I shall open with a link:
http://lpc.opengameart.org/
The challenge is to make an open source game in a month. June is for artists to make new free graphics. July is for coders to make new games using those graphics. The code must be GPL3 and work on Linux - rather handy since the T-Engine fits both those requirements. You can work alone or in teams. There's also going to be cash prizes.
One month is a nice length of time for making a polished game that isn't too over the top. With a team working together it could allow some really great stuff. Roguelikes have a good history of making open source cross-platform games, so this seems like a good opportunity to make a bunch of nice looking games which promote our genre and the T-Engine. Who's interested?
I have many game ideas that could work well with this, but I'm not sure what to go with yet. Plus I've never done nor had interest in doing a graphical game before, which will likely introduce problems... Could be fun though. And cash is always tempting ;)
Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
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Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
Someone just brought this to my attention and my first thought was (obviously) T-Engine. Tiger_eye, edge2054 and I had floated the idea about doing a team 7drl at some point, and although a month is different than a week I think they might be interested as well. I am definitely up for it, and even more so if you take a lead in it (time management and direction... two of my strongest qualities 
).
Another thought is that we should chat with DG about the NiceTiles to see if we can use that interface to take advantage of the isometric tiles that they appear to be going for, too.
).Another thought is that we should chat with DG about the NiceTiles to see if we can use that interface to take advantage of the isometric tiles that they appear to be going for, too.
<DarkGod> lets say it's intended
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
A month is much better for a team production than a week. I don't think I could ever do a team game in a week (stressful enough alone!) I'd feel extremely outclassed in coding abilities working alongside you guys though :P Still, would be very fun, and I'm sure we could make something fantastic. Maybe we should get together on IRC some time to discuss a few ideas...yufra wrote:Someone just brought this to my attention and my first thought was (obviously) T-Engine. Tiger_eye, edge2054 and I had floated the idea about doing a team 7drl at some point, and although a month is different than a week I think they might be interested as well. I am definitely up for it, and even more so if you take a lead in it (time management and direction... two of my strongest qualities :D ).
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
Rogue Rage and Sick Peter are both gorgeous games and it would be great to have you helping with the UI Grey, not to mention any written descriptions that the player would need to.. . read 
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
I'd feel extremely outclassed in the areas of game design, setting, writing, etc... isn't that what makes a team worth having?Grey wrote: A month is much better for a team production than a week. I don't think I could ever do a team game in a week (stressful enough alone!) I'd feel extremely outclassed in coding abilities working alongside you guys though
We have to remember that this is primarily for fun, though, and just because someone is particularly good at something doesn't mean they should be forced to do that and only that. That is what work is for.I've been taking a closer look at the rules, and it does look like we can work freely on the engine and other boiler-plate code as long as we make it publicly available before the start of the coding phase. I don't know what would be worth doing there, but just something to keep in mind.
I am up for chatting on IRC, just give me a time and I will be there. I found this tidbit in the blog:
Let the brainstorming commence!As you can see, we're aiming for a distinct victorian-style fantasy set that should be appropriate for the standard fantasy genre as well as steampunk.
<DarkGod> lets say it's intended
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
An idea that edge2054 was tossing around on IRC a few days ago has me pondering when I should be sleeping, so that is a good sign. I believe his original premise was to combine a deck building mechanic with a RL. I have been playing Dominion and Race for the Galaxy (RftG) with friends recently, and the idea intrigues me. It would add randomness to what the player can do any given turn, which Grey would know if it has been done before.
The particular mechanic I am thinking of would work as follows. The talents as we know them from ToME would be placed into a deck from which a base hand of five would be available. At the beginning of your turn you would draw one, and at the end of your turn you would have to discard down to your hand limit (usually five). Active talents would be used and then instantly added to the discard pile. A sustained talent would permanently decrease your hand limit by one until you un-sustain the talent, at which point you would discard it. Once your draw pile runs out of talents you reshuffle the discard pile and continue drawing. An idea taken directly from RftG is that the available talents are also the resources that fuel talents. For example, say you have the following six talents after drawing at the beginning of your turn:
EDIT: Some micromanagement would have to be removed to make the game less tedious out of combat. Asking the player which talent they want to discard every turn would be... really boring. The solution that occurs to me now is to have a "desired hand" that can be enabled and the draw/discard will be handled automatically in order to achieve that desired hand. Alternatively the game could be split between combat and non-combat phases.
