Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[supervoid]

my latest attempt at animation

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[Mustawd]

Reminds me of a sea anemone.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Reminds me of Shub-Niggurath.

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[barker_s]

Reminds me of this abomination:

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[Max Heap]

my latest attempt at animation

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Rig seems alright, but you gotta smooth the animation curves a bit at the frame where you start playing the animation in reverse.
At the same point there seems to be one frame too much. Probably coming from copying the forward animation.

 

[Wayward Son]

Was running a test on the newest combat I added:

He hits you for 120 HP!
Some are lucky enough to fight in the arena long enough to earn their freedom... Onlookers realize as you bleed out that you are not one.
You have failed.

Ouch.

 

[Wayward Son]

Version 0.5 is up. Mages should be possible to play as now, with Gladiators still being far more difficult than the other classes. Also added some new fights to the game. Download here:
https://github.com/sckaledoom/My-Games/raw/master/Gladiators of Teldrin v0.5.7z
And the Python27 download is here:
https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2713/
Pick the version that is most compatible with your system.
Install it to the default and extract the game files to C:\.
Open cmd (if on Windows) and type the following:
cd\
C:\python27\python.exe C:/"Gladiators of Teldrinv0.5/"Gladiators of Teldrin.py"
On Linux (Ubuntu):
cd "Gladiators of Teldrin v0.5"
python "Gladiators of Teldrin.py"
Feedback is appreciated.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Reposting this thing here.

Edge detection is replaced, which lowers the minimum requirements to something on par with my shit rig (or even slower). At the same time it introduced several side effects that I managed to exploit to my advantage after some tinkering.


On the positive side, the tests run on my shit laptop at constant 60 fps and the stats suggest that it can run even faster on default settings.

 

[barker_s]

Quick mockup - evil trolls approach a settlement.

 

[V_K]

Quick mockup - evil trolls approach a settlement.

Now you just have to make them a playable race. We even have enough smilies to use for different units.

 

[barker_s]

V_K while I do plan to have some codexian references and easter eggs, a race of Codex trolls is not one of them, sorry . But hey, I also intend to have this game mod-friendly, so modders will fix it.

 

[ragnor]

Quick mockup - evil trolls approach a settlement.

Looks so good. I always love 2d sprites on 3d worlds.

 

[barker_s]

Thanks ragnor . I was hesitant at first to have units represented by 2d sprites, but I think it ended up looking fine (hopefully it will look even better with non-placeholder art). Plus, there are some added benefits of 2d sprites being cheaper and easier to implement than 3d models, as well as easier to mod eventually.

 

[V_K]

A bit of criticism though: the way rivers flow doesn't really make sense. They originate in the dry steppes (highly unlikely to happen in reality), split for no visible reason, and then flow up in the mountains (completely unlikely to happen in reality, given their lowland origin). If they originated where they originate currently, they'd be more likely to flow left as a single stream. I assume, the map is procedural, so there's not much you can do to ensure that the geography always makes sense, but maybe you could introduce a couple of variables to avoide scenarios like that.

 

[barker_s]

Don't worry V_K , the map you see in the screenshot above was entirely hand-crafted for testing purposes using my in-game editor. Once I get to the procedural generation part, I'll make sure that the rivers behave at least somewhat realistically .

 

[Reinar]

I decided to write a bit about a project I am working on for few years already in my free time (to harvest some brofists and prospers). I usually spend week or two working on it and then abandon it for a year so that's why/how. But I got back to it around last Christmas and am still working on it somewhat regularly (mostly on weekends). It started as a Might & Magic tribute which is still my work name for the project, but the vision has changed since.

It's a party of four blobber with free movement (not grid), the setting is classic medieval fantasy with magic, just before gun powder. I'd like to combine the art and atmosphere of Diablo 2 and Disciples 2 with gameplay of M&M VII and Gates of Skeldal.
Combat is turn-based with initiative. With enough initiative, a character can have several actions during a turn. Actions are primary attack, secondary attack (depends on weapon type), spell cast, using an item or waiting. Spells need to be memorized like in BG. The number of memorized spells is depending on class and intelligence stat. Each memorized spell can be cast indefinitely times. There are 4 magic schools and each school has at most 10 spells (I have like 5 for each so far).

