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[Common Kingfisher]

Alea's Quest is the working title of a project I've been meaning to do for a very long time. It's quite ambitious, hence this DevLog. It'll help me keep up with it.

On the surface, AQ is just like your average 80's adventure game. You play an AFGNCAAP (Ageless-Faceless-Gender-Neutral-Culturally-Ambiguous-Adventure-Person, for the heretics out there), you just landed on an uninhabited island/peninsula, and your quest is to find 3 currently-undefined MacGuffins. There is a major difference however : all the features of the map, its buildings and the items they contain are generated at random.

Now, hold your horses, Missy. A randomly-generated adventure game ? Isn't that... a bit weird ?

Yeah, I can understand your confusion. Most adventure games are very linear : every obstacle can only be overcome in one way, and every item has only one use. They focus mostly on the story and the caracters. A few years back, those were for me the characteristics of a good game. Then I discovered Dwarf Fortress.

DF changed everything I thought about games. It's a sandbox game, which means there is no plot, and it's randomly generated, which means the setting and the story will never look as good as if it had been designed by a real person. But it doesn't matter. The gameplay is so vast and so complex that the story literally creates itself as you're playing : you're really living YOUR own adventure.

Here's an example : one day, while playing the game in Adventure mode, I received a quest to kill a giant. It was way too powerful for me, so I devised a plan : I would ignite a tree to start a forest fire, then drag the giant out of its cave so it would get caught up in the smoke. It was rather laborious, and I almost killed myself in the process, but I succeeded. It was wonderful, because it was not planned. It was me, who chose among all the resources the game offered me, and came up with a solution to find my way out of this.

That's why I created Alea's Quest : I want to take this concept up to eleven. Every object in the game, rather than having a specific use, has a set of attributes (for example, its size, or the material it's made of), thust they can be used anyway you want, and each obstacle you'll encounter will require you to come up with an original solution. The walls of the temple are closing in on you ? Quick, pick up an item that is long and solid enough to hold it. Need an extra bag ? Why don't you grab that potato bag over here, pierce it with that bronze pick you got earlier, pass a rope through the hole and use it as a shoulder strap. A troll is blocking your path ? Set the bridge on fire thanks to an improvised molotov cocktail made off a bottle of whisky and a burning silk scarf as a fuse. Etc...

I don't know if I'll be able to go that far, but that's what I'm striving for.

Sounds intriguing... Would it be possible to see what it looks like ?

Well, the graphical interface isn't done yet, and besides, the game is still in french. But if you want to see what it will look like, here you go :



Yes, it's text-based. No, don't run away.

It will have a relatively simple interface, because it needs to display the in-game time, and stuff such as your hunger and your thirst. The text will be colored (dangerous things will be written in red, the description of your surroundings in blue, etc...) But that's it. I don't want to put real graphics, first of all because it would be too damn long (it's already going to take some time sticking with the current plan), and it would prevent me from putting everything I want in the game.

And when will it be out ?

That's a damn good question. I have no idea. I have never work on a project of such a scale. I'd like to say I'll be able to give you a beta version in early 2013, but I'm not really sure... Maybe a bit later. Or maybe it will be out by the end of the year. Or maybe not. (I'm not being really useful here, am I ?)

The only thing I can tell you, is that I'll post more updates here as progress is being made. Stay tuned. Oh, and I'll also try to update this Twitter page, and this Facebook page. I said "try". I don't ususally use those things very often.

[Common Kingfisher]

Okay, I created this thread mostly to get some feedback, so why not start now. I'm currently working on the generation of the map itself (kind of important in a generated game). I made a graphical version to better realize what it will look like. Try to imagine that all the « squares » of the map below will be game areas (like this)



Here's another one :



Brown is mountains, blue is water (rivers and ocean, soon there'll be lake), yellow is beach/sand, light green is grassland, dark green is forest, purple is haunted forest.

I don't really like the way the forests look, but I don't know if I can find a better solution. The rivers look kinda weird too, but it doesn't bother me as much. They're obstacles you'll need to cross, so the more convoluted they are, the better in my opinion. What do you think ?

[Kit]

I'm a huge fan of the old text games. As a child of the 80's, one thing I really remember growing up is playing the old BBS text games with my dad. So when I saw the "Are you a BBS SysOp" text, it really brought out that nostalgic feeling and flooding memories of games like Usurper

The fact that you are attempting to add this type of random generation is actually intriguing. One thing that always bothered me about old text games is that linear feel. Sure, it felt great the first time you won the game. But after that, there was not a ton of replay value. There are some exceptions, sure, and some games where the scope was so large that it didn't matter. But this sounds very interesting.

I think the map generation looks pretty cool. As for the forest, I think it looks fine. If you want to break it up a bit, you could add a slightly less dark area of green and have it be something like sparse trees, and the dark green be the forest. Then you could sortof line the forests with the lighter color and then scatter a few squares here and there. Maybe even a darker green for deep woods or something. Just a thought. I think it looks fine the way it is already, plus there might not be enough room to add all that extra jazz.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with this project and I'll be bookmarking it for the purpose of following the progress.

[Common Kingfisher]

Thanks for your comment ! Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, I got kinda busy those last couple of days.

About the forests : the density of trees is going to be a parameter : the further you go into the forest, the more trees you'll have, the more enemies you'll encounter, etc... Also, I just added lakes and swamps, so there'll be even more diversity. Now the next step is to create what I call "Points of Interests", that is, all the interesting stuff that will be placed at random on the map, like caves, wells, springs, haunted mansions, etc...