MakerOfGames Game Thread [*56K WARNING*]

[MakerOfGames]

Hi everyone! This thread will be the place to track progress and discuss my game project. I decided to make this thread because I seem to be leaving bits and peices of my games information all over the forums and this isn't very easy to follow for those that are interested in my game project. But more importantly it isnt fair to the people who create threads that my game project seems to show up in and distract from the main issue, even if it is only for 3-4 posts.
***EDIT*** 10:13PM EST
I am rewritting this section about my game. I found that after coming back and reading my post, it did not make enough sense or explain enough. I am terribly sorry. I will post the better information shortly.

**Final Version reloaded at 10:45 EST***
***END EDIT**

Now about my game:
*Start sections added during edit*
My game project is an advanced and complex first person shooter. Most notably, it is only known on these forums because of my plans to be able to dual wield weapons. Before this post I have only posted that I am making a FPS that will contain the dual wielding ability. Now I will add a bit more about my project.

Story: Very complicated and too long to explain the whole thing, I will tell it in a few sentences. On a distant planet, humans and aliens will live together but distrust and deceit of the aliens will cause war. Two of the human factions will team up and one human faction and the aliens will team up. It is NOT the traditional aliens try to take over the world plot. Anyway, the player will be a mercenary that is an exile of one of the three human government powers on the planet. The game will follow the mercenary through the war as he switches sides for loyalty, money, revenge and eventually to stop one of the factions (I wont tell you. It will ruin the plot) from obtaining planetary dominance.

The title of my game is currently “BLACK SURGE” The title is called that because in the detailed version of the story not published yet, one of the factions will change. They will fall into doing wrong and there suit will become more advanced with alien technology and become the color black. Also, it might deal with the horizon becoming black with a fleet of ships coming to attack in a scene from the game.
*end sections added*

Finish Time: Unknown (sometime within the next 2 years?)
Unfortunantly I can't see my game nearing completion in the next year. However, I will be creating content and information to post here untill the game is finished. I hope that this unknown legnth of development time will enable me to increase the quality of my game with RFs upgrades. I am looking forward to hardware TnL so that way I can increase polygon count and with that possibly utilize the physics system in RF.

Planned Features:
Dual Guns
Lots of weapons
Inventive gameplay experiances
You might say, that list sounds very vague. And yes it is. I will not commit to anything that might delay my games development.

Dual Guns:
The main attraction! Full control over both hands and being able to fire independently. Choose what weapons to hold in each hands. A unique inventory system will compliment the system. The system will be a similar to having each weapon have a "weight". Each gun will be given a number of how many spaces of inventory it takes up. So when your inventory space is full you cant pick up any more weapons without dropping or swapping one. Grenades might or might not be included in this number. Extra ammo will not be part of the inventory system. This enables you to stock up on ammo without worring if you have space for it.
*The inventory system was inspired by miccy2000. Thank you for the idea!

Lots of weapons:
Yeah I want to leave it to that extent of explaination. But I will say that I have about 35 weapons designed. Now how many make it in... that will be found out later.

Inventive Gameplay Experiances:
um.... This sums up the rest of the things I dont want to release yet.
I will explain better what it means. It means that my game will have inventive level design along with unique missions/objectives and an interesting story.

Status Report:

Design Phase: 85% complete.
(Includes gameplay, story, weapons, characters, levels, menus, HUD.)
I need to design all the levels and objectives yet. Vehicels also need to be designed.

Digital Art Phase: <0.1%
Part of a character is modeled. Everything else needs to be created.

Character Completion: <1%
Part of a character is complete. This section is different from above because it includes all the scripting, texturing and animating needed to have a playable character and working pawns.

Compilation Phase: 0%
Nothing can be done here untill the first three phases are complete.

Debug Phase: 0%
Last phase that will be testing the game for any glitches and unwanted effects.

Thats all for now. I will have to keep everyone informed.

And just like everyone else here, I have a life that seems to drag me away from here and my project from time to time. I know durning last school year, I wasnt able to complete anything usefull for my game. I hope that when September starts back up and I return to school, I will not suffer development delays as bad as I have last year.

Please post your thoughts.
Thanks

-MoG-

EDIT To the forum moderators:
In case you believe that this thread is misplaced...
I did not post this in the game designs forum because I do not believe that this is a thread about the design of my game. I believe it is a thread that covers the development and progress of it which I see as different from design. Also, this thread will more than likely contain posts about all aspects of making a game and therefore could not be confined to another forum. If you disagree, please notify me and let me know when and where it would be moved. I do not care if you wish to move it, I just wish to be notified before hand.
Thank you

EDIT EDIT:
Thank you steven8 for offering help with my project. I will ask for it when I need it. I’m glad to see such enthusiasm about my project!

[steven8]

I'm not gonna move it, but I can't speak for the others.

