Crime Based RL

[Lap]

As many of you may have seen there was an interesting idea for for a serial killer game (which had an amazing youtube video which unfortunately is now deleted). The game generated hundreds of pages of forum conversation in a few days. There were a lot of crazy people suggesting random stupid gore crap that I didn't care for. However, there were a lot of good gameplay mechanics that were explored. Many people mentioned that once the hoax was revealed they wanted to just make it for themselves. I'd much rather have the authors work together, especially if they plan on using T-Engine.


Anyways, this reminded me that I've had this old design document laying around my computer for a while, but I never really got to doing anything with it. It's a bit more broad so I think a lot more people would be able to enjoy and participate in it. Here's the basics of it:

Source of Inspirations - The Sting/The Clue, Crimefighters, Liberal Crime Squad

Setting - Modern day city or large town.

Atmosphere - Fairly normal. Definitely not crazy like HellMOO or extremely dark all the time.

Overall Player Goals - Most goals are greed based (money), but some specific characters might have more specific end game goals (ie. infamy).

Specific Character Types - Each type is based around a specific playstyle to keep everyone entertained.

Thug - Mostly violence based. Robberies, heists, and muggings. These characters are also likely to be members of gangs and have followers.

Dealer - Similar to thugs, but more focused on mercantile and smuggling then outright violence.

Thief - Stealth based and works mostly alone.

Scam Artist - Based on tricking others into giving money. Focuses on disguises, identity theft, and intelligence.

Hitman - Narrowly focused violence.

Serial Killer - I hesitate to add this in, but it does seem that he could be a viable variant. By adding "compulsions" or other mental sicknesses it would add a twist to the standard of just killing people. Something like each night a voice tells you to "Target X type of person with Y hair and then do weird ritual X". When you're forced to occasionally do very irrational things, it can get much more difficult than standard thug or hitman based gameplay.

Evidence/Heat System - The most important system in the game that is universal to everyone is the system that essentially manages how infamous you are. Things like leaving evidence and being seen are the primary ways to raise your heat. Doing things like laying low, having/forcing someone else to take the fall for you, hacking into police database, and wearing disguises are ways to reduce your heat.

That's the basic premise without getting into too many specifics. I'm just trying to gauge interest and if anyone wants to contribute.

[Other, much more popular thread http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64931.0]

[rocksock]

hmm... the bay12 thread is way more active than this one, which is probably due to the big LCS community.

I was thinking about a crime based game for some time though, so you got me hooked. Though, my ultimate satisfaction would be, once the base work is done, to take directions towards a mmorpg version.

Question1: Do you still think of using the T4 engine?
Question2: What about Multiplayer?

[Lap]

Until you can think of a multiplayer way a tile-based game can work well I can't see myself doing multiplayer (BYOND style is shit). I try to build things with room for improvement, and the T-Engine can technically support multiplayer.

[Deon]

It's easy. Just make real-time ticks. We were talking with DarkGod about it, and he said it's easy to make.

[darkgod]

Realtime is much easier than multiplayer yes, in the next beta there will be an example_realtime module to show how it's done (it's basically just a few lines changed)

[rocksock]

looking at the tome4 code right now... makes me want to play the game more

[darkgod]

AHah ! that's a trap !

[rocksock]

AHah ! that's a trap !

you could call this "learning to understand the code"

[Lap]

It's easy. Just make real-time ticks.

As I was saying, BYOND style is shit. Chasing people is always a nightmare. Even slight amounts of lag can cause huge problems, especially when PvP is involved. I've yet to see a good tile based RPG with real-time ticks. The best I've seen had players fighting enter their own turn-based combat area, but then it's not entirely real-time and there's a huge host of other problems.