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Author Topic: Community-driven roguelike development project underway. Want to design a game?  (Read 32720 times)

Tuplis

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So, you took a full post to bash my heretical view of your pa-a-aradi-i-igm, but don't so much as review the technical details I proposed. Nice going, there. I can see bright future for this game.

Ok, here goes:
You took your time to explain how an influence map works. Good job. There's no need to go into details like numbers, though (and certainly no point using negative numbers). I linked a book here ealier. There's a good chapter in there about influence maps.
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Thief^

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Basically, Tuplis is asking for a gameplay design, not a technical design. He's coming off as a bit harsh, but I see his point. Problem is I think that most of us here are technical...
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Dwarven blood types are not A, B, AB, O but Ale, Wine, Beer, Rum, Whisky and so forth.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Tuplis

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Basically, Tuplis is asking for a gameplay design, not a technical design. He's coming off as a bit harsh, but I see his point. Problem is I think that most of us here are technical...

That's what I'm getting at in the end, yes. I'm looking for gameplay designers and I seem to be getting too much technical design. I am being a bit harsh right now, that's correct. I tried to be polite but the development paradigm I'm using came under fire pretty quickly and I've had to repeat myself constantly since then so I'm a little frustrated in that regard. I am definitely getting too defensive/passive-aggressive though so yeah, maybe I should try to soften my tone again.

I'm looking to bring out the PLAYER in each and every one of you. Just trust that I can get the stuff done and throw at me the type of features a good gaming experience consists of in your opinion.
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Dariush

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'There should be hearing' is not gameplay design. What I described is.

Thief^

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No what you described is a technical design.

The gameplay design equivalent would be:
Zombies make sounds (list/examples) that the player can hear, alerting them to nearby threats. Noise/hearing system must be general enough that any creature (including the player) and objects (e.g. doors, grenades, etc) can make noises and any other creature can hear them. Sounds should have a tunable volume affecting the distance they can be heard, and should travel through walls (albeit more quietly than through air) and around corners.
Some (list/examples) player actions make noise that attracts nearby zombies even when they can't see the player.

No numbers. No algorithms.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2012, 04:05:16 am by Thief^ »
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Dwarven blood types are not A, B, AB, O but Ale, Wine, Beer, Rum, Whisky and so forth.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Tuplis

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I'll quote a little bit of wikipedia here (the name of the article is "gameplay"):

Quote from: Wikipedia
Key concepts in gameplay design are:

The presence of an environment.
The ability for objects within the environment to change.
Rules governing changes of state of objects—such as position—in response to the state of other objects and/or decisions made by the player.
Player rewards and punishments resulting from changes to the state of the game[clarification needed].
Players being able to manipulate objects or interact with the environment and its objects.

Now, my idea was basically what you just had in quotes - monsters can react to sounds (that's the third item on the list). Your idea was that "actions need to make sounds" which is... which one of these? Just making sounds without the ability to react to them is one-way communication so we can forget everything that has to do with interaction.

Furthermore:

Quote from: Wikipedia
The term gameplay can be quite ambiguous to define, thus it has been differently defined by different authors.

For instance:

"A series of interesting choices." -Sid Meier 
"The structures of player interaction with the game system and with other players in the game."
"One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment."
"A good game is one that you can win by doing the unexpected and making it work."
"The experience of gameplay is one of interacting with a game design in the performance of cognitive tasks, with a variety of emotions arising from or associated with different elements of motivation, task performance and completion."
"Gameplay here is seen as the interactive gaming process of the player with the game."

- it's not a choice
- it's not a structure of player interaction, it's a component of it
- it's not causally linked
- it's not interaction, it's one-way

"Making sound" is not gameplay. You designed something that isn't gameplay, therefore you didn't do gameplay design.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2012, 04:05:48 am by Tuplis »
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nullzero

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Hello all!

I came here through the link at RogueBasin, played a bit, and liked the concept! So can I join?

Features that I would like:
  * doors (8/10) - especially if you can mark them on the map (latter i would say they can be locked, unlocked or hackable with an axe.. but its supposed to go little by little right?)
  * sand (4/10) - map zone with a different color from which zombies can spawn
  * hole (5/10)- entrance to the next map, if I don't want to kill all the zombies (if we really need to kill them all, at least use a smaller first map and increase all the way :P)
  * blood (2/10) - just for cosmetic purposes
  * placing the weapons in the map (6/10) - i drawed like a cabin, and would like to put the pistol there, and instead start without weapons

Thats all for now :)
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Tuplis

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Hello all!

I came here through the link at RogueBasin, played a bit, and liked the concept! So can I join?

Features that I would like:
  * doors (8/10) - especially if you can mark them on the map (latter i would say they can be locked, unlocked or hackable with an axe.. but its supposed to go little by little right?)
  * sand (4/10) - map zone with a different color from which zombies can spawn
  * hole (5/10)- entrance to the next map, if I don't want to kill all the zombies (if we really need to kill them all, at least use a smaller first map and increase all the way :P)
  * blood (2/10) - just for cosmetic purposes
  * placing the weapons in the map (6/10) - i drawed like a cabin, and would like to put the pistol there, and instead start without weapons

Thats all for now :)

Hello, nullzero! You are very welcome to join.

