WIP [LaS] Light and Shadow - Art Discussion
- Thread starter SuperSnark
- Start date
In regard to the overall gameplay style, as Rasmus said, I think it will evolve. The focus, in my opinion, should be on three major areas:
One thing I've been thinking about is whether to implement a "player" specific character in addition to our army units. This would sort of serve as the engineer (mentioned above), but also as an explorer / swashbuckler type who could quest and also participate in combat. This might add a nice personal touch and further invest the player in the game.
I don't known if any of you have caught the DaVinci's Demons show on Stars, but in this fictional universe, DaVinci sort of operates outside of the warring factions - even though he supports one of them. I like this concept as it opens up the possibility of exploration and questing beyond the overarching "war" of factions.
To further that idea, it might be neat to have a Lego approach to the look of the Adventurer character; where the player picks between some body types / head types / foot types to customize their chess avatar. I think ultimately though you would still have to pick a faction and be colored appropriately at the start of the game.
- Building (free form structures + crafting)
- Town buildings for crafting and refinement of resources
- Towers and walls for defense
- Siege weapons
- Weapon/armor/troop upgrades
- Random stuff the player just feels like creating (possible "Culture" bonus?)
- Resource Gathering and Mgt (including Questing)
- Harvesting raw materials to support building/crafting
- Enlisting minions to gather
- Enlisting minions to grow resources
- trees, crops, etc. would be replanted and have various rates of regeneration
- Questing for special items
- Personal items (improved sword, improved engineering tools, white scepter, etc.)
- Combat
- Knocking over your opponents structures
- EVERYTHING can be destroyed
- walls, towns, craft stations, resources themselves, opponents
- EVERYTHING can be destroyed
- Tactical and personal combat
- direct troops on a large scale
- defend X point, attack X point
- posses individual troops or use the Adventurer to attack directly
- direct troops on a large scale
- Knocking over your opponents structures
- I like combat and kicking ass and knocking things down. I take direct control of my units and fight with them.
- This should give an edge over simply having units auto attack.
- Possessing units directly gives more precise control on how walls, towers, and other units are attacked; rather than AI instructions to "attack structure"
- Possessing units directly means you are NOT managing resources as directly, etc. so spending more time here means less time questing, gathering, upgrading. Attack fast, first, and hard, can be a strategy.
- This should give an edge over simply having units auto attack.
- I like building stuff
- This should give an edge to fortifications and crafted objects.
- Spending more time in the Engineer chair means walls/towers etc. will have bonuses. It should be much harder to destroy a structure that is improved.
- Weapons and siege engines can be improved over the defaults. Thus spending some time crafting means an ultimate edge in combat.
- Building unique, "cool" things should be rewarded. If a structure has a cool roof or tower or if the player builds "art" in some fashion - there should be a bonus applied in some form.
- This should give an edge to fortifications and crafted objects.
- I like exploration / questing / farming/growing
- This should give an edge to resources available for crafting and special bonus items
- Spending time on certain resources can improve them
- Improve the growing / regen rate of trees/crops
- Improve the spawn rate of improved/specialized ores
- Questing for specific materials or objects will provide various advantages depending on the nature of the quest or object.
- Found objects > swords, wands, etc
- Rare materials for crafting
- Undiscovered bonus units to aid the player in fighting
- Say a player has a quest that leads him to find a chess piece frozen in a block of ice by the opposing faction. Solving this puzzle and aiding the chess piece enables the use of that piece.
- Spending time on certain resources can improve them
- This should give an edge to resources available for crafting and special bonus items
One thing I've been thinking about is whether to implement a "player" specific character in addition to our army units. This would sort of serve as the engineer (mentioned above), but also as an explorer / swashbuckler type who could quest and also participate in combat. This might add a nice personal touch and further invest the player in the game.
I don't known if any of you have caught the DaVinci's Demons show on Stars, but in this fictional universe, DaVinci sort of operates outside of the warring factions - even though he supports one of them. I like this concept as it opens up the possibility of exploration and questing beyond the overarching "war" of factions.
To further that idea, it might be neat to have a Lego approach to the look of the Adventurer character; where the player picks between some body types / head types / foot types to customize their chess avatar. I think ultimately though you would still have to pick a faction and be colored appropriately at the start of the game.
As for the town management, also i suppose there are many games that could serve as an inspiration, i remember dearly my games of Heroes of Might and Magic. Anybody played that? One interesting thing for exemple was the magic tower : the more floors it had, the more spells were available, and more powerfull. I also liked that the combats were turn based 
Working further on the textures, a question on minerals arises to me. Basically I can think of 3 more or less pleasing styles for minerals.
- Strictly restrict the number of minerals/ores and use card/game board symbols as textures (see screenshot below). I thought of the following equivalences for the ores: spades = coal, clubs = iron, diamonds = diamonds eek and hearts = copper ... maybe something magic?
- 
- To stay with the super clean look we can use letters to indicate the ore, e.g. a big »I« for iron, a »C« for coal and so on. Again, see the screenshot below
- 
- Using sterilized versions of the ore textures. I prepped a few so you get an idea of my intention.
- 
I'm wondering, maybe instead of reusing existing minerals (from a mod), introduce your own, and indeed call them "Hearts", "Clubs"... etc.
What about: Both sides share the four resources, the dark/black side has more usage/advantages from "dark resources" (clubs and spades) and the red/light side prefers the "light resources" (diamonds and hearts). Both factions can try to use the resources of the opponent, but it depends on the players skills how effective they are.
I hadn't even thought about faction based ores! I like Skaldarnar's idea.
Is there any way to make these non-boxy objects? It'd be cool if the ore was maybe just a shiny-highly reflective heart, without the cube at all. Like you're digging through the earth and run into a pocket of these things stuck in a wall.
Is there any way to make these non-boxy objects? It'd be cool if the ore was maybe just a shiny-highly reflective heart, without the cube at all. Like you're digging through the earth and run into a pocket of these things stuck in a wall.
Faction based ores, that are used for different crafts might be very difficult to power balance.
Maybe to start with each ore type is simply found at various levels of scarcity without faction function ... in terms of crafting.
But perhaps in terms of availability or discovery, maybe both sides would have to enter enemy territory to mine certain ore for higher level crafted objects.
For example spade-ore only exists in the Shadowlands (or whatever we call that faction), but is required for higher level crafting for Crimsonites.
Club-ore: common ore for basic functions. Can be found in all Shadowland biomes.
Spade-ore: rare ore for high functions. Can only be found in interior (close to home base) Shadowland biomes.
Heart-ore: common ore for basic functions. Can be found in all Crimsonite biomes.
Diamond-ore: rare ore for high functions. Can only be found in interior (close to home base) Crimsonite biomes.
Basically the power would be balanced equally between factions in terms of needs. It would simply require progressing farther into enemy territory to acquire materials for higher level crafting. More risk, more reward ...
But perhaps in terms of availability or discovery, maybe both sides would have to enter enemy territory to mine certain ore for higher level crafted objects.
For example spade-ore only exists in the Shadowlands (or whatever we call that faction), but is required for higher level crafting for Crimsonites.
Club-ore: common ore for basic functions. Can be found in all Shadowland biomes.
Spade-ore: rare ore for high functions. Can only be found in interior (close to home base) Shadowland biomes.
Heart-ore: common ore for basic functions. Can be found in all Crimsonite biomes.
Diamond-ore: rare ore for high functions. Can only be found in interior (close to home base) Crimsonite biomes.
Basically the power would be balanced equally between factions in terms of needs. It would simply require progressing farther into enemy territory to acquire materials for higher level crafting. More risk, more reward ...
Interesting, I set the club or to be rare and the spade ore to be common
We have to evaluate that... For the start both factions could have the same tools, only cross-defined crafting recipes (if that's even possible). E.g. the shadow faction needs spades and diamonds, the light faction hearts and clubs for the same tool.
Totally doable. Build a block shape and apply it to the mineral block. Seed it in the ground in terrain gen (we used to have that). Would look kinda like Thaumcraft (I think?) crystals. Might be a slight bit less performance friendly to seed a good amount of shaped blocks in the natural world, but probably not too bad.
To start with I'd just do random distribution and do simple resource gathering quests that trigger NPC waves or so, then get fancier from there
