Developer’s Journal

It’s been more then a year since my last update.  I have been working full-time as a software engineer.  I spent about 6 months as a tech lead at a company that creates 3D simulations.  The commute was a bit too much, so I switched to a job closer to home.  I now work on network simulations.

I finally have some free time, so I decided to start working on a new game.  I have been looking forward to working on a sequel to my RTS for a while now.  I have a lot of ideas that I want to try-out.  For the past few weeks, I have mostly been writing my design ideas onto a notepad.  I have a pretty solid idea for the game, so I am now working on the code.

I want to keep the project simple due to my limited time.  Most of my coding will have to take place during the weekend.  Therefore, I will use most of the assets from my RPG for the initial prototype.  I am using the Birth of Shadows game engine as the starting point.  I can merge some of the RTS code from my first game.

Of course, it won’t be quite as simple as just merging the code between two games to create a new one.  Some of the RPG design just doesn’t mesh with an RTS.  For example, the “agro” code of my RPG will not work for an RTS, due to the much larger number of mobile entities.  Right now, I am trying to copy large portions of the RTS code to the RPG engine.  Then, I can start doing the “finer” coding, where I will go through the code and merge it.

It’s tough work, because I have to remember what each component of the game is supposed to do… and it has been quite a while since I even looked at my code.  I’m hoping to get a relatively bug-free prototype done before September.  If my RTS prototype is as fun to play as I hope, then I will focus on making it a real game.  I’ll invest some money in new art assets, improve the graphics yet again, and try to complete the game by the end of next year.

But, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.  For now, I am just happy to be working on a new game

I just want to give a quick update for the release.  The content is close to finished.  It’s either in game or on paper at this point.  I am trying to complete it this weekend so testing can begin on the final content.  The rest of the game has already been thoroughly tested.  I should be able to meet the current release goal.  I’ll try to post more info when I’m not so exhausted.

The 2008 IGF entries were revealed today.  As expected, there are many interesting games on the list.  It was another record year; 173 games have been entered into the competition.  Good luck to all of the indie game developers!

I recently finished the initial combat design for my new game.  I set out to address a few issues that I have with RPG games.  I typically play MMORPGs in my spare time.  While my current project is not an MMO, it does share some similarities with the genre.  A few things have always bothered me in the games I play.

 First, there are so many abilities.  While I like having options, it is pretty crazy to expect players to keep track of 40+ abilities.  The vast number of hotkeys clutters the screen and delays reaction time while you navigate the cursor around the screen.  If the game has video lag, it just adds to the problem.  I have a pretty simple, but effective solution to the problem.  I don’t want to reveal it right now, but I’ll provide some details when the game is close to beta.

Second, there is often too much downtime in MMOs.  This issue isn’t as bad as it was in the past.  I still remember the days when you might have to sit on the ground for a few minutes while you regained enough mana to fight.  I also think that the tried and true method of limiting combat can be replaced by more interesting mechanics.  My combat design has very little downtime, but still accomplishes the goals of mana, energy, power, stamina, etc. that most games employ.  Again, I will reveal my solution a bit later during the development process.

Third, most enemies are pretty similar.  Yah, they might look different, and perhaps they have some different abilities, but they often don’t offer the player a different challenge.  I have designed my creatures with a few specific rules.  I want each one to have at least 1 buff for itself, 1 debuff for the player, 1 average attack , 1 high power attack, and most importantly, a creature-defining ability.  For example, I have a blob creature in my game that varies in elemental type (i.e. cold damage, heat damage, etc.).  When this creature dies, it explodes, creating a point-blank area effect that damages all players within range.  This forces players to treat blobs differently than other creatures.  There will be a few solutions to avoid the massive damage.

My next step is to revamp the interface.  I need to display relevant information for the new combat design.  In addition, I need to create a new formula for various combat mechanics that takes many factors into account.  I want my combat design to be mostly self-balancing, easy to modify, and flexible enough to quickly add new creatures.  I have some of the work done from my efforts a few months ago.  However, I need to take it further now that my combat has been refined.

Of course, I’ve been up to a lot more than just the new combat design.  In fact, I really only pushed for its completion this past week.  I finished an update for Pursuit of Power around mid January.  I also made many big improvements to the display code of the current project.  My mobs (mobile entities) now travel seamlessly between tiles and the screen will scroll with the player’s movements.  Everything is rendered in proper order when located between tiles.  The scrolling is no longer locked to tiles and will move even by 1 pixel at a time if desired.

The project is coming along very well.  I expect to begin releasing information each week starting this April.  I hope to have the new web site done by that time.  I am definitely excited about the potential of my next game

I have been working hard on creating the new display design.  I want my next game to be much more immersive.  To that end, I decided on the major changes needed to improve the visuals.

I just finished improving the terrain blending.  It is much smoother now and the edges are more crisp.  I accomplished this goal through many tweaks, including a change to the way I generate my blend textures.  This improvement was especially important since I increased the size of the terrain by 50 percent.  I want to show a lot more detail this time.  I also want a lot more variety.

In order to allow for greater variety, I am adding a new scenery layer that is walk-able.  This layer will contain things like flowers and other subtle details.  The pieces will be scattered around the terrain and should create a much more immersive experience.

The scenery that can not be traversed (e.g. trees) will be increased in size.  I want the player to feel more connected with the environment.  I don’t think this is possible if the player is the same size as the trees.  It works fine with RTS games, but not with an RPG.

I’m also modifying my code to allow for depth that is not tied to each tile.  In other words, I want mobile entities and projectiles to be rendered in proper order while moving between tiles.  Otherwise, the objects will look very strange while moving between them.  This is very important since I am adding movement animations for all mobile entities.

