The SPF, speculation and dissent

[Wilbefast]

You can never have too much dissent

A thought has just occured to me, or rather reoccured to me, while replying to a post on the blog: we know practically nothing about Overgrowth's gameplay except that it'll be "like Lugaru's, only better". That's the line the guys have always kept to: "like Lugaru's, only better".


It will have ninja rabbits, it will be like Lugaru, it's an ambitious project and it will have mod tools.

This would be perfectly fine if it weren't for something called "open development". Basically, there are two possibilities:

1. Open development isn't really that open (gameplay details are being kept under wraps).
2. Nobody has actually decided what gameplay will be like.

If it's the former case well, frankly, I don't have a problem with cards being played close to the chest when it comes to something so ephemeral. David has a point: it's probably not a good idea to talk about things that aren't set in stone.


It will have fighting and parkour*, it will be like Lugaru but with new species

Then again things really should be more or less set in stone at this point. I mean, the game is now actually looking like a game, and it's just not sensible to build all your tools first and decide what game you're going to make second. I may not be a recognised developer by any standards, but I would never take a project this far without being certain that the gameplay is fun - I would prototype it with place-holder art until I'd ironed out the kinks in the mechanics, or abandon the concept if it's not working out as planned. And anyone who's every tried to make a game knows that things *never* work out exactly as planned.
So if you do your art first and your prototypes second, chances are they'll be some issues with the concept, and in this case you've got two choices:

1. Abandon the concept and loose the countless hours of sweat and tears that went into assets.
2. Go ahead with the project, even though it doesn't really work properly.

So dear Jeff, David, John, Aubrey, Philip and the mysterious Matt: please set our minds at rest - do you have any idea what this game will actually be about, save that it'll be "like Lugaru only better?" Yes or no?
This is the Secret Preorder forum: dissent is fine here, as is speculation, as is anything not set in stone. That's the whole point of this forum: you have our money already, so throw us a frickin' bone...




*from what I've gleamed from various games, "parkour" is marketing-jargon for "the ability to jump". It's been a popular term since "platforming" went out of fashion at the beginning of the 21st century.

[Lord_of_Sausage]

Don't push 'em!

I'm sure they know what they are doing, right?

i mean... right?

...please?

[Freshbite]

I don't have anything against a little mystique.
However, something to chew on before the bigger announcement would be nice.

[zamzx zik]

if you want to find out the meaning of the word, type 'parkour' into google.

[Endoperez]

Then again things really should be more or less set in stone at this point. The game is now actually looking like a game - it's just not sensible to build all your tools first and decide what game you're going to make second. I may not been a recognised developer by any standards, but I would never take a project this far without being certain that the gameplay is fun - I would prototype it with place-holder art until I'd ironed out the kinks in the mechanics, or abandon the concept if it's not working out as planned. And anyone who's every tried to make a game knows that things *never* work out exactly as planned.

What if you have a team, with one person working on assets and another on the prototype. Should the asset-person do nothing just because the prototype is not ready?

Also, consider the available resources. Are they short on ideas, art-creators, or code-writers, or something else? Not ideas, surely! Art-creators? That's Aubrey. Ninjas has been working on the assets for more than a year, and e.g. some weapons have been ready for a year, and they're still not necessary. So it's probably not the art. Code-writers? Well, it's been a good year, but we're still not fighting. It could be the code.

If they're short on code-makers, would it make sense to make a prototype for testing stuff out and fine-tuning the mechanics and ideas and then do it all again with the real systems later on? I don't think so. It would be lots of extra work on the code-side. The prototyping could be done once the engine has the parts necessary for the fighting. Now, I don't know what parts are necessary, but I believe it does include at least the following:
1) skeleton-based animation
2) physics & ragdolls
3) procedural animations
4) scripting interface

Ragdolls wouldn't be necessary for the prototype, but physics (and hit detection) would. Scripting is not necessary, since the same things could be done in code, but again if they're short on coder-time then developing the final version with the same tools and language as the prototype will save them lots of time. Skeleton-based animations are VERY necessary. I have no idea how procedural animation will be used, but it might not be necessary... and the other parts are in and working. As it happens, the devs have also started asking suspicious questions such as "should we continue with the open development?", "what kinds of things should we show?" and "should we only write about things we are sure we'll implement?".

If they haven't started prototyping or getting ready for the first prototypes yet, I sure hope they'll do that as soon as they have all the necessary tools. And I am pretty hopeful that the tools are almost done.

So dear Jeff, David, John, Aubrey, Philip and the mysterious Matt: please set our minds at rest - do you have any idea what this game will actually be about, save that it'll be "like Lugaru only better?" Yes or no?

That question doesn't actually ask about if the mechanics have been refined, and I believe they haven't been. However, I believe that without dedicating resources into doing a barebones, gameplay-only prototype engine, they haven't had the tools needed for prototyping. Might not have yet, either, but hopefully they're getting close.

