Manifest Development Blog

Hello, you may have noticed that my posts are...sparse. I have a couple of reasons for that: 1. Addiction to TF2 and L4D2. And 2. I'm developing a mod for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. I have used the Warcraft III World Editor for many years now, but none of my games have ever truly progressed past prototypes. I figured it was about time to change that and actually complete a game. Why? Because I want to be a game designer, professionally. And there's no better way to get noticed in this industry, or even to be considered legitimate, then to make a game of your own. For the record, I also intend to be a professional games journalist as well, but I need to complete this game to act as a portfolio and to prove to myself that yes, I can actually finish what I begin.

Fortunately, the game's awesome. It's called Manifest, and it's a competitive, two-player, turn-based strategy game. I'm developing it alone and spending exorbitant amounts of time doing so. In a few weeks, I intend to have an open beta, after-which I'll be releasing the game for free for all to enjoy. I love Warcraft III mods; I truly do. I feel that the completion of this mod is my way bringing closure to a pivotal aspect of my life. Warcraft III made up much of my teenage years, and the editor itself allowed me to realize that I wanted to be a game designer in the first place. I'm having an excellent time making Manifest, and the game has finally progressed to a point where I can begin showing it to people. With that in mind, I have begun another (gasp!) blog chronicling the development of Manifest on Edge. "Another blog!" you say, "but you have a perfectly good blog right here." You're points are legitimate, but I wanted to keep this dev blog separate, as I see Invisible Studio as focusing on my opinions on game design and game commentary. Also, I wanted my development blog to have the opportunity to be viewed by lots of people, something I didn't see as feasible with this blog. I'll continue to update this blog with all issues of design and commentary, but I'll also be updating the Manifest blog each day on features of the game and the development process. Check out the Manifest blog here. And thanks for your continued support.

Don't Move The Tauren!

Why I think Don't Move the Tauren! is the greatest game ever made. Don't Move the Tauren! is a Warcraft III mod by LlamaGui, and it...is...awesome. The mod is actually pretty old; I played it at least two years ago. Even so, Don't Move the Tauren! has remained one of my favorite mods ever since.

Before reading this article, I would highly recommend you first play Don't Move the Tauren!, especially with as many people as possible. Of course, you will need a copy of Warcraft III.

Why is this game so genius? Because it explicitly defines itself. The title is, "Don't Move the Tauren!" And that means, "if you move the Tauren you lose." Players are confused, "Wait, what? So, we don't move the Tauren? Is that it? Am I missing something?" Are you? Beneath the blatancy is a most impressive subtext. Even though the title is the directions, people still doubt the gameplay. Not that their doubt isn't justified. Because the rules for the game are so inanely simple, players wonder if, in fact, they are the rules at all.

And what begins as a noobish state of confusion quickly becomes a war of mind games. Chat messages are flung back and forth as players try everything in their power to convince their opponents that moving your tauren is, indeed, the way to win. My favorite is, "seriously, their is a win zone in the corner, run their without dying and you win. I just didn't want to be cheap because I've played before." Watching other players fall for your ridiculous antics is nothing short of hilarious. And that's why LlamaGui's Don't Move the Tauren! is the greatest game ever made.

image from Blizzard Fan Art

Warcraft III World Editor-Visibility

The Warcraft III World Editor is a fascinating tool. I personally love using it and have spent many, many hours creating maps, or mods. I generally create hero style maps, where each player takes control of a single unit to fight with or against the other players. The interesting thing about this type of map is the issue of visibility and attack. I've been wanting to do a feature on this for a while, and now I am. So here is a rundown of all the visibility and attack things that need to be balanced for this type of mod.There are a number of things you need to note for the map in general and for each unit.

List Get! With, accompanying images. Please not the differences between each screen capture, including the lists of what is and is not present in each.

• black mask
• this causes everything not within player visibility to be black until explored.

• fog of war
• enabling fog causes areas already explored to disappear in window and in the minimap when a player unit is no longer present.

Notice how the explored area around the unit shows the ground, but no units. The black masked area to the left does not even show the ground.

• camera distance
• this sets the distance or heigth of the camera, other modifiers can also affect it.

• sight radius-day, night

• this is how far a given unit can see. 100 is very small. 1000 is rather large.
  
• acquisition range
• this is the distance a unit must be from an enemy unit to "acquire" it as a target. Units cannot auto-attack other units until they have come within their acquisition range. Even if the attack range (see below) is higher, a unit will not attack an enemy unless it is within the acquisition range.
  
• attack-range
• this is the distance a unit must be from an enemy unit to attack it. In game, when hovering over the attack type icon of a unit, the "Range" is actually the least range available to that unit. Whichever is lower, acquisition or attack is the number that will show. Also, a unit will not attack another unit that is either in a black mask or in an area covered in fog of war.
• minimum attack range
• this is the area immediately surrounding a unit that an enemy must be outside of to attack it. I frequently use this for ranged units, like archers. They have a far attack range, say 1000, but cannot units attack within a range of 200 or so around themselves.
• cooldown time
• this is the amount of time that must be pass before a unit can attack again. A low cooldown means a unit can attack very rapidly. A high cooldown means a unit must wait a while before it can attack a second time.

You can also limit the camera bounds so the player cannot pan it, and get rid of the minimap, so the player can only click in window. This creates for very restricted gameplay. I attempted to use this method in one of my games once, but it turned out to be too limiting. The most difficult part of any hero-type game is balancing all of these aspects, especially if there are multiple unit types. Tomorrow I'll post on the newest mod I've been making that deals with this issue.

Modify
Which types of Warcraft III mods are your favorite, and why?
Have you played a mod where the balance of these aspects of visibility and combat range was off, or dead on?