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| Wednesday, April 25, 2007 |
  Story & Vision | 
Posted - 4/25/2007 11:31:52 PM | Storyline & Vision
Why does a shooter need a storyline?
At a first glance, it might seem like all of the major members of the shooter genre don't have storylines. Shooters are just about running around and fragging, right? So why should I bother?
A storyline is more important than many gamers and game developers may realize. A storyline is typically the byproduct of a vision for a game. When I started Project Skirmish, I could picture in my mind what the end result might look like -- how the gameplay would 'feel'. This is called vision. You know what you want your game to be like in the end, so you just need to start coding. Right?
I disagree. I followed this route for virtually all of my games thus far, and it hasn't served me as well as I had thought. In fact, in all of my completed games my initial vision when I began the project was very different from the game that I ended up with upon completion. In fact, I tended to write the storyline after I finished coding the game. Rather than the storyline defining the game, I was letting the game define the storyline. I'm positive that my end products suffered compared to what could have been produced via vice-versa.
Why is this? As I wrote a game over the period of several days/weeks/months, that vision is not usually what's in the forefront of one's mind. Usually the main train of thought is about, "Oh, I get to implement feature X today", or "Nuts, I have to write/debug that pesky subsystem today". The developer's thoughts become focused on the short-term, while the long-term original vision has become obscured by the daily ongoings.
I believe that using your vision to produce a storyline, and in essence, a more 'tangible' world for your game to exist in is crucial. Once you have your fictional game-world written out on paper (or computer), it suddenly feels that much more 'real'. The notion of "some online shooter game" has metamorphosized into what's beginning to feel like an actual world on its own. I regret not doing this vital step for my previous works, but it's one that I shall not miss again.
So be sure to take that extra step and start defining your world early. It's the glue and big-picture that keeps the project in proportion while you're whittling away at the day-to-day work.
Project Skirmish's Storyline
For convenience sake, I'll offer a link to the RTF document below:
Project Skirmish Synopsis+Storyline+Factions (2nd revision)
I'm interested in feedback on the storyline, both in terms of grammatical improvements and the general flow and direction of the writing. I expect many more revisions before it's something worthy of being called the manifestation of my vision for the game. :)
For those of you uninterested in looking through a several-paragraph storyline, here are the main factions involved in the game, alongside a brief bio:
- Sigma Technologies Corp.
- The mega-corporation that started the cascading events which all began in Europe. Formerly Sigma Mining Corp., they merged with the United European Army to form a corporation that could benefit from each other – one from the mining of weapons-grade materials, and the other from the power and influence that it held as a government. Sigma became Sigma Technologies, and quickly usurped the European governments’ power; effectively seizing control of all of Europe.
- Epsilon Research Corp.
- Following Sigma’s success with absorbing the European government, the North America-based corporation, Epsilon Research Corp., quickly rallied forces north and south of the United States by assimilating Canada and Mexico. Using their newfound strength, they cornered the US into receding from the brewing war. Following this, the United States formed the United Militia.
- New Meridian Front
- The New Meridian Front (known at large as the NMF) was formed shortly after the domination of Europe by Sigma Tech. Composed originally of angered former military officers and unsatisfied government officials, the NMF has now become a world-wide secretive rebellion group working against the mega-corporations.
- The United Militia
- The unification of the free countries untouched by Sigma and Epsilon; consolidating their forces into a world-wide militia in an attempt to fend off the ever-extending corporations. More wide-spread and powerful than the New Meridian Front but not as organized, the United Militia is the public face that openly defies the mega-corporations’ rise to power.
As mentioned in the Synopsis in the previous entry, the game will revolve around various battles/scenarios between these four factions. Alongside this I hope to have plenty of room for 'non-serious' gameplay, such as CTF, Deathmatches, and the like.
When does the coding begin?
Immediately. Now that I have a solid image in my head about what direction Project Skirmish is heading in, I feel ten times more confident about tackling the code side of the work.
I hope to write up and post the specifications for the first Milestone shortly. For the technically curious, my tools thus far are Eclipse and LWJGL. Given Java's exhaustive existing class library, it's not likely that I'll need any more than these.
