The hunt for the lost rainbow jewels

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#1

The rainbow jewels, the items which preserve the worlds colors have been abduced! Can you find and rescue them in time, to prevent the world from bleaching into the dullest of gray?

The hunt for the lost rainbow jewels will be a simple dungeon crawling adventure. Only one character class, basic skills and attributes, and a mix or hand-made and procedurally generated content. I hope to make up for the lack of diversity with funny ideas for the game contents and mechanics. Color, or the lack of color, will be a theme which can be found througout the game.

For the character display, at the moment I think I’ll go very abstract and use basic geometric shapes. I hope it will work out reasonably well.

So there are four races to choose from:

The Conians - They are extraordinarily agile (dex bonus)
The Blocks - Very tough and sturdy (str bonus)
The Tetroids - Brittle but good thinkers (int bonus)
The Globos - Living libraries, but a bit on the lazy side (wis bonus)

Level editor and artwork preview:

Current state:

  • Map data structure, map loading and saving: done

  • OpenGL based isometric map display: done

  • Map editor: 50%

  • World design: 2%

  • UI logic and design: 15%
    – UI Toolkit: 80%
    – Character screen: 30%
    – Inventory screen: 30%
    – Merchant screens: 0%
    – Other UI: 0%

  • Game logic: 5%
    – Pathfinding and moving: 100%
    – Player inventory and equipment handling: 60%
    – Picking up/dropping items: 100%
    – Throwing shooting: 0%
    – Melee combat: 0%
    – Magic: 0%

  • Item design: 5%

  • PC/NPC/enemies: 1%

… the project is just starting. Besides the idea to make a game around the idea of dungeon exploration and colors, it will also be a training ground for me, to work on my graphic skills, and expand my experience with OpenGL/JLWGL based projects.

Update 12-Mar-2014:

Latest walkaround demo:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jewelhunt/files/r005/

#2

Looks nice, gotta asked how are you working out the game design and specifically your stats at the end
quote: "- Map data structure, map loading and saving: done

  • OpenGL based isometric map display: done
  • Map editor: 50%
  • World design: 2%
  • UI logic and design: 1%
  • Game logic: 0%
  • Item design: 0%
  • PC/NPC/enemies: 0%"

I am asking because i am interested in seeing the processes you went/going through to get your game working. I look forward to seeing more updates on this game.

#3

The game design is still floating, and most likely I’ll ask for help at the one or other point. The current ideas arose during a discussion in the “game design” JGO subforum, and some have been borrowed from a real old game called “Wizball”, where the player had to color the world. Now the player must prevent bleaching, so it’s the same idea, but kinda reversed. Maybe I’ll include the idea itself, and have some parts of the world already bleached, to show the effect in the game. It definitely will be influenced by elements from roguelike games (procedural levels), and RPGs, like character progression - the player will have to acquire certain skills/quests first before they can enter certain areas in the game.

The estimations aren’t that precise. I’m just starting and have very little actually done so far, beyond proof of concept work.

For the map data structure the estimation it was fairly straightforward. I had a set of requirements (e.g. must be able to …) and once I had an implementation which fulfilled all requirements it’s been done. For some of the others, like the editor, I don’t have a complete list of requirements yet, so the 50% are a really rough guess, meaning, it basically works but most likely needs more work during the course of the project. The 2% and 1% just say “very little done here, but I have an idea how to do it”.

Finally I have some older game projects which I can draw from, so there isn’t much really new for me in here, but the OpenGL frontend.

#4

Well nice job so far mate, i look forward to seeing updates on this, this is something i am going to keeping an eye on

#5

Thanks! My time’s a bit limited though, a family member is ill, and needs some support, I need to do renovation at home, and also work now and then to get some money in. But I surely will continue, currently working on a simple UI framework for handling input events under OpenGL. Next will be to create a player character placeholder, and test if my idea of pathfinding and moving along a path works (I’m quite sure it does, otherwise I would have made that my first priority). But most likely there will be some weeks passing before I can publish even a very little demo.

