Well we all laughed at FV's strategy game colloboration Velox et Astrum, but take a look at this. You may have heard of the RPG series known as ``Broken Sword''. And a small team of ~15 people managed to make a sequel to Broken Sword 2.
>>4
they were getting paid.
there is a huge difference between them and you.
if you don't know what /pr/ is then you need to just leave the internet altogether; you've obviously very new here and not smart enough to use google.
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Anonymous2009-12-12 7:21
>>2 game programming is for children
Now, now, letting go of your childhood dreams you weren't able to make come true isn't a sign of maturity, anon.
>>11
making fibs and facts all day is awesome, amirite?
Don't get me wrong, I think programming is awesome too, but some people can't seem to grasp that making games can be one of those fun things (see: Dwarf Fortress).
>>17
That may be so, but it is a lot of work for little reward. Any project to "maek a gaem" on /prog/, is usually started by some imbecile with an overambitious plan looking for some free labour. If you think that you can make a game, by all means start, but no-one is likely to help you if you don't have a solid base to start from.
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Anonymous2009-12-12 8:51
>>19
Yeah, try making an ENTERPRISE GUI INTERFACE APPLICATION SOLUTION in VB.Net, see how fun that is.
>>20
Keep in mind that I'm not OP, I'm just a little annoyed that most of the time someone mentions making a game in Prague, the usual replies are "back2/pr/" or "back2/highschool/".
And I agree that asking for help here is pointless and the people who would do that are usually just as you described, but OP was asking for a /prog/ collaboration, which I think is a little different.
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Anonymous2009-12-12 9:13
>>25
Before tackling something ambitious like a game, we'd need a proof of concept that /prog/ collaborations can actually work I'm looking at you Anonix devs
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Anonymous2009-12-12 9:16
>>26 we'd need a proof of concept that /prog/ collaborations can actually work
But it's impossible to deliver one as they can't
I'm a bit learned in various types of art. I could work on concept art or creative writing. I can do 3d art in maya or 3d studio max. I can't code though I know nothing about it. Given time I can make some nice pixel art. Email me
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Anonymous2009-12-12 23:52
>>36
/v/, We need you to give us your ideas. We currently don't have much in the form of:
>>39
Well, I have some plot ideas... should I post them?
They're kinda stupid though, maybe someone else has better ones...
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:04
Do a strategy RPG. I've had a few brewing in my head for a while myself.
Basically, you just need a reason for a war between countries that isn't entirely retarded, a few interesting characters, some interesting dialogue between battles, a few kickass tunes, and a rock-paper-scissors-style battle system.
Example: The Redditer-Praguean War of 1863
Throw some airships in there along with traces of anti-industrialists themes and you've got yourself the latest indie "masterpiece."
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:08
>>41
So what makes an interesting character? I apologize if that's a dumb or obtuse question.
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Glide2009-12-13 0:10
Well, as for a story, I've had one brewing in my head for a long time... if this thing takes off and anyone wants to hear about it, I'd be happy to drop a synopsis. Is there any interest at all?
Shadowrun takes place in the future and there was some sort of magic that went around and transformed some normal people into orcs, elves, dwarfs, and some people retained their former bodies. There are two worlds, the obvious world that everyone lives on, and then cyber space which you can delve into by jacking yourself into computers. Why it is called Shadowrun is because there are people who are runners, of course they have to keep it a secret because doing these runs are unlawful thus they have to keep it in the shadows, thus Shadowrun. They pick up runs from Johnsons and upon completing them they get paid.
There are three basic classes, Samurai which is most proficient at hand to hand combat and other various forms of combat, Deckers which can easily go through cyber space and hack into companies files and get information needed and good at rewiring building security and unlocking electronic doors, ect., they are the go to guys for anything mechanical, then lastly there are Shaman. Shaman are the magic users and can use various spells against enemies or to help aid him and his party.
There are various stats to upgrade and all of them have their uses, from being more proficient to certain guns, magic, using medikits, throwing grenades, using cyber decks well, interfacing with computers, negotiating prices to hire additional runners and run price, to persuade others, and various other skills.
Combat happens in real time from your one to three man party depending if you hire more runners for your party. You are able to switch runners on the fly and the ones you aren't controlling have their own set of AI to try to keep themselves from dying and to defend their selfs.
