Messages

1

Early Dev / Re: Serial Killer Roguelike

« on: August 26, 2010, 10:00:00 PM »

Glad you liked them.  
Some more random ideas:
-we should be able to cut phone and electrical wires (for single houses or whole blocks)
-a used way to overcome alarm is to activate it couple of times so the housekeeper switches it off or lowers its senzitivity
-poisons, sleeping pills, chlorophorm
-ability to take someone as living shield
-door chains (to make things harder)

Some of the most cunning killers were a great manipulators, so this is my idea of how this could work:
I think it would be great if instead of some kind dialogue, the success you score on the manipulation check, would determine some kind of "manipulation points". Now you can spend these point for instance to:
-control his movement
-control his actions (interaction with objects, aces to inventory, interaction with humans)
-change his status (like policeman from alerted to calm or victim from nervous to relaxed)
-change his relationship (like from stranger to friend from friend to buddy) ...now the better relation the easier the manipulation- its easier to make your buddy to give you his keys

Now different thing would cost various amount of points. Manipulating him to move him to kitchen would sure cost less points than lend you some money or switch of the alarm. But if you a good manipulator and you score high suces giving you lots of points, you could for instance manipulate a person to go to other person and try to manipulate her and such kind of crazy combinations. (like trying to manipulate bodyguard to manipulate his boss)
The thing is, we don't have to hear the dialogue, it would lead to restrictions, same as graphics in roguelikes we can imagine the dialogs.

...of course there should be limits like once you manipulate somebody you should give him some time before trying to manipulate him more, or at cost of higher manipulation difficulty.

Model situation:
-You knock on Mark Thompson's door.
-He comes to door =>You manipulate him but use all the points for removing the inside chain from the door, since this is a very point expensive action you dont have points to do anything else.  
-Manipulate again=> You control Mark to go to kitchen while you enter the hall and steel garage door keys.
 
  

2

Early Dev / Re: Serial Killer Roguelike

« on: August 24, 2010, 10:59:58 AM »

I think that one of the most important parts is get inside the victim house. Picking a lock is quite challenging at night when you are nervous and its pretty noisy as i know. I think it should be the last resort when the victim left the house perfectly secured. You should first check windows (specially on second floor since people don't care much about them and if there is a tree next to it...), garage doors, basement doors. Using diamond cutter or even carefully breaking a small window would be more easy than lockpicking.
I would also like to hide under beds, inside closets and behind doors.
I specially liked the combat but since the weapons are so realistic cover should be an issue. Like firing from crouched position behind car or peeking behind corner should ensure a bit longer firefights.
I think it should also be good to have kind of police routine.
-police car arives at the scene
-officers going to check the house,calling for reinforcements if something is wrong
-more cars
-swat teams
-police negotiator
now this could get pretty challenging to do i guess, but it would be cool

3

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 3.1

« on: June 24, 2010, 05:31:35 PM »

Some advanced ammo management would be cool, like unloading guns and combining half-empty ammo boxes.

4

Early Dev / Re: Zombie Madness v0.5

« on: June 07, 2010, 05:39:04 PM »

I wanted to suggest multiplayer coop, but what about multiple controllable characters? 

5

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 3

« on: June 07, 2010, 05:30:30 PM »

I miss to wake up during the sleep, sometimes i don't want to sleep till my sleep bar is full. Could you bring it back or better make it optional? Or having a mobile phone to set alarm to wake you up?

6

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 3

« on: June 06, 2010, 04:34:56 PM »

The new version is awesome.

Actually its THE zombie game that many people were waiting for and its so good, that people started to be really enthusiastic and are suggesting things like crafting, farming on city outskirts, persistent world (like dwarf fortress) and similar stuff. It would be great if you would somehow describe some kind of plan or vision for this project. How far are you planing to go with this? And last but not least, is there a way to support you? (Other than to say that you're doing great.)  

7

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 06, 2010, 04:33:48 PM »

The new version is awesome.

