Crime City

if you use taksi, you can set it up to take movies and it will make up for lag, just tell it how many frames per second you want it to run in the movie, and it will automatically speed up or slowdown the movie to make it run at that speed.

I'm wondering if anyone else who downloaded the game has experienced similar problems with msl_manni, like for instance cars passing through buildings or anything similar.

I suspect this has to do with low spec systems but I could also be wrong.

I have vsync on.
But as far as can understand, you are using the c_move to detect collisions.
And as a programmer I know that you cant be 100% percent correct with c_move. Take for instance two cars that are in opposite direction, they are always showing ridiculous collision behaviour in your demo. They shouldnt be overlapping or passing through each other.
60 FPS is a good framerate and you cant blame that for bugs in your collision detection. I prefer the physics objects instead of c_move to control the collision, as they are near percfect because they take the whole geometry into consideration, and NEWTON is best for every situations.
I have projects that run at 30 FPS but dont show any kind of bugs that I see in your demos. I would like to know if my prediction is correct.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't do any collision detection, because:
(a) I don't trust c_move's collisions either,
(b) it would look ugly to have cars climbing the pavements in order to pass by each other (road is quite narrow, should have known better... )

Instead, cars use c_scan. Can't you tell from the distance they start to dissolve?

Of course, I could make many things different (and less ridiculous) if I had more time. But this game's main goal is to have a good friendly & enemy AI and that was where most of the development time was spent.

Hopefully there will be a patch coming out soon.

Well then I am very dissapointed in you, as you are trying to blame the Low FPS for poor collision behaviour. You already know that c_scan is the worst choice for collisions. But on the bright side you can pass on the demo to casual users till they dont point out the follies in your demo. But dont be alarmed if you get a bad critic for your game.LOL.

I don't understand your point in those arguments. I use c_scan for AI, so I take advantage of it in collisions too. But this game is not about collisions, and no player will ever bother because two cars behave weirdly when they cross each other.

I mentioned the low FPS specs because you said you saw a car going through a building, that's a totally different matter in my code.

Bumped in to inform you that the screenshots and the download link on the first post are now updated; most bugs have been fixed now, and new 2D art designs are used for cops/criminals.

Still missing: ingame music and Hall of Fame functionality.

If you're in the mood to download and play it, I'd appreciate any feedback regarding the framerate, the look&feel or the gameplay feeling.

To me the graphics look good for whats happening on screen but the gameplay needs a bit more attention.

Turns are too abrubt, vehicles are oversized for the map and it crashed when the crook was cornered (got a dark screen with the pointer and no other activity, had to end task it)

Overall its a fine example for the gendre in GStudio but not enough advantages taken from current dev features like collisions.

I dont like installers for project tests as they add a heap more mess to the registry which I now have to remove but thats just my winge

I think you can refine this more as the style you have offerred shows clear competence and understanding of what you are using and doing.

Panel work, intro etc are all pro-level, great work.

P.S. Had no real probs with framerate (intial lag due to loading up (use a pre-loader system)), click and go works well but guesing how to stop crim was a bit iffy...

It's a start and a good one at that.Overall,textures and structural shapes can be optimized...great effort though.

The CrimeCity game is officialy out

Website: http://www.crimecitythegame.com

It took us two more months than expected, but now several things are improved. In general the gameplay is more interesting and the game more robust overall. Hey, even our musician, Pedro, was the IGF 2008 award-winner in audio excellence just a couple of days ago!

Let's hope it will be appealing to the casual (mostly) audience
Expect a worldwide press release early next week (will keep you posted).

PS. If you can bother playing it, we'd appreciate that you add some more points to the worldwide HallofFame.
Cheers.

hey I tried to dld the demo from the link above and it does not seem to work

hey zazang, the new download link is through the website: http://games.tetrahedron.gr/crimecity/download.php

Ok got it and played...VERY addictive game..congrats on completing it !

A few points

* the music and sounds are awesome !
* the camera rotations in the background level menu could be smooother
* an ability to click on the map to focus on some part of a level would be good.
* It ran a little jerky,(though not to the point of annoyance) even on my beast of a machine...I can play Crysis smoothly on my machine ;-)
* the menu fades take time...I would like it if they fade rapidly,but maybe its my personal choice

In all an extremely impressive and fresh game !

cheers
zazang

Thanks zazang, good observations, will definitely consider them in an upcoming release.

Hey, my 'baby' just got a press release (softpressrelease.com) and is now among the big players in all major sites' frontpages. Even though I had done the same thing with Days of Sail, it is always a huge overdose of excitement to see your game making headline news, even if this lasts for about a day!

Here's an excerpt from the press release, what do you think?

Crime Chasing Doesn’t Get Much Spicier Than This!

