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[Yodhe]

Bunker Mentality -

I have been working on this game for over three years, initially it started off as a fantasy rogue like game, with multiple units and movements points as opposed to the one action one turn system of classic rogue-like games.
However in the course of time it morphed and mutated into a post-apocalyptic dungeon keeper style game, where you carve out your bunker/underground base. However you aren't alone in this dystopian underworld, apart from radioactive denizens wandering the upper levels, and mutated creatures hiding in the depth, you are just one of four factions all vying to become the dominant force in this brave new underworld. Also there are just enough resources left to ensure only the survival of just one faction.

Features/mechanics of the game are thus
*   It is squad turn based
*   Units have encumbrance, no unlimited carrying, but backpacks and item can expand the amount you hold. Holding stuff reduces your movement points.
*   Units have movement points to expend per turn
*   Factions and individual units have personal interrelationships, not just Faction vs Faction.
*   There is opportunity fire like in Laser Squad (you can save movement points to fire at enemy units crossing your line of sight in their turn)
*   Keep your units happy/inline (food/morale), or they will desert you. Or just built a cyberkanics laboratory and lobotomize them into an army of loyal organic robots.
*   The entire game world is "live", units/creatures/actors carry on even if you/they aren't local, with their own agendas.
*   The map isn't just in two dimensions but three, upto 10 levels deep.
*   The map is generated randomly/ procedurally using various methods (cellular, BSP and more)
*   You explore and expand by carving out your own bunker, and making rooms like in Dungeon Keeper, as well discovering other abandoned.buried rooms in the depths.
*   chest, crates and containers etc, are permanent, you can store stuff in them, drag them around, stand on them etc, smash 'em up and use them as firewood.
*   Beware of radiation especially as you get closer to the surface, but also lava as you go down, and don't tunnel into that underground river and flood your base!!
*   It's underground, it's dark. You have to manage your light resources, whether it is flashlights or burning torches, maybe build yourself a network of electric lights.
*   Stuff to research, and discover.
*   Age is a factor of the game. What to do with that bunch of orphans you found, maybe they could be your newest and youngest recruits, or maybe used to flush out the mutant rats or scout enemy territory. How about a feast of long pig for all your troops.


Stuff currently being done
* Digging/excavating AI
* Customizing the code to run on the theoretical target device (Raspberry Pi - 700Mhz 256Mb Linux)


To Do
* Faction AI "personalities"
* Animations
* New graphical assets
* Foley and background music
* Mac Version

[Yodhe]

Reserved for Game Media - Screenshots, Video etc.


April 2013 Screenshot of Ground Level. game @1200x800



April 2013 Screenshot2 of Ground Level. game @1200x800

[Yodhe]

Reserved for Latest Stable Download

http://www.justanotherturn.com

[JimmyJ]

This sounds incredibly fun to me, can't wait for some screenshots or a playable version. I am very interested.

[eobet]

Mac version makes this interesting for me, but this sounds almost like Dwarf Fortress in scope, which I sadly don't consider to be playable because of the high threshold of learning and the interface.

The GUI is what will make or break the game you are describing, imo. I hope it's good!

[Yodhe]

Hopefully it won't be as complex as Dwarf Fortress, or rather more accessable if it does manage to share some of DF's depth. Interaction with the game environment is largely done through context driven mouse menus, with keyboard shortcuts as well. Hopefully everything will be largely self-explanatory with a tendency towards ignoring the manual, and clicking and seeing what happens.

The game is written in standard 'C', using Allegro 4.4 (though I intend to upgrade to 5.1 when closer to completing the game), so there should be versions for as many flavours and devices as I can possibly port. But definately for Windows, Linux, and Macs (simply I don't have a Mac or access to one, to do a port, but this isn't essential till the game is near a proper Beta release), and hopefully for Android and Ipads as well.

Once I have finished the rudimentary digging and building AI routines, I intend to spend some time over winter and the new year making the UI look more polished, and putting in some animations for movement and actions.

[Niclas]

"Luther Blissett" )

[eclectocrat]

This looks awesome! Right up my alley. I think I'm moving my game in this general direction, you just have a 2 year head start on me. Really, looking forward to games like this. Good luck.

