H1DD3N.R350URC3 » Game Design

Interview with Lord British

sascha — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:46:16 +0000

An elaborate interview from 2009 with Richard Garriott aka Lord British talking about his beginnings as a game maker, his weird house and toy collection, Tabula Rasa and his flight into space. Some people call him a nerd (probably because they’re envious) but I think he just simply had the chance to do the right thing at the right time, following his passion about making games and becoming very successful with it, eventually earning millions. This is something that is not so easily possible anymore today like it was back in the pioneer days of home-computing. However he’s the living proof that the single most important driving force to be successful is to have passion about what you’re doing, being it creating games or anything else. Watch and be inspired!

RPG Design: Character Development Example

sascha — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:36:43 +0000

Welcome back to the RPG Design series where I try to talk a bit about the work and progress on my game project, the development of the darkish, space -themed computer role-playing game Stellar Conspiracy: Entanglements Of The Marenis Sector (working title).

In the last part I’ve introduced the character design template I’m using and mentioned to post a character example next time which I’m doing hereby while introducing you to Eliza Retinienne, a Gessjanian security systems expert from the planet Shielle, a small world bordering on the fringe of the Suulun Sector which in turn stretches over a large area of the southern galaxy.

Eliza is one of the key characters in the game’s story and one of the characters whom the player is supposed to encounter and who eventually joins the player’s party. She is also supposed to receive her own side-quest in which the player can engage to help her out of the threatening situation she is currently in.

Note that this sheet is basically just here to give an example of how the character design template can be used to shape out a character so I suggest not to look too critically into the details. Things can (and will) still change and also the sheet is not filled out completely, for one reason because some details are irrelevant for this character and for another that I haven’t found any other suitable details for her yet. Either way I hope this gives a good example of how to utilize the template!

Full Name	Eliza Cathrine Retinienne
Nickname or short name	Eliza, sometimes called Cathy
Image
Character Type	Co-Protagonist
Gender	Female
Species	Gessjanian
Class	Security Systems Expert
Age	30
Summary	Eliza used to be a forefront engineer who worked for Seciate Armaments on a highly confidential Security Systems project. Later during the project she came to disagreements with Seciate about the target clients for the system she worked on. She left Seciate in a dispute, not accepting the bribe she has been offered to stay quiet. She had enough presence of mind to suspect that she would soon become the subject of an assassination attempt, in order to prevent her knowledge being of use to anyone else. Seciate however underestimated her smartness and she narrowly escaped while killing the assassin (rather unintentionally though). Since then she is on the run from SECIATE.
Biography

Appearance Information
General Appearance	As a Gessjanian she is typically small and delicate. Gessjanians look almost human-like but not quite completely so. (She still looks too casual! Needs a few exotic touch-ups here and there, maybe a face tattoo, Shielleese jewelry or glasses).
Dress Style	Eliza wears an inconspicuous dress consisting of a beige utility overall, black engineer boots and a rugged, dark brown leather jacket with orange highlights.
Trademark Objects(s)	Might be something very simple like for example a red bandana wrapped around the boot.
Other worn objects (Jewelry, Tattoos, etc.)
Height	Medium tending to small (~155cm)
Weight	In shape
Body Type	Petite
Eye Color	Brown
Hairstyle & Color	Medium long, straight, originally dark brown but dyed to auburn/orange
Facial Hair	N/A
Other distinguishing or species-related features
Health Condition	Good
Signature Movement or Tic

Behavioral Information
Persona	The Damsel in Distress
Alignment	Neutral Good. Eliza ultimately believes in the good side but she is affected by the Player Character’s choices and alignment changes.
Single adjective to describe this character	Cute.
General Disposition	She’s on the run and she knows she’s in danger of being assassinated. She already killed somebody but she knows it was the only way to safe herself so she doesn’t feel too much guilt about it.
Traits
Common Emotions	Encouraging, Worried, Stubborn
Emotional Stability	Despite the fact that she is being on the black list of her former employee she takes things pretty well. Though she occasionally suffers from Paranoia, once she joins the Player Character’s team she feels a lot safer.
Likes & Loves
Fears	Her prime fear is to be caught or killed by SECIATE.
Addictions	None noteworthy.
Secrets	She carries the knowledge of SECIATE’s secret project with her. She shares the fact with the Player Character but besides her and SECIATE (incl. their client) nobody else knows about it.
Dichotomy (inner conflict of the character)

