Im very pleased to announce that the server infrastructure that Ive been working on for the last couple of months is nearing completion, and that the sandbox can now be played online in multiplayer mode.

This is now working:

Go to https://battlematch.io and click the Sandbox button to launch a new sandbox. Each sandbox is assigned a unique web address (url), and anyone can visit that sandbox by entering the address in any browser. Theres no lobby yet, so currently you have to invite other players by sharing the sandbox link. Online play requires that you are logged in and have Battle Pass for hosting the battle online. During pre-release, you can get one by adding the game to your wishlist. Note: You need to set the Game details in you profile to Public. After changing the profile settings in Steam, you need to logout and login again by clicking your avatar in the top left corner of the Battle Match page.
Its possible to deploy blue and red units, issue move and target commands, and have the units walk around and fight each other. If you squint your eyes, this might start looking like a game :) The community forum is now open: https://community.battlematch.io. This will be the main channel for feedback and bug reports. Here youll also find details about new releases and what is being planned and worked on during the current two-week sprint. You are most welcome to join the discussion.

What is not working (yet):

This is list of things needed for the Early Access release on Steam (in rough to-do order).

• The netcode is up and running, but needs some further work to ensure that it runs smoothly and uninterruped.
• The battle simulation has up to now been a more of a prototype (enough to be able to test the netcode), and the mechanics need major work to implement all the relevant aspects of battle: movement of individal and units, melee combat, missile weapons and artillery, terrain effects such as height/vegetation/water, and psycological aspects like morale and fatigue. This will be the primary focus for the coming sprints.
• Finalize command gestures, for issuing movement and target orders. Add support for selecting multiple units and commanding groups of units. The camera gestures are mostly working, but need some final fine tuning. Need to add control settings and to be able to customize keys.
• For turning the sandbox into an actual game, we need matches/teams and victory conditions. Initially, last-man-standing, but Ill make sure to support other future victory conditions as well (king-of-the-hill, catch-the-ball, whatever).
• Add in-game chat. Very important for an online game, for obvious reasons.
• Add the Samurai Wars lobby. Obviously also very important for an online game, it must be super easy to be able find and challenge other players.
• The final thing needed for the Early Access is the desktop app downloadable from Steam.

The timeframe for all this is towards the end of 2025.

Early Access

Once in Early Access the plan is to move on to new exiting features. I will decide the scope in more detail in due time, but it will roughly look something like this:

• Reintroduce the map editor and seamless map sharing through the Steam Workshop.
• Add a powerful built-in mod editor and mod sharing, also with workshop. There will be some support for scripting as well, with the ability to add more advanced victory conditions and story-driven scenarios.
• Support for improved unit selection and deployment phase, so that players can customize the their armies at the start of the battle.
• Add support for clans, so that you can manage membership and arrange clan matches.
• Some kind of leaderboard ranking system, to keep track of players and clans score/ratings.

[ 2025-04-09 14:24:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

This sprint started with some visual improvements, most noticeably the rendering of weapons, but also some minor tweaks regarding terrain and water rendering. Although there are more things I want work on regarding rendering (commands are still placeholders, animations would be nice, and 3D models, etc), I think that the current state is good enough for launching EA, so I will not work on that until the game is more complete, probably towards the latter half of EA. I have tweaked the camera gestures and, apart from some corner case issues, Im now pleased it is working more or less as intended. There are no settings yet, the keys are: WASD = move camera QE = orbit camera RF = tilt camera ZX = zoom camera C + mouse = orbit/tilt camera mouse click/drag = move camera Finally, I worked on movement and melee mechanics, and added some basic collision and casualty calculations. The Battle Match engine is much more sophisticated than the old Samurai Wars engine. It will model physical properties such as mass, momentum and energy. The rock-paper-scissor mechanics is not explicitly coded. Instead the relationship between units (who beats who) relies on the emergent behavior that is the result of the lower-level physical and psychological properties.
The above example illustrates how the size and space of individuals affect movement, and that the behavior is very different depending on who is moving and who is standing still.
Here, we can see how the length of shaft and blade of different weapons affect melee. The advantage of spears is the larger kill zone in front of the unit, making it possible to stop dead even a charge of cavalry. The disadvantage is that the kill zone only extends in the frontal direction, making the unit vulnerable to attacks to the flank or rear. That said, the simulation engine is still in a very rudimentary form. Movement doesnt consider mass or momentum, and weapons instantly kill upon the slightest touch by the blade. But although calculations are currently few and simple, I find its quite fascinating to see the complex interplay that arises when pitching units against each other on the battle field. Next up: Networking! The unique selling point of Samurai Wars was its seamless online multiplayer features. I intend to take this to the next level with the Battle Match engine. So the for the next couple of sprints I plan on implementing networking. This means most of the work will be on the server back end, and if that goes well, I will be able to add two very important buttons to the user interface: Host Match and Join Match.

[ 2024-10-25 13:05:43 CET ] [ Original post ]