Re:Here's a mad idea...
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What do you think should happen if the player mistypes it? Hmm...
Well, the spell just wouldn't work. Now whether this would be fatal or not depends on the situation - if there is no immediate danger, there should be no special penalty other than having to do the spell again. But we all know what happened with Niel in series 2...
Also, I would advise involving some dis-spelling as well.
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Would spindizzies work well in this game, do you think? Even they could be quite fatal (and no 'whoops, you nearly stepped out of line there', a la series 4 team 2- if you mistime your step, you plummet and die).
Still like the idea of the rotting pie. In fact, that's my new signature as it sounds good to me even out of context.
But anyway. If I am able to, I should be able to draw a character (outline, like a serious cartoon? No shading? Easy! This is a cartoonist at work...) or two.
Mmm, drawing a FrightKnight.
I also had the idea of a character who introduced himself as Robin hood, and it was up to you whether you should trust him and give him the gold, or convince yourself he is a fraud.
Quite simply, pick either of these and stick to it, and you're safe. However, if you change your mind once throughout his convincing/questioning/pleas for charm/whatever, he won't give you a spell/password/something in return after all and you die soon after.
Out of the top of my head, I didn't think that was too bad...
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Put simply, Motley, I'm working on a Knightmare real-time adventure game that can be played in your web browser. You will have to guide your dungeoneer through three levels of the dungeon, avoiding traps, collecting objects and solving riddles as you go. I mean, it's all on this thread in black-and-white, I've made my manifesto as clear as I possibly can.
Don't worry Zzt, I've decided to include all the options I mentioned previously, so you can turn off the LF skull if you so wish. I wouldn't want anyone to be unhappy playing the game, even if it is supposed to be a bit scary.
Keep those character ideas and suchlike coming! I'm liking those ideas Frightknight, do your worst.
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Spellcasting: B-U-R-S-T.
The Pause option/FREEZE spell etc will be context-sensitive. You will not be able to pause during dexterity puzzles, password or riddle sections, when a spell or potion is in effect, or anytime your Dungeoneer is in immediate danger. So you won't be able to pause on a Timed Causeway and take five minutes to work out your route, or go and phone your buddies to work out teh answer to a riddle, and so on.
What I could do - and this is a bit outlandish, but bear with me - is to have a Temporal Disruption every, say, fifteen minutes or so. Actually, scratch that. I will just have a Pause button, but you won't be able to use it all the time, that's all.
This is great - you guys are forcing me to think of everything. Keep it coming!
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Hello everybody!
Sorry I haven't contibuted much in the way of this thread for a while. In my defence, my computer nearly blew up. That sounds like a reasonable excuse to me, I reckon.
Anyway, the work on Knightmare: The Deeper Dungeons continues apace. I've now begun work on the 'room engine'. I'm using the same techniques here as were used by the programme makers when it comes to rendering the dungeons. I start off with what we could call the 'bluescreen layer', which lays out where the dungeoneer can walk, which parts of the screen are fatal, where doors are etc. Over that I place a generic, fairly bland room graphic. Then I add incidental details like doors, brickwork, pits, and other textures. Then over THAT I add shadowcasting effects - a bit like the digital spray-painting done by the programme makers - to make the scene all moody. Then I add the 'physical' objects like tables, wells, the dungeoneer, pickups, etc.
It sounds complex, but the end results are already looking impressive and, crucially, take up a minimal amount of space. The fact that everything is broken up into small elements means that it's easy to make all sorts of rooms and layouts by reusing the same pieces in different ways. Best of all, it can all be tinted and re-lit to create an entirely different mood using exactly the same layout (again, this was done frequently in the programme itself)!
It's all very well me talking about it, but in the next week or two you'll be able to see for yourself when the development site goes live. And who knows, I may just be able to get out a small playable demo by the end of the month - just five or six rooms, but enough to give you an idea of how it will work!
