Casual Take-Over in Off Topic

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ID:113205
 
May 13 2011, 9:41 am
Keywords: casual_quest
Who wants Casual Quest?

As I've said before, there's a way of thinking that prevades BYOND that says that games live forever. They don't. Games are entertainment, and like any form of entertainment, they have a life cycle. They're created outside the public eye, are hyped right before release, have an initial burst of activity, and then they either bomb immediately or build to a good base of activity and then slowly die.

Either way, they die. No matter how great your game was back in the day, you're not going to have even 1/1000th the activity you used to. No one plays Super Mario World anymore. [Yeah, I know YOU do, but you're that 1/1000 who plays it for maybe 3 hours a year. Now go back to playing Gears of War 7 for 23 hours a day, your point has been made.] Super Mario World was a great game, one that redefined the genre (or some other stock phrase), but it's dead. No one plays it like they used to, and that's not a bad thing.

"Thor" is a popular movie right now. Want to go watch it? I'm not a fan of comic book movies, but if someone paid for my ticket, I'd go. Maybe you love those kinds of movies. Now imagine that "Thor" is going to keep playing in theater 5 at your local cinema for the next 10 years - that it'll be up on that billboard for 10 years.

Entertainment dies. People get sick of the same thing. They move on, and they need a place to move on to.

Casual Quest has died. When I'm online, I don't see people playing it. I could try to keep adding content to it, trying to prolong its life via random updates with new and weird content. That's not what I'm going to do, though. That creates a game that is full of odd features that don't mesh, a game that new players can't figure out how to play and only oldbies know what it's all about. Does this sound like any BYOND games you've played?

So, who wants the CQ code base? I don't want to give it away so that someone else can keep it on life support. What I wouldn't mind is someone else taking the code base and turning it into a room-by-room dungeon diver, or perhaps a Ninja Themed CQ game.

The CQ program consists of the game engine that sets up waves and bosses, etc., a list of enemy types, and a list of player classes. All a developer would need to do is change the enemies and player classes, and maybe make some new items. A competent developer could change any part of the game, like replacing the card-class system with one based on experience points.

So, anyone interested?
#1 May 13 2011, 9:44 am
I'd definitely be interested. I've always imagined an actual adventure-style version of Casual Quest and have wanted to make something like it for some time, but I've just never had any ideas or motivation to do so.
#2 May 13 2011, 9:46 am
If only i was a capable programmer, well this sound's like a bold move, and i hope you find someone who puts it to good use.

I hope you still keep the CQ host files up, since it's a great game for anyone to play a few times. Even though it does not feel like a game which would hold me for a great deal of time, it is still very well made and an enjoyable game which is a good show case of a fun game which can be made with Byond.
#3 May 13 2011, 9:47 am
LordAndrew wrote:
I've always imagined an actual adventure-style version of Casual Quest

It would probably take more skill to turn the CQ code base into an adventure game than it would take to build one from the ground up. All the systems in the game assume a single map of fixed size (though that size can be changed - it's a preprocessor macro).
#4 May 13 2011, 9:52 am
Teka123 wrote:
If only i was a capable programmer, well this sound's like a bold move,

Being someone who has a good reputation on BYOND, you could probably get a handfull of people to make the sort of game you want. Get someone who can make decent pixel art to do the Ninja classes (for instance) and some enemies, and someone who knows his way around code to copy/paste different parts of my player classes into your own classes.

I hope you still keep the CQ host files up, since it's a great game for anyone to play a few times.

I'm not going to take down the files. Hell, I think I still have the files for "Blackjack Poker" hosted. I may even update once in a while if there's a bug I need to fix.

#5 May 13 2011, 9:57 am
IainPeregrine wrote:
LordAndrew wrote:
I've always imagined an actual adventure-style version of Casual Quest

It would probably take more skill to turn the CQ code base into an adventure game than it would take to build one from the ground up. All the systems in the game assume a single map of fixed size (though that size can be changed - it's a preprocessor macro).

That's pretty neat. Are players and the amount of enemies that spawn limited the same way? Or are they hardcoded due to the BYOND engine not taking very well to large amounts of things pixel moving over a network.

