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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: September 17, 2011, 12:37:34 pm

[Max White]

Names Farmer Max, and this is mah skill orchard.
Yea, we grow all kind of skills here. Survival, combat, social and even the orange kind.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, your poll is locked.
Also, also, you should include a pestle and mortar, so that you can grind your skills!

[Siquo]

Oh yeah, skillgrinding. Great!

Poll is locked because perhaps there's more ideas for perspectives/views, and they shall be added. Unlocking it tomorrow.

[Armok]

Digging can totally be made a fun mechanic. The key is that because digging is so time consuming you'd always be making trade-offs and trying to do it as efficiently as possible, and at any given time there are many different aspects that you need to keep in mind.

Here are some possible features:

* various fundamental different means of actually breaking up the rock, such as hacking away with a pick, explosives, "light a fire by it and then cool it down with water so the heat expansion break it to pieces", "drive a wooden wedge into the rock and put water on it so it swells and breaks a pice lose", etc. Methods along the lines of the last two would dominate. Each method has advantages and drawbacks, and are suited for different purposes.
* you actually have to dispose of all the rock. This would be mostly automated, but you need to always keep in mind the route back to where you can dump things of. It also makes construction of a rail system critical to nay larger operation.
* constant risk of flooding, pump systems, water damage to equipment. Equipment wear and breakdown in general.
* different tunnel sizes, need to constantly add supports, risk of getting stuck in small tunnels, cave-in mechanics.
* Hazzards can be breaches such as pressurised boiling water, acid rivers, suffocating or toxic gas, aquifers, etc. Radioactive minerals can give you radiation poisoning, asbestos can destroy your lungs and so can even normal dust in large enough amounts, cold water and infected wounds can also be lethal if not treated.
* canaries for warning against bad air quality
* oxygen and ventilation. Suffocation in case of caveins. Various means to reduce your oxugen consumption. Being trapped under rubble.
* Light and fire to be able to see or do anything, getting lost and not having an innate sense of direction and exactly how long you've walked, fire consuming oxygen. injuring yourself randomly in por lightling conditions link back to previously mentioned infected wounds.
* Climbing ropes a LOT, and ladders, and elevators, and narrow bridges consisting of just a few wobbly planks laid acros a gap, and more proper bridges.
* Lose rubble, slippery surfaces, rotted ropes and supports.
* Cabin fever and other mental illnesses from being in a lethal, miserable, and lonely environment.

[Siquo]

You're describing SimMiner.
I'm envisioning this like a SimTower, but downwards. That... could actually be fun.

Damn, now we've got two cool competing ideas, and I was all set to dump the whole digging thing.

[Max White]

Stick ideas together.
Use dating sim as glue.

[DreamThorn]

I could draw us some pixel-art. (pseudo 16-bit)

I would prefer not to use an isometric or axonometric view, but rather a side or oblique view.  Top down could work if we do that 45-degree z-axis thing.

[Siquo]

Well, one is obviously side-view, one is top-down/isometric view. Layered view such as DF has is... not really transparent.

Combining the two is... ... You know, it just might be possible...

Okay. We're making this happen. Eerr, Max, Armok, the rest of you: thanks for thinking along.

Decision Time:

• We're going for multilayered isometric. (Isometric view, with ability to go up/down z-levels. Sound familiar? )
• We shall be using Stonesense tileset once I get permission from Japa to use it, unless one of you has a better idea+tileset. (Making it topdown instead of isometric shouldn't be too much of a change.)
• The game will have: exploration, crafting, mining, building, survival, combat elements. Maybe some datingsim. Carbon dating of fossils simulation, perhaps? These need more design.
• Skilltrees with Moustaches

This decision will allow me to set up a basic world, terraingen, and class structure for the game.

