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*First understand that despite the thread's name I am really the only person working on this game. As such I will be making design decisions that not everyone will agree with.
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I posted this on another forum but that one moves so fast it's unlikely anyone will pay much attention to it.
I've been debating on whether or not to start this thread for several reasons. First of all let me try to explain what I'm trying to accomplish here.
I've been developing this game in my mind for quite some time. I've also made several attempts to program an engine for it but I usually quit out of frustration or lose interest. It's not that the game concept isn't interesting but after I spend several days working on it I start to lose focus and my attention ends up on something else. This is a common problem for me. I actually have several games I've been working on on the back burner and I've only actually managed to finish one of them.
So what I thought I might try is making a thread to try to gather my thoughts. This way if I start to lose focus again I'll atleast have all my thoughts recorded somewhere so I can come back to it later. Think of this as one of those "let's play" threads except instead of playing a game I'll be making one. It is my hope that would-be developers will see this and get some understanding in what all goes into making a game. Also understand that my method isn't THE method as there are many ways to go about making a game from scratch. And any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
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Okay, so I'll start by describing what the game is, the current state the game is in and what my goals are. The game is a graphical roguelike. The current working name is Roguelike 7. The 7 represents the actual number of times I've started over from scratch. It's not that there was anything wrong with the previous incarnations but I kept coming up with ideas that would make developing it easier or scratching ideas that were much too complicated and didn't really mesh with what I was trying to accomplish.
So this is my 7th attempt. I am programming it in C# using Microsoft XNA. It uses a system similar to Eschalon for the overall flow. That is, it is entirely turn based but animates between turns. Currently it uses a purely top-down perspective but this may change. The sprites for the characters are pseudo-ascii but this may also change if I can figure out an easy way to make artwork for them. The map tiles are all bitmaps.
The gameplay is a little different from your typical roguelike. The basics are all there; search the world for treasure and glory while fending off goblins and liches using swords and sorcery. The differences come in the mechanics.
First of all you do not gain levels like in other RPGs. Character advancement comes through completing quests, finding certain kinds of loot and training under a teacher. Here's a scenario that might better explain how it works.
You're wandering through the woods and you come across the home of a necromancer. You find that the necromancer isn't really hostile to you so rather than attack him you speak to him. Through the conversation you discover that he is willing to tutor you in the arts of necromancy. Of course everything comes with a price. As part of your training and to assist with his own studies, he sends you on a quest to find a corpse and bring it back to him. He isn't very particular about where or how you obtain one as long as it is humanoid and dead. When you return with a corpse he teaches you a basic spell to resurrect a small creature as an undead servant. Further tasks you sends you on become progressively much more difficult. Besides spells, your mana may increase slightly with each training quest. When he has taught you all he knows he will send off to a more powerful necromancer to further your training. If he were a mage training you in magic he might send you off to a special school for magicians instead.
As you can imagine, this is a much better way to get the player involved with the world rather than running around hacking on enemies for experience points. However if you do want to hack up some goblins it may be a great way to earn some cash. The local sheriff may pay you handsomely for goblin heads.
The world itself will be very dynamic and, being a roguelike, it will be randomly generated each time you start a new game. Features found in one game may be completely different from features found in another. One world may not even generate any necromancers willing to train you, but if you search far and wide you might find a hidden assassin's guild who will welcome you under the right circumstances.
The use of magic is a little different. In most RPGs you use some kind of mana or MP to cast your spells. Actually I think this is a perfectly acceptable way to handle magic. But I want to take it a step further. Borrowing from one of my favorite card games, instead of having one source of mana you may have several. I haven't decided on the exact number yet but I'm thinking somewhere between 4 and 7. If you have played MTG this will sound familiar. Let's say you do want to cast one of those raise undead spells. Well in order to cast it you will need to have enough dark mana to do it. Let's say you were training under a priest for a long time before you decided to go necromancer. In that case you may have a whole lot of holy mana but almost no dark mana as training under the priest would have depleted your dark mana in favor of holy mana. As far as mana goes, you would have to train longer with the necromancer just to have your dark mana back where it started. But your holy mana will decrease as well. In the interest of progression I may make it a 2/1 trade off; you gain 2 parts from one mana type but lose 1 part from another.
Of course not all spells will require the use of just one mana source. You may learn some kind of holy fire spell that will require the use of both holy and elemental mana.
Well that's the gist of the major features. There's a lot more but it's not too different from what you've seen in other games. I'm still working on the basic engine so it will be some time before I decide how to work all these features in. I got a guy I'm controlling walking around on the screen, bumping into randomly generated walls and I got a goblin following me around. Not a bad start but there is so much more to do before I can get to the fun stuff. I think the next thing I have to do is add some form of simple combat. Gotta get that goblin to swing a sword at me and do damage. My next post may be pretty technical so be prepared.
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Detailed description (subject to change)
Player character: The player starts off roughly the same way every game, with only a rudimentary set of skills. The player will have the option to change their race and attributes but there are no specific classes, at least not at the beginning of the game. Through training the player may be granted certain titles and in combination with the training they receive this will fill the role of classes found in other games.
Skills and/or commands the player will start with may include:
*Basic weapon skills(slash, stab, bash)
*Fire starting
*Cooking
*Foraging
*Throwing
*Basic crafting
*Basic forestry for moving and seeing in forests
*Basic swimming
Training in slightly more advanced skills such as basic magic use will be available close to the start of the game and will make for good starting quests.
