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[aDFP]

Hi. I'm a game design student in Plymouth, UK, and Cold Metal will be my major project this year, though hopefully I'll be continuing to develop it after I gain my degree. It's a pretty major project, so I'm not expecting to finish it any time soon.


One of my models, which might find its way into the game

Cold Metal is the coming together of several ideas I've been kicking around for a while now. Firstly, it's a science fiction universe where a bunch of stories I've been writing take place. None of those have been published yet, but it means I have a fair amount of the world already designed, along with it's characters, technology, society and history.

Secondly, I've been looking into how non-linear narrative in video games can work, and trying to figure out some techniques to bridge the gap between gameplay and storytelling that go beyond emergent narratives. I basically have some ideas and a growing collection of designs, but in order to develop and test them, I need a large, rich game world. Cold Metal is that world. I'm creating as much of the game as I can procedurally, but still trying to make an experience that rivals triple-A titles for depth and variety.

My blueprint for Cold Metal is the traditional 'Roguelike', but instead of dungeons, the player will explore The City, a future utopia where humanity has achieved near-immortality through technology. Instead of monsters, the world will be populated by civilians, corporate police agents, mercenaries, hackers robots and powerful industrialists. A lot of the stuff I have planned revolves around behavioural simulation and generated narratives, but I won't be talking about that stuff for a while, not until I start implementing it.

There's now a facebook page, where I'll be posting weekly updates. That's over on http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cold-Metal/127319184005528 if you're interested. This thread will get updated less regularly, basically whenever I've got something to show off.

Thanks for reading all that. See you round the forums.


My first attempt at procedural city generation. I'm actually scrapping this and working on something a lot more interesting.

[Chris Pavia]

I know you said you were scrapping your current city-gen plans, but could you post some more shots of it in action for my own curiosity? Preferably some birds-eye shots if you can manage it!

[aDFP]

I know you said you were scrapping your current city-gen plans, but could you post some more shots of it in action for my own curiosity? Preferably some birds-eye shots if you can manage it!

Would the .exe file satisfy your curiosity?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21084866/ColdMetalFPSTest.rar

It's basic as hell, just a very simple dungeon-type generator. All it does is find a space to put an open 'room', then track back towards the player start point until it hits an open space. I was going to refine it, use the open areas to place feature buildings, and make the streets more realistic, but I'm going with a new approach now.

[deathtotheweird]

this sounds like a great concept, and your city generator is already pretty cool. that robot model looks pretty snazzy as well.

good luck on your game

[Durruti]

I like every single word in the title of this thread, and thus I wholeheartedly support the making of this game.

[Chris Pavia]

Would the .exe file satisfy your curiosity?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21084866/ColdMetalFPSTest.rar

It's basic as hell, just a very simple dungeon-type generator. All it does is find a space to put an open 'room', then track back towards the player start point until it hits an open space. I was going to refine it, use the open areas to place feature buildings, and make the streets more realistic, but I'm going with a new approach now.

Cool, thanks!

[aDFP]

Just to let you guys know, Cold Metal hasn't gone away, it's just been stalled somewhat by College and work.

But now I'm done with everything else, and working on Cold Metal full time, so you can expect a playable version soon(ish).

This is my (pretty rough) schedule:

1.1 Procedural City Generation (February 2011)
Research into procedural generation techniques and scripted mesh construction in Unity3D, Procedural landscape Generation, Procedural street generation, Procedural building generation

1.2 HUD, controls, look & feel (March 2011)
Initial research of custom shaders, HUD interface (static), Movement and interaction controls, Design and implementation of custom shaders, HUD interface (active)

1.3 NPCs, combat (April 2011)
Simple NPC navigation, Basic projectile combat, NPC combat behaviour, Advanced projectile combat, Melee combat

1.4 Vehicles & Traffc (May 2011)
Simple player vehicle movement, NPC vehicle traffc behaviour, Advanced player vehicle movement, NPC vehicle dynamic response behaviour

1.5 Mission generation (June 2011)
Mission test with simple interface, Improve mission interface, Mission generation system, Add missions, refine interface, Add more missions

For the moment, I've dropped the procedural landscape idea, and I'm using grid-based cellular automata to make the city layout, mainly so I can get it finished in time.

Right, back to work. Demo soon, I promise.

[roboprez]

Wow, saw this on the procedural Generation thread and I can't wait to see some gameplay!

[aDFP]

Wow, saw this on the procedural Generation thread and I can't wait to see some gameplay!

Thanks. It's coming, I've been slowed down by having to get a proper job, but I'll try and post something up very soon.

[DementedChicken]

Hi!

Anything trans-humanist instantly gets my attention!! 

This sounds very cool. Kind of like a procedural Deus Ex?

non-linear narrative ... behavioral simulation and generated narratives

This sounds really hard to implement! Procedural city building I can understand, but how the bloody hell do you procedurally generate complex non-liner character interaction/story!?

If you manage to pull this off, I'm going to have to steal ideas from you!! 

I can't wait for the day when A.I. is conscious - then all you have to do is make a world and populate it with characters who believe they are living in a real world (i.e. not a game). The scripts would write themselves! 

[aDFP]

but how the bloody hell do you procedurally generate complex non-liner character interaction/story!?

Hi Demented! Glad I've got your attention

The short answer to your question? With difficulty.

The long answer is... I've been thinking about this for the last few years, and doing a fair bit of research. There's been a few different approaches, and my own ideas seem to tie in very closely with some one paper in particular, Chris Fairclough's OPIATE System, which is kinda promising.

I want to make something that's interesting and fun to play, which means making it into a game, rather than a stand-alone experiment, so most of my time is going into that first. I'm working solo and part-time on this, so I'm having to make compromises with the scope, but soon I'll have enough of a world to start building the narrative system.

If you want to play something similar to what I'm attempting, check out Bay 12's amazing Dwarf Fortress. It's a full-on simulation of a stylised society, though not as user-friendly or story-focused as what I want to end up with.

[DementedChicken]

Thanks, I'll check out that OPIATE system. 

Of course, Dwarf Fortress!  I have it installed and have played it a little bit, but haven't really had a chance to really get to grips with all of its complexities, although I understand from what I've read about it that it is a very sophisticated beast under that absolutely hideous interface! 

Maybe I'll install stonesense and give it another go some time.