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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsTIGS Coop. Game Dev, Now 50% More Roguelike-ish!
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Author Topic: TIGS Coop. Game Dev, Now 50% More Roguelike-ish!  (Read 12840 times)
Quarry
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« Reply #20 on: February 23, 2013, 08:20:04 PM »

An HTML5 Voyage
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Impmaster
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« Reply #21 on: February 23, 2013, 10:05:48 PM »

We need to change HTML5 into something cool....

Hotmeals.

A Hotmeals Voyage.
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« Reply #22 on: February 23, 2013, 10:15:03 PM »

Who-yage, a quest to find your goal in life

Your goal is to find your goal, recursive twist
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« Reply #23 on: February 24, 2013, 03:13:48 AM »

Alright. So, should we decide now the amount of different settings that we will use, or will we allow people to build their own tilesets?

It's a bit premature to determine what the limits should be of all the different settings, and tile resolutions, etc, but we should try to come to come up with the base number of tilesets that the overworld generation system will have built in.

My aim is for people to be able to built their own tile sets and make manual patches of the world that use them.  It's just the base open world exploration system that needs to have a number of tilesets decided upon.  So you can manually re-configure a patch of the world, but also add new tilesets and whatnot -- However, all that takes place atop a base system that gets procedurally generated.  So, it's the main factions of the base world gen system we need to decide on.  Other minor factions that don't get randomly generated can be patched onto wherever you want, their tilesets just won't be used when the world generator creates a new region of the world.

I feel like I'm not making much sense, it's probably something that's easy to understand if you see it, but hard to explain.

___________

Post suggestions of tileset world themes and stories of how they got all mixed up, so we can decide on what to use.  I'll start.

  • Medieval Times - Magic / warriors, goblins etc.
    The ancients were just minding their own business before all these crazy folks randomly appeared.
    They considered it some form of "magic accident" and just went about their business as usual.

    Bog standard mythic tales abound, but are now littered with ironic situational humor due to the state of, well, everything.  "Of course we knew ghosts, demons and god-like beings existed!  Everyone already knew that.  We even wrote tomes of tales about them; It's not our fault if you were too dumb to believe us.  Sheesh, kids these days."

  • Present Day, or not to distant future Earth - Humans and animals from all walks of today
    Displaced time traveling humans arrived here from the future by way of a temporal accident.
    They only meant to send a message back in time to warn the humans of the mid 1900's of the impending planet killing asteroid impact, with plenty of time to build a rocket and stop the threat (instead of only visiting the moon once in 40 years, ugh).  The time travel machine did send the transmission back in time, but it over-shot by a few thousand years!  In doing so it also tore hole in reality, transporting huge swaths of the world into the distant past.

    Some folks now arriving are very distressed, others are free from social constraints and perusing their wildest dreams: From grand schemes of power, to spreading knowledge to unreceptive primitives, or just killing folks for fun.

    Obvious source of situational humor RE: present day perspectives of dealings with the fantastical settings.  See: Tax collectors teaming up with necromancers to raise the dead and charge them unpaid back taxes on their burial plots.  Or, D&D / LARP fans adjusting quite well to the world, having had much practice for such an event.  Maybe the queen of the dark elves turns out to be a woman cosplaying 24/7 -- "Shh! Don't tell anyone! I finally fit in somewhere!"

  • Futuristic Cyborgs:  Humanoid Machines, Sentient Robotic spiders, little flying drones, etc.
    Long after the human race was wiped out by what was thought to be a devastating asteroid impact the Machine races evolved from the AI technology that was left behind.

    Some of the Machines sought out the fabled Holy "Makers" of old; humanity now being only a legend to them.  In a quest to know all information the machines re-discover time travel then set out to end speculation over the legends, "a simple matter with a simple solution, given you've got a time machine". They unwittingly fall into the same temporal trap that snared their predecessors, fittingly by investigation of the very folly that caused their predecessors demise.

    The Machinations finally get to meet their makers, but many are incensed by the revelation that those they once thought "holy" are mere mental midgets messing with matters far beyond their power to comprehend.  Others continue to worship these "gods of old" -- sort of like how Egyptians worshiped cats as "gods".

    Soon the machines discover the true story of the fall of man: The world was actually just destroyed by network news over-hype, and an easily panicking public which demanded a time machine be used against the warnings of the scientists of the day.  Some machine folk are quite angered that the reactionary illogical actions of the humans may have indirectly caused the end of the machine's world too.

    The original human scientist and cyborg cyentist that discovered time travel must put asside their differences and work in concert to harness the powers of Ancient Magic and the Negaverse to get everyone back home; Much to the chagrin of the sleeping watchers of the world...


