Gigalomania
Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 05:47
Hi,
For the last few years I've been working on Gigalomania ( http://gigalomania.sourceforge.net/ ), which is a Mega Lo Mania clone - some of you may remember the game from the early '90s. For those that don't, it's a simple 2D RTS game where you can advance through the ages.
It's available for Windows, Linux, OS X, Android and more.
Lots of the graphics are sourced from Open Game Art - see http://gigalomania.sourceforge.net/#licences for a full list.
If anyone wants to help out with improved graphics, that would be greatly appreciated. Areas of improvement still needed include: the buildings (which are rather simple 3D models and lack variation); defenders (mostly unanimated and rather simple looking); overall lack of consistency.
Mega lo Mania was one of the best games back then... I spend way too much time playing that ;) I hope you got similary hilarious voice messages too though ;)
Have you thought about something to actually improve on the old concept though? Would be a pity if it was just a strait clone...
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http://freegamedev.net
I'm afraid it doesn't have speech samples, I agree that would be good to have! I don't have the voice acting skills to do them myself, but that would be another example of the kind of media that would be good to add :)
I've thought about adding new features, though not done that so far. There are some minor differences, e.g., ability to properly load/save games, or the on-screen health bars. I've thought about adding more weapons. Another thing I'd like to add is multiplayer support, though this will take some work.
I'm open to any suggestions of other ideas.
Since writing that post, I've had a hunt around Open Game Art, and replaced a lot more of the graphics - I've released the new version (0.25) (see above for download links).
It's still far from perfect:
* The buildings are still placeholders - rendered with POVRay, but very simple.
* Some sprites (defenders, and the cannon, catapult) are static images rather than animated.
But still, looking better than it was! The full list of items used is at http://opengameart.org/content/art-used-in-gigalomania , or also see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.harman/comp_gigalomania.html#licences for the full list. Of particular help were the LPC sprites, and this entry, allowing me to generate a range of animated characters.
Ahh, cool use of the LPC assets! Maybe our next contest could be graphics for gigalomania ;)
--
http://freegamedev.net
Version 0.27 is now released - this adds speech samples (thanks to Rob Hunter, who recorded speech samples to go along with the game), along with in-game music and some other sound effects. Also some minor improvements to the graphics using more from Open Game Art (bombs, explosions, and some other minor improvements). I've switched to using SDL 2 for all platforms, and added support for Windows 8 tablets/touchscreens.
Cool. What are your overall plans regarding graphics? Right now it seems like an odd mix of pixelated and pre-rendered sprites...
Maybe it would be also worth rethinking the overall look? Megalomania was really cool back in the day, but a remake should maybe also think about taking some liberties to improve on it, wouldn't you say?
--
http://freegamedev.net
I'd certainly love for there to be better graphics (and more consistent), as I say earlier in this thread. Unfortunately this is something I don't have the skills for right now, but would welcome any contributions. (By pre-rendered, do you mean the buildings? This was the best way I found I could create something that didn't look awful, but they are one of the things that could do with replacing.)
Version 0.28 is now released! See https://sourceforge.net/p/gigalomania/blog/2015/10/version-028-released/ for more details. I've also updated the first post of this topic so it's more up to date.
N.B., website now moved to http://gigalomania.sourceforge.net/ .