...there was the last blog update.
Interesting. The name of the game in Development is "Beyond the End". So true for the current state of the project.
It has gone trough end at least twice already. Every single time ended in "Development hell".
We are stubborn enough to restart this project once again. This time it will be delivered.
Why am I so sure about it?
We no longer gamedev fresh meat we were years ago. This project brought us to professional game development and now we have finished projects behind the belt.
The craft of game design is no longer a pure magic art we the are masters of. ^_^
Fun fact, the more you know the more humble you are.
Back in the days we were knew that we were doing everything right, however we literally were "..busy idiots, working hard in the wrong places" (Tynan Sylvester "Designing Games" 2013).
Understanding the limitations of our knowledge is top priority for game developers.
Okay, enough for today. I don't think I'll keep updating this blog religiously, at least until playable version is ready. We will see.
Procedurally generated roguelike rpg set in the underground world waking up after a major catastrophe.
Apr 13, 2020
Nov 28, 2016
Art Report #4 - Mechanowizard Archetype
Hey everyone,
Presenting Mechanowizard and her Hog Automaton today:
This cunning technician focuses on Mechanowizardry Discipline, opening the following options to her:
- Construct a trusty Automaton from selected material - mundane stuff like Wood and Stone on lower levels and experimental things like Living Fire, Frost Crystals and Wild Mana on higher levels (who knows what abilities he will have from those materials ;)
- Quickly assemble a Lighting Turret which fires piercing bolts which can help a lot with hordes of enemies, but can also accidentally hit the player if he's not careful with his positioning. On higher levels of this ability the player can swap positions with existing Turret.
- Tactically Reset Cooldowns on some of her abilities when needed.
As usual, some sketches from the design process:
1) Initial ideas:
2) Hog automaton design:
3) More or less final option...
4) Which i decided to spice up with more interesting gadgets:
Of course, all of those cool items and weapons will be obtainable ingame :3
See you next time for a Thermosorcerer archetype sneak peak.
Presenting Mechanowizard and her Hog Automaton today:
This cunning technician focuses on Mechanowizardry Discipline, opening the following options to her:
- Construct a trusty Automaton from selected material - mundane stuff like Wood and Stone on lower levels and experimental things like Living Fire, Frost Crystals and Wild Mana on higher levels (who knows what abilities he will have from those materials ;)
- Quickly assemble a Lighting Turret which fires piercing bolts which can help a lot with hordes of enemies, but can also accidentally hit the player if he's not careful with his positioning. On higher levels of this ability the player can swap positions with existing Turret.
- Tactically Reset Cooldowns on some of her abilities when needed.
As usual, some sketches from the design process:
1) Initial ideas:
2) Hog automaton design:
3) More or less final option...
4) Which i decided to spice up with more interesting gadgets:
Of course, all of those cool items and weapons will be obtainable ingame :3
See you next time for a Thermosorcerer archetype sneak peak.
Nov 22, 2016
Art Report #3 - Steam Knight Archetype
Hello,
Steam Knight archetype is here:
This mighty warrior focused mostly on the Steam Power Discipline which allows him to:
- Overpower and push enemies around into disadvantageous positions and even pick them up and throw them in the nearby chasm/spiked wall/fire.
- Quickly Charge in the midst of battle, crushing everyone around him or Charge away from the battle when things get nasty (it's not a retreat, it's a tactical regrouping!)
- Parry enemy swings, counterattacking them in the moment of weakness and even reflecting enemy bullets and projectiles back at them!
Also don't forget that players are free to mix and match Abilities from all Disciplines, so for example you can make a Steam Power/Necrochemistry monster who overdoses on mutagens and rips everyone apart in melee.
For those who are interested in the design process:
1) First of all i had these designs after my course with Anthony Jones:
2) Like with Necrochemist before, i decided to repeat the process to test what i've learned, starting with the rough pen silhouettes:
3) And once i've decided with the general design, i experimented with the color schemes, selecting the "rusty" one (A) and rendering out til the end, changing it in the process to the more orange-looking armor rather than brownish rust:
Next on the line is Mechanowizard archetype and her trusty automaton companion.
Steam Knight archetype is here:
This mighty warrior focused mostly on the Steam Power Discipline which allows him to:
- Overpower and push enemies around into disadvantageous positions and even pick them up and throw them in the nearby chasm/spiked wall/fire.
- Quickly Charge in the midst of battle, crushing everyone around him or Charge away from the battle when things get nasty (it's not a retreat, it's a tactical regrouping!)
- Parry enemy swings, counterattacking them in the moment of weakness and even reflecting enemy bullets and projectiles back at them!
Also don't forget that players are free to mix and match Abilities from all Disciplines, so for example you can make a Steam Power/Necrochemistry monster who overdoses on mutagens and rips everyone apart in melee.
For those who are interested in the design process:
1) First of all i had these designs after my course with Anthony Jones:
2) Like with Necrochemist before, i decided to repeat the process to test what i've learned, starting with the rough pen silhouettes:
3) And once i've decided with the general design, i experimented with the color schemes, selecting the "rusty" one (A) and rendering out til the end, changing it in the process to the more orange-looking armor rather than brownish rust:
Next on the line is Mechanowizard archetype and her trusty automaton companion.
Nov 16, 2016
Art Report #2 - Necrochemist Archetype
Hey everyone!
We've been busy working over at our Trello board and neglected this blog for quite a while - time to change this.
We'll explain our revamped rpg system a bit later (since it's currently under heavy debates), but what's certain is that it will be mostly classless and players will be free to pick Abilities from any Discipline as they build their character. Disciplines are merely a groups of similarly themed abilities ranked by their power and EXP cost. Today i want to show you how the character who pursued the Necrochemistry Discipline might end up looking like:
Some of Necrochemistry abilities include:
- Spraying Toxins and creating deadly pools of acid to limit enemies movement
- Spawning Corpsesauruses from dead enemies. Type of summon depends on the type of the corpse, so you might get Fanged Corpsesauruses from dead wolves, Poisoned Corpsesauruses from toxic bodies, etc
- Unleashing Confusing Gas to disorient enemies and even force them to attack each other
Here's my design process for her:
First of all, i had these sketches from a mentorship course with Anthony Jones (highly recommended btw):
That's where i learned a LOT about the nuances of the design process - before that i was doing it in a semi-random way, without giving to much thought about the PURPOSE of elements and design PRINCIPLES like Balance (having a busy parts full of details contrasted by very light detail free parts so the eyes of the viewer can rest) and Unity (having a number of repeating elements/patterns throughout the design). As a challenge i decided to repeat the design process completely by myself. I started with lots of super rough silhouettes, focusing on an insect/creepy/toxic themes:
Afterwards i picked up the ones that looked interesting and developed them into simple sketches:
Initially i went for the Ratlike option:
But eventually switched to the Spiderlike variant because:
1) There will be ratlike race inhabiting the world so i wanted to avoid overlapping themes
2) For illustration purposes we needed more ranged heroes because we already had enough melee guys (you'll see them in the following days)
3) I instantly fell in love with the idea that Necrochemists use partly hollow shell of an insect as their backpack/exoskeleton. They are manipulating it by sending electroshock impulses to the insect's nerve system and forcing it to move its limbs to help reload a rifle or slash nearby enemies
Even though i really liked the Syringe Spear from the first sketches, i needed a cool and appropriate looking gun for the Spiderlike design:
With colors i focused on the idea that Necrochemists are both creepy/dealing with toxic things (green), and are usually found in the upper echelons of society (golden) - i'll eventually address how this works out in a later City post.
Hope this looks interesting enough and tomorrow i'll share a Steam Knight archetype.
Have a great day!
We've been busy working over at our Trello board and neglected this blog for quite a while - time to change this.
