Tough Love

[Mischief Maker]

Look, I'm a huge fan of Lugaru, I preordered overgrowth, but my god your weekly updates are frustrating. I was really excited a couple months ago when you added those mini challenge stages, ostensibly for tweaking the gameplay, but the next week you were back to fluff and moddability.

It's like you're designing this game in reverse! You should have had all 5 races designed and differentiated in their AI combat style back when you were dealing with primitive wireframes, THEN worked on the degrading sheen of drying blood and realistic shrub swaying. Friendly mod tools should have been at the bottom of your priority list.

I'm afraid if you put off the gameplay for too long while adding little graphical tweaks here and there, this game will fall prey to the same fate as Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever. The technology will have moved on and you'll have to scrap your meticulously crafted engine for something more up to date. Or maybe not that bad, but you could flop like A Valley Without Wind whose fatal weakness is not its terrible graphics, (not like AI war is a feast for the eyes), but its sloppy gameplay mechanics.

[Constance]

You just need to be more patient.

[Thefuzzyman]

To be fair, the game is still alpha, so the focus is to make sure there is a working engine and even a game at all. Also, I applaud the developers for striving to make the game open to the modding community. Having a good base community that generates content for a game does wonders for its quality and longevity. Just look at Minecraft and Warcraft III as prime examples.

And I for one enjoy the shrub sway!

[Thefuzzyman]

Oh, and the devs aren't necessarily telling us everything that they are doing.

[Anton]

It's like you're designing this game in reverse! You should have had all 5 races designed and differentiated in their AI combat style back when you were dealing with primitive wireframes, THEN worked on the degrading sheen of drying blood and realistic shrub swaying. Friendly mod tools should have been at the bottom of your priority list.

I think your approach here is backwards. You are talking about little details that can be applied to a larger system, as opposed to a finishing all the large elements of the game, before refining the little small stuff. The combat has to "work" before you can focus on little things like which animations are used for which race. That part is easy. In fact, once the game is done, the devs will be using the same tools (intentionally so) as the modders use for creating all the small details. So, they aren't focusing on mod friendly features, they are focusing on features they need to create the game. It just so happens they are allowing those tools to be available to modders as well.

I'm afraid if you put off the gameplay for too long while adding little graphical tweaks here and there, this game will fall prey to the same fate as Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever. The technology will have moved on and you'll have to scrap your meticulously crafted engine for something more up to date. Or maybe not that bad, but you could flop like A Valley Without Wind whose fatal weakness is not its terrible graphics, (not like AI war is a feast for the eyes), but its sloppy gameplay mechanics.

This isn't really a "fear" that the devs need to worry about. They have been working on Overgrowth for just about 4 years. Many games take 5-7 years to complete, when you are building that game from scratch. Also, technology moving on is something that publishers worry about, not developers. Publishers need to promote their game as "the latest, newest and greatest thing ever!" while developers only need to say "Look how cool our game runs." They don't have to worry about impressing people with "technology".

[Mischief Maker]

I think your approach here is backwards. You are talking about little details that can be applied to a larger system, as opposed to a finishing all the large elements of the game, before refining the little small stuff. The combat has to "work" before you can focus on little things like which animations are used for which race. That part is easy.

You misinterpret me, when I talk about gameplay I mean making the combat "work." When I'm talking about having the other races finished, I mean what are the combat differences going to be between them? Do they have bot AI to take advantage of their differences? Honestly, the game wouldn't suffer if shrubs were static, but it definitely will suffer if every enemy in the game is just a re-skinned rabbit.

Take Devil May Cry 4. It's a very imperfect game, probably a rush job, but I would argue that they made the right decision prioritizing the combat engine and the enemy design first, and the plot and level design a distant second. Every enemy serves a specific purpose and presents a different challenge to the player's skills and the Bloody Palace Arena mode is an absolute blast, even if you hated the plot and the levels. Does anyone really complain that there are no animations for Dante sheathing and unsheathing his sword?

