My opinion is going to be controversial here, but it's worth sharing.
There are things that players love, that are addicting, but are poor game design. I think it's borderline unethical to waste a player's time that way.
Obvious example: slot machines. All the colors, flashing lights, sounds, random chances, etc. are perfectly tuned to addict the player. But is a player having genuine fun? They're getting the same addicting chemical releases, but they could be doing something more enriching. Something with substance.
I decided early on to not support Lootris in Flare. That's a term from Diablo where items take up more than one slot, and the player would often spend time rearranging their inventory to carry a few more items (stacking them perfectly like Loot-Tetris, thus the term). Some people find this really "fun". I actually like the larger item icons for art reasons. But just because it appeals to our obsessive-compulsive personalities doesn't mean it's a wise thing to have in a game. If a player doesn't have to obsessively rearrange their inventory, where will they spend time instead? More questing, more combat, more dialog -- elements with vastly more substance.
I think wasting a player's time is a "cardinal sin" of game design. Perhaps I have the luxury to believe that because I'm not trying to addict people to my game, or make a living off some free-to-play model. I just think it's unethical, and I wish we could break gamers of bad habits. We shouldn't be tempted to pour 1000 hours into our favorite game, collecting every item and unlocking every achievement. That player could be experiencing new games instead, new core gameplay with nice substance.
I don't plan on supporting Achievements in Flare. I think it artificially extends a game's playtime, when a gamer could be out enjoying other things (games or otherwise). I don't plan on supporting New Game+ modes either -- again, artifically extending a game. How about we have games that are a few rich hours and done.
I don't begrudge games that do Achievements and New Game+, as I can ignore those options easy enough. But if a game's design is up to me, I really enjoy trimming the fat.
Decisions related to the core gameplay (combat, questing, character advancement) are great.
Most other decisions are bad. Example: right now the death penalty in Flare is 50% gold. An optimal player would hoard items, and only sell them when they're ready to buy an item (to minimize gold loss). This exposes a terrible design. A player has to break immersion to decide whether it's best to hold or sell an item that is useless to them. At what point does the player stop and think "wait, what am I doing? This isn't fun". So the death penalty needs to be changed.
Player choices should be fun and interesting, that's the basic guiding principle.
The vendor screen is nice for buyback. And serves as a reminder to sell anything that's been taking up space in the inventory.
It would be easy to add an instant-sell penalty (e.g. instant-sell gives 10%, vendors give 20%). We'll see. I think it's a bad idea to even add the option. If a gamer has to stop and consider whether to instantly sell or hold onto an unusable item, I'd feel like I failed as a game designer.
Hoarding items to drag back to the vendor isn't a fun mechanic. But seeing new loot drop is a bit addicting, even if it's trash. (Arguably this is bad design; addicting is not the same as genuine fun).
Dropping auto gold isn't a terrible idea, but I rather the player make that decision.
Embraaaace the magic sell-anywhere mechanic. I will make an engine option to toggle it though.
Notice the side wall of the stairs (the brown part). It's mostly a flat polygon with a texture applied, plus several "bricks" that stick out randomly with the same texture. The bricks are just scaled cubes with the backface removed, and placed right next to the wall. Make each brick a different thickness (out from the wall) to get a good feel. Minimal effort for a nice result.
Hm, Poser. Are his human figures based on the Daz3D default people (are they still called Michael and Victoria?). If so, that may reduce the usefulness of those assets for OpenGameArt.
Similar issue with all the textures, if they're sourced from places like cgtextures then the assets are near useless to OGA.
You've missed a point -- the size of the png files is irrelevant. Once it's in memory it has to be completely uncompressed to be useful. It's going to be 32 bits per pixel in memory no matter what you do with the png files.
It only uses the images it needs, correct. But on a given map it needs the hero, any creature on the map, and the map's tile set.
Reminder, it's held in memory uncompressed (32 bits per pixel). The file sizes you see for the .png files are highly compressed. Try converting the png files to BMP to get an idea of how much space they take up in memory.
My opinion is going to be controversial here, but it's worth sharing.
There are things that players love, that are addicting, but are poor game design. I think it's borderline unethical to waste a player's time that way.
