View Full Version : 16: Readme
Thaumaturge
04-09-2007, 09:57 PM
Title: README
Description:
README is a game that is its own "readme" file (or program, more probably). The player advances through the various sections (which are not all laid out in a linear fashion, and not all of which are easily accessible - some, in fact, might call for knowledge found only later in the game, making them primarily material for subsequent plays to the first.
A dark force is attempting to corrupt the readme, and only by striking at its heart might it be staved off.
Releases:
Pre-alpha demo (http://www.gamedev.za.net/filecloset/data/files/204/README.zip)
Pre-alpha demo 2 (http://www.gamedev.za.net/filecloset/download.php?id=210)
Competition entry version (http://www.gamedev.za.net/filecloset/download.php?id=218)
I have decided to split this into two separate posts so that the post below remains unchanged, thus leaving the origin of any discussion unaltered by subsequent edits to this main post. My apologies that this results in my double-posting. ^^;
Thaumaturge
04-09-2007, 09:58 PM
As I stated in the thread title, I have more than one idea for Competition 16; none is fully-formed and none has yet been selected for work - I post them here for comment and discussion in the hopes of coming up with something solid enough to work into a competition entry. ^_^
These may, of course, be recognised from my post in the competition announcement thread.
1) A game which is its own readme. (Working title: README)
This is a game that would teach you how to play as you play, not only in a tutorial level, but as the game itself: learning the game is a major part of the game. I would imagine that it would teach one first how to advance information presented, and move on from there.
Perhaps it might require the discovery of some of the gameplay elements, revealing them only after the player has discovered them...
2) A spell-casting game in which one selects words from a word-formed world in order to build up spell "sentences". (Working title: none as of yet)
In this game, the entire world is made up of words. The player has the ability to "take" words from the world and string them into "sentences". A valid spell sentence (which might run along the lines of "create fire ball", or "protect me") would produce that spell (which might be rendered as words, such as the line "fireball" streaking out to an enemy, or perhaps as a particle system based on punctuation marks, or, in an adventure game, a custom result for each spell available in each situation).
I don't yet know what genre of game this might be a part of - it could work in an RPG, an adventure, or an action game, for example.
3) A game in which the player is the word "good" and the opponent is "evil" (or vice versa) (Working title: none as of yet)
This might involve battling "negative" words, led by the word "evil" (or, more likely, "EVIL"). I am not yet sure of how the gameplay might work... It might also take the form of a more story-driven game style (such as an adventure game), which might well be better for the next point:
One element that interests me is throwing doubt on the morality of the "good" character, and the lack of morality on the part of the "evil" character, thus illustrating that not all that is presented as good is, and not all that appears evil is. It might suggest that, rather than by title, the morality of a sentient entity should perhaps better be gauged by its actions.
~
I may come up with yet more ideas - I have no fixed concept yet, I'm afraid.
Of course, mixes are also possible - 2 and 3 above, for instance, could work together.
CiNiMoDZA
04-09-2007, 10:00 PM
I vote for game two!!! It sounds like it could be pretty cool if you can pull it off!!!
Chippit
04-09-2007, 10:05 PM
Game 1 is officially made of win. Flesh it out a bit more, and then run with it, say I. An intriguing idea if I've ever seen one.
Tr00jg
04-09-2007, 11:14 PM
Game 1 is officially made of win. Flesh it out a bit more, and then run with it, say I. An intriguing idea if I've ever seen one.
Yep. I agree with Chippit on this one.
Thaumaturge
04-09-2007, 11:16 PM
Thank you very much for your responses - I appreciate them. ^_^
Hmm... two votes for Game 1 and one for Game 2...
I'll admit, Game 1 does intrigue me the most, but then again I have a great love for magic and spell-casting systems...
Hmm... Perhaps the spell-casting system could be part of the Readme game? Perhaps, instead of casting spells in a traditional world, one might be able to cast spells to change the readme...
*ponders*
I shall give Game 1 more thought, and see what game mechanics come to me, I think.
UntouchableOne
04-09-2007, 11:58 PM
I vote for game 2! It should be really cool.
[alterego steps in]...choose game 1. I repeat choose game 1..aw its no use, I think both ideas are great. Tough choice :)
Thaumaturge
05-09-2007, 03:39 AM
Heheh, thank you too - I'm glad that two of my ideas seem to be interesting enough to compete thus. ^_^
I'm currently leaning towards merging the two - Game 1, after all, is a concept without gameplay, while Game 2 is a gameplay idea without a concept...
