Alexander Bruce will discover this topic and explode you all with his non-euclidean space.

[Infinite Blank]

Infinite Blank

An online platform exploration game where players draw the entire world.
Free, crossplatform, open.  Anyone can add to the world and what they add (generally) becomes part of it permanently.



WEBSITE (with download)

[Click here!]
See the tutorial on how to draw in the draw tool here








Original statement


Infinite Blank.


I've wanted to do a game like this for a long time.  One where players build out the world.  Seeing games like Minecraft and Playpen cropped up reminded me of the idea, so I thought it over some more and started working on it at TIGJam Midwest '010.

(Fun fact: the theme of the jam:  Proverbs.  Mine: "A good spectator also creates.")


Basic premise:  A platform exploration game where the world (a contiguous 2D environment) is drawn by players.


Execution:

- Discrete-color vector graphics.  (Like this)

- An infinite grid of connected cells, each of which is either blank or drawn and masked by a player.

- Drawn cells are permanent unless a sufficient number of players 'disapprove' of their content, in which case they become replacable.

- Cells have 10% overlap for transitioning.  New cells' graphics show up on top of old ones.

- Players may begin drawing a cell once every five (?) minutes.  This encourages them to
take their time, and prevents reservation of large numbers of cells.

- Agile characters, possibly with grappling hooks to spice up maneuvering and level design.

- During gameplay, the screen will align with the cell the player's avatar occupies, smoothly sliding when it moves to a new cell.

- A minimap of nearby areas, and another one detailing everything the player has explored.

- Players will be able to draw their own avatars, and (maybe) optionally animate their motions.

- Players will be able to communicate by making drawings, which appear and vanish when 'sent'.

- Possibly, groups of 5 x 4 cells will be given a 'theme' graphic by their discoverer (also subject to replacement rules) and (later / possibly) a set of attributes governing players' abilities while there.



I've created this topic as a way of 'fishing' for some interest in the project, so I'll have some creative world-builders ready to start drawing by the time it's ready.  It also obligates me to make progress on the project quickly.

(shameless plug: I'm working fast because I'm using a C++ engine, 'Plaidgadget', that I've been working on for a year or so.  It has serialization, network sync, a graphics editor, reflection, a thingie that makes coding new game engines super fast and easy, and lots of other goodies!  It's also crossplatform!  It has the notable limitation of exclusively rendering discrete-color 2D vector graphics.)



Progress:
Figure Editor [drawing tool] - serves other purposes and was already ready.
Networking / object sync - already created and tested for other games.
Vector platform engine - created at jam, a little buggy yet but functional.
Map / world system - Basic version finished after an all nighter.
Collision masking tool - Pretty crappy but it works.
Figure Editor integration - hardest part, done!  Tweaking needed still.
Serialized world state - Easy peasy completesy.
MILESTONE A (windows): single-player version.  [Goal: Wednesday, June 10 - On time!]
Will be released here; followers may familiarize themselves with editors.
Fix collision errors - Much better, and new physics!
Milestone A.5 (windows): single-player version.
Remove unnecessary functionality in draw tool [LATE]
Drawable characters [LATE]
Resizable window [letterbox game]
CSG System - Clipping and optimizing drawings [LATE]
Server / Client map management - Shared map [LATE]
Network engine integration - See other players [LATE]
Mac Port
0.1: multi-player alpha.  [Goal: Wednesday, June 16]
Long since released.  Check the website.
Making drawing tool generally friendlier
Graphic Downsampling - Optimize drawings even more, save bandwidth
Animatable characters
Drawn communication
Configurable rules system - If the game gains any sort of following, I'd like to create a 'free mode' where all cells are editable all the time.
Further goals remain fluid.




THANKS

Inspiration: Paintchat, Minecraft, Playpen

OpenGL and Mac porting help: Ken Kopecky (allegrocm)

Friendly advice and worry-warting: Ted Martens (savethedinosaurs)

World building: YOU <3

Untitled's thing isn't nearly as much of a mindfuck as what's going on in a lot of these other games.

Honestly, other than unintuitive 'maps', impossible spaces aren't done that much in 2D games.  It's a shame.  *scheme*

My best guess:

Old-school graphics systems didn't use compression per se.  A byte would correspond to four 2-bit pixels.  That's a 75% (or 94.75%, if a pixel is four bytes to begin with) compression every time, without complication.

If you want something more solid, go with zlib or PNG like the last chap said.

Plenty of games have rocked the silent protagonist in first and second person, or the play-doh second-person fellow, but I really prefer a player character with a mind of its own, myself.

Narratives with overly flexible characters risk becoming a large number of okay plotlines rather than a single good one, which is more valuable.  Replaying with a different "path" tends to give one a story with only shallow differences, though.  As for silent protagonists, they can feel like they aren't really participating in the plot...

The Knytt games flow very well.  Their environments are contiguous, the music transitions smoothly, and there are no breaks or delays in the 'action'.  The interfaces transition into the game through the opening cutscenes.

I suppose the running works well for avoiding frustration with the controls.  Frustration with a game is usually immersion-breaking.

I'm pretty sure you didn't invent it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/introduction.htm

Certainly not.  But I'm not talking about flow as it relates to challenge.  I'm talking about continuity and avoiding immersion breaks.  Games where the player stops thinking like a player and starts thinking like the character (in a meaningful way) are wonderful.

There's a principle of game design that I like to use that I haven't really seen systematically defined anywhere.  I call it flow.  It's the way a game tries to be a continuous experience as the player progresses through it.

