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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsCentury
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Author Topic: Century  (Read 4018 times)
♒ben
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« on: May 15, 2013, 07:14:37 AM »






Century is a tale of sleeping machines. It takes place in an ancient tangled city of constructed organics.

Current Status: Dormant

Homepage : centuryga.me
Tumblr : fisher.ws




« Last Edit: December 18, 2013, 08:25:37 AM by fisher » Logged
♒ben
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« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 07:17:51 AM »

Devlog 1 :

I’m well into development but i’m going to try to start from the beginning to have something of a complete document. The themes involved and world were something I designed for a game several years ago that didn't go anywhere so I was interested in looking at them from a different angle. I wanted to examine the machines themselves and how they function.

The premise for my first mechanics prototype was simulating energy and how it flows between the machines. I want to create systems of machines that are fun and interesting to manipulate. Interaction will be very simple, just clicking on parts of a machine to turn it on and off and understanding how the different parts function together will be the key to solving the puzzles.

The game will have an exploration component. The game is separated into levels and each level will have at least one director machine which exits the level and leads to another. Many levels will have multiple exits, hidden exits etc. which will lead to branching paths.

Here are some early concepts for machines.



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Udderdude
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« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2013, 07:18:10 AM »

Nice arts.
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Netsu
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« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2013, 07:30:41 AM »

BEST
ATMOSPHERE
EVER

I mean you use the terms "sleeping machines" and "ancient city" in the same line. It doesn't get better than that. And the concepts are beyond gorgeous.
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Scott
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« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2013, 07:34:04 AM »

Hmm this looks very interesting. Is it all very static besides on/off lights or will machines move and animate etc?
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Connor
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« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2013, 07:37:14 AM »

the machines in your sketches look like they are ready to come back to life, it adds an almost lonely feeling to the game the images. great atmosphere :D
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Firearrow games
www.firearrowgames.net

blitzkampfer:
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=52009.msg1280646#msg1280646

too bad eggybooms ents are actually men in paper mache suits and they NEED to be agile
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« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2013, 08:42:39 AM »

Those sketches are gorgeous. And the premise rings with me.
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clockwrk_routine
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« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2013, 09:11:40 AM »

erm love
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uselessffs
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« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2013, 09:15:30 AM »

Amazing art. You could make money only by selling the font...
Is BLAME! one of your inspirations by any chance?
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JLJac
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« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2013, 09:32:54 AM »

This looks cool! Will you create machines that have certain interactions, and can be placed on a grid in some kind of level editor to create bigger machines, or will you script every bigger machine as a separate scenario?
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melos han-tani
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« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2013, 04:49:09 PM »

i like you.

mm
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« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2013, 01:21:05 AM »

Those are some lovely concepts for sure.
Curious to see how the gameplay turns out.
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♒ben
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« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2013, 05:44:43 AM »

Thanks for the nice words guys!

- achild: I'm going to try to animate as many things as possible. So machines will have moving parts, gears, lights, other random stuff. I'm going to try to include ambient animation stuff as well, water dripping, small creatures moving around..

- Connor: Thanks :]

- jmptable: I'm very happy to hear that : ]

- uselessffs: Yeah but then i'd have to design all the rest of the letters : P, I hadn't heard of it but i'm definitely going to check it out now, thanks  Beer!

- JLJac: Your not going to be able place things in the world. An idea in the game is that you have no physical presence in the world, that's a reason why you view the world in silhouette.

- seagaia: <3

- jO: Thanks, me too : )
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JLJac
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« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2013, 06:56:21 AM »

- JLJac: Your not going to be able place things in the world. An idea in the game is that you have no physical presence in the world, that's a reason why you view the world in silhouette.


Didn't mean "you" the player, but "you" the developer. What I'm fishing for is whether you're going to make an engine which supports different machine parts that can be built into bigger machines, or if you're going to code every puzzle from scratch.
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♒ben
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« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2013, 09:13:07 AM »

Ah, definitely! Everything i'm building is completely modular so I started by making parts like cables and switches and am now making cores for the larger machines that control individual behaviors. I'll start to describe this more in depth in the next devlog.
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♒ben
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« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2013, 12:13:44 PM »

Devlog 2 :

I started designing mechanics with the premise of creating a relatively simplistic simulation of electrical systems and going from there. The first pieces I created were switches than can be toggled on or off and cables which connect switches. I then started building machine cores which provide behavior to the switches.

The first machine that was necessary is an engine, it simply transmits energy through any of it’s switches that are turned on. Hub’s are machines that can, once powered, send energy out through a number of it’s switches.

One idea I am going to try and carry throughout my design as it evolves is a system of shapes and colours that give the player a clear indication of what any given machine will do. Since the body of the machine will vary somewhat they will all have a large light on them somewhere that will have a certain shape according to it’s function.

The colours will also be important in conveying the state of particular parts of a machine so at the moment grey means a part has no power, blue means it has power but hasn’t been turned on and green means it’s turned on.





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JLJac
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« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2013, 02:35:00 AM »

I shouldn't have worried, you're totally doing the combinable parts thing :D

Gotta say though, to me it doesn't really look like it behaves like electricity, more like fuel running through pipes. Electricity needs to connect back to the source, ya know. But I think this system might be better gameplay-wise, as it simpler, simply.

If you're going to differentiate between off , powered but off and on and powered I'd suggest making the grey and blue of the off states closer to each other and considerably darker than the green of the on state. At least to me that seems less confusing than having the blue and green both be glowing colors, as what the player is most interested in is whether or not the machine is currently doing its thing.
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Kyle O
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« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2013, 04:45:27 AM »

I say just avoid using the term electricity or fuel in the game and go with the better and more ambiguous "energy". It would definitely agree with the atmosphere you have established.
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melos han-tani
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« Reply #18 on: May 22, 2013, 09:59:01 AM »

I like what you're doing - a few things in my new game use some basic forms of machines like this - so I got confused explaining to myself how they "work", and I think it just makes more sense to skip out on true physics with that sort of stuff, especially if it fits into your game universe better.
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♒ben
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« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2013, 07:07:22 AM »

Devlog 3 :

I’m currently designing the disparate elements of Century independently to allow for the most efficient workflow. The main focus of my work currently is on the prototype. I’m creating the game with placeholder assets before doing any final art for the game. The reason for this is mechanics and level design are entirely iterative and experimental so the design is going to be pretty nebulous until I get to the end, where ever that ends up being. I won’t be reusing assets very much so I want to finalize most things before I commit time to creating art for the game. I believe that if i’m unable to make all the design elements successful without the graphics than the project won’t be worth finishing.

One of the best things about developing a project by myself is having the freedom to work on entirely different things depending on my feeling that day. For this reason i’m still spending a good amount of time working on developing the style of art that will eventually make it’s way into the game even though I probably won’t be using much of this stuff in the game. Beyond these things i’m also working on character design, writing for narrative and character development and audio design.






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