Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

PARPG - a nuclear winter RPG moving towards a 2nd techdemo

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
We're now looking for a talented writer, preferably a native speaker. Interest in post-apocalyptic fiction is the most important and only real requirement besides that. If you always wanted to get involved in the development of a game that aims to feature a sophisticated story and you like to work with other dedicated people who enjoy non-cliche RPGs, here is your chance :)

We are also looking for people with experience writing for dialog trees and those familiar with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and other areas near the Baltic Sea.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG update! This time we’ll cover a bunch of interesting topics: progress in the fields of writing, mechanics and programming, efforts to find a lead writer for the project as well as some general remarks about the future of the technical framework that we’re currently evaluating.

If you would like to know more, check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to your weekly dose of post-apocalyptic development news. Looks like we are picking up quite some speed lately - at least the number of topics to cover in each news update is growing and growing. I'll keep things short this time and you simply click through the various links if you find a topic of interest.

We got covered at the freegamer blog some days ago and agreed upon a first license for the assets we'll create. PARPG got it's own top level domain now and zenbitz was on a game design spree last week again.

Icelus came up with a proposal for a story format and suddenly a lot of writers popped up and filled up the writing board of the forums.

Last but not least we're currently discussing how the game can be challenging while avoiding universal frustration. Feel free to jump into the permadeath thread at the forums right away.

Interested in all the details? Check out the full news update at the PARPG blog (now featuring subdomain candy!).
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Yes! It's Monday again, that means it's time for yet another news update :) As always: lots of progress over the course of the last week so I'll keep things short and you simply click through the various links if you find a topic of interest.

This time we're looking out for graphics artists and musicians who would like to get their hands dirty by contributing to the project. To give them something to do, the proper infrastructure needs to be in place as well, so our graphics artist Lamoot created a first Blender rendering setup as starting point. Furthermore we decided to set up an asset repository to find out if it offers any advantage for contributors who would like to avoid wrestling with SVN and other VCS solutions that are more geared towards tech-savvy users.

There are some new starting points for interested programmers and some reinforcements have already arrived as well. We're currently working on a playground for the writers to test the story format while trying to retain an overview by maintaining a per milestone ToDo list.

Zenbitz got his hands dirty again as well and elaborates on use and study-based learning and the next (prolly rather short) news update will already arrive at Friday as I'm traveling to The Hague at Saturday.

Interested in all the details? Check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog :)
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy
That visual story editor idea on your forum is very interesting. I think it would be a good idea to pursue that as a stand alone project, as script programming is too complicated and too much work for most RPGs.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
I doubt that we can provide an editor tool for it early. The idea is to keep the syntax simple so writers can work with it actually without any special kind of editor tool.
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy
>I doubt that we can provide an editor tool for it early.

Something like that would be a lot of work, but I think it is the holy grail for RPG creation.

Also if you made it so it could read in, as well as output python scripts, lots of people could use it and games would be made *a lot* faster. It may even eliminate the need for the testing of quests.

>The idea is to keep the syntax simple so writers can work with it actually without any special kind of editor tool.

So you are going to stick with the scripting? The problem I have found in the past, is no matter how simple you make script programming, the really good writers can't learn it as creative people and clinical logic, don't seem to mix. If you can make it visual, then you could harness their skills and free the programmers to work on the engine.

EDIT:
This program does half of what I had in mind, in that it outputs code from flow charts:

http://watts.cs.sonoma.edu/SFC/index.html

Its very basic, but if you could make something like it that works at a higher level and improve the usability, it could be very useful.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
I' ve got no idea what kind of story engine he's building. Any online resources to get an idea what his story engine is about?
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Just asked our programmer about it and he got the idea for such a story engine from a book about advanced AI systems for computer games. The book gives the impression as it would be superior to normal scripting indeed as it's far more dynamic but we'll need to see how well the concept will work out in PARPG.

So far it's just a promising looking proof of concept.

shihonage seems to play the obfuscation card by removing his comments about the Shelter AI system from his posting :)
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy
shihonage seems to play the obfuscation card by removing his comments about the Shelter AI system from his posting

I remember what he said. :lol:

Just asked our programmer about it and he got the idea for such a story engine from a book about advanced AI systems for computer games. The book gives the impression as it would be superior to normal scripting indeed as it's far more dynamic but we'll need to see how well the concept will work out in PARPG.

