Two Paths to Alternate Reality

Over the last few months I have been giving a lot of thought to my two Alternate Reality related projects and with the move into 2015 have been thinking about my next steps. I think I'm now fairly clear on how I'm planning to develop during 2015.

I've spent many years working on my original project (Alternate Reality X or ARX) which was originally focused on bringing the City and the Dungeon together into a single game which could be played on a modern PC without the inconveniences that sometimes come from using emulation such as swapping virtual floppy disks. I think I succeeded in meeting the majority of those goals allowing players to move seamlessly between the City and the Dungeon as well as making a number of adjustments so that (hopefully) moving between the two scenarios isn't too jarring. Over the years I introduced a variety of display and audio options with replacement art from Ted and myself and music by Furious. However the flexibility in the options has meant that a lot of time has been spent on say for example making display elements appear in sensible positions across multiple resolutions. Whilst some people will appreciate all the effort that went into these, I suspect may just want to play the game. In addition I found myself in a slightly odd position where I was trying to please everybody retaining the old and new. In a single game there were limits in how successful I could be with this approach.

ARX had become a bit tangled code wise and needed some significant work to make it more stable and less buggy before I could really complete it. This in part made me decide to put a hold on it last year and start work on a new version of Alternate Reality which used the Unity 3D game development system. I've released a couple of short demos using Unity and I like it as a system. It's relatively easy to use but provides a lot of power for someone like me that I couldn't hope to develop myself. In addition it's cross platform support is amazing. I was able to create Mac OS X versions of my Alternate Reality demos with a few mouse clicks compared to the weeks of work it took me to produce one Mac build from my ARX SFML / C++ code.

The conclusion I've reached is that I would like to continue to work on both projects but change the focus of each of them so that they are more clearly . From the feedback and comments I've received from players it looks like there are a sizeable number of people who enjoy ARX with its traditional graphics and sound but with the flexibility of the City and Dungeon being a single game. There are also a lot of people who are looking for a much more dramatic update to AR. This just wasn't possible to produce whilst retaining the old look and feel in a single game. I'm now considering focusing ARX on its original Atari 8bit roots whilst my Unity 3D project (with a working title of Return to Xebec's Demise - RXD) can focus on new graphics and sound, an updated map and a more flexible environment closer to more recent games but still attempting to retain the classic Alternate Reality atmosphere and spirit. The wonderful encounter graphics and music Ted and Furious produced can hopefully be used within the Unity project. This approach will make the ARX downloads much smaller as well.

So what can you expect to see? Firstly I'll be updating both SFML (now on version 2.2) for ARX and Unity 3D (now up to 4.6) for Return to Xebec's Demise so that I can produce small updates of both to get my development environment up to date. Internally things like items, encounters and the player are likely to be very similar so I'm playing with a few ideas as to how to possibly re-use some code between the two. One option would be to use the C# language with SFML as this is the language I use for scripting in Unity 3D.

Hopefully what I'm describing above makes sense and will be pretty clear once you have an update of both projects to try out. Let me know what you think and any better titles you have for the two projects. Thanks as always for your interest and support.

CRPG Dev - Still here for 2015!

You may have wondered whether I had been dispatched by a Nightstalker or become hopelessly lost wandering the streets of Xebec's Demise but I've simply been very busy with work and home commitments as well as the build up to Christmas and New Year. I hope you had a good Christmas / holiday if you haven't been working.

I've also been looking into some of my other interests, reading up on them and I'll post about them over the next few weeks as they are relevant to computers and gaming to some degree. I've also just found that after work and family things all I've wanted to do some nights is sit down and catch up on some TV or movies that I've been wanting to see for a while. My working environment is also less than ideal at the moment which isn't conducive to game coding and development or even blog posting. I'm surrounded by clutter. It will be easier once the Christmas decorations are packed away in the next few days.

Unity 4.6 is now out of Beta so I'll be using this for some projects and have found it works very well. The on-screen GUI development will speed up game development a lot for me I think as you can see what is on the screen as you're working without having to go through a slow modify / run, repeat process for every little change. My plan is to focus on gameplay mechanics and coding within Alternate Reality X and put the cosmetics to one side for now until the gameplay is a little better established.

Some of my other computing interests have sparked an interest in dusting down my older SFML Alternate Reality X as I'd still like to bring that to some clear conclusion (Windows only though for this one). I'm toying with a few ideas as to how to complete this without it taking too much additional development time. I could for example strip it down to a single resolution such as 800x600 and 8bit graphics and sound as the new versions from Furious and Ted have a natural home in the Unity 3D version of ARX. I'll give this one some further thought.

The website and blog are likely to be merged together into a single site using Blogger as the basis. I'm looking at ways to make updates easier to maintain and You may notice some oddities whilst I experiment with various options on the blog and website(s).

Thanks for following CRPG Dev through 2014 and taking the time to comment and offer suggestions for the games. If you have supported my development through Paypal, Patreon or by contributing code or content then I am especially grateful. I would have liked to have done much more development this year but it hasn't happened and I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

I hope you've had a good 2014 and would like to wish you, your friends and family all the best for the New Year in 2015. Hope you have a good one.

Supporting Future Development and a New Game

If you have supported CRPG Dev through Paypal or Patreon over the last few months then I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you and say how much I appreciate it. I'm also very grateful for the messages of support I receive via email or facebook. It's a hugh boost to my motivation to know that you are interested in what I'm working on and prepared to get behind me to help my future development. Particularly when development is hitting a blockage or a particularly troublesome bug is standing in the way. Unfortunately the number of hours that go into my game development don't always appear to justify / tally with the output, especially if it's something behind the scenes which is essential but doesn't necessarily translate to much gameplay on the screen. I think that's just a normal part of game development. If you are considering supporting then thank you. The Paypal link is on the www.crpgdev.com homepage and you can sign up for Patreon over at www.patreon.com/crpgdev. Every donation really helps, however small. Also please keep the feedback and suggestions coming - I read them all and take them on board.

I've had a lot going on over the last few months which has meant I've had less free time than usual and been away from home more than I like but pleased to say things are settling down again. As I've mentioned recently the next focus of development in Alternate Reality X will be on adding some meat to the bones of Release 0.2 so that it feels more like the Alternate Reality we all know and love. This will come in the form of encounters, items and shops.

In addition to ARX I've been itching to start an all new CRPG which would be developed alongside it. As I've mentioned before I don't see any side projects as taking time away from ARX development as they are more likely to take up time that I wouldn't have spent on ARX anyway.It's healthy to not be focused 100% on just the one project and get burnt out or start to dread working on it. This game isn't what I envisaged Stone of the Citadel to be as it's distinctly different in atmosphere and approach to that design. I would be using Unity 3D to develop the game though.

Game play will be significantly different to Alternate Reality featuring a party of adventurers and a high level wilderness map to explore. Across the wilderness there will be a number of towns, dungeons and other locations to explore. It will be heavily text and menu based with turn based combat. One area I'm considering for this game is procedurally generated content (PGC). This could be used for the towns, characters or items. As many of you may have read previously I'm a big fan of the original Elite space exploration and trading game. I spent many years with my Commodore 64 exploring the galaxies of Elite which used various seed values to consistently generate its 8 galaxies each with their 255 planets. My use of PGC will be very much dependent on the quality of my results though. Another example is the clothing you can buy in the AR:The City - there are effectively hundreds of different items that can be generated based on colour, fabric, quality etc.

My initial objective just now is to build a small but fun game in a relatively short space of time and leave the design open enough that it can be expanded as I see fit. Expect something to try out soon on this front.

Alternate Reality X - Beyond Release 0.2

Now that Release 0.2 of Alternate Reality X is available I have been thinking about what I want to tackle for the next release.

