Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Mastermind]

What's a good place to upload files that lets me delete them without having to register an account?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Just some graph shit for my CYOA.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Okay, so a quick video update with some new stuff in Crypts of Avaritia.

What you see in the video:
- Locked door that uses key, the player picks up the key and the door is unlocked (will hopefully improve this and add the key to the inventory instead)
- Player picks up some items, notable is the new plants/herbs, these will be used for healing poisoning and other stuff (such as give mana, health, food value etc., will have lots of different plants, also poisonous ones)
- Also picks up torches and a pickaxe, will use later
- Light up torch in fire (by the way, you can equip two torches and ignite one with the other if you for some reason want to, might be good when one is about to burn out)
- Lights up two fireplaces using the torch. Fires and torches in the dungeon has a random element that determines if it is ignited or not, this way the player will have to light up everything to get decent ambient lightning. Might even go as far as turn off all lights initially and make the player ignite them. I mean, why would someone leave a lot of fires and torches on in a large dungeon deep below the surface..?
- Use the pickaxe on some rock just to show the functionality, will hopefully improve the audiovisuals of the mining/digging...
- Try to climb with items equipped in my hands, the grip will of course fail and the player falls down
- Player breaks bones and impair his movement (level 1 break out of 5 for now). Also loses a lot of health in the process (will fine tune stuff like this later on)
- Player unequips everything to have free hands to climb with, now the grip is successful (of course you still need to have a higher climb skill level than the difficulty of the rock wall)
- Video ends



Development thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...varitia-design-discussion-and-feedback.86069/

 

[Derek Larp]

Good job, they look great.

Thanks

 

[Surf Solar]

shihonage - with the level of details your sprites and characters have, the way you currently do level art will always clash. It's imo always superior to actually render the tiles, walls etc. than to crop them together in some subpar 2d program.

 

[Mastermind]

If it comes to that kind of menial work for every single fucking texture... it's easier to just use ShitCreator. I really would rather not have to waste time on textures at all. But alas.

If those textures weren't made for isometric (and apparently they weren't) you'll probably need to do some work on them regardless.

 

[shihonage]

shihonage - with the level of details your sprites and characters have, the way you currently do level art will always clash. It's imo always superior to actually render the tiles, walls etc. than to crop them together in some subpar 2d program.

My "level art" is limited to two textures you saw (and the placeholder outdoor ground), plus FO:T graphics dirtily upscaled to fit 1024x* display resolution. I think my chars would work just fine if I had access to an artist who would generate tiles similar to FO:T at new native resolution.

 

[Surf Solar]

shihonage - with the level of details your sprites and characters have, the way you currently do level art will always clash. It's imo always superior to actually render the tiles, walls etc. than to crop them together in some subpar 2d program.

My "level art" is limited to two textures you saw (and the placeholder outdoor ground), plus FO:T graphics dirtily upscaled to fit 1024x* display resolution. I think my chars would work just fine if I had access to an artist who would generate tiles similar to FO:T at new native resolution.

And how will you generate level art, sceneries and all these things? Maybe I am just misunderstanding you..

 

[Hornawkawk]

Bros, I'm not much into game development myself, but is anyone in need of music for their game? I'm composing in a number of styles but I've never done anything specifically tailored to someone's needs, might be interesting.

 

[Mastermind]

Bros, I'm not much into game development myself, but is anyone in need of music for their game? I'm composing in a number of styles but I've never done anything specifically tailored to someone's needs, might be interesting.

What are you charging?

 

[Jaesun]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/so-does-any-fellow-codexer-make-music.35907/

We actually have quite a few codex musicians here (see thread above).

Post some of your music there @Hornawkawk

 

[Destroid]

I've been building a little multiplayer top down shooter, 15mb gif.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Latest update of Crypts of Avaritia:



Development thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...varitia-design-discussion-and-feedback.86069/

 

[J1M]

New floor looks okay, new wall looks made out of carton. I can't make it "thick". It's unbelievable that nobody made a simple dedicated ISO wall generator.

If you want this to look nice you need to combine oversized tiles that use alpha with a variation of the painter's algorithm. When you layer them on top of each other, the edges will be hidden except at the edge. Here are some examples:

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Make the texture tileable and consider a variation or two so that longer walls don't look boring and unnatural. Any wall art will look bad with repetition and seams like this.

Two identical layers, top layer offset + eraser (or layer mask - slower, but more control). For this size it will be a breeze. Or just get tileable ones - again, for the size you need it shouldn't be a problem.

