riadsala

Developing a strat game for fun: fancy joing in?

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Hello,

after playing "arm chair game designer" for a while, i finally decided to have a go at developing my own game. My progress is pretty slow, as I often get distracted and decide I'd rather spend my evening playing games, rather than coding. but other times, I get a lot done, and it's pretty rewarding.

I've noticed that I always find it easier to keep my enthusiasm levels up when I'm collaboration with somebody: knowing somebody else is also spending time on the project gives me an incentive to get some of those tedious coding tasks done.

So, I was wondering if anybody here fancies joining in? The current plan is to make some sort of fantasy turn based game (was originally inspired by how dreadful Elemental:War of Magic was). You can see some screenshots of work so far here.

Note: this isn't a "serious" project.... ie, I don't currently plan to ever finish, let along think about selling the game for a profit. This is done purely as a hobby, and a chance for me to improve my coding skills.

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I'm in no way I coder but I believe you have my Steam if you want to rattle some mechanics/ideas around. Good luck!

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you should do it through polls. let the tyranny of the masses dictate the lulz.

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I think I have much the same attitude as you to coding projects (I'm currently halfarsedly trying to get a Google App Engine version of Baltimore and Ohio written) I'm happy to contribute my apathy to this noble cause!

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That looks neat. :D Where you at game design-wise, so far?

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Like the idea of a true globe map, are there any challenges that's going to give you that Civ, Warlock etc sidestep with having their traditional maps with impassable polar regions?

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I must echo how nice the globe is. I don't think as a writer I'll be of much use to a hardcore strategy project, though.

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I've been designing a Fantasy 4x myself. I could probably write all the code for it pretty quickly but the graphics is the hard part. So I am just holding off for now and occasional going in and fleshing out the design document.

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Thanks people.

the current state of the "game" is that I can generate a random planet (obviously, the world gen code is pretty simplistic at this point in time), and then save/load the world details. Also, I have "cities" which can build new chits, and you can click on chits and move them each turn.

I've also got a slightly odd turn structure which I'm quite proud off.

The next stage is a bit dull, so I've been putting it off... I want to switch over to a "we go" structure, and then get a small group of people together to play via dropbox.

One issue that I should probably decide soon is what level of granularity to use for my world. Do I want a small number of hexes (something akin to a board game). Or a much finer tiling, so it feels more like a 4x. Pros and cons for each one.

The main challenge to me is that this is the biggest coding project I've ever undertaken. While I do comp-sci research for a day job, most of that concerns witing algorithms, etc, which is pretty different from writing software.

Like the idea of a true globe map, are there any challenges that's going to give you that Civ, Warlock etc sidestep with having their traditional maps with impassable polar regions?

Well, a) getting the hexes to tile was a pain: the mathematics requires 12 "pentagonal poles" which is a complicating factor. But I've decided to take this "limitation" as an oppertunity, and the pentagonal tiles will be special tiles. At the moment they have shrines on them. The shrines currently don't do anything, but I'm thinking of having them act as either victory point conditions, or mana-resources. Something like that anyway.

Also, the camera was a bit of a pain do get working... 3d angular geometry can be confusing (at least, it confuses me).

On the plus side, I think the hex tiles (+pents) tiling a globe has given me a pretty neat graphical look :)

Like the idea of a true globe map, are there any challenges that's going to give you that Civ, Warlock etc sidestep with having their traditional maps with impassable polar regions?

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If you need help with graphics, I'd gladly contribute with some 3d hex tiles.

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The next stage is a bit dull, so I've been putting it off... I want to switch over to a "we go" structure, and then get a small group of people together to play via dropbox.

I'm definitely in for when that happens

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Very nice, what's your toolset? Looks like Unity, which language did you pick?

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There was something about the current look of your globe that had been bugging me but that I couldn't quite place.

Finally its my brain clicked into gear hat what it reminds me of is wooden board game pieces, there's something about the conical shapes of the tree's and the hex terrain reminds me of them.

Which is weird because obviously that's not how your version is generated at all, it must just come from the primitive geometry.

I think because of them it resonates with that same feeling I get when I look at a wooden game piece of being able to sense how it was crafted, of how someone has took a series of basic shapes and combined them into a iconic representation of something.

All in all I kinda like looking at that globe and imaging it peopled with meeples :D

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There was something about the current look of your globe that had been bugging me but that I couldn't quite place.

Finally its my brain clicked into gear hat what it reminds me of is wooden board game pieces, there's something about the conical shapes of the tree's and the hex terrain reminds me of them.

Which is weird because obviously that's not how your version is generated at all, it must just come from the primitive geometry.

I think because of them it resonates with that same feeling I get when I look at a wooden game piece of being able to sense how it was crafted, of how someone has took a series of basic shapes and combined them into a iconic representation of something.

All in all I kinda like looking at that globe and imaging it peopled with meeples :D

I know exactly what you mean. A happy accident I think!

Very nice, what's your toolset? Looks like Unity, which language did you pick?

yup, Unity3d, coding in C# (as that seemed to be the most useful/transferable language to learn]

Sadly, I made no progress over the weekend (played Sins:Rebellion and Empire Total War instead).

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you should do it through polls. let the tyranny of the masses dictate the lulz.

not a total daft suggestion.

one question I'd like some feedback on: do people prefer a coarse or fine grid?

Examples here

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I know this instantly complicates things, but could you not incorporate a bit of both?

Large grid tiles, made up of many smaller ones.

Perhaps with a Risk-like system, which gives you bonuses when you control all the smaller hex's of one Large tile.

It could literally be as simple as a darker line that marks the border, or it could be rolled into the UI and which view your presented with could depend on your zoom distance. With the smaller tiles coming into focus when you zoom in.

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one question I'd like some feedback on: do people prefer a coarse or fine grid?

neither! I think that you were actually quite close to the ideal tile size with your original post.

That sort of medium-sized tile helps to give the world a varied look without making the maps seem cluttered or overly complex.If you look at the way civilisation 5 or warlock handles terrain titles everything is represented in multiples. For instance a tile never features just one tree but three or four.

Ultimately though I think your combat mechanic and the pacing you want the game to have should probably have more bearing on world size than aesthetic choices.

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Ultimately though I think your combat mechanic and the pacing you want the game to have should probably have more bearing on world size than aesthetic choices.

I agree with this, but Jaraknarn's suggestion also is very good so it's worth keeping in mind I think.


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Ultimately though I think your combat mechanic and the pacing you want the game to have should probably have more bearing on world size than aesthetic choices.

That's a bit of a chicken and egg thing though... design the mechanics for the board/world, or design a world for the mechanics.

I like the idea of ideas from both sides influencing the developing. For example, I wanted a hex sphere... but a repercussion of that is the need for twelve "pentagonal poles." So they're going to be incorperated into the design and will do something gameplay wise. (might as well make use of them if they're there right?)

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I like the idea of reasonably small hexes that are grouped into continents (possibly centred on the pentagons?). I think you'd want something between those two images, depends on how many units are expecting to see on the board, personally I get fed up managing lots of units so I'd prefer a structure that didn't allow that many to exist on the world.

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Hmm. nice idea, but I think, I will be sensible for now and declare the basic geometry of the globe as done. (I've made a note of the idea of subdividing hexes into smaller tiles... it wouldn't be too hard to do, but I think I've had enough messing about with my geometry code for now).

I can add some code which detects continents.. that wouldn't be too hard to do, and is a good idea.

It sounds like the verdict on world size is for one in between the two examples I posted the other day. So, I'll set that as the new default size for now. (it's trivial to change it later, but it means I have a rough idea of what world size/tile density to be designing for).

The the good news is that I've completed the code for generating the world and spitting out save files for each player. And I've also completed the code which allows players to then read those save files and open up the world so they can take their turn. So all that's left (in terms of getting a playable system) is coming up with a format for saving the orders a player makes, and then code which allows the host to read all that information in and process the turn.

I've also installed FRAPS so I can make a little video for my next blog update :)

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Just a friendly bump in-case any new forum-ites are interested. I guess what with the success of the Planetary Annihilation kickstarter, spherical planets are currently quite trendy :P So if anybody fancies lending a hand, do let me know!

I haven't touched my code in a couple of months. But with the arrival of autumn, I'll probably be spending more time inside, and will try and make the effort to get things moving again :)

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