AscII Fallout 3
GMA
This is ripped answer for my last post, but in another thread. I've decided
to start a new one to clarify some things. The answers follow...
>>Ah! One more thing that might be kinda off topic. I'm going to make a
>>Fallout game called 'Ascii Fallout 3'. It's gonna be a roguelike with no
>>gfx/sfx - only ascii tiles and 80x25 text screen. I've been gathering infos
>>about the world and about FO game mechanics for some time now and have
>>recently started developing it. Unfortunatelly this project is quite big and
>>i've only designed basics of my engine: line of sight, player movement,
>>opening doors and such small things. If any of you who subscribes this
>>newsgroup has got *any* ideas concerning such game - please use this
>>newsgroup to share them with me. I'd like to know a lot about how the game
>>will look like before i start some serious coding, so like i said *any ideas
>>concerning for example cities, quests, monsters, locations, the world map
>>and so on are welcome.
>What kind of roguelike were you thinking of? Fallout has no big dungeons
>so would the fighting would be done in the wastes as random encounters
>and special quests?
Sure, it has, but there are vaults, mines, military bases, sewers, caves,
fallout shelters, bunkers, ghost towns, nuke holes like glow and so on.
There is bunch of places to visit :-) However fights in the wilderness will
also appear. I want the game to be just like Fallout, but in ascii.
>There's a sci fi roguelike called GearHead that's about giant mecha. The
>player travels from town to town completing missions and blowing things
>up in mech battles and exploring sewers/mines on foot.
Yup, i know it. It's quite nice, but i'm stuck to ADOM for now - i've been
playing this game fo too long to just stop and not finish it ;-)
>It'd probably be best to take Fallout's layout and asciify it. That
>would make it very plot/quest dependant compared to other roguelikes
>though.
Exactly, though many simplifications will have to be made. After all ascii
is poor when compared to fallout gfx and i'm no artist - i'm a coder. Of
course i'm writing the game in such a way that further adding of gfx tiles
will definitelly be possible, but as i said - not quite now.
>Here's a quest I thought of a while ago:
>The player meets 2 escaped convict NPCs hiding out in or near a town.
>The player learns from them that they robbed caravans but their partner
>deserted them and took the money to become a successful businessman in
>the town. They want revenge and the money.
>The player can either:
>1. Declare he's going to bring them to justice which results in combat.
>(Lawful Fighter)
>2a. Help them get revenge (Evil).
>The player is given a quest to scout the defenses around the
>businessman's house and report back. The player can sneak in at night
>(Sneaky) or talk his way in (Diplomat) or kill the businessman now and
>keep the loot himself which makes the escaped NPCs attack him if he
>returns to them (Fighter). After reporting back the player can then take
>part in an attack on the house (Fighter) or leave it up to the NPCs.
>2b. Betray them to businessman (Evil).
>The player can betray the NPCs by going to the businessman before or
>after scouting the house. The player is then given a quest to go silence
>the NPCs by himself (Fighter).
>2c. Betray them to sheriff (Lawful).
>The player can go to the sheriff after agreeing to help them get
>revenge. The player can then leave it up to the sheriff to handle them
>or go with the sheriff to fight them (Fighter).
>3. Talk them into going to the sheriff with their story (Lawful).
>The sheriff then gives the player a quest to get proof of the
>accusations. The player can then sneak in at night to find evidence of
>the businessman's past (Sneaky) or wear a bug and talk the businessman
>into giving the player the quest to silence the NPCs (Diplomat).
I like it! And i like Your approach to describing/making this quest. Many
aspects and 'doable' for many types of PC's. I'd really like to make quests
that different types of PC can finish in different ways. BI/Infogrames call
that Boy-paths and in f-games you've got SpeechBoy path, KillBoy path,
ThiefBoy path and so on. This is a great idea!
Ah! I'm preparing a web site for the game... some design docs, some ideas, a
description or two. I'll throw in a link when it's done, but for now anyone
with ideas, questions and suggestions please use this group to share/ask
them.
--
Greetz,
GMA
:: MyRL : AscII Fallout 3 v0.001 (AF3 for short)
:: Site : none yet
:: Relase : nothing to public
Bateau
\__/___ GMA ran through the
LI-\o-' streets of alt.games.fallout
| waving an axe and screaming:
/ \
>>What kind of roguelike were you thinking of? Fallout has no big dungeons
>>so would the fighting would be done in the wastes as random encounters
>>and special quests?
>
>Sure, it has, but there are vaults, mines, military bases, sewers, caves,
>fallout shelters, bunkers, ghost towns, nuke holes like glow and so on.
>There is bunch of places to visit :-) However fights in the wilderness will
>also appear. I want the game to be just like Fallout, but in ascii.
But none of them are 100 levels deep. To be 'dungeon' dependant you'd
have to have dozens of mines/bases/etc progressively getting harder like
in ToME.
>>It'd probably be best to take Fallout's layout and asciify it. That
>>would make it very plot/quest dependant compared to other roguelikes
>>though.
>
>Exactly, though many simplifications will have to be made. After all ascii
>is poor when compared to fallout gfx and i'm no artist - i'm a coder. Of
>course i'm writing the game in such a way that further adding of gfx tiles
>will definitelly be possible, but as i said - not quite now.
What do you need an artist for exactly? Are you going to use real ascii
art in the game? I think you should, at least for item descriptions and
stuff. Ascii artists are pretty easy to recruit too.
>I like it! And i like Your approach to describing/making this quest. Many
>aspects and 'doable' for many types of PC's. I'd really like to make quests
>that different types of PC can finish in different ways. BI/Infogrames call
>that Boy-paths and in f-games you've got SpeechBoy path, KillBoy path,
>ThiefBoy path and so on. This is a great idea!
Thanks. It's easy to get ideas if you watch westerns and read post
apocalyptic fiction.
>Ah! I'm preparing a web site for the game... some design docs, some ideas, a
>description or two. I'll throw in a link when it's done, but for now anyone
>with ideas, questions and suggestions please use this group to share/ask
>them.
--
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| (_~=/ \._`.'. .\ (_~_/ _, _..-''-._,____,----,____
| ='- \=~_) ; .\ ~^~~^~ ` (_~_/ `'--'` `~~~~)_)=\_\-.(
| -'= .\ ~^~ ~^~~^~
ICQ:11367619 EMAIL:bateau:-)jupiter-io.net WEB:http://tyrian2000.cjb.net
Chris F
a
> description or two. I'll throw in a link when it's done, but for now
anyone
> with ideas, questions and suggestions please use this group to share/ask
> them.
Out of curiosity, why ASCII? Unfortunately, with today's "whizbang" type
games, it's very hard to get any interest in any game without graphics... if
the game engine you're designing makes allowances for the future addition of
graphics, why not just add them now? Somthing simple, almost icon based...
consider Castle of the Winds as an example.
Bateau
\__/___ Chris F ran through the
LI-\o-' streets of alt.games.fallout
| waving an axe and screaming:
/ \
>games, it's very hard to get any interest in any game without graphics... if
>the game engine you're designing makes allowances for the future addition of
>graphics, why not just add them now? Somthing simple, almost icon based...
>consider Castle of the Winds as an example.
Castle of the Winds is pretty awful. A better example would be Ultima or
some of spiderwebsoftware.com's games like Exile :D
Are you familiar with Roguelikes? They're the most complex and
sophisticated adventure games ever created. Imagine Diablo with the
tiles replaced by coloured keyboard characters and with a billion times
the depth. A popular example of the intricacies of one of them:
"Eat a floating eye corpse and you'll get ESP, which will allow you to
see enemies anywhere on the map, but only while blinded. To take
advantage of it, you may want to drink a potion of blindness, or
preferably, find and wear a blindfold. Of course, while blindfolded,
even with ESP you won't be able to see inanimate objects on the
floor--when you find piles of items, your character will have to "feel"
for them. Oh, and you won't be able to read scrolls. Whoops! In that
pile of items you just felt is a cockatrice corpse--fortunately you were
wearing gloves, otherwise you would've been turned to stone just by
touching it. But now, blind and protected, you can pick up the
cockatrice corpse and use it to attack monsters--now your enemies will
turn to stone when you strike them! Unfortunately, their inventory turns
to stone as well. Hey, no problem-- you've got a pick-axe, so you can
chisel open their statues to yield a pile of rocks and any of their old
possessions. Sadly, thanks to the blindfold, you can't see a nearby pit
and tumble inside. Too bad you were holding the cockatrice corpse--it
landed on top of you and turned you to stone. You die." -- Dave Kosak
Of course, all the elements mentioned in that description have other
complex interactions with other elements too.
That's what you get when games are played almost solely by geeks and are
developed for decades. It's interesting to note that the same can be
said of 2 other sophisticated text based genres - MU*s and interactive
fiction.
Anyway, there is a great deal of interest in roguelike games as is
demonstrated by rec.games.roguelike.*
Bateau
LI-\o-' streets of alt.games.fallout
| waving an axe and screaming:
/ \
>description or two. I'll throw in a link when it's done, but for now anyone
>with ideas, questions and suggestions please use this group to share/ask
>them.
Have you seen Fallout: Warfare? It's a Fallout tabletop wargame that
came on the Fallout: Tactics bonus CD. Pretty easy to find a download.
There's also the pen and paper RPG:
http://www.iamapsycho.com/fallout/index.htm
GMA
> Have you seen Fallout: Warfare? It's a Fallout tabletop wargame that
> came on the Fallout: Tactics bonus CD. Pretty easy to find a download.
> There's also the pen and paper RPG:
> http://www.iamapsycho.com/fallout/index.htm
Of course :-) Both known and bothed used. I've been playing it a lot with my
friends. Then we started playing the p'n'p version and everything got
better. I mean that i've really got hooked up with the F-Universe. Playing
p'n'p and warefare is only a part of what i do... have you, for example,
tried to finish fallout games without killing a single person ? I have done
it... not once :-)
GMA
>>Out of curiosity, why ASCII? Unfortunately, with today's "whizbang" type
>>games, it's very hard to get any interest in any game without graphics... if
>>the game engine you're designing makes allowances for the future addition of
>>graphics, why not just add them now? Somthing simple, almost icon based...
>>consider Castle of the Winds as an example.
>
> Castle of the Winds is pretty awful. A better example would be Ultima or
> some of spiderwebsoftware.com's games like Exile :D
Exile's nice - my first RL to play! Such tiles would be amazing, but the
game's world and setting make them useless.
> Are you familiar with Roguelikes? They're the most complex and
> sophisticated adventure games ever created. Imagine Diablo with the
> tiles replaced by coloured keyboard characters and with a billion times
> the depth.
It would be marvellous! That's for sure!
> That's what you get when games are played almost solely by geeks and are
> developed for decades. It's interesting to note that the same can be
> said of 2 other sophisticated text based genres - MU*s and interactive
> fiction.
They are developed by decades - true. But i ain't no geek ;-)
GMA
> Out of curiosity, why ASCII? Unfortunately, with today's "whizbang" type
> games, it's very hard to get any interest in any game without graphics... if
> the game engine you're designing makes allowances for the future addition of
> graphics, why not just add them now? Somthing simple, almost icon based...
> consider Castle of the Winds as an example.
I'm familiar with computers for eleven years now, and i'm twenty. The first
machine i had was a c64, then amiga and finally pc. Having all the cpu's
i've discovered that such things as gfx or sounds meen nothing when the game
isn't (re)playable. Things that really matter are plot and mood the game
produces. Without them even most graphically spohisticated games lack this
'something' and only a few people play them. Even i'm the example... i've
got four games installed on my pc: Warcraft 3, Deus Ex, ADoM and Dungeon
Crawl and it's ADoM i play most of the time - even now at this very moment
ADoM is running in the background, coz i'm playing my very promising gnomish
wizard who's managed to complete the cute dog quest.
About not having gfx tiles now... not officially i'm planning to relase the
source code, so anybody who knows a bit of c++ and has some free time will
be able to do it. Why bother then ? There's also portability issue - i'd
like the game to run even on amigas and it'll surely be easier to achieve
without messing up with the gfx routines.
GMA
First of all i have to apologize for delays in answers, but i'm working
during nights this week and therefore i'm quite dull during daytime.
>>Sure, it has, but there are vaults, mines, military bases, sewers, caves,
>>fallout shelters, bunkers, ghost towns, nuke holes like glow and so on.
>>There is bunch of places to visit :-) However fights in the wilderness will
>>also appear. I want the game to be just like Fallout, but in ascii.
>
> But none of them are 100 levels deep. To be 'dungeon' dependant you'd
> have to have dozens of mines/bases/etc progressively getting harder like
> in ToME.
Well... did You wonder why in F-Games vaults are only 3 levels deep ?
Developers have answered this question: 'game mechanics'. They just couldn't
make, say 50-level, vaults, coz nobody would take care to wander through
them. In RLGames it's no problem, coz everything is done quick enough,
depending on your fingers fitness ;-) Yep - i do not plan making 50 vaults
in the game, but a few of them. Add some bases, some cities, some sewers and
military bases and there'll be what to do in the game :-)
>>Exactly, though many simplifications will have to be made. After all ascii
>>is poor when compared to fallout gfx and i'm no artist - i'm a coder. Of
>>course i'm writing the game in such a way that further adding of gfx tiles
>>will definitelly be possible, but as i said - not quite now.
>
> What do you need an artist for exactly? Are you going to use real ascii
> art in the game? I think you should, at least for item descriptions and
> stuff. Ascii artists are pretty easy to recruit too.
Hmm... everything :-) AscII's Good, coz it's portable and available at will.
If i were to make tiles instead of writing the code now the first, quite
poor i guess, game relase would be available on next christmas. It just
takes too damn long.
AscII art would be really nice, if You mean ascii-using drawn swords like
the one below (*very* simplified sword):
|
|
|
-+-
|
Such things as item descriptions will surely be available - no RPG game
exists without them :-)
>>Ah! I'm preparing a web site for the game... some design docs, some ideas, a
>>description or two. I'll throw in a link when it's done, but for now anyone
>>with ideas, questions and suggestions please use this group to share/ask
>>them.
Just to comment myself... the web site is almost ready. I've just signed up
on sourceforge for web space, coz there were no 'normal' free polish web
space providers.
Bateau
\__/___ GMA ran through the
LI-\o-' streets of alt.games.fallout
| waving an axe and screaming:
/ \
>machine i had was a c64, then amiga and finally pc. Having all the cpu's
>i've discovered that such things as gfx or sounds meen nothing when the game
>isn't (re)playable. Things that really matter are plot and mood the game
>produces. Without them even most graphically spohisticated games lack this
>'something' and only a few people play them. Even i'm the example... i've
>got four games installed on my pc: Warcraft 3, Deus Ex, ADoM and Dungeon
>Crawl and it's ADoM i play most of the time - even now at this very moment
>ADoM is running in the background, coz i'm playing my very promising gnomish
>wizard who's managed to complete the cute dog quest.
I don't like ADOM much because it doesn't seem to have as much
replayability because the quests are always the same. Exile too. The
player goes and does the same things each time he plays.
GMA
> I don't like ADOM much because it doesn't seem to have as much
> replayability because the quests are always the same. Exile too. The
> player goes and does the same things each time he plays.
True. That's why i'm thinking about different starting locations for
different races / tag skills. Or even about pure randomness in starting the
game...