Post edited 7:55 pm – February 2, 2012 by quill18

EDIT:  This thread has been stickied and the original post will be updated as needed.  If technical reasons demand (e.g. if I need to split it into multiple posts), I may repost this as a new sticky in the future.

Heya folks, this is my attempt to combine all the various ideas into one cohesive form and present the first draft of the complete game outline.  We got a ton of excellent ideas and I've tried to consider things that had a lot of consensus or just seemed like a solid idea to me.

This is a first draft and will get tweaked in response to continued feedback, but it does represent an attempt at convergence and ideas that fall completely outside of this outline may no longer be considered.

Click "More" to read on.

The Game World

Static Core

The "Core" of our universe will be consistent (more on this in the "Races" section, below). Having a pre-generated core provides the following benefits:

• A consistent start for all players.
• We can guarantee that certain basic services are always present, such as shipyards, stock exchanges, and mission hubs, and it will be easy for new-player guides to describe exactly how to get to and use those services.
• It also means that we can setup in-game tutorials and noob areas.  Exploring one of Jupiter's moons might make a good training mission, and for something like that we probably don't want random-generation. Even experienced players who start a new game might still want to take advantage of the risk-free mining on the moon to get started.
• It means that the first thing that players see will be hand-crafted and should ensure that things look good and be interesting. And while it's fun to invent a custom setting, there is something very special about giving players the chance to explore our solar system and to see Earth from space.
• Having a static core means having the ability to tell a shared story, to a certain extent.  You can reference things that all players have in common.
• For our pseudo/asynchronous multiplayer ideas, a static core that exists for all players makes sense.  The stock exchange, "high scores", whatever, all make more sense if they are in the same physical place.

Generated Universe

However, the replay value of the game will probably come from having an "infinite" (i.e. randomly generated) universe to explore.  Therefore, when you leave the static core, you will be traveling to randomly-generated systems. However, we can randomly generate these systems from a pre-determined seed, which is used to identify the system.

Here's an example of what I mean:  You have been assigned exploration/mining rights to sector Gamma Epsilon 384.  This number can be used as the seed for the random number generator, so that sector "Gamma Epsilon 384" would always be the same.  That way, we don't need to save all the details for every space system the player ever visits.  We just need to save the seed (and anything the player did to the system that was supposed to be permanent).

It also means that we have the option of letting players trade these sector seeds. You still get an infinite universe, but this opens up another possibility for a shared universe. The sector you get "assigned" is totally random, and you only get to claim more areas if you complete missions or whatever.  But maybe you really, really need some Dilithium Crystals, and it so happens that another player has discovered that Sector XYZ has a planet rich in Dilithium Crystals.  Maybe you can pay to directly unlock the rights to Sector XYZ?

What this enables is a very compelling Exploration game play, for people who want that.  You go to a system and just spend your time doing surveys of planets and moons and asteroids.  When you design your ship, you didn't include the capacity to haul a million tons of ore, instead you spent your money on better scanners.  Your "map" of the system can then be turned in for cash.  In the multiplayer shared universe, this might mean that the system will now appear in a database that other players can look up and unlock in their own game.  (Even if we don't have an in-game ability to trade information on sectors at first, people could still trade IDs on internet forums or something.)

Note that the "ground" areas you visit in a system should still be totally randomized each time.  You can't tell people to go to the 3rd room on the 4th level and open a chest to find an epic item.  All you can say is: The 2nd planet in the solar system is rich in Dilithium, so if you explore the caves there you should be able to find some, though the structure of the cave, the enemies you find, and where the loot is placed will be completely random.

Persistent Universe

Your player may die, but the universe and everything you did to it remains.  If we have a shared multiplayer universe, then this is pretty much implied, but even in a purely single-player experience this should still be explicit.

You are a representative of a large organization.  This may be a small government or it may be a private corporation.  While you can upgrade your personal skills and your personal ship, you are also "leveling up" your home organization.  If you die and/or lose your ship, it's not game over.  It sucks, but whatever progress you may for your home organization still remains.  Any technology you unlocked is still unlocked, and you still have exploration/mining rights to any systems you had before.