Professional Information
Education/Intelligence	She might have studied at the Shielle Technical Facility, maybe some degrees in physics, materials science and electronics engineering.
Profession and attitude towards it (good or bad)	She’s an expert in security systems and people with her skills in this field are rare. She is aware of this and advertises her abilities to others if it’s of use for her.
Skills	Security Systems, Materials Science, maybe Computer Systems
Special Abilities

Location Information
Residential Place	She’s in hiding, perhaps somewhere on an off-route-world in the Kessebour sector.
Places often visited by the character	Not too many, she tries to keep a low profile so she is careful of visiting public places. She tries to blend in with the crowd knowing that it makes an assassination difficult.
Where has the character been?	Suulun Sector, Kessebour Sector and around, maybe even some worlds in the Shicia Sector.
Locations where the character is most likely to “blend in”

Background Information
Birthplace	Shielle
Family	Not currently relevant.
Backstory

Story-related Information
Story Purpose	Eliza is supposed to meet (and join) the Player Character somewhere during an incident in the Kessebour sector. Once she joined the player’s party one will be able to initiate Eliza’s side-quest in that her threat from SECIATE Armaments is ultimately being resolved as an outcome (probably by bringing SECIATE down somehow with help of the Player Character’s absurdly daring courage).
Gameplay Purpose	Eliza takes place as the security systems expert in the player’s crew who can be used to get access to areas that would otherwise be off-limits (or much harder to access).
Why does the character involve him/herself into this situation?
What does the character want?	Primarily she wants to bring SECIATE Armaments down so that they are no longer a threat to her. There might be a secondary goal for her which could be another reason why she joins the player’s party.
Other roles and identities
Aspirations
Objective(s)
Reports/Answers to	The player (once she joined the party).
Who reports to this character?	Nobody.
Reactions to different events in the game
Moral choices the character has to make in the game
Relation to other significant characters

Dialog-related Information
Tagline	Something like “I know this kind of lock! Give me a minute!” … (need to think more about this one!)
Dialog Tics and Slang
Accent
Dialog Ideas

Additional Information
Where will (did) the character die?	She is not supposed to die.
Epitaph: What will go on the character’s tomb stone?
How did the character loose his/her virginity?

Extra Information
Plot Ideas
Other Notes & Ideas	A Security Expert who was working for a questionable organization on a secret project involving a powerful illegal weapon until she realized the wrongdoings of the organization and attempted to sabotage the project. She could escape but some traces led the organization to her. Since then she is on the run from the organization and their bounty hunters and assassins.
Concepts & Inspirations

RPG Design: Character Development

sascha — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:14:01 +0000

And back to the game design topic! The part I love most about game design is that you can create worlds full of life, intricacy, intrigue and interesting characters, experimenting with scenarios and situations (that would otherwise probably have negative repercussions in RL™).

As a programmer you’d ever only write your code and if you are happy with it that’s fine but we one-man-game-developer types are more like Jack of all trades who want to create complete worlds … and stories. And then tell those stories by means of the game. And maybe throw a bit (or a large chunk) of dynamics in there again … as programmers.

One extremely satisfying aspect of game design (for games where narrative is important) is the development of characters that should act throughout the game. Creating characters is just as much fun as the other bases! If you do it right and create deep and sympathetic characters people will love them.

And even villains can be sympathetic. In fact they should be! Who likes an antagonist that is completely unsympathetic? Nobody, right? But why should you even like a villain, after all he’s the guy who needs to be defeated? The answer to this is that the guy who is the villain is so only in the context of our story. Maybe he’s not so bad after all in a different context. Or in short: Antagonists also have a life, feelings … but guess what? Now I totally digress! I actually wanted to show you my new and all fresh character template that I came up with to shape out characters for my game.

[ad#gog_arcanum_box]The template I’m introducing here is based on a template that is used by the two authors of The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design, a book I’ve recently purchased which I think is just slightly overrated on Amazon but still definitely worth it’s money. The two authors have the character building template fully laid out in their book for the purpose of their example but I’ve made modifications to it so that it suits the holy needs of my RPG design.

This character building template is quite extensive and there might be a few items that you want to throw out for your design or you’d want to add other questions appropriately. Also, as stated in the book by the authors, when designing a new character with this it’s not required to go through this in a linear way. Skip sections and fill them in later … like a puzzle. Likewise it’s not always necessary to fill out all the boxes. Some minor characters don’t need that level of detail.

It’s also worth to note that most of what you fill into this template is for your eyes (or for your teams eyes) only. So write away care-freely! Only some of this information makes it into the game anyway however the whole additional info helps to give the character the amount of depth that is needed to make him/her an exceptionally outstanding character.

The template consists of several tables with rows of questions on the left column and the answers or details to fill in on the right side (in which for the purpose of explanation I’ve entered a description of the kind of text that goes in).

So without much further ado here’s my character building template used to help creating the story for my totally epic role-playing game (which *cough* should be in the shelves somewhere within the next millennium!). In the next post I will show an example of how the template is used with one of my (player party) co-protagonist characters … hopefully without revealing too much information about the game’s story.

Of course feel free to use it, change it, adapt it or come up with your own template! I’d love to hear about them! And always keep in mind: We’re not digging ditches or performing brain surgery here, we’re making games. Lighten up, for chrissakes. (That was an actual quote from the above mentioned book).

Full Name	The complete name of the character.
Nickname or short name	A nickname or short name (if the full name is too long to be used practically in-game).
Image	An image of the character. This can also be a first sketch or a vague idea to see in which direction it goes.
Character Type	Pick one (or two if necessary) from the following list: Protagonist, Co-Protagonist, Antagonist, Hero, Anti-Hero, Mentor, Helper, Herald, Pivotal, Sidekick, Lackey, Ally, Henchman, Mole, Love Interest, Best Friend, Confidante, Partner, Catalyst
Gender	Male/Female
Species	The species (or race, ethnicity) of the character.
Class	RPG-related character class as it appears in-game.
Age	The age of the character. This can also be an approximation.
Summary	A short descriptive text about the character.
Biography	A biographical text about the character. Optimally as it should appear somewhere in-game for the player to be readable.

Appearance Information

General Appearance	Describe the general appearance of the character.
Dress Style	What the character usually wears and how he/she wears it, clothing, armor etc.
Trademark Objects(s)	The trademark object of the character can be for example the favorite weapon of him/her or other items with that the character is seen often.
Other worn objects (Jewelry, Tattoos, etc.)	What else does the character wear? Jewelry? A tattoo somewhere on the body, glasses or maybe a portable wrist computer?
Height	The impressionistic height of the character.
Weight	The impressionistic weight of the character.
Body Type	Is he/she slim, slender, athletic, muscular, obese, average etc.?
Eye Color	The eye color.
Hairstyle & Color	Short, long, straight, curly, thick, thin, greasy, unkempt etc.?
Facial Hair	If the character is male and sports a beard, describe the beard here.
Other distinguishing or species-related features	This could be unique appearance features that the character posses. Like for example a mole, a scar or a rare color pattern on those head fins of your aquatic species.
Health Condition	Is the character healthy or in a rather poor condition? Antagonists often have some sort of ailment to associate a physical negative side with them. But also the good guys could be affected by this.
Signature Movement or Tic	Does the character move in a specific way or has any movement-related tics? And why does he/she have these? Handle with care, don’t make your character look like a fool (unless they are supposed to be one).

Behavioral Information

Persona	One or two words that fit as the characters persona. Examples could be “The bad-ass”, “The naïve cutie”, “the thinker” etc.
Alignment	You can draw this from the D&D rules, e.g. lawful good, true neutral, chaotic evil etc. or just pick any other system’s or your own definitions.
Single adjective to describe this character	Smart, Tough, Arrogant, Weary, Optimistic etc.
General Disposition	The general nature and tendency of the character. What is the character’s most common attitude and why?
Traits	Specific traits and characteristics that he/she possesses. Does the character have any phobia, is he/she blind or maybe a person who cannot swim?
Common Emotions	Enter three or four common emotions here. E.g. amused, angry, confused, bitter, callous, cheerful, cynical, depressed, hopeful, love-struck etc.
Emotional Stability	How well is the characters spirit? Is he/she the confidence in person or perhaps slowly turning into insanity?
Likes & Loves	What or whom does the character likes or loves?
Fears	What fears does the character possess? Unlike any phobias mentioned under ‘traits’ this text should describe a larger fear that might be relevant to the story.
Addictions	Is the character addicted to any drugs (alcohol, sweets, tobacco, harder stuff?), maybe a gambler or a nympho?
Secrets	What secrets does the character carry with them? These might be dark or embarrassing secrets from the past that nobody else should know about but that might or might not be revealed during the game.
Dichotomy (inner conflict of the character)	Does the character possess any inner conflict? For example an (to the outside appearing) ruthless mercenary who actually has a good heart.

Professional Information

Education/Intelligence	What kind of education did the character receive. Maybe he/she is/was a doctor or a professor.
Profession and attitude towards it (good or bad)	Profession can be (but doesn’t necessarily has to be) the same as the character’s class . How does the character stand to this profession?
Skills	Noteworthy skills that he/she possesses. Not necessarily skills as they appear in the game.
Special Abilities	Characters in role-playing games usually posses one or more of these. A psychic who can see into the future, a species that has the ability to see in the dark …

Location Information

Residential Place	Where does the character live?
Places often visited by the character	These can be places that the character frequently visits or where he/she often can be found.
Where has the character been?	Did the character travel a lot and gathered much experience meanwhile or was the character stuck in a limited area?
Locations where the character is most likely to “blend in”	A hunter might best blend into a wilderness environment, a rogue-like character might blend into the shady streets and bars of a city etc.

Background Information

Birthplace	Where was the character born?
Family	Information about the characters family if it’s relevant. Parents, brothers or sisters, cousins, niece or nephew, etc.
Backstory	What happened in the character’s life that led to his/her current situation.

Story-related Information

Story Purpose	What is the character’s purpose in the game’s story? Do they have their own agenda? (They better have!) In Role-playing games this often becomes a whole quest related to the character, even if it’s a side character (remember Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII?)
Gameplay Purpose	What purposes does the character have for the gameplay? If this us the player character then it’s obvious: the purpose is to be controlled by the player. If it’s a side character they could have all kinds of gameplay purposes, for example this character can lead the player somewhere where he/she would otherwise not be able to go. Or they could be a shop owner who sells items to the player or perhaps they are just combat support etc.
Why does the character involve him/herself into this situation?	Maybe he/she has no other choice or they are on the hunt for the same goal as the player character (and their ways cross because of this), or are a mole and want to lure the player into a trap, or they are altruists (heh, yeah right!) …
What does the character want?	The ultimate goal that the character seeks.
Other roles and identities	Does the character have an alter ego, maybe a secret one? For example in Star Wars Emperor Palpatine was Darth Sidious at the same time, Ben Kenobi the Hermit was once known as Obi-Wan Kenobi the Jedi Knight.
Aspirations	This could be just something the character desires, perhaps an adventurous life, wisdom, barrels of rum or being left alone.
Objective(s)	Objectives the character needs to fulfill throughout the game to achieve his/her goal.
Reports/Answers to	If this is one of the player’s sidekicks they usually only reports to the player character. Other characters might report to their hierarchical leader. Maybe the player character needs to report to a specific NPC in-game.
Who reports to this character?	Other characters that report to this character.
Reactions to different events in the game	Are there any noteworthy events in the story that make the character react in a certain way? Maybe the character is a cold-blooded killer but one event in the game makes him reluctant to kill a specific person, maybe he’s falling in love with one of his victims? Or a quiet and shy character starts to run berserk because something enrages her.
Moral choices the character has to make in the game	Will he save the damsel in distress … and with that neglect the fate of hundred’s of other people? Or there might be a situation where the player can make a choice between either him or the rest of his crew being caught and imprisoned by adversary forces.
Relation to other significant characters	To which other characters does this character has a special relation? He/she could be a love-interest for the player character, a buddy of another character in the crew or a character who has an aversion toward another party member.

Dialog-related Information

Tagline	The tagline of your character. For T-800 this was “I’ll be back!”, for Sgt. Murtaugh this was “I’m getting too old for this shit!”. Maybe your character doesn’t need this but it’s good to think about it.
Dialog Tics and Slang	Does the character use any specific words or talking style? Maybe he’s addressing himself in the third person, talks in a very noble manner … or the opposite (and by this I don’t mean to overuse the F-bomb!) or maybe he’s an Orc with a very low, smooth voice like Barry White.
Accent	Does the character possess a certain accent? Perhaps he/she speaks human language but has a strong accent of their own species.
Dialog Ideas	Enter any dialog ideas related to this character here.