We'll explain our revamped rpg system a bit later (since it's currently under heavy debates), but what's certain is that it will be mostly classless and players will be free to pick Abilities from any Discipline as they build their character. Disciplines are merely a groups of similarly themed abilities ranked by their power and EXP cost. Today i want to show you how the character who pursued the Necrochemistry Discipline might end up looking like:
Some of Necrochemistry abilities include:
- Spraying Toxins and creating deadly pools of acid to limit enemies movement
- Spawning Corpsesauruses from dead enemies. Type of summon depends on the type of the corpse, so you might get Fanged Corpsesauruses from dead wolves, Poisoned Corpsesauruses from toxic bodies, etc
- Unleashing Confusing Gas to disorient enemies and even force them to attack each other
Here's my design process for her:
First of all, i had these sketches from a mentorship course with Anthony Jones (highly recommended btw):
That's where i learned a LOT about the nuances of the design process - before that i was doing it in a semi-random way, without giving to much thought about the PURPOSE of elements and design PRINCIPLES like Balance (having a busy parts full of details contrasted by very light detail free parts so the eyes of the viewer can rest) and Unity (having a number of repeating elements/patterns throughout the design). As a challenge i decided to repeat the design process completely by myself. I started with lots of super rough silhouettes, focusing on an insect/creepy/toxic themes:
Afterwards i picked up the ones that looked interesting and developed them into simple sketches:
Initially i went for the Ratlike option:
But eventually switched to the Spiderlike variant because:
1) There will be ratlike race inhabiting the world so i wanted to avoid overlapping themes
2) For illustration purposes we needed more ranged heroes because we already had enough melee guys (you'll see them in the following days)
3) I instantly fell in love with the idea that Necrochemists use partly hollow shell of an insect as their backpack/exoskeleton. They are manipulating it by sending electroshock impulses to the insect's nerve system and forcing it to move its limbs to help reload a rifle or slash nearby enemies
Even though i really liked the Syringe Spear from the first sketches, i needed a cool and appropriate looking gun for the Spiderlike design:
With colors i focused on the idea that Necrochemists are both creepy/dealing with toxic things (green), and are usually found in the upper echelons of society (golden) - i'll eventually address how this works out in a later City post.
Hope this looks interesting enough and tomorrow i'll share a Steam Knight archetype.
Have a great day!
Oct 7, 2015
Architecture Over Hacking
Okay, okay! I was saying it to myself and anybody else for many many times:
Don't code when you are tired or worse, exhausted. Don't code if you don't imagine final result in your mind! Spend as much time as you need for figuring out the architecture then you may code for few minutes (yes, it happens sometimes).
It doesn't mean you always get unworking code, sure not, but.. well.
For example, I have 'map validation routines'. This code is stable, relatively fast, but I sweat every single time I have to look into it. Better keep it untouched, 'Legacy Code' as it is. Except, it is Your legacy code. ^_^
The same thing happened.
If you check our Trello board you can find that I am adding Z levels to global map storage, so game can track your travels to slums, generate them and so on.
At first, I thought: 'ah. easy task, do it on fly '.
You think what?
What?
Chicken butt!
Come on, I have been coding it until understood: I am going veeery wrong way. I made an attempte to hack a way and add a record with a dynamic array to every game location.
Ugh. bad idea! It was hard to work with even during current work! What about halve of a year later? Huh?
Yeah. Take a deep inhale, delete you crappy code and think about Architecture!
Think first, Constantine!
PS
Current task:
Class that will push new levels into self, give them to game and report errors!
Simple and elegant.
Do it!
Oct 1, 2015
Art Report #1 - Scavenger Union
Hey guys!
I've just finished the Scavenger Union design, narrowly evading the Lazy Snail that Konstantin sent for me, so let me share what i've done so far (click on the images to see the bigger version with details).
First of all, welcome to the City:
Here the humans hid during the Catastrophe and survived, sealing themselves from the rest of the world. A lot of time have passed, the resources in the City became extremely sparse and it was decided to finally open the gates and explore the world beyond.
For that purpose, the Scavenger Union was created:
Since there was an overpopulation in the City and food supplies were becoming smaller and smaller, the government created a new institution - Scavenger Union, tasked with exploring the world outside, bringing back useful resources, exploring good places for the mushroom farms and slowly filling map of the world.
