Driftmoon subforum - Instant Kingdom

GAMES ABOUT US DRIFTMOON NOTRIUM FORUM

Forum » Driftmoon subforum

Driftmoon subforum

ville 15 years ago

This is the correct subforum if you have any questions and discussions related to Driftmoon. If you don't know what Driftmoon is, check this out.

Do open new topics for any of the questions you may have. If you have comments directly related to any of the posts in the development blog, please use the comments section there.

Amarth 15 years ago

Yay, a shiny new forum!

The screenshots look great. Can't wait to play around with this.

Narvius 15 years ago

Yay. That name sounds almost familiar ^.^
Looks great!

Crazy 15 years ago

This looks AWESOME! The journal bit made me lol.

Btw, you wrote that you're working on the new game with Anne. She can code? Or does sh-- ooh, new post icons.

ville 15 years ago

Thanks guys. Now don't be afraid to use the comments section of the blog either, I'm hoping to get good conversations going around there as well.

Anne can't code, or will not. But she's really interested in helping in any way she can, level design, graphics, all of those other things than actual coding.

Quanrian 15 years ago

So long as the game has either momentum, or flow, than I'm sure it will be fine. I see this genre of games as really needing that more so than the more open ended gameplay styles. Starting off with smaller islands, and than expand to gradually more complicated islands would be a no-brainer to me. I'm a big bonuses and replay whore, so I'd say unlockable characters or multiple characters is a must. My advice on characters is the tried and true opposing perspectives that blend together, making it much more of a comprehensive gaming experience when you play as both. Best of luck on the project!

ville 15 years ago

Momentum or flow is a bit tricky for any open ended game, as the player can pretty much cut the story flow by doing something completely unrelated to the story. So I'm focusing on exploration flow, with the player always finding something to explore or find. As for open endedness, I am going to force a certain order for the islands to be played at. Otherwise the player is free to play the islands in their order of choosing. The demo version doesn't really show the benefits of this, as you don't get to see any of the bigger areas in it.

At the moment I'm aiming for a solid story with a single character, so I haven't even thought about adding a second possible character. Could be nice though, I'll keep the option open. Driftmoon will be more conversation and story based than any of my previous games, so you have some leeway there to play your character differently.

Anne 15 years ago

"Crazy" said:

Btw, you wrote that you're working on the new game with Anne. She can code? Or does sh-- ooh, new post icons.

Nah.. Unfortunately I can't code. Not yet at least.

...and at the moment our lovely daughter Saara Maria, 8 months, doesn't really give me the chance (=time) to learn that fine art.

Actually, I think my most important contribution is in supporting and encouraging Ville do his gaming magic. I really do find his coding&game-designing "hobby" interesting and worthwhile, even though it does take up some time. In addition, I like to have wild discussions w. Ville on amazing twists of the game plot, photograph weird plants&objects (etc.) for the game(s), do testing and give A LOT of feedback&ideas (you can ask Ville, whether he thinks it's sometimes even too much).

Nevertheless, it's fun taking part where&when I can.

Zankman 15 years ago

Ooohh. Hm, I thought it was already out.

Anyway, I hope you make a good story for this game, every RPG has to have one.

DRL 15 years ago

The screenshots look great Ville

!
Can not wait to try it out

.

P.S.: The new desing of the homepage is really cool Ville, thanks for making it

!
|EDIT|:
Ville, sorry to bother you with this but when I try to download something (Tried Wazzal & Notrium), it tells me:


Warning: require(templates/dl_files.inc.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/monkkonen/public_html/download.php on line 1

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'templates/dl_files.inc.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /data/home/monkkonen/public_html/download.php on line 1

Sorry to post it here, I know it is a bit off-topic.

ville 15 years ago

Thanks for letting me know, it should be fixed now.

Crazy 15 years ago

"Anne" said:
"Crazy" said:
Nah.. Unfortunately I can't code. Not yet at least. ...and at the moment our lovely daughter Saara Maria, 8 months, doesn't really give me the chance (=time) to learn that fine art.

Oh, trust me, it's neither fine ("Damnit, this thing is 8 lines long, how can it be bugged?!") nor an art (It's really more of a science).

Not to want to be the one to start with the nagging, but when might we mortals get to catch a glimpse of an alpha/beta/demo? Also, what will be the payment options?

PS. I like how your avatars are the same as the two pictures on the main page, ie. the two current developers. Though i doubt that's chance.

ville 15 years ago

The avatar on the right is not actually Anne's avatar, though I proposed she use it. She liked the angel avatar better.

I'll try to elaborate on your question of "when" tomorrow in the blog, since it's a pretty big/common question. As for payment options, I don't know yet. I haven't really looked into it.

Anarion 15 years ago

I've gotta say Ville, this new game looks pretty sweet mate! There's some really nice detail in there and the lighting looks great too. What game engine are you using for it? I'm also curious to know, being an rpg, what options are you going to have in terms of character customisation?

ville 15 years ago

Thanks Anarion!

For character customization, I haven't touched that subject much yet, so I cannot say much for certain. Options will likely be combat related, and you will probably do them further into the game than the start.

For engine I'm using my own. It's been pretty long in development, I started work on the engine back in 2005, though I only started tuning it for Driftmoon this spring. It's working pretty great, but there's still a lot to do.

FinDragon 15 years ago

I.. i'm.... muted. Thesa Driftmoon's introduction pics are wondrous. I am SO jealous that it cant be even described. Keep up the good work V. OH! and almost forgot, WHEN is the Demo or beta version out?????

E_net4 15 years ago

According to the entries, not even Ville knows when there will be a stable demo.

And I might not post on this subject so much, but I am looking forward to it. Don't give up!

ville 15 years ago

Thanks FinDragon! I'm glad you like the look, and obviously these screenshots are only preliminary alpha stage shots.

E_net4 is correct, I don't know when the demo is coming out. It might take a few more months I'm afraid, as I want it to work much like the final game will. After the demo is completed I'll be at full steam to finish the rest of the game levels, so I want the demo to be feature-complete.

Crazy 15 years ago

"ville" said:
The avatar on the right is not actually Anne's avatar, though I proposed she use it. She liked the angel avatar better.

Ah yes, of course, how could i have missed that.

Quanrian 15 years ago

"ville" said:
At the moment I'm aiming for a solid story with a single character, so I haven't even thought about adding a second possible character. Could be nice though, I'll keep the option open. Driftmoon will be more conversation and story based than any of my previous games, so you have some leeway there to play your character differently.

Well the interesting thing about developing a character, is you inevitably have to pick characteristics, which there are usually opposites for. There have been entire games built around the black/white versions of a character, and this could be an aspect to explore. What I actually want to suggest, is that you develop one character, and in response, Anne develops a character. I think that could work, but I'm thinking in a very theoretical sense, in that you both are not likely to design the same character. However, if both of you are thinking along the same lines than the two can still relate in-game, while maintaining individuality through their creator (you and Anne).

ville 15 years ago

That's an interesting angle. I wouldn't want the characters to be moral opposites, as I do think that's quite a cliche these days. I'm more interested in providing different gameplay and replayability. For new characters( that may appear sometime later or not) I should definitely try to get Anne's take on Driftmoon gameplay. I believe it would be a lot less combat heavy, and more of finding interesting things to do in the world, but she might just prove me wrong.

One though that comes to mind is that for some roleplaying seems to mean that you can choose a good option or an evil option in dialogue, and for some it seems to mean that you can get experience points. With Driftmoon I'm actually going for more of the latter, though not in the sense that you'd be constantly battling and grinding to get xp.

Grim Reaper 15 years ago

"ville" said:
One though that comes to mind is that for some roleplaying seems to mean that you can choose a good option or an evil option in dialogue, and for some it seems to mean that you can get experience points.

If you're going to add Good/Evil conversation options, why not go full-out and include British as well?

ville 15 years ago

In case it wasn't clear, I'm not going to include good/evil options, at least not so clearly as for the other option to be meaningless to any good player. What most bugs me with good/evil conversation options is that they are there just so you could say them for fun. Most players will select their alignment in the beginning of the game, and always later choose dialogues according to that. So they will essentially miss half of all the dialogues. You could say this would encourage replayability, but in the end I've always ended up playing the game with good options again.

But yeah, I'm definitely going to include British conversations.

Redemption 15 years ago

One of the best good/evil choices I have ever had in a game was in Fallout 3. The situation ran thusly:
I had just arrived at Paradise Falls. I saw a nice, respectable looking fellow at the gate and decided to have a chat with him, to figure out where I was. Shortly into the conversation, I realised, to my horror, that the gentleman was a slaver. Being of the good guy persuation, I expressed my absolute support for his industry and inquired as to whther or not they were hiring.
The moment he let me through the gate I pulled the pin on a grenade, slipped it in the slaver's pocket, and strode purposefully into Paradise Falls.
There were no survivors (Except for the slaves. Of the good persuation, remember?).

A stereotyped good character would have shouted "Have at you!" first, but that takes away half the fun. Point is, actions speak louder than words. Being able to make those words lies adds spice to the action.

Now apply British to the above.

ville 15 years ago

Ooh, that sounds clever!

You had to do a bit of lying and a bit of killing, but it was for the good of the slaves. That's the kind of gray area choises I'd like to have, though obviously Driftmoon will be much simpler than Fallout.