I think this thread is a great idea. MoG, the important thing is that you are focused on a long term goal. It is quite easy to flit about (I do it myself ) and never get anything done. heck, I've been doing that for years. So much so that I didn't finish college. Anyway, good job!! Stay focused.

Now, about your game. One major question: Do you have a working title?

It is quite massive. And sounds like it will very immersive. My dual guns just shoot togehter. Independent action will be a lot of fun!! Juutis has developed a quite complicated inventory system. You two need to get together on that one. It sounds perfect for you!! Heck, it sounds perfect for everyone!!

The design phase being 85% complete is good. I can maybe help you out some on graphics, once the menu creator is complete. I will get back on the menu for LtForce and maybe I can do some texures or light modeling for you.

Just keep up the good work. We'll be here for you as you need us, my friend!!

[EDIT]I'm not changing anything in mine. Keep up the good work.[/EDIT]

[MakerOfGames]

*I updated my first post a 15 minutes ago*
I hope it explains everything better. I am sure I will be asking for alot of help from everyone here in the future, especially with scripting. I havent tried scripting yet , but I know the code logic to achieve the effects I want. So bear with me on my massive undertaking everyone, I will need your help to complete my project. That is for sure.

[Juutis]

That sounds great! I love the way you have planned it all before starting to model and building it in RF. And yes, it really is massive, I hope you have the enthusiasm to finish this project. I know I wouldn't have... I would eventually give up on it and start another project.

As for my scripted inventory. It could be modified so that it checks the item weights. It wouldn't be too hard, either. You'll see the inventory in action when I finish my demo game and upload it.

I'm sure most of the people here will help you in any way they can on your project. I know I will. And I know Stevie will too.

[steven8]

Oh yeah!!

[MakerOfGames]

Thank you very much. You don't know how much it means to me to have such comittment to helping me in my project.

@ Juutis:
Is the inventory you speak of the one you are using in your RPG? I dont recall reading about weapon swapping and carring other than the three types of armor. If I missed somthing, sorry! Could you please let me know the details? Also, i will explain my inventory completely in the very near future so we can have a good clear picture to work with.

Now, here is an interesting thought. I am currently thinking about "cell" shading my game. I have realized that one of the biggest jobs for me will be making all the realistic textures for every object. So, in order to maybe speed up development and ease work load, I am almost convinced to go with a cell shaded style game. I do not want to make it cartoony like that one RF game, that was cool, but not like the way I envision my game. If I would go cell shaded, there would be no giant cartoon text and nothing would have that black outline. It would be most like Legend Of Zelda Wind Waker coloring style. Sorry, the big cartoony heads from wind waker wont be in it!

Cell Shading
Pros:
1 Faster Dev time.
2 See progress much faster
3 Not worrying if the realism of the texture on each object matches.
(seriously, I had a very good looking 3D crate but then created a more realistic brick texture. When the two were next to eachother, the realism died because the degree of realism was different.)
4 The ability to use bright flashy effects and textures shamelessly for style
5 Making all texutes 16 bit would work better on lower systems

Cons:
1 Might destroy feel of the game
2 Could limit audience
3 possibly ugly graphics if improperly done

Well pros outweight the cons but I will have to commit to realism or cellshading after some thinking.

What do you think? Please comment!

[Juutis]

Is the inventory you speak of the one you are using in your RPG?

Yep, that's the one.

It basically works like this:

There's ten slots for items, this is the 'backpack'. Any items can be in these slots. Then there's one slot for armor that you are wearing, one for helmet and one for each hand. So, if you want to arm, say, a sword (or a laser pistol) you would pick the weapon from the 'backpack' and move it to the 'right hand ' or 'left hand' slot. Then another pawn (the pawn for left or right hand) notices that the weapon has changed since last frame and changes its weapon actor.

So basically my inventory only holds the info about where each item is and the item details. Other pawns then use that information. So in fact the system is many pawns, not just one script.

Oh, and about that 'three types of armor' thing. I just decided that I want three armor types in my RPG, it can be changed with little effort. For example, you could disable the use of armor and helmet...



Now that I started thinking this... I believe it would be best to build a totally new inventory for your game. That way we can have it just the way you want it to be!

[MakerOfGames]

This post will explain my inventory system:

It will have 10 slots and when all are full you will have to drop or swap a weapon to pick up any more.

Now, each weapon will take up a certain ammount of inventory space.

Small weapons = 2

Medium weapons = 3

Large weapons = 4 or 5 I havent decided yet.

I am leaning towards having grenades take up a slot along with the three style of automatic gun turrets I have designed. Three auto turret similar to those seen in HL2. There will be the standard machine gun turret, and then there will be the shotgun and sniper rifle turrets. These are tripod standing weapons with a computer brain that will attack any enemy for you.

so grenades = 1
Turrets(medium weapon) = 3

The reason I havent decided on the large weapons weight yet is because if it is 4, you could carry a pistol a rocket launcher and a heavy machine gun. That may give the player to much firepower. And if I set it to 5 you will not be able to carry grenades with 2 heavy weapons.

