For anyone who happens to stumble across this blog . . .

This blog, as has been stated before, will no longer be active.  I have moved here:

renaxs.blogspot.com

That's now my permanent blog.

Hope to see you there!  :)

A Change of Plan

As you may or may not be able to tell, everything on this blog has been eviscerated. Do not fear, for I am not putting down my keyboard just yet. After a few weeks of hair-pulling, face-smashing, and head banging, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot 2D game-make.

One night as I was trying to fall asleep, I realized that I did not have to screw around with it. So, I have dropped Pop! for now and gone with an RPG of sorts. Not gonna say anything yet, but there'll be one more blog post - the last of this blog, most likely - with the link to the fancy new blog with the fancy new game and the fancy new newness.

Oh, and, I'll also be working with someone else on this, so things will get done half as fast. No, that's not a typo. :) Just kidding, when we get into the flow of things, it'll be some pretty quick rolling.

That's it for now. Hopefully I haven't left anyone biting their nails. No, wait. Hopefully, I have. I love cliff hanging people.

Dungeons

Dungeons . . . gonna be probably the most interesting feature to make in the game.

They will be randomly generated, randomly placed, and temporary. New ones will pop up, old ones will vanish. Each will be unique.

Dungeons will be accessible via portals in the ground. You will be transported to a randomly generated dungeon, of which there will be four levels: Abyssinian Prince dungeons, Abyssinian Lord dungeons, Abyssinian King dungeons, and the extremely rare Abyssinian Overlord dungeons. Each is more difficult than the last, obviously, and each will garner more rewards than the last - obviously.

When you get into the dungeon, your first priority is to find the treasury, where all the cool stuff is. Once you find it, you have to kill the Prince/Lord/King/Overlord to retrieve his key, which you can then use to unlock the treasury. See what I did there? No way of avoiding a big boss fight when you go down to a dungeon.

Why go to a dungeon? There will be armor, abilities, spells, and weapons that are only - ONLY - found in dungeons. And trust me, they'll definitely be worth it.

How big will the dungeons be? That's my biggest question right now. Obviously, the more difficult the dungeon, the bigger and more hostilely-populated it'll be, but how big will they be? . . . I'll have to think on that. Gotta be big enough so it's a challenge, but small enough so you don't get eternally lost in its depths.

Ah, well. The game hasn't even started development - what am I worried about? :D Let's put all the technical details in the hands of FutureMe and worry about the fun stuff - while I still can. Ammarite, other indie developers?

On my agenda while I wait for my book and a new hard drive: Moar posts! Although, I probably won't need to post anything here for a while . . . I've kinda crammed my fist into your throat, dear reader, with my slew of posts in the past few days. I'll just be working on the blog itself, improving even more than the very recent overhaul. But most of you haven't had the misfortune to see my original blog . . . ha hah . . . just laugh, and you'll get an idea of what it looked like.

Global Traffic?

Edit:  Okay, I have no idea what the heck just happened.  This post just suddenly got bumped up to the top.  It's supposed to be with the other two posts about combat . . . No idea what happened there.


Well, that's interesting. Evidently, people from the UK, Australia, Germany, and Croatia have visited this blog . . . neat.

Don't know why I titled it that, since I only wrote two sentences about it. It really should be titled "Magic System."


I am going to make three posts today (Probably), each detailing what I plan on doing with the combat of Pop!. There will be three types of combat: Ranged, melee, and magic. They're diverse, and need no explanation. This one is about what I plan on doing with the magic system.


I want to do a bunch of trees, and that will be my ultimate goal. So here's the outline: There will be many "types" of magic - fire, ice, water, earth, air, mind, illusion, dimensional etc. Actually, that'll probably be it. Right there.


Each magic type will have three trees to it (I hope for them all to be very diverse and with a healthy amout of spells): Attack, defense, and other. Attack spells will, obviously, deal damage and maybe some other side effects - stun, knockout, freeze, snare, etc. - to their target. Some will have to be aimed, some all you'll have to do is tap on the target to select them and then use the spell. Defense spells need no target; it's always you (Although when it comes to multiplayer later on, I'll have to add a new magic category - healing - and make it so that you can give defensive spells to teammates), so all you need to do is use them. "Other" spells will be spells not really related to attack or defense - like traps or hindrances.

Each spell will be able to be indefinitely upgraded - each time you add a point to it, it'll just be boosted x% or something - so that you CAN have your favorite spell from the beginning of the game to the end.

The spell "trees" will be actually more like spell "grids" where, probably for the most part, there won't be any requirements for spells except experience, so you won't have to get a bunch of random spells you'll never use to get to your preferred one.



Again: Viewers from around the globe, I want your comments! Give me your suggestions, criticisms, and even insults! I can take it! :)

Storyline/Game progression

So, you already know the gist of the storyline. Before your character was born, the Fire and Ice dimensions were in a raging conflict over nothing; Fire just wanted to fight, and the Ice dimension was closest. As the Sky dimension watched the war go on, the Jungle dimension, filled with a simple folk who were both fierce warriors and did not want to fight, was taken over by the Abyss dimension, using the Fire-Ice war as a distraction to slip in unnoticed. As the last of the Jungle people took refuge in the Sky dimension, far away from their own dimension, the Abyss dimension wasted no time, taking over the Ice then Fire dimensions in quick succession. As the refugees took shelter in the Sky dimension, both the Abyssinian and Sky councils prepared for the inevitable Abyssinian assault. The Abyss Master, a being of pure evil, readied his armies for the final assault on the last dimension to total domination, but the Sky people, very wise, destroyed all the portals to the other dimensions, and the Abyssinians were halted without even being able to fight.

Your character is born after the war, into a simple farming family. You are summoned by the Sky Council because of your rare ability: You are a Jumper, allowing you to Pop between dimensions at will - without a portal. The Sky Council realizes how valuable you are to them; if trained, you would be able to Pop to the Fire dimension, do a few hit-and-run attacks, and Pop back. You would even be able to spearhead full-on assaults to take back the dimensions.



To progress in the game, instead of levels, there are "regions." Regions are small-ish chunks of land in a certain dimension, of which there will be ten per dimension. Ten regions a dimension, five dimensions, that's . . . hang on . . . fifty regions total. Needless to say, I'll be working on those regions for a while . . .

But the thing about regions, is that you gotta keep an eye on them, or they'll be taken back. I'm going to make it so that you have to destroy the portals on each region as well, as the Sky Council ruled that all inter-dimensional portals be destroyed, so as to prevent something like what happened from happening again. So there will be two main goals in the game: Destroy all the portals, and take back all the dimensions. After you've done so, you have to face and kill the Abyss Master - and then you've beaten the game!

UI/Mana

So . . . Before I begin, this game will be for the iPad only, for this reason: You won't be able to use your abilities if it's on the iPod - the buttons would have to be a certain size so you can reliably hit them, and at that size, you'd maybe only be able to fit three or four ability/spell slots on-screen. No matter how much I'd like to have an iPod version . . . ah, I'll put some more thought into it, maybe I'd be able to get one out there.

So, I'd like to sketch the UI, but again . . . no hard drive yet. So I'll separate it by chunks - upper left, upper middle, upper right, lower left, lower middle, lower right. These are just kinda vague descriptions of the screen - when I start development, I'll get some actual images out (obviously).

In the upper left section is the mini-map of all five dimensions, extending only to the edges of the region you're in (Well, there's another post I've gotta do). The map will look like five lines, spaced out, one on top of the other, each with a color corresponding to its dimension - white for sky, red for fire, blue for ice, green for jungle, and black for abyss. The dots will be indicators - a dot that represents you, dots that represent settlements, NPCs, enemies (With a certain perk, probably), and other things like portals and dungeons.

In the upper middle screen will be a small, unobtrusive rectangle that says basically "Tap here to purchase extra packages." I've already said what the extra packages are, so no need to go into detail there.

In the upper right of the screen will be, near the corner, the menu button and the inventory/skills button (Which would lead to your skill grid and the skill grids you buy stuff from etc.).

In the lower left of the screen there will be the virtual joystick - left and right to move, up to jump. Maybe a sprint feature, but that would be accessed on the lower right section of the screen . . .

In the lower middle part of the screen there will be your health, stamina, and experience bars, as well as a gold counter and maybe a few other things that should be able to be seen at a glance.

In the lower right of the screen will be the "action buttons" In the corner is your strike button, which just makes you swing your weapon(s). Forming two arcs around the strike button will be some number of ability/spell slots, where you drag and drop your abilities to and from.


Well, that's the concept, anyway, Any suggestions, questions, concerns? Comment. I'll be glad to respond.


Oh, that's right, I'm not done. Stamina/mana. Right,

So, stamina will be the energy source of the game. It will fuel your abilities and spells. While slowly recharging over time, you'll be able to get items that increase your stamina bar (Though you can do that with experience points) and/or increase the recharge rate.

Well, that's about it! I'm going to post about the storyline and how game progression will work.

Crafting

So . . . before I get started, here's my agenda for the next few blog posts (Mostly for my sake): Post about UI, post about stamina/mana.

And since I said that, I now have to tell you everything I need to get done before development can actually begin: First, I need to get a new hard drive for my laptop, which I'll be making the game on. Then, I need to read the book I ordered on Amazon about game design (It'll be here waay before I get that new hard drive, for sure, so rest assured by the time I have the hard drive I'll be able to start working) up to the point where I can start doing SOMEthing in the way of game making.

Now to what this post is about: The planned crafting system

Well, in the three-ish hours since I posted last, I've rethought this. I don't really want to implement a crafting system in the game, as I would feel obligated to make it with depth, and with so many depthful planned features . . . well, I've got to draw the line somewhere, or it'll become unrealistic.

So, in lieu of a crafting system, there will be a small enchanting system. Mostly, it will be used to upgrade your weapon stats - damage, armor piercing, etc. - but you will also be able to use it to give your weapons and armor special abilities, like making it so that wearing a certain set of gloves will make you fire proof (Nothing THAT boss, though, unfortunately for you) or resistant to ice damage, or so that getting three consecutive hits on someone will set them on fire and put a few DOTs on them.

The only thing somewhat resembling a crafting system that I can see in the game's future is poisoning a weapon, but that doesn't really count, now, does it?

What a terribly short post. Oh, well, they can't all be amazing, can they? Maybe I'll combine the next two posts into one . . . yeah, I'll do that, to make me look sophisticated . . .


Comment, two people who have seen this blog! Comment!

Ranged weapons

So, evidently the titling works . . . at least it does on my app. I'll have to check it out on the web browser . . .

Ooh, I just did . . . and it looks wonderful! Instead of just having the date of when it was published, it now has the name, nicely centered. Very neat. Love this app already.


So. Ranged system. This will be . . . interesting. I mean, aiming accurately would be an interesting thing on a platform-style game. Especially if I were to implement an arcing system with it . . . I have an idea: To aim, instead of tapping the "action" button (Oh, jeez, now I gotta do a post about the planned UI) , you tap the screen to indicate where you want the arrow fired. There'll be no power changes, so one tap will do, and it'll send your arrow soaring where you tapped. This way, it'll be difficult to headshot, but easy to get used to how the arcs go and at least you'll be able to reliably bomb people with your splash-effect arrows.

So here's what I'll probably do: I'll go by arrow types. I mean, you can't really have different abilities when it comes to arrows. So there will be one big grid, on which there will be different arrow types - bomb arrows that do splash damage, hardened arrows that can mitigate armor effects, magic arrows that can slow people up etc. I would think that buying arrow types would be with gold, not experience - maybe a mix? What do you think?

But then there's something else that I want to - will - add to the ranged weaponry system: Insta-kill headshots - but only with the standard, non-upgradable wooden arrows that you get when you buy a bow. The crappy ones that can't do anything. But unless you have a helmet strong enough, or a spell to prevent it, which will be assuredly hard to get, a headshot with that crappy arrow will do the trick against the strongest of opponents. This is mostly for multiplayer purposes, but I'll probably add it to singleplayer.

Bows will probably only add extra damage to your arrows, although some of them might add specific damage types to the arrows - like one bow could cause arrows to set people on fire, but it wouldn't be able to shoot any ice-based arrows etc.

There will be no ammo system for the arrows, but the ones with the special abilities (Magic ones or ones that set things on fire/freeze them etc) will drain your stamina/mana (Now I gotta do a post about THAT too), and the arrows that wouldn't be able to drain your mana (Bomb ones, hardened ones, arrow storms/hails, etc.) will just have a cool-down that you'll have to grit your teeth through.

I might, just for the novelty of it, make arrows craft-able too. Actually, you know what I'll do? I'll make the next post about crafting. There, I've got a plan. I'll probably post that tomorrow, although if I get bored again today . . . :)

Melee System!

Well, I'm using my iPad (Which'll see its fair share of Pop! in its developmental stages, I'm sure) to write this post, and there's a little section in the app I'm using for "Title," so we'll see what comes out the other end.

Now onto the melee system! Here's the run-down: The melee system will be pretty similar in concept to the magic system, in that all the skills will be infinitely (indefinitely) upgradable, in a grid-not-a-tree formation, and not have any prerequisites.

Before I continue, let me explain what I mean by "No prerequisites except experience." I mean that to unlock an ability, all you need is experience - but the more powerful abilities to start will require more experience than others. It'll be pretty balanced, but I don't think I'll make it perfect . . . >:)

So, kind of like with the different magic types, there will be different weapon types: Swords, daggers, knives, axes, hammers, etc. (Any others? COMMENT). Each of the types, except daggers and knives, for obvious reasons, will have both 1H and 2H weapons. The weapons themselves will only be vessels for your abilities, but they'll each have their own bonuses and damage increases (And I probably will implement an enchantment system, too). Another thing about how two different 1H swords will actually be different, apart from looks, is their base strike damage. Your base strike is basically just you swinging your weapon without using any abilities.

There will be more grids for each weapon (2 grids per weapon - 1 for 1H, 1 for 2H), and probably about the same amount of weapon types as magic types, meaning there'll be less abilities per grid (I'll still churn out enough abilities per weapon so that you won't feel constricted or anything).

There needs to be a section alone for dual-weilding. Dual wielding will be for ability diversity, not for extra damage (You'll have two weapons with unique abilities instead of one). Let's say that with your sword, you have this crazily updated charge attack, but you want to follow it up with a swoop that will knock your enemy back. What better weapon for this than a hammer is there? So now you can rush your enemy, inflict a bunch of damage with your charge, and then knock them back before they can strike back at you.

As for shields, they'll take up a hand slot, and you'll see your character holding it, but there probably won't be a shield-using system - it'll just absorb some damage and have a chance of blocking attacks.

Web Version

So here's what I'm planning to do with the web version of the game:

The web version won't really be any different, gameplay-wise, than the iOS version.  The purpose of it is so that you can play the game on whatever you want to, but there's something else:  In later releases, I plan on making a simple weapon-designing program where you can draw (Voxel-based game, remember?) a weapon (The template will be a grid that looks kind of like a very blocky "n" with the lower-middle part removed for where the hand will be) that you can make with the program and then upload it to your account, where you can then add attributes and abilities to really make it your own.  Then you can use it on your iOS device too!  Obviously, this is only an idea - I have no idea how to do this yet, but I will learn.  I know it's do-able!


Just to reiterate:  If you have ANY questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know; indie developers do what they want!  I have no obligations, directors, or anything of the sort to tell me what to do, so this game will probably have quite a few user-suggestions in it.  Already the story has been somewhat shaped by a dude called Braydonn (Actually, very heavily shaped).

Technical Specs

Since evidently this blog thing doesn't have titled posts (I'm going to have to look around), I'm going to "title" them as I did this one - a little bit bigger and bolder than the rest of the post.

Edit:  I have completely redone my blog.  Ha haa!  So basically . . . disregard what's above, there are now official titles on everything.

On to the actual post!  :)

Pop will be a voxel-based game with 8-bit style (Key word being style, not 8-bit exactly)  details.  I hope to make it aesthetically pleasing - simple graphics, easy to make, but not painful to look at.

The game will be made for iOS devices, although I plan on making a web version as well (More on why in my next post - it is worthy of a post of its own).  It will be made using Unity and Blender mostly, although I am sure that other programs will be used.

The game, when completed (I plan on releasing a free web open-beta - happy?), will probably cost somewheres along the line of $2.99 - $3.99 (Probably $2.99) on the appstore, but you will be able to buy $0.99 packages that will include things like cosmetics (Clothing etc.), items (Weapons, spellbooks, etc.), abilities/spells (Self-explanatory), and armor, among possibly other things.

Once you buy the game for iOS devices, you can make an account that you can use to play the web version - however, if you don't buy the iOS version (If you don't have an iOS device), you can buy an account online - but beware, because you'll still have to buy the app if you buy an account first.  Mostly because I'm not sure how it could work otherwise.  Maybe you'd get a few free packages?  Not sure.

Hmm . . . that's about all I can think of.  I'll make another post about the web version later today, probably.

First Post

Hello to any and all reading this post.  I have a bunch of things to say, so I'm going to prioritize.


First of all, this game won't start development for probably a few weeks to a month after this post (My computer's hard drive is busted and I need to get a new one), but I'll still be posting game idea updates until then.


Second of all, here's the run-down on the game:


The game is a platform-style side-view RPG. I haven't worked out all the story details yet, which is one of the things I'm open to suggestions about. 

The game revolves around you, a Traveler. You see, in the game world, there are five different dimensions all in the same space - Fire, ice, jungle, sky, and abyss. Each is very distinct - you can guess what they all look like.  You, a Traveler, can Pop from dimension to dimension at will, unlike others, who need to use portals to get from world to world.

The game will be highly customizable - I love RPGs. There will be tons of items, ability trees, magic spells, ways to take your character etc.  To start, you even select your character's build - large, medium, and small.  Big dudes are strong and slow, small ones are weak but fast and agile.

The singleplayer will be all about your journey from simple peasant to Traveler hero extraordinaire.  The storyline, which is not set in stone, will probably be along the lines of two warring dimensions (Probably fire and ice) distracting all the other dimensions with battle, and then the Abyss dimension starts taking over the jungle dimension and moving on until all but the Sky dimension has fallen.  You are born in the Sky dimension, raised as a farm boy, but are snatched by a man who begins to teach you the ways of the Traveler.  You then fight back a small force of Abyssian warriors who invaded the Sky dimension and it goes from there, as you take back each dimension one by one until you finally face the Abyss Master.


Remember:  I'm really very open to suggestions, so comment as you will with whatever you've got - as an indie developer, I've got nothing to do but whatever the heck I want!  :)