Call for an Erfworld Video Game

[BLANDCorporatio]

Greetings.

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Some experience in coding- mostly C for embedded systems (3 years). If that doesn't sound game-worthy, well I have a loud mouth and lots of persistence. Also, an interest in ("classical", but can be convinced to do "fuzzy") AI. Please do not throw network code my direction, I am trying hard to finally get away from communication protocols.

Now on to check that other systems of gaming thread.

PS: I can also, honest, draw. It just takes forever.

[zeekgenateer]

Since it seems we have some games (forums/pc) we'd need a compiled rule list on the wiki for either game to be played as "erfworld" games and not regular tbs (turnbased strategy) games.

Since Erfworld is a TBS it should be easier to code than a RTS. I'd love to see a TBS that's as fun (and annoying) to play as Fire Emblem.

And since I'm a future Computer Science major (graduating HS this year going IIT (close to ITT heh)) I'd love to help the planning (flow charts are fun) and general coding (I've done some Java).

[madmaw]

Alright, this is exciting. Volunteers, a great setting, permission from the authors, and a project space (http://code.google.com/p/erfgame/). Now all we need is an idea.

I'll create an account and start up a 'vision' document with the knowns (I'd say a couple of givens would be it will be turn based and have hexes). Join up to the project if you're interested in helping out.

[zeekgenateer]

I'm PMing pvtpepper as I think he has to add members. I'm guessing that'll be the fastest way to get in on this project.

[privatepepper]

I'm PMing pvtpepper as I think he has to add members. I'm guessing that'll be the fastest way to get in on this project.

I prefer "she", although either works, and yes, I do have to add members.

The "Systems of Gaming" thread will be helpful later on, but not this early in the project. We have to be able to work with a pretty large array of hexes, as well as units/sides, before the actual mechanics are sorted out.

Yes, I'm getting far ahead of myself, buy one thing that I think would be -really- awesome is if people could choose what unit type they wanted to join a networked game as, and whether to pop as it in the wild or join the next side that orders one.

[privatepepper]

A few more things:

Just PM me your email address if you want in on the project. I'll probably make more than a few other people "Owners" of the project so they can let other people in.

As soon as we get -any- amount of code done, we should agree on standards for the graphics [hex tiles for different terrain, images for individual units, graphical interfaces].

I'm fine with working in Java [the one language that everyone learns how to use in contemporary programming classes, believed by too many to be synonymous with "Eclipse"], but I do normally prefer C or C++. Compile once / run anywhere is nice, but write once / compile anywhere means that it could work on older systems.

[malekith]

cant wait to see this get off the ground my friends
I'd happily volunteer to be a go-between guy (or liason if you're posh) for this project and the other thread, if you so need (ofc i realise you can all read ad post there as well).
I love playing computer games and im fairly good at running things on a computer (websites, graphics, etc.) but you got enough people i think and im only a novice coder, so ill volunteer to help test it

M

[privatepepper]

Okay, I think that most of the project will be done in Java, since basically everyone knows it.

Send me a PM or email to get added to the user group. As far as I know, there's no "invite" process, your email addresses are just added to the list of members or owners and you can work on the project. Link is right before the Balder edit to first post, which I _JUST_ noticed ten minutes ago.

[depricated]

I'm comfortable doing this in C++(I don't know just C, though it shouldn't be that big of a stretch?) or Java. The only thing is that I've never done any GUI work in C++(but hey, no better time to learn, right? ) As I said, I'm only a student and this would be a great project to learn on - that's my investment in this. A place to learn, and something that I can show to prospective employers as something I collaborated successfully on. I've got no interest in going commercial with it.

I have a slew of ideas for the interface.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Two things.

a) choosing what to po up as- this is great if we can pull this off. In the other thread (systems of gaming) there was this idea floated that one side could have several player-character warlords. Think of it as a MMORPG, but with a lot more pets, as you could control many/all of the allied units in a hex. This would also tie in nicely with Erfworld's usual mode of communication, the Scouting Hat.

b) graphics. Could you all eh .... wait about 24h please? I'll be right back with something, a suggestion and demo.

[moose o death]

java? pretty much everyone who has said they know java has also said they know c++, i might have the wrong idea about what you guys are thinking about but i don't see java having the guts to pull it off.

personally the only way i see java pulling this off is if you ditch what makes erfworld erfworld, you lose the epic battles and end up with little hexes and a single unit from each side standing on it. plenty of open source 3d engines out there the c++ guys could get up and running. still nothing to do with me. you guys seem to be fighting off text based, i doubt your hunting 3d artists.

[zeekgenateer]

I prefer "she", although either works, and yes, I do have to add members.

Eh, it was late, I'm allowed to resort to internet sterotypes when its 12:30 in the morning.