Obvious example: slot machines. All the colors, flashing lights, sounds, random chances, etc. are perfectly tuned to addict the player. But is a player having genuine fun? They're getting the same addicting chemical releases, but they could be doing something more enriching. Something with substance.
I decided early on to not support Lootris in Flare. That's a term from Diablo where items take up more than one slot, and the player would often spend time rearranging their inventory to carry a few more items (stacking them perfectly like Loot-Tetris, thus the term). Some people find this really "fun". I actually like the larger item icons for art reasons. But just because it appeals to our obsessive-compulsive personalities doesn't mean it's a wise thing to have in a game. If a player doesn't have to obsessively rearrange their inventory, where will they spend time instead? More questing, more combat, more dialog -- elements with vastly more substance.
I think wasting a player's time is a "cardinal sin" of game design. Perhaps I have the luxury to believe that because I'm not trying to addict people to my game, or make a living off some free-to-play model. I just think it's unethical, and I wish we could break gamers of bad habits. We shouldn't be tempted to pour 1000 hours into our favorite game, collecting every item and unlocking every achievement. That player could be experiencing new games instead, new core gameplay with nice substance.
I don't plan on supporting Achievements in Flare. I think it artificially extends a game's playtime, when a gamer could be out enjoying other things (games or otherwise). I don't plan on supporting New Game+ modes either -- again, artifically extending a game. How about we have games that are a few rich hours and done.
I don't begrudge games that do Achievements and New Game+, as I can ignore those options easy enough. But if a game's design is up to me, I really enjoy trimming the fat.
Decisions related to the core gameplay (combat, questing, character advancement) are great.
Most other decisions are bad. Example: right now the death penalty in Flare is 50% gold. An optimal player would hoard items, and only sell them when they're ready to buy an item (to minimize gold loss). This exposes a terrible design. A player has to break immersion to decide whether it's best to hold or sell an item that is useless to them. At what point does the player stop and think "wait, what am I doing? This isn't fun". So the death penalty needs to be changed.
Player choices should be fun and interesting, that's the basic guiding principle.
The vendor screen is nice for buyback. And serves as a reminder to sell anything that's been taking up space in the inventory.
It would be easy to add an instant-sell penalty (e.g. instant-sell gives 10%, vendors give 20%). We'll see. I think it's a bad idea to even add the option. If a gamer has to stop and consider whether to instantly sell or hold onto an unusable item, I'd feel like I failed as a game designer.
Hoarding items to drag back to the vendor isn't a fun mechanic. But seeing new loot drop is a bit addicting, even if it's trash. (Arguably this is bad design; addicting is not the same as genuine fun).
Dropping auto gold isn't a terrible idea, but I rather the player make that decision.
Embraaaace the magic sell-anywhere mechanic. I will make an engine option to toggle it though.
Made a slight modification. Added chains to the downstairs model to emphasize the dungeon theme.
Attention lazy 3D modelers (like me) --
Notice the side wall of the stairs (the brown part). It's mostly a flat polygon with a texture applied, plus several "bricks" that stick out randomly with the same texture. The bricks are just scaled cubes with the backface removed, and placed right next to the wall. Make each brick a different thickness (out from the wall) to get a good feel. Minimal effort for a nice result.
(edit)
See more thoughts in this model here: http://flarerpg.org/blog/20120910
Ooh I like this quite a lot. I may be using this armor design in my next game.
Hm, Poser. Are his human figures based on the Daz3D default people (are they still called Michael and Victoria?). If so, that may reduce the usefulness of those assets for OpenGameArt.
Similar issue with all the textures, if they're sourced from places like cgtextures then the assets are near useless to OGA.
You've missed a point -- the size of the png files is irrelevant. Once it's in memory it has to be completely uncompressed to be useful. It's going to be 32 bits per pixel in memory no matter what you do with the png files.
It only uses the images it needs, correct. But on a given map it needs the hero, any creature on the map, and the map's tile set.
Reminder, it's held in memory uncompressed (32 bits per pixel). The file sizes you see for the .png files are highly compressed. Try converting the png files to BMP to get an idea of how much space they take up in memory.
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