Amarth 15 years ago

Yes, I've always liked dialogues like that. Planescape:Torment also did things like that all the time. You had a moral question, something along the lines of "will you help me kill this semi-innocent person and be rewarded well?" and the possible answers you could give were:
1) Yes
2) Yes [Lie]
3) I have to think about that
4) No
5) No [Lie]

Another nice example is from KOTOR2. You meet a beggar and you're offered the choice to give him money. Of course, me being the altruistic Light-sided Jedi, I gave him the money. Immediately after that, you see a cutscene were the beggar walks out on the street, gets assaulted, robbed and killed. Oops. One of your party members then starts a whole discussion about thinking of the consequences of your actions and how it would have actually been better to let him fight for his own destiny the hard way instead of helping him yourself (mind you, she has her own reasons for starting that discussion). Very interesting scene.

Thinking further about that, it seems to me that much of the interesting storytelling in RPGs comes from the party members. While it's hard not to make the player character a rather bland person (simply because you don't know what the player will do with him - P:T, KOTOR1 are notable exceptions here but amnesia is perhaps a bit of a cliche), you can really flesh out the party members, their background, their relations, ... Just take a look at what Mass Effect did there, one party member is the daughter of a main enemy, party members create conflicts because of romantic reasons, at one time there's even a rebellion going on where one party members doesn't want you to continue an assigned mission. Pointing a gun at a member of your own party, now that is storytelling.

Of course, it's possible to do storytelling without a party. However you might want to give the character at least an interesting backstory then. I think about Legerdemain then. At first it's not clear what is going on, you awake in a jail with the door unlocked but what and how you have no idea. Gradually you discover clues about your past and the world around you and it turns out you are not just a random person trying to stop the evil of the world.

Hmm, I'm not going anywhere with this post am I? Yes, I've always liked dialogues like that. Planescape:Torment also did things like that all the time. You had a moral question, something along the lines of "will you help me kill this semi-innocent person and be rewarded well?" and the possible answers you could give were: 1) Yes 2) Yes [Lie] 3) I have to think about that 4) No 5) No [Lie] Another nice example is from KOTOR2. You meet a beggar and you're offered the choice to give him money. Of course, me being the altruistic Light-sided Jedi, I gave him the money. Immediately after that, you see a cutscene were the beggar walks out on the street, gets assaulted, robbed and killed. Oops. One of your party members then starts a whole discussion about thinking of the consequences of your actions and how it would have actually been better to let him fight for his own destiny the hard way instead of helping him yourself (mind you, she has her own reasons for starting that discussion). Very interesting scene. Thinking further about that, it seems to me that much of the interesting storytelling in RPGs comes from the party members. While it's hard not to make the player character a rather bland person (simply because you don't know what the player will do with him - P:T, KOTOR1 are notable exceptions here but amnesia is perhaps a bit of a cliche), you can really flesh out the party members, their background, their relations, ... Just take a look at what Mass Effect did there, one party member is the daughter of a main enemy, party members create conflicts because of romantic reasons, at one time there's even a rebellion going on where one party members doesn't want you to continue an assigned mission. Pointing a gun at a member of your own party, now that is storytelling. Of course, it's possible to do storytelling without a party. However you might want to give the character at least an interesting backstory then. I think about Legerdemain then. At first it's not clear what is going on, you awake in a jail with the door unlocked but what and how you have no idea. Gradually you discover clues about your past and the world around you and it turns out you are not just a random person trying to stop the evil of the world. Hmm, I'm not going anywhere with this post am I?

ville 15 years ago

I certainly hope to include party members in a possible sequel. I agree that they really bring out the story, even if sparsely used.

FinDragon 15 years ago

Yeah, i totally agree. Almost every good RPG has a party, even if the main char plays the biggest part and they drink tea at the backseat of an old Lada.

E_net4 15 years ago

"ville" said:
For character customization, I haven't touched that subject much yet, so I cannot say much for certain. Options will likely be combat related, and you will probably do them further into the game than the start.

On that, being able to change the clothes' colour would be interesting.

What about the skills? Will there be any specific classes or masteries? In Titan Quest a character can have 2 from the various masteries (Earth, Spirit, Storm, Warfare, etc.) which contain spells. Thus the player can invest skill points (gained by leveling up) on the mastery itself (increasing attributes based on the mastery) or on spells. This approach works nicely, and it makes characters more unique.

ville 15 years ago

My current plan is to have the basic stats many of you are familiar with, strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence and constitution. In addition there will be a perk system similar to the Fallout series, where you can pick some interesting perk every once in a while. I have already a system in place for the experience points, so all that is left is to find out the perks. I'll probably name them talents because perk sounds so much like Fallout.

Quanrian 15 years ago

"ville" said:
My current plan is to have the basic stats many of you are familiar with, strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence and constitution. In addition there will be a perk system similar to the Fallout series, where you can pick some interesting perk every once in a while. I have already a system in place for the experience points, so all that is left is to find out the perks. I'll probably name them talents because perk sounds so much like Fallout.

Are the talents stand-alone, or will they have expansions into other talents? I've always found it nice to build characters in a logical manner, like having to learn to build things, if it's unlikely you would find a fishing rod, and wish to fish. Another interesting thing I found in many rpgs, is promoting exploration, by rewarding the player with special talents. Obviously, the best talents should be hidden away, and require actual exploration to discover, and possibly even some real challenges.

ville 15 years ago

I've been thinking about having a talent tree, or at least you'd be able to advance any talent you may have. Giving special talents for finding special places and doing special quests definitely sounds like a good idea, I'll keep that in mind.

Narvius 15 years ago

Just don't make the mistake many jRPG's do: Award the ability/talent/super weapon once it's useless.

MageKing17 15 years ago

"Narvius" said:
Just don't make the mistake many jRPG's do: Award the ability/talent/super weapon once it's useless.

Or make all enemies against which it would be useful immune *coughDeathcough*.

Ability trees are fun, but I don't like it when most things have only one possible way of reaching them. I prefer when branching ability trees have some cross-connections, so you can learn either (for instance) "slash" or "stab", and while "slash" can go into "double-slash" and "stab" can go into "rapid flurry" (making names up at random, here), either one can go into "cleave".

Quanrian 15 years ago

"ville" said:
I've been thinking about having a talent tree, or at least you'd be able to advance any talent you may have. Giving special talents for finding special places and doing special quests definitely sounds like a good idea, I'll keep that in mind.

Another thing to consider, is to 'not' use talents that have been used to death in every game with an rpg element in them. Perhaps, it may be better to focus on talents that are directly relevant to the game and the setting the game takes place in. The trick is to make those talents recognizable enough, that they do not need further explanation. You should also keep in mind the many discussions we had on symbols versus text, as certain symbols, shapes, and/or objects have a more universal meaning. A pan for instance, could represent cooking, and many cultures would know, without explanation, that the pan likely means cooking.

While you do seem to focusing a lot less on making the game action heavy, and a lot more on being a casual experience, I would suggest looking at other such popular casual experiences. It might be a good idea, along with cooking, to have agriculture of some manner. With agriculture and cooking as main talent aspects, you could break them down into smaller aspects, like how well you can cook, and what types of food, perhaps even eventually able to create or discover recipes. One example I can think of for argiculture, might be creating an irrigation ditch. While I've no doubt I'm going to get stoned for making these suggestions, they will assure people will spend more time playing the game, and can and should even be directed towards forwarding the story.

Going off on tangent, it occurs to me that some games have actually used their skills, or talents as you call them, to branch the story off in different directions depending on the decisions you make. I've brought up argiculture and cooking as two aspects, and both could be used to impact the storyline in ways far less mundane than, go here, or get this. Take all these thoughts with a grain of salt, as each will require careful consideration, and will not just snap into place like a lego block. [quote="ville"]I've been thinking about having a talent tree, or at least you'd be able to advance any talent you may have. Giving special talents for finding special places and doing special quests definitely sounds like a good idea, I'll keep that in mind.[/quote] Another thing to consider, is to 'not' use talents that have been used to death in every game with an rpg element in them. Perhaps, it may be better to focus on talents that are directly relevant to the game and the setting the game takes place in. The trick is to make those talents recognizable enough, that they do not need further explanation. You should also keep in mind the many discussions we had on symbols versus text, as certain symbols, shapes, and/or objects have a more universal meaning. A pan for instance, could represent cooking, and many cultures would know, without explanation, that the pan likely means cooking. While you do seem to focusing a lot less on making the game action heavy, and a lot more on being a casual experience, I would suggest looking at other such popular casual experiences. It might be a good idea, along with cooking, to have agriculture of some manner. With agriculture and cooking as main talent aspects, you could break them down into smaller aspects, like how well you can cook, and what types of food, perhaps even eventually able to create or discover recipes. One example I can think of for argiculture, might be creating an irrigation ditch. While I've no doubt I'm going to get stoned for making these suggestions, they will assure people will spend more time playing the game, and can and should even be directed towards forwarding the story. Going off on tangent, it occurs to me that some games have actually used their skills, or talents as you call them, to branch the story off in different directions depending on the decisions you make. I've brought up argiculture and cooking as two aspects, and both could be used to impact the storyline in ways far less mundane than, go here, or get this. Take all these thoughts with a grain of salt, as each will require careful consideration, and will not just snap into place like a lego block.

Forum » Driftmoon subforum

Post Reply