LÖVE

What is DW?

A 2.5D role playing game with some randomised content and map generation and quests (similar to Diablo 1). The focus is combat, with a semi-forced movement towards the finale events on the 'zone map', and re-playability.


What are my major influences for this game?

Fallout 1 and 2 by far the largest direct impact – a post apocalyptic setting, then FTL and Don't Starve maybe?

I'm nearly 32 (I think?), so my bread and butter inspiration wise was that 1997 to early 00's era stuff.


What do I bring to the table?

Intricate animation work, with a custom character system (called Trinity) and a sub-textual story motif, and I feel an innovative twist to turn based combat.

What are my aims?

To create enough of an audience to be able to make games for the next 10 years. I have spent already nearly 1 and a half years (full time) on this engine and game.


What's LÖVE got to do with it?

Because it's simply awesome, partly because of it's speed and flexibility, and partly because Lua is the most amazing language that I've ever used. I started learning LÖVE about 5 years ago, and after a break I started development part-time for a multi-player RTS type game (in the vein of Shattered Galaxy). After the 'shocking' realisation that the game would be too ambitious, I recoded the engine for an RPG type game (which coincided with me leaving my full time job) to then starting this project full-time.


About Me?

I'm located in the greater London area, with my partner who essentially is preventing me from starving to death. I tend to be quiet enough, I have many interests and may seem to flutter about without settling down on anything. But rest assured that I have been committed to programming most of my life, and LÖVE/Lua has captivated me.

I have moved my designs from a stupid ambitious project to an ambitious project. I have been fighting many doubts over the years but now just remain focussed to delivering this game. I have aspirations to help the community more, but perhaps I could be of more assistance when my game is out in the wild.

I tend to spend 9 to 12 hours coding or drawing per day, 7 days a week. Although a lot of the time I create my own stress and deadlines, I feel that I may be able to create a final product before I kill myself trying to.


How do I manage everything?

I use pen and paper, a gift I learned from my PhD studies. Create a log book, jot down any ideas, notes and things you are working on. I have a separate stack of papers where I create task sheets for the day/week, and cross things off. I love crossing things off lists; I even have lists of my lists, and then cross those off too. I have used JIRA in the workplace for a couple of years, but I prefer pen and paper.


Code standards?

I like clean code, I like 4 spaced tabs. I like functions, lots of functions (John Carmack style).
I despise Java style rigid OO and the associated syntax. I now believe that getX() and setX() is the creation of the devil, the devout followers are confused souls that need saving. I also hate the word 'manager', which should be banned from programming and the general workplace too.


Practical Obstacles

I have revised the draw cycle and 'engine' bits so many times my fingers hurt. I have now created something that relies on a graphics card using the sprite batching method. I feel I have a very fast implementation that allows many layers of ground textures, characters, and objects. If anyone is interested in this area specifically please mention so, I will then try to type up what I've done.

I feel as though the game could work on a variety of systems despite me planning on packing it full of actors/objects and particle effects. I have created a UI system that rescales itself for the screen. I might share this code specifically however I don't think people will understand what I've done there and probably cause a lot of pain; for my own uses though I think it works well enough.

I am on my second or third generation of 'programmer art', which doesn't fully represent the final aesthetic, however fully encompasses the engine and mechanics of the game. This I feel has been one of the toughest parts of the whole process, and it will change again I am sure.


God bless you all.


Website:

http://www.omicroncubed.com

This looks really cool and ambitious. The style is pretty neat and reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it(probably some old traumatizing cartoon). I always appreciate it when games made in LÖVE try to be more than just a fun little 10 minute long distraction, so I wish you the best of luck.

Hydrogen Maniac wrote:This looks really cool and ambitious. The style is pretty neat and reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it(probably some old traumatizing cartoon). I always appreciate it when games made in LÖVE try to be more than just a fun little 10 minute long distraction, so I wish you the best of luck.

Bless ya, thank you. I'm having a wee break and back next week -- my next task is to create the final 'art style' for the game so that all the visual content can be started.

