ID:117022
 
For various reasons, I haven't really done anything with the game since my first spate of posts about it, but... as has been typical of me in the past... I got a pretty impressive amount of development done in that one frenetic burst.

I plan to resume working on it soon. The purpose of this post is basically to lay out some of the basic ideas behind the games, so they're out there and also so I can lay them out.

It's not going to be a terribly organized post, and shouldn't be taken as a design document or development bible. Future posts are likely to expand on specific areas mentioned below. In particular I feel one about the Companion system coming on, because I feel it will be a large part of the game's appeal and because it's something that doesn't so obviously fit in with the most obvious sources of inspiration for the game.

Storyline/Background

The original RetroQuest didn't have anything in this area. It was all the "high concept" of making a game that recreated certain elements of games I was nostalgic about as a semi-modern online game.

The current incarnation has a mandate that's both broader and better defined. Rather than grafting bog-standard BYOND gMUD elements onto an old school tile-based computer RPG, I'm going for a more deliberate blend of modern gameplay elements (quests, achievements, talent trees) and old school simplicity.

And... I do have a story. I'm hearkening back to Ultima again, with the idea being that the PCs are drawn from the real world to this fantasy one by something called the Phosphor Essence, also known as "the green flame" and "the image that burns eternal". (See how I'm tying the concept in here?)

I first conceived of the Phosphor Essence as a power source that functions as a collectible coupon in the way of the MAGI fragments in Final Fantasy Legend 2/SaGA 2. Its final version is somewhat like that, but more directly tied into character development (see below).

The collection of Phosphor Essence drives the storylines of the game... it's what gives players the motivation to do the big central quests and to explore new areas. Also, by requiring a certain amount of Phosphor Essence to pass through gateways, I can use it to open the world up progressively from the one small valley you start in to larger regions.

(The progressive opening up would ideally also include having more options of where to go and what to do... if it takes 3 PE to get out of the valley, then there would only be 3 pieces there accessible to newbies, and all laid out in a fairly obvious way. As more regions open up, the total supply of available PE would expand slightly faster than the amount required to move on, so that players can cherrypick a little in terms of what kinds of challenges they want to face... or opt for "100% completion".)

Combat

Combat started out as a "click to attack" system, where you would use WASD as your main movement keys and your mouse in your right hand.

The reason I started with that is I had just played Terraria and was impressed with how intuitive it was to use one hand for movement and the other for attacking, and to use a mouse to aim projectile weapons and direct tool use in a 2D platformer... it's the kind of joyfully freeform playing experience that you couldn't actually get out of the 16 bit games that Terraria is so evocative of.

But RetroQuest is not Terraria. In the absence of Terraria's level of visual feedback on things like the swinging of a sword, any delay on melee attacks made the game just feel clunky and unresponsive... like, you click seven times and attack once and there's not a nice intuitive visual reason why this is so.

So I switched to standard MUD autoattack with click-to-target, and found that worked. It was kind of staid and boring but it worked. Then when I wanted to cut down on the "battlespam" text and make it easier to play without taking your eyes off the map window, I started adding more visual feedback... made the "attack" represented by a hit or miss indicator (right now they're Xs and Os, though I might change that to something a little more... exciting? Distinct?), and added visual indicators of both the amount of damage (using a library by Flick) and the percent of health lost (you literally knock hearts out of your opponents, it's pretty fun.)

Each time I added another level of visual feedback, combat got more interesting. But it was still just standing there watching little icons fly and numbers appear while the combatants just stand toe-to-toe. So I decided to add a little bit of animation.

Not much. Just a little. Weapon comes up, weapon comes down. Enemies without weapons might clack their mandibles or pulse (blobs/slimes) or something equally easy to depict.

But literally having one frame of animation looks glitchy, so I extended it: weapon raised for a bit and/or the clacking and pulsing is repeated a couple of times. In most cases it made sense for the attack to happen at the end of the animation, so I just made that the case across the board.

And, as the socio-economic thinker Karl Marx would say, "Just-a by accident", I turned combat into an action game.

