$12256 / $11500
Putting this out to the community, to hear sense from all perspectives.
At the start of 2012 I laid out plans for the entire year of Flare's development: http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/todo.php . If you've been following along, you'll notice that most of this is Engine specific. In fact, all of the releases so far have been more focused on the Engine side of Flare.
The milestones outlined for 2012 are mainly about rewriting existing code to be flexible/moddable. It's all furthering an engine. Which means all the current features might not be elegant, but they're sufficient to create a game.
My original goal for this project, long-term, was to make several games. Save refactoring for when it's needed (new game) instead of trying to plan for future situations. Iterate enough times and the final engine should be proven.
So now I'm pondering: maybe I should go all in on taking the current alpha demo and making it a polished game. Gather up all the lessons learned. Save the big refactoring work for next time, when I'm making game #2 anyway.
There are things I feel are "bad" about the current demo. I don't like much of the old tile/creature art (bad lighting, few frames of animation, etc). I don't really like the way Powers unlock. I don't like the way stats scale. Maybe these can be salvaged with small tweaks. Or maybe it's all broken enough that the time to fix everything is now.
So, community, I want your thoughts. I could focus the rest of the year making the engine flexible, and start creating new high-quality assets now. Or, I could focus the rest of the year polishing and shipping this game (and start engine refactoring next year). What do?
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Hi Clint! Please work on the game! :) I played it and really enjoyed it but if story and other aspects improve I believe this can be a free software hit. I didn't care for the respawning every time one leaves for a new area. If you could end that and put in at least a written intro that explains the hero's goal/intention, this could attract a lot more support. It's best to take one step at a time. I'm merely a casual gamer but I regularly read your website updates to see if the gaming aspect is updated and I suspect many visitors to the site are like that. Best regards and thanks for the game!
TL;DR: Please work on the game, thanks for the hard work so far!
Just my opinion, but i would choose trying to finish the current game.
The reason, at least in my case, is that if you try to create a really flexible framework, you are expending lots of time just doing it. Im sure your drive when you started was to create a "single" game, thus you are starting to loose sight of your original goal, and your determination goes down, since your advancements towards it are pretty slow (at least in a superficial level) you start feeling like your not really achieving it.
My advice, leave that engine documented and "modular" enough to be used in the future and center yourself on finishing the actual game, rationally thinking, just one game is a huge amount of work, to finish it is a true achievement, and you are already worrying about the future ones?
I'd prefer to finish a game, but I think there are a few technical limitations that need to be addressed as that game is made.
The first thing that is lacking in Flare is a good power system where you choose powers instead of get them based on your stats. Currently, it's common to get a power you can't or won't ever use or to not get a power at all.
Secondly, I think that the current release needs to be finished up (advanced enemies). No sense in halfway doing what we are working on.
Also, as Anon mentioned, we need rudimentary cutscenes so we can tell the story better.
It's likely that Game 2 will have features that are backwards compatible with the first game, so the engine will probably need to be bundled with the game anyway. The first game should be a standalone game with a different version of the engine. If we keep tweaking the engine, we'll have to update all the content, even as that content grows.
Another argument for building a game: I like the feeling of finishing things. Having a finished game in mind and a date to do it by would be welcome, even if that doesn't mean the end of the Flare engine development (in preparation for game 2).
I would suggest to focus on the game. Maybe not so much over "the old tile/creature art (bad lighting, few frames of animation, etc)", and over a variety of races, classes, and spells, also interesting story line and big world. For example, open source game Tales of Maj'Eyal (http://te4.org/) has a lot of races/classes and good story line, where each race begin game in different parts of the world map. Also, it contains hidden races, classes, maps, and other things, that open up gradually with the passing game. In my opinion this is a very interesting solution, which adds desire to play more and open a new class and look at its features. At the same time game has a bit animation, but it did not stop game and ToME won the 2011 roguelike of the year award.