[Anton]

You misinterpret me, when I talk about gameplay I mean making the combat "work." When I'm talking about having the other races finished, I mean what are the combat differences going to be between them? Do they have bot AI to take advantage of their differences? Honestly, the game wouldn't suffer if shrubs were static, but it definitely will suffer if every enemy in the game is just a re-skinned rabbit.

Take Devil May Cry 4. It's a very imperfect game, probably a rush job, but I would argue that they made the right decision prioritizing the combat engine and the enemy design first, and the plot and level design a distant second. Every enemy serves a specific purpose and presents a different challenge to the player's skills and the Bloody Palace Arena mode is an absolute blast, even if you hated the plot and the levels. Does anyone really complain that there are no animations for Dante sheathing and unsheathing his sword?

I didn't misinterpret you, and in fact understood exactly what you meant, but I suppose I can describe for you in better terms why Overgrowth is different than your explanation.

All of the combat in Overgrowth is based on context, and so, once you create that contextual setting, you can then create largely unique fighting situations by flushing out each contextual situation by expanding each of those scenarios, without having to change the core combat very much.

The combat essentially looks works like this:
Distance attack standing still / block / reverse / reverse
Distance attack moving / block (etc)
Close attack standing still (etc)
Close attack moving (etc)
Jumping attack (etc)
Crouching attack (etc)

So for every scenario, the core combat needs to have these kinds of situations, and the variations of what attack/block/dodge/reverse chain happens is tied to each character that is playing.

Turner when moving from a distance throws a roundhouse kick, it is block-able, dodge-able, and you can duck under it, etc.. However, when you are a guard and moving at a distance, you use a back spin kick. It has similar properties, but is slightly slower attack, it is easier to see coming, and so it is easier to duck under, and sweep the legs. At this point in the game, it may or may not be stronger than the roundhouse kick, but the point is that you have the option to play in that context slightly differently.
Finally, the wolf has a different attack all together, when moving at a distance and attacking, the wolf does a big paw smack down. As a rabbit, you can't block that attack, and it has the potential to kill instantly. So your options for how to deal with it change, you either have to dodge, or use a faster attack.

So, all of these examples happen in the context of "attacking at a distance while moving", and each one has a different scenario that you can use in each. BUT they are all details in terms of how the game is actually developed. As you add in a character, you can "customize" it by assigning different attacks, speeds and strengths, but the core combat system doesn't change. Right now, the dev team is still working on core elements to the game, and as they add characters and classes, they will be able to easily diversify the combat, so you won't have just "res-kinned rabbit" clones. The best part about having a flexible system like this is they will be able to quickly test possible scenarios, and change them out, and find out what is the most fun to play, rather than be locked in to something they designed too early in the development cycle.

[Endoperez]

I agree with Anton.

I'm also anxious to get my hands on the final game, and have more gameplay functionality, but these things take time. If you do things in the wrong order, things will take longer.

For example, if they did 5 races and differentiated their AI, and then changed the animations, the old AI might not work any more. At least, not as well as it worked with the animations it was designed to work with. So every time they update the animations, the AI needs another update. Doing the specific AI for that race only after animations are mostly final saves time, because it only needs to be done once.

Also, as Anton said, the "moddability" stuff is actually development stuff. For example, the last alpha video demonstrated time freezing and improved parameter windows.

Why time freezing? Debugging special effects, and making it easier to attach items to enemies. Why was it added now? Well, they did add in attachable items recently...

Why improve the parameter editor? Because they needed the upgrades for it. Probably because they're using them. Why weren't these added in from the beginning? The parameters window has gotten new features, few at a time.


Also, remember that this is a small team. When they're working on blood or shrub swaying, they have chosen not to work on other stuff. Why? Perhaps they need to take a break from that. Perhaps that's not a good day, and trying to do more complex stuff just wouldn't work. Perhaps they just decided to do things that way for no reason. If one guy is doing shrub swaying, that's one guy not doing other stuff, and in a small team that is noticeable. However, there's nothing wrong in them being able to choose what to work on.

[Korban3]

I also agree with Anton, as well as Endoperez. I made a fox character and mde his move set nothing but fast brawling punches. I believe he was dubbed OP in a video because of easy it was to squeeze and attack in during an emeny's and knock your oppononet over.
I'm not going to go into anything else, since I can sum this all up with a single image instead.

[Underdecay]

Guys, they have left us. For comics :{

[Anton]

Guys, they have left us. For comics :{

What?!? The comic is a way for the artist to practice his story telling techniques for the game. How else would one go about that?

[akazi]

Guys, they have left us. For comics :{

Sorry but I have too.


to this.

[Korban3]

Guys, they have left us. For comics :{

What?!? The comic is a way for the artist to practice his story telling techniques for the game. How else would one go about that?

I dunno, I started writing a My Little Pony fan-fiction. But the comic is undoubtedly cooler.

[Horridius]

Pretty much what Anton and Endoperez said. Just wanted to add that you argument about the game going to be outdated is probably wrong. The graphics are somewhat the same as the current console games and most pc games and since the current consoles are still around technology will not advance fast.

The big studios are mostly just recycling the same tech and graphics with new gimmicks atm. So we won't have to worry about that. On top of that the combat, the physics and the general gameplay are pretty unique, that's what makes the sales now. So I don't think we will have to worry about that either.

Then you have the scenery which is even more rare. If it comes out now or within 2 years, the game will stand out anyway.

Btw Endoperez I saw that your location is now "Finland -> Belgium", clicked on your profile and saw that you study 3d for games. Are you studying DAE in Howest Kortrijk? Since I'm studying there. Just wondering.

Also thanks Anton for fixing Suspension2. Haven't posted on these forums in a long time but noticed the map was broken a few months ago when I started OG up again. Saw that you fixed it now.

[Mischief Maker]

As a counter to your argument, I'd point out the lead balloon that was the Cortex Command release.

Here was a game that was completely built from the engine out, has all kinds of interesting things going on under the hood, it's a mod-maker's dream, had all of 11 years to polish things to perfection... and it isn't very fun at all. Arguably it's not even a complete game.

As an example of the things that went wrong for that game, take the walking physics. The fully articulated limbs of the soldiers are a neat technical accomplishment, but it isn't very fun to try to lurch across the battlefield like a cripple. So they added jetpacks and now the walking physics are a completely vestigial feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Wasted time, wasted code, wasted cycles. But when building from the engine out, I'm sure Data was so thrilled by the technical exercise, he never stopped to consider if the end result was going to make a serious impact on the gameplay, or if it was just a case of him showing off.

Contrast this with konjak's "Legend of Princess" freeware game. It's short and freeware, but it's an absolute blast. I'd say it's even better than Noitu Love 2, length notwithstanding.

Why is it so great? In his own words, "This whole idea came from joining the desire to make a Zelda-game and wanting to try out making an action game that has its levels change slightly depending on your equipment." It was built around the gameplay; ie. the equipment and what the player can and can't do with this equipment. The enemies were created to require use of the equipment in certain way and to present certain challenges and its enormously satisfying to figure them out in the midst of the action. Yes, this is a game and engine of very limited scope, but the scope it does cover is exactly what the gameplay requires.

A Valley Without Wind, Cortex Command, etc. These are flop indie games that started the journey with the idea that they'd figure out their destination along the way. Engines with huge scope and brimming with potential, but oh yeah, how's this supposed to play? That's exactly what it sounds like when you talk about finishing the engine first, then figure out the player's abilities and challenges later. It sounds like programmer egos getting in the way of strict design and a formula for failure, in my opinion.

FTL had a clear plan, met their kickstarter goal, got released, and it's a great game. Star Command had a grander idea of the scope. They had a successful kickstarter, got a crazy hair up their ass to change the game from TBS to RTS, then had another kickstarter. If (IF!) that game ever gets released I predict it will be terrible.

I would love to be surprised, but I rarely am in cases like this. Paperdoll dress-up and comic book fluff do not a satisfying brawler make.