There could be a lot more cleared up but I wouldn't know unless asked and the best way to know the game more is to emulate it to see what it is about. But one of my favorite parts of the game is the ambiguous situations that you are faced, you often encounter them multiple times and they always are the same but the outcome always isn't the same. You usually have three choices to choose from, but depending on the ending outcome you could be fighting against the law, seeing someone dragged away by some mobsters, or helping someone try to escape drug dealers that are after them.
The story starts out with a young man; a squire for a less than virtuous knight. He is however, very rich, and popular with the ladies. He's great at putting on airs, and looking good in the public eye, and he's not too bad in a fight. He is however, a terrible person.
This young man eventually can't stand it anymore and casts aside his dreams of eventually becoming a royal knight and instead becomes a serf. He continues to be active as part of the local militia, and after some time becomes well known by the commoners to be a good person. Basically the de-facto law, akin to doc holiday.
In this world, a prophecy was made long ago. The prophecy tells of a great war, between man and demon. In this prophecy is detailed that a great warrior of light will appear from the kingdom and save the world when things look most bleak.
Recently, more and more people have been reported missing, and demon sightings have been on the rise. People start to whisper about the prophecy, and how this great cataclysm might be on the way.
In order to identify this champion, the various lords of the land decide to hold a tournament. The "bad" knight from above emerges as the victor. His first act as the world's greatest champion, is to denounce and banish our main character from his home out of spite. He is labeled as a heretic and deserter.
So begins his quest for vengeance on the so called "hero".
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:25
>>47 >>48
I would think that a third (I prefer third person) or first person style with real time combat would be necessary for the theme. Survival horror doesn't seem like it would work very well with a turn based battle system. Though if somebody managed to pull it off successfully I'd be very impressed.
Complex motives, flaws, interesting interactions with other characters, being genuinely funny, things like that. For example,
Potentially Good Character: I'm fighting in this war because I'
Bad character: HURR DURR I FIGHT FOR MY FRIENDS/I AM THE ULTIMATE EVIL, I WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD HURRRR/moralfag/etc
Similarly, Good Plot: Attempts to tell some sort of message about something through use of metaphor, hypothesis, setting, themes, mood, etc. Always keeps the audience guessing.
Bad Plot: Beats cliches like a dead horse. Uses elements without any thought for consequence, just because it looks cool.
Rather than asking, I'll just dump a potential storyline / character thingy here.
You, the protagonist, are either unconscious or dead. The homeworld of the game is within your mind; an endless void of whitespace, with a small wooden shack floating on a small chunk of earth. Once you float inside the shack, you'll find a cloaked stranger (An older/alternate/etc. version of yourself). He introduces you to this existence, and explains the existence of magic, and other beings like yourselves that "exist" around you. This whitespace area acts as a mana repository; perhaps it can change color or something the more mana you collect in-game. You are given the option to move between this white-space world, and a "community pool of minds" of sorts, where you can see other players (by default, cloaked strangers, until you meet them), and jump into maps with enemies, or temples to learn spells and gather mana.
Tangible objects, like swords, don't exist in this world, so magic is one's only weapon. Each player can spend mana either to increase the power of their spells, to create new spells, or to add to their shield. Default spells can be learned at temples, while more advanced combinations must be experimented with in the homeworld. If a player falls in battle, they are merely sent back to their whitespace, sans shield.
That right there is my dream game, sans a lot of stuff that I don't see any reason to type yet. They might be overused, but alternate selves, death, and being highly unaware of obvious things are some damned good plot additions. I envisioned this game as a 2-d side scroller, something akin to MapleStory (at least, control-wise), but I doubt that a lot of what I wrote here could easily be coded.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:43
>>53
As for an actual plot... I couldn't really think of anything besides character development (Going from quiet, reclusive, meek, unaware to friendly, outgoing, powerful and quite aware that you are probably dead and that guy in the shack is you [and man, are you an asshole or what?]). Perhaps it could follow a Kingdom-Hearts-esque "story", and just follow other generic cliche plots, throwing your budding mage into all sorts of wacky places.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:50
/v/irgin here.
Since we're in the "throwing out ideas" phase here, allow me.
My idea is to completely deconstruct the generic fantasy game plot. As such, it would start innocuously.
