Graywalkers: Purgatory - Update #3 & 4

Couchpotato

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Graywalkers: Purgatory has a few new updates in the last two days. I actually like what I'm hearing about the game, and I recommend everyone at least take a look at it.

The game itself has earned $14,460 of it's $100,000 goal with 29 days left. So without wasting anymore time here are the updates.

Update #3 - "Short and Sweet"

Hello everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend. Things have slowed down around here over the weekend but I’m confident that things will get better this week. We have 30 days more and are at 14%+ Not bad but I’m sure we can do better together. Our update today will be a bit short and with only a few points to share. Not to worry, we’re just taking the time to prepare better updates for the next few days as we delve deeper into the mechanics of the game itself.
Update #4 - "Emergent" Gameplay

"Emergent" Gameplay

Ferdinand Joseph Fernandez - Lead Engineer (@AnomalusUndrdog)

So why are we tacking on another one of those buzzwords in our pitch? Actually this idea came separately from the Graywalkers game.

Before, I was thinking of making an action RPG where depletion of food sources actually matter. To pull that off, you'd need a working model of supply lines, just like what you'd see in a real-time strategy (RTS) game.

And from there, you'd need everything else an RTS uses: harvester units, resource-providing structures, resource storage structures, etc.

Imagine such things in an RPG.

Well, sure, you do see farms and farmers in your typical role-playing game. But they're just for show, right? They don't really do "work" work.

So I thought, why not make them really work, like an RTS would? But still play the game as an RPG?

In effect, you'd be playing the game as an RPG character, where other AI (that is, some NPCs) are effectively the "RTS players" in that world. Those "RTS players" would probably be a king, or a town governor, perhaps.

So, in essence, you'd get to play an RPG where:

1. When sieging a fortress, you could just let the defenders starve instead of making a costly attack.

2. You can destroy a faction's supply lines to disrupt their economy, thus weakening their city for an invasion.

3. When factions wage war with each other, you'd see territorial lines shift back and forth as they struggle.

I pitched this idea to Russell and he was pretty excited about it. So far, we have a working plan on how to merge it properly to the current design for Graywalkers. We've also been drawing inspiration on how other games do it, notably Mount and Blade.

I also did a bit of research on making a believable economy in fantasy settings, and two books I found helpful were Farm, Forge and Steam - A Nuts and Bolts Guide to Civilisations, and Grain Into Gold - A Fantasy World Economy, at least for a start.

So, it's not like this is innovative; certainly it's been done before by other developers (and with quite an amount of success I might say). But we do think it's rarely done, and kind of a missed opportunity that most game developers aren't catching on.
More information.
 
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Hi, just want to clarify about the emergent part:

I think the RTS analogy was not the best way to explain it.

The game's basically separated into a world map aka Regionscape (where you let your squads move from town to town), and a more close-up view aka Areascape (i.e. the screenshots we've shown so far), where you move each squad member, interact with the NPCs, and engage in turn-based combat.

Now, while in the world map, think of it as there being an automated grand strategy game happening all around you.

So while you control travelling squads of mercenaries, the NPCs (and the factions) also move on their own. They have their own AI and will pursue their goals, with or without you. They do the stuff required to keep the economy/politics simulation running.
 
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Hmm sounds ambitious and at the same time makes me want to see it in action. I can just imagine the scripting it will take.
 
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Good to hear it has turnbased combat. Hope to see more before i decide to kick in.
 
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Yes, the RPG Turn-based aspect is still the foundation of the game.

What would you like to see or know? Maybe we can help show you what it is you are looking for. Thanks for considering us though.

Good to hear it has turnbased combat. Hope to see more before i decide to kick in.
 
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Yes, it is indeed a bit ambitious...and it will definitely be something worth seeing if we get it into action. It will be challenging but we have been planning for quite some time now for this feature and hopefully that will make its implementation and integration with the other components easier. We do have some of the basic frameworks for it already including a base AI system, pathfinding, decision making trees and a few other components that will be useful in completing it. A lot more work still needs to be done though but i believe we're on the right track.

Hmm sounds ambitious and at the same time makes me want to see it in action. I can just imagine the scripting it will take.
 
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