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Posted by: AdamH Oct 30 2011, 01:12 PM

Hey folks,

I made a little game using some of the HiRISE terrain and imagery data from Gale Crater. It's called 'The Last Martian Harvest': http://www.mannedmissions.com/LastMartianHarvest

Happy Halloween!

Adam

Posted by: Astro0 Oct 30 2011, 09:53 PM

That's lot sof fun Adam. A good laugh.

At one point I got in to a loop where every time I hit 'R' for a new rover, it immediately flipped over and exploded!!
AWESOME!

Meanwhile the birds feasted on the pumpkin.

Posted by: AdamH Oct 30 2011, 11:32 PM

Haha! Thanks. Some might consider it a bug, but I think the ability to spawn a rover underneath the ground and watch it fly on a ridiculous trajectory is more feature, less bug. FYI, the rover will spawn 10m in front of wherever you happen to be looking at the time, so you can make them appear in the air, too.

Posted by: JohnVV Oct 31 2011, 12:10 AM

unity flash

you need to put a Windows and Mac ONLY warning

Posted by: AdamH Oct 31 2011, 03:18 AM

No Flash, just Unity. I'd love to support Linux, and plan to in the future, but I am limited by the plugin. It's a tradeoff I have to make at this point as a one man operation. Sorry for the frustration! Perhaps if I start asking money for access to the game I'll put up some notice about no Linux support.

Posted by: djellison Oct 31 2011, 04:43 AM

No, just Unity. You have made that exact same mistake in the past and been corrected on it before.



Not really. You're intelligent enough to work it out for yourself and you know exactly the limitations you're getting yourself into running Linux as your main OS.



Do not advocate or even hint at software piracy on this forum. Do that again, and you will get a suspension.

Posted by: AdamH Oct 31 2011, 05:02 PM

FYI, I've simplified the controls a bit. No longer do you have to explicitly control the camera. Would love to hear from folks who've achieved liftoff.

Posted by: Astro0 Nov 1 2011, 02:27 AM

Haven't achieved a lift-off yet in the few times I've played.

However, I've been delighted by dropping the rover from a great height (without a skycrane attached) and watching it explode ...many, many times over.

Also great fun is letting it go for a long downhill run, watching it pickup speed and then launching itself across the terrain in huge jumps until it once again explodes.

Pumpkins 0 : Explosions 230 !!!!

Posted by: centsworth_II Nov 1 2011, 01:29 PM

It took me over thirty minutes just to get the pumpkin to the base of the rocket. Then I discovered that I could leave the pumpkin behind and just take the rover up the ramp to satisfy my curiosity. Big cheat, I know, but I have a low frustration threshold.


edit: The rover dropped over the end of the ramp into the rocket and -- you guessed it -- exploded! The camera viewpoint then shifted back to the base of the rocket where I had left the pumpkin and I could look up to see the fading shower of sparks from the explosion at the top of the rocket. Neat.

Posted by: AdamH Nov 1 2011, 08:53 PM

In my rush to get this out for Halloween, play testing was extremely limited -- by which I mean it was just me, late at night going on minimal sleep from the night before. If you've not got the pumpkin into the rocket, I highly recommend it; best part of this little game, IMHO. And apologies for the frustrations. But, if I'm honest, I don't want to make things too easy. I mean, the real rover drivers have to deal with a 20 minute delay in any commands they send. But, then again, they don't have to push 2m diameter pumpkins around, either.

Posted by: Stu Nov 1 2011, 10:10 PM

No need to apologise! It's great fun, well done, and thanks for sharing it here. Good to be a little less serious sometimes. And don't mind the criticisms - easy to moan, much harder to actually make something

Posted by: centsworth_II Nov 2 2011, 12:05 PM

My mention of frustration was not a criticism. I don't usually play video games. In fact I was pleased that the task of pushing the pumpkin up to the rocket was as easy as it was. The birds, although a distraction, were generally more benign in their action on the pumpkin than they could have been. And the tendency of the pumpkin to roll back down the hill could have been much more pronounced than it was. In other words, the task could easily be made much more difficult than it now is. Right now it presents a not insurmountable challenge to this inexpert gamer.

Posted by: centsworth_II Nov 2 2011, 12:11 PM

And, luckily, their rovers don't have such a pronounced tendency to blow up!

Posted by: AdamH Nov 2 2011, 04:38 PM

Oh, by no means did I take it as such. And even when my work *is* criticized, I welcome it. It is much preferable to hearing crickets. I sometimes even end up agreeing with the critic!

I think game balance is the area where feedback from users is most important. The things that I think are too easy/too hard are rarely what others think they are, so your comments are hugely appreciated.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Nov 2 2011, 07:08 PM

Maybe now that Halloween has passed you might create a game where Santa's Elves get to work repairing the defunct/failed Martian landers.

Posted by: AdamH Nov 3 2011, 10:14 PM

And it would be all the more poignant if -- perish the thought -- MSL fails to achieve its target. The Great Galactic Ghoul is out there.