Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Ninjerk]

OlivettiFever

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I like that. What setting/scene is this for?

Something like this, except muddier and darker.

Spoiler

Soundcloud seems to glitch out for me on my crappy internet. Could you provide a direct downloadlink instead please? What I can see in the waveforms above already though, that the mood/tune seems not to be uniform throughout - ofcourse I have to listen to it first but if it's supposed to be backgroundmusic for a videogame, I wouldn't make it too dynamic especially in quieter scenes.

Here you go.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/sww4rk

I like the melody and atmosphere. The sine wave synth (I think that's what it is?) and the main metallic/string pad at the start are both heavy on mids and bass, the sounds overlap and conflict so I would re-equalize them. In my experience, it's not a great idea to have bass-heavy arpeggios, I would reduce the bass in that sine wave thing pretty drastically. I'd also reduce the bass in the main pad, you generally only want one instrument with significant bass because it gets muddy otherwise. Think about adding delay or gating to the drums to give them more impact, they feel weak right now.

Guess I should never mix stuff when I'm sleepy.

I like it, the drone sound could be a little less dominant though, especially in the beginning, as is drowns out the rest. Sounds like a good theme for a swamp area or a dark crypt.

It's for a muddy rice field not so far from a swamp, so close enough, bro.

 

[Jaesun]

I have always kicked around this one idea of an Adventure Game where in an alternate history, the entire Earth is under Vatican control (and there is a reason for that, but.... I need something a bit more solid for that reason).

 

[Tzaero]

I have always kicked around this one idea of an Adventure Game where in an alternate history, the entire Earth is under Vatican control (and there is a reason for that, but.... I need something a bit more solid for that reason).

You could go for it ala Canticle of Leibowitz and have a surviving Vatican having much power in a Post WWIII world.

 

[Jaesun]

I have always kicked around this one idea of an Adventure Game where in an alternate history, the entire Earth is under Vatican control (and there is a reason for that, but.... I need something a bit more solid for that reason).

You could go for it ala Canticle of Leibowitz and have a surviving Vatican having much power in a Post WWIII world.

The Earth is still in the height of the Vatican control (of history), I have not decided which point in history the world is stuck at though. The rise of Luther in 1517, or from 1048 to 1257 with the conflict of the Byzantine Empire. Just trying to find that right "feel" to set the world in.

Though I kind of want to keep it around 1100's, as that is when the Templars were around (and the Crusades). Just keep thinking Conspiracy stuff....

And there is (our) modern technology. But just for the Vatican. People do not know this.

 

[Ninjerk]

I have always kicked around this one idea of an Adventure Game where in an alternate history, the entire Earth is under Vatican control (and there is a reason for that, but.... I need something a bit more solid for that reason).

You could go for it ala Canticle of Leibowitz and have a surviving Vatican having much power in a Post WWIII world.

The Earth is still in the height of the Vatican control (of history), I have not decided which point in history the world is stuck at though. The rise of Luther in 1517, or from 1048 to 1257 with the conflict of the Byzantine Empire. Just trying to find that right "feel" to set the world in.

Though I kind of want to keep it around 1100's, as that is when the Templars were around (and the Crusades). Just keep thinking Conspiracy stuff....

And there is (our) modern technology. But just for the Vatican. People do not know this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#Investiture_controversy

I'm thinking if the King of HRE dodges that somehow you could make it work.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Just got rejected by the gog and the greenlight votes has slowed to, like, 3 yes per day.



Well, maybe not, but getting this game on the steam will take more work than actually making it, I'm afraid.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Fucking around with OpenGL shaders.

 

[OlivettiFever]

Slowly making progress. Documented what code I'd written and put it up on GitHub. Currently split into three repos - the whole shebang is CC BY-SA 4.0. (Not the game assets, however.)

• Iron (fe): main game framework
• Ironscript: scripting API
• Refuge: custom RPG system

At the moment, I'm working on an example 'game' / example mods and hammering out the modification infrastructure.

Long story short, my work as a web-dev and hobbyist has been made worlds easier by NPM and the JS ecosystem at large, and I'd like to promote that same sort of ecosystem for this framework. I'm writing the project in a very specific direction because I have no interest in wasting my time on other people's shitty preferences, but I'd like to open doors to other people who are interested in doing so.

• Want RTWP instead of TB? Write a engine plugin.
• Prefer d20 to my system? Write a system plugin.
• Want to make my game run with RWTP d20 rules? Rewrite all the characters/items/dialogue checks/etc., package it up and call it a mod.

Then any person who wants to make a IE-style d20 RTWP game — despite the fact that I have no intention of ever writing a game that provides RTWP, d20 gameplay - could download the example game, install those plugins via 'git clone' or 'npm install' or whatever, and start working on Wrath of the Necromancer II: Temple of Forgotten Elements or whatever you fantasy fans like these days.

Ultimately, if no one buys in, that's fine - because I have no interest in supporting or writing these sorts of things myself, the worst case scenario is that the game is moddable.

And if people do buy in, there'd probably be a lot of shovelware, but there are a lot of people out there with genuinely good ideas and limited programming skills who would definitely benefit.

This is probably another one of my crazy over-reaching projects. We'll see.

 

[OlivettiFever]

Still plugging away.

