PC Game Design and Creation Challenge 2!

PC Game Design and Creation Challenge 2!

Welcome to the new and improved PC Game Design Challenge. Over the coming months we'll design a 1-3 level demo for PC. Ultimately there will be a part three, in which we can concentrate on what's next? The end of the cycle.

Every week a challenge will be set, so we can discuss how the design cycle affects us holistically. What's a good or bad idea, how to try and a approach more complicated subjects and breakdowns of certain ideas into the creation of a game. Not just dreaming about an implementation.

Game design parameters:

The purpose is to make a demonstration of a full game (a subset if you will) that can be showcased and used for marketing purposes. Genre types include (RTS, FPS, RPG) the setting is up to you (SCI-FI, Medieval as a couple of examples).

Length of the demo: Your demo must last for at least 30 minutes.

THIS IS A 3D ONLY CHALLENGE!.

Example goals are a guideline. They are there to reference as mile stones, if you don't get that far don't worry.!

Layout:

Note: New contenders to the challenge will be given a month additional to catch up.

Part 1: The approach!

How do we approach ideas?! Research!!

The first week will involve play testing an already successful game, although were not there just to enjoy them. Note down any interesting points, from artwork, to mechanics / flow of the game and how it fits together. From the UI / Sound right through to the story line and how said storyline affects mechanics.

Talk about creating an emotional response in visual mediums!. This is where you start writing the overall plot.!

Week 2: The design doc!

We'll touch on the plot and refine ideas (P.S try to word it so people can't guess the end before they've played it) just some general conceptions, the systems we'll implement and how to tie core components together estimating a timeline. A design doc can be updated, but it's essential we know what were trying to achieve. We'll discuss target market's and who were doing this for.!

Month 1:

Based on your design document Implementation, we'll be looking how to roughly prototype variable systems. At this point we should have the plan thoroughly evaluated. There should be no doubt about the processes and what needs to be done:

We want something functional by the end of this process, which enables us to visualise our end goal. We'll also discuss resource management and advanced game topics.!

Example goals for this month:

• A basic blockout (cubes etc.) to figure out AI / Navmesh impact.
• A basic UI that will allow you to exit the game, change basic settings and have basic interaction (pause, save).
• A basic camera and player controller system.
• A basic start screen leading into the game.
• A rough prototype of more advanced systems (let's say your game requires an inventory for example.)
• A basic combat mechanic system.
• A basic navigation system.
• Basic level loading / interaction (trigger volume) support.
• A basic introduction to the story, the game must have a purpose.
• A basic Health system, or reward system.
• Create a basic understanding of time association for various mechanics.

Month 2:

Art Month, this is the part where we create assets and animations, talk about speeding up the pipeline.. Talk about maximising efficiency with tools and setting an engaging immersive atmosphere to further draw in your customers. Whilst the art doesn't need to be perfect, it does require you to get as close as you can. It's less to polish later..

A breakdown is required (don't be shy, we all can improve)..

Example goals for the month:

• Turn blockouts into functional level design, using materials and textures. (Highly recommend shaderforge or equivalent for this).
• Modular workflows and procedures.
• Turn enemy's into collide able objects w/ animation, learn to use sockets and third party toolsets efficiently.
• Learn and implement post processing, lighting systems, colour correction.
• Learn and implement advanced material functions like world camera offset, noise masks, emissive materials and trigger post process for event cycles.
• Learn and implement basic particles for various objectives.
• Learn and implement systems like atmospheric scattering, light shafts and other useful tools.

Month 3:

Back to basics, in this month we'll learn about improving our skillsets. Instead of warping around in circles by yourself, we'll spend an entire month learning how to squeeze every last drop of knowledge out of anything we can find.

Essentially the goal plan is to learn new techniques (how crafting systems work, how to do advanced clean up AI, hair systems, cloth systems anything you believe will benefit your game)..

• Learning state tree (BT) AI systems, or AI state machine functions.
• Learn event driven camera tracking.
• Learn advanced topics like destruction and cloth implementation.
• Learn about performance impact, route cause analysis and how to asses profiling for distribution across multiple types of hardware.
• Learn about the pro's con's of procedural placement and advanced workflow manufacturing.
• Learn about advanced PhysX implementations and improving character controller system.
• Approach design of implementation of said topics.

Month 4:

M3 is tie in month, this is where we'll discuss approaches on tying various systems together via plotlines and mechanics.. Upgrade systems and a little bit of polish.!

Example goals for this Month:

• Interactive trigger event and release system mechanics.
• System testing and analysis.
• Fixing common issues.
• What can we do to visually improve?
• Dialogue or story transitions.
• Reputation, selection and other player interactive mechanics.

