Geldonyetich's BYOND Development

I've been idle in development for a bit, so I hope you'll humor a boring wall of text for at least one entry.

Lately, I've been distracted heavily, both by school and a deluge of recent releases. I partly program to entertain myself, after all, and if I'm already entertained then it's hard to find the motivation. However, there's more to it than that - school has been very stressful this semester for reasons I just can't put my finger on.

Thus, I made a choice that will heavily impact how I spend my time until May: I dropped a Calculus class. This both relieves a great deal of stress and frees up a giant heap of time. The class isn't necessary for my major (though the math skills may come in handy for programming - I'm keeping the book to teach myself when I feel I've the time). I'd really rather spend that time programming and designing.

Of course, where programming and designing come in, so also does research. First Spelunky and now X-Com:Apocolypse. It seems I've been seeking inspiration in existing games to try to figure out how to put together this idea of mine.

From Spelunky, we've a good example of something a lot of us are trying to build: an unlimited content engine in the same spirit of a Roguelike. Why not? We're often one-man bands around here, and crafting your own content isn't nearly as long term effective nor as entertaining for ourselves as is teaching the program to craft its own.

From X-Com: Apocolypse, I have something a bit too ambitious. After all, it took Microprose 3 games to get this done (and the Laser Squad team behind it certainly developed games before that). I'm speaking specifically of this idea of having a dynamically changing cityscape in which tactical combat occurs that impacts it.

Put those two together, and you've an idea of what I've been trying to do for the past few months. Probably longer. When it gets too hard for me to do, it's time to simplify. When I've simplified to the point where I bores me, I humor my ambitions a bit. Back and forth it goes, down to complete rewrites more than once, and this is why I haven't finished anything yet.

Perhaps it's normal for me to waffle between trying to keep the game simple and trying to make a reasonably complex game. A program is rarely designed from the top down or the bottom up, but rather little by little from both sides until it meets in the middle.

That said, I'm still working on things, albeit distracted by Mass Effect 2 at the moment. If I end up dropping my calculus class (something I've been putting some serious thought into) I may have more time to work out this mental knot.

If there were two words that described my mental state the majority of the time I'm not occupied something, it would be those: Cognitive Dissonance. It means I'm of two or more minds about what I'd like to do, and that's precisely the trouble I'm encountering with Project Shock right now.



I encountered Spelunky last week, and I notice that the creator's words for it radiate deeply:

"My goal was to create a fast-paced platform game that had the kind of tension, re-playability, and variety of a roguelike. In roguelikes, the gameplay tells the story, and I wanted to give Spelunky that type of a feeling..." (Source)

I think that deep down this is what I'm trying to make: a roguelike inspired with a bit of a System Shock theme but with virtual worldly multiplayer support. The trouble is that there's so many different ways to do this!

• Do I go with complex, thought-provoking economy or a simple-but-fun economy?
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• Do I go with a virtual world without an apparent end, a session-based game with an end?
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• Do I allow the players to change the world directly, or implement a more realistic indirect world alteration mechanic?

These are just a few examples of opposite extremes, and I'm likely looking for a specific middle ground answer to each. Man, if this is how game design is like, how does Sid Meier even get up in the morning without spending 5 hours deciding on a pair of pants to wear?

Clearly, I'm operating well outside my design document I ironed out last month. I suspect I could make some really good progress if I could settle on my new one. Thus, that is my current focus: making some solid decisions along these lines.

One thing I had forgotten about events that force me away from working on my game is that they open up room for a very important part of the creative process: incubation.

Because there's no screenshot today, I'm helping to break the monotony with the early work of William Wegman

In other words, the longer one comes to code a project, the more solid the wall of ideas about them, and in little time at all they find themselves trapped within this concept. Take some time away from coding, the walls become a bit looser, and you're given the opportunity to consider if this is really where you wanted to be.

As far as coding this week is concerned...

Quite minimal, but not non-existent.

I did get some work done in terms of adding the framework for abilities.

It's looking like it's going go be easier than I thought to add a whole slew of them on the grounds that, via modular programming, I can use inheritance to create - for example - a ton of projectile-spawning abilities.

