Print

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

[Retropunch]

Wow that looks like a pretty involved map!!

If I may ask a more general question, will you the player be able to continue indefinitely with cogmind or is it more set up for many shorter games?

[Kyzrati]

Actually, that map is far *less* involved than I want them to be in general. If you examine that one closely it's simpler than it first appears because much of the "complexity" is merely turns and side rooms; there are relatively few loops in the overall path, meaning that escaping from the enemy or finding alternate routes would be very difficult. Lots of parameter tweaking to do yet, so eventually it should play somewhat better than this one would (in my opinion)--right now just trying to get down the general algorithm to work with first. Currently in the process of dropping this into the game itself, then take it from there.

If I may ask a more general question, will you the player be able to continue indefinitely with cogmind or is it more set up for many shorter games?

(Ask away!) Indefinitely is definitely not an option. However, the game length is quite variable and a run can probably range from a couple hours to many hours if you want to explore everything. This is just a guess because I haven't played (or finished designing) the new world myself, and it will also depend on how fast you play.

The world is set up so you can take a quick route to the end, or spend more time exploring; then sometimes you may even be forced onto a detour in order to escape danger. So the design tries to cater to both crowds there: Easy to pick up and try a quick run, but can also be played meticulously (and more safely) to earn a higher score (<--oh yes, there will be competitions!). At the fastest I imagine the best players will still be able to finish in the most straightforward manner in less than an hour, though most games will run longer than that, assuming you aren't destroyed first . And of course the game is highly replayable with the randomization and large amount of content and strategic possibilities.

It'll be at least another month or more, but I plan on writing more about the world. Still putting it together =p

[Kyzrati]

Latest mapgen developments where we're combining multiple types of procedural happiness to get interesting results. This cave is not quite something I'd add to the game, but looks cool nonetheless (read more):

[Kyzrati]

This time a more developer-oriented post about map analysis. The new Cogmind has much bigger maps as well as maps with a bit more purpose, and this takes extra work on the implementation side. (By comparison the 7DRL was all DIG TUNNELS! SPAWN SOME BADDIES AND ITEMS! LET PLAYER LOOSE! )

With pretty pictures, too.

[Retropunch]

Woohoo! That looks awesome!

Sorry if you've answered this before, but are you planning on having hand made levels as well? 

[Kyzrati]

There will be hand-crafted levels, yes, or more often hand-crafted "areas" that are seamlessly integrated into the procedurally generated maps. You ask at a good time because next week's post is about that very topic. So, I'll get back to you on that with some images

BTW, I don't mind answering the same question more than once. If the previous answer was long I can always point you to it!

[Retropunch]

There will be hand-crafted levels, yes, or more often hand-crafted "areas" that are seamlessly integrated into the procedurally generated maps. You ask at a good time because next week's post is about that very topic. So, I'll get back to you on that with some images

BTW, I don't mind answering the same question more than once. If the previous answer was long I can always point you to it!

Awesome! I love hand-crafted areas (in some RLs they're called 'vaults' I believe) as I think that even the greatest of procedural generation can leave places a bit sterile without a bit of human intervention. Continuing from that, will it be possible for players to add their own vaults/share them? I imagine it'd add heaps of replayability.

[Kyzrati]

Precisely the reasons I will add them! Not entirely like vaults in that those might be "separate" levels/maps (in some games). I'd prefer hand-crafting rooms or a series of rooms and sticking them into a normal generated map. Levels with more such content will probably be plot-related, because then it's easier to control the environment. Any map could have individual rooms that are unique, though. The 7DRL had a few rooms like that, but at the time I didn't have a map editor (now I do) so there was really only one type and they weren't hugely common. Still haven't decided how far to go with it since I'm not designing actual maps yet--just now working on the general procedural part--but with a map editor it'll be much easier to whip up different locales.

Continuing from that, will it be possible for players to add their own vaults/share them? I imagine it'd add heaps of replayability.

I'm a bit on the fence with this one. The main issue would be "vaults" really need to be a part of a bigger map rather than a small map on their own, due to how character progression works, and the map generation is not a completely transparent system so I'd have to rig something that allows people to fit their own pieces into game-defined sub-areas. It wouldn't be impossible to allow this, but I'll have to revisit it during a later stage. I was actually thinking about a feature related to this just yesterday, but it's pretty low priority right now.

