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Author Topic: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.  (Read 2108 times)

Mesa

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2017, 03:30:33 pm »

For what it's worth, I have been considering (and utterly failing to play with) Godot for a wihle as far as fully-fledged engines go, if only because it's like the best FLOSS option even if it doesn't have a whole lot of 'recognizable' games to showcase (I think Deponia is like the most recognizable serise that uses it?).

I mean as cool as rolling a custom-made engine that gives me that fine-grained control is...well, let's put it this way, I can barely make use of tools made by others, let alone try to make and master my own, even in somethiing as simplistic(-ish) as Love2D (or SFML/SDL).

(I mean abstracting away from the principles thing, Unity's Linux version is allegedly still only experimental so even if I wanted to use it I feel like I'd have a subpar experience in that regard. Then again I might just have a bad time as a game dev in general because the hardware that I have available is...well, far from top-end, but at the same time...how taxing can a 2D video game get*?)

(* - excluding bad-but-inevitable and resource-inefficient programming on my part)

*sigh*
I mean, I was never going into this with the idea that it would be easy or simple to make over the weekend or something even with a competent team and decent funding to boot, let alone with basically no budget and a sole nerd with basically no experience worth a damn. At least if I wanted to make this truly how I want to, because I'm sure that a ...vastly simplified version/prototype is not something out of this world.

I mean if nothing else, just thinking about this makes me gain mad respect for any kind of remotely successful game developer because this shit ain't easy to even think about, let alone actually produce.
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Mesa

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2017, 01:39:21 pm »

(Well, a part of me briefly considered going with something like MonoGame but that has basically the "building your own engine from scratch" problem...And on top of that I can't seem to get MonoDevelop to play nicely on OpenSUSE. Oh well, my C# skills are not very sharp to begin with anyway. Godot's still on the table, however.)

Terrible puns aside, another thing I've been considering is..."nemesis influence".
It's a fancy name for something relatively simple in concept - each nemesis has a unique 'passive' effect associated with them that affects your runs in some way, to further make the runs distinct from one another when facing different nemeses, outside of those boss battles.

These could range from the dude sending squads of their own brand of mooks at you at random, or (in the case of a nemesis that happens to fly a badass airship) drop bombs from the sky in your general vicinity (which could result in some friendly fire), setting up various traps (even in areas that normally feature none), et cetera et cetera.
And of course, those influences get stronger after every nemesis encounter, whether it's in their intensity, frequency or general hellishness.

I am well aware that I am just thinking of more and more stuff that would...maybe not be necessary (certainly not for a prototype, I realize that this is something that is not even remotely crucial for getting the idea of the game across but it does strengthen the quasi-villain theme) or even that fun, but that's really nothing new at this point considering that's all I've been doing with this thing for the past...3.5 years. It's ridiculous how long it's been since I actually started this (and boy has it changed in the meantime!).
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Moghjubar

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2017, 11:42:52 pm »

For the name, theres certainly alternatives.

Wasting Wonderland
Wasted Wonderland
or even
Wasting Gunderland
(or maybe even just Gunderland )


Edit: for previous name stuff, not recent post, of course
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Reelya

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2017, 12:36:38 am »

TBH, I would suggest prototyping the game in one of the existing engines, then replicating any missing functionality in a lower-level engine if you want to. If you use Unity, then you can code it all in C#, then port to something like MonoGame later much easier. Unity lets you do just about anything that you can do in the scene editor inside C#. By developing "in scene" you can later move that over to C# code, then that will make it very clear what components need to be made to nearly seamlessly port it to your own engine.

There's also the question of what Open Source means for your project. If the Unity code you make is open source and the scenes are exported as YAML, then you can in fact say your entire game is open source, even if it requires a "free-as-in-beer" tool to deploy it.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 12:39:23 am by Reelya »
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Mesa

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2017, 01:30:33 am »

I'm still sorta willing to at least give Godot a go because I've read through a bulk of the documentation and...rarely do I feel like I actually understand how something works to this extent. Mind you, I'm still confused on some things, especially with its scripting language (GDScript, which is similar to Python syntax-wise but more closely integrated with the engine), but that has more to do with me just not being super familiar with those features on a language-agnostic level rather than with the specific way that they're implemented in GDScript (mostly referring to signals and setters/getters, and I guess also memory management - still, I feel a lot more confident about it here than with basically every other language I've tried to pick up).

Networking will likely be extremely annoying to work with, but there is a high-level interface for that (ie. one that isn't UDP/TCP) that I could try to use but...really, as good and important as it would be to have proper online co-op here, doing it at all is something I'm not exactly familiar with, let alone doing it well, so (at least for prototypes and maybe even for 'the' release, if that's ever going to come out) I'll put that off and just try to get something playable done.
Said networking is not in the stable version of the engine (2.1) that I'm using though, but again, I don't think it's necessary for me right now.

(I simply don't want to fall into the problem that a lot of games face which is to say "this is cool as fuck but wish it had online co-op", but I know that networking is not something that is at all easy to do, especially if the game was not built with it in mind to begin with.)
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Mesa

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2017, 04:36:37 am »

Spoiler: Bad sketch(es) below (click to show/hide)

Anyway, here is Yet Another Thing I've Been Thinking About Recently™.

To further enforce the "asymmetry", "teamwork" and "characters' differing personalities" themes,  I was thinking that there would be four different "ways" that items (mostly weapons, to be more specific) would function and 'interact' with the two-main-character thing

- Normal items can be equipped by either character and function identically between them.

- 'Asymmetric' items can be equipped by both characters as well, but have functional differences between them depending on who's wielding them.
  • Example #1 - an assault rifle. K.T. would use it in an "all guns blazing" sorta fashion, in full-auto mode, at a pretty high firerate but worse accuracy than how L.E. would use it - in burst-fire mode, using the scope/ironsight. Slower but more accurate and better at medium-long range as opposed to K.T.'s more close-quarters way.
  • Example #2 - a shield - K.T. would use said board to bash her enemies in the face to stun/damage them, while L.E. would use it in the more classic "block incoming attacks" sorta fashion.
  • Example #3 - L.E. would put a suppressor on it (mostly because of their dislike of loud sounds).
  • Example #4 - A morphing weapon of some sort - say, a gunblade. It's a gun for one of the characters, and a blade for the other.
This doesn't necessarily have to be limited to weapons, but they're the easiest example to think of on the spot.

- 'Exclusive' items that can only be equipped/used by one of the characters - it's straight up unusable to the other for one reason or another (usually lore/character personality). I already covered those to some extent so I'll only briefly mention them here for completion.

- 'Superitems' that have to be used by both characters in order to work - this includes superweapons (which I also mentioned in the original post) which are simply too big to be operated by only one character, or non-weapon items that create some sort of 'link' between the characters. Say, a "swapper" type item that lets you switch the two characters' positions in an instant, or something that generates an electric coil between the two characters (within a certain range) that damage anything passing through it.
These may or may not be tied to item rarity/quality, and to some extent power, to make up for those additional restrictions (mostly in terms of exclusive and superitems though), but it would be closer to the TCG/CCG-style 'rarity'.
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Solifuge

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2017, 04:40:48 pm »

Posting to watch; this looks really cute and interesting! Love the idea of a co-op roguelike, with asymetrical characters/playstyles. Also, just to share some thoughts on a couple points folks have made:

1. With smaller projects, you probably don't have to worry about names and legal battles, unless the project is one of those breakaway small-team indie titles that are wildly successful. Basically, they don't care to lose money on pursuing a frivolous case unless it might net the company something substantial (IE. Zenimax's legal dragons going after Mojang's Scrolls, trying to nab some of their profits from Minecraft's outlandish success). It's in the realm of possibility that EA could pitch a fussy fit, but legal bullcrap and the journalism that it can inspire can actually be a signal boost for smaller teams? But yeah, this is still the creation-stifling madness of capitalism and copyright in action. Yay, I hope it dies in a fire.

2. As for the multiplayer component, I wanted to mention that local co-op multiplayer is alive and well. It's even making a comeback among successful teams that could opt for networked MP, because of the personal proximity that local MP allows for. There's something about having the second player there in the room with you that improves the feel/experience of co-op and competitive games. NOTE: It also happens to present less secondary challenges (like resolving differences in game-state between both versions of the game, or combating lag, particularly in a twitch-reflex game), and is generally far easier than building with network multiplayer in mind! :I

3. As a point of advice, from one newbie gamedev to another; if this is your first foray, I'd suggest setting smaller goals and scope where possible. I'd also suggest starting the project before you flesh out too much of a Design Document! Odds are you're going to be changing and replacing things heavily as you go, and since you don't need to share this design with a large team, it helps save you a lot of wasted design work. Also, don't be afraid to temper your dreams and simplify things where possible, so you don't get burned out on the time you need to spend studying, if you're making this while learning. If this seems disappointing to you, remember that you can always impress people with fancier features on any sequels, once you're more established and comfortable! :3

4. The design you're describing does a good job of playing to the strengths of roguelikes (the struggle for survival and progress against difficult odds), while adding interesting emotional/narrative weight in the form of the partner/love mechanics. Seems like the characters's narrative mirror's the player's experience well too, insofar as the player also wants to protect both their characters, while risking them to battle their opponents and find rewards. A lot of other games fail to realize that you've got to be aware of the feelings your gameplay/mechanics evoke, and keep them in tune with the setting/narrative/tone. It's hard to getting emotionally engaged or having a cohesive experience, when your in-game actions and reactions to gameplay happenings don't match the story/what's supposed to be going on!

P.S. If'n you'd like, feel free to post on the Game Design General thread from time to time. I'm going to try listing forum-member's project threads in the OP, so folks can find them more easily, going forward!
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 04:43:37 pm by Solifuge »
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Mesa

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Re: Wasteland & Wonderland (Previously Gun Francisco); now with more love.
« Reply #22 on: February 23, 2017, 05:03:28 pm »

Stop giving me attention and validation with all these comments you guys this is too much /)~(\

So, no concept art this time around because my unstable ass made me reinstall my system for fun like twenty times since I got this laptop but I couldn't really back up my stuff this time around and could not preserve my home partition either...not that I had much art there to begin with anyway admittedly, just some random low-value sketches, but lots of talking I guess.


