Project Cryoship: Core Gameplay Concept Established

ID:99710
 
Aug 3 2010, 1:21 pm (Edited on Aug 3 2010, 2:12 pm)
I've discovered my key to game development motivation: minimize the web browser and keep it minimized. I start doing something productive within 10 minutes of staring at my desktop. Funny how that works.

I want:
  • An Epic Game - At least insofar as "Epic" is defined as a game with virtual-world impact. [Edit: Actually, this isn't that "Epic." Epic is incompatible with the point 2 points below this.]
  • A reasonably unique-playing game - At least insofar as it goes further than anything I've played yet.
  • I need to K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Complicated games tend to get bogged down in overthinking.
  • It needs to be centered on a single player character the player can identify with, if only for the sense of personal involvement.
How about this idea:

PSI-5 Trading Company on the outside.

Remember how PSI-5 Traders was largely about getting a cargo barge through hostile space to its destination? Probably not, because the game was before most of your times, dear readers.



Get to the destination successfully with your cargo in tact, upgrade the ship and equipment, and set off for another trip. Each server is essentially a ship. Its playerbase the crew roster.

Space Station 13 on the inside.

However, instead of keeping the ship maintained via context menus, and assigning a crew of 5 members from a pool of applicants, we go full on tile-based MUD with it, since BYOND can do that.

Player activities may include:
  • Man the ship consoles to fend off invaders
  • Perform engineering on the ship to repair the inevitable damage it sustains.
  • Have a security detail to fend off invaders which have boarded the ship.
I like it, lets go with it.

I do, however, have one core decision I'm waffling back and forth across:

Option 1. Have the players clamboring around inside of the ship, for the true immersion standpoint.

Option 2. Have the players manage the inside of the ship from a disconnected perspective of a ship AI, facilitating zero travel downtime between the various tasks on the ship.

The pros and cons to either approach are so solid that it's very hard to decide. I may decide to facilitate both in some way.
Aug 3 2010, 1:25 pm
I'm interested. Keep me up with future updates.
Aug 3 2010, 1:34 pm
- I seem keen on the idea of running around a large ship from station to station.

- Clicking on the station can bring up that specific HUD where I can interact with it.

- I could open doors, close doors, deplete oxygen, operate electricity, fly the ship, man the battles stations, and etc.

- I could grab the fire extingisher off the wall and put out a fire.

- I could run to the small arms locker and grab a gun and then run back to fight off aliens.

- I could leave my gun in the hanger to run off and put out a fire only to have aliens attack later and me not know where my gun is since it doesn't respawn or reload without me.

- Installing new things requires a player to take the "crate" off the loading bay, carry it to the X marks a valid install location, install it with the appropriate tools, after turning off the power to that room.

Awesome fun to be had there I think.

ts
Aug 3 2010, 1:36 pm
Tsfreaks wrote:
- I seem keen on the idea of running around a large ship from station to station.

- Clicking on the station can bring up that specific HUD where I can interact with it.

- I could open doors, close doors, deplete oxygen, operate electricity, fly the ship, man the battles stations, and etc.

- I could grab the fire extingisher off the wall and put out a fire.

- I could run to the small arms locker and grab a gun and then run back to fight off aliens.

- I could leave my gun in the hanger to run off and put out a fire only to have aliens attack later and me not know where my gun is since it doesn't respawn or reload without me.

- Installing new things requires a player to take the "crate" off the loading bay, carry it to the X marks a valid install location, install it with the appropriate tools, after turning off the power to that room.

Awesome fun to be had there I think.

ts

Somewat similar to SS13. Apart from a few things.
Aug 3 2010, 1:51 pm
To an extent, I think I've been wanting to remake SS13. SS13 facilitates a lot of awesome off-the-cuff roleplay, but it's lacking some important structure. Bridging the gap between simulator and balanced game is a major goal here.
Aug 3 2010, 2:00 pm
I may be wrong, but I believe you suffer from the same "illness" I had. Almost from day one, my objective was to create the most "epic" game BYOND, and the indie community, has ever seen. Six years later, I have yet to produce a quality product.

Look at how Dwarf Fortress and Space Station first started. Do you actually believe the authors entered development believing the outcome would be a monster game that is still being praised to this day?

Just follow your own advice: keep it simple. Create a game that you'd enjoy playing, as time progresses you could always add more to it. Mine Craft is another example, it started off as a small demonstration that was inspired by Infiniminer. As time went on, he garnered a small community, took their suggestions, and implemented them into his game.
- - - - - - - - - -

Your concept resembles another great concept, perhaps Evre's post will provide you with more ideas.

