Monday, May 04, 2009
Frayed Knights: Breaking Windows
And here's the latest update on the development of Frayed Knights, an indie computer role-playing game with a significantly tongue-in-cheek approach.24 Hours of Crunch
I took Thursday off from The Day Job to get Frayed Knights ready to show for the Indie Game night that night. While it wasn't exactly a marathon 24-hour stretch of game development, it came pretty close. And it was, surprisingly, awesome.
I'm not sure which was more impressive: How much I got done in that 24 hours compared to the average *two weeks* of development time, or how little I got done compared to my expectations. So I guess on the whole, it was "satisfactory." But it was awesome to be "in the zone" so much on the game, focused on development. I noticed something strange when I got home that night, too. You'd think I'd be totally sick of working on it by then, but all I really wanted to do was to jump back into development. I then realized something important that I'd kinda forgotten over the last few months:
This game is fun.
Not just playing it, but I really enjoy working on it. In spite of beating my head against the wall trying to make stuff work that used to work and then quit for apparently no good reason. In spite of the pain, the frustration, and the realization that it's NEVER going to be as good or as polished or as epic or as mind-blowing or as successful as I hope. It's okay. I love doing this stuff. It's fun. It's exciting. It's challenging in a good way. Maybe the 24-hour code-a-thon or showing it to people again did something to warp my brain, but things started clicking again.
Additions and Changes...
Another thing I was reminded about this week was why I chose Torque in the first place. One spell I've been very excited to implement was "Power Word: Defenestrate." If you know what Defenestrate means, well, you know what the spell is about. For the visual, I decided to have a window magically appear, and then the enemy would be thrown through it, shattering it, and taking damage. Then the window frame would disappear.
Anyway - while it didn't turn out quite as well on the screen as it did in my head (mainly because I really didn't want to animate dozens of pieces of glass, so I faked it with a particle system), it was incredibly easy to implement, thanks to the engine. I just had to create the model, animate it, and give it a mount point. Then, for casting the spell, I mount the victim to the window's mount point, and let the animation run. I still have to trigger the explosion of glass manually (it's a little bit premature, as you can see in the screenshot), and then I have to unmount the victim before deleting the spell's visual - but it was all handled nicely through the animation system. No fuss, no muss.Now if I had a really good animator working for me, this would be a great time-saver. But even for just lil' old me, it's helpful and makes things easier to work with.
For the demo, we added Castle Mournhold and part of the surrounding area, three monsters, several new spells, faked the leveling-up of the party to 12th level, some new dialogs and encounters, and some overall code-cleanup and fixing of bugs that have managed to embed themselves over the last several months.
What Mournhold Taught Me
Working on a latter part of the game, in "new territory" that wasn't an extension of the Pokmor Xang pilot, was a great experience for me. It really helped make me aware of several issues that I need to address for the game as a whole.
One of the unfortunately discoveries I made, once we managed to get the level playable, was that I'd really made the area too big. There was too much walking around with nothing to do - especially getting to the vampire's castle. Not good. So I'm left with a choice to try and pack more stuff into the area, or shrink the map. I'm opting - right now - to shrink the map, but I'll pack more stuff in where I can.
Mike Rubin noted at Indie Night that while I definitely favor more open-ended RPGs, the direction of what he saw in Frayed Knights was more linear. This was not an unfair assessment, and it's something I'm working on. My constraints as far as storytelling and limited content really work against me in this respect. It didn't bug me too much with Pokmor Xang, as the "bunny slope" dungeon is supposed to provide a bit more guidance as players learn the system. But the game is supposed to open up more beyond this point, and I'm recognizing that I really need to put some more effort into making this work.
Balance issues at the higher-end of the game also prompted me to revise the combat system (again), which now needs to be tested across all levels of play. Of course, we don't have all levels of play yet in, which is another issue. There are a lot of new feats and spells and powers and items at higher level that I'm not positive will work quite right. These all need to be put in the game, tested across multiple levels, and balanced ASAP.
I'm also running into things that looked great on paper, but once I have translated them onto the screen and made them interactive, I'm discovering big gaping holes in my plans.