  • 'Negaverse' -- alternate dimension: Lovecraftian terrors and strange spaces, maybe even traditional aliens?
    Often confused with the land of the Dead, the original horrific inhabitants of the Universe long ago retreated here once they discovered this parallel Universe just 1/42nd of an inch away along the 5th dimension.

    It turns out every race with sufficiently advanced magic or technology makes their way to what has become the grand-central station of the Aether -- The birthplace of Demons, The Spirit Dimension, The place 'Things that Should Not Be' call home.

    Here the raw screaming energies of the Cosomos rip and tear at the very fabric of space and time.  It's a very dangerous place, but travelers venture forth for the benefit of traveling great distances in short times thanks to the odd non-euclidean geometry.  The old ones escaped here long ago, before the time of man, but some were left as watchdogs at the gates of infinity.  Those sleeping watchers dreaming their dark dreams can only be awakened if the inhabitants of Earth become powerful enough to be a threat to the other races of the stars.

    The arrival of the cyborgs together with the human scientists in a time of powerful wizards has roused the great old ones -- Like an errant alarm clock going off at the stroke of their mid-night millennia, and will be dealt with in the same manner: Smashed quickly with tremendous force.

    (Perhaps employ some elements of Colossal Cave Adventure in it, with rooms that are linked in strange looping non-orthogonal ways).


Edit:
Feel free to mix and match these with your own if desired.  Eg, replace Lovecraft with heaven and Hell, or whatever.   Feel free to expand and change the ideas.  The goal is to come up with a setting that writers can have FUN writing in, and don't feel restricted.

Eg: My little brother said "Instead of Cyborgs you should have giant mecha, anime stuff, like Macross"


____

A Time for Adventure

Dimension 42

Worlds Collide

Merlin's Uninvited Guests

C'thulhu's Alarm Clock

_____

Keep tossing out name ideas.  I'm just going to name the engine something separately for now, since I plan to use it for a few other projects too anyway...
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 05:59:52 AM by VortexCortex » Logged

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« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2013, 10:14:50 AM »

Updated the main post.

Unless otherwise objected to, this is the direction we're headed:

  • The game will be 2D and tile based, coded in JavaScript and HTML5.
  • The game play will be similar to a roguelike, but we still need to decide on all the particular mechanics we'll employ.
  • There will be a game editor tool available to players of the game, also written in HTML5.
  • The game will be easy to mod and support adding new tilesets and sharing the mods with others.
  • Procedural generation will be employed in some aspects, but can be overridden with manually designed content.
  • There will be more than one tileset theme / employed in the generated free-roaming over-world.

Speak your mind folks and help us steer this ship; We're going full steam ahead!

I've got much of the base engine design fleshed out, and have started coding the parts of the engine that will need to exist regardless of the exact game mechanics we'll end up with.
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Atrus
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« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2013, 12:02:12 PM »

The discussion reminded me of Planescape a bit, as well as Sigil.  Grin
PS I think this game must be community driven for sure. So  Hand Thumbs Up Right
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VortexCortex
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« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2013, 09:57:46 PM »

The discussion reminded me of Planescape a bit, as well as Sigil.  Grin

Having never played Planescape (I never saw the appeal of using pre-made universes when you could write your own), any coincidence on my part is purely coincidental.   However, I'll take that as a compliment since Planescape is, by all accounts, "amazing".  Smiley

I can't speak for the others, but if any paper & dice RPG inspires me it's Rifts by Palladium. (not to be confused with the recent unrelated MMORPG by the same name).  Rifts' ruleset was made to adapt all other RPGs into its and other universes.  Indeed, it was my own baked and frozen tidally locked World of 'Deadened' that was the hub for most of my D&D and Rifts games.

Arriving through shimmering blue extra-dimensional portals, travelers from D&D, Shadowrun, White Wolf, Vampire: The Masquerade, In Nomine, Heroes Unlimited, and any other game you can think of would carry out campaigns across each the others' worlds, or in the Rifts Universe itself which is full of commercialized military, dimensional monstrosities, Powerful Psionic Warriors, Drug Fueled Juggernauts (Juicers), genetic mutant human animal hybrids, and Giant robotic battle suits, (Ah, Glitterboys, how I miss your reflective laser-proof gleam).

Unlike either Planescape or Rifts, however, the world of this game, as I imagine it (though this may not be the end result) are not separated into multiple dimensions, but rather all lumped together in ancient times, bringing parts of their own worlds with them in a general hodge podge.

That's not to say borrowing elements from other games is bad at all -- That's exactly what drew me to Rifts and later Gurps, and most recently solidified my desire to contribute to this project.

Still, I think there's plenty of room to mark the game with our distinct TIGSource flair.

Note: Please don't be put off by my lengthy posts, I really would like others to contribute too;  Though I would hate to be relegated only to coding, my story and design proposals should be taken as suggestions, and open to revision or replacement. I take no action on my own ideas unless agreed upon by at least one other. Even so: If you think something would be done better a different way, please speak up!