My latest misadventure has been creating a uilang-like scripting language, in keeping with my desire to make it accessible for people who might be less than stellar programmers — or in this case, not really programmers at all.

It compiles natural-language sentences following an EVENT - SUBJECT - ACTION - OBJECT pattern into JS that interfaces with the framework's API.

- Talking to this character starts conversation '45'.
- Killing 'francis' fails this quest.
- Failing this quest starts quest 'test_002'.
- Starting quest 'test_002' gives the player 500 XP.

'this' gives you a reference to the current context (i.e., where the script is calling from), so if you've attached this script to a character with the id of 'francis'

- Talking to 'francis' starts conversation '45'.
- Talking to this character starts conversation '45'.

are functionally identical. Anyway, all this gets compiled into (fairly verbose, but lintable) JS.

'use strict';

iron.events.on('talkTo', qsCallback1);
var qsCallback1 = function(e) {
  if (e.id === iron.context.id) {
    iron.dialogue.start('45');
    iron.events.remove('talkTo', this);
  }
};

iron.events.on('kill', qsCallback2);
var qsCallback2 = function(e) {
  if (e.target === iron.actors.get('francis')) {
   iron.quest.fail(iron.context.id);
   iron.events.remove('kill', this);
  }
};

iron.events.on('questFail', qsCallback3);
var qsCallback3 = function(e) {
  if (e.id === iron.context.id) {
    iron.quest.start('test_002');
    iron.events.remove('questFail', this);
  }
};

iron.events.on('questStart', qsCallback4);
var qsCallback4 = function(e) {
  if (e.id === 'test_002') {
    var actor = iron.getPlayer();
    actor.addXP(500);
  }
};

Of course, if you want, you can still write JS - and it's going to be much more powerful, since I'm not planning on adding things like variables, etc. to the 'language' - but for people who are just entirely intimidated by the syntax of a programming language, I figured this might be a worthwhile detour.

 

[tuluse]

I appreciate the work you're putting into this, but I kind of fail to see the point. Why would you willing choose to program a game in JS over a friendly scripting language like python, ruby, lua, etc?

You could be investing your time into FIFE-rpg and getting way more bang for your buck.

 

[Ninjerk]

So you can make browser RPGs huehue

 

[OlivettiFever]

I appreciate the work you're putting into this, but I kind of fail to see the point. Why would you willing choose to program a game in JS over a friendly scripting language like python, ruby, lua, etc?

You could be investing your time into FIFE-rpg and getting way more bang for your buck.

Yeah, you're probably right — but there are a few reasons I'm going with JS.

The first is that I don't like Python or Ruby (haven't worked with Lua). I worked in Python all the way through undergrad, messed around with FIFERPG for a while and really did not enjoy any of it.

Second, I actually like JS — rather, I like JS: The Good Parts. It's a nice, quick little language. It's had millions of corporate dollars poured into making it run as fast as possible - some of the greatest vm optimizers on the planet work on V8.

Third, as snarkily mentioned, JS's platform compatibility (and package ecosystem, for that matter) is great. Probably close to the best, if you're talking about running one body of code on desktop + mobile. And for that reason, it's very popular. There are a lot of people who are comfortable in JS - but probably not nearly as many who know it well enough to make a game. Those are the people I'm making this for.

When I was a high-schooler, writing BASIC programs on my calculator but not really able to do much more than that, I would've loved something like this — dealing with real code and a real game, but in a sandboxed environment where most of the challenge was making content, doing quest scripting and maybe an odd rewrite of a class. And so in that sense, it's sort of a gift to my high-school self.

As for the mini-language, that's mostly me dicking around. Stumbled upon shorthand.js yesterday and thought it was super-neat. Wanted to give it a whack and figured it might be helpful for non-scripters who'd be interested in working on a game and getting more familiar with programming.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Fucking around with HTML5: Play LANDS OF ADVENTURE

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Even butt-er: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29099307/webapps/adv1.htm

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

One of the first sketches for one room RPG.

Took heavy inspiration from (cough)Mamoru Samuragoichi's(cough) soundtrack for Biohazard.
Summoning Jaesun eric_s Excommunicator.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Another sketch. More suitable as a trailer music track - too epic for my taste.

Again, summoning eric_s, Jaesun, JarlFrank and Excommunicator.

 

[JarlFrank]

Eh, yeah, could be trailer or cutscene music. Or possibly title screen music.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Eh, yeah, could be trailer or cutscene music. Or possibly title screen music.

I don't plan to use cutscenes, apart from the intro and ending, so it might suit it, but it'll probably spoil some fun if used as intro. If I won't find a place to keep it, might include it in the sountrack as one of the scrapped tracks - people love those.

 

[Jaesun]

That would fit for a scene of high tension.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Same as before, only the map is downloaded from an online text file rather than being hardcoded into the page source https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29099307/webapps/adv1.htm

 

[Ninjerk]

Same as before, only the map is downloaded from an online text file rather than being hardcoded into the page source https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29099307/webapps/adv1.htm

My path is blocked.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Same as before, only the map is downloaded from an online text file rather than being hardcoded into the page source https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29099307/webapps/adv1.htm

My path is blocked.

Equip the ring

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Further generalized to take the configuration from XML files:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29099307/webapps/game/index.htm

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Thrown together quickly with makehuman and Blender: