Happy 2009, everyone.
Now that the snow has melted, it doesn't feel like procrastination is as justified. I've applied for a few jobs, but there's an end-of-year budget freeze preventing hiring for anything half-promising. I'll continue to drop some applications, but with economy in a downturn, it's fortunate that I'm able to still live at home.
I've decided that until I'm hired, I might as well build some discipline by self-employing myself 9 to 5. During that time, no forums, no TV, just challenging myself to learn some useful skills such as game design fundamentals. My self-discipline has not been universally successful... however, the BYOND gears have been turning, and my Dream Maker mojo is being warily stirred from its slumber.
I've decided that part of the trouble is that I really need a game I'm interested in making. I painted myself into a corner with Project Xenoverse, and after lengthy soul searching, I decided that the trouble may be that I don't particularly enjoy RPGs. While I'm attracted to the escapism one brings, they're usually lacking in terms of being a game.
In nearly every RPG I've played, too few choices of consequence: quaff potion, cast spell, hack mob. After awhile, you realize the whole thing can be boiled down to a very simple formula and at that point the need for a player is largely redundant. While you can develop a RPG with better depth than that, it's challenging, because the single person perspective in a MMORPG tends to be limiting in what the developer can give you.
Therefore, as an RPG, Project Xenoverse is more or less sunk. I don't think I would have settled for an RPG with any less depth than Starflight, and I just didn't have the coding skills to pull something like that off: all the more reason to practice.
Thus, I'm distancing myself from the single character perspective. I've decided to begin a more-open-ended, yet in ways somewhat simpler, project which I call Project MegaMule. The current plan is to make it like a Tower Defense game (examples can be seen in the BYOND games of Space Castle or Gold Guardians) but with a larger, persistent-state scope inspired by aspects of M.U.L.E..
If my ambition is seen through to fruition, it will not be unlike Dwarf Fortress in that you'll build a little microcosm you're watching over. An interesting little story forms through interactions over time with the world (and, in this case, other players). I consider it an evolution of an RPG in this matter - a dynamic story creation engine where you're not just limited to a single player perspective.
That idea, perhaps, is enough to be excited over.
Enough bloggery. Time to get my groove on.
ID:52575
 Dec 31 2008, 5:51 pm (Edited on Dec 31 2008, 9:23 pm)
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Dec 31 2008, 7:22 pm
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Tiberath
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Happy New Year mate!
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Building a game inspired in any way by M.U.L.E. makes you my new hero. Keep us posted on the progress!
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Will do :)
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I'm watching...
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Once again, I've allowed myself to become distracted, but I anticipate I'll return to my BYOND endeavors any day now. Maybe even today.
Not a day goes by that I don't put some thought into my implementation. This is shaping up to be a bit of a massively multiplayer fortress builder game. Looks like you (Tsfreaks) have something similar in mind, but I anticipate our implementation will be pretty different. (For starters, mine takes place on a planet surface :P) | |
Uh yeah... I'm in the same boat as you in more ways than one. Motivation and focus are two things which I personally struggle with. As an example, I love my Outpost concept and just worked for an entire month on it. I'm not burned out but I do get a little drained when I think of the work remaining. This happened to me on Dungeons Of Duerganome but mainly because of its complexity and poor design (first large project). Anyway, out of nowhere, I find myself spending the last couple of days writing a project plan for an all new game. I'm totally inspired and intend to crank out more details over the next couple of days.
I may release this project plan to the Byond community and see what kinds of reactions I get. I want to continue making progress on Outpost but I'm willing to place it on hold if this new project picks up some momentum. I expect a solid team to crank it out in just a couple of months. If I can get a team together and ship something, I will turn around and do the same for Outpost which is a couple times more complex compared to this latest idea. Anyway, my point to all this is that I get easily distracted even though I'm still very passionate about existing projects. Quite frankly, I have to find a way to finish some of these projects. That means I need to find a way to work with others. I will be placing some thought into how to make that happen. I do plan to read up on MULE when I get a chance. At quick glance, it could very well be a predecessor to OUTPOST. ts | |
MULE and Outpost weren't really alike, but both were great games. Or at least, Outpost was 90% of a great game.