Of course, I could extend this out to anything. Want turrets that shoot bananas? obj/turret/bananashooter where the code is extensible enough to support any kind of projectile.

Fruits of Incubation

1. No grinds for me, thanks.
   
   At this point, I'm thinking in terms of progression. I had shoehorned in the idea of "grind prestige, earn abilities" but I don't like it.
   
   Where most online RPGs require you grind x number of hours to unlock ability y, I think I would rather have a model where you simply need to demonstrate proficiency in using an existing ability to be granted the next ability in that line.
   

   Is my text boring you? No doubt! Here's some more of the early work of William Wegman!

2. There should be no such thing as griefing
   
   It's true that there will exist players who log into a game deliberately to be a pain in the ass in a medium where you can't reach out and punch them, however, the thing about a virtual environment is that you can often design the game in such a way that any behavior is supported.
   
   Take, for example, how readily EVE Online accommodated Goonfleet. Oh, hello Gloonfleet, you seem to believe you have broken our game? Guess again! working as intended, and we love you for it.
   
   Along these lines, I had been entertaining the idea of "citizens" versus "renegades." A lot of players, when given access to a compelling virtual world, want to undermine it. Perhaps it's releasing the stress of being in a world where they're compelled to obey, or exploring their creative boundaries. Other players want to build in this compelling world. Up until now, no game has really accommodated this well.
   
   Lets support both player types. A genuine order versus entropy scenario. There is where the battle lines are drawn, and there will be an implicit balance in place to keep the battle fair.

So, there's some pretty impressive checks my mouth wrote myself just now. I'm closer than I think. It's fair to suggest that this may have been what I've always wanted to do because of how close I am.

Lest you think I completely fossilized, I should mention that I'm drawing some inspiration from this at the moment as I work on my game. Well animated anime hotties? Alas, no. The other thing this anime does uniquely: explore the ramifications of environmental manipulation.

That is to say, in much the same way that artist might say that they merely removed the interfering chunks of stone that were obscuring the statue in the slab of marble, I'm learning little by little what parts I want to keep and what parts I want to remove.

Well. Here I sit. Another 5 months of classes stretched out before me. Lets recap what I did since the last entry.

The main thing completed since the last entry would have to be what happened when you're off the map - basic handling of respawning and upgrading your equipment.

I did, indeed, continue working on Project Shock all the way up until about 3pm Sunday (then I decided to take a break and get in a bit of Dungeons and Dragons Online with my brother and some of his friends from the community college RPG club).

I find myself getting sidetracked a lot from working on perhaps the most pivotal feature standing in the way of this being a playable game: the player activated abilities/powers. I've merged the idea of player character skills and items into one: this is a sci-fi game, and your character is wearing the ultimate upgradable multi-tool. However, as long as I keep getting sidetracked, its overall functions are zero.

Instead, things I've did over the past 3 days included:

• Building more of the static map. Though eventually I plan to have a dynamically generated map (for infinite replayability) the first release(s) will have a static map just to make sure all the components are working.
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• Improving sound support mechanisms within the game and adding some more sounds. I have to say that the sound system in BYOND is really quite outstanding, and it's a shame many BYOND games I've tried are silent.
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• Revamped my devices to work on a different mechanism. Again. I was having a bit of conflict in trying to get them to simultaniously work off of power source supplies while still having batteries of their own. I decided to go with batteries only because its a bit more interesting seeing all of the automation going on. Another thing I think I may do is have the flow of time itself be something the players can modify, and this is a step in that direction.

Side from a flickering light affect on lit sensors, the only difference you'd notice when walking around the map since last update is the addition of a nutrition panel, more sounds, and the removal of a rather unnecessary keyboard diagram from the GUI to make room for my abilities.

So, is that it, then? Back to school and now no more time for me to be making games?

Not necessary. I'll get three days out of the week off, and be stranded at school a lot - which is good from a homework completion standpoint and because I'll have my laptop with me.

However, it'll be a week or two until I know how this schedule change impacts my BYOND development.