Hopefully my talk of game vision and storyline has provided some inspiration to those of you currently/planning on writing a game of your own. I know that I won't begin another game without first starting to carve out the game world around me -- I don't think I could stand developing a game world that wasn't defined past my own initial vision for it anymore. :)
Until then, best of luck!
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| Announcing: Project Skirmish | 
Posted - 4/22/2007 11:07:08 PM | Introducing:
Project Skirmish
What is it?
The game, codenamed "Project Skirmish" for the time being, is to become an online team-oriented 2D tactical shooter. For comparison sake, it will be comparable to games such as Infantry, Planetside, and CounterStrike. It will be unique from all of these, but draw inspiration as a base for its developments to spring from.
Project Skirmish will take place in a dangerous futuristic world, full of both danger and opportunity. In a world where corporations dominate the nations' governments, where the common folk must rise up to arms just to survive, where local cities' militias must fight off these corporations' mercenary armies, where the world is engulfed in chaotic all-encompassing battle. With new technology like plasma weapons, railguns, and laser weapons rapidly entering the market, warfare only becomes bloodier. Players take on the roles of mercenaries, militiamen, soldiers and more in a variety of world-wide conflicts scattered across the war-torn planet.
What will be so special about it?
- Attractive 2D maps in a flexible polygon-based map format.
- Player-moddability via scripting engine and customizable servers.
- Player-hosted games capable of intense large-scale 15-30 player battles.
- Fast-paced gameplay without the run+gun syndrome; team-based with plenty of game depth, and room for skill development.
- Several different game modes; from 'Capture the Flag' to 'Deathmatch' to 'Stash!'.
- A player-centric community, with game editors released the the community to further modify and improve the game.
How and why will you be making it?
I've been creating games for several years now, and I have been getting pretty good at it. My dream game -- formerly a 'dream', that is -- has always been to create an online shooter driven by unique gameplay, which I'm confident that I can finally accomplish after years of building up experience, and the commitment to see projects through to the end. Words are cheap, so I candidly hope that my hard work and progress in the coming months will speak more loudly than this announcement can.
Project Skirmish will be written on the powerful Java platform, allowing for amazing visuals via OpenGL, and cross-platform play across the major platforms (including Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux). A premium will be put on writing and maintaining clean and flexible code: time and quality over speed and quantity. This will certainly be a multi-year project, but will be well worth it in the end.
Wow! How can I help?
The creation of any successful game is feedback-driven. Providing thought-out constructive comments is crucial to seeing Project Skirmish see the light of day. As development progresses, assistance will be needed in the areas of web development, tool development, artistic talent, and community management. Beta testing will not begin for several months, but those believed to be invaluable for alpha testing will be contacted in the coming months about involvement in the project.
From here on out this journal is intended to document my progress of this ambitious game project, and to generate interest in both the gamedev.net community and beyond in its future.
I've become accustomed to the positive and helpful mannerisms of the GD.NET folks, so I thank those of you in advance for your support and enthusiasm towards the project. Thank you for reading, and I hope you are all as excited as me in looking forward to the months ahead!
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| Exams finished -- time to go home! | |
Posted - 4/21/2007 9:58:47 PM | Exams & First Term
Tonight I finished my last exam, which marks the completion of my first year of university. I'm thrilled at this achievement, and can't wait for the Fall to come around again. This year alone has changed me and my life in so many ways, and the people that I've met here will definitely stick with me for years to come.
Most importantly: here comes summer! Time to crack out the speedo bathing suit.
New Project
With the summer coming up, and Membrane Massacre completed, it's more than apt to have a new project underway. I can't wait to get started, and am planning a nice big entry about it and my plans tomorrow. I literally can't wait to bust open the IDE!
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| Exams! Exams! | |
Posted - 4/19/2007 10:50:28 PM | Exams!
I'm still here, just very busy with final exams. Four of five are completed, and they are went pretty well -- it's looking to be a good term, markwise. I have one more this Saturday, and then I'm heading back home on the Monday. It'll be nice to be back after being stuck in this tiny dorm room for so long. 
Stencyl
This has been the other major timesink of my recent schedule. I'm very keen to finish up the collision detection system ASAP so I can move onto my next project, so my activity elsewhere in gamedev has been virtually non-existent. Still, having the opportunity to work on software with this much gleaming potential is a rare opportunity. I wish Jon the best of luck as the project begins to fall more and more into the public eye.
