Author Topic: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14 SUCCESS]  (Read 31686 times)

PTrefall

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Rogue Station [7DRLC '14 SUCCESS]
« on: March 09, 2014, 02:58:27 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/09/rogue-station-7drl-2014-startup-post/


This year I’m teaming up with Kenneth ‘sphair’ Gangstø for the 7DRL context making a game called Rogue Station. We are severely lacking time both of us this week, but we’ll give it a shot regardless.

You are awoken a clone on a space station wreckage drifting in space, falling apart. Systems fail and the hull breaches, energy is sparse and oxygen is leaking; the broken rescue beacon is your only hope! But who knows how long this old wreckage can stay together, or which scavengers it might attract…

Let the games begin!

EDIT:
Please go to the rogue basin page to get the latest version of Rogue Station:
Rogue Basin Page
« Last Edit: March 21, 2014, 07:59:14 AM by PTrefall »

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2014, 03:07:15 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/10/rogue-station-day-1/

Day 1 has come and gone.

We’re using Unity3D for this project, and had a lot of asset store packs and a basic framework set up prior to starting. Our current asset list include:

2D Toolkit
NGUI
2D Volumetric Lights
8 bit Retro Rampage SFX
Master Audio
Dialoguer
iTween
UnityVS
Unity Roguelike Kit (SquidLib port)
ProD Gold Edition

We’re also using Oryx’ low-fi scifi tileset and Game Icons.Net.

I contacted Mirko Ruckels and asked for permission to use his music, and we're lucky enough that we've been allowed to use his superb atmospheric ambient music as a backdrop to our game.
On the code front we set up a main menu, a win and lose condition, got a basic "dungeon" procedurally generated with theme-based rooms/decoration and some basic UI elements set up.




New day, much can happen in 24 hours!
« Last Edit: March 10, 2014, 03:11:52 PM by PTrefall »

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2014, 08:33:40 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/11/rogue-station-day-2/

Another day bites the dust, and we’re pushing full sails ahead!

Got in bump interaction, menu system for bumping into stationary equipment (turn on/off, repair) and things like cabinets (searching them for goods). You can find items laying about and pick them up, etc. The station now have a energy system run by power generators, and all stationary equipment you turn on will use power every turn. Merging into the first couple hours of day 3 we also got into oxygen generators that will fill corridors and rooms with oxygen from air ventilation grills mounted on the walls. All in all a super productive day!



« Last Edit: March 12, 2014, 04:39:20 PM by PTrefall »

Samildanach

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2014, 01:35:19 PM »
The premise made me think of Knights of the Old Republic II. Not significant, just observing.  ;D  It's good to see a Unity 7DRL underway and making progress. I always feel a bit weird playing a game with Oryx tilesets but that's my own problem.

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2014, 04:52:28 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/12/rogue-station-day-3/

Today’s topic of development has been oxygen. The game starts with rather sparse amounts of oxygen distributed about the space station, so you have to hurry up and get enough electric power going to start up an air generator, then open some air vents to allow oxygen to start flowing. The amount of air vents you open will evenly share the amount of generated air for that turn, so it becomes a system of managing where you want rich amount of oxygen and how much power you want to spend on generating oxygen (you can turn on multiple air generators to generate more oxygen each turn).

Spent a lot of time trying to improve the oxygen propagation algorithm, only to realize basic random order of adjacent cell propagation was more than sufficient!

Had to do a lot of cleanup and tweaking of this system and how it affected other things. We also introduced the Station Control Unit (SCU) panel, which the player has access to at all times. Since air is invisible, you have to do an oxygen sweep of the station through the SCU, which will overlay the game map with oxygen color masking (blue) until you spend another turn.

The player breaths air too now, so if you stay in a room without air for too long you’ll suffocate and die.



PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2014, 04:53:46 PM »
Thank you Samildanach :) If it turns out fun, hopefully we're able to get a custom tileset going towards ARRP.

Samildanach

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2014, 07:02:55 PM »
I know a custom tileset can be a big job. There's nothing wrong with the Oryx ones either, it just always feel odd about it because I knew them from HackSlashLoot. It's like playing a roguelike where everything is represented by sprites from old Nintendo games.  :o  Again, that's my own issue and I wouldn't criticise anyone for using Oryx tilesets.

The oxygen management element sounds interesting. Sounds like it will force some careful thought, which is always good.

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2014, 06:49:26 AM »
Hehe yeah, that's the downside to using generic tilesets :-/

We're hoping that oxygen management becomes an interesting challenge and not an exercise in frustration and micro-management. We won't know until there's enough interacting systems integrated...

Samildanach

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2014, 02:00:03 PM »
Yeah, I imagine it must be very difficult to gauge something like that. At the same time, it's forgivable to be a little off since the time constraint is so tight. I like the fact that (based on your description) it's not a straightforward 'hunger clock' substitute but something that, while limited, is also under your control to some extent. More interesting than just "my oxygen is low, better pick up some more".

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2014, 03:10:46 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/13/rogue-station-day-4/

We’ve passed the half way mark, and due to Kenneth moving house this weekend, I’m pretty much all alone for the final half of this challenge.

Day Four has been spent first on integrating logs. It was a lot of fun getting this in there, because it gave the game more character immediately, and is also proving to be a tool for teaching and telling the player about/of the mechanics in the game. Secondly I integrated an inventory system. Currently the only item is the repair kit item. It is used to repair the condition of station equipment and the last new feature added today was working doors, which is quite an important feature when talking about oxygen propagation. I also went over my code and made sure the new game mechanics were all working properly, so that you don’t have to quit the game and start it up again every time you die.


PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2014, 03:13:19 PM »
Yeah, I imagine it must be very difficult to gauge something like that. At the same time, it's forgivable to be a little off since the time constraint is so tight. I like the fact that (based on your description) it's not a straightforward 'hunger clock' substitute but something that, while limited, is also under your control to some extent. More interesting than just "my oxygen is low, better pick up some more".

It's interesting to see you read it at that level, because that was definitely the idea going into this. Desperation, but somewhat controllable if you make the right decisions. Of course, pulling that off won't be easy... we'll just have to wait and see how well we can get it to work within this short time frame.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2014, 03:36:46 PM by PTrefall »

Samildanach

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2014, 05:52:58 PM »
At the very least, you've got ideas for an interesting mechanic that can be used in future, even if you find you struggle to get the game done within the week. I mentioned this in another thread as well - I don't think a 'failed' 7DRL is inherently a bad thing. It can still be time well spent if you learn something from it.

PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2014, 07:35:51 AM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/15/rogue-station-day-5/

Report coming in half a day late, but wanted to update on the progress quickly.

Today was spent on a lot of different small things and small fixes over the board (didn’t want to save all of that for the last day). Actual working repair mechanics and equipment that would spawn with random conditions (some are working, some with defects, some broken and a few beyond repair). Ran over all descriptions for station equipment menus, and made the text more informative towards the mechanics. The cloning machine, which is your spawn point when you start a new game, is now in the game too. The last thing that went in was the transport ability, which allow you to “teleport” or “blink” short distances, with increasing power consumption costs. Quite useful, not the least because it makes my procedural placement of decoration/interior less game breaking if it blocks a path or something like that (yeah, we didn’t spend much time trying to get that placement look good). A lot of small issues with this Transport ability, because it’s a quite intrusive mechanic, disabling player movement, need to prevent teleporting onto invalid cells, need to give player enough information to use it, etc.

All in all a good day :)


PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2014, 05:34:51 PM »
http://7drl.org/2014/03/15/rogue-station-day-6/

The final day is upon us, but here is the last report before the final success/fail posting!

Started the day fixing a lot of small issues with the new Transport ability, it now feels pretty tight! Started on the game event system, that will make things go horribly wrong at random turns throughout the game (not entirely random, so let’s call it procedurally). For now there’s only hull breaching, but I hope to get rescue/invade parties in too (but that will be a stretch at this point). Adding the hull breaching shed light on some issues in my propagation algorithm and the oxygen visualization was clearly not informative enough. I started interpolating a gradient map for visualizing oxygen values instead of just doing an alpha 0-1, and the improvements made to the propagation algorithm truly boosted that mechanic over the board!

It quickly became apparent though that with hull breaching in, I would have to add the space suit. The space suit will spend station power to generate oxygen. Since station power is the most precious resource (well, beyond oxygen of course) in the game, hopefully we can manage to balance this gear so that you only want to wear it when you go to repair a hull breach. I also did another pass on doors to make sure oxygen, or lack there of, wouldn’t propagate through closed doors.

Further, I properly integrated the repair mechanics for the hull breach, so that oxygen absorption stops and the hull breach effect disappears when you’ve fixed the breach.

Another thing I spent an hour or two on today was adding details/decoration to the different room types, to strengthen the room themes and to tell them apart more easily, which is very handy when the “Hull breached in the Living Quarters!” message starts flashing on your screen. I added search mechanics to the different decorational pieces, so you can search them for repair kits and other loot. I also added a blaster rifle, but it doesn’t give you the shoot ability just yet.

The last thing I started before the clock entered the final 24 hours of this entry, was to add an Invader event (similar to the hull breach event in mechanics), that spawns a group of invaders. They can kill you if they bump into you, and you can kill them if you bump into them, but their drunken walk is awful at best. We’ll see if I can find more time to add the blaster rifle’s shoot ability so that you can shoot these green invaders! The idea is also that they will degrade the condition of station equipment if they bump into those… we’ll see what I can find time for, because I really need to spend some serious time on the game’s multiple numbers to make the game feel a bit more complete… at this point there are some interesting mechanics in here I think, but the numbers needs to be tweaked right for it to come out strongly. Crossing fingers 24 hours with sleep, food and family life in between will be enough!



PTrefall

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Re: Rogue Station [7DRLC '14]
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2014, 05:36:37 PM »
At the very least, you've got ideas for an interesting mechanic that can be used in future, even if you find you struggle to get the game done within the week. I mentioned this in another thread as well - I don't think a 'failed' 7DRL is inherently a bad thing. It can still be time well spent if you learn something from it.

Oh yeah, you're going to learn something during a seven day grind like this, no matter what the result of the game :)