Sunday, July 29, 2012

Flippin' Hell - Hiatus Almost Over!

  Brand new game idea.  Has me really excited.

  It combines all the little elements from other games I like that are otherwise not-so-good games and combines them into a coherent narrative.  I do make enough legally distinct changes of course, I plan on using my own sound and graphics so there shouldn't be a problem.

  The basic idea is "/story" you end up selling real estate in the underworld.  You clear out dungeons, fix them up and sell them.  It combined the interior decorating of Animal Crossing with the speedy violence of Ys with the massive collectionism of... well, nothing specific.  Just LOTS of items.

  I'd really like the graphics to be in 3D, but if I can't even draw things in 2D how am I supposed to in 3D?  Since there's no physics involved I don't even need to do complicated 3D junk, I can actually code completely with a 2D mindset and just have it "display" as 3D (like early Playstation titles)

  Anyways, I'm not sure what counts as copyright these days... but the PROTOTYPE title of the game is "Flippin' Hell".  It's a play on words of flipping houses in the underworld theme and a common phrase. 


...

  So far I have a well fleshed out synthesis and drop system.  In the final version I plan for there to be 7 main levels and one secret level (Based on the 7 layers of Dante's hell... how original).  But the game isn't EXACTLY "level" based.  Think of the levels like terrains.

  In addition to selling the houses to the minions of hell, you also have to manage the neighbourhoods.  The race wars between the Elves and Dwarves would make them bad neighbours.  Slimes get along with everyone, but because Slimes are go-to-morons they take all the jobs, threatening higher employment.  If people are unhappy they sell their house and you have to fix it up again...

... ... Unless that was your intention all along MWAHAHA!  Profiting off the misery of others, the true moral code of the real estate agent.  

  You might not care about neighbourhood statistics or employment and might ONLY care about the money, fair enough.  When you sell a house you must navigate your dialogue options to give the right impressions to the potential buyer... you'll get bonus weight for the first impression, windows grant bonuses/penalties based on the view.  If you can manage to display all the goodies without letting the threats get exposed you have a sale.

  There is no full disclosure in hell, but if your house as a basement that's on FIRE and they catch you before you disclose that's a massive penality... or bonus if the mob you're selling to likes your style~!

  So, accrue furniture, clear a dungeon, fix up the dungeon rooms into housing, decorate the houses, sell the houses, maintain the dungeon neighbourhood and repeat until bored.

That's the idea.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Steam Summer Sale

  It's not up yet.

  Where is it?

  ...

  Anyways, whenever the Steam Summer Sale finally occurs, ends, and I get out of my burnout of playing too many games, I should be sick and tired of Diablo 3 (pretty close already, good thing I got it free) by the time Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2 come out.

  After that, it's back to game development.

  I even have a brand new project.  An RPG this time.  Notable since all my previous games have been arcade style or platformers.  I'm told I might be better at designing an RPG since I need more static art than animations and I'm a mathematical genius (apparently).  Moreover RPG music requires a different flare than music for other genres.

  The idea is I want a game that has the collectible home decorating of Animal Crossing with the life in a dungeon reality of Dwarf Fortress

  I think you can home decorate in Elona, but I don't remember.  Plus I wanted to talk about ecosystems and the "life" of a dungeon.  Where do baby slimes come from?  What's the weather like?  How do spiders interact with skeletons?  I think I'll have interaction tables between every object class, so everything will be able to interact with everything.

  Crafting:  I want the player to be able to craft anything out of anything.  No recipe for "Long Bow", just attach anything string-like to anything wood-like (or suitable tags) and tell the game what you want it to be.  An iron chain might be terrible for a bow made of almond flour, but at least you can.

  Well, that's it for this short update...  Lok