Because of this, I'm going to be putting a bit more emphasis on rapidly prototyping the remainder of the game, rather than concentrating on specific parts as much as I have been. This will mean a lot of ugly, unfinished-looking white-boxed dungeons and stand-in monsters with generic special effects for a while. I won't be doing this exclusively - I'll still take some time out to bring parts of the game to a more alpha-ready state - but I think this will help take the game "over the hump."
Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:39 AM (Permalink)
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Frankly, one of the best things you can do to speed things up and save yourself some headaches is to build the entire skeleton first.
Having the game playable in it's entirety as soon as possible helps the organizing of the code, balancing things out and discovering mayor flaws that would only appear late in development.
Of course, by building the whole skeleton first you won't have something to show for a year at least, which may not be that sound of a strategy for an indie game this big.
So, at the end of the day, neither one approach or the other is perfect, but you may be able to find an acceptable middle spot between the two.
Something like: Build prototype of dungeon, add monsters as white boxes but otherwise fully functional, balance accordingly, add conversations and interaction spots and finally add all the animations/models/textures.
Then rinse and repeat. Easy! xD
Having the game playable in it's entirety as soon as possible helps the organizing of the code, balancing things out and discovering mayor flaws that would only appear late in development.
Of course, by building the whole skeleton first you won't have something to show for a year at least, which may not be that sound of a strategy for an indie game this big.
So, at the end of the day, neither one approach or the other is perfect, but you may be able to find an acceptable middle spot between the two.
Something like: Build prototype of dungeon, add monsters as white boxes but otherwise fully functional, balance accordingly, add conversations and interaction spots and finally add all the animations/models/textures.
Then rinse and repeat. Easy! xD
I tried the pilot (haven't finished it yet) and something that i immediately noticed was that the movement is too slow. I dont think you really need to shrink the maps - just make the camera move faster. I feel like they're dragging their feet.
Also i think some mouse look would work better. A nice example of moving and interacting is Arx Fatalis, which switches between interaction and movement using a mouse button. A less nice, but still good example is Wizardry 8 which requires you to press the right button to look around and turn (if you want to use the mouse for this of course).
Exploring the areas are something i'm very used to. I will admit that my background is in FPS games, not RPGs, but even in FPS games i like to explore the areas (probably a habit that i have since the old days that exploring the worlds in FPS games actually was rewarding - today the only "reward" i get is to find which areas the designers didn't thought the player would visit and took less care of :-P).
Almost every FPRPG i've played though (they're few), has a nice FP controlling scheme. For an FPRPG i consider Arx Fatalis' scheme the best so far.
Another option is to be "on rails" like Stonekeep (which i bought a few days ago from GOG and was impressed by the game's quality - i didn't expected it really). But Stonekeep has tight areas - i dont think it would work for a large area game.
When i played the pilot, there was a point where at my left i had a door a few meters ahead and at my right there was some hall or something. Its obvious to me that the main part was on the hall, but i wanted to see what is behind the door. However i decided to head towards the hall only because i the controls tired me.
So to sum it up:
1. Make the camera move faster
2. Add mouse look. You can do this in two ways (preferably both and configurable by the options): as a temporary button, like in Wizardry 8 and as a toggle button like in Arx Fatalis.
3. Make the controls configurable (so i can use WASD :-P - yes i'm used to it and i believe its important to eliminate all interface barriers).
On the bright side, i loved the dialogs. In fact i played the game as long as i played mostly to see the dialogs :-)
Also i think some mouse look would work better. A nice example of moving and interacting is Arx Fatalis, which switches between interaction and movement using a mouse button. A less nice, but still good example is Wizardry 8 which requires you to press the right button to look around and turn (if you want to use the mouse for this of course).
Exploring the areas are something i'm very used to. I will admit that my background is in FPS games, not RPGs, but even in FPS games i like to explore the areas (probably a habit that i have since the old days that exploring the worlds in FPS games actually was rewarding - today the only "reward" i get is to find which areas the designers didn't thought the player would visit and took less care of :-P).
Almost every FPRPG i've played though (they're few), has a nice FP controlling scheme. For an FPRPG i consider Arx Fatalis' scheme the best so far.
