Sitting in between - Coders block

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Callan S.
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Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by Callan S. »

I actually coded a short combat system recently, put a neat little memory game of remember the right counter attack system on it and put on some nice icons - I like it.

Then I coded up a map system - put up a system where I could put an ascii map into the DB and it'd read it and use some nifty graphical tiles and you could move around and even pick up points (somewhat like pacman does!) as you travel the maps.

But now I'm sitting in between - not terribly inspired. I'm thinking of just making say thirty individual maps of 20x20 that have links to each other (thirty so as to give an impression of a world) but as a sort of 'working graphic', just having each be an identical twisting tube (I'll individualise them latter).

But...

It's not really grabbing me. Part of why I put the pacman points into each level is because even just having a navigatable single map didn't grab me. It's just simulatory - not really a game to me at all. Of course being interested in RPG design I'm interested in partly simulating a world, but I'm not interested in JUST doing that.

It's like I feel obligated to simulate a world - but then somehow dress it up as a fun game that I find fun even though, as is, it's just a simulation and I don't find that fun at all. It's like starting with something really bland and then trying to make it taste good - it kind of makes one think 'why start with that bland thing to begin with?'

Possibly in a way it's size - it's the audience expectation of something more than a one fight combat system. But size just isn't that interesting to me? It's just size.

Given games are a way of talking with other people, I thought I'd talk about it here with others as part of the overall game/talk with other people development process.
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a_bertrand
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Re: Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by a_bertrand »

My opinion is that YOU need to have a clear idea of what your goal is... which currently doesn't seems the case. Why? Because if you don't have a clear idea, how can you reach it? Sure you are doing prototypes which at the end could be fun, but it will take you a lot more efforts and time than if you would have stopped and though till you decided what to do.

For example, you so a simulated world? Like what? Minecraft? Sims? If yes then PHP is certainly wrong as backend as you will have to update your "entities" or "objects" over time, and PHP will require more time and efforts as it's not the usual way of working. Also, is it a single player world or multi player world? I mean, should all player see exactly the same thing? Or can it be different? Slightly or completely?

You want an RPG? Then you need some story and quests and combats etc... How do you handle the content creation? You will have to make some admin panels to create them, you need to store those, etc.

If you want we can discuss this further, as in those fields I have my little experience too ;)
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Callan S.
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Re: Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by Callan S. »

I feel I've written very little in terms of games over the last decade - here I've written up a combat system and a map system, so I've atleast made something. More time passing with nothing to show for it seems more the problem to me than spending time building functional modules.

If I've mentioned 'RPG', it's not because I want to just repeat the status quo formula of them. I consider 'RPG' to cover a spectrum of possible ways of playing rather than just story+quest+repeating combat. I'm looking for the particular part of that spectrum I want to head into.

I think part of the problem may be that I'm sort of destroying the original combat system by adding onto it. I might need to keep a copy of it's current form as it's own individual sort of playable game along with any larger map based game should I go onto that. Otherwise by building onto the combat game, I make it unplayable until the rest is built - and if I add anything onto that, I make all that unplayable, etc. Building it bigger simply destroys the work already done (unless you get ALL the extra work done). Yeah, I think I'll look at converting the combat system to use PHP, perhaps add a number of times required to it, for a win condition and then leave it as a finished piece - even if I then take a copy of it and use it in a larger project. It instead gets to remain as a functional game by itself.
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MikuzA
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Re: Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by MikuzA »

Hello,

Just an thought, instead of developing your combat system to cope with unexisting development.
How about enhancing the combat system to work as it is but to be able to cope with new development at the same time?

I see that you have fun in developing the crucial parts of a 'game' but still it's minor in full game vice.

So, put your time to make the combat system so that you can integrate it to whatever, more working towards stand-alone. What you give it processes and returns.
Then when you feel like developing some other part of the 'game', you can easily think that your combat system will cope to whatever idea you are planning..

Oh, oh well.. this was my approach once in a personal project that was killed due lack of time. Since I was in a similiar situtation on that project.
I planned the WHOLE game on a bunch of paper by hand.. started deving the core and lost motivation due started to think about all the dependencies.

Then I just moved my focus on a 'module' point of view, and started thinking of the integration, developed some "mini-games" here and there and managed to pull them together just because I developed them in a way that I could do that without them actually 'knowing' of each other.

When all the modules are ready, then the core can be just developed to use them as you wish, and since you are the master of your modules, some changes might be required. But still, it's a time saving approach on a bigger project in the end.

Oh, this is just me blabbering again, continue..
Why so serious?

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a_bertrand
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Re: Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by a_bertrand »

I actually work like that:
- I develop a prototype to see if my concept / idea could actually work.
- If yes, I then start to build up upon it and add features after features. However instead of doing big / hard to implement features I tend to alternate between things which MUST be there to others which are more fun to code.

Also, it's important to deliver quickly (within a few month) something to a restricted or not restricted group of people. Why? Because having other people pushing you help you go forward, also having feedback about what you are doing is important.
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hallsofvallhalla
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Re: Sitting in between - Coders block

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

amen to that. If you cannot get it get it somewhat playable in a month or two then your chance of finishing drops significantly. Now that I think about it the games i did finish were the ones I had up and going pretty quick and had several hundred players+.
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