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So, back to making the dialogue-based game.

I'm going to use the term 'first person talker' for what I've decided to design here. I wanted to make a mystery game of some kind, and I think it should be a murder mystery. It makes the situation more suspenseful if there's a chance that the person you're talking to is the murderer, and could be psycho, after all!

I want it to be a sci-fi and set on a space ship. This gives a good reason for why your character is involved, as well as for why everybody's stuck there. I remember playing '7 Days A Skeptic' and being totally freaked out by the claustrophobic atmosphere. Of course, this would be less scary, and less gore-filled than that game, and without the supernatural elements.

The mechanics of the game:

There's a map screen, where you can select where in the ship you want to be. You have your dorm, the ship's mess, and the cabins of other characters. Not all characters will be in all the time. They have their own daily routines. Also, sometimes you'll find somebody in somebody else's room, or they'll be in the mess or somewhere. Time advances over the period of the voyage, and events happen. You have to decide how to spend your time. during waking hours (there is a curfew at nights, where you can't go out). This includes remaining in your room to wait.

You can converse with characters, which takes place in real time. You can talk to people face to face, or on your phone. I'll talk about the phone later. When talking, you can look around freely (with the mouse, wiimote, analogue or whatever). Avoiding eye contact may be offputting for some people you talk to. When you mouse over an object you see that's of interest, it will be added to your conversation queue.
Dialogue is initiated either by somebody asking you a question, or by you pressing the 'que' button. If you press this in the middle of a person's sentence, you will interrupt them. Characters may become agitated if you interrupt them repeatedly!
When you press the que button/key, you're given a list like:

"Er..." (this cancels the interrupt, the speaker may continue, if they haven't lost their thread or become angry)
"What do you know about...?" (this opens a menu of possible topics)
"I want to tell you about..."

During a conversation, you can press the 'demeanor' button/key to select from a menu your body language and tone of voice: Cold, Formal, Vulnerable, Gregarious, Sympathetic, Agressive. Different characters will react to these differently depending on their personality and current situation.

You also have a phone. You can use the phone in the privacy of your own room, or you can use it when in other places. Be aware that using your phone isn't always appropriate, and may annoy other characters. Your phone contacts can also call you, and you have to use your judgement whether or not to answer. Only you can hear your phone, but anybody in the room will hear your responses! This could lead to a great suspenseful scene in which the main character is in a room, talking to a character, their phone rings, they take the call, and it's a friend ringing to say they checked some details and think the person you're in the room with IS the murderer!
While speaking on the phone, you can look around as usual, but not use demeanour commands, because your friends know you too well and you're always on friendly terms.
Your phone friends will probably include:

-A science expert of some kind.
-A literary and/or history buff.
-Somebody with a lot of common sense/everyday knowledge
-Somebody who thinks outside the box, like a conspiracy theorist, detective novelist etc.

I think that's everything for now.
I'm thinking the main character will be an actor perhaps. I'll write more later.

Mighter Than The Longsword +3 of Smiting

My new area of research will be looking into making a game which implements dialogue as an actual gameplay mechanic.
Dialogue is often overlooked as a part of gameplay. Either entirely scripted, or with just limited choices based on numbers. In reality though, the act of communication can be just as exciting as a fight. Thinking about it, many of the terms we associate with the act of speaking are also used for duelling.
If somebody deflects a statement with a pithy phrase of their own, or a retort, it's often called a 'riposte', and if hit by a clever riposte, somebody may say 'touché!' a fencing term implying they have scored a touch.
In a courtroom battle, there is a 'defence', even though there is no physical fighting. Words can be inflammatory, wounding, harsh, and a strong negative reaction may be called a 'backlash'.

In Monkey Island 2 (I think it was 2) they took this literally and made a part of the game in which the player fought a pirate sword battle using insults penned by the authour of the novel 'Ender's Game'. It was a very funny and clever set piece, perfect for a pirate game with little physical violence like Monkey Island.
In the Pen and Paper RPG 'Exhalted', the dialogue rules are written like the combat rules. Dice are rolled for the effectiveness of insults, persuasion and intimidation, against the defence roll of the enemy.
Dialogue has a lot in common with fighting. It is about judging your opponent's condition, balance and strengths, picking your timing and trying not to leave yourself open. Sometimes brute force (shouting somebody down) works well, but often subtle persuasion can achieve just as much.

Some ground rules for inventing my mechanic:
1. No 'statistics', or certainly not ones that the player needs to know. Everything on the player's end should be free of numerical values. If a person is shy, they will be represented as such by their actions and dialogue, not by a floating number next to them saying 'shyness: 33'
2. Nothing random. Or not if I can help it. Everything in the mechanic should be based on the player's logic and deductions. I want the mechanic to be like chess, not snakes and ladders.
3. Keep the scenario simple. Interviewing Witnesses maybe? or Criminals? Trying to win an argument or debate? Seal a deal? Argue a court case?

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23219

A very interesting article about making games without violence as the main interactive mechanic.

Yeah. I'm on holiday. So not updating this much ahahahahaha.

Oh the pain

Well, I finished the essay.

...Only to discover I'd misread the date. I have in fact completed my essay a month early.
At least this gives me plenty of time for finishing up the project work. But man, do I feel stupid! It's like I pulled an April Fools prank on myself!

Ahh well. Hopefully I can have some kind of demo of the game going for the hand in date, since I have easter to work on it!

Walk the walk

...Okay, well hours of wasted time have revealed something to me:

I really should forget about the animation and concentrate on the game.

I was trying to make really nice 8 frame walk cycles. It's just not a good idea when you're only trained in rudimentary animation and trying to make the whole game on your own.
So due to how badly the Left/Right one came out, I'm sticking to 3 frame walk animations. It'll have to do. Hopefully I can have these finished for Thursday.

Some teething problems with the area size of the office. Urgh, I'm going to have to tweak it all so it's in proportion with the other areas. Not looking forward to that!
So my goal for Thursday is to see if I can have all the visual bits in order so I can finally start making the game work!

Knuckling down

At the moment, I have a game with two rooms in which you wander around and make snarky comments about things. It's not much of a game yet, but it's a start! At least the walkable areas are set up and I've got the hang of making the character say things about stuff the player clicks on.
I guess mainly I'm going to be making the areas and setting them up, and making the GUI this week.

Wheeeeee

http://adamatomic.com/gravity/

This game is awesome.
It's so absolutely simple, you are a little yellow robot...thing and you climb up a long shaft with thing grapple bungee rope thing, but you do it by hooking onto mines, and if you get too close, kaboom!
The graphics and gameplay may be simple, but there's something really pleasing about how the physics works, and the colours used and stuff. Even though it appears old skool due to the sound and graphics, something about the sound and the fluidity and clean physics of the game kind of make it clear that it's a recently made game. Similar to Cave Story, I guess.

I am rather a fan of really well-done pixel graphics. you can tell a game is new but done in pixels, 'cause the colours are always nicer than in actual old games. I remember pixel graphics, and the colours were NEVER that nice! New pixel games have a much more artistic approach to the colours used, rather than the more functional approach employed by the old games studios.
However much I like the look of pixels though, I'm not a fan of working with them at all. Very restrictive. I'm glad AGS can manage full colour and transparency as well as pixels.
I wonder if I should implement voice acting in my game? (sorry, small tangent here) I think it'll depend on my timeframe and how hard it is to add voices.

Can you believe this is my fiftieth post on here!? Yikes!