It would be a simple save-the-princess story where she falls in love with the hero and lives happily ever after, if the player goes through the game oblivious. However, there are subtle hints throughout the game that not is all as it seems, with apparent plot holes in places.
If the player decides to investigate these plot holes, he can eventually learn the real truth behind the game's story. It was all set up by an evil mastermind who somehow found the universe's equivalent of the Triforce. He set up everything needed for the plot to happen, creating a false antagonist and modifying people's memories.
And the identity of the true villain? Why, it is the person who profits most from the story, of course: the main character, prior to modifying his own memory.
Human kind has been eliminated, save for 5000 people. They are hooked up, unaware, to virtual reality machines controlled by a single, all powerful man (a god to them). The irony is that in their virtual reality, the world is in a state of anarchy, and the individual has the power to control everything. Can be seen as an allegory to modern times, a criticism of democracy and the modern way of life, and allows you to use whatever kind of setting you want inside the virtual world (it's not real) while still maintaining respectability.
I'd be damned if it isn't true, but to this day, amnesia / memory loss is one of the best plot devices in existence, second to time-travel. I'm serious
>>58
I dislike both. It would be better if it was kept in place. What about someone who didn't know they had amnesia, and it isn't apparent at all until mid-way or even more into the game.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:13
>>60
I admit that my plot has flaws; you're free to dislike or criticize it. It just got to me that this guy did so with such obviously bad motives.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:28
What do I think would be fun and easy to get people behind? To take Final Fantasy VI and expand the game by adding content throughout. I can easily imagine people wanting to do the same with other games. What I propose is, instead of making a game, a set of "RPG Maker"-like tools with fewer limitations. Package it with a few prefab clones of existing RPGs, and watch people take notice.
It'll fit right in with other "remix culture" and "mod" headlines, too.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:51
>>62
Final Fantasy VI is dull. You are thinking about the wrong kind of RPG. Other RPGs can give you a LOT more choices for the player, and that would be directions they can go to instead of character building like how Final Fantasy games are like and majority of RPGs in Japan tend to be like. Final Fantasy VI does have decisions, but they are limited in scope compared to others, just compare it to something like Deus Ex. Situations can completely change depending on what you do, if you decide to follow orders or kill someone then you may see that person later on and confront them, ect. Makes it a LOT more interesting.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 2:34
>>63
Deus Ex was pretty linear. About all you got control over plot-wise was the final cutscene and your fucking body count.
Most RPGs have a limited story and a reasonably customizable character set
How about we go the other way.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:05
A limited character set with every permutation opening up new possibilities narratively? Say, at every major plot point the game takes note of the player's party, and offers a party-dependent plot advancement, and post-plot-point world state?
Of course, to do this it would HAVE to be done procedurally, otherwise that's a just a shitload of work. I mean, even with just two possible party members, that's three outcomes. One for Member A alone, one for Member B alone, and one with both. It'd effectively be a trinary tree of ending possibilities (assuming none doubled over.)
Of course, I suppose you could also do certain checks at certain points, like "do mission X with Party Member 1, cause World State pi, do it with Party Member 2, cause World State mu."
... No, it'd be better just to go procedurally.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:39
>>63
One well-written plot is better than a shitty choose-your-own-adventure novel.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:54
>>67
To avoid interactivity in narrative has long been the greatest let-down in games. Interactivity is the what makes games different than other mediums. Any game based on a linear plot is better done in another medium.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:57
>>68
How does one design an procedural narrative and still have the game enjoyable to play?
NOTE TO THE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD:
you won't be able to achieve anything more complex than final fantasy 1. don't even bother thinking about trying to emulate the awesomeness of games like deus-ex or morrowind.
now get out
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Anonymous2009-12-13 4:33
>>69
I don't see how the two are diametrically opposed. For instance, ever played Facade? I certainly thought it was fun, considering it was made by two guys. (Sure, over years of time, but, two guys.)
Take such a system that advances from plot point to plot point, allowing the player to influence characters/events in ways that will register as one in a myriad of ways by a "story manager," and choose the next point to begin from. The only part remotely annoying about it (in my admitted estimation,) would be smoothing transitions. But, say, you're charged with watching over an orphanage in a mission.