In MULE you were pitted against three other players with whom you competed for land and resources. With different plots of land you could produce different things: food, energy, smithore, or in the advanced game, ultra-valuable but otherwise useless crystite. Food was needed to maintain operations and you'd lose time in your turn if you didn't have enough. Energy was needed for production. And smithore was used by the store to make new MULEs, which would cost more and/or be in short supply when it was scarce. So this forced you to compete while not trying to actually hurt your opponents to the point of the whole colony suffering. The game took one year of game time, with rounds taking place each month. Outpost by contrast was more of a building and management sim, making heavy use of research trees for long-term improvement and survival. I tell you though, a game with the development of Outpost and the economics of MULE would really be something special. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
MULE and Outpost weren't really alike, but both were great games. Or at least, Outpost was 90% of a great game. Oh, I was actually referring to a game I'm designing "Outpost: The Long Night". I did some research way back when (2006) and I don't recall anything similar to what I'm trying to do. I'll have to look again. In MULE you were pitted against three other players with whom you competed for land and resources. With different plots of land you could produce different things: food, energy, smithore, or in the advanced game, ultra-valuable but otherwise useless crystite. Food was needed to maintain operations and you'd lose time in your turn if you didn't have enough. Energy was needed for production. And smithore was used by the store to make new MULEs, which would cost more and/or be in short supply when it was scarce. So this forced you to compete while not trying to actually hurt your opponents to the point of the whole colony suffering. The game took one year of game time, with rounds taking place each month. My version of Outpost has similar game play to that of MULE but on a much larger scale. Outpost by contrast was more of a building and management sim, making heavy use of research trees for long-term improvement and survival. I tell you though, a game with the development of Outpost and the economics of MULE would really be something special. It also has similar qualities to this version of Outpost. By similar, I mean that my version has ships, techs, resources, buildings, expansion, corporations, trade, and etc. The game play is probably vastly different but it sounds like I'm on the right track for bringing some of these elements together in a single game. Of course, with so much in one game, it's taking me forever to complete. :| ts [Having a 'Cancel' button where you expect a 'Preview' button is murder.] | |
Currently, my thoughts towards a M.U.L.E.-like implementation are to allow the players to claim plots of land, harvest organics (food) mass (ore) and energy (the same), tied to a market that fluctuates with supply and demand.
It gets tricky from here because I'm going for a persistent-state environment. Accumulation is problematic because latecomer players wouldn't have a chance. Yet, without accumulation, where is the supply and demand that was the core of the M.U.L.E. model? A medium needs to be found, and it will probably be solely focusing on current production. Plots of land need to be actively defended, preventing one player from ruling the whole planet or else, once again, the latecomer player doesn't have a chance. This is the tower defender focus. Finally, in bringing M.U.L.E. into the 21st century, I'm thinking it'll be interesting to allow players to manage their own plots internally. Where in M.U.L.E. the productivity of a plot might depend on location or other environment situations, there will be an additional layer here in how the player chooses to lay out their plots. It's a fairly exciting looking design, but (as usual) the trouble is in getting the details straight. So much time working these things out on the drawing board is much less engaging than being up to my elbows in the code, and at certain points I discover I need to start doing some code freewrite to make any progress at all because I can't quite visualize it. So, where can one get motivation? Another aspect I've been trying to tackle. First off, it seems the real difficulty is in starting so often it helps to simply tell myself to write a single line of code and at that point it becomes remarkably easy to write another 5000. (Funny how that works.) Second, it helps me to keep in mind the big picture. I'm not just creating a single game here, I'm refining my skills to create much better games in the future. The destination may seem important, but so also is the journey. Well, enough self-righteous ranting, you get the idea. | |
Geldonyetich wrote:
