[One 12] Month 4
by Brian Mayberry · 04/30/2011 (10:15 pm) · 1 comments
Updates?
Absolutely nothing that I can show visually at this time. Not home to work but one weekend this month, sorry! Re-factoring of basic gameplay mechanics to include following timers:
Hunger - Ticks down until you feed. - Player becomes super weak sauce on starvation (basically health drops to 1hp so you die in one hit or misstep)
[X] DONE + Working Food Items! Yeah!
Thirst - Ticks down until you drink/enter water. - Player will die or some other feedback enhanced badness after so many seconds of dehydration.
[ ] NOT DONE
Exposure - Ticks down when exposed to sunlight - Slowed or reversed slightly by eating or drinking. - Reset after so many seconds in the shade or after dark. - Player will slowly go blind before dying of over exposure.
[ ] NOT DONE
The idea is that these new mechanics will promote exploration beyond mere treasure hunting or dungeon diving, and give players a sense that the world itself is alive and potentially fatal. Just staying alive can be a fight against the world, and beating the game means beating the world. How's that for epic win? This will also make players think or plan more carefully before entering potentially large caves/dungeons.
Scattered about the landscape will be oasis zones (varying in size and style) with plenty of life sustaining resources. Their proximity to caves and dungeons will be tweaked based on feedback, as well as respawn rate of food items. The timers will start fairly slow, I don't want to anybody to rage-quit if they simply cannot find or reach a timer-reset item or area -- within reason.
Once this new scripting is in place, I will switch gears to art once again and build a library of dungeon and cave set pieces that I can quickly snap together in much the same way as such elements in Elder Scrolls Oblivion were handled. I was hesitant of this approach at first because it does lean on the side of lazy, but with the limited time I have to create, I feel extreme focus on a few elements is better than sparse focus on many elements. Given time, the nature of this construction method lends itself well to quick swapping of art for area uniquification.
I've regressed back to a stock build to implement the new timers, and to slowly add in the 3DAAK elements bit-by-bit in an effort to find a nice sweet spot for AI purposes. Once the basics are back in, and aiming works, I will release an alpha build to the public and start taking feedback. I really-really hope this can happen for month 5 or 6!
Absolutely nothing that I can show visually at this time. Not home to work but one weekend this month, sorry! Re-factoring of basic gameplay mechanics to include following timers:
Hunger - Ticks down until you feed. - Player becomes super weak sauce on starvation (basically health drops to 1hp so you die in one hit or misstep)
[X] DONE + Working Food Items! Yeah!
Thirst - Ticks down until you drink/enter water. - Player will die or some other feedback enhanced badness after so many seconds of dehydration.
[ ] NOT DONE
Exposure - Ticks down when exposed to sunlight - Slowed or reversed slightly by eating or drinking. - Reset after so many seconds in the shade or after dark. - Player will slowly go blind before dying of over exposure.
[ ] NOT DONE
The idea is that these new mechanics will promote exploration beyond mere treasure hunting or dungeon diving, and give players a sense that the world itself is alive and potentially fatal. Just staying alive can be a fight against the world, and beating the game means beating the world. How's that for epic win? This will also make players think or plan more carefully before entering potentially large caves/dungeons.
Scattered about the landscape will be oasis zones (varying in size and style) with plenty of life sustaining resources. Their proximity to caves and dungeons will be tweaked based on feedback, as well as respawn rate of food items. The timers will start fairly slow, I don't want to anybody to rage-quit if they simply cannot find or reach a timer-reset item or area -- within reason.
Once this new scripting is in place, I will switch gears to art once again and build a library of dungeon and cave set pieces that I can quickly snap together in much the same way as such elements in Elder Scrolls Oblivion were handled. I was hesitant of this approach at first because it does lean on the side of lazy, but with the limited time I have to create, I feel extreme focus on a few elements is better than sparse focus on many elements. Given time, the nature of this construction method lends itself well to quick swapping of art for area uniquification.
I've regressed back to a stock build to implement the new timers, and to slowly add in the 3DAAK elements bit-by-bit in an effort to find a nice sweet spot for AI purposes. Once the basics are back in, and aiming works, I will release an alpha build to the public and start taking feedback. I really-really hope this can happen for month 5 or 6!
About the author
Cinematic Designer at Trion, currently working on the MMO side of Defiance.
Recent Blogs
• [One 12] Month 8• [One 12] Month 6
• [One 12] Month 5
• [One 12] Month 3
• [One 12] Month 2
Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
This has been my plan from day one. Certain areas will be unique caverns or buildings, but for the most part they'll be made of modular pieces and dressed up to make them feel more individual. Since my game is intended to be a single and multi-player first person RPG this should not be real bad anyway. I see it as a better use of production time.