I think I will make heavy weapons as four and then I would just have to dock the large weapons some with things like longer reload times. The reason I am leaning twards enabling this is becaue I have an idea to enable you to keep a small weapon in one hand while using a two handed weapon. So you would be able to have a pistol in one hand and a sniper rifle in the other. Now when you use the sniper rifle, you have it in both hands, but because the pistol is technically still in a hand, just press that fire key to quickly stop using the sniper rifle and get a quick shot off with the pistol. This is my answer to that problem you find in multiplayer and singleplayer matches where enemies show up to close for comfort and you cant use the large weapon safely. By not able to use a weapon safely I mean killing yourself in the process of taking out the attacker or trying to fire accuratly with a long range weapon up close.
*the sniper rifles might be med or large weapons. I havent decided yet.

So large weapons will be 4.
sm = 2 med = 3 large = 4 grenades = 1
Now inventory is not seperate from what you have in your hands. So you cant have two small weapons in your hands and have 10 free slots if you dont have any other weapons. It would be 6 free slots because of the two weapons with an inventory space of 2.

Oh, while Im at this, I will post my scripted player keyboard controls:

forward: E
backwards: D
Left: S
Right: F
Jump/stand up: Space
Crouch/lay: C
Manual Reload: R + right or left click(which one you click will reload)
Pick up/swap weapon: W
Zoom in: Q
Zoom out: A
action key: Caps Lock
Walk/run: Shift

The action key will be used for special events. Maybe for grabbing a ladder instead of the traditional walk up to it. Also for picking up health and stuff.

Now I still havent figured out how to switch weapons comfortably on the key board. I think the above key system is very comfortable and intuitive. Please make suggestions if you dont think so.

Ok, Thats all for now.

[GD1]

cell shading can be fun, but it is very difficult to do.

look into the stencil shadows though, as they can produce a sort of cell-shaded effect.

[MakerOfGames]

Basically, cell shading in my game would be low detail texture maps for all my objects. So instead of worring about all the lines in a blue jean texture it would be the overall blue color. Same with grass.

Here is a nice shot of counterstrike cell shaded:

Edit: picture source: http://static.4players.de/counterstrike ... review.jpg

I would like to get that kind of effect if I go with cell shading.
I have never tired cell shading so I hope it isnt as difficult as making all my textures realistic.

[Juutis]

You have lots of great ideas there. I really like that you can have a pistol in one hand and a big gun in the other.
I can already see myself playing that game, running around with a sniper and a pistol, shooting enemys with the sniper when suddenly a guy jumps around the corner in front of me, I swiftly blast some shots with the pistol sending the guy flying backwards with a headshot. I think it adds some nice extra action to your game.

Now I'm sure of it. It really is best to create a completely different inventory system. Your system is just so much different than mine.

Those controls look and feel nice to me. I'm used to play with W-A-S-D keys but I think those will work perfectly. Only the action key (caps lock) may be a bit too far away but that doesn't matter if it isn't used much.

BTW, are you planning to have a flashlight ?

[MakerOfGames]

Thank you very much for the feed back and the compliments! I am very glad that you like my ideas !!! I could move the action key to the letter T if need be. That might be better to use.

About that flashlight... I had not even thought about it. Now that seems like a good idea. But instead of an actual flashlight I will have the light be part of the soldiers suit. That way it wont suffer like DOOM3. I havent played it but I have seen that solitary flashlight and how much pain it must cause because you can only use it with no weapon out.

Oh, I must note I was thinking about having the default fire keys be as so:
left click: right hand
right click: left hand

I know it is inverted, but I am used to having the right hand fire with the left mouse button. Maybe a key could switch it.

OH!!! I almost forgot. Many of my weapons will have alternate fire modes such as toggle between semi and auto. And in some cases it will have all three options of burst semi and auto. I wonder which key I should assign for toggleing alternate fire because it will have to be able to change it for both hands.

Juutis, I remember you saying about how your players weapons used the actor swap? I forgot all about that ability. Also, by the sounds of it you have created one of the most complex inventory systems in the history of RF. I think I could really use your help with making my inventory and scripted character work. Can I count on you for help in that department?

Before I finish this post I have to tell about some of the other things I wished to add but I know are far to complex to implement without another year of development.
The flashlight was just mentioned but I ws thinking about having 3 differnt visor modes.
X ray
Thermal
and AVM(just made up that name now lol, never had a name for it, it stadnds for Advanced Visual Mode)
X ray would make every object very transparent except for a skelton model that would match the enemies.