To recap, with Release 0.2 I added:

• Three Encounter types - Thief, Master Thief and Nobleman
• Encounter code and interface for attacking and defending, switching weapons and conversations
• New 3D models to represent solid walls, doors and windows which I created and textured in Blender 3D
• Initial shop interiors for the Smithy, Tavern and Bank using assets from the Unity Asset Store
• New music versions of "Armor" and "Waves" by Furious
• Two new "encounter themes" by Furious
• Atmospheric, environmental sound effects such as birds chirping (provided by Furious)
• Rolling textured terrain to replace the flat City floor including trees and grass which sway in the wind
• Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X versions released at the same time

My main focus for the next release will be on adding some shop functions, expanding the encounters and updating the items / inventory. I think with what I have planned for this release a lot more of the "Alternate Reality" identity and atmosphere will start to appear in the game. I've said it many times before but for me a lot of the heart of AR is really about the encounters and the items you find. One difference with this version of ARX is that it will be easier (not easy though!) to find out information about the specific strengths and weaknesses of items and encounters. This may come in later releases though. I'd also like to add the other information screens possibly as part of the Inventory or as part of the player display.

I've now switched over to the Unity 4.6 Beta release for development of ARX 0.3. The main reason for this is that it features a brand new, highly anticipated GUI system for building the user interfaces in your games. Previously GUIs in Unity games were typically created through code which had some disadvantages, the most noticeable for me the time it took between making a change and running the game to see the changes in action. The new system allows you to build your user interfaces on screen using a similar workflow to the other elements of Unity. It looks very powerful so far and I think it will speed up development a lot - ideal for what I'm wanting to focus on just now in ARX.

The physical construction of the City will continue but is likely to be less of a focus in this next release. The approach I will be taking though is to gradually replace the old, flat walls with 3D models to give the buildings real depth - walls, doorways, furniture, roofs etc. Where possible I will model these around the original Alternate Reality shop artwork and dimensions. I really need to add some doors and windows to my buildings though!

Things have been a bit quiet on the feedback front so not sure what your thoughts are on the direction and the current status of the project. It will take a bit of time to get up to speed to the point where there is enough content to make it really feel like a new Alternate Reality and a real game but I feel very positive about the direction the project is heading in and think there should be plenty of gameplay in another release or two. What is there currently is really only the start and it's hard to fully describe what I'm visualizing in my head but I think it could be something special and worthy of the Alternate Reality series. I would certainly like to be putting out a lot more releases out - for myself as well as any players of ARX - but I can only use the time I have available sandwiched between work and family time. Either way it's going to continue to expand and improve and I'm been itching to get back to developing ARX when time has been tight so that's a very good sign.

For those who would prefer a more traditional 8bit style AR closer to what I'd done previously, I haven't ruled this out completely but would treat it as a separate piece of work rather than trying to capture it all in one project. I think this was one of the mistakes I made previously. However if you want to see this you will need to let me know. Please do let me know what your thoughts are on any aspects of the projects I do as CRPG Dev and as always I really appreciate any support you can offer through Paypal, Patreon, Facebook or Twitter. I will be updating the www.crpgdev.com website soon as well as it's a bit out of date and would benefit from a facelift. Thanks for reading.

Alternate Reality X - Release 0.2 for Unity 3D

Just a brief note to let you know that I've a new release of Alternate Reality X available for download. There are versions for both Windows and Mac OS X created using Unity 3D.

Windows: http://www.crpgdev.com/downloads/ARX_0.2_Unity3D.zip

Mac OS X: http://www.crpgdev.com/downloads/ARX_0.2_Unity3D_OSX.zip

Release 0.2 features initial Encounters, the addition of sound and music as well as various changes to the environment such as the use of terrain and the beginnings of shop interiors. It also illustrates the use of free models to make the environment more interesting and my first models made with Blender 3D. Thanks to Furious for the music and sound effects.

There isn't much interaction in this release but it hopefully gives you a good taster of things to come. Thanks for your support.

Alternate Reality X - The Future Direction

Release 0.2 - With temporary character shadow!

I spent this weekend planning and experimenting with various ideas for Alternate Reality X. I'd been away for a week and was keen to get stuck back into development of ARX but felt a bit unclear about what direction to take the project in given the opportunities now available to me since the move to Unity 3D. Here are a few of the things I worked on and thought about. Overall I'm pleased to say that after a couple of days experimentation and lots of note taking and thought I now feel a lot clearer about the approach I'm going to take and what I will be focusing on over the next few weeks of development - and keep it achievable.

I had considered at one point removing all references to Alternate Reality from the game so as to totally free me of any development restrictions or copyright issues but I don't think this is necessary. I will keep the names and properties of places, items and encounters giving the game its identity in the Alternate Reality world but not restricting the project in terms of visuals or interface or gameplay enhancements I want to add.

I've updated the wall and ground textures over the weekend as well as the lighting effects which I think has made the game look a lot better. I tried out some building models but they felt out of place and were not a good fit for the original map. The map will for the most part now retain the same physical structure and grid based nature as the original but I will be adding other features to make this feel much more like a real place. Proper doorways and windows, roofs on some buildings, features on walls to distinguish different types of shop or locations as well as a variety of wall and floor textures to make the scenarios more varied and signify different areas such as the prosperous areas where merchants and nobles can be found as well as the "bad part of town" as the song says.

Exploring a street

The Palace and Arena will have the same footprint on the map but will be visible from across the map and have multiple levels like the Dungeon (but visible). The Arena will resemble a high walled temple with pillars whilst the Palace will be a more traditional castle building with upper levels as well as a lower level within the Dungeon (where the Palace Dungeon is located). Lots of visual ideas and options here.

The Dungeon maps have been converted ready for adding into the game but I want to flesh out the City more before adding these. I also need to decide if obtaining access to the other scenarios is dependent on quests and encounters...

I have experimented with creating Unity terrains for the Wilderness but also to provide a more interesting landscape for the interior of the City. Expect this to be added in a future release. The Unity terrain options are potentially very powerful but take time to produce something good. I've lots of great props and textures to "dress" the scenarios in and I think this is going to transform the game. Props will be interactive so barrels and crates will be searchable (with the risk of the City Watch catching you) and shop signs / palace banners will swing in the wind.

"Shops" will be menu based for the time being in a similar way to the original game though the presentation of the menus and their content will not be identical. This is partly to allow new features (e.g. Selling items at the City Smithies, Attempt to raid a City Bank etc) but also to make the menus more consistent and easer to use. Encounters for now will be entirely menu based but I have a number of ideas for how to expand the encounters and add much more variety and interest to their nature. Expect to see some new types of encounter as well which may have made their way into the City from the Wilderness, Arena or Palace.

I worked a lot on encounters over the last few days including turning the player into a real game object with its stats and properties such as thirst, hunger and fatigue. Encounters are created from the same object class as the player. My idea here is to be able to treat the player (and any companions) and creatures you encounter as identical in nature so that I can reuse encounter code across individual and group encounters very easily. I also want encounters to have a much wider range of behaviour. Watch out for slavers!

You can expect new Windows and Mac OS X releases in the next couple of weeks. For this release I will be focusing on the encounters, combat and treasure. I'll also be building up the player character more and adding the additional information screens such as wealth and weapons & armor.

If you like what I'm doing then you can support the game's future development through Paypal or Patreon. This support really makes a difference in allowing me to continue development and devote more time to the game. You can also spread the word through Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JX2RALG8ELAGS
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/crpgdev
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/crpgdev
Google+: https://www.google.com/+crpgdev1

Alternate Reality X - Release 0.1 for Mac OS X

Choosing your display options in the Mac OS X 0.1 release of ARX 

You can now download the Mac OS X 0.1 release of Alternate Reality X over on the Patreon site. Alternatively if you've supported CRPG Dev through Paypal then you should have received a download link via email. 

It's identical to the Windows release. I've tested it myself and it seems to work really well. In future I'll release the Mac OS X version at the same time as the Windows version. Unity 3D makes the Mac build really easy.

Thanks for your support for CRPG Dev and Alternate Reality X.

ARX - Release 0.1 on Mac OS X

Alternate Reality X - Release 0.1 for Unity 3D!

You can now download release 0.1 of Alternate Reality X over on the Patreon site. Alternatively if you've supported CRPG Dev through Paypal then you should receive a download link shortly via email. I plan to release 0.1 publicly on the CRPG Dev website a few days later. If you've supported CRPG Dev through Paypal or Patreon then I'd like to take this opportunity to say a big thanks - it really makes a difference to me personally and helps me to continue to devote further time to development.

In this first release since development switched over to Unity 3D you can walk around the basic City, take a look at some text inventory items and see how smoothly Unity 3D handles multiple screen and display options. There are a few issues that I know about and encounters and treasure didn't make it into this release unfortunately but I didn't want to keep people waiting any longer. Whilst this release is relatively light on features it hopefully provides a good indication of the new direction of the project and the potential that Unity 3D can bring to Alternate Reality X. I'm excited by a lot of the plans I have for future releases. There are a lot of features and new ideas I'm keen to get into the game as quickly as possible. Unity 3D has performed really well for me so far and I'm genuinely surprised at how quickly ideas can come together and be implemented in game. Watch this space as I think things are going to get really interesting in terms of Alternate reality X development and gameplay.

Thanks for your amazing support for CRPG Dev and Alternate Reality X, your emails, comments on Facebook and Twitter and your enthusiasm and interest in the project.

Alternate Reality X - Modifying the City

There are a number of challenges in the changes I'm working on for Alternate Reality X. Nothing too serious but I want to make it look right so I'm taking a bit of time to experiment with Unity and read up on the commonly used techniques that I think will be the best fit for bringing the game into full 3D. 

Overlooking the City now with 3D walls

The paper thin walls of the original maps have been replaced with walls that have some depth as can be seen in the picture below. The notches in the corners are due to the AR map walls having two sides and I've a number of methods for fixing this. 

Doors will likely be replaced with ones that you can open and close or that swing open as you approach them (unless they are barred obviously). I've experimented with these and the coding seems to work fine. I want to refine my door and wall models though so that they look more professional and are properly scaled. This will allow all the key object parts such as standard walls, doors and archways to fit together seamlessly making up the majority of the map and the basis for the expanded map I'd like to develop.

Not really sure how I am going to handle secret doors because of the two sided nature of many of these in the original game. The nature of secret doors may change slightly as a result of this.

As mentioned previously I would like to add a lot of variety to different parts of the City in terms of buildings and architecture with different wall heights and textures. The City walls will tower above the City keeping it well contained from the threats from the Wilderness outside. I'm also planning to add the three City gates as well as more striking versions of the Arena and Palace.

I've tried adding burning torches, tavern signs which swing in the wind and flags to hang from the Palace walls with the King's Coat of Arms on them. Again it's worth taking a bit of time to get these looking right and not just throwing them in at this stage because Unity makes it easy to implement them. I want to get the basics right first.

I'm also keen to get started on an example shop and some of the new interface elements.

If you'd like to help support CRPG Dev in the creation of this new chapter of ARX and other games then please consider a Paypal donation or support on Patreon. CRPG Dev is also on Twitter now at @crpgdev. I'd love to hear you thoughts or ideas.

Alternate Reality X - A New Dawn

Here are a handful of new screenshots showing The City of Xebec's Demise rendered in full 3D using the Unity game development system. I'm surprised how cool it is to move around with total 360 degree freedom. I think that using Unity has really opened up a whole new world of possibilities for the game. Hope you enjoy these shots and will support this new direction for the game.

CRPG Dev Updates - May 2014

I feel I'm long overdue on a blog update for CRPG Dev, Alternate Reality X and Stone of the Citadel as there have been a few important changes and decisions.

The biggest change is that I have now switched to Unity 3D for developing both Alternate Reality X and Stone of the Citadel. For those unfamiliar with Unity it is a game development system which allows you to create 3D (and more recently 2D) games across multiple platforms such as Windows, Mac OS X and mobile devices. It's very popular, powerful but relatively easy to use, has a big online community offering help and advice and has a handy asset store where you can access for free or buy models and code for use in your games. The version I'm using is free, though there is a commercial version and add ons for higher end users or teams.

I feel I've gone as far as I can with my current C++ and SFML based code. There are a lot of bugs to fix and some serious architectural problems behind the scenes relating to how objects are represented. A lot of my code will be relatively straightforward to move over to Unity though. SFML's use of OpenGL has been a constant difficulty for some players as they have struggled to get compliant OpenGL drivers on their systems - Windows & Mac OS X. Unity builds in my experience just seem to work. On reflection the work to port my current ARX to Mac OS X last month was a lot more painful and time consuming that I believe it should have been. Unity allows you to build for Mac with a few extra mouse clicks in the "Build Settings" :)

Configuration screen for the new Alternate Reality X

I've started work on the introductory sequence for Alternate Reality using the free version of Unity and you can check out my work so far using the link below and the Unity Web Player:

www.crpgdev.com/unity/ARXWeb.html

I've converted the old custom map format to a well known, common format and Patrick has kindly provided me with some Unity code / framework that converts the map data into a usable Unity scene. There are some omissions in the scene just now but these should be fairly straightforward to sort out. Lots of work to do with the map(s) from here but this is a really big help in getting started. Thanks again to Patrick for this.

My work in progress for the intro using the Web Player

I've also posted several pieces of my design for my Stone of the Citadel party based CRPG. These are available on the Patreon site but I'm going to start putting more of them onto this blog as well. So far I've published a number of the character background descriptions. In the real game these will be partially random and you'll be able to generate a new background (or write your own) if you don't like the initial ones your characters receive. In addition I've published some of the lore and locations of interest to set the scene. SOTC will use a different map model to ARX but it will be able to use all the nice features of Unity to make an attractive game world. It will begin with a small map initially to give people a taster of game play.

Lots of people have suggested I should do a Kickstarter for my games but I don't think it would be the right sort of platform for me given my personal circumstances. I feel Patreon provides a very good alternative where you can build up an active, interactive community around multiple projects and interests (games in my case) and provide support and feedback in a more manageable way to suit people's budget. You don't have to pledge any money to support CRPG Dev on Patreon if you don't want to or aren't able to so it would still be great to hear from you there. The CRPG Dev Patreon site is here:

http://www.patreon.com/crpgdev

Hopefully you'll check out the page and might consider becoming a Patron. You can also provide support through one off Paypal payments if you prefer (linked from http://crpgdev.com/). It really is greatly appreciated and makes a big difference. If you've already supported CRPG Dev in the past then a big thank you.

I've also signed up for Twitter so I'll probably be making use of that shortly as an alternative way to post updates and other news. The ARX forums have been updated recently and look a lot nicer to use but I haven't had a chance to dig into these yet and customise them.

I'd welcome your thoughts about the direction above and changes I've mentioned so feel free to email me or post via Patreon or Facebook. As always thanks for your support and interest in what I'm doing.

Stone of the Citadel - Planned for Release 0.1

Stone of the Citadel - Back in 2012!

I originally started working on Stone of the Citadel back in 2012, originally using the Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML) which I had used (and still use) for Alternate Reality X. I wanted to create a party based CRPG which brought together what I considered the best features and experience from the classic CRPGs of the 1980s and 1990s. For me that's the Ultima series, Might and Magic, The Bard's Tale, the SSI games including Eye of the Beholder and of course Alternate Reality. In addition there are many other games which I've played or been intrigued about over the years where I thought good ideas didn't achieve their potential.

Even today as a player and aspiring game developer I still love a lot of features about these games and the style of gameplay that they contain - controlling a party rather than a single character, grid based maps, turn based combat, atmospheric use of text and in a number of cases memorable music and sound effects. They have a unique feel and interest for me which isn't really catered for or captured in most modern games.

I can't really hope to compete graphically with the big games of today and if I'm honest I don't really wish to - we're well catered for in the first person, single player Elder Scrolls type category. That's not to say that presentation and graphics aren't important to me. I will be putting a lot of effort into the appearance of the game to make the 3D view as attractive as possible and have all the relevant information easily accessible.

So what can you expect from Stone of the Citadel?

Firstly it will be made using Unity 3D. The reasons for this are many but the main ones include its powerful features, excellent cross platform support (including iOS and Android) and a rich community with lots of tutorials, videos and helpful information. It's fairly easy to use and has a big asset store of code, 3D models and other add-ons which you can add to your project. It's also been used by for many games including high profile kickstarters like Wasteland 2 and Shroud of the Avatar so we can see how capable it is. I've spent enough time using it now to be comfortable that it can do everything I would want for my projects (and lots more than I won't use) and it will allow me to easily create the type of 3D and 2D views that I need for my games. It will do away with the problems I've had with OpenGL and video drivers as it seems to work fine on every machine and device I've tried.

The game itself will allow you to create a party of 1 to 8 adventurers to explo. A back story will be generated for each character you create or you can create your own to provide extra customisation for your characters. Whilst there will be a notional class or profession, most characters would be able to attempt most actions, wield most weapons etc but would require focussed effort and training in order to be effective in that area.

Map wise I will be using a grid based system similar to that used in games such as Eye of the Beholder and Might & Magic 3 and to some degree Ultima IV. This is different to the format used in say Alternate Reality where each position on the map has 4 outward facing walls, sometimes resulting in paper thin looking walls. This map format also allows me more flexibility in regards to the automap and making use of an Ultima style tile view should there be a requirement for that in some stages or areas. I think it will be the best fit for the type of levels I'm looking to make with SOTC and within Unity 3D. This doesn't however mean that the 3D view will just be walls made from square blocks :)  Whilst the map structure and layout are unlikely to change during the game, expect the map to be always active with events, encounters and items. Some of these will be heavily randomised so that it always feels like there is a lot going on in each area rather than a map area that can be "cleaned out" and then feels barren and empty.

Example of the EOB map style (from www.gamewinners.com)

The game will begin in a City with further areas outside the City becoming accessible as you progress through the game and develop your characters. Some characters and monsters in the game will move around the environments independently of your actions so you will sometimes encounter the same characters or opponents at different points of the game, creating the feeling of a real living and breathing world. Characters will respond to your party as individual characters (based on their unique characteristics) rather than using a single, stock response. Characters will have a lot of detail for you to develop (if you want to).

I'm now working on the first demo and framework code within Unity 3D. My first task is to complete my initial building blocks (some simple textured walls and doors) and build up a sample City map for exploration. More details and screenshots coming soon.

Alternate Reality X - Release 0.71, Mac OS X version and Next Steps

Alternate Reality X 0.71 running on Mac OS X!

Alternate Reality X 0.71 is now available for download from www.crpgdev.com. I spent a lot of time (about 50 hours sandwiched in around work and family commitments) on this one modifying and tidying up a lot of the display code in the background so that ARX runs much more consistently across different window and screen sizes. I've also modified the encounter art scaling code so that encounters in both the original Atari 8 bit style and using Ted's new art scale properly based on the 3D window size. Another area which annoyed me was the positioning of screen elements when visiting shops and modules. These should now appear neatly centred on the screen or window rather than spread out to the four edges of the screen as previously which I didn't think worked very well. Hopefully these changes were positive! This release also includes a couple of new encounter images from Ted - a Slime and a Noblewoman (who wasn't in the original AR).

Mac OS X version running full screen

I've got a lot of other visual changes that I have planned for future releases such as a smaller auto map, updated map - hopefully showing the full City and Dungeon 64 x 64 cell levels, encounter animation (at least for the original 8bit art) and lots of new wall textures. I may add a little resolution / display options utility as well so that people don't have to edit arx.ini by hand. I also need to clean up some of the interface generally in terms of text input and on screen prompts (or lack of)  which confuse people. Expect desktop icons for both the Windows and Mac OS X versions very soon :) 

The other major development for me is my first ever game release for Mac OS X. I now have a version of ARX 0.71 available for download on Mac OS X. I can't really say how satisfying it's been to be able to make this available for people. Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback and support for this release. Currently it's only available from this link but I'll add a proper page / description shortly:

www.crpgdev.com/downloads/ARX_OSX_0.71.zip

I had to tweak the security settings for the App but this only takes a few seconds and OS X will tell you how when you try and run the game.

Really pleased with SFML running on Mac OS X. The latest 2.1 version seems to be work really well and comes with xCode templates to get you started. Once I got past some of the differences with using xCode and became more familiar with using a Mac in general then SFML seemed to do its job very well. Laurent Gomila has done such a great piece of work with SFML since it started a few years back. If you have any interest in game programming then you should definitely consider SFML 2.1. 

The SFML 2.1 template and test project

In terms of game play updates for Alternate Reality X, I will be focusing on improving encounters and items in the game for the 0.72 release. This will include adding multiple body parts to combat, surprise and waylay, knock downs, fleeing, blocking, stun - you know what I have in mind. I could really use one of those Wands of Cold to cool down those hot headed Flame Demons. Alternate Reality for me is very much about the encounters you have so I really want this element to be very strong and close to the original games. Don't be surprised if the more friendly characters begin having a lot more to say that they used to - of course it may not always be useful or truthful!

