so far

ok so my thoughts have been a little over the place recently. I'm currently consolidating my ideas into a more manageable and easy to understand before handing them in as a finished document this Wednesday.

I've had a think about programs that i want to try and learn this year. and i think im going to try and learn mudbox and painter, i know how to get started with painter. but not nessicaraly mudbox, i wonder if there is a learnining version of the program around?... ive allready got painter and i think i will be picking nigels brains about that a whole lot!

further more the calendar im unsureabout. should i leave a few weeks to learn each program or not many?... i just dont know! this is what i'll be up to tomorow, the work calendar!

tonight im getting stuck into the final draft of my learning agreement, where i will talk about the programs to learn, the game idea, and what i aim to acheive at the end of this year.

wish me luck!

locale

as well as struggling with ideas for what programs i want to learn/ use and what i want to produce at the end of this year. ive also not been able to work out where and when this game is set. i was thinking about somewhere in middle America, like Louisiana, but not. perhaps its just swampland and everyone speaks in a french/American accent with a southern drall. this is the kind of image i had in mind only at night, with a small vilage on stilt in the gloom illuminateing the environment a little, the water shifting under the moonlight. and a faint chatter of human ocupation can be heard on the wind.

the above bog is in the savanah, hence the change in colour of the mud. i think the mud needs to be darker, but i like the idea of alien trees. the below photo was taken by a "mike j" couldnt find his whole name on the website. once again the images are reproduced here without permissions. however they are generateing no revenue, and are only for reference.

you might be folled into thinking i am produceing environments again. this is not the case. i merely wanted a background of the kind of environment that my characters exist in. after all all characters are a product of their environment, inadvertently or deliberately so.

influences

this is a gameplay video for a game produced by ubisoft called dark messiah, a game where you can chose any class or type of player... but mostly its a hybrid between a warrior a mage or an assassin.
this is a gameplay sample of the mage, and a nice example of a first person magic bassed combat system. and is one of my faveorate games in terms of awesome combat systems! and therefore probably influenced my decision to make my game a first person game.

and also leads me nicely as to the problems of my visuals... i want to make my game a hypereal caracature of a reality where magic exists in a more fantastical form. one with rules and order, but without scientific or technological shapes. and they need an overall "look" one that is iconic and eye catching and stylish but also not overworked! hmm this i will have to work on and come back to!

the big idea

ok, this is the idea in a nutshell.

you play a man, whom can be best described as a wizard in training. the term wizard however is one that i don't particularly like... (I'm thinking Witchdoctor, for the implications of him being an evil doctor of something, or sorcerer... hmm, or a new term entirely.) who is trying to learn more about magic, i havent decided upon his motavations, however narrative is the key here, so i will be writeing the story soon enougth.

gameplay will be a difficult subject to broach. as this game will be predominantly about manipulateing people, puzzles, environments etc... to give the impression that you are more powerfull than you actualy are.

within all mytho's (is that the word im looking for?...) a magician,wizard, warlock etc character is seen as all powerfull limeted only by his imagination and his physical form. i want to turn this into a mechanic where the player is limeted in power but needs to manipulate those around him to beleve that he is all powerfull. but to what end?... will it secure his place in the next magical accademy? or will it frighten or ennamour people to/ againt you to push the plot along? will it do both? and so i need a system to limit the player and to grant him use over terable and dangerous powers at the same time. and i beleve i have found a way...

as a wizzard you will have learnt spells (tho "spell" is a word i might not use, its too cliché.) and these spells have varying effects, and these effects are grouped into nine schools. simmilar to the old dungeons and dragons wizzard/sorcerer spells.
incodently the dungeons and dragons rulebook (the complete mage, is where i found these images. they are produced by various fantasy artists, and are a good example of where my recearch is going. and also reproduced here without their permission, but as they are not generateing any revenue i dont supose that will be a problem.)

within these nine schools are all the spells that can be learnt by the player. the school of evocation for instance is where the spells that use some kind of force, and necromancy is all things that manipulate the dead.

these spells come in various levels of power, and are unpredictable and dangerous. a firespell might just singe the bad guy and hurt him a little. or it might explode and turn everything in a five hundred meter radius into a rageing inferno. further more a player has very limmeted controll over what spells he can cast. for instance you are about to have a fray with a npc, he is an angry guard, you hear a noise indicateing that your spells have canged (and frankly the creepyer this noise the better!) and in the corner of your screen your heads up display (i say heads up display, because it implys an overlay of information regaurding the game that is not visible to the charicter but is to the player, rather than the more common "interface" with i feel is a term that better describes the controller than what is going on on the screen... rant over now!) you are given information about what two spells you can cast. (only two?... hmm i was thinking in terms of the left and right triggers of an xbox360 or playstation3 controller, but it could just as easaly be all four shoulder buttons or another spell selection wheel.) perhaps one will be a fireball spell and the other a charm spell, you can choose the fireball spell, which because it is not just a fireball, but an evocation of a primal force that consumes everything it touches. may just hurt the guard or it may burn him, the tavern you are in, and everything around it. or the charm spell, equily dangerous but in a lesser manner. furthermore magic takes its toll on you!

rather than useing that age old idea of "mana" (i think the word comes from polonesian witchdoctors to describe volumes of magical energys) i want magic powers to be a curse tather than a blessing. like contracting rabies, you slowly derteriate into a nasty end. so every time you use a spell, depending on its power you become more and more wretched, untill you are barely human. so players have to watch how many spells they cast (or not.) and so the player is limeted only by how healthy they wish to stay. furthermore if a spell fails to do what you intended it to do, you cant repeatedly press cast spell untill it works again. you need to wait untill it is ready, simmilar to the cooldown idea in World of Warcraft, only the cooldown is hidden.

lastly players dont just need to receive spells, they need to practace them. and practace untill they become better, and more controlled. practaceing spells under certan curcumstances does not deterioate your physical form, ie within magic circles, on hallowed ground. and often are not as simple as using the spell alot, and are usualy a QTE (quick time event, where button combinations at certan times progress you) or a mini game (balance the air consumption of the fireball with its size and strength for a certan amount of time and receive a better understanding of the firespell.) spells come in four flavors:

arcane focus: this is where you first learn the spell. you need to gather reagents, objects of magical sucnificance to be consumed by your magical energy in a ritual that binds you with a spell. this means that the spell can be performed if you have these reagents, but the spell has a long cooldown and isnt particularly powerfull. and when it messes up, it realy messes up!

incantation: the next step is to write the spell down in a grimore, to place the spell in your mind. and practace it with a gesture and a spoken magic word. the spell in question can now be performed without the reagent, but only a limmeted amount of times per day. and further more can be chosen to be cast only once (some spells can be picked and stored for later use at a a future point)

gesture: the word is lost, these spells tend to be immensely powerfull and can be cast a limmetless amount of times per day. the cooldown is considerably less, but it requires a strong understanding of the spell.

natureal magic: once you have practaced the spell to death you gain the spell as an instant cast no cooldown spell that hardly ever messes up. is very powerfull and barely damages your form, however attaining this level requires hard work and perhaps a great quest on behalf of the magician.


this all however is just ideas that is floating around in my head. the point of this game was to make a statement about the suspension of disbeleaf that is associated with illusion and fantasy. it has to be a fantasy game (because im dealing with fantasy). it has to be a hyperreal fantasy game (where it is more real than real, in order to be taken seriously.) it has to make the player suspend their disbeleaf, and have the player suspend the dissbelef of the in game non player characters. by making a massive effect with minimum effort least he be consumed by his own magic. (perhaps a metaphor for imersive and addictive games?...)

now i just need to make my learning agreement!

first entry

OK I've now finally started pulling my stuff together. I've decided on a game idea, and hopefully one that has the intricacies that would permit a innovative and interesting game. its not quite as original as i would have hoped, with game play that stems from other games and a concept that comes from an old table top role playing game. but hey, i haven't finished researching and fleshing out the idea yet! things could (and will) change

this blog is a bit of a new idea for me, i am unsure how to use it. is it a diary? a technical document that will be evaluated? do i need to use a specific format? how do i use images and videos? I'm sure this will all become clear. i also need to notify MC to let her know that this thing has started.

I'm off to the library soon, i need some books for my game and for my dissertation.