Plan for Gary Haussmann
by Gary Haussmann · 09/25/2005 (8:44 pm) · 8 comments
For those who just tuned in, I am pretty much meandering around the torque engine to see how far I can get implementing a FPS/RTS where the two genres are represented by opposing sides, the "humans" (FPS) and the "aliens" (RTS). The HL mod Natural Selection is an analogous game, although the building of structures is conspicuously absent from my game.
It's been a while since I posted my last plan, mainly because I had to go back and redo a lot of scripts doing the basic mechanics, like mounting weapons, spawning/respawning, and the overall inventory system. But the basic mechanics for the FPS team (humans) are complete at this point. Hopefully I can get enough bits working on the RTS side (aliens) to make for an interesting demo at IGC.
To start with, the human player chooses their overall class and also chooses from a set of abilities/enhancements to their avatar. The abilities function similar to "advantages" or "perks" available in many RPGs, and provide a bit of customization to your player.
Once the player spawns, they also get another customization opportunity, by modifying weapons. Scattered around the map are various resources which represent technological parts useful for modifying your weapons. The player can pick these up and they are stashed in the inventory. Here we see the player has picked up some "steel" and "fire" resources, represented by the spheres with colorful icons on them. You can see a bunch of other resources scattered on the ground, currently represented by my colorful programmer-art lozenges.
Using these resources the player can modify his/her weapons; by combining a standard weapon with a specific type of resource, the player can produce a new type of weapon. Here we see the player has combined the Blunderbuss Pistol with the Fire Resource, producing a Flamethrower weapon (the orange pistol-like thing). Any player can produce enhanced weapons, and one class (the Mad Scientist) will be able to create all sorts of wacky equipment on-the-fly.
Finally, here is a gratuitous shot of my steam-powered robot automaton wielding four weapons at once. The robot is pretty much a walking arsenal but is really slow, which makes him a prime target for artillery...
It's been a while since I posted my last plan, mainly because I had to go back and redo a lot of scripts doing the basic mechanics, like mounting weapons, spawning/respawning, and the overall inventory system. But the basic mechanics for the FPS team (humans) are complete at this point. Hopefully I can get enough bits working on the RTS side (aliens) to make for an interesting demo at IGC.
To start with, the human player chooses their overall class and also chooses from a set of abilities/enhancements to their avatar. The abilities function similar to "advantages" or "perks" available in many RPGs, and provide a bit of customization to your player.
Once the player spawns, they also get another customization opportunity, by modifying weapons. Scattered around the map are various resources which represent technological parts useful for modifying your weapons. The player can pick these up and they are stashed in the inventory. Here we see the player has picked up some "steel" and "fire" resources, represented by the spheres with colorful icons on them. You can see a bunch of other resources scattered on the ground, currently represented by my colorful programmer-art lozenges.
Using these resources the player can modify his/her weapons; by combining a standard weapon with a specific type of resource, the player can produce a new type of weapon. Here we see the player has combined the Blunderbuss Pistol with the Fire Resource, producing a Flamethrower weapon (the orange pistol-like thing). Any player can produce enhanced weapons, and one class (the Mad Scientist) will be able to create all sorts of wacky equipment on-the-fly.
Finally, here is a gratuitous shot of my steam-powered robot automaton wielding four weapons at once. The robot is pretty much a walking arsenal but is really slow, which makes him a prime target for artillery...
About the author
#2
09/26/2005 (5:56 am)
More cannons!
#3
We as independent developers (both GG, and the community) stress the importance of prototyping, and working on gameplay before art, etc., ad nauseum, etc. We also talk about how indie developers can push genres by taking risks that AAA companies avoid like the plague, or attempt and fail miserably.
In the screenshots above, we obviously have some serious programmer art...and the screenshots reflect it. However, (and I know this is a relatively new post), no one -at all- commented about some of the pretty damned amazing tech behind the screenshots: he's talking about having a gameplay mechanic where players are run-time dynamically creating completely new items and weapons, and are able to use them in game...
