Contents Under Pressure

ID:105464
 
Dec 8 2010, 11:34 am (Edited on Dec 8 2010, 2:07 pm)
Keywords: design, motivation
For all my, "if it's me making it, it will be awesome", conviction wholly held to instill impetus, progress remains slow-going specifically because of this very fact: I won't tolerate the overwhelming majority of mediocrity to be found in the easy solutions to anything. For whatever reason, ever have I only been interested in making the truly epic, and if I suspect it's anything less, I have no motivation to do it.

Remarkably, as of late, things are getting done in terms of development, and that's a radical change over the recent past. I actually am doing what I'd call a great merge at the moment. I've taken the Planetary generation algorithm from Planetbreakers and the solar system generation algorithm from Project Interstellar, and am in the process of combining them.
Interstellar Defender v0.0001 Photobucket

Voila: I've now a whole lot of real-estate and nothing particularly useful being done with it. The main trouble being that I'm still having a tough time deciding on exactly what this game is.
  • An online RPG, like a mud?
  • An adventure game, like a roguelike?
  • An empire building game, like a 4X game?
  • A compellingly simulated environment, like dwarf fortress?
And I think the answer is I want certain elements out of all of the above. An online RPG adventure with a compellingly simulated environment including elements of empire building. In the crucible of my skull, I'm taking the coal of the individual concepts and attempting to make a diamond.

It's only natural that some of that pressure will escape. When I'm blogging here or browsing the Internet, this a case where I'm letting off steam when I should probably be directing that energy towards realizing my game. However, this can also happen even within the development process itself.

For example, yesterday I made the planets in the above screenshot on the left, formerly turfs, into objects. Then I taught those objects how to orbit their sun. This is a cute and easy cosmetic improvement, but wholly not what I need to be worried about doing. There'll be plenty of time to add little details when I have a playable framework of a game.

Dec 8 2010, 2:50 pm
K.I.S.S.?
Dec 8 2010, 2:56 pm (Edited on Dec 8 2010, 4:25 pm)
Vermolius wrote:
K.I.S.S.?

Yes! But this does not imply simplicity in the overall product, it's suggesting you keeping your lines clean and manageable throughout, lest it turn into an unmanageable mess.

In a major coding project, you can liken this to doing well-commented, highly modular, well-encapsulated code as opposed to highly inter-dependent spaghetti code. In keeping things well-organized, even a big project can be simple. With this simplicity, things become much more possible.
Dec 8 2010, 6:50 pm
It seems quite a few people seem to have suddenly taken interest into generating solar systems.


EDIT: as far as I've seen, mine is the only one which can somewhat mimic Newtonian Physics? (my Space Colonies doesn't seem like much but the intensive math and simulated physics are there, just not perfected or displayed much!)
Dec 9 2010, 6:56 am
Geldonyetich wrote:
Vermolius wrote:
K.I.S.S.?

Yes! But this does not imply simplicity in the overall product, it's suggesting you keeping your lines clean and manageable throughout, lest it turn into an unmanageable mess.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to KISS when it comes to game design. You seem to have a problem where you begin work on an epic project and then stop before it gets off of the ground. You should try starting with something simple, yet entertaining and interesting and actually put out something finished.
Dec 9 2010, 9:23 am (Edited on Dec 9 2010, 9:57 am)
Duelmaster409 wrote:
It seems quite a few people seem to have suddenly taken interest into generating solar systems.

Technically, this Solar System generation code of mine was developed last year, so it's not that suddenly in my case. ;)

EDIT: as far as I've seen, mine is the only one which can somewhat mimic Newtonian Physics? (my Space Colonies doesn't seem like much but the intensive math and simulated physics are there, just not perfected or displayed much!)

Yours is pretty cool, I like the spiral arm being represented there in the screenshot. I probably won't go for that level of detail.

Acebloke's is somewhat closer to what I have in mind, but the screenshots seem to indicate it's more about creating shapes and stuff, Minecraft style.

Both of them are pretty different from what I have in mind because I'm doing more of an adventure/RPG.

D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
I'm pretty sure he was referring to KISS when it comes to game design. You seem to have a problem where you begin work on an epic project and then stop before it gets off of the ground. You should try starting with something simple, yet entertaining and interesting and actually put out something finished.

I've heard it before, sounds like good advice, but the trouble is that I don't think a game can be interesting for me unless it's epic, and once it's no longer interesting I have zero motivation to do it, so it's impossible for me to follow that advice.
Dec 10 2010, 5:55 am (Edited on Dec 10 2010, 6:02 am)
"Acebloke's is somewhat closer to what I have in mind, but the screenshots seem to indicate it's more about creating shapes and stuff, Minecraft style.

Both of them are pretty different from what I have in mind because I'm doing more of an adventure/RPG."

Yeah, I suppose your kind of right, it does look a bit minecraft like. I must say yours is already looking better than mine XD. My original plan was actually just a graphical MUD, and I've actually gone backwards and thought "Hey, why not just create the species/planets/stars/galaxies/clusters" as well?!"

Space travel, colonisation and conquest is something I want to do, but its a billion years away in terms of development, I haven't even got back to the cell stage yet in my restart with isometric (I do however, have a lot more new things included in it).

My game was intended to eventually be one-player, one-character gameplay but I'm wondering whether I should let people play nations/species throughout the entire game. What I'll probably do is have a cut-off point, where whoever is hosting/started the game can choose where that point is. Dreamland from the start was all about having an expansive gameplay ability so one game doesn't have to feel the same as all the others (like Spore, in all its graphical glory turned out to be).

Dec 10 2010, 8:54 am
Acebloke wrote:
Space travel, colonisation and conquest is something I want to do, but its a billion years away in terms of development, I haven't even got back to the cell stage yet in my restart with isometric (I do however, have a lot more new things included in it).

I've noticed you've developed the kind of games I'd like to see sometimes. Only, it seems you're a lot better at actually finishing and releasing games than I am. ;)

My game was intended to eventually be one-player, one-character gameplay but I'm wondering whether I should let people play nations/species throughout the entire game. What I'll probably do is have a cut-off point, where whoever is hosting/started the game can choose where that point is.

This is a good and elegant way of doing it, I think. A game without an end tends to drag on and on. However, on the other hand, I am thinking there's something to be said for a persistent state game. Maybe what's lacking in stale persitant state games is adequate agitation to keep things interesting. Ideally, a universe should be as big as the players need it to be, not too drawn out, not too small.

Dreamland from the start was all about having an expansive gameplay ability so one game doesn't have to feel the same as all the others (like Spore, in all its graphical glory turned out to be).

The thing that surprises me about Minecraft is that the game pretty much is a bunch of tiles. There's little gameplay mechanic behind the overwhelming majority of the tiles. And yet, the game captured the imaginations of the players by giving them considerable freedom to change the world, creating a sandbox-like affect.

I think it's a good idea to try to capture that. The tricky thing, of course, being to stem monotony and griefing.