[Yodhe]

Thanks eclectocrat, high praise considering your game (or at least your dev-log here and elsewhere) has been a source of inspiration and silent envy (but a positive type, in a "setting the bar", sort of way) to me for the past year. :D



 

[Yodhe]

Started to implement the AI digging routines, and fixed lots of bugs that this caused as they appeared. Currently the AI will dig corridors, stairs, and small rooms.

Also improved the lighting, and put in climbing through windows.

[Yodhe]

I've improved the dynamite/area explosion routine to do more realistic damage to areas, and cause cave-ins.
Buildings without basements now have foundations, and now there are buried corridors underground as well. Also I've started creating the special rooms underground that you can discover or excavate.
Fixed and improved the AI Digging routines, and tweaked and fixed the NPC A* pathfinding as a result.

I've reluctantly decided to go with the "sandwich" layer-cake approach to the levels, rather than a contiguous space between levels (up and down), as to save this for the next version, and concentrate on getting what I have done to a proper playable state.

[happymonster]

Sounds good, although I'm not sure what you mean by sandwich layer approach?

[Yodhe]

Rather than the levels being contiguous, that is to say, in a true 3D world, the levels are separated by a thin layer of matter/rock which acts as a roof/floor, with special tiles that acts as stairs/ladders/pits etc up and down between levels, even though all the levels are "alive".


Anyway I have spent two days getting the variable FOV/LOS working, so now wearing a gasmask will limit your vision to a 90 degree arc, whilst removing it will give you a 160 degree arc. Of course the FOV arc can be set to any degree, and I am incorporating this in special units, that have tunnel vision, good for in tunnels but at a distinct disadvantage on the surface and large open areas. As well as all the other flavours of design that this allows me.

I've also added the medical bay to your underground base, where you can heal, and experiment upon units.

I have also realised that 48x48pixels is way too large, and I am looking at reducing.redoing them at 32x32 or 16x16 for scalability. This will show more tiles on the screen at any given time to increase the tactical nature of the game, as the edge of the screen currently is about the same as your length of sight. What was I thinking! Thankfully apart from the graphics, all I have to do is just change one TILESIZE variable. Still it does open up the possibility of getting/paying someone to make some graphics for the game at some later stage, but I want to get the vast majority of the game code finished before I tackle that issue.

[Yodhe]

Apart from a little staring into the abyss of one's soul, I have tweaked the mouse driven menus so they are easier to read, with larger titles, and also fixed all the major outstanding bugs in the menus.
Most of what I have done is unsexy stuff like clean up the code, fixes lots of bugs, and dealing with refactoring issues. I am also putting in guard points, which other Factions will station units at, and replenish when the units are either killed or move (normally returning back to "home" to get food and water, or being lured away by some other activity like a fight or explosion).
I've also introduced a percentage counter to show progressing during the game map generation, for the three to ten seconds it normally takes to generated all the levels. Mostly for my own amusement as I tend to experience that period of time an awful lot.

[happymonster]

Sounds good!

Have you looked to see if you can optimise the map generation? It might only save a few seconds, but if it's every time you run the build it might start to really help!

[Dragonmaw]

color me interested! i always love playing management sims. any idea on when a playable build will be available?

[Yodhe]

Lol I never thought of it as a management sim, but now you mention it....
:D
I should definately try and incorporate the best features of those though. Thanks.

As for a playable build, soon hopefully, in the next six months sometime, but I am not in a hurry. Technically the game is mostly there, I just need to concentrate on the actual playing experience more.

[Danmark]

This sounds fantastic. Your emphasis on "learn by doing" seems appropriate, but what are you doing about visual feedback?

[Yodhe]

What do you mean precisely by visual feedback?

I am assuming you mean visual cues to inform the player, such as highlights around interactive objects, or other markers.
Apart from encouraging the player to experiment, and click 'n' see I don't really want to be leading them by the metaphorical hand through the game. Nearly everything in the game will be interact-able with, depending on context.
Also all objectives/tasks etc will be able to be completed in a number of ways depending on how the person playing the game wishes to role-play themselves, however the usual "power playing" hopefully won't be the optimal strategy, or rather it will create its own dilemmas to be solved and weighed against.

[Danmark]

What do you mean precisely by visual feedback?

I mean informing the player of what's going on at all times. Haven't seen it in motion yet, but your graphics look somewhat inanimate. In particular, it looks easy enough to tell what and where things are, but not so much what they're doing. Dwarf Fortress has this problem.