Thank you guys for replying. I apologize for the "bite me" crack. I wasn''t in the best mood when I wrote that post. Anyhow, if nothing else, I have a better idea what kinds of things to ask all of you about and a better understanding of what this forum is for. So, in reply to your posts, here''s a better description of the game I''ve envisioned. Keep in mind that this is a bunch of different ideas that could, but won''t necesarily, fit together.

Perspective:
Ok, so "top-down" is a bad way to say it - I didn''t mean straight-down or vertical. There are side-scrollers that are from a lateral perspective, there are vertical, top-down games too. I want something in between. I''m sure some of you have played "the Sims" right? That kind of perspective - at an angle - so that you can place an item behind a wall or a rock or something, where you can''t see it unless you''re looking from the right angle.

Violent Content:
This topic was presented to me by a friend of mine that isn''t a gamer. I was playing Half-Life or Counter Strike (who knows which) when she came in and asked me why the game had to be so violent. I''d never really thought about it before. Why DO games have to be violent? Is it because of our violent nature? Is it healthy? So I decided to try and come up with a way to eliminate the killing without compromising entertainment or challenge.
So, there are all types of games, right? Puzzlers, shooters, questers, twitchers, spookers, whatever. In an action game, the goal is usually to shoot a bunch of bad guys in order to get past them and to somewhere with more bad guys to shoot. That''s part of the fun of the game. But there must be something else that can take the place of killing in a game without removing the challenge.
Take TV. The A-Team was a great show. It was violent, but there wasn''t and blood-splattering, gut-wrenching gore. Take it a step further and you get MacGyver where all the problems in the world can be solved by using duct tape and a swiss army knife.
The point is, I want to remove the killing without removing the action. Maybe the hero will have a stun-gun (I''m sure many of you have played Commander Keen) or maybe he''ll set traps to catch enemies. I''m not sure what I want yet. That''s why I''m posting - for feedback.

Multiplayer VS AI Programming:
So, you know how when you write a three-point essay and you''re really scrambling because you only have two points - two great points, but only two points - and your paper is three pages short of the minimum and it''s already double-spaced in 16-point with huge margins and you only have an hour left to write the rest and hand it in? Well, I''ve been in school too long. I didn''t really think about the AI thing at all. As pointed out by LyLFox, "artificial intelligence describes what you (the human) would do under the given condition(s). So programming AI would be just that - telling your program what to do when certain events happen." I''ll put some more thought into it.

The Storyline:
Honestly, I don''t have one yet. I''m not much of a writer. I''m more interested in designing the game-play.

Gameplay:
This is where things get interesting. I have a lot of ideas, but I know if I use them all in one game then it will be too hard to play. Most of these ideas came to me while playing other games and thinking "wouldn''t it be cool if I could right now? So, here are a few of my ideas:

Strafing V2.0: Let me begin by saying that the man who invented strafing was a genious. But from a third-person perspective, it only gets better! While strafing left or right in Half-Life or Doom, you can fire straight ahead. But what if you could fire in any direction that''s in front of you - 180 degrees? So you could be facing North and firing anywhere north of the East-West axis and moving forwards, backwards or sideways.

Tackling: I think this is an original idea (at least outside the realm of sports games). Instead of being limited to shooting and dodging your oponents, what if you could tackle them? They''re trying to catch you, right? So why are you running away when you could try to catch them? Super Mario was bigger than those goombas, but they got him every time unless he pounced on ''em.

Fully Thrashable Environment: Remember in Zelda how you could cut the grass and bushes and find things? Well, why not make every reasonably sized object able to be taken, thrown, dropped or destroyed? Granted, it would take an awful lot more memory to have to keep track of all those items, but it would be really fun!

Well, that''s all I have time to write for now. I guess I''m mostly just bouncing ideas off people. I''m probably bouncing around too many ideas at once, but that''s the way I think. If you have an opinion on any of these ideas, feel free to post about it, but you don''t have to post an opinion on anything that you don''t have an opinion on. But you knew that.

Your game idea doesn''t sound non-violent to me. What will you be shooting at and tackling? Is it like a shooting range or training grounds thing, or what? Even if it is, it''s still kinda violent

There''s been a game using a rotating camera view in 3d like the one you described...it''s name was something with "Hex..." i believe. Seemed to work well, as far as i know.

My replies:

Perspective: I think youre looking for the word "isometric" where the camera is situated at a 45 degree angle. Honestly dont include camera rotation unless its REALLY going to add to the game.

Violent Content: I agree that in many instances go too far with gore factor. But I think youre confusing blood/gore with violence, in fact I'm sure you are. Using a stun gun or tackling someone is STILL violence. If you stun a rabid dog, that's still violence. And just saying "Strafing" and "Fully Thrashable Environment" shows that its going to be a violent game. As far as AI goes, Harvest Moon was a fun and original game with no violence(that I remember) and relatively little in the way of AI.

Your Original post: Your going to have to be realistic if you really are "a lazy jerk" you are going to have the hardest time in the world taking your game anywhere. You are going to need motivation and lots of it. Design is going to be hard enough, not to mention graphics,sound,story,programming. Even if you have a team a lot will be required of you. I'm not being smart just trying to help see realisticly what youre trying to acomplish and what your up against.

Edited by - TechnoHydra on October 30, 2001 12:17:59 PM

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Original post by punkphreak
Perspective:
Ok, so "top-down" is a bad way to say it - I didn''t mean straight-down or vertical. There are side-scrollers that are from a lateral perspective, there are vertical, top-down games too. I want something in between. I''m sure some of you have played "the Sims" right? That kind of perspective - at an angle - so that you can place an item behind a wall or a rock or something, where you can''t see it unless you''re looking from the right angle.

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Why not let the play choose his/her chosen perspective? Some players like first person views, I particularly like ''over-the-shoulder'' third person views like Tomb Raider''s or Heretic II''s. I think you''d benefit more by letting the user tailor the game to his/her own preferences.

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Violent Content:
The point is, I want to remove the killing without removing the action. Maybe the hero will have a stun-gun (I''m sure many of you have played Commander Keen) or maybe he''ll set traps to catch enemies. I''m not sure what I want yet. That''s why I''m posting - for feedback.

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Violence != Killing.

There are two games that spring immediately to mind when I think of violence, and the consequences of violence. One is Soldier Of Fortune, and the other is Deus Ex.

SoF is an extremely violent and gory game. You can shoot people in the stomach, and their guts spill out. However, this is tempered with a restriction. There are two kinds of guys - bad guys and good guys. The bad guys want to kill the good guys (which includes you and the civilians). If you, or the bad guys, kill too many civilians, you loose. So, although SoF presents death as a bloody, gory and unpleasant experience (and it is), you can''t just go around shooting everything that moves.

Deus Ex promises, but doesn''t deliver. In the beginning, you''re told that you''re a police officer, and you should try to use nonlethal methods. However, these methods are slower and more difficult than the lethal methods, and there''s no reward for using them, nor a punishment for being lethal (you can even shoot your comrades in the head, and they''ll get a bit angry for a while, and then calm down).

So, if you want to stop the use of lethal methods (which seems to be what you''re against here), you need to offer rewards for being nonlethal, and punishments for turning it into a bloodbath. That way, the game could offer the possibility of blood and gore, but it would be very difficult to progress if you take the offering.

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The Storyline:
Honestly, I don''t have one yet. I''m not much of a writer. I''m more interested in designing the game-play.

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The game-play should be driven by a storyline. The storyline defines what is valid and what is not in your game universe. Many games have lumped together good game-play features, and then hastily put an incoherent storyline over the top.

That isn''t good. The storyline has two main uses. Firstly, it should entertain the player. Secondly, it should allow the player to guess what kind of game-play features he/she can expect to be challenged with. Without a storyline driving your game-play, it won''t make sense.

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Strafing V2.0

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If you allowed the player to select a firing target with the mouse, whilst moving with the keyboard, then you could do this. Personally, I think this kind of strafing is long overdue.

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Tackling:

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I can''t argue with this. See any beat ''em up for tackles and throws. Shen Mue is the only RPG I know of that allows for such things, but I''m sure there are others.

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Fully Thrashable Environment:

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You can do this in Hexen II, virtually anything wooden can be destroyed, as can trees, statues, windows and sheep. Many of the game''s secrets are hidden in this way.

''Nuff said. I''ll enjoy watching you live, demon.

Well I sure do appreciate a good BITE ME every once in a while.

"I''m not sure what I want yet. That''s why I''m posting - for feedback."

You can''t expect to post "I want to make a game, it has to be nonviolent and stuff... what do you think" and then expect anyone to actually be able to tell you what they think, because they don''t think anything at all!

Here''s what I would post if I was in your shoes:

"Okay, so I''m thinking of STARTING to write a game design of some sort. To tell you the truth I''m really not sure where I''m going to end up, but if you''d be so inclined I''d like to throw a few balls up in the air and see where that leads us.

Okay, first of all, the game I imagine will roughly be so and so large, taking so and so much time to finish. That''s just an outline of course as I''m not sure if I can sustain the novelty of the ideas for that long, but it''s a frame nonetheless.

Now I''d like to cut back on the violence that most games seem to thrive on today, because it seems that noone is really actually trying to make exiting action games where the violence isn''t the priority of the game. So what I''d like to do is somehow cut back on it, but can I actually remove it all and still have an exiting game? That''s what I''ve been asking myself. And quite frankly I''m not sure. But here''s a list of things that I''ve thought about engaging the player with:

- Stealth (Thief, MGS, to some extend Deus Ex and so on)
- Time pressured ''puzzles'' (lock picking with guards in the neighborhood)
- Putting guards to sleep by putting sleep juice in their coffee
- and so on and so forth
- more of the same
- yet another plausible idea.

..."

THAT would have shown me that you had actually put some thought into this so called ''idea'' before throwing it out here for us to give ''feedback'' on.

What you showed initially, and in most posts so far hasn''t shown me that yet. Sorry for busting your bubble and being an asshole, but you haven''t shown me much.

I''m more than willing to engage in a discussion about less-violent gameplay, I think the thought is great, so great as a matter of fact that I''ve written a close to 100 page design document based on toning violent down and character interaction up.

But you''ve got to show some initiative.


"Honestly, I don''t have one yet. I''m not much of a writer. I''m more interested in designing the game-play."

I can understand with that, but I do think that the two go hand in hand, otherwise you''ll end up designing more than you can use, and designing lots of needless stuff, essentially wasting your time and cluttering up your vision.

Michael Heilemann
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Designer on Singularity - Sysop at Nerve Impulse
Let us never allow ourselves the sin of forgetting our dreams!

AI versus Multiplayer

you''ll prolly have just as much trouble putting in multiplayer as AI

Try to decide a central theme on the action. For example, you are exploring areas trying to solve puzzles, find missing pieces, search for secret doorways, and maneuver through difficult areas (one instance where a rotatable camera would be useful - helps you know when that anvil might drop from above again - come to think of it, that might allow the player to configure the camera for their own experience as they see fit, sometimes the situation might demand it - a game built on the ability to place the camera where needed... hmm...)

Take a look at the book Game Programming Gems for clues on AI programming.

I''m not going to tell you what it will take to make a game - you''ve got that gleam in your eye that says you at least want to try. Go for it! Be prepared to discover a lot of things along the way, as far as compromising ideas for integratability, your own capabilities (mental, organizational, etc.). Put yourself through the fulfilling stretches and some difficult ones every now and then.

And good luck!

- wizBang

The view: The angle looking down you descibe is generally called Isometric perspective. Not trying to bash you for not knowing the lingo, but just for future reference.

The violence / non violence: In Hitman, you get penalised for being over violent. The aim of the game is to make a clean kill. Obviously, I''m not very good at it (well, if those policemen are shooting ME, why can''t I shoot them back? Self defence yer''honour!)

btw: Bishop Pass, you are harsh, but funny =) Still, I don''t really see the point in posting =)


Cheers,

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if the game were just the dungeon mazes and item-finding without stuff to fight, it would not have been interesting at all; the challenge was to find the stuff by surviving the hoardes of enemies that stood in the way.

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There is more interesting and scary if there is a small amount of monsters in the game. Let´s say that you have been hired to search for a old tombe in a house somewere. You wait for the ordinary monster to show up but nothing happends. You walk around inside the house, find notes and clues and some are intereesting but most of them are crap. But suddenly when you are least expecting it to happend the horror strike you. And you can´t beet it beccause you have not found the clue that you must have to survive this terrible, strange creature! You must run away or you are going to die! Then on your way out when you are in the garden you meet an strange old lady. She is ghost in fact but you don´t understand that. You talk with her and she tells you the she is the owner of the house. She gives you the clue you need to find the passage to the dungeon under the castle so you don´t have to fight the monster.



Zeblar Nagrim, Lord of Chaos