Stencyl will be opening its doors (the forum doors, at least) tomorrow at 6PM EST to the public, so I encourage you to drop in and see what Stencyl is all about. Many of you probably won't have any immediate interest, since you already know how to write games , but it's still worth a look-see.
Borland: Turbo Explorer Editions
These have apparently been out for nearly a year now, but it's news to me -- good news at that! Borland has been making killer IDEs for years now, although they've generally been pretty high-priced. In the spirit of the original Turbo Pascal days they've released 'Explorer Editions' of Delphi, C++ Builder, C# Builder, and Delphi for .NET. They are all (nearly) fully functioning products, and are a huge boon for quick application development or prototyping. The only downside is that you can only download one per computer. Still, for people wanting to try out Delphi or C++Builder, which has been proprietarily sealed for the last several years (to hobbyists/students), it's a great opportunity.
Take a gander: http://www.turbomirror.com
My only beef is that they did a god-awful job with the website. It looks like something from "The Internet of Ten Years Ago". 
More Game Development!?
Looks like I'll be writing games "professionally" this summer.
Here's the backstory: my friend Kasra, also the president of the uni's GameDev Club, filled me in on a project that some company in Waterloo contacted him about through our club site. They're a small-ish company focusing on writing services for cellphones and PCs (chatting, lobbies, IMing, etc), but also have a slowly-growing game development 'studio' being run by one of their employees. They already have a dozen small games made in C++ using one of their aforementioned services, but it's using an obsolete service/library and they need to all be changed over to the new library. So we'd be working part-time changing them over.
So in a nutshell, our task is to convert the dozen games from using one library to another. Heh. So me and Kasra decided we'd basically write a little abstraction layer between the two libraries, and just use the old function names and give them the new libraries' functionality.
In short: super-easy. We still haven't worked out compensation details, but anything is fine. This'll be a great chance to get some 'game development' on my rèsumè, and I get to work from home. It's adds an extra 2-3 hours or so a day to my full-time job workload, but I think it's definitely worth it. It also will likely mean an XBox 360 by the end of the term. 
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| What's new, pussycat? | |
Posted - 4/15/2007 12:18:51 AM | Final Exams
I have my two most difficult exams completed at this point, but three more remain. Once these are finished up I should be a little more in the clear. I've just been too busy/drained to be posting much these weeks.
Stencyl Collisions
This is the main time-sink. I've been working hard on the collision detection system for Stencyl very hard on a daily basis, and things are slowly coming together. It's almost purely debugging work, so it's pretty stressful. Still, I hope to be done this by the time my exams finish, giving me the chance to get my next project started in sync with my co-op term this May.
Membrane Massacre
The downloads keep on pouring in! The new version has received about 1300 downloads so far, and the counter is still pushing forward. I'll be submitting MM to a dozen or so freeware sites in the coming weeks, so I can only hope for even more positive feedback!
The Summer
I know I'll be very busy with both co-op and my next game project. What about you? What are you planning on working on in the coming months?
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| Is it just me, or is it noisy in here? | |
Posted - 4/7/2007 3:21:35 PM | Stencyl and Collisions
Although my posts have been sparse lately, I've been very busy on the game development end. It's not development for my game, but I certainly don't mind. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I volunteered/was-inducted to rewrite the collision detection system for the game creation system, Stencyl. I've been working on it on a here-and-there basis for the last couple of months, but now that Membrane Massacre is completed, I decided to focus entirely on this task and get it finished.
I keep a development blog on the Stencyl website to detail my Stencyl-related developments. I figured the details I discussed there were a little too nitty-gritty for you folks to want to digest; however the blog is publicly-accessible if you'd like to give it a look-see.
For kicks, and since I haven't posted a screenshot in a while, here's my latest accomplishment:
(Goombas attack!)
This looks simple enough, but the collision detection system is flexible enough to work for platformers, RPGs, racing games, or God knows what else future users will be able to think up. It's been both a challenge and a fascinating experience to need to write a system in such a manner that it needs to cover so many bases. Bounding shapes seem to work just fine now, so it's a matter of testing the pixel-based detection before I get to call it a day. Eliwood is trying to sucker me into writing the entire AI/logic for a Koopas while I'm here, too.
