Win8 Comp. RTS: Dust And Destruction

I saw the Windows 8 competition and decided to try my hand at making a RTS with randomly generated levels, barely managed to submit it just in time for the 14th (Here's hoping it gets approved <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle">). So far it's only three days work, but here's what my friend and I were able to do with the pre-made graphics from the Construct 2 art pack <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle">

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4714446/DnD/sshots/Title.png" border="0">

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4714446/DnD/sshots/UnitProduction.png" border="0">

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4714446/DnD/sshots/Gameplay.png" border="0">

If you'd like to try it early, you can play it at this link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4714446/DnD/index.html (probably works best in Firefox or Internet Explorer 10, no time to test it in Chrome yet)

We'll definitely add some more cool features like additional building construction and a tougher AI after the competition <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle"> Oh, and happy to fix any bugs anyone finds too when I get time <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Thanks to Kyatric for the awesome path behavior!

Edit:

Published to Chrome Web Store (crunched down to 10MB, plays offline): Dust And Destruction Chrome Edition

Published to Clay.io (possible future integration with leaderboards of rank and achievements): http://dustanddestruction.clay.io/

Wow Clay.io is nice! Now it's a Facebook app: https://apps.facebook.com/dust_and_destruction/

Edit 20/12/2012: Finally made it after a third submission! <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle"> Download it here http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-US/app/dust-and-destruction/897a48d9-83f2-438e-b4a5-3a4018aefbf5

Nice Game. I Love RTS <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

linkaevolution Thanks! Same here <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> Although I realize that calling the game D&D will more likely be interpreted as Dungeons and Dragons <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Ah not so lucky with the first round of submission <img src="smileys/smiley6.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> Well, here goes round 2! Also updated the program with changing construction icons depending on player color, a fullscreen option in the menus and pause screen, and some general bug fixes.

If it's still loading the old version (no Go Fullscreen option in the main and pause menus when not fullscreen, or no <Next> text in the tutorial) press ctrl+f5 to force your browser to grab the latest version <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

What did they fail you on? They failed me twice because of some nitpicky snap view things, which they didn't care about last time.

EyeHawk Heh same, snap view thing here but I found that it actually was a bug. Other thing they failed me on was the store description, which doesn't really seem like something to fail the whole app submission itself over?

Geez, it sounds like you've had a similar experience. Stuff like the failing you on the description and then having to start the whole process again is just plain stupid.

I've noticed they've gone from pretty relaxed to super retentive since the store launch. Anyway fingers crossed our games get in before the 21st! <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Yeah they're being pretty darn strict, I'm thinking of putting the game on other platforms in the mean time too. Heh I sure hope so EyeHawk <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Had some fun publishing it to other sites <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Published to Chrome Web Store (crunched down to 10MB, plays offline): Dust And Destruction Chrome Edition

Published to Clay.io (possible future integration with leaderboards of rank and achievements): Play Dust And Destruction on Clay.io

Wow Clay.io is nice! Now it's a Facebook app: Play Dust And Destruction on Facebook

Shame I can't put it on the Scirra arcade due to it using a custom behavior <img src="smileys/smiley6.gif" border="0" align="middle">

EyeHawk, looks like I won't be joining ya =/ Second time failing, this time for "Your app doesn't meet requirement 3.8.

The launch time and suspend time of an app depends on many variables, such as system load and configuration, which can vary from one computer to another and from one test to another. Because of this variability, a launch time or a suspend time that is just under the limit in one instance could be just over the limit, and fail the test, in another. "

Note from testers was: "App failed the Perf test in the Windows ACK" and then support center links that aren't tailored for my app.

Which is funny because the ACK part says this: "Technical compliance: passed

This tests your app with the Windows App Certification Kit. You can also run this the test locally from the SDK."

I'll remake the packages and resubmit for the fun of it, good luck to everyone who makes the competition <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

That's a bummer dude - I really wish they'd be more specific about the defects. Saying you have a performance issue really isn't explaining anything, which makes debugging almost impossible. Did they say what areas were slow, and quantify what 'slow' means? Low fps, cpu usage etc, and under what sort of hardware?

Also I do remember reading somewhere that it's recommended that we run the WACK on old PCs as well, as it may fail there due to lower specs.

Anyway, don't give up hope just yet, give it a good try - if you fix it in today or tomorrow and then submit it, sometimes they can turn it around really quickly on the same day. That's what happened for my 3rd submission.

EyeHawk, nope, just that it doesn't start up or suspend in enough time from the looks of it, but the test message was literally that the ACK didn't accept it, but it said accepted and let me upload the packages so that's weird?

Yeah, I'll try it again tonight and hopefully it's approved by tomorrow night.

EyeHawk, wow you're right about the speed of third submission! I just got approved <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle"> In a few hours it'll be published to the store!

Published: http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-US/app/dust-and-destruction/897a48d9-83f2-438e-b4a5-3a4018aefbf5

Edit: I'll list some changes I had to make, like EyeHawk I made it on the third try and the third approval was in less than 1 day.

To avoid snapping errors: Pause your game on snap (and make sure it doesn't conflict with normal game pausing as was my case), if you want your game to still work maybe you can mess with canvas size at runtime though

Make sure your description and images are final and fully detailed before submission, you can't patch it up without approval and the first review took me at least 4 days to find that out.

Try this to decrease load time: use lower res graphics on the intro layout (in my case I sized a 1366x1366 graphic to 512x512, and another 512x512 graphic to 256x256. Then you can resize them in the editor which will add a little blur but performance issues should be cleared), this is what held me up the second submission. If the ACK even gives a slight warning, you can probably count it as a failure to submit to the market.

It isn't too helpful from either the pre-testing or the review comments, but if you make sure the first layout loads as quickly and correctly as possible then you'll only need to worry about in-game bugs after.

Good luck with the competition Jay, its interesting how we all get different issues on our first submissions. Soon we'll be pro's at it and get accepted first time!

Po10c Thanks, you too! and yeah, that's the goal :D

Your game is really cool by the way, if you're looking to put it up on other sites too you can upload to Chrome and Clay.io (and later Facebook from there), very quick to get approved and the only part that's tough is making the 10mb limit for Chrome <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Export for Chrome: http://www.scirra.com/tutorials/68/publishing-to-the-chrome-web-store/page-1

Export for Clay.io: http://www.scirra.com/tutorials/349/publishing-your-game-to-the-clayio-marketplace

Export from Clay.io to Facebook as an app: http://clay.io/docs/facebookapp (There was a tricky part with testing the resizing in Facebook app settings page, I ended up going for fluid width and height though)