RPG collaboration

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.

http://brokensword25.com/news/news.htm

Just think what we can accomplish instead of making poitnless spam threads.

>>97-san here

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.

>>112
Out of curiosity, >>112-san, how would one go about leaning how to find exploits in Flash files?

>>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.

>>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.

>>55
We are going with this idea. Use C with opengl. I expect the binaries in my office by next week.

>>55
deconstruct
Sorry, that is not a word.  Please try again.

>>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

>>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.

COLLABORATE WITH MY ANUS

What the fuck?

>>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.

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.

>>123
It's the exact same thing that everyone else in this game thought of.

>>124
in this thread*

damnit

Let's make it like Final Fantasy except all the characters use sex as a substitute for love.

I say we grab the RPG genre by the throat and drag it kicking and screaming to it's apex.

>>127
Already done by FV.
http://dis.4chan.org/read/prog/1260824681/28

>>123
Sounds like professor moriarty's appearances on TNG.

>>123
Sounds quite interesting, actually.

I am distressed to report that noone has yet set in writing the most vital if not THE most vital part of the project....

The action should be set in the Chech Republic!

>>131
If anything, the setting should be a communistic Russia-like land with steampunk.

>>132
I believe that >>131 already coved that.

>>131
"Czech" republic

Back to Prague, please.

>>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''.

>>135


* Czech Republic
* Kingdom of Belgium
* United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland


One of these is not like the other. Can you tell which?

Answer: Czech Republic is the only proper country name that is also common parlance!

COMMON PARLANCE

>>137
hahahaha

>>137
still loling!

>>137
>>138
>>139
sure is famesag in here

>>140
Back to /b/, please.

>>140
You got metatrolled. Someone posted >>138-139 trying to make >>137 look like a samefag idiot. Pretty obvious, to me anyway.

>>142
You got meta²trolled. Someone posted >>141 trying to make >>140 look like a samefag idiot. Pretty obvious, to me any-fucking-way.

You got trolled. >>140-141 was a samefag, and while posting >>140, he left his quotes unoptimized on purpose.

BUMP

OK ENOUGH TALK LETS GET STARTED

#incude <stdio.h>

#include <bbcode.h>
#include "GRUNNUR.h"

>>148
s/.*/#include <void>/


int main(void)

>>150
mainstart


printf("You are in a dungeon. You can see a piece of cheese\n");

>>152
if (input = up) then
    printf("You stare at the ceiling.\r\n");
    neht
fi

typedef struct _mat_dickie {
    void *artists;
    int innovative_concepts;
} MDickie;

class MDickie2 : MDickie
  {
    void *anus;
  }

MDickie mat();
hax(((MDickie2)mat)->anus);

Actually, I wonder if we would be able to complete a game at all.

I'm voting for a FFV/RPGMaker lookalike written in C with a scripting system in Lua.

printf("You walk towards the cheese.\n");

/**
 * Replace
 *
 * Replaces a scientist with an artist.
 *
 * @param scientist     A reference to a computer scientist.
 */

void MDickie::Replace (Scientist& scientist) {
        Artist artist = new ArtistFactory.createArtist();
        scientist = arist;
        return;
}

>>158
s/arist/artist/

=(

>>156
Lua

You mean ECL, right?

>>160
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECL_programming_language#Procedures_and_bind-classes

Amazing! All it's missing is GRUNNUR.

>>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?

>>161
I thought >>160 meant a certain embeddable compiled-to-c implementation of a certain language, but I wouldn't know, for I am not >>160.

>>162
How about completing a formal design document so that I can start with Scheme.

>>162
http://spheredev.org/
http://ika.sourceforge.net/

>>163
Of course I did.

You can't draw anything. Not even low-pixelated elf tits. Why even bother coding?

>>167
One word programmer art thread over

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

>>167
low-pixelated elf tits
reminded me of Ginormo, did it reach Prague?

>>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.

>>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.

>>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.

>>173
I wish I knew what any of that meant.

>>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.

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?

>>176
ONE WORD THE FORCED INDENTATION OF CODE THREAD OVER

Ruby is much more kawaii desu

I'm doing my bits in Go.  You guys can do the rest in Ruby if you want.

Ruby is not portable. Use C.

>>179
If people aren't too stupid to write conformant & portable C then I would like to contribute.

>>179
Use C.
U MENA HASKAL???

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.

>>182
[quote]GUI-oriented[/quote]
Oh gosh. Op, don't you ever listen to anyone from this kind.

>>183
[quote]
Oh gosh. Op, don't you ever listen to anyone from this kind.

>>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.

>>185
Yes but some people are clueless and write horribly non-conformant and unportable code just because they have never even thought of it.

>>182
>Python
>best

what the fuck am I reading