Actually THE zombie game that many people were waiting for and its so good, that people started to be really enthusiastic and are suggesting things like crafting, farming on city outskirts, persistent world (like dwarf fortress) and similar stuff. It would be great if you would somehow describe some kind of plan or vision for this project. How far are planing to go with this? And last but not least, is there a way to support you? (Other than to say that you're doing great.)  

edit
moved to new tread

8

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 03:50:46 PM »

Just one thing to the AI planing. (i have no idea how coding works so this will be probably rubbish) Wouldn't it be possible to do the whole planing not every turn but only once per day? Like try to move to this house or baricade this room and then leave the rest to your directive AI that would gravitate to this objective (more move directives or more baricade directives) but no more AI calculation would be needed?

You dont have to reply its most likely nonsense.  

It ain't nonsense at all.  
Some sort of high level planning (do this today) then leave the details to low level AI (orders etc...).
The kind of planning you describe works well in a static environement (eg: if the map wouldn't change much during a day) but doesn't work well in a dynamic environement (eg: the map changes a lot during the day, because of broken doors, new enemies, people dying etc...).
The risk is the AI persisting in what would appear dumb behaviors during a whole day (eg: keep trying to barricade this zombie infested house).
I could add AI triggers to re-check the plan during the day, but then that would defeat the whole purpose of the pre-planning optimization.

I see. I understand that control of so much AIs is a big CPU killer so the objective is probably not "make them smart" but "make them look like they are smart".
Well, there could be a trigger that would negate the objective and switch AI to theirs basic "improvise" mood. Like if direction "run away from zombie" is triggered too often it could asses the environment as too dangerous and go back to normal mode or too little "break furniture" directions could cancel barricading and go to normal (no additional calculations needed). Maybe after plan is negated a new one could be created instead if CPU can handle it. Actually it could be build upon like too many negated plans of "move to" could lead to barricade plan and backwards.
For CPU sakes, not every civilian could have plan for every day, but it would help to raise immersion if you meet a survivor from time to time and he would tell you, that he has a plan to move in this building and barricade it and he would actually do something similar to what he described.  

Not so long ago i read a dev. diary about AI of Subversion (game from Introversion creators of Defcon and Darwinia). And the guy has solved some AI issues (too many unimportant AI plans that shuttered the cpu) by letting the unused CPU output work on the background on those not so important AIs. And since RS works in turns and sometimes you have to stop and think what to do now, couldnt the time be used to calculate some advanced AI actions? ...again, i have no idea what im talking about.  

9

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 02:40:26 PM »

And thanks for your reply.

Just one thing to the AI planing. (i have no idea how coding works so this will be probably rubbish) Wouldn't it be possible to do the whole planing not every turn but only once per day? Like try to move to this house or baricade this room and then leave the rest to your directive AI that would gravitate to this objective (more move directives or more baricade directives) but no more AI calculation would be needed?

You dont have to reply its most likely nonsense. 

10

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 12:59:59 PM »

Hello,
i started a thread on bay12games forum about your game, the people like RogueSurvivor a lot!

One bug i found:
When you drop stackable items and the ground is full they will vanish.

Couple of ideas of things i would like to see in the feature:

1. I like how followers have their own mind, but some orders would be great. When to sleep, when to eat, when to run, when to barricade...
2. Ammo. Guns should be really scarce, ammo should be more common ...yet still pretty scarce.
3. Im not sure, but the stuff in shops seems like its geting respawned. If yes, in options to be able to set how often and how much should respawns or not respaw at all.
4. Its too easy to kitte zombies-  Most zombies have a speed of .66.  That means that they miss every third move.  So move back and forth a space from them until they move twice in a row, moving next to you on the second move.  Attack them then move away.  Repeat. (credits to mainiac) ...perhaps add some randomness to the speed.
5. Zombie and human population moving between districts- humans fleeing from zombie horde zombies follow them. (levels of zombie infestation differs and changes from district to district resulting in districts deserted and some infested or safe)
6. Encumberence to have impact on speed and stamina.
7. Not sure if this is possible but i would like to see humans and groups of humans buiding safehouses and going for scavengeruns and returning to safehouse to get some sleep. Ai works fine btw but lacks some long time planning.  ...on the other side im playing with max population and the game is very quick, congrats on that.
8.Aiming, a round spending aiming could raise chance to hit. Possible only when not hungry sleepy and out of breath.
9.In options a chance to get infected when hp gets low. -antidote in CHAR buildings.