turn based games

[Sly]

Start with single player, for sure. Multiplayer, especially online multiplayer, raises a whole slew of issues that just do not occur in single player.

- Keeping all clients in sync. Each client should only know the parts of the game state that are relevant to it.
- Coping with lost, duplicated or out-of-order data packets.
- Coping with clients dropping out.
- Coping with the server dropping out. Do you terminate the game or does another client take over, ie. host migration.
- Dealing with network latency. This may be such an issue in a turn-based game. In a real-time game, latency can be a killer.

...and this is just the beginning of it all.

Having said that, most games that support single player and multiplayer provide single player as a one player multiplayer game. That is, the single player client is the same as a multiplayer client. The server is still there an operating as normal in the background.

[WILL]

I like my idea too. :lol:

Seriously though... I'd have to agree with Traveler and Sly on multi-player vs. single-player. A happy medium might be to start with single player, but consider and try to leave parts open to multiplayer code later on. It might mean a small bit of work in the interm, but could save you a ton of work, and more importantly the hastle, later on.


:idea: For the graphics, why not do what Rare had done with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES? They 'pre-rendered' the 3D graphics and made sprites out of the 3D graphics from your modeling software(3ds max, light wave, deled, etc) done durring development. It gives the full appearance of true 3D, yet saving you time on hacking away at the 3D engine's code for speed and reducing the loss of resources by just working with the 2D sprites.

A lot of computer games in the late 90s did this and with excellent results, it's worth considering.


The idea of a Fantasy RPG played like an X-COM/UFO type 'squad game' is rather exciting. Especially with the prospect of casting magic on top of that. I doubt that there is a game like that in existance right now. This would seem to be a rather unique idea.


Lastly be sure to checkout the Library section for tutorials that may help There are some isometric programming tutorials and some graphics type tutorails that may compliment it aswell.

[{MSX}]

Seriously though... I'd have to agree with Traveler and Sly on multi-player vs. single-player. A happy medium might be to start with single player, but consider and try to leave parts open to multiplayer code later on. It might mean a small bit of work in the interm, but could save you a ton of work, and more importantly the hastle, later on.

Ok, that's probably the best way to go.

:idea: For the graphics, why not do what Rare had done with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES? They 'pre-rendered' the 3D graphics and made sprites out of the 3D graphics from your modeling software(3ds max, light wave, deled, etc) done durring development. It gives the full appearance of true 3D, yet saving you time on hacking away at the 3D engine's code for speed and reducing the loss of resources by just working with the 2D sprites.

Well a lot of games did this in fact. Starcraft and Diablo are also examples.
I've also used this tecnique in "Nardo and the broken astronav" and in lots of unfinished games, but i didn't was very satisfied, becouse it have some drawbacks. For example if you want to change the angle of the camera you have to re-render everything. Also, it is difficoult to have elements changing in a model (for example, the same warrior with different weapons or armor). Lastly i found that working with it is annoing.. For example if you have to change a little on a model to get it better, you have to render all the model again. If you have to do it multiple times to get the right results, it's going to take a lot of time.
Over that, you can't have in game camera (rotating and zooming) with 2d

The idea of a Fantasy RPG played like an X-COM/UFO type 'squad game' is rather exciting. Especially with the prospect of casting magic on top of that. I doubt that there is a game like that in existance right now. This would seem to be a rather unique idea.

Yes
But i was thinking this: in UFO you control a small "task force" of about 6-8 characters. Instead in a castle siege or in a field battle, you would want to use a whole army Will we have a medioeval "task force" ?
Ok, i think that this little discrepance can be ignored in this days.. Commercial games do it too :lol:

[Traveler]

My opinion of graphics in games is pretty simple. If it doesn't look right don't use it. Pre-rendered graphics in games usually look a lot better than their 3D counterparts. Granted, there are a few drawbacks with prerendered sprites. Rotating, is one of them, zooming, to an extend as well (although Settlers 4 proved otherwise). But then again, do you really need rotating? I hardly ever use it in for example Warcraft 3.
I suppose it depends on the game, but in a turn based game, I doubt it. If I had to choose I would go for better/nicer graphics.

Lastly i found that working with it is annoing.. For example if you have to change a little on a model to get it better, you have to render all the model again. If you have to do it multiple times to get the right results, it's going to take a lot of time.

This is of course true, but for a 3d character, things don't get much easier either. Although you don't have to render it for a specific camera angle, you do need to export the motions. Not an easy task either.

Also, the use of multiple weapons per character seems easier to do in 2d than 3D. If I'm not mistaken, Diablo used a technique where multiple sprites where drawn on top of eachother.
My experience with 3D isn't that much, but I can't think of a way how to do it in 3D, besides changing the model with another or have it use other textures.

[{MSX}]

Pre-rendered graphics in games usually look a lot better than their 3D counterparts.

Wait a minute! If i have a model, a pre-rendered version look exacly like the 3d rendered one (apart from shadows and the like maybe). You are assuming that the pre-rendered model is better than the rendered one. You indeed have more freedom with poligons, but who draws the better models ? You'll need an artist for that.
While a simple low poly model can still look nice in 3d, it would probably be ugly in 2d.

Also, the use of multiple weapons per character seems easier to do in 2d than 3D. If I'm not mistaken, Diablo used a technique where multiple sprites where drawn on top of eachother.

Umm i'm not sure it's easier in 2d. First, you have to do a render cycle for each weapon for each animation. For example 8 direction, 4 animation (walk, attack1, attack2, hit, for example, but they can be more), about 8 frame per animation, gives you 256 frame.
Then, what if two characters have different heights? you should adjust the offset of the weapon for each character and possibly for each animation.

Also, this assumes that every character has the same animation set. If you have different animation, you have still more work.
Instead with 3D you draw a single weapon model, and then just attack it to the hand of the models with some easy mechanism.

[Traveler]

You are assuming that the pre-rendered model is better than the rendered one. You indeed have more freedom with poligons, but who draws the better models ?

The extra freedom with poly's is exactly why its easier. Take hands for example. With prerendered, you can shape them far better then when you would do for a 3d game model.
With the latter people go to great lengths to make the textures extra detailed to make the model look better. This is less of a necessity with pre rendered models, because the extra polys already take care of (all) the details.

I understand what you are trying to say though. For the past 3 years I've been doing 3D graphics, and although I am getting better at it, I still find it quite difficult at times. It's just that I think it is a misunderstanding to think that (high res) pre rendered graphics are harder than low-res 3d models. (When you want to have them look just as good or nearly as good as pre rendered)

While a simple low poly model can still look nice in 3d, it would probably be ugly in 2d.

Actually a low poly model will always look better in 2d than it would in 3d. You have after all the benefits of shading, lighting and antialiasing.

[WILL]

The idea of 'pre-rendering' is that you have rendered the 3d into a 2d the way you want it to look before hand. Yes, some technical limitations arize, but the concept allows you to 'cheat' a little here and there. Because thats pretty much what it is.

Ultimately, it's up to you got you want your game to look. Do you want to make a 3D game or do you want to make a 2D game?

Since you are limited in your ability to produce high-quality 3D graphics, I'd suggest trying to counter this with the advantage of pre-rendering your 3D models into 2D sprites, its more work for the 'posing process', but it's the trade-off to counter the lack of 3D artistic skill and programming load of a 3D engine(time to code and CPU/video card juice required).


Development is always a balance of compromize... you sacrafice memory size for speed or vice versa... it's a yin and yang situation... It's the way of the programmer. :rambo:

[K4Z]

This looks like an interesting topic, but it seems to have died, due to an all to common problem, worrying too much about the graphics.

{MSX}, have you already started on this game?

If not, here's some of my opinions:

I would suggest 2d, Iso, or even squared top down tiles.
Being turn based, 1 on 1 multiplayer is rather simple, since you need not worry about lag, etc.
Single player is a bit harder, in my opinion, cos you have to create AI.

Anyone still interested in breathing life into this idea?
I can help with coding, 3d and 2d graphics.

[{MSX}]

This looks like an interesting topic, but it seems to have died, due to an all to common problem, worrying too much about the graphics.

{MSX}, have you already started on this game?

If not, here's some of my opinions:

I would suggest 2d, Iso, or even squared top down tiles.
Being turn based, 1 on 1 multiplayer is rather simple, since you need not worry about lag, etc.
Single player is a bit harder, in my opinion, cos you have to create AI.

Anyone still interested in breathing life into this idea?
I can help with coding, 3d and 2d graphics.

Hi
I've not started this project yet, even if this could happend on 16th March
About your considerations:
i'm still more attracted by 3D graphic. I've also done some "example" models for a fantasy-style game. They look simple and cartoonish and i'm very proud of them :mrgreen:
Here they are:



I've lot of code ready for the engine (exporting models, loading models, loading textures, rendering, etc. (see FunkyCars engine).
Btw, K4Z what do you use for 3d? Any experience (or wish to make it) in Blender? Any screenshot ?


About multiplayer, i think a simple 1vs1 is good, but i would want also a "container": something like a place where players meets and create/join games (like battle.net and the like), maybe with a mechanism for trading items, units, etc.
Problems with this implementation are many Syncronization, clients dropping, cheating, account mantaining etc. etc, without considering the it would require a server (ok, this is not a real problem anyway..)
This multiplayer system can possibly be as hard as single player AI to implement
But the question is: what will be more fun to play ?

Also, we should think about the gameplay.. for example, if using a rigid system (with fixed class of weapons, damages, etc, like UFO) or a flexible one, where each object can do about whatever (like in Magic the gathering, where a card can have almost any effect in game).

Bye

[cairnswm]

I've been looking for an online project to get involved in for a while. I'd be prepared to do the Online get together, domain for you. I dont do 3D stuff - I still believe there is a lot of potential in the good old 2D stuff.

I love those models - what did you do them in?

Can we get the first PGDev tesm together?