Welcome to update #2 of the Kanoogi platform and Intergalactic Space Empire project. If you would like previous issues of this newsletter, please just reply back and let me know which one.
So here we go, another update, and I will tell you, I know this is a pretty strange thing to be sending out, because you haven’t even seen the game yet. I think I’ll get some screenshots together in the near future, but it’s still early, you can imagine that I’m a little shy about doing that.
I’m going to dive straight into some questions, and I’m answering these, more or less, in the order they were received.
Question: I’m hoping there is some way to use flowfields to do space battles. Lots of little ships huddled around a center base ship with some equations to steer them are probably better than calculating paths for all of them separately. Unless the game is planned to be full 3d motion paths (something akin to Homeworld) then I guess this would not work.
Chris - Ya, flowfields would be awesome, and the reason I say that is because I haven’t implemented a traditional RTS pathfinding solution yet. I’m still thinking about what would make the most sense for a space game. So, for example, I think it’s okay for ships (especially fighters) to pass through each other (which is what they do right now) like in TA and SupCom, but that doesn’t feel right for the bigger ships. But if you recall, often pathfinding makes the unit movement feel pretty mechanical and not very fluid, so my thinking is to try and make the ships movement more forgiving. I think flowfields would work for this, but I also want physical collisions for the big capital ships, something that has not been done in any of my previous games. I think smashing a large ship into another would be pretty epic, so I’m still thinking about the best way I can do that, and still satisfy the other design goals. Flowfield pathfinding is pretty close to the top of the list though.
Question: Out of curiosity are the graphics going to be simplified 3d or some form of 2d with hardware acceleration (probably for smooth transforms). Most people usually played a lot of your previous RTS games zoomed out so we are pretty used to tactical icons. Just wondering if we can zoom in on the action.
Chris - Great question, and surprisingly, this is a 2D game! I can’t remember if I mentioned this in the Gamesbeat story, but this is my first ever 2D game… yes, ever! OK, in truth, when I was working on my TRS-80 back in the early 80’s, I did a bunch of stuff in 2D, but every single game I did professionally, including Hardball II (which looked 2D but was actually 3D under the covers), was mathematically 3D. The Hardball II story is fun and would take some explaining, but trust me on this, you can’t get a ball to bounce properly and detect the back wall without modelling it in 3D. Well, you sort of can, but I just thought it wouldn’t play or look very good, but I digress! Back to the question… So, this game is totally 2D. And for a strategy game on this scale, I think it makes sense and works pretty well. And as you mention, when you pull back and see things while zoomed out, everything more or less becomes 2D. So, in IGSE, you can see a ship at 1:1 zoom, and pull all the way out to 1,000,000:1, ya 1 million to 1. This will show you the entire galaxy (a baby model of the milky way) which contains, at present, 100 stars instead of 400 billion. I think that’s enough star systems for now, but we’ll see. Each star system has a bunch of planets and asteroid belts. And the test map that I am playing with has a small test galaxy on the left, and a large randomly generated galaxy on the right, so you have to scroll to see them. There’s some room to stretch your legs in this game.
Question: 6.) What kind of sacrifices needed to be made to make this game work on a browser?
Chris - Without a doubt, there are some pretty significant sacrifices, but it’s not all bad, meaning, the sacrifices aren’t as painful as I thought they might be when I first started the project. The biggest sacrifice is not performance, like one might expect, but rather it’s the use of textures. Textures for models, the UI, sky boxes, etc, are awesome, but when you don’t have them, it creates a very different experience, but as you’ll find out, you can get over this pretty quickly. I find that fascinating. But even Minecraft, which is now famous for its 8bit, and rather simple textures, does in fact need textures, and those textures are a very important part of that game. So how is it possible to create a game without them? This is all part of the fun, and the challenge of creating this game, and one that I wasn confident about, and still had me a little worried. The theory is, that gameplay is king, and that even without textures it is possible to make a fun game. So the pressure is on, and we’re going to find out.
Other sacrifices get a lot smaller, but they aren’t zero. Things like, always being online to play, and having to create a game that supports a mechanism to pay for server time. In other words, it’s not using a tried and true model of charging once for the whole game. If you stop and think about it, as soon as you host a game on a server, you need to change the business model, and though I’m not super comfortable with this change, it’s one that I’m working through and hope I can find the right set of compromises for. That’s perhaps a whole update in and of itself.
Question: When this goes live, how will it be monetized? Will it be a subscription service or will it have microtransactions?
Chris - When I wrote the previous answer, I didn’t even look at the next one, and coincidentally, it hits on the point that i was starting to dig into. I’ll try and answer it as directly as I can. Right now, the game would be classified as free to play. I am currently looking at opt-in advertising (you watch a video to generate some in-game currency) and/or you can just pay to unlock the feature. If you are reading this and you have an opinion, one way or the other, please let me know, I would find it very valuable to know how you all feel about it, and perhaps, what you prefer.
Question: How will this game look in terms of graphics?
Chris - I think the easiest way to answer this is to simply include a screenshot of the game, as it currently looks today, so I’ll try and do that in an upcoming update. The graphics are very simple, and they are kinda old school like early polygon games from the 90’s, but really kinda sit in a category all their own. For example, I use shaders for things like the stars, which looks absolutely stunning, but that’s in sharp contrast the ships, which are more like vector graphics. The first reaction I get (and perhaps I’m being self conscious about them) is that friends and acquaintances I show the game to are a little surprised and expect more (and specifically textures), but I know the graphics will go through a lot of changes and the final game will look quite a bit better (it’s not quite fair to call it programmer art, but it kinda is). I think it’s going to be great to get your feedback on it in the near future. What is a huge positive about this graphical style is that they render blazingly fast, and the game runs on most devices at 60 FPS. And when projectiles are flying, and there are explosions everywhere, you can quickly forget about the simple untextured graphics. There’s a little magic in there, and I’m watching it grow.
OK, last question for now, but there are more to come next time…
Question: Will the controls be with mouse and keyboard? Controller? Touch screen? Or all?
Chris - The game works on both PC (Keyboard/Mouse) and Mobile (Touchscreen). This is no small feat, and some things are easier on touch vs. mouse or vice versa, but I think ultimately many of you will enjoy the PC the most, as it’s my guess that most of you who have joined this beta are PC gamers. I also know that some of you will just be amazed at how well it runs on your mobile device, whether that’s an iPhone or Android, and some will get a kick out of playing on iPad and Chromebooks. It’s probably ridiculous what I’m doing, but with your help, I can break new ground and create a game that can be played on any device… and that’s around 2.5 Billion globally. It's a worthy goal.
Until next time...
Chris Taylor
el Presidente and game designer
Kanoogi Inc.
Statistics: Posted by Cuddles — 18 Jun 2019, 09:13
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