Interesting, I hadn't considered the cyclic path for this before. I like the idea, especially as I already wanted to feature the hero returning to the capitol city in the end. The changing of seasons could definitely factor into the theme of the game.
Note, the world will probably be free-roaming rather than divided into strict chapters. The game will explain where to go next, but the hero is free to, say, brave the desert area right away (of course, would probably not survive).
I will clean up a current OSARE map in Tiled, with events and enemies included. That way we'll have a good test to make sure the plugin output is just like the actual OSARE map file.
I'm rather busy, so maybe give me a couple days on this? Thanks!
The center of the map will contain the enclosed capitol city. There will be major temples devoted to each of the five elements. The hero might learn about the real plot through these temples, or perhaps the temples simply have some macguffin to collect to keep the story moving.
Earth
The center of the map has mild environments. The earth temple is guarded by a gold dragon. Perhaps this is the capitol city, perhaps the gold dragon is the emblem of the religious order of the oligarchy.
Wood
The east side of the map is springtime, windy, and heavily forested. The forest temple is guarded by a blue dragon.
Metal
The west side of the map is autumn. Perhaps mines, caves, mountains. The metal temple is guarded by a white tiger.
Water
The north side of the map is tundra, frozen, glacial. The ice temple is guarded by a black tortoise.
Fire
The south side of the map is hot, summer, desert. The fire temple is guarded by a phoenix.
The ordinal directions can be mixes of these. Northwest (Water + Metal) might be my bridge area. Southwest (Metal + Fire) might be volcanic. Southeast (Fire + Wood) might be tumbleweed badlands. Northeast (Water + Wood) might be swamp/marsh.
I've been tossing around the idea of a main story arc involving immortality.
The human civilization is on the tail end of some golden/enlightenment age where there humans have achieved immortality. Depending on who you ask, it's because of favor of the gods or because of studious use of magic.
Humans start dying and their bodies become undead, perhaps over the span of a few years. It is feared that all of humanity has "fallen from grace" and is in danger of (un)death. The religious leaders of the capitol city blame magic, discredit it as all necromancy, and execute anyone who practice magic. Some escape before the executions. The hero is not so lucky, and is publicly executed. The bodies are dumped outside the walled city, assumed they are condemned to wander as undead for their crimes.
The hero wakes up outside the city. Apparently alive and uninjured. The hero appears to still be immortal, or at least not subject to the undead affliction. He stumbles upon a small group of survivors -- some escaped the city before the witchunts, others were from remote villages that were abandoned when the plague struck.
With most of society huddled into the city walls, the wilderness is overrun with monsters and undead.
The hero begins to explore for supplies. As he explores he uncovers clues of corruption. The oligarchy was losing influence and power as society became classless. They turned to corruptive magic. It probably went farther than they had planned, but to many of them the ends justify the means. With the citizens in fear, they now have unlimited power and wealth.
The hero might help establish a haven apart from the main city. The hero might decide to attack the oligarchy. The hero might look for a way to reverse the curse of mortality.
Survival - I like a small number of survivors in a deadly environment. Especially if they have a hard time trusting each other.
Exile - Perhaps there is a safe haven (e.g. walled city) but for some reason the hero has been exiled to the dangerous wilderness.
Tyranny - Only the ruling class is allowed to have weapons, literacy, magic, etc.
Exploration - The player shouldn't be stuck on one path. I like large open worlds. I like the ability to wander into areas far too tough for my current level.
Ancient - The game world is old. Civilizations have come and gone. Powerful weapons and knowledge are hidden away in abandoned ruins.
I kind of agree about the missile range. Once the monsters are able to shoot back it'll be more fair, and I'll make missiles go further. I might make starter weapons i.e. slingshots still short range though.
I completely agree about having art when missiles hit walls. I already have some magic sparks for when spells crit creatures, I just need to do something similar.
I'll try to address the "enemy proximity" thing in this next big update. I'll probably add a "social" boolean to creature files that determine if they attack with their pack or not.
Definitely adding "A Star" soon. My plan is to use A Star when the creature doesn't have direct line of movement.
Starting out will get better. Eventually a "tutorial" level would get you to level 2 and give you a starting weapon.
If you're using that 4x4 tile "temple entrance", you'll want that in the background. To display correctly, you'll want to divide that large tile so that it's actually 7 individual tiles, in vertical slices. The middle slice will be 64 pixels wide, and the others will be 32 pixels wide. The white dots show the centerpoint of each of the 7 base tiles.
I could add items with multiple bonuses later. I admit I kinda like how simple it is now. Currently items can only have one bonus (I think if you tried to put multiple bonuses on an item in the current code, the second bonus would overwrite the first)
I plan to have visual variations for each monster type. For now you see it with the skeleton, there are two types and one looks tougher. As an example, I want to add an even tougher looking skeleton that almost looks like a death knight. The antlion will have fire/ice colored versions, but there might also be very small hatchlings and larger queens. There would be "hobgoblins" that wear armor and don't look like pushovers. In the final game each base monster type might have 3-5 visual variations.
