The Magic Editor

Mystic dream features quite a hefty magic and ability system. I wanted an easy way to create powers and abilities not only for myself but for the players as well. My magic editor does exactly this. Using a simple interface and a point and click control system users can manipulate objects to build the desired effect they want painting each object with its own unique animation sequence and applying sounds. The editor also allows users to add and modify the effects of a spell. A list of different types of effects is loaded and users simply click the ones they want. The effects are then added to a list so they can be tweaked and manipulated to the users desire. Powers can then be exported into a special magic file that is read in and understood by the game engine. This editor offers great power and speed to any user it is proving to be a valuable asset to myself even though I'm still perfecting its design.

Non linear questing

Recently I talked about interaction and briefly about quests. In order to create a new experience for users the quest or task based systems should be non linear and should be story driven. But how can we accomplish this with the time and resources available. I feel firstly that most quests involve killing and/or collecting of items as a main focus. This will not expand our gaming experiences in any way. Exploring new options like helping to rebuild a colony, fulfilling a job in a certain town I.E. serving as a smith or fisherman for example, conquering and ruling your kingdom and many other paths. If we open up our minds and view anything as possible we can make it happen in our own virtual worlds. I aim to include as many non linear or unique quests in my project Mystic Dream as possible but I also give my users the tools to create experiences that I couldn't even imagine. Let me know your thoughts and feelings on this.

User created content

User created content and game customisation are definitely features which set one game a part from another. Role playing games have been allowing players to create their game character for many a year but now some games are allowing even more in depth control. Items, environments, weather conditions even game mechanics are opening up new ways to interact in a game world and allowing new experiences from old ones. So how far could this go and when should developers say this level of control is too much? What sorts of ways can we allow users to have their impact on a game? Just things to think about I would love your comments on this topic.

Mystic Dream Progress 6/11/07

Well I though this would be a good time for another update on my project. All is coming along nicely the core functionality of the game engine is coming together and im nearing an announcement to reveal just what my engine can do. I have rebuilt how weather and locations are loaded and handled by the system also adding in support for sky types which include both day and night although I have yet to devise a system to transition between day and night skys yet. All the player to non player interactions are complete but i still have to re implement my quest system and add the improvements. Items have been redesigned and added to the engine although there is a bit of work to be done with them before I would call it complete. So the last task will be finishing quest system, items and of course my magic system.

The Universal editor

The key to any sucessful game is the design and implementation of appropriate editors to develop that game with. The content and arrangement of this content must easily and quickly be layout out and the information saved into a suitableformat. My project in a bid to maintain ease of use yet still hold great control over the system has condensed all control into a master editor. Users can add characters, items and objects to the world with a simple drag and drop interface. By using this system anybody can change the gaming experience and it also means the game can be developed fast. There can be great benefits from indies and pros using external tools to develop their games with.

Video replay in games

With halo3 released and on of its main features being the recording and replay of users games I want to know people feelings towards this. There is no doubt about it everybodys game experience is different when they play the same game. Sharing the bizarre, amazing and funny moments during a players game can be great fun. Not only that but having videos of certain functions in action developers can more readily fix bugs and glitches rather than trying to find out what the problem is.

I feel that developing a system to record worldly data and use it to reconstruct all of my users game experiences could be of great value not only for me but for other computer games as well. If I made the system open enough and flexible enough it could be adopted as a common way of handling video replay. Feel free to contribute your views on this as I will take your input into consideration.

Interaction in Mystic Dream

The biggest part of my engine and one of the most important features is how the player interacts with both the world and the other characters and creatures within it. My system although still under development has the basics in place so that I may talk about them. Flexibility and complexity have been my key focus with this system. Players should be able to have long complicated conversations with npcs which will alter based on how the player chooses to respond. The system is controlled by lua based script files containing instructions on how characters will react, what they can say, what sorts of answers the player is permitted to reply with and how they are dealt with. My desire is for players to be able to create their own characters and script them exactly how they would like them to be even create quests using the same system.

Story telling in rpgs

Story telling is both the most important part of a role playing game and the most common poorly designed aspect of the game. Here I will talk about a few ways to create more complex story lines and possible ways to generate fresh ideas.

In most rpgs the player is tasked with saving the world, galaxy or universe in most cases and although this gives the player a great feeling of importance it has been used far too much. I spent much time thinking how to develop better story line and gain a fresh aspect on the role playing experience. The best ways I have discovered are to think outside the box and try exploring concepts or areas that might appear simple to your eyes but with some simple development could grow into a very complex and detail story.

One of the great tools I used was to create or design an intellectual property and from that fleshed out history, characters, places, races and even cultures. From this information I have a living breathing world in which I could pull resources to develop plot with. Past experiences could be drawn on to enhance the story or change the player’s perspective on what is happening. It may even be of use to complete a task that is of great difficulty.

The structure of the plot is also of great importance for example many role playing games have a main plot and several less involved side stories which can be engaged if they so desire. I don't believe this is this best design. If you have ever played the nights of the old republic games you can see that having several interconnect plots can be of greater enjoyment. When there are some common links to other stories or experiences the player feels as if they are exploring the world and the plot by delving deeper into the world and all its inhabitants. You see characters should not be placed at random but be designed to play a role just like any character does think of each character as having a purpose to push forward the story just like a novel does.

Getting back to themes or concepts you could consider possibilities could be life/death, events of the world maybe some sort of strange political happenings have occurred, the environment and all its laws i.e. maybe the rules have gone wild gravity is changing or the sky is fading, Beliefs and culture are good ones that can open all sorts of avenues for plot. So if you’re stuck sit down and think about what is around you and what could be explored in a fictional world.

Mystic Dream

My first post will be about introducing my current project Mystic Dream a 3d third person role playing game based on my own intellectual property. The engine I have completely designed and built myself using my intensive research. Yes research you see I knew that there were many ways and areas in which rpgs fell short. So in order to prevent mine falling victim to these same issues I did my homework. I read reviews, I talked to gamers, I listened to pod casts, I played games and I experimented until I found all the information I needed to compile a design document. I also had my own ideas and visions for a ground breaking rpg that I wanted to see come to life so I threw those in to.

The first and most common concept or flaw I came across was the heavy focus on combat and making the player powerful. Now I know it should be a big thing but bear with me until I explain how things could be done. Think about how limited rpg combat really is you basically level your way until you’re so powerful the game holds no challenge and you literally break the system this doesn’t last long does it. Now also consider the bland or limited nature of combat maybe you get a few different moves but it’s usually limited. Now imagine a world where every entity and being had attributes. Strengths, weaknesses, qualities and behaviors which meant hacking them to bits with the most powerful weapon wouldn’t work because wait for it....there wasn’t just one ultimate weapon. Yes in my world changing your way of fighting on the fly is necessary you have to consider and use all the tools at your disposal. For example a sword might be able to hold several enchantments a fire stone or a water stone for example they do different types of damage but the same amount. Now your fighting fiery creature but you have a fire stone equipped your doing next to no damage in fact your going nowhere and your sword is taking damage from the overpowering fire energy of the beast. The only way to win this is to pull back for a bit and swap out that stone for the water one you happen to have with you. Now you’re doing great as the creature has a weakness to water energy and better yet your blade is protected. This was just a simple scenario but there is much more to game than this.

The second thing I noticed was that people love input and they love to creature so I thought hey why not kills two birds with one stone. All the tools and editors I use to create the spells and abilities, the characters, the classes, the races, the items and even the world itself will be freely available to everyone. That’s right anybody can create their own items or spells or whatever they want and load it up into the world. You can even make your own quests or factions. This adds a whole lot of replay value and it adds another dimension to the game experience. The tools come complete with tutorials and help files on how to create each game element so anybody can pick up real quick.

The third thing I discovered was people love to interact with each other so multiplayer including multiplayer coop was a big thing for me. I know very few rpgs except for mmorpgs that offer this functionality. So I decided to make it work so small groups of players can connect together via either local area networks or the internet to either cooperate with each other or simply do their own thing. The experience is optimized and will perform just like the single player experience except your experiencing the host’s world rather than the person who join the game. You can even use your characters, I feel this will be an awesome tool because players will be able to exchange items, show off their stuff or just enjoy a bit of dungeon raiding together. The experiences are unlimited heck you could even build and army and wage war against each other.I have so many ideas and new game systems this is just a few but if you like the sound of this them let me know what you think. I will continue to post my work and ideas here over time so that everyone can talk and share their ideas, their experiences and just enjoy gaming at its best.

Welcome

Welcome everyone to my blog and thanks for visiting. Here I will be posting up details of things I'm working on, ideas for game design or theory's, my feelings toward certain pieces of software or video games and so much more so feel free to look around. I love being able to communicate with other people who share my love for computing and software development. It’s incredible what you can achieve when you just simply talk to other people about things you really care about.