World generator start and going nicely: (Yes it took me only an hour)






The long parts are segments. What's not shown are the doors, which I have to pixel first. I'll do that tomorrow.

Then I just need the map to use the world data to make the levels and then I connect the rooms up and make the generator create platforms. That's tomorrow night's work.

I changed some art, got some nice, if gloomy, wall art going:





Still need to get better at pixel art, but it doesn't immediately make me cringe now.

The sector generator is fairly complete, next is the world generator.

Looking forward to seeing me some of this. 

Me too. 

Last night I got a new room/corridor generation system going based on grid segments. This is in preparation for making the world generator, which will be worked on today.

The happy part: The pseudo code I wrote in notepad worked the first time when I got it home and implemented it in C++.  :handshakeR:

I'm (successfully) implementing a design for a procedurally generated platformer. 

It's coming along quite nicely. 

It's when people say things like "If they don't know, they should learn." when it's quite possible they don't know that they don't know.

There's seems to be a gap in skills between those that are capable beginners and those that know how to use the language well. The latter tend to look down on the former and make derisive comments without actually helping. You know, things like: "If they don't know the operator precedence for && and || they should go learn."

It's possible to make simple things more confusing with added symbols, and it's possible to confuse simple things by removing symbols too. It shouldn't be needed to say "Ohai, don't use too many parenthesis, kthx." because you can see the result.

I don't have a problem with anything you said, except the line I quoted. I might have read more into it that I should have, but you came across as language elitist. Like I said: requiring people to be more skilled than they are and looking down on them for it is being a jerk. Most programmers who don't know operator precedent are too busy trying to figure out pointers.

Edit: Also, sorry if I came across as a jerk.

It's really the difference between "It's an excellent idea to learn operator precedence." versus "If you don't know operator precedence you should go and learn it."

Semantics depends on whether you come across as a kind mentor, or a belittling lecturer.

The premise of Majora's Mask is very similar. You have to keep restarting the three days in order to complete the game by getting the events that happen *just* right.

Taking the restart-over-and-over idea would be fun though, depending on how good the game is. As long as it didn't turn the game into one giant tedious mess.

Not trivial to code though. Good luck.

[require]

Comments that explain language features.  If you don't know what a destructor is, go learn.  If you don't know that && has precedence over ||, go learn.

How sure are you? I've used at least one language where it's the other way around. That's the reason why I use parenthesis, so it's unambiguous for less experienced programmers. Requiring all programmers to be *that* knowledgeable with compiler symantics before they are allowed to program something is just plain silly. Knowledge comes through use, and eventually those newbie programmers will be knowledgeable enough. Until then, use parenthesis, but not too much. It's okay to be a purist, a perfectionist, or an ivory tower person; but if you require others to be the same then you are a jerk.

The best if statements will make it clear what they are doing without being too complex. Don't be afraid to use a switch statements or nested ifs when they make your code easier to understand. The better the code, the easier it is to maintain and the faster you can write new code. If you've ever come back to a project that's a year old you know what I mean.

I couldn't pick one, but if I had to, probably Adventure, Puzzle or Shmup. Adventure and Puzzle games are often tedious, and Shmups are just repetitive.

Given that, I love games from all the genres. The Telltale adventure games are awesome. Braid was fantastic, and I like Bejeweled Twist. There's lots of good Shmups too. Sports I would vote for, but even still, I liked Tony Hawk's 2. The current FPS genre makes me yawn, but TF2 and L4D are awesome.

I know the answer: I hate boring games, tedious games, repetitive games, and clone games(which tend to be all three).

Unfortunately people keep making those, and they don't stick to one genre to do it.

Unfortunately for the programmer the fun can wear off an idea pretty fast, especially if you keep working on it, which you will.

After the prototype is done and you start working on the real deal, then it's good to get other people on board. That way they can play it and tell you if it's still fun/balanced. You'll get bored of it, but if you want to finish it you'll have to push through, and good comments help.

Remember that game development is 95% plain hard work. Playing games is fun, making games is not so much so.

What attracts me most to procedural generation is that with the right amount of work there’s infinite variation. It’s less a case of having a huge number of potential outcomes, but about how small changes and additions to the algorithms, a wider variety of levels can be generated. Larger levels can also be created without more work on the side of the designer. Instead of having to play each rock in a level, you design a procedure to place rocks and it works on all levels.

It’s hard to pin down what makes great metroidvania levels. It seems to be a combination of interesting and challenging. It’s where the monsters are in relation to platforms, along with the overall design of the area that makes them interesting. Strangely enough the overall design often comes down to the theme of the tiles, and the ‘colour’ tiles that just make the area look unique, but don’t actually affect the game. Putting that into a generator won’t be too hard, probably. The placement of the platforms and structure of the level is going to be the most complicated part to get right. I have a number of ideas though that I’ll use together, including segment generation, room creation and smoothing. More fun is having an adaptable generator that changes depending on the capabilities of the player at the time, based on the power-ups they should have collected by then. The levels also become a test against making sure the play does have those power-ups, and forcing him to backtrack if he doesn’t. On top of that, it would even allow sequence breaking if the generator was being particularly nice that time.