(Although I doubt that Game 2 will supply all of the interaction possible in the final game...)
FuzzYspo0N
05-09-2007, 10:18 AM
i vote game one, it could work well if done right
Gazza_N
05-09-2007, 06:29 PM
Conceptually, Game 1 is shiny golden win. It's fresh and original, but would require serious thought about the game dynamics. However, in terms of implementation, the latter two may be easier to pull off.
Oh, I was supposed to suggest one? Er...
*flips coin*
*loses coin*
Thaumaturge
05-09-2007, 10:51 PM
Heheh, my thanks again, both of you. ^_^
*pulls Gazza's coin out of thin air, and idly casts a glamour over it such that it appears to switch between having heads on both sides and having tails on both sides*
It does indeed look as though Game 1 is winning, although, as you point out, Gazza, the implementation is looking like being somewhat tricky...
I do have some gameplay ideas for Game 1, however:
1) Make the Readme non-linear:
This idea has the Readme be broken up into various sections, with no one path through the sections passing through all of them. The sections are, essentially, a form of level, of course.
Note that two given paths that include the same section need not visit it on the same jump.
Note also that this means that not all gameplay elements will be revealed on every path. This is, in fact, an element of this idea that I particularly like, especially as it opens up the possibility of having paths that are only open to people who have played the game once already, as well as the inclusion of Easter egg sections.
For example, one might have a section that gives every valid spell (see "Spells", below).
I would probably allow as simple way to pass through a "basic" path, the control for which would be given in the first section. (Probably along the lines of "Press <Enter> for the next section".)
A more difficult (probably requiring too much conceptualisation time, given the time restraint in place) variation would be to make the entire Readme non-linear; instead of having sections branch into a few other sections, one could move off in another direction at any time. I'm not at all sure of how I might achieve this, however...
On re-reading that last paragraph, I feel that I have not explained myself properly. What I meant is rather that one can move off in an arbitrary direction from some point, rather than having clear-cut sections. This would, I imagine, mean either generating content or having some means of interpolating between pre-determined sections...
2) Hyperlinks:
In order to jump between sections, one might use hyperlink words. These may or (more probably) may not be clearly indicated - I am currently more inclined to have them appear as normal words, but be differentiated by other, less direct factors. (See "Enemies", below)
3) Enemies:
This grew out of my thoughts regarding the drive behind the game: why does the player play, and what is the purpose of his journey through the Readme?
One (rather obvious, I'm afraid) answer to that is a threat of some sort. My current idea for this is a corrupting force of some sort, perhaps based in one of the final sections. This could be represented by the incursion of "bad" words ("murder", "malice", etc.), and/or "dark-rune words" - words made up of a second, eldritch character set. I have a vision of such "dark-rune words" entering the screen from the sides, snaking and weaving towards hyperlink words to corrupt them and block passage through the sections.
This dark force would be attempting... what? To corrupt the Readme somehow (to make it all "dark"), I suspect.
Success on the part of the enemy might be represented by the text being overtaken by dark words (rendered in black, of course, and thus darkening the region in which the cluster, making for a fairly noticeable transition from untainted regions to tainted).
4) Spells:
(This idea is rather an extension of my considering the inclusion of Game 2 into Game 1 than a new idea.)
Some of the words presented on the screen might be "special". These words the player may collect and string together to form simple spells - although I don't yet have many ideas for individual spells.
5) Collection of special characters:
Similarly to the previous item, players might be able to collect special characters. The number of each type held would be shown to the player (and would probably be hidden when none are available). These characters could then be used or released at will. Their use I do not yet know, however.
~
I am concerned, however, that these ideas seem to me to be pulling the concept down into mundanity...
Thaumaturge
06-09-2007, 11:53 PM
My apologies for the double-post - I would really like some feedback on this new post, and feared that an edit might pass unnoticed...
I am concerned that the direction that the gameplay has been taking in my mind has been towards a sort of "tower defence game in an unusual setting", which I am not happy with.
The solution that presents itself to me, and which I like, is of including a greater puzzle element. For example, if the primary means of moving between sections is via hyperlinks, they might be locked, and only rendered openable by means of certain sequences of events - certain spells being cast, for instance, or a certain number of special characters being sacrificed.
However, this doesn't seem "complete" to me - I would like to have more depth and variation in the puzzles. Something to do with the manipulation of words or letters seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure of what form they might take...
Does anyone have any comments or suggestions?
Evil_Toaster
07-09-2007, 12:30 AM
I like the idea of you walking around the readme in a top down rpg type view. So you're walking along, and run into a little paragraph something like this:
Ascii Demon - These creatures are extremely
vicious, and are almost guaranteed to try and
eat you.
You then hit some kind of trigger, such as walking close to it, or activating a trap. All the letters of the description then suddenly pull themselves together into a demony shape, and it starts trying to eat you. ;) You'd need to work out a generic state transition function, where you have two mappings for each letter. The first is the paragraph above, and the second is the shape it'll turn into. When you then need to transition it, you just do a lot of move from position A to B for each letter, and the thing will form itself. Once you go through a pass where you didn't have to move any letters, you know it's finished forming, and can proceed to try and eat the player.
Using this approach, you'll be encountering information about the game, which then turns into the game, and tries to eat you. (Most of the time)
Feel free to exchange all occurances of the word 'eat' to 'explode', 'shoot', 'blow up', 'stab', 'hit with mallet', or whatever else takes your fancy.
Thaumaturge
07-09-2007, 04:52 AM
Thank you for the suggestion. ^_^
Hmm... that is indeed a very good idea, I'd say.
It's not really the direction in which I want to take the game, but it does indeed give me something to think on (and is probably worthy of its own incarnation of the concept, for that matter).
You are right, I believe, about making the text a greater part of the gameplay...
At the moment I'm concentrating on the idea of using the words as elements in puzzles (preferably specific to each section), perhaps employing some form of manipulation of the words...
Thaumaturge
10-09-2007, 10:22 PM
All right, I think that I have at last a gameplay concept (and some degree of design) that I am reasonably happy with.
The game is, as has been suggested previously, divided into "sections", which are analogous to levels. Each section is further divided into sub-sections; in most cases one is allowed to move freely between sub-sections, although in some cases the "doors" might be locked. The "doors" in this case are hyperlinks from one sub-section to another.
Passage between sections is effected by a second type of hyperlink. These generally start out locked, and the unlocking of them is the primary gameplay goal in all but the final sections. One may move only forward through these types of hyperlinks: once one has reached a given section, one may not move back to previous sections.
Within the various subsections the player can "collect" certain words, and use them elsewhere. These can be used to complete other words and sentences, or to fill the spaces in puzzle elements.
Puzzle elements are special controls than can be operated by mouse control. At the moment I have planned buttons and rings (the latter of which are dragged radially in order to alter their setting). These controls will not be directly visible, except perhaps by their words being slightly offset (the rings will have only a few words each, placed so that they coincide roughly with normal text lines). Puzzle elements have a set number of slots for words, and are inactive if any of these slots are unfilled. This is one of the potential uses for collected words: the completion of puzzle elements so that they may be used.
(If anyone has suggestions for further controls, please let me know! I have already considered sliders, but feel that the empty space that will, I think, be likely to be called for might be too great a give-away.)
Additionally, clues as to the actions which the player should perform may be included in the text, probably in either the form of hints or of patterns in the text (oddly-placed capitals that describe a shape, for example).
There is a complication, however. An evil presence is attempting to corrupt the readme, and this is carried out by words in an evil script (which I am currently calling "worm-words", although the name will probably be different in the game itself). These snake over the screen, creating words that describe negative things ("hate", "malice", etc.), and if they succeed in covering a given sub-section in this "taint", the game is lost.
In defence, the player may collect certain punctuation marks (at the moment I imagine that these will be commas and exclamation marks). The more common of these produce a wave of said punctuation mark that pushes away word-worms, while the less common produces a wave that not only pushes the worm-words away but clears any taint already present.
Finally, the player is allowed to collect certain "magic" words, which can be used in spells. These take the form of "verb-noun" pairs. The list of spells that I plan to include at the moment is:
- Animate Word - animates an ordinary word to defend against worm-words. When it encounters one, they each lose a letter until one or the other has none, at which point that word "dies".
- See Magic - causes magic words to be briefly highlighted (probably with a brief shower of asterisk-sparks).
- See Hyperlinks - causes hyperlinks to be briefly visible (I am not certain of including this spell).
- Negate Word - causes a valid word to become its own negation ("life" might become "death", "beautiful" "ugly", etc.)
- Suppress Taint - causes the number of worm-words to decrease by one.
I am very much open to suggestions for more spells!