The means of achieving the next plot point (the actual "game play" could be completely independent of the story manager. It could be anything from an action game to an RPG to an FPS.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 4:47
>>71 here
... Apparently I somehow deleted the entire third paragraph... Just ignore that last sentence in the second, please.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 5:15
>>69
Perhaps give the player a goal to reach. Simply a geographical location will do. There can be a boss fight there if you're into clichés. Or not.
Then fill the world with an assortment of locked doors and impassable rivers, paired respectively with keys and ferries. Add a layer of indirection, so that NPCs must be fellated before you can obtain items or transport. Don't bother with story managers. Some games will be unwinnable. This is called realism. There will be no OMGWTF tweests or engrossing high-school political debates à la Deus Ex, but on the plus side, your actions will have an effect on your success.
He doesn't have amnesia. He modified his own memory, and with good reason: he wanted to think he was the hero, go on the adventure, and live happily ever after. He is completely unaware his memory has been altered until the very end of the secret ending.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 13:39
>>73
your post has just outlined the the greatest flaw in procedural storytelling, as well as the outlying thinking necessary for that flaw to be overlooked. well done.
conversely, your game sounds like it would be neither interesting, or fun. my actions have an effect on the world when i fart on my cat. that would be more fun than your game, and its still the epitome of mundane. "having an effect" is difficult to achieve programmatically, which has made it something of a holy grail, but that sentiment distracts us from more significant goals.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:09
why dont we just make a RPG about programing?
a young pupil just finished his training at the MIT dojo and now he goes trough the programing world with his trusted woodstaff, a old mayo sandwich and the words of sensei sussman.
on his pathe he fights javadragons and the evil C++ fanatics who wish to make a dark empire of this beautiful world.
i think you know what i would like to say.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:50
>>76
What more significant goals did you have in mind? Storytelling is largely irrelevant to games. History-making is the real goal. Giving the player a multitude of possible paths for every skillset and the power to choose one or screw one is a much better goal than crafting some kind of plot that, let's face it, would be totally ignorable if it were handwritten.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:59
>>49
Final Fantasy Tactics almost certainly handled these themes better.
>>78
the goal in question is up to the developer. but if your primary goal is "history-making," you have left out broader considerations about the audience, and narrower considerations about the message. you haven't explicitly decided what you want your user to feel, and neither do you have the creative vectors of theme, motif, metaphor, etc. you are probably ending up with a very empty game -- one that is neither fun, nor remarkable, but yes, allows you to make changes to it. which is something the player do everyday in the most mundane of tasks. so why should they be playing your game? what is the purpose of this medium in the first place?
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Anonymous2009-12-13 17:14
>>81
Message? In a game? Whose blog have you been reading? And I'm having trouble believing that a game needs some kind of masturbatory plot to be fun.
the games that are most fun are the ones in which you choose your own plot
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Anonymous2009-12-13 19:14
It's been said before that /v/ cannot agree on anything, but if they were willing to compromise, they would make the best game ever. Obviously, they are not.
Seems that adding /prog/ to the mix didn't help matters.
Fact: You can either have one good plot in a game with minimal impact from the player, or you can let the player do anything but have no plot at all. You can compromise between the two, but you cannot attain both extremes at once. Which you prefer is a matter of taste, and none of us can agree on which one. So, I propose we try to work out a compromise between "good plot" and "player impact". The extremists on both sides will refuse to join in, but we should be able to complete it without them, and will probably be better off without them.
If you want to make a plot-focused game, make that. If not, make that. There will be some people who will contribute to the first game, and some that will contribute to the second game. In the end, what matters is not what kind of game that you are making, but that you are making a game at all.
>>84 but if they were willing to compromise, they would make the best game ever
I highly doubt this. I find that the best games are masterminded by either a principal developer, or really tight collaborations of homosexual proportions.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 20:36
How about a sort of roguelike party based strategy melee combat?
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has an "arena" option, where a bunch of AI monsters fight another bunch of AI monsters to the death.
Modify this to a bunch of player controlled characters fight a bunch of AI controlled monsters. Instead of 25 levels of dungeon, with branches and extensive player levelling, you have two levels of dungeon, one to get equipment, another which is the "fighting pit".
Monsters would be generated based on player character stats.
