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MageKing17 16 years ago

The Doomed Hometown is such a cliché it makes me want to link to TVTropes. But I wont, for the sake of your free time.

spoons 16 years ago

but this cliche' is the reason all those games are great (mostly anyways). besides in Driftmoon you could even add a bit of humor if the hero finds his town destroyed and then makes some witty comment about seeing the same thing happen somewhere before.

eh?

Grim Reaper 16 years ago

"spoons" said:
Microsoft blows up the ships in Halo (1 & 2)

1) BUNGIE. Not Microsoft.

2) The point of the first level of Halo 2 is to PREVENT the place from blowing up (and succeeding).
</offtopic>

So yeah, I don't think the first "place" (town, spaceship, whatev) blowing up / burning down ought to be used unless there's a very good reason.

Although, you could always have the blowing-up "optional" (happens if certain conditions are met, doesn't happen if they aren't) and have it influence the story a bit, perhaps.

ZeXLR8er 16 years ago

Hey Ville, just finished watching the trailer. It looks spectacular, and stunningly beautiful. Seeing it has made me think that even without considering the gameplay, one of the greatest attractions of this game will simply be its pure aesthetic appeal. That in mind, I'm wondering the visual aspect of the passing of time will work in the game? Will it be similar to Notrium, with realistic lighting in daylight progressing to darkness at night? I can see the potential for spectacular sunsets and sunrises that would look amazing in the world that already looks so incredible in daylight, as well as environments like beaches that would look even more mysterious and captivating under moonlight as under the sun. Lighting is such a fantastic way to both build atmosphere while making a world look incredible and dynamic, so I hope this is the way you're planning to go with this.
Another related question: is weather a planned part of the game? As above, the potential for storms casting a once bright day in shadow and lighting and thunder is incredible.

ville 16 years ago

Thanks Z! There is a day/night cycle in the game. Day, sunset, night, morning. At night it's usually pitch dark, so you're going to need those torches, and you've got a couple of other ways to light up your way. At the moment the terrain casts shadows, and you can see them move during the day, but I haven't implemented shadows for the characters yet.

Weather is a planned feature, at least rain and thunder. I don't know what effect they would have on gameplay other than put out your torch maybe.

Oh, and as for the plot, you don't need to burn down your village, it's already CURSED!

E_net4 16 years ago

That preview enlighted me. The character has some neat animations that were never possible in Notrium. And hello there, Bobby!

spoons 16 years ago

CURSED, aw man SWeeT!

that alone is reason enough to play Driftmoon, and all that other fancy graphics stuff too..

will there be ninjas?

Redemption 16 years ago

"ville" said:
Oh, and as for the plot, you don't need to burn down your village, it's already CURSED!

This wouldn't happen to be a spontaneous combustion curse, would it?

My favourite part of the video was the physics puzzle. Block the left side, I assume? I just know I'm gonna make some fun/brutal puzzles in the editor.

ville 16 years ago

You've got it Redemption. I'm not a physics puzzle maniac myself, so there won't be too many of them in Driftmoon. But you're free to make as many as you like. Though be reminded that many puzzles are a bit difficult to create because the top-down system has no gravity. But we do have hinges, springs and motors.

I haven't thought about ninjas, there may be one hiding up some valley, but I would have to say ninjas are not common in Driftmoon. Unless you become a ninja yourself!

shadowfire123 16 years ago

Just saw the trailer absolutely fanbloomintastic great work ville and everyone who contributed

Pete 16 years ago

Actually, I do have a question.

Bottomless pits. I mean the real deal, you throw something in and it never hits the bottom. Can it be done?

harwe 16 years ago

Ville, you are doing a great job on the game, can't wait for the release!

spoons 16 years ago

how would you simulate bottomless pits? and why any different from regular ones?

ville 16 years ago

Thanks everyone!

A bottomless pit could be done, though it would look weird. Currently all of my maps have water below a certain level, but you could do it by turning the water off and lowering the floor way too much.

E_net4 16 years ago

"ville" said:
Thanks everyone!

A bottomless pit could be done, though it would look weird. Currently all of my maps have water below a certain level, but you could do it by turning the water off and lowering the floor way too much.

Now that I think of it, a bottomless pit in a regular planet can't be really bottomless.

I have this particular doubt. Can a modder define a rectangular area for triggering actions when the player enters/leaves/stays in it? Think of it like defining an invisible area with scriptable features.

ville 16 years ago

I already have a bunch of things that are invisible triggers. It's actually no more difficult than creating an object, deleting the default graphic, and adding a script with a condition for player distance, and all the actions you might ever want. I'm using it often for the player to comment on places he visits.

ZeXLR8er 16 years ago

Just a suggestion: on the trailer, dialogues look like they disappear suddenly after they expire. I think a nice fade-out of the text would look a lot nicer and smoother.

