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

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Didn't see this before. Good luck. If, later in development (or whenever), you need an adviser for certain topics relating to combat, weapons, etc, I'll gladly give you some free help. I've worked in such a role for a few games before (mainly games related to spec ops, think titles like the original Ghost Recon), and this is one title I'd really like to see... as a Fallout fan. Always good to have a little 'authenticism' in your game even if it's not the main goal.
 

MisterStone

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Cleve Blakemore (if you don't know who he is, do a search on this website, you're in for quite a surprise) is developing a zombie survival game, and he recently mentioned that he bought some low poly building models and the like for a couple of hundred bucks. I was wondering if you guys have considered buying stock art like this? Since this is a freeware release (or is it?) your money would basically go down the drain of course, but you might recuperate it by asking for donations once you finish the game or at least can show people an early version. Are for-sale resources like this plentiful and cost effective? Just wondering...
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
It's open source and we don't plan to get any donations. Therefore there are no plans to buy any art assets either at this point.

EDIT: just to clarify: we're open source and non profit. As there is the possibility of selling open source commercial games, I wanted to clarify that.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. Three full weeks have passed since the last one and I'm truly sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've been really busy with university and although I know a lot more about the reconstruction of the failed state Liberia with the help of the UN now, I rather would have liked to post an update or two in the meantime instead of investing so much time into a presentation I had to give at Friday. Anyways, now that I'm done with it, I got some free time on my hands this week so here's your promised dose of PARPG news. This time it's more a newsflash than anything else. While I've been busy with real life, the others - especially the graphics department - has been hardworking and there's simply too much to report to do so in detail. Feel free to browse the forums to read about all the details.

Read the full news update (with lots of pretty images :)) at the PARPG development blog.

And to address the ongoing rumours: no, I haven't been struck down with one of these improvised weapons - that our new concept artist zeli created - and have been in coma for the last three weeks. I was simply busy :)

 

WholesaleGenocide

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Though I'm naturally pessimistic about any open source project with a grand vision, this looks pretty fucking awesome so far.
 

mvBarracuda

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Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update; this time actually delivered on schedule! There are a couple of things to report: the programmers implemented a first version of an ingame settings menu and added visual highlighting of objects as well as floating text descriptions for them. The graphics artists overhauled our ingame GUI plans and compiled an image gallery that features all previously created pieces of concept art.

To coordinate our efforts in the following weeks, we furthermore decided to arrange a first official developer meeting at our IRC channel. Of course community participation is appreciated as well :)

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

On a related note: FIFE developer Cheesesucker recently rewrote major parts of the map editor tool that comes with the engine. I've personally tested it over the last couple of days and I'm truly impressed by the improved workflow and new easiness of map creation. To applaud his efforts, we've fired up the editor, loaded our PARPG test map into it and took a screenshot :) Enjoy:

 

Barrow_Bug

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Looks like it could be great-but for the love of God please actually finish it. It's the same thing you hear in the indie film industry- too busy, too much time, too much this or that. Not that I think you WON'T finish it, considering your pedigree. But, please just actually do and I will give you +1
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Messages
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I've personally already promised to spend my weekly 5-15 hours on the project until the end of the year. After that we'll see how far we got and if it's realistic to continue our work and release a somewhat sophisticated game with the next three years. If that's totally unrealistic considering the progress we've made until the end of the year, there is still the option that somebody else picks up our work.

The project is open source so everyone got access to our assets, even at this very moment. There is no exclusive content that only developers can get their hands on.

When you say "but for the love of God please actually finish it" it's not really clear who's the addressed subject. The sum of all developers? A specific developer? It's in the nature of open source projects that developers are coming and going; you should keep that in mind :)
 

Barrow_Bug

Cipher
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You're right-it was more of an existential statement. And I do appreciate the fact it's open source, I guess I'm into that whole 'You start something you finish it, thing'. But I must say, I do wish you all the luck in the world. It looks really promising.
 

shihonage

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Unless you plan to load new maps when you enter a building, you'll have to scrap the "building = sprite" approach and make buildings tile by tile, i.e. enterable.

Just a thought.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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478
Yep, we know shihonage :) The current plan is that the interieur of buildings resides in a separate map indeed. This is how it was handled in the IE games AFAIR. I personally would have prefered the Fallout / Arcanum approach but in the end our programmers have to implement it and it seems that the separate map approach is far easier to handle.

In case we're not really satisfied with the result, we might switch to tiled building that reside on the same map indeed.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG news update! Let's get started right away :)

This week we're proud to report that the first audio track found its way into the game. New programmer on the team meggie implemented random NPC movement as well as switching between different maps. Maximinus was hardworking again as well, annotated the existing code in place via Epydoc, proposed a list of features for an first official release of the game and created a first simple build interieur map.

3d artist Zimble slightly updated the tile creation tutorial for users who would like to use an alternative sampling method and we're still looking for 2d & 3d artists who would like to contribute as the vast majority of our artists is currently rather occupied with real life commitments. Last but not least we finally agreed upon a date for the for the first official PARPG developer meeting: Monday, 22nd of June, 5-7PM GMT.