Player would (perhaps) have X points to build his team of characters.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 23:53
>>26
What about that fake programming contest that a shitload of people made components of an application for each 'stage' of the competition, unaware that they were working together to create a crazy screensaver.
Useless thread is useless. Why are we talking storyline? Let /v/ handle that. Someone come up with a decent game mechanic, so /prog/ can actually start coding something.
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Anonymous2009-12-14 0:04
>>90 Someone come up with a decent game mechanic
I think that would be /tg/'s job.
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Anonymous2009-12-14 0:12
>>91
Yeah, /v/ is only good for 2D (and sometimes 3D) graphic design.
>>88 came up with a decent game mechanic. And most of the programing has been done. Just rip their huge code apart, take the tiny bits you need, write and add the considerable amount we need.
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Anonymous2009-12-14 22:17
>>39
what are you talking about, the SICP VN has all of them*.
*Although the ``battle system'' consists mainly of pressing `next'.
I prefer reverse engineering for the typical purpose of cheating in games (specifically, Source engine games -- have a gander at gamedeception's forums to see all the shit they're up to in CSS/TF2). You learn a great deal and get to have some fun in the end as a result.
Suggested reading: Reversing: The Hacker's Guide to Reverse Engineering
My only other interest is procedural geometry, which isn't quite on the level of Mat Dickie's all-encompassing expertise necessary to design quality enterprise-class titles.
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Anonymous2009-12-15 6:14
>>96
If anything, /prog/ should work on the SICP VN. We already have a few screenshots of what it should look like.
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Anonymous2009-12-15 10:58
Here's my story idea:
Knights vs. Samurai.
The samurai all have special moves that can cleave a knight in half, with the following additions: If the move is used for the first time it works at full power, the subsequent times it depends on the tide of the battle. If the tide is against the samurai, the effectiveness is decreased (because the knights have figured out how it works), in the other case it is fully effective (since the knights fear it and can't think straight).
>>101
The only way cheating would be fun is satiating some ridiculous mental complex.
For a few examples:
I deserve more than other people simply because I'm me and others aren't.
I'm going to trick others into thinking I'm actually good so they reward me with admiration and the praise I so deserve.
I'm having "fun," where the definition of fun is ruining another's experience.
None of this appeals to me. Your bullshit call means nothing to me. I can't think of a single game that would be better with cheating. There are some that are so hard that it's necessary to contend with the game, but the solution there is to simply not buy and play those games because they're not really fun anyway; cheating or not.
>>102
As an afterthought, I define cheating as something that gives the player a tangible benefit over some other player.
Cosmetic cheats like g_saberrealisticcombat in Jedi Outcast - and this is a horrible example because it actually does make the game more fun by making lightsabers do what you expect - are more in the vein of things that are not cheats. I take no issue with costumes and texture hacks as long as they award no tangible benefit.
There's also the "I'm breaking your rules, and you can't do shit about it. Nah nah nahnah nah" complex that I forgot to mention.
>I deserve more than other people simply because I'm me and others aren't.
I deserve more than other people simply because I'm better then you.
After all there is no reason you couldn't use the same cheat? The field would be equal.
If there is a reason i'm smarter or more knowledgeable if i can use it and i use that knowledge to game the system.
If is some ethical limit you cannot overcome you're conform to the system's creator game rules.
The game is my game and i play to win and have the most fun. Game doesn't mean i have to be a "normal player".
_____________________________________ http://bayimg.com/image/iafhbaacj.jpg
«Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men. »
>>103 I define cheating as something that gives the player a tangible benefit over some other player.
By your definition, being more skillful or prior experience would be cheating ;)
If we want to talk about cheating in video games, I would suggest that without external modification, this is impossible. Before someone starts complaining, a game is defined by it's rules and in a video game, this would be the game code itself.
Naturally, House rules are a separate matter altogether.
For a game that I consider to be not much fun without "cheating"( here we will define the more usual definition of cheating i.e. Doing things that you are ordinarily not supposed to be able to do), I'd say GTA. I was thoroughly disappointed by the first 3D version and all subsequent releases and quite frankly found it more fun to go on rampages as a stripper with a katana, driving a go-kart.
>>102
My point in posting >>101, is that if you have never played a game in which cheating was more fun than the normal game, then you either have very low threshold for fun, have led a sheltered life in regards to the game you play (possibly aggressively filtering each of the games you play to make sure they meet your expectations) or that you had very little to no expectations to begin with.
