Conquer Club

What do you guys think about a pentomino map?

For all of you guys who don't know, pentominos are all the possible arrangements of five units next to and above eachother. They are usually classified by numbers, or letters.

The pentominos would be placed in their standard format so that the form and easy rectangle, and holding all units of one pentomino would get you a bonus. We could hav bigger bonuses for holding two or more. Possibly we could show alternate formations of a group of pentominos, and give bonuses on that!

If My memory is right, the rectangle is about 6x10, or 60 units.

Not really anything in terms of special gameplay or rules. Just a simple map again, we are looking for an artist for this simple map. one that has photoshop will be prefered!

piece names:
A1: "P"
A3: "z"
A5: "f"
D1: "L"
E1: " i"
D3: "N"
B6: "y"
E4: "W"
G3: "x"
J1: "t"
J4: "V"
H3: "U"

v:1

this was an accidental post

here is the first draft! thanks


again, looking for comments on gameplay more than graphics

It sure is the most evil way to world domination, doing it one pentomino at a time.

I have a gameplay suggestion that might make it more varied and unique:
Use all the colours from a colour strip (so without making it darker) and make it so that only the colours next to each other on that strip have open borders, while the others have impassables. You could then puzzle which pentominoes to give what colour to find the ideal map.
Just throwing it out there.

And for your graphics artist:
What did you have in mind for the map? I can work to some degree with the GIMP (freeware variant of PS) and Inkscape (freeware vector tool). I think you're actually better of with someone doing vectors than raster graphics (like PS's main functionality).
I'm not exactly applying yet, I'm "inquiring" for more information.

iceco wrote:It sure is the most evil way to world domination, doing it one pentomino at a time.

I have a gameplay suggestion that might make it more varied and unique:
Use all the colours from a colour strip (so without making it darker) and make it so that only the colours next to each other on that strip have open borders, while the others have impassables. You could then puzzle which pentominoes to give what colour to find the ideal map.
Just throwing it out there.

And for your graphics artist:
What did you have in mind for the map? I can work to some degree with the GIMP (freeware variant of PS) and Inkscape (freeware vector tool). I think you're actually better of with someone doing vectors than raster graphics (like PS's main functionality).
I'm not exactly applying yet, I'm "inquiring" for more information.

the color strip idea, while creative, might make it a little messy. i was looking for a straightforward map where everybody can attack everybody next to them (or maybe few impassables)

as for the artist im looking for, anybody will do, really. as i see it, this is a simple map that needs no textures, and nothing really fancy.

i actually downloaded gimp yesterday and threw this together without knowing what the hell i was doing

it doesnt really matter how you do it, as long as it gets done again, this shouldn't be a very difficult map to do, just squares. maybe we could do a flash file like conquer man, and make each pentomino light up individually in their color. i do agree that the colors need changing, these are kinda bland...

With a map this size, defending your territories would seem hard, in my opinion.
You most likely will have to defend all 5, while you for example an average of 5 troops to deploy in a four player game. That means an awful lot of troops to defend your bonus. (5x5=25 at the very least, forgetting that at that stage there are stronger players with more troops per round)
Of course, they'll have to defend their territories too, so it would more become a game of who can poker the best and make everyone else to the fighting for him.

Personally I barely find that a demonstration of strategy and more of luck and randomness, like poker.

It is of course your idea and I can not make your decisions,

I also worked on an example of what I had in mind for the territories.

iceco wrote:With a map this size, defending your territories would seem hard, in my opinion.
You most likely will have to defend all 5, while you for example an average of 5 troops to deploy in a four player game. That means an awful lot of troops to defend your bonus. (5x5=25 at the very least, forgetting that at that stage there are stronger players with more troops per round)
Of course, they'll have to defend their territories too, so it would more become a game of who can poker the best and make everyone else to the fighting for him.

Personally I barely find that a demonstration of strategy and more of luck and randomness, like poker.

It is of course your idea and I can not make your decisions,

I also worked on an example of what I had in mind for the territories.

i guess you are right, maybe we could have like, four openning for each pentomino, or something.

as for your square, i love it!

Maybe this is too tight, but what if each pentomino is only open on those squares that only border one other square inside it, something like:

(White semicircle represent possible wrap-arounds)

Or, alternatively, only the end squares can be attacked into, but any bordering squares in other pentominoes can attack them -- which adds something like 20 one-way connections to the above map.

Evil DIMwit wrote:Maybe this is too tight, but what if each pentomino is only open on those squares that only border one other square inside it, something like:

(White semicircle represent possible wrap-arounds)

Or, alternatively, only the end squares can be attacked into, but any bordering squares in other pentominoes can attack them -- which adds something like 20 one-way connections to the above map.

the obvious problem i see with this is a case of dead ends and bottlenecks.

ie, look at the purple "w" piece. four in a row without other connections.

although your "only ends may attack" idea might work, although the brown x piece might be a wee bit hard to hold.

maybe we could incorperate bombardment into each piece's "central square" which would be pretty easy to determine on most pieces.

again, this gameplay is very rough and tumble, as long as the community likes it, im willing to take it in any direction!

I'll leave the gameplay up to others to decide.

Here are buttons 12 different colours. Tell me if you like the shade effect or if it needs tweaking.
The colours are just done according to the colour strip, not because I absolutely want my suggestion, but because it was the laziest way to show how the shades work with differrent colours.

iceco wrote:I'll leave the gameplay up to others to decide.

Here are buttons 12 different colours. Tell me if you like the shade effect or if it needs tweaking.
The colours are just done according to the colour strip, not because I absolutely want my suggestion, but because it was the laziest way to show how the shades work with differrent colours.

Click image to enlarge.

well, the buttons are really nice but i think there needs to be a more noticable change along the greens and blues. will colorblindness be an issue here?

i encourage you to become our artist! i know you are currently working on your poke map, but your help on this one would be greatly appreciated

could you also find some way to maybe somehow "melt" same colored squares to make them more unified, and obvious that htey are connected, for when we do put this in the map?

No, unless I do all 60 squares separately.
The problems then would be:

• Quite some work. Though I guess I can give it a shot when you really want... and are a bit patient.
• The squares probably wouldn't all be the same as for some reason the shades can't be copypasta'd
  (To safe strain, he transforms the shade from colour to white, instead of the original transparent to white. So when I give the square another colour, the shade has to be readded manually. - This time I solved it by importing it to GIMP, where I was able to adjust everything at the same time, though with altered shades and connections, that might no longer work.)
• I currently have no idea how I should make the shades to make it liquid. Chances are that the shade has to "die out" to both sides, which I don't know how to do yet.)

Ok, so you have 12 sections of 5 squares, right? IMO you should try to get 2 with only one border ( like the red one), 3 with 2 borders, 3 with 3 borders and 4 with 4 borders. Then, make each one will be worth the number of borders it has. That seems to me a good balance of big and small bonuses.
I will try to set it up this way without good graphics or anything later (ooh, a puzzle! Fun!) and then see if people think it is balanced.