Because the animation now starts approximately half a second before the attack. It's still automated/real-time turns like in a standard MUD, but you can see when your "turn" is coming. You can see when your opponent's "turn" is coming. This adds footwork to the matter. Why stand there where your opponent can pound on you when you only have to be near during your "turn"?

Suddenly a one-tick difference in movement delays is not just a matter of a slight quality of life improvement. Suddenly I have a non-hit-rate-or-damage based way of making a character better at fighting (giving a wider "window" during which one's weapon can come down on an enemy makes it much easier to successfully dance around them without missing your chance to swing.)

I haven't done much with this game in the past few weeks, but the combat system alone is one of the most fun things I believe I've ever created on BYOND. The combination of the moving/timing element and the satisfaction of watching the hearts go flying away... it's hard to explain the appeal, but it's there.

Dungeon Crawling

The dungeon crawling aspect is what the bulk of my actual development has gone towards, because it would be a big part of gameplay and it's also not where my instincts lie. I have the bare bones of the resource gathering/crafting system and I have a plan for a building/property system, but that kind of stuff... it's what I gravitate towards naturally.

So the first things I wanted to get in were a robust quest system and the dungeon crawling aspects. I'm using a slightly modified version of Shadowdarke's random dungeon layout... I added some sanity checks on door placement because doors at the end of a wall bothered me. The way I integrated it into my game is such that I can make a map, use areas to define any number of "levels" within it, sprinkle the sorts of things I want to populate each level inside the area (monsters, traps, unique treasure chests) and it will generate and link up the levels and then populate them appropriately. It's pretty sweet.

The trap system is also something I'm proud of. Having played with gMUDs before, random one tile traps in dungeon corridors wider than one tile are just... not worth it. So I made all traps 3x3. That's big enough that there's a decent chance you'll run into them. Most characters have a small chance of seeing them from two tiles away and a good chance of seeing them from one tile away... seems sporting that way. Like, if you're running full-tilt down the corridor it's a matter of reflexes. If you're taking your time then you have to be unlucky enough to not spot the trap.

And with traps occupying such a large area, even after they're spotted they play a part in combat... the dynamic footwork element means you might find yourself being careful about what direction you're dodging in.

Character Creation

I toyed for about five seconds with the idea of making an old school command prompt-style menu. Seemed like a lot of extra work for something that would maybe be charming the first time you had to go through it.

Right now I'm using what's basically a "questionnaire": one screen of multiple choice questions. Pick a main and secondary character class (same choices for both), pick a companion, pick a preferred fighting style.

The fighting style determines some combat bonuses and the "family" of your starting weapon. Basically, you're choosing whether to have a blade, a heavy weapon, a pole arm, a missile weapon, a magic implement, a tougher and more aggressive companion to hide behind, or crazy unarmed fighting prowess.

Character Advancement

I was looking for ways to avoid "the grind" from being an integral/required part of the game... a few blog posts and forum posts on similar subjects had already stimulated my thoughts in that direction when I came up with the idea of Phosphor Essence.

So while I have a limited repetition-based advancement system (fight more to get better at fighting, fish more to get better at fishing), your "level" depends on the amount of PE you absorb, and each time you absorb PE and/or reach the next PE benchmark (like 1 piece for level 1, 3 pieces for level 2, 5 pieces for level 3) you gain a noticeable boost to everything you have any ability in.

PE also forms the basis of the talent tree system, as when you absorb Phosphore Essence, it leaves behind residue that can be used to craft or augment containers: Phosphor Essence Residue Contaners, or PERCs.

(Note: as cornerstones of the advancement sytem, neither Essence, Residue, or PERCs are "items" in the sense that they can be bought/dropped/traded.)

Certain recipes for generic PERCs can be found/gained in game play, but your character classes determine a starting PERC plus the "recipes" you have by default. Some PERCs require a lower level PERC as an additional catalyst for crafting. So, altogether, the PERC system takes the place of a "talent tree" system.
need a pixel artist
Possibly. The project has some rather idiosyncratic requirements, though.
Like Yut Put said,

"big wall text I hug you".

You need a few pictures! Maybe a little mock-up, idk. My eyes get bored.