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Anonymous2009-12-15 13:40
>>106
What game have you played that was more fun when cheating? If you enjoy the game more when you skip large portions of it and don't have to try, you must have a very low threshold for fun.
>>107 What game have you played that was more fun when cheating?
How about the Sims? That game is way more fun if you just use it as an experimentation ground for weird ideas than playing it "as the creators intended". If you enjoy the game more when you skip large portions of it and don't have to try, you must have a very low threshold for fun.
This is only true, if you plan to use the cheats to play the normal game. Making your own fun in a boring game is a separate matter altogether.
>>106
"Very low threshold for fun"? What does that even mean? How would you define or measure a threshold for fun? Regardless, I've been playing video games since 1990, when I was 3. "Sheltered" is not a good way to describe my gaming habits.
>>105
I never enjoyed the Grand Theft series either. To me, it's extremely boring to do the thing you describe. There's nothing satisfying about rampaging around as a stripper with a katana driving a go-kart. Perhaps the first couple times, but personally, I can't see that being fun for more than 30 minutes.
However, it seems that I'm a minority in this respect; the Grand Theft series sells like hotcakes and people tell me that I'm missing out even though I've actually played it and find it to be no more satisfying.
>>109 "Very low threshold for fun"?
The phrase I meant to use was "easily amused", but that's what happens when you've been watching some political show
There's nothing satisfying about rampaging around as a stripper with a katana driving a go-kart. Perhaps the first couple times, but personally, I can't see that being fun for more than 30 minutes.
I'm never going to suggest that it will be fun for large amounts of time (in a particular game anyway), but the principle of taking a shitty game and trying to make it more fun through experimentation is something I still enjoy doing.
>>110
What prevents you from experimenting in the absence of cheating? Games in the vein of the Grand Theft series give the player a remarkable amount of freedom.
I don't really see how or why cheating needs to be a factor, but in a single player context, I would have no problem with your attitude. I can even see how that might be fun.
Also, "easily amused" is a weasel phrase that could be used by any party to express their opinions. While this isn't wikipedia[1][2], and /prog/ is generally worse[3], we could at least try.
It's not so much cheating to get off somehow in the game, it's just the whole take-shit-apart thing (yes, I do usually use this to troll, but I try to keep it creative).
I've done the same to Y! Live and Stickam.com flash applets, which both had huge client-side exploits that would let one pretty much takeover the applet for stuff like opening arbitrary URLs on clients, or funnier, embed 0x0 flash videos in the chat buffer that would repeat something I found funny. For example, you'd have like 3 black guys all huddled around a computer talking up the babes and breaking down haters, and all of a sudden at maximum volume you hear from their speakers, "YA'LL NIGGAS COOKIN? YA'LL NIGGAS COOKIN? YA'LL NIGGAS COOKIN? ...", from the great Chapelle.
It's more of a destructive impulse, but finding exploits that few-to-little people have touched is fun in itself.
>>111 I don't really see how or why cheating needs to be a factor
It doesn't. In certain games, especially games like SimCity, a little cheating makes experimentation easier to start with. The other option is to play the game wisely and conservatively and to keep a "starting point" save file, but sometimes that just seems like busy work.
but in a single player context
Yes, this is the important factor. In a multi-player game, I would either play the game according to the rules, or else we would all bend them.
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Anonymous2009-12-15 19:20
>>97 My only other interest is procedural geometry, which isn't quite on the level of Mat Dickie's all-encompassing expertise necessary to design quality enterprise-class titles.
I am extremely interested in this as well. I've been experimenting with this in my spare time actually. Do you know of any books or research papers on the subject?
The only game I know of that really uses this (aside from water/terrain, i.e. glorified tessellation) is Spore, but when you play it for a bit you realize how extremely limited the skeletal structure is of the creatures you build. And of course the buildings, vehicles, etc. were not really procedural; just highly compressed, due to being assembled with a very tailored (and very limited) modeller. Every one of the thousands of buildings that shipped with the game was hand-crafted by some drone at EA. Spore was very disappointing in this respect.
