Anyone interested in this..?

[Malphas Crow]

Hi everyone,

First post, first thread.. I'll try and make it interesting for you as best I can..

I'm creating a text based horror survival game, I've started work on the engine and hopefully, eventually, I will develop a multi-player version of the game..

I'm just interested in what you Zombie fanatics, like myself, think of a text based game..? I know I would play it and the people working on me with it (6 in total including another coder) all want to play it, and write for it..

..So, I've started work on it and it's going to be a few months before I am happy to put something out, if at all..

- It's a single player game for now.

- It is a, partly, turn based game.. The movement of the character is pretty much real time.. Not turn based as such.. But time will play a role in the frequency of movement for NPC players in the game, attacks and the players ability to move/perform actions..

- It has a GUI interface but no graphics,this can be changed easily to use stills at least..

- It is open ended.. There is no real way to finish the game at present and your job is just to survive, save people and build up a defence against the Zombies roaming the city..

- What I have made so far allows me to create new content without actually coding anything, so people could send me scenarios and I can add them in to the master copy, or just add them in to their own copy of the game..

- Your character builds up as you gain experience as in most RPG's.. I have a lot of other ideas for stats manipulation though from the team which will make it quite difficult to 'grind' your character up to virtually unbeatable levels.. *chuckles to himself*


Let me know if that would be of interest to any of you, and Cheers..

[9th Lv. Paladin]

You mean like KOL? (http://www3.kingdomofloathing.com/login.php)
A survivor is you!
Yeah, everyone I know would play a game like that.
I originally thought you where talking about a text game like Zork. Oh would I love one Of those!

[Malphas Crow]

You mean like KOL? (http://www3.kingdomofloathing.com/login.php)
A survivor is you!
Yeah, everyone I know would play a game like that.
I originally thought you where talking about a text game like Zork. Oh would I love one Of those!

You are correct on both counts actually..

I've not played KOL but I had a quick look, that would be the eventual conclusion of development, an MMO..

The single player would be a lot like Zork.. Dynamically created 'dungeons' from various files resulting in a seemingly endless Zombie survival horror. Progressive character development and unlimited character encounters, in theory. I could always code a conclusion, but if the players are anything like me it would be the playing, not the completing, that would be the fun part. If I remember Zork accurately that is, it's been a while..

You've just provided me with the drive I need to continue with development of the engine. Thanks!..

[SGT. DEATH]

Is this game like Final fantasy game play?
I would more prefeer action games with some puzzle elements.

[Malphas Crow]

Hmmm..

It's going to have plenty of puzzles, that's for sure.. As far as action goes, not really, it's a text based game.. So the actual action is going to be limited due to the fact the only graphics it has, at the moment, are the graphics for the user interface..

That said there is a constantly active 'dungeon', meaning that if you idle, and do nothing, NPCs (Non player characters) in the city still move and interact with the environment.. Your text descripton of your environment could also be appended to as things occur in or around the area you are standing..

I'll even bind keys to specific control buttons so you don't have to use the interface to move around and things.. But if you were thinking along the lines of a 3D FPS, not even close..

I've looked in to freeware 3D engines and some of them are really good.. I'm not, however, a very good C/C++ programmer yet and neither are the other people working with me.. To use something like the Unreal engine which I can actually use and have made things for in the past using UnrealEd I would need to buy a license for access to the engine.. That's currently over a quater of a million dollars if memory serves and if I had that ammount of money I would gladly take a project of that magnitude on board.. Fact is I'm just not that rich..

So, what exactly do you mean by 'Action'..?

[Crombie]

If it will be text based have you considered any of the MUD engines like LPMud? Or are you looking for something that is web based, but in text?

[Malphas Crow]

If it will be text based have you considered any of the MUD engines like LPMud? Or are you looking for something that is web based, but in text?

Hmmm.. I've not actually considered any other engines. I'm just going to write my own engine from scratch..

I like to code things from scratch, I know that might be re-inventing the wheel a little bit but I want to be able to do _anything_ that I come up with and not be bound by the restrictions of another engine when I get really far through the development cycle..

I've coded networking applications before and find socket programming quite easy, so coding a MUD wouldn't be beyond my capabilities really.. It's really a trade off in time, I already know a few programming languages, I'm learing C/C++ at the moment too and if I learn an interpreted language for one of the MUD engines it would be very specific and I wouldn't be able to use that for much else.. Web based programming isn't beyond me either, so it's all good..

If I learn any more languages I'm afraid I might go a little :loon: too..

That said, I'm going to do a bit of research on other engines to see what features they have.. Thanks for the tip, that site's interesting :clap:

~EDIT~

F.Y.I if anyone's interested..

I've finished the majority of the basics now.. The game is as advanced as a single player version of UrbanDead as far as movement around the city and item interaction (pickup/drop) go. When I've got something good to report I'll come back here and give you the latest on what it does.. May even put a release out for people to tinker with, who knows.. One things for sure I have to make some NPC's now, not hard, it's lonely in this city on your own.. :drool:

[Collin]

If it can be played on a Mac and is well written I would be willing to give it a shot.

[Malphas Crow]

If it can be played on a Mac and is well written I would be willing to give it a shot.

There's my first cross platform request.. Didn't think it would be that quick, hehe.. I'll have to look at how to compile it for a Mac, I'll keep that in mind.. I don't want people to be excluded for choosing a different platform.

Thanks for the reminder! :)

[Collin]

No problem :) Thanks for looking into it. I look forward to hearing more when you are ready.

[Malphas Crow]

Hi, me again..

This is a question to anyone and eveyone, even if you aren't interested in the game..

If you were playing a zombie survival horror which of the following would you prefer to see.

[Already working]
- Characters move independantly
- Characters attack independantly
- Characters manipulate the scenes independantly
- Characters manipulate items independatly
- Population limit for each city 1,000 in total
- Time between each character making its next move is decided by the character itself. It will move a couple of times every 30 seconds..

[Adaption 1]
- City has a population pool of unlimited ammounts.
- Population limit is 1,000 in a 30x30 area range around the player.
- When a character leaves this 30x30 area it is deleted.
- A new character is created from the city population pool if needed.
- Time between each character making its next move is decided by the character itself. It will move a couple of times every 30 seconds..

[Adaption 2]
- Population for each city is 1,000,000 total
- Time between each character making its next move is decided by a controller, this controller handles up to 10,000 citizens meaning that the next move for 10,000 citizens happens at the same time. This creates massive shifts in the game environment a few times every 30 seconds..


I'm going to start working on adaption one regardless of the feedback , or lack of..

What's going to be better here.. Quantity, or quality..?

[Weasel]

I'd be happy to try it out as soon as you get if working for a Macintosh.

[Malphas Crow]

Right people... Don't know if you remember this thread, but I've got an update to it..

I've finished the PC single player version and I got bored developing it, I've now started porting that over to a CGI (web) based version of the game which will eventually be available on-line as a new Zombie MMORPG.

I've finished the login and session handling, the map movement and it's multiplayer.. Each character is entered in to the database and the game CGI works off what's in there to create the content of the game.. I expect to have _basic_ battling (like UD) fully developed by the end of the month and item aquisition/use the month after, maybe sooner, hard to put a timescale on something which you have never done before..

If anyone would like to help me by giving ideas for characters, character skills, weaponry, combat systems, location descriptions, or anything else _at all_ then just send me a PM or post it here.

If anyone knows how to write HTML, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, Python, CGI and basically any other type of coding then let me know if you are interested in making this a joint project..

I'm also going to be looking for Alpha testers in a few months who will help test the stability of the first level/city of the game.. In time more cities will be added but for now I'm keeping it small scale to allow for easier coding and DB management.

I'm looking for good artists too.. To create stills for the game.

Anyone who gives me material to work with which I think about including in the game will get put on the design team.. Testers will get put on the testers list and coders will get put on the creators list with me. That includes people who create HTML/JS/PHP/CSS content.. . Artwork gets its own spot aswell on the credits.

See you soon.. I've got work to do..