Thermal would use texture swapping and transparentcies to make sections of the pawns look warmer than others and the transparentcies would allow you to see them through cold walls.

And finally the AVM would be a new type of vison that would highlight objectives and enemies. It could also point out objectives and other important things. This would be achived by the objects that would be highlighted in this view would have texture swapping and now that I think of it maybe a light attached to make it glow and stand out.

Those were originally supposed to be in my game but the time to impliment them makes it impossible. I am very tempted to make the AVM visor because that is the simplist to impliment, but that wasnt buggeted in to my next 2 years of development. So I will have to keep that possibly for the sequel...
Yeah right.... no sequel until the first one is finished. I dont even want to think about making another game on top of this one, even if work would start after this one is finished

[steven8]

Holey Moley! You really ARE the Maker of Games!! All of that sounds just great. I've seen engine demos where you can switch to wireframe on the fly. What if, for x-ray mode, you'd swap to wireframe!! I think that would look neat.

You mentioned Goldeneye back when we were first talking about dual pistols. I'm embarassed to say it, but I HAD Goldeneye, and stunk so badly at it, that I sold it in a yard sale. That is why I didn't remember seeing the dual guns. I went out on the net and found some screenshots. Man, that looks fun! My birthday is next month, and we have another N64. I asked for a used copy of the game. I want to play it again.

There is a flashlight script stickied here on the forum, isn't there? You could look into just implementing it.

The idea of swapping from auotmatic to semi-automatic rocks as well. You have one heck of a game in the pipeline here, my friend. I like cell shading the style you wish to do too. That screen looks real good.

As I said, I will help in any way I can too. Just keep us posted and don't be afraid to ask!!

[Juutis]

Juutis, I remember you saying about how your players weapons used the actor swap? I forgot all about that ability. Also, by the sounds of it you have created one of the most complex inventory systems in the history of RF. I think I could really use your help with making my inventory and scripted character work. Can I count on you for help in that department?

Yes, definitely!
...as long as I don't end up writing finished scripts.

[MakerOfGames]

Holey Moley! You really ARE the Maker of Games!! All of that sounds just great. I've seen engine demos where you can switch to wireframe on the fly. What if, for x-ray mode, you'd swap to wireframe!! I think that would look neat.

You mentioned Goldeneye back when we were first talking about dual pistols. I'm embarassed to say it, but I HAD Goldeneye, and stunk so badly at it, that I sold it in a yard sale. That is why I didn't remember seeing the dual guns. I went out on the net and found some screenshots. Man, that looks fun! My birthday is next month, and we have another N64. I asked for a used copy of the game. I want to play it again.

There is a flashlight script stickied here on the forum, isn't there? You could look into just implementing it.

The idea of swapping from auotmatic to semi-automatic rocks as well. You have one heck of a game in the pipeline here, my friend. I like cell shading the style you wish to do too. That screen looks real good.

As I said, I will help in any way I can too. Just keep us posted and don't be afraid to ask!!

Thank you very much for the compliments again! I am trying to make this game have all the cool stuff that professional games SHOULD have.

You liked those vison modes but I must stress that as of now, vison modes will not make it into the game. They will take too much time to impliment. I do like the idea of xray mode being wireframe, thats a good idea.

Goldeneye has the traditional dual fire mode, you know, before Halo 2? You press the fire button and one hand will fire, then the other. Anyway, it was a really good game. I never owned it, I only played multiplayer at friends houses. Good times!

I am glad you like the idea of cell shading. I am still almost convinced to use it and mainly because it will cut development time by a good ammount. The thing that sticks out in my mind when I think cell shaded is nice flashy overdone effects. You know what the standard explosion looks like in RF right? Well my cell shaded explosion would not be full of all those small color variations. It would be rounded like it is supposed to, but the color variation would be much less and the colors would be much more intense. So take that explosion and make it mostly solid red yellow and orange! Yeah, that might be kinda hard to picture, but if I choose cell shaded, which is a 90% chance of me doing so, you will see what I mean.

MakerOfGames wrote:
Juutis, I remember you saying about how your players weapons used the actor swap? I forgot all about that ability. Also, by the sounds of it you have created one of the most complex inventory systems in the history of RF. I think I could really use your help with making my inventory and scripted character work. Can I count on you for help in that department?

Yes, definitely!
...as long as I don't end up writing finished scripts. Very Happy

Oh dont worry, I wont make you write my scripts! I just need your expertise. What I need help wise is I would need you to help me think of the best way to create, lets say, my inventory and then I would code the script and you would help me when I cant get the code to work. Does that sound good? And just let me know at anytime if I end up asking too much of you. Ok? Don't be afraid to say I can't help you even though you already volunteered. As long as we keep good communication about what we can and can't do we should not have any problems and we'll be fine. The last thing I would want to do is shove my work onto you. I am looking forward to working with you!