The Daily Click

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Author:	MJK	Submitted:	21st May, 2006	Favourites:	0
Genre:	Miscellaneous	Downloads:	258
Rated:

Edited By MJK on 24/05/2006

Edited By MJK on 22/05/2006

MINERAL MINER is a little game that mixes some light strategy with finance and arcade.

The goal is to collect natural resources, refine and sold them for the biggest possible profit. Player must search the playfield for new deposits of iron/coal/oil/gold and keep an eye on the varying market prices of the different resources. Also the distance to the target, fuel costs and repairing costs must be taken into consideration. The resource will be refined at the HQ and sold after leaving the HQ. Gained funds come from the refined resource units multiplied by the current market value of an unit.

The playfield is relatively large, and in the beginning the distances are considerable with slower vehicles. Thus, it's important to think is it worthwhile to go for all the deposits that appear on the screen.

By the money you've got, you're able to upgrade your vehicle for faster mining, bigger fuel load or bigger resource storage space. Likewise, you can buy upgrades for your HQ that result in faster unloading of the resources from the vehicle to the market. All of these additions increase your future cash flow potential, but you must consider whether they are worthwhile in the given context (of playfield properties and level objectives). You should always consider the potential ROI (return on investment) of your decisions.

The playfield is occasionally occupied by hostile terrorists who will try to damage your vehicle and the HQ. You need to pay attention to the energy levels and repair them when needed.

Features:
- 3 game modes: campaign, 10:00 and Survival
- 19 levels
- Online hi-scores
- Local record files for every level
- Complete instructions

Controls:
ARROW KEYS - move the vehicle
SHIFT - start mining (collect the resource)
TAB - toggle on/off the vehicle information
ALT+ENTER - switch to full screen
ENTER - display level objective
1/2/3 - display additional information

EDIT1: few minor fixes

EDIT2: v1.02
- partial repairing/refueling possible
- additional info (display with 1,2 and 3)
- couple of bug fixes

Review This Download

http://koti.mbnet.fi/mjkgames/mineralminer102.zip (4177 kkb )

Posted by Hempuli

22nd May, 2006

hmmm.. Not to bad...

That fog effect is horrible...

Posted by MJK

22nd May, 2006

Thanks Hempuli

Now let's see who manages to make the biggest money in the 10:00 mode.... who tops 50k first?

Posted by Roman-the-evil

22nd May, 2006

Nice game, although engine is not completely fine. Sometimes vehicle behaves strangely.

Posted by Kamukoira

23rd May, 2006

Nice game but stone is GRADIENT and it looks awful.

Posted by Ganymede Graphics

23rd May, 2006

how does the 360 degree movement work, i have no idea how you would do that, if it involves like reaallly complicated syntax don't bother about it, cause i'm sorta a noob

Posted by MJK

23rd May, 2006

Hehe, gradient stone, yes. I'm actually proud of those. They really showcase my graphics designing potential - in full.

Anyway, thanks for all the comments..keep them coming.

Posted by MJK

23rd May, 2006

Btw, it's still kind of silent in the online hi-score boards...don't hesitate to submit your results! Both in the 10:00 and Survival modes.

Posted by axel

23rd May, 2006

Those counters and stuff should be less transparent. Hard to see them.

Posted by Del Duio

24th May, 2006

MJK, you take constructive criticism better than I do, bien!

Posted by Del Duio

24th May, 2006

MJK, you take constructive criticism better than I do, bien!

Posted by MJK

24th May, 2006

Axel, that's true actually. I will probably make them more visible to the next update. Thanks for mentioning..

Del Duio, well I do try to, when the criticism really is constructive, that is, useful. As are all the points made above here. The only problem with the usual feedback is that they concentrate too much on the graphics/engine side of the game while the feedback on the actual game concept would be as much or even more useful.

Anyway, looking forward to hear every comment..

Posted by Mruqe

24th May, 2006

This is one of those games where a great idea suffers from quite a collection of annoying things.

First of all - the game is very random. It's hard to develop a strategy when the resources you want to mine tend to vanish in thin air when you're on your way to them.