Advanced skills and/or commands include:
*Sneaking
*Ranged weapon use
*Armor/weapon crafting
*School specific magic use
*Golem creation(requires magic + armor set)
*Necromancy(requires magic + corpse parts)
Map features: Maps will feature forests, lakes, rivers, roads and rocky areas as well as minor features that occupy individual tiles such as cacti, boulders and shrubs. Towns and villages will have houses, shops and inns made from wood, stone and other materials. Roads will be appropriately generated in towns and villages and walls will be generated around larger cities.
Forests will provide several functions based on the player's forestry skill. A high forestry skill will allow players and creatures to see further and move faster in forests. A player with a low sneak skill but a high forestry skill may be able to hide in a forest to ambush other creatures or they can duck into a forest to lose their pursuers.
Lakes and rivers will provide similar functions for player's with a swimming skill. In addition, elemental spells with a cold effect will freeze creatures in place that are swimming in the affected tile and the frozen tile will provide a temporary bridge.
Caves will appear on some maps. These will have multiple levels and will have a variety of layouts. I haven't worked out the particulars of how these will be generated or what varieties they will come in yet.
Other types of dungeons the player may find will include towers and fortresses. Fortresses will be home to potential overlords and towers may house powerful sorcerers or even the dreaded lich. The player may also come across villages or hideouts of hostile creatures such as goblins and bandits.
A village may periodically be attacked by local bandits or goblins and the player will be rewarded for helping in the defense.
Lore: With many features being generated randomly, much of the lore will not directly relate to current events. The purpose of the lore will be to give the player some idea of the history and nature of certain elements. For instance there will be detailed information on goblin culture but little to no information on their current conflicts.
Gods: Most of the major gods will be permanently fixed into the lore. Minor gods will be generated randomly. Minor gods will include world dwelling demigods, false gods and powerful creatures worshipped as gods such as dragons. Appropriate text will be added to conversations when asked about their religion.
Dathida will be the first among the major gods. Dathida is the god credited with the creation of the world and is associated with chaos and disarray. It is believed that every hundred thousand years Dathida destroys the world and creates a new world. It is for this reason that most cultures choose not to worship her. However she does have a devout following of cultists known as The Arbiters of Chaos. Prayers to Dathida, if answered, have unpredictable results.
Other gods have taken it upon themselves to influence the world in their own ways. This counteracts Dathida's chaotic nature and gives the world a semblance of order. The forces of order, chaos, good and evil are always at odds with eachother and no one side has ever maintained an advantage for very long.
Creatures:
Goblins: Goblins are savage, tribal creatures that tend to inhabit forests. They dwell in small villages made up of straw huts. They have no tolerance for outsiders and usually attack on sight. Most goblins wield simple weapons made of wood or iron.
Goblins tend to worship false gods. It is not uncommon for one tribe to worship a completely different god than another. Goblin priests train themselves in rudamentary magic to try to emphasize their god's power. Unlike the priests of civilized cultures, goblin priests do not focus on holy magic but tend towards dark and elemental magic.
Physically goblins are fairly weak, relying on large numbers to take down their enemies. They have moderate knowledge of forestry and sometimes resort to stealthy ambushes to attack invaders.
Skeletons, Necromancers and Liches: Many creatures are cursed to have their remains reanimated by a necromancer. Novice necromancers often make the mistake of trying to reanimate a decaying corpse but this results in a creature that is so encumbered by it's own flesh that it is generally useful only as a decoy when a priest catches the foolish necromancer pilfering their cemetary.
A seasoned necromancer will either remove the bones from the corpse manually or use a fire spell to burn the flesh away before animating it. Either way, necromancers are required to devote a certain amount of their dark mana to the corpse while it is animated.
A skeleton's physical strength is comparable to it's living counterpart. What makes skeletons so formidable is their resistance to most weapons along with dark and elemental damage. Their speed is also somewhat higher.
Unlike a decaying corpse, a skeleton has none of the drawbacks of mortal flesh. Slashing and piercing weapons such as swords and spears have little effect on skeletons but bashing weapons such as maces and hammers are excellent at smashing and scattering the bones which is enough to dispel the sorcery that holds them together.
Necromancers often use skeletons to defend their homes or perform menial tasks. Skeletons found wandering the wilderness or inside dungeons are usually not the work of a necromancer, but a lich.
A lich is an animated necromancer and is the ultimate form that most necromancers strive for. Unlike skeletons, a lich retains it's identity through the use of an artifact that holds it's soul. And unlike a necromancer, a lich is powerful enough to maintain dozens of skeletons at a time. A lich has no fear of death as long as it retains it's artifact. It will strike without provocation and without mercy. Only through the destruction of the artifact can you permanently kill a lich. However some powerful sorcerers and overlords have enthralled a lich by taking it's artifact and keeping it for themselves.
--Gameplay Note: Skeleton and Zombie will be a subclass of a creature much like Thief and Sorcerer and will replace any of these classes. Attributes will remain the same other than increased speed and resistance to slashing, piercing, dark and elemental magic. On a related note, there may also be a possibility that after the player dies the game will continue.
Still more to come...
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Topic: Let's Make! (Dathida's Legacy, a graphical roguelike) (Read 13458 times)