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[Ashkin]

Weird. I had a dream that I was playing a test buid of this game.
It was pretty cool.

That's awesome! I want to know what it's like too, I can only imagine!

What was it like?

I was playing a test version where the GPS wasn't in yet- you had to control it via touch. Just remember fighting some monsters, mostly. Running around a little. It was pretty faithful to your mockups.
It made me think- what would the game be like if you added monsters that get in the way? I suppose it could make things a little stupid, because you'd have a random chance of dying as you went along and not knowing until you got home. Or you could store them in the 'events' system, so when you got home you entered a battle with them to get some cash, or you can run if they're too powerful.

[Gauss Jordan]

Weird. I had a dream that I was playing a test buid of this game.
It was pretty cool.

That's awesome! I want to know what it's like too, I can only imagine!

What was it like?

I was playing a test version where the GPS wasn't in yet- you had to control it via touch. Just remember fighting some monsters, mostly. Running around a little. It was pretty faithful to your mockups.
It made me think- what would the game be like if you added monsters that get in the way? I suppose it could make things a little stupid, because you'd have a random chance of dying as you went along and not knowing until you got home. Or you could store them in the 'events' system, so when you got home you entered a battle with them to get some cash, or you can run if they're too powerful.

We have been discussing implementing a fighting system that doesn't affect the rest of the game. I'd probably need to explain the backstory for this to make sense, but the idea is that the main character gets contact with an old god of the area he is exploring and in turn becomes a sort of demigod. This is what explains the possible jumps that will occur if you log out in one place and logs in at another.

So, being a demigod you can jump into another avatar(much like in Illusion of Gaia if you've played that). This could be like an old warrior being hibernated and found in a dungeon. Thus you can play through that dungeon in the body of that warrior. This part plays like a typical oldschool RPG and is played after you've been running! What are your thoughts about that?

[Ashkin]

Weird. I had a dream that I was playing a test buid of this game.
It was pretty cool.

That's awesome! I want to know what it's like too, I can only imagine!

What was it like?

I was playing a test version where the GPS wasn't in yet- you had to control it via touch. Just remember fighting some monsters, mostly. Running around a little. It was pretty faithful to your mockups.
It made me think- what would the game be like if you added monsters that get in the way? I suppose it could make things a little stupid, because you'd have a random chance of dying as you went along and not knowing until you got home. Or you could store them in the 'events' system, so when you got home you entered a battle with them to get some cash, or you can run if they're too powerful.

We have been discussing implementing a fighting system that doesn't affect the rest of the game. I'd probably need to explain the backstory for this to make sense, but the idea is that the main character gets contact with an old god of the area he is exploring and in turn becomes a sort of demigod. This is what explains the possible jumps that will occur if you log out in one place and logs in at another.

So, being a demigod you can jump into another avatar(much like in Illusion of Gaia if you've played that). This could be like an old warrior being hibernated and found in a dungeon. Thus you can play through that dungeon in the body of that warrior. This part plays like a typical oldschool RPG and is played after you've been running! What are your thoughts about that?

It's definitely an interesting idea- if you can mesh it properly with the main game, then I feel it would be quite a handy addition.

[Landshark RAWR]

what if the olde warrior is an automaton of some sort who is powered by how much you walked before you activated him

also being able to find weapons and parts to give him or something and he could find something like uhhh...

shoes? or "legends" like books and tablets and stuff that let you find various ruins four your robo buddy to explore


doesn't have to be a robit but he still could be empowered by your distance last traveled

[Gauss Jordan]

what if the olde warrior is an automaton of some sort who is powered by how much you walked before you activated him

also being able to find weapons and parts to give him or something and he could find something like uhhh...

shoes? or "legends" like books and tablets and stuff that let you find various ruins four your robo buddy to explore


doesn't have to be a robit but he still could be empowered by your distance last traveled

Good ideas indeed! Yeah, it would be really neat if the fighting part was very much interconnected with the rest, by like you said various items and "recharging" of the fighter. In turn, the dungeon fighting locks up the story in the rest of the game by providing plot devices, finalizing quests and such.

It'll probably make more sense for the story if the fighter avatar is the spirit of an ancient warrior that you incarnate.

While it's awesome with a fighting part and all, I'm still a bit undecided about it. It'll require a lot of extra time to implement, and I don't think everyone in the target audience would approve of it. Perhaps there is a way to make it optional but still very connected to the game...

[Gauss Jordan]

Our crowd-funding presentation is heavily updated now! Put a lot of effort into making a video for it. It was really fun and new of an experience to make

I was meaning to get back into the code as soon as we uploaded the video, but I've been really concerned that the campaign didn't get very good reception. I'm gonna have to put some more effort in it. Please, consider supporting us and pre-order the game: http://www.indiegogo.com/Runners-Grinders

I'd really appreciate if you could look at it with your critical eye and give us some feedback. I've got a feeling there's more we can do to better the reception of our campaign.

Moving on to something really neat, we decided that we will release early alpha-versions here at TIGsource, so we can test the mechanics on a variety of devices. We're not sure if we want to release it openly, or it it'll be closed, but shout out if you are interested in testing!

[Gauss Jordan]

What's up TIGSource!
I'm feeling incredibly hot today! At least my fingers are smoking hot from all the coding I've done today!

I can now confirm this about the game's future:

• The game will have battle in it, with dungeons an all that! The game deserves to have a really good battle mode. However, you'll not fight as Hjalte, but instead as avatars that he incarnates with different abilities
• Archank Mindlecrook, one of the playable avatars
  
• The game will be playable on PC! To more comfortably play the game, you'll be able to sync your mobile to an online account. Using a browser with Java, you can then play on your computer granting you better controls and screen!
• We will release the game here at TIGsource as open Alpha. The first version will be released within the near two weeks!
• The Open Alpha will be free to play, but once we release it you can also start to pre-order the game for $6!

The procedural generation is working smooth now! Prepare for much updates in this particular field! It's so much fun testing it because you can paint procedurally generated landscape with a brush. I'm not letting you do it though, you'll have to move physically to move the brush





One more thing I think I should mention is our crowd-funding campaign. Well, I can't say it was a success. I want to thank everybody who contributed really much, but I'm sorry to say we can't achieve all of the things we promised if it would've been successful. It does not hurt our motivation though and I'm making progress like a train with a plow... yeah... or whatever I think i meant like, that all is well and stuff.

[Starflier]

So, I thought I understood how this game is going to work, but now I'm terribly confused...

Is your avatar's movement actually controlled by your movement in the real world? If so, what does the PC version do?

[Gauss Jordan]

So, I thought I understood how this game is going to work, but now I'm terribly confused...

Is your avatar's movement actually controlled by your movement in the real world? If so, what does the PC version do?

Heh, I can see why. Our idea of how movement works did change a bit over the course of this thread.

So to answer your question - Not really. Real world movement will only traverse you over the worldmap.
When you do that, you get updates in a message log. This message log consists of places you've visited in your path. As you pop up the message log, you can start playing through the events in your visits. That is, if you visited a dungeon along the way you can play through it.

[Gauss Jordan]

Our website is aired!
www.runnersgrinders.net

In other news, we are participating in Swedish Game Awards!
This has boosted our team spirit, and our school offered to make a course out of the project, freeing up lots of time. I've been skipping courses and living on savings for a while now, but this changes everything for the two other teammates!

Here's is the worldmap running on my phone. The white+green path was recorded from my apartment to our workplace! There's some cool advanced algorithms involved here, which is exactly why it took so much time to get this working.


Nothing impressive here yet, but this is the beginning of the in-location view, with Mr. Cubicle Blackworth as main character.

[Gauss Jordan]

Also, here's a major dump of the graphics I've been working on:




I'm afraid this is it for now. Do ask if you want to squeeze out more from me

[Ashkin]

Not sure if this was answered before, but: What if you run to a place, it generates a town, and then you can't get back to that place in the meatspace so you can NEVER VISIT THAT TOWN AGAIN?

[Landshark RAWR]

aren't towns placed that you visit often as a sort of crossroad

[Gauss Jordan]

Not sure if this was answered before, but: What if you run to a place, it generates a town, and then you can't get back to that place in the meatspace so you can NEVER VISIT THAT TOWN AGAIN?

Don't worry about that. We will implement a sort of "travel mode" where you move along the paths that you've generated, merely reading your velocity from the GPS. This means that you can visit places without really physically being there. To generate new locations however, you need to physically be on spot

We'll probably also offer an option to "reconstruct" your world, meaning that your world is erased, but all the locations in your savefile and all other crucial data is stored and shoved into a new world. Your old locations will pop up as you start generate new areas. This would solve potential problems if you are like moving to another city.

[Gauss Jordan]

I updated our logo, from this:

To this:


Oh, and someone was awesome enough to make a bead sprite out of our main character Love to you man <3