[SIZE=+1]Ever wanted to play arcade style skeeball in Halo? Probably not...but now you can![/SIZE] Stockpile SkeeBall is designed as a one-player game. Just you vs. the clock. As long as it's just you in the game the auto-scoring will work. It is possible to play with friends, but you would have to take turns and play with an "honor points system." The one time I did try to play with friends they pretty much ruined the game Scoring is simple The smaller the target the more points you score. I've taken Wheels36's Stockpile scoring idea to a new level. I've created a complete rail system for the ball to travel on. The ball travels along the rails and triggers the explosives to drop flags into the score zone. The ball returns exactly where it began, ready for you to take another shot. I've pretty much worked out all of the bugs. I added rails and ramps so that the ball never gets stuck. I also added man cannons and rails to prevent the ball from traveling backwards in the rail system and triggering higher point flags. This isn't a 100% fix. Very rarely you'll pick up an extra point by the ball getting through the one-way system. The ball once popped back out of the 4 point zone but made its way back down the 1 point zone, and once the ball didn't trigger a mine and froze in the system. I altered the mine's position and it hasn't happened again. Because the flags get collected every 15 seconds it is possible for you to follow up with a shot that doesn't get some/any points if you move the ball through the system quick enough. In order for it to happen your previous flags need to just miss the collection time and you have to have a really clean followup shot. At times you might have to pace yourself just a tad. [SIZE=+1]Download the map and gametype and give it a try. [/SIZE] My high score is 40 points, but I left plenty of room for improvement. Let me know if you beat it! [SIZE=+2]Gameplay & Fly Through Video[/SIZE] [bungievid]12020210[/bungievid] As always...ENJOY!
Looks interesting. I'll defiantly give it a DL and try to beat your score Looks very well made, must of taken you a while. Anyway, good job dude.
Now this is a really clever system you've got. Simple, but definitely effective. I've seen the same concept used on several other maps but certainly not like this. Looks like it'll be a really good party game. In the video it looks like your system works flawlessly, I'm really liking the point system. I'll have to try this out tomorrow or whenever I can, but good job regardless
Brilliant! Absolutely ingenious! I bet it took you a -blam!-load of time to finish it! It looks really fun, but I wonder; does it have multiplayer capabilities, and if not, may I edit the map so more than one ball and more flags, and therefore more people, are in play?
WOW!!!!!!! This looks amazingly, super awesome. Very creative I love how you put the three shoots in for the skee ball to go down ingenius point system. I wana play it super bad. definatly DLing right now.
Wow, talk about a game/map that is well thought out. I watched the video and i could tell that there are no obvious mistakes, everything runs smoothly, and the way u used the flag system as a way to gain points is ingenius. I really wanna go give this a try. great job dude 5/5
Love it, I wanted to try something like this but never had the time or know how. I really like your ball return system, must have taken you a hell of a lot of tries to get perfect.
Dude. I like you (no ****) You are one of those people who could throw a map together and it would be amazing. Thank you for inventing a badass way to kill time. This would be epic if it could be like a four player competitive (or 2 player) with this scoring system and it would be epicness. Nice work amigo!
Looks amazing. Great job with the ball return system. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of random elements involved in achieving point values. In other words, it seem to straight forward to get the high points. Maybe you should have had some falling fusion coils or man cannons to make the ball fly around a bit. Or maybe the ball could return to three different spots instead of just one. Let's say like center, left & right. In real skeet ball, you don't always just through the ball up the center every time. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea and the mechanics work great. I would just like to see it have more random elements or have to use more skill to earn the higher points. Maybe you can have an opposing team throwing nades down through a cage to deflect the ball a bit. Not sure? I would like to see you take the idea to a higher level. Edit: I just tired the map and I take back a lot of what I said. The video actually makes it look easier than it really is. It is not as easy to get the higher points as I assumed. Great job. I really like this map. I would like to see it get a feature for mini game. Maybe you can make a V2 with more effects. Maybe like juicy and purple. Than you could use different lights to give it a more arcady feel. Great work!
how much budget did it cost you without aesthetics? i hope you can build an exact one right next to it for 2 player play!
Thanks for all the wonderful feedback guys. I think it's safe to say that we've all created maps that we're pretty proud of but don't get looked at much. Needless to say with Halo Waypoint featuring this yesterday (thanks SFXAcidic and BS Angel ... and perhaps more to come!) that's not going to happen with this map of mine. Thanks for the support. I appreciate it. I tried several things to try and get this to play as a muti-player map. The way the map is set up only one team can get points. I did make it possible for you to go into the game as any color and get those points, but if you go in with multiple teams the system with choose at the beginning which team gets the points and all flags will go to that team. It would be epic if the system could transfer damage to the flags to indicate who gets the points...but it doesn't. The next thing I thought of would be to make each person take turns hitting the ball with a soft kill zone in the play area and a one person on the map max at any time. That would give one person 10 seconds to take a shot and then the next person would get a turn, but I couldn't find settings in the system to do that. I believe I remember that option in Halo 2 though... humm. As far as budget goes there's only $10 left. If I take out all non essential items the budget goes up to $940, but I have 1 door left (I used rounded walls to make the circles), zero decorative items left (I used railings to make the ball return system), and zero man cannons (used to keep the ball from moving backwards in the ball return system) I may be able to streamline the system a bit more, but I still wouldn't have enough to build two machines next to each other (which would be epic FYI) So yes, there is a little room to maybe do effects in the future, but as of now I can't figure out a way to make it a multiplayer (competitive or non-competitive) game at the moment. If you have any ideas though....by all means let's collaborate. The best idea yet is x Dream 76 x's idea of grenades by the opposing team. I may be able to figure out that one. It is harder than it looks! What I like most about it (and I forgot to mention this in my description) is that I can invite my nephews (and even niece) to play "Halo" with me and their mom can't get mad! They're still having a little trouble figuring out how to move and look around, but the seem to enjoy it so far. Again, thanks for all the wonderful comments!
No problem! Just hit up when you create some maps. H2O Acidic is my gamertag. If any of you would like to see the Halo Waypoint post go to http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/news/blog/arcade-style-skee-ball-in-halo-reach/12780
Amazing. I'm glad to hear that it's easier than it looks. I'd hate for you to put all that time in and then have the game be too easy and get old really quick. I'll have to download this and give it a shot.
you map is perfect except for its efficiency. If you were to place small shield doors right on top of your land mines so that they still detonated but did not send the ball back up the chute then you could get rid of many of your other blocks and gadgets which were put in to stop it from getting jammed, also if your looking for money to finance these changes you have two grids which can be replaced by colliseum windows or walls easily, saves $380, and you can get rid of your long railings which guide the ball and replace them by 1X1 blocks tall and thin each decorative piece is $50!! so u should be able to save some money there. If you can wait till tomorrow night i can fix it with u if u want GT: SGTRmadillo
So if I understand you correctly the shield door will protect the ball from the explosion? Because the ball can still travel backwards through the shield door. If that's the case I'll have to try that out. As far as everything else, I must admit that a lot of what I did was for aesthetics (grids & railings) I think that being able to see the ball travel through the return system adds to the feel of the map. I really don't think that I'd want to change anything (except if the shield doors work) for a single player game. But these are all good suggestions that would work if I tried to make it a multiplayer offense & defense game. However I believe I'm out of doors. I had to use a lot of them for the rings.
