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[Quarry]

Your stuff still looks neis

[ninto]

Awesome stuff.

[Eigen]

ninto, thanks.

I started thinking how I should implement the "resting" feature. I had a brief discussion in the IRC but things still aren't clear. First of all, resting only happens in camps and such, not just anywhere in the wilderness.

I have two three options:

Option 1

You choose the number of days/turns you want the character to rest. Then, for that amount of turns, the character is in a state where it can't be moved or used for any other action and such. You could of course cancel the resting. Hunger level is still affected during that time and you can eat (eating is an instanteneous, you only choose how much to consume, depending on how much food you have to go around). My main gripe with that option is, that it's not really realistic for somebody to rest for 3-5 days.

But I like that it still affects the hunger. So the fact, that if you had a weak character who'd have to rest all the time but meanwhile still eat the precious food, would be a sort of a penalty for choosing such a wimp (he'd of course be good at other things and still essentially needed)

Option 2

You choose the number of hours you want the character to rest, depending on how low the energy level is. Then, for a certain number of seconds (like 1 second per hour), the game blocks everything else and shows a progress bar while the character rests. You can cancel that if you want to. You can't do anything else or control any other character while resting is in progress. The problem I have with this option, is that it doesn't fit in with the turn-based thing. I mean there is no concept of hours in the game. The day is not 24 hours, it's just a unit of time during which you can do a certain number of things, depending on stats. But is more realistic out of the two.


Option 3

Combine the hunger and energy levels into one, so the more you eat the more energy you restore and you don't have to sit down and rest.


What do you guys think?

[eobet]

First impression of the two bush sprites are that there seems to be some pillow shading going on near the bottom. I'd have to see it in-game I think, but I'm worried that they will appear to float...

...which reminds me, that dark little thing in the middle of some tiles on the old screenshots. I have no idea what that is and to me, it looks weird centered like that.

The overall style, though, including the black menus, is all wonderful.

[Eigen]

First impression of the two bush sprites are that there seems to be some pillow shading going on near the bottom. I'd have to see it in-game I think, but I'm worried that they will appear to float...

The pillow shading happens because I tried to define their shape near the bottom. I did a quick edit:



The blue stuff on some land tiles is just ... I don't know, denser/darker patch of grass maybe? It should probably be spread out a little.

[Quarry]

Please release a demo or video or something please speed up the development PLEASE I BEG YOU

[Eigen]

Here is a new video for all of you good peeps. The sound is delayed due to recording at lower frame rate. Sorry about that. Bad Fraps, bad.



There is some stuff broken, like the ship wave particles I added this morning that are drawn over the terrain when they shouldn't be.

[Chris Koźmik]

This game begs for Colonization/Civilization movement style. In turn based games there is no need nor point for a delay in movement, I mean, it is not arcade so it does not affect anything and simply makes the player "waste time". Click and the unit moves to the destination in less than 1 second is the way to go.
Generally, I noticed you have a problem deciding what kind of time mechanic to use, "turn based" and "shows a progress bar while the character rests" does not fit. Eventually you will have to choose one and go all the way.

Resting.
Option 2 is the worst. For now I would ignore it and do other things first (resting is mostly balance thing, it's easiest and best to do when all core mechanics are in place already).

The key question, is your game to be about:
- exploration (you explore the new world to discover riches and take them back home)
- settlement (you build a permanent settlement in order to live in the new land)
Depending on this all features should be adjusted. For example if this is to be exploration then the land mass should be bigger, you start with one settlement on the coast and them make a network of settlements (like 10 tiles away of each other) in order to reach distand areas and explore (settlements provide supply and resting for explorers). If this is settlement game you build mostly in one place and try to make a production chain (the gameplay would gravitate naturally towards Sid Meyer's Colonization in such case).

[Eigen]

Thanks for the brainwaves.

I don't think the Colonization/Civilization movement system would fit here. In those games, units and maps were generalizations of the real thing. Things as large as mountains but also small as trees would all fit onto one tile. Units were as large as the villages and so on. My game is more to scale so I think it would look strange if the ship or the character would move real fast between the tiles.

The reason I chose to do stuff turn based is to give stats (like agility for movement range) a meaning, but also to emphasize that certain actions take a while to complete. Like chopping down trees and such, these things don't happen instantly. Also, doing stuff real-time paces things up to a point where if you don't act fast enough, you die of starvation. That's not what I want. I quite like the current pacing. So, for the time being, I implemented the first option for resting.