Yeah I can understand for the need to do hex coding now, but I'm prolly not the best coder for that as I've only taken an intro to java course (and that was 2 years ago). I will be brushing up on my coding skills over the summer so hopefully by then I'll be ready to do some heavy duty coding.

And I'm afraid I won't be much help in C/C++. Only languages I know are java, a small tiny bit of php and some rememberances of QBasic (heh I took that in middleschool at CoD )

Also anyone know any good java books?

[zeekgenateer]

I did some math/logic on hex maps for programming (adjacency, numbering, etc). If you feel my stuff would be inefficient/bad let me know. Just did some of this during school since we need some hex crap going.

[privatepepper]

personally the only way i see java pulling this off is if you ditch what makes erfworld erfworld, you lose the epic battles and end up with little hexes and a single unit from each side standing on it

-Actually, no. First, 3D engines probably won't be necessary for a turn-based hex game. Heck, they wouldn't work well for any turn-based game.

-Really, everyone who's taken one or two programming classes in the past five years has probably learned Java.

-I do prefer C++ for most things, but I've had a lot of bad experiences with makefiles in the past. Unless we're going to provide compiled binaries for most OSes, Java would be more portable.


So, it's time to make the choice:

C++ or Java?

[zeekgenateer]

I pray for Java as I actually can code a bit in that language and can learn the language. But if there is a need to do C++ I'll help as I can. My hex stuff for the game is here.

[Drunut]

Can't wait to start up on this thing. I just hope that everything will work out OK.

I admit, I can't code to save my life. What I AM good at doing is discussing story and how a mechanic would work in-game. Most of which I go into here. So I would be joining this project under the job of Conceptual Designer. Or something close to that.

Also, I pretty much buddy-up with Mal. I can do some inbetween work.

[BLANDCorporatio]

My vote goes to C++, mainly for having more experience with that and a distrust of Java.

But that wasn't the main point of my post.

I wanted to discuss graphics.

Ideally, an Erfworld game should have Erfworld graphics. We all know (but Jamie better than anyone) just how labour intensive those can be. For starters, we could use very simple stylized icons of course, to be sure everything works.

How about a middle-way solution though-> Stop-Motion! Here's a thing I'm working on (yes a frame is missing), so that this idea isn't just thrown in a vacuum.



My reasons for advocating stop-motion are mostly personal:

a) I like the style; this idea of using stop-motion graphics in a game has also been haunting me for a while now;

b) God knows I crave to work with something that doesn't exclusively involve keyboards and computer screens. Or drawing notebooks for that matter. Plus, filming that fire was incredibly fun!

However there is also an argument that is more general in scope

c) Many things in Erfworld have a (toyish) analog in our world. Cloth Golems, Spidews, Sourmanders are essentially plush toys! With some ingenuity we could reuse such things for graphics. We'd just have to be careful whether/who to credit for the "cast" that we use. I wonder how Robot Chicken does it.

So yeah. What are your thoughts?

PS: that thing took about 20h to make, and counting as the other legs and wing need to be attached. This is not at all easy. It would have taken me even more though if I were to draw that frame-by-frame.

Any of you experienced claymation/stop-motion artists out there? I would appreciate pointers!

PPS: yes, somebody has to shell out for a fast camera if we want to film fire. 24fps is not good enough if you then want to make the fire seem "large and ponderous".

[depricated]

That dwagon is really cool. It's an interesting idea, and I like it. But there's one important thing we need to decide before we get into graphics:

View.

I see some people talking about doing this in 3d, and what comes to mind is a camera angle similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. If we want to do it that way, cool, this is an option - though time consuming and potentially expensive. This would want to come much later I think.

The other thing that comes to mind is a pure top-down view with icons. A little(lot?) more old-school but also a lot less time consuming(for animation) and much less demanding on the system.

[Drunut]

I was thinking that the player would be looking at the battlefield like Parson and co. could see it with the Eye-think-fool amancer link. Top down (or isometric) with Stylized graphics.

Also, AWESOME DWAGON. I can't imagine how long the rest of the fantasy creatures would be. Even though stop motion would work for some creatures (especially Cloth golems and spidewws and such) I just don't feel the "Erfworld Vibe" from it.

To summarize, I think either a top-down or Isometric view would be the easiest to use (especially isometric now that I think of it, it goes perfectly with hexes.) and most true to the Erfworld feel.

Also, this just came to me, has anyone played the heroes of might and Magic Games? Just thought It might give a good picture of what I'm shooting at, view wise.

[depricated]

Do you mean like the HOMM battle system? That could work, view-wise. Not quite isometric or top-down. By top-down I mean like this:


Isometric would be nice too. All three very interesting options.