Another game for the reincarnations of which I am following this Arcanum. It has races, classes, spells, interesting story line and big world, but also very different steampunk's technologies. That technologies and the possibility to make traps, improved guns and other useful things from garbage are most attracted me to the Arcanum. It would be interesting to see Arcanum-like game on FLARE engine. There is two ways: easy - create game, using Arcanum's original data files. (Project OpenArcanum already did many steps in that way - http://youtu.be/Vw9Pwz13QjA ) And complex - to create from scratch the whole art, animations, world, story line...
Anyway, I think the most important thing for the game is to come up with special thrill, which would have featured it from other games and would attract players. Current state of the engine is very good and I think that it will be possible to increase its capabilities when story line+big world will be finished and special thrill will be found.
PS sorry for my poor English. I'm from Russia =)
I think you are missing the point Anonymous from above, he wants to do everything himself, so getting graphics from other place would only disturb the game due to lack of homogenity in graphics, also i really doubt selecting races will do little more than adding a tiny bit of variety, especially since it would involve doing portraits and models for each race, sex AND class. Too much work for just being able to select human, elf or wathever. Think its just one person working on it as a hobby, but i agree with the rest of your opinions. I also loved Arcanum.
I don't think Clint necessarily wants to do everything himself. He's done numerous commissions, as well as accepting resources from other people.
By the way, I do concur with the above posts as said before. Getting a game done is a huge and important step which will likely have big effects on the visibility of the engine. Also, I want to play it. =D
The game!
I think a good game will generate a lot more attention, excitement and contributors.
Another free software game engine is not news, but a well designed free-software with a little polish gathers quite a following.
Also, I think the best way to know what features the game engine should have is to build a game. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_ain%27t_gonna_need_it
Also, if I was hunting for a game engine, I'd want one that was used to create a good game. I don't see how a game engine could be well rounded or well tested without being used to make a good game.
I say focus on the game, but stick with the idea of developing both... just use the game as the focus, and have the game development tell you what features you should add to the engine.
I think the game engine can only be truely flexible and appropriate for making a variety of games once you make the second game using it (and expand it further so it can support both games.)
Glad you're thinking about this :)
Thanks for all your work! You're one of by big reasons for finally signing up for flattr.com
- Jason
http://jasonwoof.com/
Game!
Game!
Every other coder who starts contributing to open source writes his own game engine; There are so many game engines out there, all of them having pros and cons.
But how many good games are there actually?
In my opinion most of the games are lacking either good art or game balance or story or all of these points. So only a few games are actually cool open source games, so if you focus on game, you'd have more attention and likely more contributors coming up anyway :)
- Stefan
I would like to second basically everything that Jason mentioned.
Keep the code clean and simple by following KISS.
Don't implement "features" in advance, but only once you actually need them.
The future stress test of the engine will be interesting, when you decide to write the second game.
Focus on creating the game and add assets to it:
- sound
- graphics (enemies, npcs, players)
- maps
But continue to develop the engine to implement the generic features that are required by the game.
- random dungeon generation? (probably rather hard to implement)
- more enemy behaviours, flying was a good start. What about enemies that can swim, etc.
And I also signed up to flatter only because of your FLARE project.
cheers /u
I think for now main focus should be on the game. But only after releasing version 0.17 "Menu config". The game without ability to change settings using options menu is bad game.
Game!
By completing the game, you will creating the engine.
The next game can further enhance and extend the engine.
Whichever direction you take, I will continue to eagerly anticipate each release, and future games.
Game as well. :)
Game!
Actually, one thing make me look at your project, and it is that it is not "YAGE" : Yet Another Game Engine unusable because of the lack of data to use the engine.
There are some FOSS games which are successful. By memory, I can tell some of them: wesnoth, nexuiz (which is no longer really FOSS), freedroid_rpg... (and some other I do not remember the name, like a clone of settlers)
In my mind, what made them working so far is the content, not the code. Wenoth is probably one of the most known FOSS games, and the big point with it, is an impressive storyline, which were improved over time. Like you are doing.
