Ruined Mezzanine - Restrain the Perfectionism

This piece of game creation is outside of the digital box and instead on the war table. Lucky for me, building war game terrain pieces has plenty in common with designing video game levels. They both require consideration for game flow, model sizes, visual cues and an understanding of the game's core rules.

I've been hooked on Warmahordes since I purchased a starter pack at PAX Prime 2013. I've enjoyed painting and assembling models, but our tables were a little 2-dimensional, and I had an itch to exercise that level creation drive.

Family photo!

I primarily field a Circle Orboros army and wanted a piece that would fit the forest theme, but without the complexity of a natural piece. I drafted a couple of concepts. The originals were more circular, but I settled with rectangles for simplicity of a first piece. That concept sat around for awhile. My fear of creating something imperfect prevented me from really starting.

A month or so later, while browsing through Michael's (art supply store), I stumbled across all sorts of awesome pieces that I could use for building this piece. Great inspiration. Within a week, I had decided on the direction for the piece and made another trip to pick up all the goods. The crafting materials sat for another month before I built the piece.

On a Friday night, I saw 'Lego the Movie'. By Saturday evening I nearly completed the piece. A part of the message of the Lego Movie is to let go of imperfection. I can say it felt quite liberating. I built the piece well knowing there were going to be flaws. I did not lock myself in unnecessary forethought or haw over trivial colour choices. I just built.

The end product turned out great. Sure, there are flaws. Some I'll know to circumvent next time. Some are so trivial that only I notice them when I search for them. None of them detract from the experience. Flaws are part of everything, especially if you're a beginner. If you're a perfectionist, don't let that hold you back.

Just go create something!

Another Game Gurgitation

Here's a marginally organized ramble of some ideas I've been considering for an RPG. Or more specifically a hex tile, point-and-click, randomly generated world, free roaming, turn based, unscripted quest generating, social AI, hardcore RPG.

Hex Tile
I've been playing Civ V lately and the advantages and coolness of hexness have worn on me. The honeycomb pattern is not only beautiful, but practical for a strategic and visual sense.

Pretty!

Point and Click
As far as combat and exploration is concerned, I'd like to keep it about strategic maneuvering and simplicity. Click on a tile and choose from a radial menu your action of choice. Click on yourself for inventory options, click on an enemy to attack, click on a tile to move, click on a tile to cast a spell, click on an NPC to talk. I think Peter Molyneux had that much right in Black & White. Oh and no HUD...none, zero...nada.

Randomly Generated World
If you've played Dwarf Fort, think that. Otherwise, just think of a new continent with new villages, with new citizens, with new guilds, with new biomes being generated each time. Even the main quest(s) will be randomly generated (yes, some will end up being similar, but at least this time you're killing the reborn Squirrel god nested under a volcanic mountain instead of the less aggressive Dwarf-forged ensouled titan butterfly that has claimed the town of Chyroshire as his larval outpost).

Free Roaming
You start somewhere, you go where you like, you might die. I was also thinking that quests play out if let untouched. So, if you decided that advancing your ranks among your new found "Mead Guild of Marshmountain" buddies is more important than stopping the undead plague sweeping the continent, you might find your city smells disgusting and everybody seems a few notches stupider...or perhaps the citizens of the world ended up being safe due to a mountain range and some vigilant lepers. In other words, you can go where you like, but don't expect the world to wait for you during your herbal gathering session.

Turn Based
You move, he moves, everyone moves then you move again. Just for clarification, you would never leave the overhead view to go into turn based combat, the general game is always turnbased. Think Rogue-Likes.

Unscripted Quests
Along with the world generation, the quests would be randomly generated as well. Also, the quest giver, targets, associates and anything related to the framework the quest would always be different. More importantly though, it doesn't matter how the objectives are completed, so long as they are and you can convince the giver that YOU did it. So, if you need to go kill Glitterdragon, but by the time you get to Glitterdragon he had been slain by the Pixies of plainness, the quest would still be considered complete. Another part might be that you have to often convince quest givers you are the man for the task (see below).