Month 4 week 1:

At this point, we'll play test each others designs and give feedback on how to improve. Please note at this point artwork will not be finalised, there will be bugs and it takes an open mind to constructively criticise.

DO NOT give the test demo away outside of the entrants to this challenge!.

Rest of Month 4:

This is where we take the feedback of others and improve variable systems.

Month 5:

Were back on Art, we'll improve the UI / add more to our scenes to fill in the gaps and make it finally feel like an accomplished game with plenty of information to attract the eye. We'll discuss about extending scale in a linear fashion, so the player can't walk through the game in 10 minutes but we don't burn out. At the end of this we'll create a gameplay video to showcase our ideas.

Example goals:

• Increasing scale with minimal impact on repetition.
• Modular mesh and texture scales, using textures to split up the gaps.
• Decals and other scenery improvements.
• Polishing and sending out demo's for review.
• Complete in-game UI settings for everything your other mechanics require.

Month 6:

At this point we'll scurry to polish the earth and moon, get some final feedback on parameters and start working on getting a trailer together.! We'll finally discuss the next phase "releasing the game" in preparation for part 3.

Goals!.. Have a demo ready!..


Any suggestions? Please let me know, if you want to join sign up below .

 

Hmm well if its going to be a 7th month challenge how about give people a few weeks to actually think about there ideas before starting it.

 

Sure, the official start date is 31st of August.

 

I'm in! Although I really think that the format really needs a few major improvements:

• Way too long timeframe. Reduce it to 3 months, we can do it in stages, maybe 'buggy alpha demo' stage first or something. We need to focus on short-term goal hitting or it just feels like an enormous undertaking and piles on the pressure. It would also help in improving this challenge if we could evaluate it properly at regular short intervals;

• Too vague: Some of the things you wrote, such as:
  "We want something functional by the end of this process, which enables us to visualise our end goal. We'll also discuss resource management and advanced game topics.!" just doesn't give me enough information to plan properly. I would rather see a breakdown of what you want to see in my demo exactly, such as
  how many levels/minutes of gameplay, art level, etc.

• Risk losing momentum during months 3 and 4. I think improving workflow and skillsets should be a continuous exercise rather than something that sort of pauses development. Some people will need it and others won't. Same goes for 'tying things together' some people will have done it during design and others won't. I suggest we have months of 'general polish' where people can simply do what they need to do, whether it be adding levels, adding UI, catching up on art etc.

I think that you're planning too vaguely in the short term and too specifically in the long term. Give people a bucketload of tasks to finish during the first month and we'll all hit the ground running. Here's my suggestion:

• Month 1: Get your programmer art gameplay demo done and put it in other people's hands for feedback ASAP! Cubes, capsules and spheres all welcome. If you want to talk about stories and such that's great but WE WANT TO PLAY YOUR GAME NOW!
  
• Month 2: Art factory (agreed here);
• Month 3: Weld together your gameplay demo and art in 1-3 levels of buggy alpha prototype. More feedback! Now we can plan where to go next.

IMO your demo is who you are, where you are, and the critical thing for people to judge, it is your name, rank and serial number! Wave it around whenever anyone asks you what you're doing here! Update it continuously, your ideas mean nothing if they aren't in your demo!

Looking forward to it!

 

Ok so on point one, as specified at the beginning.. Every week we'll discuss the goals and plans, a lot of this is going to come off the back of A) The research of games and B) the design documents.. On top of that, new challenges will be set.. I'm going full hog on this.!

Three months is simply not enough time, it's not even really enough time to put together a decent design and prototype never mind an actual demo.

Months 3 and 4 is probably going to be the most intensive, you'll be learning to take everything to next step . Let me define it a bit more thanks .

I can fill out with some more detail for sure, but as said a lot of this comes down to what you're doing in the first place. I can't judge at this moment how detailed it's going to need to be if I don't have a clue at what you're trying to get out of it. Although I agree, maybe a monthly check in might improve moral and keep things on track..

@Aiursrage2k

It's way too simple for me that's potentially a couple of weeks to a months work??! It's pretty cool though.

 

Look, I think your plan is a pretty good one in general, but I feel you've underestimated how easily people can lose focus and motivation. How many people here (and I'm talking about those who spend most of their spare time on game dev, not just weekend warriors) do you think have stuck with things continuously for more than a few weeks let alone seven months? I'm not saying it doesn't take that long, but I think it would be a much better idea to forget about the last four months for now and make a challenge around the first three or so.

You say that what @Aiursrage2k posted (btw where did that comment go?) is too simple, but not only is it more complicated than 99% of the games that get finished on these forums, but if you added great graphics to it it would be very pretty as well as interesting. So I say let's focus on getting that simple game going first.

You saw what happened to the other thread. People were interested, wandered around for a while, and left. Too little clarity, too little commitment and too many vague updates. Extending the timeframe to seven months without setting a lot of clear short-term goals I don't think will help.