Obviously, I think that the code could be refactored (as I said in the tracker. I will split my modifications into very small commit before sending them, to allow you to choose only the ones you think usable. This is actually I did not send anything for now - I really can understand your point of view - ) but it is not a high priority.
Brilliant game. I am not a gamer per se, just in lunch hours, online chess that sort of thing. Came across FLARE and was blown away. I can't get any work done. Please finish the game. As said above, I'd get the story sorted and stop respawning once you leave a page, but well done so far.
Loved this!
Hi,
Game also.
Writing the engine base is *rather* easy, finish it to be the perfect framework is almost impossible.
But when you have a nice-looking game made with a bit of creativity and something basic but functional, there is at least something to start from.
Game Please!
I am greedy and would like more of the game but I have already played it for about 30 hours and found it quite enjoyable.
As a demo, it is great.
I would love there to be a really easy to use engine for this kind of game as it would encourage artists and game makers to make more games.
game vs engine I would vote for continuing to alternate. The game does not have to finish. Like many great stories another book or chapter comes out and the adventure continues.
I would suggest building a feature that provides the cutsceens as have been requested along with a tracker for the game to know when you have completed all available quests(special features) at least once. After the last cutscene, provide a Quests Completed cut scene. "You have faired well in these lands and much adventure awaits in your future but the path to those adventures is not yet clear. Would you like to continue exploring the realms as they are now?"
Keep up the great work.
Hi Clint, since you want to improve graphics overall i think you should have a look at this game, difference between this and yours is obvious but im sure you could improve your animations, ect... to the same level or better, and get rid of the somewhat laking animation frames:
http://armorgames.com/play/13054/dungeon-king-dreadstorm-keep
Also the movement system of that game is not bad at all, i prefer it to the one used on Diablo.
And, what did you decide on the end? Game or engine?
Danimal, nice game example. Looks like they use static 2D backgrounds to nice effect. That quality certainly is possible in my engine.
I'm gearing up to make a game with high quality assets. The engine will mature if the game is good enough.
Does this mean you will be moving to the new scale or just improving the current stuff. And even though I'm late i vote for a game as well. We already worked out the plot in an earlier thread when you asked about the new scale. Is that the story we are going to use?
verbalshadow, I'm mostly going to be working on the new scale. It's not simply going to be a new scale, but the art style is also going to be a significant change. It'll make more sense once the first new tile set is out.
I'm taking a different approach to plot. I'll talk about it later, once it's less nebulous.
I have some decent ideas for the existing art. Some of the maps/flow ought to be reworked, but I think the result will be worth it. It'll probably end up being a short game, but fairly easy to data mod.
that dungeon king game wont work for me. i gave it access to my hard drive and it still wouldnt load all the way in firefox. i tried various things but it always gets stuck on the loading screen and never goes beyond that. i did see a gameplay game in youtube though. looks pretty nice but the game pretty much forces you to run around the enemies in circles to not get hit otherwise you die alot. its really annoying to watch people play this game because of it. the axe sound gets annoying fast as well.
there are some interesting things going on though. the backgrounds are really good and diablo-ish. im assuming when you see below the walking areas that is just a picture background including all the columns and such that is supposadly holding up the tiles. curious though if these backgrounds would ever move position and be off depending if the screen got to large or stretched. I dont understand how you can make a static background stay in the right position when the screen size can be so different. even if you stretched the image it may not look right.
Acorn,
That Dungeon King game is a fixed window/view size. So no worries about scaling etc. The backgrounds are fixed and there are only a few foreground elements (e.g. barrels, doors). It's a pretty clever optimization choice for browser games.
The creatures are pre-rendered, and only in 5 directions. The remaining 3 are mirrored (notice the weapons change hands as creaures turn around).
There are only a few fixed background shapes, and only a few specific foreground features needed (each in preset screen positions).
It doesn't hurt that the artist is incredibly skilled.