Think about that for a minute: He has defined a set of properties within his engine that can handle dynamic allocation of physical properties, and in effect create completely new items on the fly. I can think of a couple of AAA games that have tried this and failed (Asheron's Call II I think it was tried this for spells, TES:DaggerFall did something like it for spells as well, EQ didn't even bother trying), and I know that I put a model and prototype implementation for this exact concept together in the late 90's for a MUD I was working on...and it is incredibly complex to build a working implementation of the concept.
But the only comments we've seen so far are about screenshots...
As Indie developers ourselves, if we expect the concept of prototyping to work, we need to see beyond the programmer art into the gameplay that is being demonstrated by that art, and analyze the fun factor itself...
[/soapbox]
09/26/2005 (9:05 am)
I guess I'm in [soapbox] mode, so I apologize in advance, but I did want to say something here!We as independent developers (both GG, and the community) stress the importance of prototyping, and working on gameplay before art, etc., ad nauseum, etc. We also talk about how indie developers can push genres by taking risks that AAA companies avoid like the plague, or attempt and fail miserably.
In the screenshots above, we obviously have some serious programmer art...and the screenshots reflect it. However, (and I know this is a relatively new post), no one -at all- commented about some of the pretty damned amazing tech behind the screenshots: he's talking about having a gameplay mechanic where players are run-time dynamically creating completely new items and weapons, and are able to use them in game...
Think about that for a minute: He has defined a set of properties within his engine that can handle dynamic allocation of physical properties, and in effect create completely new items on the fly. I can think of a couple of AAA games that have tried this and failed (Asheron's Call II I think it was tried this for spells, TES:DaggerFall did something like it for spells as well, EQ didn't even bother trying), and I know that I put a model and prototype implementation for this exact concept together in the late 90's for a MUD I was working on...and it is incredibly complex to build a working implementation of the concept.
But the only comments we've seen so far are about screenshots...
As Indie developers ourselves, if we expect the concept of prototyping to work, we need to see beyond the programmer art into the gameplay that is being demonstrated by that art, and analyze the fun factor itself...
[/soapbox]
#4
I agree with Stephen that there are some potentially impressive gameplay features that are being implemented.
Personally if you can get the quad weapon system working and fun then I'll be more than impressed, seems like a nifty feature that could be a blast but lots of ways to go wrong with :)
09/26/2005 (9:40 am)
I'd love to play this at IGC... with item combining and quad wielding this could be pretty promising :) I agree with Stephen that there are some potentially impressive gameplay features that are being implemented.
Personally if you can get the quad weapon system working and fun then I'll be more than impressed, seems like a nifty feature that could be a blast but lots of ways to go wrong with :)
#5
But I guess I have another week to live up to your exhortation :)
09/26/2005 (10:28 am)
Well Stephen, the system is not quite as sophisticated as you imagine. The plan is to use the resource type to determine weapon/projectile color and damage type, while the weapon itself determines the projectile; however, currently the possible combinations are hard-coded so that I can get all the code working that lets the user move and combine parts in their inventory. Once that is fully debugged I can add the code to dynamically generate new weapons given (basic weapon + resource item).But I guess I have another week to live up to your exhortation :)
#6
09/26/2005 (11:09 am)
Nah, it's still the concept behind it that is interesting...you have to code the properties themselves, and implement them. Any "recipe" is going to be almost certainly "hard coded", or at least some form of additive attribute system!
#7
09/26/2005 (2:40 pm)
imagine if he had six arms....Hexa wielding....
#8
09/27/2005 (9:43 pm)
How are you going to handle firing, especially when you have 4 arms? are all arms going to fire simultaneously? or possibly two at a time, rotating between guns as the player presses the trigger? Because I cannot fathom being able to effectively play a game where I have four seperate fire buttons for each of my guns. 
Torque Owner Vashner