I'd say it's about exploration and survival. Quite a lot about survival in fact. Not so much about settlements, though as I've said before, elements of such things might come into play later on in the development. At one point, I talked about an idea, that there's one huge map and you go as far as you can and find a spot with plenty of resources and settle down there. Then, from that point on you can always hire new crew and stuff and go further.

[Eigen]

Devlog 5

* I drew some new trees
* Changed the water so now it's constanly covered with some wave animation and graphics.
* Wrote a simple particle manager that's atm only used with the ship movement (for the wave trail)
* Resting in camps and ship
* Some GUI fixes
* Bunch of code improvements

Next up: INVENTORY .. gosh, how long can I postpone it.

Here's a screenshot of the new trees. Grouping them was a quick and dirty job and they don't really align that well. I'll redo that when I get home. Also, the forests make no sense botanically. Different types of trees are mixed up very randomly without any logic. I will make it so, that pine trees grow more near the coastline, fir and other trees will be found more inland. And the forests should be much denser near the edge of water, so it'd be more difficult to find a good spot to embark and journey in-land.



I'd realllyy like to get a playable build out sometime soon but there just isn't that much to do yet

[Quarry]

Have temperature ratings for ground tiles, it'll make your life easier for overworld generation

[IndieGamesDig]

I'd realllyy like to get a playable build out sometime soon but there just isn't that much to do yet

Yeah, I really wanna try a playable build, but hold off until you have something you're sort of proud to show off. And a proof of concept build can be short and sweet FYI, just enough to wet our tongues.

How many different types of trees will there be, and although I assume the different trees are just there for aesthetics, have you given any thought to giving different properties to types of tree woods? Like there would be an optimal wood choice for building houses, building boats, crafting wooden items, making signaling/cooking/smelting fires, or for primitive fire-by-friction methods. For instance, your chances of getting a fire via bow-drill are greater with Cedars and Willows, and you could use the inner bark of Basswood trees to make rope, the list can go on and on.

It's just a random suggestion that may or may not work well with your planned game; I was at one point working on a wilderness survival game, which I've long since abandoned, and I had much of the gameplay based around knowing how to use the right wood for the right job.

[Eigen]

Yeah, a bow made using a branch of a firtree works much better than let's say a soft and bendy willow. That sounds like a sweet level of micro-management, though I'm not sure how many players would appreciate or like it. That should apply to other aspects as well then. Like hunting animals. How do you catch a rabbit? Using a trap or using a bow and arrow? It's so fast and runs away as soon as you get anywhere near it.

Anyway, I implemented a visual and audible range for characters. That in turn prompted me to add a new attribute, Perception, so the higher the value, the greater the range. You won't be able to see or hear moving objects outside that range. Also, my little men can die now. One of them did in the image below. At the moment, dead guys turn into graves instantly, though perhaps there should be a body that you have to bury not to lure bears and wolves with the .. ehm .. smell. Is that going too far?

[Houndninja]

Please tell me this will be free! Sounds really awesome!

[Quarry]

Could you tell me how you did the scaling with SDL/SFML whatever you're using?

[Franklin's Ghost]

Liking the addition of the perception attribute.

[DustyDrake]

You should be able to move the bodies around to purposely attract bears and wolves.

[rek]

Loving the Oregon Trail vibe.

re: Perception. Something that's always bugged me is that it usually doesn't make sense. You can see clear through a thick stand of trees or high mountain if it's nearby, but you can't see across an empty field or body of water if it extends beyond a set radius?

[Eigen]

Please tell me this will be free! Sounds really awesome!

Thank you. It will certainly be something, I haven't really thought that far ahead.

Could you tell me how you did the scaling with SDL/SFML whatever you're using?

Code:

// SFML
mySprite.SetScale(2,2);

Liking the addition of the perception attribute.

Thanks a lot. It was a very prompt addition. Once I had the hidden area around the player working, I knew this range had to be parametric.

You should be able to move the bodies around to purposely attract bears and wolves.

Makes sense.

Inventory:
Knife
Some herbs
Dead body

re: Perception. Something that's always bugged me is that it usually doesn't make sense. You can see clear through a thick stand of trees or high mountain if it's nearby, but you can't see across an empty field or body of water if it extends beyond a set radius?

I know what you mean, but it's visual and audible cues combined (no difference in representation, it's one range). In real life you may not see everything but you can hear stuff and identify it. I could make it so, that you see and hear further when the sight is clear, but when there are trees blocking, the range stops 1 tile after the object. That extra tile would come from audible stimulus.

[Quarry]

Aahh... I thpugh that SFML did linear scaling

EDIT: also can you overlay sprites on top of eachother and display them all at once as only one sprite