Flatfingers wrote:So with respect, I think I will stick with having explained to you good folks why I object to part of VQ's design and leave it at that.

There's always the chance he will pop over here to take a look, Flat. He knows who Josh Parnell is and if I were him I would be interested in finding out what interested parties were saying about my project.

Victor Tombs wrote: There's always the chance he will pop over here to take a look, Flat. He knows who Josh Parnell is and if I were him I would be interested in finding out what interested parties were saying about my project.

Can't agree more. Specially with the way Flat tries to communicate his honest opinions. And "honest" is a keyword here. I don't think any developer would be wasting time reading honest concerns of people wanting the best.

Katorone wrote:honest concerns of people wanting the best.

especially of people who have a clue about what they are saying and can articulate that properly

Okay, this would probably be a good time to pop in here and 'fess up: I already wrote to him.

Hi all, creator here. I had been meaning to jump in here from the start, but could not find the thread (!!!) - google turned up nothing for some reason. The reason I saw it was because a few backers came from here according to my KS dashboard. ANYHOW, user "Talvieno" kindly just gave me a link, so here I am. I'm going to read through these questions now and see what info I can give you

Hey!!! That'd be me. Welcome to the LT Forums! Very glad to have you here. You didn't disappoint!

@Talvieno - thanks again

Well (just picking at random here), I think Flatfingers brings up a ton of excellent points.

First off, let's get this one out of the way - I genuinely suck at communicating ideas, and most of the things I say are design vomit (this is not me being humble, this is just the truth!). The jumble of ideas in my head is hard to put down on paper, in my head they look a little more cohesive.

Game Modes

First of all, we have a 3 game modes (maybe more in the future, if it makes sense):

• Sandbox mode, or "ruleless" mode allows the players to move around pieces as if they were playing a tabletop game, without the AI enforcing rules. This is designed to allow players to easily recreate their favorite tabletop games.
  Roguelike/hardcore mode - death comes for us all. Especially quickly in this mode. The difference from sandbox mode is that rules are enforced, AI is (more) in control, and you can't spawn or destroy entities arbitrarily.
  Casual mode - same as roguelike, but with respawn - more like a traditional CRPG.

The dichotomy between a roguelike and a game you get invested in is big. Some players (like me) just don't have time to get invested and want to play a quick game of something. Others with more time to burn prefer a game that can suck them in and engross them. I want to support both crowds (both in game and for the sake of modders).


Budget

Brought up by Talvieno and others perhaps...

$30k is nothing, but as I mention in many places (again, I don't blame anyone for not finding the info because it is spread out), KS funds are not my only option.
My goal is to keep the game independent (free of additional investors) - I wanted to give Kickstarter a shot because it is a direct relationship with backers where I can spell out the risks and so forth. Based on how the campaign goes, we will see what makes most sense to fund the game. $30k will carry me six months, potentially to early access on Steam, and if not I can fill the hole with other means.

I've spelled this out elsewhere but I'll say it again for your convenience - not trying to toot my own horn but I just want people to know what my options are (as much as I DO love tooting my horn). I will not take KS money if I decide to take investor money (right now, my lowest offer is a 6 digit number...which definitely beats my KS funds, so I hope people see I'm not doing this for money!) Of course, I can't prove that anyone has offered to invest without violating their privacy, but if it is hard to believe keep in mind I've been at the top of Hacker News (news feed from the biggest incubator, Ycombinator) 3 times so far, and many investors read it. Two billionaires (!) have sent an email my way, so there must be something noteworthy here (or billionaires and really bored and don't know what to do with their money, I don't know).

Again, my main goal is to NOT piss people off and Do The Right Thing (TM), so I'm letting KS play out then we will see what my options look like.

The game was boostrapped from my savings/severance and my first investor I met on reddit/gamedev - he was not wealthy but had enough to carry me and still has enough to take me quite a bit further if needed. The amount we allocated initially is running low though -- draining his bank account is not ideal because I lose more equity in the game, and he puts more risk on the table. My current investor is cool though, lets me do what I want, and is fine keeping the company private (he is also a gamer and developer).

Potential downsides to taking an additional investor: no open source, crappy monetization, or worst of all an acquisition (I've been part of an acquisition before, and I've seen it a million times: acquisitions kill products, with a few exceptions like Youtube and so forth).



Ok, this answers just two things, but I'll post this and get to some more questions in just one second.

With regards to @Flatfingers' other comments - you are spot on. I'm building something fairly generalized (read: vague), and I honestly doubt that my game will be the "good" thing to come out of this work, but hopefully other people will make it shine. The influence of CCGs is not direct, it is only playing with a common set of rules to introduce new mechanics without changing the overall design of the game. The simplest example I give is Hearthstone - it combines simple rules like Death Rattle, Taunt, and many others to produce new, meaningful cards. Compare this to your average Diablo-esque game where a weapon is typically just a way to buff a core set of stats - and often in meaningless ways. A sword of +10 health....really? What wizard created this magic sword, and why did he choose that enchantment? Every single item/skill is unique and purposefully designed in Voxel Quest, and they draw from a common pool of rules that can be expanded. When you see an artifact, you know what it is instantly (assuming you are familiar with the game) - you don't have to drill through a set of random stats. Unlike Hearthstone, the rules are more dramatic and varied, and not necessarily tied into classes so much. I'm not making a card game, just drawing inspiration from them. I used to hate CCGs UNTIL I played my first digital CCG on my iPhone back in 2009 - computers can augment the rule systems and make them easier to figure out / compute results. So, give this one a shot - I'm not making your typical CCG, only drawing a little inspiration from what I like about CCGs.

Katorone wrote:Edit: Also, is it me, or am I reading a disdain for money/wealth coming from him? Or perhaps even a lack of confidence he's trying to hide with (failed attempts at) humour?

Lol, so many of my "jokes" fall flat. I like money, I'm a capitalist. But I'm also fortunate enough to be in the position where it is not my primary concern (see my other response on funding). A little background:
I started programming when I was 14 (really, at age 11, but did not make significant progress until I was 14). I began investing myself heavily in learning 3D in 2004 - I had done stuff prior but 2004 was when I worked on my first major game). I poured two years of doubletime work into that game, over 10,000 hours total...only to have to get a job (at a startup, also doubletime!) and see the project quickly die. I worked the most soul-crushing jobs from 2006 to 2013 - some of them had periods where I would put in 100 hour weeks (no joke). It was not all bad, there were a few points where I got to experience "life" outside of development. In spite of this, I used my precious spare time to continue game development. I really invested my life into game programming, and that's not a figure of speech - my lifestyle is unhealthy and I'm probably dying twice as fast as a normal person. There is no glory in this, its just a dumb choice I've made based on obsessive behavior, and the payoff is only now beginning to emerge.

If I wanted money, I would have continued working for my old boss, whose last startup sold for $80 million. Or I would have taken the job Facebook offered me a few months ago. Or I would have taken one of the investment deals that came my way already. Those were all easy routes, sure bets. Its not that I don't like/want money...god knows I need it. I've been scraping by, much to the disappointment of my wife, family, etc (although now that things are picking up they are excited). But I'm only young once, and this really is my last shot at making something meaningful. By the time this game is done (as in past going gold, polished, and patched), I will probably be 38 years old, and my daughter will be 5 years old. That's not old, but it is too old to be spending 16 hour days in front of a computer. I want to believe...need to believe...that I sacrificed my life doing something that was worthwhile (sure, you could claim that games are "meaningless" - but they mean something to me). If I take any path other than the path that keeps this project alive and open, I risk having done nothing with my life. Not to be all dramatic, that's just what is going on in my head.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Like my message to you said, I'm mostly worried about software patents and the release of the source code. But I backed your game immediately after I saw your pitch.
Yeah, the jokes fell flat, but as someone who has a hard time showing externally how I feel about something, I get you. And I'm very happy with your passionate and open/honest response on this forum.

Katorone wrote:Thanks for taking the time to reply. Like my message to you said, I'm mostly worried about software patents and the release of the source code. But I backed your game immediately after I saw your pitch.
Yeah, the jokes fell flat, but as someone who has a hard time showing externally how I feel about something, I get you. And I'm very happy with your passionate and open/honest response on this forum.

Thanks! Just as a disclaimer, I honestly appreciate any/all feedback, because it helps me adjust things in my campaign that I would have otherwise not noticed.

Flatfingers wrote:

Victor Tombs wrote:Just a suggestion, Flat, but if you feel this passionately about the game why not approach Gavan and give him the benefit of your thoughts concerning his project.

He strikes me as a very approachable young man who, although stoical by nature, is prepared to converse with backers. Heck, one of his latest updates is titled "Please introduce yourself!" He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback and suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestion, Victor. (Really.)

Opining is one thing, but I'm leery of approaching other developers to declare (even if in a nice way) that "You Are Doing It Wrong And It Is So, So Obvious To Me." There's basically no good way to say something like that. If you're brief, you fail to persuade; if you provide details, you're asking the dev to spend a lot of time trying to follow your logic. In both cases, you don't get what you want and you just annoy a developer who's working hard on a labor of love.

It's possible I'm quitting the field too easily, but I've had too many encounters with passionate (often young) developers who just want to argue.

My most effective role would probably be as a paid consultant. If you're giving me money, you're more likely to take my suggestions seriously. But 1) indie devs tend to have not so much money for consultants, and 2) I have no published game credits to my name and should not be paid to consult on anything by anyone.

So with respect, I think I will stick with having explained to you good folks why I object to part of VQ's design and leave it at that.

Oh, and RPS's John Walker -- in his Dos and Don'ts for Survival Games posted today -- had this to say:

DO give me time to explore. It’s vital that I feel a sense of threat, of imminent danger, absolutely. But if you’ve created this world, or indeed if this world is creating itself, then allow a little sliver of realism in and let me pootle about it. As mentioned above, a hearty meal is enough for a good afternoon’s poking around, with some wood collection along the way – give us some time as a reward for not having died yet.

Flatfingers - I encourage you to approach every developer you can (or care too), you have some very good feedback. It doesn't matter how negative it is - in fact, I've gotten enough positive feedback. What I really need is critical feedback, because I readily admit my design decisions are fallible. In fact, it is on account of your feedback that I'm going to try and rewrite some of the campaign to organize my thoughts a bit better and take into account your suggestions (it might take some time, I'm drowning in tasks right now!). As far as I am concerned, the game design is open at this point - I mostly just have an engine, and the design is not yet set in stone.

Becoming a paid consultant is hard. IMO best way to do it is to make some game where the design really shines and multiple big critics praise it. Or a book on game design (speaking of which, I recently got to meet Raph Koster in person - you should read his book as well if you have not already). People tend to credit any full time design role.

Also (sorry for all the posts) - just wanted to point out, there is quite a bit of conflicting data in terms of what I have laid out so far. Some of it was copy-pasted from my home page (written in early 2013), some copy-pasted from Steam Greenlight (March 2014), and a lot of the KS was drafted in March 2014. Since then I have made multiple edits, many for the worse (i.e. I copy pasted the bulleted list from Steam Greenlight just to answer many questions right away, in spite of it being dated design material).

So, to clarify: some of what is on the page might be out of date. Also, my design is constantly evolving as I take in external criticism and my own personal reflection.

I would do a better job of maintaining all of this stuff but 99 percent of my time is spent developing (or in the case of KS, answering tweets, emails, questions, promoting, etc)...

Gavan, I can't tell you how impressed I am with your thoughtful response to what even I have to acknowledge was a fairly tough critique, from someone who hasn't even seen the current build of the game in action. Thank you for taking the time to reply, and for your very generous comments.

I would like to note that I don't consider my remarks negative. It's pretty clear that I disagree with some parts of the design as you've described it, but even with an invitation I would not have expressed those opinions if the majority of the features you described had not been powerfully interesting to me. I want to see those become real!

I commented, in careful detail, on a couple of elements I thought could be improved because game design matters to me, and because so much of the rest of Voxel Quest sounds incredibly enjoyable and not like anything else out there, and there need to be games like that. I wasn't just saying "this is crap"; I tried hard to explain why I thought a couple of design choices out of a large number might be improved by shifting to other mechanics that are (IMO) a better fit for the rest of the game as you've described it.

Making a game of any real size and depth is a marathon. You have to be committed to do it for as long as it takes. Especially if you're a small team or an individual developer, you have to be in mad, passionate love with your unique vision of gameplay because that's the only way you can keep yourself motivated long enough to finish. To fit the remarkable worldiness of the rest of Voxel Quest's design, I personally would not go roguelike; I would instead organize the flow of gameplay with mechanics that encourage the player to try new things at their own pace.... but that's me. You are the only one who can decide whether exploratory depth, or roguelike quickness of play, or both if possible (as you've described here), or something else entirely, is the best fit for the vision of the game that you are excited about making.

So: if you decide to rethink the roguelike thing for whatever reason, awesome. If you don't, I'll still disagree , but that won't stop me from sincerely wishing you the very best toward completing the game you want to make.

Good luck!

Flatfingers wrote: I would like to note that I don't consider my remarks negative.

Neither do I! I just worded that poorly - negative should be "critical"

Anyhow, thanks for your kind response in turn. I'm intentionally addressing many gameplay aspects as they come down my priority queue. Really I am more interested in creating a general framework which can be tweaked to fit the needs of users.

I see a large opportunity in creating an open world simulator and letting users go nuts with it. There is no one game design that can satisfy everybody, and this is something I accounted for from the start. My little design is just to ensure I get useful functionality into the engine, without focusing too much on "useless" engine features (i.e. engine is a by-product of a real game). As a secondary goal, the game is in place to draw in non-technical users. If I had marketed solely to developers, I don't think I could draw enough attention.