The advantages in procedural generation has always been the unique look of randomly generated objects. You just can't do this if you hand-craft everything. I feel like with some good libraries for generating primitives and moulding geometry, and a simple scripting language incorporating randomness to create high-level constructs, you could generate quite unique looking scenes.
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The Sussman2009-12-16 4:43
>>55
We are going with this idea. Use C with opengl. I expect the binaries in my office by next week.
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Anonymous2009-12-16 5:54
>>55 deconstruct
Sorry, that is not a word. Please try again.
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Anonymous2009-12-16 6:06
>>117
This is what people who don't read and define the English language by whatever is in their spellchecker actually believe.
deconstruct de`con*struct" (d[-e]`k[u^]n*str[u^]kt"), v. t.
To interpret (a text or an artwork) by the method of
deconstruction.
[WordNet 1.5]
-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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Anonymous2009-12-16 16:00
>>84 You can compromise between the two, but you cannot attain both extremes at once.
That's the thing; what one could do is basically write the story with several branches so that the user can Choose His Own Adventure, but for a sufficiently expanded storyline it would then be more profitable to just create more games. However, procedurally generating stuff shouldn't be impossible, just very very hard. After all, one could argue that the universe is generated procedurally with a certain set of rules and an initial state.
>>87 really tight collaborations of homosexual proportions I wouldn't really mind that.
>>97,115
I'm not sure how much that fits into "procedural geometry", but have you taken a look at Dwarf Fortress?? I don't think the source code is widely available, but it generates worlds (along with civilizations, history and historical figures and events), quite nicely at that.
As for a game collaboration over the Internet, I think that could only work if all the team members are sufficiently motivated. One requirement of that would be that everyone agreed to virtually all aspects of the game, and so I believe a way to make this work would be to form several small groups each working on a different game.
Though considering how well Pragueriders compromise with others and how long their attention span is, I wouldn't get my hopes high.
>>55
Sounds interesting, but as >>119 said, getitng people to compromise is hard, a better solution is to get one or two people write a very detailed design document describing the game, mechanics and everything, then find some coders and artists to implement it, otherwise I don't see this working.
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Anonymous2009-12-17 0:54
When I was younger I thought of a quirky game with some replay value. During the first cycle, the antagonist slowly becomes self-aware, and by the end, recognizes the role he/she/it plays in the fictional universe. Before being defeated, the antagonist permanently changes the game so the next time it is started, it is no longer the same game. The antagonist maintains his/her/its self-awareness, and begins to directly modify the game content. Through the subsequent iterations of playing through the game, differences and 'glitches' are discovered, changing outcomes and the entire plot.
If you wanted to add a bit of realism to the game, the antagonist finally discovers other files on the player's computer--important files. Suddenly the conflict moves from a fictional world to a very real world...
In other words the game is just a very fancy virus.
>>131,134
The country's name is Czechia. Please don't call it ``Czech Republic'' unless you also refer to the UK as ``United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'' or to Belgium as ``Kingdom of Belgium''.
>>156
This seems way excessive. No one has time for that shit. We should just do it in Python, since it's extremely easy and probably has the best chance of us actually getting something playable.
Alternatively, we all know what the classic /prog/ troll is, so why not put our money where our mouth is?
Also, is >>88 the gameplay mechanic we are talking about here? Seems like quite a bit of leg work to actually get something playable. Why don't we do a JRPG, like a stripped down version of FF1? Seems by far the easiest. A character sprite that can wander around a simple static dungeon/overworld, with a simple tileset, and tiles simply have passable/impassable state. Random battles in the style of FF1; turn-based, party-style, no effects other than moving health bars. That's it.
This to me is the quickest way to get a playable game, and from there you can enhance it however you like. I am sure I can write a simple tile-based map editor with wxPython in a few hours, and we can let whoever wants to make content go crazy; meanwhile we can add basic elemental spells (no effects needed, just an alternative form of damage), items and chests, scripted events, etc. These things are not difficult; the main thing in a JRPG is always content.
Also, what do you guys think of revision control? I feel like it's cheating if we break anonymity, which would be required to maintain any kind of shared revision control system; I don't think we should use anything other than pastebin and rapidshare. I think all code patches and such should just go on pastebin and be linked and discussed here, and whoever feels like it can rapidshare a tarball every now and then.
I think this project is a good experiment. Thoughts?