Next question: Characters.
- Do we have one char who does it all alone? (no immigrants/helpers)
- A cast of characters (pick 5 with different skillsets from a list)? (might be able to "buy" or hire additional help)
- Anonymous characters (aka: "workers". Like I treat my dorfs, even though they're supposedly "unique")? (might be able to "buy" or hire additional help)

Next question for the writers: Start thinking about a background story.

@Knight of Fools: I liked the dragon idea, so I'm thinking of ways to get something of that in at least sideways. Not seeing it now, but perhaps I will later.

[Siquo]

I could draw us some pixel-art. (pseudo 16-bit)

I would prefer not to use an isometric or axonometric view, but rather a side or oblique view.  Top down could work if we do that 45-degree z-axis thing.

Could be fun. It's at least a lot easier than what SS has...

I find this a hard decision, because I hate choosing one view, only to have artists complain they wanted another, or have an artist walk out on the project and we're stuck with his design preferences. Or we change the view and have to throw away the hard work of another designer Plus that I don't know jack shit about design. I'm a programmer and I can make images move around, but what is actually in those images... I've got no clue.

Aargh, need advice!

At least I've got some goals to work on. You guys... brainstorm or something.

[DreamThorn]

Preferably, the point of view should not depend on artist preference, but rather on what works best for the user interface.  This depends on what kind of game we are making.

What I meant with the 45-degree thing is this:

Code: [Select]

  _
/|_|      <- This is a cube
/_/


I can work with any of the view points; it really just depends on what will work best for the player.

[Siquo]

Well, currently it's going to be 3D-like-DF. The "visible lower layers" can be either drawn (like in stonesense) or shown as "empty space" or "hole in the floor" (such as DF).

The interface... I don't know. Depends largely on if we're going to do one char or multiple chars, and if we have direct control over those characters.

Come to think of it... This is starting to look like a silly remake of DF. Think of something original, people!

[eerr]

Why do SimMiner, and SimTower, when you can Sim-underground-railroad to hell!

All those demons under the bedrock? yea. You connect the top and bottom of the world you'll make bazillions of dollars in adamantium, and ordinary fares.


Be sure to stop someplace to get funding for other parts of the railroad of course.

The underground never felt so alive, as you ferry monsters from everywhich place.

But be careful! caveins and gas explosions are constant hazards! those fire imps are HAZARDOUS.

[Siquo]

Canon now also includes Hippos, as I'll be working for them.

The Hippos will not have moustaches. You may date a Hippo, though.

[Nadaka]

Ok, but serious, if you want to make a game to develop your Java skills, we should start with the core focus of the project; To develop your skills. The following should be game features you implement for that reason

Constructive post is constructive.

Load/Save game: In. Although i need to figure out if applets are allowed to have a local storage. Otherwise I need to implement  serverside stuff and I don't know if I've got the time for that.
Procedurally generated world: In. This was a given, as level editing is effing time-consuming.
Real time game: Probably in, but animations require threading anyway.
Multiplayer: For practise in plugs/sockets. Maybe, for reasons given at Load/Save.
Collision detection: Maybe. Depends on if we're going to do pixel-type movement or roguelike grid movement (moving per square).

I'm going to close the poll. Unless I get a good digging gamedesign, it's going to be an "afterthought" at most, and the second option wins (survival/crafting). In that scenario, digging can be a method of acquiring resources. Next up: Perspective. If you want a certain perspective, be ready to provide graphics for it as well. This is a collaborative project, meaning that I'm not going to do *everything*

If you manage to steal a decent set of sprites, that's cool, too, as long as they're "free" (All CC licenses are good, as long as it's not a NoDerivatives license, BSD or MIT are good too, as long as we don't get into trouble).

Are there any other "perspective" ideas to add to the poll before we continue?

Applets CAN have local storage. You have to create a signed applet and the use has to allow it to have access.

[Armok]

No, not at all like SimTower. More like a mix between Oregon Trail and DF.

Also, I vote for one character at a time, but if you die you become a different character that discovers the mine a few years later.

[eerr]

Sim Tower? Er, I never got the details... was that strip-mining the earth?