Shiny Toys

I’ve been having some issues getting my server code running on this hosted virtualized Linux system as opposed to my real Windows machines. In the meantime, I wanted to get down some notes on where I’m going with this project. Make sure you check out this quick demo to see what I’m talking about. Not everything is well-defined yet; a lot of the design is going to evolve over time.

Online non-MMO semi-RPG

This will be an online game with a shared world. I’m steering clear of the “MMO” term because it implies hundreds of thousands of people and multimillion-dollar budgets, neither of which are goals here. “Graphical MUD” might capture the scale better, but not the gameplay. It will be RPG-like in that there are characters and stats and advancement, but it’s meant to play more like a gigantic online board game and there’s no single “you”.

Retro Tile-Based World

This is a retro tile-based world. Designing a game world out of tiles is a lot quicker, easier, and cheaper than laying out the details of a continuous world. Too many of the game studios I’ve worked at required 3D construction skills to actually create an environment. This kept people with good design ideas from being able to quickly get something new into playable form. At best this meant it took a long time; at worst it meant going through an art team to test a gameplay tweak or bugfix. One person working alone should be able to place a character into the world, build out a place for her to live, give her some stats, activities, and enemies, write a first draft of dialog for her, and test the whole thing in-game…all in under an hour.

Just as importantly, it abstracts away the design of the gameplay elements of the world from its glossy presentation. Right now this is being done in a web browser. With the right procedural magic, the schematic-like tile designs could be turned into 3D environments of varying fidelity from iPhones to high-end PCs, while the actual world remained the same (and was even shared by people on different platforms). That’s pie-in-the-sky for now, but I’m already thinking in those terms even for the tiles — in the editor someone can work at the level of “this tile is water and this tile is land”. An automatic phase would turn that specification into “these are shoreline tiles #112 and #247″ without requiring (or even allowing) a designer to pick among hundreds of visually distinct but functionally identical tiles. At the editor level, the goal is to work only with the elements that are directly relevant to gameplay.

Tactical Combat on a Grid

Tactical combat on a grid will be a key part of gameplay. Tile-based worlds don’t necessarily require grid-based interactions; see early Zelda games for an example of continuous movement on a grid-based world. Here they’re intimately tied. I am explicitly trying to capture the feel of miniatures and boardgaming.

I’m playing in a particularly epic D&D campaign right now, filled with miniatures and scenery. It’s fun, and it’s sufficiently different from most big games that it could carve out a niche. The right balance for combat will be when you will lose if you have all your characters stand in a line and attack, but win when you successfully execute flanking maneuvers, use terrain and sight lines to your advantage, and keep enemies off your second line.

Line of sight and friendly fire will be key tactical considerations. When I play this out hypothetically on a chessboard, it adds a much more interesting dimension when you have to think about positioning characters so they don’t shoot each other in the back. My thinking on UI is that as you mouse over the board to select a target, numbers will appear over multiple characters to indicate the percentage chance of hitting each of them with a shot aimed at the mouse location.

Action in the game world will occur in real time. Every character has a pool of action points to spend. Every action, including taking a step, drains that pool by a certain cost. Everyone’s action pools are continuously regenerating.

One Party per Player

Players will control multiple characters simultaneously. There’s always a certain tension between player skill and character skill in anything with RPG elements. For me, gaining new skills is always a carrot, but I’m decreasingly enthused with MMOs where the only skill required of the player is mashing number keys in one of a few well-practiced sequences. Controlling in multiple characters at once creates a need for player skill in how you position and combine characters, but still allows a role for stats and dice rolls in determining the effectiveness of individual characters.

There’s some question as to how much you can bond with your characters if none of them are “you”. Hopefully I’ll be able to create the feel that they’re “pets” or “projects” that you’re proud of. You’ll have your own stable, essentially.

I suspect the right number of characters per player is between 3 and 5. Too few and you don’t have tactical considerations about where they are relative to each other; the decisions is always simply “get ‘em”. Too many and it turns into a mob when you play with other people. I’m thinking about have a sliding limit on characters-per-player depending on how many players are in a group — perhaps four characters if you enter an area by yourself, three each if there are two of you, and two each if there are three of you.

Dr. Livingstone vs Dracula!

The setting I’ve dreamed up for this is a sort of exaggerated mid-1800s Europe. Technology in the main cities is on par or slightly below our own of the era. (I’ve got no love for Steampunk trope of putting brass fittings on things more advanced than current-day, effectively turning tech into magic.) Communication is much, much worse. People in the cities know relatively little of the rural lands between them, and the people “out there” are sparse, unlearned, superstitious, and scared — for all sorts of good reasons.

The in-game equivalent of Romania isn’t just a backwater, it’s a place you go exploring on safari. Your characters are intrepid adventurers seeking fortune, glory, and the respect of the blokes back home at the club. This lends itself well to self-contained, episodic adventures, and creates a lot of room to progressively build new content into a living game world.

Firearms are the weapon of choice against targets far away, but not so effective that you’d prefer to shoot someone up close — for that you’d prefer steel or plain old fisticuffs. The balance between ranged and close attackers will be a key part of combat.

Magic of a sort exists in the world, but not as spells you learn about and cast consistently as if it were simply a predictable tool. Rumors abound of artifacts and fetishes, found by explorers such as yourself, which have caused the most strange happenings in a moment of utmost need. Strangely, many of them seem to turn to dust after use, and seldom does anything more than a great story make it back to the city. Those rare items of proven power and provenance are valuable beyond measure.

Help Wanted

I’m presently looking for an artist. Someone to help define the look of the world, and in the very immediate term help come up with a tileset that doesn’t scream Ultima. Getting that together is my top priority right now, because even if it’s just prototyping I dislike using art from another project. Needless to say this is an entirely non-commercial project, so you’d be doing it for love, gratitude, and the respect of dozens. Email me at ameggs@gmail.com if you’re feeling willing and creative. Otherwise, tell me how I suck in the comments…