I started thinking in terms of flow after noting games that had "flow breaks" I found unpleasant: a need to enter inventory screens and rifle through potions in the heat of battle, a character telling your character to "press A", or a shameless load screen.  These things are barriers that keep a player from becoming fully immersed in a game's context, or damage the experience of playing it.

There are also quite a few examples of efforts toward a good, flowing experience.  Games that go to lengths--to avoid HUDs, smoothly transition players into the game's context with their opening menus, or automate dirty work like managing save files--"flow" well.

I value immersion (primarily in fictional contexts but in gameplay itself as well) as one of the most valuable aspects of the games I like to play.  For that reason my favorite games include Shadow of the Colossus, Cave Story and Aquaria.  In an upcoming project of my own I plan on having no HUD and no gameplay functions in a pause menu short of quitting and 'freezing' game state to return later (as distinct from saving).  There are much more interesting ideas for "flow" brewing as well, but I'll spare you.

My question to everyone: what is your familiarity with / opinion of this idea?  Where else have game designers mentioned something similar?  What other consequences should it have in game design?  What else constitutes a "flow break"?

Laughter is often a way of dealing with an uncomfortable subject.  That's why so many jokes feature racism, sex or violence.  The ones that don't often involve logical errors, fallacies or linguistic ambiguities.

That is to say, if you can bring up a discomforting matter without making someone very uncomfortable, they'll likely react to it as humor.

If they are too uncomfortable or not uncomfortable enough, they won't laugh.  So taste and tolerance are relevant.

No, just not someone who keeps up very well with forum matters.  Or twitter matters, or anything like that.

As for my friend, it's not hard to guess if you happen to be Greg Wohlwend.  His project is a sort of interactive simulation that might hint at a backstory.  It's meant to function as an explorative "toy" or as ambience.

The way I see it, you don't explicitly create an "art game", you create a game good enough to be considered art.

This is my standing.  Honestly, my favorite type of 'interactive art' is something with a quality narrative and good immersion.  It doesn't have to be a 'game' but I find engaging gameplay helps with immersion.


...


Anyway, it doesn't sound as though anyone's getting much out of this.  I have a more interesting matter I might bring up for discussion soon, anyway...

That's one issue that bugs me.  The difference between "art" and "entertainment" seems clear from a motivational standpoint.  A film meant to be artistic is easily distinguished from one meant to be entertaining.  But both of those things boil down to stimulation of specific emotional and logical responses.

I figured we'd discuss semantics here rather than the matter itself.  :/

So ignore the 'art game' and 'art toy' up there and focus on the things I'm calling 'game' and 'toy'..?

Or forget it.  *sigh*

Whatever the case, my friend certainly seemed conflicted regarding what he should call his... 'interactive art'.

Recently, I was talking with a friend about what his project ought to be considered.  It wasn't a game, I argued, because it lacked the fundamental condition of a game--a goal.  Yet it was an interactive and exploratory experience.  I used the term "toy", explaining that it applied to non-games like Maxis' Sim/Sims franchise and "sandbox" games.  My friend didn't care much for the term, thinking it a bit condescending.

Anyway, I think if we're going to carry on this cumbersome "games as art" debate we ought to get our terminology straight.  I'd like to know what sorts of lines everyone else draws between different interactive media.  Here are mine--pick at them as you please.


Play - Activity participated in for the purpose of entertainment.

Art - Material intended to evoke an emotional and/or intellectual response.

Game - Play activity driven by a goal which is part of the activity itself.

Toy - Play activity, without an explicit goal.  (Player may create goals.)

Art Game - A game which is primarily artistic in its intent.
    The indie community tends to use a narrower definition: a game which isn't quite a game or makes a statement about what games are.

Art Toy - A toy which is primarily artistic in its intent.
    Explorative works like the recent Kometen fit here.

Interactive Art - An interactive work which is primarily artistic in its intent.
    A more general term encompassing the last two, and befitting of things that are meant as art but not entertainment.

Shock value is a crude approach to humor, but is nonetheless used for humor value there.  And there's nothing un-artistic about humor.  A laugh is an emotional response, after all.

What better way to make people laugh then to make them uncomfortable? 

I'm working with this fellow, and he's quite a pleasure to collaborate with!  He did the graphics for everything on Plaid Notion (excepting a few well-hidden, very ugly old things of mine) and is quite skilled at animating (especially effects) in a wide variety of styles.  Note that his skills are by now a cut ahead of the site's older games!

As an intermediate-level game programmer he's also quite equipped to communicate regarding technical matters--also very relevant to ingame animation.  As an anecdote, he and I once spent several hours working with a particle animation to get it just right.  We eventually settled on a carefully-tuned combination of pre-animated graphics and free particles which became the pixel blood in 'Lapratan V1'.

He did my avatar too!

Consider this a sparkling recommendation.

It's unsettlingly obvious that these are color-quantized stock photos, and with no noticeable editing work.  I'm a programmer, not an artist, and this is apparent to me.

I don't expect anyone will be interested in paying you for this kind of work.

Hopefully eh.... do you have an alternate plan in case that doesn't pan out? (just wondering, for planning purposes)

Cram into the trunk if possible. 

If I can't come, I'll notify you somehow..?  You'll have an extra T-shirt.

I've got me eye on this one:

"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."

...And am super pumped for this jam!

Registered.  *Hopefully* gonna carpool with aeiowu.