Once a person decides to join the Union, he is given some small starting items and is sent on a specific mission to the outer world. Because this job is extremely risky (most of the members die horribly on their first mission), but there is a small chance of getting insane rewards and money by finding an Old World Artifact like a functioning machine or even an abandoned Factory, it become very popular among the poorest people of the City, who would otherwise just die of starvation.
The Union uses rank system for their members - the competition between the lower ranks is severe, even to the point where some malicious members can kill their competitors in the Outer World, just so they'll have a higher chance to find the Artifacts and bring them back.
The higher ranks on the contrary, consists of reputable gentlemen who managed to survive a lot of trips Outside and became a veterans. It's very hard to get into their ranks, but once you are in, you'll be given a lot more lucrative jobs and have an access to the Union's Quartermaster who sells unique items for reputation points.
The player begins as a newly joined member of the Union, ready to prove himself to the world and find riches beyond imagination!
Here are some props that i designed for the interior of the Union:
And here is the final design of the 1st floor, where the lowest members of the Union hang out, receive missions from the Manager and discuss their recent adventures while sipping cheap beer (other floors will be available in later versions):
Next in the plan is the concepts of the City Street and the Slums (which will be our first dungeon). Hopefully the world that we designed will be interesting to explore and atmospheric enough to be immersed in it :3
Thanks for reading and see you in the next Art Report!
Vadim
I've just finished the Scavenger Union design, narrowly evading the Lazy Snail that Konstantin sent for me, so let me share what i've done so far (click on the images to see the bigger version with details).
First of all, welcome to the City:
 |
| For the next version we are focusing on only one small district, fully filled with content. But in later versions you'll be able to fully explore the City, the world beyond it and maybe even other surviving Cities. |
For that purpose, the Scavenger Union was created:
 |
| We decided to go with the first option in the bottom row. |
Once a person decides to join the Union, he is given some small starting items and is sent on a specific mission to the outer world. Because this job is extremely risky (most of the members die horribly on their first mission), but there is a small chance of getting insane rewards and money by finding an Old World Artifact like a functioning machine or even an abandoned Factory, it become very popular among the poorest people of the City, who would otherwise just die of starvation.
The Union uses rank system for their members - the competition between the lower ranks is severe, even to the point where some malicious members can kill their competitors in the Outer World, just so they'll have a higher chance to find the Artifacts and bring them back.
The higher ranks on the contrary, consists of reputable gentlemen who managed to survive a lot of trips Outside and became a veterans. It's very hard to get into their ranks, but once you are in, you'll be given a lot more lucrative jobs and have an access to the Union's Quartermaster who sells unique items for reputation points.
The player begins as a newly joined member of the Union, ready to prove himself to the world and find riches beyond imagination!
Here are some props that i designed for the interior of the Union:
And here is the final design of the 1st floor, where the lowest members of the Union hang out, receive missions from the Manager and discuss their recent adventures while sipping cheap beer (other floors will be available in later versions):
 |
| Welcome to the Union! Take a mission, drink some beer for the bravery - and good luck! |
Next in the plan is the concepts of the City Street and the Slums (which will be our first dungeon). Hopefully the world that we designed will be interesting to explore and atmospheric enough to be immersed in it :3
Thanks for reading and see you in the next Art Report!
Vadim
Sep 25, 2015
Weekly report
As I mentioned in a previous post, we have finished save/ load map routines and it took more time than I planed. Doh..
From other hand, it is done, at end of all and future client/server routines will not be so hard to implement, because we will have main architecture done already.
What does it mean to you as a player? Well, you will return to exact level you left instead of new one.
After such an Epic goal I started another epic one, quest mechanism.Quests can break your game with ease, so I spent more time developing architecture then actually coding.
It is obvious idea, well, it would be great if got it couple of years ago. ^_^
Basic quest interface is ready and the next step is creature ranks in groups.
Once it is done you will get this tutorial 'Talk to Master of Scavengers Guild' quest!
From other hand, it is done, at end of all and future client/server routines will not be so hard to implement, because we will have main architecture done already.
What does it mean to you as a player? Well, you will return to exact level you left instead of new one.