LÖVE is beautiful, and one of my aims is to show how far it can be pushed. Lots of large games were done in all sorts of frameworks, however I have a pretty huge dislike of Unreal Engine and Unity 3D games. I want to show it can be done with LÖVE.

Cheers.

Where do I get this to test? It's the kind of a game right up my alley, and I would love to test - especially considering you've created an original character system. I have played lots of cRPGs and a couple of pen and paper ones. And in my experience, testing is *immensely* helpful to the game's creator.

ETA: We seem to have played mostly similar cRPGs and used them as inspirations. Ah, Baldur's Gate.

Zireael wrote:Where do I get this to test? It's the kind of a game right up my alley, and I would love to test - especially considering you've created an original character system. I have played lots of cRPGs and a couple of pen and paper ones. And in my experience, testing is *immensely* helpful to the game's creator.

My immediate plan is to start working on this 'final' A4 page task sheet of coding tasks (for 2 weeks). After this I will go to finalising the art style for DW. The heads might get smaller, the detail level of the drawings will be defined and the shading levels decided on. Lastly, I plan 2 to 6 months for content creation specifically for DW, there will definitely be a demo version (or Lite version) for testing of the core game loop with some content for play-testing.

I am looking at ideas, and it feels like the easiest mechanism will be a playable demo on Steam; so I will be starting a green-light registration in a few days in the hope that I will get greenlit to allow the demo uploaded to their servers.

Currently only myself has the source, and my brother has a developer release version, to which we have a fairly frequent feedback loop and I aggressivly squash bugs as we find them so that the 'known' bugs count remains 0 at the end of each 'day'.

At some point I may abstract out the rest of the engine into a separate module for Lovers (possibly for free?); currently all of the engine is already separate but not 'neat' enough. Otherwise, I may pull out smaller parts such as to create a '2.5d game template' for people to use/learn/critique; however I will be getting advice on this before I 100% commit to doing this; Because I am cautious of money and time I may/most-likely end up doing this after I have released the game. This won't be simple as one hopes, because I will need to write an accompanying document to explain the archetecture I have used, some of the Data-Oriented Design mechanisms (as opposed to pure OO design), and some core mechanisms such as the built in map editor will need a few tweaks to make slightly more user friendly.

Zireael wrote:ETA: We seem to have played mostly similar cRPGs and used them as inspirations. Ah, Baldur's Gate.

Ya, I mean I like lots of different types of games but I feel in the last 5 ish years there aren't that many deeper character based RPG type games in an isometric or forced perspective style (which I am a fan of).

I feel like the marketplace is still very keen on turn based combat as well, with a few examples that could be used: XCOM, Fire Emblem, Invisiable inc, I Am Setsuna, the revival of Baldur's Gate and the new expansion 'Siege of Dragonspear' by Beamdog, and Wasteland 2.

If it doesn't turn out how I hope, then I will be relying on the simple and modifiable nature of Lua; and really work on the tool-set in that area so that players of the game could get more out of it.

What's your favourite RPG? is my question to you.

I haven't played Witcher 3 though (I don't have the time right now, and possibly the hardware required to play it).

Example of the art changing over time:
Mostly the place-holder was necessary for animation, movement, typical stuff really.

I've gotta finish up the map painter and tools; but maybe thought that people seeing where I started from might be a help to them.

Never give up!

A long time since this post started, a lot of work later and now a few months away from releasing the game.

I'm tired lads

Here's a tiny selection of screens of the current progress. A huge rework of all art and the skeleton models was done a while back (I hope this goes down a lot better than before), as well as a rework of the UI theme and style and a ton more content to boot.

One more with the load-out UI and combat UI:
Not sure why everything looks so dark when Love screenshot comes out the other end, I will have to take a look at this.

Hey man, I like the looks of your game.

My next big project is also gonna be in the 2.5D style. Keep up the good work! =)

Those screens look very tidy. You made impressive progress. Subscribing for future updates