Game idea

[ChaDargo]

To Arbiter, what language are you coding the game in and what engine?

As I mentioned, I am still entertaining the idea and will need to think this through over the weekend. If I decide to give it a go and do some prototyping, it will be implemented in C++ with open source components (e.g. BGFX for rendering, Flatbuffers for serialization, ZeroMQ for connectivity). Game logic would probably be implemented in a scripting language to allow a high degree of modability (game logic + UI code could be open-sourced, C++ engine would remain proprietary).

I would rather assemble an engine from various open source components than use a complete off the shelf engine due to pricing (most engines offer free plans, but you need to pay a lot to gain access to all features and source code), flexibility (I have some ideas for features that are not implemented in publicly available engines), (un)suitability of engines for strategy games and a questionable quality of some of those engines (I am looking at you, Unity).

3D done right can actually be cheaper than 2D, for example you can implement nice effects with a few lines of code instead of pre-rendering hundreds of frames. Sci-fi setting does not require complex graphical assets, starships or planets can rendered as static meshes without any animations.

I have experience with 3D programming, not games though. A lot of experience with network programming in various languages, including C++.

I can code a bit of Racket and a bit of Python. Would love to help with scripting.

 

[DraQ]

DraQ, you are living up to your past posts as a brutal comedian, but seriously... give the dude a shot.

I will if I (or luj1 , or whomever) get him to reconsider his idea of redoing pretty much every other space 4x ever except without nearly the same resources and in the market where they all already exist.
It doesn't need to be my idea (although that would be nice), but it needs to be something original.

Otherwise as far as I can tell I am doing guy a service shooting him down as fast and hard as possible.

If he's truly just winging it because he got high and thought "bro Imma make a game!" then lol

That's by far not the worst case scenario as it only ends with him getting up tomorrow and thinking "fuck, that was weird".
Having skills and committing to a doomed project is much worse.

 

[Arbiter]

DraQ, you are living up to your past posts as a brutal comedian, but seriously... give the dude a shot.

I will if I (or luj1 , or whomever) get him to reconsider his idea of redoing pretty much every other space 4x ever except without nearly the same resources and in the market where they all already exist.
It doesn't need to be my idea (although that would be nice), but it needs to be something original.

I do not have a design doc yet, because I want to consider technology first, and you are already complaining about the game being repetitive. Besides, when was the last time you purchased an innovative game that did not have competition? In the 90's?

 

[ChaDargo]

DraQ, you are living up to your past posts as a brutal comedian, but seriously... give the dude a shot.

I will if I (or luj1 , or whomever) get him to reconsider his idea of redoing pretty much every other space 4x ever except without nearly the same resources and in the market where they all already exist.

Otherwise as far as I can tell I am doing guy a service shooting him down as fast and hard as possible.

If he's truly just winging it because he got high and thought "bro Imma make a game!" then lol

That's by far not the worst case scenario as it only ends with him getting up tomorrow and thinking "fuck, that was weird".

LMAO

DraQ, you are living up to your past posts as a brutal comedian, but seriously... give the dude a shot.

I will if I (or luj1 , or whomever) get him to reconsider his idea of redoing pretty much every other space 4x ever except without nearly the same resources and in the market where they all already exist.
It doesn't need to be my idea (although that would be nice), but it needs to be something original.

Otherwise as far as I can tell I am doing guy a service shooting him down as fast and hard as possible.

If he's truly just winging it because he got high and thought "bro Imma make a game!" then lol

That's by far not the worst case scenario as it only ends with him getting up tomorrow and thinking "fuck, that was weird".
Having skills and committing to a doomed project is much worse.

Then let's help him make it good.

 

[luj1]

I do not have a design doc yet

That's the thing, you need a vision

 

[ChaDargo]

DraQ, you are living up to your past posts as a brutal comedian, but seriously... give the dude a shot.

I will if I (or luj1 , or whomever) get him to reconsider his idea of redoing pretty much every other space 4x ever except without nearly the same resources and in the market where they all already exist.
It doesn't need to be my idea (although that would be nice), but it needs to be something original.

