Announcing Project GoldScript

[Rohan]

Ah right, okay then. Thanks for the info!

 

[Ninjerk]

Following this. Looks promising.

 

[Rohan]

I would like your post, but I can't! So I'll just say thanks

 

[Twiglard]

Hmm anyone know why I can't edit posts?

Anyway here it as an embed for the lazy, Twiglard, this video shows off some dynamic lighting

Can't edit posts after 15 mins as well.

Congrats. Good luck on the project.

 

[Rohan]

Hey guys, just a small update. I've been working on getting the following features into the engine

1. Support for sprites and sprite sheets
2. Action tile feedback so that the player knows where they can move/target etc.,
3. Better animations and smoother FPS

I've recently discovered I did something in a retarded way and have fixed a major issue with animations. Everything is sweet now though. Check this stress test, where I geomance all the tiles in a test level



The video was capped at 30FPS but this runs at 60FPS locally. While I hate to do it now, I don't think I can avoid getting into a bit of UI as I prototype movement. I'll probably do something very simple for now, similar to what I had done with the previous version.

If anyone here has any suggestions on how to improve UI please feel free. FFT's UI was pretty horrible, a stupid amount of cascading menus that only worked with a controller. I loved the simplicity of the Goldbox games' interface, I'll definitely be going for a more text based approach to avoid having to spend money on getting icons for all the abilities/items made. We'll see.

Anyway yes, any suggestions or thoughts would be really welcome.

 

[28.8bps Modem]

How are you handling the animated characters now you've made the move to full 3D?

Are those actual polygonal models now, or still sprites? If they're spites you did a very good job on doing the rotations and view angle changes seamlessly.

 

[Rohan]

They are still sprites

They are of course mapped to a kind of plane geometry and rotated so that they are always "facing the screen" but that geometry has a sprite mapped to its material.

Yes getting their directions correct based on camera rotations was not easy. Took me a couple of days but it's really solid now. Thanks for noticing!

 

[Ninjerk]

Love having hotkeys for my UI. Not sure what else beyond that. Sensuki has done quite a few mockups for (I believe) both WL2 and PoE.

 

[Rohan]

Oh there will definitely be hot keys!

I'm already doing a lot of the stuff in the editor with keys, for changing vertices on tiles and texturing (although texturing is now moot as it's all handled in Blender) etc., so that stuff is all good.

What I'm thinking about now is, do I do a dedicated UI area, or something like contextual menus?

FFT had contextual menus, and a lot of stuff floating in and out over the viewport. I'm not too sure about this approach. If you look at any of the other FF games and especially every major western RPG which all pretty much have HUDs, dedicated UI areas seem to be the way to go. That being said, I never had a specific problem with the UI of FFT on the console, and the iOS versions actually managed to make the UI fairly decent for touch.

How would it feel on a PC though? I think the closest I can think of is maybe ToEE, which had contextual radial menus. While I do not plan on doing something like it, I thought it was quite good. It took a bit of getting used to, but after that I found it quite cool and good for saving space. I think it gets a lot of hate for it though.

It's definitely a big design point. So if anyone has any strong opinions, please let me hear them.

 

[Rohan]

Hi all,

Got a question for you - should combat choices require confirmation?

I've been wondering about this. One of the things that slows FFT down is the non stop need to confirm every single action. The flow is always like this

1. Select Action
2. Select Target
3. Confirm Target
4. Perform Action

The Goldbox games didn't have a step 3. It made combat more intense, and also faster. I liked it, but I am wondering if it will scare off noobs TOO much. I guess I could always make it an option to toggle off, but coding it into the UI is kind of a pain in the ass. I'll probably end up doing it anyway but just wanted to know what your thoughts were on this.

 

[Jaesun]

Is your prime demographic noobs?

 

[Ninjerk]

Could the player character accidentally lose a battle by misclicking a target?

 

[Rohan]

Is your prime demographic noobs?

You make a valid point. Could possibly work it into the difficulty settings just in case, but I ain't wasting time coding it in right now.

Could the player character accidentally lose a battle by misclicking a target?

I'd say so, yeah. Obviously if they accidentally attack a party member or hit them with friendly fire it could have some damaging consequences. The thing is though, you have the targeting state to choose where you want to target. FFT has yet another state after this to confirm the action. I feel possibly it's needless and just adds time bloat.

I think the combat will feel a lot snappier without it, and it's part of the reason Goldbox combat was so fast and cool. That and 1 frame attack animations.

 

[Ninjerk]

Take it out. I couldn't remember really well how it worked, but now that you've described again I agree with your sentiment that it's unnecessary.

