The original sonic the hedgehog (1991) has the weakest badnik designs among most sonic games so I tried to re-design them to make them look slightly more sinister and less silly.
Jolly Roger
Last Update: July 2013
What's all this about: Join the ruthless space outlaw "Jolly" and her alien companion "Roger" in their earth drilling, mineral snatching, head crushing adventures inspired by games like digdug, digger and boulder dash.
- I'm collaborating with a friend in my spare time so progress is slow but there is enough content to make a couple of levels.
July 2013 - Got the first boss implemented, also we have a map editor to produce new maps. Added some new text about arcade mode
May 2013 - Added a list of implemented aliens so far.
Introduction
Jolly Roger will be a slightly more complicated digger game with different factions following different objectives rather than tons of monsters who try to swarm and kill the player. There will be a race of aliens who are slaved by the mining corporations to dig out minerals. These slave miners would not chase the player but dig tunnels looking for minerals instead. There will be marines who have the objective of gunning down the hero so they will not care about minerals but hunt the player instead. Will the player play it safe and handle the marines or will he rush to snatch minerals before the miners find them? Some planets will also have native lifeforms. Such as an alien offspring who will be hostile to anyone who is foolish enough to break its egg or another alien who will pass through soil without digging and will be immune to the physical damage of falling rocks.
Other notable differences will be boss fights using digger game mechanics and collectable items and power-ups to help the player during the raids. A shop will be available before travelling to planets where the players can exchange collected minerals and rare items with power-ups and various other goodies.
Initially I was planning to have realistic proportions for the characters but the tiles were too small so decided to go the bloated head way (as always, so typical of me). It makes distinguishing characters much easier.
Jolly Roger will have a nice comic book fee to the game by using written sound effects. These things are also useful when you turn the sound down :)
Story mode will have a couple of connected levels per planet and conclude each planet with a boss fight. There will also be a shopping screen between every planet (something like every 5 levels.) where the players can convert collected valuables into items.
Jolly or Roger
Before landing on levels the player will get to choose which character they want as their avatar. Apart from their visual difference there should be some ability differences between them. I haven't thought of what these will be but Jolly can focus on strength and speed to avoid and de capacitate her opponents while Roger can use his psi abilities to stun opponents and stop projectiles and falling rocks. Collecting minerals will give them the morale boost needed to activate their special abilities. Maybe more abilities can be unlocked after successfully completing missions with a high level.
After the level select screen (and briefing if the player chooses story mode) An ideal level would begin with an in-game intro. Its not actually an intro but more like a part of the game that keeps repeating itself for levels where the player uses a drill pod to enter. Despite the intro only last for a couple of seconds after playing a lot of times seeing it again and again may feel monotonous so there should be an option in the settings screen or a button to skip this part and allow the player to diver directly into the action.
Screen fades in and the hero's drill-pod crash lands into the planet creating a tunnel similar to dig dugs starting position. (digdug used to enter from the side of the screen and dig a short tunnel before the game allowed the players to move) The slave miners don't move yet (maybe they were slacking off till they heard the crash noise)
After the smoke fades away the drill-pod fades out and the hero fades in, but at the same time 3 marines land on the top of the map with their dropships. The lazy miners will have exclamation marks on their heads as they prepare to dig
Some text can pop up to notify the player that the actual game has started and the marines can have speech bubbles coming out of their mouths, saying silly or interesting things (its just an excuse to delay them for a tiny while and give the player some time for a head start, the player can either start running or wait and read their funny speech bubbles) As the player is free to move. The miners start moving in random directions so the intro is over and the level starts.
The marines will always drop a smoke screen before jumping down to chase the player. It just gives a more realistic feel before diving down. But this can be removed.
Marines cannot dig but move along tunnels made by the player or other aliens. If the marines meet native aliens they will start shooting the aliens first, giving the player some time to breath. If all marines are dead HQ will check via radio and call more re-enforcements via drop ships. marines can never be eliminated from the game as they will keep re-enforcing. However they can be delayed by using items like emp grenades to jam their transmission with the HQ.
There will be different types of marines found later on in the game like a power suit marine who doesn't have weapons but uses melee attacks once it locates and digs towards the player using motion trackers (which the player can avoid by standing still) or an engineer who can deploy various turrets on the map.
There will be various types of aliens usually differing from planet to planet, some will wonder around digging tunnels, another will pass through soil without digging and will be immune to the physical damage of falling rocks, some will mind control marines and others will spawn more aliens when killed etc.
Aliens and Enemies
Here are a couple of nasties we've implemented so far.
Slave Miner
Aliens slaved by the mining corporations to handle their underground operations. Miners tend to mind their own business, digging tunnels, searching for minerals to collect.
Marine
Marines are renegades and mercenaries hired by mining corporations to ensure the mining operations go smoothly. They are armed with rifles and smoke grenades. Marines cannot dig tunnels by themselves and depend on other units such as miners to navigate underground.
Engineers
These are mechanically talented bunch of marines who carry deployable rocket turrets with them. Engineers are armed with rifles and similar to marines they cannot dig tunnels by themselves.
SWAP
Special weapons against Piracy, these marines are armed with power suits that allow them to break through walls and rocks.
Big Dog
Robotic watchdogs armed with plasma weapons
Drone
Self detonating, small, levitating droid.
Items
I dont want many weapons because the more power you give to the player the less skill it requires to tap a button and blast enemies. There should be a reasonable explanation to why the player wont be able to salvage weapons. Maybe marine weapons cannot be used because they are ID mapped to the marines. Maybe alien weapons cannot be picked up because the player doesnt have any knowledge about how to operate alien technology. Haven't really thought of a good explanation but Im sure the story mode will be able to clear these sorts of small details.
I would prefer items to be helpful rather than lethal. So instead of weapons I would like items such as emp grenades to disable machinery and marine radio communications to stop them from re-enforcing, smoke grenades that allow the player to move freely next to enemies, medkits and armour to give health bonus against ranged weapons, detectors to reveal the location of hidden items, traps that could be placed to stun enemies etc.
There should be hidden artefacts made by the natives or the ancients of the planets or maybe high tech gear dropped by the mining corporations. These rare items will be hidden inside the soil and can only be visible when the soil is removed (or with the help of other items like a scanner or metal detector etc.) The players wont know what to do or how much these items are worth but they will be able to recover the items and sell them at the market for a special price.
Objectives
Unless its a boss fight or stated otherwise the objective of each level is to collect all the minerals found in the level and head for the exit.
Level design
Levels are pre-designed so there will be no random tile placement. However each level has a chance to have a single or couple of special collectable items that will be randomly placed and hidden under some soil tiles.
Level Progression in story mode
Each planet will consist of 5 or so levels.
Completing levels (arcade and story modes)
The level should end once all the minerals are gone (doesn't matter who collects them, the player or the slaves) but should get a rating depending on the outcome.
Once a level is completed the player will be allowed several stars (actually skulls instead of stars may suit the space pirate thing better) depending on various factors. The total number of collected skulls will allow the player to unlock various trophies, new arcade levels or other stuff.
Time - total time spent on the level. The lower the better.
Minerals - number of minerals collected.
Deaths - number of times the player died.
Kills - number of enemies killed. Not sure if more the better or the less.
Secrets - number of secrets found.
Black Market
I wasn't actually planning to put a shop but it was the idea of the friend i was collaborating with. After thinking it through I agreed to have some place to spend all the collected stuff. The idea of spending what you earn to buy items can give the players a feeling of achievement of collecting minerals instead of grinding to finish the levels.
The Black Market is a joint run by the "Black" and "Brown" brothers - Players can spend their hard earned minerals and exchange the found artefacts to purchase equipment and weapons before moving towards the next planet. The market can be introduced with a UI where the player buys stuff.
Another way to make a market would be to create a level with a shop keeper and items left on the floor. the player can run through the items and pick up anything they want, confirming the transaction.
After each transaction (and while waiting for the transaction) the pirate bross can make funny comments regarding equipment or random stuff;
"There used to be 3 of us, bro black, bro brown, and bro cream... poor bro cream turned into whip cream when a rock fell on him. Naa not whip cream, more like RIP cream, damn!"
"Yo! ya sure this batch is clean? This minerals got some red stuff on it as if its fallen on someone?"
"Got a better drill for ya here if you're interested yar har har"
goes on forever but guess you get the idea...
Boss battles
What good is a story mode if there are no boss fights? Its kind of hard to use mechanics from digger and boulder dash games to make proper (well, not to say proper but any other than dropping stones on peoples heads) boss fights. We managed to implement the first boss of the story mode. (which we dont seem to focus on but still seem to work at the same time :) Its an indestructible tank that is supported by a bomber plan.
Other bosses will probably be giant machines operated by marines or powerful aliens of some sort.
What the player has to do is dodge the bullets and wait near the tank till it locks, run away before the bomb drops and the bomb will hit the tank, eventually killing it. After repeating this for a couple of times the tank will be destroyed. easy said than done.
Brown Planet
With its green grass and brown soil thought something similar to earth will be best suited for the first few levels so players can feel familiar with soil to dig and rocks to avoid. There is no native fauna on this planet, the aliens encountered will be slave miners of human corporations.
Havent thought of any other planets yet but the planets will have different looks to suit their native life forms so it wont be just another blue background for blue planet red background for red planet stuff.
Here is a quick peek at the map editor that will glue the planets together.
Other notable differences will be boss fights using digger game mechanics and collectable items and power-ups to help the player during the raids. A shop will be available before travelling to planets where the players can exchange collected minerals and rare items with power-ups and various other goodies.
Initially I was planning to have realistic proportions for the characters but the tiles were too small so decided to go the bloated head way (as always, so typical of me). It makes distinguishing characters much easier.
Jolly Roger will have a nice comic book fee to the game by using written sound effects. These things are also useful when you turn the sound down :)
Gameflow
The default way to play Jolly Roger would be the arcade mode where the players will get to select and play levels in any order they wish and completing levels will unlock even more levels. I don't think a story mode should be vital for a game of such mechanics but some people may enjoy their digging and looting to follow a story.
I hate games that include story modes for the sake of having a story mode, where you play a normal arcade game with annoying text bubbles before and after the action sequences so its better to include it only if there is enough spare time to achieve a good presentation and quality material to squeeze a proper story. We do plan to add a story mode but arcade will be our first priority.
I hate games that include story modes for the sake of having a story mode, where you play a normal arcade game with annoying text bubbles before and after the action sequences so its better to include it only if there is enough spare time to achieve a good presentation and quality material to squeeze a proper story. We do plan to add a story mode but arcade will be our first priority.
Story mode will have a couple of connected levels per planet and conclude each planet with a boss fight. There will also be a shopping screen between every planet (something like every 5 levels.) where the players can convert collected valuables into items.
Jolly or Roger
Before landing on levels the player will get to choose which character they want as their avatar. Apart from their visual difference there should be some ability differences between them. I haven't thought of what these will be but Jolly can focus on strength and speed to avoid and de capacitate her opponents while Roger can use his psi abilities to stun opponents and stop projectiles and falling rocks. Collecting minerals will give them the morale boost needed to activate their special abilities. Maybe more abilities can be unlocked after successfully completing missions with a high level.
After the level select screen (and briefing if the player chooses story mode) An ideal level would begin with an in-game intro. Its not actually an intro but more like a part of the game that keeps repeating itself for levels where the player uses a drill pod to enter. Despite the intro only last for a couple of seconds after playing a lot of times seeing it again and again may feel monotonous so there should be an option in the settings screen or a button to skip this part and allow the player to diver directly into the action.
Screen fades in and the hero's drill-pod crash lands into the planet creating a tunnel similar to dig dugs starting position. (digdug used to enter from the side of the screen and dig a short tunnel before the game allowed the players to move) The slave miners don't move yet (maybe they were slacking off till they heard the crash noise)
After the smoke fades away the drill-pod fades out and the hero fades in, but at the same time 3 marines land on the top of the map with their dropships. The lazy miners will have exclamation marks on their heads as they prepare to dig
There will be different types of marines found later on in the game like a power suit marine who doesn't have weapons but uses melee attacks once it locates and digs towards the player using motion trackers (which the player can avoid by standing still) or an engineer who can deploy various turrets on the map.
There will be various types of aliens usually differing from planet to planet, some will wonder around digging tunnels, another will pass through soil without digging and will be immune to the physical damage of falling rocks, some will mind control marines and others will spawn more aliens when killed etc.
Aliens and Enemies
Here are a couple of nasties we've implemented so far.
Slave Miner
Aliens slaved by the mining corporations to handle their underground operations. Miners tend to mind their own business, digging tunnels, searching for minerals to collect.
Marine
Marines are renegades and mercenaries hired by mining corporations to ensure the mining operations go smoothly. They are armed with rifles and smoke grenades. Marines cannot dig tunnels by themselves and depend on other units such as miners to navigate underground.
Engineers
These are mechanically talented bunch of marines who carry deployable rocket turrets with them. Engineers are armed with rifles and similar to marines they cannot dig tunnels by themselves.
SWAP
Special weapons against Piracy, these marines are armed with power suits that allow them to break through walls and rocks.
Big Dog
Robotic watchdogs armed with plasma weapons
Drone
Self detonating, small, levitating droid.
Items
I dont want many weapons because the more power you give to the player the less skill it requires to tap a button and blast enemies. There should be a reasonable explanation to why the player wont be able to salvage weapons. Maybe marine weapons cannot be used because they are ID mapped to the marines. Maybe alien weapons cannot be picked up because the player doesnt have any knowledge about how to operate alien technology. Haven't really thought of a good explanation but Im sure the story mode will be able to clear these sorts of small details.
I would prefer items to be helpful rather than lethal. So instead of weapons I would like items such as emp grenades to disable machinery and marine radio communications to stop them from re-enforcing, smoke grenades that allow the player to move freely next to enemies, medkits and armour to give health bonus against ranged weapons, detectors to reveal the location of hidden items, traps that could be placed to stun enemies etc.
There should be hidden artefacts made by the natives or the ancients of the planets or maybe high tech gear dropped by the mining corporations. These rare items will be hidden inside the soil and can only be visible when the soil is removed (or with the help of other items like a scanner or metal detector etc.) The players wont know what to do or how much these items are worth but they will be able to recover the items and sell them at the market for a special price.
Objectives
Unless its a boss fight or stated otherwise the objective of each level is to collect all the minerals found in the level and head for the exit.
Level design
Levels are pre-designed so there will be no random tile placement. However each level has a chance to have a single or couple of special collectable items that will be randomly placed and hidden under some soil tiles.
Level Progression in story mode
Each planet will consist of 5 or so levels.
- Level 1 is the entry to the level. The hero will land via a dig-pod and will attempt to exit via a door while the marines will reinforce themselves via drop pods.
- Part 2,3,4 the entry and exits will be via doors, marines will be reinforcing through the doors.
- Part 5 boss fight. once the boss is dead the players will have to run to the top (grass) and send a flare to signal the mother ship. There will be a chance that a marine ship will notice the flare and start dropping bombs instead. Player has to act fast and avoid the bombs until the rescue pod arrives, jump in the pod and bail out. This should be something to keep the players on their toes as a nasty surprise in the ending.
The default way to play Jolly + Roger would be the arcade mode where
the
players will get to select and play levels in any order they wish.
Completing levels will unlock even more levels and each new level will
be harder compared to the previous. The main objective of arcade mode
will be similar to a time attack, where the player has to collect all the minerals (or any other loot) on the map and
reach the dropship waiting at the surface of the planet.
Apart
from the
time attack mode there can be another arcade mode somewhat similar to
Digdug's gameplay where the player has to kill
all the enemies to complete the levels. However I
don't want the player to use (if any) weapons because the more power you
give to the
player
the less skill it requires to tap a button and blast enemies. This mode
should be similar to a puzzle game where the player should think of
alternate ways (like dropping a limited number of stones on the enemies,
operating traps or using alien plants and other native life forms) to
kill the enemies.
Completing levels (arcade and story modes)
The level should end once all the minerals are gone (doesn't matter who collects them, the player or the slaves) but should get a rating depending on the outcome.
Once a level is completed the player will be allowed several stars (actually skulls instead of stars may suit the space pirate thing better) depending on various factors. The total number of collected skulls will allow the player to unlock various trophies, new arcade levels or other stuff.
Time - total time spent on the level. The lower the better.
Minerals - number of minerals collected.
Deaths - number of times the player died.
Kills - number of enemies killed. Not sure if more the better or the less.
Secrets - number of secrets found.
Black Market
I wasn't actually planning to put a shop but it was the idea of the friend i was collaborating with. After thinking it through I agreed to have some place to spend all the collected stuff. The idea of spending what you earn to buy items can give the players a feeling of achievement of collecting minerals instead of grinding to finish the levels.
The Black Market is a joint run by the "Black" and "Brown" brothers - Players can spend their hard earned minerals and exchange the found artefacts to purchase equipment and weapons before moving towards the next planet. The market can be introduced with a UI where the player buys stuff.
Another way to make a market would be to create a level with a shop keeper and items left on the floor. the player can run through the items and pick up anything they want, confirming the transaction.
After each transaction (and while waiting for the transaction) the pirate bross can make funny comments regarding equipment or random stuff;
"There used to be 3 of us, bro black, bro brown, and bro cream... poor bro cream turned into whip cream when a rock fell on him. Naa not whip cream, more like RIP cream, damn!"
"Yo! ya sure this batch is clean? This minerals got some red stuff on it as if its fallen on someone?"
"Got a better drill for ya here if you're interested yar har har"
goes on forever but guess you get the idea...
Boss battles
What good is a story mode if there are no boss fights? Its kind of hard to use mechanics from digger and boulder dash games to make proper (well, not to say proper but any other than dropping stones on peoples heads) boss fights. We managed to implement the first boss of the story mode. (which we dont seem to focus on but still seem to work at the same time :) Its an indestructible tank that is supported by a bomber plan.
Other bosses will probably be giant machines operated by marines or powerful aliens of some sort.
The boss is a tank, impossible to damage. The tank keeps going left and right and has a gun that fires bullets at the player. (lots of slow bullets but easy to dodge by careful movement) Every 10 seconds a reticle locks on the player, and a plane comes to drop bombs on the reticle location.
What the player has to do is dodge the bullets and wait near the tank till it locks, run away before the bomb drops and the bomb will hit the tank, eventually killing it. After repeating this for a couple of times the tank will be destroyed. easy said than done.
Planets
Brown Planet
With its green grass and brown soil thought something similar to earth will be best suited for the first few levels so players can feel familiar with soil to dig and rocks to avoid. There is no native fauna on this planet, the aliens encountered will be slave miners of human corporations.
Havent thought of any other planets yet but the planets will have different looks to suit their native life forms so it wont be just another blue background for blue planet red background for red planet stuff.
Here is a quick peek at the map editor that will glue the planets together.
Altera
Last Update: April 2013
A tablespoon of syndicate, a pinch of tron, giving a taste like populous,
dungeon keeper and darwinia cooked in a full 3D world. This was meant to be
something like a tech demo for a engine that can simulate a living world
(plants and characters grow and die, natural disasters such as volcanoes and
floods, trade based economy system, base building, combat and wild critters
etc (such systems were not as common around 2013 so it was somewhat ambitious)
We managed to implement almost all features planned but unfortunately it got
canned as it demanded too much time and effort to turn into something polished
but it was a good run. It looks shit but it has some pretty cool ideas hidden
inside.
Developed By - Grinning Lizzard
- Altera is an ambitious project that is in development for quite some time and is currently in early beta stage. It is playable but may things are missing and most of the assets are temp. In the current state there is a random world generator that creates a continent where the player can roam freely as plants grow, volcanoes erupt to form landmarks, and various monoliths spawn critters for the player to shoot.
I pasted everything into a single p
Early Concepts
In the beginning Altera was to be similar to Syndicate (the 1993 version), it
was going to take place inside a computer program so i did some rough sketches
resembling syndicate agents in glowing tron suits to get a feel.
Mixing Tron's neon glowing tights with the bulky coats of syndicate. In the
world of Altera everyone wears a glowing, skin-tight jumpsuit, keeps them hot,
keeps them warm, waterproof, high mobility, high fashion also helps people not
to get hit by cars at night and all that stuff.
An agent's coat (usually sleeveless) is worn on top of the tight for extra protection and badass cyberpunk looks. Some coats can come with high collar and masks. All coats have straps, symbolizing the fact that agents have no free will. Bit rough for now but hopefully things will get better as things start to settle.
And lets see how the dress codes can be implement to the game. As you can see most stuff is just scrapped (such as the straps on the coat) and will be used only in loading screens, story related art and so on...
An agent's coat (usually sleeveless) is worn on top of the tight for extra protection and badass cyberpunk looks. Some coats can come with high collar and masks. All coats have straps, symbolizing the fact that agents have no free will. Bit rough for now but hopefully things will get better as things start to settle.
And lets see how the dress codes can be implement to the game. As you can see most stuff is just scrapped (such as the straps on the coat) and will be used only in loading screens, story related art and so on...
concepts about death animations
Tossing some ideas about how the models can be if they look like lego
mini-figures. I do like the current "temp" stick models but chunky figures can
also give a nice feel. Chunky always seems to be futuristic to me.
Concepts about recruiting units
The player's avatar needs fools to do its bidding, but how to find them? There
can be two options
a) servants can be classified as fighter, builder and so on. each class can only perform specific duties (builders cant fight and such)
b) there can be single type of worker unit that deals with all sorts of support stuff, fighting when needed, researching when sent to a lab etc.
types of recruitment can be as follows:
avatar collects resources and builds it's own servants using mix and match of resources (these can be considered as codes used to write programs), produced servants can build, guard or work depending on their proficiency. each unit type needs different mixture of resource. the players would need a minimum of 3 intelligence resources (codes) to create a researcher but if the player wants to make it a researcher and a fighter at the same time they may mix 3 int and 2 str making the unit stronger then a regular researcher. there should be a limit to resources per unit so the players wont be able to create uber units. this system also allows dual class units (builder fighter, researcher builder etc)
avatar uses mana (energy, code snippets whatever you name it) to produce servants. mana replenishes over time depending on domain power. weak at start, stronger as game progresses. This system is simple and probably best used if mana is the only resource in the game. building training researching and probably maintaining an active domain would require mana.
avatar constructs a building (single structure that produces and researches everything, acting as the main control center) or multiple (like housing, barracks, repair shop) that each produce different units and have different purposes. population limit may be used depending on domain size.
avatar recruits wondering civilians (some good at building, some good at fighting, differing from civ to civ and the visitors that arrive from the portal (usually much better stats than cvis but more expensive to recruit. Sending spies for bribing or persuading enemy units depending on their loyalty may add some strategy to the game.
avatar finds and trains primitive denizens (non human creatures, robots, apes or aliens which can be considered as snippets of code or tools in the cyber world) so the unclaimed idle units can also be considered as resource. a denizen can do a single job and has to be retrained to be able to do other jobs. would take time to train a denizen again and again to do different tasks, adding strategy to the game.
a) servants can be classified as fighter, builder and so on. each class can only perform specific duties (builders cant fight and such)
b) there can be single type of worker unit that deals with all sorts of support stuff, fighting when needed, researching when sent to a lab etc.