______________

I'm still mostly doing under-the hood stuff (like asset management systems), so I'm not ready to post pre-alpha feature test code or screenshots of our progress just yet, but I've started to document some of the more concrete details of the game engine which will power this collaborative game's unique features, so that it may be used for other games as well.

The engine itself is dubbed The Mason Engine, due to its tile based proclivities.

The engine design docs are an incomplete subset of what I've put into my personal notes, but you're welcome to follow along if you like.  Note: Engine design -- or Functional Specs, to use the industry parlance -- has only tangential relation to the actual Game Design itself.  I.e., the engine design is built to support at least what the game design calls for in as generic (reusable) way as possible, whereas the Game Design will dictate the actual mechanics, story and art (which is the purpose of this thread).
« Last Edit: February 24, 2013, 10:05:47 PM by VortexCortex » Logged

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« Reply #27 on: February 25, 2013, 11:17:11 AM »

Hello guys,

I think it will be best for those interested to have skype.This way we can have an easier and quicker communication stream among people interested.

The game should either be made via C/C++, Java or Unity3D.

It should also have Linux support.
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« Reply #28 on: February 25, 2013, 11:27:52 AM »

Now I'm really curious how this will evolve...  Ninja
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Quarry
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« Reply #29 on: February 25, 2013, 11:31:17 AM »

Hello guys,

I think it will be best for those interested to have skype.This way we can have an easier and quicker communication stream among people interested.

The game should either be made via C/C++, Java or Unity3D.

It should also have Linux support.

HTML 5 is cross-platform
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theweirdn8
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« Reply #30 on: February 25, 2013, 11:47:13 AM »

HTML5 is cross-platform, but not natively.

Also, this may be just me, but I do not take too kindly to playing games in WebBrowsers.
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« Reply #31 on: February 25, 2013, 11:59:23 AM »

I actively dislike playing games in web browsers myself, and will only play in browser if not given an other option.
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Quarry
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« Reply #32 on: February 25, 2013, 12:02:55 PM »

I actively dislike playing games in web browsers myself, and will only play in browser if not given an other option.

You have to play on a browser if you have no other choices Cheesy
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VortexCortex
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« Reply #33 on: February 25, 2013, 12:19:38 PM »

HTML5 is cross-platform, but not natively.

Also, this may be just me, but I do not take too kindly to playing games in WebBrowsers.

OK, I actually anticipated this response.  That's why I planned the HTML5 engine to be general purpose enough to use in multiple games, not just this one -- so that my time won't have been wasted if it doesn't get used by this project.

The thing is, I have other uses for a HTML5 2D Tile based engine, and was attempting to kill 2 birds with one stone by using this project as a flagship.  So, I'm going to continue building the Mason Engine, for building collaborative 2D tile worlds.  Whether folks choose to use it is up to them.

The protocols are being designed with client side abstraction in mind.  That means you could build a radical new native client in any other language in the universe in addition to the HTML5 web engine, and have both native and web browser options.

I don't think a 2D Tile based roguelike-ish game requires the power to justify the risk of downloading unsigned binaries from strangers and running them on your PC natively...  Going to a website and editing and playing the game is a far lower barrier to entry, IMO.

I already have my own 3D cross platform native projects in the works, so spending my time programming this in C/C++/Java, etc, just isn't appealing to me personally.  Native 2D tile engines already exist (download Nethack and replace the game data, you're done). I'd rather put my effort into bringing new collaboration features to the community rather than using an existing engine like Unity3D which I have no source code for, and don't have the freedom to extend.  If Unity goes out of business my time spent developing for their closed platform will have been wasted, so I personally would use SFML or SDL, it's not like you need Unity's features for a tile engine;  I mean, unless we make the game a 3D adventure or something.


Don't get me wrong, It's fine with me if folks want to go the native route instead, and I'll still contribute in other ways, but I won't be able to contribute any time writing code for the project if it's a native only codebase.

Additionally, This forum serves as a public record and keeps things out in the open and recorded for all to see.  I don't think Skype should be required for anyone to contribute.  I don't run closed source software made by people I don't trust, so I won't be able to use Skype either -- IMO, that seems like an arbitrary requirement.  What about an IRC chat room or an open source VOIP solution instead?

Note: I work and sleep weird hours because most of my business is with overseas clients.  That's another reason a forum seems the best option to me -- Folks can collaborate without being awake at the same time (this is akin to the TIGWorld threads, which I personally find appealing from a collaboration perspective).
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 12:29:02 PM by VortexCortex » Logged

Quarry
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« Reply #34 on: February 25, 2013, 01:11:17 PM »

What about using Java and making it open-source
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« Reply #35 on: February 25, 2013, 01:17:23 PM »

I'd advocate making any of the code open source, regardless of language used.  Mason Engine will be fully open source.  JavaScript is open source by design: Right Click -> View Source.

Java development has no benefit over using SDL/SFML with C/C++.  It's trivial to have one native source tree that compiles on all the same platforms that Java runs on.  In fact, I use a Java Stub to load my native C code for some Android development...  Testing on each platform must still be done because Java is not "write once run everywhere", it's become more like: Write once, Debug Everywhere -- This is no different to C or C++ in that regard; However, there are much better real time debugging solutions for native C/C++, IMO.

I'm not against developing in Java, I just fail to see the point.  It has all of the drawbacks of C/C++ with none of the performance.
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« Reply #36 on: February 25, 2013, 01:19:23 PM »

If we make the game in HTML5 we might as well just use Game Maker or Corona.
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« Reply #37 on: February 25, 2013, 02:16:37 PM »

If we make the game in HTML5 we might as well just use Game Maker or Corona.

Except that Game maker doesn't have a collaborative development API for patching and modding a continually evolving game world.  Don't make the incorrect assumption that Game Maker utilizes the full feature-set of HTML5.  One is a framework for rapid application development, the other is a proprietary vendor lock-in system that has a web export feature...

I'd rather not turn the thread into a pointless language or platform war.

The fact is that I'm not writing code that doesn't need to be written.  If you want to use game maker to create the game, go ahead.  If you want to use Java, or C, or C++, or AppleScript, that's fine.

I think we should focus on the game design itself here, we're not really even to the point of deciding what language / platform it must be created in because folks still haven't decided all of the required features, eg: Will the game have permadeath or not?

There are many more important questions to answer.  You can't just pick a toolset or language and say it's the best choice for a game that has an incomplete design.

If the design of this game is possible to implement in the HTML5 engine that I'm coding then we should probably use that engine.  As it stands I think I can implement all of the desired functionality.  If you want to champion some other platform then that's fine, get to coding, no one will object.

TL;DR: Put your code where your mouth is.

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« Reply #38 on: February 25, 2013, 02:35:35 PM »

Quote
Essentially, the over-map will be one big huge seamless world.  Procedural generation will create the majority of the major land forms, random enemies, rivers, etc.  Regions of different "factions" or tilesets will be dispersed in the world by the generator: from small pockets to large dominated areas, to mixtures between them.  It's all the same world, just treat everything like one big tileset -- Think of the way terrain generators create mountains, plains, water,  now, imagine the world divided up like that into different factions -- Instead of water you have the magic users, instead of mountains you have Aliens, or whatever.   We'll use two separate passes of the noise patterns, one for land form creation -- 'This is land, this is water, this is mountain, this is lava'  Then we run the pass again and say this spot is futuristic, this spot is ancient magic, etc, and so you get the different factions smoothly layed out across one big generated world.
This bit I don't like.
It makes sense when you think about it from the time travelers perspective, that the terrain hasn't changed over the years, except by some erosion from the medieval to future periods maybe, but when I think that large chunks of land being displaced from their home dimensions/timelines, I don't think seamless world.
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« Reply #39 on: February 25, 2013, 05:30:16 PM »

when I think that large chunks of land being displaced from their home dimensions/timelines, I don't think seamless world.

And yet, the map of the Earth remains largely unchanged since the earliest days of man.  2 million years is hardly a heartbeat on a geologic time scale.  Written history spans not even the blink of an eye in that regard.

Not that game worlds have to be realistic.  IMO, the seamlessness would be a consequence of using a procedural generation algorithm.  If we want some parts to be seamless regions larger than one screen size then we need to leverage that type of seamlessness for all regions.

Who's to say what's realistic though: If you time travel back in time 3 seconds into your same location of space relative to the solar or galactic center then you're basically dead because everything in this Universe is moving quite rapidly;  Depending on the frame of reference, an errant time machine could very well toss you out into the void of space while leaving you right where you are.

I'm sure a more jarring displacement effect would be possible by simply giving each faction tileset a different fixed offset into the world generation system.   That could be an interesting effect.  You could see some land feature then walk a few screens over and see the same land feature but with a different tileset.

The alternative is to run a separately seeded terrain generation algorithm for each tile-set.  That would mean that there will almost always be a jarring effect when you switch from one time area to another.    with the offset approach: regions closer in time could have less jarring differences; However I sort of dislike the idea of seeing a lot of the same stuff multiple times; If the offsets are kept large enough to be jarring but not too large to repeat whole nearby land-features, then it could work out quite nicely.


Regardless of the generation system it doesn't stop you from re-creating chunks of the world as you see fit -- Jarring distinctions or smoothed out.   Once the generator is running we'll certainly have to play with the parameters and come to a consensus about how exactly to make things look.

Thanks for the input!  It was more valuable than you know.
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