Another option is to be "on rails" like Stonekeep (which i bought a few days ago from GOG and was impressed by the game's quality - i didn't expected it really). But Stonekeep has tight areas - i dont think it would work for a large area game.
When i played the pilot, there was a point where at my left i had a door a few meters ahead and at my right there was some hall or something. Its obvious to me that the main part was on the hall, but i wanted to see what is behind the door. However i decided to head towards the hall only because i the controls tired me.
So to sum it up:
1. Make the camera move faster
2. Add mouse look. You can do this in two ways (preferably both and configurable by the options): as a temporary button, like in Wizardry 8 and as a toggle button like in Arx Fatalis.
3. Make the controls configurable (so i can use WASD :-P - yes i'm used to it and i believe its important to eliminate all interface barriers).
On the bright side, i loved the dialogs. In fact i played the game as long as i played mostly to see the dialogs :-)
LOL - Bad Sector, your wish is my command. :) I increased the speed and changed the mouselook stuff months ago. :) I just haven't made an updated pilot.
Key configuration is planned for release, but it's a very low-priority item. Especially since the actual interface is still subject to change.
@indigostatic - That's pretty much my plan. Especially with the stuff I have the rest of the team working on, it's probably best to just keep hammering on those elements one at a time until they are done. But I definitely need to have a more solid roadmap - I don't think my 'paper prototype' is gonna survive much longer.
Key configuration is planned for release, but it's a very low-priority item. Especially since the actual interface is still subject to change.
@indigostatic - That's pretty much my plan. Especially with the stuff I have the rest of the team working on, it's probably best to just keep hammering on those elements one at a time until they are done. But I definitely need to have a more solid roadmap - I don't think my 'paper prototype' is gonna survive much longer.
"That's pretty much my plan."
Awesome!
"Especially since the actual interface is still subject to change."
Even more awesome!
Awesome!
"Especially since the actual interface is still subject to change."
Even more awesome!
Well, I've nuked the whole "Z" key thing... that no longer makes any sense. And the cursor control keys are now "supplemental" directional keys in addition to WASD/QE. While I don't know if there'll be a ton of flux in controls in the near future, it doesn't make sense to focus too much on adding polish to it yet.
Oh, and BTW - I've been trying to come up with reasons NOT to buy Arx Fatalis. It's not a long list. Now there's one more reason for me to give it a try.
GoG.com rocks.
GoG.com rocks.
Aw, crap, there's a city in Morrowind by that same name? Did I know that? It's been years since I played it, and never got that far.
I may have to change the name. Drat!
I may have to change the name. Drat!
I snapped up Arx Fatalis from GoG.com ages ago, shortly after playing Dark Messiah (which is by the same team, and as I understand it sort of a spiritual successor despite being technically in a different universe).
I haven't had a chance to actually play it yet though. My game queue is just way too long for my own good.
I haven't had a chance to actually play it yet though. My game queue is just way too long for my own good.
Yeah, sorry Coyote. Mournhold is the capital city of Morrowind that you go to in the Tribunal expansion. I thought it was spelled differently so I hadn't said anything about it till now but then I checked up on it.
Hey there.
Just wanted to say I'm keeping a close eye on this project. I've played the beta, gave you my insight on it, and now I can't wait to try "Power word: defenestrate".
I'm slowly sliding towards indie games, and a good part of it is because of your blog ;). Keep it up !
Just wanted to say I'm keeping a close eye on this project. I've played the beta, gave you my insight on it, and now I can't wait to try "Power word: defenestrate".
I'm slowly sliding towards indie games, and a good part of it is because of your blog ;). Keep it up !
For getting the combat and character power growth tuned up, perhaps it would be useful (but quite possibly more work than it'd be worth) to pull just the combats and character-powering-up out into a standalone semi-game, and have some number of playtesters beat on that. That is, you just play through a long sequence of battles approximating the battles from the entire game, and periodically do whatever you do to level up your characters, but all the in-between parts are cut out. I've just been thinking lately that I, for one, would have been wiser to start with smaller mini-games strictly limited to one gameplay aspect each, rather than my current kinda-too-much project, so I'm thinking along those lines here. Er, did that make any sense? I feel incoherent today....
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