Plan for Pat Wilson
by Pat Wilson · 08/03/2003 (12:06 am) · 3 comments
I've been losing steam big time on Gridwalkers, the game I had been working on in my spare time. The game was going to be a hacking sim, call it an Uplink clone if you must. The vision for the game was great, I wanted to include the user by having them solve puzzles to hack systems instead of just clicking and waiting. I also wanted to put in a story system, so that people could write stories for the game, to allow writers and people who have always thought it'd be cool to do X but didn't have time to make a game out of it actually get their story in a game. I also wanted to eventually move the game online so that people could compete...
All of these ideas, I think, would work...under the right cirumstances. The problem is those circumstances. I had been working on a puzzle mini-game for Gridwalkers last week after the great idea that people could solve logic puzzles to hack systems. The setting could be that the server needed hardware access, and you had to hack the FPGA (Field Programable Gate Array) to get into it. So I set off making this awesome logic building system in Torque, let you drag and drop components, hook them up visually, and the best part about it was, it was an elegant solution. If I want to add another component, all I have to do is draw it in Photoshop. Make the connectors the right colors, and add around 6 lines of code to the engine. I made a Full Adder and a D-Flip-Flop and thought that was pretty cool.
Then it hit me...who the hell wants to do digital logic puzzles in a game. I'll tell the user, "Make it so that when this input is 1, this line gets through to the output, but when this input is 1, make it so this other line gets to the output..." (In other words, make me a multiplexer) and they'll say, "What? No f-in way." The puzzles would have to be blindingly easy, in which case they'd be just time-wasting lame things. Or people would have to learn digital logic. What next, will I have to implement a Karnaugh Map HUD upgrade so they can solve them faster? Nobody wants to do that crap.
It's been a long time since I played Uplink. I tried to boil down Gridwalkers to the base root gameplay mechanic, and any way you cut it, the base mechanic of Uplink and Gridwalkers was: "Click something, and wait." This is not necessassarly a bad thing, hell, look at EverQuest. They have hundreds of thousands of people who pay them to click on things and wait.
I'm kind of dissapointed, and a bit lost. I always have a few game ideas kicking around in the back of my head, but I'm really not sure what I want to work on. The other thing is, it's not like I *need* more projects anyway. While my internship at GarageGames is nearly over, I'll be carrying over the work that I'm doing now for quite a while, just from school. I'll also be working on a Torque project with another team which is very promising...and then there's that whole school thing.
I guess it all boils down to me wanting to make a game that I want to play, and once I felt like I couldn't twist Gridwalkers to be something that I wanted to play with a reasonable amount of effort, I just kind of gave up on it.
All of these ideas, I think, would work...under the right cirumstances. The problem is those circumstances. I had been working on a puzzle mini-game for Gridwalkers last week after the great idea that people could solve logic puzzles to hack systems. The setting could be that the server needed hardware access, and you had to hack the FPGA (Field Programable Gate Array) to get into it. So I set off making this awesome logic building system in Torque, let you drag and drop components, hook them up visually, and the best part about it was, it was an elegant solution. If I want to add another component, all I have to do is draw it in Photoshop. Make the connectors the right colors, and add around 6 lines of code to the engine. I made a Full Adder and a D-Flip-Flop and thought that was pretty cool.
Then it hit me...who the hell wants to do digital logic puzzles in a game. I'll tell the user, "Make it so that when this input is 1, this line gets through to the output, but when this input is 1, make it so this other line gets to the output..." (In other words, make me a multiplexer) and they'll say, "What? No f-in way." The puzzles would have to be blindingly easy, in which case they'd be just time-wasting lame things. Or people would have to learn digital logic. What next, will I have to implement a Karnaugh Map HUD upgrade so they can solve them faster? Nobody wants to do that crap.
It's been a long time since I played Uplink. I tried to boil down Gridwalkers to the base root gameplay mechanic, and any way you cut it, the base mechanic of Uplink and Gridwalkers was: "Click something, and wait." This is not necessassarly a bad thing, hell, look at EverQuest. They have hundreds of thousands of people who pay them to click on things and wait.
I'm kind of dissapointed, and a bit lost. I always have a few game ideas kicking around in the back of my head, but I'm really not sure what I want to work on. The other thing is, it's not like I *need* more projects anyway. While my internship at GarageGames is nearly over, I'll be carrying over the work that I'm doing now for quite a while, just from school. I'll also be working on a Torque project with another team which is very promising...and then there's that whole school thing.
I guess it all boils down to me wanting to make a game that I want to play, and once I felt like I couldn't twist Gridwalkers to be something that I wanted to play with a reasonable amount of effort, I just kind of gave up on it.
About the author
#2
What you need to do is to change the connection idea (linking things together) into a pipemania sort of style (get from A to B given specific connecting peices). That adds an element of time which increases the pressure.
What this would mean is that you could have a mock battle between the uplink/hacker and the computer security. If the player doesnt connect in the given time, they get busted and lose some of thier mojo, if they do, theyre into the system.
Also, ask Jeff about some of the puzzle logic from Rise of the Dragon, that was a cool game and had a few logic puzzles in too :)
Dont give up! just redesign, at least you realised the fundamental problem :)
Phil.
08/03/2003 (1:58 pm)
Pat!, youre almost there on the gridwalkers thing. I remember a similar style of game from the old C64 days. What you need to do is to change the connection idea (linking things together) into a pipemania sort of style (get from A to B given specific connecting peices). That adds an element of time which increases the pressure.
What this would mean is that you could have a mock battle between the uplink/hacker and the computer security. If the player doesnt connect in the given time, they get busted and lose some of thier mojo, if they do, theyre into the system.
Also, ask Jeff about some of the puzzle logic from Rise of the Dragon, that was a cool game and had a few logic puzzles in too :)
Dont give up! just redesign, at least you realised the fundamental problem :)
Phil.
#3
At school I do Isshin Ryu Karate, currently a Yellow Belt, and Capoeira, we have no belts, rank me as "no upper body strength" for that.
I'll work on it, Phil. I have all the the pieces done, I just can't put them together and make something fun.
08/03/2003 (5:00 pm)
Doc, that is a picture of me that my roommate did for a lighting project in my Tae Kwon Do uniform. I did TKD for a few years but couldn't find a place at school that I liked. I train when I'm on vacation at home at my old school and am officially an orange belt, unofficially a blue belt since I haven't tested in 3 years.At school I do Isshin Ryu Karate, currently a Yellow Belt, and Capoeira, we have no belts, rank me as "no upper body strength" for that.
I'll work on it, Phil. I have all the the pieces done, I just can't put them together and make something fun.
Doc
What martial art do you take? Just wondering.
D.o.c