Working title: Otherworld

[MattWithoos]

computaertist, we should probably all connect somehow... I'll set up a Slack channel

[SekoETC]

pulkownikarnold is probably right that this is not the time yet to add all the object types, but it's good to have a list prepared even if you don't put them in the database straight away, so you know what's going to be there and what's going to happen.

My game cannot be too slow-paced because it revolves around farming, and if it took over two weeks in real time to achieve results, people would get bored. Also to use realistic weights and resource requirements for items, you are going to need NPCs because a handful of PCs just couldn't produce even a single road or a smelting furnace. If you don't do this, you have to make miniature items like in Cantr where a smelter weights 4000 grams, the equivalent of four milk cartons. It's like it was made out of cardboard. In real life, a smelter weighs 2 tonnes minimum. If each stone block needs to be carried and sometimes carved simultaneously, that's about a 1000 motions to carry out, assuming each block weighs 2 kilos (a standard brick weighs 1.5 kg in real life). If each motion takes at minimum 5 minutes, that's 83 work hours. Assuming a person works 8 hours a day, if the game followed Cantr's one ingame day = one day rl, that would take 10 days or more. But in my game, you can make it in less than a real life day because one day is a month. So instead of 95 grams of steel a day, you can produce hundreds of kilos. Given enough NPCs, you could build a pyramid in 120 rl days. I'm not sure if I'm going to include pyramids but that's just a thought example.

computaertist, let's take this conversation to Slack so we can take it seriously.

[SekoETC]

Also, the location map looks weird. Are these radio buttons with image ovelays? How are you going to make that mobile friendly? Why don't make one big map, throw it into a div and make an overlay with anchor links (just like dawn2055 and some other games did).

Location maps each have four png files that they are based on: altitude (where red is major altitude, blue is medium altitude and green is minor altitude), rocks-water-organic, plants-bushes-trees and sand-silt-clay. When viewing the local map while traveling, the colors represent altitude. Basically the more red it is, the higher the location is in general, and green represents local variation. They are based on presets that have green color only, while the amount of red and blue remains the same for the whole local map. 255 green means 8 m height difference compared to 0 green. One square is 10x10meters, so technically I could have a 255 green square next to a 0 green square and it wouldn't mean that the square was linearly 8 meters higher with 90 degree angled incline, but more like a 45 degree angle incline where the hill would reach it's highest point at 8 meters. However when I was making the presets, I only had small altitude differences, so there are no drastic shifts. This was originally meant to affect combat, so that if you are higher than your enemy, you gain an advantage, but it might be removed from the final version if it proves out too complicated.

If the value for rocks (red) is bigger than 38 there is the low rocks icon, if bigger than 115 the medium rocks, if bigger than 191 the high rocks. If the trees value (blue) is bigger than 56, there's one tree symbol, if bigger than 122 two tree symbol, if bigger than 188 then three trees symbol. 64/128/191 for bushes. Building icons represent buildings in the database. Paths are background image for the div and they are semi-transparent so you can see the background color (altitude).

The farming view that hasn't been implemented yet uses the sand-silt-clay map instead of the altitude map, so you can see which squares are optimal for planting which crop. A sort of a golden color is optimal for everything, while some plants like carrots prefer a sandy soil (reddish), and others like broccoli prefer a silty/clay loam (greenish/blueish).

The png files are only 100px by 100px, so if I was to use them directly instead of just affecting the background color of divs, I would need to blow it up a lot so that the squares would be bigger than 1 pixel. Handling images is still pretty new to me, currently all I'm doing is reading the color value at a given coordinate and generating new files by specifying the color of each pixel separately through a for loop. It might not be the best way to do it but it's what works currently, and all I can do with my level of knowledge.

The bottom line is the colors don't represent the actual color of grass or other things on the ground, it's either altitude or soil quality. It's symbolic.

As for usability on a cellphone, I am aware that the local map isn't compatible with cellphones. It would be very awkward to use on a cellphone. Currently I'm developing the game for normal sized screens, not miniature ones like cellphones. If you were to view the local map on a cellphone, the divs would wrap to the next line and it would no longer be an x, y grid. In order to be playable on a cellphone, it would need to be scrollable sideways. And even then, the squares would be so small that it would make little sense. In that case, it would be better to allow the user to jump to any x or y within 100x100 grid by typing the numbers in a box instead of going through the trouble of clicking on squares repeatedly. Assuming there are no barriers that prevent the user from moving from x1,y1 to x2,y2, the move could be completed in one click because local movement doesn't cost AP.