Anyways, what do you plan for other art assets? Ruins, clutter, interactive objects? Even if you had a super-easy-to-use wall generator you will still need to spend a lot of effort messing with art if you want to match the level of detail of the character sprite, as others have already pinted out. Many objects will be nigh impossible to do reasonably well without going 3D.

Man, I'd gladly jump in and try to make some rusty iso stuff, but I'm already spread thin across too many things to do. Damn you, time!

 

[shihonage]

The only current alternative is to keep spending money on the same artist who did characters.

I already have a layer system which has been used previously with FO:T assets to hang terminals on walls, etc.

I'm stuck in limbo of health issues and trying to rebuild enthusiasm. For... something. For the first time in 13 years, my idealistic desire to incline has deflated.

Despite having written enormous parts of the engine, a Fallout-alike is the complete opposite of a sensible indie project. A sensible indie project should satisfy the following requirements:

1) No level design whatsoever - it is very time-consuming, and randomization prolongs replayability.
2) Ability to release content in episodic chunks.
3) No heavy budget requirements on rich variety of graphics.
4) Appeal to more than a niche audience.
5) Release date within line of sight

In order to satisfy these, Compound should become something like "Don't Starve". Not sure I want to go there, either.

 

[Zep Zepo]

What engine, Shihonage (if you already said I wasn't paying attention)? Your own or something off the shelf?

Zep--

 

[shihonage]

My own.

 

[Zep Zepo]

*Where the FO:T walls go up and end at a 45 degree angle (giving the illusion of depth). Yours just go straight up. at the dark green line on yours, kick it out (the line, which now appears straight) 45 degress to the left. Would make it look more "thick" like you want? like above the line would look like ledge instead of more wall just by the illusion oh the line going a different angle.

Zep--
*hope not too hard to understand what I am proposing...

 

[tuluse]

The only current alternative is to keep spending money on the same artist who did characters.

I already have a layer system which has been used previously with FO:T assets to hang terminals on walls, etc.

I'm stuck in limbo of health issues and trying to rebuild enthusiasm. For... something. For the first time in 13 years, my idealistic desire to incline has deflated.

I'm sorry to hear that, I would like to your play your rpg.

1) No level design whatsoever - it is very time-consuming, and randomization prolongs replayability.
2) Ability to release content in episodic chunks.
3) No heavy budget requirements on rich variety of graphics.
4) Appeal to more than a niche audience.
5) Release date within line of sight

In order to satisfy these, Compound should become something like "Don't Starve". Not sure I want to go there, either.

I'm not sure about #1 or #4. Niche audiences are the most under-served. If you can appeal to one, you can carve out enough people to buy your games. See Jeff Vogel. I believe AoD has over 1000 pre-orders now, and Underrail has done quite well on steam early access.

As for #1, it's all about expectations and what kind of game you're making. Something like Braid did quite well with hand-crafted levels and a short game. If that's what your audience expects, they'll be happy. Not every game needs to be all that replayable.

 

[Mastermind]

Been working on a secret levels concept for my game. Instead of multiple small rooms there's just one, bigger area. They're rarely lethal, just a reward for accomplishing certain things during a run that give you a chance at special/extra loot. Depending on how well the kickstarter does I'll probably end up including a couple of codexian ones too (a "press the awesome button" one that turns you into a fire breathing t-rex is particularly appealing to me).

This one's the forest of the damned. A massive number of zombie torsos crawl out from under the trees and try to eat you. There's no special drops, but killing swarms of enemies is its own reward as they tend to drop quite a few instant cards and permanent armor/mana boosts.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Some gameplay to try out in Crypts of Avaritia, early pre-alpha so most things looks like shit, but they work:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...PreAlphaWeb/CryptsOfAvaritia_PreAlphaWeb.html

To get rid of the mouse pointer just toggle the inventory on and off using the "I" key. As per ususal, comments, ideas, critique etc. is most welcome in the development thread : http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...a-design-discussion-and-feedback.86069/page-3

 

[r3jonwah85]

Some menus added to Crypts of Avaritia, this one is for dungeon generation:

Development thread : http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...a-design-discussion-and-feedback.86069/page-3

 

[shihonage]

I quietly made Dead Colony free a while back.

 

[Mastermind]

I quietly made Dead Colony free a while back.

Did you ever make enough money to get Desura to pay you?