CURRENT RELEASE: 0.1.0 (.NET) (http://www.mediafire.com/?zdnx161c9qcnaci) (March 18th) / -Unreleased- (Mono)
PAST RELEASES: -none-
Current Vlog: March 23rd, version 0.1.1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhoyZ7wvjhk)
Older Vlogs:
* March 12th, version 0.0.5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95CCkN1TP_g)
Yes, this is a roguelike topic.
Introductory video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95CCkN1TP_g). Inspiration link is here (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/). The game is programmed in C#, and uses the .NET 2.0 Framework at the moment. I may up it to 3.5 in the future.
What's shown in the video is what I have so far. I kind of want to focus on making the bounty hunters that come after you if you don't bring in the money. After that, I am going to start to work on some difficult aspects. Notably, making it harder to get money so there's so element of risk to the game. Also, making the threats in the wild that you'll have to engage or escape if you want to keep on surviving.
Then I want to start working on characters who will join your quest to survive.
I'll probably release the first version when I have a single character who can reliably join you.
(http://img.ie/a4c4a.png)
The keeper of the fort loses patience at lunch time on the last day. The bounty goes out, and whether you can pay or not no longer matters.
(http://img.ie/b4086.png)
The hunters will find you either by the trail you leave, or by dumb luck in the case that your trail has gone completely cold.
(http://img.ie/a1423.png)
But nothing will happen because I've yet to make the combat system, or the system that lets you surrender to them to be taken back alive. Being taken back alive might not give you any better a fate, depending on just how pissed off the commander is at the time.
I implemented diagonal movement, and holding buttons down shortly after you requested them, Thendash. Unfortunately, it's been slow going since then.
I made some bigger progress today:
(http://img.ie/c9cc4.png)
^ This is what good health looks like.
The bounty hunters don't like it when you're in good health...
(http://img.ie/797b2.png)
It would be a better screen if limbs didn't go white when they they were pretty much destroyed. Also, having them be destroyed means very little at the moment. Still, I'm slowly expanding the framework I've already laid down. The next thing I have to work with the display on is a message box where combat text will actually go. It's not too difficult to set up, actually, I should have it soon. I actually should have had it done before I even released a tech demo come to think of it.
Ducking into an alley in East Fort:
(http://img.ie/b264b.png)
Having a conversation with a potential party member:
(http://img.ie/7bbb1.png)
Multi-image demonstration of mouse-click combat:
(http://img.ie/c0170.png)
(http://img.ie/6ca12.png)
(http://img.ie/b3127.png)
(http://img.ie/13b27.png)
(http://img.ie/40133.png)
I realise release 0.1.0 is not simply bare bones, but bones that have been cooked in the kettle to make broth, and then given to wolves until they've cracked all of the marrow out of it. This, unfortunately, will remain the state of the game until I've got a lot more done with it, even though it's already leaps and bounds ahead of its first incarnation.
So basically, this is a post outlining my goals, and the general direction of the project:
(1) You're screwed, but not because of random chance.
And you're not so much screwed as much as you're in a very bad situation. The game will not set out to kill you at random because it can. No. Your actions or inactions in any given situation will determine the way the major forces in the game see you. You're in a bad situation, but working at that situation will give you every chance to get out of it. A lot of the methods to get out of the situation are dangerous, but you'll go into them knowing they are dangerous. A meteor will not come down on your head because the RNG decides it wants to join in on the fun.
If you die because the game arbitrarily decides to take you out, it is a bug and not a feature. If you pissed off a gang member by disrespecting her, and her friends come along two days later to beat your face into the wall, that is a feature and not a bug. If you pissed off a gang member by disrespecting her, and a rival gang beats your face in, she was having an affair with the leader of the rival gang.
-- Or it could be a bug in there. Sure. Good luck to future me in finding that if I get to that point.
(2) You are the dashing rogue figure who is either too clever for his own good, or just plain dumb.
Personality-wise, it's not going to matter whether your character is male or female, you are the one who said the wrong thing when the guards came for you. It was tremendously funny. They laughed so hard when they clapped you in irons that you honestly thought you were going to get away with it.
Funny that.
(3) The world doesn't care about you unless you make it care about you.
There are a bunch of things going on around you, and it won't be possible to do all of them in the run of a game. The plots are mutable, and will react to each other in different ways, and not just because of you. There are other protagonistically-inclined characters out there who will do the job just as well as you can. Characters that you can recruit can be recruited by other parties going out into the wilds. Other characters can default on their obligations and be dragged to justice. There are actors outside of East Fort who are running their own games that may start, climax, and finish before you even see them, leaving you staring at the aftermath when you walk through.
The goal is not to randomly generate these, but to modify base plots via other circumstances, and making the plots robust enough to withstand having more than one side on them. Plots that will run whether you ever find out about them or not.
There are more, but those are the big ones for the moment.