I also want to include some of those juicy treasure items that made the City and Dungeon so enjoyable - eyes, scrolls, trumps and lots of weapons and armour. Some of these essential additions will probably require some fairly major changes to my older code which may require changes to the save game format. I'll see what I can do though.

I've had a few queries about Stone of the Citadel recently and whilst there isn't currently a downloadable demo work on it has continued in the background (mainly focused on design and content). This will be a Unity 3D project. The initial release will focus on creating your party of adventurers and I think will show how SOTC will capture the best of the classic CRPGs whilst adding some spice of its own. Expect a playable multi-platform demo in the near future.

If you enjoy what I've been doing with Alternate Reality X or other CRPG Dev projects then please consider making a small donation via Paypal to cover my time and web site costs. Please also keep your feedback, emails, questions and words of support coming - they are a great encouragement and help shape my future releases and games. Thanks as always for your support.

My Micro RPG in 24 hours

I've been very busy over the last few weeks with family and work activities which hasn't left much time for game development but I've been busy planning the next update to Alternate Reality X and carrying out research for my own original game. I'm still getting up to speed with Unity and have been inspired by reading some interesting articles from my two favourite blogs - The CRPG Addict and Tales of the Rampant Coyote.

One of my long time issues with game development is the classic problem of trying to create something which is beyond my abilities, too time consuming or too epic in scope. I was interested to hear over on Matt Chat that Richard Garriott of Ultima fame wrote over 20 smaller RPGs before he wrote Akalabeth. This game Akalabeth in turn became the basis for Ultima I.

The gave me the idea of writing a very small game in a short space of time to help me get up to speed on Unity 3D. It also gives me a completed game project and a personal confidence boost. The intention is to wrap this up in say 24 hours of development time maximum. It's not practical for me to do the 24 hours straight so this will be a couple of hours at a time. For what I have in mind this should be feasible. I spent about an hour yesterday and came up with the example room below which I was happy with.

Exploring a room in the old castle

 



Here's what I have in mind:

• Single Character
• Simple Character Creation - possibly limited to naming your character
• Simple inventory
• Single Quest - recover a stolen item and leave the castle alive
• Static map level - built using a small set of building blocks
• Random encounters using a text based system (e.g. Might and Magic 1, Alternate Reality)
• Random treasure from encounters
• Optional - Shop where you can buy weapon upgrades or healing
• Optional - Add some further back story and lore for my Stone of the Citadel game
• Optional - Add some additional map levels
• Optional - Add a few spells

I'm thinking of something with about the same level of interaction as an Ultima 1 Dungeon or a Might and Magic 1 level. Should be fun.

 

 

Exploring Unity 3D

I've just got home after being away for over a week so I've not done any further work on Alternate Reality X during that time. However I spent a few hours today familiaring myself with the basics of the free version of the Unity game development system and I'm pleased with the results so far. On first use it seems like a very powerful system to use.

Exploring the Wilderness in my first Unity 3D effort?

I've tried out Unity before but have never really sat down with a clear objective in mind and tried to learn some of the basics. I'm reading Beginning 3D Game Development with Unity by Sue Blackman and so far I've managed to put together a few scenes and have my character move around in a full 3D environment. After creating some simple terrain using the built in tools and then adding mountains, hills and clearings I was able to add my character and walk around the landscape I'd just created. I have to say I enjoyed the moment where I climbed to the top of a clearing and a series of mountains loomed into my view.

My map from above and players view in the game window

I also played around a bit with creating the user interface and found some nice free assets on the Unity web site for creating menus, text and buttons. I've also been researching how Unity would work for more traditional 3D Dungeons and walls such as those in but without the limitations or visual restrictions that my current system has. From my research and the contents of the book it seems that people have used Unity to create all sorts of games from role playing games, first person shooters to 2D point and click adventures.

The next thing I'm keen to try is converting one of the City or Dungeon maps into a Unity scene with a few nice extras which I would have struggled to implement. I'm excited by the possibilities but I won't rush into making any decisions just yet.

Let me know what you think.