Post by Justin on Mar 20, 2013 11:28:12 GMT -5
A few dollars more..er.. some people have asked about screenshots and videos. I’ve never recorded one before, so if you have good ideas how to keep the size down to be comfortable to upload it to youtube or vimeo or something feel free to instruct me. I’ve never had to do it before so never bothered to look into video compression etc.
This will answer all questions related to video/screens, once I have some art to show, I promise I will release gameplay video and/or screenshots. It’s like having a nice house inside, but with no furniture or just really bad furniture made of pipes and paper or something. Everything is there ready to receive furniture, like bedrooms for the beds, dining room for dining table etc…this is a lot like VOD at this point. Functionally and framework wise it is coming along, but with just place holder art, there is no way to ‘appreciate’ the real progress. Therefore showing it might do more harm than good and scare the natives
I wanted to address some skeptics on 2d. In my very first blog, I mentioned 2d tactical space combat. Now I am aware that the absence of a z-plane removes some element of the tactics involved, but my friend maneuvering and position is just one form of tactics one can employ in a battle. In VOD you still have directional shields and have to consider positioning still to protect them. You have to manage your power, your damage control, your choice of execution of tactics, all elements of a tactical nature.
When the demo for combat is released I challenge any one to say that it isn’t very deep strategically and tactically speaking . In fact I will be touting the tactical space combat part as one of the main selling points of this particular project. As I have been designing elements of VOD for more than a month now, with much pseudo code, it won’t be long until such a combat demo is available. I want to get it out as early as possible to get feed back on it. It’s been so heavily conceptualized that I only anticipate suggestions to enhance it but no radical paradigm shifts in implementation.
As someone who plays an enjoys all genres I am very diverse in what entertains me and I hope there are lots of others like me who will appreciate the gameplay and depth VOD has even though it isn’t as ‘flashy’ as…Eve Online or something.
I am someone who can enjoy a round of battlefield 3 (shocking!) and a round of Distant Worlds, Eve Online or Minecraft ( I got children) . Once it is fun, engaging, gameplay is there, the audio/visual presentation just have to be bare enough to ‘immerse’ me. So I am a space sim, rts, fps fan who can enjoy any game of any genre, so long as it has engaging gameplay.
VOD is also going down a path of simulation, not arcade, to borrow from a recent saying, this isn’t your dad’s space invaders! For example, just as a tease, if you decide to send a crewman on some type of ‘away’ mission, you have to wait for him to arrive in the ‘transporter room’ to send him on his way. And if you leave him on some planet by himself without supplies, he’ll surely starve to death or some dastardly space creature will kidnap and probe him or something.
VOD is keeping some things in mind on each feature. I can’t say it enough, it is inspired by Starflight. A Starflight sequel has been a long time promised now, and for reasons I won’t go into has not materialized (though I hope it does). For copyright reasons this cannot be a sequel or use or refer to anything Starflight, so hence the original universe of Void of Darkness is born. But I have looked at each aspect of Starflight which made it so engaging to so many people, and borrowed on it, improved it where possible, but there are no direct implementation copies. So the game will be immediately ‘familiar’ to fans of Starflight, but still be an awesome game on its own to anyone who has NOT played Starflight and it will be able to stand apart.
As it stands now the story for VOD is at 20 pages and it is merely an outline. The ‘screenplay’ has not been written yet, this will occur during content development. But I will not release much of this story. I might ‘tease’ certain aspects of it. The main reason for this is that it will be difficult to release much yet still maintain a good deal of anticipation for the story upon release.
Rather it will follow the Starflight model here, you will get enough to know and appreciate the universe you are in. You will be told about some history, and what is happening presently and what your goals as a player are and what you really need to do in essence. What you will learn is basically *everything else* during the game as you explore and interact with the various alien races. Your interaction with the alien races will tell you everything you need to know, where to find things, who likes who, where other races are, places of interest, back story, everything possible about what’s going on, hence others playing the game will be discovering things like you.
When Starflight was first released, it would have been cool to compare notes with others, you might still wish to go it alone, but discussing it in a spoiler free zone, or a spoiler zone with others if you wish may still be fun to some. Definitely you will need to make and keep notes yourself, it wasn’t possible to play Starflight without a notebook at your side!
So to fans of Starflight who were/are looking forward to a sequel, I can’t give you that but hopefully Void of Darkness will fill that void for you until such a sequel is made in that universe you love. Hopefully VOD will be good enough that you will say it is worthy to be inspired by Starflight and good enough to stand apart and carry what was done in Starflight slightly further in some aspects.
