Kings of Israel Board game:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/142084/kings-israel

I have contacted Lance Hill of Funhill games: http://www.funhill-games.com/
and asked him permission to make Kings of Israel videogame for Amiga and he was happy to give that permission.

Originally I was just looking to do some little practice, and didnt actually necessarily even plan to make it till the end, but to just practice a bit of Hollywood programming as i was itching to do just something before having time to concentrate more seriously to a project and this seemed like both good practice and straightforward enough to do with less concentration.

However, It is already somewhat far, and looks like I might well be finishing it in one way or other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBh6p2Kwftk

It is still missing a lot, but the core gameplay is there. All the normal functions of the game are already fully there. That is however, only half of the game, since the real fun comes from all the special cards and their rule changes. These special cards have not been implemented yet, except for 1 and a half cards.


Unfortunately I didnt get the graphics files from Funhill Games, but I did get permission to scan and use any graphics from the boardgame itself. It will be one of the last things to fix, fixing the graphics properly, but even in this preview version you can get some taste what the final version will look like as I have took photo of for example the board.

That board is actually somewhat problematic as it is too big to fit on a scanner, and it is folded into 4 parts, so I am still trying to figure out a way how would it be the best way to get those board graphics.

Cards are also unfortunately too unclear to read the texts from the graphics, but this I believe is mainly to do with Hollywoods scaling engine, that it seems like it isnt very suitable for JPG format pictures. Right now those pictures are scaled down from much bigger sizes, so i believe using for example GIMP to scale those pictures to a smaller size first, will make them texts become readable.


Although I am mainly just showing the game a bit in its current form, I am also having two questions.


Kings of Israel Board Game is type of game where players are in co-operation playing against the Board. Hence this is suitable to be played alone, which i suppose most will be.

However, in Original board game there are two different play modes when coming to hand cards. In easy version all players play hands open (hand cards shown to other players) but in normal mode players are supposed to keep their hand cards a secret, although even in normal mode you can discuss about your cards with other players, like "Do you need a gold card to build altar? If you do, i would have one", so there isnt really much secrecy in this game even in normal mode.

Hence the question: Currently I am simply showing every players cards open, as i am supposing most, if not all, will be playing this game alone.

But, are there any who would actually be interested in hotseat version?

I could basically make some sort of system to hide the cards from other players and only keep showing the cards in current players hand. But if no one is interested in playing this game in hot seat mode, then there isnt really any point in doing it and i can save that trouble and perhaps polish something else a bit more.


Another question is if people would be interested in possiblity to play over the internet?

I have never done any internet play thing, but if there really are people who think they would want to play this game over the internet, then i could consider giving it a shot.

Last edited by Bugala on 10-Apr-2015 at 10:24 PM.

@Bugala

Sounds like an exciting project. I'd be interested in to see this on AmiStore and to see internet play working.

Good luck with Hollywood programming to. Keep us on the progress.

Cheers,
Bill "tekmage" Borsari

@Bugala

I think the hotseat gameplay can not be a comfortable event.

About the gfx. It can't be seen for surely in the video, but I think it is the screening
grid that makes that noise on scaling. Scan it in larger resolution than you will use
at least factor 4 and then rescale it with a proper gfx app (e.g. ImageFX on Amiga)
and add a bit of contrast with some sharpening.

@Bugala

It is surprised me that you got permission for the game.

Is it cover any platform or only Amiga/likes?

@tekmage

thanks for comments!

@Lazi

Thanks from that graphic tip.

There is official video game coming (says spring 2015) to some other platforms, you can find out about that in their website, but i have no access to any part of that video game, hence this is independent version.

It also seems based upon pictures that they have done some special graphics, like player tokens have been redrawn to look more like computer game graphic, while I am simply using board games original graphics (scans/photos) for my version.

Just thought to give some progress report if someone is interested.

Biggest part of programming the game is not programming the basics of the game (which is already done), but implementing all the special rules of all the cards. While most of them are not even hard to implement, it is anyway time taking.

There are three kinds of cards that bring special rules, Ability Cards, Blessing Cards, and Sin & Punishment Cards.

Roughly there are 12 ability cards, 40 blessing cards and 40 Sin & Punishment cards (probably couple more of S&P Cards).

