Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[ragnor]

Reinar I too like that part, talkling to spies, doing covert quest etc., it was fun. I'd like to play a game based on that.

Also if you don't mind the cliche, you could always make humans sturdy, gnomes intelligent, drows agile and trolls strong. Most of the times what makes humans special over all these fantasy races are them being highly adaptable to new situations and enduring harsh conditions other races couldn't cope with.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Don't worry too much about the plot, any plot works when the game has full party creation, exploration without handolding, NPCs with some gameplay purpose of some sort, quests wth real rewards, no cut scene thrown at your face everytime. Besides The plot doesn't have to (I would even say "shouldn't") take itself too seriously and you can have some cool parts and that's fine.
Basically just build your game like Might&Magic 6 and not like some boring so-called story-driven RPG.

Also catering to storyfags too much takes away the precious resources that you can spend on gameplay/level design/other more important aspects.

 

[Rhuantavan]

Also catering to storyfags too much takes away the precious resources that you can spend on gameplay/level design/other more important aspects.

Are you telling me the story is not the most important thing in an rpg?

 

[Bester]

He's also saying that level design is apparently not part of the story. Lol.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Also catering to storyfags too much takes away the precious resources that you can spend on gameplay/level design/other more important aspects.

Are you telling me the story is not the most important thing in an rpg?

Yes and no. It's somewhat important, but I think the majority of game developers got it backwards.

First of all, we're talking about vidya games, so we've got these cool things like game design and level design -- neither books nor movies have these. If I would want to tell a story about some fallen empire, I'd design a massive fortress with complex pathways to let the player find that out on their own instead of designing three corridors and letting the text dump/cinematics do the job.
Second, it's more fun to craft your own 'story'. Remember when we used to recommend cool games to friends? We've told about the fun stuff/fun situations we had instead of 'ugh well I slept with Morrigan by pressing 1 all the time and the story is like uh totally cool you can like make choices and shiet'.

TL;DR: I'd design the game first and only then add some flavor through the writing/events.

He's also saying that level design is apparently not part of the story. Lol.

Ergo, enjoying good Doom wads is storyfaggotry? K.

 

[Bester]

Ergo, enjoying good Doom wads is storyfaggotry? K.

Suddenly we're talking about FPSes and not RPGs? K.

K.

Spoiler

K.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Ergo, enjoying good Doom wads is storyfaggotry? K.

Suddenly we're talking about FPSes and not RPGs? K.

K.

Spoiler

K.

IMO, Doom is a very streamlined dungeon crawler at heart. But if you want RPGs, there's always Wizardry, Mordor, King's Field + a shitload of dungeon crawlers.

 

[Wayward Son]

Are you telling me the story is not the most important thing in an rpg?

In a perfect RPG in a utopian world, level design, story, gameplay, lore and NPCs all work together to make a coherent whole.

 

[Reinar]

For a while, I was thinking about making the fourth race a catmen race. Not as gay as TES khajiits and far less gay than furries. Imagine your generic home cat, standing on two, wearing plate armor... like this:

The catmen society would have their moral standards completely upside down. Being kind to others would be seen as disgusting, samaritans would be tried and imprisoned.
"Felix of Pawlington, you have been accused of heroism. Do you deny it?"
"Yes! It's a lie, a dirty slander!"
But just as our society has outlaws - thieves and murderers - there would be good catmen, mostly living among other races to avoid punishment from their own kind.

I decided not to make them, because they would have the same racial ability as drows - night vision. Also cats aren't serious, I think it wouldn't fit in the otherwise serious setting. I like the idea, though, so I might use it sometime, somewhere.

 

[V_K]

The catmen society would have their moral standards completely upside down. Being kind to others would be seen as disgusting, samaritans would be tried and imprisoned.
"Felix of Pawlington, you have been accused of heroism. Do you deny it?"
"Yes! It's a lie, a dirty slander!"
But just as our society has outlaws - thieves and murderers - there would be good catmen, mostly living among other races to avoid punishment from their own kind.

I decided not to make them, because they would have the same racial ability as drows - night vision. Also cats aren't serious, I think it wouldn't fit in the otherwise serious setting. I like the idea, though, so I might use it sometime, somewhere.

Sounds very Rakshasa.
Alternatively (to felines), since your other races more or less share a connection to British folklore, you could use redcaps:

A red cap or redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent, murderous dwarf, goblin, elf or fairy found in Border Folklore. They are said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travellers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name).[1] Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible.