Finally, I am adding a particle effects class.  The combat effects will be done using this new class.  I want the effects to be more dynamic, possibly affected by the relative strength of abilities during combat.  For example, a really powerful ability might have a greater number of particles to signify its strength.  Having a particle trail for the projectiles would be cool too.

I have many more improvements planned, but those are the major ones.  I really want the game to feel polished, so the display design is a priority.  Improving the terrain blending was a major step in the right direction.  It is basically the foundation for the display.  I wasn’t sure if I could meet my goals without making a lot of changes to the code.  It was a relief to finally get it looking as intended.

Now, I’ll try to ride the motivation and get Drew the first test release so she can start adding the new art

I have slightly altered my timeline for the first milestone.  I decided to work a bit more on the game design and lore ahead of time.  I even have the first version of the intro story completed.  The story will be given at the start of a new campaign game and integrate with the tutorial.  Oh, I have the title picked as well, but I’m not going to release that info for now.  I plan to begin providing significant information sometime during 1st quarter 2007.  This will coincide with the launch of my new web site design.

As for the game engine, I have made significant progress with the new network code.  It is more involved than Pursuit of Power since I need to sync up more data.  In particular, I have spent a lot of time working on the projectiles that represent abilities.  It is important to make sure that the projectiles sync up to the hits and health changes.  I also needed a better design for defeating lag with player abilities.  I came up with a nice design that should make the game feel very responsive on the client side.  I could actually go on forever about these new challenges with the network code, but you get the point.

I have redesigned my abilities too.  PoP had only 3 leader abilities.  Other units only had 1 each and they were basically either melee or (ranged) cast.  I went with a vastly different approach for my new game.  Not only are there many more abilities, with many different effects, but the new design allows for combinations of effects per ability.  For instance, an enemy could use an abilty that does fire damage and snares you too.  A cleric-type mob might cast a spell that does AE damage and heals allies in the area.  I want to produce interesting combinations that keep the combat feeling fresh.

Boss mobs will have even more unique abilities.  I have some of these ideas implemented while others are still in the design phase.  I want these powerful mobs to provide a fun challenge.  Moreover, I want combat in general to be both fun and challenging.  I plan to start gameplay testing very early to make sure I stay true to those goals.

Drew has started designing the new artwork for the game.  We are going to work much harder on creating a unique style for the game.  I want it to be a bit “dark” and as immersive as possible.  Part of the plan is to have the look of the entire game determined before major work begins on the art.  This will help ensure the artwork remains consistent.  I’m also investing 3-4 time as much money into the art for this game.  I will get custom sound effects this time as well.  I want to make sure the sound effects are varied and never become grating.

In addition, I am setting aside much more time to work on the “level design”, quests, and lore.  I want the game to have a lot of depth.  It should feel very polished too.  As you can see, I have really high expectations for my next game.

It feels like an eternity since I last posted on my blog.  I have been keeping very busy.  For starters, I did decide to upgrade the host to a virtual server around mid-August.  This is the reason I have a fancier blog (Wordpress) and better forums (phpBB2).  It also allows me to setup various FTP accounts, which makes it easier to get the full verson out to reviewers and test versions out to … well, the testers.  Anyway, it was a pain to setup as I didn’t know 2003 Server, but I survived and figured it out.

After Pursuit of Power was released, I immediately started working on new game ideas.  I wrote down a ton of ideas on paper.  I took a break for a few days to get the final PoP update out.  It basically streamlined the tutorial/campaign and improved the music transitions.  I managed to get it to the IGF competition as well.

Soon after, I was back to pounding my head against the wall as I tried to settle on my next game.  It took a surprisingly long time to complete this process.  I even started working on the C++ project before I was done with the idea, because I just wanted to feel like I was making some progress.  I finally came to the conclusion that I should just stick with making a game that I want to play.  This might seem obvious, but I also considered working on a game that I could sell the best, regardless of whether or not I wanted to play it.  I’m not sure how that would work out since I feel like motivation is just a huge factor when making a game.

Ok, so I am now working on a game that is sort of a combination of a few.  In general, it is an RPG/action game.  The main game mechanics are based on the leader abilities from my game Pursuit of Power.  Some of the abilities are inspired by my time spent playing EverQuest (Sony Online Entertainment).  The environment is inspired by my time playing Diablo (Blizzard).  I am giving Drew (main artist of Pursuit of Power) much more artistic freedom for this game so it will have her personal style, which is truely captivating.

The game will focus around my main character from EQ, a Shadow Knight named Uthal.  I have always wanted to create my own lore for my character.  The combat mechanics are going to have a mixture of skill and tactics.  The skill part comes from splitting mobs (mobile enemies) and accurately targetting them during combat (closer means more damage).  The tactics part comes from using the proper abilities depending on the situation and mob type.  I don’t want to get into too many details yet, but it is pretty cool.  I have the player abilities completed and many of the enemy ones.  You will also collect items that help in combat as well as obtain ability upgrades.  The campaign game will be quest-driven.  There will also be a skirmish game for solo play and multiplayer over network (6-8 players … not sure yet).

I just set my first milestone date for the prototype, which is November 17th.  I should have most of the functionality complete by this time.  I will get very early feedback for this game, which is something I didn’t do for PoP.  The content (quests, lore, art, sound, etc.) and engine enhancements (mechanics, network, UI, etc.) will start in January 2007.  Expect the game to be ready for sale sometime during November 2007.

I’m going to try to keep this blog updated now that I have really gotten started with my next game.  I am shooting for the stars with this one, so it should be interesting