New Game Design

[k]

Hello. I heard about this from, of all things, "Something Awful," so their ridicule kind of backfired. So, hi! Seeing the useful XML tutorial here surprised me, but actually it does make sense to see material about inventing things.

I'm working on a programming project, Niss, which is an AI that can move around a little world finding food, understand a little English, learn, reason, write journal entries, and talk (in text) mostly without canned dialogue. (An older version duplicated and went a little beyond the conversation system from "Morrowind," if you've played that.) Niss is meant to resemble a raccoon-girl, and the code and journal are riddled with Sonic references.

But I'm not sure right now how to continue with the project, and could use brainstorming help. Anyone know anything about programming, especially Python? Or have ideas for game design in general?

What I'd like to build, someday, is something a little like the comics: a colony where you have a large number of AI characters interacting, and parties of characters going out on RPG missions to explore bases and ruins. It'd be highly customizable. What would you want to be able to do in a game like that? In the meantime I'm working on a simpler game, a sort of island of otter-people. I could also release a software toy for people to play with, if there were interest -- a system that lets you build a "Morrowind"-style bot to talk to -- but that would be like most other AIs in that it just sits there.

[ShadowFan24]

Looks like something good actually did come from that thing with SA.

You're a programmer. What you're doing sounds complitcated to me.

[Kit]

Hi K! Welcome to the boards, I hope you like it. That all sounds pretty cool, but also complicating.

[k]

I'm a little out of my league, here! I was messing with code and put together this interface, where the top graphic is a still background made with the freeware landscape program Terragen. It's like a text-adventure, but with music, backgrounds, and the ability to be hooked up to my AI and other things.
But then I got a program called PyOgre working, and it did this -- in real time -- in one of the example programs that came with it without any changes! Worth investigating.
Also, I built half of a program called "A-Series" that imitates the conversation system from "Morrowind," but a bit more advanced, and can connect to an IRC channel. So you could program it as a character of your own and question it about various things.

[Kyran­]

k said:

What I'd like to build, someday, is something a little like the comics: a colony where you have a large number of AI characters interacting, and parties of characters going out on RPG missions to explore bases and ruins.

Thats a great idea, why didn't I think of that?

I'm building three games right now. The first is a party based SatAM game where you go out, get togeather a party and fix a spy bug. Its known as Dlpha. You can download it at www.satamonline.sepwich.com but you better make it quick before the server shuts down on the 15th.
The second is a life sim called Corrandale. And the third is a world conquest game were you have to take over Mobius and fulfill the Perfect Plan. Its known as The Perfect Plan. (Some peole might question what happened to New Beginnings, it was scraped in favor of Corrandale.)

[k]

I'm stalled!
I've been playing with the 3D engine "PyOgre" and built this plus translucent water --

-- and recently got a vaguely Sonic-style otter character drawing, but this system doesn't yet have its interface fully working.
And in 2D I've got a system in progress that looks kind of like this old version --

but needs real graphics and animation. Not sure what to do.

[k]

Hey. I liked the world-conquest idea of "The Perfect Plan," so I stole it! The other day I came up with an idea and started coding it. You play a wannabe Evil Overlord trying to take over the world with an army of robots.

Right now there's only a text-based program, but it lets you view a bunch of locations in the "Brass City Zone," with a tutorial that walks you through building your first robot, then a secret bunker. The completed demo will let you take over City Hall. If the game were to get developed farther, I'd add custom blueprints for robots, then multiple Zones you can conquer and rule. The "combat system" will actually be a more general "encounter system" that'd work for everything from a brawl to a rock concert, and that emphasizes looking cool instead of doing damage.

But what'd be really neat would be making it open-ended. The same basic system should let you play in different ways, so that instead of an evil genius you could play a group of friends who work to overthrow the overlord.

Sample output

[fuzzymoochicken]

Game programming with... Python...? Well, PyOgre looks interesting, though. But then... it is using Ogre, after all. =P I'm-a look into that.

-Wait, this topic is oooold, read the date wrong apparently. Oh well...