Masjien

edited in Projects
Howdy all, I've been working on this game for a little while now and thought I'd show it to you all to get some feedback.

The game is called masjien and it is essentially a game about programming. The players write code in java or use the block editor as shown below (you can switch between the block editor and java code modes so players will be able to learn some programming as they go along).
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Then you just select the robots and as you can see below they battle it out.
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I was originally just making this as a teaching tool for my students I tutor but I'm starting to think I might able to sell this. Does anyone here have experience with steam greenlight that they wouldn't mind passing on to me?

-Ben Wiser

Comments

  • Nice job Ben, like I said before on Facebook, you should definitely take this further, this could be such an awesome learning tool to get people into coding and teach them the logic behind it and it can also be a fun little toy for current coders to play around with and experiment with.

    Keep up the awesome work and be sure to keep up us all up to date on your updates.
  • As for advice on Steam Greenlight you should maybe think of submitting it, it took us a bit of a while to greenlight Vapour but we got it done.

    Apparently traffic on greenlight has gone a bit down due to multiple reasons :( Although I think your game might be better suited under the Application/Software section of Greenlight, as I can see quite a few game developers and coders finding a use for this.

    Also be sure to post it on relevant forums/sites to get people interested in the project, dont just spam though be sure to answer any questions people might have.

    If you can include more languages, like C#, you could also gain a lot more traction perhaps, although I dont know if that is something you are rather planning for the long run.

    The biggest strength is in your block editor though as thats what makes the teaching so easy, you should definitely sell your game on that aspect, expand it and streamline it.

    Hope the info helps if you need any other specific info on Steam Greenlight (well as much as I can answer) or anything else, just let me know.
  • @IceCliff the error in the image links is because you are pointing them towards a page as opposed to directly to an image.

    Looking forward to see you posting the game, or more about it.
  • You should check out Code in Game

    Very similar concept. Except it's an array of different games you solve not battling bots. Thought it'd be cool for some inspiration.
  • Nice to see some feedback!

    You guys can see the alpha I'm working on over here:
    http://gamejolt.com/games/masjien/80426

    The videos are slowly becoming outdated as I work on this thing so I suggest downloading it.
    Thanks for the feedback Tiaan! Other languages might be a bit of a daunting challenge so I might leave that till I'm out of alpha but I totally agree this block editor needs a lot more work.

    Thanks for leading me to Code in Game @Sugboerie, I'll check it out right away. At the moment all I thought I had to take inspiration from was corewars.
    Thanked by 1SUGBOERIE
  • edited
    Hey, I just gave this a really brief look. I'm just dumping all of the stuff that crossed my mind, as I don't know what you've considered or haven't.

    The code for the robots was quite difficult for me to read, because the screen was so small and I didn't seem to be able to resize it. I also couldn't drag the scroll bar, so I had to scroll with my scroll wheel (which is generally slower). There was no syntax highlighting, and there was no indentation, making the code even more difficult to read. Out of frustration, I dug through the source and found the text files that I could open in something like Sublime, and that improved things quite a lot, given that I could have syntax highlighting and make my window bigger. I feel that a lot of the understanding of what I can actually do requires me to have read the RobotAbstract.java class, which isn't accessible in the game.

    The block editor looked pretty interesting (it certainly made the code much more readable), but I had no idea how to use it or how it worked.

    I think your intention's that the core of the game is to be writing some robot AI, and then allowing players to run this AI either against pre-created AI, or against other players' AI. So the bulk of the game lies in spending time in the code, gradually introducing players to what's possible, having interesting reasons to try different things, and being able to iterate really quickly. At the moment, it doesn't seem to be easy to iterate really quickly. I think you should be able to test your code super quickly without having to jump back and forth between menus. (The game @Sugboerie linked does this quite well from what I remember, and the Elevator Saga does this too, in an even simpler way.)

    It's pretty cool that there's a built-in level editor. In the editor, I wanted to be able to click and drag, and draw a whole bunch of platforms at once, rather than having to click the blocks one by one.

    The Multiplayer didn't really seem to matter to me. (I think it'd matter if I was genuinely playing against someone, but given that it's just running a simulation of two pre-created files against each other, it didn't seem that exciting to me.)

    Lastly, the UI was quite confusing. I had no idea how to start the game. (It seems I can start the game by pressing Enter, but it took me a while clicking all over the screen to get there. Once I'm in a game, I don't seem to be able to return to the menu, and pressing Esc quits the game. There are several items in the game that are effectively "radio groups", but they don't look like radio groups, and only function like radio groups after clicking around a lot trying to figure things out.

    I'm not quite sure what your goal is with this: if it's to teach people programming, then I think the IDE and iteration needs quite a lot of work (and you'd probably do better with the "we're learning to program" audience -- and their parents and teachers -- by having using a non-violent theme). If it's the fantasy of programming/designing a robot, then it might be worth exploring it in other ways that don't mean you don't have to sink time into the IDE-type stuff. (Perhaps it's a 2D robot-building physics game, where whether you put boosters on his arms or legs, or choose cannons or lasers or railguns, or whether it has wheels or legs, or is being designed as a mech, affect the simulation.)

    I'd personally recommend trying making many more games where you focus on having a nice core game loop, before committing to any one of them. But I dunno, if this is just a hobby and you're having fun, then by all means, keep on having fun! :D
  • edited
    Hola! That alpha is quite out of date so I'll try pop a new one up as soon as I'm as a comfortable point. A few of the issues you said relate to things I'm still working on so hopefully you'll find it more comfortable to use whenever that version comes up.

    A few updates to add:
    I've now made dedicated servers that have match making and ranking systems. So people can join, play against other people and work their way up the ranks.
    With the servers I also made a separate launcher I'm going to use to make the game check for updates with seeing as I'm so constantly making changes and adding to the game.

    The IDE/Block editor is definitely still a while from complete (This game is still in alpha silly :P ). I'm brushing up on reflection so I can have an "intellisense" next. This game's conception really goes back to how can I make programmers battle their code. The in game IDE stuff is relatively recent compared to the rest of the game when I started seeing it more and more as an educational tool.

    Ye with the back and forth I'm considering adding in a "sandbox" that pops up through the IDE perhaps.

    I'd consider robots pretty non-violent heh.

    That darn UI. I really do need to improve on it. I think some start buttons for one should be added. Also scroll bars should actually scroll.
  • edited
    *Game update*

    I've now added a match making server system:
    http://gamejolt.com/games/masjien-server/83598

    and have added to the game a launcher:
    http://gamejolt.com/games/masjien/80426

    I want to add rankings to the servers in the next few days and then add an auto update system with the launcher so that people don't have to keep redownloading the game each time I decide to change the font :D

    I have also due to @Elyaradine 's notes improved upon the IDE. You can now scroll with the scroller on the side, the comments are color coded, and if you click on a squiggly bracket it will show you where that gets closed off.
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