After such an Epic goal I started another epic one, quest mechanism.Quests can break your game with ease, so I spent more time developing architecture then actually coding.
It is obvious idea, well, it would be great if got it couple of years ago. ^_^
Basic quest interface is ready and the next step is creature ranks in groups.
Once it is done you will get this tutorial 'Talk to Master of Scavengers Guild' quest!
Sep 21, 2015
Quest for...
Vadim and I are preparing a major build of Fallen. It is gonna come at October or November.
Despite I named it as major, we plan to turn off a lot of features game currently has and tweak existing.
Wait.. I think you are want me write what was that? Why we didn't post updates for absurdly long period of time. Even Lazy Snail was summoned!
Okay, it was my fault, Vadim was working hard (but he doesn't post anything here! Maaan, Lazy Snail watches you).
I had three reasons, but the number one is that I bogged myself into client-server stuff.
Oh yes, save/load on HDD and potentially get some data from server.
I already have an experience with that and learned one rule, very obvious, frankly, game itself shouldn't know when data comes from and goes to.
Yes, it was harder then I thought, but I won this battle and happy about that.
Well. Back to our work. Vadim will write about graphical design plans, yes, he promised that, otherwise Lazy Snail would come for him too!
We will turn off, temporary, of course: crafting and global map.
We will add quests, Scavenger guild and 2-3 local map levels to explore!
Despite I named it as major, we plan to turn off a lot of features game currently has and tweak existing.
Wait.. I think you are want me write what was that? Why we didn't post updates for absurdly long period of time. Even Lazy Snail was summoned!
Okay, it was my fault, Vadim was working hard (but he doesn't post anything here! Maaan, Lazy Snail watches you).
I had three reasons, but the number one is that I bogged myself into client-server stuff.
Oh yes, save/load on HDD and potentially get some data from server.
I already have an experience with that and learned one rule, very obvious, frankly, game itself shouldn't know when data comes from and goes to.
Yes, it was harder then I thought, but I won this battle and happy about that.
Well. Back to our work. Vadim will write about graphical design plans, yes, he promised that, otherwise Lazy Snail would come for him too!
We will turn off, temporary, of course: crafting and global map.
We will add quests, Scavenger guild and 2-3 local map levels to explore!
Sep 15, 2015
Lazy Snail!
This is Lazy Snail!
It came to kick my butt for bad work
and
I don't want it to come again!
Jul 11, 2015
weekly report and build
I is interesting. Even if I announced previous week as Gameplay, most of closed tickets were pure technical. - bugfixes, GUI updates and so in.
Our finished list:
1. Four more clothing sprites.
2. Global map is no longer painful to use. ^_^
3. A portion of nasty bugs were cleared.
4. Config.cfg got more features.
5. Couple of GUI tweaks.
6. Creatures drop specified corpses.
For the next week we start serialization and client/server routines. They are required for many and maby features (for example quests), but first "feature" would be game saving.
Our finished list:
1. Four more clothing sprites.
2. Global map is no longer painful to use. ^_^
3. A portion of nasty bugs were cleared.
4. Config.cfg got more features.
5. Couple of GUI tweaks.
6. Creatures drop specified corpses.
For the next week we start serialization and client/server routines. They are required for many and maby features (for example quests), but first "feature" would be game saving.
Jul 7, 2015
Screenshot from old times!
Ha! Vadim found build of old Fallen. Well. I think we made some progress since then.
Upcoming 'Technical' week (database)
As I wrote on our Trello board, we have two cycles of development: Gameplay weeks and Technical week.
While gameplay weeks take 3 of 4 weeks in a month, technical week takes one. 3:1 is good ration for technical vs gameplay features.
Of course, it is not that bold and technical features affects gameplay and gameplay features have technical and so on, but you got the idea - keep the balance between gameplay and engine/ GUI/ data works.
Concerning upcoming technical week I have one BIG work to be started. Game should be able to keep world data in a client-server database. It doesn't mean, it should be on a external server, of course, but the game should work with it this way.
We need it for:
It means that main game may:
The most important part, main game doesn't care how database going to do it. Saves it to local drive, keeps in memory or uploads to fallenroguelike.com server.
