[Mattias Gustavsson]

Somehow, I managed to get caught up in various tech-projects over the last few months, instead of actually working on any games. In fact, I haven't really worked on a game since "The Strangler", though there's been a couple of "false starts".

So now I'm getting stuck in again, and thought I'd use this thread to post about my progress, and to remind me to stay on track :P

I have only a vague idea of what I'm going to do at the moment - I'm thinking a traditional fantasy rpg, with a party of four characters (I'm thinking Fighter, Wizard, Thief and either Cleric or Ranger). The key thing for me on this one is to keep things simple, and focus on completing it - and not to get lost in various tech-related side-tracks.

So, that's a quick statement of intent. I'll keep you guys posted :-)
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www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

Thought you'd been a bit quiet of late. :)

I've been doing a lot of engine-work since releasing Frayed Knights 1. Things have been going a little slowly due to crunch in the day-job (well, mostly because of that). Hope to have some things wrapped up and humming along by July with that though, so I can get to porting more of the original code & doing actual game-stuff. But I feel the same call... been squirreling around too long with tech and feel the need to work on an actual *game* again.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Yeah, it is so easy to get side-tracked by non-game stuff. I think in part it is because you can tell yourself that you're still working on the game when doing the tech. And before you know it, months have gone by :P

For this game, I'll be using Poser for the graphics as usual - but I'll try to keep it fairly simple, and aim for a bit more content instead. I'm currently thinking of doing it in the same style (visually, it will have totally different controls) as the "Dwarven Commando" I started on but never finished (but a bit more zoomed out):


I've started making one of the player characters - mostly to have something hands on to work with (and to "set the tone" for myself) while I get on with the design and initial planning. I'll post a picture of it when it's a bit further along.

But mainly, I am trying to come up with the fundamental design, defining what aspects are important for this game and which ones doesn't matter.

I must say, in this phase of "ideation" and design, one of the best resources I've found is Jay's blog - it's full of great information, but even better than that, it helps me coming up with the right questions - and that's invaluable!
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

So, here's some first shots of one of the four player characters - the cleric. Obviously nothing is final yet, but I'm happy with it so far.



The idea is to try and make something in a style similar to old Dungeons & Dragons. Especially the art of Larry Elmore serves as a great source of inspiration. Not that I'm anywhere near that level of art, obviously, but one can still try - even with limited ability and the limitations of Poser :D
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Nodtveidt]

She looks a bit like a friend of mine...


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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Ha ha, yeah, I can see the resemblence! Is she a cleric too? :-)
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Nodtveidt]

She's a nude model, is that close enough? lol
_________________
If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[Verious]

I look forward to hearing more about the new game.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I've just started designing the combat system - but I am very much a noob when it comes to design. My aim right now is to make a prototype of combat and levelling up, to see if I can get it to be fun. The two main concepts for this game is combat and exploration, so it is essential that both are fun.

My initial idea is to have some sort of real-time combats, but have them flow at quite a slow pace (so they end up a bit closer to turn-based). Perhaps even allow the player to pause during combat and queue up actions (a bit like Baldur's gate maybe).

I came across a great article about how to construct game systems, so I will try to use some of the techniques it describes:
http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/11/12/the-craft-of-game-systems-part-1/
http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/11/29/the-craft-of-game-systems-part-2/
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I started some actual coding for this yesterday, and spent most of the day implementing basic walk-around and selection. Today, I'll see if I can get some enemies in there. Hoping to have a basic combat prototype later in the week :D
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Here's the second of the player characters, the Fighter:



_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Things was going fairly well, but then my laptop packed it in :( Luckily, I have an online backup service, so didn't lose any data (well, one file, but I can live with that), but I am now restoring the backed up data to my desktop computer, as well as installing dev tools :P I hate it when things like this happen just when you start picking up momentum...

Anyway, before this mishap, I managed to get enemies spawning, moving towards players and start attacking when close enough. Hitpoints and endurance status bars for both player characters and enemies, and a sims-style pie-menu for interacting with objects/enemies. Next step is combat resolution, calculating hitpoints and attack rates and such. Once I get my gear set up, that is.
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

Reminds me that I need to finish setting up my source-control for my latest...
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Yeah, better get on that before it is too late :P

I'm almost back to where I was - everything installed, back-up files restored and good to go. Looking forward to get back to do the combat prototype.

In the meantime, I've been making some variation on the Cleric character portrait - I want to be able to show different emotional states in dialogues. The expressions might look a bit exaggerated, but in the actual game, the portrait will be smaller, and the screen busy, so trying to go for clarity rather than realism.


_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

I have learned from sad experience and other industry veterans that subtle doesn't work too well in videogames.

Glad you are almost back to where you were.

I finally set up an off-site source control for my latest project, which gives me a little bit of peace of mind. It's advanced far enough (after numerous failed experiments) that I can declare it the technology I'm going with for FK2, FK3, and another unannounced project.

But there's still a lot of up-front tool work I'm doing. I learned a lot of lessons on FK, and one of those was how slow content creation can go with insufficient tools.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz