Making LÖVE together!

[Taehl]

1) we divide the world into squares, each square can be either made/modified by artist or generated
2) cities and small area around them (say 2-5 squares each side) would be made/modified by artist
3) rest of space would be given as map, with roads, rivers, bridges, geographical data marked in some simple manner (one bit for water, one for road/bridge, and 6 for height map? Height can determine type of fauna and flora, and which parts are accessible and which not - for example more than one in difference in height makes it inaccessible. - don't know and actually I shouldn't decide about this, as I don't know too much about this. This is just technical detail, from point of view of gameplay design I don't care )
4) the space would be populated along the set rules from map and modifications from artist, it should be made always with same seed I think, otherwise we couldn't integrate artist-made parts with generated parts unless we use something advanced to constrain generated maps to fit well with artist made blocks - but that's as you said harder.
5) from gameplay perspective we give ability to fast-travel by roads from end of artist generated maps, with random fights if ambushed, but travel by foot should also be possible, and desired as not all locations would be connected by fast-travel-system
6) we should give chance for the city to grow, people should be able to do mods that occupy some unoccupied squares.

This seems more complicated than necessary to me... As an alternate proposal:

1) There are two "layers": The procedural layer and the handmade layer.
2) The procedural layer always gets the same seed. Using this, it generates a large natural landscape (that is, it's all forests, plains, deserts, coasts, and other non-man-made stuff).
3) The handmade layer is for man-made stuff (buildings, cities, roads). It can also have handmade natural elements (gardens, meadows, or what have you). It would contain large areas of empty space.
4) Everything on the handmade layer always replaces the content of the procedural layer. Empty space on the handmade layer lets the procedural layer show through. This overlaying creates the final game world.

Or, alternately, the procedural layer could also generate empty cities and roads between them, and the handmade layer just customizes them.

[giniu]

This seems more complicated than necessary to me... As an alternate proposal:

1) There are two "layers": The procedural layer and the handmade layer.
2) The procedural layer always gets the same seed. Using this, it generates a large natural landscape (that is, it's all forests, plains, deserts, coasts, and other non-man-made stuff).
3) The handmade layer is for man-made stuff (buildings, cities, roads). It can also have handmade natural elements (gardens, meadows, or what have you). It would contain large areas of empty space.
4) Everything on the handmade layer always replaces the content of the procedural layer. Empty space on the handmade layer lets the procedural layer show through. This overlaying creates the final game world.

But then you need some way to input constraints to the world generating routines (like with map of data from points 3/4), if scenario decides that around some city is dense forest or surrounded by high mountains, or that it lies by the river, it would all have to be made by hand, and we can end up in making whole world by hand. If we use bitmap map that would have some generic terrain types in it, designer could paint green (or paint with forest bit) around city to make it be generated using dense forest rules, etc. Also painting rivers could add to world as whole, at least trough which squares it goes and where it cuts with roads. Sometimes designers might want to give the land given generic shape, but don't care about where each plant grows. Other than that (point 3/4), this is quite similar thing, just in steps 1/2 I have like 2 layers, but working on whole squares, I'd say represented by 1 pixel on the map from which the stuff is generated, pints 5/6 are just about gameplay and can apply to any way we generate stuff. But this again are technical details

Or, alternately, the procedural layer could also generate empty cities and roads between them, and the handmade layer just customizes them.

rather not, I think cities and small area around them should be made by hand, if something should be generated then at most wilderness further away from cities - again, if we would generate the world

[giniu]

We have lots of votes already, next question about emotions we want to trigger in player, is on the way

Also, there was some talk about license off-board, would anyone have anything against http://love2d.org/wiki/index.php?title=LPCL? I think that this project should be owned by community, and love community should be even put as it's author (we do voting, everyone can decide about it) - though all that work directly on it would be listed as contributors. How about it?

[giniu]

Well, I didn't doubleposted but even trippleposted. Anyway for this question the result is: exploration, story, NPC interactions... - please don't vote for the old poll up here any more, results are already counted and next questions that assume given answers are on the way

The voting is over, you can vote for next question here: http://poll.fm/1kdlu. The issue is that Napco is busy with exams as he told me and we are already week behind the schedule, so I decided to post next question already - and because only he can change poll here as topic starter, I posted the question somewhere else - PollDaddy looked quite good and supported multiple selections so I posted it there. This question - about emotions can be considered meta-question, it doesn't fit only story, but brings some information to all gameplay elements and more. I'm curious to see the results of this one Oh, and there is chance I will post another question before we finish with that one, to speed things up!





I'm closing poll about emotions soon, currently surprise, rejection and hope (pride have equal votes but we have to pick something that fits better if there is more than 3 options) are leading. If you don't like that, vote now! The link is http://poll.fm/1kdlu as mentioned above. There are already 2 questions ready - one about exploration and one about story. In exploration question we will bring up discussion about view that was here before, in question about story we will gather some world background details. Stay tunes, next time I will post both polls at once.

[xnellex]

Hello? Is anybody here? Except for Giniu We haven't settled everything yet, if we could proceed that would be great. There are still some things we have to ask about, to start working on game's focus and design document. If we finished, at least, the game focus, we might start to work on the next part of the project.

[giniu]

Well, people are coming here now and then, but they still vote for old poll that was announced to be closed on 2'nd Feb, already few days after it should be closed. Unfortunately because of Napco's exams we cannot do a thing about it - that's why I posted new poll outside of this forum, at http://poll.fm/1kdlu - but only 11 people voted there. I will wait 18 hours and then I will close it and post 2 new ones, I hope people will stop putting votes to old one - some of us already spent many hours on preparing possible scenarios assuming that what won was what I announced few days ago so as I wrote earlier I'm not in mood of going back and redoing work that is done already.

On the second hand - what the hell, there are aforementioned 2 questions: Please vote at http://poll.fm/1l09s (Story question: How is magic integrated into setting?) and http://poll.fm/1l2mk (Exploration question: What view will be used for World-Map travel, location exploration and fights?). This doesn't change that I will be closing the http://poll.fm/1kdlu poll (Meta question: What emotions do you expect to be triggered in you or your hero, while or after playing RPG in Steampunk setting (pick 3)?) in 18 hours - I believe that those 13 people that care about it found out that I was announcing poll closure for 5 days now so their opinion is more important than opinion of those who don't care to read at least the bold text - I already set up poll close date and hour in poll settings to get the time right.

edit:

OK, the emotions poll is closed. We wanted to pick 3 from the list, so surprise (7/11) and rejection (5/11) goes in. Because pride and hope have equal vote numbers, it was decided that we pick it, and home (4/11) was chosen, as one that is tied to generating motivation for players. There were no new votes on emotions poll for some time, that's why I decided we will close those two polls on Wednesday or Thursday and post new ones. We need to speed things up, we have few questions left that set our design goals and having design goals we can prepare focus. After focus is done and accepted by majority of votes, we will prepare prototyping timeline, project page with git repository and start of documentation already in it, wiki and some other stuff that is mostly ready but not published until we finish setting design goals. Expect 3-5 more questions, 2 about exploration and one about story with around 5 proposed main story lines (this have to wait for world background question that is on right now)

[giniu]

And the winners of current polls are:

Separate detailed tactical view for fights, consistent view for travel and exploration, parts of world randomly generated.

and

Full fusion of magic with technology, magic described in technology terms or other way around.

That's actually a lot of informations already we have here! But - 2 new polls are ready already. This time we will decide on visuals - first, large 2D world with parts of it generated, disqualifies perspective projection - but there are still lots of options - see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... arison.png and decide here: http://poll.fm/1lfzy. Second, we didn't set anything about stylistics of graphics, we can go either realistic or different kind of comic style, decide here: http://poll.fm/1lgbr. Answers to those should give us concept of visuals and would let design gameplay and story that goes well with it.

Those questions will be on for few days, we will be closing those polls on Sunday, and for Sunday one final question is planned - with propositions of main plot. There is small chance that answers to two last polls will result in some new questions, but don't worry, we are pretty close to finish of setting design goals!

[giniu]

Again 3 posts in a row, but it's time to close another polls so decided to announce it - here it goes...

I closed polls with 8 votes for each question, now wait few hours for new poll to appear. To adjust story beginnings that will be presented soon we need to know final answers to those two, that's why the wait. Anyway, the projection you chosen is well known in gaming world trimetric projection from titles like Fallout or SimCity 4 (4/8 votes), also Eastern flavoured Realistic Comics style graphics was picked (4/8 votes) - to those who voted for "realistic" - it was close match, but today new vote appeared - if not that it would be very hard decision. Keep in mind that some eastern comics can be pretty realistic, like Chinese Tin Ha series (for example http://www.spcnet.tv/tinha/thcover.php) - from experience I know that some don't realise that eastern stylistics is not only nowadays famous manga, and even it have bunch of types. We aim for realistic comics style, so don't worry, proportions and shapes will be kept realistic!

So to next question!

10'th, last question will be posted today, so stay tuned! There will be 5 or 6 story propositions, but this time you will be able to propose your own answers if you want to - by posting it on forum and voting for idea number (just post your idea here starting the post in form:

Story idea (nick, your idea number)

and vote for it later by giving your nick and idea number - just keep your idea below 400 characters and include mostly early stages of development - the story can change later but we want to get some general glimpse of what to expect. That way even people other than idea authors will be able to vote for it. Of course as I said before, there will be 5-6 ready propositions posted today together with the poll, just give us some more time Of course you can have more than one idea, that's why you can give idea number and nick - so we can find your story

You can start posting your ideas already, why not! To remind, till now we decided, that:

We are making 2D RPG game in steampunk setting in a world, where magic is fully fused with technology (magic described in terms of technology or other way around). In hero or player, during and after playing the game we want to trigger emotions like surprise, rejection and hope. Most important role in gameplay building will lead exploration, NPC interactions and story. We will use separate detailed tactical view for fights, but travel and location exploration will use consistent view using trimetric projection, because of size of the world part of it will be automatically generated. The general stylistics of game will be eastern flavoured realistic comics style.

To get those informations we made 2 assumptions (that we want to design game starting from genre and genre will be RPG) and asked 7 questions to which anyone with forum account could vote. In each case we picked 1 or 3 most wanted options, so above represents idea of interested majority. By asking 8'th question (10'th counting assumptions) we will finish the "10 questions to focus" methodology and prepare final concept, that will be crystallized and tied together. Focus, or final concept will be 1-2 pages including major design decisions, filling gaps from above descriptions and describing goals for rest of project - focus will be voted again after posted, but with simple Yes/No options only. The case is though, "No" votes cannot be anonymous, you have to say why you vote against this particular idea and if you describe it well, fixes will be incorporated into next incarnation of focus document to follow. When we will have focus document that is accepted by majority, we will move on - to first stage of prototyping and in parallel to next stages of design.

[giniu]

Here it is, last question! Sorry for delay. Go to http://poll.fm/1lvup and VOTE NOW All 5 propositions are listed in first comment to poll - if you want to propose something else, remember to put only some ID in "Other" field, only about 32 characters fit there (or something like that) - also, no one will see what you put there, so make it available publicly so people can vote for it! Best post comment with it, just like it's done with official ones, or post them here. I also include 5 story beginnings here. They still can evolve into something different - we don't precise all details or give endings, but we need some starting point.

Official 1 (refugee): Our hero lives calm life, until neighbour country doesn't invent new military technology - steam-tank - allowing them to leap forward and become superstate. War is soon to follow and our hero have to refuge from his homeland. But this is only beginning of his story, in such times military needs every single man, will he keep hiding or try and fight back?

Official 2 (apprentice): Our hero is apprentice in inventors workshop, one day his master disappears without single word. Soon it turns out, that master was on secret service for high government officials, and hero is accused of his homicide, then sentenced to death in secret trail. He must flee. Will he be able prove his innocence?

Official 3 (inquisition): In magical world where everything is described in magical terms, there is also strong faith in many gods, but not everyone likes such state of things. There is group of rebels that believe they can describe world without gods, using only laws of nature. They are seen as heretics and persecuted by inquisition. Our hero is not one of them, he just don't care, but someone plants him a letter that makes his family think he is one of them and call the high priest with escort for him. Will he save his life and find out who made him go trough this mess?

Official 4 (alternative reality): Hero is scientist in 20'th century in real world. During accident in lab he becomes unconscious and wakes up in alternative steampunk reality. He is scared of magic users, doesn't believe what he sees and finally for large part of game believes that he dreams and really is tied to bed, paralysed - resulting in careless attitude. Slowly he starts to believe that he is in other world, will he ever come back to his time and space?

Official 5 (amnesia): Hero awakes for short while on train crash site, he manage to notice he is highly wounded and someone is trying to rob him. Soon he looses conciousness again to wake up in hospital with amnesia. He is tormented with bad dreams, soon he starts his seek for his own past, uncovering his criminal deeds conflicting with his good subconscious side. His dreams become longer and more clear - seems that he was one that caused train crash. Police starts to take interest in him, but he still cannot remember anything other than causing the crash. Was it really him who did it and is there something behind it?

This time I'd want some more live discussion about question, what do you think about those? If you don't like any of them, what would you like? I really Really REALLY encourage you to stand up and give us YOUR idea, it can turn out brilliant - 100 times better than those - so don't keep it hidden for yourself, show it to others and let them vote for it

This question will stay on as long as needed, it's very important one and we want to give chance other people to add their own ideas - you can be sure it will be on at least until 18'th and almost surely longer

Oh, and sorry for possible spelling mistakes in scenario descriptions, if I failed to write it down clearly and you have questions about what I meant to write just ask, thought I hope it won't be necessary.

---------------------------------------------------------------
edit (21.02.2010):

OK, so somehow my post got deleted - probably because no one is interested in saying anything there and I wasn't sure if I should edit one page-long post or post more than once. Though that if we end with voting stage I will let people know, but I assume it was wrong assumption. I don't remember exactly what was there that I wrote - and I don't plan to retype the announcement. Go find it in ether, I lost 20 minutes for it, not much but still - my pile of things marked as to do it large. I had plans about this LovelyRPG but as I'm not sure how many of what I say stays there, I decided I have better things to do, at least until March. So voting is over - after focus is set I will move it all to separate project blog, working on forum is pain in... back.

Someone might think we are slacking off, but ask anyone who is working for bigger studios, coding itself takes not more than 30% of time - that's less than for actual design, the one and single most important stage. Of course prototypes are part of design, but they come into play when focus is set. That's at least how it should be done - why cannot we apply same to true community project?

Anyway - in short, amnesia story won, with 4/10 votes.

I'd say expect some news soon, but it depends on what is people interest in this - first to my knowledge totally owned and authored by whole community - project.

[giniu]

I'll try anyway, maybe this time it will stay. This is how our design goals look like:

We are making 2D RPG game in steampunk setting in a world, where magic
is fully fused with technology (magic described in terms of technology
or other way around). In hero or player, during and after playing the
game we want to trigger emotions like surprise, rejection and hope.
Most important role in gameplay building will lead exploration, NPC
interactions and story. We will use separate detailed tactical view
for fights, but travel and location exploration will use consistent
view using trimetric projection, because of size of the world part of
it will be automatically generated. The general stylistics of game
will be eastern flavoured realistic comics style. Hero awakes for
short while on train crash site, he manage to notice he is highly
wounded and someone is trying to rob him. Soon he looses conciousness
again to wake up in hospital with amnesia. He is tormented with bad
dreams, soon he starts his seek for his own past, uncovering his
criminal deeds conflicting with his good subconscious side. His dreams
become longer and more clear - seems that he was one that caused train
crash. Police starts to take interest in him, but he still cannot
remember anything other than causing the crash. Was it really him who
did it and is there something behind it?

I will work on focus in march. See you then.