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I have been spending the last few days building an engine that turned out pretty good and wanted to share it in-case someone else might find it useful.

I will say right off the bat Square Enix made a game earlier this year I believe very similar which is kind of where it came into my head when I read about it, so kudos to them


Basically you have a 'panel system'. Think of a 4-in-a-row game thingy.



That.

Anyways, the way it works is lets say you get some death ray you want your player to equip...it costs 4 slots.



So 4 circles things would be put into the 4-in-a-row game, and so on with whatever your game would be using such as weapons, armour, abilities, magic, etc etc.

As you progress through the game the idea is to have few panel slots, and as you do things or level you get more and more panel slots to open up to be able to equip items, etc. And as you try to fit in your newest weapon of say 5 slots, and you only have 3 available, you can imagine the trade-ups you will be analyzing trying to fit in your best gear...allowing a lot of customization.


Currently on the 'panel system' I am working on is making sure that every aspect of the game be controlled through different panels to have it 100% customizable. Okay, 90% give or take...85% It's PHP based, (something about PHP that keeps me using it) also a lot of heavy AJAX to make it not so boring and fun(ish) interaction.

It originally started as a lunch-break project after I kept running into those mafia war clone games that have spread the web like a virus. (Not meaning to diss mafia games, there are good ones out there. My personal opinion is it is just way overdone.) I wanted to come up with a new type of design that would be interesting and strategic, and can appeal to a wide array of gamers. I figured if you allow enough control with the panels, they will sacrifice the parts they don't like for their game style play and less work for you trying to figure out a median.

After a few on and off breaks its pretty close to being done and most likely start trying to create a community with it and see how it reacts with players. Sqare Enix had great reviews on their panel system for the DS, I figure a web version could do well if done right.


I'm interested to know what you guys think of the idea and allowing a wide array of the game being costimizable.

sounds awsome. I for one would love something like that.

although i think it would be more suitable in games where you play as a robot, purly because they allow for alot more veriety in regards to equipment and suchlike.

but sounds very nice

edit~~

although thinking about it.... it would be bloody awsome if you could utilise it for an invetory rather than kit.

i was thinking of doing something similar... but it just involved having x amount of slots to use lol.

Do you mean something along the lines of the Sphere grid in Final Fantasy 10?? You level and unlock more spaces on the grid to upgrade and unlock..

Torniquet wrote: edit~~

although thinking about it.... it would be bloody awsome if you could utilise it for an invetory rather than kit.

i was thinking of doing something similar... but it just involved having x amount of slots to use lol.

I'm not sure what you mean by kit but the way I have it setup when you acquire 'panels' they go to the inventory and the player then just drags them to around to equip/unequip so to speak..lol

Last Known Hero wrote:Do you mean something along the lines of the Sphere grid in Final Fantasy 10?? You level and unlock more spaces on the grid to upgrade and unlock..

I just looked it up and it has a lot similarities..based on what I could find real quick.

Ever Seen Mech-warrior? Not the computer game, but the original paper and pencil roleplaying game.. the slot system for weapons you describe sounds very much like mechwarrior, and that would be a great game for someone to re-do as a MMO, I think the licence for it has expired and is now public domain too.

oh wow I didn't know the license expired. I will have to look into that. Very fun game. Use to play it quite a bit back in the old days

publishing licences usually only last 25-35 years.. Its been that long no?

I thought that written work's copyright lasted for a certain number of years after the death of the author. I don't think they can run out while the author is alive. For example, the first Dune novel is still under copyright, even though it was written 45 years ago, and the author, Frank Herbert, has been dead for nearly 25 years. I think it is something like 50 to 90 years after their death.

Did some Googleing:

* Published before 1923 - now in public domain

* Published from 1923 to 1963 - When published with a copyright notice © or "Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]" - copyright protection lasts 28 years and could be renewed for an additional 67 years for a total of 95 years. If not renewed, now in public domain.

* Published from 1923 to 1963 - When published with no notice - now in public domain

* Published from 1964 to 1977 - When published with notice - copyright protection lasts 28 years for first term; automatic extension of 67 years for second term for a total of 95 years.

* Created before 1/1/1978 but not published - copyright notice is irrelevant - copyright protection lasts for the life of author and 70 years or 12/31/2002, whichever is greater

* Created before 1/1/1978 and published between 1/1/1978 and 12/31/2002 - notice is irrelevant - copyright protecion lasts the life of author and 70 years or 12/31/2047, whichever is greater

* Created 1/1/1978 or after - When work is fixed in tangible medium of expression - notice is irrelevant - copyright protecion lasts for the life of author and 70 years based on the the longest living author if jointly created or if work of corporate authorship, works for hire, or anonymous and pseudonymous works, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation.

taken from:http://inventors.about.com/od/copyright ... ration.htm

Mech warrior was publish in:

* MechWarrior: The BattleTech Role Playing Game (first edition: 1986)[1]
* MechWarrior: The BattleTech Role Playing Game (second edition: 1991)[2]
* MechWarrior: Third Edition (third edition: 1999)[3]
* Classic BattleTech RPG (second printing of MechWarrior's third edition: 2006)[4]

taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechWarrio ... ng_game%29

Even for the first edition (which I think is what matter if it has several editions), copyright protecion lasts the life of author and 70 years or 12/31/2047, whichever is greater.

You've got a long time to wait!

Pax.