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[shrimp]

Proteus is not dead, just sleeping! We're hoping to have it ready for GDC, and then downloadable shortly after.

Just posted this for #screenshotsaturday:



Older stuff:

Current state (click for video):

This is the early stages of a procedural RPG/exploration game. It doesn't really have a name yet except Proteus (a bit of a joke about the lack of a definite design) or Nodeland, which is just based on the theory of how the stuff in the world is laid out.

The landscape is generated as a series of regions, and then region-level features are added in like mountain chains, valleys, areas of water etc. Forests and towns are also added at the region-level and then the whole thing is converted to a heightmap, a terrain terrain is generated and objects are added (trees etc)





The particle-system-ish cloud layer is the start of some sort of weather/atmosphere system which will probably change over time to add a bit of variety to the feeling of exploration and how the world feels.

You can move about, run jump, slide down cliffs and that's about it at the moment.

Final gameplay will be probably a bit like a very simple take on the Morrowind games. Not sure what combat will be like, or even if there will be any real combat. Non-violent would be cool! We're mainly thinking about focusing on exploration and quests. Also some fun movement modes like skiing and gliding, maybe riding some creature(s)? I'm also hoping to figure out some very lightweight survival-style gameplay, so you can choose to live off the land or pay for food and shelter in towns.

At the moment I'm adding generated names to features and regions in the world, just for fun. There's a context-free grammar system in there that I wrote ages ago and haven't really used for anything yet, so I'm feeling sorry for it. Next up is to put some logic in the town placement and have stuff like mineshafts and farmland in neighbouring areas, as well as connecting roads.



Currently the art is either my programmer-art or programmer-mutilated artist-art... so the next-but-one task is to fix up the .obj file importer and get some decent models and textures in. More on that later...

Tools:

• C#
• SDL.NET
• Tao framework for OpenGL
• Alex May's and my Wuwei framework (pretty much all of the graphics code is Alex's  )
• Acunote (project management web app)
• SVN

[The project evolved from this... the thread that I put in Feedback and then realised it should have gone in the Developer forums, so I let it die. Anyway, thanks to stephen and bezzy for the comments there - the feedback has been incorporated into the new terrain generator!]

So, yeah. tl;dr

I'll put up a test build when I have a bit of time to make something presentable...

[/size]

[mirosurabu]

I am in a hurry, so I skimmed over the text. But.. the 3D pixel stuff is very nice and inspiring. Will check this out some other time.

Cheers

[Bree]

Looks really cool- can't wait to see the build!

[shrimp]

Thanks guys! give me a couple of days to sort out the build. I am slightly dreading machine-specific graphics problems 

[CK]

this looks really really nice - love the 3d pixels

slide down cliffs

i like that.  the gameplay sounds enjoyable.  the idea of a non-violent world looks like it would really work judging by the screenies.

keep this alive and don't kill it with ambition.

 

[Inanimate]

This is quite a cool idea. I hope to see it completed!

[george]

Currently the art is either my programmer-art or programmer-mutilated artist-art... so the next-but-one task is to fix up the .obj file importer and get some decent models and textures in. More on that later...

I hear you about prettying it up, but I like the visual style a lot already .

[JLJac]

Yeah, it looks cool! I take it those buildings are only sprites right now? You mentioned something about models, are you going to use real models instead of sprites?

[ChevyRay]

Pretty so far. I love exploring, and your world already makes me want to jump inside of it and go hiking across meadows and along the ocean beaches, across mountains...

Gets some charming low-res models in there in place of those sprites and you'll definitely be in my good books. Everything about this so far gives off a delightful scent.

[shrimp]

Thanks again for the encouragement!

JLJac - Yep, they're sprites. The buildings are the main things that look bad as sprites (apart from the silliness of the sprite assets themselves), so they will probably be first to be switched over to models.

In general the visual style is totally placeholder, but I guess it has a naive charm 
We will try not to ruin it by turning it into some kind of failed Elder Scrolls clone!

Chevy - this is exactly the idea! I hope it works.....

[Halcyon]

This looks very interesting, I too want to jump in and start exploring; will be watching this progress. 

[Alec S.]

This looks cool.  I like exploration in games quite a bit, and this looks promising.

[Dave Ravel]

It reminds me of the time I've been spending in theHunter, but that's mainly because so few games are fun enough to just walk around in and enjoy. I don't envy your difficult task of not compromising the exploration for the sake of easing players' questing; balancing those two elements always seems like a difficult act, especially if you're thinking of going non violent.

Good luck sir.

[RayRayTea]

Which Hunter, the Amiga classic Hunter or the other one (The Hunter)? I assume the latter, since the first one doesn't have "The" in the name.

[nihilocrat]

Why not call it "Proteus in Nodeland"?

It's looking pretty cool. If you want some sort of actual conflict in the game, you could have some sort of nonviolent one. Perhaps the world is dying (mysterious black clouds in the sky that kill vegetation and, slowly, make regions of the world uninhabitable) and you've got to search high and far for some relics or something that you've got to put together at an altar to save the world. It sounds really cliche, but I think "gopher" style quests could be more interesting when the things in your way aren't just enemies you have to kill.

[shrimp]

Hello - here's that
build. It *should* have all the DLLs and stuff, but I reserve the right to do some hasty editting in a few minutes...

Anyway, hopefully it runs ok. There are plenty of obvious and not-so-obvious glitches and rough edges. One bug I am expecting on some machines is the landscape not being lit... haven't looked into that since the previous thread.

I put in the region names, which appear in the bottom left. These will probably only appear in NPC dialogs etc rather than in the "HUD", and also they'll be based more on the real features of the area, once these sort of details are in.

I'm not sure how often we'll be posting updates - we might try and get something a bit more finished before revealing too much/building false hopes (as applicable)

Regarding exploration/quest balance, it will probably be heavily exploration-biased, at least at first. If there's a quest it will be fairly abstract. Maybe the exploration is the quest... hmmmm...

Non-violent conflict: there might end up being something rather Miyazaki-ish going on, but... see above

Oh also: Regarding Hunter/the Hunter - it's funny because Ray (co-developer) and I were talking earlier about the nice open world of the Amiga game "Hunter", but I reckon you're probably talking about the online hunting thing.

[Alec S.]

I tried out the build.  It's pretty awesome so far!  I can't wait so see what you do with this.  It should be pretty cool! 

[shrimp]

Nice one, thanks!

I just realised that I forgot to say it requires .NET runtime

[agj]

So nice! I like that you can go above the clouds. So, it's all procedural, right?

[KennEH!]

This looking great. I wondering though maybe put some stuff be higher? Everything I like the idea of climbing actual mountains  instead of hills. Also the clouds felt really low too.

I found the third camera (the one farthest back) the clouds were usually in the way.