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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsThe Forest - a cooperative online adventure
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pluckyporcupine
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« on: February 27, 2012, 03:04:18 AM »


I'm starting today on a co-operative online adventure with a retro style, which I am tentatively calling "The Forest". The focus of this project will be to create a truly co-operative adventure, where players must rely on each other to progress. I'm not entirely sure how many players I want the game to be designed for, but I'm looking at 4-6. Originally I had wanted 10, but after thinking it over, I think I'll go for 4-6.

The basic idea is that you're an ent. Not necessarily a gigantic ent, but a magical talking tree person. Using your magic, you must travel around and attempt to keep the balance. And, following along with it's nature-y theme, each ent will have a role to play. You don't have the same magic as your friends.

The game will be either mostly or entirely non-violent. All puzzles will be environmental and I will do my very best to make them feel entirely natural over the course of gameplay. I'd also like to do "bosses" of some sort. Also, as you may have guessed by now, the game will be online-only.

The game will have a loose narrative guiding players along. I want it to be at least 8-10 hours, but I may make it longer. Despite the narrative, the game's world will be very open, and players won't be restricted from areas by how long they've played (unless they're crucial to the narrative, that is...).

The game will be done in Flash with the use of Flashpunk, and I will probably be providing it as an optional desktop client through a projector or an in-browser method of play. I'm looking into server options, taking into consideration options such as Player.IO and the Union Platform, but ultimately, the decision is yet to be made, and how much interest is brought to the project will be a large factor in whether I go with an existing solution or create my own.

Side-note: Probably going to be using the Ogmo Editor extensively for level design. It's pretty convenient. Smiley

I'm not entirely decided on the style, but I really like the charm of blocky, low-res graphics, and I will probably keep them similar to what's shown above, but animated, of course.

And today's devlog.

February 26th, 2012:

- Made the logo above.

- Made some placeholder art.

- Started the absolute basics. Movement, collisions, basic magic mechanics. It's sort of working, but the technicals aren't working out the way I hoped they would. :/
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 12:46:59 AM by johnki » Logged

Blodyavenger
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« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2012, 04:10:46 AM »

It sounds quite interesting. I like the coop puzzle idea, so I'm looking forward to more updates.
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pluckyporcupine
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« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2012, 10:22:54 PM »

February 27th, 2012:

Didn't get much done today. Mostly worked on fixing what I managed to break already and on design.

Originally, I was going to go with one power per player. I wanted each player to have a very specific role. However, I foresaw a few problems. First, done like that, I'm sure everyone would feel a bit disposable. I mean, they are only one power out of a set of X number of powers. Second, it seems like it would extend itself too far. If you wanted 12 powers for 12 different situations, that's a whopping 12 players that would be needed to play the game optimally (or if designed to need everyone at every point, 12 players REQUIRED). Third, if one area of the game is very dependent on 3 or 4 out of those 12 powers (25-33%), wouldn't the other MAJORITY of the players get bored? And if the puzzles are designed to consistently include TWELVE players, wouldn't they just be too complex after a while, and off-putting to sustain games of twelve? Then, on top of that, I can imagine that people wouldn't be too interested in rounding up 11 friends to play. I mean, most people are driven to play games with friends and all.

After thinking it over, I was leaning towards four players, but that just seems; 1. Too stereotypical. 2. Other than Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, I can't really think of four different sets of magic that would make much sense and be practical.

And so I think I've decided on what to do. 3 players. Life, destruction, and balance. Life to breathe life into the dying world, destruction to remove that which would be a threat to the world (this does NOT mean combat, destruction is being used in a very different sense here), and balance to assure that neither life nor destruction get carried away.

Thinking up puzzles for this is going to be fun. I've already got some ideas on what to do with life and destruction. However, balance will take more thought. I want it to be more than just a janitor.

EDIT: I lied. I got a little bit of progress done today. I worked on the first of the life spells, which will summon water to make seedlings of different types grow. It's working, with the exception of drawing over the player character.

Also, it may be a while before I start posting screenshots. For the most part, right now, I'm using entirely placeholder art (with maybe the character sprite being an exception) in a "room" that's almost entirely gray (the default Flash background color except the objects I place in it to test mechanics. The reason is that I want most of the spells and other mechanics working before I go creating the world so that there isn't much change in available assets when I go to create the puzzles, and the world for that matter.