Also if you'd be willing to let me have Casual Quest's engine I could probably create a futuristic version of it (ROBOTS). :O!
#6 May 13 2011, 10:02 am
Thank you Iain! :), Nah it's not so easy for me, I've made one attempt like that before and i guess i'm just not that great at planning and organizing a team, So i presume not many people want to work with/for me lol.

That's good to hear, I wonder what you'll make next then? any plans?
#7 May 13 2011, 10:18 am
LordAndrew wrote:
That's pretty neat. Are players and the amount of enemies that spawn limited the same way?

There is a preprocessor macro which defines the total number of players that can be in the game, but that isn't much of a problem. Just delete handful of places where it checks that value (whenever a player tries to join), and an unlimited number of players could create lag all at once! The total number of enemies isn't limited in the code.

Also if you'd be willing to let me have Casual Quest's engine I could probably create a futuristic version of it (ROBOTS). :O!

That sounds cool. I'll try and rip out some of the "sensitive" parts of the code base, like the hub password, and get you something to work with. Send me an email.
#8 May 13 2011, 10:19 am
Teka123 wrote:
That's good to hear, I wonder what you'll make next then? any plans?

A short story.
#9 May 13 2011, 10:20 am
Alright then! lordovos@live.com
#10 May 13 2011, 10:26 am
I still play it. :/

you're just on at the wrong times!

Actually, I really dig the simplicity of it. I may end up creating a quick and dirty dungeon crawler with slightly more complexity after my current project gets playable. And my lighting system.
#11 May 13 2011, 10:37 am
i still play it
#12 May 13 2011, 10:54 am
* le sigh

Oh well.
#13 May 13 2011, 11:15 am
Why not just throw the source up for everyone? Put it under a BSD license or something.
#14 May 13 2011, 11:25 am
Jp wrote:
Why not just throw the source up for everyone? Put it under a BSD license or something.

I considered it, but I don't want people to continue work on CQ. CQ is finished. There will be updates to tweak things, fix bugs, or add Cross Subscription content, but it's not going to keep growing and become an MMMMMORPG or a 3D Street Fighting game.

I don't want rips, in other words. Doing it this way allows me to send only to people I think are serious about using the code to make something new. I can't prevent them from leaking the source and starting rips, but at least this delays that process by, what, about 2 weeks?

Edit: Also, licenses sucks ass. Either keep ownership of something, or let other people use it as they please. Don't tie up people with tons of licenses that make the product useless. Once you touch the Gnu, that stink never washes off. /FUD
#15 May 13 2011, 11:28 am
I am interested in using it as a learning experience, and for any possible ideas that come up my way. I have a design document that could benefit from some of the systems used. If you are willing - johnnykalevin@gmail.com

Also, does this mean CQ is going away? Or it's just primarily finished being programmed?
#16 May 13 2011, 11:33 am
CQ is not going away. I'm not "Killing" it. I'm just recognizing that people don't play it much anymore.
#17 May 13 2011, 11:42 am
IainPeregrine wrote:
Jp wrote:
Why not just throw the source up for everyone? Put it under a BSD license or something.

I considered it, but I don't want people to continue work on CQ. CQ is finished. There will be updates to tweak things, fix bugs, or add Cross Subscription content, but it's not going to keep growing and become an MMMMMORPG or a 3D Street Fighting game.

Fair enough. Was just a suggestion.

Edit: Also, licenses sucks ass. Either keep ownership of something, or let other people use it as they please. Don't tie up people with tons of licenses that make the product useless. Once you touch the Gnu, that stink never washes off. /FUD

BSD license is about as permissive as you can get. It's not a copyleftish license - it's basically just you saying "Yep, feel free to copy, but reproduce this license in distributions of source code, and don't say I endorse your product".

And copyleft does serve a useful purpose - it's to stop big corporations taking open-source stuff and incorporating it into products, and then locking it down so it can't be changed. BSD-style permissive licensing versus copylefty, GPL-style licensing is mostly about whether you want to protect the freedom of people getting your source code to do what they want with it or the freedom of users of your code to tinker with it. There are good reasons to go either way.
#18 May 13 2011, 12:25 pm
The same thing happened to My Life as a Spy -- no matter what I try I just can't keep any new players and the existing player-base is getting smaller and smaller.

I've been working on a few things for it, but without a few players there keeping the motivation alive.
#19 May 13 2011, 12:34 pm
Well, to be perfectly honest MLaaS looks pretty terrible by today's standards.
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