Programmer Art refers to temporary graphics added by the software developer to test functionality. When creating the artwork speed is a priority and aesthetics are secondary, if they are given any consideration at all. In fact, programmer art might be intentionally bad. This draws attention to the fact that the artwork is only a placeholder and should not go into the final product. This practice might also speed its replacement.
Examples include stick figure sprites and fuchsia textures.
Programmer Art may also refer to the art created by an independent or hobbyist developer, where a single person is responsible for all aspects of software/game development. As the creator in this case is typically a developer rather than an artist, the resulting art is functional rather than aesthetic.
FUNCTIONAL ART, TAKE THAT, M.DICKIE
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Anonymous2009-12-24 11:59
>>167 low-pixelated elf tits
reminded me of Ginormo, did it reach Prague?
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Anonymous2009-12-24 12:24
>>162 Also, what do you guys think of revision control? I feel like it's cheating if we break anonymity, which would be required to maintain any kind of shared revision control system; I don't think we should use anything other than pastebin and rapidshare. I think all code patches and such should just go on pastebin and be linked and discussed here, and whoever feels like it can rapidshare a tarball every now and then.
This sounds miserable. Any unnecessary obstacle can kill a project, and a bit of pseudonymity is alright when we want to organize something.
Anyway, here's a thing I did: http://www.assembla.com/spaces/prog/
You can sign up with just an email address (which can be hidden), and the `space' is set to open access so you should be able to add yourself to it and commit code. I might add a /prog/fighter later.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 13:28
>>162 Why don't we do a JRPG, like a stripped down version of FF1? Seems by far the easiest. A character sprite that can wander around a simple static dungeon/overworld, with a simple tileset, and tiles simply have passable/impassable state. Random battles in the style of FF1; turn-based, party-style, no effects other than moving health bars. That's it.
Yet another RPGMaker?
These things are not difficult; the main thing in a JRPG is always content.
And that's the problem; we won't be able to come up with a lot of content of good quality.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 14:47
>>162 the main thing in a JRPG is always content.
The main thing in a JRPG is always the combat system.
Anyway, I had been thinking about making a RPG myself lately, my ideas are somewhat like this:
* Touhou theme so we can skip backgrounds and everything. Has a non-zero chance of having music and graphics made for us.
* Traditional overhead view, etc. etc., like Dragon Quest 1.
* Traditional turn-based combat system. Romancing SaGa concepts can be imported to make the combat fun.
And here are the aces which will make the game fun to play:
* Epick Rogue-like dungeon crawls.
* Epick boss fights.
* Epick Rogue-like amount of loot from enemies (like Angband).
I have not yet figured out how to make such amounts of loot play with a classic JRPG turn-based combat system.
>>172
Yes another RPGMaker because it's easy and, you know, possible for a bunch of disorganized anons to get it working.
A rogue-like is crazy in my opinion. A huge advantage of doing a JRPG is that combat and exploration are completely disjoint, so it lends itself well to splitting up work.
Also, who cares about quality content? Just grab a simple CC tileset and character sprite, and make up a random world map. That's plenty good enough to call a game.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 15:19
I very much agree with >>173-chan. A rich magic item system is easy and fun to write, and can give even the shittiest game a lot of depth. Let's do that.
Also we still haven't figured out a language yet. Python?
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Anonymous2009-12-24 15:21
>>176 ONE WORD THE FORCED INDENTATION OF CODE THREAD OVER
Ruby is much more kawaii desu
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Anonymous2009-12-24 15:47
I'm doing my bits in Go. You guys can do the rest in Ruby if you want.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 16:20
Ruby is not portable. Use C.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 16:24
>>179
If people aren't too stupid to write conformant & portable C then I would like to contribute.
Just use the damn Python. It's your best shot at getting anything (portable, GUI-oriented) off the ground before /prog/ completely forgets about this next week.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 19:08
>>182
[quote]GUI-oriented[/quote]
Oh gosh. Op, don't you ever listen to anyone from this kind.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 19:21
>>183 [quote]
Oh gosh. Op, don't you ever listen to anyone from this kind.
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Anonymous2009-12-24 20:58
>>180
Longtime C coder here, it's not a matter of stupid; it's a matter of time. I know it takes me a lot longer to get things done in C than in Python. There's just no point in doing it in C.