Meanwhile in Romania ...

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

At the moment all map backgrounds (locations) are handcrafted, while objects and AIs are placed in a simple editor.

With time we will do a proper editor, but even now anyone can do his own maps. While there are some tech issues (hosting etc) to be solved, our plan is to have a seamless way for the players to create maps and share them with other players, directly in the game.

As for actual generated maps, I'm pretty sure we'll have "generated gameplay" at some point. In other words, you could play the same map in different scenarios and different tactical situations.

Actually generating the environments (walls, rooms, floors, doors, etc) seems much more difficult from my point of view, but once we get some other features out of the way, we'll see what can be done. The issue for me is to not just throw stuff on the screen, but have it actually make sense.

Sounds good, the option to add content gives it better longevity. And you're right about the maps; just moving enemy positions around and maybe player point of entry makes for good variation. Frozen Synapse kinda gets away with "random" generation but the maps certainly don't make sense.

[elanaiba]

I don't want this to come bad about Frozen Synapse - which I absolutely love and have played a lot and gifted to a lot of friends

I think their maps make a lot of sense in their SF lore and with their chosen visual style. Also because a big part of their game is about quasi-competitive multiplayer, having an even playing ground is perhaps more important than having a believable one.

For us, of course, its a different.

[Arclight]

Oh no, that's no slight against FS at all; the maps are perfect for that game. But I think that if you're going with a more realistic feel, like you seem to be doing, a randomised map doesn't make as much sense. You can create a lot of interesting tactical situations by crafting an environment that might only rarely show up in environments generated on the fly. Different games can take different aproaches and work equally well.

What I mean is, I think you got your heads on straight. Looking forward to seeing more of this.

[elanaiba]

Here's another little screnshot, with more WIP interface and another WIP level .... some sort of house

[Arclight]

News seems to be spreading.

The Flare Path: Curious Rover

[Herr-Berbunch]

Rainbow Synapse

I'd be chuffed with what they've written, Dan.

[elanaiba]

Yeah i've been running around like a little kid, pleased with myself and basking in the news. Or something

Whats interesting is that we absolutely did not contact RPS yet, so Tim Stone found out about our game on his own, probably through either this forum or simhq.com or wargamer.com

Power to gaming communities

[Dowly]

Great to see you guys are getting noticed.

[Jimbuna]

Looking great Dan

[whyme943]

I thought it would be news about Ubisoft romania, possibly a new game. But this is good too

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

Actually generating the environments (walls, rooms, floors, doors, etc) seems much more difficult from my point of view, but once we get some other features out of the way, we'll see what can be done. The issue for me is to not just throw stuff on the screen, but have it actually make sense.

What about adding few different furniture layouts for some of the larger rooms?
At the start of the level, the game would pick one from 3-5 layouts?

[Pintea]

Originally Posted by Dowly

What about adding few different furniture layouts for some of the larger rooms?
At the start of the level, the game would pick one from 3-5 layouts?

Hi (I'm the programmer ). I thought about generating random missions some time ago, and from an "architectural" standpoint is not really a problem. Like you said, we could have some prefabricated rooms/small layouts that we try to fit coherently into a given space and many other "tricks" done in such situations.

The difficult problem would be generating a coherent gameplay situation, a scenario that actually makes sense, with preferably non-linear flow, and probably Dan can point out more issues here.
But we like a challenging problem so we're probably going to look into it some time in the near future.

[Dowly]

Finnish Dome.fi released a short article too:
http://dome.fi/pelit/ajankohtaista/s...e-taktikointia
(in Finnish obviously)

[elanaiba]

Wow, nice Thanks, Dowly, I presume you had some role in this?

[Dowly]

You have no proof!!

*Runs away*