If you don't mind, can you ask him what the book was called? I found his article hard to understand - programmer speak is hard to decipher. :P

As for me I have just found out about and am investigating an interactive fiction engine called Inform 7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7_.28Natural_Inform.29

I would like to be able to modify it and access it from a game engine, but most likely it will turn out to be too difficult.

I learned about Inform 7 in an article by an IF author called Emily Short. You might find it interesting as it seems to implement many RPGs elements (dynamic as well).

http://emshort.wordpress.com/writing-if/my-articles/conversation/
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
One of the FIFE programmers brought up Inform7 when he read about the story engine as well. But it seems to be difficult to it. I'll ask him when he's online again and let you know the name of the book here.
 

shihonage

Subscribe to my OnlyFans
Patron
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
7,157
Location
location, location
Bubbles In Memoria
mvBarracuda said:
shihonage seems to play the obfuscation card by removing his comments about the Shelter AI system from his posting :)

I realized that it was somewhat inappropriate to plug our system in a thread for another game.
 

shihonage

Subscribe to my OnlyFans
Patron
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
7,157
Location
location, location
Bubbles In Memoria
mvBarracuda said:
Why is that? I'm sure that the others appreciate the details as well :)

Well, what I said essentially is that we're taking the same approach to storytelling with Shelter, based on general expert system principles, even if the algorithms we use don't match yours.

Fallout has touched on the surface of this approach, but it's C&C system was still very much locked inside the ol' chess move tree. We're breaking out of the tree.
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy
>Just asked the programmer about it: it's Artifical intelligence for games by Ian Millington.

Thanks for that. :)
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. This one has been in the pipeline for several weeks and I would like to apologize for the massive delay. The original plan was to bring it to you around the 1st of April but a lot of unforeseen events occured.

This time there are a couple of good things to report but we've also encountered setbacks. Our lead programmer icelus decided to step down from his position; therefore the plans for the rather sophisticated story engine / AI system are on ice for the time being. Fortunately a new programmer decided to get involved in the project and is now actively working on PARPG.

One of our graphics artists came up with some first concept art and the programmers continued to explore FIFE and took a couple of testing screenshots while doing so. Zenbitz wrote down his ideas about encumbrance, inventory and clothing and I've made a personal promise :)

You can read about all details at the PARPG development blog: http://blog.parpg.net/2009/04/dont-look-back-into-the-sun

Here's a little teaser:
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update! As promised: now delivered weekly again.

An important advantage of blog updates on a weekly basis is that the number of topics to cover can be usually kept rather low. This time we’ll take a look into the latest map tests and present Zenbitz’s thoughts how combat could work in PARPG. Last but not least we’ll show you how a piece of concept art evolves from a mere black and white sketch to a colorized version of it and finally into an actual (work in progress) 3d model.

You can check out all the details at the PARPG development blog!

And here's a little teaser for you to get you excited. The other visuals can be found at the blog :)

Justing_ca.jpg
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update! This week we got a number of interesting topics to cover: an updated roadmap for the programming department, some first guides for the graphics artists, new work in progress 3d models as well as progress in the writing department.

You can check out the whole update at the PARPG development blog.

And as special feature for this week's update: a mistery teaser :) Want to find out what PARPG has to do with crates? Check out the full update at the blog!

Crate1.png
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG news update! There is a whole bunch of visual material to cover in this update as the graphics department has been quite hardworking. Furthermore the combat system proposal has been overhauled and large parts of the Python code have been refactored. We've played around with possible ingame inventory concepts and our trac system seems to run stable again after spammers invaded it a couple of days ago :-(

While a couple of new graphics artists joined the project lately, there is still a lot of room for additional contributors. We're currently especially searching for talented artists who would like to help us with creating ground tiles for the game.

Check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

And if you want to know what all of this has to do with an upswing, here's a little pointer for you:
350px-Windmill.png
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom