Demo Gameplay?

[The Joker]

I was wondering. We are currently discussing a some things that are not directly useable in the game. To actually create something game like I think that we should start designing a demo - a working game, where it would be possible to move a unit around on a map. Nothing more is needed. I just think it would be a great opportunity to begin implementing the preplanned turn system that we are using, and also to think about the user interface.

It would also be good for PR reasons, since I feel many people that may have wanted to join the game might have thought twice about it, when they realized that all we were doing was creating econ and pop models, and a website. A demo would make it possible for us to slowly implement game features, while testing it.

I don't know how much programming is required to do this, and it might be a lot. I know that with Amjayee as our only active programmer, and with him buissy with the econ model, it might not be possible to actually program the demo at the moment (except if Vetlegion have some time available again...), but either way it would be a good thing to at least discuss how it should work.

We already have a map to use in the demo, so I suppose that would take some of the time away from the programming time.

I hope we can beging working on this soon!

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"Never underestimate the power of denial."
- American Beauty

[Guildmaster]

You know I totally agree with Joker here, but for more reasons than just recruiting...

Since we are using object-oriented programs, we can make separate little demos for every aspect and plug them into each other as we create them. That way we can make sure one thing works...

EG.
I would like to play with a text-based economy demo game, make sure the numbers work, and then see what happens when we plug that into a working population demo game. Then we can tweak them both to make sure they work off each other the right way. Or whatever, I think it's time to start doing something like this so we can adjust some numbers.

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Goes down smooth when I get a clean hit of that skunky, funky, smelly green sh.t
- Cypress Hill

[The Joker]

That is what I had in mind too, Guildmaster.

What I think we should do is something like this:

We create textbased econ and pop models simultaneously with creating a simple game version, where we have a map and possibly a unit to move around.

Then we can link the econ and pop models, so we can portray economic growth and pop growth simultaneously, and find out how they work together.

And then we can link this socioeconomic model with the map, so we will have people living in tiles that produce certain amounts of food and raw materials.

BTW: I wonder what Amjayee and Korn are doing. It's been allmost 2 weeks since either of them have posted...

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"Never underestimate the power of denial."
- American Beauty

[The Joker]

Oh yeah, Amjayee:

Could you tell me if there is any way to get the number of each line on the sourcefile when writing it in MSVC++? It is a bit annoying to be notified of an error in line 68, and then have to count from line 1 all the way down to 68.

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"Never underestimate the power of denial."
- American Beauty

[amjayee]

Geez, I haven't noticed this thread. Sorry.

Were I really two weeks withou posting? More like a week, I think. But anyway.

I agree a demo is needed, and we have also planned it (actually we were planning it to be finished already in July...). The only thing we need is time... or better I said I need time. Making a simple demo with single moving unit is actually really close from ready, if we are satisfied with a unit moving around randomly, as I told in the other thread. Next step is to re-structure the program, so it is in somewhat final form, and make the unit move. Then the UI would be made. In certain point the client/server structure would be needed to combine with those, so we could one day have multiplayer games. After that, if done cleverly enough, it would be quite easy to add more things, and also easier to attract more programmers. When it's done, is impossible to say, since I'm not yet very familiar with making the UI work, and with c/s I'm not familiar with at all. I will try to have VetLegion work with that, since he knows those things better.

But anyway, we should have a demo. The simplest version can be made very quickly, if I find time. I hope I don't lie very much if I say we would have things ready to start advertising the project for programmers next spring. At that point all the things I listed would be done. But we'll see.

[The Joker]

Amjayee:

Yeah, I'm sorry, you weren't 2 weeks without posting. There was some posts that I hadn't noticed.

It sounds pretty good if we can have a demo ready soon. Of cause we wont have a "real" demo untill the unit is being moved by the player. But it can wait.

BTW: I read something about the Civ2Evolution project, and the guy creating it mentioned, that in that project the AI was completely seperated from the game structure. So the AI has the excact same ways to manipulate the game world with as the player does.

This makes me wonder....

Shouldn't we have something similar in our game? I mean, obviously we don't have anything resembling an AI yet, but I think it would be really cool if the game actually functioned on its own, and then there would be some "player slots" (which would be every intelligence in the game), which all recieved some information from the game, and which could take some actions to effect the game. So in each player slot you could place an AI (which could be written in any language and work on its own) or a player. This would mean that the AI would work with the same rules as the player, and that the player could "log on" to every player slot in the game. Later on the player could be a class, a corporation, a religion etc.

It would also mean that there could be more than 1 type of AIs in the game. If we have a good game all sorts of AI gurus could create AIs for it. It would mean that the AI could be improved without having to change the game structure at all.

This may not make too much sence, and it may mean a lot of extra work with little gain, but I think it sounds cool. What do you think?

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"I chose not to choose life. I chose something else."
- Trainspotting

[amjayee]

Funny that you said this. When we were designing the game framework some months ago, also we run across civ2e. We all thought that would be cool. So, we decided that we would make similar system in our game!

We know how to make that, and it might even be easier to make than other ways. But I won't confuse you with the details of the process.

[The Joker]

Cool!

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"I chose not to choose life. I chose something else."
- Trainspotting

[amjayee]

VetLegion has said that he's working on a simplified demo with a moving unit. It doesn't have the map system, it uses only a screenshot of the map, but it is progress, and will propably cheer us up. And after that I think it would be quite easy for me to add that to the map system.

[The Joker]

That sounds great!

We should propably also start implementing the "real" hex types using Guildmaster's hex types (with elevation, temperature etc) to the map, when a working unit demo is comepleted.

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"I chose not to choose life. I chose something else."
- Trainspotting