Game Design - Need Ideas

[ericwinter]

Hey all this is my first post on kirupa.com but I've been in/out of this website for years now.

I am in the works of a great JAVA platform-style game with a twisty story line, many characters, dynamic lighting effects, and more. It's based off of everything that is great in games like Dead Space, Bioshock and Half Life but on a 2D engine. In other words, the levels will be extremely detailed.

With a lot of details comes a lot of information of objects, lights, foreground, background, interactive objects, etc. The camera always follows the player so it must be efficient. And there is so much detail that using a regular 2d matrix of x,y positions is out the door.

My Implementation:
Use a 2d matrix of x,y positions. Each member of the matrix represents a larger portion of a level (ex: 500 pixels by 500 pixels). Every object that is in this 2500px area will be stored in the member as a linked-list of objects.

All the linked-lists that are near the main character will be added unto a main linked list of objects that need to be drawn. So only that main linked list needs to be checked/drawn.

Phew...what do you guys think?

[Hangyoo]

The plan is ok :))Maybe you should do some sketches on paper(characters,enemys,terrain) or something before jumping into it:)Do you have anything now or just brainstorms?:P

[ericwinter]

The plan is ok :))Maybe you should do some sketches on paper(characters,enemys,terrain) or something before jumping into it:)Do you have anything now or just brainstorms?:P

no not yet...im at the design phase. i've been at the design phase for about 2 months now because i keep either making older designs better. but in between i am adding to the story, creating character sketches, so forth.

[TOdorus]

Do you mean Engine Design? The title threw me off a bit.


With a lot of details comes a lot of information of objects, lights, foreground, background, interactive objects, etc. The camera always follows the player so it must be efficient. And there is so much detail that using a regular 2d matrix of x,y positions is out the door.

My Implementation:
Use a 2d matrix of x,y positions. Each member of the matrix represents a larger portion of a level (ex: 500 pixels by 500 pixels). Every object that is in this 2500px area will be stored in the member as a linked-list of objects.

All the linked-lists that are near the main character will be added unto a main linked list of objects that need to be drawn. So only that main linked list needs to be checked/drawn.

That sounds like a redundant list. You can place the onscreen check at the time of rendering and save a loop through that extra list. Let me illustrate.

Say I've got a few lists which together make all the stuff that needs to be drawn. Like: A list of background objects, characters, particles etc. Now you say you LOOP and check if they're onscreen and put them into a list. Then while it is time to draw you LOOP through the list and draw.

Now try this approach. First LOOP through the background list. Check if they're onscreen and draw them. Next the items in the characters list, particles list etc.

You only iterate through every item only one time instead of twice. Moreover you can choose in which order stuff is rendered, giving you control over depth.

[ericwinter]

Now try this approach. First LOOP through the background list. Check if they're onscreen and draw them. Next the items in the characters list, particles list etc.

Thanks for the input. Makes sense...instead of creating a new linked list and running that, just run the lists that are currently "viewable".

[micken]

You might also consider a more object oriented approach. Considering your game will contain so much detail the logic that runs it is going to be very complicated and the more complicated it gets the harder it will be to debug.

Your matrix of linked lists idea is great idea but accessing and modifying it is probably going to be a huge pain. Instead you might consider brainstorming a list of all the things your world will need to know and do at a basic level. From there you can build an hierarchy of classes to do what your world needs.

For instance If I did this I would probably come up with 3 classes: Map, Sector, and Room.
- Map would contain all the information and functionality pertaining to the world the player can currently access. It would consist of a bunch of sectors.
- Sector would contain all the information and functionality about the area surrounding where the player currently is that the user can inadvertently cause the game engine to affect. It would consist of a bunch of rooms.
- Room would contain all the information and functionality about the area around the player that he can directly affect.

This way, you can come up with many different kinds of rooms, sectors, and even maps and deal with them each in a different way. It also makes it easier to find flaws in your design before they cause too much damage.

As for managing your display list you could simply do that at the Room level and have some kind of Camera object with a list of things to display that your room would pass to it based on what the player can see.

[kadaj]

Hey! Cheers!
RPG -- Fighting, adventure??

[ericwinter]

Hey! Cheers!
RPG -- Fighting, adventure??

Hello!
The aim of the direction I'm going towards is a 2D action shooter with adventure. I'm carefully designing the world based off the story line I have so far and the time period it is in. The adventure part is interacting with the world, other characters, and finding clues and hints to let the player know what is going on.

The shooting is designed to be completely satisfying - I'm trying to create 'bad guys' that are challenging enough to not just pray and spray, but actually put up a good intelligent fight.

Here's a concept design of one bad guy, RC0112, with almost half completed sprite work done:

http://www.realimagedesigns.com/teaser.gif
:beer2:

[Hangyoo]

I like the art.:)Maybe the bottom of this (robot),should be more detailed with some shadows:)But you should make its animation well too..I am looking forward to see it:)

Edit:Reminds me a little of Matrix robots:P

[ericwinter]

Maybe the bottom of this (robot),should be more detailed with some shadows:)

It's not done yet!
But here it is almostttt done.
http://www.realimagedesigns.com/teaser2.gif
:write:

[Hangyoo]

Not bad:)What did you use to draw it ?

[ericwinter]

thanks man. yeah im pretty happy with it.
paint shop pro x is what i use for the vector & raster portions of it.

[lukeboh123]

hey

i am a game designer for an organisation called ViTech. i like the main bulk of the idea, but one thing you have to think of when designing a game is that you have to focus on what is new and what your target players want to see.

The best way to do that is like we did, we went around asking our target gamers what they would like to see in a counter Strike condition zero map. A lot of the stuff they told us was already in maps, but the new things we were told, we made sure we included.

if you need any more advice my name is Luke Blaney and my e-mail is;

lukeblaney@ymail.com

write the subject as Game Designer.

i hope that helps!

[lukeboh123]

when looking at the picture i showed my supervisor, you see recently we lost 1 of our Game Artists and we are currently on the search for a new one.
The job would be online so you would not have to leave your home and the job is comission based. literally all you have to do is draw creatures that we come up with the idea for.

what do you think?

[SparK_BR]

hmm...

reminds me of gunbound...

something like that:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8122/teaser2andpilotl08.png

[Marz]

hmm...

reminds me of gunbound...

something like that:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8122/teaser2andpilotl08.png

Hah... That's exactly what I thought of too. Can't believe the popularity of that game.. But that's another topic of discussion. Anyways, whatever you do ericwinter, make sure you have a clear cut idea of everything you want in the game when you start working on the engine because unless you make your engine extremely versatile, it will be a pain to convert it over to new ideas and systems. :player: