I know my personal preference, as one who usually listens to the radio or TV as I play my games, I usually turn the music off but want all the sound effects I can get my hands on. Even that being said I don't think I'd mind quick little fanfares or "anti-fanfares" triggered by key events like gaining a level, dying, when one of your pets is killed off, you scored a critical hit, the boss monster enters the room (or when my boss enters the room but I'm not sure how your game would detect that), etc. The key idea being just incredibly brief (only a few seconds) bursts to accent whatever is occurring or just occurred.
Being a musician myself, I rarely like music in a game, especially if there's supposed to be a level of immersion involved. I am personally very preferential to keeping in-game music to a minimum and instead having ambient background noises appropriate to the setting. If it is an option, I will disable music entirely, although if there is a separate option for cut scene and/or encounter music I may leave that enabled just to enhance the drama. That said though I do think that music is important to a lot of people, so I do believe it should be an option. My own personal preference for background music would depend on the setting, but I would definitely go for something complimentary to the scene, something that is ambient and kind of blends into the scenery a little. Something that is there and noticeable and enhances the mood, yet doesn't call a whole lot of attention to itself and whose impact would only truly be noticed when it's not there. This would also make it much more difficult to pick out the loop point so it won't grate on your nerves after a few repetitions, especially if it's played under ambient sound effects.
The river clip is so pretty that it makes me almost afraid for the gameplay... Since in my experience it is mostly either or. But then again, I trust in CD .
Wow, the river scene is gorgeous. Re: music, I think there is a unique aspect to developing a game for a device that doubles as an MP3 player. Of course if you included some kind of epic music, that would be great, but it's hard to get that kind of thing right on any kind of budget. You can occasionally find games that accomplish this (Necromancer Rising does a good job in my opinion) but the music loops get kind of annoying. I don't have much of an opinion on the Rogue Touch soundtrack either, actually, as I usually will play while listening to a podcast or some of my own music. Basically, if you feel you can pull off the ambient sounds (and judging from the river video it seems you can) better than the music, then I'd say focus on that and just allow users to access their music library in-game. That way everyone is accommodated to some extent. Well, except for people who really like music but don't have anything appropriate to play in-game already in their library. But then they can just download something appropriate from iTunes.
I would have to agree with Mindfield's ideas here, if we're talking about ideals. Dramatic encounter music and a soundtrack that doesn't stick out too much would be good. It can be hard to identify the right soundtrack for those situations though...this is an area where Zelda for the SNES excelled maybe more than any other game I can think of. Just don't include any Kenny G in the soundtrack--that's not what I mean by music that "doesn't stick out." Maybe just use the soundtrack from Driver for the game. That would do pretty nicely.
I'll take ambient sounds over music for this type of game. Just include an option to play your own music (with or without sound effects, preferably with a slider for each) and you're set. If you want to include bits of music, you could have themes that would creep in for specific situations/areas slowly fade them in/out (for some reason I'm thinking of when you go around trying to find the (invisable, only detectable by listening for music) flame in Mountain King... (Now I'm going to have Grieg's Anitra's Tranz stuck in my head for a bit...)
The flame in Mountain King was detectable on the 2600 version by using the flashlight. The third option to play your own music is probably a no-brainer option too, of course. But you'd have to have some original music in there too, just for the sake of rounding out the experience.
Trying to catch up on everyone's comments from the past! Sorry I haven't been able to address them sooner Definitely glad that you're enjoying the direction I'm headed. All my plans have been in place for a long while, it's only now that I am getting enough artwork and programming together for people to see! As stated elsewhere, the trailer music was written by a fan of Rogue Touch, still only a rough cut, but I like it! It will not be used as in-game adventuring music (which you've probably noted from the discussions taking place), but perhaps still can make the game during the title sequence or during a boss battle.... Oops, did I say boss? I meant average monster I really like the mushrooms (and potion of Hallucination) in Rogue Touch as well. Debating on how to best handle hallucinations with all the animated stuff I have right now, or whether that effect will be dropped. So many other cool status effects to work on, so we'll see! Searching will not require button-spamming as you have seen in the past. Any hidden stuff will be discovered in more intuitive ways... Yep, me too! Even without multiple pathways, there will be a large amount of replayability here, and a post-game dungeon to enjoy as well. I doubt anyone will be complaining that Mineko was too short or easy It's been described a few times, but it bears repeating for everyone- The shadows are really meant to highlight what Mineko can and cannot see, rather than be a completely realistic lighting effect. The angles are correct, and behave as you might expect when in motion though. As for the "height" of your viewpoint... every adventure game has to take liberties like this. Obviously the cave roof is not 200 feet overhead, but you have to position the camera high in order to have any visibility at all. Sword of Fargoal and Rogue Touch let you zoom out so far you'd think you were looking down on them from 1000 feet up. Talk about vertigo! Thanks guys (and girls)! It's awesome to know that I've got your support More responses shortly!
We've been talking via PM and e-mail too, but I really never got around to answering all these thoughts, so here goes! As you said, things are running pretty smooth already for just learning OpenGL. I know enough about points and triangles and blending to be dangerous, but there is still so much I don't know! As I try out new features I do my best to test for efficiency and optimize things right away. I don't want to get caught near the end of the project with something that looks really nice but won't run on every iDevice out there So initially, I didn't set out to try to marry different sub-genres and happy memories of the best game systems ever made! My goal was simply to create a new roguelike game that was more visually appealing, and shared some similarities to Shiren the Wanderer. Since that beginning, the scope of the project has shifted and grown into something different, and I do really hope there is a large overlap of interested parties as you suggest! I agree that Paul / Madgarden's controls for Sword of Fargoal work very well in that game's context. And it turns out I think they are a reasonable control scheme for a turn-based game too, if you're able to tweak the feel of it enough to prevent accidental motions, or mis-directed actions. I think I'm getting pretty close to that now... There should be variety and interest in spades here when I'm done. I've actually had to cut back on my plans a bit, because some of my concepts would be too overwhelming from a design, programming, or gameplay standpoint. Some of them are too good to pass up, and may make it into a sequel though! Storyline: I agree that I want the player to feel like there's a reason for everything, and a desire to find out what happens next. Trying to do that without intruding on the gameplay too much is a real trick, especially in a game design that's not known for great stories... We'll see how successful I can be there! Those are great ideas! I think I need to get some more NPC character designs drawn up for that... The main game will only have a small handful of people to interact with, and not many of them would be suitable for the post game dungeon.
"Curses" in Mineko will behave differently from those you're familiar with in Rogue Touch, for better and worse. A "Curse" placed upon your person by a monster or trap will have its affects wear off naturally with a bit of time, or you can cancel it out immediately with the appropriate items. A cursed item is usually going to be both good and bad: what I mean is, a weapon you find may have some awesome dragon-slaying ability, but whenever you're wielding it you'll take 2x damage when attacked by "cold" monsters. Just an example, some things will be more subtle than that... The idea is to shake up the game a bit, make it so choices are not always clear-cut good or bad Ranged weapon ammo- like Shiren, you'll always have the ability to fire ammo (carrying a crossbow at all times). Shiren was always able to use the ammo that he found in-game, and so will you, if you need to Throwing many types of things at monsters will be supported here, but I'm still deciding on the best interface to make those items easily accessible. "Quick slots" are a possibility. Using your ranged weapon will DEFINITELY require fewer touches to execute Thanks! I tweeted another great idea for shadowing to you as well, might have to work that into the game too
OK, last of the catch-up responses, mostly covering music and sound effects! Maythius, as you might have gathered from my other posts, I actually meant "ambient background sound effects" as a primary source of noise, similar to that used in Rogue Touch. Of course, the variety of responses here and a few private messages and e-mails from people have convinced me that there is a middle ground. Glad that you're enjoying Mineko's look and personality, hopefully I'll be able to make her sound as good as she looks Exactly my thoughts. A monster trying to sneak up on you in the forest? Hear a rustling sound as though its moving through bushes, or maybe a "snap" of a stick that got stepped on This is a very good list (minus the one when YOUR BOSS enters the room ) and I think there would be snippets of music for all those cases plus more! I agree with everything you're saying, and have said via PM and e-mail on the topic. The dynamic route may be the solution to my desires, when paired with subtle loops for each area. Obviously we'll be discussing this further, I still owe you an e-mail response on the topic! At a minimum I'll let the player use his own music by having it playing when you start the game, not sure if I will implement those in-game playlist controls for your own tracks or not. Depends on the difficulty of doing so, but those could always happen in an update, as long as you can use your own music when you want to! Yep Mindfield's got some great ideas Certainly won't be abandoning my choice for ambient sound effects either, there's just too much cool stuff we can do to enhance the feel of the world with sound effects! Going to have to be a set of options for this: 1) Ambient sounds on/off 2) Battle sounds on/off 3) Music on/off (off allowing your own music to go through, and have ambient and battle sounds blended in if you leave those options on) All three of these should have volume sliders too. Whew, now that we're mostly caught up to date, I can provide a new status update next. Some fun stuff happening with monster pathfinding tests over the last few days
Awesome can't wai to see those cloud shadows will you be able o throw anything at an enemy? And if you throw a cursed object at an enemy will it gain the curse?
I can see that happening. The thing is, Roguelike and more traditional RPG styles have been largely separate genres; traditional RPGs are finite and mostly linear but have deep stories and lots of interaction, whereas Roguelikes have had the same über-basic story since inception with basic hack-and-slash gameplay, but random dungeons and lots of items, so the experience was different each time, which is why it has endured for so long. Merging the two, even by sacrificing some aspects of each, I think will have massive cross-genre appeal -- because as I said, these have been separate genres, and I'm not aware of any games that have merged them successfully. (But then I'm not hip to console games, so maybe it's out there. But it's definitely not on the App Store.) I firmly believe this has the opportunity to do just that, and do it very well. Performance is always an issue. I think we both know that coders -- good ones, anyway -- are forever learning and optimizing. We are our own worst critics. Nothing is ever perfect. But you'll make it as good as you can and I'm certain it will run very well on all devices, and even then you'll keep optimizing. That's the fun of being a game designer: Nothing is ever really completed, it's just as good as it's going to get until it gets better. With Fargoal, accidental movements were almost always attributed to the tap-to-move option, which can be disabled. Once they were I found I never made a misstep. For top-down controls in this sort of setting I think they're just about perfect. Another fun thing about being a game designer: Contracting Kitchen Sink Syndrome. For most game ideas you have, especially RPGs that have literally worlds of possibilities, you always have more than you'll ever be able to fit into one concept. The trick is figuring out which ones should go into this one, balancing what would be really cool and make the game better with what would still be really cool but saved for a sequel in order to keep some major selling points in your back pocket. Not that I'm telling you anything you don't already know. Like I said, you're crossing an odd genre boundary, but one that, if done right (and of course it will be) would draw two big audiences together. You've already considered at length what makes Roguelikes fun, and what makes them frustrating, and I'm sure you've done the same for more traditional RPG styles. Eliminating some of the more frustrating aspects of Roguelikes (managing huge inventories, finding enough food, controls, learning curve, etc.) and toning down some of the more annoying aspects of NES-style RPGs (novel-length dialogues with incessant tapping, tedious, artificial game-lengthening grind, etc.) make for a perfect marriage. And of course, the musical aspects we're discussing in E-Mail I think will tie it all together nicely.
Great! The equivalent of rattlesnakes won't be able to stop a run cold if the dice and item generator are unlucky in Mineko . What is important to me is the ability to unequip the cursed item eventually. By all means, we may be stuck with it for a time unless we use a remove curse scroll, but not forever, please! I have finally learned that in RT it is possible to identify weapons by simply throwing them at enemies, but when I tried to do the same with armors, they vanished. Didn't try it with rings yet... I do like the idea of advantages and disadvantages on a cursed weapon - I still fondly remember the cursed +3 two-hander of Berserking in Baldur's Gate 1... And how about the cursed Girdle of Gender Change ? IMHO, some cursed items can be merely neutral in effect (other than taking the slot) and humorous. Does this mean that there will be unified ammo? Or just the crossbow for ranged weapons and no bows? Or endless default ammo, but special ammo to find? BTW, what about ranges for thrown versus ranged? I am unsure whether something like that was implemented in RT - I rather think not, but if in Mineko we'll be able to switch to crossbow on the fly, the thrown weapons should have shorter range. Maybe sub-division(s) of inventory which can be opened from the separate buttons on the action screen? I don't think that _everything_ should be throwable - there is not much point in throwing armors, rings, wands, etc. An opportunity to open inventory section of _just_ throwable stuff will already cut down on micro-management. And a quick slot for one stack of thrown weapons we'd chose to always have to hand. P.S. Some games have inventory sorting by item type. Maybe something like that? Going through just the weapon section or just the potion one to throw something wouldn't be so bad. Thank higher powers for that! RT is a great game, but some of the legacy designs are... strange .
I hear you on the kitchen sink syndrome! So many great ideas in my head and on paper, but I'd never finish if I tried to put them all in. For that matter, the game could end up an awful, unplayable mess if you try to add in too much complexity. As I mentioned in the past, there's quite a bit that has been cut in order to make it possible to complete. Never one to just throw away a good idea... some of the cut gameplay mechanics will actually tie into the end of this tale, and become core to the next Mineko game Glad you (and others here) have confidence in my abilities to blend the best of the roguelike and RPG genres, I'm working my ass of to be sure that I don't disappoint!
Isilel, I haven't forgotten about your post, a lot of important questions there, and I promise to address them all real soon! Right now, I want to give a little status update for everyone on Mineko's progress: Since a lot of the basic generation and display concepts for each area of Mineko's world are complete I wanted to dig into some of the meat. Last week I began work on AI and Monster pathfinding algorithms... The goal is to make it so we can have a substantial number of monsters that can track Mineko, find their way around obstacles, and so on, without killing the iPhone CPU or battery. Rather than add in my current monster sprites (and give away too much cool stuff in photos ), I decided to use Mineko against herself, colored red. Adding one monster to the dungeon is childs play, and not a good test of my optimization skills, so I figure why not one vs a hundred: Yep, the blobs of purple on the mini-map represent an Evil Mineko Mob, 100 strong. Not only did I figure out how to display and animate them all in motion without bogging things down, but they can find their way around obstacles, and even different types of environments that they have no prior knowledge of! Some special attention to detail can be seen in this image too... you better get used to recognizing monster *SHAPES* as well as their look, because any monster that is partially obscured in shadows will be drawn in silhouette form. Just to up the "tension level" around dark corners This foundation is looking pretty solid now, so over the next week I'll be merging in some new code to create true enemy encounters, equipment, and so on. My consulting day-job will have me on the road soon for 2 weeks but I think I'll be able to continue making progress at night in the hotel
That's pretty damn cool. And might I add, that murky dungeon is just a wee bit creepy. I love it. I also love that you're already planning ahead to the sequel. Although I suppose you have to even at this early stage to avoid feeling like you've let all sorts of awesome stuff go to waste. It's easier to cut stuff when you know it'll still be used.
Wow, CD that's really cool! The more I hear about Mineko, the better it sounds! The screenshot is pretty, too.
