I usually get the image "plain" into a new tab, so I can use my browsers zoom. What I dont like about it, is the blurring filter. There is a proper term for it, but I mix them up all the time, guess you know what I mean.
Personally I would prefer a zoom that renders pixels as solidcolored blocks with crisp edges.
If you like a few suggestions: Make the text on top, that tells what to do, ( "None", "Select Job", "Cut where?" etc) in a different colour so it stands out a bit. Have just one road type to place, and pick the tile depending on the 4 neighbours, and update tile type for these neighbours. If you dig a hole a second time, fill it with water? No idea if this makes sense, I think it would be funny :)
alternatively you can use ImageMagick (it has ugly commandline parameters, you probably either want to study the docs carefully, or hunt for a snippet that does what you want, after you adjustes values like tilesize etc)
or.. you check pygame doc, if there is a way to just use a certain square from such a tilesheet. In the long run, this is the more elegant solution. I dunno python or pygame, so I cant give you a hint here, but I think it is possible it can do that.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - 18:45
What about taking existing quests/scenes from books, movies, series, other games, and abstract them to a level, where you can replace the actual content (that basically boils down to Actions, Persons, Locations and Items) with randomly picked content from a properly tailored list?
I believe (needs proof), that most players wont notice the reoccurence of such a plot skeleton immediately, unless they dont actively analyse what is going on. So, lets say, have one or two dozens of these, and you can generate 100 quests without things feeling repetitive (assuming good lists with content).
Advantage would be, that it is pretty much agnostic of different settings. If the plot is about a friend, that silently envies you, and then decides to "punish" you for some reason only he percepts, punishing you with stealing something/-one that is of high value for you and then escapes with that and wants to never see you again - this can happen in a scifi setting with a hunt from planet to planet, as well as in a fantasy world.
------
I tried something similar as mentioned so far in this thread too, it was more a plotgenerating aid for storywriting though, so I picked a semi-automatic approach here, probably pretty similar to what Pennomi calls "really rough and stupid". I found it somewhat useful, since I left it to the user to spot the "red line" in the random noise and discard the rest. What of course doesnt work for a game.
I still think the approach is good, it just has to contain more information. So far, the examples mentioned only what is interesting to the player, but they have to be extended to show (even if just internally) the full context.
Trying to expand the aforementioned example here, to see if it actually makes sense:
{artifact} stolen by {villain} from {owner} because of {wants artifact's power | want to prevent others from using artifact's power}
Now, we could evaluate the relation of the player to both persons (villain / owner), to see who he is more friend to, and create a quest based on that, what could be a) bring artifact back to owner or b) help villain, basically avoid that a) happens. Afterall, the owner could be a black magician, that terrorizes a whole region because of the mighty bookmark, and the dragon just wants that things calm down and the tributes he receives yearly come back to the level before the magician appeared. Or the magician is a friendly person who guarded the bookmark, but the dragon was too strong for him, and is the one who brings havoc.
As soon as the quest target stands, there can be some stepstones on the way to it. Some generic elements are e.g. "helpers", "helpers of the antagonist" or "competitors" (and way more). These can appear in random constellation, order and number.. and done is the quest? Maybe there should be a climax in the end, where a good guy dies and the evil guy stands infront of the player or so... also, dramatic things usually happen roughly in the middle of a plot, where things temporarily look really bad for the player/protagonist, to make it more intense and give him a reason to "really really" want to fulfill the quest, a kind of forging.
Both are meant to be full engines, but both also work well together with Blender.
GameKit can (is meant to) read directly from blender files, and maratis has a pretty complex blender addon, that allows to set up materials etc in a way maratis can read them later on.
If they will come with editors, and how useful these will be for more general purposes, will be seen.
and it's not stopping.
maybe first-post-approval ?
I usually get the image "plain" into a new tab, so I can use my browsers zoom. What I dont like about it, is the blurring filter. There is a proper term for it, but I mix them up all the time, guess you know what I mean.
Personally I would prefer a zoom that renders pixels as solidcolored blocks with crisp edges.
