Plan for Gareth Fouche
by Gareth Fouche · 04/05/2005 (5:11 am) · 5 comments
Woot! My first .plan
Anyway... after some brainstorming on a game design, and after regretfully dropping my first design (frustrating after having sunk some time into it, but better now than after spending months coding), I have come up with another concept, for a strategy game this time. A bit different from your standard C&C/Warcraft RTS, but definately stategy. (And no, the difference doesn't come from splicing in aspects of another genre ;-) )
With this in mind, I picked up the RTS kit yesterday, installed it last night and played around. And I must say, I'm impressed. The code is well organised, very well documented, and easy to work with. In short order I was able to modify things a bit. Not only that though, the code is elegant. The design is just well thought out. The kit doesn't just provide code, but a good lesson on the right way to go about altering TGE to solve various types of problems. Its like in a Kung Fu movie, where the wizened old martial art masters know just where to apply force to achieve the best effect. Nicely done, everyone involved.
Ok, enough gushing.
The most exiting part (for me), is that as it stands I can get a quick and dirty prototype up, and test whether the idea is actually as fun as it seems in my minds eye. I don't need to implement any major new systems. Of course in the future, things like path finding etc will need to be created, but right now I can test gameplay with out of the box functionality.
One of the great benifits of TGE is how quickly you can use it prototype your idea by just modifying the script, in the past (coding a game from scratch) I would never have bothered to prototype as it just seemed like such a lot of effort for code you'd throw away.
Blah, 4 more hours and I can go home and work on this.... hopefully I'll have some progress to report back on in the near future...
Anyway... after some brainstorming on a game design, and after regretfully dropping my first design (frustrating after having sunk some time into it, but better now than after spending months coding), I have come up with another concept, for a strategy game this time. A bit different from your standard C&C/Warcraft RTS, but definately stategy. (And no, the difference doesn't come from splicing in aspects of another genre ;-) )
With this in mind, I picked up the RTS kit yesterday, installed it last night and played around. And I must say, I'm impressed. The code is well organised, very well documented, and easy to work with. In short order I was able to modify things a bit. Not only that though, the code is elegant. The design is just well thought out. The kit doesn't just provide code, but a good lesson on the right way to go about altering TGE to solve various types of problems. Its like in a Kung Fu movie, where the wizened old martial art masters know just where to apply force to achieve the best effect. Nicely done, everyone involved.
Ok, enough gushing.
The most exiting part (for me), is that as it stands I can get a quick and dirty prototype up, and test whether the idea is actually as fun as it seems in my minds eye. I don't need to implement any major new systems. Of course in the future, things like path finding etc will need to be created, but right now I can test gameplay with out of the box functionality.
One of the great benifits of TGE is how quickly you can use it prototype your idea by just modifying the script, in the past (coding a game from scratch) I would never have bothered to prototype as it just seemed like such a lot of effort for code you'd throw away.
Blah, 4 more hours and I can go home and work on this.... hopefully I'll have some progress to report back on in the near future...
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#2
I see you're another SA'er, high five!
Its about Nazis, and world war 2..... nah, kidding ;-)
Actually, in terms of theme, it does draw a bit from another over done genre, ie fantasy. I'm a big fantasy/magic fan, unsurprisingly my game involves wizards, and magic (although I haven't put to much thought into thematic aspects yet, trying to limit myself to how the gameplay will work at this moment). As to the actual game stategy mechanic, I'll write up an actual .plan and post it, for people to (ulp!) critique.
04/05/2005 (6:38 am)
Thanks man. I see you're another SA'er, high five!
Its about Nazis, and world war 2..... nah, kidding ;-)
Actually, in terms of theme, it does draw a bit from another over done genre, ie fantasy. I'm a big fantasy/magic fan, unsurprisingly my game involves wizards, and magic (although I haven't put to much thought into thematic aspects yet, trying to limit myself to how the gameplay will work at this moment). As to the actual game stategy mechanic, I'll write up an actual .plan and post it, for people to (ulp!) critique.
#3
04/05/2005 (11:38 am)
Can't wait to hear more... there's a lot of room for improvement in the RTS genre IMO, which is unfortunately saddled by overpopulation. 
#4
04/05/2005 (11:39 am)
Heh, doesn't really matter if it's overdone...as said in another thread i read a few days ago, it's all about how you implement it. Kudos!
#5
04/05/2005 (12:34 pm)
I agree! Give it a shot. Like I said, there's lots of room for improvement in the genre, go for it! 
Torque Owner James Laker (BurNinG)