Ok, for those who have never heard or played Motherload or whos never been to XgenStudios forums, here is a basic overview of the game:

You are hired by a Martian mining corporation to dig out minerals for profit. You either can keep this money or buy new upgrades and gadgets (what u should do actually).
MLU is an exploration-strategy game, where not only do u have to go deep underground in search of precious minerals, but u also have to maximize your resources in order to play the game.
The rules and controls are similar to the original game, Motherload, developed by Xgen Studios. There are of course differences.
Controls:
1. You have to press Space Bar in order to dig horizontally. Ok, many have suggested that I should use left-right arrow keys to do that, but the nature of my game actually favors that I separate digging from moving. You will get used to it quickly.
2. 99.9 % of the game is keyboard controlled. This is mainly to keep the player in game and not have him search for the mouse and get distracted.
Another reason is that I've been developing this game on a laptop, which has its own keyboard mouse, but its functions and range are limited. In the original Motherload, mouse functions are implemented, but they are seldom used. So I thought, why not eliminate mouse all together. The only time when u have to use the mouse is to activate the applet (by clicking on it) and to exit the game (close the browser).
Game logic
1. There is no boss (yet, it may be subject to change).
2. There is only one shop. This does lose some of the realism of the original Motherload, yet with that feature you can update yo digger and buy stuff quickly and easily.
3. As of yet the digger physics are very primitive. (Also subject to change).

Some advantages over original Motherload
1. Larger ground map. MLU uses a ground map about 9 times the size of the original Motherload. Here are the numbers:
Xgen width: 30 blocks, height: ~500 blocks
MLU width: 48 blocks. height: 3000
Ok, you may be worried that the game might get boring when u have so much space. However, as u go down, new challenges and rewards are encountered that should keep u playing (i hope). Hence the second part...
2. More minerals. There are more than 40 minerals in the game. Many minerals have different abilities, and are not just "mineral junk" that fills up your hull.
3. There are 8 upgrades/gages in total. This actually keeps u worried about one gage or another all the time. Again, this also can be an upside not a downside.
4. You can play offline. Ok, maybe everyone has internet these days, and can access the game at anytime. But actually, if u have internet u certainly have a computer, not the other way around. So MLU is more accessible. Plus, you dont have to rely on some server or yo internet provider. ... which leads to part 5.
5. You can save the game offline. Recently (Summer-Fall 2007), Xgen server was malfunctioning, resulting in problems with logging in. MLU does not have those problems. Also, u can save your progress, which u couldnt do with Xgen ML. MLU does not force you to start from the beginning. Instead, u can resume where you left off. The save file is about 100KB, so u never have to worry about space issue. You can have as many save files as your hard disk allows.
6. Bigger window. 800x600, compared to 550x400.
7. Runs at lower CPU. 25% compared to 60-80% (on my laptop).
Technical data:
The game is an applet written in java and uses a HTML page (a browser) to run it. The game is played offline. The game data is saved to a file that is located next to the HTML page and the JAR file. Off course, java has some disadvantages (compared to C++ for example). Sometimes its difficult to get the game started because of the different version of java runtime environment (JRE) and different settings of your browser. Also, java graphics can be slow, resulting in flickering and slow load time. Of course, the results can vary depending on your operating system, processing capabilities and graphics card. Overall, the game should run smoothly.



The game is a developing project. So new updates will follow.

People working on the game:
Me (alexxz4): programmer, game logic.
Sethness: graphics editor.
thescorpion420: database support.

Anyways, enjoy playing.  

--Last edited by alexxz4 on 2007-10-25 14:20:05 --