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Author Topic: Psiforged, become godlike.  (Read 6866 times)

Ginseng

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Psiforged, become godlike.
« on: February 13, 2018, 03:15:25 pm »



Hello everyone!

It's been a long, long time since I posted here. I just wanted to say that I am a big fan of Dwarf Fortress and often check on updates and great stories from the community. DF has inspired me beyond anything else, with its depth and hidden beauty. Which brings me here today, to show you a project that I've been working on for a year now, partially inspired by ToadyOne's tireless dedication and attention to detail, mixed with a little sci-fi and over-the-top fighting for good measure.

Spicy!

Mostly, I am looking to see what the general reaction is toward the project so far and where it could do with the most attention. (And if anybody is actually interested in a game like this.) Feedback, criticism and outright laughter are all encouraged.



What is Psiforged?

Think of it as a bit of a mash-up, inspired by StarWars, Xcom, Factorio, DragonBall, CRPG games and Dwarf Fortress' adventure mode, to an extent. Psiforged takes what I've considered some of the better aspects of several games and places them into a 2d pixel-art sandbox environment. You can choose to play the game single player, but the engine is designed to allow as many as 100 people to join and play simultaneously. You can choose from two races so far, Humans and Grey Aliens. The game includes a combat system and a fairly simple crafting system so far. The plan is to get it ready for Steam and possibly even a Kickstarter to gain additional funding for more/better sprites and sounds. (The game has no sounds! ;_;)

Combat is very heavily inspired by Dragonball, in that you use the raw strength, speed and power of your character to cause catastrophic damage to the area and your opponent using punches, kicks and various psionic attacks. You could, for example, if you're strong enough, punch someone so hard the air explodes with shockwaves and the very ground ruptures with furrows from the force of your blow. Meanwhile, your opponent flies away backwards from the force of the blow, sending dust and debris everywhere before slamming into and through several objects. Maybe this video will explain it better, hehe. - https://streamable.com/nqmup

The tech system was inspired by games such as Factorio and Rimworld, in that you create a network of power lines before placing objects on top. Batteries store power where as solar panels and wind turbines charge them. You can then use the stored power to place automated drilling machines down to extract the Earth's resources. With all the resources you make from this, you can build other technological marvels to further enhance your character, like Gravity Machines and Regeneration Tanks. I feel that with such a system in place, there's a lot of potential to add some truly fun machines to the game in the future. Here's another video of the technology building in progress. - https://streamable.com/p03q4

Psiforged also offers a lot of customization as far as character builds go. Your character mostly makes use of their primary resource, which is simply psionic energy. With their energy, they can perform feats of near impossibility, such as using telekinesis to move objects around or surround themselves with enough energy to fly. Players can also discharge psionic plasma in the form of blasts of power, waves, orbs and beams. There are 7 primary attributes, Strength, Endurance, Resistance, Spirit, Agility, Accuracy and Reflexes and each one plays into the combat system and allows for varied play styles. Some players could go full strength and endurance with accuracy and become powerhouses who hit hard and absorb a lot of damage. Others could focus on agility and their reflexes, letting them nimbly avoid damage whilst swiftly dishing out their own.

Attributes can be raised in unique ways, not often found in most games. You can sit in the middle of a lightning storm and allow bolts of electricity to surge through your body, raising your Resistance, meditate in the cold north to raise your Endurance or weather the extremes of a gravity field whilst dead lifting heavy objects to increase your Strength. I plan to add more ways to train later too, that interact with the game world and don't feel abstract and disconnected from the main game too much like a mini game might.

Only a couple of NPC's have been added and finished. The way you interact with them and talk is very reminiscent of older games, such as Baldur's Gate and more recently, Divinity Original Sin 2. But I have plans to add villains within the game, to give players a goal and reason to become stronger, explore and interact with others. One thing that Dwarf Fortress taught me, is that procedural generation is both fun to create and fun to experience, so long as its done in a certain way. That's why I'd love for Psiforged to also have some elements of randomness, like Terraria perhaps, with meteor strikes, invasions and other strange otherworldly eldritch things.