I feel what makes SS13 great is how it places you on a ship with an occupation, and you are left to do anything you wish. It is a true sandbox game, and people enjoy that. We have enough restrictions in life; we play games to accomplish tasks we could only dream of. Of course, if this were to be a single player game, option two would work well; I would not want to control each character by manual moving them and then starting a task.
Aug 3 2010, 2:10 pm (Edited on Aug 3 2010, 2:18 pm)
I should probably take "epic" right off that list. Truth be told, this design isn't nearly as epic as some of my earlier projects.

There's only one map and it's not being generated on the fly. I'm just simulating the ship itself. No planets. Not even outer space you observe directly, rather the players will choose between destinations on a list that essentially govern the difficulty (as in PSI-5 Trading Company).

Anything more complicated than that goes on my "brainstorming" notepad to be added after I've got a playable game together. I've already created code more complex than this. Mecha Game Framework more complex than this. I just never got around to releasing them because they weren't "done."
Aug 3 2010, 2:25 pm
Option 1. Have the players clamboring around inside of the ship, for the true immersion standpoint.

I think this is the only way to go.

Playing the game at two levels makes it very interesting. Being able to upgrade your ship and see how it changes the layout would be very cool.

I like this idea because it also works against the player. Upgrading the ship is a good thing because the ship is bigger and can do more things, but it's also harder to maintain and protect.

Because players would be working on the same, upgradeable barge it seems like you would have a persistent world. SS13 obviously avoids this issue, have you thought about how to handle it? How can you do something if your entire crew isn't online?
Aug 3 2010, 2:42 pm (Edited on Aug 3 2010, 3:13 pm)
I'm big on persistent worlds, and have indeed put a lot of thought towards that.

My thinking is that I'd have the threats scale to active players. Yes, this can get tricky if some players aren't pulling their weight. Additional criteria may be necessary. A full virtual game master mechanic is a good concept if it can be realized.

As a virtual world, complete destruction of the ship is problematic. It would also undermine the progress of the players if this were to happen. Consequently, I'll probably make it so a defeated ship is simply towed back to the dry dock for repairs. The criteria of defeat would probably be losing your cargo to the invaders (that worked for PSI-5) and possibly a player vote as a safeguard.

Ship upgrades are the trickiest part. When the ship is your world, and the ship can be altered, that's a dynamic world you're looking at there. Dynamic persistent worlds are tricky! To those ends, I've already prototypes with working virtual device networks in them. Rig up any functioning devices to ship performance, and I'm good to go.

I suspect I'll want to reserve any ship customization for when the ship is in dry dock, and then limit who is allowed to alter the ship layout to the host or whoever the host has empowered to do this. I don't expect it to be that difficult to add the customization mechanic if it's simply painting turfs and objects on a map, but my first priority is just getting a working game up.
Aug 3 2010, 3:37 pm
Geldonyetich wrote:
To an extent, I think I've been wanting to remake SS13. SS13 facilitates a lot of awesome off-the-cuff roleplay, but it's lacking some important structure. Bridging the gap between simulator and balanced game is a major goal here.

Well believe it or not, I know that theironx has the goon station SS13 source. Which was last updated 2008 december. If you want this i could ask theironx to send u a copy.
Aug 3 2010, 3:53 pm
I thought about asking you for it. Truth be told, I'm not sure if having the SS13 source would be much help. All that atmospheric work is a whole lot of extra overhead for my "keep it simple" game.
Aug 3 2010, 7:50 pm
Geldonyetich wrote:
I thought about asking you for it. Truth be told, I'm not sure if having the SS13 source would be much help. All that atmospheric work is a whole lot of extra overhead for my "keep it simple" game.

It has all the systems that the current SS13 has in place. But its pretty messy i think. I don't have it on my laptop as i have formatted it.
Aug 3 2010, 7:54 pm
It's all good - I'll feel a little better knowing my game is mostly original code anyway. Thanks for the offer though - it is tempting to root through SS13's code just because they've already added so much functional equipment objects.
Aug 4 2010, 5:32 pm
I think you should go with option 1 with light RPG aspects.
For both the characters and the ship

And PLEASE do not do this off of SS13's source code
Aug 4 2010, 6:23 pm
Seems option 1 is what the audience wants.

I don't intend to use the SS13 code, but your mentioning it makes me wonder: is there something they do in SS13 that you don't like?
Aug 4 2010, 6:29 pm
Geldonyetich wrote:
I don't intend to use the SS13 code, but your mentioning it makes me wonder: is there something they do in SS13 that you don't like?

What appeals to me is having the depth in the gameplay came from the complexity of tasks you could perform (i.e. performing big tasks, like interplanetary trade) as opposed to SS13 having depth in the intricate details of simple actions.