Day 02: A solid game plan, but should I change it all?
Good news is that I now have a pretty solid plan for a game. It is based upon the Joel verse, in which i make the interpretation that these are bad forces attacking against people, and that these forces are robots.
Reading Sketche99s blog I noticed I had made too haste an interpretation of the passage actually. I noticed there are at least four different interpretations:
1. These are Locusts or something similar, as those are being mentioned in previous chapter and there are some characteristics like "a day of clouds and gloominess". However, I think this is most unlike of these four because it also says "A people come, great and strong, The like of whom has never been; ", this doesnt sound like locusts at all anymore.
2. These are bad forces
3. These are Lords forces
4. These are bad forces, but controlled by God, as example, Locusts sent by Lord.
For 3 and 4, there is the Joel 2:11 "The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it? "
However, while this sounds like it is continuation from previous verses, that first these forces are told about, and then pointed out that "His army" as in previous vedses describved, this is not a cure thing. It might just be first talking about Force A, and then says, but His army B.
Anyway, in my game I have decided to stick to 2 or 3, which both work for the game. I originally thought it as option 2, and this reflects on design, as you are trying to kill all the people.
I am at least for now trying to leave some verses interpretations out, like for example it mentions that there is consuming fire in front and leaves desert behind, and take this interpretation of mine in way of, what we might know now. For notice how Joels book says in the beginning: "Joe 1:3 Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. "
Although this is only telling of telling about the Locusts having eaten in past actually, making the Locust interpretation even more unlikely, I also in addition think this means that this whole book is meant to be passed down to future generations, since only future generations can finally understand it. Hence I am making assumption here, that we might not be able to understand it properly yet, and therefore I am leaving some parts uninterpreted and concentrating only on what looks like likely interpretation from todays perspective. Tomorrow they might of course already point out that todays interpretation made no sense since it obviously is talking of thing X.
By the way, if my interpretation of passing for future generations to interpret it is corrrect, then this locust theory would be even more unlikely a pick.
Anyway, to the game.
I played this fellow Christian Developers facebook group members, Cody Reeds game and i very much liked the simple userface of that game that you just clicked on one of the castles, and people came out. Thinking of this simplicity, I decided to try similarly simple approach for my game.
Idea in short is that you are in control of Artificial Intelligence with single consciousness, and my interpretation is that these people who are constantly referred in way of "LIKE the appearance of horses", "LIKE men of war", is referring to some sort of Robots, explaining why word "LIKE" is used all the time.
In each level you will have one or more locations that you can click at. When you click, squad of 10 robots comes out, and total amount of robots is limited in each level.
Thing is, all Robots in play, will always be doing exactly same thing. That you cant control that group A would go to location X while Group B would go to location Y. Instead, you will be in control of the AI by telling what all robots in play are now doing. That are they attacking: people, buildings, weapons. And then all these robots are trying to do that same thing. You will not have direct control of your robots, but you will just choose as example for them to attack against people, and then all robots will decide themselves how they are going to attack these people.
Basically playing it boils down to sending new group of robots at right time, and also choosing to do right things at right time.
That as example, lets say you send all robots at same time and tell them to attack against people. Well, there might be this weapon that shoots them all into scrap metal. On the other hand, you send all these robots against this weapon and get it destroyed, but at same time some people got escaped.
So that is where the playing part comes. I am not sure it will work out, but even if it doesnt turn out to be fun, I will anyway get to try out some simple AI stuff I been wanting to get to for long time.
Oh, and naturally these robots will climb through windows and walls, and groups of 10 will go in form.
As I already was thinking graphics could be a problem here, I however got an idea. I will be making it sort of graphics from AIs point of view. I have two possibilities for this. 1. I go to google maps, take save a picture from some location and then make it into green shades. or 2. I use black background, make green lines for buildings, and then use different colored balls to tell where there are people etc. Some certain brighter colors could for example indicate bigger amount of people, and when robots keep shooting them, balls color could keep dimming until completely dimmed, and of course bigger bright balls could divide into several smaller dimmer colored balls if group of people scatter around.
So this is the idea, and I think it is pretty solid and complete. Of course cant know yet if it is any fun to play actually, but at least it is doable and complete.
Now comes the problem. I just remembered that last year I was planning to work with one local guy who was interested in joining Speedgame too. Last year I completely forgot him, or actually there were even two then. But now I remembered still in time. Now I am wondering how to do this. At least I am going to talk with him about this. One possibility is that I ask him to do the graphics for this. Thing is, hes style is wrong, so this would not look anything like I meant this to look and would take away a lot from the overall feeling I am having for this game that I am seeing quite clearly in my head, although not sure I am able to pull it off anyway.
Another possibility is that I simply make a new game plan with him, one that suits hes style better.
You could say that unfortunately I have very clear vision right now how this game should look like, since at same time, I want to invite this guy to join this competition so he would be encouraged to join this and it might help him. At least I am going to talk with him today, as long as I can reach him. Then I see what happens with this plan.