The main goal will be to either defend Earth or exploit it, using your newfound psionic powers. Then further on in development, battle alien space pirates, natural events, rouge androids, demons and even the undead. The game is being developed in the less than reputable Byond engine. However, the last two years have been kind to this aging relic from many years ago and allowed some considerable features to be added that just wouldn't of worked before.

The Lore

The game lore is that the planet is experiencing a psionic awaken, where the sentient beings on a world reach a point where their minds evolve, or develop enough that their ambient brain waves are no longer harmless. And to some degree, dangerous to the environment and those nearby. Other, more developed, evolved or older beings from beyond the stars have noticed this and plan to raid, aid or interact with the people on the planet. They too have their own goals, such as exploit the chaos caused by this world-wide psionic event, or help guide the people to achieve a kind of cosmic inner peace that will lessen the effects of uncontrolled psychic power lashing across the globe.

Future Plans

Psiforged will feature set locations, like villages, points of interest and places of power or resource rich locations and nodes. These areas will have special properties associated with them. For example, there might be a rich resource vein in one area, but a village sits on top. That's where the player gets to decide how they go about getting those resources, if they want them. They could simply wipe the village out with their godlike powers, but could end up suffering consequences from other NPC or factions and even damage the planet itself in the process.

Players will only be able to build drills on resource nodes in the final build of the game, helping prevent littering upon the map and giving certain locations strategic value and a reason for people to go exploring or exploiting. I'm not certain just yet how the building system could be best added in Psiforged, whether we could go for a set look for each species added to the game, with a customizable interior, or full player freedom to place "blocks" as they please, in the form of walls, floors and ceilings.

Balancing the responsibility of your power vs what you can do and what you should do, is going to be a big part of the game too. As it stands, there's a frame work for a pollution system. Create too many drills, and the planet starts to die, the trees wither, the weather becomes worse. Use your powers too freely without regard for anyone or anything else and much more dire consequences will follow, like terrible psionic storms rippling over the world or the ocean boiling up to name but a few. In the end, you can help defend the Earth from the psionic awakening and cushion the damage it might cause, or fully exploit it to your hearts content.

FAQ

Q - Does Psiforged have a static world with a set series of places to explore and opponents to defeat?
A - Yes, Psiforged will have set locations to explore, consisting mainly of points of interest. The main villains will also be static too, but their henchmen may vary slightly.

Q - Can I play Psiforged in its current state?
A -  Psiforged is usually hosted every few weekends online for players to join and the client/exe files are available from http://www.byond.com/games/DoughyOne/Psiforged when the servers are live.

Q - Will BYOND remain the engine used for this game?
A - It's likely I will stick with Byond for this project. So far, it appears as though the engine can handle current and future plans and implements, but should that no longer be the case in the near future, I'd consider switching to GameMaker if needed.

Q - Will Psiforged run on Linux?
A - Sadly, it will not. Due to technicial limitations within the engine, this is currently impossible. However, you will be able to host a multplayer Linux server for others who use Windows to join.

Extra Information

Thank you for reading and feel free to leave feedback here or contact me on Discord at https://discord.gg/JBgEC6C

Below you can find a series of videos both old and new that show off a few of the games systems.

https://streamable.com/fdio1
https://streamable.com/55nq5
https://streamable.com/tf5po
https://streamable.com/na6ja









« Last Edit: February 18, 2018, 11:14:30 am by Ginseng »
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Folly

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2018, 05:44:07 pm »

Definitely interesting, and I could totally see myself spending money on this.

My main concern is with long-term goals and progression. Does Psiforged have a static world with a set series of places to explore and opponents to defeat? Or is it more of a progressively generated sandbox?
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Ginseng

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2018, 06:11:46 pm »

Definitely interesting, and I could totally see myself spending money on this.

My main concern is with long-term goals and progression. Does Psiforged have a static world with a set series of places to explore and opponents to defeat? Or is it more of a progressively generated sandbox?

Hi there, thanks for reading over the game details. I must admit, I'm also thinking about long-term goals and progression, things to make the game more interesting in the long run. But to answer your question. Psiforged will have set locations to explore, consisting mainly of points of interest. The main villains will also be static too, but their henchmen may vary slightly.