[Retropunch]

Precisely the reasons I will add them! Not entirely like vaults in that those might be "separate" levels/maps (in some games). I'd prefer hand-crafting rooms or a series of rooms and sticking them into a normal generated map. Levels with more such content will probably be plot-related, because then it's easier to control the environment. Any map could have individual rooms that are unique, though. The 7DRL had a few rooms like that, but at the time I didn't have a map editor (now I do) so there was really only one type and they weren't hugely common. Still haven't decided how far to go with it since I'm not designing actual maps yet--just now working on the general procedural part--but with a map editor it'll be much easier to whip up different locales.

Continuing from that, will it be possible for players to add their own vaults/share them? I imagine it'd add heaps of replayability.

I'm a bit on the fence with this one. The main issue would be "vaults" really need to be a part of a bigger map rather than a small map on their own, due to how character progression works, and the map generation is not a completely transparent system so I'd have to rig something that allows people to fit their own pieces into game-defined sub-areas. It wouldn't be impossible to allow this, but I'll have to revisit it during a later stage. I was actually thinking about a feature related to this just yesterday, but it's pretty low priority right now.

That all sounds great. As far as allowing players to add their own it could be a good kickstarter/crowd funding goal?

If you do decide to go down that route, it'd be really great if you could release official map updates. I'm sure you could find one or two trusted map people to scour through the submissions to find good ones, and I think it'd make a world of difference to the longevity of the game.

[Kyzrati]

True about the longevity. That's something I'm planning on focusing on more with X@COM, the next big project (lots of mods and user content). As for Cogmind, I'm somewhat against allowing users to affect the official game content, if only because I'm going for a specific experience that would be difficult for others to expand upon without the same intimate knowledge of the game that I have. We'll have to see, but that's one reason I think a crowdfunding campaign would perhaps have less appeal.

Cogmind is not very open-worldish in design, so doesn't lend itself well to tacking on more content here and there. There is one part of the game where this could be a viable option, and even suitable for a KS reward, but I haven't released any information about it yet, or worked out the details of how I want to implement it, so I'll leave that out of the discussion for now.

There is a good chance I'll be releasing the first version as an alpha with only the core maps available, and add the rest of the optional branches after that. This would be the equivalent of releasing multiple maps over time, though more to *complete* the game rather than supplement it.

If Cogmind is really successful (who knows), I would consider a sequel with many of its own unique maps, since once everything's put together that wouldn't take too long to accomplish by comparison.

The other aspect of the game's design that isn't suited to additional content is that there honestly isn't a huge amount of material to design maps with. It isn't written like X@COM where you can script in almost any behavior you want. The components of map design are merely layout--tunnels/rooms and doors--and placement of machines, enemies and items. Of course you could mod the machines, enemies and items themselves, but that would be very "unofficial" content and doesn't seem to be what we're discussing here anyway

Cogmind was really meant to be a smaller stepping stone on the way to a bigger game, but it's already taken a year to get this far and there's still probably at least six months remaining. I was thinking in recent days that it's really blown up into a much larger project than was intended, essentially due to feature creep and the thought that "my first commercial game needs to be a good one, let's pull out all the stops." Still, I don't regret the decision to make it much more

[Kyzrati]

A new post about the hand-crafted map content implementation, where we get to do cool things like put skulls in maps (just for testing...):



or bases in caves



etc, etc... see how it's done

[( Tchey )]

Since the beginning of X@COM i really enjoy to read your blog entries, and your work. Thanks for sharing.
You also have at least one buyer for Cogmind, unless you manage to waste it all, but i don't think you will...

[Kyzrati]

Haha, thanks Tchey, although what exactly does "waste it all" mean? You mean like... quit? Yeah right! Even X@COM is just on hiatus while I use Cogmind as a smaller stepping stone to test the market before getting back to it. Wish I could work on both at once, but not enough time for that (although many engine improvements are trickling back to X@COM already behind the scenes).

[Kyzrati]

Machine placement is now part of the map generation process. Read about it here.



The really fun stuff starts next week when we get to see them explode

[tompliss]

The really fun stuff starts next week when we get to see them explode

Cogmind, Michael Bay edition ?
Given how nice the grenade/rocket launchers are in the 7drl version, I think I'll love this one