types of recruitment can be as follows:
avatar collects resources and builds it's own servants using mix and match of resources (these can be considered as codes used to write programs), produced servants can build, guard or work depending on their proficiency. each unit type needs different mixture of resource. the players would need a minimum of 3 intelligence resources (codes) to create a researcher but if the player wants to make it a researcher and a fighter at the same time they may mix 3 int and 2 str making the unit stronger then a regular researcher. there should be a limit to resources per unit so the players wont be able to create uber units. this system also allows dual class units (builder fighter, researcher builder etc)
avatar uses mana (energy, code snippets whatever you name it) to produce servants. mana replenishes over time depending on domain power. weak at start, stronger as game progresses. This system is simple and probably best used if mana is the only resource in the game. building training researching and probably maintaining an active domain would require mana.
avatar constructs a building (single structure that produces and researches everything, acting as the main control center) or multiple (like housing, barracks, repair shop) that each produce different units and have different purposes. population limit may be used depending on domain size.
avatar recruits wondering civilians (some good at building, some good at fighting, differing from civ to civ and the visitors that arrive from the portal (usually much better stats than cvis but more expensive to recruit. Sending spies for bribing or persuading enemy units depending on their loyalty may add some strategy to the game.
avatar finds and trains primitive denizens (non human creatures, robots, apes or aliens which can be considered as snippets of code or tools in the cyber world) so the unclaimed idle units can also be considered as resource. a denizen can do a single job and has to be retrained to be able to do other jobs. would take time to train a denizen again and again to do different tasks, adding strategy to the game.
Random Face Generation
The Player's avatar or any playable characters in Altera were to have a
randomly generated face while heroes or any other story related / important
characters were to have unique portraits.
Ideas on a random face generator. My initial idea was to have black and white
portraits with scanlines, a digital ID screen kind of thing.
Testing the generator with few faces and basic colours. They all look like
convicts and murderers but I guess no game hero ever smiles anyways.
An error with the colour channels of the shader made them look like holograms
which somehow made them closer to my initial digital id photo concepts without
the scanlines. Have to say the blue ones look more classy compared to the
regular faces.
Weapon Concepts
The players arsenal will probably include a melee ring and a pistol. Both of
these weapons would probably have upgrade slots.
The top one is your average human disc. easy to hold during melee due to
finger holes and comfy grip.
The second is a D shaped disc. Can be considered more primitive or maybe reverse engineered from a human disc by breaking some parts and adding steel bits to it. Probably the heaviest of all discs. Requires a strong unit to operate properly.
The last one is a light but aggressive frame, something similar to an assassins weapon. Seems light enough to be thrown with high accuracy but can be problematic when it engages in melee against stronger weapons.
The second is a D shaped disc. Can be considered more primitive or maybe reverse engineered from a human disc by breaking some parts and adding steel bits to it. Probably the heaviest of all discs. Requires a strong unit to operate properly.
The last one is a light but aggressive frame, something similar to an assassins weapon. Seems light enough to be thrown with high accuracy but can be problematic when it engages in melee against stronger weapons.
Here is a preview from the random melee ring generator which works in a
similar fashion as the random face generator. I draw the ring patterns and
the program mixes and matches them to create random looking melee rings.
This is just a tiny sample of random melee rings that can be produced.
trying to find the iconic handgun look for Altera. some basic rules to take
note;
- all weapons in game are handguns or at least one handed (even the long range...)
- weapons should be chunky or double barrel
- pistol blaster, assault blaster, shotgun, long range / sniper blaster
not much of an glowing laser/plasma weapon fan. I prefer the good old bullet stuff maybe due to the fact that ejecting brass seem so cool.
- all weapons in game are handguns or at least one handed (even the long range...)
- weapons should be chunky or double barrel
- pistol blaster, assault blaster, shotgun, long range / sniper blaster
not much of an glowing laser/plasma weapon fan. I prefer the good old bullet stuff maybe due to the fact that ejecting brass seem so cool.
Energy weapons are battery powered stuff that use fancy lights as projectiles.
these have somewhat round frames with softer lines compared to bullet weapons,
maybe few clips can be placed at the same time to increase power (not ammo
count) or maybe a single powerful burst after multiple clips can break the
weapon (similar to a single rocket with splash damage that hurts the target
and the user).
Finally decided to settle on the 3 main types of ranged weapons, their projectiles and how they can look in game.
Finally decided to settle on the 3 main types of ranged weapons, their projectiles and how they can look in game.
Upgrade idea for weapons
Animals and Creatures
There will be strange lifeforms populating the world of Altera. Some will mind
their own business and some will be hostile.
I did some sketches on various strange native creatures. Some could give
stuff when killed, some can be used for other things (like resources or
farming) some can be left alone etc. Day and night cycle is also planned to
affect the abilities and motives of the critters. A creature can hunt during
daytime and return to its lair to sleep during night time.
the floating egg vermin's poison gas and the cyborg sword flies sting may cause negative buffs on the player. The robot mantis can use the burrow ability to regenerate its health or maybe it goes into sleep mode and regenerates that way during night times.
Half-man (later renamed to Gob-Man) are small, hunch creatures
who terrorize the civilians by conducting random raids to the domains. It's
your typical raze, rape, pillage stuff. Usually the smart or strong one rules
the mob, they live in scrap metal heaps and remains of other domains found in
the wild.
The zombie making helmet thingy is (who makes up sick stuff like
that?) a type of alien parasite who enjoys jumping on human heads and turns
them into zombies. These things can make small jumps using the jet packs on
their helmet. Once it integrates itself to its host, the parasites legs stick
to the torso of the host so tight that it can give the host a flying / leap
ability using the same jetpacks on the helmet. If the host is killed the
parasite can de-attach itself using a quick jetpack burst (leaping somewhere
safe to look for a new host. (or it can jump to the nearest human if in
jetpack range)
From the previous list, the gob-man were added to the roadmap so i decided to work bit more on their concepts. Lore is easy once the mechanics are fixed but until then here are some basic info on the "Gob" race. (previously named as half-man or goblin)
I really liked the parasite helmet idea.
