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Apr

Trebuchet!

   Posted by: Con in Game Design, News

You guys may have seen the little hints through twitter and the like, I’m taking time out from my two current projects to do the art for a game with Joey Betz from Armor.

It’s a remake of Castle Clout, with permission from the author but we’re adding a bunch of features as well. It seems that working out the physics in code wasn’t appealing so the guys at the Armor office decided that building a scale model of the trebuchet that will eventually be used to lay seige to downtown LA was a good idea. Photos and more info over at Armor Blog.

Meanwhile I’ve been enjoying doing purely photoshop work for the last week, heres a not quite finished shot of the main play screen:

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12 comments so far

Ash
 1 

So whats the diffrence going to be with your game and castle clout?

April 5th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Aus_Autarch
 2 

Fantastic! These sort of games are very much fun and enjoyable strategy.

It would be very useful if some of the “physics data” could be accessed for use in science classes (I am a science teacher…) - if you could provide the following types of data simply, that would make the game much more usable in class experimentation -
Height of weight drop
Mass of weight
Angle of release of projectile
Speed of release of projectile
Maximum range of shot

Given that there tend to be objectins from the local school authorities if you attempt to build a trebuchet or other siege weapon, it would be good if the data that drove the simulation could be simply accessed!

Thanks!

April 5th, 2009 at 11:25 am
cowabunga
 3 

Thats pretty awesome. i actually enjoyed the basic concept of castle clout, but i found it to elementary in actual design, physics, and art. I’m glad you all are remaking it. Let us know when its done, ok?

April 5th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
soapaintnice
 4 

Looks good. Castle Clout is a fun game. I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys do with it.

April 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
cowabunga
 5 

hey congrats on 10 million plays on Warfare!

April 6th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Francis
 6 

Great I love Castle Clout, and yours will even be better! Try to make the graphics better than Castle Clout. And better thing that happen to enemies when you shoot them.
When I first played Castle Clout 2, I cracked up when I shot the guy and he screamed. Eventually I got tired of it. You should make it on different turrains, too.

April 7th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Robo
 7 

Wow that looks amazing

April 11th, 2009 at 5:33 am
HELLS FIRST WAVE
 8 

when it out?

April 12th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Phazz
 9 

A couple fun facts (little-known maybe) that I remember about trebuchets off of the top of my head:

(1) Trebuchets were an early form of biowarfare - when it was managable, invading armies were known to let dead animals (e.g. horses/cows if possible!) rot until they contracted as much disease as possible, then they’d fling it inside castle walls. It’d spread in the air and explode everywhere on impact, spreading disease and could wipe out a major portion of the castle population because of the lack of sanitation and medicine in those days.

(2) Counter-intuitively, trebuchets with wheels shoot significantly farther. When this was discovered, it advanced the abilities of the siege weapon since they often couldn’t set up the weapon any closer because of long-range archers. (I noticed that you omitted wheels in the version you posted.) The simplest “English plz” explanation is that more of the sheer force of the weight’s drop can be funneled into the end of the arm if the weight is allowed to drop straight down instead of taking a curved path.

Maybe those will be helpful, or just interesting! ;)

April 15th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Dark-Star
 10 

*looks at all the details*

Wow. A good reminder of how much work goes into flash games of your caliber. All I can say is that it’ll be well worth the wait if your previous productions are any clue.

April 21st, 2009 at 11:54 am
dude
 11 

Cool, I’m looking forward to another Warfare game.

Totally trivial, but the biggest Trebuchet ever had a name—-WAR WOLF.

April 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
GoodGame
 12 

This game turned out great, congrats!

December 31st, 2009 at 12:24 am
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