Project Scavenger

[Project] Scavenger Space, Exploration and the Beyond. (a game development blog) Project Scavenger is a Tactical Space RPG, or wherever the idea lands. Who knows? - by Daan Broekhof aka Joror document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='http://picuous.github.com/tumblrbox/tumblrbox.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

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I made a Post-Compo version of my LD34 game! (Jam: #18 Innovation, #51 Overall) - Read the blog - Play / Download :)

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I participated again in a Ludum Dare! Please rate/play/provide feedback for Sanctuary Station! It is a tetris-like base builder in space. :)

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(Shh still doing stuff a bit... here is some pathfinding gone awry ;))

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My game-dev-death has been greatly exeggerated! (just RL stuff) Time to revive!

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Revived the map-generator of my old prototype, replaced the old crappy triangulation lib with a shiny one (Poly2Tri if you need to know). Map is pretty basic still, but a good base to start the strategic map mode from.

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Is this dialog mysterious enough? Yes? Good. Because it will probably be the first thing you see when you open the game. ;) A 'lingo-you-slowly-start-understanding-from-context' strategy, as used in books too. Probably is a real term for too or something. :)

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March DevWeek! This week I was off from work (which I try to do once every 5 weeks), and got a good chunk of work in on all sorts of systems.

Target tracking - guns track enemies and shoot when targets are locked

Power Management - dial ship generator output up or down to keep everything running.

Basic 'knowledge' system - Remember which space-objects a ship has seen/can see. Foundation for the fog of war & future AI systems.

Fog system upgrade - Fog is infinite now, a lot more performant, and hooks into the knowledge system.

Action Controllers - Made actions crew can perform persistent, so they can be better tweaked by players, and used by AI.

Hitpoint system - Tangled with the ship-component hitpoints - split em into temporary damage (fixable with basic resources & time) & structural damage (fixable by getting new parts)

Movement controls - Pseudo newtonian physics are always a bit of a hassle to control, so visualizing what you can do each tick is handy. (see blue outline above)

Got quite a bit done, but still need moar! Can't wait until the basic tactical systems settle a bit and I can focus on balance & flavour more. Get in some more models, races & wacky traits!

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It's a miracle what a few simple trails can do to add to the sense of 'speed', even in a turn-based game! I have been tweaking/populating the UI and generalized my 'random ship' generator. Also spent an evening sorting out a nice spline hex outline script - see the red outline in the middleleft. (yay Unity assetstore!) For a ridiculously large GIF with 'action', look here. (and an older one too)

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Implementing ship crew, crew roles, crew actions, skills and limits thereon! Basically, every crewmember get only one action per turn, and to activate a component of the ship, you have to use an action. But what if you want to do more than one action? Well that is what captains and stress are for! Command characters can 'give' ("order") their action to any other crew under their command. Orrr you can push the characters' limits and give the crew one 'stress' to do it anyway. And stress will have bad effects... of course.

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A little bit of progress on the programming front - but mostly progress on the 'components' of the ships. Determined I want fixed 'scales' (tiny, small, medium, large, huge, ...) applied everywhere, for clarity & more discrete (vs gradual) choices. Now to apply the idea -> code transformation!

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This project has been on a hiatus for half a year - I got stuck in/frustrated with the last prototype. But inspiration struck last month! Now I'm going full-barrel-forward again. The new concept is sparkly! More to come later.

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Long time no code

Well not that long, but summer / gaming has been distracting lately. So back to worrrk. Time to flesh out that damage resolution model I thought up earlier!

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Target Locked!

Friday Afternoon Working is Engaged, launch all codes!

I have been tinkering with crew GUI, and added some very basic target range/locking UI. Thinking really about what to show. I want it to feel like your crewmembers are informing you, not that you just see the lines. Will experiment more. Also wrote down the Skill system which I thought up / half implemented last week. Write or Thou shalt forget!

Todo List-ah!

Commands - You are the Captain. You order your crew what to do, and this must be modelled. Depending on the crew member, they may only have X simultaneous command slots, or they might actually deviate if they feel strongly enough. ("Stop firing on that ship? Nah!")

Information awareness - What does which (ship) entity know? Can't know the location of a ship outside of radar range, can't know it's status or components without scanning it, etc.

Damage - Make things go boom again, broke that a while back. Sorry guys, your immortality ends here!

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After a long weekend festivalling at WGT, catching up on must-see entertainment, I am back to put some effort into the project with some co-working!

Todo:

Flesh out basic order-crew interaction

Generate some more 'random' ship opponents with relevant components

Implement some 'line of sight' remembering for orders

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A little quiet, but not silent!

I have been distracted by Ludum Dare #26 and my game ('Less is More') there for the last couple of weeks, but have turned by attention back to my my 'long burn' game project!

Crew & GUI

Part of the charm of Sci-Fi spaceship adventuring is the 'crew', a small group of like (or not so) minded people vs the environment (see: Firefly, Farscape, Star Trek and to a lesser extent Star Wars). I realized that that bit would also be super-fun to expose more in my game. So I started adding some crew to my ship, assigned them to systems (those were already modeled), and did a quicky first-pass GUI on it. Crew portraits are placeholders plucked from the concept art that Falco did for me!

Flavour and gameplay

Now how do you add crew to gameplay in a meaningfully and flavourful way? I decided long ago that I wanted them to be more than just 'another component' of your ship, to just be improved and discarded. They should have character - pluses and minuses, a bit like dynasty characters in the Total War series. Gameplay-wise I want them to be like real crew: they accept your orders and then execute those - with a little delay, maybe, but boosted by their skill. Make them give you a personal steam of text as to what/how they are doing.

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I posted a Pre & Post Mortem of my Ludum Dare #26 game: Less is More!. Check it out. :)

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Looking forward to visiting the Indievelopment game conference in Amsterdam next Thursday and then dedicating a long weekend to Ludum Dare #26 with Jod! :)

I last (and first) participated in Ludum Dare #24, and I hope that I can get a more finished game done this time. I feel that I have more tools to pull it off this time. (switching from Moai to Unity3D this time, and gots lots of experience with that). You can read the Post Mortem of my last Ludum Try if you're interested.