Release Multiventure (RPG project) - need suggestions

[Prometheus]

Another vote for the first picture, here.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

I think it's obvious, enough contrast and no oversaturated colors. I think I'm going to use a limited color palette of something like 64 colors, maybe if I need more I can go to 128 but the less colors I use the better it will look.

 

[Dauric]

I've got a project that I'm working on in the same vein, Unfortunately I started it before I knew about the Pandora, so I suspect that it won't work in it.

Basically it's a Sandbox Sci-Fi adventure that uses modular components to build the universe. Take Privateer or Freelancer, but in top-down view, then allow the player to actually land the ship on a planet and get out and walk around, not just pre-animated entrances to certain locations, but actually allow the player to explore the planet.

Each time a "New Game" is selected the engine creates a new "Sector" to explore, with a quest built from 'modularized' story elements. As a vast oversimplification think of a "Mad Lib". I'm still working out exactly how it will work as it uses some randomized key location math (Ie: How to randomly place keys without creating an impossible situation) though instead of rooms it's using plot elements.

It's rather weird to explain, but it works in theory, it's a rather ambitious idea, and I'm being a mad programmer.

I've built a crafting system for weapons, I have vehicle crafting on paper but I've yet to code it, My starships need a complete rebuild but my navigation works well enough that I know random planet and star generation is functional. (100 stars with up to 10 planets each, each planet is made up of 10x5 to 40x20, 2560 x 2560 pixel map sections, planets are divided in to Tropical, Temperate and Arctic latitudes, or the entire planet could be an airless rockball... Did I mention this was an ambitious project? Did I mention I'm nuts?)

I've been messing with it in my spare time at work and a bit at home (I've mostly been working on it to keep my sanity while I watch loading-bars) for almost a year now. I've got most of the "Physics" of the universe working (Not "Game Engine Physics", but the game rules that determine how the universe is modeled) and I'm slowly getting to the point where I need a decent AI and conversation systems, then I can get to building that modular quest system...

I'm working on making all the resources external, and constructed with a level editor, so adding more new terrain, characters, monsters, etc. is just a matter of putting the right files in the right directories.

Unfortunately since I was originally just planning on messing with the beast as a "Why not" project I decided on Yoyo games "GameMaker" to build it, but GameMaker doesn't work on Linux at all, it's games are questionable in WINE. GM's a decent rapid prototyping setup, but I've really got to find a different development environment for this thing.

That and a few programmers... and artists... and level designers... and......

Anyway, if someone makes it before i do, then I don't have to build it and I can just enjoy playing it.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

You've got some cool ideas, at one side I like the random creation of a location, at the other hand, I would choose to create the game world myself just to keep it interesting, cause although something computer generated can look right, it isn't always an interesting place to explore.

I think I'm going to write some of my ideas down in a game concept document, and if I like an idea I read here I will try to include it.

 

[Dauric]

Well, part of the quest builder would have been a "Quasi-procedural, random generator." that would have found it's way back in to the universe generation scripts. Basically instead of just giving the computer a bunch of completely loose pieces, give it specific rules on how to assemble those pieces, like a story-system not being able to use a "Quest for MacGuffin" unless it had determined there would be a "MacGuffin"* and an antagonist (organization or individual) to compete with in the first place, or in map-building determining fault lines and placing mountainous tiles in those locations. Then take ideas from the stellar/geographical generator and use them to refine the story-generator, or another iteration of geographical generator... repeat until housed in bouncy-walled room and someone else takes over...

*A MacGuffin is Alfred Hitchcock's term for an otherwise meaningless item that everyone is looking for. The Maltese Falcon is a classic MacGuffin, as is the Peruvian gold idol in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Though what I've really been craving in a good SF game is good vehicle and gear design. SF appeals to gearheads, but so many SF adventure/shooter/rpg titles just lack any real vehicular engineering, and I was never satisfied with "Gather part-X and part-Y to make unique and bizarre 'Gun-Z', but you can't machine parts for a standard weapon."

 

[Kramy]

Re: Animal Crossing based RPG project - need suggestions

I was also wondering about the color palette, here are 3 pictures of Golden Sun, which of these looks/works best in your opinion?

I prefer brighter colours. In my opinion, the roof, house, cliffs, tree/plants, etc. look best in the third one - as does the little character.

But wow, that grass sure is hard on the eyes! Way too bright!

Maybe there could be pallette swapping - then we could have the best of both worlds? ^_^ Hmm... maybe not.

 

[dflemstr]

Re: Animal Crossing based RPG project - need suggestions

I was also wondering about the color palette, here are 3 pictures of Golden Sun, which of these looks/works best in your opinion?

I prefer brighter colours. In my opinion, the roof, house, cliffs, tree/plants, etc. look best in the third one - as does the little character.

But wow, that grass sure is hard on the eyes! Way too bright!

Maybe there could be pallette swapping - then we could have the best of both worlds? ^_^ Hmm... maybe not.

Apply a post-render filter on the game, then you can change the gamma any way you like!
Then it would of course be best to have normalized colors like in picture 1.

 

[Dauric]

Re: Animal Crossing based RPG project - need suggestions

I was also wondering about the color palette, here are 3 pictures of Golden Sun, which of these looks/works best in your opinion?

I prefer brighter colours. In my opinion, the roof, house, cliffs, tree/plants, etc. look best in the third one - as does the little character.

But wow, that grass sure is hard on the eyes! Way too bright!

