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  Jumping around. | 
Posted - 6/28/2007 9:56:20 PM | Of Flaming Corpses
So, it would seem that RavenKeep is also going the way of the flaming corpse -- er, dead. 
Insofar with all of this, a pattern has pretty clearly emerged:
- I start a project. It fails.
- I start another project. It also fails.
- I start yet another project, and it fails as well. Repeat for 3-4 months.
- I start a project once more. I stick with it. The project gets completed. All it well.
- Return to Step 1.
It's been this way for years. It seems most likely that my mind and body just need a break after finishing a game. If you've ever done so, you know the kind of agonizing stress it can put you through. 
The other factor is just hitting the right tune on the game idea. RavenKeep struck me as a really potentially fun game, but fueling it with a buggy half-complete homebrewed engine was just a bad tactical move. And I just don't feel secure when I take on a certain genre that I know I can produce even mediocre programmer art for; a sort of "oh crap if the artist leaves I'm boned" phobia. Is there a name for that yet?
Next?
Next is another game idea. I've become resilient over the years, so I'll keep on pushing forward until I find the one that pans out. I have my next project lined up, although it's certainly nothing new to most long-time visitors of my journal. I'll be doing my best to keep the project simple enough that overambitiousness doesn't eat me alive, but intricate enough so that it's still a hoot to play (for more than 5 minutes). With a long weekend coming up, what could go wrong?
I'm also starting to feel as though I'm outgrowing GD.NET's journal system. It might also be time to move on to another journal-land, too. I think I can only bear the oppressiveness of the whole GD.NET+ system(s) for a little while longer. 
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| RavenKeep: The Spiel | |
Posted - 6/21/2007 9:58:11 PM | All Quiet on the South-Eastern Front
Work consumes all! Well, nearly all. I've been getting better and better at fitting game development into my daily weekday schedule despite working full-time, and I'm finally at the point where I can toot my own horn a little about it.
Now that RavenKeep is at a somewhat more 'open' stage in development, early as it may be, I hope to begin pumping out journal entries more frequently to discuss its details and inner-workings. Let's talk about RK, shall we?
Introducing: RavenKeep
Title pending, RavenKeep aims to be a clever blending of the genres. I don't like to refer to my game as a comparison of others, but I find it tends to capture the imagination of people looking to know what the game might be like. Given that, picture something along the lines of Diablo meets Doom meets Final Fantasy Tactics. Please, allow me to explain.
RavenKeep is to take from Diablo the dungeon-dwelling gameplay, with randomly generated dungeons, equipment and monsters. From DooM comes the slightly less hack & slash gameplay, along with interesting enemies and clever levels and traps. Lastly, from FFT we extract the extensive character development and somewhat cartoon-ish artistic direction.
Here's where we stand on that right now:
(No sword, no shield, no service!)
This is certainly an Alpha-calibre screenshot with mainly placeholder art, but the plain-Jane look and feel of the dungeon is somewhat present. If the idea isn't coming across yet, it should solidify in the coming months.
A Story!?
I've never written a game with a story. A real story, that is. Some lame line like, "You take on the role of Dr. Smallship who has invented a ship-shrinking device that can-- blah blah". Who would use something like that for a game?
The storyline so far is pretty much clichè roguelike material, but I aim to expand it in-game by use of side quests and readable in-game books (a la the Elder Scrolls series). I'll post the first draft version of it here, so go easy on the critique:
Quote:
This will definitely change a lot as the game develops and I get a clearer image of what the final result is to look and play like. Still, suggestions for improvement are very welcome.
Sorry, the story is still too clichè. I'll post this when it's in better shape.
I also intended on talking about the underlying code producing all of this fun stuff, but I find myself at a loss for words. I've been doing a lot of low-level pain-staking work on it lately (ie. allowing for non-power-of-two textures without the OGL extension, ugh), so nothing is springing to mind.
There's lots of neat stuff though, like stacking screenshots. Something like this:
// Set the pre and post strings, and BCGL will number screenshots in
// middle, without overwriting.
graphics->setScreenshotPrefix("Media/Screenshots/rk_img");
graphics->setScreenshotSuffix(".png");
//...
// Finally, easy-to-use screenshots. Gah.
if(input->keyPressed(KEY_q))
graphics->screenshot();
And I also implemented the ever-to-handy Oscillate() function, which takes cycles-per-second as an argument. It's basically a sine wave function a little glorified, but I'll never have to do without it again. It's just a nice touch so one can easy add in bouncy-looking objects (which fit perfectly in the cartoony look I'm aiming for) such as the circular movement selection indicator, which is challenging to show oscillating in a screenshot. In short, the lesson to take away from this paragraph is: write an Oscillate() function. Don't leave home without it!