Yes, some items are too high level to appear in this demo.
When low level creatures roll for loot and I make the result 0, that means no loot. Basically, very low level creatures have less loot. That is why sometimes there is nothing in barrels/crates. This is intentional.
Correct, items without levels won't drop. This could be used for quest items or story items.
I probably won't do the colored monster thing. It was easier to do in Diablo because all the graphics were in a 256 color pallete. But it could come later if I change the rendering to OpenGL.
I thought about splitting the items.txt file up. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Time to vote!
Please "Add to Favorites" to vote: http://opengameart.org/category/art-tags/halloween
Interesting, I hadn't considered the cyclic path for this before. I like the idea, especially as I already wanted to feature the hero returning to the capitol city in the end. The changing of seasons could definitely factor into the theme of the game.
Note, the world will probably be free-roaming rather than divided into strict chapters. The game will explain where to go next, but the hero is free to, say, brave the desert area right away (of course, would probably not survive).
Jaderamiso, thanks for working on this!
I will clean up a current OSARE map in Tiled, with events and enemies included. That way we'll have a good test to make sure the plugin output is just like the actual OSARE map file.
I'm rather busy, so maybe give me a couple days on this? Thanks!
The layout of the game world will be loosely based on Wu Xing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing
The center of the map will contain the enclosed capitol city. There will be major temples devoted to each of the five elements. The hero might learn about the real plot through these temples, or perhaps the temples simply have some macguffin to collect to keep the story moving.
Earth
The center of the map has mild environments. The earth temple is guarded by a gold dragon. Perhaps this is the capitol city, perhaps the gold dragon is the emblem of the religious order of the oligarchy.
Wood
The east side of the map is springtime, windy, and heavily forested. The forest temple is guarded by a blue dragon.
Metal
The west side of the map is autumn. Perhaps mines, caves, mountains. The metal temple is guarded by a white tiger.
Water
The north side of the map is tundra, frozen, glacial. The ice temple is guarded by a black tortoise.
Fire
The south side of the map is hot, summer, desert. The fire temple is guarded by a phoenix.
The ordinal directions can be mixes of these. Northwest (Water + Metal) might be my bridge area. Southwest (Metal + Fire) might be volcanic. Southeast (Fire + Wood) might be tumbleweed badlands. Northeast (Water + Wood) might be swamp/marsh.
I've been tossing around the idea of a main story arc involving immortality.
The human civilization is on the tail end of some golden/enlightenment age where there humans have achieved immortality. Depending on who you ask, it's because of favor of the gods or because of studious use of magic.
Humans start dying and their bodies become undead, perhaps over the span of a few years. It is feared that all of humanity has "fallen from grace" and is in danger of (un)death. The religious leaders of the capitol city blame magic, discredit it as all necromancy, and execute anyone who practice magic. Some escape before the executions. The hero is not so lucky, and is publicly executed. The bodies are dumped outside the walled city, assumed they are condemned to wander as undead for their crimes.
The hero wakes up outside the city. Apparently alive and uninjured. The hero appears to still be immortal, or at least not subject to the undead affliction. He stumbles upon a small group of survivors -- some escaped the city before the witchunts, others were from remote villages that were abandoned when the plague struck.
With most of society huddled into the city walls, the wilderness is overrun with monsters and undead.
The hero begins to explore for supplies. As he explores he uncovers clues of corruption. The oligarchy was losing influence and power as society became classless. They turned to corruptive magic. It probably went farther than they had planned, but to many of them the ends justify the means. With the citizens in fear, they now have unlimited power and wealth.
The hero might help establish a haven apart from the main city. The hero might decide to attack the oligarchy. The hero might look for a way to reverse the curse of mortality.
Main Themes
Survival - I like a small number of survivors in a deadly environment. Especially if they have a hard time trusting each other.
Exile - Perhaps there is a safe haven (e.g. walled city) but for some reason the hero has been exiled to the dangerous wilderness.
Tyranny - Only the ruling class is allowed to have weapons, literacy, magic, etc.
Exploration - The player shouldn't be stuck on one path. I like large open worlds. I like the ability to wander into areas far too tough for my current level.
Ancient - The game world is old. Civilizations have come and gone. Powerful weapons and knowledge are hidden away in abandoned ruins.
KoreanGuy: thanks! All great suggestions.
Tartos,
If you're using that 4x4 tile "temple entrance", you'll want that in the background. To display correctly, you'll want to divide that large tile so that it's actually 7 individual tiles, in vertical slices. The middle slice will be 64 pixels wide, and the others will be 32 pixels wide. The white dots show the centerpoint of each of the 7 base tiles.
Also,
Re: Tartos
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