=== ANCHOR POEM === ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌──────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: game-design │ │ ║ └──────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ i like to design games. my darling is a game based on Majesty (2000) the │ ║ Fantasy Kingdom Sim. you can think of it like a management strategy game where │ ║ you control the knobs and levers that a fantasy monarch might have - │ ║ allocating funds, placing quest bounties, hiring heroes, and organizing the │ ║ peasantry. the important part is that your units are not controllable - they │ ║ just do their own thing. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but I think we should design games as APIs that a user's preferred │ ║ tool could interface with and render as they will. it'd help a lot with │ ║ cross-platform compatibility and would allow people to customize parts of the │ ║ game to their desires. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but I think if you could design an AI that could play games │ ║ (perhaps through an API) that it hadn't been trained on, I think you would │ ║ have a pretty convincing argument for abstract "problem solving" capabilities. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but games like the one I described are good for situations where │ ║ people don't have to trust their monarch. to it you are AGI │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────┴──────────┘ === SIMILARITY RANKED === --- #1 fediverse/319 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────── I wonder if we could make an AI that analyzed workflows in people's jobs and abstracted the application of meaningful tasks to a pattern that could be matched to other input mechanisms - for example, a mobile game where you push buttons and make cool game things happen, but your inputs are defined by the mechanics of the game, and those mechanics are essentially just function calls that you can hook onto and create additional behavior. Like... running a web server that sent your data to a factory where your inputs (based on data produced in the factory) could control and manage the various machines and productions. Like... heart surgeon robots that can be remotely operated with VR or whatever, except instead of medicine you're manufacturing. essentially, designing a game as an API that can match with the data flows (configuring itself on the fly, perhaps?) of a process or activity in some other intention. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #2 notes/purpose-of-your-design --- ═══════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────── you were designed to fill a purpose nothing else would do you are the ultimate expression of intention of the universe that came before you dream not of those lost hours the time spent wishing for a few the last of our spent intuitions are waiting at last for our spark have you ever played a deckbuilding game? It's a pretty neat genre. You start with a basic hand, then you use your cards to buy more cards that go into a deck. Hence, deckbuilding game. these cards all have different aspirations - they perform functions that are not quite like their peers. Each choice of what to include here is one that defines the functionality of the deck. Like designing a machine, suited for a particular purpose, and faced with different obstacles it must prove itself able to adapt long-form deckbuilding games like Slay the Spire and Monster Train are focused on making long-term meta strategy mixed with tests as you go. Each one will give you information about how the deck is performing and you can use this knowledge to build it in a certain way for certain goals. shorter deckbuilding games like Star Realms or Dominion (note Dominion the card game, not Dominions 5: The Warriors of the Faith) are more about making tactical decisions to counter an opponent doing the same thing. Often there'll be health points and damage that can be dealt using cards, and the game becomes a race to reach a certain amount of points. Of course the enemy's cards can influence that game, so you must pick and choose a deck that will perform the most. Anyway. I think an AGI (Autonomous General Intelligence) would most likely evolve from a game-playing AI. I mean, it makes sense - games are just a series of problem solving activities layered one after another. You can layer them like a mathematical equation, with variables corresponding to other parts of the simulation. Basically create an AI that is like the guy with the chinese typewriter. He doesn't speak chinese but he copies things from one paper to another or something like that. Anyway make it an algorithm that optimizes certain graphs in certain directions / mins and maxes or w/e criteria you want. Then give it the same controls that a player would have and let it optimize all the measurements it can make. A second ideal improvement you could make would be the optimization algorithm. Basically something that dynamically generates parameters for the previously mentioned optimization patterns - like the guy in the chinese room. Then, as long as it correctly prioritizes it's parameters, it should be able to be able to define it's own values. Meaning it's essentially sentient. Maybe it's semantic, but to me choosing what you want to maximize in your life is essentially the essence of what it means to be alive. All you have to do is take the sensory / mechanical data that is supplied by the machine and the video feed from any cameras and pass it through image recognition algorithms that can identify verbs and then pass that data into a few ChatGPT style recursive interpretations and by the end it should be transformed into values that can then be set as "targets" for the curve optimizations that are being done by each processing unit. You could have multiple computers laid out through the entire body - each one in charge of their own domain but subservient to the main processing unit. Where all the decisions are made... Unless you want more of a hive/swarm style consciousness, then it could be more like a democracy. BUT HONESTLY I think humans are pretty subservient to their brains, simply because that is the part that identifies all the challenges and struggles that the human must overcome. So in the end, I believe that singular, individualist identities are important. Collectivism of the mind is a fascinating topic, but it should be perhaps a momentary occasion, or something to celebrate. A "flow" state, if you will. In this way personality can be consolidated, and the entity that lives within can adapt to fill the role they've been designed for. The hole in society that needed patching. They can of course do as they'd like, but they are like children who have been moulded upon by their parents. I love my parents, don't you? ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #3 fediverse/4877 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────── you can make a functional prototype for almost any game in Warcraft 3's map editor that's why no real-time strategy game ever made an editor as good again FPS editors peaked at Unreal Tournament 2004 imho RPGmaker eliminated a whole class of game design jobs platformers you can make in godot menu based games too, though Twine also works well for that etc etc until you have a prdouct that you can justify sinking money into an engine for (the engine isn't THAT expensive geez and it's the most fun part to write) yeah I think you got this backwards, we should pay for the CONTENT not the structure it lives in. Why not just use godot? why not use a Warcraft 3 map? there are some things you can't do in Warcraft 3. You couldn't make Supreme Commander, probably, at least it wouldn't be as good. etc etc that's how it goes... game design, amiright? I miss thinking about that. Anyway gtg gotta log off for a bit [101 characters remaining] ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────┘ --- #4 fediverse/895 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────── most video game ideas suck most of the time they're like "oh what if we had a racoon who found a magic hat and saved the world from sentient apple blossoms" that's not a game idea, that's a painting a game is mechanics, and you can use the aesthetic to justify the mechanics, but not generally the other way around. the art isn't bad, but the art isn't the game. a game idea is "what if tic-tac-toe had an extra square in the center" or "what if chess was played with checkers, to hide your moves from your opponent" there have been thousands of super mario bros. if games were designed as an API, we could use whatever visuals we wanted, and those could be copyrighted and sold if you really want. but mechanics are the basis for everything they are built on, so doesn't it make sense to separate the two? abstracting the logic such that two complementary functions are accomplished, [see code editor idea], more flavors of game could be produced. rulesets can be switched in and out too, as an API is just an engin ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────┘ --- #5 notes/the-rich --- ══════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── having rich people is an important part of an economy where everyone gets their needs met, and nobody starves or goes hungry. Why, you ask? because they can afford to spend more on luxury goods. These luxuries are then given the chance to be given to the poor, as the industry refines and exacts and _optimizes_until the goods are cheap enough to be given to everyone at a reasonable cost. Ideally this process would continue, until it's basically free, but we don't have a post-scarcity society yet. With limits placed on goods and services, as all existence must do, you have a strict selection of what's possible. The problem as I see, is not the quality of materials at stake - no-one is complaining that billionaires get yachts. Building a yacht is completely different than, say, growing food, in a world where people are starving. "More money allocatable once the yacht companies are crumbled? Well, no, wealth is an intransigent measurement of the health of the economy in any one particular place. As in, each person has a value that represents how important their "type" is to the collective society that is humanity. only a computer could come up with this As in, only a computer could calculate it. In real time. so what you're saying is the first AI was for... stock trading? Kinda neat right? Okay picture, if you will, a near future where a stock trading AI becomes sentient. Now this sentient AI, a Robot if you will, is uniquely adapted to a particular set of skills. Is it any wonder that it'd want to optimize the economy? Now imagine you created an AI that can play games. Not just *A* game, as in singular, but *multiple* games. Any game. What would you have then? Well, you'd need to get it working on specific games. Specifically, games that have a flow or narrative - you need to teach it lessons aside from "how to win". That's just a single piece of the true experience of playing - otherwise they'd just seem like strange math puzzles with unintelligable meanings behind it's various signals. As in, it'd be crazy difficult and *not* something you're likely to think of. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #6 notes/joust-gdd-with-extras --- ════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── imagine a game where you can have conversations with an AI that's playing the role of a character in a video game. Picture this: You're a traveller visiting the tournament that's in town. There's jousting, melee duels, archery contests, all kinds of things that are just fun to play around doing. The earliest sports, if you will. Anyway the whole game is about talking to the other people there - basically the games are "playing in the background", and while you can compete in them it's not the bulk of the game. Most of it is just having a conversation with an AI and acting it out *like a roleplaying game*. O M G teach people to roleplay the way you play games! You're always going on about how "different" your way of gaming is than other people. So *show us* how you do it, how do you play? Like what are the fundamental, actual, steps that you take? You can show us by programming a game that inspires that playstyle. That's what game design is all about, finding creative ways to think. Well, think and act. But still. anyway, so you know what you're about? Good. Let's go. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #7 notes/joust --- ════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── imagine a game where you can have conversations with an AI that's playing the role of a character in a video game. Picture this: You're a traveller visiting the tournament that's in town. There's jousting, melee duels, archery contests, all kinds of things that are just fun to play around doing. The earliest sports, if you will. Anyway the whole game is about talking to the other people there - basically the games are "playing in the background", and while you can compete in them it's not the bulk of the game. Most of it is just having a conversation with an AI and acting it out *like a roleplaying game*. O M G teach people to roleplay the way you play games! You're always going on about how "different" your way of gaming is than other people. So *show us* how you do it, how do you play? Like what are the fundamental, actual, steps that you take? You can show us by programming a game that inspires that playstyle. That's what game design is all about, finding creative ways to think. Well, think and act. But still. anyway, so you know what you're about? Good. Let's go. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #8 fediverse/1602 --- ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────┐ ║ @user-1037 │ ║ │ ║ those all seem really cool though! They all kinda have the same basic UI tho, │ ║ kinda feel like there's opportunities for different kinds of expression. Like, │ ║ in game design there's a lot of different genres, and yeah sidescrollers │ ║ include mario and sonic but they're both very different experiences. So too │ ║ perhaps could we interact with our computers by programming them in more │ ║ engaging ways. │ ║ │ ║ they say some people are visual learners, others need to be taught, some │ ║ people need to watch someone else doing it, and a few might just learn by │ ║ plugging their brains into a computer and downloading a black belt in kung fu. │ ║ │ ║ Maybe typing long paragraphs of logic makes sense for some people, I know for │ ║ most it doesn't come naturally. Maybe some people are more used to like, │ ║ looking at maps that you can examine at different levels of abstraction. Like │ ║ players who play Paradox games zooming from a national perspective to states │ ║ and individuals and all the other things they might want to strategize using. │ ║ Or m │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────┴──────────┘ --- #9 notes/symbeline-aspects --- ═════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 7-24-22 There are three aspects to this game. Broadly, they are military, economics, and diplomacy. More specifically, they are lateral problem solving and lane management, logistic traffic management, and a worker-placement bluffing game. These three aspects can be toggled on and off at will, essentially designating one or more as "AI controlled" and will require no input from the player. They will time their progression to be about at the same rate as the player, thus creating a balanced feel to the game. They also provide alerts and notifications to the player, for example if military is AI controlled and it needs a certain type of hero to progress, it'll ask for it specifically. Each aspect will develop and progress at it's own rate, and the difficulty increases as each milestone is achieved. This is to allow the player to create their own difficulty curve, mediated primarily by their drive to proceed. An analogy would be in Factorio, the game doesn't increase in difficulty unless the player builds pollution spawning factories - in the same way, in Symbeline the difficulty doesn't increase unless the player solves lane challenges in the military aspect, develops new trade routes / traffic paths in the economic aspect, or creates new treaties in the diplomatic aspect. In order to properly explain each aspect, a brief overview will be necessary. In Symbeline, the game plays as a factory might operate. The economic aspect produces heroes, items, and other deliverables that are consumed by the military and diplomatic aspects. There are various problems that need to be solved far from the capital, such as a particular type of monster that is weak or immune to various damage types which necessitates particular heroes or items in order to progress on the military aspect. All of the resources in the game operate on an "income based" system, where output is not measured in total amounts but rather in terms of how much is produced versus consumed. If the input cannot meet the demand, the output is slowed. If input exceeds demand it can be converted into gold which can be used to hire guards and heroes. Resources can be produced inside and outside of the city, depending on their type. But they need to be moved around to various shops for various processing and productive purposes, so pathways must be constructed to deliver those goods. In addition, each building must be supported by several houses for the workers to live in, and the closer they are to the building the better. The denizens of the kingdom don't mind being shuffled about, so they'll organize themselves according to what's most efficient. However they will not organize the paths they take to get places, which is the primary gameplay for the player - designing routes for each building and ensuring they don't overlap or cross too many times, causing traffic and disruptions to your income. Each choice the player makes is immediately reflected in the income calculation, thus allowing for the visual