So that's a bummer. At least I can use my phone and tether my data-plan to my computer so my daily routine isn't disrupted TOO much. That basically leaves me with more time to work on my project and play Pillars of Eternity.
The sad part of this is I was just made aware of "Freedom Planet" and I want to play this SO badly right now. Freedom Planet is a Sega-Genesis-style 2D platformer so it takes a lot from Sonic the Hedgehog and Rocket Knight... therefore it is immediately amazing.
I guess I'll have to wait... oh well.
With that said, I've been working on world building for my game. If you read my previous post(s), I mention that I had an average of 550 areas generated on the overworld map. I took that up a notch by a couple of thousands (with an estimated average of 2200 areas); here are the results:
I'm still not sure if I want to incorporate an in-game map but it's definitely needed for testing purposes; right now I'm building it as an official feature. The purple dots are large cities.
In theory, a player could travel the entire world but, as of this writing, everything generated is stored in RAM. Something tells me I'll need to save the world on disc fairly soon. None of us has dared travel to all of the areas of a given world yet. Just one area takes a while on foot.
I just recently startet playing abit of TES II Daggerfall and for some reason this reminds me alot of it.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I have no idea of programming, and your Project and Daggerfall have probably very little in common but the whole idea of a Huge Map randomly generated with big Cities and Areas to explore just made me think of Daggerfall for some reason.
I'm really looking forward for more Updates on your Game in the future.
One Question do you allready have any plans on Completion-dates or do you approach this with the attitude 'it's done when it's done' ;)
I'd say that my project has a lot in common with Daggerfall; the biggest difference is that I'm building it as a Rogue-like.
DeleteIt's already been over a full year since I started working on the game in a tangible way and we've made a lot of progress. Despite that, we only got the basic infrastructure working:
- Build a world.
- Connect with other players.
- Let the player(s) run around.
I'd like to think that it'll take yet another year to get most of the (important) features in a working state, then there's testing & reiteration, character animation (done by me also), audio recording, Q&A and optimization.
With any luck, it'll be finished by 2018 :P
The question, however, was whenever or not I work with a specific date/year in mind; the answer to that is "no". What's interesting is that whenever we talk about doing something in particular for the game, I do projections based on our performance.
- How much work does that entail and how long would it take?
- How much more work is there left to do for more important elements?
- How is the workload divided between the team?
- Is it something we'd like to have in the game for when we go to GDC?
- Is it something that could potentially derail/change the production/game?
- How early do we need to start implementing it for it to be worth it?
So, I'm all for the "when it's done" mindset but I always put clear goals for the team and myself. Two months from now, this or that should be in. Focus on those features. To get those features working, what can be done in a month? Whatever that is, can I break it down further by expecting something to be done by the end of the week?
Etc.
Consider it's my project and my team is composed of good friends who are genuinely interested in working on it, I tend to plans things in such a way that gives them more leeway. It's a pacing that works well in our favour because it doesn't make sense for them to produce art faster than I can implement them.
If we don't complete certain things on a certain date, then the next projections are based on the idea that it's took X amount more time to accomplish things. You could say that the release date could get pushed further and further away as we continue to work on the game but we've actually been gaining a lot of momentum.
At the end of the day, though, it's all funded by me so there's no producer breathing down my neck. I don't really care about deadlines except that it helps set a good pacing for production.
I'm loving how well this is coming on Gix - and yes, this does look a lot like Daggerfall. This was perhaps a weird thing to pick up on, but it's something I've never really thought about before: you mentioned that it was all funded by you, but does this project require a lot of funding, or is it mainly just basic internet pricing you have to worry about? And do you think when it's done you'll get much, if any, profit from the game? I know it's not about the money, but I'm just a little curious. Anyway, keep up the good work and updates :-)
DeleteWe're one of those "home garage" style dev team (you know: low budget, hanging out with friends and doing cool things together, etc) but, thinking long term, everybody expects to be paid for their work.
DeleteI don't want to go into the details but this kind of thing does require a lot of money; you're essentially paying for people's salaries.
As for my own monetary profit, that's only if I deliver a successful game. The pressure isn't entirely on my shoulders, however. If I succeed, so does everybody else on the team. Everyone involved is working to make a game they'll enjoy playing. If it's a flop, hopefully I'll earn enough to cover the costs of making the game.
Worst case scenario is that I run out of money to pay my team and I end up doing everything by myself... which I can. So, from a business side, there's no huge risk involved.
Thanks for the update Gix, I'm glad to see that the game is coming along well. I can't wait to see how some of the zones and cities look like, i have a feeling they will be highly inspired by Oblivion and TES franchise in general :P
ReplyDeleteAlso, i hope you are enjoying Pillars of Eternity, it's a fantastic piece of art,
Regards
Empyrean.
If you're familiar with the Diablo series, the cities in my game will most likely resemble Westmarch's clusterphobic European style... at least until we get to a point where we can spend more time designing different culture styles.
DeleteVillages, on the other hand, are definitely inspired by TES in terms of scope, functionality and layout.
I'm not a huge fan of managing multiple characters in combat but I'm still having a great time playing Pillars of Eternity.
Hi Gix this is really interesting, I'm glad to see progress is being made. Do have another update? I would love to know how the game has been coming along in the last 5 months.
ReplyDeleteAlso I have a few questions; how is your time management? Are there certain aspects which require you to focus more time on than others? What part is most exciting to you? Are there some things which are more tedious then fun?
I can't wait to play it one day, good luck :D.
Thanks,
Mo
I'll be writing another update relatively soon.
DeleteUsually, I spend my time doing one of three things: Thinking, implementing and testing.
When I'm not in front of the computer, I take the time to think about different aspects of the game. I primarily focus on breaking down the next thing I'll implement in the game (and plan out the structure of the logic) but I also spend a lot of time trying to figure out foreseable challenges/roadblocks.
Brainstorming ideas on how I can accomplish what I want out of the dialogue system through the user interface, for example. Doing the math or logic for things like AI is one thing, allowing players an easy-to-use way of interacting these systems is another.
So when I'm actually in front of my computer is when I mash the keyboard to write some code. What's been on the menu recently is reworking shaders, voxel geometry and multi-player functions. Testing and optimization is a given at this stage too.
Structuring the game code in such a way that it'll do what I want in a multi-player environment is definitely not an easy task and it's probably the main element that requires a lot of my time and focus to get it right.
The most exciting thing is seeing it all work... even if some aspects don't work as planned. However, if I had to pick one aspect of ACTUAL development as being the most exciting, I'd say the thinking process is the most appealing to me.
- Coming up with new abilities and figuring out how they'd work with the control scheme and the rest of the combat math.
- Thinking about how a certain thing would affect the overall experience of the game. How much of an impact does a minimap have on the game? Could players still have fun if they're hated by every NPC? What should happen to the player if he drank an explosive potion? Etc...
- Playing around with the colors and lighting to evoke different visual tones in the environment.
- Picking and choosing a particular visual design (of a spider, for example) from various different concepts.
Because a lot of different bits of code is interacting with each other, finding the cause of one glitch is a complete nightmare. I knew that was going to happen throughout the project's development especially since there are a lot of elements in my game that isn't pre-determined. I have to write code expecting the unexpected. Finding a needle in a haystack is never really fun.