Collab #5 Game Discussion

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Collab #5 Game Discussion

rbwhitaker 26 Mar 2016 03:22

This is the thread for us to talk about what game to work on.

We've done several of these by now, and we've typically had the same people, or at least the majority of the same people. If we want to try to get a little crazier than normal, I could get behind that.

(And like always, if we do end up with 5+ people, we could consider splitting things up and doing two or more teams instead of just the one. Though I don't think we'll get 5+ people, based on previous experience.)

We've typically cloned an existing arcade game, and that's played out pretty well for us. So that's always a good choice. But if we're getting tired of cloning arcade games, I'm not opposed to us picking something different, including designing and building our own game completely from scratch. (If we do that, I propose we keep the scope ridiculously simple though.)

So throw in your ideas that you've got for the upcoming collab and we'll discuss them here. Based on previous experience, I'd say people start coalescing around one or two ideas pretty quickly, so if you've got an idea, don't wait too long before suggesting it or you might lose your chance.

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

rbwhitaker 26 Mar 2016 03:49

We've got a list in the last collab of some potential games to try out, but I don't remember the whole list. At some point somebody (maybe me) should go get that list and post it in here.

I want to bring up one more specific one that I'm ready to tentatively cast a vote for. (Though I may change my mind in the future, especially if somebody else posts a good idea.)

The idea would be to make a game engine for the card game Dvorak.

Since you probably aren't that familiar with the game, here is a bit of a sales pitch to explain a bit about it.

Dvorak is less of a game itself, and more of a game framework. Lots of card games that you might know and love fall into this framework, including things like Dominion.

In some ways, this game is kind of a "make it up as you go" kind of game. (What they call a "Nomic" card game.) There are usually a few core rules, and the players make specific cards that fit into the game before playing, or in some cases, even as they play.

There's sort of a core set of starting rules, which can then be overridden by specifics on the cards themselves.

The core rules are something along the lines of this:

You have a shared collection of cards that you can draw from. A certain number (e.g. 5) is dealt to every player. On your turn, you start by drawing a card from the pile. Cards come in the form of one of two things: actions and things. By default, you can play one action and one thing. Different actions and things may cause the rules to adjust (e.g., you get an extra action, or you can play two of some special type of thing instead of just one).

The framework itself is pretty bare bones. It doesn't even dictate any real win conditions. People create decks either as a group (maybe deciding on a theme and some basic rules) making the cards just before playing the game, or in other cases, people have sort of fleshed out some rules and cards and then shared them with others to further refine.

A two of my favorites (uh… the only two I've ever actually played with) is the Frankenstein deck and the Programming deck. If you browse through those links, you'll see the cards that the decks have and sort of get a feel for what it is.

With the Frankenstein deck, all of the players play the role of Dr. Frankenstein and are trying to create a monster. To do so, you need a body, two legs, two arms, and a head, and then you need to get lightning to strike to bring your monster to life. Doing so wins you the game. Nice, simple concept, but was actually a whole lot of fun to play.

With the Programming deck, the Things you've played represent the software you are creating. You win the game if you have 5 Features (a special type of Thing) and no Bugs (another special type of Thing). (You can play things like bugs into other people's software to stop them from winning.)

I think that serves well to illustrate the point of a single framework that produces two rather different games, so I'll stop with the explaining there. If you have questions about it, ask.

Some of the reasons I like this idea:

• It's not a plain old arcade game. So it's different.
• It's less about gathering art. We're typically spent quite a bit of time hunting down and creating art, which isn't exactly super productive and/or what most of us are good at. (Though if we got an artist to join us, we could probably still put them to good use and make it look really nice.)
• We could make it a networked game and play with/against each other.
• AI could be really interesting, and actually use formal AI techniques. (You could take a deck that an AI has never seen before, have it play against itself 1000 times and learn what cards are best to play.)
• It will force us to think about a problem that is wildly different from what we usually do.
• On a personal note, I've been having an itch to make a collectible card game of some sort (a la Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, or the Pokemon TCG). There's sort of been a wave of these as of late, and I think it would be fun to build one. While a single day isn't anywhere near enough time to make this into a game like those, it might be an interesting opportunity to explore some sort of design and architecture to springboard a more fully fledged CCG for me down the line. That's admittedly a little selfish; it's a game I'm interested in, but probably not necessarily one you guys are interested in. But I figure it doesn't hurt to propose it. If nobody likes it, I won't be sad. I'll just play around with it another time.

