I have loot tables (also, story structure)

More importantly, I have an excel file for my Dudes now that I can export into the XML that my game reads, so I don't have to do it manually.

I also have a better idea of how story will work. More on this later.

EDIT

Okay, so my narrative structure. I've decided that instead of having single linear storyline with various optional sidequests, I'm going to make the whole game and storyline entirely optional and completely open.

Basically, each "story" is going to be a single thread. Linear or forking or whatever, doesn't matter.

Each thread is separate from the others, though threads may be linked via dependencies.

The "end of the game" isn't a set point. There is no set long-term goal - instead, the game will be comprised of a series of short- and mid-term goals tied together with a goal of "find out what happens next".

The overarching theme of the storylines will be, get out of this mess I've gotten myself into.

I want to break away from the linear story, and I think in this I can. Also, it's easier to handle from a conceptual standpoint, and not TOO much harder to program.

Combat is in (edit: for reals)

I mean, it;s a shell.

But you can enter combat, kill dudes, get your own dudes killed, gain experience points based on WHAT you killed, and yeah, pretty rad.

PRETTY RAD.


Now, I just need to expand. But the basework is in.

Okay that was all a bunch of lies. NOW it's in. We even have some basic user communication so it's not completely confusing.

But yes, I now have an entire infrastructure in place to handle different kinds of abilities, different effects, different targets, etc.

I need to implement energy and implement the abilities themselves (and how they are gained/lost). But for now, I need to set combat aside and begin shelling out my narrative so that the player actually has a game to play.

Phew.

Combat

Man I don't even.

So this morning I knocked out the levelling curve, the monster EXP curve, and implemented all the necessary functions into the Dude class.

I'm getting to the point where I pretty much HAVE TO IMPLEMENT COMBAT because I am running out of things to procrastinate with. %*$#.

My combat, I'm waffling between 2 different kinds, right? Basically, modifying Wild Arms style combat or doing some kind of bizarro FFX/GrandiaII style. The former is WAY EASIER than the latter, but both of them are scary hard anyways. Why so many JRPGs. I feel kind of lame.

Dudes are in

Kind of.

No mutation paths or moves yet, but we do have dynamic stats in place as well as scalability.

Level cap is set to 20.

How stats work:

• There are 4 base stats, STR, CON, MIND, and SPEED. 
• Each type of dude has preset Base Stats of 1 through 4 in each stat, for a total of 11.
• Then, when the game loads, each dude is randomly given a "Quality"
• 3 Qualities are "trash", "good", and "great", with a % chance of 52%, 33%, and 14% respectively. These numbers are HIGHLY subject to change.
• Quality determines the modifier rating on each stat.
• Modifier ratings are 1-5 on each stat, randomly generated out of a total stat pool based on the quality.
• Trash quality dudes get between 10 and 15 extra stat points
• Good quality dudes get between 16 and 19
• Great quality dudes get between 20 and 21.
• The Modifier rating is then adapted and applied to the Base Stats, increasing or decreasing them depending on the rating - 3 is 100% no change, 5 is 125%, and 1 is 75% effectiveness.
• This gives a final Stat Growth Rating, which determines the overall stat growth of the stat as the mob levels.

Next up is implementing basic combat without abilities, as well as levelling up.

Once that's done, I'll begin to has out mutations and abilities. Oh boy.

Last, we now have a quest input tool. Turns this: 

Into this:

Progress Report

Approaching the end of Week 5, and I have the following in place:

• Action infrastructure set up and working.
• Quest infrastructure set up with the following functionality:
• Load quest info from an XML document
• Quest choices and branching working 
• Quest unlocking and prerequisite working 
• Money and Item rewards 
• Inventory system
• Displays properly
• SCROLLING
• Map
• Nothing there yet, but infrastructure in place.

I feel like I'm on schedule, but there's still a ton of work to be done.

I have most all of what I wanted to accomplish by Week 4, and have actually knocked out a lot of the Week 6 stuff too.

What I need to do is shift gears and start working on Combat. By the end of this weekend I want to have the following in place:

• Spreadsheet with stats and stuff all figured out
• Dudes implemented in game and UI

Then the next step is implementing combat itself. I have about a week to do this, so I'm not too stressed.

last but not least, the interface has changed again. Oh well.

i lied

the old UI didn't give me enough space for options, also it was clunky and wasted a lot of space.

this is my new UI

MISSION UNLOCK SYSTEM

I want missions to unlock based on what you've done previously. Pretty standard stuff.

Problem: I want to have a complex unlocking system that not only could require multiple quests to unlock a new one, but also changes based on which CHOICES you made.

Solution: THINK REALLY HARD, CALL DAD.

Solution, for reals: Unlock points.

Each mission has a certain # of unlock points. When you complete prerequisite missions, it fires off a thing that subtracts an unlock point for each mission it affects.

When a mission's unlock points hits 0, then it appears.

GENIUS.

SOMETHING WORKS

IT'S A MIRACLE

INTERFACE

Finally figured something out, took long enough.

Key concept here is that I want to use the same interface for ALL in-game actions, no matter what it is, outside of combat. 

Biggest problem is Flash and the limitations that imposes. I don't have infinite vertical space like all the other spreadsheet games. I have 600 pixels. 

So, I'm stealing Echo Bazaar's "card" system for actions:

Coupled with Elements' intelligent use of Flash to condense things

And came up with this piece of #*%$...

But then thought about it REALLY HARD and ended up here:

Open Question #4: Programming

oh god

edit (10/09/10)

oh hey this isn't as hard as I thought it would be.

actionscript is easy, as long as you're not preoccupied with doing things like making your code legible, or understandable, or elegant in any way shape or form.

awwww yeeeeeahhhh

Open Question #3: Interfacing

I feel like maybe this should come before Open Question #2. Whatever.

So, how does the player interface with the game? This is a pretty heavy question considering that the interface is the game. Yeah my casual roots are showing.

Right now, I know this:

• Limited overworld
• Holy hell, real bullets. Thank you, blogger.
• No walking around, no collision. Too long to program.
• Any graphical representation of where you are is going to be in the form of a single solid image, a la Echo Bazaar, Pirate
• Zoned
• Zoning is really important, there's got to be distinct areas within the map and distinct things to do within those areas.
• I want to have the FEEL of an old school JRPG without having the OVERWORLD of one. 

Thinking about using a ninja saga-esque scheme for the "overworld"

• Zoomed out map showing all areas
• can see only currently unlocked areas 
• and silhouettes/hints of connecting areas? 
• Or maybe you can click on areas you've "seen" but cannot GET TO - trying to get to them results in failure that identifies why you cannot get there. 
• can only unlock areas connected to currently unlocked areas
• In-Area, show graphical mood image but not representative of physical space.
• Have storylet-style--

OH FUCK

WHAT IF

WHAT IF

THE INTERFACE FOR INTERACTING WITH THE ENVIRONMENT AND NPCS IS THE SAME AS THE INTEFACE FOR FIGHTING OH, SHIT.

OH, SHIT

OK SO

First things first, let's just figure out what the hell it is that the player is DOING in my game, yeah? Ok.

• Combat
• Initiate Combat
• ideally, have some semblance of a choice over what I fight, even if it's just the rough level of what I'm fighting.
• Actually have Combat
• Post Combat info (level up, loot gotten, etc)
• Menus - Pip boy style?
• Periodic Table/Pokedex - view dudes I have/have seen
• My Dudes
• names
• abilities
• stats???
• health and atk lol
• team-picker a la tenchi?
•  My Stuff
• Items
• Money
• Key Items
• Status
• 
  
• World
• Overworld - pick a place to go. also = map?
• Inside area
• Talk to person
• Explore area/item
• Opportunity cards.... I really love this, but how can I work it in. 

HUD

• 
  

Limitations:

• Flash means my canvas size is severely limited.
• So
• Like
• Yeah this is gonna be interesting

Open Question #2: Combat

okay apologies in advance for the horrid formatting here. I've been brainstorming in google docs and it's just such a waste of time to do that there and then retype everything lovely here. and since you're not going to read it anyways, then I'm just going to use this blog as a dump site for my brainstorming and such and not worry about making it exceedingly legible.

What's important? SPEED SPEED SPEED SPEED SPEED SPEED SPEED SPEED DO NOT FORGET THIS, OKAY FOR SERIOUS.

Now. List o interesting combat mechanics.

• Elements
• requires use of non combat cards to generate resource which your dudes use.
• limits you to one or two elements, and forces randomness by adding extraneous cards to deck
• binary have/dont: once you hit a certain point, mana is a non issue.
• false gods exploit this to increase difficulty.
• Pokemon: PP
• kind of a shitty limitation - only meaningful in endurance matches or when extremely low. 
• Just adds grind and frustration. 
• meaningless in battle, only important outside of battle. ew?
• Legend of Legaia: geometry
• each move consumes a certain amt of energy - players have max amt of energy per turn
• create interesting combos by stacking things weird
• very easy cost->effect correlation - better moves cost more.
• Tenchi game: Energy
• Gain 2 per turn
• moves use static amt, 1, 2, 3, 4

Okay this isn't gonna work

Moving to the bed

I have cut up a thousand little paper squares on which I am brainstorming


It's working pretty rad but I'm not quite at the point where I want to type it all up yet.


