next »

[1982]

Oh gosh, now it is official, I have decided to build a game. I already touched the subject at my RPG Maker thread: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24080.msg690372#msg690372

So yes, I will make this with RPG Maker XP. I know it's limitations and flaws, maybe the negative public attitude towards the games made with it, but it is currently only viable option for me to use as I know it very well throughout. And for my game at least, it is very suitable dev kit.


Orionvela Mission
This game is set in near future in a isolated human community consisting 3000-5000 inhabitants. People do normal every day stuff like farming and working, they have relationships, children go to school, etc. Player starts the game by playing one of the inhabitants.

Mechanics/genres of this game include adventure, exploration, some degree of puzzle solving. My goal is to achieve good deal of realism relating to this near future theme. This won't be fantasy game of any sort, but it could quite possibly touch subjects inside metaphysics. This won't be a RPG game in a normal sense (jRPG, wRPG) like usually seen in RPG Maker games. I will talk more on this subject when I know more  


Graphical style
I would like to move away from classical RPG Maker style which is sort of half top down 2D together with goofy characters. Last few days I've studied other approaches, like completely side scrolling environment shown in these examples:


Cyborg

Nexus

I believe it makes the graphics little bit more faster to develop, as characters animations needs to be drawn only from side view compared to normal RPG Maker 4-view template. Of course this approach will require more from background graphics, but I have to come up with economic and yet cool looking style. Like example pictures there, I believe that similar style adds a lot credibility and seriousness to the game compared to funny cartoon graphics.

Palette will be limited (probably NES), or then similar color realism like in Jagged Alliance games. Resolution will be either full 640x480, or 2x upscaled 320x240.


Sound
Quite minimalistic but plays important part. Occasional spoken dialogue/monologue to emphasis immersion.


Music
This will be awesome stuff. Similar style with John Carpenter, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Vince DiCola, you name it.


Publishing
While it is way too early talk about this, I will quite likely release the game as free to play but with optional donation.

[1982]

Just testing out basic room layout similar to Cyborg. Yellow dots mark non passable tiles. This is only single screen room, but rooms can be made scrollable as well. Two tile movement up/down is enough for my purposes. More and the perspective would distort too much. If needed, rooms can be 4-directional meaning they have doors in every side. It is not yet known how complex maps I will need.

Character sprite is 32x64, which I think is just about okay. Bigger would need more details, and smaller would be too small. The graphics will be isometric, in 1x2 ratio. That is no problem as I love to do isometric graphics compared to orthographic like usually in RPG Maker games.

Upper portion of the screen can be used for showing environments that go long distances, lower part of the screen is used for discussion screens and other information.

I am already strongly convinced that I go with this kind of mechanic. I really like the overall feeling and possibilities of this. I know that I am limited in up/down movement, but I think it only makes the development easier.

[1982]

I started building the fundamental calendar system. This game can be seen as survival game, where your success is measured through the time you survive. So the "score" is the overall game time passed. Of course that is not the only goal of the game, but it is one way of measuring success. But this game is little bit different, the time is not measured in seconds, minutes, hours or even days... but in years.

[1982]

Working on calendar required me to develop sketch of the interface to be able to see what kind of numbers I can fit and where.

[1982]

I have now worked on the "engine" of the game which runs and calculates various mechanics of the world. While this is no management game, there still has to be functional base for all the playable content. I have now calculations for population size, inbreeding rate, and for simplified health care system which of course affects directly on the health and size of the population.

From this (and all the rest which I haven't yet made), we can draw various statistics of the community/society. This information is not automatically available for the player/character, but can be unlocked through progress in the game world.

Now I am currently working on how to make babies...

[unsilentwill]

Future space colonies? What could go wrong?

Looks interesting right now, I like the unique perspective. It's a bit dull at the moment, curious to see what exactly you're surviving. Keep it up!

[1982]

Future space colonies? What could go wrong?

Looks interesting right now, I like the unique perspective. It's a bit dull at the moment, curious to see what exactly you're surviving. Keep it up!

Actually this is not a space colony, but an isolated island in future after some major catastrophe. But yes this all seems to be pretty dull, as I haven't yet made any of the actual playable content. I am in the very beginning of the development and mostly scripting the core systems, which upon the actual game is built.

[1982]

Just finished mechanics for baby making. Because this is isolated community, there is always a risk for inbreeding. So you can test your characters partner through medical services before making babies to ensure having suitable genes. There is a risk of having disabled children because of inbreeding. This does matter, because later in game you are going to be playing this children character.

