Collapse, a game for the ODL weekly assignment. Reusues much of the code from Topple.
My goal for this assignment was to create a competitive terrain destruction game.
The first two games I thought of when wanting do to a competitive terrain destruction game were Worms and Boom Blox. I wanted to create a game in which, like worms, you can carve out chunks of the environment. Then, from Boom Blox, I wanted to create a competitive situation where you wanted to set up the environment to break, but not during your turn, forcing your opponent to destabilize the board. Unfortunately, ODE is not as efficient as I would like, and I am limited to at most 512 pieces on the board if I want a reasonable frame rate. In order to keep players from just grabbing pieces from the top row, I made it do that the lower down the piece is, the more points it is worth. Thus, it is more worth it for the player to take risks to destabilize the structure due to the increased points.
While the idea for this game comes as a mix of features from multiple other games, the combination is unique. There are many games including terrain destruction, but few involving it as a competative aspect. Those that do, like Boom Blox, generally stack the blocks together instead of linking the elements with springs, simulating actual terrain holding together.
Many things worked well, but some were dissapointing. It was very hard find the perfect balance for the spring strength. It seems they are either too strong and nothing falls, or they are not strong enough and nothing holds together. I have settled on something in the middle, but it is still not quite what I had hoped for. I would also like to up the resolution of the structure by a few factors, so that it is much more of a continuous structure instead of multiple cubes. I could then create different weapons with different destruction patterns, taking more from Worms. However, it still is very fun to carve at the structure even with these limitations, and I feel it came out very well.