Spells will probably only have effect while the player remains within the current sub-section, and the nouns will probably deactivate after use, only becoming active again after moving to another sub-section. Thus, one may use the Suppress Taint spell in as many sub0sections as one likes, and use it on multiple visits to a given sub-section, but may only use it to reduce that sub-section's difficulty by one worm-word.
I think that that covers everything...
As you may notice, this is essentially a basic adventure game system, with a little bit of defensive gameplay (perhaps similar to Tower Defence, although I'll admit that I'm going on my impression of the game type, having not played it myself, I don't think).
I am still a little concerned that it might be a little mundane for the overall concept, however...
Comments and suggestions are very much welcome!
(The "multiple room" design came, funnily enough, from a dream. Shortly into thinking on the gameplay (perhaps one to a few days after settling on the README concept, although I'm not certain) I found myself dreaming about this game - more specifically, I dreamed that I was in the game. As I recall, in the dream, I knew that it was the game that I was working on, but it didn't closely resemble my concept at the time, which, as I recall, confused me a little. Instead, I found myself in a set of small, square, stone-walled rooms, each with doorless openings into its neighbours.
While I largely disregarded the dream at the time, I think, it stayed with me, and I eventually came back to it for inspiration.)
Thaumaturge
18-09-2007, 05:54 AM
My apologies that this is a multipost; inspired by Evil_Toaster's recent progress report, I decided that I would post some screenshots of my progress thus far.
The game is coming along slowly, but is getting there, I believe. Thus far one collect commas and exclamation marks, and with these fend off the worm-words. The worm-words themselves do naught but slither about the play area thus far, although I hope to rectify that "tomorrow" (i.e. later today).
The play area was previously white, with black text, but I found that this became problematic when I began to introduce particles: normally-blended particles didn't look terribly interesting to my eye, while additively-blended particles were of course lost against white.
The text shown here is probably temporary, at least in part.
~
The first screenshot shows the play area a few moments after I released a wave of commas, which act to push word-worms away.
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2839/Pauses_in_clauses.th.png (http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=Pauses_in_clauses.png)
The second is very similar, but instead shows a wave of exclamation marks, which are rendered in a different colour, and, once that element has been completed, are intended to clear away taint from the play field as well as pushing the worm-words away. Naturally, this makes exclamation points rather more valuable than commas - but of course they are also rather less common.
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6492/Ring_of_adamancy.th.png (http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=Ring_of_adamancy.png)
And for those who have read Dislekcia's response to Evil_Toaster's competition thread, regarding the firing of exclamation marks, I would like to point out that I'm pretty sure that I decided on that particular character well before reading said post. :P
I like this screenshot simply because it shows off some of the sinuosity that the worms sometimes exhibit.
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3843/You_have_worms.th.png (http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=You_have_worms.png)
~
Finally, since I'm showing off pictures, I thought that some might like to see pictures that were originally intended to be part of a comic that was to be shown at one of the conclusions to my previous competition entry. The comic was not finished; this is more or less as far as I got with it (my running out of development time aside, the choices of this degree of pencil shading was a mistake, I now feel).
I think that my anatomy was off with regards to the girl's neck in the final image.
With regards to the second image, I would like to note that the girl is, indeed, wearing pants, just beneath her leotard-like over-garment.
http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comic_1.png
http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comic_2.png
http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comic_3.png
http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comic_4_scaled.png
Gazza_N
18-09-2007, 07:45 PM
0.0
Wow. That really looks incredible, Thaum. Wantz demo plz, so that we can see the mechanics behind the screenshots.
Thaumaturge
19-09-2007, 10:44 PM
Thank you very much for the comment, Gazza - I appreciate it. ^_^
As to a demo, I might release an alpha demo once I have the Taint working, and not pushing my frame rate below 60fps. Until then there's little to do in the game, I'm afraid, save send the worms flying for no particularly good reason. ^^;
[edit] By the way, is there a way to change my thread title? It is of course no longer accurate...
dislekcia
20-09-2007, 01:21 AM
[edit] By the way, is there a way to change my thread title? It is of course no longer accurate...
You should be able to edit the title by editing your first post.
-D
Thaumaturge
20-09-2007, 04:29 AM
Okay, I feel really silly - I'm not seeing an appropriate control for changing that. The closest that I've found edits the post title, not the thread title... >_<
I've tried looking for it in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, in case it was a browser-specific problem.
Is there perhaps an option in my user options that I've missed and which might be interfering?
dislekcia
20-09-2007, 04:05 PM
Changed it for you. Seems like the renaming initial post title only worked on the old forums...
-D
Thaumaturge
20-09-2007, 11:28 PM
Aah, fair enough, and thank you - I appreciate it, Dislekcia! ^_^
Thaumaturge
23-09-2007, 04:46 AM
Update: I have released a pre-alpha demo of README, linked-to in the first post. It's not feature-complete, but should hopefully demonstrate the basic idea behind the word-worm aspect of the gameplay.
At the moment one can only collect and use certain characters and use hyperlinks; since I do not yet have the puzzle mechanism in place, hyperlinks start off visible, and so once can immediately progress through the three available (very probably temporary) sections. It is possible to lose, the game, however, if you let the worms cover enough of the screen in Taint.
Enjoy! ^_^
Known problems:
- Word-worms will sometimes appear in the playing field before entering, before disappearing again. I am not yet sure of the cause of this.
- If the screen is not visible, or is partially hidden, at start-up, the Taint will appear as a backdrop to the game area. It looks as though the stencil buffer is not being properly zeroed, despite my calls to glClear(). I do not yet have a solution for this, I am afraid.
- The word-worms could use better AI. I hope to address this later, once more important (I feel) gameplay elements are in place.
UntouchableOne
23-09-2007, 11:20 AM
Your game is looking pretty good for a start. I hope it is completed in time with all the features that you have planned.
Gazza_N
23-09-2007, 01:11 PM
Ooooh! Shiny! I'll second UO, this looks great. I really like the special effects such as the punctuation explosions, and I really like the "corruption trail" that the worms leave. I really wish that I had time to read the thing before the worms pitch up, but you've already made mention of that bug.
You have a week - make this game sparkle! :D
Thaumaturge
23-09-2007, 06:01 PM
Thank you very much, both of you! ^_^
I hope it is completed in time with all the features that you have planned.
Thank you - so do I! ^^;
I really wish that I had time to read the thing before the worms pitch up, but you've already made mention of that bug.
I'm hoping to find time to update the worms' controller to have them concentrate on the outside of the playing field first, and more or less work their way in. That should both allow more time to read the text and help them to cover the play area more quickly - at the moment they spend too much time near the centre, and so end up covering territory that they have already tainted.
For now I recommend stocking up on exclamation marks and letting one off when you start to have trouble seeing the text. ;)
F1ak3r
24-09-2007, 02:10 PM
In the introduction, you spelled "its" wrong. You meant to say "its own readme file", not "it's (it is) own readme file".
Thaumaturge
25-09-2007, 12:52 AM
Argh! Thank you very much for spotting that - I am annoyed at myself for making so simple an error. >_<
It has, rest assured, been corrected now. ^_^
Cyberninja
25-09-2007, 01:37 AM
Seriously cool Thaumaturge. Intense. Full marks for originality too! ;) Those Alpha-Worms are vicious. ^_^
Thaumaturge
26-09-2007, 05:26 PM
Thank you very much indeed, Cyberninja - I appreciate your comments. ^_^
In other news, a second pre-alpha demo is now available in the first post. This demo tests the new "button" functionality, and as such only has word-worms on the first section (which remains unchanged from the previous demo). Sections two and three now require a little bit of work in order to reveal the hyperlinks to the next section.
"Buttons?" You may ask. "What buttons?"
Well, I never said that I'd make them obvious, I'm pretty sure. :P
However, there are clues, as mentioned in the third section. Give the demo a shot, and let me know what you think of this type of puzzle, bearing in mind that these are what I intend to be fairly simple puzzles.
Gazza_N
26-09-2007, 10:55 PM
Well, that puzzle-solving aspect really adds a new dimension to the game. I look forward to seeing what other devilish puzzles you can come up with! :D
Thaumaturge
27-09-2007, 11:58 PM
Heheh, thank you, Gazza! ^_^
Well, I ended up cutting out the magic gameplay element ( T_T ), and the puzzles aren't as good as I'd hoped, I don't think, but my competition entry version of Readme is up! The url should be available from the first post.
UntouchableOne
28-09-2007, 01:17 AM
Whoa, you just made it 11:58 lol. Really awesome idea and concept in your game. I particularly like the mystery and intrigue within the game. A bit of creepy, whisper type of music would set the perfect atmosphere and add a lot to the game. All in all, I think it's pretty darn cool.
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