#6

I’ve tried to make up my mind on PC attributes and stats, and came up with this.

PC Attributes

Strength (str)
Dexterity (dex)
Intelligence (int)
Wisdom (wis)

I think these are enough stats for some variety, and having only four makes it easier to plan progress in the game.

Equipment will have requirements, e.g. some magic devices will require certain int or wis levels, and weapons will require some str or dex levels to be used. Maybe I’ll make that a percent score, so below the minimum requirements you can still try to use it, but have an increasing failure rate with the device, the more you lack in the needed attributes.

PC Stats

Life/Hitpoints = f(str, dex)
Mana = f(int, wis)
Stealth = f(dex, wis)
Perception = f(int, wis)
Evade attack = f(armor, dex)
Block attack = f(shield, dex, str)
Attack melee = f(weapon, dex, str)
Attack ranged = f(weapon, dex)
Magic device use = f(int, wis, dex)
Magic resistance = f(int, wis, str)

Perception = notice hidden things (doors, traps, mimics, lurkers)

I hope I’ve got all effects of interest, and I also hope that I can achieve some balance in the game by tweaking the functions. If possible I want to have all function to be linear, just with different weights for the parameters. E.g.

mana = 2*int + wis

Lack of color in the world

  • reduces your perception
  • reduces your stealth (since you stay colored)
  • reduces your attack ratings
  • reduces your evasion and blocking

Please, if you have some free time, check this sketch and let me know if you see some problems or pitfalls.

#7

I’ve made some adjustments, and tried to condense it into a character info sheet:

500×700 141 KB

A character will earn points which they can be spent on the basic attributes. This way players can adapt their characters to their playing style, while keeping the point ditribution simple enough. The secondary stats will be influenced by items, so there is a second way of character customization.

The design isn’t final, but I think I’ll use this font for the game. The old style look should go well with the jewels theme.

#8

Nice, the font looks great, i notice there seems to be a straight line under “Mana” input box. I like the layout and color scheme. Looks nice even if its just a test, keep it up :slight_smile:

#9

I must clean up the arrows a bit, and indeed the line under the mana box isn’t positioned right. I’ll fix that. The sheet also needs some sort of border, I think I’ll try to give it a tattered look at the borders, to make it even “older”. But unless a much better idea comes up I want to keep the basic design.

#10

Nothing new to show today, just a little update. I’ve got pathfinding for player, npcs and monters done, and have been working on equipment and inventory panels in a similar style to the character sheet. I have a walkaround demo now, with placeholder graphics for PC, but I sthink it’s too early to publish something yet. It was just a testbed for the pathinding mostly.

Overall I wonder a bit how exactly LWJGL is “lightweight”, since it comes with 5+ something megabytes extra size for my project which is at the moment more than 5 times the project istelf. I guess nowadays lightweight is something different, for me 5MB still look a lot. It’s still a very useful and fine library, just I keep stumbling about the “lightweight” in the name.

#11

Maybe to make the text look cooler, you could have it in a different colour with a black outline?

This is looking really good, keep it up ^.^

#12

I’ll try to. It will be work for many weeks, most likely even months till it becomes a game, though.

I had assembled a walkaround demo, but noticed that the bundle (game + lwjgl) is too big for JGOs upload space (2mb file limit, the demo is almost 6), and I need to look for another download space.

#13

I think you can use (haven’t tested myself)
mega.co.nz
dropbox
google drive
etc

#14

Yes, lots of options. I need to make up my mind - I’m pondering about renting some webspace and set up a homepage of my own, or using dropbox.

#15

I’ve been testing outdoors maps. Looks a bit bland at the moment, and I’ve been using graphics made for an older project of mine, but it should work out. I see a need for tile-transition textures, and must see how to fir that in. I had those on my list already, but the point got lost somehow …

Very traditionally, the player will start in a small settlement near the temple of the rainbow colors. The temple will be a big piece of work, but it’s the beginning and end of the game, so I want to make sure it’s the best I can do.

