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I like it.

8 (40%)

Nice!  It should have (write suggestion)

0 (0%)

mmm... I've seen this somewhere...

0 (0%)

Awesome!

3 (15%)

Sounds interesting.

4 (20%)

Nah...

5 (25%)

Total Members Voted: 20

[Alexhans]

Oh. If I can make a decent engine, you just feed it the terrain at load-time, and directions for items and stuff.

But first, what sort of view would be desired?
2D? 3D? Isometric? Something else?

That's something for our "artists" to decide  

If we have people willing to draw making it graphical makes it pretty awesome.

[Alexhans]

Hello!

i just remembered i wanted to help with this...

anywho, whats been done so far? is it still WIP for the planning?

Not much... I'm gonna start practising with opengl now so I can use and understand whatever engine qwerty might make in the future...

You can read back at some of the ideas...

[qwertyuiopas]

Well, it would probably use simple square/rectangular quads, and all that is is a set of four glVertex{2 or 3}{i or f, though maybe d or c}{possible v}(); with glTexCoord{probably 2f}(); for each.

Nothing especially fancy.

Or maybe direct raster pixel copy, either should work.

The only other thing that may show up is per-vertex colouring, to allow light based blending or other funky colour effects, and sprite recoulouring(One rock wall, one smoothed wall, one engraved wall and so on if it was DF, all recoloured based on material) or multi-layer sprites, would be handled in a spriteDraw() function that could handle all layers.

Oh, and optional Z-layering for a 2D game for "realistic" foreground and stuff.


Also, graphics loading:
I have crude but working code that handles .bmp files, but my code already stores everything internally in a struct using an RGBA array, a width, and a height, so it can handle a non-BMP image loader if someone found/wrote one.


Regardless if we even use graphcs, or recode everything, using a standardised internal image format is essential, especially if multiple image types are loadable.
Also makes switching to a custom packaged format just as easy if it ever happened.
And it's proper OOP, AFAIK.

[Poltifar]

I just found this thread, and I have to say I'm very excited about the game theme/mechanics you are heading towards. I've always wanted to play a game with a nice discover-it-yourself spell system, and the magic school thing is also a nice and original twist to it.

Some of my ideas/opinions for it, in no particular order:

-Make it more generic than just a 'magical school' game. Think a combination of the randomized and deep magic system with the B12 town building idea with the DF adventure mode, with the options to play in many modes, including: large magic school, small master+apprentice(s) workshop, wizard's tower (like what Toady might add to DF in the long run, with minions and such), rogue wizard roaming the countryside, etc... I understand that this is quite alot to ask, so maybe keep it simple and make only one mode for now (preferably the large magic school one) and add more later.

-Make the magic system quite deep and complex, with many different ways to practice magic. A single general way that works for everything, such as wands being used for all magics, or all magics relying on incantations, should be avoided. Basically, have it be many different magic systems loosely connected to each other, for example:
>Alchemists create potions that can be drinked, oils that can be applied/explode, and catalysts that other mages can use to modify their spells
>Incanters learn the words of power that can modify the flows of magic to create effects
>Diviners see the future in crystal balls/tea cups/whatever
>Summoners/Demonologists use pentacles and incenses to summon otherworldy beings to do their bidding
>Botanists/Zoologists prepare plants/animals that can be used by other mages for their magics (ingredients for potions, reagents of summons, etc), or alone as a poison to apply to weapons and such

Ofcourse, no mage would specialize 100% in one thing. So after years/whatever ingame, the character would have the choice to specialize more and more, and for each specialization he would need certain skill/grades in certain spell systems.

-Things to do other than schoolwork. A large 'outside' world, out of school grounds. Maybe to be explored on holidays? On special school assignments to get reagents/do research? Maybe have a 'credit' system in the school, so that you can take few credits per semester to have more time to explore at the expense of taking more time to complete the education?

-Options for world generation, such as school size, number of students, rarity/difficulty of magic in the world, wether there is an overarching plot (great evil to be stopped, whatever) or just sandbox mode...

-I dont know how far you could go with the AI, but advanced relations would definitely flesh out the thing, making it an awesome sims-rogueling-fantasy hybrid. "Hmm, I'm a bit hungry, but if I go down to eat at the mess hall, I might meet McRivalDude and start a fight, losing time in detention afterwards that I could have used to research new spells/explore the northern volcano for clues about MrBigBaddy, and I might alienate my new friends from House Urist, which I need to keep intouch with to get the smuggled illegal magicl reagents i need..." or whatever.



I myself cant help you yet, still learning the ropes of C++, but if this project remains afloat (which I hope it does), I might join up later on if I can offer some kind of help.

[qwertyuiopas]

One thing:
As long as I have any influence at all, I will oppose making the shcool building the setting for 80%+ of the game. It should be coupled with a fully functioning town, or at least not resemble the HP "magical elite hidden from all non-magical people" where only a tiny establishment of magical beings live nearby.

I fully support a town at least as large as whatever school-like setting the game takes place in UNLESS...

How about a massive tower for any particular reason, or a deep cavern, where both magcal and non-magical people(If any exist in the world) live, never venturing out onto the surface for one reason or another. Maybe a hidden plotline goal would be the discovery and elimination of this threat.

[Virex]

I fully support a town at least as large as whatever school-like setting the game takes place in UNLESS...

Well, if everything works out, we'll have a code base that can handle the generation of any sort of building. So in principle, building a town would be possible. Perhaps something like oxford, where the university is interwoven with the citty? Most of the lessens would be on your own department, but occasionaly you'll have to go to the other departments, or if you've got time left you could just take a walk through town. Adding a town also enables us to add many more interesting locations to go, which we can hopefully generate proceduraly.

[qwertyuiopas]

Anything but the HP school is everything approach is good.


ANYTHING.

[Virex]

Ugh, just realised that my original way of handeling corridors is utter bogus. So here's try 2, in some metacode:

1. Create the rooms needed. Each room has at least 1 entrance, a height, a width, a type, a danger level and a danger tollerance.

2. Create a container with all the rooms needed.

3. create the area in which the rooms are to be placed

4. Place the entrance room.

5. Place the next room in a free spot adjacent to entrance room, but leave space on all sides for corridors. Which room to place is decided by the adjacent rooms: Preferenace for same types togheter and low danger tollerance avoids high danger rating.

6. Find shortest distance from each of the new room's entrances to another entrance or a corridor. Make a corridor this way.

7. Mark any part of the remaining space reserved for corridors as empty.

8. Repeat 5-7 untill you can't place a room adjacent to the first room anymore. If that's the case, start again from another room. Go on untill you can't place any more rooms or you're out of rooms.

[Alexhans]

Question:  Qwerty... Do you use GLUT or just opengl by itself with another API?

I'm just starting but it's really awesome. 

[qwertyuiopas]

I usually use the windows API directly, though if I ever considered making a full game, I would probably find a decent cross platfrom API like SDL...

In my opinion, anything that gets a window open is good enough.

[Alexhans]

oh... same as me... hehe... Thanks