Perlin Noise!
For years now I'd hear the term "perlin noise" tossed around, and I've always been curious about what it was, and how it worked. However, I had always avoided looking into it since I figured it'd be somesort of heavily math intensive algorithm that would be over my head. Like my previous thoughts about A* pathfinding, I was pleasantly wrong.
After looking over the obligatory Wikipedia entry, I came across this helpful page about Perlin Noise. I used this to toss together a small application that generates images/textures using Perlin noise, and allows for the tweaking of several settings. I know I'll definitely be using this to generate some heightmaps when I delve further into 3D graphics programming.
Download "Perlin Noise Image Generator" (~6kb) (requires .NET Framework 2.0)
Perlin noise is excessively cool. The idea is simple enough, but its implications in game development are virtually unlimited. I really wish I had learned about this while I was still writing Membrane Massacre -- I could have generated some really interesting levels with it. Still, I can't think of any future project of mine that won't be able to benefit from the inclusion (in some manner) of Perlin noise.
Perlin Noise 101
For those who aren't familiar with Perlin noise: the idea is to create several 'layers' of randomized data (be it in 1D, 2D, or nD), starting with one of low resolution and high amplitude (fluctuation between random values) down to one of high resolution and low amplitude. For example:
This image is of very low resolution, but the values of colour range all the way from 0 to 255 (black to full brightness). We keep on moving up, making bigger images with lower amplitude until we do the last one:
The last image is one of high resolution and low amplitude (ie. the values don't vary much from medium-brightness).
Combining these, we essentially making layers of randomness. The first image was the overall 'grand scheme' of the image, but if one was to zoom in, the last image provides the really-close low-level detail. Using a mountain as an example, we'd make the first image be the shape of that mountain's ridge-line if we were looking at it from very far away, yet the last image would be one were we are standing on the slopes of the mountain itself: the height variations are less blatant, but they are still there at that micro-level. And thus we have the end result:
In this, hopefully you see why this is so darn cool: nature uses this sort macro/micro randomization all over the place. And if nature uses it, then we sure as heck have a good excuse to use it in our games.
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| More aftermath. | |
Posted - 4/1/2007 10:54:59 PM | Membrane Feedbackcre
Feedback has been looking great, so far, all-around. I was definitely just in a post-release-jitters stage during my last entry. I've been getting tons of positive comments, plenty of constructive criticism, and even a few encouraging emails! Not to mention ~700 in the last five days. I'm really happy about the outcome so far, and can't wait to start submitting it to freeware websites.
The end, or more?
How does a developer decide when to stop working on a game? I've been getting a lot of really excellent points about improving aspects of MM -- points which I openly admitted would really go a long way in making MM all that it could be.
But is it worth it? Should a developer keep on working on a game until it truly is 'all that it can be'? Does such a state truly exist? When do we draw the line? I'm still undecided whether I want to go back and do one more update and re-release. Part of me wants to throw the game away and be rid of it, and part sort of wants to go that extra 5% distance to make MM shine as much as possible.
Stencyl -- Collisions ahoy!
A few months ago I was contacted and asked if I could rewrite the collision management system for the budding game development software, Stencyl. I've been friends with the creator for a couple of years now, so I accepted. It would be a good chance to flex out my collision detection 'skills' and help out on a project dripping with potential.
So far my contributions have been pretty shabby, I grudgingly admit. I've been so wrapped up with Membrane Massacre, my schoolwork, and social life to really sit down and put the time into it that it a) deserves, and b) told Eliwood that I would. So this will be my new priority in the coming days/weeks/months (however long it takes). I've fallen really far behind schedule on this, and I'm going to start making good on my promises to deliver, immediately.
End of Term
Just two days of lectures remain until my final exam period begins. 17 days of fun ahead, with five exams. Although one would expect my productivity to decrease during times of such stress, it'll likely spike up pretty nicely. I find that once I start working hard on something, it creates a snowball effect that cascades over all of my work. Work hard on a day of studying, then work hard at night on a game. After that, a week of rest, and then my co-op job begins. Nothing but excitement and intrigue ahead!
Escalation
A free plug to Scet, who has been working hard on a very-interesting-looking Escalation.
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"Good night, Monster Land."
"Good night, brave warrior."
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