Maybe there could be pallette swapping - then we could have the best of both worlds? ^_^ Hmm... maybe not.

Middle one has the best detail contrast. Either extreme you lose the details of the artwork in either a muddy mess, or in a neon-haze of oversaturated colors.

That said dflemstr's got the best idea, let the player choose for themselves based on how it looks on their machine.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

just mixed the first and last together, maybe this will be the best of all (these colors are more or less like they are in the real game, I think):

 

[Aethix]

I like that one. It has the saturation to make it feel like a game, but it doesn't burn the eyes.

 

[gp2.eXe]

Yeah, that's better.

 

[Prometheus]

That's lovely - I'm changing my vote to that! :lol:

 

[Alpha2]

yeah that seems to be he best of both worlds. I was saying first or third before, then after I posted Several new posts appeared before mine.

 

[Kramy]

just mixed the first and last together, maybe this will be the best of all (these colors are more or less like they are in the real game, I think):

Yep! Just about the perfect mix. I'd vote for that!

 

[CyruzDraxs]

I prefer to first one. All of them are better looking when you enlarge them, which is probably why everyone likes the most recent one, but I find this one has more appealing colors. The other one has too much contrast.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Interesting, someone else that has the same opinion now that the screen is bigger? Also just tried to view those 2 images on an Archos (has same screen as Pandora) and found out that the colors are quite different on an archos screen, on the archos my mix of the first and third is still quite saturated and the other posted by CyruzDraxs is better. I wonder if this will be the case with the pandora too...

 

[Kramy]

Some LCDs automatically boost the gamma to make photos look better, but what you see is enhanced, and not what you should see.

Mac computers are particularly bad for enhancing what you see without asking. Then when you print, the photos look quite blah by comparison.

Whenever I buy a new monitor, I'm careful to make sure it matches the rest of mine. As long as the colours match those great CRTs from way back, I'm happy.

Anyway, in my opinion the one I quoted still looks better - but maybe that's just what I like? Colour is important to me. When I remember stuff, I always get the colours right, but perhaps not other details. ^_^

 

[javaJake]

I had a project I was working on myself quite a few years ago, but had to cancel as life got in the way and I knew I'd never be able to get back to it.

The game I wanted to write is very similar, so perhaps you could get some ideas from me, and implement some of the features I wanted for my game. My game worked like this:


It would be a multiplayer role-playing game, but primarily peaceful and without fighting. The user would start out with a random mixture of tools and ingredients. Say the user got a shovel, a bucket, and $20. The user could find another user in town who'd be willing to trade some of your money for some seeds. You'd then go and buy a plot of land from someone, and plant the seeds with your shovel. (Perhaps the shovel wouldn't be required, though, and just speed up the planting process.) You could use the bucket to carry water to your seeds and help them grow. Eventually, you could sell some of the plants and/or the fruit they produce in town.

Say, however, the user actually got $75 and a random assortment of things that didn't help the player much. They could trade those things to real users for the things they really need, or more money to purchase what they really need. If they're still low on money, they could find jobs (in factories that produce complex things, for example) and earn more money that way.

In the end, the world would be a living, breathing, virtual world of players with its own economy, social structures, government (yes, players could possibly participate in government and police work), and user-made towns (groups of traders and houses). To keep it from being too restrictive, the game itself would merely be an engine, and all the things users interact with (players, houses, tools, food, cell phones for in-game IM) would be implemented by plug-ins. If the game didn't know how to interact with an object, it would let the user know what plug-in they needed, but otherwise it would just be a block with a question-mark on the screen that possibly moves around. This would provide near-limitless possibilities for game-play.


It would be harder to make something like this into a single-player game, what with all the AI that's required and whatnot, but the plug-in system, and the building blocks mentality (seeds+water+shovel+elbow grease = food + profit) could be useful for your game.

Please, please, don't worry about whether it is "kiddy" or whatever - that stuff is nonsense. In my experience, the only people who really tend to grouse about things being "kiddy", are quite often young'uns who don't yet "get" that something doesn't have to have blood and gore, or look photorealistic, to be viewed as fun

FWIW, I agree with Prometheus. If people dislike the simplistic, "cute" styles of Wii Miis, Animal Crossing, and others, they're trying to impress someone (that includes "young'uns").

 

[Dauric]

Sounds like Animal Crossing but with more multiplayer emphasis. It's popular amongst non-gamers, my mom is hooked on it. It's not for everyone though. Conflict is what makes for interesting stories, and violence is most often used to describe that conflict in games in no small part because other literary forms of conflict are more difficult to implement.

As far as the palette, it all depends on what kind of flavor you want your game to have. A muted color-scheme lends itself to a more realistic imagery, good for gritty cyberpunk or Diablo style stories, where the brighter composite image lends a more 'classic Japanese RPG feel.' It's really a stylistic choice based on the kind of game you're making.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

@ JavaJake: I would like to keep it singleplayer, because it's easier to program (I think) and because I really want to make a singleplayer game for the pandora that can still be played for a long time. I would call it a MSORPG (Massive Singleplayer Offline RPG ). But things like planting seeds (or other things) is a good idea, and some sort of way to get new items via expansion plug-ins.

Because I can't really decide what time this game would take place I thought of some sort of Time Vortex system. This is something like a worldmap (in mode-7 ) where you can fly around and have different portals to different locations. This way I can easily make new worlds to travel to. I could make a fantasy/medieval world, a modern time world, future world, maybe even a post-apocalytic world? What do you guys think of that?