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

And here's your visual teaser: I wonder what might be inside this building? You can actually find out by either taking a peek at the news update or simply grab the latest version from our SVN repository and try yourself :)

 

shihonage

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The separate map approach is harder to handle.

Now you have to keep track of other NPCs who enter and leave buildings, most importantly those who are set to follow you in any way.

So when you're inside a building, NPCs chasing you still have to know the layout of the map outside the building, because they're outside. When they run inside, they have to know the inside layout.

Of course you can prevent buildings from being exploited in this way by

a) teleporting player's party inside and outside together with him
b) forbidding combatants (including player) from crossing door boundary until combat mode is off

However such restrictions are rather ugly and not entirely reliable, as the game's flag of "combatants" may toggle back and forth rapidly in a dynamic situation, still allowing "accidental" crossing of door boundary.
 

mvBarracuda

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I was personally in favour of a Fallout- / Arcanum-like approach of handling the buildings.

Needless to say: in team projects you're not a lone wolf but work together with a couple of other developers who provide specific feedback on topics and argue in favour or against a certain solution. We've agreed upon giving the buildings as separate maps approach a try to see how well it works out. While your raised points are certainly valid, I don't see a reason why we can't implement a good approach to address these ones. E.g. party members as well as hostile NPCs that are chasing you, could be teleported into the building you've enterered but not all at the same time but after a certain amount of time, depending on the distance between you and them when you entered the building.

In case we find out that we're not really happy with the gameplay that comes together with this buildings as separate maps approach despite many efforts to properly balance it, we'll consider to switch to a Fallout-like building approach. For now we'll stick to the current approach not because every single developer on the team is convinced that this is ultimatively the best solution but moreso because we've agreed upon going down this road and one essential part of such agreements is to not question them without a very good reason.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG news update! This time the nature of the update is a bit different to what you're used to get here. The main reason is that we recently had our first official developer meeting at the IRC channel of the project. So this news update contains far more plans for our next steps while the older updates often purely focused on reporting the progress of the last week(s). Such a change comes with certains advantages and potential drawbacks.

One main advantage is that we can give the community an idea where the project is hopefully moving to; on the other side there is the risk of promising but not being able to deliver later. So take the plans outlined today with a grain of salt :) But enough of the disclaimer stuff, let's get to actual news reporting!

Due the meeting there's are a truckload of things to report. The audio department is currently working on a more Falloutesque remix of the current ingame audio track while the programmers are making their plans for a first public release of PARPG, hopefully at the end of August. Furthermore there is the need to refine the workflow of the department to the forunate recent influx of a couple of new contributors as far as programming is concerned.

Zimble wrote a tutorial how to build your own (tiled) walls of Jericho, we're trying to discover structural problems in the graphics department that hinder their efforts and the separate game mechanics testbed has been scrapped in favour of an ingame testing solution. A first promising looking story draft is in the making and we can finally offer auto-generated code documentation.

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

And what does a really cool RPG need? You're right on the spot: walls, of course! There you go:

Zimble_walls.png
 

shihonage

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Your forum is quite interesting. I've been looking for something to read at work that actually stimulates the mind in regards to game design, and asides from AoD forums this is it.

Don't worry, by "stimulates the mind" I don't mean "encourages me to change Shelter story and mechanics to PARPG" ;) It's just nice to see thoughtful people brainstorming enthusiastically for a change.
 

Higher Game

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I remember some FIFE type stuff from 3 years ago, that was mostly functional/minimalistic. Things are looking much, much nicer now. :shock:
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
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Jun 7, 2006
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Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG news update! In case you wondered why the news update is coming so late this time: I took one week off last Monday as I felt a little burned out lately. But now I'm back with recharged batteries to bring you the latest news on the project!

The programming department has been busy discussing the future structure of the code and we're currently thinking about ways to utilize the Trac ticket system to cope with the influx of fresh blood lately. Furthermore we're planning to have a first programming department IRC meeting at Monday, 13th of July, 3-5PM GMT.

The graphics artists have been hardworking again and we're glad that we can show you three different nice pieces of art this time: a 3d weapon render, a death splash screen and a drawing of frozen snowy rooftops :) Furthermore all 3d renders can be found in our extended gallery now: PARPG concept art & 3d render gallery

We're currently searching for a climatologist (amateur or professional) to find holes in our storyline proposals (how did nuclear winter happen, what kind of climate is somewhat realistic?). The writers started to moved the most important story and NPC-related pieces to the wiki so they can be reviewed there and there's also a first writing department meeting in the pipeline, scheduled for Friday, 10th of July, 4PM GMT.

We have hopefully finally fixed the Trac ticket creation issues for anonymous users and there's news to report concerning our Sourceforge registration. Yes these are actually two neverending stories :-/

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

And now enjoy the snowy rooftops of PARPG!

 

Krash

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Impressive progress so far, looking forward to further updates.
 

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