[Wilbefast]

Dude, you could prototype gameplay with a couple of rabbots in a untextured world without animations, decals, skies, ambient occlusion, gamma-correct lighting, lens flaring, shadows, depth of field, a complex map editor or any art assets whatsoever. All you'd need is scripting and rigid-body physics.

[Endoperez]

Dude, you could prototype gameplay with a couple of rabbots in a untextured world without animations, decals, skies, ambient occlusion, gamma-correct lighting, lens flaring, shadows, depth of field, a complex map editor or any art assets whatsoever. All you'd need is scripting and rigid-body physics.

Okay, skeleton-based animations aren't perhaps necessary, but I think they'd make it much easier to test out complex stuff and small things. It's easier to interpret placeholder animations than a chameleon-rabbot.

Any way, decals, skies, shadows and such don't affect combat. I thought your point was that not prototyping early would cause problems. Well, if the asset-time isn't what takes the longest time, having to redo assets isn't a problem and all that fancy graphics stuff works just as well regardless of how the characters move.

I agree that they could have had the combat working a long time ago, and actually I kind of hoped it to be working late last summer or early fall, but I don't think not prototyping early on is causing them any harm.

[Jeff]

Minor aside, Phillip is no longer part of Wolfire. Also, "Matt" may or may not exist.

I disagree with your premise, that things must be set in stone at this point; if they are not, we are implied to be incompetent and if they are, we are holding out on the community.

The answer is that things are not set in stone, but I think we will be fine.

At this point, we are trying to essentially recreate the gameplay of Lugaru but with the improved fighting system [David has released two public design docs about this I believe]. We have many informal ideas on other features we would like, but they are not the priority at the moment, which is to become playable.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask! We are always available and did not mean to create the sense of secrecy that you are feeling.

[Eruditemoose]

I may not be speaking for everyone here but I don't think your responses were so much secretive as they were just, evasive. I've noticed that when you guys don't have a concrete solution, you tend to give weak, non-committal answers, so perhaps instead of just telling us what you want to do or might do, just tell us what you're currently considering and what your waiting on to make the decision.

Anyway, since you asked what we wanted to know, I guess the biggest torn in my side is the combat. I know it will be like Lugaru but in what way? What things do you guys want to keep, what do you want to improve upon, and what are your, I dunno, top 3 most likely new additions as of right now?

Also, you guys shouldn't worry to much about not having all the answers right just now, but instead of just mulling questions of gameplay and design by yourselves, why not share them with the SPF? Who knows, you might even find some ideas that you would never have thought of.

[Jeff]

Regarding fighting, check out these two posts:

http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/02/overgro ... 1st-draft/

http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/06/fightin ... ond-draft/

I don't mean to be evasive, there's not really much else to discuss at the moment. We'll be sure to keep you guys in the loop as soon as there is anything new.

[Eruditemoose]

Oh yeah, I remember those! But they're from almost a year ago, so have you guys made any changes since then or are you still using them as your immediate goal?

[Jeff]

The latter.

[Wilbefast]

What, you've just put gameplay to one side and forgotten about it for a year? I don't believe that for a second Jeff, nobody is that disciplined

How dangerous is it to be open with your ideas when they're set in mud? Potentially quite dangerous I suppose...

[Jeff]

It's more like we fundamentally believe that design docs are dubious. See the experimental gameplay project for more test driven, prototyping philosophy. We are unusual that we have spent so much time on the core engine (far, far, far longer than we wanted to) but we are not going to pretend that we can design a fun game without actually experimenting with it first. It is fun to come up with all sorts of game ideas (http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/08/the-val ... ame-ideas/) but at the same time, they are not that valuable.

So, as I said, the current plan is to get Overgrowth to the stage where we can actually play a Lugaru style challenge level according to the previously published design docs.

Once we are at that stage we can see if we want to implement bows and arrows, poison knives, etc. etc. and actually evolve the game into something awesome, beyond the initial milestone.

We're not in the business of holding things back -- if you have a specific question I can try to answer it or honestly tell you "I don't know".

[tokage]

Hmm, I thought it would be something along those lines. Wilbefast, if you really think about it Lugaru as a game idea is already proven, along with keeping in mind that David tested some things before Overgrowth(as opposed to Lugaru2) was conceptually started, you can take that as a good base to work off. There were some feature tests on the blog even before they started churning out the weekly alphas IIRC.

That said, it seems it is specific question time, Jeff. So the initial combat system will be as close to the Lugaru style and the design drafts as possible, but one thing that is not mentioned in the drafts was weapon combat. Obviously the variety of weapons in OG will be greatly increased in respect to Lugaru judging from the released dog weapons. How do you plan to include all these weapons into the Lugaru combat system, will there be unique animations and behaviour for every weapon or will there only be certain weapon classes(sword, polearm) that share animations and the difference will only be in the looks? And how will the second attack button (grab) be used during weapon combat?

I am just curious if there already exist ideas about that or if it would be looked at when it comes up(which would be fine with me, I am not a fan of elaborate design docs either).