While Ability Cards are fewest, they are also - or at least so i believe - hardest to implement, as each of them add some new rule.

There are some tricky ones in Blessing and Sin & Punishment cards, but quite many of them are in style of "get something normal or remove something normal" and those will be easy and fast to implement.


What comes to progress so far is that all the basics of playing is there, and all the Ability Cards have been implemented (except for the part when they collide with other yet unimplemented cards).


What is left to do is to implement Blessing and Sin & Punishment Cards and then game is technically complete.

However, after that it will probably still take long time since after game is technically there, there will be lots of small things to do. Small in sense that they are mostly quick and easy to do, but just that theres plenty of them.

Things like:
- setting up the layout in such way that it is actually nice to play, right now it is a mess for some of the parts.

- Giving menu options to choose how many players, which rules, which cards etc. to use.

- Adding sound and music - currently this is completely silent.

- Fixing all the graphics.


After that all is done, then it is time for first release perhaps and I will then consider wether to continue making version 2 which would add the false prophet game variants or not. (there are two false prophet variants, one with one false prophet, and another with 3 false prophets on board).


already at this point I know there are going to be some things that could be improved, but which i probably wont. As example I am planning to give a chance for player to choose which cards are used in play and how many of them. In some cases putting many cards of the same type could result in problems. I could make the game such that adding those specific cards wouldnt cause problems, but since the normal set of cards anyway work right, I dont think its worth the time to use to fix something like that when i can instead start a new project already than do some "minor" improvements.

Another example is that there is this card in which if you stay in certain location for whole round you "may" build an altar to that location for free. Basically it is a choice wether you want to build that or not, but since I see no good reason for someone trying to play the game the way it is supposed to be played not wanting to build it, instead of using time to give player a choice, it will just automatically build it if that condition is met.

My current plan is that there will be lots of things like that that i consider too minor an issue to start using time to polish them, but rather leave some edges unpolished and get to start next project sooner.

@Bugala

Looks nice! I look forward to playing it!


Scott

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A little progress report.

I have now implemented all but 4 Blessing cards (for 2 I just made a rule question to Lance Hill and 2 are dealing with Sin & Punishment cards which are not implemented yet and hence waiting for them first).

Next I am starting with Sin & Punishment cards after which although game is basically fully playable and completeable, there will still be lot of work left to do.

If I could keep this speed up that I have been having since from last progress report, (first) release could happen already around august (1+ month for implementing Sin and Punishment cards, 1 month for rest of the stuff).

But that is IF, hence, better just say, two more weeks.

I am asking a bit of help from someone who knows how to use GIMP or some other program.

I have these scanned pictures with 4 cards inside each of them.

To my understanding, I can somehow use so called "magic wand" to automatically select the cards from those pictures and save them. I however am not sure how to do this.

So far I chose the magic wand, clicked on white area, and it marked four different areas there, (1 for each card). However:

1. I couldnt figure out how to save them separately.

2. Selected areas has some white parts left still, as there were couple of gray (shadow) pixels between the first actual pixel and first white pixel, I suppose I can somehow decide to be less picky about the color of white, making it pick also those gray, shadow colors out, but how?

3. number 2 might solve this already, but as i tried to use "clear" to clear all the white parts away, it simply kept them white instead of giving those chessboard looking things like it gives when theres transparency for example.


Notice that I dont know much about Gimp or Photoshop or any of these modern graphic programs, i have pretty much stuck in using Personal Paint for all my graphics needs before and have only done some simple things with Gimp.

No need anymore. I was able to figure it out myself.

@Bugala

Major goal was reached today.

All Cards have now been implemented to the game, with exception that I made couple of questions yesterday and today for Funhill games about rules concerning some cards.

But these should all be only small things. Things like whether i should execute line A before line B or other way round (as example there is a question of whether deck gets shuffled first or card is discarded first in one certain case, upon which depends whether that card ends to the new shuffled deck or not).


As long as i have time and there are not too many/tricky obvious bugs, there is a good chance i will release a version for those willing to help bug hunting already in a week.

@Bugala

First release is here for those willing to help hunting bugs: http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40549&forum=42

I am trying to get another update in a week which would have new graphcis for cards, since some of the cards are hard to read in current version. That version will also take less space and memory, making better chance for AOS3 machines to get it to work.