They are depicted as sturdy old men with red eyes, taloned hands and large teeth, wearing a red cap and bearing a pikestaff in the left hand.[2]

 

[Reinar]

Interesting, thanks for that. I might use these as enemies.

 

[Mustawd]

I drew a 2D sprite for the Iceblink module I'm developing (slowly). First of many. For now, they're not animated. I might go back and add extra frames to all tokens when all the art is done, but not sure yet.

 

[Bester]

It's blurry but otherwise great. Looks like you drew it on a piece of paper and then scanned. Get a cheap wacom.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Get a cheap wacom.

I use my cheap little Wacom Bamboo and I love it. I'm amazed at how much of an improvement it is over scanning or using a mouse.

The picture might look a little blurry, but maybe that's just because of the size, resolution, and number of colors. If you're going to add more than just a couple of animation frames for each character, you'll definitely want a lower resolution. If you're mostly going to use it as a "battler" and not an animation frame, you'll want a higher resolution. And I'm not sure what kind of camera perspective you want to have, but that's very nearly horizontal.

 

[Mustawd]

It's blurry but otherwise great. Looks like you drew it on a piece of paper and then scanned. Get a cheap wacom.

Actually, it was drawn on a wacom, but the sprite size is 100 pixels (the guy is shorter due to being a dwarf) in the Iceblink engine, so the size is a factor. I'll take a screen shot in-engine next time for comparison.

Then again I did draw it a bit smaller and then upscaled it 20 or so pixels, so that could have been a factor. Next time I'll upscale the underlying line drawing to the correct size first before starting to paint.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[V_K]

I'll take a screen shit

Please, don't.

 

[Mustawd]

If you're mostly going to use it as a "battler" and not an animation frame, you'll want a higher resolution. And I'm not sure what kind of camera perspective you want to have, but that's very nearly horizontal.

The persoective is top down/iconographic. Basically like the early Ultima games and the Exile games from Vogel. So I think low reaolution is just part of the factor.

 

[Reinar]

^ Reminds me of Natuk. Cool game (that probably no one knows).


I had a lot of free time in work today (and I anticipated it) so I grabbed source code of my game and rewrote dialogues. I exchanged dialogue condition and action method calls by shady SendMessage with reflection. Also incorporated basic string replacement. I can write a player response like "I am the strongest here," said <Name> with <hisher> arms flexed. and it translates the <> parts into a name of character with maximum strength and a proper noun, for example. I'd like the dialogues to be more subjective, with player's responses looking more like something the party members would say. Wise replies will be from chars with high INT, cocky replies will be from chars in plate armor etc. Gates of Skeldal did this (in much smaller fashion) and I liked it. Now to transfer the dialogue data into an xml instead of prefabs and, some time in the future, a visual editor would be nice.

I expect I will have some free time in work tomorrow as well. I am going to rewrite the spell system. The one I have now works, but it's shit.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The UI looks pretty clean. Nice job. Where did you get that creepy catman pic from?

 

[Reinar]

Same artist as the cat adventuring party above (which I realized just now): http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/crystal-street-336174881

 

[CryptRat]

Impressive art gallery, thanks for the link.

 

[Mustawd]

Made another sprite. I think this one looks better than the last. Dwarf Warrior. I think I'll open up a new thread after I get a bit few more done. C&C welcome.

Also, improved my last sprite a bit to add some contrast as I think the colors were being muddled.


BEFORE

AFTER

 

[Reinar]

Today I tinkered with small problems and details I was neglecting for a long time. Then I got bored of that super ugly house that was there since the beginning of the development and finally replaced it with something with good-looking textures. While I was at it, I did a bit of level designing. Of course, the scene I have is just for testing, but it doesn't need to look like shit. I think it looks pretty good, considering it took me just a few minutes and free assets from the store. Also, fog makes everything better.

 

[Aiff((AimpliesA)ImpliesA)]

Reinar here's the male troll version for you.

https://i.imgur.com/eB6Kgjx.png


edit 1:

this one relayers some of the female features and coloring back onto my modification so there's more color.

https://i.imgur.com/2j7MrF7.png

edit 2:
lastly i relayered the original face-that-never-remebered again. slightly more realistic shadows and light.

https://i.imgur.com/kdAW5ZM.png

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Here's a modded version for those who find eyeless sockets too creepy: