110 réponses à ce sujet

[Vroom Vroom]

 

I want a Saw III: The Video Game. Unfortunately, Zombie Studios (the studio that developed both games) closed their doors for good two or three days ago. I still want one though, gameplay was fairly awful in both, but I loved the plot and continuation of story with the film franchise. 

 

At least Saw 8 is scheduled for next year. 

[mybudgee]

Yeah, the "Saw" movies are real gems

[Fast Jimmy]

I'd like to see Adult only rated games made viable.

What, like Turbo Tax?

[Fishy]

Vampire the masquerade 2 !

[Dominus]

I wouldn't mind seeing a full-on music game revolution a la BEMANI. Both Konami, Harmonix, Neversoft, and other music devs have explored practically every instrument, so they'll have to think outside the box a bit. Music game MMO? Tuba Hero?

Outside of that: Marvel Versus BioWare Fighting Game. Make it Happen.

[Fast Jimmy]

Spoiler

It'd be first person. You're an actual person in the world. It's not simpler for sure, but I feel it would be more immersive.

 

Ah. So a little like an TES game in its feel?

 

You manage your one character, though as I mentioned you could kill a farmer to change the community (the clever thing about this though is that in the real world things typically aren't so volatile--so in the game you'd have to, like, kill all farmers or something).

There would be combat, yes, though it would not be a focus. I'm thinking you could have combat for the story part (of course there's a story, I'm me! But it would be integrated into the world, nothing blocked off or limited by not doing the story outside of organic things like the "bad guys" doing bad things in the game world (which you could stop of your own accord, and still ignore the story)). Additionally, I was thinking about having like three different "gangs" who would interact with each other, the town, and the player.

 

What reason would the player have to kill anyone? I mean, other than to just kick over the anthill, so to speak. Is the player doing quests? Are they the self-appointed sheriff? Are they able to steal land from dead (murdered) farmers? 

 

Essentially... outside of the in-depth world sim, what will the player be doing? What will the gameplay consist of?

Not sure what you mean by how they die. They would have a health system like the player. If the player kills them, they die and are gone forever. If a hunter is hunting a bear and the first shot doesn't kill the bear, and the bear turns and charges the hunter, the bear can kill him (whether the hunter runs or stands his ground would be based on attributes like his courage, how much he needs the meat, all that--they'd all be added up and compared to determine if he runs, maybe escapes maybe dies, or if he stands, maybe kills the bear maybe dies).

And because they'd be gone forever, I'm thinking there'd have to be a system that can introduce random NPCs into the game world, like a single runway with periodic plane arrivals or something.

 

Ah. So this is modern day? I definitely had a different impression in mind. Are there guns? 

I definitely want to include seasons and weather, but seasons would be quite difficult. Weather would actually not be too bad, if push came to shove there are assets that do that. But seasons would be difficult because it's not really a problem of programming, but of design. How long is a day? How long is a week? How long is a month? How long is a year?

 

All good questions. One would have to ask without seasons... how fast does food grow? If its not planted in Spring, grown in Summer and harvested in Fall, then there would need to be other laws that govern the growth.

For my "demo" idea, I've put a day at 24 minutes, just to make it simple and because it fits other things I'm trying to do. But that would be unrealistic for a full game. I'd say, at absolute minimum, something like 3-4 hours for a day would be necessary. But if a day takes four hours, does a week take 28 actual hours of in-game time? Does a month take over 100 hours of in-game time? That would mean that a change in seasons happens once every 300 hours of gameplay--unfeasible. So it's a design decision that needs to be ironed out (I'm thinking about ways to skip days, like say have every "day" count for a week or something, so a month would come after 4 of these, 16 hours, and a new season after three of those, 48 hours, which is still really really long, but still feels like it's shortening it too much).

 

I like it.

Animals hunt other animals, definitely. As I mentioned, there would be an ecosystem, a food chain of some sort, incorporating small and large, carnivores and herbivores.

NPCs can fight other NPCs, yes. It wouldn't be prevalent in the town, but for the "bad guys" or one of the gangs, definitely. Though I suppose NPCs could have unarmed fights or something (though that's not something I've considered thus far).

I was curious if other NPCs just didn't like each other if they would resort to violence. Would the NPCs also have a sense of self-preservation, where even if the absolutely hated the head gang member, they'd realize attacking them would be a death sentence? Are there alliances/factions, where attacking the head of the gang would result in everyone in the gang attacking you?

As for communities, I don't think so. There would probably be just one. And the player wouldn't start there, but encounter it soon after starting the game.

Fair. The scope already appears to be pretty huge.