I do not have a design doc yet, because I want to consider technology first, and you are already complaining about the game being repetitive. Besides, when was the last time you purchased an innovative game that did not have competition? In the 90's?

I don't get the combativeness from DraQ except that's just how he writes.

I think the idea could be made better, but what idea couldn't? I think if you know as much as you say and have such detailed plans about the basics, then the rest is just a matter of shitting all over the place and then picking up the peanuts. That's how game design works. And some people will disagree what the peanuts actually are. That's also how game design works.

 

[tindrli]

Well, so far his idea seems to be "I will make a vastly inferior Stellaris/MoO/whatever clone (assuming I actually make anything before quitting)".

Seeking to achieve anything noteworthy with this sort of plan is like trying to take on a spetsnaz platoon as a lone, completely amateur couch potato armed with (non-working) pipe rifle and wearing a clown suit.
Complete with oversized squeaky shoes.

that would be great. when he said that he is thinking of 3D for some reason i thought that he meant something like that shit.. like that.. faglactic civilization 3

 

[tindrli]

and one thing that im pretty sure is that you should try to simulate or try something similar as that great game that was abandoned .. let me search it..
star ruler 2. ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat .. fuck my english is plain bad. just watch some videos from star ruler 2 combat and ship design.. i didn't saw any other space strategy game that does even remotely similar so that would be something new a least in my opinion. imagine turn based combat with where positioning is TOTALLY meaningful not to mention all other factors with design system like this game had

 

[DraQ]

I do not have a design doc yet, because I want to consider technology first, and you are already complaining about the game being repetitive.

Then first decide what you are doing, and only then how are you going to do that.

Besides, when was the last time you purchased an innovative game that did not have competition? In the 90's?

Grossly innovative, specifically about space and no existing competition whatsoever? Some 2 years ago, though the game is more like 3 years old, actually.
Made by one guy too. In 3D.

 

[Arbiter]

I do not have a design doc yet

That's the thing, you need a vision

In general you are right, but I want to address the biggest risk first: can I implement reasonably good graphics on a shoestring budget?. If it works, I can focus on fleshing out the design and implementing the rest of the game. If not, there is not point in doing any design.

 

[Arbiter]

I do not have a design doc yet, because I want to consider technology first, and you are already complaining about the game being repetitive.

Then first decide what you are doing, and only then how are you going to do that.

I am approaching this from project management perspective: tackle the biggest risk first, which is graphics and rendering engine. If I fail to achieve that, there is no point in doing detailed design.

 

[DraQ]

I do not have a design doc yet, because I want to consider technology first, and you are already complaining about the game being repetitive.

Then first decide what you are doing, and only then how are you going to do that.

I am approaching this from project management perspective: tackle the biggest risk first, which is graphics and rendering engine. If I fail to achieve that, there is no point in doing detailed design.

Will the people buy your game attracted by it's visuals, done by project's sole programmer and only participant on a shoestring budget? Will they look on a promotional screenshots/vids and think "fuck, this looks so sweet, I must play it!!!1one"? Chances are they won't*.

So far your biggest risk is that it's not a project worth making and, thankfully, it's much easier to address than anything else. You don't need detailed design (yet). But you do need a game idea, specifically its main selling point - what sets it apart from everything else?
After you address this, THEN your biggest risk might be the technical side and good luck with that.

*) And if they will, then fucking finish Space Engine first.

 

[DraQ]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

 

[Arbiter]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

Who would buy a game with graphics like that?

 

[Arbiter]

Nice weekend to everyone. I will get back to this thread next week.

A short round of MoO2 and I am going to sleep.

 

[DraQ]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

Who would buy a game with graphics like that?

Someone who buys one man projects.


If you want to compete on graphics as one man studio, you have already lost.
There, I have saved you a lot of effort and costs.
You're welcome.

Again, your biggest risk is that you don't know what you are making and if anyone wants that.
Either find a good reason why someone might want to buy your game specifically rather than every.
Other.
Game.
In existence.
Or just end your project here and now.