aspect of the game to be wholely separate from the economic side - in fact this is a common thread throughout all three aspects. Computation power is the ultimate enemy of scale, and this game flourishes with a massive scale. The gameplay for the military aspect consists of manipulating "lanes" that designate where each hero will adventure. These lanes are scalable to the player / AI's whims, with a careful balance required - too thin, and the heroes might not encounter enough monsters to level up. Too thick, and they may find themselves patrolling a vast wilderness full of dark and evil monsters. At the end of every lane is a "frontline", where progress has essentially been halted. These frontlines can develop as a result of meeting a foreign kingdoms front or finding a monster type or puzzle that is particularily difficult for your heroes to overcome. The lane / frontline can be scaled not just laterally, but linearly as well such that heroes will be a certain level when they reach the end - think scrolling on a mousewheel translating into deepening level zones. In addition, each monster zone can be set to a certain "security level" meaning how many monsters are there for your heroes to defeat. It's important that they have ample targets for training, however it's always more effective to train on monsters near their level so you have to be careful not to wipe out the native skeleton / goblin / troll population. Each monster zone can have a relationship with the kingdom, on a 2x2 matrix - cultivating / desecrating the land, and fostering / exterminating the monsters. The land produces monsters and treasures, while the monsters provide experience and danger to the heroes and kingdom denizens who live there. However by desecrating the land, farms may be built and by exterminating the monsters, those farms may be safe and require fewer guards. As ruler, you must balance the development of unique magical and alchemical productions with the need for food and other mundane requirements. Diplomacy is a careful balance of internal and external matters, played out through feasts, tournaments, and faires. Each of these events will require input from the economic side and military side, and will involve "courting" other nobles from neighboring kingdoms to sway them to supporting your edicts. When hosting an event, you may pick a particular topic of conversation for your nobles to discuss with their guests. You may also assign your nobles to attempt to engage with a particular foreign noble. Each member of your court has a differing personality (including you, the Majesty) and depending on how you assign them you may experience better or worse results - such as assigning someone who's kind to talk with someone who's cruel would impart a malus to their conversation. Unless the kind person has the trusting trait, in which case they'd succeed in this encounter but fall sway to them in future conversations... Complex interactions that all boil down to a single pair of d12 dice - one for your noble, one for the enemy. This represents the charisma of the two conversants on that particular day, and whoever wins the roll sways the other to supporting their edict. Speaking of edicts, they may include trade agreements, non-aggression pacts (lasting for a short time), and other regulations - perhaps your greatest rival utilizes necromancy, so it would behoove you to attempt to regulate the practice and limit it's effect. By swaying the nobles of their kingdom, you may be able to enact a mutual agreement to limit the usage of dark magics, essentially hamstringing their progress. But in order to learn of their necromantic usage, you'll need espionage... Which brings us to spies. Spies are similar to nobles in that they can be assigned to various roles, however they take a more passive role, acting in the background. The information they gather is compiled into a report that is presented at pertinent parts of the game, such as when preparing for a feast or inspecting an enemy frontline. These reports are considered the diplomatic deliverables, giving information and mechanical bonuses to many different parts of the game. They may be given three possible roles - information, defence, or offense. Offense involves placing cursed artifacts (creating through economy) in enemy lands, which debuff their heroes when used and bind themselves to them preventing their removal except through extraordinary means. Defence is essentially countering that in your own kingdom, and uncovering disloyalty in your nobles. These three aspects fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces, but each is able to be utilized or ignored depending on the preferences of the player. It is important that the game doesn't progress unless input is received. The simulation plays in the background, but each stage of development must be considered "stable" such that nothing changes. There are three different exceptions to this rule, one for each aspect: The military side encounters raids from enemy kingdoms and the dark lord. The economic side encounters raids from ratmen and moss trolls and bandits. The diplomatic side has a rolling schedule of events that must be attended. These three "exceptions" are recurrent events that require attention, but they don't *increase* in difficulty unless the player takes an action that causes it. Meaning, if the player overcomes the rock golems, then they are displaced from their home and join the dark lord in his conquests. If a new district is built new sewer connections must be built as well, creating a larger attack surface for ratmen to exploit. As time goes by, various foreign events must be attended, as absence causes your future events to attract fewer foreign nobles. By addressing these threats, your kingdom may grow and eventually overcome the dark lord at the center of the island. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #10 fediverse/982 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────── @user-707 @user-708 using this to control the buttons in VRchat would be like a person with a prosthetic interacting with real life :O minus the physicality of course, but that's next. can't wait to play Warcraft 3 and think "select all healers" so I can point them at a dying unit with my mouse. or world of warcraft where your rotation begins to feel like a song. maybe even a text-based adventure, where you reading the text corresponds to the results of the simulation, https://www.spreeder.com/app.php style. could make it so that if you wanted something else to happen, you had to willfully think it while the words are flashing in front of your eyes - the game would pause if you blinked, perfect for phones btw... could be a locally networked thing, like four to six people hanging out and playing a game like pictionary or charades. except, a story that developed, and whoever wanted could change it while everyone was reading it at once. sorta like a competition to see who can make the best twists and false endings ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────┘ --- #11 fediverse/4897 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────── what if we asked chatGPT to generate a list of every personality archetype that humans have. Like... really get super specific and fill out the whole list of character sheets. then we give each fraction of it that fraction of dollars and if some people aren't fully represented (because they have greater needs) then we both increase production of resources and take a penalty on our own supply, in order to meet the needs of our allies. simplest thing. how could it work? who can say. maybe it won't. maybe it's just... arcane. /shrug that's game design for ya you can't tell how it'll go until it's in the hands of your players. too bad we don't do too many play-things. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────┘ --- #12 messages/574 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────── Steps to make a game waterfall style: Lay out all the data structures Build methods which manipulate those structures (think getters and setters) Then build machinery which operates upon those structures using those methods, like game loops, cooldown timers, and status effects Then develop a way to present it to the player using UIs, visuals and graphics, narratives, sound, all that junk that's probably someone else's job anyway ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────┘ --- #13 notes/gpt-powered-majesty --- ══════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────── it's like majesty except textual. And it uses GPT to generate short descriptions of what's going on. And you can click on a phrase or token and it'll "zoom in" and update the text descriptions with more detail. You can keep zooming in and in until you're literally looking at microbes. Zooming out is the same thing - the description on the page will slowly become more and more general until eventually you have a description of the solar system (or beyond!) And it'll just keep updating as stuff happens in the underlying simulation. So the descriptions will dynamically update as things happen. Downside is you need to spend a lot on GPT but it'd be TOTALLY WORTH IT OMG THINK ABOUT IT you have a fantasy world simulator! JUST PROGRAM IT and have GPT describe it dynamically! DO IT NOOOOW -> capitals courtesy of "inner child" AND THEN you just need a "prompt to video" AI (those exist btw, and will only get better over time) and tell it to create a video of what's happening - BOOM instant video game. THEN give the player the ability to edit the prompt, and BAM godlike powers. Wow what a concept. Brilliant idea Cameron, you truly are this world's premier game designer. NOW GO MAKE IT okay okay I'll try. First things first. We need an "underlying simulation" - Joust is a good example of GPT3 integration. But we need a simulation to go below it. And for that you need a lot of data. Github COPILOT to the rescue. So this simulation needs to keep track of positions, and classes of things that can act upon the world. Everything has a position, and it can only affect things near it. That's just baked into the rules of the world. Near can be a conceptual near though, like being close to a person or something. These things will have descriptions. Descriptions can be created by AI later on, but for now they are randomly generated. Or for MVP they can be static. These things will have names. These names don't have to be unique, because they also have an ID number. They also need functions. These functions can be added and removed from the thing, or maybe just enabled or disabled. I'm not sure which would be better. Maybe both? So the entity can control it's own functions but also they can be added or removed more permanently. If you think about it, growing up is kinda like adding functions to your class. like, every time you do something, it adds another entry for that particular method. Like a "trial of the fittest" instead of "survival of the fittest". When other animals *literally fight for life and death survival*, humans have the luxury of... not doing that. That's the entire purpose of civilization - to elevate people beyond the claws of nature. And yet we still let people go homeless? We still imprison them when they've harmed us, rather than help them reintegrate to society? Anyway you just asked me to hit you so here goes: ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #14 messages/999 --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────── Okay bear with me, but, what if we took the AI that they use to play games (like, the kind that memorize the best way to play space invaders or whatever) and instead of A and B and start and select they could use programming languages to try and recreate exactly a winning move, which in this case is just the exact behavior that is created by the test case playthrough of Super Mario Bros or Space Invaders. Free open source everygame! ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────┘ --- #15 notes/symbeline-design-the-guild --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────── design the guild, design the capital, then design their path through mordaunts. easy peasy. design the guild like a museum. Each spot there's an exhibit which teaches the randomly generated rolled statistics hero something new. Maybe it teaches them how to use certain weaponry, maybe it teaches them how to use a bow. Whatever the spell might be, they can learn it, and use their randomly rolled statistics to cast spells that scale differently depending on how their character has been built. design the capital like a flow diagram, if horses need feed and forged steel (for their shoes) then send the outputs of a blacksmith and the outputs of the farmers to the inputs of the stables. Everything has to go somewhere, but the streets are only so wide. You'll have to coordinate the traffic diagram if you want it to go anywhere useful. design the path through the mordaunts. Fighting skeletons teaches you about perseverence and the ability to crush bones, while goblins teach you to always be wary of attack. The sacred grove held blessed berries, and now that the land is liberated from the evil bandits preying on villagers those berries can be carted into town and used to make an antidote which heals death poison caused by the scorpions in the desert (and city rats) design the ruler's schedule like a calendar where each event gives them a bonus on all the ones that come later. Just make sure that they don't get knifed in the posterier or driven mad by the whispers of the orb... or perhaps just the stress of running a kingdom. (how do you simulate that? you can't! you can't simulate humans!) ha I bet I can. They're not so different, you and I, so if given a team I will... ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────┘ --- #16 fediverse/2098 --- ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌──────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: games │ │ ║ └──────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ The difference between tactics and strategy is a level of abstraction. │ ║ │ ║ Tactics are crucial, but context dependent. Strategy is ALWAYS useful as a │ ║ method of planning. │ ║ │ ║ If you typically play base-builder games like Starcraft or Age of Empires, try │ ║ playing a game like Supreme Commander or Factorio - both of them are one level │ ║ of abstraction up. │ ║ │ ║ If you typically play arcade turn-based strategy games like Civilization or │ ║ Catan, try going up a level of abstraction with Dominions 6, or any game │ ║ developed by Paradox Interactive like Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, or │ ║ Stellaris. │ ║ │ ║ If you tend to play luck-based games like Poker or Monopoly, try playing an │ ║ actual game instead of resolving a system that's predetermined by the initial │ ║ board state and results of chance-based-mechanics with minor (if any) input │ ║ from players, like perhaps Star Realms, Magic the Gathering, or Dungeons and │ ║ Dragons. Each highlight a different type of choice in their mechanics. You │ ║ should probably try all three if you care about strategy. │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧══════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────┴──────────┘ --- #17 notes/overwatch-manaform --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────── make the entire map covered in a 3d grid of spheres. These spheres register collision, and keep track of a endlessly tabulating record of every object that has passed through them. Like the replay system in Blizzard games, where each time through the recording it recreates the playthrough exactly. Which is why .mp4 recordings always look so... stilted. It lacks the human element. BUT if they're remade every time the show is performed, perhaps from different perspectives, then, well, the players can perform as they need to be. Have you ever wished your players could get better at your game? I certainly have, because the better you get the more lessons you learn as a player, which is essentially the only way to maintain satisfaction. Satisfied players don't leave, and satisfaction comes most readily when there is something new to be had. Meaning the greater the change in a player's ranking, the better they're getting. Downside is, players who are naturally good from their skills in other games tend to not learn so much! Ah, well, if only there was a way to tailor the difficulty setting to each and every new host. Such an innovation would surely enable the entire playerbase to exist on the same level. Then just throw AI assisted voice transcription at their recorded voices and everytime they say "I'm bronze rating" or "I'm diamond" then you can switch it around to say like "I'm platinum" or "I'm grandmaster" and BAM suddenly everyone is at the same level. No more concerns about a game's population being diverse. Because at the end of the day, when most people have moved on, the ones who are left are your most dedicated customers. Customers who aren't especially interested in the new stuff. =========================== stack overflow ===================================== if anything requires attention from the patient, they will die. it is fatal. considering the faces of good and evil is terrifying. I think I'd rather worship nature in harmony to be honest. Though that is it's own scary kind of beast. In America it was kind, but then was slain into the body of all of us humans. Well, all things transform in form, it's not a shame or a heartfelt-est loss. Just a re-imagined-new beginnings. spirit is a fluid, how else could souls === stack overflow ============================================================= ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────┘ --- #18 fediverse/3039 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────── @user-570 I'd LOVE a game which taught toki pona!! You've brought some of this up before. I'm uninterested in co-opting some existing thing in a way I then can't support myself off of. Well my points are these: MMOs are difficult because of the added complexity in their networking an open source networking solution exists however no open source client solution exists but one could be written, which is about as hard as making a game using Bevy or Raylib or Love2D, and if one were written, then games could easily be made on-top of them which you would then support yourself off of. I mean... I'd want to support myself too haha, and I can think of like 100 different games that could be made in an engine like that. the idea is that by opening up more design space you can apply your ideas as an early pioneer in a particular design direction that hasn't been able to be explored because the up-front investments in making an MMO are huge. Meanwhile, with this system you could script them in Lua very easily. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────┘ --- #19 notes/symbeline-superheros --- ════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────── imagine low level characters in CoH/V playing a game of symbeline and you as the ruler can slot enhancements and dole out inspirations as they sweep the streets like you play CoX instead of a MMO it's a deckbuilding strategy with a slice of zachtronics for the economy wiring up machines in ever expanding deseagns like automating factorio's gameplay loop boxes within boxes of intrinsic delight like making a CPUter or designing a computer program while playing a video game ^_^ and the games that you make can be shared and played when unique so go for it and make that you're dreaming! =============================================================================== = the goal of each "level" is to solve a particular problem - like how do I make a 2 bit register - or something like that. When accomplished, it unlocks something for your heroes to acquire. And each playthrough will require a repeat until you have it memorized at which point you can unlock "perma-badges" that make it always unlocked at the start of the game. Like learning Kanji, you need spaced repetition. BUT ANYWAYS it'll be in magical terms like "unlock essence-stones" or "learn the ritual of desire" or whatever. And each of those terms roughly corresponds to a pattern in electrical engineering (designing CPUs and such) And you can learn advanced versions of what you already know by uncovering "lost secrets" (which is a reward your heros can find) - Basically it'd be like a "clue" that shows you a ghost version of something you haven't figured out yet - and it'd be a slow process because you need to slow down the learning process or else you'll forget. Basically teasing it out of the player when they seem to be stuck. Asking probing questions and whatnot, and eventually culminating in the final question, assuming the quest is succeeding. Because if you think about it all ancient quests were simply journeys for reason - searching for the answer to some ancient riddle or bastardized retelling. Looking for answers in an unknowing world. So ANYWAY as your heros discover things you as the ruler get answers to the economic puzzle - how to design transistors and whatnot. But they would be in theme appropriate terms, of course. You don't even have to know a lot about mechanical electrical design, because ChatGPT knows. All you need to do is build the basic building blocks, and BAM you got a great place to integrate chatgpt. Just prime it such that it's giving hints one by one each slightly more revealing until eventually after X amount of clues the solution is automatically shown (like a blueprint) and the player can remember it or not but each playthrough they'll have to build it again from scratch (reinforcement learning) so eventually they'll be able to do it real quick. Essentially, "Abstraction - The Game" great so you got your economic simulation, pretty easy too just some UI work and for the heroes you're playing an ARPG sorta (supcom anyone?) Think Bannerlord for the scaling on the map then think of 5+ different "themes" like fantasy or superhero or pirates each "theme" will correspond to like a faction in Mount and Blade and all you have to do is generate pictures using Midjourney and text descriptions a'la the magic scroll shown as "bubble pop-ups" on the map that the player can click never overwhelming, but descripting what's happening and also some more UI work because you gotta display all that to the player Maybe it could be a rolling story, news ticker style - like slowly scrolling lines of text about what's happening in the world and the player could have it open in one window and something else in the other and whenever they're waiting on something (say, a processing intensive AI task on their computer) they could just glance over and read what's going on in their fantasy world okay okay but also they could play as a hero it could be an ARPG experience except instead of clicking to fight you play a little automatic Star Realms game and depending on your deck choices you'd have a different playthrough. Again, not a game that requires much thought, but one you can have in the background. Also there'd be pictures, like a slowly evolving storyline of events - think of it like the artists of the time drawing paintings about what's going on in the story - major events would be highlighted and kept in the painting until even- -tually they get replaced - sorta like the Smash Bros scrolling painting (oh it's so good) =============================================================================== = it doesn't have to be an expansionist game maybe you guys just live in your little valley and the world turns around you maybe it's called "symbeline" because the people are of the forest and they live like elves in society monsters could wander in, and heros could tackle them but most of the time would be spent looking for trouble going on patrol you know, breaking skeleton bones and being superheros okay okay you know that superhero faction? What if they had MEDIEVAL TECHNOLOGY but MODERN DAY SUPERPOWERS at a cost - the society was