We are proud to unveil Crime City™, a brand-new crime chasing game for the Windows platform. The story involves around a big city filled with criminals. Crime in the city must be controlled and, should it get out of hand, be dealt with swiftly. Therefore, an elite police unit is created. This taskforce consists of Policemen in their cars trained in high speed pursuit and motorized urban tactics whose mission is to intervene rapidly and intercept any and all threats to the public before any harm be done. These policemen take their orders from YOU. You are the only line between order and anarchy. Take command of this elite police unit and let no one cross it.Crime City™ is a Fast Paced Point & Click Casual game in which speed and strategy are important. The rounds usually last no more than a few minutes each but there is a great deal of strategy buried in the game play.

For more details, visit http://www.crimecitythegame.com .

«This spring the winners will be players who love urban chasing bad guys» - Mr. Michael Takakis, Sales Director, said. «With Crime City™ we are opening the new product line that, as we believe, will be popular with anyone seeking Casual games with Real Time Strategy flavour. Crime City™ is not all about races and shooting, it’s an “urban hunting” game where players “hunt” for adventure on the city’s streets. This is an action-packed game with lots of challenges, realistic 3D graphics and ambient effects that will give players a good shot of adrenaline!» Mr Michael Takakis continued.

Crime City’s ™’ distinctive features are:

- Isometric fast paced Point & Click Casual game,
- Fresh graphic theme and world,
- Realistic 3D dynamic urban environment,
- Casual game play appeal with just point and click interaction,
- Replay ability value with a variety of villains to arrest,
- Atmospheric music & exciting sounds effects that increase the tension (by Pedro Macedo Camacho - IGF 2008 award-winner in «audio excellence» ),
- Sophisticated enemy AI,
- In-game tutorial,
- Unlimited levels; catch as many as you can,
- Play for the maximum of points and leave your mark to the worldwide Hall of Fame,

The 45-minute demo version of Crime City™ can be downloaded for free at http://games.tetrahedron.gr/crimecity/download.php

yeah, sorry about that. Unfortunately, I haven't got any control on it as the gamne now belongs to the publisher. I hope they will fix it soon.

Server bandwidth has exceeded the limit as I was told that there were 1300 unique visits in a day and more than 600 downloads.

As I already said, a press release's effects are indeed overwhelming...

Thanks sPlKe, you're precisely right with the posterisation effect! good catch!

What puzzles me though is this feedback I got at indiegamerforums about "The textures are very jagged". Does this mean that they are low resolution, as sPlKe also said? Is this noticeable on the top-down (ingame) view also or just when you're too close (in briefing screen)? After all, a resolution 512x512 for the building textures is not enough?

Jagged usually refers to your screen resolution being low and not anti-aliased... that's when you get 'jaggies', but I wouldn't know what they would mean with 'textures are jagged'. There aren't literally pixels visible in your textures right?

A wait, I just looked at the textures again and I think they are referring to how every texture looks pretty sharp and rough with points in them. On your road texture for example you can see quite sharp points, that does indeed look 'jagged',

Cheers

I always like to 'sharpen' my images a bit. Does that mean that I shouldn't do so in GS textures? What's the best photoshop technique to employ so that they don't look so 'jagged'?

Thanks.

a simple blur. however, this is not really visible in the top down view. only up close^^

did you know that there is a game named crime cities already , your game name
crime city is just a singular version of that , i wonder how you got away with
that , for example its like calling a game super mario brother , instead of super
mario brothers

nah, you cannot get a copyright on something liek crime cities. you can, but thats wotn interest anybody. its like copyrighting duck hunt or car driving...
heck, not even nintendo got a copyright on duck hunt...

Correct. Nobody cares about copyrighting a name anymore, 'cause it costs one heck of a lot of money - not to mention that it's an annual fee...

Actually Nintendo had a copyright on Duck Hunt in the past... it was lastly renewed in 1992. It's true that they've recently been denied a renewal because it's a 'generic descriptive' instead of a (unique) name.

( http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77131612 )

Don't worry though, they probably will be able to get a copyright on Ultimate Duck Hunting (Wii) and I don't think people would think about any other company but Nintendo when thinking about Duck Hunt anyway.

Cheers

well either way , on a good note your game looks very cool,i have nt played it
but looks like fun , congrats on it

although i like the game very much i was supprised to see 2 graphics in your game that i myself designed. The target and selection sprite are made by me for my C&C tutorial.


I dont want to be nitpicking but the tutorial has a tag "Credits." The least thing you could have done is mention me in the credits As not all graphic work is done
by your team.

i am not angry or mad just a little supprised.

Hey, Realspawn, I really admire your work and must thank you for the C&C tutorial. In fact, I wasn't aware that these graphics came from there. It's a misunderstanding as I thought that everything in that tutorial was free of use.

There's a new release being planned in a few weeks, as a major game portal expressed its interest in the game. I'm sure you'd be glad to know that I'll see that you are included in that release's credits

(personally, I think that your tutorial deserves it more than those simple graphics)

in that case feel free to honour me