 

[Arbiter]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

Who would buy a game with graphics like that?

Someone who buys one man projects.


If you want to compete on graphics as one man studio, you have already lost.
There, I have saved you a lot of effort and costs.
You're welcome.

Screenshot of a toy rendering engine that I built in C# as a student project 16 (sixteen) years ago. Runs in 1650x1080 resolution on a laptop GPU, hence low FPS. Note bump mapping and shadow cast by crates. Textures admittedly copied from Doom 3. Renderer code is under 1000 lines of C# code.

Looks better than that game you linked. Imagine what is possible today.

https://imgur.com/a/dj6tBwk

 

[DraQ]

Screenshot of a toy rendering engine that I built in C# as a student project 16 (sixteen) years ago. Runs in 1650x1080 resolution on a laptop GPU, hence low FPS. Note bump mapping and shadow cast by crates. Textures admittedly copied from Doom 3. Renderer code is under 1000 lines of C# code.

Looks better than that game you linked. Imagine what is possible today.

https://imgur.com/a/dj6tBwk

It still won't sell you a single copy.

 

[Arbiter]

Screenshot of a toy rendering engine that I built in C# as a student project 16 (sixteen) years ago. Runs in 1650x1080 resolution on a laptop GPU, hence low FPS. Note bump mapping and shadow cast by crates. Textures admittedly copied from Doom 3. Renderer code is under 1000 lines of C# code.

Looks better than that game you linked. Imagine what is possible today.

https://imgur.com/a/dj6tBwk

It still won't sell you a single copy.

It's not a strategy game and it's a 16 year old technology. I am going to build a new renderer for the 4x game.

 

[DraQ]

Screenshot of a toy rendering engine that I built in C# as a student project 16 (sixteen) years ago. Runs in 1650x1080 resolution on a laptop GPU, hence low FPS. Note bump mapping and shadow cast by crates. Textures admittedly copied from Doom 3. Renderer code is under 1000 lines of C# code.

Looks better than that game you linked. Imagine what is possible today.

https://imgur.com/a/dj6tBwk

It still won't sell you a single copy.

It's not a strategy game and it's a 16 year old technology. I am going to build a new renderer for the 4x game.

Sigh.
It does not fucking matter.
No matter how great renderer you will write it will need content to look good in it.
Content takes work, work takes people, people take budget.

You can greatly reduce the amount of work with some clever tricks, but unless you are procedural generation god, it will still be substantial enough to not allow your single man project to compete on pretty looks.
Not that looks tend to be first priority for the kind of people who play 4x games.

 

[tindrli]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

Who would buy a game with graphics like that?

i was saying about everything EXCEPT the damn graphics... its a mechanic behind the design and combat.
and one more thing. you would be surprised how many people dont give a SHIT about graphics if the game is good

 

[tindrli]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

hmmm never heard about this one.. will check it out.. thanx bro

 

[DraQ]

ok im not saying to simulate that game.. what i thought is that star ruler when you design your ship you actually put armor and stuff meaningfully. example you need to hide your reactor or fuel because when in combat ..

This might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/

hmmm never heard about this one.. will check it out.. thanx bro

Highly recommended. It's spaceship building and space combat game based on real physical models, real material properties, real orbital physics and very near future tech (if it hasn't been at least prototyped IRL or if there are no non-classified physical models, it is not in game, so sadly not even Teller-Ulam nukes are in and forget about any sort of fusion propulsion).

Hiding reactor? Here you might have to worry about shot going through the hole after destroyed turret or armour spalling due to hypervelocity impact and spall pinballing inside the hull, or propellant tank bursting and venting propellant spinning up your ship and killing the crew via g-forces.

Or, say, when designing your railgun, about thermal expansion stresses shattering your rails after you dump charge from a van-sized capacitor into them.

 

[Arbiter]

I am going to do some prototyping on Saturday and decide whether to proceed with this idea.

 

[DraQ]

I am going to do some prototyping on Saturday and decide whether to proceed with this idea.

Since when you do have an idea?