Additional Information

Where will (did) the

character die?

In case the character is supposed to die in the game (driven by the story) or the character died already. Where and how did it happen?

Epitaph: What will go on the

character’s tomb stone?

Regardless of whether the character dies or not.

How did the character loose

his/her virginity?

Might or might not be relevant to your story but it’s a fun question nevertheless.

Extra Information

Plot Ideas	List any plot ideas that are related to this character here.
Other Notes & Ideas	You can enter any notes and ideas here that further help shaping the character.
Concepts & Inspirations	A field to paste images and photos into. Maybe you already have other sketches that might be candidates for this character or you associate the character with a certain actor/actress.

Bad Language in Games

sascha — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:15:40 +0000

The other day I was playing the Point Lookout Add-on for Fallout 3 and there is this one main quest where you go to inspect an area named Calvert Mansion just to run into a ghoul named Desmond. He seemed very busy trying to defend the mansion against Tribal intruders and without asking me directly he made me help defend the house. At first I thought Desmond seemed to be a cool guy, after all he wears a suit and appeared like some sort of gentleman (as far as a ghoul can appear as a gentleman anyway).

But after we finished bouncing off the intruders and I’ve started a dialogue with him it turned out that he’s not such a gentleman after all. In nearly every second sentence in his dialogue he makes use of the notorious ‘F word’! No exaggeration! After a short while listening to his insults (calling me a moron several times) I got fed up of his overuse of nasty language and started to loathe this guy. Note that it turns out that he’s supposed to be an unlikable character but this could have also been very well transported without the overuse of bad language. … *Spoilers ahead*!

[ad#ad_content]There are few things that I hate in computer games and I’m among the last people who would complain about oodles of gore, violence, pixel-blood and naked boobs in games but one thing makes me sick: The excessive use of foul language to the point where it hurts the game’s atmosphere!

For what reason does Desmond’s dialogue need to have these many bad words in it? It could have been much more acceptable without them. The dialogue writer apparently overused bad language to the point where the dialogue sounded poor and unimaginative. Of course this isn’t the only situation in Fallout 3 where explicit words are used. There are other characters who (over)use them rather often and it’s no less annoying. Then there are factions like for example the Raiders, evil and dirty outlaws who use the occasional nasty word and guess what? I think that’s ok because it fits into their context.

This is what Desmond's dialogue looks like if you compress it into one sentence.

Likewise there are other games that use tons of bad language and in some it obviously supports the theme as in the Grand Theft Auto series. In some others it doesn’t support the theme and is overused to the point where I abort playing the game completely (Crysis anyone? Great graphics but horrible story if you ask me). Again other games make use of dialogue that is more tailored towards adults but they do it in a very well written way. The excellent Vampire Bloodlines: The Masquerade would be one of these.

In my opinion all the exaggerated overuse of bad language is much more harmful to players than any blood and guts orgy because the dialogue is the first thing that affects most players. Game developers should be aware of that there are some more intellectual players existing than the average YouTube commenter!

I appreciate it if a game has a very well written dialogue and I don’t mind the occasional use of nasty words in the right context but the recent trend that more and more games go is not only pointless but downright cheap style! On the contrary often subtlety makes a game so much more precious!

RPG Design: Choosing the right Graphical Projection

sascha — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:06:50 +0000

I’ve been designing on a rather ambitious Role-Playing game project since a while now (in fact quite a long while but I’m not in hurry to finish it anytime soon) and while I’m in the process of working out the story, technical details like the combat mechanics, skill system etc. and creating interesting characters I still haven’t made a decision on the type of graphical projection for the game so far. I’ve been thinking about five kinds of projection from the most basic one (2D orthographic) up to full dynamic 3D which would be quite an effort. As my development platform of choice happens to be Flash, the resources in terms of 3D are limited.

So with that in mind I thought it would be good opportunity to introduce some of the most-used projections in computer and video role-playing games to get to know them a little better. This is by no means a complete list of all sorts of projection used in games but I believe these the ones most commonly used for role-playing games.