Social AI
I would like to see a lot of love put into the dialogue with NPCs. The rough framework would be, they say something, you choose a response, repeat. Available responses would be based on your characters abilities and actual achievements. Here's a crude example:
Enpeecee: I need a bro that's awesome enough to slay the crocosaur in my basement.
Your Options (bold is selected):
1) I'm totally bro enough to kill that crocosaur.
2) I know a pretty good bro.
3) I know that feel, homie.
4) Oh, so you want to put someone elses life at risk for your problems.
Enpeecee: I don't know. You barely look like you can lift a sword, let alone slay a crocosaur.
You:
1) Ya, you're probably right, best of luck with that though.
2) Are you insulting me?
3) No seriously, I've slain an X before. (You would go into a menu and choose a creature you know about for X)
4) Well, I guess I could help you find a bro.
Enpeecee: Well, if you've killed an X before, a crocosaur actually doesn't seem so bad in comparision, here are the keys to my basement.
You:
1) I shall not fail.
2) Thank for the keys, scrub.
3) Woah, woah, let's talk compensation!
Enpeecee: N'wah!

Another aspect to the social dynamic would be a system where information is shared via social interactions between NPCs. So, if you kill an X in front of a group of people. They might pass on this knowledge to others and even the quest giver, so that they are more likely to believe your awesomness.

Hardcore
One life, don't fuck up.
Okay okay, but if you do there is  hope! I'm thinking that you can create a new character in the same world and try to continue living in the world where your last character left off. Managed to destroy 4 of  5 of the rifts that demonic oozes were pouring though before you died? Your new character might not be as skilled or have the same connections, but you can take him to try and stop that oozial overrunning. Or hell, maybe he'll end up jumping on the summoner's boat and try to restore the 4 that your other man destroyed!
But seriously...lots of die, lots of cry, lots of fun.

Whew, if you actually managed to read through this spewing, I applaud you!

Minecraft: Base of Operations

I've spent these lack couple of months in Minecraft setting up a base of operations for future projects. The town now includes just about every type of farm possible, storage and transportation to other developed regions (read: Kipol and bcarswell's bases). I also wound up constructing a decent sized temple.

The full list of services are:

-what farm

-melon farm

-pumpkin patch

-mob grinder

-netherwart farm

-cow farm

-sheep farm

-warehouse

-brewing hut

-enchantment library

-reed farm

-cactus farm

-mushroom farm

-well

-beds

-nether portal

-subway

The warehouse has been up since almost the day after the server went live. It has tons of chests organized by arbitrary categories that I attempt to convey in marker blocks beside the chests. A few chests at the entrance are for junk that's to be sorted later when you're not feeling anal retentive. After tearing down the mini mob grinder on the roof of the warehouse, I placed an ice rink. The warehouse also houses the crafting table and furnaces.

On the ridge above the town, I built a vegetable farm. Underneath the ridge there is also a mushroom cave. The mushroom cave is a mob haven and thus a great place to build snow golems.  I plan on redoing the floor with dirt and the mushroom stuff from mushroom isles once I find one.

Outside the warehouse there is a building covering a vertical drop to the mob grinder. Lucky me, it was built where slimes spawn, so it even generates slimeballs.  Every time I need stone, I carve out a new level of the mob grinder. Currently it has two wings; one with two floors and the other with three.

Near the warehouse and grinder there is the alchemist's hut.  We had two awesome adventures obtaining the flamerods for the alchemist supplies.

On the other side of the town, there are the animal farms and remaining plant farms.  There are currently a cow farm and sheep farm. Previously, I also had a pig farm and chicken farm, but they escaped or died and cows supply what they have anyhow. The reed farm might need some adjusting since the last patch altered the taiga weather and froze over the water required by the reeds.

The most apparent part of the town is the temple. I didn't mean to make such a big project while establishing the base, but it just kind of happened. Functionally, it contains a portal to the netherwart farm and the enchantment table. The main room contains a creeper statue, floor notes, and braziers. One side room contains a gong and a pool with an underwater exit. The other wing contains the library with the enchantment table.  I'm planning on adding a rather dangerous basement at a later time. The temple took about 5 chests of stone to build.

All hail the creeper!

As a bonus, Kipol hooked up his subway network with the base, complete with coloured stations. This currently leads to his base and will soon head to bcarswell's as well.

Minecraft: Market

The inspiration for this market based building came from the AoE2 Eastern building set market.

I took the main structures of the outside, but converted the courtyard in to a more aesthetic relaxing area, but left the outer shelters as market booth setups.

Just chillin'

Goods and wares sheltered from the elements.

 The bottom floor contains an indoor market with a bookstore, goods in chests, painting shop and mess tables. There's also a small private room in the corner.

The second floor hosts a private quarters, which includes bedrooms, living room, dining room and a prayer room. The balcony contains a dozen tables with chairs.

Bedroom 1 of  2.

 The construction of this building included a dozen or so creeper incidents. Evidence of these problems can be seen on the  rims of the final project. I swear there's a 10x10x10 hole on one spot from multiple creeper intrusions. As always, all the resources were legitimately obtained. You always get the best adventures that way!

Throwing Down an Idea

While riding my bike around the island, this idea for a game keeps creeping in to my head. I have no idea why it's most prominent while I'm biking.

The idea fostered (flowered?) when DavidTo mentioned that Terarria had NPCs that would inhabit the buildings you built. I thought that was pretty cool, but a bit of research led me to the disappointing conclusion that you could only have a dozen or so NPCs. When I went back to playing Minecraft, I felt all those buildings and roads I constructed seemed eerie and desolate. I thought the idea of lots of custom buildings being inhabited by crude AI would add flavour to my masterpieces.

My Minecraft world kinda feel like this.

I have to admit that I actually like looking at the isometric views created by third party converters of my worlds more than I like actually walking around my world. I guess I have a soft spot for the old school city/park builder games like SimCity, Transport Tycoon and Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Nerd Alert! This is actually my desktop wallpaper.

Resource gathering in Minecraft tends to be tedious after awhile. The fun parts of gathering are searching for the resource, laying out a gathering plan and seeing the effect on the world caused by the gathering. I find the actual gathering to be tedious. The same idea goes for building. Designing, planning and watching the progress of a construction site is pretty fun, but laying down floor after floor becomes tedious. What if that tedious bit could be delegated to underlings? Something like the imps in Dungeon Keeper or the ants in SimAnts.

Who doesn't enjoy expendable minions?

Wrap these three ideas together and sprinkle a few other things that I didn't mention and you've got an isometric, open-world, block-based, whatever builder where your main interaction involves highlighting blocks that need to be excavated and delegating where they are to be placed.  As you shape the world, your work is used by the AI inhabitants. I guess it's like a macro version of Minecraft or something.

There are some other details I was mulling on, including interface, neutral AI, multiplayer and world generation, but I'll spare those for now. I have no idea if I'll have the patience to put even a crude version of this together, but I wanted to throw the idea out there.

Diablo a la Spore Cancelled

I've decided to cancel Diablo-Spore. I simply have no enthusiasm for the project or the game it runs on. Act 3 was almost built, but still required lots of work and tons of testing, which I'm simply not willing to put the time in for. I'll put up a few screenies at some point.

Instead, I'm going to play around with a free form project using java.

Jump Jump!

While completing a tacked on jumping section of  Diablo a la Spore: Act 2 and messing around other users' adventures I realized how fun jumping is. There's something satisfying about reaching that next platform. I'm sure most of you, gamers or not, know that already, or at least don't find it that difficult to see. What really struck me though, is that jumping is the core of the entertainment.

This ugly, but highly entertaining Spore Garfield romp got me thinking about jumping. (D/L this image and add to spore to try it out)

Okay, truthfully, I'm not just talking about the jumping.  I'm referring to controlling a body to navigate an environment.  This includes jumping, running, climbing, driving and probably a couple other things.  This doesn't include reading text, looking at scenery, shooting, managing inventory, punching, activating levers, opening doors, moving troops, casting spells, picking pockets, quick time events, singing, memorizing, solving puzzles, reloading, sneaking, breaking necks, navigating dialog trees or anything that isn't controlling movement for the sake of moving.

I think this may have been the appeal of the Mario series. The game is 99% about making Mario run and jump. Nintendo stripped out the rest of the crud.  After all, his original name was 'Jumpman'! All gamers can agree there is something satisfying about making Mario leap off a moving platform to land on a smaller parallel platform. Landing that never fails to feel sweet. Who cares about shooting and all that other crap when you can jump?

This is what video games are all about.

Anyhow, I could be totally wrong about this.  In fact, I'd wager in two years I'll look back at this blog and be in disbelief of my ignorance.  Still, I've decided to apply this idea to Act 3 of Diablo Spore.  There's a path that is solely navigate by launch pads and the walkways have more vertical depth. The launch pad section is definitely fun, but I still need to add more variety to the walkways before I can decide if the added navigational challenge makes walking around entertaining.

P.S. While procrastinating editing this article, I came across this bit-tech.net article on jumping.