I hope that helps.
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assasinwar9

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2018, 08:14:54 pm »

hello, i look forward to being able to play and maybe host this some time in the future



off-topic coming up V

i play and privately host Dungeon Master and i must say im glad you open sourced it, since i sometimes mess around with the source code

so i hope you make this game as good as you did with dungeon master :)
and no i don't expect you to open source this new game of yours :/

overall i just wanted to say thank you for the games and effort you put into them lol
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NRDL

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2018, 08:22:20 pm »

PTW
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nenjin

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2018, 08:28:53 pm »

You got my attention with Single Player.

I get a vague sense of games made in BYOND when I think about this in multiplayer, and that's honestly not too interesting to me anymore.

But as a SP game or something I could play coop with a couple friends, I'm fairly interested.

I dig the art direction and DBZ inspiration, that's right up my alley. The tech side of it I find a little less interesting but if it impresses then cool.
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StagnantSoul

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2018, 11:55:25 pm »

*Reads the first few description sentences* What mixed with who from where now?

Looks interesting, might pick it up. All I can imagine now though is Gohan punching a spitter and bending it's leg with the force...
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sambojin

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2018, 01:13:20 pm »

Sounds like a great concept. The various fighting effects should allow a lot more strategy than is available in many other roguelikes or 2d MMOs, and I love all the source inspiration material as well.

Having a 100 person clusterfuck might be fun every once in a while, but I think that finding out good tag-team combos with just 1-3 other friends would be the most satisfying. I'm hoping the game scales more around single-player/small group multi-player, rather than *needing* 50-odd people for a raid boss or something. Not to say that's not an option down the track, and it sounds like there's tonnes of fun ways the game could go, but I tend to like the more personal gameplay rather than the zerg rush of mooks and trolling that MMOs tend to make.

I'm a little bit worried that with a static world and with building placement, the map would end up littered with stuff in no time at higher player numbers. Even if the map is really big. Say 3-5 tech complexes per player, that's 150-500 building complexes at 50-100 players, and that might be on the low end of stuff. Kind of the reverse of the Ultima Online Virtual Ecology problem. Rather than no animals, you'll have sprawling tech metropolises covering most of the world within an hour. With them then summarily being destroyed by trolls 30 seconds later.
https://youtu.be/KFNxJVTJleE

Anyway, very much looking forward to how this turns out. Be sure to give us a yell here if you get the kickstarter thing going, or if you go for a Steam EA model for funding. You're sure to get a few backers (including me).
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 01:59:52 pm by sambojin »
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Ginseng

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2018, 06:03:47 pm »

Thanks for the reply guys, appreciate the feedback so far. :)

i play and privately host Dungeon Master and i must say im glad you open sourced it, since i sometimes mess around with the source code
Honestly, I'm surprised anyone even remembers Dungeon Master, let alone plays it. That's really inspiring and awesome!

I'm a little bit worried that with a static world and with building placement, the map would end up littered with stuff in no time at higher player numbers. Even if the map is really big. Say 3-5 tech complexes per player, that's 150-500 building complexes at 50-100 players, and that might be on the low end of stuff. Kind of the reverse of the Ultima Online Virtual Ecology problem. Rather than no animals, you'll have sprawling tech metropolises covering most of the world within an hour. With them then summarily being destroyed by trolls 30 seconds later.
https://youtu.be/KFNxJVTJleE

At first, the project started with the idea of having dozens of players joining and doing pvp, or roleplaying, with no additional single player content or option. But I've always wanted to work hard on making a personal experience for the player to enjoy, instead of forcing them to create their own within the confines of the engine - although they still can if they wanted. I'm definitely looking to keep the game focused on relatively small groups of people as far as multiplayer goes. Something fun you could invite a few close friends to enjoy really.

That brings me onto something I meant to mention in the game info but forgot, though. I'll update it accordingly.

Psiforged will feature set locations, like villages, points of interest and places of power or resource rich locations and nodes. These areas will have special properties associated with them. For example, there might be a rich resource vein in one area, but a village sits on top. That's where the player gets to decide how they go about getting those resources, if they want them. They could simply wipe the village out with their godlike powers, but could end up suffering consequences from other NPC or factions and even damage the planet itself in the process.

Players will only be able to build drills on resource nodes in the final build of the game, helping prevent littering upon the map and giving certain locations strategic value and a reason for people to go exploring or exploiting. I'm not certain just yet how the building system could be best added in Psiforged, whether we could go for a set look for each species added to the game, with a customizable interior, or full player freedom to place "blocks" as they please, in the form of walls, floors and ceilings.

Balancing the responsibility of your power vs what you can do and what you should do, is going to be a big part of the game too. As it stands, there's a frame work for a pollution system. Create too many drills, and the planet starts to die, the trees wither, the weather becomes worse. Use your powers too freely without regard for anyone or anything else and much more dire consequences will follow, like terrible psionic storms rippling over the world or the ocean boiling up to name but a few. In the end, you can help defend the Earth from the psionic awakening and cushion the damage it might cause, or fully exploit it to your hearts content.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 06:11:45 pm by Ginseng »
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Shadowgandor

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2018, 04:13:41 am »

Will BYOND remain the engine used for this game? I'm personally not a fan of using BYOND for combat as the UI always feels clunky and unresponsive and latency is very noticeable.
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Ginseng

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2018, 06:18:02 am »

Will BYOND remain the engine used for this game? I'm personally not a fan of using BYOND for combat as the UI always feels clunky and unresponsive and latency is very noticeable.

It's likely I will stick with Byond for this project. I'm very familiar with it, and with its improvements the last two years, its been a lot easier to create a big project like this whilst avoiding unresponsive behaviour stemming from the engine itself in regards to multiplayer. But I think you're right to be concerned, though. First impressions are everything, and this particular engine has turned many people off it over the years with its poor and clunky codebase and less than adequate support. So I completely understand why you're concerned. So far, it appears as though the engine can handle current and future plans and implements, but should that no longer be the case in the near future, I'd consider switching to GameMaker if needed. I hope that helps answer your question and thanks for showing interest in the project. :)
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Shadowgandor

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2018, 06:28:55 am »

Thanks for answering my question. The project looks really cool and my initial impressions were very good. When I get back from work, I'll install BYOND and add Psiforged to my favourites. Can't wait to give this a shot :)
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Ginseng

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2018, 08:03:00 am »

Just wanted to stop by and let you guys know that Psiforged will be hosted live in around 6 hours. You can join by going to www.byond.com and downloading the engines client. Its free and you don't even need to make an account, you could log in as a guest account if you wanted. You can then visit  http://www.byond.com/games/DoughyOne/Psiforged to join directly if your Byond is running in your task tray.

Its worth mentioning a few things, I think. I've kept testing publicly open for the moment, but there are plans for some kind of closed beta testing in the future. But for now, consider this an open beta test! The shell isn't very good, it's only an $8 server. But I think it should prove useful for little tests like this. I'm hoping to get something better to really stress test the game at later stages.

As an added note, once the project is nearly complete, or if I decide to do early access, the login/download requirement for Byond will be removed. Its only there at the moment because I haven't yet received the exe compiler from the engines devlopment team, but I plan to put through an application in the next few weeks.

I hope everyone enjoys this very early build of the game and I look forward to seeing you later. :)
« Last Edit: February 16, 2018, 08:05:24 am by Ginseng »
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Ginseng

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #13 on: February 16, 2018, 02:56:15 pm »

Psiforged is now live! You can join directly from this link, by going into your Byond tray icon/pager and using Open Location.

Link - byond://DoughyOne.byondpanel.com:37963

Remember, you will need the "BYOND: client/server/compiler (BETA) -Windows  [512.1409]" version of the game to play. Alternatively, you can also join from http://www.byond.com/games/DoughyOne/Psiforged

Looking forward to seeing some of you there.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2018, 08:53:40 pm by Ginseng »
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Malus

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Re: Psiforged, become godlike.
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2018, 07:21:01 pm »

Is this based off of the Dragon Ball Finale source code? Most of the systems look pretty much identical, even down to specific things like anger/grav training and the way the building/tech system works.
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