Orthographic Projection (Top-down View)

Orthographic is pretty much a collective term for all projections that lack perspective (i.e. all 3 axes have the same length) but I’d like to use it here to describe the typical top-down view – often called birds-eye view – used in RPGs.

Hard Nova uses a very simple (but nevertheless charming) top-down view for it's interiors.

The top-down view can either be completely flat which is obviously the most easy way to draw graphics or it can give the impression of depth by using an oblique style. Many of the older J-RPGs like Zelda and Final Fantasy are using this method. You see buildings, characters and other objects that point into one direction (usually to the top of the screen) to give the illusion of depth. Often this style is used in a very simple form so that characters are not being able to ‘step behind a wall’, i.e. the collision detection that checks where the characters are allowed to walk adheres directly to the graphic tiles used in the game. Some other games of this style might involve some trickery to offset the line used for collision detection so that characters can walk behind walls and are half-covered by them to add some more dynamic.

Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games is a good example of an oblique top-down view.

The advantages of this projection are clear: it’s the easiest to draw and the easiest to implement. Also the nature of this style makes it easy to use for RPGs that use a character party which needs to be guided around the screen. Selecting party members and using them tactically (positioning, line-of-sight, etc.) is more easily done here.

The disadvantages are that this projection is the most simple looking and most overused one (but then again these are not necessarily disadvantages) and in particular that this projection type can ruin potential immersive atmosphere, i.e. unless you’re using some sort of Fog-of-War the player can see what lies around the next corner. Even if you don’t draw any opponents until they are in the line-of-sight of the player in my opinion this doesn’t convey the same level of immersion as 3D or Flip3D (see below) projection would.

Isometric Projection (Tiled)

Isometric view and (although not technically isometric) it’s cousins trimetric and dimetric are projections that were (and still are) used in a long list of games, mostly strategy-, management- and of course role-playing games. Highly regarded by many as the finest-ever invented graphics style, isometric projection has the advantage over basic top-down view that is adds more depth and at the same time often more dynamic and clarity to the layout of the play field.

Fallout 2 - one of the better known tile-based isometric RPGs.

I must admit not many RPG titles that are using a tile-based isometric projection are coming to my mind but some good examples from this domain are Fallout 1 & 2 which use trimetric projection (all three angles are different) and the Indie RPG series Avernum.

Advantages of the tiled isometric projection include the easiness of implementation and a big favor for tactical gameplay. It’s easy to see tactical elements in relation to each other and so it comes to no surprise that many strategy games used this style.

The disadvantage I see with isometric graphics is the same as with top-down view projection, the lack of immersive atmosphere (see above) and that isometric graphics (tiles, sprites) are more difficult to design (but assets rendered with a 3D package can help a lot here).

Isometric Projection (Full Backgrounds)

The big contender among isometric engines that used pre-rendered backgrounds instead of tiled graphics was without a doubt the Infinity Engine and with it such classics like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment.

Baldur's Gate II: Excellent use of pre-rendered backgrounds and light-effects all around!

Instead of using tiles, larger backgrounds were modeled, textured and pre-rendered with a 3D graphics application and then used … well, as sort-of large-scale tiles in the game. This technique allowed for a lot more visual detail and variation. Environments that were difficult to draw with a tile-based approach such as for instance a deep, rocky abyss or other intricate landscape were made possible much easier with fully rendered backgrounds. Also many other items like furniture and interior walls could suddenly have a lot more detail. Another advantage that the Infinity Engine introduced was the use of dynamic lighting and acceleration of visual effects by use of DirectX. Full-screen rain or snowstorm? No problem here!

Collision detection and path-finding was solved by using a special bitmap for every background that defined the walk-able areas using different colors.

The big advantage for this technique is of course the gain in graphical detail and that it eliminates some of the problems of a tile-based engine, namely intricacies when dealing with dynamic lighting, path-finding etc.

The disadvantage here is the extra-work of complexity required to implement such a full background rendering engine, the additional task to design pre-rendered background graphics using 3D modeling and that such an engine requires more system resources than a tile-based engine, RAM and CPU-wise.

Flip3D

Now what in the hell is Flip3D? You might hear this term for the first time ever here but Flip3D is what I like to call (for the lack of a better word) the projection style used by many games from the Golden Age of RPGs era that use pseudo 3D images which are drawn with perspective in mind and if you turn in-game to the left or right the whole view is flipped turned by 90° hence the name, uhh, Flip3D (if you know the technically correct term for this type of graphics display technique I’d like to learn it but until then let’s just call it Flip3D).

Countless RPGs utilized this projection, most notably titles like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, the Ishar series, the Might and Magic series and – although not really a RPG – one of my all-time favorites, Hired Guns. All these games used pre-rendered graphic parts like floors, walls and ceilings that are composed together on the screen to create a room or corridor or even an outside environment.

Wizardry 7: VGA never looked better (and RPGs never were harder).

The advantage is that these graphic parts could be re-used, making it easier to quickly build whole maps. The disadvantage to this was often that in many of the games the maps looked monotonous. In my opinion Hired Guns nailed this problem quite well which is one of the reasons that made it stand out from the others for me. The maps looked detailed and very different from level to level, in the background they’ve used a gradient to represent the dawn on the firmament and there was usually a dark backdrop used for a horizon to give the impression of mountains, landscape or buildings in the far distance. It’s exactly these details that are one of the features that filled the game with atmosphere. What could be there in the far distance? The distance that you were never able to reach because it was not a part of the map but, alas, only a backdrop.

The lack of clear detail opens a lot of freedom to the player’s own imagination and this is one of the points why I highly regard some older games that use simplified graphics where modern games with tons of detailed real-time 3D choke the last bit of imagination from the players mind (not that I’m saying that this is necessarily bad but for me it is gaming on a different mental level).

Ahh Hired Guns! Flip3D at it's finest!

And with that we have the main advantage of this projection type … used with well-drawn graphics it can add a nice deal of ‘hidden’ atmosphere to the game because you never really see what lies (or lurks) in the distance.

The main disadvantage of this projection from my point of view is that it’s not much in favor for tactical gameplay as long as you want to involve your party into the action. Games with Flip3D projection are necessarily first-person so you don’t see your own character and your other party members are either behind or sideways of you or standing in front, covering a big part of the view field. Guiding and commanding all your party members can become quite a chore here.

3D Projection

3D projection is the current state-of-the-art in computer game graphics and will probably not be replaced so soon (until somebody invents some sort of 4D virtual reality device). This projection allows the highest degree of freedom meaning that any object can be viewed from any angle, at any distance and with arbitrary FOV.

SWKotoR 2: Can we haz it in Flash please?

There is virtually no quality loss when zooming in and you can re-use 3D objects for all kinds of displays, for example you could have your once-designed character 3D objects walk around in the game world and at the same time use them on a special inventory window where you drag and drop equipment onto the same used 3D object of their bodies. This allows for ‘create-once, use everywhere’ unlike with 2D assets where you often have to create variations of the same object for use in different views.

You could also use 3D with a fixed camera to simulate a certain type of 2D view and the advantage of 3D objects would still be obvious.

The disadvantage of choosing this projection is that the creation of assets, i.e. 3D models of characters, items and environments is a lot more involved as with 2D graphics. Unless you are some sort of super-developer-designer-machine with 300 years of time up your sleeve you probably need a small team of professional 3D designers who can do this work for you. Ok, I’d say nobody died of trying but recent 3D game graphics have become so professional that it’s not an easy feat to try catching up with it. And who wants to design a game with 3D graphics that look like anno 1996? I’d probably be better off with nice-looking 2D graphics instead!

Then, as you want to create a large world for a RPG you’d have to design many interior/exterior maps that are used for the game world. If you use 3D I doubt you want to design this all manually. What you need is a map editor to create the environments more comfortably and re-use assets quickly etc. Writing such a map editor is already a whole job unto itself and takes a lot of time.

Wizardry 8: Simple 3D graphics & first-person view

Another complication with 3D graphics is the platform used for the game. I use Flash (or AIR) with use of ActionScript. While I’m convinced that ActionScript can handle all the other projection types, with 3D we’re hitting the limits very quickly. PaperVision 3D, Away3D and the Alternativa Platform all have been used sucessfully for game development already but I have yet to see a good example of an extensive RPG made with one of these and the fact that a few thousand triangles bring the framerate to a screeching halt doesn’t help the case.

Still, any of these 3D engines could be utilized in Flash for a simpler form of 3D graphics style, for example the use of mainly simple primitives with a good job in texture detail work and a combination of 2D sprites. I’m definitely looking further into this possibility.

Conclusion

I’m still in the dark about which projection style I’ll eventually use. I might be creating a first prototype with a very simple and flat top-down view (a la Ultima) to test other components of the game and then later change to something more advanced.

Any of the introduced techniques have their charming sides, for example (as you might have had no troubles noticing) I’m very fond of Hired Guns and it’s dark and futuristic pseudo 3D view. Then again an isometric view could be more suitable for tactical gameplay (which, as I’m planing the game should have quite a few of).

Realtime 3D would be the ultimate thing but I dislike the idea of creating super-simplified 3D objects and Flash currently lacks the rendering power to use higher-end 3D graphics. I might as well be watching if the Flash platform improves in this area and then see what can be done in terms of 3D later.

Was it that? I’m sure I forgot a ton of facts and details here but I would be very interested in what others have to say about this topic or what view styles you’re about to use and why etc.

Further Reading: Significant Bits – A layman’s guide to projection in videogames

PushButton Engine

sascha — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:34:34 +0000

Probably old news but I’ve just found some time to read about the recently released pushbutton engine, a modular ActionScript 3 engine tailored especially for game development. It seems that Jeff Tunnel & Co (of Garage Games fame) were sitting down and wrote some serious ActionScript library overnight.

“…and a component system which lets you easily package game functionality into reusable modules. The component system draws on nearly a decade of game development history…”

This looks very promising indeed and the component structure makes a lot of sense.

I’ve been working on the hexagonLib on and off but time is sparse currently and so it seems I would never get it into a decent release state. I Might as well see how the pb engine works out for me. Let’s see how this engine fits for my current role-playing game project!

Planewalker Games "The Broken Hourglass" RPG Development Insights

sascha — Sat, 26 May 2007 06:57:51 +0000

A valuable resource for everyone who is thinking/planning to write a roleplaying game … Indie developer Planewalker Games who are currently making their debut RPG The Broken Hourglass are publishing precious bits of insider information about their game engine called WeiNGINE. The Broken Hourglass is a computer roleplaying game with a strong visual relation to late nineties RPG pearls like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment (who all were based on the Infinity Engine).
Some examples of their articles: Inside the Engine – Introduction to Items, Inside the Engine – Introduction to Sprites, Rules and Mechanics – Group Skills … and there’s a whole lot more when navigating through the links at the bottom of the pages. I kind of soak up such detailed information on game/RPG design as such things are sparsely seeded on the web (you will not see such information leaking from commercial developers!)

Tools Of The Trade Part 3: FreeMind

sascha — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:22:52 +0000

In my book “How to become a Flash Game Developer of World Class” I surely will not forget to mention this useful tool … FreeMind, a Mind Mapping tool that is not only free but also very intuitive! It is written in Java and therefore available for all common Platforms. Where other Mind Mapping tools or even MS Visio fails with being intuitive, FreeMind comes to the rescue!

You can lay out all imaginal hierarchical structures, be it your shopping list, you time plan or the story concept for your next game. After creating a new document with FreeMind, it has one root node. From now on you can add child nodes with the Insert Key, add sibling nodes below with the Enter key or above with Shift+Enter. This way it becomes a breeze to create a large tree structure of your project.
You can assign different color and font styles to your nodes. Another useful feature is the ability to link two nodes together with a bezier line. The tool has a MinMap and a Browse Mode and you can even browse your harddisks file structure with it if you want. You can also link files to nodes.

This is the number one tool I would recommend for brainstorming but it is very useful to lay out projects in more detail as well. There is also a FreeMind Document Reader that has been written with Flash, though I’m not sure if it can be downloaded and used offline.

Flex Application: Star Wars Name Generator

sascha — Thu, 11 May 2006 05:35:24 +0000

I finally spend some time to make myself more familiar with the Flex 2 Beta and this is what came out as a result: Star Wars Name Generator! It’s a small and modest tool to generate random names (obviously). If you’re a fan of the Star Wars Pen & Paper Role-playing game (like me) you [...]