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There are 4 basic classes you can choose from at party creation and each of them can (will) be turned into one of three advanced classes after amassing enough XP. Here are their names so you can get the idea:
Mercenary -> Warlord, Archer, Guardian
Rogue -> Ranger, Bard, Assassin
Zealot -> Witch Hunter, Justiciar, Cleric
Apprentice -> Wizard, Warlock, Battle Mage
Differences between classes are what skills they have and what level of expertise they can achieve (basic, expert or master) with them, health and mana.

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So far I am working on basic mechanics. Party creation is in, combat is starting to look good, there's stuff like exploration/combat soundtrack, basic dialogues, item equipping, some spells etc. I can't come up with a plot though. Definitely not the chosen one cliché. Something more subtle, like settling a territory dispute between two kingdoms. Also can't come up with a fourth race. It's not like I need one, but there are 4 PCs, 4 classes, 4 stats, 4 skill groups (2 of which have 4 skills) and 4 magic schools and I like symmetry. So far I have strong humans, intelligent gnomes, sturdy drows and would like to add an agile race. If anyone wants to push his ideas into my vapourware game (and my world), I am all ears.

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[gaussgunner]

I can't come up with a plot though. Definitely not the chosen one cliché. Something more subtle, like settling a territory dispute between two kingdoms.

Eh, still too grand for an rpg. How about something more personal, like... revenge?

 

[CryptRat]

Don't worry too much about the plot, any plot works when the game has full party creation, exploration without handolding, NPCs with some gameplay purpose of some sort, quests wth real rewards, no cut scene thrown at your face everytime. Besides The plot doesn't have to (I would even say "shouldn't") take itself too seriously and you can have some cool parts and that's fine.
Basically just build your game like Might&Magic 6 and not like some boring so-called story-driven RPG.

 

[V_K]

I don't think a serious political plot would work well with this style of gameplay. A blobber's most important part are its dungeons, and inserting them into a territorial dispute plot would seem artificial. At best you can do something like Daggerfall - various factions fighting for ancient artifact(s).

So far I have strong humans, intelligent gnomes, sturdy drows and would like to add an agile race.

Trolls, of course. Every codexian game should have them.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Can someone recommend a better JSON viewer for me? I need one that will let me hide/expand the JSON hierarchy and isn't afraid of big files.

Now that I'm saving enemy armies (possibly hundreds, each one possibly containing hundreds of enemies), my savegame files have gone from about 100 kB to over 4 MB. (And that's with relatively small armies.)

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The online JSON viewer I'm using keeps crashing while I try figuring out what's wrong with my savegame file. (Characters not assigned to a squad get saved twice. I'm trying to see where they're getting saved.)

 

[Zep Zepo]

No wonder games are so huge now-days.

In my day we used bits inside of bytes (or words, or double words or bigger) to depict thing in memory.

JSON must be some dumb neckbeard shit, never heard of it...I take a wild guess and say the J is for java?

You dun fucked up son.

Zep--

 

[shihonage]

 

[Nathaniel3W]

shihonage funny. I had never heard that before. I can laugh about it now I guess because that game is so old, but I remember being a new father when that game came out and I was horrified. Was it around that same time when Penny Arcade first mentioned the "daddening" of video games?

 

[Reinar]

I don't think a serious political plot would work well with this style of gameplay. A blobber's most important part are its dungeons, and inserting them into a territorial dispute plot would seem artificial. At best you can do something like Daggerfall - various factions fighting for ancient artifact(s).

So far I have strong humans, intelligent gnomes, sturdy drows and would like to add an agile race.

Trolls, of course. Every codexian game should have them.

I don't think territorial dispute plot is completely off the table. One of the main quests in M&M 7 was Erathia fighting Avlee over Harmondale and I really liked that part. I think it is a pity the game didn't include a big fight the player would have to take part in. A fight where the outcome does matter, not like the battle for the trumpet for example. The two (territory and artifacts) could be combined together as well.

I was thinking about trolls in my universe for some time and I decided that if I were ever to include them, they would look less like a pile of rock and more like a faun.
Trolls from games my game is based on:

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How I would like trolls to look like:

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The game is set in time when demons and monsters were a real threat and witch hunters were killing them on sight. If trolls looked too much like evil monsters, it would be impossible for them to be accepted to the society and therefore you couldn't have them in your party.

 

[gaussgunner]

JSON must be some dumb neckbeard shit, never heard of it...I take a wild guess and say the J is for java?

Yup.. and S as in script...

It's not a good format even for javascript games. Hard to debug, too much wasted space, not even convenient.