Not trying to criticize btw, I think you've got your work cut out running a sort of game workshop over the internet, but I feel quite a few of the reasons the last thread bombed are still here and they can be easily fixed.

If I were you, I would set the first few weekly challenges now, in detail and find out who's committed and who's not. And make sure that people cough up content ASAP. Otherwise it simply won't work IMO.

 

@Billy4184

If you have a look at the top, I've updated with example guidelines and expanded it out.. Month one is all about the "simple" prototype..

Phew it took a while..!

Yeah where did that go? Odd, well it looks simple it might not necessarily be that simple. I didn't watch all the way through TBH.. Was trying to improve the design spec.

 

Fantastic! You've really specified the first couple of months and that is what we all need to get started

ps I didn't watch it really tbh, but my point was that that sort of thing was what we needed to aim for first, even if simple.

I will post my first feedback demo (couple of minutes long) today or tomorrow, just making sure all the newly implemented coroutines are working as they should (just started using them btw, probably the most useful thing I've learned in a long time).

 

Just to be clear, what does this mean? By that stage I think it would be a great idea to get the demo into the hands of as many people as possible, to build publicity and get more feedback...

 

I would like to join the challenge as well. I couldn't join the last challenge due to time limitation but It should be better for this one. I like the clear goals for this challenge. It should make it easier to follow.

I have one question about 3rd party assets such as A* Pathfinding. Can I use it in the project?

 

I'd highly recommend against it until you have a demo sorted with a clear direction, keep it between the game makers for now who can fill in the gaps and suggest improvements. General gamers won't be so kind and reputation can spread, so I tend to keep everything closed group in the beginning.

@ShadowX

Of course you can . Use whatever will make your life easier..

 

@ShadowK I'm planning on posting around the Unity forums such as Feedback Friday ... I get your drift though, outside the forums I'll probably stick with gameplay videos and dev blog until I have something solid.

 

Well i was thinking of the game just released volume. Now its selling for $20 on steam, we havent seen a game like it since the VR missions in Metal Gear, it has a nice pleasing art style that programmers could do.
http://steamspy.com/app/365770

It would fit in with the quote from the steam-spy guy's quote:

I actually already have an idea for a game myself already (and my initial though) and I was kind of surprised that there hasnt been a game like it for a while - except for 1 game and it was really weird. And my idea is a on rails shooter - like starfox 64 or panzer dragon.

 

A Starfox 64 type game sounds awesome .. The issue I've got is the examples you showed could easily be sent out as a mobile game, it's outside the scope of this project. BUT! As I'm guiding this challenge through and offering advice, there's no reason why you couldn't expand it whilst keeping the art simple.

Look at the stealth demo in Unity to introduce yourself to similar core mechanics (guideline) and look at this Sci-Fi pack, it's basic level geometry wrapped in decent textures. That reduces the pressure on art whilst still looking decent, you could simply use Pro-builder to create these levels.. You wouldn't even need to touch a DCC apart from characters.

Or if you do, there's some great blender corridor stuff by quill18creates on youtube too. If you are skittish about art, I'd highly recommend removing any thought of outdoor scenes.

It's a matter of changing camera perspective mostly, the concept is still the same and can be improved .

 

Those Sci Fi textures were what I had in mind when thinking about space station combat ... given the longer time frame I MAY reconsider that idea, since my space combat is really coming together fast. Demo coming in a few hours...

 

And it could be modernized as well for example also have a rogue like with sudo random levels (using "level chunks in the binding of issac fashion), a variety of bosses (that are randomized) (and a hardcore roguelike mode -- with perma death for those that like that).

Ah looks like skyrogue already beaten me to the punch. So it sold 6k units already at $10 a pop so it shows theres a niche market for it
http://nihilocrat.itch.io/sky-rogue
http://steamspy.com/app/381020

 

Reschedule. This weekend is Ludum Dare.

 

I would love to seriously take on this challenge properly this time, but University starts in like 2 weeks and I have to also work part time during my semesters. I think it will be ok for me to try the challenge as I already have a pretty solid framework going on my old one, and I seriously need to learn some 3d modelling / art skills and would love to be part of that.

Just I will probably be gone for a month at times as I will have finals / giant projects to finish, if you guys are ok with that? I understand the expectations of the challenge, but I would love to take it more as a self learning tool and getting me finally doing something right with my time.

 

Allright!

I'm going to get the ball rolling with my first demo, even though there's plenty of time before the challenge even starts. This is mostly because I was about to post it before the previous thread got a makeover, and it would be a shame not to do so now. However, many things may be changed before the first month is over.

HAVE A GO NOW!

Fixed a webplayer link problem!

