Remember “Because it’s fun, Fay?” It was a game we made for the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, held earlier this summer. We created it using our Lua script engine, Daisy Moon, which we usually use when we want to prototype different game ideas (we also use Multi-media Fusion sometimes, depending on the situation). The game turned out to be a two-player platform game with one character living in a rotated dimension, and with a JRPG end-boss fight. Maybe not our greatest game, but if you haven’t tried it, you can find it here.

Now it’s time for a new TIGSource competition and a new game! This time the theme is Bootleg Demakes, and people have posted over 100 threads about competition projects. A “bootleg” means “inofficial copy” and “demake” means “that is made to look as though it were running on older-generation hardware”. We could obviously not resist competing again and, using our Daisy Moon engine once more, created House Globe.

Hit the jump for the full story!

Artifact’s House Globe - 2D Real-time Strategy Game

Our competition entry is a demake of the classic Homeworld by Relic. If you haven’t played it, the short story is that Homeworld is a real-time strategy game in space. Your fleet is centered around your Mothership, which constructs units and is the drop-off zone for resources. In the game you are travelling through space in order to find your homeworld, while evil aliens attempt to destroy you (obviously).

When we began making the game we set our hardware target at the PC games of the mid-ninetees, think Dune 2 (i.e. the 320×240 resolution is intentional). We wanted to translate Homeworld’s 3D view to a flat 2D version, while keeping the key features that made Homeworld the game it is. That means your Mothership (called Maternal Vessel in House Globe) is the center piece of your fleet and will construct all units. It also means that we wanted to keep the tactical/strategical toggle that Homeworld has.

Beyond those initial concepts, we felt quite free to design our own game. We put much effort on making the “micro” part interesting (good control/response when moving units), and having a balanced technology tree. In the end we believe we managed to make a really good game in only 10 days or so.

Features:

• 2D RTS
• Single-player practice vs the computer
• 1on1 online multi-player
• Replay recordings of multi-player games

Screenshots:

Downloads:

• Mac OS X (Universal Binary, 16 MB)
• Windows (14 MB)

Check the readme for game controls (it’s fairly inituitive). If you play any multi-player games, please send us the replay files! And… have fun!

/ jeb

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Competitions, House Globe, Lua. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.