The particular mechanic I am thinking of would work as follows. The talents as we know them from ToME would be placed into a deck from which a base hand of five would be available. At the beginning of your turn you would draw one, and at the end of your turn you would have to discard down to your hand limit (usually five). Active talents would be used and then instantly added to the discard pile. A sustained talent would permanently decrease your hand limit by one until you un-sustain the talent, at which point you would discard it. Once your draw pile runs out of talents you reshuffle the discard pile and continue drawing. An idea taken directly from RftG is that the available talents are also the resources that fuel talents. For example, say you have the following six talents after drawing at the beginning of your turn:
- Lightning Bolt, active, cost 2
- Phase Door, active, cost 1
- Teleport, active, cost 3
- Heal, active, cost 2
- Invisibility, sustain, cost 5
- Ice Armor, sustain, cost 3
EDIT: Some micromanagement would have to be removed to make the game less tedious out of combat. Asking the player which talent they want to discard every turn would be... really boring. The solution that occurs to me now is to have a "desired hand" that can be enabled and the draw/discard will be handled automatically in order to achieve that desired hand. Alternatively the game could be split between combat and non-combat phases.
<DarkGod> lets say it's intended
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
I must admit that it doesn't sound particularly compelling to me, but then I've never been into deck/card games. I've heard discussion before about using card dynamics in a roguelikes instead of a straight dice roll, so that over time you have a balanced range of abilities but at any one time the result seems random. But the whole cards for abilities thing sounds... messy really. I can't imagine a good control scheme, or simple battles which don't feel tedious. Also I've never seen a card game on a PC that seemed good, which makes me wonder if the whole system is feasible.
Still, it is tempting to have a card-based game where you play a Jester with wild abilities...
Some ideas I had in the back of my mind:
"Hexmaster"
Hex-based game. You play a wizard with 6 abilities - firewall, cold ray, lightning stroke, plague, earthball, water spray. You can also teleport short distances, but otherwise can't move. The movement keys trigger the attacks in that direction instead. The abilities are on a direction wheel that rotates each round, so you must position yourself with an ability lined in the direction you want to attack your enemies. Each times you use an ability it goes on cooldown, and the cooldowns only come off when you have used all 6. You would have 1 HP, so careful play is required. Battle would involve a lot of repositioning, choosing which AoE attack works best, being careful not to get swarmed, etc.
Thematically you are an evil wizard attacking cities, towns, raiding other wizards, etc. Your powers grow as you increase in level, destroying more of the land. Eventually you must kill the the soul of nature, destroying the world in the process.
"A Rogue in Time" (or "Ancestor" (or "Pillars of Time" (or "Rogue Paradox")))
Once was an Age of Wonder, when legends where born and heroes walked the earth. But then by the powers of the Dreads a great paradox split the Pillars of Time asunder. They crashed to the ground and the world was broken. Many years have past, and the world is now greatly changed. You are a Child of Time, attuned to the ancient Pillars, and your ancestor was one of the great heroes from the time the Pillars fell.
Gameplay involves you going back in time, controlling your ancestor, trying to prevent the great paradox. Each action you take in the past changes the future, often with unpredicted effects, changing the world to an unrecognisable state. You must gather powers from past and present to defeat the vague threat of the Dreads and restore the Pillars of Time. But... each time you are killed in the past you create a paradox, splitting one of the pillars of time, and setting your powers back. It would be a game in which you could never truly die, but all progress could be lost.
Possibly too overambitious and too ill-defined though... The whole idea is to show off procedural content generation, but it would require a lot of refinement to actually work well.
Still, it is tempting to have a card-based game where you play a Jester with wild abilities...
Some ideas I had in the back of my mind:
"Hexmaster"
Hex-based game. You play a wizard with 6 abilities - firewall, cold ray, lightning stroke, plague, earthball, water spray. You can also teleport short distances, but otherwise can't move. The movement keys trigger the attacks in that direction instead. The abilities are on a direction wheel that rotates each round, so you must position yourself with an ability lined in the direction you want to attack your enemies. Each times you use an ability it goes on cooldown, and the cooldowns only come off when you have used all 6. You would have 1 HP, so careful play is required. Battle would involve a lot of repositioning, choosing which AoE attack works best, being careful not to get swarmed, etc.
Thematically you are an evil wizard attacking cities, towns, raiding other wizards, etc. Your powers grow as you increase in level, destroying more of the land. Eventually you must kill the the soul of nature, destroying the world in the process.