Currently, my thoughts towards a M.U.L.E.-like implementation are to allow the players to claim plots of land, harvest organics (food) mass (ore) and energy (the same), tied to a market that fluctuates with supply and demand. hrmmm... I recognize that design "block" very well. I go through the same thing with Outpost due to it's size and my inexperience with designing for Byond and space/RTS games. In a recent realization (after reading your post)I think this is a sign of biting off more than one can chew. If you can't visualize 99% (Not literally but pretty dang close) of your game design in a project plan, your probably going to have a hard time completing it with quality. There are always discoveries which lead to design changes but they should be minimal for the most part. It would make more sense to try and develop smaller versions of the game. Instead of building the full game, perhaps build a market simulator where you have a number of AI bots playing it like a stock market trying to buy low and sell high. You could post this as a game where players join and try to get rich. Nobody would stick around for long but you get a proof of concept done and out there. This is a stupid example but you get what I mean. If you build enough small stuff like this, you will eventually be able to plug it all together and make a larger game. In the meantime, your morale and completion stats are going up. I'm really directing all these comments toward myself. In Outpost, I'm designing and redesigning nearly every aspect as I do it. I'm just spinning my wheels. Sure the game is getting a little better every week but the completion date doesn't get any closer. This is simply due to inexperience. So, where can one get motivation? Another aspect I've been trying to tackle. Having a library of small stuff seems like the easiest way to develop something big. Another way to put it; "Do you have the right tools for the job?". First off, it seems the real difficulty is in starting so often it helps to simply tell myself to write a single line of code and at that point it becomes remarkably easy to write another 5000. (Funny how that works.)This is very true and it's something I seem to relearn all the time. So many more doors are unlocked through trial and error from previous projects. While designing this latest game, I got to do something very neat. "Oh, I've got that done already, and that, and that...". I can actually foresee how long something might take so designing Byond projects is getting easier and easier. What I should do is stop when I haven't done something before, write up something small and playable as a proof of concept and then continue with my original design. Going back to the original design would be easy now that I know how it REALLY works. It's not like you would be wasting time on a side project since you get to reuse the code. This is probably useless blither blather... Anyway, I've learned a few things. Well, enough self-righteous ranting, you get the idea. | |
Heh. Designing is just hard. I finished my initial draft of this new game. I added or got rid of all my buckitized brain storming ideas. The next step was to start detailing a user scenario for a player attacking the other player. As I was listing the steps, I realized that my initial idea (it seemed real clear at the time and was the premise for my entire design) wouldn't work out that great because of players logging on and off at different times. I quickly came up with another solution but it's having a domino effect and a bunch of other things would need to change. Now... I'm thinking of changing my game from a long term (weeks) to short term (hours) and lopping off a bunch of the long term concepts. Uhg. Well... back to it...
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Tsfreaks wrote:
I quickly came up with another solution but it's having a domino effect and a bunch of other things would need to change. Man, I've been there more times than I can remember. I think a large part of my motivation for even getting involved with BYOND is that I'm tired of all the clones out there. However, when I actually sit down and try to think outside the box, I come to realize why clones are so popular: reinventing the wheel is hard. Finding one has painted themselves into a corner like that is pretty much what that comes down to. "Painting yourself into a corner" is actually a good analogy for a solution as well. You see, the best solution I've found so far is to try to build a game in "broad terms." By that I mean you establish a basic platform and don't put down more intimate details until the foundation is solid. In this way, you'll have effectively painted the whole room without being caught in a corner. That's the theory. It takes trial and error to bring it to practice. | |
I can't believe it but I'm throwing away this 12 hour design document and opting to make a clone with a different theme. uhg. How did that just happen?
[STRIKE 1 - on coming up with something totally original] The design is so simple now, I have to seriously consider just doing it. [STRIKE 2 - getting a team together to increase performance] *sigh* [STRIKE 3 - when I lose interest and don't finish it because it's just a clone so why bother.] | |