E_net4 16 years ago

"ville" said:
It's actually no more difficult than creating an object, deleting the default graphic, and adding a script with a condition for player distance, and all the actions you might ever want.

Yes, but doing so would create a circular area, rather than a rectangular one. What if one wants to make a polygonal-shaped area? You never know when you might need it.

Narvius 16 years ago

Then just create a script with player position x > something, < something and the same for y?

ZeXLR8er 16 years ago

Ville, I'm also interested in the existence/degree of randominity (I believe I just invented a word) that will either exist in Driftmoon the game, or the potential for in the modding engine itself. So, will random terrains be possible, a la Notrium? Randomly placed objects? Creatures? Will areas be able to be randomly arranged? Random events/scripts?

Narvius 16 years ago

I think as long it is possible to dynamically add and remove objects, that should be possible.

ville 16 years ago

I believe creating a rectangular area detection will not be difficult when it is needed.

As for randomity, things will not work like they did in Notrium. Now don't be shocked, they're just done in a different way. In Notrium what you did was assign a several amount of items and creatures to each map, and in Driftmoon, well that's just not possible. There are so many unreachable places your stuff could go to that I found it easier to place items by hand. As for terrain, I always hated the random system in Notrium, as it created completely scattered terrain that didn't create any interesting gameplay. So that's not randomizable either.

But we do have spawners that you can use to add objects to random places, and those could probably be used to add random enemies as well. I'm just not going to use them for Driftmoon, since I want to hand craft the experience. And you also have the option to use randomization in scripts, so you can create random events.

Dynamically adding and removing objects with scripts is also possible, so if you want to create that ultimate script that places objects just the way you want, it is possible.

Anonymous1157 16 years ago

I absolutely MUST butt in here. The word is RANDOMNESS.

Grr. Anyhow...

Will this scripting engine be able to work with the rectangular area detection to simulate mostly unmonitored pseudorandomness as seen in Notrium, should we ever need to? If not, there would actually be a missing feature needed for the Notrium remake that must inevitably be created.

ville 16 years ago

I believe a Notrium remake can be made, but it will need some special support from the engine. If we can gather a set of requirements that are not painstaking to implement, I will probably try to do my best with them. Some of you may remember that Notrium didn't reach it's moddability until the later stages of development, whereas Driftmoon is made moddable from the start. It will not be nearly as difficult implementing simple modding features.

E_net4 16 years ago

I have 2 words that make an epic suggestion for the game core:

Demo Recording

Anonymous1157 16 years ago

I have an amendment to E_net4's statement:
... Support for demo playback Doom-style on the main screen to a mod!

Venom31 16 years ago

Jeez, now that's an idea! Great thought, that's what I'm missing in Notrium! (*EDIT*: not the support for m-menu playback, the demo recording itself, with playback somewhere, of course) The support for main menu playback won't be so difficult, IMO; Driftmoon already shows smth movable there, right?

E_net4 16 years ago

I also thought it would be nice if we had a demo recording feature in Notrium, thus why I posted it here.

And I support 1157's idea, though Bobby the skeleton should be enough.

ville 16 years ago

What would you use the recording function for? Showing your play to friends? Ingame cutscenes?

Anonymous1157 16 years ago

The analysis of the exact key combination and timings needed to preform a move comes to mind. Pseudocode for a possible file format that may explain how this might work below. It assumes that a button being pressed and released are seperately recorded.

FLAGS=24,GMT-5,DEGREES;

// start

14:56:57.03=RECORD;
14:56:57.52=NORTH;
14:56:57.53=WEST;
14:57:00.07=ATTACK,OBJ_WEPON_FLAMETHROWER,009.3056;
14:57:00.34=STOPWEST;
14:57:02.25=STOPATTACK;

// Et cetera...

14:59:46.29=STOPRECORD;

Narvius 16 years ago

You would also have to save the random seed used, as everything that has some randominity in it would happen differently than in the original game.

Anonymous1157 16 years ago

RANDOMNESS.

*Is annoyed greatly*

Technically, th-- Oh. That does complicate things a bit. I didn't consider saving creature moves as well.

Narvius 16 years ago

As already said, saving and reusing the random seed that was used during the game should suffice. That would recreate all random events as they previously happened.
You don't need to save creature moves :3

Amarth 16 years ago

"Narvius" said:
As already said, saving and reusing the random seed that was used during the game should suffice. That would recreate all random events as they previously happened.
You don't need to save creature moves :3

As long as the game (or at least the randomized part of it) is single-threaded. Given Ville's publishing history (well, his one article as featured on Gamasutra) I kind of doubt it.

Narvius 16 years ago

I fail to see how that makes the thing more complicated. If you use multiple seeds, a different one in every thread, then just save and re-use all of them.

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