Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Gentlefish]

I'm simply putting this here because it's in the process of creation - heck, I don't even have my little '@' running around the screen yet.

So! I'm wanting to build a shipwreck-survival RL in the vein of lost in blue. Which is fine and dandy, but I'm having a problem deciding on a few things.
Namely:

• How large should the island be? What sort of environments should there be?

• I'm thinking of 100x100 maptiles, each of which are 32x32 player tiles.
• There's going to be beaches, tropical forests, plains, swamp, and river/lake tiles. Should I have more/less?

[li]What are the main obstacles to the player?[/li]

• Food, water, and shelter are all very important. I'm going to try to model exposure and inclement weather conditions.
• I'm going to want apex predators. Wolves, tigers, and such. Maybe Lost-esque polar bears? What other enemies should there be?

[li]Is there an end goal? What is it?[/li]

• One should be to get off the island (obviously). But should there be more?

[/list]

[Loam]

A Lost-esque RL in general would be cool, especially with a lot of procedural generation.

In that vein, do you want single character or party system? Cause that could allow some interesting emergent gameplay.

[Gentlefish]

Currently I have plans for just getting a single player up and ready, but once the framework is lain out, I don't see why not. You'd be feeding more than one person, but two people can get twice as much done, et cetera.

[MaximumZero]

Laser wielding North Koreans should definitely be on the island.

What? It was a game I ran once, which unfortunately never got finished, so I couldn't tell the story.

[Orange Wizard]

PTW, mostly. For (1), I would suggest play around with the game as you develop it and see what sizes work best for a default setting. Leave the option to change the size in, seeing as some people might want larger or smaller maps.

As far as enemies/threats/whatever are concerned, it really depends on the overall flavour you're going for. Sharks, stingrays, crocodilians, predatory/poisonous fish and the like might be good, especially if the player is going to need to go into the water for any reason. Diseases, parasites, and so on would make for interesting "invisible" threats - just make sure they're not impossible to deal with.

I would like to see a "become mad scientist-esque king of the island" as a possible goal, although that's more subjective than "make your way home".

Anyway, this sounds interesting. I'll stop rambling now.

...

Edit:

Laser wielding North Koreans should definitely be on the island.

+1000000

[eerr]

One possibly important goal- have the terrain appearance look random under the tileset, to break up the monotony of sandy beaches and such.
Dwarf fortress grass is a great example.

[Gentlefish]

Laser wielding North Koreans should definitely be on the island.

What? It was a game I ran once, which unfortunately never got finished, so I couldn't tell the story.

I... Could work this in. Secret hatch in the middle of nowhere? Secret NK testing facility.

One possibly important goal- have the terrain appearance look random under the tileset, to break up the monotony of sandy beaches and such.
Dwarf fortress grass is a great example.

While interesting to program, not necessarily important in a roguelike game. I often turn off the variable grass.

[Lord_lemonpie]

Lovely idea, PTW.

Another obstacle could be quicksand, insects and poisonous food (maybe fruits get randomly generated every time with a different name, so you won't know what plants are poisonous. I know nothing about coding so this might be impossible or cause horrible bugs).

[Ambidextrous]

PTW, this looks cool.

[MaximumZero]

You may also want to think about the chance of landing somewhere like the Aleutian islands. Totally different survival mode, staying out of cold, wind, rain, and snow. Digging through frost for plants. Dangerous animals, like bears and wolves.

[Orange Wizard]

(maybe fruits get randomly generated every time with a different name, so you won't know what plants are poisonous. I know nothing about coding so this might be impossible or cause horrible bugs)

No, that's definitely doable. The hardest part would be naming all of the random fruits.