Sunday, July 26, 2009

Server Up - Time for Progress

Alright! Got the server up (kind of). The basics are there and hopefully in a month or two we can get a Linux server up with the ideal setup. At least now we can begin to make more progress on the game's development.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Server Excitement!

I will do my best to spare you of most of the details; however, I do want to keep everyone up-to-date with the project's progress. Recently, we have been attempting to get a server up and running that will run Subversion (SVN) and Trac. Both of these software will greatly help with the development of PPK. However, some unknown force is attempting to stop us...

Our first attempt was with an old computer that we revived - or so we thought. After one day and several trips to Fry's Electronics, we got the computer up and running with Ubuntu on it; SVN and Trac would come later. Two days later the motherboard and/or CPU became "crispy". Attempt #1 = death.

Currently, my desktop is attempt #2. Things are a little tricky considering that my network experience sums up to about... nothing. Needless to say, it has been painful and frustrating. Even though attempt #2 is still alive, I have considered giving it a similar fate to attempt #1. I am hoping that soon I will get some amazing much needed help and finally get everything up and running correctly. Once this is done real progress can once again commence.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Detachments!

For some reason I had completely forgotten about one of the components of a company. Here is what I wrote about them in our GDD. :)

One additional component of a company is the detachment, which will provide the company with a passive trait/attribute. Such as Scavenger Punees will recover some resources from the battlefield if the company wins or having a Water Puni detachment might recover some of the company's HP after battle.

I hope you like the idea of detachments - I know I do!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Battle System Details

If you haven't read the previous post about the gameplay flow, then I recommend you do that here.

First we'll get all of the vocabulary out of the way. The unit used for fighting is a company. A company is made up of 2+ squads and a Puni Captain. A squad is made up of many punees but is limited to one puni class (Water Puni, Ore Puni, ...ect). A Puni Captain is a special type of puni that leads the company. It will have a level, some other stats and even skills. The company as a whole will have only a congregate of stats, most of which will probably be hidden from the player.

As mentioned earlier companies are the unit used for fighting and so they are the unit you move around on the map via nodes. When it is a companies action turn and they attempt to move to a node occupied by an enemy company then they attack. When attacking an enemy you will be able to choose which enemy company to attack if there are multiple of them. Then you select an tactic to take. There are many different tactics and their availability depends on a few variables; the company make-up, the weather and some are learned by leveling up. Different tactics will have different outcomes so choosing the correct tactic is important.

Once a tactic is chosen, your company attacks and damage is done to the enemy company. After the attack you can choose a defense maneuver for an additional stamina cost.

This is basically how the battle system works. In some ways the gameflow and battle system are a mixture between a tactical game like Final Fantasy Tactics (amazing game) and a strategy game like Civilization. I am really excited about this. It is going to be a very unique game and have much to offer!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Brainstorming and more Gameplay

Yet another day of some great brainstorming. Us three developers got together again last night and got some more ideas out. We attempted a prototype some but instead called it a night.

The major discussion of the night was the gameplay flow and the battle system, which had actually been a major topic of the previous night as well. Yesterday I had an idea for a battle system and presented that to the other two. With much consideration and some constructive input we came up with a very interesting battle system that actually solved our gameplay issue. Here is what we got for the gameplay...

The camera for the game sits above the ground far enough so you can see several towns, forests, and mountains. The towns and paths in between the towns are represented by nodes. These nodes are the only places your units can move (That was mostly recap).

For the gameplay flow we originally had a real time system but it is now changed. Instead each unit and town for all players receive a turn. Whenever it is their turn, the unit or town is able to make some type of action such as moving to another node or constructing a building. The order of turn is decided upon by two things, the unit's/town's speed and the previous action the unit/town took. Each action has a time cost, like moving to a node might cost 50 units of time while attacking an enemy would cost 75 units of time. The larger the cost the longer until the unit's/town's next turn. The speed attribute comes in by simply lessening the cost of the action and consequently lessening the time until its next turn.

That was all gameplay...Soon I will write a post about the actual battle system and how it works.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Prototyping

One thing Robbie suggested that we do is some prototyping, which I had considered before but wasn't convinced it was necessary. After some convincing, we decided to start with a paper prototype, which basically means to play through a game session with pen and paper. The goal of this would be to see how well the gameplay mechanics work and be able to quickly get an overview of what needs to be altered/removed.

We decided to go with the paper prototype because it seemed to be the easiest way for us to prototype Puni Puni Kingdom. We discussed Flash as an option but decided it would be possibly too much work.

Last night, Aaron, Robbie and I had a 4 hour session attempting to do the paper prototype. This brought up several questions about how actual gameplay will work...and it seemed like each question branched out to another five questions. By the end of the night we had come to the conclusion that we have lots of wonderful gameplay concepts but they need to be molded into not only playable but enjoyable gameplay elements that would all fit together to form a fun and coherent game.

We did begin some of that molding but there is still much more to do. I believe tonight we will have another molding party (not to be confused with a Tupperware party). So we will see how things go!

Programmer Introduction

Well, I think it is only fair that since our composer got an adequate introduction that our other, more recent, addition to the team gets one as well. His name is Robbie Iannucci. He is technically a programmer but he is already contributing more than just that. Even with this is his first game project, he has brought invaluable experience to the team that is certainly going to take Puni Puni Kingdom to the next level. So expect to here much more about him and possibly even from him!

Robbie and met through mutual friends (our wives) and have become friends since. So he is a local addition to the team, which has lead to him being able to join and contribute to the brainstorming sessions.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Composer Introduction

I have been talking to a very talented composer for awhile now and he agreed to work on Puni Puni Kingdom. This all happened earlier on but I would like to introduce him now. His name is Kevin Penkin. He has some composing experience in the indie community and hopes to break into the game industry one day.

I first came in contact with Kevin through his wonderful music. I saw a post on the XNA Creators Club forums where he was offering his services. As soon as I began listening to his music I knew that he was the right composer for PPK. His work is wonderful and I know that it is only going to get better. Check out his sites, listen to his music and support him!

http://web.mac.com/happyramenstudios/Happy_Ramen_Studios/Main_Page.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/happyramenstudios

I cannot wait to hear what he comes up with for Puni Puni Kingdom.