The drawbacks:

• It's so different we may have trouble figuring out what goes where. This isn't a typical game and so I think it will be much harder to make progress.
• It's a little more unique, so things you've learned in the past may not apply quite so well here, and things you learn from this may not apply quite so well elsewhere.
• It would probably be easier to clone Thrust or something like that. This is a harder challenge (that I personally think we're ready for).

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

rbwhitaker 26 Mar 2016 03:49

Sorry for such a long post. I hadn't realized it had grown so long, or I might have tried to trim it back.

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

PiscesMike 26 Mar 2016 05:50

Well, here I was ready to throw my idea right on in. (Don't worry I still will)

I've got to say though, RBWhitakers entry has not only some great ideas, but some interesting challenges as well. The things I like:

• It's not a plain old arcade game. So it's different.
• We could make it a networked game and play with/against each other.
• AI could be really interesting, and actually use formal AI techniques. (You could take a deck that an AI has never seen before, have it play against itself 1000 times and learn what cards are best to play.)

If we do go that route, I think it would be a good idea to lay out some themes and 'wining' conditions first… and at least three of them (meaning three different decks and basic rules). That should give us a better idea on laying things out going into the collab as well as giving us a good dataset to use testing things out.

I particularly like the networking idea. As you know, or may not know, one of the goals I've been working towards this year is more networking. At one point, I had a website where users could register an account linked to a game server that you could log into and validate. It was kind of like a Blizzard Authentication thing.. the point being, you could manage your account online and then log into the game as necessary. We won't need anything near that fancy for this… but I do have a server set up and ready to go for anything like this we want to do. And recently, I've split the 'game server' off from the Web and File servers, so now we have a dedicated game server 8-).

And, lastly, doing some serious AI would be both interesting and a good challenge. I've been itching to try out the stuff I learned about neural networks. Tie that in with RBWhitakers idea of the AI playing against itself 1000 times and I would agree with him that

This is a harder challenge (that I personally think we're ready for).

If we get through that, we could go for a stretch goal: network the AI's so they can play against each other. Heck, give it a weekend and let it run a million times!

So, yeah, RBWhitaker, that is a great idea! I do like diversity though, so I will go ahead and add a couple ideas.

1. Doom3D clone.

The last collaboration we completed was the Asteroids3D. That was great fun, and a huge step forward for us collectively. Not only did we move into 3D territory with the rotating asteroids and ships (even though you could only see them top down), we produced some of our own 3D artwork (the asteroids), worked well together with the Trello layout to complete tasks in a timely manner, and let all the pieces fall into place to create a complete, playable game in only one day!

That being said, I favor the idea of continuing things in 3D. Not that it has to be complicated. The Doom3D clone would be your basic, shoot through the dungeon with an assortment of guns and chainsaws, kill the bad guys, and escape with your life and a few demon scraps. (They go great grilled with BBQ sauce!) The idea would be to create the 'level' in 3D… your basic hallways and rooms, and then render everything else 'billboarded' in 2D. The enemies, as well as your 'hands' and 'weapons', and even the 'fireball' that the enemy shoots, would all be 2D Assets. 'Billboarded' simply means that the 'enemy' is always facing the player.

This idea has a couple benefits:

• There's a ton of artwork out there for this type thing. The only part we'd really need to concentrate on for artwork is the 'level' design
• The 'level' design can be fairly simple. We could go two different ways with this: First, draw it all out in Blender or Wings3D. Second, we could make the levels dynamic. Give the computer a basic set of hallway shapes and have it generate the dungeons itself.

I kind of favor the idea of randomly generated levels… its always something different. Though, obviously if we go this route, we won't be able to clone the entire game. I'd say a 'winning' or 'complete' condition would be a working level, where you can go through and kill a certain number of enemies, or hit a certain score to 'win'. We can always add enemies or raise the score level if we want to 'increase' the 'levels' and make the game longer.

2. SRSG (Some Random Space Game)
RBWhitaker mentioned earlier that we get hit with a productivity drag sometimes on artwork. I was browsing for some stuff earlier today and came across a great tile set for a space game. The artist is decent, and the work seems like it can offer some good gameplay. I guess the idea would be that you are the 'engineer' character, and you have to kill the 'aliens' on the ship.

At any rate, it's got all of the basics covered, including backgrounds, player animations, enemy idle animations, weapon animations, and enemy death animations. It'd probably be pretty simple to throw this one together but I thought I'd throw out the thought since it's a full asset set and I kind of like it!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

Brett208 27 Mar 2016 19:30

It seems like there is a lot of interest in networking/multiplayer, and this sounds exciting to me as well.

My suggestions are:

• Expand and add multiplayer network play for our Xevious clone. Since we already have a decent start, we can focus on expanding gameplay and networking. I'd like to see best practices for handling different network conditions like lag, or temporarily dropped internet connections. This would also make us design some sort of UI to establish the network connection.

• Generic 3D tank game. I'm really interested in seeing how to design terrain in a 3D game without using a tile system. This game could also be made multiplayer, although maybe a stretch in a one day collab.

The Dvorak card system doesn't particularly interest me, but I do like that it is a much simpler starting place for laying down a multiplayer system since things don't happen simultaneously real time in a card game. Perhaps this would make learning the multiplayer stuff easier than starting with the Xevious clone or trying to network a currently not designed Tank Game?

Candidates from last collaboration:

• Minecraft Clone: We probably won't get far, but just something where you dig up bricks and place bricks. Perhaps we'll even implement tools for different types of things, but I don't know if we'll get that far. We can almost certainly steal textures from the Internet somewhere.
• 3D Breakout: The game mechanics are simple. Probably most of the people around here have even made Breakout before. We'd just draw it in 3D.
• NovaStorm: https://youtu.be/cHJokuGTQxc. The background is 3D but the rest isn't. Cool little ship-based shooter.
• 3D Asteroids: Top-down approach, with 3D ships and asteroids.
• 3D Blockade: We made 2D Blockade for the 1st collab. This would be similar but in 3D. The art would be pretty simplistic.
• 3D Xevious: The game we made for the last collab, just with 3D models instead. We could possibly use the previous codebase as a starting point, but I don't know if that's really what I want to do. This might be more appealing if our team this time around is exactly the same as the last collab.
• Generic Tank Game: A generic tank-based game, maybe kind of like this: https://youtu.be/omAcgnZdTyE?t=103, which me and some other people did for a collab-style thing many years ago. Unlike most of the other suggestions so far, this isn't a clone of another game, so you could put your game designer hat on for at least part of the time.
• Generic Space Game: A generic 3D space shooter, mayble like this: https://youtu.be/omAcgnZdTyE?t=154. This too is generic and doesn't have any hard and fast rules. So game designer hat, once again.

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

rbwhitaker 03 Apr 2016 21:36

It's probably time to get serious about which game we're going to do for the collab. We've got a lot of good ideas here, and we need to start whittling down the list and/or start voting officially.

Personally, I think I'm going to retract my earlier tentative vote/suggestion for Dvorak. I kind of think it's something I'm more interested in than most people here, and I think it might be more than we can reasonably handle in a single day. I still think it's a good idea, but I'm starting to think it might be a better fit for either something for me to do in Competition #8 or perhaps a more long-term collab, like we've been talking about elsewhere. At this point in time, I'm just not sure we'd have much of value to show in just eight hours.

I'm going to cast my vote differently now:

My vote is 3D Blockade, with networked multiplayer. We did Blockade before. I'm on the fence as to whether we should start fresh or build on the existing code. I'd have to maybe go back and look at our old code and see if I like it at all. I guess I'm leaning towards starting fresh, but if this idea wins the vote, I could be talked into continuing, especially if we have many of the same people.