"A Rogue in Time" (or "Ancestor" (or "Pillars of Time" (or "Rogue Paradox")))
Once was an Age of Wonder, when legends where born and heroes walked the earth. But then by the powers of the Dreads a great paradox split the Pillars of Time asunder. They crashed to the ground and the world was broken. Many years have past, and the world is now greatly changed. You are a Child of Time, attuned to the ancient Pillars, and your ancestor was one of the great heroes from the time the Pillars fell.
Gameplay involves you going back in time, controlling your ancestor, trying to prevent the great paradox. Each action you take in the past changes the future, often with unpredicted effects, changing the world to an unrecognisable state. You must gather powers from past and present to defeat the vague threat of the Dreads and restore the Pillars of Time. But... each time you are killed in the past you create a paradox, splitting one of the pillars of time, and setting your powers back. It would be a game in which you could never truly die, but all progress could be lost.
Possibly too overambitious and too ill-defined though... The whole idea is to show off procedural content generation, but it would require a lot of refinement to actually work well.
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
The card management is definitely a concern, as suggested by my late night edits. It may be worth exploring the idea in terms of a custom ToME class in the future.
Both Hexmaster and A Rogue in Time sound compelling. I like the rotating ability wheel, although I am having difficulty imagining how the teleportation would work. Are you thinking a mouse controlled phase door, where you just click on a tile within X of you and you instantly move there? It sounds like kiting would be trivial, although having 1 HP it may not be. Another possibility would be to have each ability linked with a movement. The force of the water spray pushes you backwards, you wish to avoid the plague so you move back and left, etc.
A Rogue in Time is currently too ill-defined, but there is plenty of time to flesh it out. It sounds like you are imagining an eventual fight in the future against these Dreads, and the past is a means to growing in power or at least accessing power in the present. Another possibility would be to have the present world slowly falling apart, and the only solution to find the pillar fragments and restore them. People have sought for the fragments for years and only found one, but have discovered how to use that one to send people back in time to their ancestors. The object is to find the location of the fragments during a safer time, and influence people to (hopefully) make the path there in the present safer. The emphasis here is more of a puzzle-present, puzzle/combat-past.
The link between past and present is still ill-defined. One idea that occurs to me is for each game to create a past state, and a neural network that links the past to the present. A neural network requires a bunch of input parameters which would be things like faction reactions in the past, who is alive and who is dead, etc. These parameters then pass through the neural network and yield output which would be fed to our procedural generation of the present. The key point is that the present would have no to little randomness so that any differences are causes directly by the actions in the past. The potential issue with using a neural network is that they purposefully obfuscate the interaction between the input parameters, so the link between past and present may appear... chaotic. Will careful design of the neural network we could avoid that, though, so that only 2-3 input parameters would influence any one output and it would be possible to discover which 2-3 parameters they are.
Both Hexmaster and A Rogue in Time sound compelling. I like the rotating ability wheel, although I am having difficulty imagining how the teleportation would work. Are you thinking a mouse controlled phase door, where you just click on a tile within X of you and you instantly move there? It sounds like kiting would be trivial, although having 1 HP it may not be. Another possibility would be to have each ability linked with a movement. The force of the water spray pushes you backwards, you wish to avoid the plague so you move back and left, etc.
A Rogue in Time is currently too ill-defined, but there is plenty of time to flesh it out. It sounds like you are imagining an eventual fight in the future against these Dreads, and the past is a means to growing in power or at least accessing power in the present. Another possibility would be to have the present world slowly falling apart, and the only solution to find the pillar fragments and restore them. People have sought for the fragments for years and only found one, but have discovered how to use that one to send people back in time to their ancestors. The object is to find the location of the fragments during a safer time, and influence people to (hopefully) make the path there in the present safer. The emphasis here is more of a puzzle-present, puzzle/combat-past.
The link between past and present is still ill-defined. One idea that occurs to me is for each game to create a past state, and a neural network that links the past to the present. A neural network requires a bunch of input parameters which would be things like faction reactions in the past, who is alive and who is dead, etc. These parameters then pass through the neural network and yield output which would be fed to our procedural generation of the present. The key point is that the present would have no to little randomness so that any differences are causes directly by the actions in the past. The potential issue with using a neural network is that they purposefully obfuscate the interaction between the input parameters, so the link between past and present may appear... chaotic. Will careful design of the neural network we could avoid that, though, so that only 2-3 input parameters would influence any one output and it would be possible to discover which 2-3 parameters they are.
<DarkGod> lets say it's intended
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
yufra over complicated the card game idea (and I apologize in advance if the following doesn't make sense, I'm still pre-coffee this morning).
But the idea was that the player would have 5 cards in hand from up to two different thematic decks (one deck might be the War deck, the other the Necromantic deck).
So if the character had two decks that would give them access to 10 talents at any one time (starting off they'd only have access too the one deck so they'd be eased into having that many talents and have time to familiarize with the starting deck).
The catch is, when you use a talent it goes back into the deck and is replaced with a new talent. You don't discard each turn because of tedium. You only draw when you use a talent. The mechanic would need some way of preventing the player from scumming for the perfect hand after each fight though.
Anyway, the whole mechanic would basically work as though each deck was a pool of talents, and when you used a talent you unlearned it (probably just remove it from the hotkey), with a new talent popping up to take its place.
The actual combat mechanics would then amount to, do I hang on to talent X or use it now, do I burn through my weaker talents fighting this monster to get them out of my hand or will it crush me if I take that kind of a risk?
I had some thematic ideas to go along with it too. Basically the God of Trickery bound the other God's into these card decks and your goal is to gather them up to undo what he did. Your character might even be the God of Trickery, with no other Gods to play with you've basically driven yourself crazy and convinced yourself you're a mortal hero on some noble quest to free the Gods.
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A rogue in time sounds neat. Hexmaster I don't really find compelling. I picture either a reverse Tower Defense game or a player storming Derth. Either way the teleport to position to use your rotating talents (especially if they don't come off cooldown until they're all finished) combined with having only 1 hit point just doesn't sound very fun. It's an interesting idea from a design perspective but my initial impression as a player is that it would be tedious, unfun, and frustrating.
*edit* A steam punk setting would be fun too and could be interesting with any of the above ideas (of course, the enemies in Hexmaster would be the ones with steam tech).
But the idea was that the player would have 5 cards in hand from up to two different thematic decks (one deck might be the War deck, the other the Necromantic deck).
So if the character had two decks that would give them access to 10 talents at any one time (starting off they'd only have access too the one deck so they'd be eased into having that many talents and have time to familiarize with the starting deck).
The catch is, when you use a talent it goes back into the deck and is replaced with a new talent. You don't discard each turn because of tedium. You only draw when you use a talent. The mechanic would need some way of preventing the player from scumming for the perfect hand after each fight though.
Anyway, the whole mechanic would basically work as though each deck was a pool of talents, and when you used a talent you unlearned it (probably just remove it from the hotkey), with a new talent popping up to take its place.
The actual combat mechanics would then amount to, do I hang on to talent X or use it now, do I burn through my weaker talents fighting this monster to get them out of my hand or will it crush me if I take that kind of a risk?
I had some thematic ideas to go along with it too. Basically the God of Trickery bound the other God's into these card decks and your goal is to gather them up to undo what he did. Your character might even be the God of Trickery, with no other Gods to play with you've basically driven yourself crazy and convinced yourself you're a mortal hero on some noble quest to free the Gods.
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A rogue in time sounds neat. Hexmaster I don't really find compelling. I picture either a reverse Tower Defense game or a player storming Derth. Either way the teleport to position to use your rotating talents (especially if they don't come off cooldown until they're all finished) combined with having only 1 hit point just doesn't sound very fun. It's an interesting idea from a design perspective but my initial impression as a player is that it would be tedious, unfun, and frustrating.
*edit* A steam punk setting would be fun too and could be interesting with any of the above ideas (of course, the enemies in Hexmaster would be the ones with steam tech).
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
Reading more on programming and Lua in particular this afternoon I had a thought about coroutines and how they might be implemented into a game.
Okay, really I just had a thought on coroutines and how I'd like to learn more about them. I really have no idea how we'd implement them or use them in a game. But maybe we could incorporate heavy use of them into a Time Travel game.
Okay, really I just had a thought on coroutines and how I'd like to learn more about them. I really have no idea how we'd implement them or use them in a game. But maybe we could incorporate heavy use of them into a Time Travel game.
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
On the cards, I still don't get it. Are the cards just a way of representing the abilities? Or do they represent power levels as well? Are the abilities you get just random? It seems... unintuitive I guess, though that could be because I'm not used to card games. It also seems as if every monster would have to be something powerful and interesting and unique, which would be difficult to do well in a decent length game.
I think a roguelike that used card mechanics in an interesting way would be very cool though. I will have to try and get my head round the idea...