[HFrance]

My view is this: if you are developing a game like Cantr, that is a free sandbox where you expect big immersiveness in psychological and social aspects and a working of collective creation of a free storyline.do not think of developing for mobile phones. Cantr is not a casual game which is played unpretentiously at any time or place because it requires concentration and creativity. Forget cell phones.

[SekoETC]

It's much easier to concentrate on things that matter if you accept from the start that it's not for cellphones.

[MattWithoos]

On one hand I agree; you don't play any popular PC or console video game on mobile.

On the other hand, unless you are designing for one screen size, you're going to want a little bit of mobile responsiveness so it can be played on a big monitor, a regular monitor, a small one, an iPad/tablet - and at that point, why not a phone, too, for quick transactional tasks or checking the status of things?

Hell, if it displays as a desktop version on mobile I don't care. In fact I find it annoying that so many websites force a mobile version on you. Worse yet it's annoying when the mobile version is far worse (most cases! Except Cantr is the one example where functionality wasn't taken away).

[pulkownikarnold]

My view is this: if you are developing a game like Cantr, that is a free sandbox where you expect big immersiveness in psychological and social aspects and a working of collective creation of a free storyline.do not think of developing for mobile phones. **Cantr is not a casual game which is played unpretentiously at any time or place** because it requires concentration and creativity. Forget cell phones.

Ugh... but it is. No, it's not a casual game but it is played unpretentiously at any time or place. That's why it's so awesome. You can play in your home, car, metro station, whatever. Cantr is fully mobile friendly. That's a really strange argument against smartphones. Are you saying that mobile users can't be creative enough? We live in 2016, There's a reason why most CSS frameworks are mobile-first. And the market share of Smarthones is so big... they are important.

On one hand I agree; you don't play any popular PC or console video game on mobile

But Otherworld is not a video game.
Every serious browser based game (and website), free or not, is responsive on any screen. If someone is too lazy to implement it (or because he hates @media queries) he can use any popular grid framework (Bootstrap, Foundation)

(And no, I'm not rude)

[HFrance]

My view is this: if you are developing a game like Cantr, that is a free sandbox where you expect big immersiveness in psychological and social aspects and a working of collective creation of a free storyline.do not think of developing for mobile phones. **Cantr is not a casual game which is played unpretentiously at any time or place** because it requires concentration and creativity. Forget cell phones.

the market share of Smarthones is so big.

Ahhh... You're thinkhing of market... Sorry.

[MattWithoos]

I would strongly push for using a front-end framework, anyway, as there's really very little extra effort thanks to the likes of Bootstrap etcetera. So to cut this short, yes, it will be mobile responsive.

[rd1988]

Sounds cool, so there will be NPCs, what about some kind of quests?

[SekoETC]

So far it's being planned more as an open sandbox, although I have a list of optional rp challenges for people who play children. I'm thinking of displaying a challenge and you can discard it if you don't feel like doing it.

[Wolfsong]

Be very careful about letting people play children. Things always get weird.

[SekoETC]

Well, roleplaying anything that counts as child porn/erotica will be disallowed. It's allowed to imply that a child is or has been abused, but it's not allowed to mention anything related to genitalia in that context. Also I'm thinking of disallowing age play (adults pretending to be younger in a sexualized setting), although that might cost me some players. I know people do that in Cantr even though there technically are no children.

[Tiamo]

I see some nice ideas and features. This could be a really interesting game.

To make sure everything works well together i strongly advise you to make a Game Design Document (GDD) early on.
What will be the type of game, the focus, the setting/theme? Which elements will be needed to make it work? How will those elements cooperate? Time delta/speed, how detailed, environment, main features, gameplay, presentation? What will make this game fun to play? For whom?
Those are some of the key questions to be answered in the GDD.

There is a lot of info to be found online about GDD's. Enjoy!

[SekoETC]

That's a very good idea. Thanks for sharing it. I have a lot of loose documents and some of them deal with what are the key aspects of the game, but it's important to think about how to make the game fun and for what kind of audience.

I've already enjoyed exploring the world on foot with my test character, but actual players will have limited AP per day and won't be able to travel as far as with unlimited AP. I spent 5 months game time just traveling around before resting was implemented. Eating still hasn't been implemented and that is going to be a major limiting factor. Wandering into a mountaneous region or a desert could turn out to be lethal to an unprepared explorer, so I'm thinking of having some sort of a warning when a character leaves their comfort zone, in case the player doesn't have as much of a sense of self preservation than the character does.

Most of the plants in this article have been scattered widely to ensure that regions other than desert and mountains generally won't have anyone starve to death as long as they put a little effort to foraging.