I've also been working on a control system, which is a basic mouse-and-keyboard combo. There will be a small on-screen matrix of controls for forward, backward, sidestep and turn left/right. When clicked on normally, the dungeoneer will carry out the instructions at normal, walking speed. However, the Shift and Ctrl keys can be used as modifiers in conjuntion with this. Holding down Shift when using the matrix will add speed to the dungeoneer's movements, making them run, dash, turn 180 degrees, etc. Using the Ctrl key, on the other hand, will allow small adjustments (shuffling, half-steps, 45-degree turns, etc.). This will be pretty intuitive once you get used to it, and reduce the amount of clutter on-screen.
The ideas are really starting to come together, I can't wait for you to see the work in progress!
Keep those comments and feedback coming.
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Just a quick update - I'm currently working on some very basic room graphics. At the moment I have five demo rooms. They don't do much at the mo, but I've created them as an exercise in re-usability. All the rooms are the same room graphic, see, with merely a different arrangement of doors, shadow and lighting, plus the odd bomb, wellway or table . There isn't even any incidental detail yet (torches, windows, cracks in the wall, tiles etc), but it already looks great, even if I do say so myself. I'll stick something up here in the next day or so!
I was looking at the **That Damned Life Force...**thread, and the question of how to implement the Life Force rears its head once more. But it isn't a question this time of what form it will take - it's how to use it. The immediately obvious answer is 'It starts at Green, ticks away, and when it runs out you're dead.' But that simply will not work - for the simple reason that it was never, EVER that way in the show itself. In fact, the dungeoneer's progress had no effect on the Life Force clock at all, as far as I could ever tell, except of course when someone was about to starve to death (which would only happen if they had not completed a puzzle correctly, like Series 1 Team 1's 'darkness' death or the unfortunate 'divining rod' team).
So if the clock will not be depleted by time in the real sense, then what? We could follow the first Knightmare book's example and deplete it by one grade evry time the player enters a new location, but I dunno if that would be a bit too heavy-handed. I mean, having to stop and pick up a loaf of bread every three rooms seems to be taking it a bit too far, no?
So what should we do? It is definitely going to be implemented, so no 'leave it out altogether' suggestions. Please help!
Thanks
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How about having it on a 5 minute sequence, every time food is picked up the sequence restarts from the beginning, if the sequence gets to the end you're dead.
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Hmm, see that's what I want to try and avoid, as it never worked out that way in the show itself. Think of the 6-minute discourse between Cedric and Folly at the end of Series One... the dungeoneer would have been dead three times over if the Life Force Clock ran in strict time!
I don't want to rush people through the game, except when the situation calls out for it (Timed Causeways, goblin hunts, bombs, 'starvation scenarios' and what have you). Other times, like when you're in conversation or trying to work out a puzzle, shouldn't be hurried, it will hurt the atmosphere.
Hm, this is a tricky riddle indeed...
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I've decided that I'm going to use the Life Force clock the way the original programme makers intended - as a device to speed up the player when necessary. I've realised - and it's a credit to the makers of the show that they knew this themselves from day one - that many of the dungeon rooms don't do an awful lot, but by adding the Life Force clock to the screen, the place suddenly seems like a deathtrap.
For an absolutely perfect example, think of either the very first Corridor Of The Catacombs in Series 1 Episode 1, or the 'divining rod' death from a few series later. Both these examples are bare, static rooms with a few basic audio cues. By themselves, they are plain, boring even. Throw in our grinning skeletal friend the LF Clock though, and it adds tension, urgency and a palpable sense of danger (which of course turned out to be well-founded in the latter 'divining rod' starvation death).
So to clarify, the Life Force will only appear at key moments, and will not be diminishing 'in the background' while the player progresses through the game. And that's that one sorted out.
Don't believe me if you don't want to, but there will be a demo of some sort for you in the next week or so. Promise.
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Good, I'm glad we're in agreement. As I've stated countless times, I want to remain as true to the spirit of the show as possible - and what better way to do that than by employing the same art techniques and dramatic devices as the original makers?
The forthcoming demo will comprise some early graphics treatments, a test menu interface and maybe some interactive content. However, I haven't got round to animating our dungeoneer friend yet. Also, the demo will be of extremely rough quality and is not to be taken as indicative of the final product blah blah blah.
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