In this community, children are expected to continue the work of their parents. Like if parents are gardener and teacher, their children will continue work on one of those professions.

Depending on if you are playing female or male character, there are some differences:

Female character can have children through artificial insemination. It is easy, and player can ensure that he can keep playing the game. Drawback is that this children will continue the profession of his/her mother. In other words, you are pretty much stuck on what ever you are doing.

Male character challenge is to find suitable and willing mother for his children. It can be easy or hard, depending on circumstances. The good thing is that if its parents work in different professions, you might have chance to switch to another profession.

[1982]

I just made quick minimap on the island area I am working on. This is not probably intended as a map inside the game, but it helps me to design the level and placement of buildings / stuff.

Squarish base represent the "rooms" inside the game, where each section of the map is treated as separate room. In the game these areas are called sectors and that makes easier for player to navigate around. Also some events require going into right sector at right time etc.



Even the area should be larger, I try to keep it compact so there is not too much unnecessary walking having to do.

[kamac]

That looks interesting.

You are using pretty big isometrical view. I mean, you use pretty low angle of view. (Usually it's 45 degrees for drawing isometric tiles? You seem to use something like 20 degrees!)

So, instead of that:
  _
/_/

It seems that you have that:
   _
 /  /
/_/

If you know what I mean.

[1982]

That looks interesting.

You are using pretty big isometrical view. I mean, you use pretty low angle of view. (Usually it's 45 degrees for drawing isometric tiles? You seem to use something like 20 degrees!)

So, instead of that:
  _
/_/

It seems that you have that:
   _
 /  /
/_/

If you know what I mean.

Yes I know, but this is purely just aesthetic choice 

[s0]

Just finished mechanics for baby making. Because this is isolated community, there is always a risk for inbreeding. So you can test your characters partner through medical services before making babies to ensure having suitable genes.

I love this game already

[1982]

Today I have mostly pondered with subjects like spirituality, dualism, gods, prophets... This is going into some deep levels.

[1982]

Past few days I have been working on scripting the various professions/jobs found in the game world. In the beginning of the game these include following:

Gardener/farmer: He is partly responsible for growing plants for use as food and medicine. He have to balance between importance of these two types of crops and also make sure to take care of environmental sustainability. Major decisions what gardener has to deal with, is how much he has to sacrifice for gods and how much give to the community.

Guard/security: He has to deal with troublesome individuals. Player is told in which sector of the map there is a problem, and has to go there to solve it. Right now player can choose from either quickly restrain suspects with stun gun, or then solve problems by talking to them. These choices have later impact on the society - but not good or bad necessarily.

Doctor: In this profession the main task is to upkeep sperm bank and execute artificial insemination for woman patients. Other task is to control limited medicine supply, doctor needs to decide when medicine is required and when not. Doctors have advantage in having children. They have ability to closely follow gene pool of the community and thus suggest to their patient of making a baby together when seeing that their genes are far apart.

Teacher: Player role as a teacher is to teach about the surrounding world and life to the children. It works so that within any given subject, player chooses answer from few options. All answers have different long term consequences, and not any of the answers are clearly wrong or right, good or bad. Player should still consider what is his worldview and what kind of teaching would be most beneficial for the community going into the future.

----

You will want to talk to this guy:

[JMickle]

i am looking forward to this. it sounds and looks interesting.

[eyeliner]

Pretty good premise in your game.
Very thought out. Care if I set a notification on your topic?

[1982]

Pretty good premise in your game.
Very thought out. Care if I set a notification on your topic?

By all means, feel free

[1982]

I feel little bit sad of not having any actual graphical content to show at this point, even I know that pretty images always sell.

Past few days I have been working on doctors profession. It is starting to shape up pretty nicely. I already have mechanism for sperm donations, and artificial insemination mechanics are done except for the actual graphically presented minigame-part where the insemination is being executed.

---

I have also planned to include collectibles, which would include "secrets" and "truths". Secrets are something that player can use or experience, truths are interesting, but not necessarily useful knowledge about the game world.

[1982]

Screenshot:



Just to show where I am currently with graphics and interface. The HUD/interface will later change to look much better, I will draw the interface typography by hand to make it look nice and sharp.

[s0]

is that an ingame screenie or a mockup? looks cool either way.