Like I promised, here is some more information on Space Fortress.

The game is going to be generally futuristic of course, as it involves space colonisation. The main focus of the game is going to be landing a ship in a remote area then building up a colony from there. Some locations will be planets which will have water, natural vegetation and even wild animals, and asteroids which will have no air, lots of minerals, and a reduced area of building. I don’t want either of these locations to be easier or harder than the other, just different in terms of tasks and gameplay. I think it will be down to balancing the various elements each area will start with.

How you you start with will be determined by Galactic Credits, the currency of the game. The ship can take 1 crew member for free, but extras will cost increasing amounts of GC in order to upgrade the ship to take more crew members. Equipment for the colonists will depends on how much space it takes up and how hard it is to obtain. Small tools will be cheap, a mining laser will be a little costly, and droids will be very expensive due to their size. The starting ship will come with single cube quarters for crew, a little storage space, and basic needs for the fledgling colony.

The part that interests me is the world. It’s going to be a cube based 3d world that can be deformed, dug out and built into as you progress. In fact to use the minerals you find, you will need to dig into the ground. Plants will grow and spread, water floods, and the vaccuum of space will suck the air out of any open passageways. Players will need to build walls and domes to protect the colonists from toxic gases, natural hazards and invading aliens.

The list of features in the game now covers 4 full pages. Even if I only manage to put in half of them, it will be a very indepth game. I plan to try and keep the user interface simple with context sensitive menus which make sense. The more complex colony management items will be in menus that popup at the bottom of the screen. Simplicity, efficiency and elegance are the goals of the UI.

The AI is going to be the hard part. Aside from assigning jobs and prioritising them, the colonists will go about their business unguided. They will do as they best see fit, sleeping, eating, relaxing and working based on needs and their list of jobs. Like in Dwarf Fortress, I want it to be fascinating to see them all go about their activities, a little bit challenging to get them to do what you want, and a little bit frustrating as they don’t do exactly what you tell them to do. When you can’t control the colonists, it should take the focus from micromanagement and onto macromanagement, where the design and efficiency of the colony is most important.

That’s all for now about where the game is going. I’m working on it all this weekend and I hope to have something to show for it on Monday. Until then, play well and have fun.

Yet another game idea.

A while ago I spoke about a game called Dwarf Fortress. It’s a very good game that I would recommend everyone should try, just for the depth of gameplay possible and everything you can do in it. The only downside is the graphics, which are ASCII, and the user interface, which is cumbersome. I think many more people would play it if the learning curve for the start of the game were far smaller. Which is why I wanted to do a 3d version with an easy to learn interface. Then I was thinking, Dwarves in Space, and so Space Fortress was born.

This also coincides with ressurecting my C# 3d game engine project. As Space Fortress will be in 3d, this will be a really good platform for creating the engine then going from there. Right now I’m working on the design of the engine and the way the game runs.

I’m excited about this project as much as, or perhaps more than, any others that I have worked on. Anyone that has ever done a creative work will know how fast the ideas flow when you are in the creative groove. I’ll be creating a project page for the game and finishing the website off to be a more user friendly site, especially the Projects section.

For now the game will play like a cross between Dwarf Fortress and Sim City. I think building games and sim games have been thin recently and mainly dominated by the Maxis powerhouse of ingenuity. Making an interesting game that’s different to most out there is going to be great.