The "Gob-man" is the generic type of gob, they tend to stick together and follow any other strong or intelligent gobs, forming hordes named as Gob-Mobs.
Few gifted gobman tend to be
smarter then others. These smart ones become shamans that worship
"Old-Gob-God" the ancient patron of nature. They show their intelligence,
leadership and loyalty by wearing mantis shaped masks and wielding mantis
shaped gob staffs. Faithful shamans are gifted with the ability to control
mantis and other low level critters.
Not all gobs are gifted with intelligence, some just tend to be bigger
and stronger. Being big and strong in a race full of weaklings comes with
its advantages. These stronger Gobs who prove themselves on the
battlefield get the chance to rule weaker Gobs. Some follow them because
of fear while some follow with the hope of finding untold riches and
legendary glory. Finally there are the few who follow because of respect.
Gob-bos-man can use any human weapons they find.
This thing was initially called the Minotaur but was later
renamed to
Cyclops due to its
single eyed design.
These behemoths can be controlled by a weaker race who dwell inside them (It's like a knights armour but something lives inside it rather than just wearing it. Once the creature is killed the weak master who lives inside will eject using the head of the cyclops and attempt to escape danger. The master itself is actually the diamond head with tentacles or spider legs and is harmless on its own. can be killed or collected as a resource.
These behemoths can be controlled by a weaker race who dwell inside them (It's like a knights armour but something lives inside it rather than just wearing it. Once the creature is killed the weak master who lives inside will eject using the head of the cyclops and attempt to escape danger. The master itself is actually the diamond head with tentacles or spider legs and is harmless on its own. can be killed or collected as a resource.
Troll Concept and model suggestion, tried to stay away from a fantasy troll (apart from the skin colour) and focus on internet trolls. thats the excuse for drawing this silly costume.
Trying to give lego like details to the troll's costume.
and Lee's modified (probably final) look of the troll with glow. Awesome
Model suggestions for a scorpion... kind of hard to make a scorpion from bricks...
Now that we have some creatures to inhabit Altera I couldn't stop myself from
asking where did these creatures live. My call was;
- Every creature has a lair somewhere on the map, a lair can house unlimited creatures
- Lairs spawn a creature every x minutes
- Spawned creature walks around the lair looking for something to do, if none goes back inside
- Lairs of hostile creatures spawn raiding parties every x minutes
- Raiding parties attack player domains until every party member dies or target is destroyed
- Creatures regenerate when sleeping in or wandering near their lairs.
- Lairs can be destroyed to stop creature production or loot for xp / items / fun
But where do lairs come from?
- Placement of lairs is random every game start. (amount depending on difficulty etc)
- Every x minutes the game can check for a specific creature type on map. if none of the type exist a creature will be summoned off map and will find a spot to build a new lair thus start reproduction.
Every once in a while i add posts about Altera's development. Altera still
seems more like an tech demo rather than a game so im waiting it to shape up
before i post a complete page. (or maybe im just feeling lazy to go through
my previous posts and arrange stuff)
Altera keeps changing with every build. At first it felt like an ambitious mix of couple of games but now it feels more like an open world game where you build an economy (or a base) make sure it functions properly and start to explore the map to find various things to do.
Couple of screenshots from more or less current state (click to enlarge)
Couple of structure models
shortcuts to follower's inventories on the left (4 max similar to syndicate), gold and other resources are clearly visible on top, xp needed for next level is shown beneath the hero name, equip and drop slots for easy inventory management, kill counter on the side to allow more space to the list.
- World and mini map is covered with fog, revealed as player walks around
- The world can have random placed regions / zones with different themes such as memorials, ruins or other places of interest.
- Regions / zones can be divided into 3 main types:
Landmarks / Monuments: These are stuff left behind by previous users of the altera system. Single tile decorations like crumbled structures or statues of elder beings, ruins that keep artifacts etc.
Places of Interest: These are places that some how require players interaction. Examples such as camp sites or gatherings of denizens minding their own business, mercenary camps where you could purchase services from denizens etc. These regions do not need unique visuals. Some can be made by recycling generic art (like a gobman village by placing 3-5 gobmen lairs together) but it will be nice if most had at least a 1×1 unique tile to show the regions theme
Special: These can be random out of place stuff like a xenowar ufo crash site, a gobmen being cooked inside a cauldron or a group of mantis running circles around an obelisk. Special regions should be unique (There cannot be two instances of the same special zone in a single game) and should be sparsely placed (Two special zones cannot be too close to each other)
- fast travel between zones using roads (conveyor belts) by clicking on hotspot locations on the travel map.
couple of ruins to decorate the map
Altera keeps changing with every build. At first it felt like an ambitious mix of couple of games but now it feels more like an open world game where you build an economy (or a base) make sure it functions properly and start to explore the map to find various things to do.
Couple of screenshots from more or less current state (click to enlarge)
Concepts for the character / inventory screen
shortcuts to follower's inventories on the left (4 max similar to syndicate), gold and other resources are clearly visible on top, xp needed for next level is shown beneath the hero name, equip and drop slots for easy inventory management, kill counter on the side to allow more space to the list.
Stats for selected item and current equipped item are shown next to
each other for easy comparison.
concepts for a simple in game hud
Below are my rants about how the exploration aspect of Altera can be:
- World and mini map is covered with fog, revealed as player walks around
- The world can have random placed regions / zones with different themes such as memorials, ruins or other places of interest.
- Regions / zones can be divided into 3 main types:
Landmarks / Monuments: These are stuff left behind by previous users of the altera system. Single tile decorations like crumbled structures or statues of elder beings, ruins that keep artifacts etc.