Space

We are not making an action-shooter space-sim type of game.  While not a roguelike, one our key gameplay mechanics will still be strategic, tactical gameplay as opposed to twitch/reflex gameplay.  The final representation of space travel has not yet been determined, but first-person and chase-cam modes are almost certainly not appropriate.  The player may not pilot the ship directly at all, but rather just set a course from a "map" view.  Alternatively, the ship flight mode may simply play out much like ground mode, with a top-down or isometric representation for navigation, with 1-tile-large tokens representing various objects and planets.  You aren't dogfighting or weaving around each other manually.  The ship tokens are abstractions of their position in space, and you may even just "bump" into them to fire your lasers, similar to using a melee attack in ground mode.  Nuclear Missiles (or whatever) would be like "spells" or ranged attacks.

You may be able to walk around the interior of your ship, possibly to be able to repair it if it gets damaged during travel or battles, or to perform crafting, or to defend against boarding actions (and likewise you may be able to board other ships yourself).

Dungeons

These are not literal dungeons, but rather the "ground mode" or "roguelike mode" of the gameplay, which could include caverns, alien buildings, space stations, enemy ships, your own ship, etc…

The gameplay will be, in some way, like a roguelike, but without a grid/tile to contrain your movement and without discreet turns.  It would still take "1 unit of time" to move "1 unit of distance", but you can move just a fraction of a unit if you want. Likewise, attacks and other actions will take some amount of time.  Maybe your "quick shot" only take 0.5 units to do, but your "aimed shot" takes 1.5 units.

The borderline between a "gridless roguelike" and a "solo tactical/RTS" game is fuzzy.  I'm continuing to use the term "roguelike" because it encompasses a greater philosophy of randomized content, hardcore difficulty, and solo-ness.  If you start to beam down to a planet with a full squad of men, then we enter a far more "x-com/RTS hybrid" territory.

When scanning a planet, a list of points of interest may be generated, which will be a set of "dungeons".  A threat analysis could be performed at the same time, giving the player a variety of options to choose from.  You could be told if the dungeon is short, average, or long.  If the threat is easy, average, or dangerous.  If the point of interest is a ore vein, a precursor ruin, or a downed ship (implies different enemies and different types of loot.)  Maybe you want a quick, easy run to top up your Dilithium Crystal supplies, or maybe you want to brave a big, high-level precursor ruin for the possibility of finding lots of advanced technologies.

One challenge will be to avoid making the dungeon experience too generic and interchangeable, since we aren't hand-crafting dungeons.  Roguelikes have figured out how to keep the experience fresh and exciting, so we will be looking at them extensively.

Races

There are two real options here.  Neither one would actually have a significant impact on the game design.  They just change the feel of the game.

Players are Humans

We're based in the Sol system and we are trying to advance humanity into the space era.  There's something very personal and meaningful about this.  You wouldn't be picking a race during character creation, but we could still have just as many option for your build.  "Race" is just cosmetic.

In this scenario, the player's organization should probably be a private corporation.

Players are Aliens

We're based at an "international" space station (like Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5). The player homeworlds are elsewhere.  The space station is in the "outer rim" or the "fringe" or something of the galaxy.  It's an area that has so far been unclaimed and uncolonized.  Note that "Human" is still a valid option here, but it would just be one of many options.

In this scenario, the player's organization could still be a private corporation, especially if we have a small pool of pre-made alien races.  In other words, if there are only 8 major alien races, the player should not be a representative of the entire alien nation.  However, if the player's organization is one of hundreds and hundreds (i.e. either you manually create your race or it is randomly generated or something), then it's fine for the player to be working for the alien nation directly.

Theme

Man vs Universe

While Project Porcupine has certainly diverged from the realm of roguelikes, it is certainly not moving in the directly of a "4x" type of universe where you are competing with other symmetrical powers.  The player is venturing into unknown, unexplored territory.  Exploration and discovery will be a central theme, both on a galactic level but also on a local level (i.e. on the ground). This is why we are using random generation.

I think that the "Players are Humans" race option would give the best sense of fear and foreboding here.  In the "Players are Aliens" scenario, space is already a known commodity and the races have already expanded and done stuff.  It's just that this one area of space happens to be unexplored.  Might take some of the "awe" out of things.  Or maybe it doesn't do that at all, and maybe it gives us something more.

