Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Jaesun]

I like that 3rd option the best.

 

[Alchemist]

The party has only seven characters now.


Joking aside, you could win a little space for the log on the Wizardry-style layout by placing the info/stats window above each portrait and allow the player to toggle between the portraits and stats. I think that's what Grimoire does.

Hah - I knew someone would mention the reduced party-sized. I know you're joking, but of course I'll squeeze in as many as I want in the real version. Right now I'm thinking 6 core members and 2 henchman / hirelings / NPCs.
I like the idea of the toggle on the portraits for stat info - I'll definitely consider that. I need to dig into the Grimoire demo some more and see what other innovations Cleve has done UI-wise.

One of the things I hated most about Grimrock was that each action required a click. If you are planning to make a game that requires a mouse click or more (for submenus) per character, per round, I would not play it.

It is good that you are considering mouse travel, but you also need to consider mouse clicks and shortcuts.

That is a great point - I hate excessive mouse-clicking too and will do what I can to avoid it. Actually the game will be mostly playable with keyboard aside from clicking interactive things in the 3D view. There will be keyboard shortcut for almost everything.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

Alright, I finished the initial mock up for the stats screen to show the details of each character in the battle.
Does it look good?
Any comment?

Initial screen mock up as the player click on the stats button in the battlefield

Condition Info UI mock up

Please give me feedback, thanks in advance.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Really butthurt about Unity 3.5 again, now it's about particles. I was trying to create a fog effect similar to SH2 for PS2, but ended up deleting it altogether after I realized that particle systems don't have a world/mesh collisions like in Unity 4.

Guess I'll have to do effects using a different PC, or simplify the effect by creating a fog mesh, then rotating it while scrolling the texture.

 

[Abelian]

Alright, I finished the initial mock up for the stats screen to show the details of each character in the battle.
Does it look good?
Any comment?

The pixalated font is consistent with the feel of the game.
The pop-up window that explains each status is a good idea, but maybe that could be integrated as a info box the lower part of the screen, since it looks kind of empty right now.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

The pixalated font is consistent with the feel of the game.
The pop-up window that explains each status is a good idea, but maybe that could be integrated as a info box the lower part of the screen, since it looks kind of empty right now.

I prefer the info box to the right but I understand your concern.
Thanks for your comments. Noted.

 

[shihonage]

You play an Empire engineer, who, during a routine repair job, gets stranded on the surface of a Death Star...

 

[Alchemist]

You play an Empire engineer, who, during a routine repair job, gets stranded on the surface of a Death Star...

Heh... My wheels are spinning now with derelict Death Star adventure location ideas - thanks! A Death Star-like megadungeon would be pretty badass.

 

[shihonage]

Heh... My wheels are spinning now with derelict Death Star adventure location ideas - thanks! A Death Star-like megadungeon would be pretty badass.

You'd have to flesh out exactly what kind of enemy types you encounter (repair bots? other engineers?), and your end-mission...

Due to licensing issues, it can't be a Star Wars Death Star, but it could be a "wink-wink" similar-purpose artificial weaponized moon...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

You'd have to flesh out exactly what kind of enemy types you encounter (repair bots? other engineers?), and your end-mission...

Due to licensing issues, it can't be a Star Wars Death Star, but it could be a "wink-wink" similar-purpose artificial weaponized moon...

WW2-esque Nazi Moon Base?

 

[tuluse]

You'd have to flesh out exactly what kind of enemy types you encounter (repair bots? other engineers?), and your end-mission...

Due to licensing issues, it can't be a Star Wars Death Star, but it could be a "wink-wink" similar-purpose artificial weaponized moon...

Set it during a battle, random Rebel fighters and Tie-Fighters fallout out of the sky and falling on your head or nearby, providing fat loot.

 

[Alchemist]

You'd have to flesh out exactly what kind of enemy types you encounter (repair bots? other engineers?), and your end-mission...

Due to licensing issues, it can't be a Star Wars Death Star, but it could be a "wink-wink" similar-purpose artificial weaponized moon...

Well the only thing I'd really steal from Star Wars is the concept of the moon-sized massive space station / planet-destroying mega-weapon. All other stuff would be my own creation using the science-fantasy setting I'm making.

Maybe a derelict station filled with haywire robots / androids and genetically engineered mutant monstrosities. The previous owners left or were killed. A rogue AI could have taken control and now indiscriminately wanders the galaxy destroying planets for no good reason. The party's ship approaches the station thinking it might have some good loot... hilarity ensues.

 

[Jaesun]

Turn-based sci-fi game, on a derelict station?

 

[Ninjerk]

A niche unfulfilled apparently

 

[FuriousGamer87]

A fair amount of progress recently due to a sudden cancellation of a certain project. Oh well.
Finished the character stat screen design and coding. Also ensure that it is easy to scroll through all the characters involved in the combat, basically like how TO: LUCT does it. (As if there are still anyone that don't get that I pretty much rip off their entire UI design)
Also design a new mechanic surrounding the knowledge of enemy stats.