#16

Some time ago I mentioned that I have a hard time to create animated characters and monsters, and I’ve been looking for ways to get around that.

At the moment I think I’ll go very abstarct and use geometric shapes for the inhabitants of the world. I hope it will work out reasonably well.

This also gave the idea for a few races to let the player choose from:

The Conians - They are extraordinarily agile (dex bonus)
The Blocks - Very tough and sturdy (str bonus)
The Tetroids - Brittle but good thinkers (int bonus)
The Globos - Living libraries, but a bit on the lazy side (wis bonus)

This is pretty straightforward linked to the core stats, so players can choose a race which gets a bonus to the stat which they consider the most important.

#17

Nice job dude, yeah i too struggle with character designs, i will be spending a small bit of time developing on my art skills when im done with my internship, but nicely done so far. Just on that though, did u make all the art assets yourself?

#18

Yes, the graphics shown are all made by me. I’want to use this project to practise my graphic skills, some day I want to become an artist rather than a coder.

Besides the walls and the gems all graphics so far are re-used from older projects of mine though, just adapted to the new display.

#19

I’ve got another preview of the character and inventory screens to show.

I must add the add the arrows on the character screen (left side) again, and there are many things to link between the graphics and the engine code. The “str” and “int” values are from the engine, so the linking works on a basic level, and I’ve also got a little OpenGL based UI framework now.

#20

I’ve been pondering long about the enemies. I had to make compromises between my graphcs skills and what might work in an RPG. But I think I can create a number of interesting enemies, just not animated (too much effort, too little time).

So I can present a first type of enemy - a group of imps guarding a jewel:

Update: 2013/12/16

I’ve got some procedural map generators from older projects, and currently I’m trying to adapt the “room and corridors” dungeon generator to the new map format. With that I should be able to release a more interesting walkaround demo.

Update: 2013/12/17

I’m lacking energy and motivation, mostly I’d like to do some art, but on the other hand the amount of artwork needed feels overwhelming at the moment.

I have written a converter for the maps, so I can use the old map generators, but the results didn’t look as good as expected. I’ll have to come up with new ideas, particularly how to handle walls for narrow corridors.

Update: 2013/12/18

It took me three hours to make the inventory screen come alive. Considering that this is the third project with a gridded inventory, and I had written similar code twice already, I’m not too happy about it, but finally, it works.

Now I need some real items to play with … I’ve started to make a list of one handed weapons, with damage, dex and str requirements


Weapon          Dice      Range     Str      Dex

fist            1d2-1     0-1       10       10
stick           1d2       1-2       12       10
club            1d3       1-3       20       10
knife           1d4       1-4       12       20
spiked club     1d5       1-5       24       10
dagger          1d5       1-5       12       22
short sword     1d6       1-6       15       20
war hammer      2d3       2-6       28       12
hand axe        2d3       2-6       24       15
sword           2d4       2-8       20       16
rapier          2d4       2-8       20       28
mace            3d3       3-9       32       12
broad sword     3d3+1     4-10      25       16
battle axe      3d4       3-12      28       16
great axe       3d4+2     5-14      32       18
bastard sword   4d4       4-16      28       20
morning star    2d8       2-16      34       14
crowbill        1d20      1-20      28       16
ball-and-chain  1d24      1-24      32       14

I think in the game I’ll use linear ranges instead of the dices, the notation is a bit complex to read.

Update: 2013/12/21

I’ve managed to link my old item code with the new game framework, so I can actually include item data into the game. I think I can reuse some of the old item graphics, but will need some new graphics as well.

First item, a shield. Durability should be 20, but I screwed the item data access there. More items stats coming …

591×551 103 KB

Inventory item drag and drop works now, missing is to drop items to the floor, and some of the equipment drop targets.