Man vs Individuals

You will not be venturing into the territory of an another civilization with which you are at war.  There is no organized attacks and defenses to coordinate between large fleets of ships.  You will mostly be operating alone, and the threats you face will be localized.  You might find the occasional pirate or "unlicensed claim jumper" trying to steal from your lawfully assigned star system.  You might find unfriendly local wildlife.  If there are enemy races (or rival corporations), you aren't going to their territory, but of course you might run into them while you are exploring an otherwise unclaimed sector of space.

There should almost certainly also be a "precursor civilization", even though it's a bit cliche.  A super-advanced race that mysteriously (or not so mysteriously) died off, leaving cool tech scattered around the galaxy for you to discover…probably guarded by battle robots and drone space ships.

Between indigenous life, other sentient beings, and precursor robots we should have a decent pool from which to provide some variety in enemies. (Note that creatures, other races, and precursors wouldn't logically be working together and may attack each other.  This shouldn't happen often, because it leads to dull gameplay, but just often enough to be interesting.)

Achievement

Not in the "Kill 50 enemies with headshots" sense (although we might have stuff like that), but in the sense of having specific, achievable goals.  Unlocking a new technology, mapping an entire star system, finding the ore vein at the bottom of the caverns of an asteroid.  Things should be paced in such a way the the player will get a concrete reward every X minutes.  There should be a clear indication of the things that you can do, and you should be able to get them done in a reasonable amount of time.

This is what makes games like MMOs so compelling.  You get a quest.  You have to go to a place and do certain things and then come back.  Simply *completing* something like that feels good, and then you can get a reward of some kind (xp, money, items) as well.

So if you've detected a Dilithium Crystal deposit on a planet, you basically have a "quest" to beam down there, fight through some enemies, find the crystal deposit, and flag it to be beamed back up to your ship.  It's not a real "quest" (I mean, you wouldn't have this in a quest log), but it's still a clear series of steps to take to meet an objective, and completing that should feel satisfying. Also, you now have a cargo hold full of dilithium to sell or to use for crafting or something.

For the sake of argument, let's say that any one achievement should be attainable in no more than 30 minutes. For example:  Mapping at entire star system, including getting into a fight with a pirate or two.  Now, you might stop halfway when you discover that a planet has some precursor ruins on it and beam down to the surface to explore, and which point the "dungeon" we generate should be just big enough to be doable in about 30 minutes.

Customization

You should be able to customize your starting character (and organization?) considerably, to increase replayability.  Likewise, you may have many options to customize your ship.  Potentially it can be assembled from components in a lego-like fashion.  You may also have a crew aboard your ship that give you bonuses to various activities (but you may be the only person rated to wear the ground-mode "suit" that lets you explore alien worlds and do combat, or if you do want a companion it should be an expensive proposition).

This document will need to be expanded in the future, but this is all I have time for now!

Read original blog post

Excellent point!

To continue to spam this thread:  The newly-discovered wormhole also explains how there could be so much valuable "stuff" for the player to find just lying around.  Why wouldn't someone else have picked it up by now, unless this was the "human only" version.  If we assume multiple space-faring races, it makes no sense that we would be first to find the loot if it's that easy to find.

Yes, the wormhole setup is a good one.

Post edited 3:15 am – February 6, 2012 by quill18

In discussions with Briarstone tonight about what kinds of progression and win conditions we may want, the following was developed:

There has been rudimentary scouting of the systems, which is how we know what "level" the system is.

• Low-level systems mostly have some wildlife and the rare pirate or precursor drone.
• Mid-level systems have rival corporation presence, so more dangerous opponents but also better loot. Maybe planets with very dangerous wildlife, so they were never colonized and are super-rich in minerals.
• High-level systems feature have a strong precursor droid presence, with orbital defence stations and ships.

• The precursor civilization died off thousands of years ago.
• Some people believe they were killed off in a civil war by some kind of "super weapon"
• This super weapon represents the McGuffin that is the victory condition.  It's obviously going to be found on a planet with heavy precursor presence, so it will take some time to build up to the point where you can start to really hunt for it.
• We can give the player some options about what to do with it, like destroying it or using it to become the supreme ruler of the galaxy.

This is not intended to be the main point of the game.  The point is killing stuff, looting stuff, and building stuff.  This McGuffin simply provides an end point and something for achievement-driven players to strive for.  Players who aren't interested in it can probably ignore it.