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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:56 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:16 pm
Posts: 7
Location: Kentucky
I'd love to see something else done by you guys, whether or not it takes place in the same universe as Light's End. I would say, however, that the concept of jumping between characters would work well with a number of very different storyline - something thematically similar to Clive Barker's Jericho (FPS in which the squad leader of an occult Army squad gets killed, then becomes able to possess his teammates to utilize their distinct skillsets) or something with a more malignant possession, or even something tactical. What I'm getting at is that you guys have an engine, and that's the single most expensive piece of code in a project - you shouldn't let it go to waste!

I look around and I see a surprising number of other people who are familiar with C# and XNA. I wonder how large a team could be assembled here? I happen to be laid off from my job right now, and programming games was always a dream of mine as a child...I just haven't had the idea that makes me think, "Wow, this would be a perfect game!" that didn't also involve, "Wow, this would take the resources of hundreds to produce in this day and age... :-("


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:20 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:16 am
Posts: 50
C# and XNA are so easy to use that the engine only took 2 months to make. Beyond that, it was just a bit of programming support for features and bug fixes. The content took 5 months and was by far the most time consuming part! So reusing the same engine to do a sequel or spinoff doesn't save as much time as you might think.

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Thor - Designer, Programmer, Writer and Musician for Light's End - www.lightsendgame.com


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:20 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:16 pm
Posts: 7
Location: Kentucky
Wow, only two months?! That's impressive! The engines I've worked on in XNA took much longer than that...but then again they were 3d engines, and they weren't the only projects I was working on at the time.

Content...I couldn't help with that one. :-P I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler! I'm lucky I can do it with CAD! ;-)


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:55 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:50 pm
Posts: 4
I, for one, would like to see another tale in this world, with these characters, or at least, characters strongly connected to them (like their children, for example). I don't think some more conventional puzzle dungeons, with some kind of block and character swapping puzzles, would upset the gameplay, and may be a welcome change of pace in the game, though the main gameplay should centre around relationships and character interaction as in the first.

Perhaps introduce a mechanic where the Player's Soul/flame/control can be transfered through reflections or mirrors also, and make it a puzzle to get characters whom the player can not usually get close to safely to stay at some reflection long enough for another character they already have control over to reach a suitable reflection to transfer over to (Maybe your current character is locked up and kept at a distance, so you start a convasation with a specially vain guard, and point out a stain on his uniform, so he goes to a mirror to wash it out, at which point you go to a puddle in your cell and then continue the puzzle in the vain guard, etc.). Just an idea for what may be a simple new mechanic to add a new depth to the game. Or it could be an annoying to implement feature that ends up allowing you to use one or two new puzzles that are uninteresting and even less fun.

But I definitely want to hear more about the characters from the original. Towards the end, Crystal feels like she all but disappears from the limelight, and we only really get into the Princess at the end, so you just get a glimpse of something that feels like it had a lot more to it. And I also want to find out more about something else, but I want to devote another topic to that important matter.

*sheepishly looks at his feet*

As is often the case, when I got to the end of this, my brain immediately began dreaming up new ideas for it... I even came up with what might be an interesting way to continue the game... as the same "Child of Divine" the player is in the first game... And what could be an interesting twist to include in the story.

The basic idea is that during the fall at the end of the first game, the Divine's Child transfers to a Tree within the cave, that gets sun and rainwater from the crack in the ceiling. No one ever comes down to the Divine's shrine, let alone close to the tree where the Divine's Child resides. Then one day, several years from the first game's events, a young girl comes down into the cave, though goes past the shrine, and tries to hide round the edge of it, giggling. This could be Crystal's daughter. A little after a young man, the girl's brother, comes down, looking for her, and approaches the Divine's Shrine. The Divine pushes a Second "Child" into him, confusing him and putting him off balance. Concerned, the girl approaches her brother, but he pushes her away in the confusion, causing her to fall off the cliff. Distort at what he had accidentally done, he runs off, believing himself to be a monster who has killed his little sister. The sister is not dead however, but landed relatively safely in the branches of the Tree where the Divine's First Child resides. As she climbs out, onto a nearby ledge, the first Child transfers to her, and the game begins properly.

That's an idea I have for an introduction. As I said there's another part to this idea which is the midway story plot...


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:42 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:16 pm
Posts: 7
Location: Kentucky
That's a neat idea for an extension to the mechanic...I'm not sure I'd want to see block puzzles (I always hate those - they never make any contextual sense. If the creators of these places want to lock the place, they could use a key...instead of a locking mechanism that anyone can bypass with enough intelligence and stubbornness)
Now, I *can* see something similar with people. This person knows this password, or has this key...he's willing to tell it to this person, but himself can only go to these areas...et cetera. Much like happened in the first one, but to greater depth, and perhaps even nonlinearly, although that adds complications.

I'd be curious to see how the Child of Divine managed to not die, though. Maybe it can only die on the altar, or from that one dagger? So whoever picks up the corpse the Child was in gets possessed? (sounds like another mechanic to me!)


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 5:52 am 

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:50 pm
Posts: 4
Well my suggestion is above in the perfectly hidden Spoiler Text (highlight the blank space), I only go up to where I would expect player control to start...

My suggestion keeps to living beings, but rather extends what that could mean.

There's probably any number of ways it could work...

Or it could be a new Child of Divine the player controls?

I'll just repeat this- I would like to see more of the characters we met and "became" in this adventure...


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:13 am 

Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:16 pm
Posts: 7
Location: Kentucky
*facepalm* I don't know why I didn't see that...sorry about that. :-P
Sounds good to me!


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 Post subject: Re: The future!
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:13 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:50 pm
Posts: 4
I managed to work out the background colour code exactly it seems, to make a perfect spoiler tag. Now I can talk about spoilers, and no one would even realise!
303030 seemed to do it, if you're curious...


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