Introspection

So, I've taken a crack at fully designing THS: Full Sail. There are more than a few problems with it all. I originally planned to have it allow for more than one player ship. The problem with that is if I want to zoom into the non-main ship I would have to expand the map hugely. That sucks. The best idea, I guess, is make any fights that happen off of the main screens happen in the background, with generally the same outcomes but it would be automated. What that all adds up to is a much larger scope of a game than my original "finite" project idea.

With all of that thinking, I had to take a hard look at what I'm doing here. Am I giving myself a break from the setting of Wesband? Am I avoiding hard coding projects? What do I really want out of all of this?

Here's the realization I made: Wesband is an awesome idea. It's an awesome game. Wesband devs have said so, even if no one else has. Do I really need a break from it?

Then I approached the questions from another angle. As a gamer, how did I feel when developers lagged in development? How did I feel when they took side projects? I know the answers all too well.

Infantry will forever be a sad subject for me. Perhaps it was unfair to expect more out of it than what it was, but I loved the core gameplay so much that I couldn't help but imagine what it could have been. I wanted so much more in the core zones of Mech Skirm, Hardcorps and Eol, but instead got side-projects such as Cosmic Rift and Tank-O-Drome. I wanted more depth, more variety and more experimentation on all of these fronts. But, for many reason, my wish was never fulfilled.

This is all incredibly sad. It's sad in the same way, I'm sure, that Wesband will be if it doesn't live up to its potential. Besides, I'm not going to dev like this for Wesnoth forever. Really, the end goal is to churn out some awesomeness and then move on (to action games, my first and last love).

Nose to the grindstone.

Full Sail

I've taken a (very) short little hiatus from Wesband to make a more finite game, THS: Full Sail. Bob_the_Mighty made a multiplayer scenario, The High Seas, a competitive naval game featuring piracy and swashbuckling. When I played it I, like any good dev, began to pick apart 100 things I think could have been done better. In the end, it gave me an idea for a naval scenario of my own, that would act somewhat like Bob's scenario, but would have all the things that I wanted. Here's a list:

-Less right-clicking. I didn't like how you had to right-click all of the time to assign gunners or to man a rig. I think this kind of thing should be automatic. For example, if you place a unit on a cannon and it starts its turn there, the effect is present for the rest of the round. This brings up issues of realism (no one is on your cannons, so how can you still shoot?), but I think speed of gameplay far, far, far outweighs that issue.

-Zooming in for combat. This one borrows from TL's Imperium scenario. Ship-sized units (ships and sea monsters) would be able to fight each other on the main screen, but if a fight is initiated between a ship-sized unit and a smaller unit, the smaller unit would be sucked into a zoomed-in map of the ship. That smaller unit would then fight whatever is in the ship. Then, you can have ship-sized units grapple each other, connecting the maps of the two. Or, if it's a kraken versus a ship, if the kraken tries to grapple the ship (first thing to do if it doesn't want the ship to sail away), the ship and the kraken still fight each other in the main screen, but the kraken sends tentacles to the zoomed-in screen to harass the sailors.

More than TL's Imperium mode, this dream comes from countless hours of playing Ultima 3: Exodus. Every battle in that game was a zoomed-in battle. It just so happens that ships were involved, and any side starting on a ship would see that ship in battle. But, rather than having only one section of the map in combat at a time, all sections could fight at once. Cannons will be flying at the same time swashbucklers are dueling it out.




This is where my biggest problems are going to be. What happens when a third ship wants to grapple with a ship already in combat. What about a fourth? How much space do I have to leave in the zoom-in area for each ship?

-Putting the setting in the world of Wesnoth. I understand why Wesnoth add-on developers want to avoid the restrictions of creating stories in a world they don't have full authority over, but a naval scenario is a great opportunity to explore regions in Wesnoth's geography are defined yet haven't been full explored. The Great Ocean, to the west of Wesnoth, will be the setting of Full Sail. The waters are open and just about all of the kingdoms in the game will be able to participate.

-More emphasis on supply and demand. Of course, as a M.U.L.E. fanatic, I will be adding my own flair for economics into the game.

-More emphasis on diplomacy. Trade embargoes, privateers, etc. This goes along with the emphasis on supply and demand.

-More Cattan-like objectives. Rather than having a potentially infinite score, players will scores like: Largest Fleet, Most Wealth, Most Ship Sinks, etc.

-Option for an adventure mode. Want to play by yourself or co-op with a friend? It doesn't always have to be competitive.

Anyway, back to work.