I think adding 3D to it will make it a little bit more exciting, and I think the networked multiplayer could be a fun addition as well, since everybody seems to be thinking along those lines already. The game concept is simple, and we've probably learned quite a bit by doing it the first time around, too.

But I'm not too attached to the idea, so if people are voting for something else, I won't feel bad.

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

PiscesMike 04 Apr 2016 05:06

My vote's going to

• Expand and add multiplayer network play for our Xevious clone. Since we already have a decent start, we can focus on expanding gameplay and networking. I'd like to see best practices for handling different network conditions like lag, or temporarily dropped internet connections. This would also make us design some sort of UI to establish the network connection.

There's a couple of appealing ideas about this actually. Looking through the Candidates from last collaboration:, I re-watched some of RBWhitakers videos and really like some of the special effects. Particularly the explosions in the tank game, and the thruster and death effects in his version of Asteroids3D.

I think actually going back to that project and fine tuning some things like special effects, adding some additional enemies, and implementing some networking would probably be pretty awesome for a collab. This could kind of also tie in to the longer collab idea. I've never felt like I couldn't go back to any particular project from previous work and continue. In fact, there have been times when both me and RBWhitaker did continue to work on some things on a back burner. Those things kind of have their 'hot zone' times and fade in and out. There's nothing wrong with that, and if we have a good base of ideas that we're working from, we could actually base some our collabs around continuing one project or another with the goal of producing complete, commercial applications. Or adding things to the que. Enough said, those are my ideas that I'm throwing out.

The other appealing element is the UI framework, and there's are a lot of ways to attack this beast. If we do networking, and there's no reason we shouldn't, we will undoubtedly need some kind of UI to get certain settings from the user. That can get complicated quick, but there is hope. I am hereby volunteering RBWhitaker to create and implement a UI framework we can beta in the collab. That's a sneaky and underhanded move, but I have an inside track that he might be already headed in that direction.

In any case we'll have something to start with, and perhaps we can contribute to the UI refinement as the collab progresses. So starting out with the base code, putting RBWhitakers UI to task, adding enemies and special effects, and implementing network players would be a great addition to the path we're moving down.

With that, I have a retraction of my own. I'm retracting the Some Random Space game from above. I needed a little break from the secure chat program I've been working on and wanted to test out the game framework I've been developing so I actually threw together a game with those assets overnight last Thursday. There's still a bit I can add to my version, but I did get a game mostly complete so there's no real reason for me to do another one. If anyone's still burning to do anything on that front though, it isn't out of the question.

Have a great day all, and good luck in your own ventures!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

PiscesMike 09 Apr 2016 07:26

Not that it really matters, but here's were I'm at with the SRSG. Actually found a bunch of opportunities for improving my framework, and once again, a lot of background work is going on. I'm claiming the 'Happy Accident' for this video…
Happy Accident: You accidentally create a bug that leads to humorous results. Post the video or screenshot in the Happy Accident thread.

The laser blasts are kind of funny since I don't manage the keyboard correctly. Basically, as long as you hold the space bar down you'll blast away!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

Swatacular 04 Apr 2016 06:12

Eeek! So many opinions..
My thoughts:
I don't really care for 3D, but I don't have anything against it.
I Really like the "Dvorak" Game Framework idea.
Continuing or restarting Me, Rb and Emblis's Collab last competition is very likely for me with or without help. In Unity (instead of monogame) regardless of when the competition starts. (that is also a long term idea, but I was posting here so whatever.)

Last edited on 08 Apr 2016 03:23 by Swatacular Show more

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

Brett208 04 Apr 2016 21:50

My ordered top 3 are:

1. Expand and add multiplayer network play for our Xevious clone
2. 3D Blockade, with networked multiplayer
3. Generic 3D tank game

I'll be happy working on any of the ideas though.

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

Brett208 09 Apr 2016 13:28

It would be good to hammer out which game we are working on. I will plan to jump into the chat room today (Saturday) late afternoon east coast time and hang out to discuss if people are available and want to. Going to the county fair this AM, so won't be around until then.

Could also be be online on Sunday if that is better.