Second problem - slugishness. The vehicle moves realllllyyy sloooooowww... In 10:00 I was able to complete only 2-3 runs. It wouldn't hurt to speed things up a bit so people won't fall asleep while playing ;P

Third problem - minor one - you didn't say clearly enough how to sell the refined resources. When I was playing for the first time I had no idea how to do that - so I went and read the readme file while my vehicle was standing in the HQ and time was running out. Runnin out. Running out. Ran out...

Fourth problem - it's easy to get stuck. If you make a first run that turns out to be a dissaster (to little minrals to get, or they disappear while you're on the way) and you run low on fuel, there's no way you can continue playing. You can't refuel because the price of a full refill is more than you have. There should be an option to refuel the vehicle not fully but just as much as you can afford.

Fifth - I couldn't submit my score once. Even though I submited the previous one just 10 minutes before.

I would point out the poor graphics, but you are well aware of that. Maybe you could get someone to do some graphics for you and update the game?

That's for the criticism. And now I need to say, that I DO enjoy your game. I love this kind of games where you try to turn your hard work into money and equipment to make some more money and so on... Like David Braben's Frontier

Overally - this is a thumbs up game, but it really needs some improvment to make it more playable for an avarage gamer such as myself.

regards,
M.

PS. And for the blowing-my-own-horn part of this comment: I recall you said you liked my Munchie game. A new, highly improved version is now up. Go here: http://tinyurl.com/nova2 to check it out.

Posted by DELETED!_by account owner

24th May, 2006

Cool game i scored 46065 in 10min mode. (i submitted it too IM NUMBER 1)

Posted by Nothing, Ok?

24th May, 2006

My computer laggs and you can't play the game when i try to collect minerals. ^^ I quess my comp is old...

Posted by MJK

24th May, 2006

Ok, thanks for your effort, Mruqe. Good comments. Let's see..

"Randomness" Yes it is. Though the market prices are not completely random..there is a bit more behind them. But if you look at many real world phenomenon, they are - surprisingly often - quite random.

Anyway, in playing you just need to take into account the fact that after the day 30 the market prices WILL change. Buy a faster vehicle to minimize the risks in this sense, as well, or don't go for long distance deposits. There are many risks in every business!

"Vehicle's slow speed". The default vehicle is really slow so that there would be incentive for upgrading. Distances are quite large and it will become boring if you try to go for each deposit without considering the distance to it. In 10:00 you should be able to go for green/blue/purple vehicles which are much faster.

3rd and 4th: I agree completely with these. Thanks for pointing these out.

5th: Submitting may not always work, but there is also an IP-limit so that only the best score from the player will be shown.

"Graphics": I'm not going to put any effort to looking somebody to draw new graphics for me, but if someone volunteers, I will be pleased to check out what he has to offer

If I would do a commercial game, it would be a bit different case then.

And finally, great improvement with your game, Munchie. I'll check it out.

@firespell, thanks for the compliment. A nice result, too. I guess 100,000 is somekind of a limit in the 10:00 mode, so 46k is really good.

@NothingOk, it seems that your comp is old, because the game should run fine most of the time. There will usually be a slowdown if the happens to generate over 600 (or so) resource units to the playfield at the same time. Sorry if you couldn't play it. :/

PS. If anyone is interested in making some levels (with certain objectives, terrain objects and other level properties), send me some DC mail..

Posted by MJK

24th May, 2006

I made a minor update. v1.02 contains:
- partial upgrading/refueling (just the amount you can afford)
- HQ upgrades will automatically repair the HQ as well. This makes it more reasonable to upgrade the HQ.
- additional information can be seen by pressing 1 (current day in total, made money per day), 2 (exact market prices of all the resources, total sum of money available in the resources of the playfield) and 3 (total repairing/refuelling costs -> this gives you a kind of a "breakeven"-figure in one run..what you need to gain in minimum to handle the costs).
- couple of bug fixes
- also now it's little more clearly explained how to actually sell the resources after refining.

Author

MJK
Possibly Insane

Registered
22/03/2006
Points
3592

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