I say probably because this is how I envision the game beginning:

Hopefully I manage to get a procedural terrain generator working in the game, so that you can input a seed and get different results for the actual game maps. Then, I would drop a bunch of NPCs into the game. They would select, based on features like near a river so fish, near plains so farms, whatever, a place to start building. And they would build the town on their own. They'd build the first Fisherman's Hut, where the fisherman lives and hires one man. They'd build the house for that one man. They'd build the hunting blind for the three hunters, and the houses each one lives in. They'd build the doctor's office, and his house. They'd build the general store, and the owner's house.

This would all require that the game be sped up really fast, because it's happening in real time. And it's the NPCs deciding, based on their programming, what to do and where to live.

This is essentially what I want to do: I want to create systems that build their own complexity, I don't necessarily want to build setpieces. Unrelated: I suppose I could call this game The Game Of Life.

 

Wow. So you aren't just giving the NPCs motivations to maintain their day-to-day existence, but also to show initiative, where they would even build non-existent buildings just because they are needed? That is REALLY ambitiious.

The player can lose by dying. I hadn't intended any other type of fail state. This would mean that the main story would have to be carefully crafted, but that's something I'm worried about later--right now I just need to start learning how to script, how to build assets.

 

Gotcha. I'm guessing if the entire village fails and the player is still alive, they wouldn't be able to last long without a source of food, so that would be a de facto end state possible.

There would be a save system, in fact after lunch and after playing Watch Dogs for a little bit I'm going to work on finishing my save system for my demo today. hopefully I can push this latest version (with the basic gameplay loop, a GUI, and save system) to the BSN then. The save system would simply be whenever you wish, I see no reason for that not to happen (though for my demo I might make it only at certain times).

 

Let me know how that goes. If you don't mind me asking, what are you using to provide the framework here? Unity? A mod kit like Skyrim's?

[Fast Jimmy]

I wouldn't mind seeing a full-on music game revolution a la BEMANI. Both Konami, Harmonix, Neversoft, and other music devs have explored practically every instrument, so they'll have to think outside the box a bit. Music game MMO? Tuba Hero?

 

I'm not sure if you were joking with the Music Game MMO, but during the big "Guitar Hero" boom, a couple of my friends speculated about the rising costs of song licenses and how they could bankrupt the genre (which it seems they did). We proposed a better model would be to put an online system in place, where fans can compete to create new material, in a sort of "Battle of the Bands" type model. Top rated songs make it into new games, allowing for a boost to indie popularity with a built-in audience of millions.

 

 

Doesn't seem like anyone at Harmonix thought that was too great of an idea...

[Dominus]

and how they could bankrupt the genre (which it seems they did).

As far as I can tell, it was mainly due to an oversaturation of product, most of which wasn't that great. I believe activision had popped out 6 games in a single year, virtually all of them throwaway. DJ Hero was fantastic, but stuff like Band Hero, Guitar Hero Van Halen, Guitar Hero Best Hits, and a few others weren't enough.

We proposed a better model would be to put an online system in place, where fans can compete to create new material, in a sort of "Battle of the Bands" type model.

They had that without the competition, I think. Rock Band Network.

Harmonix's Chroma is gonna be beautiful, curious where they're going with it.

[Sebby]

What, like Turbo Tax?

 

Nah, the video game equivalent of NC-17 rated flicks, like these http://en.wikipedia....ted_video_games

 

More specifically, games like Manhunt 2 uncut.

[Han Shot First]

A modern sequel to Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

 

 

Imagine a place of wonder, where magick and technology hold equal sway, and an adventurer might just as easily wield a flintlock pistol as a flaming sword. A place where great industrial cities house castle keeps and factories, home to Dwarves, Humans, Orcs and Elves alike. A place of ancient runes and steamworks, of magic and machines, of sorcery and science.

 

Arcanum is the first game to come from the development house Troika Games, LLC, started by former Fallout team members Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson. This team takes the depth of gameplay and world-building in role-playing games to entirely new levels of realism and excitement.

 

Arcanum creates a compelling new world where magic and technology coexist in an uneasy balance. As Arcanum opens, the mechanical age has only recently arrived in this ancient land where Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other races have learned to survive in the new sprawling industrialized cities. But this radical shift from magic to technology has created a potentially explosive situation. As the townspeople and other thinkers begin mass production of light bulbs, batteries, eyeglasses and guns, the Mages grow leery. This tightly wound setting is the starting point from which the character must set out on his quest

 

 

 

Arcanum is the name of the continent on which the game takes place - a Tolkienesque realm of humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, ogres and halflings, in the midst of an industrial revolution reminiscent of 19th century Europe. The technological revolution is led by humans and gnomes, while elves cling to the traditional ways of magick. The rivalry is deeper than mere traditionalism, though, as magick and technology are mutually exclusive. Powerful magicks cause a machinery to fail, while a novice mage will find their spells backfiring around powerful steam engines.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Spoiler

Have you played the STALKER games, EA?
 
The A-Life system could be the closest implementation of what you are talking about, so it would be a good starting point for your project.
 
Here's a nice interview about it.
 
There were rumours apparently that at one point in development, the AI was so proficient, groups of NPCs would actually band together and complete the game on their own. That, along with various bugs and unexpected behaviour, meant it had to be drastically scaled back. Considering how glitchy it still is, the latter is plausible at least.
 
I've heard similar things about Oblivion's Radiant AI (where farmers would kill each other over tools and merchants would be murdered for their items), which was heavily scaled back and reduced to more basic day/night schedules in Skyrim.

[TheChosenOne]

 

 

 

Also a new KOTOR game. 

[Vroom Vroom]

 

 

 

Also a new KOTOR game. 

I'd also like a game where you play solely as Darth Vader and hunt down Jedi. 

[mybudgee]

^ Hell yeah. That intro in TFU was easily the best part

[TheChosenOne]

I'd also like a game where you play solely as Darth Vader and hunt down Jedi. 

 

Better call that **** Star Wars: Purge with this as the cover

 

[Vroom Vroom]

Better call that **** Star Wars: Purge with this as the cover

 

If that's what I think it is, then that is one of the best Star Wars tales of all time and would make an awesome basis for a video game. I'm thinking of the story where Vader fought and slew five Jedi at once (might have been six or seven, it has been a while), on Kessel I believe. 

 

 

^ Hell yeah. That intro in TFU was easily the best part

 

That was my favorite part of the game too, the Death Star Vader duel was the only part that could even compete with the intro. I was disappointed that we didn't get to play as Darth Vader more. 

[TheChosenOne]

If that's what I think it is, then that is one of the best Star Wars tales of all time and would make an awesome basis for a video game. I'm thinking of the story where Vader fought and slew five Jedi at once (might have been six or seven, it has been a while), on Kessel I believe. 

 

Yup. That's the one! He went all dark side of the Force on  their asses. Also It needs scenes like the one below to show how hellbent he is on finding the last of the Jedi.

 

 

Real Sith anger **** right there

[RZIBARA]

I want an RTS game where you can also take control of any units in FPS mode. That would be amazing.

[Fast Jimmy]

Spoiler

Well, the "bad guys" in the game, the player would have reason to kill them because they're doing bad things. Same for the gangs (though the gangs won't be near as malevolent). As for ordinary citizens, not much reason outside of selfish reasons, though there might be a quest or two related to it (related: yes, there are quests). No to sheriff, that would be someone else in the game world.

As for stealing land, I hadn't really planned on land ownership, in the most comment sense. To elaborate on farming, I envision it working similarly to plants in TES--they grow on their own after a certain amount of time. The farmer would have to plant the seeds, and then they can increase the yield by tending to the ground (have some action that adds a multiplier to the plant object's final quantity). But in theory the player could take the food without having to kill the farmer (though again people would get suspicious, and there'd be community activity to figure out who it was and stop it).

 

That makes more sense. So it sounds like the bad guys will be the source of most of the conflict, where they will be trying to steal food/kill farmers/make life rough for the village? That seems like better design than only having characters get killed if the player just wanted to be a d!ck.

 

Yep, modern day, or relatively modern. Maybe a couple decades back or something. What impression did you have in mind? I think there will be a few guns with very sparse ammo.

Oh, I was thinking standard swords and fantasy setting originally. Maybe not goblins and sorcery, but just farmer peasants in a typical Medieval-esque village. A modern twist would be interesting, but could introduce some bumps, in terms of considerations like "can they own telephones/TVs/other modes of technological communication" or "Where does gasoline come from?"

 

Yeah. I would prefer to have winter, though, because it introduces a whole new dynamic of surviving the non-growth period (and maybe of heat/cold management, though I'm not really thinking about that idea too much right now).
 

Basically what I want to have is a huge list of possible actions, and the probability of doing these actions is based on the NPC's attributes. An NPC with high courage might attack a gang member who shakes him down, even if the NPC has low strength. An NPC with high intelligence and low strength might try talk his way out of it (incorporating a persuasion type skill, though I'm not sure how that would work right now), while an NPC with medium intelligence might pay the money.

I haven't thought too much about civilian NPCs attacking each other, but it's definitely something that would have to be incorporated if the system works correctly.

