KickStarter Spaceshock - Sci-Fi Turn Based Dungeon Crawl

[Kirtai]

Well, if someone is in the mood to play an RT blobber, an FPS or TB blobber is probably not going to be a satisfactory substitute. So they do fulfil that need.

 

[DraQ]

Well, if someone is in the mood to play an RT blobber, an FPS or TB blobber is probably not going to be a satisfactory substitute. So they do fulfil that need.

Then again, I don't think people often crave particular genre. At least for me it's either particular game (which already exists ad is therefore irrelevant) or particular set of mechanics and gameplay - and I don't think fumbling around cumbersome interface as fast as possible can be remembered fondly enough to generate craving.

 

[evdk]

DM does not have cumbersome interface. Jeez. Your posts start to give off that "Why not make Grimrock 2 TB guys?" vibe.

 

[Jasede]

I agree with that. DM controls really well.

 

[Gozma]

The Westwood RT blobbers (EoB 1+2, LoL) are not like Dungeon Master. The Westwood blobbers are designed and balanced to be played like a TB game; you aren't supposed to be dodging in and out of melee or kiting - you are supposed to stand still and whack away at monsters. The fighting is extremely slow so you have plenty of time to menufuck, etc. They are a really mediocre compromise design that Westwood saved with good content and good looks.

Dungeon Master on the other hand is a more fully realized action game.

I didn't play Grinrock and I dunno where it lands on that spectrum. I dunno if I would go all the way to call discrete step RT blobbers that are fully cognizant of their action-gaminess "obsolete"

 

[Jasede]

Grimrock plays like a less charming Dungeon Master, I'm afraid. Still worth a playthrough if that is what you crave.

 

[Jack Dandy]

I think the combat in Grimrock would be more fun if the devs would go all-out with it. It's based on the player's reflexes? So be it- but make it more in depth. Make monster be able to attack diagonally, reward every hit from the side\back... also I wish there was a way to escape out of dead-ends when a monster has you trapped.

 

[Severian Silk]

I can never keep track of where I am in grid-based blobbers. I know some people like this frustration, but I simply can't stand it.

 

[DraQ]

I think the combat in Grimrock would be more fun if the devs would go all-out with it. It's based on the player's reflexes? So be it- but make it more in depth. Make monster be able to attack diagonally, reward every hit from the side\back... also I wish there was a way to escape out of dead-ends when a monster has you trapped.

Congratulations, you have invented an FPS.

 

[Jasede]

But they're completely different...

One focuses on the party- the other on controlling one person.
One thrives off its inventory management and exploration, the other typically focuses on combat exclusively.
One has step-based movement, the other is free.

How can you even suggest this? I completely disagree.

 

[theSavant]

It's almost a shame Grimrock was so succesful and encourages more grid based blobbers. A gridless single character game like the System Shock would have been much more interesting.

I agree with that. First when I saw the first screens of Space Shock I thought "yay", but after watching the videos it went to "nay". Somehow the Grimrock gameplay just doesn't fit a space theme... nvm, I still wish em the best.

 

[DraQ]

But they're completely different...

One focuses on the party- the other on controlling one person.

Or a party of one.


Actually, that's single most important difference, but I wouldn't consider it *that* important as there are blobbers that permit one character parties, and goig solo is one of two logical directions of improvement for an RT blobber - the other being going TB.

One thrives off its inventory management and exploration, the other typically focuses on combat exclusively.

Really? Because I've seen FPS games with a lot of inventory management, exploration is nearly ubiquitous in FPS games (other than modern cinefaggic corridor popamoles, that is), and blobbers are not exactly known for their non-combat focus.

And that's even if we only consider pure FPS. What about RPGs (TES, UU), adventures (AzT), or horrors (Penumbra, Amnesia) based on FPS style movement, presentation and controls?

One has step-based movement, the other is free.

Actually, that's sort of the crux of the problem here.
You see, early FPS games - I'm speaking of truly ancient ones - were RT step based with tiles and 90 degree rotations.