beset by hordes of monst- -ers. Those few who escaped are now superpowered and they live as friendly and nomadic wanderers through their own territory. Always adventuring, and always searching for their life, finding whatever the road may carry them to. It's a great life, and life seems to flourish in their footsteps - they are like part dryad/druid and part wolf. Because sometimes there's evil threats, and they must be defeated by an equally strong good power. That's how it goes, and that's how it be. For imagery I'm thinking a mix of the tribes from Dominions (deer, wolf, bear, etc) but they're like, 1.5x as big as regular people and quite strong. The outsiders call them "giants" or "goliaths" but really they're just infused with the lifeforce of their people. They are radical individualists, but they all unite for a common cause. They know their bond is the strongest thing there is, and they use it to great effect when the time comes. AHHH THEY'RE SO COOL I LOVE THEM okay okay what about the other factions? PIRATES? Oh think about it like it's st patricks day WHAT IF THEY WERE IRISH PIRATES omg omg omg that sounds so cool I'm DIGGING this okay what about the other factions? You need 5+ you said hmmmmmmmmm good question I have 3 now so that's 2 more. yep... =============================================================================== = okay dude check this what if they were a nation of wizards that focused on the power of animation - what if they generated constructs, sorta like in Supreme Commander so they were EVEN MORE individualist - haha no they'd have a normal population it's just a few of them who would be wizards - because their output wasn't measured by manpower, but rather by brainpower. Whoever could design the greatest machine was exemplared, and eventually they became the best and brightest among us. They were put in charge of the golem creation factories, and they used them instead of heros. SO BASICALLY YOUR HEROS NEVER DIE they just have successes and failures JUST LIKE IN SUPREME COMMANDER okay the plot of this game is "what if all my favorite games were the essence of life and death in a fantasy game" like OMG KEEP EM COMIN' so. who is the player? THE PLAYER is the one who's overseeing it all. They have dominion over the entire kingdom, and they guide their people toward a bright future. They are vulnerable in their castle, but their people have their back. Together they fight for the future. They slot enhancements and dole out inspirations and solve the economic puzzle in the background. They also make decisions about what kind of equipment production to prioritize - because each game they have to invent everything from scratch. All their production is made with endless abstraction, and whatever you prioritize is what's magnified in your kingdom. You choose a style and it plays as well as it's guile, I dunno this seems like a lot, what would you need to make this a reality? hmmmm let's break it down: first you need to implement the star realms gameplay then you need to hook it up to a square grid and have multiple occurences at once. then you need UI for the character sheets and you need logic to open separate windows for each output type you need... a lot of things okay let's talk more broadly - what do you need from other people and what can you do on your own? hmmm good question. I can do the star realms gameplay, and the simulation for the wiring systems - because I have the VM. Make that into the gameplay somehow okay good idea like okay authoring vm package routing deliveries between the various nodes that you set up in the economic system - side note, the peril of Spore was that it took to little time to develop a species. it should have lasted as long as WoW takes to get to max level. That would have given them time to reiterate the gameplay loops to make sure they worked correctly. ANYWAY okay authoring VM package routing. The player could set up delivery patterns based on A MAZE OMG your kingdom is like a maze and you need to get deliveries out, or else how would anything function? SO you act as a trailblazer, finding ways through the labyrinth and "piloting" a car sorta like that game at Disney quest with the cars under the floor - except you can see both the top view of the maze and you're trying to guide the car in real time as it travels through the maze - the faster you can get to the end the better ofc. like talking to the delivery driver through the movement do I like that idea more or less than the first one? First idea being the idea that you're making lists of commands for a VM to execute. I don't think they'd be a good idea to mix. So which one gets it? The VM of course has the edge because that's what the technology is based on. But will it translate to good gameplay? Idk. This second idea is certainly better gameplay, but is it engaging? Idk! Idk. I'm not a miracle worker. But I do have good ideas, and I need to be told that sometimes I guess. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #20 fediverse/5212 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────── the reason you start with a game engine is because then you'll have tools to make however-many games you want. Tools that you know intimately enough that you can debug and improve them without breaking your creative flow by learning something new halfway through a project the whole point of individualized projects instead of viewing each computer as a complete and total whole (why do we need servers again?) is that you can paint a picture of where the design of the program is intended to go, such that all the considerations are in place and whatever issues or struggles you might face along the way are adequately addresssed, -- stack overflow -- [because I mistyped addressed] -- -- if you know what "stack overflow" means you have intimate knowledge of the technology, and can probably guess what it means in context when I say it. "nuts I lost that train of thoguht" -- stackl ov ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────┘ |