To quickly comment on your ideas:
-doors: works, add to the backlog
-sand: Is this what you mean: "A type of tile where zombies randomly spawn during gameplay" ? If yes, then add to backlog. Otherwise, please explain
-hole: Good. put in the backlog
-blood: Good.
-placing weapons on the map: I've thought about this myself and have an idea of how to manually add monsters and items on the map by specifying them in the map file. I need to evaluate whether I can chop this down and how much effort it will be. Put it in the backlog.

Also: if you can upload me the map you made I can include it in the game.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2012, 07:21:17 am by Tuplis »
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nullzero

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-sand: Is this what you mean: "A type of tile where zombies randomly spawn during gameplay" ? If yes, then add to backlog. Otherwise, please explain

ok basically I wanted to have a place in the map, lets say a graveyard, from which zombies would appear near range from the ground without warning. I would like to be an area visible on the map, hopefully with a different color. Like the zone with the points in the code below.

Code: [Select]
#####################
#                   #
#                   #
#                   #
#                   #
###### ######## #####
#...................#
#...................#
#...................#
#...................#
#...................#
#...................#
#...................#
## ##### ###### #####
#                   #
#                   #
#        @          #
#                   #
#####################

But seeing now it can be split into two parts.
 i) a hidden spawn in the map (the player would see normal ground and then the zombie would appear suddently like a trap)
 ii) a diferent type of floor (maybe where speed would be reduced) and with a different coloring than the walls, (good for mapmaking)
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Tuplis

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Doors released. I'm currently working on a map generator where you can use any characters for the map tiles, then specify which tile is which with some very easy script (and the xmlbuilder) and the game will automatically build it for you.
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Tuplis

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Hey again!

Just made a pretty big leap again:

-Improved the quality of the door function. Didn't have time to clean everything away so the Type-field in the xml file is kinda meh rite now.. which brings me to..

-As a mapmaker, you can now define what each and every one of the characters you put on the .txt maps mean. Read through the 2.txt map file under Resources/Maps/ to get the idea. Example:


################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
################################################################
############################...............#####################
###########################..#############.#####################
#########################...##############.#####################
########################..################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################.#################.#####################
########################...................#####################
##########################.#####################################
##########################.#####################################
##########################.#####################################
##########################+#####################################
##########################.#####################################
##########################.#####################################
##########################...###################################
############################.###################################
############################...#################################
##############################.#################################
##############################.#################################
@ = 30,31
# = BasicWall
. = BasicFloor
+ = BasicDoor




what this means is that
- you start at the coordinates 30,31
- # stands for the type of tile defined in BasicWall.xml (under Resources/WorldTemplates/)
- . stands for the type of tile defined in BasicFloor.xml
- + stands for the type of tile defined in BasicDoor.xml

Read through those 3 xml files to get an idea on how they work. it's really simple. The type field is kinda dumb right now and doesn't do much. I'll clean it up tomorrow.

Very soon I'll add the ability to add monsters/items in there. Gimme some feedback on this one pls.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2012, 10:41:10 pm by Tuplis »
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qwertyuiopas

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[code][/code],
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[tt][/tt],
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

or [font=courier][/font]
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Will keep it monospace and easily readable. The second two also allow the use of colours, if you ever have any reason to do so.
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Eh?
Eh!

Dariush

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Er, why do you have symbols defined in those xmls if they must additionally be specified in 2.txt? Why even have changeable symbols, anyway?

Edit: downloaded again and there is still no diagonal movement. I don't care about laptops, I want diagonal movement on my kosher PC with my kosher numpad! Or, if you're that obsessed about laptops, just make shift+right/left move NE/NW, ctrl+right/left move SE/SW, like Infra Arcana (IIRC) did.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2012, 02:39:42 am by Dariush »
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Tuplis

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Er, why do you have symbols defined in those xmls if they must additionally be specified in 2.txt? Why even have changeable symbols, anyway?

Edit: downloaded again and there is still no diagonal movement. I don't care about laptops, I want diagonal movement on my kosher PC with my kosher numpad! Or, if you're that obsessed about laptops, just make shift+right/left move NE/NW, ctrl+right/left move SE/SW, like Infra Arcana (IIRC) did.

The xml files specify the type of the tile (whether you can move on it, the ascii character, it's also extensible so we can put stuff like levers or whatever in there if someone needs em).
The symbols in the txt file define how they are placed in the map
The "# = BasicWall" is used to link the xml file (in this case BasicWall.xml) to the symbol in the map (#).

Which of these do you think is redundant?
Soon I'll make it possible to link creatures/items of a specific template to specific tiles on the map.

I'll get around to implementing diagonal movement eventually. I'll have to implement it for the monsters also.
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Dariush

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Xml contents:
Code: [Select]
<Class>DoorTile</Class>
<Sign>+</Sign>
Txt contents:
Code: [Select]
+ = BasicDoor
There. Why not just leave the symbol definition in xml file and put only map in txt?
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