EDIT: Oh gads, I never even mentioned the auto-joining tiles. More commonly known as The Scourge of my Existence(TM). However, with minimized drawing and culling-aplenty, there it is. It's the main thing that's keeping the screenshots from being hideous.
Continued Development
The version, the FIRST version, dubbed Milestone One is nearly complete. Aside from a handful of BaseCamp fixes/changes, I need to implement the BaseCamp networking component (built atop the sleek RakNet) so I can get basic co-op support started. I'll probably poke you folks on MSN at some point or two -- you know you who are.
Simultaneously, I am also looking to bring aboard another artist. Draffurd has become extremely busy at this point in his life with studying Music (his real passion ) and two summer jobs. I'm going to try and bring aboard a skilled friend of mine -- that's you Jason, if you're reading -- to lend a head with getting the art side running smoothly while I tend to the inner-workings. If that's a no-go, then I'll try my luck on the forum for garnering an artist into helping RavenKeep. More on that as it develops!
After Milestone One and an artist is aboard, Milestone Two will be underway. The goals for which involve getting the fun stuff started: item manipulation and monsters.
Oooooh, monsters.
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| Of Diversions. | |
Posted - 6/9/2007 10:27:59 PM | Dungeons and Delays
RavenKeep is still moving along towards the completion of Milestone One. No screenshots yet, but we're getting there. I'll be moving on to starting to implement the networking system underlying the game -- yes, it will have online co-op play -- tomorrow. Some might think this to be jumping the gun, but since it will be built directly into BaseCamp, it will be able to see future use in other games. *cough*
To draw attention away from this, I've packaged a couple of recent demos I wrote to hopefully amuse you. I know they were amusing to write.
Mandelbrot and His Set
I've always been fascinated by this. This extremely cool-looking graphic with insanely deep levels of detail, all created by a rather simple mathematical set. So, I set off one day to read up a little on 'ol Mandelbrot and implemented my own 'Mandelbrot Explorer' application. No significant optimizations are present, but it runs moderately well on today's hardware.
If you haven't checked out the Mandelbrot Set in any detail, I highly recommend you do -- it's very interesting. However, you may or may not wish to do so on a faster implementation.
- Controls
- Right/Down/Up/Left: Navigate in the 4 basic directions.
- Page Up/Down: Scale in and out of the set.
- Note: The screen will be initially blank -- hit a directional key to begin.
Download Mandel-Explorer
(You can't get THIS on networked television!)
More Raycasting
A while back I was playing with raycasting, which proved semi-successful. I managed to get some textured walls drawing, but floors/ceilings just would not work. Motivated once again, I set out to accomplish this noble undertaking. As I've been getting more and more into 3D graphics and the math behind it, I'm starting to understand how it all works better and better. The bottleneck now seems to be optimization.
Nothing fancy like collisions or the lot in this one either; it remains just a demo. But don't let that stop you from pretending there's a RoboGuard around the corner!
- Controls
- Right/Left: Turn left and right
- Up/Down: Move forward and backwards
Download Raycaster v2.0
(<insert captivating caption here>)
No Shirt, No Service
I'm breaking my no-screenshots vow by only 1%. This is only the template character who is mostly unshaded/unfinished, but he still looks wicked-cool. Wait till this shirtless knight wields a fearsome blade!
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| RavenKeep | |
Posted - 6/4/2007 10:00:07 PM | New Project
Short story: things are coming along wonderfully!
In detail, well, me and Draffurd are holding off on screenshots until we have enough art to cover most of the placeholder material I've made. I'm quite pleased with my unshaded single-colour graphics, but we aren't all programmers.
We're also holding off on The Big Info Post(tm) to avoid the same fate that my big Skirmish Online announcement had. We'll toot our own horn after we have something solid enough to show and toot about.
To hint at where we are headed, it's along the same vein as the genre that has seemingly become a little popular around journal-land (*poke #1*, *poke #2*, *poke #3*). Hopefully this will make for a great chance to share algorithms/techniques on the topics of level generation and such. I plan on writing all about my methods, so hopefully everyone else will too.
Updates?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm really disappointed in the huge slackening in terms of journal updates. My job -- in particular the commute -- has been sucking up huge amounts of time, so it's hard to find 15-40 minutes to just sit down and crank out a nice solid journal entry. (Yes, it takes me that long.)
With the major progress that's being made lately I can hope that I'll start to be more motivated to write about the game's development and the various side projects I'm currently embarking on.
And best of luck to everyone participating in the MAGIC contest. I sort of kept closed-mouthed about it, but it's certainly something that I would have liked to enter if I had more free time. I'm looking forward to seeing the results!
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"Good night, Monster Land."
"Good night, brave warrior."
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