I'll get there, be patient.

Open Question #1: Narrative

First off, would like to extend a thank you to jason yankowski, who keeps reminding me I'm taking myself too seriously.

In that vein, this game cannot take itself seriously. Whatever I do for narrative, I gotta keep it simple and light. No complicated backstory. No racial tension and history and wars and no. This is not one of your novels. This is a game made in 7 weeks based off cloning pokemon. Stop thinking so hard.

Stop thinking so hard. 

Aight, so. What do I have so far:

• Creatures are muta
• 
  

You know what I need to do this with other people. BBL.


ok i am back


Here we go

• Name: Oh man I am so bad at naming things it's unbelievable.
• Setting
• Place
• A world similar to our own, but not in any specified current-world setting
• Scale is not global, not large
• Kind of a microcosm of a modern-day country, distilled into individual elements.
• Time
• The relatively near future, perhaps where we might be right now if we had fewer morals running around getting in the way of science.
• Atmosphere
• A bright, happy, civilized world with a somewhat brutal history of blood sports, the feel I am going for is that of elephant in the room.
• Inspiration: "Fido", a movie set in the 1950s where families keep dead relative zombies as pets. 
• Absurd in its disregard for commonly accepted morals and virtues - basically, poking fun at the implications behind games like pokemon and dragon quest monsters.
• Light hearted and humorous skin with an undercurrent of weird and kind of fucked up. Mocks self and common video game tropes, especially jrpg tropes.
• Characters
• You
• Age: 12 year old
• Gender: Pronoun chosen by player at game start.
• Personality: None, this is a jrpg clone.
• Your Family:
• Mom - Single mom, ostensibly does nothing but sit in the kitchen all day and watch TV. Always asking you for money. May or may not be a gadget junkie.
• Dad - Who knows? You certainly don't, and your mom won't tell you. You suspect it might be because she doesn't know <s>which one it could be</s>.
• Older Sibling - Your half brother. Kind of a douche bag. Had a different dad, a dandy who dabbles in politics and spoils Sibling rotten in order to keep him/her out of your hair. Comes back to troll you repeatedly.
• Plot
• History
• Colosseum-style combat experienced a sort of renaissance roughly a hundred or two years ago.
• After human vs human and human vs animal combat was banned as illegal, animal vs animal fighting increased in popularity.
• Gov't tried to ban, but like Prohibition, it didn't last long. Ban replaced by extremely strict rules for where fights may be held, and the format of fights.
• Also like Prohibition, it set the framework for a multitude of underground organizations who profited off of circumventing law.
• Use of drugs to augment animals begins to become prevalent.
• Major breakthroughs in regeneration and reconstruction allow damaged and even dead creatures to be brought back to life and health, most of the time.
• Drugs and enhancements continue to 1-up each other - the government legalizes the process in order to tax it and try and regulate it.
• Genetic engineering enters the mix.

• Creatures begin to be bred specifically for malleability and trainability. These traits are artificially fabricated and begin to spread like wildfire as a means of subduing potentially dangerous creatures.

• Modern Day
• Creature fighting is a widespread and widely accepted hobby, but the barrier for entry is high. Years of genetic fuckery have made creatures wildly unstable, and many escaped or renegade creatures have mingled and interbred with the wildlife to produce all sorts of weird wild creatures.
• While it's possible to purchase powerful, high quality creatures, they are expensive. Many poor kids simply catch and train their own, at personal risk.
• Creature fighting is seen as a widespread way for lower-income lower-social-class citizens to make it big, though the risks are huge and very few actually make it.
• You, the player, care about
• Money.
• You're 12 years old, congratulations! You're now legally allowed to participate in creature fights. Which is great because your mom is broke and if you want to go to college, you'd best get started now! 
• Lucky for you, your mom knows a guy who recently came into possession of a few very high quality creatures... you can even have one, for a price! I would feel bad extorting money from a 12 year old, so how about we play a game?
• Etc.
  
• Goals
• Immediate: Survival, paying back the money you owe.
• Short term: get out of whatever situation you're in.
• Long term: gain admittance to a formal sponsored team - essentially, go pro.