Pirates Of The Undersea

Motivation

I just finished my studies and I have some spare time I can devote to a game development project. As background I am a computer scientist with some grasps in 3D and 2D graphics. My past experiences in creating games are limited to a single projects that lasted a school semester. The result are shown in this video.

I open this blog with the hope I will be able (read: I will have the time) to carry on with this project. Before entering into the details of the game I want to explain what is my position with respect to this project.

· I am doing this for the process, not the result. I enjoyed the past project so much, though the final result might not look that great.

· I like to share my ideas and I'm not that fond of the "they have stolen MY idea" conspiracy.

· I think that sharing this experience might be of some help. If not for you, at least for me.

· There is a certain chance that this project will die because of lack of time. One of the lessons I learned in the past is to be patient. An other one is that there are situations where you realize you don't want to resume a project because it does not fit in your scheduling or your motivation has changed. I consider this a good moment for starting this project. We will see how it goes...

Now to the game itself, here are the ideas I have at the moment.

Background

I had particular fun while reading about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you don't know what it is, just have a look at http://www.venganza.org/ and read the open letter to Kansas school board. As short recap… we are dealing with god, which is a flying spaghetti monster (FSM). The global warming is related to decreasing number of pirates, which are the true representative of the FSM Church.

Game Idea

The game is a “Lemmings” like - 2D game-play - game in which the player is the flying spaghetti monster and it must handle a Pirate submarine (just one at the beginning and maybe a fleet later in the game) so that the pirates reach a goal defined in the level.

The Pirates have their own consciousness and will, and they act only to fulfill their needs such as treasure finding, blood lust, escaping from their most deep fears, and so on. The player must lead the submarine in an indirect way, by casting gold chests on the ocean bottom, raging deep water monster, or calling the king ships to a certain position. Eventually the player will also influence the water by manipulating the sea stream.

Strong Points

The atmosphere and the graphics should be “Worms” like. Funny drawings and sounds, clean visual, vivid colors, etc. Casual gamers or non gamers are usually more attracted by this style. The sea is alive and should be interesting to watch just as a screen saver: the water will be animated, flocks of fishes will swim around at different depths, plants and other living things should populate the sea bottom. The camera will be considered as truly being in the water, i.e. fishes might get close to have a look at it, and water effects such flow or bubbles base blur should be applied at a foreground layer.

The gameplay fun factor is represented the personality of the pirates. They are somehow primordial in the way they act, and they have the tendency to screw up if you leave them too freedom. The tricks the player has to use to make the pirate survive should reveal their nature and be entertaining at the same time. The user is supposed to learn the weaknesses of the pirates and exploit these to convince them to do what they have to. The pirates should talk to the user in a Warcraft fashion.

Weak points

The Flying Spaghetti Monster stuff is under copyright. If no possible arrangement can be found, all direct reference would have to be removed. The game could still be about pirates, and instead of the FSM, there could be a classic “Populous” god, or whatever.

Hard Tasks

The assets for such a game are ambitious. Achieving a consistent and compelling design is hard and might require more artistic skills than I have. Not only the single objects must be cute and well designed, but their animation will require particular carefulness. The music will be crucial to emphasize the emotions of the pirates and the overall atmosphere. Voices are not easy to recorded and the fact I'm not a native english speaker is relevant.

A lot of gameplay test will be needed to make the game behave as the design describes it. The AI implementation must be art dirigible.

Planning

These are the tasks I identify at the moment:

· The gameplay logic need to be defined in order to identify the possible hard technological challenges. This will likely be done thanks to software mock-ups where a rough state machine AI of the pirates submarine will be implemented.

· The graphics design has to be defined. An assets creation workflow has to be established.

· Important Gameplay questions:

o How is the world defined?

o Is the AI based on autonomous agent or omniscient state machine?

o What about fishes, sea monsters, royal navy? What kind of AI do they have?

o Does the player influence the pirates directly or only through the environment?

· Important rendering and assets creation questions:

o How is the scene setup?

o Is everything 2D?

o How does the animation system work?

o What kind of effects are needed to create good looking water?

So that’s it for the moment. Feel free to post suggestions or critics.