@Bugala
Great! Will check it out later.

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@Bugala

why do we have to go through another site requiring another login/password to test it ?

@lionstorm
Bugala placed it into the indieGO Appstore.

http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7353

Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 12-Sep-2015 at 09:15 PM.

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@lionstorm

There are several reasons.

1. I feel thanks to Indiego I finally started releasing stuff, it was the last piece of puzzle that was missing for me to have the final push to release "Help my cat!", after which i started making this. Hence one reason is as a thank you to Indiego Appstore to keep it exclusive for it at this point.


2. I am also trying to limit that there wouldnt come too many people who would see the product before it is final, so that most of the people would get their first impression of the game from finished product. Experience tells, that lot of people feel appstores are too much trouble to use.

Hence, although it is unfortunate that so many people dont use it, it happens to serve the purpose this time.


3. It is easy for me to make sure that those willing to hunt for bugs have the latest version, since as far as i have understood, Indiego takes care that when i release a new version (which i will likely release quite frequently at start, maybe once a week even), it will be easy for people to update it to the latest release.

Also, since it is likely i will release updates quite frequently, at least at start, i rather not spend lot of time everytime uploading those new versions to everywhere, but rather keep it at one place to save some time, and as i am already familiar with indiego, it is natural choice from that point of view as well.


4. I also want to avoid that when "Kings of Israel" is finally finished, that there would be existing several incomplete versions all around the internet and in future there could even happen a situation where people have trouble locating the final version, as to my understanding have happened sometimes for various reasons in Amiga scene already.

By putting incomplete versions only to Indiego, i hope to avoid that.

Note: I dont have anything against someone wanting to preserve incomplete versions for historical purposes or even distributing them somewhere, as long as it is pointed out that they are there for historical purposes or something similar.


5. Indiego also still seems to have the monthly reward system for top 10 downloads. By keeping this on Indiego only, I might make 10 euros a month, which while wont make me a living, is a nice bonus anyway.

@Bugala

I have just updated Kings of Israel to version 0.55: http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40549&forum=42

Technically it is the same, but all card graphics have been made better and map graphic have been changed as well.

It looks better and takes much less size (about 65 Mb before, 45 Mb now), hence making it much more likely to run on AOS3 computers as well, but my guess is still the 100 Mb of memory (i havent tried AOS3 version a single time myself, so reguirement is purely speculation)

However, there is also one thing being worse in this version, for I changed the map graphic, but i didnt update the co-ordinates, hence stuff might be placed in some places even quite much off from the actual location.

@Bugala

Another, small, but important update done.

Idols and Altars have new graphics, and they, as well as multiple players in same location, do not go to same spots anymore, but they all have their own spots, making it much more comfortable playing, as you dont need to remember yourself anymore whether there are altar/idol/players under altar/idol/players, but you can now see the situation.


Also: More bug hunters needed. So far not a single bug have been reported, and I am quite sure there are many of them left. If you are willing to help a bit, then go download the current version from indiego appstore (under games/board): http://aros-broadway.de/indiego/marketplace/index.html

And keep playing and reporting about bugs. (in practice only the 2 prophet version is playable enough due to layout still being a mess)

This will make me be able to concentrate on programming more features, instead of having touse time to bug test the game myself.

@Bugala
You could post the Public Link here. For this Month you aer already qualified for the dev Bonus.
This way also the Lazy Ones can have a try.

With luck I can find Sunday a bit time to try it.

Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 18-Sep-2015 at 04:35 PM.
Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 18-Sep-2015 at 04:33 PM.

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@phoenixkonsole

well, lets give it a try.

AOS3: http://www.indiego.rocks/file/downloadApp/6db8f2cb00ed4e75814da18fb1ce5d90

AOS4: http://www.indiego.rocks/file/downloadApp/7ead04da6a774def8ad83be9dd2c66a0

AROS: http://www.indiego.rocks/file/downloadApp/44baab740bd144b33e3347435ae7753a

MorphOS: http://www.indiego.rocks/file/downloadApp/474b160b30f86676f986c05e3cc4084f


Notice: There is one known bug in this version, where "Famine" - card doesnt prevent new Grain cards from coming, even it should. I have fixed this already for the next version.