Then the system was adopted by RPGs and generally did a lot of back and forth between both genres while being refined.
Some games focused on refining the RPG aspects and party based tactics and improving movement and presentation was of relatively low priority to them. Others focused on both, trying to create a comprehensive experience - we're speaking of games like UU or TES. Some were result of discovery that players like running around killing monsters, which resulted in throwing out RPG elements and constructing games focusing on simplistic but dynamic combat first and foremost - so we've had Wolf3D and Doom, but there were games reintroducing complexity in one form or another into the FPS genre as well, sometimes moving back towards RPGs, sometimes merging with sims or adventures, and sometimes doing evewn weirder stuff.
Even some TB games eventually adopted free movement and were better for it.

So you see, ability to move and look freely is natural and pretty much unquestionable refinement of step based movement and view.
A case could be made for retaining step based in a TB because it would allow much shorter travel times (a flimsy justification considering all the drawbacks, but a justification nevertheless), but in RT you need to limit the speed anyway, or you are designing a broken game, so there is no possible rationale for keeping step based movement in an RT game if the technology allows you to get rid of it.
It's not pixel art or anything else with actual unique artistic value.

RT blobbers can be viewed as either failed FPS games where you have to fumble around menus or icons with your cursor in order to hit something and the pace is slowed accordingly to make the game playable, or failed TB blobbers where in depth mechanics and menus are necessarily limited by having to be navigated in RT.

 

[Gozma]

There's still some interesting stuff in there with a discrete step blobber, like being able to be run on fully digital controls without sacrifices (e.g. a fixed turning speed, a la keyboard Doom). 1 digital input = 1 action gives games a unique man/machine interface dynamic (that is why classic fighting games with 4 digital directional inputs are still around).

 

[evdk]

a ) there are many RT blobbers and we don't need more of the same.

So Grimrock, Grimrock, Grimrock, and I guess Grimrock.

Oh, and Grimrock Part Zwei.

So where exactly are those many RT blobbers?

 

[DraQ]

There's still some interesting stuff in there with a discrete step blobber, like being able to be run on fully digital controls without sacrifices (e.g. a fixed turning speed, a la keyboard Doom). 1 digital input = 1 action gives games a unique man/machine interface dynamic (that is why classic fighting games with 4 digital directional inputs are still around).

1. Mice are the norm today (unless you're on console) and you still need a mouse to operate a blobber with any degree of convenience, so turning doesn't need to have fixed speed.

2. Countless FPS games have proven that digital movement controls are perfectly sufficient for rapid, fine-grained resposnsiveness when moving around continuous space. Navigating menus in order to perform actions, OTOH, definitely isn't, so barking up the wrong tree - an RT blobber needs more efficient action comand interface (possibly more efficient than possible on standard HIDs) far more than it will ever benefit from discrete steps.

3. Other than that, yeah, it makes a nice and elegant abstraction. You know what it misses? It misses time being discretized as well, with single step taking one 'quantum' of time. Or turn.

 

[theSavant]

TB Blobbers... taking quantum leaps in steps.

 

[Gozma]

an RT blobber needs more efficient action comand interface (possibly more efficient than possible on standard HIDs) far more than it will ever benefit from discrete steps.

MMORPG-style hotbars. That's basically what Dungeon Master used in a prototype form (the spell bar).

I started off thinking about this totally theoretically but now I'm kinda interested, I generally hate action RPG designs but I think it's mostly because I simply dislike using mouse pointing in a non-TB game. You could have a mouse UI for a "camp" screen to fuck with the inventory and so on but be all keyboard during action.

 

[theSavant]

I think he meant RT blobbers from the last 5-7 years or so

 

[evdk]

many RT blobbers?

er...Dungeon Master, Legend of Ishar, Eye of Beholder, Abandoned Places, Black Crypt...jeez. Do I have to spell everything for you ?