As for long term goal, it’s definitely the second one. It will be a bit longer than a coffee-break game, something more along the lines of Nethack. The goal would be to have each generation of the game be so wildly different to each other that exploration is brought back. There won’t be any simple walkthrough guides for those that want to get all the secrets. I definitely want to avoid the ‘Oh boring, another <blah> level again.’ that often crops up in such games often.

And then I’ll document everything I do so other designers can benefit.

Definately. I haven't made the other thread yet, but SS's. Coder art also.

<gone>

That was about 2 hours of work. More to come tomorrow when I have 5 hours to work on it!  

I've started work on it.

I've got a simple random-step stage generation going, which is going to be quickly replaced and tinkered with.

Tomorrow is physics and game stuff, so I'll be able to jump around and shoot and hump the walls and what not. Then see where to go from there.

I might go make another thread about it. 

It's obviously overcast.

I think it comes down to what the player thinks is bad and subtracts from his enjoyment, and what the player can deal with and might enhance the game.

Those things that are 'bad' that come from the death of unique characters crop up a lot:

• Not being able to progress
• Missing out on dialog/cutscenes
• Making the game tedious
• Taking away vital resources or time

Which can be boiled down to: Giving the player a large and permanent disadvantage for losing a character.

If any of these things happen, the player is going to want to revert to a time before the death, or restart completely if they can't revert, or stop playing your game and go play something fun. Of course, if it's a short play game then they might wear it.

If the death is only temporary, or there's a raise mechanic, then it's not such a problem, but then we wouldn't be talking about permanent death any more.

So, if the player would like to stop playing if they are permanently disadvantaged, then the solution would be either to disadvantage them less, or reward them for losing a character.

So what kind of rewards? Story rewards, skill rewards, money rewards, equipment rewards. If the game ending still included the dead character, but in a more mournful way, then it wouldn't feel like they are truely lost. If the character's equipment and money were recovered, and perhaps some of their skills, then the loss wouldn't be so severe.

The goal would really be to have the player see the loss of the character and go "Oh damn! I can't believe I lost Jim Smith! Bastards killed him! Well, it's not a huge setback, but an opportunity for revenge. Attack!" and yet still later in the game think, "I miss Jim Smith. " Not enough to want to restart/reload, but enough to remember.

The other opportunity is just to have the cost of reloading/restarting be higher than the cost of losing the character.

I wanted to make a game like that. One giant survival mind-fuck.

I also wanted to add "wtf" elements, like those from The Animatrix haunted house episode. Raining indoors, lights that work with no glass or element, a mirror that shows things behind you that aren't really there, two windows in the same corridor that show two different outsides. Some of the less cheesy elements from Eternal Darkness would work as well.

I play for the ending for most games, but only if the game is good. There's several games where I haven't even gotten closed to completing them, they just weren't worth it.

There are some games though where the game is so fun that playing it to get 100% is even more entertainment. This list however tends to be limited to the Mario games and an Untitled Story.

Ps. How do you rate games that are completed? Like Spelunky, Sim Games, Strategy Games and Multiplayer Games? For those ones: Until I get bored, or there's something better to do.

Outside-the-window could be extended to Breaking the Fourth Wall.

Games where much of the interaction or gameplay mechanics happen because the game is aware it's a game. Characters talking to the player directly, messing with the controls/technology of the game, leaving the play area, etc. As well as Droqen's idea of having to do things that are outside of the game: moving windows etc, extend it to interacting with the game in odd ways. Click and Drag your player over a gap in a platformer.

Drawing a blank right now, I'm sure there's more ways this could be used.

mcc, is it just me, or does your cats face look like those blue aliens from that new movie Avatar...   He's very cute, nonetheless.  

He's right, your cat is descended from the Na'vi. Just watch in case he comes riding down on a dragon bird to eat you.

This is true; although I laughed when I read "Dwarf Fortress ... playable and winnable".

However I think that one of the main distinctions between these two games is that Dwarf Fortress puts the focus on "screw around and die a lot" while in XCOM you really do have the end goal of win (however that happens; I suck too much at it to get very far).

DF gets away with difficulty that flails around wildly, while XCOM aims to actually present a consistent challenge.

Well, yeah. Technically winnable if the RNG is nice.

There's also the case that an entire fort in DF can be lost in a matter of moments due to error or unluckiness.

In XCOM loss normally comes slowly in the form of attrition through tactical errors or unpreparedness. As well as the RNG.

They both highlight the importance of individuality though. In both games the units are valuable for different reasons. In the early game, a loss of a single unit can be horribly devastating. It's almost like the player has to nuture the units until they are strong enough as a whole to stand for themselves. It's that kind of close scrutiny that makes the player attached to the unit. It's not "Frank the blacksmith." It's "Frank who fell into the pit and I had to order a staircase built just to save him, then he went mad and made some artefact pants and is now the leader of the army and single handedly destroyed a goblin patrol by himself with nothing except his leather pants and a hammer."

All I can say is that we need more games like this.