As for alliances and factions, there are, but gang members would also have some intelligence too. One guy wouldn't necessarily take on the player alone (unless his stats dictate it), he might wait until there are two of them. So yes, but not like some scripted attack-in-the-middle-of-town thing. It would follow the same types of rules as regular NPCs.

 

Would the player be able to see an NPC's attributes or skills? See their relationship statuses with each other? See what type of faction they align themselves with? Also, in speaking of winter and hunger, can the player see how hungry everyone is? How "nourishing" a given food item is? Will crops have varying degrees of nourishment depending on farmer skill (will a pumpkin always be a pumpkin, or can a good farmer have a shot at making a Super pumpkin randomly)?
 

Indeed. Though I want to point out, with the "world generation" technique, it's entirely possible for the NPCs to create their own town.
 

Too ambitious, maybe. But yes, that is really the entire basis of this game. I've seen so many games, RPGs especially, that claimed to have a "living world" that exists outside of the player. But they really only give the illusion of acting. They have a bunch of scripted actions that they perform at scripted times. Interaction with the world is nonexistent, and interaction with the player is meaningless. Even the "best of the best" of reactive games, that let you kill questgiving NPCs, don't actually change the world. They don't change any of the other NPCs. They only barely change the player. I want a game world that really does live outside of the player, with the closest thing to reactive and active NPCs.

And, everything is scripting and scripting is everything. It's procedural generation in every facet of the game. And the thing about procedural generation is that there's high cost up-front, but in the end it can go anywhere. Of course there's always the problem with procedural generation possibly being "boring," but by having a bunch of randomized factors (like each NPC's stats being generated randomly on creation), hopefully it can start a cascade that flows outward.

About buildings, yes I do want them to be able to build buildings. I would like for the player to be able to as well, but I'm not sure how I'd do it (incorporating a tree-cut-down system and building system seems a lot harder than putting a seed in the ground and letting it do its business underground).

 

 

Yeah, this all sounds awesome. Although I'd be wary of the examples that Knights brought up, where the AI/NPC motivation system wound up breaking teh game with unexpected behavior. THis is doubly true if you have a "build" session at the beginning of each campaign, where NPC scripting and motivation is creating the variable village. Would it run for a set amount of time and "start" the game at the same time, regardless? If so, you could have games where the village starts in varying degrees of advancement or ruin. If, instead, you want to make sure each village starts with varying variables but still meets some "minimum requirements," how do you track those during the procedural generation process and figure out when to tell the game to "start?" Also, if your village kills itself during the procedural generation point before the game begins, how will the game detect this and know to start over?
 
 

I will. And I want to say thanks for the questions: you're helping me refine this idea. Don't hesitate to ask me more.

I'm using Unity. As I understand it's an engine that's very nearly, if not completely on par with AAA engines. A mod just wouldn't work as well. For the moment I've got my demo to work on, to get me used to scripting and implementing things in a game.

 

Oh, no worries. If there's one thing I do well, its ask questions.

 

I agree that Unity would be better equipped to create such a deep system, but obviously it requires a little more expertise than a modkit alone, that's why I asked. 

 

I would also say that it sounds like this game would require a VERY high degree of testing and tweaking. I honestly don't think you will have quite as much trouble building the core mechanics as you might think, but you will spend QUITE a bit of time testing and changing them so that they allow the reactive nature and NPC/world interaction, but also don't result in total village death every twenty minutes of the game.

[Joseph Warrick]

I want an RTS game where you can also take control of any units in FPS mode. That would be amazing.

 

Dungeon Keeper did this! You had a possession spell.

[Fast Jimmy]

Spoiler

I want to clarify that what I'm calling the "bad guys" are not the gangs. The gangs would be separate factions that are a part of the game world and have their own little bases, where they eke out a living. They would harass farmers and other townsmembers.

The "bad guys" would be the malevolent force of the game. Encounters with them would be part of the story mainly, and most in scripted events. They are basically how I would include a plot to the game that has traditional game elements (like fights, though I'd have to be careful with that in lieu of the gun situation) but is separate from the game world.

 

I've considered having that part of it effect the game world, but honestly that feels like it would add a whole new layer to the complexity, and would add the "problem" of a world where the malevolent force can essentially win if the player does nothing (like Space Rangers for example). Which is pretty awesome in concept, but might be unnecessarily restrictive for the simulation--if the simulation is the focus, I don't want plot to break it.

 

So gangs are your more "local," low-level threat, while the "bad guys" are a more plot-oriented, higher difficulty threat, it sounds like. That's good - gives conflict a little more dichotomy. Could you recruit the gangs to begin working for the village against the bad guys? 

 

And finding that balance between reactivity and needs-based NPCs and the game completely going in a direction that is unsupported by the design is a really common problem. Not sure how familiar you are with Ultima 9, but one of its biggest reasons for failing was their scope in trying to make the game as simulation-esque as possible and finding out too late that the game just could not support it. One bug story I remember is that they had planned on making naval combat between ships possible, but then scrapped the idea. Then, about eighteen months later, the had some random NPCs who swarmed one of the ships, attacking it as an "enemy" because the flag had never been removed. The programmers, who were under the impression that the ship couldn't be targeted by AI anymore than a wall could, were astounded that the enemies swarmed the ship, were attacking it in huge numbers, and then the ship hit "0 HP" and sunk into the waves.

 

Not sure that rant was totally applicable, but it just goes to show how there may need to be a time when turning off or toning down designed features may actually result in legacy issues and problems as well, so tread carefully. 

 
 

Yeah, I was thinking about that, which is why I said "maybe a couple decades back." And because it's a survival game, I can get away with making it in what's almost a wilderness, without things like televisions or maybe telephones for the most part (having some form of house phones makes sense, but implementing a non-visual communication system like that sounds like a nightmare) or even cars. After all if everyone's at one village, there's no need for cars anyway.

 

 

No, I don't think they'd be able to see attributes or skills, or relationship statuses, in any out-of-character format. Though they might ask an NPC what they do for a living, or what they think of X (any person) and they'd respond (to the relationship one) if they like the player (or hate/love the other person). It would be fairly simple to allow them to figure out an NPC's attributes or skills in a conversation ("How good are you at X" "Hah, I know nothing about it!/I know a little bit, still gotta lot to understand/I think I've got a good handle on it/I'm pretty sure I'm an expert on that!" based on the value), though I don't know if that's a good idea from a design perspective. Definitely be able to ask about the factions, similar to "What do you think of X" though probably without the PC relationship check.

I'd say something similar for how hungry people are, you could ask (and give people food if they're hungry, and gifts that the character likes (I could go down the rabbit hole and have specific food likes and dislikes, and being hungry would boost the overall "likes food" modifier, but again while fairly straightforward this is just adding complexity to the (already CPU intensive) running game) boost their relationship with the player.
 
How will conversation work? Text based? Will there be flags to denote different NPC's being in the same room/area as one another (like would an NPC talk differently about another NPC if they were right in front of them, for instance) or would it be driven solely by the stats/math and the not the surrounding environment?
 
 

As for the build session, those are good considerations. I'd considered doing it for just a set time, but it might be better (and it would still be simple) to have a clause like

if(GameObjects in world include general store, 5 farms, fisherman's hut, 2 hunting stands/blinds, doctor's office, etc.){
set time.TimeScale=1;
startGame;
}
//then to reset things if this just isn't happening
else if(time == 20 years or something){
reset simulation, re-randomize NPCs;
}

This would take care of things pretty nicely, including if the village dies (if the village has all the necessary elements, the game starts (preventing the village from dying), while if the village dies without these things, the second clause there will pick it up).

Now, this does raise the question of something you already mentioned--the village dying on its own. While later on in the game I have less problem with this happening, I definitely would not want it to happen near the beginning of the game. As such, there would likely be checks and balances to prevent this from happening (like, NPCs being less likely to kill the first-tier producers like hunters or farmers or fisherman, or the plane bringing more NPCs that correspond to recently lost NPCs' skills, but perhaps with randomized attributes).

 

Just as a suggestion, could there possibly be an increased relationship bonus to those NPCs who are vital? This isn't that much of a realism stretch - people who bring valuable services to the community usually are highly regarded.
  

Well thanks for the vote of confidence. I think you're right, though I'll be honest I kind of "dread" (not dread, but don't really look forward to) the initial mechanics/asset building part because it's the part that requires more creative skill (and my main creative skill is writing/making music, not art). I've found the coding part pretty enjoyable so far (though who knows how that will go when I have a dozen scripts all acting on multiple characters).

 

Yeah, one of my biggest roadblocks to attempting game design myself is art assets (coupled with zero coding experience). There are lots of open-source art assets, but that can definitely be an issue of being hodge podge. As a suggestion, I'd say plan on using place holder art until you get further down the line with your systems. It may be worth paying someone a few hundred dollars to contract out some art designs for you at that point if you've sunk 100+ hours into the design of it.

 

To address a comment made earlier about the game being highly CPU intensive, one thing I have gathered from modding is that checks are made far too often than would be necessary. An "always on" check for hunger may not be needed but only once every 3 seconds to result in the exact same gameplay, but significantly less checks and processing.

 

Just a thought from an inexperienced guy.