Why bother fighting for incline anyway? Fuck the Kickstarter, the fucking leeches at Obsidian, Larian and inXile can go screw and Cleve can eat his imaginary family in the bowels of his vault. We have all the old Wizardries, Fallouts, Baldur's Gates. Icewind Dales, Might&Magics and other classics that we can play through for the seventh time. HOORAY!

EDIT: And DM does not have mambo dancing until late into the endgame, unless you are playing the game like a retard.

 

[Lady_Error]

It does not get much more than a TB blobber. Though I am not sure if sci-fi is a good fit for it. A mix of fantasy and sci-fi like Wizardry might be better.

I like my 1st person RPG's to have step movement. Might & Magic X, Grimoire and Spaceshock are all incline.

 

[theSavant]

My point is, it is a proven mechanic and it is a stupid click-fest with mambo movement.

Yes it is, although Lands of Lore 1 was somehow different, because of the slow RT combat (despite it got sometimes stressful, but you mostly stayed in place during combat, instead of doing the mambo no.5 dance). It would have been nice if a blobber like that had come out in the past years.

 

[Jaesun]

Yep. Like the attack in Yvel, you could run to all those front defensible "pockets" around the city and battle them until the invasion ended.

 

[St Antony of Padua]

Interesting, I've often thought about what a first-person dungeon crawler would be like with guns/futuristic technology. I wonder though how open to abuse the combat system would be, as in the "square jumping" thing to avoid enemy fire.

The need to move and decide quickly in real time keeps my adrenaline high in Grimrock and that's a good thing.

Hurr Durr Grimrock in Space!!!

It is much to my surprise that the devs were actually talked into doing TB combat when most of these people don't understand anything about blobbers outside of Grimrock. It doesn't help that the description on the Steam page name drops Mass Effect. I hope that this game in no way reflects any aspect of Mass Effect.

 

[DraQ]

MMORPG-style hotbars. That's basically what Dungeon Master used in a prototype form (the spell bar).

I started off thinking about this totally theoretically but now I'm kinda interested, I generally hate action RPG designs but I think it's mostly because I simply dislike using mouse pointing in a non-TB game. You could have a mouse UI for a "camp" screen to fuck with the inventory and so on but be all keyboard during action.

Mouse pointing has it's place, but it's for aiming/looking around and item manipulation in the world.

You definitely don't want to have to click on attack icons or navigate menus while there is an enemy wailing on you - it's just badly designed interface.

Ideally, you'd want movement keys on your KB (regardless of whether you're going for continuous or tile based movement) primary actions/attack modes all executable via keypress either on mouse or in close vicinity of movement keys and ability to quickly select secondary abilities, items, spells and so on.

Now, we have a bit of a problem - with single character you have about enough buttons and nearby keys to control both movement and pretty much all basic actions you can have implemented, and depneding on your hotkeying system, you may have ability to switch to relatively large pool of items or spells quickly.
For example in Morrowind-like system with number key and prev-next function you can have over 10 within single keypress, around 30 within two, around 50 different things within 3 keypresses (though they aren't fully arbitrary), 70 within four and so on.
If you modify weapon selection interface from Half-Life (select and confirm) to allow nested selection and free hotkeying you'll need 2 keypresses at minimum to select anything but up to three keypresses net you 110 items, up to four 1110 and so on (essentially you organize your items in all nodes of tree wth branching factor of 10). Of course memorizing or displaying the information here is the problem so such tree is generally going to be overengineered solution. Still, it's easy to make, easy to navigate for player and won't run out of space.

Now the problem with party is that your ideal control requirements increase with the size of your party. Ideally you should be able to perform any standard action with any party member without cycling, because otherwise you'd really prefer a TB game even if you don't know it (because cycling through people isn't an actual action and shouldn't require actual time), or you want a solo + followers game where most tasks followers perform have been delegated to the AI and you don't have to directly command them very often (alleviating any clunkiness present in the interface, but it's sensitive to derpy AI).

 

[evdk]

Jesus Christ, DraQ, could you limit your aspie approach to declaring why SS2 backstory sucks ass and not try to analyze a genre you have less than passing knowledge of?