Thanks for reading.
This will answer all questions related to video/screens, once I have some art to show, I promise I will release gameplay video and/or screenshots. It’s like having a nice house inside, but with no furniture or just really bad furniture made of pipes and paper or something. Everything is there ready to receive furniture, like bedrooms for the beds, dining room for dining table etc…this is a lot like VOD at this point. Functionally and framework wise it is coming along, but with just place holder art, there is no way to ‘appreciate’ the real progress. Therefore showing it might do more harm than good and scare the natives
I wanted to address some skeptics on 2d. In my very first blog, I mentioned 2d tactical space combat. Now I am aware that the absence of a z-plane removes some element of the tactics involved, but my friend maneuvering and position is just one form of tactics one can employ in a battle. In VOD you still have directional shields and have to consider positioning still to protect them. You have to manage your power, your damage control, your choice of execution of tactics, all elements of a tactical nature.
When the demo for combat is released I challenge any one to say that it isn’t very deep strategically and tactically speaking . In fact I will be touting the tactical space combat part as one of the main selling points of this particular project. As I have been designing elements of VOD for more than a month now, with much pseudo code, it won’t be long until such a combat demo is available. I want to get it out as early as possible to get feed back on it. It’s been so heavily conceptualized that I only anticipate suggestions to enhance it but no radical paradigm shifts in implementation.
As someone who plays an enjoys all genres I am very diverse in what entertains me and I hope there are lots of others like me who will appreciate the gameplay and depth VOD has even though it isn’t as ‘flashy’ as…Eve Online or something.
I am someone who can enjoy a round of battlefield 3 (shocking!) and a round of Distant Worlds, Eve Online or Minecraft ( I got children) . Once it is fun, engaging, gameplay is there, the audio/visual presentation just have to be bare enough to ‘immerse’ me. So I am a space sim, rts, fps fan who can enjoy any game of any genre, so long as it has engaging gameplay.
VOD is also going down a path of simulation, not arcade, to borrow from a recent saying, this isn’t your dad’s space invaders! For example, just as a tease, if you decide to send a crewman on some type of ‘away’ mission, you have to wait for him to arrive in the ‘transporter room’ to send him on his way. And if you leave him on some planet by himself without supplies, he’ll surely starve to death or some dastardly space creature will kidnap and probe him or something.
VOD is keeping some things in mind on each feature. I can’t say it enough, it is inspired by Starflight. A Starflight sequel has been a long time promised now, and for reasons I won’t go into has not materialized (though I hope it does). For copyright reasons this cannot be a sequel or use or refer to anything Starflight, so hence the original universe of Void of Darkness is born. But I have looked at each aspect of Starflight which made it so engaging to so many people, and borrowed on it, improved it where possible, but there are no direct implementation copies. So the game will be immediately ‘familiar’ to fans of Starflight, but still be an awesome game on its own to anyone who has NOT played Starflight and it will be able to stand apart.
As it stands now the story for VOD is at 20 pages and it is merely an outline. The ‘screenplay’ has not been written yet, this will occur during content development. But I will not release much of this story. I might ‘tease’ certain aspects of it. The main reason for this is that it will be difficult to release much yet still maintain a good deal of anticipation for the story upon release.
Rather it will follow the Starflight model here, you will get enough to know and appreciate the universe you are in. You will be told about some history, and what is happening presently and what your goals as a player are and what you really need to do in essence. What you will learn is basically *everything else* during the game as you explore and interact with the various alien races. Your interaction with the alien races will tell you everything you need to know, where to find things, who likes who, where other races are, places of interest, back story, everything possible about what’s going on, hence others playing the game will be discovering things like you.
When Starflight was first released, it would have been cool to compare notes with others, you might still wish to go it alone, but discussing it in a spoiler free zone, or a spoiler zone with others if you wish may still be fun to some. Definitely you will need to make and keep notes yourself, it wasn’t possible to play Starflight without a notebook at your side!
So to fans of Starflight who were/are looking forward to a sequel, I can’t give you that but hopefully Void of Darkness will fill that void for you until such a sequel is made in that universe you love. Hopefully VOD will be good enough that you will say it is worthy to be inspired by Starflight and good enough to stand apart and carry what was done in Starflight slightly further in some aspects.
Thanks for reading.