 

[Jaesun]

Hi all,

Got a question for you - should combat choices require confirmation?

I've been wondering about this. One of the things that slows FFT down is the non stop need to confirm every single action. The flow is always like this

1. Select Action
2. Select Target
3. Confirm Target
4. Perform Action

The Goldbox games didn't have a step 3. It made combat more intense, and also faster. I liked it, but I am wondering if it will scare off noobs TOO much. I guess I could always make it an option to toggle off, but coding it into the UI is kind of a pain in the ass. I'll probably end up doing it anyway but just wanted to know what your thoughts were on this.

You don't need 3, just like the Gold Box game. What you DO need, is a CANCEL all actions and start over.

Pick your targets and proceed.

Pick your targets and OOPS! SHIT CANCEL CANCEL!

That's all you need.

 

[Rohan]

You don't need 3, just like the Gold Box game. What you DO need, is a CANCEL all actions and start over.

Pick your targets and proceed.

Pick your targets and OOPS! SHIT CANCEL CANCEL!

That's all you need.

Hmm do you mean, a way to cancel out of step 2? Could you clarify? Cancelling out of target selection is already implemented.

Edit: I also plan on not letting players undo movement choices. Ever.

 

[Ninjerk]

You don't need 3, just like the Gold Box game. What you DO need, is a CANCEL all actions and start over.

Pick your targets and proceed.

Pick your targets and OOPS! SHIT CANCEL CANCEL!

That's all you need.

Hmm do you mean, a way to cancel out of step 2? Could you clarify? Cancelling out of target selection is already implemented.

Edit: I also plan on not letting players undo movement choices. Ever.

I think he means simultaneously giving orders to multiple units.

 

[Rohan]

Oh...no that's not currently in scope. The unit gets a turn, and you select the actions for the unit for that turn, then onto the next unit. Their order in the round is determined by their speed.

 

[Jaesun]

You don't need 3, just like the Gold Box game. What you DO need, is a CANCEL all actions and start over.

Pick your targets and proceed.

Pick your targets and OOPS! SHIT CANCEL CANCEL!

That's all you need.

Hmm do you mean, a way to cancel out of step 2? Could you clarify? Cancelling out of target selection is already implemented.

Edit: I also plan on not letting players undo movement choices. Ever.

The more I think about this, follow the Gold Box style. Because that REQUIRES the player to pay very careful attention casting spells. Magic is VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS!

In the case of *multiple* selections, perhaps a press the ESC key to cancel and start over might be OK.

Like Cleric casts Hold Person (which can select up to 3 targets). Select target 1, Select target 2, sel.... OOPS SHIT CANCEL!

But in the case of Magic User casts Fireball: select target that's it. Spell fires exactly where you said to place it.

 

[Rohan]

Yep! This is already implemented. I haven't got a way to select multiple separate targets via a single action yet but thanks for reminding me, because that is another thing that is awesome about those games, COMPLETELY forgot about it.

It's on the feature list now.

 

[Rohan]

Hey all, new update here showcasing a bunch of features including the implementation of turns and rounds. Read more about it here:

http://www.projectgoldscript.com/development/sprites-turnbased-movement-ai/

Here's the video

http://youtu.be/SB3KvnEhByo

I'm going to implement an Action Points system next as its something I want in the GoldScript rule set. After that I'll probably start implementing some basic combat stuff like attacks etc and some proper AI.

Watching the dudes just go after initialising the encounter is pretty fun. Coding in the turns and rounds was a tonne of fun

 

[Ninjerk]

Looks like Sweegy Woods.

 

[Rohan]

Haha yes maybe, was just something I did fast to show the movement between different heights

 

[Rohan]

Okay guys, more questions for you.

How do you feel about the UI approach of the jSRPG genre to show you a large amount of data regarding your actions?

Take this screenshot for instance

We are told which unit is acting, which unit is the target, the basic stats of each, and the responding ability of the target. D&D games never have this. The ruleset doesn't let you know if your action has a chance to succeed or not. Let's take ToEE for instance, you targeted something, and you attempted the action. You are never told if you are going to miss, if it happens, it happens.

I'm wondering about this. The upside is that the player can make more informed choices on their actions. The downside is the amount of UI bloat it adds, and I'm trying to avoid UI bloat as much as I can. Any ideas of games which handled this well or differently to get a bit of inspiration?

Or should I just drop this? I guess I will leave this step out for now and come back to it later if it feels as though it needs it. Part of me likes the mystery of not knowing, but part of me also likes that you can make more informed decisions in combat.

 

[Ninjerk]

More information is always better, IMO. I think one of the best things you can do is make sure that you use acronyms or icons whose meaning are unmistakable wherever possible.