Looks promising, I'd like to see updates on this!
If you like a few suggestions:
Make the text on top, that tells what to do, ( "None", "Select Job", "Cut where?" etc) in a different colour so it stands out a bit.
Have just one road type to place, and pick the tile depending on the 4 neighbours, and update tile type for these neighbours.
If you dig a hole a second time, fill it with water? No idea if this makes sense, I think it would be funny :)
Well done, I like it!
Amazing as always, hope to hear from your game project when it's time :)
Hi, for advanced management of gamestates in Lua, there is (among others, probably):
https://github.com/kikito/stateful.lua
Depending on how your game is structured, you might face a major refactoring; it comes with good examples though, so you get a good idea (I hope).
If it isn't for you, gamestates (and how to implement them) is what you could search for instead.
stunning look! a word about the software(+addons/plugins) used?
alternatively you can use ImageMagick (it has ugly commandline parameters, you probably either want to study the docs carefully, or hunt for a snippet that does what you want, after you adjustes values like tilesize etc)
or.. you check pygame doc, if there is a way to just use a certain square from such a tilesheet. In the long run, this is the more elegant solution. I dunno python or pygame, so I cant give you a hint here, but I think it is possible it can do that.
What about taking existing quests/scenes from books, movies, series, other games, and abstract them to a level, where you can replace the actual content (that basically boils down to Actions, Persons, Locations and Items) with randomly picked content from a properly tailored list?
I believe (needs proof), that most players wont notice the reoccurence of such a plot skeleton immediately, unless they dont actively analyse what is going on. So, lets say, have one or two dozens of these, and you can generate 100 quests without things feeling repetitive (assuming good lists with content).
Advantage would be, that it is pretty much agnostic of different settings. If the plot is about a friend, that silently envies you, and then decides to "punish" you for some reason only he percepts, punishing you with stealing something/-one that is of high value for you and then escapes with that and wants to never see you again - this can happen in a scifi setting with a hunt from planet to planet, as well as in a fantasy world.
------
I tried something similar as mentioned so far in this thread too, it was more a plotgenerating aid for storywriting though, so I picked a semi-automatic approach here, probably pretty similar to what Pennomi calls "really rough and stupid". I found it somewhat useful, since I left it to the user to spot the "red line" in the random noise and discard the rest. What of course doesnt work for a game.
I still think the approach is good, it just has to contain more information. So far, the examples mentioned only what is interesting to the player, but they have to be extended to show (even if just internally) the full context.
Trying to expand the aforementioned example here, to see if it actually makes sense:
{artifact} stolen by {villain} from {owner} because of {wants artifact's power | want to prevent others from using artifact's power}
Now, we could evaluate the relation of the player to both persons (villain / owner), to see who he is more friend to, and create a quest based on that, what could be a) bring artifact back to owner or b) help villain, basically avoid that a) happens. Afterall, the owner could be a black magician, that terrorizes a whole region because of the mighty bookmark, and the dragon just wants that things calm down and the tributes he receives yearly come back to the level before the magician appeared. Or the magician is a friendly person who guarded the bookmark, but the dragon was too strong for him, and is the one who brings havoc.
As soon as the quest target stands, there can be some stepstones on the way to it. Some generic elements are e.g. "helpers", "helpers of the antagonist" or "competitors" (and way more). These can appear in random constellation, order and number.. and done is the quest?
Maybe there should be a climax in the end, where a good guy dies and the evil guy stands infront of the player or so... also, dramatic things usually happen roughly in the middle of a plot, where things temporarily look really bad for the player/protagonist, to make it more intense and give him a reason to "really really" want to fulfill the quest, a kind of forging.
Two projects that are worth to be mentioned here:
http://www.maratis3d.org & http://code.google.com/p/gamekit/
Both are meant to be full engines, but both also work well together with Blender.
GameKit can (is meant to) read directly from blender files, and maratis has a pretty complex blender addon, that allows to set up materials etc in a way maratis can read them later on.
If they will come with editors, and how useful these will be for more general purposes, will be seen.
Pages