Firstly, I'm once again convinced that Gun Francisco might just be the name - it's much more...catchy? than anything else I've come up with so far, even if it has less 'deeper' meaning to it than W&W. Sure, it's just a lame pun, but it's a very ,,,'descriptive' one, so I'm okay with sticking to it.
Also it opens up the off-chance of this game creating a trio of roguelites with "Gun" in their names, and gun-themed locations in them (namely Tower of Guns and Enter the Gungeon), so while neither game is a huge inspiration here (believe it or not, I haven't played either of those two, as much as I probably should), and that's honestly a pretty neat opportunity, even if it's unlikely as hell that it'll work out.

Secondly, something that most roguelites generally don't have to think about in the first place - to go with a 2D sidescroller perspective, or a 2D topdown one instead, a'la classic roguelikes (and most roguelites)?

The idea for GunFran was almost always to be a 2D platformer-shooter, but I always wary how it would end up playing out in practice - 2D platformers can be pretty fun, don't get me wrong, especially when you throw shooting into the picture, but it always had the issue that, assuming that you go down the route of "full-on" random generation, the algorithm could pretty easily generate straight-up impossible platforming sections - or hell, they could be possible under 'vanilla' gameplay rules (ie. player's default speed/jump height/count) but could become impossible under some conditions like the player having items that hamper their mobility - "well, then you just don't introduce items that do that!" - is one plausible answer, but it's one that rubs me the wrong way because it introduces a limitation in the design space for items/modifiers, which isn't exactly what I'd want. The other alternative

On top of that there is just the more 'down to earth' issue that, even when working with a prebuilt engine like Godot or Unity or whatever, trying to work with 2D platformer physics seems a bit more difficult, which is not something I'm a particular fan of, even though I do have two friends actually competent at programming willing to help yours truly out.

On top of that I just can't really imagine trying to tax any sane person with running, gunning, jumping with two characters.
Also I have an easier time imagining some levels in a topdown space than a sidescrolling one.


(I accidentally sent this early, god damn it. Expect an edit with more content.)


Another thing that I've been thinking about, that is a bit more...abstract? High-level? Nebulous? Pointless?
...is the idea that I currently call the Four Flavors of the Apocalypse, and it's basically my take on the 'classic' difficulty settings, although this one is less of a 'difficulty' setting per se and more of an 'atmosphere' setting, stolen from inspired by a Polish tabletop RPG called Neuroshima where the system was simply called "4 colors".

The basic idea is that you can choose to play with one of four optional settings that affect the gameplay to give it a more specific atmosphere and pace.
I'm torn between two namesets - Glory, Hope, Pain and Despair is one, Blood, Sweat, Tears and Prayers is another.

Glory/Blood is straight up Mad Max - you get to play with some of the biggest weapons in the game, but also have to face some of the toughest enemy variants. Tons of explosions and other forms of chaos, and overall a very fast pace, almost Nuclear Throne-like (not quite the same because I have a dislike towards NT, but still, it's certainly the closest comparison). Kill or get killed, yadda yadda.
(It's also the closest to how Gun Francisco was in its early iterations.)
(In Neuroshima, this is akin to Chromium.)

Hope/Sweat is significantly slower than Glory/Blood - you won't get to kill things nearly as fast here, but you also won't die nearly as fast either. It's much more focused on you being defensive and resourceful, but big toys are still not unseen here either. Stealthy-ish gameplay becomes a bit more viable here since you will sometimes find yourself in situations where you just can't approach some enemies upfront. It's the most 'balanced' and 'varied' of the four gamemodes, and the closest to a 'default'.

Pain/Tears lowers the power level even further and presents a much more 'grim' setting where you are much more likely to die of starvation and/or disease/mutations than in upfront combat. Survival becomes the #1 priority, and engaging in combat will often turn out to be a poor idea. As such, you will have to take unusual approaches and use items/weapons that you would just toss aside as "meh" in the previous two settings - low-power but ammo-efficient weapons can be pretty crucial here.

Ah, Despair/Prayers. Why could it possibly be called like this? Well, the answer is simple - you only get to play with one of the characters, the other just dies at the start of the game. Otherwise this is fairly similar to Pain/Tears, but with an extra "mental health deteriorating over death of loved one" element (which I know would be pretty easy to fuck up the portrayal of).
Otherwise, good luck, bud. You're on your own. Literally.


This is pretty big though I will admit, and I am not 100% attached to that particular concept yet, it's juts something that my brain's been making me mull over lately, and I suppose that the more 'lightweight' implementation of that concept is to use these four 'themes' in mind when designing new content  as a sort of 'initial base', similar to how Magic the Gathering designs its cards based on the three main types of players (the whole Timmy, Johnny, Spike thing).


Uh, I guess that's all I had in mind for now?
"Uh, why don't you actually start working instead of just coming up with more and more ideas though?" There's your answer I guess.
it's not an excuse I swear I wish I could have the executive functioning to do Proper Work but there is no arguing with my fucky brain
« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 05:57:25 pm by Maks »
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