Places of Interest: These are places that some how require players interaction. Examples such as camp sites or gatherings of denizens minding their own business, mercenary camps where you could purchase services from denizens etc. These regions do not need unique visuals. Some can be made by recycling generic art (like a gobman village by placing 3-5 gobmen lairs together) but it will be nice if most had at least a 1×1 unique tile to show the regions theme
Special: These can be random out of place stuff like a xenowar ufo crash site, a gobmen being cooked inside a cauldron or a group of mantis running circles around an obelisk. Special regions should be unique (There cannot be two instances of the same special zone in a single game) and should be sparsely placed (Two special zones cannot be too close to each other)
- When the player discovers a region for the first time a text message will be shown on screen giving the location name and xp earned. Giving xp for discovering locations can be used as rewards to encourage the player to keep exploring.
- A semi transparent Minimap (that can be toggled into a full screen
travel map) with tiny icons representing the types of regions and their
colour coded threat levels. Each zone should have two states such as
visited and discovered.
- fast travel between zones using roads (conveyor belts) by clicking on hotspot locations on the travel map.
couple of ruins to decorate the map
Not much of a grinding fan myself but there are many people who enjoy it and
it does make games catchy in a strange way. A simple way to merge
exploration with grinding can be to "tightly seed" the map with grind
locations so players can explore to find more combat and loot.
Each
location can have a resource, item or reward that can be collected once all
the guardians around it are defeated.
There would be waves of monsters one after another and sometimes
the player would have to run back to base and heal a couple of times before
being able to completely clear a zone. Such zones can also spawn raiding
parties depending on their threat levels. Spawned monsters from a different
zone will attack the player's core while the player is busy trying to clear
another zone.
However such mechanic will force the player into combat most the time,
it may make the game feel monotonous or tiresome for people who enjoy casual
exploration game play. Difficulty settings in the main menu to set the
amount of combat, frequency of enemies spawned, number of regions and
landmass size etc can allow players to fine tune the game as they would
like.
Plants
Sketches about plants that will be populating the world.
Structures and Domains
Very early structure concepts. Trying to find a distinguishing look for each
of the major structures. Now looking back I think they are too round compared
to Altera's "blocky" visuals.
Some mish-mash about structure model scale compared to human model scale.
I am the one who drew this but even I find it hard to understand :)
Concepts and suggested model of the vault structure. I intended this to
occupy a single tile but a 4 tile width makes it look much better.
Probably only the content kiosks (screens, speakers, billboards etc.) will
suit a single tile due to slimness. A way around keeping structure size
small to a single tile can be to use dungeon keeper style rooms with walls
covering around the structure and resources so each structure will look
like a control panel, not a building. Colours or model is not
final.
Some concepts on a worker drone. Its a tiny floating unit that wobbles as
it floats, can have smoke coming out of its rear part as it "works". Im
not real happy with how the drones face ended up to be. It looks too
robotic, rather heartless. Maybe should have went with the pig face to
give it a slightly organic cute or pitiful feel. In game model should have
less colours and more glow
Nothing special, its a power plant that provide the necessary power to
run domains. Almost every strategy game from the 90's had one of these
:)
Weapons Factory / kiosk where visitors or locals of the domain
spend money to buy weapons. This thing is like a tiny vending machine or
micro wave oven where you place your order and it produces it in a few
seconds.
Character / Inventory screen
Altera has evolved quite a lot from a tech demo into an almost playable game
with poor presentation. Its current state is (more or less) a crudely
presented game were you could do a couple of cool things while workers run
around following your errands, denizens defend your domain, eat, sleep and
look for adventure, mysterious visitors in robes bring power to your base
while seeking refuge from trolls, various mobs raid settlements looking for
prey and so on. Still there are many things that need to be
implemented and many to be replaced / fixed.
So what was that image all about? Let me walk you through a quick session of
Altera's current alpha state while describing what each structure does.
You start the game with a "Core", a round platform with floating screens that allows you to control the domain around it and a humanoid form that acts as your avatar. Its an empty map with a grid dividing it into zones but with each passing minute the map evolves with growing plants and volcanoes that shape the land. There are also mysterious visitors wearing robes who travel this land using a transit system that resemble conveyors. These figures represent users who search the system for "content".
You start the game with a "Core", a round platform with floating screens that allows you to control the domain around it and a humanoid form that acts as your avatar. Its an empty map with a grid dividing it into zones but with each passing minute the map evolves with growing plants and volcanoes that shape the land. There are also mysterious visitors wearing robes who travel this land using a transit system that resemble conveyors. These figures represent users who search the system for "content".
You begin the game with very low resources so first thing to do is to wander
around looking for things to kill and loot. Luckily there are always other
domains nearby with easy to kill pests that give enough gold (its not
actually gold but its a yellow coloured triangle so I call it gold) it acts
as the basic resource which you use in construction of structures. Different
colours like red can be used for fire based weapons.
With enough gold you build a couple of worker bots who wander about, ready to do your footwork. These bots are the ones who will construct structures. Its usually a good idea to build a vault first as workers are weak in combat but there are times they get to kill an enemy and take its loot or stumble across some resources to collect. The vault allows them a safe place to pile resources for the player to use.
With enough gold you build a couple of worker bots who wander about, ready to do your footwork. These bots are the ones who will construct structures. Its usually a good idea to build a vault first as workers are weak in combat but there are times they get to kill an enemy and take its loot or stumble across some resources to collect. The vault allows them a safe place to pile resources for the player to use.
The mysterious visitors with robes give tech bonus to the player. In order
to attract visitors couple of kiosks need to be built.
These kiosks produce content (news, social etc. ). The more visitors you get
the higher tech bonus they give you. The bonus can be stored inside tech pyramids that act as a symbol of your "tech" cult. However these visitors also
bring the trolls that stalk them. These trolls act as nuisance, destroying
workers and killing visitors, causing various problems in your domain.
Sleeping Pods provide living space for other humanoid denizens in your base. These denizens have a mind of their own and require food, socialising, energy and morale to continue living in the domain. They also help the player defend the domain against trolls and raids from other mobs when they are not adventuring by themselves.
Luckily you dont have to guess what the denizens are thinking as their thoughts and status are presented as tiny speech bubbles above their heads.
The solar panels allow the plants in a certain radius around them to provide the food required to feed the denizens of the domain. Food is collected by workers and brought to a distillery where it is tuned into elixir. A type of drink (or food) that is sold in bars to act as a much more powerful item to satisfy hunger needs as long as the customers have enough money.
Sleeping Pods provide living space for other humanoid denizens in your base. These denizens have a mind of their own and require food, socialising, energy and morale to continue living in the domain. They also help the player defend the domain against trolls and raids from other mobs when they are not adventuring by themselves.
Luckily you dont have to guess what the denizens are thinking as their thoughts and status are presented as tiny speech bubbles above their heads.
The solar panels allow the plants in a certain radius around them to provide the food required to feed the denizens of the domain. Food is collected by workers and brought to a distillery where it is tuned into elixir. A type of drink (or food) that is sold in bars to act as a much more powerful item to satisfy hunger needs as long as the customers have enough money.
The Forge allows you to construct items such as pistols,
melee rings and shields. When building stuff you get a couple of different
parts to add / remove to the weapon. If you want to build a pistol, you pick
a basic chassis that will lay down its basic stats. Later you can choose to
add a scope for increased range or add a larger clip for extra ammo, you can
even pick the type of projectile it will shoot (flame, shock, explosive
etc). Each customization requires more money and tech level to build.
Every part you add has a visible effect on the gun model itself. (as long as you play zoomed in) so if you have a keen eye, familiar with the parts you can identify (more or less) what each weapon can do before picking it up.
Crafted items can be used, given to denizens who live in the domain or sold
to a market for money, where other denizens with enough credits would
attempt to buy them, contributing to the domains economy.
Additional Items
Currently the items are limited to various ranged weapons, shields and melee discs which are all combat related. The item list can be increased by adding various sorts of consumables and items that boost stats when carried in the inventory. The inventory space is very limited so there wont be too much concerns about someone filling their pockets to make a ultra powerful character. The players will still need to leave some items behind and those items will most definitely be found by another creature and end up somewhere totally unexpected.
Consumables (single use per item)
ration - fills food bar when consumed
medkit (auto patching systems) - fills health bar when consumed
battery - fills shield bar when consumed
holodiscs or rubic cubes - fills fun bar when consumed
maybe morale should not be recovered by the aid of items. Various other consumables can be added to boost the users skills for a limited time. (melee, speed, accuracy etc)
Artefacts (items that provide bonus to skills as long as they are carried, can be sold for a good price)
Flame ammo, extra clip, melee gauntlets, targeting visors etc...
These stuff should be found in the wild, in ruins, in containers scattered around the map etc. The main reasons for their existence;
a) adventuring denizens find them without paying for them. so they can focus spending their money on food and other consumables while grinding for loot and improving their stats using the items they found, this feels like it would allowing a more stable economy.
b) makes the surrounding world worth exploring.
c) discovering new loot is always fun.
Economy Model
The economy model was added recently so there are still some flaws in it. There was a talk of adding a tax system. I came up with this system for shops (and maybe sleeping pods and kiosks too due to the limited number of shops)
Couple of key structures should produce tax (maybe a low percentage of sales, 1/4 gold of each sale?) and every 10 minutes a tax collecting bot should visit them to take money back to the vault. If it dies the money is dropped, waiting for someone to pick it up. Greedy / unhappy denizens (crime) or trolls (glowing stuff takes their fancy) can target these guys for easy picking. It would not be an enormous loss for the player if the tax money is dropped so you wouldnt need to guard them personally but adding a few guard posts around their path can make a fun economy mechanic and an automated way to earn / loose money.
Every part you add has a visible effect on the gun model itself. (as long as you play zoomed in) so if you have a keen eye, familiar with the parts you can identify (more or less) what each weapon can do before picking it up.
Additional Items
Currently the items are limited to various ranged weapons, shields and melee discs which are all combat related. The item list can be increased by adding various sorts of consumables and items that boost stats when carried in the inventory. The inventory space is very limited so there wont be too much concerns about someone filling their pockets to make a ultra powerful character. The players will still need to leave some items behind and those items will most definitely be found by another creature and end up somewhere totally unexpected.
Consumables (single use per item)
ration - fills food bar when consumed
medkit (auto patching systems) - fills health bar when consumed
battery - fills shield bar when consumed
holodiscs or rubic cubes - fills fun bar when consumed
maybe morale should not be recovered by the aid of items. Various other consumables can be added to boost the users skills for a limited time. (melee, speed, accuracy etc)
Artefacts (items that provide bonus to skills as long as they are carried, can be sold for a good price)
Flame ammo, extra clip, melee gauntlets, targeting visors etc...
These stuff should be found in the wild, in ruins, in containers scattered around the map etc. The main reasons for their existence;
a) adventuring denizens find them without paying for them. so they can focus spending their money on food and other consumables while grinding for loot and improving their stats using the items they found, this feels like it would allowing a more stable economy.
b) makes the surrounding world worth exploring.
c) discovering new loot is always fun.
Economy Model
The economy model was added recently so there are still some flaws in it. There was a talk of adding a tax system. I came up with this system for shops (and maybe sleeping pods and kiosks too due to the limited number of shops)
Couple of key structures should produce tax (maybe a low percentage of sales, 1/4 gold of each sale?) and every 10 minutes a tax collecting bot should visit them to take money back to the vault. If it dies the money is dropped, waiting for someone to pick it up. Greedy / unhappy denizens (crime) or trolls (glowing stuff takes their fancy) can target these guys for easy picking. It would not be an enormous loss for the player if the tax money is dropped so you wouldnt need to guard them personally but adding a few guard posts around their path can make a fun economy mechanic and an automated way to earn / loose money.