Spirits - Part 1 - 10k Dream Game Contest
by Benjamin Buco · 04/21/2007 (4:07 pm) · 1 comments
Much to my good fortune, I decided to make a small project with Torque shortly before the 10k Dreams Game contest was announced. This is a perfect way to keep myself motivated and to force me to do the things I was trying to avoid as part of the process. So in short, here is a one month update as well as an overview of my entry.
Planning and design:
Prior to this, all of my notes were 'organized' on stacks of randomly arranged engineering paper. So now, a large part of them are now in a single consolidated document.
The Premise:
The time of the greater gods has come and gone. Mankind has lost its faith in the power of deities. Only a few small tribes hold true to the beliefs of their ancestors and still worship the spirits of rock and tree, air and water. You are one of these spirits, given some small power by the worship of a single village. Your ability to control your surroundings is limited, but through the use of dreams and visions you can influence your people as you seek to become a god with power, a god of great changes. Other spirits will contest your path, spirits of both light and dark. Gift your followers well, so that their faith may sustain you
Interactions with the game:
Visions: Cause tribal members to improve their town according to your will. (If they listen to you that is.)
Miracles: Use the power of the elemental spirits to directly affect the world around you. This is limited to small changes.
Dreams and Portents: Cause tribal members to take notice of things in the world. (Do this not too often lest they cease to listen.)
Spirit Bind: Call forth a lesser spirit and bind its powers to serve the members of your tribe.
Trials: Sometimes the best way to convince someone of the existence of a god is to convince them that god is angry with them.
Tribal Members: There are 4 types of these. One builder type, one ranged, one melee, and one caster unit. These members act of their own accord and the player can attempt to influence their behavior.
Important Attributes:
Faith is the currency of the game. Players spend it to take actions and it is generated by the people when they overcome obstacles.
Belief: If all is well in the world, your people have no need for a god. This affects the chance they will heed your call when you make requests of them.
Self Reliance: If a unit receives the benefit of too many miracles his self reliance will decline. He will no longer strive since his god will do everything for him.
The Engine:
The RTS starter kit is a wonderful thing. That is, if you are a competent programmer. So far I have spent a majority of my time working on the engine and have come up with a few things everyone should change and a few things that I recommend changing.
Vision: A units vision is not transferred from its datablock. (Must Fix)
Fog of War/VisManager.cc : Get rid of it, find every reference to any of its code and make it go away. Then, if you need it, rewrite it. It will cause massive lockups when a unit dies (even if fog of war is off) and doesn't quite work right anyways. (Must Fix)
MaxDamage: Change the RTSUnit class to make use of its own internal health system. This will allow you to alter a units maximum hp on the fly. (Recommended)
Image Mounting: Restore the ability to mount images to a RTS unit. (Recommended)
AFX: Add it. It's a very nice way to handle effects. The merge instructions are rather straightforward, even if you have to do them by hand. (I kept support for both RTS selection and selectrons, but I think rts selection is going to go away, selectrons look much nicer.) (Recommended)
RTSUnit ProcessTick(): No comment. Study it, find out what it does. Then redo it. Here's a hint. If you script your pathfinding and set a combat target for a unit, the pathfinding is ignored. (Must Fix)
Modifiers: Axe them. Make them go away. Or rewrite them to include the attributes you need. (Recommended)
So where are we now after 1 month?
All graphics are from various packs. (This will stay the same for the foreseeable future)
All four player units are now in game.
The testing AI has been removed awaiting an improved version.
All major engine changes needed at this time have been made.
A working leveling system is now in place.
All units now have all combat attributes working.
The design for spirit binding mechanics has been completed.
A testing level has been completed. (It increasingly spawns bandits until the tribe dies)
What's the goal for the next month?
The UI needs redone to support the new functionality.
Stealth is not properly working at this time.
Intermediate AI design needs to be completed.
Combat effects and spirit binding need to be implemented.