For the game it would be 'a server'.
The development of game database can't be delayed for any longer.
Nearly all our upcoming gameplay features need it. It is as important as implementation of widgets.
We start discussing its architecture and prototyping. If you have any interesting suggestions, articles to read or very good with databases, you are welcome.
Any advise matters!
While gameplay weeks take 3 of 4 weeks in a month, technical week takes one. 3:1 is good ration for technical vs gameplay features.
Of course, it is not that bold and technical features affects gameplay and gameplay features have technical and so on, but you got the idea - keep the balance between gameplay and engine/ GUI/ data works.
Concerning upcoming technical week I have one BIG work to be started. Game should be able to keep world data in a client-server database. It doesn't mean, it should be on a external server, of course, but the game should work with it this way.
We need it for:
- game save / load.
- quests. Game can issue a quest, using world data.
- real server routines. It would be nice to allow other players' games to affect your gameplay.
It means that main game may:
- Upload its current state to the database.
- Load specified local level from it.
- Get any information game needs from it. (Do specified level has necromutans? Its seed? or specified workshop? etc)
The most important part, main game doesn't care how database going to do it. Saves it to local drive, keeps in memory or uploads to fallenroguelike.com server.
For the game it would be 'a server'.
The development of game database can't be delayed for any longer.
Nearly all our upcoming gameplay features need it. It is as important as implementation of widgets.
We start discussing its architecture and prototyping. If you have any interesting suggestions, articles to read or very good with databases, you are welcome.
Any advise matters!
Jul 4, 2015
Weekly report and build
Done list:
1. food gives bonus for eating it (needs balancing).
2. you can create fire using matches.
3. fire can be used for craft (One schematic!!! True achievement, lol.).
4. Item materials (stone, steel, flesh, paper etc)
5. minor fixes for savages.
6. config.cfg got more options. More to go.
7. campfire and pit actually prevents fire from spreading. Also minor fire fixes.
Current work:
Vadim is drawing super cool Casual clothing. There would be numerous variants of colours.
Jul 1, 2015
fire as a tool
Take your matches, pile dry wood or garbage and start a fire!
There a couple of balancing issues with fire. It too easy to make an arson instead of small fire and occasionally all town. Well, not all town, but burn down couple of houses is not a big issue.
Also, AI doesn't care about fire and luring enemies into fire works well. Except you don't get experience and their equipment burns.
I have two days to add schematics for fireplaces, like pit or campfire and add fire as crafting tool.
But I'll do my best to finish it today and take another story for tomorrow.
There are two more issues with crafting:
First, game doesn't show you as Player a report about crafting results. Was it successful or not, were is the result and so on. It needs disappearing pop-up message.
Second, crafting requires you to enter crafting menu, select a schematic, confirm it, select a tile. Doh!
Why so indie?
Crafting features on tile should be accessible via one click menu. For example: right click on empty tile and select "build" menu, or "fire/effects" menu and so on.
You should fight monsters, not interface!
Jun 29, 2015
Material and skin tones are onboard
It means even more diversity in people you meet and colours mean end to rave party I have made.
Thanks to colours I have selected at random.
You can not customize your character yet. Yes, of course, it is on the list!
Then all items in the game have material. It wasn't made just because we want material. As I wrote for many times, no features are to be added with no real gameplay reason.
I have found that adding custom fire resistance to every single type of item and map cluster could be very annoying and potentially bugs friendly.
Grouping items into sets by their material saves resources, time, easy to support and also looks nice!
I don't know how about you, but I love to have a longsword made from fine steel instead of just a longsword. Yeah steal longsword and glass monocle rock!
Plus, it makes game code easy to work with. I can change constants for all group in one touch and make game way to easy to understand.
Why a walls are resistant to fire and a book burns?
When stone wall is obviously prone to fire, unlike paper advertisement pamphlet.
Heh! By the way, these spam pamphlets would be useful at end of all, you can use them to start fire for your crafts or arson. I don't know your intentions.