Stockpile SkeeBall Enjoyment Stockpile SkeeBall can bring a good amount of fun for some time, but the fun soon begins to whither. The game becomes somewhat repetitive. It's not very enjoyable to continually whack a golf ball. Though when the player first loads up the game, the idea is new and fun for a game or two. While some might find the game a challenge and enjoy it, most people will get frustrated and want to go and go do something else. There wasn't enough intensity in the game to make one want to play it. While the way the golf ball was returned was a nice feature, the game soon began to lose it's action-packed fun when the player had to wait a few good seconds for it. Balance After playing this countless times, frustration begins to set in. Due to the extreme difficulty to hit the golf ball into the center ring, many players will want to go play something else. Whenever playing skeeball in real life, it's always such a feat to make it into the central ring which is why the size of it is understandable. Even the second ring was hard to hit, but with practice, it is attainable. An adjustment to the ring size is necessary, as making it into the higher point rings was too hard. Durability A player cannot escape Stockpile SkeeBall in any way, but the gametype really needs some tweaking. Giving the player low gravity and a jetpack just makes the player want to explore the scoring area up high as well as other areas. It'd make perfect sense just to simply remove the jetpack and low gravity so that the player will just focus on the game. If for some reason the jetpack and low gravity were wanted to be kept, a simple soft barrier placed in the scoring zones would easily suffice. Even if these settings are completely unnecessary, it doesn't hinder the gameplay. Aesthetics The only noticeable aesthetic on the map is the text "Skee" and a golf ball next to it mounted up high above the scoring areas. It's a subtle aesthetic, but a nice touch. The two grids weren't the cleanest choice for flooring and took away the overall appeal as well as just making it look tacky. Maybe you just wanted to showcase your cool scoring mechanic, but some 5x5 flats will look much better than some hideous grids. It wasn't clear if how much the player was scoring after he made the ball into the ring. There was no defining factor that let's te player know the amount they score. Perhaps some numbers on the rings would help ease the problem. The whole map in general just needs some touching up. Serious z-fighting is present throughout. Z-fighting is a simple fix and to just leave it as is isn't professional. The two banks that enclose the final gravity lift that sends the ball could look better. It doesn't seem to be a natural part of the map. Originality Never before has Skeeball been brought into the realms of Halo, making Stockpile SkeeBall an unknown and crazy experience. The game could have been created in Reach in a cleaner manner. While the map serves it's purpose, it needs to be revised. The map seems rushed and sloppy in many areas. The Stockpile scoring mechanic has been made numerous times, and isn't anything new. The mechanism is clean, simple and straight to the point, and always works without fail. The golf ball returning mechanism is a new and cool feature as well. Everything about Stockpile SkeeBall is original. Real life games made in Halo don't tend to be very fun, but Stockpile SkeeBall is brought in a cool and intuitive way. [floatleft]Enjoyment Balance Durability Aesthetics Originality[/floatleft]3x 6/10 for 18/30 3x 6/10 for 18/30 1.5x 8/10 for 12/25 1.5x 6/10 9/25 1x 9/10 for 9/10 [floatleft]Average Score[/floatleft]66/100 With a little more effort and something a bit more unique, this game could be awesome. Stockpile SkeeBall has much untapped potential. This awesome game is sadly coupled with a sub-par map. If the map could undergo some much needed revisions, Stockpile SkeeBall could be an amazing game to play. Final Score Understanding the Review Hub's Ratings
There seems to be a slight glitch in your scoring system that really annoys me. When the ball goes into the slot for 1 point, it sometimes seems to get stuck... and this seems to break the whole game for me as the ball then takes forever to respawn. It first happened when I was on like 35 points or something and i still had like 1.30 left Is there anything you can do to fix it???
I just randomly decided to check out the mini game maps today and I'm glad I did. You have implemented the skeeball idea here almost perfectly, and the scoring/return system is pretty awesome. I also like the fact that this is a single player mini game. I don't look at mini game/casual maps that often, but I haven't seen too many games that you can play by yourself other than puzzles. Like Dream was saying, if you decide to make another skeeball map, it would be cool to have an extreme skeeball version with multiple ball return areas, maybe some random mines on the board, and other features like that. But I'm not trying to take anything away from this map, nice job!
Wasnt this the original skeeball map and gametype? Because the bungie Weekly Update just credited some other skeeball map (which Im pretty sure showed up a week or two after this one here on FH). I know bungie has the right to do whatever, but they threw a lot of praise at the other skeeball map for being creative and original, when it was not the first of its kind. And even though bungie was just trying to show it to everyone, they should still give this one (or the original if this isnt it) the credit, not to mention it makes the original map/idea creator feel completely ripped off, which is not right. And I would cut bungie some slack but it probaly takes like 5 minutes of research to find these things out, not to mentioned they should've learned to credit the original from that Empire map. For the case of both the Empire copy and skeeball map in the BWU, I instantly knew they were not the originals from the little time I spend here. Bungie should get it right the next time.