EDIT2: Worried a bit about the tile-based movement I'm using because it looks and feels a bit clunky. Then again, it isn't animated or fine-tuned, and the moving camera hasn't been implemented yet, so I suppose it's bound to feel that way.

EDIT3: Lied again. Got the moving camera implemented. I'll probably tweak it to feel less "stiff", but it's working for now. Movement feels a lot better, though it still feels a bit 1980s top-down RPG-ish right now. Need to get animation done, methinks, at the very least, for the player character. Also need to make my collisions not so noticeable, as changing the way the camera works made them "glitchy".

EDIT4: Think I have an idea for the balance player. A combination of "undo" skills (the aforementioned janitoring), and combining spells from the other two players. For instance, one casts fire, the other casts water, the balance casts combine, and bam! Steam.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 02:50:16 AM by johnki » Logged

pluckyporcupine
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« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2012, 02:59:43 PM »

February 28th, 2012:

New:

- Trees can now be set on fire with the fire spell. The fire then spreads to adjacent tiles with trees.

- Combine spell added. Turns water and fire into steam. No practical use for steam just yet.

To Do:

- Start on multiplayer code to see how the dynamic works with 3 different players.

- Fix collisions.

- Make it so that fire can kill players.
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pluckyporcupine
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« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2012, 06:22:29 PM »

February 28th, 2012 (Part 2):

New:

- Implemented a very crude character selection, added more placeholder characters, and split the 3 existing spells among their respective characters.

- Started work on a "builder" which will be able to place any object anywhere to test different spells on (but doesn't have any spells himself) once the online component is working. The builder will NOT be available in the final game. It's just a class to test stuff with.

- Changed the way water works. When spawned, it starts at a "spring tile". Then it spreads out AT LEAST to each tile adjacent to the spring tile. After that, it has a 10% chance of spreading to each adjacent tile, each calculated independently. It's a little bit TOO random right now, so I might tweak it. But otherwise, it seems to work just fine.

To Do List Unchanged

EDIT:

Part 3

New:

- Builder class working. The text following the camera is really, really jumpy, but I don't know if it's entirely worth fixing, seeing as I might not even keep the class.

Next stop, multiplayer code! I think I'm going to go with Player.IO for now. Might end up having to gut it later, but I'm not expecting to need much more than they offer.

EDIT: Attempted to start on multiplayer code. This is my first foray into online multiplayer development, and as such, it's a bit difficult for me. Working through it slowly.

EDIT2: Argh, multiplayer code is the bane of my existence already. Should have started from the ground up with it in mind. >.>
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 11:08:33 PM by johnki » Logged

pluckyporcupine
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« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2012, 02:01:59 PM »

March 2nd:

I've been picking at the coding for this a bit, but between school and a really crappy sleep schedule, I haven't had much time to sit down that it wasn't giving me massive headaches.

I've been working on implementing the multiplayer code, though, so far, it's not looking so good. I'm probably over-complicating it, but live and learn I shall.

On another topic, I've taken a look at my current system for movement/casting and I'm pretty sure that it's clunky as hell. I was hoping that it would give me room to make some puzzles more interesting by causing players to have to think out their movements in relation to other players, but now that I've been playing around with it, it's really just a major pain in the ass.

Here's what happens currently...

Say this is you: @

And this is a block: #

And this is a floor tile: .

if you make a movement like this...
Code:
....
@.#.
....

to...

Code:
....
.@#.
....

Then you would be facing in the "right" direction (I think represented by the number 1), and you could cast in that direction. Then if you were to move downwards, like this:

Code:
....
..#.
.@..

Then you would be facing down (2?), and you could cast in the downwards direction.

Each spell would be a different key, Z, X, C, and possibly V, and you'd only be able to cast in that direction until you moved again. Players wouldn't have been able to move on top of each other, and it would make puzzles more complex is what I was thinking, but looking back on it, it just looks like a tool for frustration.

So, what I wanted to know, is, if anyone's watching this devlog, would the current setup be better in theory, or would it be better to set up a "Choose spell with a certain key that either cycles through them, or separate keys, such as 1,2,3 to choose a spell, then cast by either clicking an adjacent tile or using another set of 4 keys (similar control scheme to Binding of Isaac would be the best comparison)"?

On a final note, I've decided once I get the game's multiplayer in, and a temporary background, I'm going to declare it 10% and release a "sandbox tech demo" type thing to get some opinions on how it feels overall. Hopefully by then, I'll also have some other items and spells in.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 08:40:27 PM by johnki » Logged

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