Hexmaster wouldn't be storming Derth, it would be more like storming the prides, with some dungeon delving too. Various new hexes could be learned in different caves and dungeons, and you could choose which ones are attached to your hex wheel at any time. Teleporting would be by clicking on the right square, and would take no time but would put teleporting on cooldown for 2 turns. Perhaps the "must use all hexes before cooldown" is a bad idea, but I would want something to stop players spamming one ability. Maybe just give everything a 2 turn cooldown. Combined with the wheel spinning it would not allow one to just sit in one position and spam attack. Oh, and the hexes would all be monstrously powerful, to make up for the frailty of the character. The first name I had for this game in my head was "The Mighty Frail" - a prince born a cripple, exiled from his kingdom, but who learns mighty evil powers and seeks vengeance.
Rogue in Time I think is too complex for a month, even with a team of developers. The procedural world-building would be too big a job to do well, and since it's the core of the game it would have to be done mightily well. But it's a game I've always dreamed of making, or like to it at least... The world deserves a game that shows the true power of procedural content.
I think a roguelike that used card mechanics in an interesting way would be very cool though. I will have to try and get my head round the idea...
Hexmaster wouldn't be storming Derth, it would be more like storming the prides, with some dungeon delving too. Various new hexes could be learned in different caves and dungeons, and you could choose which ones are attached to your hex wheel at any time. Teleporting would be by clicking on the right square, and would take no time but would put teleporting on cooldown for 2 turns. Perhaps the "must use all hexes before cooldown" is a bad idea, but I would want something to stop players spamming one ability. Maybe just give everything a 2 turn cooldown. Combined with the wheel spinning it would not allow one to just sit in one position and spam attack. Oh, and the hexes would all be monstrously powerful, to make up for the frailty of the character. The first name I had for this game in my head was "The Mighty Frail" - a prince born a cripple, exiled from his kingdom, but who learns mighty evil powers and seeks vengeance.
Rogue in Time I think is too complex for a month, even with a team of developers. The procedural world-building would be too big a job to do well, and since it's the core of the game it would have to be done mightily well. But it's a game I've always dreamed of making, or like to it at least... The world deserves a game that shows the true power of procedural content.
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
Oh, and can the T-Engine handle animated sprites? I've got the feeling there will be many produced in the contest.
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
Good point, I don't think T-Engine does handle animated sprites and that is something we could definitely work on before the contest starts. I'll have a look at the code and see if I can catch DG.Grey wrote:Oh, and can the T-Engine handle animated sprites? I've got the feeling there will be many produced in the contest.
<DarkGod> lets say it's intended
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
I think the card game sounds rather fun, especially if there is a deck building/card collecting aspect to the game. Instead of leveling up, you could find more powerful or more efficient versions of card-talents.
Sorry about all the parentheses (sometimes I like to clarify things).
Re: Liberated Pixel Cup Game-Making Contest in June/July
I've been thinking of a new game idea lately which might be a little more flexible for everyone to have their own imprint on. The game would be called something like "Sword for Hire". You play an adventurer looking to earn 1 million gold so you can become lord of your own castle. Gold can be found in dungeons, but the biggest source of income is by completing quests. There is a central town where you can take on quests, but each time you do a quest it changes the world in some subtle way, affecting future quests, sometimes in unpredictable ways.
There would be 6 lords you can do quests for, and you can only quest for one at a time. Each lord would have stats tracked on their disposition, wealth, power, etc, and NPCs in the main town would make comments about them. Quests would take the form of "recover this artifact", "clean out these infested mines", "remove this undead threat", etc. Doing quests for the lords normally increases their wealth and power, but can make the other lords envious and result in assassination quests or raids against that lord.
Combat would be melee-orientated, but with some special powers found here and there depending on which quests you choose. Setting would be fantasy, and there would be different lore pieces and such to flesh out the world. At the end of the game (if you win) you get presented with a biography of the rest of your life, with variations depending on how the realm was affected by your actions.
Thoughts?
There would be 6 lords you can do quests for, and you can only quest for one at a time. Each lord would have stats tracked on their disposition, wealth, power, etc, and NPCs in the main town would make comments about them. Quests would take the form of "recover this artifact", "clean out these infested mines", "remove this undead threat", etc. Doing quests for the lords normally increases their wealth and power, but can make the other lords envious and result in assassination quests or raids against that lord.
Combat would be melee-orientated, but with some special powers found here and there depending on which quests you choose. Setting would be fantasy, and there would be different lore pieces and such to flesh out the world. At the end of the game (if you win) you get presented with a biography of the rest of your life, with variations depending on how the realm was affected by your actions.
Thoughts?