@PiscesMike, nice start with Some Random Space Game!

Re: Collab #5 Game Discussion

rbwhitaker 09 Apr 2016 20:48

As a summary, here's where things stand (I think):

In terms for First Choices:

2 votes for expanding Xevious and adding multiplayer.
1 vote for Dvorak
1 vote for Blockade in 3D with multiplayer (though my vote was originally for Dvorak, and if I thought there was some traction here, I'd switch my vote back to Dvorak in a heartbeat).

We do have some second/third place votes to add to the Blockade idea, as well a a generic 3D tank game (I'll add a 3rd option vote to that as well.)

This is the first time that we've really been sort of mixed on what to work on. I'm not sure why that is, but it was bound to happen. I suppose the only logical thing to do would be to just do the highest vote-getter, and hope people still want to show up, even if we don't do their first choice. At the moment, that would be adding networking and 3D-ness to Xevious.

To Brett's point, I think it would be good for us to decide soon, and if we can talk about it in the chat room, that would be a good thing. I know PiscesMike usually has work for most of the afternoon/evening for the next several days. That might complicate things a little.

Let's put a final deadline of end of the day Tuesday to make a final decision. That still gives us several days to plan, with a specific game in mind. Highest 1st choice vote count wins.

If there's a tie, I'll change my vote to whichever one is the other one at the last second, so there isn't a tie anymore. (I know I'm happy doing anything, so it would be a maneuver to make sure that the most people possible are happy with the choice we go with.)

Another Sales Pitch for Blockade 3D

rbwhitaker 09 Apr 2016 22:43

I'm going to make another sales pitch for Blockade in 3D, because I think it's a good choice for us. (Don't get me wrong, if we choose Xevious or Dvorak, or anything else, I'll still be fine.)

• We've made the game in the past, but I think we could remake it within the time frame and add networking and do it in 3D. I'm not saying we have to do that, but contrasted with Xevious, I think we have the option if we want. It has been so long since I looked through either codebase that I'm less excited about digging up those old bones. Reusing the code makes more sense if most of us worked on the original version and less sense if most people are different people. (It looks like me, PiscesMike, and Brett were involved in Xevious, while for Blockade, it was me, PiscesMike, Swatacular, and Marcus.)
• The art for Blockade in 3D would be ridiculously simple. We could go with straight up colored cubes, or we could get a little fancier and make them look like little crates or something like that. But contrasted with Xevious, the art is really simple. (Having said that, if we do Xevious, I might be less inclined to want to work on networking code, and would be happy to make some 3D models of those alien ships for Xevious. So perhaps not such a big deal.) It's not like the art matters much anyway, since we're not selling it (yet). So even with Xevious, if we just used spheres and boxes and so on, I won't be too sad. But either way, Blockade's art is simple, even in 3D.
• Networked multiplayer. I think out of all of the options on the table, this one is the most likely to end up with an actual game that all of us can play together at the end of the collab. Which, to me, is an incredibly enticing aspect.
• Networked AIs. Perhaps even more exciting, we can implement additional AIs and have them compete against each other to see which one is the best. This is actually the biggest reason I've made Blockade my #1 choice: it is quite possible we could have 8 player battles with four human players and four different AIs at the end of the collab. It's a stretch, to be sure. Especially if we start from scratch. But it is a possibility. (I don't think we'll get nearly far enough with Dvorak to make this a reality. And with Xevious, I'm still trying to figure out how to make the game work with two players, let alone all of us human players plus some AIs.)

Last edited on 10 Apr 2016 00:46 by rbwhitaker Show more

Re: Another Sales Pitch for Blockade 3D

rbwhitaker 10 Apr 2016 00:51

In reviewing this thread, it appears that I've somewhat misinterpreted the Xevious idea a bit. There wasn't any mention of Xevious in 3D until I brought it up in the forum today and in this last post. I do like the idea of upgrading it to 3D myself, but the original idea was not to add 3D, just more features in general. Perhaps 3D is an option, perhaps there are better things to work on. That would be something we can discuss if/when we pick Xevious Round 2 for our game.

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