| Author: | Sandor Zsuga (Jubatian) |
|---|---|
| License: | GNU GPLv3 (version 3 of the GNU General Public License) |
Outpost in the Dragon's Maw is a combination of Match-3 and Tower Defense for the Uzebox console (http://www.uzebox.org).
After the discovery of a lush new continent, you are tasked with establishing the first settlement on its shores to exploit its riches. This all goes well until mysterious disappearances start to surface along with uncertain sighting of large flying creatures...
This game is still in Work In Progress, however the main gameplay should be largely complete and hopefully enjoyable as a proper game.
For playing the game you either need an Uzebox (or build something compatible using an ATMega644p), see http://www.uzebox.org, or use an emulator such as CUzebox or Uzem. For peripherals you need an SNES controller only (no SD card is required).
Game binaries are provided (a .hex and a .uze file, the former can be burned in the ATMega directly, the latter can be used with Uzeboxes with an SD card slot and a bootloader) in the _bin_ folder, so you don't necessarily need to compile if you just want to play it.
You can navigate the cursor with the D-Pad (or arrow keys in emulators).
Selections can be made or cleared with Select, Y or B (the CUzebox emulator maps Select to Space on the keyboard).
Switching between menus (to end turn early or spend gold) can be made with any other button on the controller (with the CUzebox emulator convenient keys on the keyboard could be Shift keys or Enter).
The goal is building up your defenses to guard your settlement against the ever increasing onslaught of dragons by matching items on the playfield. Move at least three of them adjacent in a row or column to make a match.
- Stone towers are able to shoot at dragons in their close proximity (adjacent tiles including diagonals).
- Wooden ballista towers are able to shoot diagonally to any distance. They are unable to shoot directly above them.
- Cannons shoot explosive cannonballs forward which deal splash damage covering nine tiles.
- Markets buff the four directly adjacent tiles, so towers or cannons there deal more damage. Their bonus if multiple markets are adjacent to a tile doesn't stack.
- Gold gives you money to spend on expanding the settlement or to get more work done in a month.
The options in the Gold menu:
- End: Ends the month early. Up to a month's worth of swaps can be carried over to the next month if using this option.
- Pop: Get one more population. Every 10 population gives an extra swap for the month! This option gets more expensive if used excessively.
- Swap: Get an extra swap. Using it multiple times within the month makes it more expensive (there are limits how much your people can work!).
- Anyswap: Swap the tile where the cursor currently is with any other tile on the field.
While playing, knowing the followings may also come handy:
- Large matches and combo matches also earn you gold.
- Matching five or more tiles will jump a level (for example matching five small Level 1 towers would result in a Level 3 tower).
- Any item can be dropped at the cost of a swap by holding Select on it for about a second.
- An accidential swap (unless it matched) can be reverted by swapping the items back (even after an attack wave).
The followings are required to compile the game:
- The avr-gcc toolchain, any recent version should do.
- Python3 with the modules in PythonRequirements.txt installed.
- The packrom binary to generate the .uze file.
Once setting these up (packrom copied into the repo root or the Makefile edited to point at its location), using "make" should build the game.
All the game contents created by Jubatian (Sandor Zsuga) may also be used according to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. Note that the game kernel contains components which are created by various authors (from the UzeBox project) which can only be used under GPLv3.