Simply put:

Enemy Factions Research

• You can dedicate actions and buildings to research several enemy factions of the game.
• If you manage to put enough points to unlock a research tier of a faction, you get significant advantages. All bonuses are cumulative.
• You start at tier 0 (knowing absolutely nothing) about the factions of the game. No benefits.
• At tier 1, you can view the HP, defenses and ego points of all members of that particular faction. One of the gifs below demonstrate that.
• At tier 2, you can view the details of their techniques in the stats screen. All of your cell members get +1 misc bonus to attack and defense against those people since you are now quite familiar with their M.O.
• At tier 3, you can view all of their traits in the stats screen. You and your allies get +2 misc bonus to damage against them now that you know all of their strength and weakness.
• At the completion of each tier, the back story of the important NPCs and history of the faction opens up even more in detail.
• Some choices and side quests may give significant research points.

Opinions? I myself think this is a pretty good mechanic to encourage more immersion and a way for players to able to get more info regarding the enemy without using lel gamefaq/google.
Going to complete all of the individual UIs (Characteristics, Skills, Feats, Traits, Techniques, Items and Equipment) before moving on to AoO/instant mechanic.

As usual, here be the gifs of progress.

Spoiler

 

[J1M]

I like the research idea. I think defeating them in combat should also contribute slightly to the research progress.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

I like the research idea. I think defeating them in combat should also contribute slightly to the research progress.

Yeah, that would make it a bit organic.
But I probably going to reduce the amount of research points the player get by just beating the ever-loving shit out of the enemies so that even at most, he can only unlock tier 1 of the main enemy factions at the endgame without any other actions done.

To make this post look nicer, I am going to post a bit of progress for the past 24 hours.
I just finished the equipment, items and techniques UI for the stats screen.
The remaining are traits, feats, skills and characteristics before the stats screen is filled out.

As usual, the 30 fps gifs are down below.

Spoiler

 

[FuriousGamer87]

Finally finished the remaining UIs for the stats screen.
I also managed to find the time to squeeze in a new mechanics called Delay Turn.
To put it simply, if you still haven't done anything in your turn, you can opt to delay your turn to right after someone else's turn.
That someone else must also be slower than you in the initiative count since you can't time travel back.. EDIT: Forgot about the fact that I already coded to push idiots up to the next turn if anyone try that.

Currently diving into the AoO/Instant mechanics. Progress is surprisingly quite easy as of now, if not just tedious.

To demonstrate progress, gifs are in the spoiler. Enjoy.

Spoiler

 

[Zed]

fuckit. I lost some of my shit. just when I wanted to return to producing some quality shovel/abandonware. I probably accidentally removed it. never save your stuff in desktop folders.

I did find my glorious battlesim tho.
download it here:
♥ http://www.absum.se/codex/battlesim.exe ♥
just open the exe and see the battle of ultimate carnage unfold.
(this was meant to be how battles were to play out in a fantasy kingdom sim)

I guess this is a golden opportunity to start something new.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Zed, you should make that into a screensaver.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

Some progress from the past few days.
Finished the AoO/Instant mechanics. It's extremely tedious, as much as coding UI is.
However, it reveals to me how ugly and redundant some of my my engine code is so I probably going to spent quite a while refactoring it so I can dev faster and safer in the future.
After that, I am going to insert a new demo player character called Father Brooker, the spirit user of Jesus. L. Gunz

A progress gif below to demonstrate the new mechanic.

Spoiler

 

[barker_s]

fuckit. I lost some of my shit. just when I wanted to return to producing some quality shovel/abandonware. I probably accidentally removed it. never save your stuff in desktop folders.

I did find my glorious battlesim tho.
download it here:
♥ http://www.absum.se/codex/battlesim.exe ♥
just open the exe and see the battle of ultimate carnage unfold.
(this was meant to be how battles were to play out in a fantasy kingdom sim)

I guess this is a golden opportunity to start something new.

Did you make your own graphics, or did you get it from some website / game? I kinda dig the style.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Managed to replace the shitty particle system with a number of meshes with scrolling textures. The effect wasn't really good (to say the least).
Also, upgraded to Unity 4.1.5, which (hopefully) won't crash and burn like hell. Didn't check the particle system yet.

If you want to see how ugly the effect was, check this:

Spoiler

 

[Zed]

Did you make your own graphics, or did you get it from some website / game? I kinda dig the style.

i made it, freehand, yo!

 

[eric__s]

For the last few months I've been trying to learn some more advanced chiptune techniques and this site has been a great help. This dude, Alberto Jose Gonzalez, is one of the best chip musicians of all time and it's unfortunate that he didn't get the exposure he deserves, probably because most of the games he worked on were lower budget licensed games. Check out the soundtracks for Metal Masters, the Turok games and especially the Smurfs, which is unbelievable. The nice thing about the site is that you can disable channels, so I can isolate a single layer and really figure out what he's doing. The dude has some unbelievably clever and subtle tricks, so it's a really nice tool.

So anyway, this weekend I participated in the Global Game Jam and decided it would be a good opportunity to test out some of the techniques I've learned. The game we made is still very basic and buggy, but we may have plans for it. . . . . !! All the songs I made were rush jobs meant to test out some of these tricks, but I liked one in particular and I'm currently reworking it. I think it has the potential to be pretty good. Did some stuff I've never done before, like duty cycling and using one of the channels for both bass and percussion.

On the Barkley front, I will be finishing the scripting for a quest where you identify a crime suspect shortly, and will move onto scripting a prison system soon after. Pretty excited to work on it, I have some good ideas.