Then you can make something that will held fire and prevent it from starting underground fire apocalypse. Dig a pit or make campfire from stones, then roast your favorite leg of giant roach.
Also about food, it is useful now!
You will get nice buffs after eating this. Different types of food will give nice bonuses. Yes, eating food of the same type will overwrite bonuses for that type of food, but nothing prevents you to eat canned snail meat, roasted roach leg and mushroom bread, and for a brief period of time became more powerful and defeat Necrotitan!
Of course, food needs balancing and implementing craft of food. err. cooking , yeah. ^_^
But, I think I'll finish it this week.
PS
I want to visit Belgium.
Why? There is my favorite game developing studio!
Jun 26, 2015
Weekly report and build
 |
| Random picture of a Catman |
Week has passed, game build should be delivered and report posted.
As addition to meany crafting interface story, I have finished a portion of small stories. That's odd, but some of them looks bigger then crafting interface upgrade. Unfair!
Also, as a cherry on top, GoodSir closed few graphical stories. He wants to write a couple of posts about Fallen graphical design and his plans about it, so I will not lampshade details and just mention them in this list.
Okay, without further ado, our done list for this week:
- Head hair for men.
- Head hair for women.
- Mustaches and beards.
- New interface feature. Select widget in a list widget as widget. -_o.
- You can select items for crafting.
- Drag and Drop for Global Map (It was very easy task, surprise).
- Frontier radio got button on game panel and few interface fixes (It is not finished, of course. We have big plans for it!)
Huge mushrooms can be contaminated by mana. - Names for savages.
- Roles adjust creature levels (For example guards get few level ups)
- As usual, bug fixing and useful refactoring.
Jun 25, 2015
Crafting interface upgrade
I have to confess, it was super annoying task!
A lot of small bugs, tiny problems, sharp edges of legacy code and so on.
But, it is a work that should be done if we want crafting as very important part of gameplay to be smooth and easy to use.
Game automatically selects items as tools and components, shows you what components are missing and allows to change a component.
Last feature is important, for example if you don't want to cut old jacket into straps, but your brand new fancy shirt. Obvious, isn't it?
Also, it took additional day to create new interface feature.
One of the downsides of writing your own engine for roguelike: need a feature, write it yourself.
As I mentioned before, it is highly unwise to create your own engine for a roguelike game.
Yes, there is one big plus in your own engine - you know it well and you can modify it whenever you like add any functionality you want, adapt it to your needs etc.
BUT!
1. It will take time for your engine to mature and get rid of stupid bugs.
2. Every hour spent on engine is an hour stolen from game itself.
This issues are eager to combine and wage a war on you togeather.
For example, you decide, my game we have great feature- thunderbolts will paralyze creatures and cook bread!
Nice, but then you get Access Violation for every thunderbolt targeting iron golem on the left and no clue why does it happen?!
I have to admit, it is a lot of fun to create your own engine, but I would not do it again if I would start my development nowadays.
PS
I need interesting gameplay story to recover from such 'technical' job. ASAP! ^_^
Maybe food or work on radio a bit, or my favorite name generators? We will see, there a lot of interesting stories on our Trello board.
As usual, I'll update build this Saturday.
Jun 23, 2015
Procedurally Generated Quests
Let’s
discuss this very interesting topic.
How do Quests can be procedurally generated?
I think Quests
should be a combination of premade basic scripts, our game situation and random
content.
Premade basic
script means a part of a task, like deliver, hunt, find, patrol, craft and so
on.
Quest will
have 2+ basic scripts. For example hunt Mutants, find artefact and deliver it
to city.
Game
situation means quest maker should respect current game development.
Does city exist at specified location, monster lair or tribal village. Necromutants activity and so on.
Does city exist at specified location, monster lair or tribal village. Necromutants activity and so on.
You will
get more peaceful quests if situation is calm and more dangerous combat tasks
at real frontier.
Random content is simple - Find one artefact
or two carrots.
Okay. Let’s
try to generate a quest.
We create quest in a city. It has low necromutants activity, 2 bandits camps nearby and one mana lagoon.
We create quest in a city. It has low necromutants activity, 2 bandits camps nearby and one mana lagoon.
Game randomly selects four blocks
for a quest:
- Defeat # troublemakers.
- Develiver an artefact.
- Defeat an Important Enemy.
- Explore location.
Then game
forms a task.
It takes bandits as foes.
Bandits’ important items as artefact and removes “explore location” because this location is already explored by Player (for example).
It takes bandits as foes.
Bandits’ important items as artefact and removes “explore location” because this location is already explored by Player (for example).
Final task
will be: “We have big problems with outlaw gand ‘Knives Of Aged Minotaur’ from ‘Fearful
Caves Sealed By Ancient Ghosts’. You have to go there and defeat their leader, fearful John ‘Evil Eye’ Beckon.
Bring back his log book, because it helds important information. Also we will
pay you additional 5 coins per every gang member you will put to Justice!
Finish it in a less then 67 days and get additional bonus!”.
Of course,
it is just a sketch, but it is the way I see random quests in Fallen.
Jun 21, 2015
Burn! Burn! Ahahahahahaha!!!!
Fire spreads, grow and dies down if has nothing to catch on.
Living creature can catch fire and burn, especially if fire is very strong. Good new, fire doesn't eat up a lot of CPU time. So burning down whole city doesn't hurt game performance.
What have left:
- Different fire resistance for items, like map cluster have it now and 'power' fire gets from burning them.
- Play with fire constants, so it will act more like real fire.
- Add crafting flag for effects. Cook meat, forge steel, craft mana grenades!
- Ensure that fire vs mana routines work well. Mana should explode when exposed to fire.
- Add 'prevent fire from spreading' to map cluster (ovens, campfires etc).
Build a campfire, use matches to start a fire and roast roach leg!
Jun 20, 2015
Mana and Fire.
It is odd!
As I wrote in previous post, I have underestimated the difficulty of City Development story, but!
Today, I have finished not only encounter routines and 5 encounters, but already implemented map effects, like fire and mana.
Fire doesn't exist in game literally, but it is just a matter of time. Mana is reworked to effect.
The most important part, algorithms for these map effects have been done and they are easy to work with and of course, they are animated.
For example mana is no longer a collection of pools on the ground.
It is more like gas. So, once mana bag explodes it releases a small shroud of thick gas, "the mana".
Shroud expands and shrinks based on its concentration (resource), acts like malevolent shroud.
If creature with mana perk founds itself inside it uses its ability if mana shroud concentration is enough for it.
It means: marathoner would be constantly hasted in shrouds, panisher will regenerated like mad, torturer will be enrages and helmint will spawn at alarming rate etc.
Good news! Even if mana became considerably more dangerous now it will evaporates eventually.
Try to use tactics when fighting necromutants in mana shrouds!
So, I'll add fire to the world of Fallen (flamethrowers? Explosions? Grenades?) and will start big crafting overhaul.
PS
You can taste new mana concept. I have updated a build. ^_^
As I wrote in previous post, I have underestimated the difficulty of City Development story, but!
Today, I have finished not only encounter routines and 5 encounters, but already implemented map effects, like fire and mana.
Fire doesn't exist in game literally, but it is just a matter of time. Mana is reworked to effect.
The most important part, algorithms for these map effects have been done and they are easy to work with and of course, they are animated.
For example mana is no longer a collection of pools on the ground.
It is more like gas. So, once mana bag explodes it releases a small shroud of thick gas, "the mana".
Shroud expands and shrinks based on its concentration (resource), acts like malevolent shroud.
If creature with mana perk founds itself inside it uses its ability if mana shroud concentration is enough for it.
It means: marathoner would be constantly hasted in shrouds, panisher will regenerated like mad, torturer will be enrages and helmint will spawn at alarming rate etc.
Good news! Even if mana became considerably more dangerous now it will evaporates eventually.
Try to use tactics when fighting necromutants in mana shrouds!
So, I'll add fire to the world of Fallen (flamethrowers? Explosions? Grenades?) and will start big crafting overhaul.
PS
You can taste new mana concept. I have updated a build. ^_^
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