Important: Press the I key to see controls info during flight



The game, as it stands, is designed to be a space combat game in the vein of Starlancer. More than that I'm not really sure about yet since I'm opening up the design again due to the challenge being reset. I have all sorts of ideas from adding space station combat, adding strategy elements (e.g., wingman control), flying capital ships, etc etc. If you have any ideas for where I should take this let me know!

At the moment, the demo simply features a 5 vs 5 fighter brawl in space. Please note that the art is NOT representative of the final product, it is mainly stuff I made for mobile in the past or cooked up as placeholder art. That said, I tried to tie it all together a bit to make it ok to look at.

I'm looking for feedback on:

• Ease of control of ship;
• Camera behaviour (check out both cockpit and 3rd person views);
  
• How it feels to fly, anything you like/don't like, is it fun?
• AI (although I've dialled it down to be pretty easy for now). Taking that into account, do the AI behaviours make sense?
  
• HUD (still missing stuff such as weapon info);
  
• Weapons;
• Anything else you might like to comment on.

Thank you very much!

 

@Billy4184

Link doesn't work ..

 

Works for me, using Firefox. Did it start loading the Unity web player or just not find the page? The only thing I can think of is that you might have clicked on my space starter kit WIP thread lately (used the same url) and cached the contents.
If anyone else happens by, please let me know if it works for you.

EDIT: Try it now, fixed the link.

EDIT2: Sorry, fixed it again. My browser has some sort of autocomplete that made the link work for me when I hadn't typed in the link properly.

 

Wondering if this thread might be open to projects that have already been running for some time? I'm over a year into this one.

I just had to devote some serious effort into a significant rewrite, which I'm about a month and a half into - but I'm also leveraging a lot of the tools I had built previously. I'm cheating kinda, since almost all of my art assets are from the asset store. But I've been 'one man band'ing this project, and it's definitely on the ambitious side for something built by one guy.

It's basically a mix of crusader kings 2 and darkest dungeons. It's got influences from xcom, mount and blade and some other stuff.

I know that it's probably not fair as a 'competition' aspect, but I've been working on this solo for a long time and being part of some kind of collaboration or like a game jam on steroids would really be great.

 

Well I'm re-writing mine currently and will be using it, so were in a similar boat. In all fairness, if you've gone big chances are the people doing simpler games will end up overtaking us pretty quickly..

So sure, not a problem here.

 

I'm also in that boat. IMO it would be useful to even emphasize using third party assets as the asset store is one of the things that makes solo development feasible. There's so much to do in a game of this scale that any way of reducing man-hours is a plus. It could be a factor in judging the winner though, to keep an even field.

@frosted and @ShadowK, did you try out my prototype? Any feedback you have would be great! I posted in Feedback Friday and I can already tell that I didn't make it very user friendly, so I'll be updating today. I might even incorporate a tutorial.

 

I always hated this genre (mostly because I've been terrible at it since the early 90s with wing commander). But I think this is a very strong foundation. The hud is solid, the tracking targeting is dead on.

On your bullet pointed question list:

• Ease of control of ship;

I didn't ever bring up I for the control list, but I happened to hit tab accidentally and learned about turbo speed. I ended up basically turboing to about three times the distance the AI usually follows around so I was spending more time shooting and less time doing loops.

• Camera behaviour (check out both cockpit and 3rd person views);

I only played in cockpit mode, but this felt as would be expected.

• How it feels to fly, anything you like/don't like, is it fun?

I think it's quite solid. A nice mix of an arcade like feel, but enough extra momentum to give you pause.

• AI (although I've dialled it down to be pretty easy for now). Taking that into account, do the AI behaviours make sense?

In terms of difficulty, I have no idea. I think the AI just flew circles around me over and over.

• HUD (still missing stuff such as weapon info);

Adequate, some missiles and stuff would be a nice addition (although perhaps I missed this since I didn't hit I).

You could go full on into this with stuff like remapping power to shields and weapons or not.

• Anything else you might like to comment on.

You may want to consider spending some time away from the core systems and investing some into a scripted encounter. You can certainly build on what you have right now and elaborate out the systems, but in terms of making something (a demo or, more) that gamers will really respond to - I think you should consider some kind of narrative scripted encounter.

I think that as we move past simple mobile game design (find a cool mechanic, build game around it) - one of the defining elements that start to really need emphasis is stuff like some kind of narrative or strong atmosphere.


Just sort of jumping backward, I think you may want to either reduce the turning radius or make the fov wider angle. Although, losing ships off screen might just be me sucking at this kind of game.

Final note:
If scripted encounter isn't something you want to take on, then perhaps I'd suggest some more contextual notifications for the player.

You're in a life or death 5 on 5 dogfight. This is a dramatic thing, there are guys getting blown up and dying, laser machine guns going off. You're part of a squad. There should be some kind of radio chatter, think of star wars (new hope) attack on death star "he's on my tail!" "taking heavy damage!" and of course "stay on target... stay on target"

Even if it's just placeholder audio, or even just text like a multiplayer game, giving the player some sense of context will go a long way into making this really feel like a game.

 

Fantastic! Feedback from people who hate the genre is pure gold to me

This is what turbo is really for, preventing turning battles that are just boring and dizzying, so I'm glad that was intuitive for you. The AI really needs to do more of this, so I will update that. I think more hit and run tactics rather than looping battles would make it far more interesting and dynamic.

Yeah, it's really meant to be played in cockpit view, 3rd person is ok for admiring your ship but feels too arcadey for combat.

There are missiles, although given that you have to have your target in front of you and hold it there for a couple of seconds to lock, it's not surprising you didn't realise there was that feature. I will work on it.

I have the scripts for power distribution in the usual Weapons/Engines/Shields layout, (using a triangle slider like Star Citizen does I think). I got rid of it in the early days when it was meant to be a mobile game but will almost certainly add them back.

Absolutely, this is a simple game mechanics test. I have designed an encounter and started doing camera animations but I didn't want to wait until I had all that before I chucked this up here. Think of this as the game mechanic garage!

Possibly you didn't drag the mouse far enough to the side of the screen, but in any case, I will try to reduce the looping battles as they are definitely boring.

The targeted ship should always have an off-screen marker that tells you which direction to turn. Perhaps you were chasing an untargeted ship?

If you play it again, I definitely recommend pressing I and checking out the controls, there's a bit more under the hood that it not apparent. I wanted the HUD to be minimal as I hate it getting in the way of the view so I didn't add gizmos for everything.

Thank you very much for your feedback!

 

I think that in terms of core mechanics you're already in good shape, although I'm not a genre aficionado and a lot of my reference points for the genre are over 10 years old. I messed around with the missiles, although I didn't quite get them. When the secondary targeting pops on, is this a missile lock?

Along the lines of including narrative/atmosphere: the easiest thing I could think of would be something like the 'bomber run on your carrier' scenario, where a squad of enemy bombers is making a run on your home carrier.

This has natural drama built into it, differentiates enemy types, gives some complexity from having the enemy bombers who are trying to just get to your carrier and their fighter escort. The simplest example would probably not be that far off from what you have now really.

 

Yes that's a missile lock, when the ring zooms down and locks onto your target. You then press enter or right click to fire. However it is probably too easy to lose the lock before you can fire so I'll fix that.

Funnily enough that scenario is exactly what I've been working on, basically defend your space station thingy.

1. First you're going to check out some radar signature some distance off (learn to use radar/waypoints);
2. Then you get attacked by a fighter group (learn to shoot/dogfight);
3. Then a bomber group escorted by a fighter group will warp in near your space station (first battle was just a decoy) and you'll have to turbo it over there and get rid of them before your station blows up.

Cheers!

 

It's pretty cool, so some thoughts (I know you might not of gotten round to some of this yet):

• It'd be better in an actual dev build, the webplayer was a little buggy (not your fault though)
• The ship changed direction too quickly, it was hard to lock onto targets and as frosted said the AI just flew rings around you. The controls need tweaking, potentially with a burst / boost quaternion ratio mapped to a key.
• Add a bool in to hide mouse cursor with a release button.
• You need a mission objective in there.
• Could do with some interactive measures, upgrades etc.

On the whole nice WIP though, has plenty of potential.

 

@ShadowK thanks! The idea was just to test the ship mechanics, I didn't want to get hung up on mission crafting, it was just meant to be a free for all brawl. However, I can see that I didn't do a good job of showcasing the features and a mission with different objectives would definitely help to do that.

The controls definitely need work, I think I've gotten too used to them myself and yeah the sensitivity is too high. I watched my brother play last night and he couldn't aim it either.

What do you think of the locked pitch/yaw (like Starlancer)? It basically means that your nose traces out a circle as you roll while your behind stays in the same spot. I'm not sure it is the best control method and originally it was a way to simplify things for mobile (although starlancer did a good job of making it work on pc). I want it to be fully playable with a mouse but perhaps unlinking everything and having pitch/yaw on the mouse and having roll and strafe movement mapped to the keyboard would be a good idea.

The turbo boost actually speeds up your rotational movement, I might increase that. I want the turbo to be an essential dogfighting tool and not just for getting from A to B quickly.

To all the rest of your points I will definitely implement them all. Laser beams and short vs long range missiles are in the works. Expect to see a dev build posted here in the next couple of weeks

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Looks like a very cool concept! Couple of things I'd like to say.

First of all, I don't like the idea of knowing what response you are going to get. In rpg games, one of the fun things is that you never know exactly what reaction you are going to get from someone and you have to be ready for anything. For example, in Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic the fact that I sometimes got friendly responses from people and other times got hostile ones (and could either further antagonise them or try to win them over) made it very interesting. And that's part of a fugitive/survival game, you have to be trying to think ahead and you have a lack of information about what you are going to find and what's going to happen.

I like the idea of having a structure to the missions even though they are procedural. I think games work best this way, novelty is good but the whole thing has to make sense and serve the player experience.

I also like the leadership thing, and in this case communicating the thoughts of your men is useful. I think if you combined unforeseen reactions from strangers and the way you handle that, with the question of maintaining your leadership in the eyes of your people, that could be some very fun mechanics.

Overall I like it very much and can't wait for a demo/more news!

 

Thanks for the feedback dude!

In terms of the dialog, I think that when you try it in practice it'll end up way better than you might expect. Having chances at multiple outcomes being random helps things stay surprising. Since it's a roguelike instead of a game that's strongly composed like Kotr - it's just unrealistic for one guy with no art skills or budget (or writing skills!) to produce a compelling plotline. So the dialogs need to stand on their own outside of plot against a randomly generated back drop.

Tying each dialog to its outcome (specifically to the kinds of rewards you might get from each option), makes it so that if my 'plot' fails to capture the player's imagination, they have some reason to care. If they start to really care about the 'story' of it, then great, but for those gamers who just aren't grabbed, they can evaluate dialog options as strategic options.

 

I think the unexpectedness of reactions is probably more compelling as a fun thing for people who are not all that engaged, than presenting reactions as strategic mechanisms (they won't be ready to strategize if they aren't as engaged). I don't think it would be all that hard to compose something good.

For example, I don't mean that you should be able to get a million different kinds of reactions, I think it would add a lot to the atmosphere to have a randomized 'friend/enemy' meter with three different reactions attached to each encounter. Then let's say you roll up with your folks to a bunch of people working on a farm. These people have three possible responses: friendly, ambivalent and hostile.

1. If hostile, they fight you. You win, you raid their bodies and houses, and your folks think better of you (or at least your combat leadership). If they win you lose all your possessions/die and your folks think worse of you.
2. If they are ambivalent, work some witty comments in and let the player move on.
3.If they are friendly, they give you what you need, and your status goes up.

This is relatively simpe and adds a lot of strategy to the game because you need to evaluate whether you could win a fight or handle a loss in status or do without supplies at that point in the game. Then all you need to do is balance that 'encounter meter' (probably with simple maths and a few hard-coded exceptions for specific situations).

 

@Billy4184

Pretty much like a Baldur's gate system?

 

It's worth noting that this is a roguelike with perma-death. So how an encounter plays out and the information you arm the player with is important because certain choices can absolutely end the game for you.

It's also worth noting that being able to see the outcomes of dialog options does not exclude dynamic or emergent events or anything like that. It can actually make them better. CK2 is an example of probably the most sophisticated and detailed emergent RPG story telling ever made (the other two examples are Mount and Blade and The Sims). CK2 is also the game that I stole the dialog system from.

Again, if you haven't played a game that used the same kind of dialog system (CK2) I don't think you really fully understand how it affects game play. It's not just "removing the surprise" it's about making the system fair for the player when your dialog options exist for reasons other than plot, and carry with them real, meaningful, and potentially game ending implications.

Finally, it allows me to make dramatically more content at much lower cost.

Not every dialog needs to be interesting or compelling or evocative. Many can exist just as choices between different kinds of rewards and risks. This makes it far easier for me to produce much, much more variety and quantity. Hopefully to some extent I can create 'filler' but have it, during some players playthroughs, act as a very meaningful decision. The best of both worlds.

 

You're definitely right that I haven't played that sort of game, and if you can see how your system will work out then that's cool but I still think that building the uncertainty into the encounter is a strong way of doing things. As human beings I think we sort of expect social interactions to be uncertain and as such we instinctively put a lot of importance in them, and something about seeing the results beforehand clashes with my expectations. However as you say I might not be accustomed to it. Looking forward to testing it out!

@ShadowK I probably just failed some sort of gamer authenticity test, but I've never played that game...heard a lot of good things about it though and it is on my list!

 

For a gamer that's like never drinking a can of pepsi or never eating a bar of chocolate.. How dare you ??!

P.S I think this challenge will be awesome, it's not even started yet and better than the last one ..

 

I think that once you see it in the context of the game, it'll totally make sense for ya! It's a little bit of an usual system, but it makes a lot of sense when you really see it in action!

You should also play BG2 - or at least Pillars of Eternity! Sick games.

Oh... so in terms of sort of getting help ... I'm really having trouble figuring out how to build out the 'travel on the road' screen - as you can see from the screenshot it kinda sucks right now:


It's just empty with placeholders. I'm trying to figure out how to really make it look and - how to achieve that look. The first capsule is your party, the second is the "men in the distance"...

As you close on things they fade into view. Small hamlets, taverns, hunting grounds, etc, etc, etc...

My ideal would probably be something like:

But there's just no way I could realistically build something like that out. It's just a million miles from practical at my level. Or... is it?

Any advice? Again, the travel system is basically a linear walk on a 'road' with random encounters, think Oregon Trail only (hopefully) way cooler.

 

@frosted

Firstly the lighting in the screen shot you showed is brighter, properly colour graded. There's some exponential heightfog in the background. Secondly you'll want better textures (CGTextures or some equivalent will do), or export the grass / stone examples from quixel (you get some free stuff) just UV map out a cube with a 2048 resolution baked to a color map ID and export the textures from Quixel once you've set the proper PBR calibration..

Make sure it's tiled properly in the terrains settings (U / V) if using Unity terrain. Also make sure DXT or equivalent compression isn't causing any weird artefacts.

As for the terrain you want to export a colour map / normal map out of World Machine or equivalent (highly recommend World Machine for Bcore).. You'll want to blend the colour map into the textures, it can look odd and sometimes blotchy, just blur it out on Pshop or equivalent.

You'll want to replace my heightmap (raw) outputs with a splatmap convertor, you'll want to use the splat for texture loc co-ord's It actually has a script and workflow here for Unity (Still works in U5):

https://www.world-machine.com/learn.php?page=workflow&workflow=wfunity

BCORE:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111551

In the terrain shader, you want to add a noise mask to vary the terrain slightly and avoid tiling / calculate world position from camera so you can fade out NM's over distance (it helps).

I have an example in the old Game Dev challenge I'll quote:

 

Do you have any good articles on color grading for games?

My understanding of the subject leaves .. a lot to be desired. I'm also using a dynamic day/night system so lighting is going to be highly variable - which may make good color grading simply beyond my abilities.

 

Hmm you're going to have issues because of the way things are going with TOD systems.. IBL for different sky portions is ultimately going to void any colour corrections you make!>> I could talk about opposing colours etc. But in your case it won't really help.

THAT'S not to say you can't make improvements, a lot of issues stem from "washout" which is contrast problems affecting shadows, midtones and highlights. There's a colour grading wheel setup for GIMP, it's free and pretty simple to use in which you can add depth back into the scene by modifying these three values.

Make sure you're using linear colour space too (in Unity), gamma is way out.!

 

@Billy4184 - I just wanted to respond to your thread about game narrative, but I wanted to do it in the context of your game, so I thought I'd do it here. So I'm no expert, in fact, I sorta suck and haven't even released a game yet.

My understanding of 'narrative' is kind of like the games overall 'feel'. A combination of art style, sound, challenge, rewards, thematic elements combined with the players role in the game. So not like 'strong narrative' like plot, but something more all encompassing: the feel of the game (not just the controls).

For your game, I'd think that some of the elements that can really flesh it out are things like radio chatter from your other squad mates and stuff, missions and enemies that have interesting design and tell some kind of story...

But on a more intimate note - I think that stuff like how damage registers on your ship can be equally important. One of the nice thing about shield systems (or rapidly regenerating health systems like in Gears of War), is that they create these moments of 'close calls' and drama. It's those moments that I think really make or break a game if you can convince a player to invest enough of himself to be receptive to it.

If you want to do additional work on the core systems, I'd suggest thinking about that kind of thing more than anything else: how to create those dramatic moments of vulnerability, the 'close call'.

Maybe it's an energy transfer system or something, or maybe your ship just takes damage in some system and it takes a second to auto repair or something. But I think that it's important that there's a flashing red button in the cockpit, that "alert! Something's wrong!" beeping sound we all know. Maybe the player manages to regain control and repair it, maybe not, but there's that "oh crap!" moment followed by that "whew! I made it!" moment that makes games worthwhile.

Just remember: it doesn't *actually* have to be a close call, you just need to convince the player that it is without exposing them to it so often it desensitizes them.

 

Again, I'm already on it regarding radio chatter, I've been learning how to make a radio effect in audacity. I've also found some decent candidates in a sound pack I bought. However, I think I am going to try to get voice acting eventually. I know it is supporting 'digital peasantry' but fiverr seems like a possibility. Quite a bit of very nice voice talent there. I suppose it is a pretty good deal for the artist if they don't do revisions, as you just rock up to your studio, record thirty seconds of stuff and get $5. I just don't think message panels work too well during first person combat as they just clutter up your vision.

