SDGI 8: Magic Systems Revisited

Image is from the game Final Fantasy - Crystal Chronicles

Copied from ign.com

I've always been interested in magic systems. We all know the quote by Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic" - and I'm sure that magic wouldn't be the least magical if it existed - but that's beside the point. What I'm interested in is the implementation details and the design of magic systems in games as well as movies and litterature.

I just found a new post over at Gamedev which covers a magic system one of the newer members is developing. So if you're interested in magic systems then check it out!

SDGI 7: el33t

Background
I’ve always been intrigued by the thought of a hacker (or cracker – whatever you prefer to call them) game. Uplink seemed to do this quite nicely, though I haven’t actually played it more than just playing around with the demo.

Now imagine that you use the hacker theme for a puzzle/turn based strategy game (TBS). I’m thinking about breaking into systems and planting malicious code represented visually by models and levels – more like Tron than Uplink.

You are a hacker who gets missions from different shady employers. The missions could be to bring down a system by planting virii in it, install a program to tap information or perhaps seize control over a system.

Gameplay
The game is divided into different levels of gameplay/strategy inspired by games like UFO, X-COM and Syndicate. The world map is where you’ll receive your missions. Here you can view your base (your apartment/computers), make new code snippets (the classic research element), upgrade your system or perhaps even buy extra computers.

To complete a mission you’ll need a couple of tools – malicious code and hacking tools. These are tools which you’ll have to spend time on upgrading, much like researching in the UFO-games. Some factors might make it easier to research faster – new hardware or software, or perhaps coffee!

From here you’ll have to either hack into and/or plant a virus in another computer – depending on the mission. Consider this part as troop deployment, the snippets of malicious code are your troops and you’ll have to get them into the computer you’re taking over. Once they’re in, you can start moving them around real-time.

This is a risky process and you might get caught while trying to do this. Perhaps your target computer is running a routine virus check or perhaps even one started by the system admin because there was something fishy about the systems behavior. The scan is represented by an area sweep which is tricky to dodge – but if the code is encrypted (an upgrade) it’s easier to pass the scan.

The game mode will switch to turn-based the moment the scan or an enemy detects your malicious code. This is a bit like how battles are handled in Fallout. You’ve got action points and the order in which you act depends on your initiative (only that it’s called thread priority in this game).

The enemies are anti virus programs and decoy files spread throughout the level. Fighting them could be done as a “normal” battle – either close combat or ranged – or it could be more of a chess-type game where each models movement characteristics play an important role. This should be combined with other code characteristics like for instance encryption (for stealth) or multithreading (for increased action points).

SDGI 6: Pirate Illithid

I found this nice looking pirate illithid here - According to the 4th Four Elements competition, adding pirates to your game is more or less one step towards making a killer video game (though it's not guaranteed ;)

quote: Four Elements IV Contest
"After years of research1, we determined that every successful game requires one of four elements: robots, pirates, ninjas, and zombies. So what better than a contest that combines them all! "

Illithids are not represented on the list but they're in my opinion one of the most kick ass dnd creatures - so a pirate illithid is a certain winner in my book!

SDGI 5: The voices made me do it!

I've been thinking about the usage of voice and voice distortion in computer games for a long time. Having in-game voice support (team speak etc.) is a great way to enable fast communication between players but it breaks some of the illusion of you being your avatar. A mighty dwarven fighter with a squeaky voice is always a turnoff (not that I get turned on by dwarves any way ;) - so why not use voice distortion technology? I know that there are a lot of technical difficulties to consider when designing such a system but I believe that it's viable.

quote: Gamasutra - Features "Internet Game Design" [08.01.97]
"I ought to address the technical viability of speech data over the modem phone lines. With proper compression, speech data is definitely viable at modem bandwidths. You can design with the expectation that each channel of streamed audio will require roughly 300 bytes per second. We'll address the bandwidth allocation issue in more depth in the next article, but I just want to assure you that speech, if properly compressed and scheduled alongside game data, is viable. Here's one other tidbit of information: compression of speech today typically uses about 15% to 25% of a Pentium 100 CPU, and decompression uses 10% to 15%"

Adding voice distortion will probably add a lot of overhead and it would probably bring older systems to their knees. Next gen consoles and newer PCs should handle it well. All the first generation of Xbox 360 titles are single threaded according to The Inquirer, and I don't expect that all of the cores on the PS3 are used by the first generation of games either. On the PC side of things, the quad cores are coming - so I expect more processing power available there as well. I bet you even could offload much of the number crunching to the GPU.

SDGI 4: Magic systems

Image taken from Shadowrun for the 360

I've written about this earlier (in this post) but I'll mention it again since it fits the SDGI idea well. If you check out this post you'll find a lot of different ideas concerning how to make a magic system fun/different!

SDGI 3: Geriatron

Why does a character always have to be young and energetic? I hereby propose the game Geriatron. You're playing a senior hacker in a futuristic cyberpunk rpg setting. You start the game just as your character gets his death sentence by the doctor - so the main task in the game is to get hold of all manners of biological and cybernetic enhancements to cheat death just a little longer.

Since you're playing a senior citizen, the character system should be different than in normal rpgs. You'll for instance have the stat "Memory" which will be of great importance if you want to do more than just wander around aimlessly (or perhaps even forget skills you've learned). Agility/dexterity will also be essencial - you've got a time limit so increasing your movement speed is a must.

SDGI 2: Ninja Zombies

Need I say more? It's been said before, but I'll stress it - ninja zombies are cool! If you've ever seen a game with a ninja zombie, then please let me know!

By the way - Resident Evil 4: Japanese Trailer.

SDGI 1: XP sharing

How many times have I not played an RPG and just needed a couple of more points to level up. XP sharing to the rescue! I think it would be really cool to be able to treat XP as any other resource in a game - this mechanic should of course be balanced and made into something more action filled than just being able to donate a couple of points to another player. Perhaps it's vital for team tactics to boost one of the characters to a super high level to handle an enemy, or perhaps you actually have to use XP as a resource to buy stuff - so when you're buying new equipment you'll have to make sure it doesn't make you less power overall.

Edit:
Perhaps you even could steal experience from enemies. You get a certain amount of XP from killing a certain enemy, but by stealing XP from it you can both make it weaker and gain more XP at the same time.