SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Time to reveal a bit more about the game I've started working on for the Reboot competition so I thought a work log post would be the best place for that.

Initially I considered doing a reboot of either Syntax B0mb, Genus Prime or Tower swap but I opted out of all three of those because I've had a rough design for a while now of a game I wanted to write that this competition would suit.

Previously, apart from my ill-fated Ram project, I've played pretty safe and most of my compo games have been based on copies of established ideas. Bah, Humbug! was a bit different in that it was an adventure game but it also proved very problematic to balance right because so few people actually play games like that nowadays. However, sticking to shooters and driving games might be easier options, but they're not going to stand out at all, and actually take more time to create than I initially expect.

So it's time for something a bit different, and definitely more original. You could say there's a bit of the board game Cluedo in there but I'm hoping it's going to be a lot more than that by the time I've finished. For reference I am basing this game against Creature Corp (for the characters and information windows style) and Bah, Humbug! for the system of moving through rooms, and possibly the inventory system, trying to piece together the clues. Big dark adventure also follows that system, being another adventure game, but this game is not going to have typed input and you will move around with cursor keys just like any other game.

There's been a murder in the local council's office and you've been called in to find out who did it. Playing the game you will be moving around rooms in the building and interacting with the workforce by using a question system that might end up being dynamic, depending on what you have already learned from them. Each time you play the game it will be a different murderer and the game will have some kind of skill level that affects how often they move rooms and the likelihood they will carry out different actions. The longer you take to solve the mystery the more chance there is of the murderer killing again, which they will do up to a certain number of times, if they are in a room with a victim and no witnesses.

So far the work I've done is mostly design ideas but I have stripped down Bah, Humbug! to use the background code as I'm planning to use new room images and already have the room movement system in place using both the navigation icons or keys. And I've finally fixed the bug that's always been present in that game where you couldn't use the West icon to actually move West. Nobody either noticed or bothered to tell me that one J

So the game itself is going to probably be called "Only in this office..."

I've based some of the ideas and characters on my own experiences as I work in the public sector for the borough council which is kind of how I came up with the game in the first place. Naturally the office is actually a building in the game and I've got 20 rooms for it at present. These range from IT Dept. to Design Studio and are all mapped out, although the graphics side will have to come later when the game is further on.

I have 20 Characters at present but, in theory, I can have as many as I want. I'm working on a rather complicated system where all sorts of information is available for each Character and not just the basic stuff like their names. As it is they will all move around the office at different speeds (following the map unlike Scrooge in Bah, Humbug!, where he just picked a random room every 30 seconds) and also spout comments and, maybe clues, if you're in the area to hear them. This will probably work where you hear anything said that's within 1 room of your current area so, for example: Mr Brice in the IT office says: "I can't believe there's been a murder in the office!"

At present I keep track of the following, and I expect to add to this significantly to really make the game feel like each one has its own personality:

Name
Speed (in seconds before they change rooms and possibly linked to movement speed if they are walking in the room you are in)
Starting room location (where they were when the incident took place)
Most disliked colleague (who they will usually accuse if asked – more on this later)
Mood (0-100) Angry to Happy (which will affect how they answer questions)
Are they the murderer? (Someone has to be)
Favourite room (they give generally more favourable responses here, such as the manager in his own office, as an example)
Have they seen the murder weapon (asking them this question usually annoys the ones who haven't.)
Reaction affect (where they might respond better if the player asks nicely, or maybe shouts at them)

The kind of questions you'll be asking them:

Who was in the room with you when you heard the scream? (you only get one name here but sometimes asking again and they may get a different name if there was more than one person there, for example)

Did you kill (victim)? (Score is going to be affected if you aren't sure and accuse anyway. Not to mention that you will annoy innocent Characters. If you get it right then you can also end up as a victim if there are no witnesses in the room)

Etc, etc, etc.

Whatever response you get from these questions, remember that the characters can lie. And you can bet the murderer certainly will.

I wrote a fair bit of code for processing csv files when I was working on RAM, so I'm glad I can reuse this. All the room data, character configuration, conversation lines and just about everything else will be stored this way just so it's easy and quick for me to dynamically change something, if I find it doesn't work right.

I really want to have both some nice UI elements for the notebook and background elements, and I'll need some new rooms drawn as well. When characters are in the room you are in then it really needs to show them moving around and their names being clickable on the UI. I'll probably get some of this done by the artist I used in Bah, Humbug!, as he's pretty quick and cheap. At present I'm using the UI from Humbug just to get the characters up and working but I don't think I'll have kept much, if any of it, by the end.

Noice, It's certainly sounding interesting.

Sounds interesting... Less writing and more coding

QuoteWho was in the room with you when you heard the scream? (you only get one name here but sometimes asking again and they may get a different name if there was more than one person there, for example)

Did you kill (victim)? (Score is going to be affected if you aren't sure and accuse anyway. Not to mention that you will annoy innocent Characters. If you get it right then you can also end up as a victim if there are no witnesses in the room)

Maybe furtive looks left and right with the old eyes to elude to the fact there more info to reveal - akin to L.A.Noire ?

Sounds very intriguing.  We've just started playing Sherlock Holmes which is a cool board game cluedo esque

Quote from: 3DzForMe on March 21, 2020, 04:56:33
Maybe furtive looks left and right with the old eyes to elude to the fact there more info to reveal - akin to L.A.Noire ?

Not sure I'd want to go to that area. That part of L.A Noire, doing the interviews, was by far the most frustrating part of the game. I loved the free travel mode and investigating bits. But the interviews I could never do very well. Put me off completing the game.

In further news I kind of have the background stuff working to the point where I can put 100% into the characters movement and actions. I'm still dithering about this now though because it's going to take some time to get this part of the game done and I really need to work out where I'm going to have stuff such as questions and a notebook laid out so I can get graphic sizes. I need to get that going as soon as possible as well.

I think we're going to be sent home from work tomorrow after an emergency video conference so I might end up with a bit more time on the game suddenly. Not that i'd work on it when I'm supposed to be working from home. Oh, no. Not me :-)

I'm not liking how this is coming along so I'm going to pull the plug on it as a competition game now.

I still like the idea, and want to get it completed, but it's not going to work for the time limit and also there needs to be a lot of graphics done which I can't get done in time, as I still don't exactly know what I need.

Basically, if I carried on now and just tried to make a shell of  the game I actually want, then it's going to be pointless as it would be more a demo than anything else.

So, dropping it now to maybe pick up after the competition, still gives me 5 weeks to do something not so demanding in that time perhaps. If I can come up with a new idea, of course.