I really hear you regarding working the atmosphere as a sort of narrative tool. For one thing, everything that happens outside your cockpit, except for combat, can only be communicated through your radio so dialogue and such has the potential to become boring. Better to focus the player on the ship itself as a source of 'emotion and connection'. If I stick with just space combat there will not only be a lot of things to do with your ship, but also things like hull creaking and the ability to pan around your cockpit to give you a strong sense of the ship being your 'cocoon'.

I've also been thinking of how I can use the environment to my advantage, having complicated large structures such as wrecks that the player could explore (within the context of the mission) without leaving the ship. It would make the player feel like the ship enables them to explore their environment rather than hindering and enclosing them away from it.

I can see we're on the same page here, keep the ideas coming!

ps I haven't decided against space station combat or EVA, which has the potential to change things ...

 

Ok, so what I'm up to... In case anyone is wondering, no we haven't started yet and you have plenty of time to join ..

When I was starting to make the previous "demo" I was focusing on nothing but art, because I needed a template the ironic thing is now I'm doing nothing but code ..

I started out by removing a lot of code from core components and I started building my own framework, the initial "setup" quotes because it was a mess. Is now being replaced as an actual player character.. Now I have to actually think about code and one of the major parts is "scalability".! We could have a months design seminar alone on "scalability".

Well I'm not going to have only one laser g in the whole game, so instead of the one weap and animation for testing. I've expanded it out into an Enum stack and an array of variables for each selection. I've transferred the Enum stack to the animation system to obviously change animations when I select weap's.!

I've also transferred the Enum stack and switch case to reference the variable amounts of projectile spawn's. I haven't added the muzzle flash or decals yet, still on the list to do..

Same Enum / stack for sounds, I will have to make references to materials which will be a function that get's information and then guess what it'll do? Yup break / switch stack and all the usual stuff for types of surface / weap in use.

I've created another switch stack for swapping animations based on state events, it's pretty much the bog basics and anything else I add now just needs a copy n' paste. In case your forgot, here was the end template of the scene:

P.S if you're using shaderforge or equivalent, the blue material that cycles with the letters is really simple. Just an emissive material with a line of text hooked up to a panner ..

 

I spent some more time working on my prototype after playing starfox64 to make it more starfoxian. I came up with a unique twitst to it (where you have to collect crystals by destroying the enemies (then using those crystals to powerup your laser -- red red, red to blow up the red "walls", red-blue for purple etc). Then at the end of the level it would go into a "batttle mode" (I had already created something like that before).

Although its more in my head then anything else right now. I have to wonder if it is too easy for the challenge and try something more challenging like a zelda64 type game.

 

@ShadowK it would be great to get a breakdown of your game design again for people just joined or in case you've rethought any of your original ideas

 

Well Zelda64 for sure would be much more painful to make, but this isn't make a game as complicated as I can for shiz n' giggles. It's just a PC game challenge.. So! If you're keen on the idea of a Starfox sort of game.! then here's what I'd do.............................

Replicate and improve the formula, it won't be as simple as you may think.. Firstly run the narrative, the introduction scenes, the planet maps, improve the graphics (that won't be hard), keep the behind the ship view.. You'd be surprised how much a change in camera changes what a game is, a TPS and an FPS is relatively the same thing.. A top down hack n' slash is just an RPG with it's camera flipped topside.

But one looks more professional than the other.!

The thing is every time you make the camera change it can have a drastic impact. As you can't get away with half the stuff in a third person RPG stuff as you can in a top down.. This is game design ..!

Add destruction, weap ranges, cutscenes, fiscal based upgrade systems, big bad baddies, better rewards systems.. Take the simple concept, make it awesome!.

 

dude, that shot is pretty stunning, whats the game's overview? I scanned the other thread but I must have missed it.

 

Game overview:

In 2615 an Alien race visited earth, relationships were forged and marked the expansion of the human race. Until a fixed point in time caused a war of massive proportion against the Sprit Dominion. The humans lost and were scattered to the last human colonies to live their lives. Nobody really knew who prompted it or why it started..

Time repeats, in 3015 the Spirit Dominion are invaded by a new threat. In an ironic twist of fate, the Spirit Dominion needs remaining humans to help fight a new war. They search for humans with a certain genetic marker to expand their armies.

You follow the events of Dax, a scavenger aboard the planet ship I-12. Over 30 days you'll uncover lies, deception, a struggle for power, experiments gone wrong and moral decisions always a shade of grey.

Will you save some? Save them all or damn everyone?!

 

Does it sort of play out like Mass Effect? Combat in FPS? RPG mechanics? Simplified inventory? Since there's a time pressure, what role do the individual days have?

That's pretty crazy ambitious any which way you cut it. You plan to just put out the first half hour or hour in the next few months?