turn based games

[{MSX}]

hi!
I've some time to spend so i'll tell you about a game i'd like to do. Basically i really like turn based games. Some examples:

X-Com (the best!)
Heroes of might and magic
Incubation
Space Crusade (aka Star Quest)

Now, take that kind of game and mix it with a bit of Magic The Gatering and Starcraft and you get what i mean

Basically you have a map of square (or exagons) and some units. Units have action point to spend in moving, attacking or using abilities or items.
Units can be enhanced with equipment, such as weapons and armors.

I think it would be good to have also some "action" that players can play, like the interrupts of Magic.

All could come with simple 3d graphic and some effects

That's it What do you think ?

[cairnswm]

Cool - when do you start?

1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?
2. I'm thinking something similar for a sport game but the 'interupts' only happen at certain times in the game.

[{MSX}]

Cool - when do you start?

When i'll find some fellow
Also, i'm working on a car game now..

1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?

Simply becouse usually 3D animated character are easyer to draw
Also, nice effects like spells and explosions could be better..

Here an example of a possible "essential" style (taken from an old work of mine):

http://www.lugato.net/msx/screen1.png

2. I'm thinking something similar for a sport game but the 'interupts' only happen at certain times in the game.

Don't count on me.. Sport games never attracted me

[WILL]

I loved X-Com another game with the squad/turn + movement points)-based gameplay would be awesome! If the game were to be 100% the same gameplay, but with swords, arrows, magic(different spells), etc... that would be really cool. Storming castles would be really interesting... Towers, etc... the level design would be something. What would you do for the 'World' portion of the game? You could make it like Warlords Battlecry III or kind of like Command & Conqour Red Alert(where you can choose multiple paths). Then again there is good ole Master of Magic and make it into a empire building type game.

1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?

Simply becouse usually 3D animated character are easyer to draw
Also, nice effects like spells and explosions could be better..

Here an example of a possible "essential" style (taken from an old work of mine):

http://www.lugato.net/msx/screen1.png

Hmm... why not make the tiles for the isometric flooring 2D and the characters 3D OR just makes 3D pre-rendered sprites? You can still use 3D for the particle effects.

I would strongly suggest using OpenGL, though for multi-platform availability(more potential players).

[cairnswm]

Aaahhh - Cross Platform 2D = SDL

[WILL]

Yes, and in case others don't know you can make use of OpenGL with SDL using JEDI-SDL.

[{MSX}]

Hmm... why not make the tiles for the isometric flooring 2D and the characters 3D OR just makes 3D pre-rendered sprites? You can still use 3D for the particle effects.

I'm not good enought in drawing to make such sprites.. You know, programmer art
If anyone is able to do that we could try

It would be great with Pixel Art, like in the guide posted in the other thread
it must be hard to do animation in pixel art anyway

[WILL]

I had an excellent article on pixel art some time ago, lemme see if I can find it over the weekend.

But, like I said you can do pre-rendered 3D sprites. You render a frame for the ground[size=9px](for tiles)[/size], characters[size=9px](for the units graphics)[/size] and/or whatever else you want/don't want and save it as a sprite/tile for use in the game. ala Donkey Kong Country [size=9px](they were the first to put this into practice)[/size]


EDIT: Found the site. Here it is: http://tsugumo.swoo.net/tutorial/

[{MSX}]

I 'm back posting on this thread
i'd like to start this project. I'm not saying that i'm doing it, but that i'd like to get a bit deeper with analisis
Is anyone interested in talking about it and brainstorming a bit ?

Some question i was thinking about:

Is it better to do a single player offline game (UFO style), on online multiplayer only game, or both ? I think doing both will generate too much work becouse the two mode would be tecnically quite different (for example, the online game would store player attributes on server, with an account meccanism, while the offline would act totally different). Given that, would it be better online or singleplayer ?
I'd like the idea of a multiplayer game, with elements like Magic, for example selling or changing objects (units, items, etc). Each player could have it's own collection of objects (that persists with his account) and use them as he wish in matches.
But this could be far harder to do than the singleplayer, i think.
The singleplayer would instead require a "world gestion" part of the game, like UFO, to make the game more various. The idea of WILL of a UFO setted in a fantasy world could be nice.

A thing that always scares me is graphic The problem is that good artists are hard to find. That's why i would choose a simple 3d graphic, so that we can do it by ourself. If you look at this game, you'll see how some extremely easy models (mostly primitives) can create nice and colorful settings and gfx if well used. I've used this idea for this demo, and i think it can work good.
I've already a lot of tested code to be used for this.

So what's your opinions and ideas ?

[Traveler]

My advice would be to start with single player and, depending on how that is going, incorporate multiplayer later on. I'm not sure how much free time you have available, but I think multiplayer will take far, far longer.
Perhaps Sly can tell you more about the details of developing multiplayer games, but I wouldn't be surprised if its a lot more complex. Not only technically but also from a design point of view.