always only check the map at the end.

hamster

Hi John,

On difficulty 68, landscape 1558338176 no variation (size 87 with 6 sentries) - I was nearly finished with only the sentinel left. He seems very very short sighted on this level. See the screenshot and the scan eff. stats. I stood still for several full rotations - he missed me everytime - no warning scan either.



I was not looking at him zoomed and I was positioned basically at the other side of the 87 size landscape and not hidden on a stack of boulders.