Project Humps
This LudumDare I was hit by a blaze of inspiration. I was soooo excited by this project!!! Then the truck of problems ran me over, several times.
Build a 3D Spatial Puzzle based on a secret phrase. The phrase is revealed when the person completes the puzzle.
Then I opened Unity3D and it constantly hit me with minor irritations, though to be fair I've gotten over most of those. The real stumbling block is lots and lots of obscure Math and Niggly technical problems.
Now an interesting problem is exciting and one which you can get your teeth into and gets you excited. One example of this is the generation of the spatial puzzle. Which is awesome procedural content generation.
No I'm talking about stupid little math problems, rotations, parenting and frankly silly stupid problems. Stuff which on paper is stupidly simple. Things like smoothing out camera behaviours, improving physics performances and glitches.
I think I can safely say 90% of the project has been hung up on technical glitches and minor issues. Not sure if I'm going to continue. Taking a breather and thinking about it again.
Prototype - Click to Try
WASD + QE = Camera Controls
Space = Break-up & Rotate Drag Piece
Left Mouse = Select Object
Right Mouse Drag = Drag Object Around
COP: Game Flow
Game Flow
So basically that's the game flow detailed there. The mission select is of course random.
Tonight development goal is as follows.
Build a blueprint and save it
One Page Designs
I am becoming a bigger fan of vector based one page designs. The 80 page word document which never gets read gets trumped by the A1 wall poster with overview.
Ludum Dare: The October Challenge
So POV declared The October Challenge : Make a game in a month and sell it.
New Grid system for Game
The game is relatively simple and based in the Channels of Power world using some ideas from the MMO I was making. The idea is I will use Google App Engine as a backend and Unity as a front end.
Setting up a Defence
First a player is given a limited budget to setup the corporate defences on a location. They will also need to script and issue orders. They are contractor to be brought in to setup the defences. It is then saved on the server.
Attacking
Then using a limited budget an attacker equips a team and selects a mission from the server. Then using X-Com turn based style combat they must break through the defences.
Reputation and Replays
The moment the defences are breached that replay is saved for the viewing of the defender. Reputation is built up for how many assaults a map can take. Offensive reputation for breaking assaults with minimal failures. This is of course weighted and balanced, and persistent.
Scope
For the challenge I'm keeping it very very feature light. The plan is to sell pre-order copies at the end of the month if I feel the project is going well and then continue development. Much as many other indie games are doing.
In terms of DRM and platform. I'm going to be releasing PC version with possibility for future platforms. The DRM is online-always account based system. So basically the client is DRM free so to speak and can be installed multiple times but your account is persistent and can only be logged in at one machine. The online is needed to play the game.
Feedback welcome!
Podcast Problems
I have an idea on how to relaunch the podcast but I'm having trouble getting audio equipment together. Please bear with me on that count.
Chess and Unity
So the big milestone for the Data Driven Dialogue project is in and frankly it needs some time to sit on the shelf while I gather my thoughts for a fresh assault. So I set about learning Unity, something I've been interested in for a long time as a prototyping tool.
The first thing I will say, and I found this with XNA as well, is 90% of the tutorials, resources ect... are worthless to anyone with any base level knowledge. Throw them out, you just need a quick run though the UI, and some quirks pages. All of 10 mins then just use your gathered experience and the reference docs from there on out.
Now when learning new tech two of my favourite test projects are Pong and Tetris. I immediately dismissed these however as Unity made both very easy with its built in functionality, and I knew I wouldn't learn much because I wouldn't need to solve too many problems. I immediately settled on Chess as a well defined game because as anyone who has worked with high level world based tools knows.
- Using any coordiante system for game logic not directly tied to render space is a pain
- Object and Game logic conflict requiring you to split things up
- State based animations and effects can be a pain
- A simple chess AI is a nice little work-out
So yeah I'm tinkering away with that at the moment. Slowly building more layers of complexity on top of it till I'm satisfied I know Unity well enough for a real project I have in mind.
Oh and if you asked why I'm writing a boring Pong / Tetris / Chess game to learn Unity when I could be making Cool Idea #63? The answer is simple always learn new tech with a pre-defined and tested design. Otherwise you will compromise the design to avoid problems rather than be forced to overcome them. The goal is to learn the tech not to make a super awesome game.
Python Parsing Progress
Okay it doesn't look like much but there is a LOT of back-end going into this. With some good work but tonight I should be able to parse the scene script.
Still haven't solved my combination problem for the Gaussian Probability Sets. I have the question up on Math StackExchange.
So onwards to the generators!
c:\Dev\DDD-Snake>testbed.py
~~ Defined Key {SEVERAL:[ 4 : 8 ]}
~~ Done Cleaning and Building Define List
~~ Done Parsing Location data
Status [Gender] Enum : Male(50%) Female(50%)
Status [Job] Enum : Barman(25%) Miner(25%) Gaurd(25%) Functionary(25%)
Status [Height] NumRange [1.2:2.4]
Status [Nation] Enum : Red(83%) Green(8%) Blue(8%)
Status [HairColour] Enum : Red(16%) Ginger(16%) Strawberry Blond(16%) Blond(16%) Brunette(16%) Black(16%)
Status [HairStyle] Enum : Bald(12%) Shaved(12%) Short(12%) Curly(12%) Shoulder Length(12%) Long(12%) Braided(12%)
Braids(12%)
Modifier Gender[X ]
HairStyle : 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 0% 0% 0%
Height : 1.9 ~ 0.4
Modifier Gender[ X]
Job : 0% 0% 0% 100%
HairStyle : 0% 0% 16% 16% 16% 16% 16% 16%
Height : 1.7 ~ 0.3
Modifier Job[XXX ]
Gender : 100% 0%
Modifier Job[ X ]
HairStyle : 33% 33% 33% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Modifier Job[ X ]
Nation : 100% 0% 0%
Modifier Nation[X ]
HairColour : 80% 12% 3% 3% 2% 0%
Height : 1.7 ~ 0.2
Mutator "Tall"
Height : 2.1 ~ 0.2
~~ Done Parsing People data
Status [GlassFill] NumRange [0.0:1.0]
Status [DrinkType] Enum : Beer(25%) Wine(25%) Water(25%) Milk(25%)
Status [DieFace] Enum : 1(16%) 2(16%) 3(16%) 4(16%) 5(16%) 6(16%)
TODO :: Parse Prop Template --> ['Dice', ['DieFace']]
TODO :: Parse Prop Template --> ['Drink', ['DrinkType, GlassFill']]
~~ Done Parsing Prop data
______ TODO :: PARSE VERBS _______
VERB Cleaning REQUIRES PROP
VERB Dicing REQUIRES Dice
VERB Drinking REQUIRES Drink
~~ Done Parsing Verb data
Done parsing dictionary.txt
-----------------------------
Website Coding
Hi all,
So the website rework has been quite an endeavour made more complex by changing providers, being busy at work and going into hospital.
The good news is the Comic Viewer 0.1 is written and working. It's stutters and has rough edges but I'm happy with it. Other than that I'm looking at finishing the Code & Art hobby sections.
The index page also needs a rework I want it to me more active.
Oh how badly I want Gmail Tasks API. It would make this all sooooo much easier.
Will update shortly.