I sincerely believe that in order to have any chance, I need to prune as many features as I can and not "do all the things" - that said, if I can make some feature open-ended without too much work (and keep the game balanced), I will give it a shot (i.e. permadeath / no permadeath).

Anyhow, it strikes me as interesting that you brought up the conflict of a roguelike in an open simulated world, because this is something that had been bugging me in the back of my head. If you are set on a linear path, i.e. diving through a dungeon, one floor after another, its not a big deal, but how can a user absorb and make sense of a larger world if they die quickly and the world randomizes again? Respawning in the same world as a different person was one idea that popped into my head, but it seems like a poor fix.

Before I even get to gameplay details like this, the majority of my work over the next year is just going to be simulating a functional world where you can walk around, do stuff, and play your small role in the much bigger AI-driven system. In my opinion, even though I have downplayed it at times, the AI is the single most important thing I am working on. Voxel tech is nice but ultimately does not make a huge difference in terms of gameplay; most of my gameplay ideas are recycled and not new. I think that there is a huge, untapped opportunity with AI and creating an emergent world.

I'm going to steal some text I posted over in a thread at RPG Codex:

Dialogue is very crude, not English sentences like you might expect, but English tokens (words) combined together to form "facts" (which can in fact be "lies" - which is up to the NPC to figure out based on standard logical deduction techniques what is true, what is not, and what cannot be determined (in which case, its left up to the trustworthiness of the NPC in question, and how trusting the party is receiving the info). This is actually not new science, it is based heavily on something called logical programming, the flagship language being Prolog here. These techniques have been used for all sorts of AI, just never successfully in games to my knowledge. I've never been much of an academic, but I studied under one of the people who built the first autonomous vehicles for DARPA, and during that time my vision of AI greatly changed. I suspect many programmers never even get the chance to delve into many types of AI beyond the most common things like pathfinding. Anyhow (sorry for the tangent) - you can construct sentences with these tokens (even with autosuggest as to what words the system would accept following the ones you've input, so there is no ambiguity in the grammar and syntax).

So, you present facts into the system - lets see how this works (i'm going to write psuedocode here, but anyone should be able to understand it by the context of the english words). Let's make some facts (psuedocode followed by my comments in parentheses)

apple:red (this means that "An apple is red" evaluates to true - it is a fact
apple:fruit (and apple is fruit...the amazing thing here is that the computer does not need to know what these words actually mean - you are just forming relationships between arbitrary strings of letters).
banana:fruit
banana:yellow
fruit:food (fruit is food)
is(food)? (here we are running a query to the system - what is food? and it would return the following list of results:)
[apple, banana]
is(red,food)? (what is red and is food?)
apple
now, I never specified directly that an apple was food. It applies a process called "backward chaining" to determine that an apple is food. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_chaining) - this is based on a standard logic theorem called modus ponens. apple->fruit->food
This simple rule is actually very powerful and the foundation of logical inference.
these are simple rules and operators but more complex ones can be used or defined -- from another example I used on reddit:
protects(shepherds,sheep) (a shepherd protects their sheep)
kills(dragons,sheep) (a dragon kills (eats) sheep)
killsOnPaymentOf(dragons,hero, 20 gold) (a hero kills a dragon for 20 gold - these rules are simplified but gives you the idea. The functions that define these rules can either be defined explicitly within the AI system or recursively using the grammar of existing words, functions, and phrases)

Each turn, the AI runs a score maximization algorithm. Every NPC, monster, whatever tries to maximize their score by fullfilling as many goals as they can (their highest scoring goal is almost always to stay alive, but not always - sometimes they might sacrifice their life, i.e. to protect their children)
So, here the shepherd predicts, by facts in the system, that a dragon will kill its sheep, which would lower his score since his goal is to protect the sheep. The shepherd would explore available actions to change the predicted course of action - in this case a dead dragon can't eat sheep, so he would hire a hero to kill the dragon). All of these facts are evaluated against proximity, availability (is a hero around?), etc. It sounds complex, and even CPU intensive, but it runs fast on a few iterations of predicting. As with chess, you can adjust how deep the system makes predictions in order to speed up computation, at the cost of slightly less effective AI. In this case, even one level of prediction makes all the difference. Of course, if you don't specify all the rules correctly, hilarity ensues. There will be a lot of WTF moments early on, I assure you.

So, when you construct dialogue, you really just present new "facts" into the system, or query existing facts (you,job)? (what is your job). NPCs can decide if it works in their favor to lie about something, if they have the type of personality that might lie. Similarly you can lie to NPCs. Want to impress a love interest? (me,wealthy).