The first two spirits need to be added and tested
Up and coming:
At all points in design and testing the goal has been to maintain the game in a playable form at over 30fps. A pre-alpha version to help test the stability of the various engine changes will be going out to a few people within the next month.
Planning and design:
Prior to this, all of my notes were 'organized' on stacks of randomly arranged engineering paper. So now, a large part of them are now in a single consolidated document.
The Premise:
The time of the greater gods has come and gone. Mankind has lost its faith in the power of deities. Only a few small tribes hold true to the beliefs of their ancestors and still worship the spirits of rock and tree, air and water. You are one of these spirits, given some small power by the worship of a single village. Your ability to control your surroundings is limited, but through the use of dreams and visions you can influence your people as you seek to become a god with power, a god of great changes. Other spirits will contest your path, spirits of both light and dark. Gift your followers well, so that their faith may sustain you
Interactions with the game:
Visions: Cause tribal members to improve their town according to your will. (If they listen to you that is.)
Miracles: Use the power of the elemental spirits to directly affect the world around you. This is limited to small changes.
Dreams and Portents: Cause tribal members to take notice of things in the world. (Do this not too often lest they cease to listen.)
Spirit Bind: Call forth a lesser spirit and bind its powers to serve the members of your tribe.
Trials: Sometimes the best way to convince someone of the existence of a god is to convince them that god is angry with them.
Tribal Members: There are 4 types of these. One builder type, one ranged, one melee, and one caster unit. These members act of their own accord and the player can attempt to influence their behavior.
Important Attributes:
Faith is the currency of the game. Players spend it to take actions and it is generated by the people when they overcome obstacles.
Belief: If all is well in the world, your people have no need for a god. This affects the chance they will heed your call when you make requests of them.
Self Reliance: If a unit receives the benefit of too many miracles his self reliance will decline. He will no longer strive since his god will do everything for him.
The Engine:
The RTS starter kit is a wonderful thing. That is, if you are a competent programmer. So far I have spent a majority of my time working on the engine and have come up with a few things everyone should change and a few things that I recommend changing.
Vision: A units vision is not transferred from its datablock. (Must Fix)
Fog of War/VisManager.cc : Get rid of it, find every reference to any of its code and make it go away. Then, if you need it, rewrite it. It will cause massive lockups when a unit dies (even if fog of war is off) and doesn't quite work right anyways. (Must Fix)
MaxDamage: Change the RTSUnit class to make use of its own internal health system. This will allow you to alter a units maximum hp on the fly. (Recommended)
Image Mounting: Restore the ability to mount images to a RTS unit. (Recommended)
AFX: Add it. It's a very nice way to handle effects. The merge instructions are rather straightforward, even if you have to do them by hand. (I kept support for both RTS selection and selectrons, but I think rts selection is going to go away, selectrons look much nicer.) (Recommended)
RTSUnit ProcessTick(): No comment. Study it, find out what it does. Then redo it. Here's a hint. If you script your pathfinding and set a combat target for a unit, the pathfinding is ignored. (Must Fix)
Modifiers: Axe them. Make them go away. Or rewrite them to include the attributes you need. (Recommended)
So where are we now after 1 month?
All graphics are from various packs. (This will stay the same for the foreseeable future)
All four player units are now in game.
The testing AI has been removed awaiting an improved version.
All major engine changes needed at this time have been made.
A working leveling system is now in place.
All units now have all combat attributes working.
The design for spirit binding mechanics has been completed.
A testing level has been completed. (It increasingly spawns bandits until the tribe dies)
What's the goal for the next month?
The UI needs redone to support the new functionality.
Stealth is not properly working at this time.
Intermediate AI design needs to be completed.
Combat effects and spirit binding need to be implemented.
The first two spirits need to be added and tested
Up and coming:
At all points in design and testing the goal has been to maintain the game in a playable form at over 30fps. A pre-alpha version to help test the stability of the various engine changes will be going out to a few people within the next month.
Torque Owner Jason Swearingen